Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Monte Carlo Based Personalized PageRank on Dynamic Networks

In large-scale networks, the structure of the underlying network changes frequently, and thus the power iteration method for Personalized PageRank computation cannot deal with this kind of dynamic network efficiently. In this paper, we design a Monte Carlo-based incremental method for Personalized PageRank computation. In a dynamic network, first, we do a random walk starting from each node and save the performed walks into a fingerprint database; second, we update the fingerprint database in a fixed time interval with our proposed update algorithm; finally, when a query is issued by a user, we estimate the Personalized PageRank vector by our proposed approximation algorithm. Experiments on real-world networks show that our method can handle multichanges of the underlying network at a time and is more efficient than related work, so it can be used in real incremental Personalized PageRank-based applications.
Face biometrics based on principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis

Problem statement: In facial biometrics, face features are used as the required human traits for automatic recognition. Feature extracted from face images are significant for face biometrics system performance. Approach: In this thesis, a framework of facial biometric was designed based on two subspace methods i.e., Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). First, PCA is used for dimension reduction, where original face images are projected into lower-dimensional face representations. Second, LDA was proposed to provide a solution of better discriminant. Both PCA and LDA features were presented to Euclidean distance measurement which is conveniently used as a benchmark. The algorithms were evaluated in face identification and verification using a standard face database-AT and T and a locally collected database-CBE. Each database consists of 400 images and 320 images respectively. Results: LDA-based methods outperform PCA for both face identification and verification. For face identification, PCA achieves accuracy of 91.9% (AT and T) and 76.7% (CBE) while LDA 94.2% (AT and T) and 83.1% (CBE). For face verification, PCA achieves Equal Error Rate (EER) of 1.15% (AT and T), 7.3% (CBE) while LDA 0.78% (AT and T) and 5.81% (CBE). Conclusion/Recommendations: This study had proved that, when given sufficient training samples, LDA is able to provide better discriminant ability in feature extraction for face biometrics.
Singapore in Motion: Insights on Public Transport Service Level Through Farecard and Mobile Data Analytics

Given the changing dynamics of mobility patterns and rapid growth of cities, transport agencies seek to respond more rapidly to needs of the public with the goal of offering an effective and competitive public transport system. A more data-centric approach for transport planning is part of the evolution of this process. In particular, the vast penetration of mobile phones provides an opportunity to monitor and derive insights on transport usage. Real time and historical analyses of such data can give a detailed understanding of mobility patterns of people and also suggest improvements to current transit systems. On its own, however, mobile geolocation data has a number of limitations. We thus propose a joint telco-and-farecard-based learning approach to understanding urban mobility. The approach enhances telecommunications data by leveraging it jointly with other sources of real-time data. The approach is illustrated on the First- and last-mile problem as well as route choice estimation within a densely-connected train network.
Achieving advantages from business-to-business electronic commerce: an empirical validation of an integrative framework

This study aims at contributing to a better understanding of business-to-business Electronic Commerce (EC) advantages and determinants of these advantages. A research model was empirically tested on a sample of 143 Canadian companies. Key findings indicate that the most important advantages of EC are increased productivity, increased quality of products and services, competitive advantage, and to a lesser extent, sales growth and increased revenues. Cost reductions were marginal. The main determinants of EC advantages include the type of EC use, and the internal and external integrations of EC applications. The strategic orientation of the firm and the organisational context exert only an indirect effect on EC advantages.
Adult experience of mental health outcomes as a result of intimate partner violence victimisation: a systematic review

Background Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been known to adversely affect the mental health of victims. Research has tended to focus on the mental health impact of physical violence rather than considering other forms of violence. Objective To systematically review the literature in order to identify the impact of all types of IPV victimisation on various mental health outcomes. Method A systematic review of 11 electronic databases (2004–2014) was conducted. Fifty eight papers were identified and later described and reviewed in relation to the main objective. Results Main findings suggest that IPV can have increasing adverse effects on the mental health of victims in comparison with those who have never experienced IPV or those experiencing other traumatic events. The most significant outcomes were associations between IPV experiences with depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and anxiety. Findings confirm previous observations that the severity and extent of IPV exposure can increase mental health symptoms. The effect of psychological violence on mental health is more prominent than originally thought. Individual differences such as gender and childhood experience of violence also increase IPV risk and affect mental health outcomes in diverse ways. Conclusions Psychological violence should be considered as a more serious form of IPV which can affect the mental health of victims. Experiencing more than one form of IPV can increase severity of outcomes. Researchers should look at IPV as a multi-dimensional experience. A uniformed definition and measure of IPV could help advance knowledge and understanding of this disparaging global issue.
The self, signification and the superyacht.

The reading of landscape as text has become an important theme in cultural geography. However, where many readings are performed on the partially stable landscapes of cities and countryside, this case study examines a more ephemeral landscape of the superyacht. The acquisition of superyachts, by many of the world's richest and most powerful actors, is treated as a symptom of late modernism. Superyachts are analysed as exemplars of the compression of time and space that is symptomatic of contemporary society, since their mobility and telecommunications overcome many former locational constraints. They are also exemplars of the blurring of work and leisure and raise issues about the construction of a notion of the self where the signifiers of the self have, in a post-structuralist reading, floated free from what they signify. This paper seeks to argue the potential for reading the superyacht as a signifier of the self.
Discover Information and Knowledge from Websites Using an Integrated Summarization and Visualization Framework

The number of Web sites has noticeably increased to roughly 225 million in the last ten years. This means there is a rapid growth of knowledge and information on the Internet. Although search engines can help users to filter their desired information based on key words, the searched result is normally presented in the form of a list, and users have to visit each Web page in order to determine the appropriateness of the result. A considerable amount of time therefore has to be spent on finding the required information. To address this issue, this paper proposes a knowledge discovery approach on the Web by providing an overview of the information on a Website using an integration of summarization and visualization techniques. This includes text summarization, tag cloud, Document Type View, and interactive features such as drill down and thumbnails. This approach is capable to reduce the time required to identify and search for information or knowledge from the Web.
Aspirin (5 mmol/L) Inhibits Leukocyte Attack and Triggered Reactive Cell Proliferation in a 3D Human Coronary In Vitro Model

BackgroundLeukocyte attack (LA) and the triggered reactive proliferation of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are key events for the development of early atherosclerosis and restenosis. In the present study, we used a 3D human coronary in vitro model of LA (3DLA model) to examine the effect of high-dose aspirin on the adhesion and chemotaxis of leukocytes and the reactive proliferative response of SMCs. Methods and ResultsFor dose-finding, the effect of aspirin (1, 2, 5, and 10 mmol/L) on the tumor necrosis factor-&agr;-induced upregulation of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 was analyzed in monocultures of human coronary endothelial cells (HCAEC) and the SMCs of the human coronary media (HCMSMC). In cytoflow and Northern blot experiments, the expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 was slightly reduced after incubation with 5 mmol/L aspirin, and strong inhibition was found after incubation with 10 mmol/L. In 3DLA models, HCAECs and HCMSMCs were cultured on both sides of a porous filter. For LA, human monocytes or CD4+ lymphocytes were seeded on the HCAEC side of the 3DLA unit. A dose of 5 mmol/L aspirin inhibited the adherence of monocytes or CD4+ lymphocytes by 50% (P <0.01) and the chemotaxis of monocytes by 90% (P <0.01). The reactive proliferative response of cocultured HCMSMCs after LA, as measured by the uptake of bromodeoxyuridine, was significantly reduced by 83% after selective monocyte attack (P <0.001) and by 42% after selective CD4+ lymphocyte attack (P <0.05). ConclusionsA local concentration of 5 mmol/L aspirin should be accepted as the lowest rational concentration for the beneficial in vitro effects of high-dose aspirin to be reproduced in clinical studies.
Automated measurement of mouse social behaviors using depth sensing, video tracking, and machine learning

Significance Accurate, quantitative measurement of animal social behaviors is critical, not only for researchers in academic institutions studying social behavior and related mental disorders, but also for pharmaceutical companies developing drugs to treat disorders affecting social interactions, such as autism and schizophrenia. Here we describe an integrated hardware and software system that combines video tracking, depth-sensing technology, machine vision, and machine learning to automatically detect and score innate social behaviors, such as aggression, mating, and social investigation, between mice in a home-cage environment. This technology has the potential to have a transformative impact on the study of the neural mechanisms underlying social behavior and the development of new drug therapies for psychiatric disorders in humans. A lack of automated, quantitative, and accurate assessment of social behaviors in mammalian animal models has limited progress toward understanding mechanisms underlying social interactions and their disorders such as autism. Here we present a new integrated hardware and software system that combines video tracking, depth sensing, and machine learning for automatic detection and quantification of social behaviors involving close and dynamic interactions between two mice of different coat colors in their home cage. We designed a hardware setup that integrates traditional video cameras with a depth camera, developed computer vision tools to extract the body “pose” of individual animals in a social context, and used a supervised learning algorithm to classify several well-described social behaviors. We validated the robustness of the automated classifiers in various experimental settings and used them to examine how genetic background, such as that of Black and Tan Brachyury (BTBR) mice (a previously reported autism model), influences social behavior. Our integrated approach allows for rapid, automated measurement of social behaviors across diverse experimental designs and also affords the ability to develop new, objective behavioral metrics.
Motivic integration and algebraic cycles

We reformulate the construction of Kontsevich’s completion and use Lawson homology to define many new motivic invariants. We show that the dimensions of subspaces generated by algebraic cycles of the cohomology groups of two K-equivalent varieties are the same, and the FriedlanderLawson conjecture, the Friedlander-Mazur conjecture, the Grothendieck standard conjecture and the generalized Hodge conjecture are K-statements.
What Makes Modernity Late?

There is a deep, if invisible conflict between our consumer culture and our democratic ideals. It is the result of social processes that, in the last half century, have profoundly transformed how we live and who we are. This paper explores the underpinnings of the condition that many identify as ‘late’ or ‘post’ modernity. Rather than focusing on the intellectual transformations wrought by the Enlightenment, it takes up Charles Taylor’s dialectical account of the relation between the social developments of modernity and changes in social understandings. It then considers the nature and import of our contemporary practices and conditions, their relation to the ‘postmodern’, and their implications both at home and abroad for the ability to sustain meaningful democracies under conditions of globalisation.
PHYLOGEOGRAPHY OF THE PANTROPICAL SEA URCHIN TRIPNEUSTES: CONTRASTING PATTERNS OF POPULATION STRUCTURE BETWEEN OCEANS

Abstract To understand how allopatric speciation proceeds, we need information on barriers to gene flow, their antiquity, and their efficacy. For marine organisms with planktonic larvae, much of this information can only be obtained through the determination of divergence between populations. We evaluated the importance of ocean barriers by studying the mitochondrial DNA phylogeography of Tripneustes, a pantropical genus of shallow water sea urchin. A region of cytochrome oxidase I (COI) was sequenced in 187 individuals from locations around the globe. The COI phylogeny agreed with a previously published phylogeny of bindin that barriers important to the evolution of Tripneustes are: (1) the cold water upwelling close to the tip of South Africa, (2) the Isthmus of Panama, (3) the long stretch of deep water separating the eastern from the western Atlantic, and (4) the freshwater plume of the Orinoco and the Amazon rivers between the Caribbean and the coast of Brazil. These barriers have previously been shown to be important in at least a subset of the shallow water marine organisms in which phylogeography has been studied. In contrast, the Eastern Pacific Barrier, 5000 km of deep water between the central and the eastern Pacific that has caused the deepest splits in other genera of sea urchins, is remarkably unimportant as a cause of genetic subdivision in Tripneustes. There is also no discernible subdivision between the Pacific and Indian Ocean populations of this genus. The most common COI haplotype is found in the eastern, central, and western Pacific as well as the Indian Ocean. Morphology, COI, and bindin data agree that T. depressus from the eastern Pacific and T. gratilla from the western Pacific are, in fact, the same species. The distribution of haplotype differences in the Indo-Pacific exhibits characteristics expected from a sea urchin genus with ephemeral local populations, but with high fecundity, dispersal, and growth: there is little phylogenetic structure, and mismatch distributions conform to models of recent population expansion on a nearly global scale. Yet, comparisons between local populations produce large and significant FST values, indicating nonrandom haplotype distribution. This apparent local differentiation is only weakly reflected in regional divergence, and there is no evidence of isolation by distance in correlations between FST values and either geographical or current distance. Thus, Tripneustes in the Indo-Pacific (but not in the Atlantic) seems to be one large metapopulation spanning two oceans and containing chaotic, nonequilibrium local variation, produced by the haphazard arrival of larvae or by unpredictable local extinction.
Modeling Surperspective Projection of Landscapes for Geographical Guide‐Map Generation

It is still challenging to generate hand‐drawn pictures because they differ from ordinary photographs in that they are often drawn as seen from multiple viewpoints. This paper presents a new approach for modeling such surperspective projection based on shape deformation techniques. Specifically, surperspective landscape images for guide‐maps are generated from 3D geographical elevation data. Our method first partitions a target geographical surface into feature areas to provide designers with landmarks suitable for editing. The system takes as input 2D visual effects, which are converted to 3D geometric constraints for geographical surface deformation. Using ordinary perspective projection, the deformed shape is then transformed into a target guide‐map image where each landmark enjoys its own vista points. An algorithm for calculating such 2D visual effects semi‐automatically from the geographical shape features is also considered.
Understanding phenomenology: the lived experience

This article details the use of Phenomenology as a research method which is to fully describe a person's lived experience of an event or experience. It stresses that only those that have experienced phenomena can communicate them to the outside world. It therefore provides an understanding of an experience from those who have lived it. The two schools of phenomenology which are described are utilized in both midwifery and nursing research. These are Husserlian and Heideggerian (Hermeneutics) phenomenology. The main focus in this article, however, is on the Husserlian approach, its background, data collection, data analysis methods and its application to midwifery research.
Gender in teaching: a literature review

Internationally, both in popular and scientific media, debates occasionally emerge concerning the possible (negative) consequences of feminisation tendencies in the teaching staff. In these discussions, various assumptions about the ‘nature’ of male and female teachers and masculinity and femininity are expressed. Male and female teachers are often presumed to differ in teaching styles, capacities and effects on both the teaching profession and the pupils. The arguments used in these debates only seldom refer to particular theoretical grounds or to empirical evidence. Moreover, apart from Sandra Acker’s essay ‘Gender and teachers’ work’ in 1995, educational research lacks an up‐to‐date review of teacher gender. Therefore, this article aims to provide insight into contemporary theoretical gender perspectives. It also intends to connect these with empirical research that takes teacher gender into account. Most of the research studies referred to in this article do not explicitly state their underlying theoretical principles. Yet, since these studies have distinct research foci, research questions, methodologies and conclusions, they appear to depart from a variety of gender conceptualisations. Therefore, in this article the differences between these conceptualisations will be examined and the divergent theoretical assumptions underlying these studies will be revealed. The two most widespread and disparate perspectives in gender theory are the essentialist perspectives on the one hand and the constructionist perspectives on the other. The differences between them are made up by the degree to which explanations are deterministic and focused on the individual rather than on the social and cultural level. Drawing upon this theoretical contrast, we divided the body of research on teacher gender into two divergent research traditions: sex differences research and gender dynamics research. The research questions, underlying theoretical principles and methodologies of these two traditions are examined.
The Revenge of Gratuitousness on Utilitarianism

This essay seeks to demonstrate that the spread of utilitarian rationalism within developed Western societies has had two crucial consequences: (a) gratuitousness and expressiveness, as irrepressible human needs, have been crushed “at the door” of utilitarian organizations but then have surreptitiously re-entered through the window, camouflaging themselves in forms that render them difficult to recognize and enable them to evade the mechanisms of social censorship that protect the image of organizations as the uncontested domain of instrumental rationality, and (b) the expert knowledge produced about organizations since the beginning of the last century has for almost 80 years ignored the expressive dimension of organizational life. From this point of view, the scientific community of organizational scholars has displayed an astonishing sort of collective repression. The forms taken by this repression and the expedients used to reduce the cognitive dissonance inevitably provoked by evidence of what has been repressed are examined.
Effects of Different Listening-while-Reading Rates on Comprehension in Secondary Students with Reading Deficits.

Abstract Effects of instructing students to read silently as another person reads aloud (listening-while-reading) on comprehension in secondary students with learning disabilities were examined. Two separate treatment conditions were implemented. During student rate listening-while-reading, (SLWR), experimenters read aloud at rates that approximated each student's oral reading rate. During fast rate listening-while-reading, (FLWR), experimenters increased their reading rates. A silent reading (SR) control condition was also implemented. Following each intervention the students answered five literal and five inferential questions. SLWR resulted in lower inferential accuracy than FLWR and SR. Discussion focuses on future research and implications for accommodating secondary students with reading skills deficits in general education classrooms.
Werner syndrome helicase activity is essential in maintaining fragile site stability

WRN is a member of the RecQ family of DNA helicases implicated in the resolution of DNA structures leading to the stall of replication forks. Fragile sites have been proposed to be DNA regions particularly sensitive to replicative stress. Here, we establish that WRN is a key regulator of fragile site stability. We demonstrate that in response to mild doses of aphidicolin, WRN is efficiently relocalized in nuclear foci in replicating cells and that WRN deficiency is associated with accumulation of gaps and breaks at common fragile sites even under unperturbed conditions. By expressing WRN isoforms impaired in either helicase or exonuclease activity in defective cells, we identified WRN helicase activity as the function required for maintaining the stability of fragile sites. Finally, we find that WRN stabilizes fragile sites acting in a common pathway with the ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related replication checkpoint. These findings provide the first evidence of a crucial role for a helicase in protecting cells against chromosome breakage at normally occurring replication fork stalling sites.
Mini-Car-Soccer as a testbed for granular computing

In this paper, we propose Mini-Car-Soccer as a testbed of granular computing. Mini-Car-Soccer represents a competition of soccer games by radio-controlled (RC) cars. The game is filmed with a video camera recorder fixed on the ceiling and transformed into spatio-temporal data so that a wide range of researchers in granular computing can access them. We demonstrate our video summarization method as a case study to show that Mini-Car-Soccer is an ideal environment to consider various kinds of granularity including time.