Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Testing Markovianity in the three‐state progressive model via future‐past association

The three‐state progressive model is a special multi‐state model with important applications in Survival Analysis. It provides a suitable representation of the individual’s history when an intermediate event (with a possible influence on the survival prognosis) is experienced before the main event of interest. Estimation of transition probabilities in this and other multi‐state models is usually performed through the Aalen–Johansen estimator. However, Aalen–Johansen may be biased when the underlying process is not Markov. In this paper, we provide a new approach for testing Markovianity in the three‐state progressive model. The new method is based on measuring the future‐past association along time. This results in a deep inspection of the process that often reveals a non‐Markovian behaviour with different trends in the association measure. A test of significance for zero future‐past association at each time point is introduced, and a significance trace is proposed accordingly. The finite sample performance of the test is investigated through simulations. We illustrate the new method through real data analysis.
Privacy Enhanced Authorizations and Data Handling

The protection of privacy is an increasing concern in today’s global infrastructure. Many research eﬀorts have been therefore devoted to the development of privacy protecting technology. In particular, as an important step for helping users to maintain control over the use of their personal information, current access control solutions have to be enriched with the ability of supporting privacy requirements. In this position paper, we outline some emerging requirements and R&D challenges of privacy protection related to access control and discuss how they should be addressed in the framework of a comprehensive approach to privacy-aware access control .
Singularity Reviewed an Operating System Challenging Common Concepts

Overview Singularity is a research operating system at Microsoft Research. The project started in 2003 and is the largest cross discipline project at Microsoft Research. It combines research in the fields of operating systems, networking, programming languages, programming tools and compilers. It's not intended for the commercial market. It should rather be seen as a test bed for trying out new ideas in operating system design, operating system concepts, program verification, compiler techniques and more. About 12 researchers are working full time and ca. 40 more are involved in the project. The projects two lead researchers are James Larus, concerned with programming languages, programming tools and parallel computation and Galen Hunt concerned with operating systems. Singularity is now at version 2, the research has spread from Microsoft Research to about six universities which became access to the source code. The following description is-due to the unavailable source code-based on several publications, presentations and papers from members of the singularity research team, which can all be downloaded from Beside the publications the site also contains some additional features like video presentations of Singularity's design concepts and architecture or links to web pages of several team members.
The effects of motor imagery and Paired associative stimulation on cortical excitability

Kumpulainen, Susanne 2009. The effect of PAS and motor imagery on the excitability of the motor cortex. Department of Biology of Physical Activity, University of Jyvaskyla. Master’s theses of biomechanics. 41 pages. The plasticity of the brain is an increasingly important topic for physical therapists interested in (re)learning and repair following injury. A number of potential endogenous and exogenous protocols have been developed with the improved understanding of the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity. The purpose of this study was twofold: First, the effect of motor imagery of plantarflexion on motor cortex excitability was investigated since it has been shown that motor imagery may result in the same types of plastic changes in the motor system as actual physical practise. The second aim was to study the effect of facilitatory paired associative stimulation (PAS) on motor imagery. PAS is an exogenous protocol which has been used to induce bidirectional changes in the motor cortex excitability. Transcranial megnetic stimulation was used to measure changes in the motor evoked potentials (MEPs) of the soleus muscle with, and without, motor imagery and before, immediately after, and 15 min after the PAS intervention. During motor imagery of plantar flexion, a remarkable increases in the amplitude of the MEP of the soleus were observed with each time points 76 ± 62 %; 30 ± 33 % and 31 ± 50 %, respectively. The lack of background EMG assured that changes weren’t associated with muscle activity. Interestingly, instead of facilitatory PAS, the protocol induced a remarkable inhibitory PAS. Inhibition was bigger with the motor imagery condition (38 ± 19 % and 31 ± 28 %) compared to the passive condition (16 ± 26 % and 5 ± 37 %), suggesting that the effect of PAS was more substantial during motor imagery. It can be concluded that the use of motor imagery in neurological rehabilitation may be defended on the basis of these results.
Mark-to-Market Accounting and Valuation: Evidence from UK Real Estate and Investment Companies

The accounting for British investment vehicles is idiosyncratic, but requires that investment assets are marked to market. This allows us to study valuation relevance of accounting according to industry specific GAAP for real estate and investment companies, which is not historic cost, and estimates for historic cost and mark-to-market accounting. We find that the revaluation of investment assets from cost to market is highly significant in both industries - in contrast to earlier US evidence. For both industries, the valuation impact of earnings, however measured, is low in comparison to that found in earlier studies of non-financial firms. This is as expected, given that profits earned in efficient capital markets are likely to be transient. Of the three earnings measures, the GAAP version, which includes the lowest proportion of transient investment returns, shows the largest coefficient estimates. More important is the apparent over-valuation of investment assets in the companies' accounts. We find both the real estate and investment companies to typically trade at substantial discount to their mark-to-market asset values. Our approach to investigating this puzzle is relatively novel, but although we can explain part of the real estate discount, our evidence does not help to explain the discount on investment trusts.
On the implementation of visual attention architectures

The majority of visual attention models is based on the concept of saliency map, a two-dimensional map that encodes the saliency of objects in the surrounding world. We attempt a short review of current implementations and present our first thoughts on extending the classical saliency-based model by using motion and prior knowledge.
A Multimodal Locomotion User Interface for Immersive Geospatial Information Systems

In this paper we present a new multimodal locomotion user interface that enables users to travel through 3D environments displayed in geospatial information systems (GISs), e.g., Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth. When using the proposed interface the geospatial data can be explored immersively using stereoscopic visualization on a head-mounted display (HMD). When using certain tracking approaches the entire body can be tracked in order to support natural traveling by real walking. Moreover, intuitive devices are provided for both-handed interaction such as gestures to complete the navigation process. We introduce the setup as well as associated interaction concepts.
Bridging the gap between yoga and science : a mini review

Yoga is an ancient tradition arising from the evolving cultures of ancient India originating from a variety of sources like primeval texts, oral transmissions through lineages, iconography and songs. It has a complex history of spiritual exploration, philosophical reflection and creative expression. Yoga has evolved over time to suit the needs of the current population. At present, humanity at large views things, especially the mystical arts, through the lens of the sceptical scientist. Despite countless benefits of yoga and meditation to the overall health and mind of a person that have been documented over time, they have mostly been seen as informal and only a few studies using a rigorous scientific methods have been performed. Most recently, through the advent of cutting-edge scientific tools (i.e., electroencephalogram, EEG), the gap between the subjective and objective has been bridged. Nevertheless, the path to scientific inquiry supporting yoga is a work in progress. In this minireview, we will make a short historical resume of the scientific studies carried out to investigate the effect of yoga in the physiology of the body and the brain, and its possible use to ameliorate pathological conditions.
Molecular similarities between the Qa-2 alloantigen and other gene products of the 17th chromosome of the mouse

The alloantigen Qa-2, whose gene is located on the 17th chromosome between H-2D and Tla, is identified as a molecule of 43,000 daltons which is associated with beta 2-microglobulin. Qa-2 comprises approximately 0.15% of the iodinateable cell surface protein of lymph node cells. Sequential precipitations demonstrated that Qa-2 is distinct from H-2D and H-2K molecules.
Modulation of a voltage-activated potassium channel by peptide growth factor receptors

Regulation of the activity of a cloned component of a voltage-activated K+ channel, Kv1.5, was studied by expressing the K+ channel and receptors for platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) or fibroblast growth factor (FGF) simultaneously in Xenopus oocytes. Receptor activation mediated a decline in the Kv1.5 current amplitude, with a half-time of about 20 min. The reduction in K+ current amplitude occurred with little change in the kinetics or voltage sensitivity of activation. A similar phenomenon was found when the human thrombin or rat 5-HT1c receptors, two receptors that increase phospholipase C activity, were tested in coexpression experiments. A mutant FGF receptor, which does not activate phospholipase C-gamma 1 but retains several of its other functions, did not modulate the Kv1.5 current. Simultaneous injection of inositol trisphosphate and superfusion of phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate reproduced the modulation of the Kv1.5 current. These results demonstrate that the PDGF and FGF receptors can modulate a voltage-activated K+ channel by increasing phospholipase C activity, and suggest that PDGF or FGF may be able to alter rapidly the electrical excitability of neurons.
A Study of the Relationship Between Human Resource Management System and Organizational Performance: A Role of Organizational Learning

This paper constructs an organizational-learning-based research model integrating human resource management system (HRMS) and organizational performance (OP) from the perspective of organizational learning (OL). Based on a theory development, we propose hypothesis between HRMS, organizational learning, and organizational performance. We obtain 221 effective samples in a snowball sampling manner and testify the sample data with SEM, part of the hypothesis being supported.
Optic Neurodegeneration: Time to Act

Optic neuropathies are frequently associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and the associated vision loss has a severe impact on the patient’s quality of life. Our understanding of disease progression of one of the most frequent mitochondrial disorders, Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), together with results of recent clinical trials might provide us with new insights that are relevant not only to the progression of the disease but more importantly also for therapeutic intervention. One of the crucial hallmarks of LHON is the occasional recovery of vision in some patients. This rare and spontaneous process highlights that blindness in LHON patients is not irreversible per se and suggests that this process could potentially be induced by pharmacological intervention. Strikingly, spontaneous recovery of vision has been reported in some patients several years after disease onset, which indicates the presence of an extended time window where recovery is still possible, before over time the terminal loss of retinal neurons renders visual recovery impossible. Several recent encouraging trials in LHON and related disorders support this view and extend this model to other optic neuropathies that are not associated with spontaneous recovery. This concept provides hope not only to mitochondrial optic neuropathy patients, but also to patients that suffer from one of the major ocular disorders such as glaucoma.
String Field Theory Around the Tachyon Vacuum

Assuming that around the tachyon vacuum the kinetic term of cubic open string field theory is made purely of ghost operators we are led to gauge invariant actions which manifestly implement the absence of open string dynamics around this vacuum. We test this proposal by showing the existence of lump solutions of arbitrary codimension in this string field theory. The key ingredients in this analysis are certain assumptions about the analyticity properties of tachyon Green’s functions. With the help of some further assumptions about the properties of these Green’s functions, we also calculate the ratios of tensions of lump solutions of different dimensions. The result is in perfect agreement with the known answers for the ratios of tensions of D-branes of different dimensions.
fastHOG – a real-time GPU implementation of HOG

We introduce a parallel implementation of the histogram of oriented gradients algorithm for object detection. Our implementation uses the GPU and the NVIDIA CUDA framework. We achieve speedups of over 67x from the standard sequential code, using a single video card. Furthermore it supports multiple video cards so speedups of 120x or more can be achieved. This allows us to achieve real-time performance, using the full HOG algorithm for the first time in the literature. All of this is done while keeping compatibility with the standard sequential implementation. Finally our implementation is available online and is open source.
Combining classifiers for harmful document filtering

In this paper, we describe the experiments that we have carried out during the European Research Project NetProtect II that aims at filtering harmful Web pages in order to protect children. These experiments focus on the combination of classifiers (relying on texts, images and addresses), dealing with heterogeneous classes (bomb-making, drug, pornography, violence) for multimedia documents (composed of both semi-structured text and images). We test and compare different combination formulas (Voting methods, logical methods, k Nearest Neighbors, evidence-based k Nearest Neighbors, Naive Bayes, Artificial Neural Network and Support Vector Machine) on a five thousand webpages database. We present how learning based methods combined to introduction of a priori knowledge on classifiers enable us to get better filtering performances than classical approaches (such as static black/white lists and single classifier).
The Negotiated Nordic Labor Markets: From Bust to Boom. CES Working Paper No. 162, 2008

This paper provides an overview of the negotiated Nordic labor market regimes and their vari-ous paths of adjustment from bust to boom in recent decades. Developed in small, open economies, the Nordic labor regimes are often associated with strong centralized agreements and asso-ciations, high union density, and extensive worker representation, which have been embedded in social models based on close interaction between working life policies, the welfare state and macroeconomic policies. In leaner forms these features have undoubtedly contributed to the high Nordic levels of mobility, equality and employment in recent years (“flexicurity”), but an often overlooked part of the story is the increased scope for product market competition and the supply-side reforms undertaken in the Nordic countries since the crises in the 1980-90s. Another distinction of the revitalized Nordic models is the growing importance of management-union negotiations and dialogue at the company level. A key argument in this paper is thus that the capacity for negotiated flexibility and adjustment in Nordic labor markets has been critically reli-ant on the multilevel, single-channel pattern of articulation between centralized coordination and decentralized negotiations linking restructuring, training, productivity and pay issues.
Extracting Interactions in Component-Based Systems

Monitoring, analysing and understanding component based enterprise software systems are challenging tasks. These tasks are essential in solving and preventing performance and quality problems. Obtaining component level interactions which show the relationships between different software entities is a necessary prerequisite for such efforts. This paper focuses on component based Java applications, currently widely used by industry. They pose specific challenges while raising interesting opportunities for component level interaction extraction tools. We present a range of representative approaches for dynamically obtaining and using component interactions. For each approach we detail the needs it addresses, and the technical requirements for building an implementation of the approach. We also take a critical look at the different available implementations of the various techniques presented. We give performance and functional considerations and contrast them against each other by outlining their relative advantages and disadvantages. Based on this data, developers and system integrators can better understand the current state-of-the-art and the implications of choosing or implementing different dynamic interaction extraction techniques.
A Search for “Dwarf'' Seyfert Nuclei. V. Demographics of Nuclear Activity in Nearby Galaxies

We use the sample of emission-line nuclei derived from a recently completed optical spectroscopic survey of nearby galaxies to quantify the incidence of local (z ≈ 0) nuclear activity. Particular attention is paid to obtaining accurate measurements of the emission lines and reliable spectral classifications. The resulting database contains the largest collection of star-forming nuclei and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) currently known for nearby galaxies. It consists of 420 emission-line nuclei detected from a nearly complete, magnitude-limited sample of 486 galaxies with BT ≤ 12.5 mag and declination greater than 0°; the equivalent width detection limit of the brightest emission line, usually Hα, is ~0.25 Å. As is consistent with previous studies, we find detectable amounts of ionized gas in the central few hundred parsecs of most galaxies (86%); emission lines are present in essentially every spiral galaxy and in a large fraction of ellipticals and lenticulars. Based on their narrow-line spectra, half of the objects can be classified as H II or star-forming nuclei and the other half as some form of AGN, of which we distinguish three classes: Seyfert nuclei, low-ionization nuclear emission-line regions (LINERs), and transition objects that we assume to be composite LINER/H II-nucleus systems. The population of AGNs is consequently very large; approximately 43% of the galaxies in our survey can be regarded as “active,” although, for a number of reasons, this fraction is still rather uncertain. Most of the objects have much lower luminosities than commonly studied AGNs; the median luminosity of the narrow Hα line, after correcting for extinction, is only 2 × 1039 ergs s-1. Our sample therefore occupies the extreme faint end of the AGN luminosity function. We detect signatures of a broad-line region, as revealed by visible broad Hα emission, in ~20% of the AGN sample. Seyfert nuclei, both type 1 and type 2, reside in ~10% of all galaxies. LINERs make up the bulk (1/2-3/4) of the AGN population and a significant fraction (1/5-1/3) of all galaxies. A nonnegligible subset of LINERs emit broad Hα emission, furnishing direct evidence that a least some LINERs are indeed physically related to the AGN phenomenon. The dominant ionization mechanism of the nuclear emission depends strongly on the morphological type and luminosity of the host galaxy. AGNs are found predominantly in luminous, early-type (E-Sbc) galaxies, while H II nuclei prefer less luminous, late-type (Sbc and later) systems. The various AGN subclasses have broadly similar host galaxies.
Autonomous Resource Consolidation Management in Clouds Using IMPROMPTU Extensions

This paper focuses on the problem of resource consolidation management within cloud computing environments and extends our previous IMPROMPTU model which demonstrated the viability of distributed Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) to provide a resource consolidation management that simultaneously achieves lower numbers of reconfiguration events and fewer service level agreement (SLA) violations as compared to other approaches. A core limitation of our previous work was that it only assessed the PROMETHEE II outranking-based MCDA method, leaving open the question of whether better outranking schemes exist and, more generally, what denotes the properties of good outranking approaches for this problem domain. This work addresses these deficiencies through extending the IMPROMPTU model to directly compare PROMETHEE II with ELECRE III and PAMSSEM II, two other well-known outranking-based MCDA schemes. An in-depth analysis of the generated simulation results are then used to highlight the core trade-offs between each of these MCDA approaches.
Autonomous Generation of Spherical P2P Delaunay Network for Global Internet Applications

This paper proposes an algorithm for autonomous generation of spherical Delaunay network in P2P settings for global Internet applications. In our algorithm, nodes work as autonomous computers, sites, sensors, etc, and all nodes generate a local network according the proximity and geometry of neighboring nodes, while all nodes cooperatively and incrementally generate global spherical network. We also show an algorithm for nodes to divide a sphere into their governing areas autonomously. Our approach is applicable to various Internet-based geographical applications including world-wide virtual collaborative space and scalable P2P repository for location-aware data, geo-databases, and so on
Gunshot detection and localization based on Non-negative Matrix Factorization and SRP-hat

This paper describes a sound source detection and localization system where the sound source is a gunshot. The proposed system is composed of two consecutive stages: detection and localization. In this manner, the localization system is activated when a gunshot is detected. The detection stage is based on a Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) approach. The localization stage proposes a modification of the method called Steered Response Power Phase transform (SRP-Phat). Firstly, we estimate the delay between multichannel signals that are captured by a six microphone array. Generalized Cross-Correlation (GCC), Generalized Cross-Correlation Phase transform (GCC-Phat), Steered Response Power Phase transform (SRP-Phat) and the proposed localization method are compared. Evaluation indicates that the proposed detection and localization method provides promising results in many acoustic scenarios including noisy environments with low signal-to-noise ratios. The proposed application is designed following the paradigm of smart sound processing and is focused on security needs in a real life scenario.