Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
North Korean Literature: Margins of Writing Memory, Gender, and Sexuality - eScholarship

This dissertation examines literary works from North Korea from the 1970s and 1980s, paying particular attention to the way writers express their creativity through the discussion in memory, gender, and sex. To think that North Korean writers are conditioned to produce works that only praise Kim Il Sung and the Party may a short-sighted assessment of their literary practices and culture. Ever since the Fifteenth Plenary Meeting of the Fourth Central Committee of the Worker's Party in 1967--where Juche ideology and the monolithic policy were instituted as the guiding principles of every aspect of North Korean life--literature, film, and artworks changed to adopt the new system of celebrating Kim Il Sung, the Party, and the nation. Indeed, the writing tradition and culture changed for the members of the Writer's Union. What was known as propagandist literature became even more tightly controlled under the new decree of the monolithic policy. This monolithic policy gave rise to a singular voice that dominates and eliminates all other voices that may contend the Kim Il Sung regime. Writers were expected to (and in some cases ordered to) comply with the singular voice that celebrates the nation. However, even amid this radical change in North Korea, writing has the power to subvert, satirize, and disrupt the teleology of the grand narrative of the nation-state. This dissertation engages in the power of writing found in moments where the writers discuss the topics of memory, gender, and sexuality.
An RBF-Based Reparameterization Method for Constrained Texture Mapping

Texture mapping has long been used in computer graphics to enhance the realism of virtual scenes. However, to match the 3D model feature points with the corresponding pixels in a texture image, surface parameterization must satisfy specific positional constraints. However, despite numerous research efforts, the construction of a mathematically robust, foldover-free parameterization that is subject to positional constraints continues to be a challenge. In the present paper, this foldover problem is addressed by developing radial basis function (RBF)-based reparameterization. Given initial 2D embedding of a 3D surface, the proposed method can reparameterize 2D embedding into a foldover-free 2D mesh, satisfying a set of user-specified constraint points. In addition, this approach is mesh free. Therefore, generating smooth texture mapping results is possible without extra smoothing optimization.
Effectiveness of Fully Homomorphic Encryption to Preserve the Privacy of Biometric Data

Biometrics offers higher accuracy for personal recognition as well as provides greater security than traditional methods because of its properties. However, ironically, these properties are also weaknesses because biometric data is permanently linked with an individual and cannot be revoked or cancelled, especially when biometric data is compromised, which can lead to a serious privacy issue. By reviewing current approaches, fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) is considered as a promising solution for this privacy issue because of its ability to perform computations in the encrypted domain. We studied the effectiveness of FHE when it is used in biometric systems. The main contributions of this paper are the implementation of a privacy-preserving iris biometric authentication protocol adapted to lattice-based FHE and a sound security analysis of authentication and privacy. This work is concluded with some factors to be addressed to enhance privacy as well as some considerations to improve the performance of this implementation.
Beyond data in the smart city:learning from a case study of re-purposing existing campus IoT

In this article we present a case study of our experiences of using existing IoT infrastructure to create a campus scale “living laboratory” for promoting energy savings and environmental sustainability. As a series of lessons for others creating IoT systems from existing city infrastructures we offer the challenges we have experienced through our attempt to join up and re-purpose existing energy monitoring and building management systems as an IoT infrastructure for a “smart campus”. We highlight the limitations of particular views of a campus from a purely data-driven perspective, advocating data- aware over data-driven approaches that engage with a wide variety of stakeholders. Finally, we reflect on the inclusion of people’s practices in understanding and designing smart cities, repurposing existing IoT, more careful consideration of ethics and domestication when co-creating smart campuses and the importance of challenging the existing rhetoric around energy waste in Smart Cities and Smart buildings research.
On the dynamic allocation of mobile agents by on-line task scheduling

This paper presents a new approach to the dynamic allocation of mobile agents by on-line task scheduling for high performance in Internet computing. In contrast to the existing approaches, which apply predefined task scheduling schemes to allocate computing resources, we introduce a new on-line competitive algorithm to achieve flexibility. A guided allocation scheme based on the system competitive ratio is developed to optimize the allocation of mobile agents. The proposed system combines push-based technology with an innovative on-line task-scheduling scheme to speed up system response time and minimize system overheads. The system analysis and simulation demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach to mobile agent-based Internet computing.
Performances, meat quality and boar taint of castrates and entire male pigs fed a standard and a raw potato starch-enriched diet.

In Europe there is increasing concern about the common practice of surgical castration of piglets without anaesthesia. One possible alternative to completely avoid castration is entire male pig production. Thus, the objective of the study was to compare the growth performance, carcass characteristics, organ weights, meat quality traits, fat score and boar taint compounds in the adipose tissue of group-penned entire male pigs and castrates. Furthermore, the effect of raw potato starch (RPS) fed for 7 days prior to slaughter was determined. Pigs (n = 36) were blocked by BW into 12 blocks (3 littermates/block) and assigned to three experimental groups: surgical castrates (C); entire males (EM); and entire males offered RPS (30 g RPS/100 g diet) for 7 days prior to slaughter (EM+). Pigs had ad libitum access to the feed from 22 to 107 kg, individual feed intake was recorded daily and BW once a week. Entire males grew slower (EM: 771, EM+: 776 v. C: 830 g/day; P < 0.01), consumed less feed (EM: 1.87, EM+: 1.89 v. C: 2.23 kg/day; P < 0.01) and were more efficient (feed conversion ratio: EM: 2.42, EM+: 2.44 v. C: 2.69 kg/kg; P < 0.01) than C. Compared to C, carcass dressing percentage was lower (EM: 79.4, EM+: 79.4 v. C: 81.6%; P < 0.01) and percentage of valuable cuts was higher (EM: 57.3, EM+: 56.5 v. 52.6%; P < 0.01) in entire males. The hearts (EM: 426, EM+: 425 v. C: 378 g), kidneys (EM: 387, EM+: 378 v. C: 311 g), bulbourethral (EM: 200, EM+: 195 v. C: 7 g) and salivary glands (EM: 99, EM+: 94 v. C: 42 g) were heavier (P < 0.001) in entire males than in C. Meat quality traits did not (P > 0.05) differ among experimental groups but the adipose tissue was more unsaturated in entire males than in C as indicated by the higher fat scores (EM: 69.1, EM+: 67.2 v. C: 63.6; P < 0.01). Feeding RPS reduced (P = 0.04) the skatole tissue concentrations (expressed in μg/g lipid) in EM+ (0.22) compared to EM (0.85), whereas androstenone and indole levels were not (P 0.60) affected (EM: 1.7 and 0.10, EM+: 2.0 and 0.09, respectively). Although the current results confirmed the high efficiency of entire males compared to castrates, the observed high androstenone levels represent a major challenge to implement entire males production.
Design, Characterization, and Impedance Limits of a Hand Robot

Previous work has expanded the planar MIT-MANUS to include an anti-gravity robot for shoulder-and-elbow and wrist robot. In this paper we present the "missing link": a hand module. We will discuss in detail the design and characterization of this module. It consists of a single degree of freedom mechanism in a novel statorless configuration, which enables rehabilitation of grasping. The system uses the kinematic configuration of a double crank and slider where the members are linked to stator and rotor; a free base motor, i.e., a motor having two rotors that are free to rotate instead of a fixed stator and a single rotatable rotor. A cylindrical structure, made of six panels and driven by the relative rotation of the rotors, is able to increase its radius linearly, moving or guiding the hand of the patients during grasping This module completes our development of robots for the upper-extremity affording for the first time a whole-arm rehabilitation experience.
Designing an Agent for Understanding and Generating Metaphor

Metaphor is central to language and thought. Therefore, any system which attempts to handle communicative acts must account for metaphor. Going back to The Philospophy of Rhetoric (1936), Richards asserts that “human cognition is basically metaphoric in nature rather than primarily literal, that the metaphors of our language actually derive from an interaction of thoughts” and that “metaphor is not a cosmetic rhetorical device or a stylistic ornament, but is an omnipresent principle of thought” (Johnson 1981:18-19). Similarly, Black held the view that metaphorical statements are not replaceable by literal statements of comparison (Black 1962:31-37). It was not until Reddy (1979) and then Lakoff and Johnson’s landmark study, Metaphors We Live B y (1980), that these views could be supported by data. These works demonstrate, through copious examples, that metaphor shapes and influences our everyday experience.
Robustness analysis of a rectifier in half bridge configuration with unity power factor

This paper presents a practical application of a modern methodology for analyzing the effects of structured uncertainty in the internal stability of the current control loop of a rectifier with unitary power factor in half bridge configuration. The proposed approach is based on the complementary combination of two main mathematical concepts: the Linear Fractional Transformation (LFT) and the Structured Singular Value Function (SSV or μ). The LFT is used as a matrix function that allows a unified representation of different types of model uncertainty and SSV provides a necessary and sufficient condition for the robustness test with a moderate amount of computation complexity. The methodology is applied to a Rectifier that was designed and implemented by the Research group in control systems and power electronics (CEPIT) of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana under the project “Voltage Rectifier Controlled by a DSP with power factor correction and low harmonics content”, financed by the internal call for supporting the research activity in the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.
A New Fault-Tolerant Routing Methodology for KNS Topologies

Exascale computing systems are being built with thousands of nodes. A key component of these systems is the interconnection network. The high number of components significantly increases the probability of failure. If failures occur in the interconnection network, they may isolate a large fraction of the machine. For this reason, an efficient fault-tolerant mechanism is needed to keep the system interconnected, even in the presence of faults. A recently proposed topology for these large systems is the hybrid KNS family that provides supreme performance and connectivity at a reduced hardware cost. This paper present a fault-tolerant routing methodology for the KNS topology that degrades performance gracefully in the presence of faults and tolerates a reasonably large number of faults without disabling any healthy node. In order to tolerate network failures, the methodology uses a simple mechanism: for some source-destination pairs, only if necessary, packets are forwarded to the destination node through a set of intermediate nodes (without being ejected from the network) which allow avoiding faults. The evaluation results shows that the methodology tolerates a large number of faults. Furthermore, the methodology offers a gracious performance degradation. For instance, performance degrades only 1% for a 2D-network with 1024 nodes and 1% faulty links.
Coordination in multiagent reinforcement learning systems by virtual reinforcement signals

This paper presents a novel method for on-line coordination in multiagent reinforcement learning systems. In this method a reinforcement-learning agent learns to select its action estimating system dynamics in terms of both the natural reward for task achievement and the virtual reward for cooperation. The virtual reward for cooperation is ascertained dynamically by a coordinating agent who estimates it from the change in degree of cooperation of all agents using a separate reinforcement learning. This technique provides adaptive coordination, requires less communication and ensures agents to be cooperative. The validity of virtual rewards for convergence in learning is verified, and the proposed method is tested on two different simulated domains to illustrate its significance. The empirical performance of the coordinated system compared to the uncoordinated system illustrates its advantages for multiagent systems.
Interval-Valued , a-Level State Estimation in Statistical Mechanical Systems on Fluctuating Partitions

In this paper we deal with the problem of state estimation based on interval-valued stochastic descriptions of noise. To perform the estimation, we derive a probabilistic description of unobserved states conditioned on the observations, called a statistical inference rule. Moreover, we link the derivation of the rules to the notion of estimation risk. In the context of confident estimation, risk is defined as a variational expression dependent of the statistical inference rule. More specifically, we draw upon a compound risk description, comprising two additive terms. The a-level represents the first ingredient of risk and is found to be a function of the lower expectation of the statistical inference rule, while the second term represents the upper expectation of the rule’s fuzziness taken with respect to the observations. Both terms are connected through a variational parameter. Finally, the compound risk reduces into a function of the statistical inference rule and the variational parameter. Given this description of the compound risk and a fixed a-level, we treat the derivation of the statistical inference rule as a constrained minimisation problem, where the variational parameter depends on the fixed a-level. In other words, we attempt to obtain fuzzy inference rules, since at the same time we keep the estimation at an acceptable confidence level. We build our methodology upon spin models, a specific class of modelling structures with roots in statistical mechanics. State estimation in these models is possible only locally by considering a finite range of interactions among spins. It is exactly this locality that adds a stochastically described noise to the observations, given a log-linear function of observed and unobserved states. The statistical inference rule is then presented as a semi-linear combination of such local functions. Furthermore, we place the calculation of expectations, needed in order to form the compound risk, into a variational framework, thus calculating interval-valued rather than exact expectations. Key-Words: Interval-Valued Probabilities, Spin Models, Statistical Inference, Confident Estimation.
Methodological Challenges for Future Information Needs ESTIMATING MEDIATED EFFECTS IN HEALTH AND EPIDEMIOGICAL RESEARCH

A central objective in health and epidemiological research is to examine the processes by which explanatory variables yield certain outcomes. For example, two overarching, policy-relevant issues are (1) the pathways through which various socio-demographic, attitudinal, and behavioural risk factors lead to particular health outcomes (e.g., death, disease), and (2) the mechanisms through which intervention and treatment programs produce their desired effects (e.g., increasing screening rates for serious illness, as well as reducing drug, alcohol, and tobacco use). Such issues can be addressed empirically via estimation of mediated (i.e., indirect) effects; however, the required statistical procedures are complex and not yet widely applied in the fields of health and epidemiology. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the major theoretical and methodological concepts involved in mediated effects analysis, as well as present some illustrative applications using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and data from the 2003 Canadian Health Services Access Survey (HSAS).
Radioguided Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy in Breast Cancer Surgery*

The concept of sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer surgery relates to the fact that the tumor drains in a logical way through the lymphatic system, from the first to upper levels. Therefore, the first lymph node met (the sentinel node) will most likely be the first to be affected by metastasis, and a negative sentinel node makes it highly unlikely that other nodes are affected. Because axillary node dissection does not improve prognosis of patients with breast cancer (being important only to stage the axilla), sentinel lymph node biopsy might replace complete axillary dissection to stage the axilla in clinically N0 patients. Sentinel lymph node biopsy would represent a significant advantage as a minimally invasive procedure, considering that, after surgery, about 70% of patients are found to be free from metastatic disease, yet axillary node dissection can lead to significant morbidity. Furthermore, histologic sampling errors can be reduced if a single (sentinel) node is assessed extensively rather than few histologic sections in a high number of lymph nodes per patient. Although the pattern of lymph drainage from breast cancer can be variable, the mammary gland and the overlying skin can be considered as a biologic unit in which lymphatics tend to follow the vasculature. Therefore, considering that tumor lymphatics are disorganized and relatively ineffective, subdermal and peritumoral injection of small aliquots of radiotracer is preferred to intratumoral administration. 99m Tc-labeled colloids with most of the particles in the 100-to 200-nm size range would be ideal for radioguided sentinel node biopsy in breast cancer. Lymphoscintigraphy is an essential part of radioguided sentinel lymph node biopsy because images are used to direct the surgeon to the site of the node. The sentinel lymph node should have a significantly higher count than that of background (at least 10:1 intraoperatively). After removal of the sentinel node, the axilla must be reexamined to ensure that all radioactive sites are identified and removed for analysis. The sentinel lymph node should be processed for intraoperative frozen section examination in its entirety, based on conventional histopathology and, when needed, immune staining with anticytokeratin antibody. The success rate of radioguidance in localizing the sentinel lymph node in breast cancer surgery is about 94%–97% in institutions where a high number of procedures are performed and approaches 99% when combined with the vital blue dye technique. At present, there is no definite evidence that negative sentinel lymph node biopsy …
Bootstrap confidence intervals for ratios of expectations

We are concerned with computing a confidence interval for the ratio <italic>E</italic>[<italic>Y</italic>]/<italic>E</italic>[<italic>X</italic>, where (<italic>X,Y</italic>) is a pair of random variables. This ratio estimation problem arises in, for instance, regenerative simulation. As an alternative to confidence intervals based on asymptotic normality, we study and compare different variants of the bootstrap for one-sided and two-sided intervals. We point out situations where these techniques provide confidence intervals with coverage much closer to the nominal value than do the classical methods.
Random search can outperform mutation

Efficient discovery of lowest level building blocks is a fundamental requirement for a successful genetic algorithm. Although considerable effort has been directed at techniques for combining existing building blocks there has been little emphasis placed on discovering those blocks in the first place. This paper describes an analysis of the canonical genetic algorithm that demonstrates a significant weakness in the algorithm and suggests that careful use of random search will lead to better performance than the use of mutation. Experimental results show that this can result in significant performance improvements over the canonical genetic algorithm.
Technological Activity and Employment in a Panel of UK Firms

We investigate the relationship between technological activity, proxied by R&D, patents, and trade marks, and employment for a panel of British production firms from 1987 to 1994. We modify standard derived demand for labour to include technology variables. We find employment is fostered by R&D expenditure and UK patent publications, ceteris paribus on factor costs and current sales. The employment impact of R&D is bigger in high technology sectors, but employment increase from UK patenting activity is bigger in mature technology sectors. In further analysis of persistent differences (the estimated firm fixed effects) UK trade marks and US patents are also positively associated with employment. Copyright 2001 by Scottish Economic Society.
Seeking solutions: scaling-up audit as a quality improvement tool for infection control in Gujarat, India.

QUALITY PROBLEM OR ISSUE Surgical-site infections (SSIs) give rise to significant demands on the health systems as well as economic and social sequelae for patients. This article describes an audit for infection control developed in a surgical unit of a tertiary care setting in Gujarat state, India that was scaled-up to all state-owned hospitals in the district. INITIAL ASSESSMENT A retrospective baseline assessment of surgical infection rates in a general surgical unit revealed an infection rate of 30%. CHOICE OF SOLUTION An audit was implemented based on guidelines for SSI prevention published by the Centres of Disease Control. IMPLEMENTATION Surveillance and hospital epidemiology were established and practice reforms implemented. Monthly and annual meetings to review implementation were held. EVALUATION After 12 months, an 88% decrease in the infection rate in the surgical unit was demonstrated. Thereafter, the process was replicated across the surgical department and for all cases undergoing surgery. After 12 months, a 67% reduction in the infection rate was detected. The process has since been applied across the state. LESSONS LEARNED A locally owned and team-led process embedded within routine working conditions can challenge widely held perceptions, inform low-cost and no-cost remedial actions, and improve cultures of practice, quality of care and health outcomes. As urban populations grow, methods that are capable of continuously identifying, and responding to, problems and sustaining quality of care in facilities are necessary. SSIs may be largely preventable. With careful implementation, audit has the potential to be a major contributor to their reduction.