Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generalized Multilinear Model for Dimensionality Reduction of Binary Tensors

Generalized multilinear model for dimensionality reduction of binary tensors (GMM-DR-BT) is a technique for computing low-rank approximations of multi-dimensional data objects, tensors. The model exposes a latent structure that represents dominant trends in the binary tensorial data while retaining as much information as possible. Recently, there exist several models for computing the low-rank approximations of tensors but to the best of our knowledge at present there is no principled framework for binary tensors. Although the binary tensors occur in many real world applications such as gait recognition, document analysis or graph mining. In the GMM-DR-BT model formulation, to account for binary nature of the data, each tensor element is modeled by a Bernoulli noise distribution. To extract the dominant trends in the data, the natural parameters of the Bernoulli distributions are constrained by employing the Tucker model to lie in a sub-space spanned by a reduced set of basis (principal) tensors. Bernoulli distribution is a member of exponential family with helpful analytical properties that allow us to derive an iterative scheme for estimation of the basis tensors and other model parameters via maximum likelihood. Furthermore, we extended the fully unsupervised GMMDR-BT model to the semi-supervised setting by forcing the model to search for a natural parameter subspace that represents a user specified compromise between modelling the quality and the degree of class separation. ∗Recommended by thesis supervisor: Dr. Peter Tiňo. Defended at Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava on August 30, 2012. c © Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies show this notice on the first page or initial screen of a display along with the full citation. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, to redistribute to lists, or to use any component of this work in other works requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Permissions may be requested from STU Press, Vazovova 5, 811 07 Bratislava, Slovakia. Mažgut, J. Generalized Multilinear Model for Dimensionality Reduction of Binary Tensors. Information Sciences and Technologies Bulletin of the ACM Slovakia, Vol. 4, No. 3 (2012) 35-46 We evaluated and compared the proposed GMM-DR-BT technique with existing real-valued and nonnegative tensor decomposition methods in several experiments involving variety of high-dimensional datasets. The results suggest that the GMM-DR-BT model is better suited for modeling binary tensors than its real-valued and nonnegative counterparts.
MERLiN: Mixture Effect Recovery in Linear Networks

Causal inference concerns the identification of cause-effect relationships between variables, e.g., establishing whether a stimulus affects activity in a certain brain region. The observed variables themselves often do not constitute meaningful <;italic>causal<;/italic> variables, however, and linear combinations need to be considered. In electroencephalographic studies, for example, one is not interested in establishing cause-effect relationships between electrode signals (the observed variables), but rather between cortical signals (the causal variables) which can be recovered as linear combinations of electrode signals. We introduce Mixture Effect Recovery in Linear Networks (MERLiN), a family of causal inference algorithms that implement a novel means of constructing causal variables from non-causal variables. We demonstrate through application to EEG data how the basic MERLiN algorithm can be extended for application to different (neuroimaging) data modalities. Given an observed linear mixture, the algorithms can recover a causal variable that is a linear effect of another given variable. That is, MERLiN allows us to recover a cortical signal that is affected by activity in a certain brain region, while not being a direct effect of the stimulus. The Python/Matlab implementation for all presented algorithms is available on <;uri xlink:type="simple"> https://github.com/sweichwald/MERLiN<;/uri>.
Prevalence Patterns of Avian Plasmodium and Haemoproteus Parasites and the Influence of Host Relative Abundance in Southern China

Infectious diseases threaten the health and survival of wildlife populations. Consequently, relationships between host diversity, host abundance, and parasite infection are important aspects of disease ecology and conservation research. Here, we report on the prevalence patterns of avian Plasmodium and Haemoproteus infections and host relative abundance influence based on sampling 728 wild-caught birds representing 124 species at seven geographically widespread sites in southern China. The overall prevalence of two haemoprotozoan parasites, Plasmodium and Haemoproteus, was 29.5%, with 22.0% attributable to Haemoproteus and 7.8% to Plasmodium. Haemoproteus prevalence differed significantly among different avian host families, with the highest prevalence in Nectariniidae, Pycnonotidae and Muscicapidae, whereas Plasmodium prevalence varied significantly among host species. Seventy-nine mitochondrial lineages including 25 from Plasmodium and 54 from Haemoproteus were identified, 80% of which were described here for the first time. The phylogenetic relationships among these parasites indicated stronger host-species specificity for Haemoproteus than Plasmodium. Well-supported host-family (Timaliidae) specific clades were found in both Plasmodium and Haemoproteus. The Haemoproteus tree shows regional subclades, whereas the Plasmodium clades are “scattered” among different geographical regions. Interestingly, there were statistically significant variations in the prevalence of Plasmodium and Haemoproteus among the geographical regions. Furthermore, the prevalence of Plasmodium and Haemoproteus were not significantly correlated with host relative abundance. Further efforts will focus on exploring the relationships between parasite prevalence and sex, age, and immune defense of the host.
An Experience in Accessing Grid Computing from Mobile Device with GridLab Mobile Services

In this paper we discuss our experience in evaluating the GridLab Mobile service as a tool which supports the combination of two mainstream research area, Grid computing and mobile devices. We use GridLab Mobile services platform to conduct our experiment to enable the access of Grid computing power from Poznan supercomputing and networking Center in Poland through smart phones. Minimum interfaces required to use GridLab Mobile services include Mobile Client, Mobile Command Center and Grid application. We explore some GridLab Mobile services functionality such as GridLab Resource Management System (GRMS) Job submission and Control, message box browsing, visualization viewing, and auxiliary functionality (login for instance). From our experiment it was found that to Login we need to send the average of 635 Bytes of data and receive 467,6 of data in 14.6 seconds. For getting message box we had to send the average of 1389 Bytes of data and receive 1638,8 Bytes of data in 26.6 seconds. In addition to that, for visualization purposes we sent the average of 2701,8 Bytes of data and received the average of 46139,4 of data in 43.4 seconds.
Preliminary Version A Modal Calculus for Exception Handling

The exception monad, while an adequate mechanism for providing the denotational semantics of exceptions, is somewhat awkward to program with. Just as any other monad, it forces a programming style in which exceptional computations are explicitly sequentialized in the program text. In addition, values of computation types must usually be tested before use, in order to determine if they correspond to a raised exception. In this paper we propose a type system that rearranges the monadic formulation, so that the above shortcomings are avoided. Instead of the exception monad, we propose the operator from the modal logic S4 to encode exceptional computation. The way tracking of exceptions is organized in the modal system is exactly dual to the monadic case, reflecting the well-known property that is actually a comonad.
Reproduction Structure and Technological Progress in Economy: The Role of Talents as Capital

Human activities in concrete production are diversified from product manufacturing, service production to management technology. Technological progress is organized into such various human activities. This paper is written on our “Talents capital hypothesis”, after surveying the genealogy of economic thought since Smith, and, carefully examining the theoretical basis of the hypothesis. The concept “Talents capital” comprehensively captures the human activities. The hypothesis is that realistic technological progress should be based on qualitative development of "Talents capital", that is, accumulation and succession of production-related knowledge and technology, embodied in workers group (=personal owner of individual enterprises as well as employee (including corporate officer) in general enterprises) .
Boundary detection method based on supervising for small sample size problem

In this paper, we address segmentation of the image with gray and texture measurements together. Combining the filter banks and improved K-Means clustering, the texton is extracted effectively in small samples case. And then, a model used for boundary detection is proposed. This model combines multiple cues, such as gray and texture feature. Proposed model trains parameters using human labeled images and therefore the output of trained model is detected boundary. Finally, we optimize the extracted boundary. The results show that our method not only can accurately detect the boundary but also reduce the time complexity in small samples case compared to the existing method.
Variation in aryl hydrocarbon (benzo(a)pyrene) hydroxylase activity in heteroploid and predominantly diploid rat liver cells in culture

Aryl hydrocarbon (benzo(a)pyrene) hydroxylase is present and inducible in Buffalo rat liver cells in culture. There is substantial variation in both basal and inducible hydroxylase activities among heteroploid subclones isolated from a heteroploid parent population, and among diploid subclones isolated from a diploid parent population. This variation is not related to differences in the growth characteristics of the subclones, or to differences in their chromosome number. The results indicate that substantial heterogeneity in both basal and induced hydroxylase activity develops during the growth of both heteroploid and diploid cell strains in culture. These findings indicate that diploid cell populations are not necessarily homogeneous with respect to aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylas activity. This observation may complicate the interpretation of experiments involving somatic cell hybridization or polycyclic hydrocarbon-induced transformation and/or cytotoxicity. This heterogeneity in hydroxylase activity develops rather rapidly (2-3 mo of culture), in the absence of any apparent mutational stress.
Does the phenomenon of stochastic amplification of fluctuations play a relevant role in cortical dynamics

We review the mechanism of stochastic amplification of fluctuations in the context of fast cortical oscillations observed during up-states both in vitro and in vivo. For this purpose, we employ minimalistic models based on short-time synaptic depression with or without synaptic facilitation and compare results with empirical observations. The phenomenon of stochastic amplification of fluctuations is shown to be relevant and robust against different regulatory mechanisms and model specificities. In particular, by introducing synaptic facilitation as a possible manner to dynamically tune the synaptic efficacy, we show that, beyond resonancy details, the mechanism responsible for stochastic amplification is robust and persists along a wide range in the synaptic parameters space. In passing, we explain why a similar stochastic amplification cannot possibly be observed in cortical down-states.
Modeling the Self-Assembly of Organic Molecules in 2D Molecular Layers with Different Structures

If organic molecules are to be used as the active component in devices, self-assembly represents the most attractive route to control the geometric structure and therefore part of the device performance. High-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy measurement combined with density functional theory and Monte Carlo calculations are used to study the stability of self-assemblies of molecules with bonding motifs spanning (nearly) the entire range of intermolecular interaction strengths. Our atomistic model reproduces the experimentally observed crystal structures with sub-Angstrom precision in all cases. In addition, it is able to identify metastable structures through thermodynamic analysis.
A novel multiresolution-based hybrid approach for 3D footwear outsole feature classification and extraction

Footwear impressions retrieved from crime scenes are often due to shoes in various stages of wear. This forensic-related research on footwear recognition is able to extract information-rich 3D outsole patterns and produce 2D shoe-prints regardless of different degrees of wear. Based on pattern characteristics, outsoles are categorized into two types, Convex-Pattern-Dominant Outsoles (Convex-PDOs) and Concave-Pattern-Dominant Outsoles (Concave-PDOs). Initial work for extracting 3D Features from Concave-PDOs is reported in this paper. In our proposed method, outsole models are first captured using a 3D scanner. Patterns corresponding to higher and lower curvature variations are subsequently classified using a multiresolution-based curvature analysis approach. In a subsequent step to discard outliers from the extracted 3D features, by modifying contours of 3D outsole models, a pyramid method is employed to generate composite results. Visual analysis on current experimental investigations shows promising results for further 3D feature extraction and 2D shoeprint generation.
A parametric statistic model and fast algorithm for brain MR image segmentation and bias correction

In this paper, we propose an improved method for simultaneous estimation of the bias field and segmentation of tissues for magnetic resonance images, which is an extension of the method in. Firstly, the bias field is modeled as a linear combination of a set of basis functions, and thereby parameterized by the coefficients of the basis functions. Then we model the distribution of intensity in each tissue as a Gaussian distribution, and use the maximum a posteriori probability and total variation (TV) regularization to define our objective energy function. At last, an efficient iterative algorithm based on split Bregman method is used to minimize our energy function at a fast rate. Comparisons with other approaches demonstrate the superior performance of this algorithm.
Minimum Wages and Employment: Comment

Does increasing the minimum wage lead to employment losses? For many years most economists thought that the answer to this was a straightforward 'yes'. However, research during the 1990s began to overturn this conventional wisdom and showed that increases in the minimum wage did not automatically lead to employment losses. A recent Australian study, by Leigh (2003), examined the impact of statutory minimum wages in Western Australia and reached conclusions which supported the conventional view. However, close scrutiny of Leigh's article shows that it is fundamentally flawed. Despite Leigh's efforts, it remains the case that we simply do not know a great deal about the employment impact of Australia's system of minimum wages. Copyright 2004 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.
A Chinese cultural critique of the global qualifying standards for social work education

This paper attempts to discuss the Chinese cultural implications of the recently proposed document: ‘Global Qualifying Standards for Social Work Education’ by the IASSW and IFSW. It seems that this document still embraces an ideology of western social work imperialism in perceiving the development of social work in other countries. With reference to Chinese culture and social work education in Hong Kong and in mainland China, the writer advocates that responsibility and rights, stability and changes, social norms and equality, as well as empowerment and relation, should be fully articulated in the definition, ethical principles, and core purpose of social work practice as well as in the mission and curriculum in social work education within Chinese communities.
The Efficiency of Food Labeling as a Rural Development Policy:The Case of Olive Oil in Lebanon

����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 4 Introduction ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 5 Why Olive Oil? ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 7 Olive Oil Sector Overview ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 8 Olive Oil Market Chain, Policies, Standards, and Institutional Underdevelopment . 9 Research Methodology ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������11 Consumers Desirability of Origin-Based Labeled Products . 11 Research Method . 11 Consumption Patterns and Usage Situation . 14 Expected Results and Policy Uses ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������19 Research Implications, Policy Uses and Recommendations . 20 Research Limitations . 21 References �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������22
How to break XML encryption

XML Encryption was standardized by W3C in 2002, and is implemented in XML frameworks of major commercial and open-source organizations like Apache, redhat, IBM, and Microsoft. It is employed in a large number of major web-based applications, ranging from business communications, e-commerce, and financial services over healthcare applications to governmental and military infrastructures. In this work we describe a practical attack on XML Encryption, which allows to decrypt a ciphertext by sending related ciphertexts to a Web Service and evaluating the server response. We show that an adversary can decrypt a ciphertext by performing only 14 requests per plaintext byte on average. This poses a serious and truly practical security threat on all currently used implementations of XML Encryption. In a sense the attack can be seen as a generalization of padding oracle attacks (Vaudenay, Eurocrypt 2002). It exploits a subtle correlation between the block cipher mode of operation, the character encoding of encrypted text, and the response behaviour of a Web Service if an XML message cannot be parsed correctly.
Prevent DNS Cache Poisoning Using Security Proxy

DNS has been suffering from cache poisoning attack for a long time. The attacker sends camouflaged DNS response to trick the domain name server, and inserts malicious resource record into the cached database. Because the original DNS protocol only depends on 16-bit transaction ID to verify the response packet, it is prone to be guessed by the attacker. Although many strategies such as transaction randomizing, source port randomizing and the 0x20 technique have been applied to improve the resistance of DNS, the attacker still has chance to poison DNS server in an acceptable time. Other more complicated strategy such as DNSSEC which provides stricter prevention mechanism is not easy to deploy and is not widely adopted yet. To address the problem, we present a novel strategy called Security Proxy. The architecture can be easily implemented and deployed on existing DNS server without modification of DNS server itself. The embedded two schemes Selective Re-Query and Security Label Communication can cooperate and effectively prevent the cache poisoning attack. We analyze our strategy from both the capability and efficiency. Then we find that our Security Proxy has obvious advantage over the original transaction ID, the source port randomizing and 0x20 techniques.
Methodological challenges confronting researchers of wheeled mobility aids and other assistive technologies

Purpose. To identify gaps in assistive technology (AT) research and solutions, with a focus on wheeled mobility. Methods. Literature review. Results. AT researchers have identified a need to move beyond determining whether a device works well in the laboratory or is perceived favorably by users. The vital next step in AT research is to determine the effects of AT when used for day-to-day activities by typical consumers. Four challenges affect AT research on everyday mobility: the heterogeneity of the population using AT, the environments in which AT is used, and the devices themselves; the dependency of empirical research on objective data for valid causal inference; the need for detailed information to capture the interaction between the person, the device, and the environment in which it is used; and the extent to which success or failure of AT is dependent on the personal perspectives of the individual using the device. These challenges are being addressed by AT researchers through use of new measures, novel data collection methods, and by linking quantitative with qualitative data. Conclusions. AT researchers are adapting traditional research designs and analytic methods to examine that effects of AT on everyday life.
Usefulness of concept maps in college chemistry laboratories: Students' perceptions and effects on achievement

The problem addressed by this study is that first-year college chemistry students learn little of the conceptual material associated with chemistry experiments they perform. The thesis of this research is that the construction of prelab and postlab concept maps help students understand the concepts involved in the experiments they perform. The study was conducted using 32 non–science majors enrolled in a first-year chemistry course. The experimental group constructed prelab and postlab concept maps, while the control group wrote essays explaining the conceptual chemistry of the four experiments used in this study. Both groups took 25-item achievement tests 1 week after each experiment. Prelab and postlab concept maps were scored and evaluated for significant differences. Five students were interviewed to investigate their perceptions regarding the usefulness of concept maps in chemistry laboratories. No significant differences were found between treatment groups with respect to students' conceptual understanding as determined by the multiple choice achievement tests. Students responded very positively toward the use of concepts maps in the laboratory. They felt strongly that constructing prelab and postlab concept maps helped them understand the conceptual chemistry of the experiments. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 1015–1029, 1998