Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Location-Based Web Service QoS Prediction via Preference Propagation for Improving Cold Start Problem

With the popularity of service-oriented architecture, many web systems have been developed in form of composite services. Since the performance of these composite services highly depends on Quality of Service (QoS) of employed atomic web services, it is important to predict the QoS values of atomic web services with high accuracy. Although collaborative filtering based approaches have recently been proposed to predict the web service QoS values, they mostly face a cold start problem which causes unreliable prediction due to the highly sparse historical data, newly introduced users and web services. Furthermore, existing work only considers the case of newly introduced users. In this paper, we propose a Location-based Matrix Factorization technique via Preference Propagation (LMF-PP) to improve the cold start problem in web service QoS prediction domain. LMF-PP exploits the location information of entities (i.e., Users and web services) and employs the preference propagation to make the accurate QoS prediction even for the newly introduced entities and in the small amount of data (i.e., Highly sparse matrix). The performance of LMF-PP is compared with that of existing approaches on a real world dataset. The experimental results show that LMF-PP can outperform the existing approaches in not only a cold start environment but also a warm start environment.
Ultra-Wideband Automotive Radar

A lot of progress has been made for automotive radar during the last years. There are two types of automotive radar; “long-range radar at 77GHz with a range capability up to 200m“ for automatic cruise control (ACC) and “short-range radar at 24/26 and 79GHz up to 30m“ for anti-collision. Long radar with narrow radiation beam enables a automobile to maintain a cruising distance, while short-range radar has recently attracted attention because of many applications such as pre-crush warning, stop-and-go operation and lane change assist. The short-range radar with a very broad lateral coverage has a few significant problems to be overcome such as target detection and clutter suppression. This is because the widely radiated radar echo contains not only automobile echo, but also unwanted echoes called clutter. It is actually not easy to detect a target echo in increased clutter. Ultra-wideband impulse-radio (UWB-IR) radar with high range-resolution has recently attracted much attention for automotive use, because it offers many applications such as pre-crush warning and lane change assist. The followings provide an overview of this chapter; 1. Section 2 introduces various radar systems for automotive use. It begins with a discussion of radar technologies such as Pulse Doppler, FM-CW and UWB-IR. 2. UWB-IR radar requires high speed A/D devices which can directly process the received nanosecond pulse. For example, A/D devices of several GS/s or more should be required for the UWB-IR radar with a bandwidth of 1GHz, which have not been available yet. The use of wideband may also cause unacceptable interference on existing narrowband systems. Therefore, some interference mitigation scheme may be required for the radar emission in the future. To solve these problems, a stepped-FM radar scheme is introduced in Section 3, which does not require high speed A/D device and provides the co-existence with exisiting narrowband systems. 3. Short range radar is expected to provide a wide coverage in azimuth angle. Therefore, increased clutter makes it difficult to detect automobile target accurately. The clutter can be classified from automobile by the Doppler, but it will not be applicable to the UWB-IR. In Section 4, a scheme is introduced which estimates the Doppler by using the time-trajectory of radar echo and the measurement results are presented. 4. Automotive radar is required to detect automobile accurately, but not to detect clutters falsely, even in complicated traffic conditions. In order to satisfy the requirement, a target discrimination scheme with range profile matching is introduced in Section 5 and the measurement results are presented. The results show that the automobile type can be discriminated.
Common Genetic Variants of Surfactant Protein-D (SP-D) Are Associated with Type 2 Diabetes

Context Surfactant protein-D (SP-D) is a primordial component of the innate immune system intrinsically linked to metabolic pathways. We aimed to study the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) affecting SP-D with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Research Design and Methods We evaluated a common genetic variant located in the SP-D coding region (rs721917, Met31Thr) in a sample of T2D patients and non-diabetic controls (n = 2,711). In a subset of subjects (n = 1,062), this SNP was analyzed in association with circulating SP-D concentrations, insulin resistance, and T2D. This SNP and others were also screened in the publicly available Genome Wide Association (GWA) database of the Meta-Analyses of Glucose and Insulin-related traits Consortium (MAGIC). Results We found the significant association of rs721917 with circulating SP-D, parameters of insulin resistance and T2D. Indeed, G carriers showed decreased circulating SP-D (p = 0.004), decreased fasting glucose (p = 0.0002), glycated hemoglobin (p = 0.0005), and 33% (p = 0.002) lower prevalence of T2D, estimated under a dominant model, especially among women. Interestingly, these differences remained significant after controlling for origin, age, gender, and circulating SP-D. Moreover, this SNP and others within the SP-D genomic region (i.e. rs10887344) were significantly associated with quantitative measures of glucose homeostasis, insulin sensitivity, and T2D, according to GWAS datasets from MAGIC. Conclusions SP-D gene polymorphisms are associated with insulin resistance and T2D. These associations are independent of circulating SP-D concentrations.
Long-Term Spinal Ventral Root Reimplantation, but not Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cell Treatment, Positively Influences Ultrastructural Synapse Recovery and Motor Axonal Regrowth

We recently proposed a new surgical approach to treat ventral root avulsion, resulting in motoneuron protection. The present work combined such a surgical approach with bone marrow mononuclear cells (MC) therapy. Therefore, MC were added to the site of reimplantation. Female Lewis rats (seven weeks old) were subjected to unilateral ventral root avulsion (VRA) at L4, L5 and L6 levels and divided into the following groups (n = 5 for each group): Avulsion, sealant reimplanted roots and sealant reimplanted roots plus MC. After four weeks and 12 weeks post-surgery, the lumbar intumescences were processed by transmission electron microscopy, to analyze synaptic inputs to the repaired α motoneurons. Also, the ipsi and contralateral sciatic nerves were processed for axon counting and morphometry. The ultrastructural results indicated a significant preservation of inhibitory pre-synaptic boutons in the groups repaired with sealant alone and associated with MC therapy. Moreover, the average number of axons was higher in treated groups when compared to avulsion only. Complementary to the fiber counting, the morphometric analysis of axonal diameter and “g” ratio demonstrated that root reimplantation improved the motor component recovery. In conclusion, the data herein demonstrate that root reimplantation at the lesion site may be considered a therapeutic approach, following proximal lesions in the interface of central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS), and that MC therapy does not further improve the regenerative recovery, up to 12 weeks post lesion.
Grasp Force Magnifying Mechanism for Parallel Jaw Grippers

This paper proposes a force magnifying mechanism for a parallel jaw gripper that can exert a large grasp force. A parallel jaw gripper requires speed when opening and closing its jaws, and force when grasping an object. The proposed force magnifying mechanism consists of a slider, feed screws, gears, a lever, etc. It runs sequentially with only one DC-motor. Basically the motor rotates a feed screw to move its output jaw quickly to an object with a gear. When the output jaw makes contact with an object, the gear is loosened from a stopper and starts to move axially along the feed screw. Then it pushes a lever, which generates a large fingertip force. We have developed an 86g gripper with this mechanism and experimentally verified that it can grasp objects of various sizes with a large grasp force over 200N. It is also experimentally verified that the gripper can grasp and ungrasp an object reliably over 4500 times if machine lubricant is properly supplied.
Simulation of Ruin Probabilities for Subexponential Claims

Abstract We consider the classical risk model with subexponential claim size distribution. Three methods are presented to simulate the probability of ultimate ruin and we investigate their asymptotic efficiency. One, based upon a conditional Monte Carlo idea involving the order statistics, is shown to be asymptotically efficient in a certain sense. We use the simulation methods to study the accuracy of the standard Embrechts-Veraverbeke [16] approximation for the ruin probability and also suggest a new one based upon ideas of Hogan [21].
Verified and Optimized Inlined Reference Monitors PhD Candidacy Proposal

Current software stacks are built on top of unsafe languages such as C and C++. Software attacks sabotage program executions by inducing control flow transfers to shellcode or manipulating data pointers to read/write sensitive information. By embedding security checks into subject programs during compilation, many attacks can be foiled effectively. In this proposal, we investigate current software attacks and review the existing approaches and their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we propose research directions and report the current status of our work.
Implementing Texture Feature Extraction Algorithms on FPGA

Feature extraction is a key function in various image processing applications. A feature is an image characteristic that can capture certain visual property of the image. Texture is an important feature of many image types, which is the pattern of information or arrangement of the structure found in a picture. Texture features are used in different applications such as image processing, remote sensing and content-based image retrieval. These features can be extracted in several ways. The most common way is using a Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM). GLCM contains the second-order statistical information of neighboring pixels of an image. Textural properties can be calculated from GLCM to understand the details about the image content. However, the calculation of GLCM is very computationally intensive. In this thesis, an FPGA accelerator for fast calculation of GLCM is designed and implemented. We propose an FPGA-based architecture for parallel computation of symmetric co-occurrence matrices. Experimental results show that our approach improves 2x up to 4x the processing time for simultaneous computation of sixteen co-occurrence matrices.
HMAODV: History aware on Multicast Ad Hoc On Demand Distance Vector Routing

A major aspect of ad-hoc networks is that the nodes move randomly, which requires the routing protocols in ad-hoc network to quickly respond to the network topology change in order to guarantee successful data packet delivery. In this thesis, the multicast ad hoc on-demand distance vector (MAODV) protocol allows each node in the network to send out multicast data packets, and the multicast data packets are broadcast when propagating along the multicast group tree. In addition, several functions are improved in this version. We enhance the MAODV by adding the history awareness on this protocol, which introduces a session history as one of routing metrics. A session history implies how many times and how much duration a node is involved in communication sessions between mobile nodes in a network.
Improved THz/Infrared frequency selective surface with Minkowski fractal elements

Low-cost, low-volume, and low-mass THz/Infrared frequency selective surfaces (FSS) with the Minkowski fractal elements are described and compared with the other elements. It exhibits excellent 1st resonant frequency stability with incident angles varying from normal to 60° and for both TE and TM polarizations. The performance of this fractal FSS is far better than the previous FSSs with simple-shaped elements, i.e. cross dipole, or rectangular/circular loop elements.
Total Nuclear Variation and Jacobian Extensions of Total Variation for Vector Fields

We explore a class of vectorial total variation (VTV) measures formed as the spatial sum of a pixel-wise matrix norm of the Jacobian of a vector field. We give a theoretical treatment that indicates that, while color smearing and affine-coupling bias (often reported as gray-scale bias) are typically cited as drawbacks for VTV, these are actually fundamental to smoothing vector direction (i.e., smoothing hue and saturation in color images). In addition, we show that encouraging different vector channels to share a common gradient direction is equivalent to minimizing Jacobian rank. We thus propose total nuclear variation (TNV), and since nuclear norm is the convex envelope of matrix rank, we argue that TNV is the optimal convex regularizer for enforcing shared directions. We also propose extended Jacobians, which use larger neighborhoods than the conventional finite difference operator, and we discuss efficient VTV optimization algorithms. In simple color image denoising experiments, TNV outperformed other common VTV regularizers, and was further improved by using extended Jacobians. TNV was also competitive with the method of nonlocal means, often outperforming it by 0.25-2 dB when using extended Jacobians.
Compréhension de la résistance humaine au paludisme : des études génétiques aux approches fonctionnelles

La severite du paludisme est influencee par des interactions complexes entre de nombreux facteurs dont la genetique de l’hote. Plusieurs etudes de liaison genetique menees dans differentes ethnies africaines ont montre une liaison entre le locus 6p21 et le paludisme simple. De plus, differents variants au sein des genes TNF et NCR3, retrouves dans ce locus, ont ete independamment associes a ce phenotype au Burkina Faso.Ainsi, nous nous sommes tout d’abord interesses aux polymorphismes du TNF. Nos resultats montrent que les variants TNF-308, TNF-244, et TNF-238 sont associes a la parasitemie maximale ou aux acces simples au Congo. Les approches moleculaires indiquent que le TNF-244 a un effet cis-regulateur avec une activite promotrice reduite en presence du variant A ainsi qu’une fixation alteree de proteines nucleaires en presence de ce meme variant. Enfin, nos analyses bio-informatiques suggerent que le TNF-244 et le TNF-238 agissent en synergie pour modifier le site de fixation d’au moins un facteur de transcription.Nous avons ensuite confirme l’association du NCR3-412 avec le paludisme simple et le nombre d’acces febrile au Congo. Les analyses fonctionnelles montrent que ce SNP a aussi un effet cis-regulateur avec une activite promotrice accrue en presence de l’allele G et une liaison alteree de deux complexes proteiques en presence de l’allele C. Les approches in silico et in vitro indiquent que les facteurs STAT4 et RUNX3 sont ceux dont la fixation est alteree.NCR3-412 alterant la resistance a la forme simple du paludisme, nous avons souhaite determiner s’il est aussi implique dans la resistance au paludisme severe mais nous n’avons detecte aucune association.
K 3 : Language Design for Building Multi-Platform , Domain-Specific Runtimes

We pose the question: while it is natural to embed specialized systems functionality (e.g. databases) in programming languages, how can programming language techniques simplify constructing and analyzing scalable computing systems? This topic is of increasing importance with the ongoing specialization of data and computing models in databases, systems, scientific computing and AI. We introduce K3, an event-driven language to represent, compose and analyze distributed runtimes. K3’s goals are twofold, first to facilitate the synthesis of scalable domain-specific runtimes that take holistic advantage of domain properties, and second, to coordinate existing popular runtimes and platforms in a declarative fashion under a unified optimization framework. We present K3’s distributed event-driven computation model, and its annotation model for data, control, execution and optimization concerns.
A C ] 1 1 Ju l 2 00 5 On Sequentially Cohen-Macaulay Modules

In this paper we present characterizations of sequentially Cohen-Macaulay modules in terms of systems of parameters, which are generalizations of well-known results on Cohen-Macaulay and generalized Cohen-Macaulay modules. The sequentially CohenMacaulayness of Stanley-Reisner rings of small embedding dimension are also examined.
The medium-term impact of the primary education stipend in rural Bangladesh

This paper investigates the long-term impact of Bangladesh's primary education stipend (PES) programme on a range of individual and household welfare measures using a unique longitudinal study spanning the years 2000–2006. Using covariate matching and difference-in-difference methods, the programme is shown to have negligible impacts on school enrolments, household expenditures, calorie consumption, and protein consumption. At the individual level, the PES has a negative impact on grade progression, especially among boys from poor households who are ineligible to receive stipends at the secondary level. The programme does, however, lead to improvements in height-for-age among girls and body mass index among boys. Nonetheless, the impacts of the PES are remarkably small for a programme of its size. Poor targeting, particularly limited coverage and lack of geographical targeting, plus the declining real value of the stipend, are the most plausible reasons for this lack of impact.
Instability of the 13.8 Day Period in X-Ray Emission from 4U 1700–377

We present a new result on long-term periodicity searches of the X-ray emission from 4U 1700-377 using RXTE ASM and CGRO BATSE data. The hard X-ray data (20-200 keV) from early BATSE observations (1780 days from JD 2,448,370, before RXTE observations started) show evidence of a 13.8 day periodicity. The long-term periodicity became substantially less prominent in the data from later BATSE observations and in the soft X-ray data from the ASM (2-10 keV) observations. We demonstrate that disk precession models can explain the 13.8 day period and its instability in the X-ray emission from 4U 1700-377.
Flexible Table-Driven Parsing for Natural Language Processing

Ambiguity is a major difficulty for natural language processing (NLP) systems. The longer that ambiguities in a sentence remain unresolved, the more work an NLP system may perform in considering alternative interpretations of the sentence. Thus, for efficiency, an NLP system should resolve ambiguities as early as possible in processing. This report describes L parsing—an algorithm for table-driven parsing, designed to permit efficient processing of natural language by facilitating the early resolution of ambiguity. The algorithm is a generalisation of GLR parsing that allows grammar rules to be used whenever they may provide useful syntactic information to an NLP system. L parsing defines a general framework for specifying a variety of parser control strategies. Different control strategies can be expressed by specifying exactly when grammar rules are to be used. This report presents one possible control strategy, designed to provide syntactic information that enables useful semantic and pragmatic processing, and describes a method of compiling this strategy into a parse table. Publishing Information This report was also submitted to Victoria University of Wellington in partial fulfillment of the requirements of a Masters of Science in Computer Science. Author Information Linton Miller is a former Masters student in the Department of Computer Science at Victoria University of Wellington.
Multi-granularity Recommendation Based on Ontology User Model

The traditional personalized recommendation system supplies the target user with top k items in fixed interest subject. However, the recommended items cover the coarse subject level and the accuracy performance is poor. Taking into account ontology structure of subject, user's actual interests can distribute in multiple sub-subject structures. In this paper, multi-granularity recommendation mechanism relying on multi-granularity similarity is proposed to fit user's actual detail demands. Specially, a personalized ontology user model is learned to represent user's multi-granularity interests. According to ontology structure, the multi-granularity similarity method is implemented by combing content closeness and semantic closeness between user models at different grained subjects. Lastly, recommendation method distributed in multi-granularity subjects is achieved to compare against traditional single subject's recommendation for their performances. The experimental results show that the proposed mechanism is more successful.
Image Transformation and Calibration Using System FOTOM

The key point of here described image transformation is to convert the image coordinate system into the world space coordinates. The related image calibration is used to correct the distorted projection and to make the measurement of various objects possible. The described calibration is also capable of measurement of objects which are lying on the inner side of the cone-shaped cavities. Developed method also removes the object distortion and provides the rectangular view of the measured area. Methods are implemented as a one module for system FOTOM NG and the goal of this work is to extend the calibration capabilities of this system and to spread the area of possible use in this way. The system FOTOM is continuously developed at the Department of Computer Science, VaB-TU Ostrava.
Does pre- and postoperative metronidazole treatment lower vaginal cuff infection rate after abdominal hysterectomy among women with bacterial vaginosis?

OBJECTIVE: Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a known risk factor for postoperative infection following abdominal hysterectomy. Vaginal bacterial flora scored as intermediate has been shown to have the same risk of postoperative infection as BV. METHODS: Women undergoing total abdominal hysterectomy for benign diseases were open-randomized according to Zelen to either treatment with metronidazole rectally for at least 4 days or no treatment. At the preoperative gynecological examination a vaginal smear was collected and Gram stained. Women with BV or intermediate flora were merged to one group called abnormal vaginal flora. RESULTS: In total 213 women were randomized to treatment or no treatment. After exclusion of 71 women, 142 women were eligible for analysis. Among the 59 women diagnosed with abnormal vaginal flora there were no vaginal cuff infections in the treated arm, compared with 27% in the 'no treatment' arm (p < 0.01). Treatment also reduced the vaginal cuff infection rate from 9.5 to 2% among the 83 women with lactobacilli flora. However, this difference was not statistically significant. Treatment had no effect on the rate of wound infections. Intention-to-treat analysis showed a significant reduction in vaginal cuff infections among women randomized to treatment. CONCLUSION: Pre- and postoperative treatment for at least 4 days with metronidazole rectally reduces significantly vaginal cuff infection among women with abnormal vaginal flora.