Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Data Hiding Using Binocular Fusion of Stereo pairs

In this paper, a data hiding algorithm, which employs the methodology of the binocular fusion of stereo image pairs, is introduced. The embedding data are hidden in the depth field of two matching stereo pairs. One of the stereo pairs is the original host image and the other is the counterfeit image derived from the embedding data, the focal length of cameras and the separation of the camera pairs. This mapping of the binocular fusion of stereo pairs to the problem of data hiding is motivated by the resemblance of left and right stereo images encountered in the stereographic projection setup. If one of the stereo pairs is a familiar image collected from a common database, the other stereo image will be similar to its matching counterpart possessing exactly the same pixel gray level with minor offset. This desirable property makes a human observer difficult to differentiate the counterfeit image from the original one. Therefore, a perfect candidate for hiding information. The performance of this novel approach is tested on different types of the host images and embedding data by examining the data hiding capacity and the PSNR between the host and counterfeit images. The result demonstrates the proposed algorithm obtain good performance in both measures.
Sustainability, organizations and training of managers: an exploratory research on business administration courses in Rio Grande do Sul

Sustainability has imposed challenges to organizations. It increasingly requires organizations to consider in their strategies issues that go beyond the strictly economic focus. That way, in order that organizations can move towards sustainability-oriented strategies, they should go through a process of change. In this process, Business Administration Schools play a fundamental role, since many managers who lead organizations today, or will do it soon, are influenced and learn to acquire, in these schools, a particular vision in relation to human beings, organizations and their relationship with nature. Therefore, this article aims to identify whether Bachelor’s degree courses in Business Administration in Rio Grande do Sul (RS), have proposed the inclusion of sustainability into their programs. The results demonstrated that the courses already have subjects related to the topic in their curricula, however sustainability does not seems to be a central issue in the courses.
Study of cognitive and affected trust in knowledge sharing evidence from Chinese firms – A review paper

In the view of Social Exchange Theory (SET), this article provides an insight into the knowledge sharing behavior of an employee in the organization. Trust is a core factor affecting knowledge sharing behavior. To examine knowledge sharing behavior, it is needed to explore the employee’s behavior towards sharing information. In this study we examine knowledge sharing behavior in those organization which are using information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their daily routine. We found that when employees trust each other, they tend to share more information. Results confirm that trust among employees influences the higher rate of knowledge sharing.
PENGEMBANGAN BANDPASS FILTER KOMPOSIT PITA SANGAT LEBAR BERBASIS TEKNOLOGI MIKROSTRIP

This paper discusses the development of microstrip-based ultra-wideband (UWB) composite bandpass filter (BPF) with stubs. The BPF is compositely constructed from the step impedance lowpass filter (LPF) and the optimum distributed highpass filter (HPF). Prior to the realization, the performances of filter and its physical dimension are investigated numerically to obtain the optimum design. The composite BPF is deployed on an FR4 Epoxy dielectric substrate with the thickness of 0.8mm and the dimension of 30mm x 25mm. From the measurement result, it shows that the realized UWB composite BPF has -3dB bandwidth response of 9.33GHz ranges from the frequency of 1.67GHz to 11GHz.
Hybrid Beamforming with G2+1+1 Transmission Scheme and Modified SIC Design for Milimeter Wave Channel

The use of massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) has been considered as a key enabler to achieve the 5G requirements [1]. With the large array of antennas, the beamformers’ uses have become very attractive, specially when the energy is concentrated in a specific direction. However, implementing large arrays becomes prohibitive since the digital-analog converters (DAC) are power hungry devices connected to every radio frequency (RF) chain. So to deal with this bottleneck, the number of RF chains is reduced by using the hybrid beamforming (HB) solution whose implementation enables us to use fewer RF chains than the digital solution while maintaining a high number of antennas. In this work, we propose to extend a diversity-multiplexing transmission scheme called as G2+1+1 for massive MIMO systems in millimeter wave (mmWave) channel. To implement such scheme, we design a Hybrid Beamforming at the base station and a nonlinear decoder at the receiver. Compared with the traditional G2+1+1, our transmission scheme combines diversity, multiplexing and array gains into one unique device. We show in our simulations that our scheme outperforms in terms of bit-error rate (BER) other solutions that only exploit massive MIMO multiplexing gain. Such results show that the proposed solution is very attractive to increase the system reliability and provides enhanced robustness in low and high SNR scenarios.
Perceived Barriers to Discussing End of Life Care Planning

Advance care planning (ACP) related to end of life (EOL) care is an often neglected area in primary care. Nurse care managers (NCM’s) are in a unique position to initiate earlier conversations about illness management and patient preferences regarding end of life so patients have the opportunity to make choices and have their wish known while they are still cognitively independent. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to identify barriers to discussions about end of life care with patients in clinical practice. Six NCM’s participated in two focus groups to identify perceived barriers for end of life care discussions and to identify potential solutions to those barriers. Barriers identified included: patient/family factors, organizational factors, and provider related factors. NCM solutions identified included patient related interventions such as normalizing and routinizing EOL/ACP discussion reviewing choices at all ages annually. Organizational solutions recommended include making EOL care discussions a quality measure and training all office staff to support culture change. Provider related recommendations included providers completing their own advance directive as a way to lead the way for patients. Implications for education, practice, policy, and research are identified.
Toward a Theory of Fertility and Ethnic Social Capital

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model of ethnic fertility differentials that incorporates the intersection of both the macro societal influences as well as the micro actor level influences. It first contextualizes ethnic fertility differentials within the global fertility decline literature. Then it reviews the extant theories of fertility decline. It then turns to an examination of fertility choices in the developed world. A summary of three major approaches to ethnic fertility differentials is examined and then incorporated into a more eclectic perspective provided by Goldscheider. Finally, this paper merges the Goldscheider perspective with the social capital perspective, as applied to fertility decisions, into a conceptual model of ethnic fertility differentials. Lastly, the new conceptual model is used to reflect upon the current state of global fertility decline.
Detecció d’incidències viàries mitjançant contribucions de la xarxa social Twitter

Els sistemes tradicionals de deteccio d'incidencies viaries requereixen d'una inversio de recursos en el desplegament de la infrastructura necessaria per a que els sensors informin de l'estat de les carreteres en punts especifics. En aquesta memoria es presenta un sistema innovador de monitoritzacio
Simulation of the assistance of an exoskeleton on lower limbs joints using Opensim

The huge amount of people who suffer from some form of disability implies that more research has to be done in order to develop efficient robotic technologies for them. Yet, research costs can not be neglected. In this matter, software simulators play a significant role as an alternative approach to minimize such expenses. This project aims to make use of OpenSim API and Simbody API, two C++ libraries in order to prove the feasibility of coupling and simulating an exoskeleton model with a musculoskeletal model. Due to the few information related about how to get it, this thesis embraces many others sub-goals strictly related to the achievement of the primary purpose. The first sub-objective has been to learn OpenSim and Simbody API. As solution proposed in this project has been to create a double pendulum model in OpenSim. The second one has been design a model of an exoskeleton. As a result, it has been implemented in OpenSim, and a controller has been designed to test it. The successful achievement of the previous sub-objectives have allowed to create the simulation of the exoskeleton coupled to the musculoskeletal model and simulate it in OpenSim. Last but not least, the documentation throughout the project in conjunction with the successful achievement of the proposed goals has made possible the creation of this thesis which indeed aims to keep working with the exoskeleton coupled to musculoskeletal model or even become a reference in future robotic orthosis projects build in OpenSim and Simbody APIs.
Human Resource Management Innovation of Enterprises in the Mobile Internet Era

With the development and progress of information technology, mobile Internet technology is gradually popularized and provides convenient services for enterprise management. It is necessary to adjust the management of enterprises in accordance with the background of the times and establish a new management system that is compatible with the background of the Internet. Only in this way can we promote the all-round development of enterprises and realize the strategic development goals of enterprises. As an important part of management, human resource management of enterprises shoulders the tasks of recruitment, training and management. These tasks should keep pace with the times and keep pace with the development of the times, so as to make enterprise management go to the forefront of social development. Faced with this development trend, a series of human resource management strategies are made in the mobile Internet era, to improve the human resources management department's Internet era, and build a new model of human resources to meet the basic requirements of the Internet era, providing reference for accelerating the reform of human resources.
Commodity Prices and Exchange Rate Volatility; Lessons from South Africa’s Capital Account Liberalization

We examine the relationship between South African Rand and gold price volatility using monthly data for the period 1980-2010. Our main findings is that prior to capital account liberalization the causality runs from South African Rand to gold price volatility but the causality runs the other way around for the post-liberalization period. These findings suggest that gold price volatility plays a key role in explaining both the excessive exchange rate volatility and current disproportionate share of speculative (short-run) inflows that South Africa has been coping with since the opening up of its capital account.
The Determinant of Online Shopping Intention in Jordan: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s) Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com) This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
Denoising, separation and localization of EEG sources in the context of epilepsy

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a routinely used technique for the diagnosis and management of epilepsy. In this context, the objective of this thesis consists in providing algorithms for the extraction, separation, and localization of epileptic sources from the EEG recordings. In the first part of the thesis, we consider two preprocessing steps applied to raw EEG data. The first step aims at removing muscle artifacts by means of Independent Component Analysis (ICA). In this context, we propose a new semi-algebraic deflation algorithm that extracts the epileptic sources more efficiently than conventional methods as we demonstrate on simulated and real EEG data. The second step consists in separating correlated sources that can be involved in the propagation of epileptic phenomena. To this end, we explore deterministic tensor decomposition methods exploiting space-time-frequency or space-time-wave-vector data. We compare the two preprocessing methods using computer simulations to determine in which cases ICA, tensor decomposition, or a combination of both should be used. The second part of the thesis is devoted to distributed source localization techniques. After providing a survey and a classification of current state-of-the-art methods, we present an algorithm for distributed source localization that builds on the results of the tensor-based preprocessing methods. The algorithm is evaluated on simulated and real EEG data. Furthermore, we propose several improvements of a source imaging method based on structured sparsity. Finally, a comprehensive performance study of various brain source imaging methods is conducted on physiologically plausible, simulated EEG data.
EarSketch: An Authentic, STEAM-Based Approach to Computing Education

Demand for computer scientists is robust, but the pipeline for producing them is not. US universities are only meeting about a third of demand for computer scientists, and recruiting a diverse student body is a struggle; the number of women in computer science has actually declined in the past decade. To help change the perception of the computing field, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology developed EarSketch. EarSketch is an authentic STEAM (STEM + Arts) environment for teaching and learning programming (i.e. where learners are engaged in authentic practices both in computing and in the aesthetics of music remixing) aimed at increasing and broadening participation in computing. In the EarSketch environment, students write code to manipulate, or remix, musical samples. It is an integrated programming environment, digital audio workstation, curriculum, and audio loop library. EarSketch has already been piloted in multiple classroom environments, including Computer Science Principles (CSP) classes in Atlanta-area high schools, in summer workshops, as part of a MOOC music technology course, in undergraduate computing courses for non-majors, and in a graduate digital media course at Georgia Tech. EarSketch is unique from other STEAM projects in computing education in that it is authentic both from an artistic perspective and from a computing perspective. That is, students create music in popular, personally relevant styles and genres, like dubstep and techno, and also learn to code in an industry-relevant language, like Python or JavaScript, in a free, browser-based environment. In addition, the barriers to entry are kept low; no previous knowledge of music performance or composition is required to engage successfully with EarSketch. In this paper, we present a description of the EarSketch environment and curriculum. We also present an overview of the classroom environments in which EarSketch has been implemented to date, including professional development feedback, student artifacts, student engagement data, and student achievement. The authors believe that EarSketch has the potential to serve as an introductory programming unit for a variety of courses in both pre-college and college settings. Based on initial data, EarSketch is an effective method for teaching programming of musical content and is effective in improving motivation to succeed on computing problems.
Distributed Gateways in Multi-Plane Ad hoc Networks

Abstract The concept of multi-plane ad hoc networks is introduced for two emerging applications, namely, multi-plane three-dimensional indoor topologies and virtual multi-plane routing in dense networks. The connectivity between different planes is established with the use of distributed gateways consisting of a prescribed number of interconnected nodes on each plane. Several typical node configurations are considered analytically as open Jackson’s networks. The load balancing in a distributed gateway consisting of a number of connected nodes in a prescribed topology is considered in terms of the flow equalization of both departing and internal rates for arbitrary arrival rates. Keywords: multi-plane ad hoc network, distributed gateway, open Jackson’s network, load balancing, packet routing. 1. Introduction The ad hoc networks are a subject of intensive theoretical studies and steady development due to their importance for the wireless community. MANET, the Mobile Ad-hoc Network [1] is based on all-port efficient routing among a big number of nodes. IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN/MAN [2] combine both centralized and decentralized options for wireless networks. Bluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless personal area networks (PANs) [3]. Circuit-switched ad hoc networks can be established in narrowband systems such as TETRA [4]. The continuous evolution of ideas and technologies in this field makes it possible to consider some novel approaches for specific applications such as rescue missions and disaster management communications. The routing performance of three-dimensional (3D) ad hoc networks is an example of an emerging field of research. The capacity of said 3D wireless networks has been studied in [5]. As a private case, the
Internal Control Quality and Relationship‐Specific Investments by Suppliers and Customers

This paper investigates the association between the quality of internal control over financial reporting (ICOFR) and relationship&#8208;specific investments by suppliers/customers. I find a significant negative association between the disclosure of a material weakness (MW) in ICOFR and changes in the relationship&#8208;specific investments of suppliers/customers. Relationship&#8208;specific investments of suppliers/customers have a stronger negative association with inventory&#8208;related MW. The negative association between MW disclosures and the relationship&#8208;specific investments of suppliers/customers is stronger when economic dependence between the firms and the suppliers/customers is more important and when the suppliers/customers have greater bargaining power. Also, suppliers/customers significantly increase their relationship&#8208;specific investments following the remediation of ineffective ICOFR. Overall, my findings show that a firm's quality of ICOFR affects the relationship&#8208;specific investment decisions of suppliers/customers.
All-in-One: Emotion, Sentiment and Intensity Prediction Using a Multi-Task Ensemble Framework

We propose a multi-task ensemble framework that jointly learns multiple related problems. The ensemble model aims to leverage the learned representations of three deep learning models (i.e., CNN, LSTM and GRU) and a hand-crafted feature representation for the predictions. Through multi-task framework, we address four problems of emotion and sentiment analysis, i.e., “emotion <italic>classification</italic> & <italic>intensity</italic>”, “<italic>valence</italic>, <italic>arousal</italic> & <italic>dominance</italic> for emotion”, “<italic>valence</italic> & <italic>arousal</italic> for sentiment”, and “<italic>3-class categorical</italic> & <italic>5-class ordinal classification</italic> for sentiment”. The underlying problems cover two granularity (i.e., <italic>coarse-grained</italic> and <italic>fine-grained</italic>) and a diverse range of domains (i.e., <italic>tweets</italic>, <italic>Facebook posts</italic>, <italic>news headlines</italic>, <italic>blogs</italic>, <italic>letters</italic> etc.). Experimental results suggest that the proposed multi-task framework outperforms the single-task frameworks in all experiments.
Map-Based Precision Vehicle Localization in Urban Environments

Many urban navigation applications (e.g., autonomous navigation, driver assistance systems) can benefit greatly from localization with centimeter accuracy. Yet such accuracy cannot be achieved reliably with GPS-based inertial guidance systems, specifically in urban settings. We propose a technique for high-accuracy localization of moving vehicles that utilizes maps of urban environments. Our approach integrates GPS, IMU, wheel odometry, and LIDAR data acquired by an instrumented vehicle, to generate high-resolution environment maps. Offline relaxation techniques similar to recent SLAM methods [2, 10, 13, 14, 21, 30] are employed to bring the map into alignment at intersections and other regions of self-overlap. By reducing the final map to the flat road surface, imprints of other vehicles are removed. The result is a 2-D surface image of ground reflectivity in the infrared spectrum with 5cm pixel resolution. To localize a moving vehicle relative to these maps, we present a particle filter method for correlating LIDAR measurements with this map. As we show by experimentation, the resulting relative accuracies exceed that of conventional GPS-IMU-odometry-based methods by more than an order of magnitude. Specifically, we show that our algorithm is effective in urban environments, achieving reliable real-time localization with accuracy in the 10- centimeter range. Experimental results are provided for localization in GPS-denied environments, during bad weather, and in dense traffic. The proposed approach has been used successfully for steering a car through narrow, dynamic urban roads.