Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Multi-Dimensional Query Scheme in Structured Overlays

Structured peer-to-peer (P2P) systems are creating a large proportion of network traffic in today’s Internet. Peer-to-peer systems enable access to data spread over an extremely large number of machines. A P2P system typically involves thousands or millions of live peers in the network. Multi-dimensional data indexing has received much attention in a centralized database. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a multi-dimensional searching scheme in structured P2P networks. We present the design and implementation of a peer-to-peer index service for high dimensional data that is capable of handling complex queries. We design a VibIndex scheme in structured P2P overlay networks. We analyze this scheme’s performance and present simulation results. Our simulation results demonstrated the benefits of the proposed system and show that the approach is able to search efficiently.
Model Catalysts: from Extended Single Crystals to Supported Particles

Model oxide-supported metal catalysts have been prepared by evaporating a metal (e.g., Cu, Pd) onto an oxide (SiO2, Al2O3) thin film (~100 A) which, in turn, is supported on a refractory metal (Mo, W, Ta) surface. The deposited metal films, upon annealing, form small metallic clusters on the oxide surface whose sizes are dependent upon the initial metal film thickness. The surface structures and particle morphologies have been characterized using scanning probe microscopies, temperature programed desorption, X-ray and ultraviolet photoemission, and high-resolution electron energy-loss spectroscopy/infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy of adsorbed carbon monoxide. The catalytic properties of these particles have also been investigated with respect to several reactions including CO/O2 and CO/NO. The chemical and electronic properties of the metal particles with respect to size are compared to the analogous properties of extended single-crystal surfaces.
System dynamics simulation of Hopfield neural networks

Abstract Hopfield networks are a class of neural network models where non-linear graded response neurons organized into networks with effectively symmetric synaptic connections are able to implement interesting algorithms, thereby introducing the concept of information storage in the stable states of dynamical systems. In addition to opening up the possibility of using system dynamics as a vehicle to gain potentially useful insights into the behaviour of such networks, especially in the field or nonelectrical engineering, we study the dynamics of the state-space trajectory as well as time domain evolution of sensitivities of the states with respect to circuit parameters.
Applications of text-image editing

The most common approach to processing text which originates as a scanned document image is format conversion, in which procedures such as page segmentation and character recognition are used to convert the scanned text into a structured symbolic description which can be manipulated by a conventional text editor. While this approach is attractive in many respects, there are situations in which complete recognition and format conversion is either unnecessary or very difficult to achieve with sufficient accuracy. This paper presents several applications illustrating an alternative approach to scanned text processing in which document processing operations are performed on image elements extracted from the scanned document image. The central and novel insight is that many document processing operations may be implemented directly by geometrical operations on image blobs, without explicit knowledge of the symbolic character labels (that is, without automatic character recognition). The applications are implemented as part of image EMACS, an editor for binary document images, and include editing multilingual documents, reformatting text to a new column width, differential comparison of two versions of a document, and preprocessing an image prior to character recognition.
Soil Water Repellency: Dynamics of Heterogeneous Surfaces

Abstract Processes controlling the dynamics of the soil–water interfacial properties have a high impact on habitat, filter, buffer, storage, and transformation functions of a soil. Besides surface roughness and chemical heterogeneity, also the dynamics of surfaces properties in soils limit the application of well established methods of wettability determination for solid materials. Numerous studies investigated the influence of changing environmental conditions, like water content, pH and drying and wetting temperature on the repellency of soils. The present paper presents an integral approach linking some of the individual results of several studies. Two hypothetical models are suggested in order to explain differences in the nature of repellency between two types of sites and between wettable and repellent samples within each type of site. The chemical nature dominating the soil water repellency at the one type of sites can be best explained by hydrolysis–condensation reactions. The physico-chemical nature dominating the repellency on the other type of site is probably controlled by micelles- or reverse-micelles-like arrangement of amphiphilic molecules during drying. Wetting properties of the surface layers of organic coating on the soil particles then depend on number and size of amphiphilic molecules, pH and ionic strength in the soil solution. It is concluded that local site properties, e.g., soil-type, climate, or land-use, determine which mechanism controls the dynamics of repellency. Future research has to verify the suggested mechanisms before critical environmental conditions can be identified in order to prevent the negative impacts of soil water repellency.
Advancing the Science of Training in Simulation-Based Training

Recent changes in battlefield dynamics are driving the need to train higher-order cognitive skills such as planning and decision making over the more common focus of declarative knowledge and procedural skills. These changes have therefore created a need for changes in military training processes. Some questions that arise from this need include how to ensure that such higher-order skills and knowledge are meaningfully retained in long-term memory, how to support military personnel in applying the proper knowledge and skills under stressful operational conditions, and what pedagogical strategies can be applied to best train these skills. To deal with these issues, the military has pursued a number of research and development projects investigating scenario-based training in simulators. The notion is that appropriately designed scenarios can help the learner connect task elements in such a way that knowledge is better integrated, better retained, and more easily applied even under demanding operational contexts. While scenario-based training (SBT) remains one of the more popular approaches for teaching complex skills, the instantiation of complementary learning strategies within this context has not been fully explored. Further, most simulators do not support the SBT instructional approach; instead human instructors must carry out the steps of SBT themselves. Additionally, developing SBT scenarios and other instructional content remains challenging and these processes, too, remain under-supported. Thus, extending SBT to include complementary learning strategies as well as automating certain components of SBT would significantly improve the effectiveness and ease the implementation of this method. As the military and industrial communities continue to design and develop scenario-based simulation systems, it seems prudent to investigate technologies and pedagogy that can improve their impact. In this symposium we describe a multidisciplinary effort, funded by the Office of Naval Research, designed to address the multi-faceted needs of improving scenario-based simulations to meet the needs of the modern warfighter. We take a two-pronged approach to this effort involving complementary technological and pedagogical research thrusts. Specifically, we first leverage findings from the cognitive and learning sciences regarding the learning process and development of expertise in order to implement them within the context of SBT. Second, we utilize developments in the computational and information sciences to examine how scenario generation and computational models can support the automation of SBT. Finally, we conclude by illustrating how these projects are closely coupled and monitored using methods developed for impact assessment. In this overview we briefly describe these approaches and highlight their contribution to the extant science of SBT and their relevance to military training.
A Unified Perspective on Traffic Flow Theory, Part II: The Unified Diagram

Over more than half a century, traffic flow theorists have been pursuing two goals: (1) simple and efficient models to abstract vehicular traffic flow and (2) a unified framework in which existing traffic flow models fit and relate to each other. Continuing these efforts, the author reports his humble understanding in a trio of papers. The first paper (Part I) introduced a Field Theory with an emphasis on traffic flow modeling at the microscopic level. This paper (Part II) uses the Field Theory as a framework to relate existing microscopic and macroscopic models to each other. As such, a unified perspective can be casted on traffic flow modeling with bridges not only within but also between microscopic and macroscopic levels. The third paper (Part III) provides numerical and empirical results of the Field Theory and benchmarks some traffic flow models presented in the Unified Diagram.
Integrating mobile technologies, social media and learning design

The articles in this special issue are selected papers presented at the first International Mobile Learning Festival from 2 to 4 June 2014, Bali, Indonesia. The conference organization was supported by the Consultants International for Human Capital Development, while academic support was provided by the Mobile Learning Research Theme, the Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong and the University of Udayana, Bali, Indonesia. This year conference was organized around the central theme “Technology Integration, Social Media, and Learning Design. ” A small but select group of scholars participated in the conference. The participants include individuals from some of the leading institutions in the World, such as the University of Hong Kong, the University of Melbourne, Communication University of China and the University of Boston. International Mobile Learning Festival aims to serve as a platform for education policy-makers, teachers, researchers, academics and experts from industry to participate discussion and exploration of mobile learning technologies and their impact on education practices. The conference took place at the time when mobile learning has been widely deemed as an imperative area to develop in education. Particularly, the conference addressed three significant topics in mobile learning. The first deals with the new educational possibilities enabled by instructional integration of mobile technology. The powerful technical features of mobile technologies, and available mobile applications powered with social media cloud computing enable new forms of learning platform that can serve contemporary pedagogies in a variety of educational contexts (Churchill & Churchill, 2008; Evans, 2008; Lai, Yang, Chen, Ho, & Chan, 2007). The second is the meaningful combination of social media and mobile technologies. The massive adoption of mobile technologies coupled with popular social networking media has brought about new learning phenomena among young people. The previous studies strongly suggest that the social networking media is capable of facilitating cognitive, social and emotional engagement in learning as information management tool, content creation and publishing tool, reflection tool, interactivity tool, self-regulated learning tool, collaborative tool, personality representation tool, networking tool and emotion expression tool (e.g. Churchill, Wong, Law, Salter, & Tai, 2009; Deng, 2010; Lu, 2012). However, little has been done to investigate educational potential of mobile and social networking technologies in combination. The third is learning design with mobile technologies. It is observed from the literature that mobile learning has been designed following three paradigms, namely “learning with mobile technologies” (e.g. Anderson & Blackwood, 2004; Churchill & Churchill, 2008; Song & Fox, 2008), “learners on move” (e.g. Gu, Gu, & Laffey, 2011; Seppälä & Alamäki, 2003; Wong, Chin, Tan, & Liu, 2010) and “dynamic, seamless and ubiquitous learning experience” (e.g. Kearney, 2014; Song, 2014; Ting, 2013; Wong & Looi, 2011). Regardless of paradigms,
Monte Carlo methods for dynamical systems

Monte Carlo methods are statistical methods that can be used to give approximate answers to questions such as finding the distribution or expectation of a stochastic variable through simulation. Two of the most widely used Monte Carlo methods are Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and particle filtering. In the thesis, a thorough review of the theoretical properties of these two Monte Carlo methods is given. After having established the theoretical foundation for the algorithms, the algorithms are used to do inference in a Stochastic Volatility (SV) model. For both the methods, the importance of choosing a good proposal distribution is emphasized, and it is shown that the choice of proposal density can have a marked effect on the performance of the algorithm. Several novel methods for choosing a good importance density are proposed and implemented. The standard SV model is extended in two ways. The first way it is extended is by letting the volatility process be modeled by an autoregressive process of arbitrary order p. The filtering and predictive properties of the MCMC method is investigated through simulation of this extended SV model. The second way the standard SV model is extended is by allowing the model parameters to vary over time. The particle filtering algorithm is tested on synthetic data generated from this model. However, for the particle filtering algorithm, the main focus will be on illustrating some of the problems related to the algorithm, along with their solution. Finally, the MCMC method is used to estimate parameters and volatility for two selected financial time series.
Recognition of Equations Using a Two-Dimensional Stochastic Context-Free Grammar

We propose using two-dimensional stochastic context-free grammars for image recognition, in a manner analogous to using hidden Markov models for speech recognition. The value of the approach is demonstrated in a system that recognizes printed, noisy equations. The system uses a two-dimensional probabilistic version of the Cocke-Younger-Kasami parsing algorithm to find the most likely parse of the observed image, and then traverses the corresponding parse tree in accordance with translation formats associated with each production rule, to produce eqn I troff commands for the imaged equation. In addition, it uses two-dimensional versions of the Inside/Outside and Baum re-estimation algorithms for learning the parameters of the grammar from a training set of examples. Parsing the image of a simple noisy equation currently takes about one second of cpu time on an Alliant FX/80.
Fixed-point arithmetic for mobile devices: a fingerprinting verification case study

Mobile devices use embedded processors with low computing capabilities to reduce power consumption. Since floating-point arithmetic units are power hungry, computationally intensive jobs must be accomplished with either digital signal processors or hardware co-processors. In this paper, we propose to perform fixed-point arithmetic on an integer hardware unit. We illustrate the advantages of our approach by implementing fingerprint verification on mobile devices.
A comparative transaction log analysis of browsing and search formulation in online catalogues

OLIVE, a transaction logging facility enhanced with online questionnaires, was used to collect data from users of public and academic library catalogues. The comparative analysis of subject searching behaviour focused on the role of browsing subject headings and brief references in search formulation. Opportunities for browsing are greatly constrained by indexing practices. It is suggested that a more integrated approach to pre‐coordinate and post‐coordinate searching would be more effective. The logging software has been developed for a number of commercial online catalogues including Geac, CLSI and LIBERTAS. The use of a diagnostic and monitoring tool in the evaluation of OPACs is advocated.
A systematic comparison of different European folk music traditions using self-organizing maps

Abstract The relations of six European musical cultures were investigated using self-organizing mapping of the melody contours. The high number of contour types characterizing more than 2 cultures simultaneously led to the supposition of a hypothetical common musical language, and the corresponding contour types were determined using a self-organizing map, being able to “understand” the six cultures in parallel. The analysis showed that significant parts of the common language are represented in the six national cultures, and it exists practically completely in Hungarian and Slovak folk music. The mapping of the melody sections and the contour types of the common language to a multidimensional “melody space” resulted in a clear musical description of the contacts, thus, the hypothesis of an archaic common musical tradition in Europe seems to be worth considering.
Speaking for the Trees: a New (Old) Approach to Languages and Syntax

Syntax Trees To build programs directly out of nodes, we need a common representation for nodes. It must be flexible enough to represent many kinds of programs and support the kind of editing operations we will want to provide. It should provide a natural way to represent the primitive values which appear in programs, and the common ways of aggregating values into larger structures. It should be able to represent arbitrary programs, and allow nodes to be freely composed without imposing any fixed constraints but always maintaining a clearly defined structure. 2.1 Nodes, Values, and References A program is a tree made up of nodes. Every node has a type, a unique label, and a value. A node’s type identifies it as one of a class of related nodes, all of which have some common meaning (for example, the type plus might represent addition expressions). A node’s label is an opaque identifier which gives it a distinct identity, and allows references to nodes to survive transformations of the program. A node’s value may be: empty, if the node type alone carries all the node’s meaning; an atomic value, which is a boolean, integer, or string (a sequence of characters which are treated as an indivisible value);1 a sequence of n child nodes (indexed by integers 0 to n−1) or an (unordered) map of distinct attribute names to child nodes. A reference is a special type of node which has the type ref, and has as its value the label of another node. 1 An alternative would be to treat single characters as a primitive value, and build strings out of sequences of character-valued nodes. For the current purpose, treating strings as atomic is more efficient and simpler to deal with during editing.
Interactive Web service composition based on Petri net

One of the most promising advantages of Web service technology is the possibility of creating value-added services by combining existing ones. For interactive services, sending and receiving an arbitrary number of messages may occur during a service process. It is important that the service composition is not only based on input/output interface, but also related to process behaviour. This paper deals with the problem of interactive Web service composition, ie, for a complex interactive composition schema, and how to discover and select concrete services to satisfy the requirements of users and service interaction. Firstly, a Web service is modelled as an open Petri net, with messages and inner process description, and the service interaction is achieved via asynchronous composition. Then, according to abstract composite service, concrete services are discovered by some rules. These rules include interface consistency, structural-characteristic preservation, which assures the correct interaction between s.
Controlling computer crime in Germany

Abstract The main means employed to fight growing computer misuse in Germany has been to invoke the use of criminal law. This article details the relevant provisions of substantive German criminal law and discusses the emerging problems in criminal procedure and in the practice of prosecuting computer crime. The term ‘computer crime’ and its meaning in criminal law and legal theory are also described in greater detail. The approach adopted by the German legislature to fight computer crime, which is characterized by using very complex and special statutes, enacted parallel to existing and less complex traditional statutes is criticized. This article argues that within the vast field of computer crime, two types of offences should be differentiated. The first group comprises offences which are accidentally committed by using a computer, while the second group consists of crimes that structurally did not exist before. It is argued that in respect of this second category of ‘real computer crime'—and in light .
Assessing the Intensity of a Major Forest Fire Using Resurs-01 Satellite Imagery

A complex method is described for estimating the intensity of effluent from a major forest fire on the basis of the geometric characteristics of the smoke plume and meteorological data. The method includes discrimination of the smoke plume from space images; estimation of plume geometric characteristics; computation of atmospheric transport of the smoke plume; determination of forest fire intensity from particulate discharge; estimation of the intensity of escape of forest fire gases. The method is tested using MSU-SK scanner data from the Resurs-01 satellite.
A measuring polygon with a complex of polarimetric combined active-passive sensors of S-, Ku-, and Ka-band of frequencies for soil and snow remote sensing and surveillance

An experimental polygon (control-test site) is represented, equipped by a complex of polarimetric, combined, short pulse scatterometer-radiometer systems of S-, Ku-, and Ka-band of frequencies, for bare soil, soil vegetation and land snow cover microwave reflective and emissive characteristics simultaneous and spatially coincident measurements. The polygon equipped as well by facilities for microwave devices absolute calibration, by spatially distributed stations for insitu measurements of soil moisture and temperature, and has a local meaning small weather station. This paper has an aim to attract attentions of researchers interested in such kind measurements and to invite them to perform their own or joint measurements using available facilities.
A New Construction Scheme for Information Security Lab

At present, it is urgent for us to build fully functional information security laboratory. In this paper, the function and requirements of a new information security lab are analyzed. And a construction scheme for information security laboratory is put forward. The lab not only provides services for teaching and training, but also provides security evaluation, authentication and extension services for local governments, institutions and enterprises. Our teaching and training practice shows that the scheme of such information security laboratory proposed in this paper is effective and reasonable.
Health and safety information on CD‐ROM

The Health and Safety Executive in Britain (HSE) has linked with other producers of health and safety databases to develop a CD‐ROM database, OSHROM. OSHROM is produced by SilverPlatter and the paper includes a sample search and retrieved reference. HSE's plans for further CD‐ROM products are outlined.