Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constructions et performances de codes LDPC quantiques

L'objet de cette these est l'etude des codes LDPC quantiques. Dans un premier temps, nous travaillons sur des constructions topologiques de codes LDPC quantiques. Nous proposons de construire une famille de codes couleur basee sur des pavages hyperboliques. Nous etudions ensuite les parametres d'une famille de codes basee sur des graphes de Cayley.Dans une seconde partie, nous examinons les performances de ces codes. Nous obtenons une borne superieure sur les performances des codes LDPC quantiques reguliers sur le canal a effacement quantique. Ceci prouve que ces codes n'atteignent pas la capacite du canal a effacement quantique. Dans le cas du canal de depolarisation, nous proposons un nouvel algorithme de decodage des codes couleur base sur trois decodages de codes de surface. Nos simulations numeriques montrent de bonnes performances dans le cas des codes couleur toriques.Pour finir, nous nous interessons au phenomene de percolation. La question centrale de la theorie de la percolation est la determination du seuil critique. Le calcul exacte de ce seuil est generalement difficile. Nous relions la probabilite de percolation dans certains pavages reguliers du plan hyperbolique a la probabilite d'erreur de decodage pour une famille de codes hyperboliques. Nous en deduisons une borne sur le seuil critique de ces pavages hyperboliques basee sur des resultats de theorie de l'information quantique. Il s'agit d'une application de la theorie de l'information quantique a un probleme purement combinatoire.
Ph.D. Candidate in Educational Leadership, Graduate School of Education, Assumption University, Thailand A DEVELOPMENT OF ICT COMPETENCY LEADERSHIP MODEL FOR TEACHERS IN SAINT GABRIEL’S FOUNDATION SCHOOLS OF THAILAND

This research aimed to (1) explore and (2) design the information and communication technology (ICT) competency leadership model for teachers as well as to (3) find out its efficiency and (4) propose it to maintain the high-academic profile of Saint Gabriel’s Foundation schools of Thailand. A mixture of qualitative and quantitative research designs using the five ICT indicators namely hardware, software, ICT communicative tools, teaching and learning and ethical standards were applied. The 4Is theory of transformational leadership factors in correlation with the eight types of ICT leadership approaches was used in the design of the ICT competency model. The school directors from its 13 Saint Gabriel’s Foundation schools were given an in-depth interview and questionnaires were administered to those teachers who use ICT and English as the medium of instructions. Most of the respondents were female, ranging from 40 years old and above; with more than 10 years of teaching experience. They were also educationally qualified having at least a minimum qualification of Bachelor’s degree. The number of teachers was evenly distributed among the five major subjects such as English, Science, Mathematics, Computer and Social Science. The results showed that 303 teachers have been using technological media as aid for teaching while computer/laptop and internet were technological devices most commonly used for teaching and learning as well as for research purposes. The use of ICT must be enhanced and supported to promote and develop their leadership skills thus acquire competency. ICT integration in the teaching and learning process provides meaningful experiences; make the work easier using the Microsoft office and communicate and receive data worldwide. Most of the respondents have been using web browsing for research purposes, online materials for class activities, emails for sending and receiving messages, and watching movies, listening to music and reading news as a recreational form of ICT communicative tools. The respondents exhibited skills of integrating ICT in the teaching and learning process. They have employed record lesson attendance and making presentation for lectures. They have used software to enhance classroom activities and make the lesson more interesting for learners. Two thirds of the respondents agreed that professionalism was an essential requirement for being a good teacher. However, responding to the demands of the modern generation of learners with sufficient knowledge in ICT skills and healthy classroom atmosphere were primary qualifications a teacher must possess to gain competency in leadership. It was to cultivate moral values, enhance ethical standards and employ safety policies on the use of ICT resources.
Effects on Growth Performance and Meat Quality Parameters by Restricted Diet during Finishing Days

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects on growth performance, meat quality parameters and fatty acids of meat by restricted diet amount on finishing Berkshires. A total of 180 pigs (Berkshire, initially 52 kg BW) at 100 days of age were allotted in arrangement in a completely randomized design (10 pigs per pen), blocked arrangement of treatments with 3 replications. The variables were market ages (180, 200 and 220 days) and in which was also included sex (gilts and barrow). All the pigs were restrictively fed so that day could be marked at 103 kg. Pork quality was evaluated from 4 pigs of each treatment. Average daily gain (ADG) and average daily feed intake (ADFI) were decreased (p<0.05) with age increase. The ratio of feed to gain was increased (p<0.05) at 200 and 220 days compared to that of 180 days. Moisture and crude protein of longissimus dorsi muscle (LM) at 180 days were increased (p<0.05) compared to 200 and 220 days. Crude fat was increased (p<0.05) by age and crude ash was lower (p<0.05) at 180 days than at 220 days. Red to green meat color scale (CIE a*) increased (p<0.05) at 200 and 220 days more than at 180 days. Regarding fatty acid composition in meat, saturated fatty acids (SFA) was increased more (p<0.05) at 220 days than at 180 and 200 days. The results indicate that even with a restricted diet of low nutrient supplement, there was an improvement in Berkshire meat quality parameters. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2005. Vol 18, No. 9 : 1294-1298)
Satellite Image Resolution Enhancement based on Dual-Domain Filtering

Satellite images place vital role in agriculture, Disaster mitigation and geosciences applications. Satellite images include both spatial and temporal resolution, in that spatial resolution is influence the accuracy of ground objects. The main idea of this work is to enhance the resolution of satellite images. In this work, a dual domain filtering based approach is introduced for resolution enhancement (RE). Initially, the source image is subdivided into approximation and detail coefficients by Stationary Wavelet transform (SWT). The detail coefficients are interpolated based on bi-linear interpolation. The interpolated detail coefficients are applied to Non-Local Means (NLM) filter to minimize the artifacts produced by SWT. The filtered detail and approximation coefficients of source image are fed to ISWT to attain high resolution (HR) image. The proposed system is superior to other existing strategies like DWT-NLM and DWT-SWT.
Water-quality Effects on Phytoplankton Species and Density and Trophic State Indices at Big Base and Little Base Lakes, Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, June through August, 2015

Big Base and Little Base Lakes are located on Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, and their close proximity to a dense residential population and an active military/aircraft installation make the lakes vulnerable to water-quality degradation. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted a study from June through August 2015 to investigate the effects of water quality on phytoplankton species and density and trophic state in Big Base and Little Base Lakes, with particular regard to nutrient concentrations. Nutrient concentrations, trophic-state indices, and the large part of the phytoplankton biovolume composed of cyanobacteria, indicate eutrophic conditions were prevalent for Big Base and Little Base Lakes, particularly in August 2015. Cyanobacteria densities and biovolumes measured in this study likely pose a low to moderate risk of adverse algal toxicity, and the high proportion of filamentous cyanobacteria in the lakes, in relation to other algal groups, is important from a fisheries standpoint because these algae are a poor food source for many aquatic taxa. In both lakes, total nitrogen to total phosphorus (N:P) ratios declined over the sampling period as total phosphorus concentrations increased relative to nitrogen concentrations. The N:P ratios in the August samples (20:1 and 15:1 in Big Base and Little Base Lakes, respectively) and other indications of eutrophic conditions are of concern and suggest that exposure of the two lakes to additional nutrients could cause unfavorable dissolved-oxygen conditions and increase the risk of cyanobacteria blooms and associated cyanotoxin issues.
Smart Items, Fog and Cloud Computing as Enablers of Servitization in Healthcare

In this article we argue that smart items and cloud computing can be powerful enablers of servitization as business trend. This is exemplified by an application scenario in healthcare that was developed in the context of the OpSIT-Project in Germany. We present a three-level architecture for a smart healthcare infrastructure. The approach is based on a service-oriented architecture and extends established architectural approaches developed previously at our group. More specifically, it integrates a role model, a layered cloud computing architecture, as well as a fog-computing-informed paradigm in order to provide a viable architecture for healthcare and elderly-care applications. The integration of established paradigms is beneficial with respect to providing adequate quality of service and governance (e.g., data privacy and compliance). It has been verified by expert interviews with healthcare specialists and IT professionals. To further demonstrate the validity of this architectural model, we provide an example use-case as a template for any kind of smart sensor-based healthcare infrastructure. Copyright © 2015 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
DEEP LEARNING FOR LOW TEXTURED IMAGE MATCHING

Low-textured objects pose challenges for an automatic 3D model reconstruction. Such objects are common in archeological applications of photogrammetry. Most of the common feature point descriptors fail to match local patches in featureless regions of an object. Hence, automatic documentation of the archeological process using Structure from Motion (SfM) methods is challenging. Nevertheless, such documentation is possible with the aid of a human operator. Deep learning-based descriptors have outperformed most of common feature point descriptors recently. This paper is focused on the development of a new Wide Image Zone Adaptive Robust feature Descriptor (WIZARD) based on the deep learning. We use a convolutional auto-encoder to compress discriminative features of a local path into a descriptor code. We build a codebook to perform point matching on multiple images. The matching is performed using the nearest neighbor search and a modified voting algorithm. We present a new “Multi-view Amphora” (Amphora) dataset for evaluation of point matching algorithms. The dataset includes images of an Ancient Greek vase found at Taman Peninsula in Southern Russia. The dataset provides color images, a ground truth 3D model, and a ground truth optical flow. We evaluated the WIZARD descriptor on the “Amphora” dataset to show that it outperforms the SIFT and SURF descriptors on the complex patch pairs.
The effects of selected proteinase inhibitors on the activity of subilases from psychrotrophic, mesophilic and thermophilic microorganisms

The interactions between proteases and protease inhibitors is an important part of maintaining balance in organisms, without inhibitors proteases would degrade various components and parts of the organism and cause damage and even death. These protease-protease inhibitor interactions are also good models for studying protein-protein interactions and therefore give clues to the characteristics of the chosen protein. In this study which is a part of a larger research project on temperature adaptation of subtilisin-like serine proteinases, or subtilases, three such homologous enzymes from the proteinase K family were studied with regard to inhibition effects by various inhibitors on their activities. The subtilases where a cold adapted protease from a psychrophilic bacterium of a Vibrio species (VPR), proteinase K from the mesophilic fungus Engyodontium album (PRK) and aqualysin I from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus (AQUI). A comparative research was carried out on these proteases with respect to inhibition by nine different inhibitors. Based on the observed inhibitory pattern on the enzymes three of these inhibitors were selected for further measurements. These inhibitors were turkey ovomucoid trypsin inhibitor (TOM) and the two synthetic inhibitors, chymostatin (CHYS) and phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride (PMSF). In order to determine difference in inhibition patterns, the kinetic rate constants were found from activity measurements of the enzymes in the absence and presence of the inhibitors. The hypothesis was that the cold adapted protease would be inhibited at the fastest rate as they have greater molecular flexibility and presumeably more accessibility of the active site residues. In fact the opposite was indeed observed as the observed inhibition rates were fastest in the case of the thermophilic AQUI. From the measurements done with PMSF against the subtilases it was determined that a possible governing factor causing the slower rate of inhibition of PRK and VPRΔC is the larger entropic contribution to the activation barrier for inhibition, most likely as the result of larger structural flexibility of these two subtilases in the uninhibited form compared to the thermophilic AQUI.
Variable Relationships Affecting Agriscience Teachers' Stages of Concern for Content Area Reading Strategies.

In spite of national initiatives such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, American students continue to be struggling readers. Research on content area reading strategies (CARS) has shown that such strategies increase students’ ability to read and comprehend text. The purpose of this research was to assess agricultural educators’ implementation of content area reading strategies in their classroom. A tailoreddesign, web-based questionnaire was distributed to 371 Florida agriscience educators to complete this descriptive, census survey. The results indicated the total number of hours of CARS professional development was not related to progression through the stages of concern. This study also underscored the lack of consistency in the professional development programs these teachers completed. In order to better understand the differences of the professional development programs, research should be conducted to determine the characteristics of various CARS professional development programs. Practitioners should provide a consistent, in depth professional development program to provide ongoing training and support throughout a several year process.
The Feasibility of Implementing the Balanced Scorecard (Case Study: Nationwide Provincial Telecom Companies)

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of using “balanced scorecard technique” in assessing the performance of provincial telecommunications companies throughout the country. Balanced Scorecard is one of the management accounting techniques that first presented in 1992 by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. This technique evaluates the organization from four perspectives including financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. the main aims of this research is to identify the role of balance scorecard (BSC) represent in better performance of organizations and to shed light on the impacts of balance scorecard on organizational performance. Furthermore, currently there is lack of published research on BSC within telecommunication companies, so it has motivated us to highlight gaps in this research and to outline some ideas for future research. In this study, four perspectives of the balanced scorecard as a main hypothesis and four secondary hypotheses were investigated. The results of this research suggested that the possibility of indexing in all four perspectives of the balanced scorecard for the provincial telecommunication companies were present. But so far, the pre-needs and aspirations for the implementation of this technique in these companies have not been provided. Also from respondents prospective, customer perspective was ranked the most important factor and prospective of internal processes, finance, growth and learning, were placed in next rankings respectively.
Procedure of Implementation the Applied Orientation of Future Teachers' Training Using ICT

This research is aimed at the formation of applied orientation of future teachersâ training using tools of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). To be successful in their career future teachers should have profound essential knowledge, put this knowledge to use, be well trained in general and major subjects and be able to improve their skills during their professional activity and to use up-to-date ICT tools. A methodological system was worked out during the research for this purpose. This methodological system has also undergone an experimental efficiency test. About 76 students from three different universities took part in the experiment. The results of the pedagogical experiment have verified our hypothesis that the offered procedure of educational process organization and implementation using ICT proves to be beneficial for improving quality of studentsâ applicative knowledge and skills and increasing their interest in studying general and major subjects.
Corrosion Inhibition of 5-Methyl-2H-imidazol-4-carboxaldehyde and 1H-Indole-3-carboxyaldehyde on Mild Steel in 1.0 M HCl: Gravimetric Method and DFT Study.

The study examined corrosion inhibition of corrosion inhibition of 5-methyl-2H-imidazol-4carboxaldehyde and 1H-Indole-3-carboxaldehyde on mild steel in acidic medium using weight loss and Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods. DFT calculations were carried out at B3LYP/631+G** level of theory in aqueous medium on the molecular structures to describe electronic parameters. The values of thermodynamic parameters such as free energy of adsorption (ΔGoads), adsorption equilibrium constant (Kads), adsorption entropy (ΔSoads), adsorption enthalpy (ΔHoads) and activation energy (Ea) were calculated, analyzed and discussed. The adsorption process on mild steel surface showed that 4-methylimidazol-5-carboxaldehyde and Indole-3-carboxaldehyde obeyed Freundlich and Temkin adsorption isotherms respectively. Also, the molecular parameters associated with inhibition efficiency such as EHOMO, ELUMO, band gap energy (ELUMOEHOMO), softness (S), electron affinity (EA) and number of electrons transfer were calculated. The higher inhibitory property of 5-methyl-2H-imidazol-4-carboxaldehyde was attributed to the presence of higher number of protonation sites as a result of higher number of nitrogen atoms, increase in number of plane protonated species and higher net charges on the ring atoms.
Integrating BIM with Green Building Certification System, Energy Analysis and Cost Estimating Tools to Conceptually Design Sustainable Buildings

Owners, architects and engineers are more concerned about the sustainability and energy performance of proposed buildings. Evaluating and analyzing the potential energy consumption of buildings at the conceptual design stage is very helpful for designers when selecting the design alternative that leads to a more energy efficient facility. Building Information Modeling (BIM) assists designers assess different design alternatives at the conceptual stage of a building life so that effective energy strategies are attained within the green building constraints. As well, at that stage, designers can select the right type of building materials that have great impact on the building’s life cycle energy consumption and operating costs. The aim of this paper is to propose an integrated method that links BIM, energy analysis and cost estimating tools with green building certification system. The successful development of the proposed method helps owners and designers evaluate different design alternatives taking into consideration the sustainability constraints in an efficient and timely manner. BIM’s tool is customized to allow its integration with the energy analysis application in order to identify the potential gain or loss of energy for the building, to detect and to evaluate its sustainability based on the US and/or Canadian Green Building Council (USGBC and/or CaGBC) rating systems and to approximately estimate the costs of construction early at the conceptual design stage. An actual building project will be used to illustrate the workability and capability of the proposed method. INRODUCTION Important decisions related to the design of sustainable buildings are made at the conceptual stage of their lives. This practice does not consider the integration between the design and energy analysis processes during early stages and leads to an inefficient way of backtracking to modify the design in order to achieve a set of performance criteria (Schueter and Thessling, 2008). Energy efficiency is an important feature in naming building materials as being environmentally friendly. The ultimate goal in using energy efficient materials is to reduce the amount of artificially generated power that must be brought to a building site (Jong-Jin Kim, 2010). Building Information Modeling tools help users do complete energy analysis and explore different energy saving alternatives during the design stage. This would help owners and designers make energy related decisions that have high impact on the proposed building life cycle cost. Kriegel and Nies (2008) indicate that BIM can aid in the aspects of sustainable design which include: building orientation, building
CompSci 705 Seminar Final Report - Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is a vigorously researched area due to its vast scale of applicability in different areas, enabled by continually improved computer hardware and technology. Augmented Reality was explored in many researches for different applications such as navigation systems, medical visualization systems, and computer games. Despite recent advances in computer hardware, Augmented Reality still remains a challenge with its performance due to the complexity of its algorithms involved, from disciplines such as Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, and Artificial Intelligence, which is a problem due to the limited resources available. Existing researches focused on improving the quality of virtual content registration geometrically and photometrically, while others focused on improving the performance for real-world applications such as mobile Augmented Reality. Interaction technique is also a highly popular area with many researches trying to investigate ways to interact and manipulate virtual contents to enhance the user experience and practicality of Augmented Reality applications. This paper analyzes the problems in Augmented Reality and discusses the current approaches and methodologies in overcoming these problems to bring Augmented Reality to practical use.