Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A case study of using an online community of practice for teachers’ professional development at a secondary school in China

In this case study, an online community was designed at a secondary school in China for the teachers to prepare their lessons collectively, reflect on their teaching practices, collect comments from peers, and share resources. A survey was administered to the teachers to investigate their perceptions on the online community for their professional development. Two hundred and eighty-three teachers responded to the survey and eight teachers were further interviewed by email. The result showed that most teachers liked using the online community as they could gain subject knowledge and could obtain support from peers, share experiences and get feedback, and exchange resources. Also, online entries confirmed that transformational changes in teaching pedagogy and students’ learning activities occurred along the time. However, certain teachers did not participate in the online community frequently. This paper describes the context of the case study, design dimensions of the online community, teachers’ positive perceptions on using the online community, and transformational changes. Also, strategies for promoting effective use of the online community are discussed and follow-up studies to address the challenges involved in this study are proposed.
Bridging the Data Talent Gap: Positioning the iSchool as an Agent for Change

This paper examines the role, functions and value of the “iSchool” as an agent of change in the data informatics and data curation arena. A brief background to the iSchool movement is given followed by a brief review of the data decade, which highlights key data trends from the iSchool perspective: open data and open science, big data and disciplinary data diversity. The growing emphasis on the shortage of data talent is noted and a family of data science roles identified. The paper moves on to describe three primary functions of iSchools: education, research intelligence and professional practice, which form the foundations of a new Capability Ramp Model. The model is illustrated by mini-case studies from the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh: the immersive (laboratory-based) component of two new Research Data Management and Research Data Infrastructures graduate courses, a new practice partnership with the University Library System centred on RDM, and the mapping of disciplinary data practice using the Community Capability Model Profile Tool. The paper closes with a look to the future and, based on the assertion that data is mission-critical for iSchools, some steps are proposed for the next data decade: moving data education programs into the mainstream core curriculum, adopting a translational data science perspective and strengthening engagement with the Research Data Alliance.
Novel object detection method by probability velocity field

In the paper, an on-line detecting system for ships in lock is presented. The system has three functions: (1) judging whether there are ships in lock in time; (2) detecting whether ships cross the forbidden lines in lock; (3) observing whether there are ships out of lock. First, a Gaussian probability distribution model (probability field) is generated from the gray-level histogram to diminish the affection of shades of buildings and white speckles by bright light. Second a fundamental optical flow method based on spatio-temporal intensity derivatives is used to calculate normal velocity field of image sequences. Third, a probability velocity field is defined and generated by combining the velocity field with probability field. Two calculating methods about probability velocity field are presented, one method is multiplying probability value with magnitude of velocity field, and the other is using probability field to compute the velocity field. Finally, a movement block detection method is designed according to probability velocity field. And the method not only detects the size and position of movement blocks, but also obtains the direction of movement blocks. These methods have been tested and installed successfully in the temporary ship lock of the Three Gorges Project (TGP).
ISA - A New Parallel Architecture For Real-Time Robot Control And High-Speed Vision Systems

A new versatile programmable parallel VLSI architecture, called Instruction Systolic Arrays (ISA), is presented. The ISA retains all the advantages of conventional systolic arrays (such as regularity, modularity and parallelism at a fine level of granularity), but is also able to execute many different types of algorithms. The versatility of the ISA means that it can handle real-time variations in algorithmic calls and makes it suitable for use in adaptable real-time systems.
A 34-ns 1-Mbit CMOS SRAM using triple polysilicon

A 128-kb word/spl times/8-b CMOS SRAM with an access time of 3 ns and a standby current of 2 /spl mu/A is described. This RAM has been fabricated using triple-polysilicon and single-aluminum CMOS technology with 0.8-/spl mu/m minimum design features. A high-resistive third polysilicon load has been developed to realize a low standby current. In order to obtain a faster access time, a 16-block architecture and a data-output presetting technique combined with address transition detection (ATD) are used. This RAM has a flash-clear function in which logical zeros are written into all memory cells in less than 1 /spl mu/s.
Digital Circuit Design Using CMOS Transistor Model for Development in ASIC/SOC Technology

With the advent in VLSI technology and design, the challenge to design the complex ICs and maximizing productivity in the methodology has grown. In order to meet market expectation of cost, time, and quality, it is indispensable to reuse pre-defined blocks called intellectual property (IP) modules in application specific IC (ASIC) / system-on-chip (SOC) designs. At the same time, improving the quality and attributes of these basic blocks has also become essential. This paper aims at describing a basic complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) transistor model, and its implementation to design and analyze efficient basic digital circuits like logic gates and arithmetic circuits. These concepts have been experimented through some famous EDA tools like PSpice and Tanner tool. The result demonstrates the effectiveness of these circuits as compared to their conventional counterparts, in the development of ASIC/SOC technology and forces the justification to explore its future potentials and prospects.
Garbage collection and other optimizations

Existing techniques for garbage collection and machine code optimizations can interfere with each other. The inability to fully optimize code in a garbage-collected system is a hidden cost of garbage collection. One solution to this problem is proposed; an inexpensive protocol that permits most optimizations and garbage collection to coexist. A second approach to this problem and a separate problem in its own right is to reduce the need for garbage collection. This requires analysis of storage lifetime. Inferring storage lifetime is difficult in a language with nested and recursive data structures, but it is precisely these languages in which garbage collection is most useful. An improved analysis for "storage containment" is described. Containment information can be represented in a directed graph. The derivation of this graph falls into a monotone data-flow analysis framework; in addition, the derivation has the Church-Rosser property. The graphs produced in the analysis of a value-assignment language have the property that they can be replaced with a single graph without losing any information. These properties also assist in the generation of graphs for side-effect languages. A different approach to avoiding obtaining memory from the garbage collector is also proposed. Existing techniques are either not general or run the risk of consuming all of a bounded memory. A general, low overhead technique that does not consume excessive amounts of memory is described.
Optimal detection when combining OFDM-CDMA with convolutional and turbo channel coding

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-CDMA is an interesting multiple access technique for future mobile radio systems. Especially in the down-link OFDM-CDMA enables low complexity mobile receivers since OFDM can prevent intersymbol interference (ISI), and thus reduce the complexity of a RAKE receiver in a multipath channel. In this paper an OFDM-CDMA system combined with convolutional and turbo channel coding is investigated for the down-link. We derive the optimal soft value-the so called log-likelihood ratio-for the Viterbi decoding algorithm, applied in the OFDM-CDMA system. Based on this derivation we present the performance of an OFDM-CDMA system with channel coding. The investigations are carried out for conventional detection with minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalization and for joint detection with maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE). The various combinations between detection techniques and decoding schemes enable a comparison between achievable system performance and necessary system complexity.
Experimental Validation of Calcium Phosphate Precipitation Modeling in a Pellet Reactor

Calcium phosphate precipitation is studied in this article. The P-recovery process is carried out in a fluidized sand bed, the so-called pellet reactor which presents major advantages from the hydrodynamical viewpoint. The associated chemistry is yet relatively complex, due to pH gradient along the column and to the residence time of the various precipitates. The experimental observations showed three different phenomena: first, an agglomeration of fines around the sand grains is observed, second, a stagnation of fines in the bed occurs while a significant amount of fines also leaves the bed with the liquid effluent. The purpose of this work is to validate the thermodynamical model developed in our previous works on a semi-industrial sized pilot. Additional experimental runs carried out for various operating conditions showed the robustness of the model. These results open some interesting perspectives for the determination of optimized operating conditions at industrial scale.
A Method of 3D Face Recognition Based on Contour Maps

In this paper, we present a method of face recognition using 3D images. We first compensate for the poses of 3D original facial images using feature points and geometrical measurement. Then, the contour maps which are invariant under different illumination conditions are extracted for recognition. In the second step, a method is adopted for face recognition based on fuzzy clustering and parallel neural networks (NN's). Experimental results for 35 persons with different poses and illumination conditions demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithm
Urea Protonation: Raman and Theoretical Study

Urea is known to protonate in aqueous acid, and it will even form solid compounds with strong acids, e.g., OC(NH 2 ) 2 -HCl. Raman spectroscopic studies have been performed on aqueous solutions of urea and urea- 15 N 2 in hydrochloric acid. The changes in peak frequency that accompany urea protonation indicated that the point of proton attachment is carbonyl oxygen, which is consistent with previous NMR and neutron diffraction studies of uronium salts. The equilibrium constant for the protonation of aqueous urea has been measured by quantitative Raman intensity measurements of bands due to urea and protonated urea, K=1.93 L.mol -1
Real-time stereo vision for urban traffic scene understanding

This paper presents a precise correlation-based stereo vision approach that allows real-time interpretation of traffic scenes and autonomous Stop&Go on a standard PC. The high speed is achieved by means of a multiresolution analysis. It delivers the stereo disparities with sub-pixel accuracy and allows precise distance estimates. Traffic applications using this method are described.
Analysis of the heat flux method for measuring burning velocities

• A submitted manuscript is the author's version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.
Weather Prediction by Numerical Process

Foreword 1. Summary 2. Introductory example 3. The choice of cooordinate differences 4. The fundamental equations 5. Finding the vertical velocity 6. Special treatment for the stratosphere 7. The arrangement of points and instants 8. Review of operations in sequence 9. An example worked on computing forms 10. Smoothing the initial data 11. Some remaining problems 12. Units and notation Index of persons Index of subsidiary subjects.
Approximate Query Processing Concepts and Techniques

Approximate query processing (AQP) is the best approach for data analysis scenarios where a cost effective solution is required while accuracy is not an important factor. This paper is intended to present the state-of-the-art AQP concepts and techniques, discussing the strength and weak points of each technique, differences between them, and their best implementation. It also includes the most popular data reduction techniques that are used to construct data synopsis for AQP. The paper is organized to address AQP background in first section including historical background, important definitions and motivations. The second section the AQP architecture and process flow are discussed. The third section AQP techniques and data reduction techniques are presented with focus on sampling techniques. Finally, error estimation techniques are explained and how to use approximate answers effectively.
Using DNS amplification DDoS attack for hiding data

This paper concerns available steganographic techniques that can be used for sending hidden data through public network. Typically, in steganographic communication it is advised to use popular/often used method for sending hidden data and amount of that data need to be high as much as possible. We confirmed this by choosing a Domain Name System (DNS) as a vital protocol of each network and choosing Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that are most popular network attacks currently represented in the world. Apart from characterizing existing steganographic methods we provide new insights by presenting two new techniques. The first one is network steganography solution which exploits free/unused protocols fields and is known for IP, UDP or TCP protocols, but has never been applied to DNS (Domain Name Server) which are the fundamental part of network communications. The second explains the usage of DNS Amplification DDoS Attack to send seamlessly data through public network. The calculation that was performed to estimate the total amount of data that can be covertly transferred by using these technique, regardless of steganalysis, is included in this paper.
Modeling the Dynamics of Knowledge

We make the case for using logics as a representation formalism for reasoning about the world. While almost everything can be done with logic, the formalization is often awkward and cumbersome. We illustrate this with theWumpus world and Sudoku-puzzles. We introduce two sorts of calculi for propositional logics: a Hilbert type and a resolution calculus. We introduce first-order logic (FOL) and reconsider the Wumpus world. The dynamics of the changing world can be modeled with the terms: they enable us to explicitly denote the situation we are in and to reason about it: McCarthy's situation calculus.
Stereoselective Approaches for the Total Synthesis of Polyacetylenic (3R,8S)‐Falcarindiol.

Falcarindiol (1) is a polyacetylenic natural product isolated from various umbelliferae1 species. It has been isolated from Aegopodium podagraria L,2 and was later also isolated from methanol extracts of Peucedanum praeruptorum and Peucedanum japonicum, and showed antimutagenic activity3a and an inhibitory effect on mammalian topoisomerase I activity.3b Falcarindiol (1) has also been isolated from the tropical plant Dendropanax arboreus and found to show anticancer activity.4 This polyacetylenic compound is also found in carrot root.5 It was also isolated from Anethum graveolens and showed antibacterial activity.6 Novel antiproliferative falcarindiol furanocoumarin ethers have been extracted from the root of Angelica japonica.7 Falcarindiol (1) impairs the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase by abrogating the activation of IKK and JAK in rat primary astrocytes.8 Falcarindiol (1) was also shown to exhibit antifungal activity9 towards Mycocentrospora acerina. Antimicrobial tests showed growth inhibitory effects against Escherichia coli DC2. The absolute configuration of falcarindiol (1) was determined to be 3R,8S.10 Cai and co-workers11 reported the first stereoselective synthesis of falcarindiol (1) from L-tartaric acid and D-xylose. In continuation of our studies on polyacetylenes,12 we herein report two different strategies for the stereoselective synthesis of the polyacetylenic falcarindiol (1) (Scheme 1). In route a, the synthesis of falcarindiol (1) was achieved by coupling of enyne fragment 3 with the acetylenic alcohol 4 by a Cadiot–Chodkiewicz reaction, followed by conversion into the allylic alcohol. In route b, enyne fragment 3 gave falcarindiol after a simple reaction sequence via 6.
Space-time coded decorrelating RAKE receiver for fast fading CDMA channels

This paper presents a decorrelating RAKE (DRAKE) receiver utilizing multiple transmit antennas and space-time block coding (STBC), for code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems in fast fading channels. A linear blind multiuser receiver for slowly fading CDMA channels, which is known as the decorrelating RAKE receiver, was proposed by Liu and Li (IEEE Trans. Commun., vol.47, p.1036-1045, 1999) previously. This DRAKE receiver was subsequently extended to a fast fading channel environment, where a Kalman filter was employed to estimate the channel impulse response adaptively. Motivated by the success of the space-time coding technique in high-speed data transmission, we propose in this paper a new space-time coded DRAKE receiver for fast fading channels in order to increase the system capacity. The proposed receiver exploits the spatial diversity by adopting multiple transmit antennas and STBC techniques. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed receiver is also close to the MMSE receiver with known channel state information (CSI).
Researching Language Learning Processes in Open CALL Settings for Advanced Learners

This article reports on a project (electronic role-play) run at Nottingham Trent University. It investigates how knowledge can be constructed collaboratively in an open setting based on computer-mediated communication (CMC) and the internet as primary source for material. The analysis will concentrate on evidence of (1) focus on language form and (2) acquisition of content. Furthermore, it reports about observations made regarding the way in which students utilize the electronic environment during the learning process, namely (3) the flow of information within an open CALL framework and (4) the non-linear composition of text.
3.2.1 Proposal of method to estimate of the probability to fulfillment product's functional requirements

This work proposes a method to estimate the probability of meeting functional requirements of complex products. The method uses concepts and techniques from Systems Engineering and from Reliability. Functional interactions represented in the Functional Flow Block Diagrams (FFBD) are translated into a correspondent configuration of the reliability block diagram (RBD), according to the method's conventions. After that, a reliability value is attributed to each component block, and using reliability evaluation methods the probability of meeting a particular functional requirement is estimated. An application example is presented by missile's subsystem.
Learner-Control Effects: A Review of Reviews and a Meta-Analysis

This article concerns the effects of learner control in computer-assisted instruction (CAI). After reviewing previous reviews of research on the topic, twenty-four studies of learner control were subjected to meta-analysis. The results of both the review and meta-analysis are equivocal. Several reviews indicate that learner control works less well with younger, less able students. Other reviews indicate that, given optimal conditions, learner control can work with any students. The meta-analysis, however, yielded an average effect size that was small and negative suggesting that the average student would be slightly better off without it. Although learner control has theoretical appeal, its effects on learning seem neither powerful nor consistent.
Towards a Balanced Specification Language for Distributed Object Computing Patterns

Abstract Despite the benefits offered by distributed object computing, there are a lot of key challenges that need to be addressed when developing distributed applications. Design patterns help alleviate those challenges by shifting the developer's focus towards high-level design concerns rather than platform-specific details. However, the inherent ambiguity of existing textual and graphical descriptions of design patterns does not help users understand and apply them easily. Formal specification of design patterns is not meant to replace existing means of pattern descriptions, but to complement them in order to achieve accuracy and allow rigorous reasoning about them. The main problem of existing formal specification languages for design patterns is lack of completeness. This is mainly because they tend to focus on specifying either the structural or behavioural aspect of design patterns, but not both of them. We propose a simple yet balanced pattern specification language (BPSL) that is intended to achieve equilibrium by specifying both aspects of design patterns. The language combines two subset of logic, one from first-order logic and one from temporal logic of actions.
Assessing library contributions to university outcomes: the need for individual student level data

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest move beyond examining the impact of the library from the library's perspective but rather to collaborate with university‐wide assessment efforts to determine the impact of the library from the student's perspective, the instructor's perspective, or the researcher's perspective.Design/methodology/approach – A limited number of studies have been conducted in an attempt to determine the impact of the use of the library's physical or electronic resources, reference services, and the library as place. Considerably more studies have been prepared that have examined library instruction programs and information literacy programs although the results paint a very mixed picture. A majority of the evaluation efforts for information literacy programs have used opinion surveys, skills testing, and observed actual behavior using rubrics and other methods. A consistent criticism of such studies has been the small sample size and the lack of replication of such studies. C.