Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Structure of Ideophones in African and Asian Languages: The Case of Dagaare and Cantonese

>. Such information constitutes important information for modeling the grammar of the language in question and the architecture of grammar as a whole. This means therefore that developing clearly definable categories for all words of a language is an important endeavour in syntactic analysis. This is because words of a particular category or subcategory tend to have their own peculiar grammar. In Dagaare, for instance, there are separate rules and constraints governing nominal and verbal tonologies. However, it is often difficult to pin down the words of a language into neatly groomed word classes. And certainly not all word classes are existent in all languages, nor are their relative occurrences the same from language to language. The class of words called variously ,
High-performance process algebra: from stationary to fluid in fifteen years

Performance Evaluation Process Algebra (PEPA) [1] is fifteen years old this year. This talk will survey the work done on PEPA in this period to advance the analysis capabilities of the PEPA tools. During this period the PEPA tools have progressed from limited Markovian analysers such as the PEPA Workbench [2] computing only the stationary distribution through to sophisticated modelling environments such as the PEPA Eclipse Plug-in [3] and powerful analysis tools such as IPC [4, 5] computing transient and passage-time results. Two particularly important developments in the story of PEPA will be treated in greater depth. The first is the use of stochastic probes to query PEPA models [6] and evaluate passage-time distributions over PEPA models. Extensions of stochastic probes allow more complex queries to be posed by specifying locations in the model [7] or states of interest [8] in the passage. The second is the use of fluid-flow approximation [9] to circumvent the state-space explosion which cripples Markovian modelling. The use of fluidflow approximation allows large-scale PEPA models to be analysed at negligible computational cost, enabling the analysis of Internet-scale phenomena such as peer-to-peer computing [10] and Internet worms [11].
Data‐driven decision making for the enterprise: an overview of business intelligence applications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to inform the knowledge worker about Business Intelligence (BI) – its origins, value in decision‐making processes, and currently available BI applications.Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses the evolution of decision support systems (DSS) and their close relationship with the business intelligence arena. Open source and commercial BI products are also identified.Findings – The data that are accessed by BI applications must be accurate if managers of knowledge enterprises are to make informed decisions. Effective partnerships for business and information entities should be observed when BI tools are introduced to an enterprise. Buy‐in from top management is absolutely necessary for the successful implementation of BI tools.Originality/value – The use of BI applications aids a knowledge enterprise by promoting efficiency within an organization, particularly by using analytical methods to provide valuable decision‐making knowledge to minimize operating cos.
5. BEYOND SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY CRITIQUE: DEVELOPMENTS IN CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an explicitly normative analysis of how texts and discourses work in ideological interests with powerful political consequences. This chapter provides an historical overview of CDA, placing it in the long lineage of attempts to develop a normative political linguistics beginning with Voloshinov. Recent approaches and procedures are discussed. These attempt to bring together text analysis with contemporary social, political, and cultural theory. The case is made that new conditions of economic and cultural globalization have created theoretical and empirical challenges for CDA and, more generally, for a critical applied linguistics. It is argued that these will require that CDA augment its strong focus on ideology critique with the study of texts that model the productive uses of power and discourse in new conditions.
Minimization of VM Placement Change in Energy-Aware Resource Provisioning for Cloud Data Center

Numerous part of the energy-aware resource provision research for cloud data center just considers how to maximize the resource utilization, i.e. minimize the required servers, without considering the overhead of a virtual machine (abbreviated as a VM) placement change. In this work, we propose a new method to minimize the energy consumption and VM placement change at the same time, moreover we also design a network-flow-theory based approximate algorithm to solve it. The simulation results show that, compared to existing work, the proposed method can slightly decrease the energy consumption but greatly decrease the number of VM placement change
How to avoid and manage a pneumothorax

Pneumothorax is one of the most frequent complications during percutaneous central vascular cannulation. When choosing a site for central vascular access, the internal jugular vein is preferable to other vessels, for the lower frequency of related complications, including pneumothorax. This review intends to summarize the current state of the art on how to avoid and, if it occurs, to manage this rare but relevant complication. In order to prevent pneumothorax, as well as other relevant complications of central vein cannulation, it is advisable to use ultrasound guidance whenever possible. If pneumothorax occurs, it is important to recognize its signs and symptoms. To exclude the presence of asymptomatic pneumothorax, in the normal clinical routine a chest X-ray should be obtained within 4 hours from the procedure of central vein cannulation of subclavian and internal jugular veins. If promptly recognized, pneumothorax can be managed quickly and in a relatively easy way. Depending on its size and symptoms, and in particular when a tension pneumothorax is supected, treatment can vary from simple observation to a chest tube insertion or, in the latter case, to an emergency thoracentesis needle insertion in the pleural space.
Incorporating multimedia and hypertext documents in an undergraduate curriculum

The United States Military Academy presents an interesting and challenging environment for teaching undergraduate courses. While the students are highly motivated, they must balance many demands on their time. To provide students with greater control, flexibility, and utility as to when and how they learn course material, the Academy converted their course, information systems, from overhead transparencies and reading assignments to network-based multimedia presentations and hypertext documents. This paper looks at each of these components in detail.
Energy Efficient Mac Protocols For Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Use of Wireless sensor networks have been widely seen in the fields of target detection and tracking, environmental monitoring, industrial process monitoring, and tactical systems.In wireless sensor networks nodes work with a incomplete power source, energy efficient operations in an important factor of the nodes in wireless sensor network. Energy conservation plays important role in different layers of the TCP/IP protocol suit, and for MAC layer it is the effective part. Therefore, to work in wireless communicating sensors network, we use MAC protocol which improve energy efficiency by increasing sleep duration, decreasing idle listening and overhearing, and eliminating hidden terminal problem or collision of packets. In this paper First section we describe the accessible energy –efficient MAC protocols for sensor networks their energy saving method. In Second section we discuss the architecture of same protocols and then compare same protocols depending on their Advantages and Disadvantages.
Optimal Dispatching Methods for Unit Commitment Based on Hybrid Genetic-Simulated Annealing Algorithm

Genetic algorithms often cause premature convergence and can not give out global optimality in solving UC problems,while the simulated annealing algorithm shows better performance in accepting new solutions.By introducing annealing algorithm to the evaluation functions and the selection manipulation,the selection manipulation and the global convergency can be improved.Using decimal coding with no decoding,both the calculation error and time for calculation can be reduced.The example shows that this hybrid algorithm can improve the economic performance of UC scheme while various restrictions for security and reliability are still satisfied.
Vision-based approach for learning an elementary navigation behavior

Developing elementary behavior is the starting point for the realization of complex systems. We present a learning algorithm that realizes a simple goal-reaching behavior for an autonomous vehicle when no a-priori knowledge of the environment is provided. Information coming from a visual sensor is used to detect a general state of the system. To each state an optimal action is associated using a Q- learning algorithm. As sets of states and actions are limited, a few training trials are sufficient in simulation to learn the optimal policy. During test trials (both in simulated and real environment) fuzzy sets with membership functions are introduced to compute the state of the system and the proper action at the extent of tackling errors in state estimation due to noise in vision measures. Experimental results both in simulated and real environment are shown.
[Alcohol drinking patterns in Spain: a country in transition].

BACKGROUND Alcohol consumption in Mediterranean countries is in a transition period. The objective is to describe in the Spanish adult population the pattern of alcohol consumption by major sociodemographic variables. METHODS A cross-sectional study among 20,608 individuals aged ≥ 15 years who participated in the Spanish Health Interview Survey (ENS) 2011-2012. According to average intake, people were classified as heavy drinkers if they drank ≥ 40 g/day of alcohol (men) or ≥ 24 g/day (women). Binge drinking was defined as the consumption of ≥ 6 standard drinks (men) and ≥ 5 (women) at any drinking occasion (4-6 hours) in the last year. The beverage preference and the trend for 1987-2012 (ENS of these years) were estimated. The relationship of the distribution of drinking patterns with sociodemographic variables was analyzed using adjusted logistic regression models. RESULTS The prevalence of heavy drinkers was 1.3% (2% in men and 0.7% in women). In men, heavy drinking was more frequent among 45 to 64 year olds (odds ratio (OR)=2.92 compared to men of 15-29 years; CI 95%: 1.59-5.38) and those born in Spain (OR=3.45; CI 95%: 1.59-7.69). In women, the only differences observed were those regarding education level, with heavy drinking increasing as the level of education increases (p linear trend <0.001). The prevalence of binge drinking during the last year was 19.6% in men and 7.1% in women. In both genders, the risk of binge drinking decreased with age and increased with higher education level (p linear trend <0.001). The standardized prevalence of heavy drinkers has declined from 18.8% in 1987 to 1.3% in 2012. CONCLUSION Alcohol consumption in Spain is consistent with the model for countries in transition, where binge drinking is the most common pattern of excessive use of alcohol. A strong decline in heavy drinkers was observed and wine has been displaced by beer in beverage preference.
Narrowband interference detection and mitigation for indoor ultra-wideband communication systems

libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. The author further agrees that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised this thesis publication, or use of this thesis, or parts thereof, for financial gain without the author's written permission is strictly prohibited. Proper recognition shall be given to the author and the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in this thesis. ABSTRACT In February 2002, the FCC (2002 a, b) issued a ruling that ultra-wideband (UWB) could be used for data communications as well as for radar and safety applications. UWB system is constrained to have a maximum power transmission of-41 dBm and a bandwidth ranging from 3.1-10.6 GHz. UWB co-exists and does not interfere with the existing narrowband or wideband communication systems in the same spectrum. However, due to its low power in the same bandwidth, UWB is affected by the so-called narrowband (NB) interference. This thesis presents a method to estimate and detect narrowband signals in radio impulse receiver with the intention to eliminate the NB interference. Narrowband bandwidth is very small compared to the bandwidth of UWB therefore the interference can be considered as a single tone. To detect such a tone using conventional techniques is not feasible at least up to this time for UWB as current technology can not support such high data rates. Alternatives way to track down the narrowband signal include using a power spectral density estimation technique called spectrogram. For all cases, the spectrogram at specific frequency range where the narrowband active statistically be larger than its overall average power. Here, a threshold detector is built which reports detection at the frequency range where the narrowband is located if the spectrogram exceeds a threshold value. Upon completing of successful NB detection, the NB signal in the UWB system will be estimated in digital form and cancelled in analog form. The pipelined LMS algorithm is used to estimate the NB signal; the algorithm is implemented using a built-in IP core from the Altera DSP library which can be simulated in either Matlab platform or in FPGA boards. The design correctness has been validated by means of Monte-Carlo iii simulation and hardware implementation using standard UWB IEEE standard channel models, Time Hopping-Pulse Position Modulation and …
Posture and seating for wheelchair users: an introduction

Despite the fact that postural management in mobility seating is so important, many people seem to forget about it. To the uninitiated a wheelchair is merely a method of moving a person from point A to point B. The recognition of the functional independence benefits of good postural management for people in wheelchairs is becoming self-evident.
Nonlinear Product Codes and Their Low Complexity Iterative Decoding

This paper proposes encoding and decoding for nonlinear product codes and investigates the performance of nonlinear product codes. The proposed nonlinear product codes are constructed as N‐dimensional product codes where the constituent codes are nonlinear binary codes derived from the linear codes over higher order alphabets, for example, Preparata or Kerdock codes. The performance and the complexity of the proposed construction are evaluated using the well‐known nonlinear Nordstrom‐Robinson code, which is presented in the generalized array code format with a low complexity trellis. The proposed construction shows the additional coding gain, reduced error floor, and lower implementation complexity. The (64, 24, 12) nonlinear binary product code has an effective gain of about 2.5 dB and 1 dB gain at a BER of 10−6 when compared to the (64, 15, 16) linear product code and the (64, 24, 10) linear product code, respectively. The (256, 64, 36) nonlinear binary product code composed of two Nordstrom‐Robinson codes has an effective gain of about 0.7 dB at a BER of 10−5 when compared to the (256, 64, 25) linear product code composed of two (16, 8, 5) quasi‐cyclic codes.
Optimum channel selection strategies for mobility management in high traffic TDMA-based networks with distributed coverage

In a conventional organization of TDMA based cellular networks, the offered traffic is limited by both interference and radio resource management (RRM) issues. To overcome that limitation in very dense capacity areas (hot-spots), an original base station sub-system (BSS) organization with distributed coverage is proposed. In such a system, the base transceiver station (BTS) functionality is split between a central point, the BTS concentrator (BTSC) and several radiating elements (relays). For each communication, a set of relays connected to the same BTSC is assigned for both, synchronous broadcast of the same signal on the downlink, and demodulation of messages transmitted by the mobile station (MS) on the uplink. An optimization of the spectrum efficiency is achieved if one provides radio coverage only where needed, namely, in the vicinity of the MS. This however requires the addition of new RRM algorithm in the BSS as well as means to track the MS trajectory during its communication. This paper focuses on this last issue and several procedures performing best server-relay selection based on uplink signal measurements in an urban Manhattan-like environment are analyzed.
Human Fatalities from Cyanobacteria: Chemical and Biological Evidence for Cyanotoxins

An outbreak of acute liver failure occurred at a dialysis center in Caruaru, Brazil (8 degrees 17' S, 35 degrees 58' W), 134 km from Recife, the state capital of Pernambuco. At the clinic, 116 (89%) of 131 patients experienced visual disturbances, nausea, and vomiting after routine hemodialysis treatment on 13-20 February 1996. Subsequently, 100 patients developed acute liver failure, and of these 76 died. As of December 1996, 52 of the deaths could be attributed to a common syndrome now called Caruaru syndrome. Examination of phytoplankton from the dialysis clinic's water source, analyses of the clinic's water treatment system, plus serum and liver tissue of clinic patients led to the identification of two groups of cyanobacterial toxins, the hepatotoxic cyclic peptide microcystins and the hepatotoxic alkaloid cylindrospermopsin. Comparison of victims' symptoms and pathology using animal studies of these two cyanotoxins leads us to conclude that the major contributing factor to death of the dialyses patients was intravenous exposure to microcystins, specifically microcystin-YR, -LR, and -AR. From liver concentrations and exposure volumes, it was estimated that 19.5 microg/L microcystin was in the water used for dialysis treatments. This is 19.5 times the level set as a guideline for safe drinking water supplies by the World Health Organization.
Busca Contextualizada Enriquecida com Dados Aber- tos para Apoiar a Aprendizagem Colaborativa em Re- des Sociais Title: Contextual Search Enriched with Open Data for Supporting Collaborative Learning in Social Networks

With the development of information and communication technologies, in special the Web and collaborative systems, there is a broad access to query engines and social networks. This work considers the relevance in documents retrieval on the Web can be important to encourage col- laborative learning dynamics based on discussion. To improve and contextualize the documents retrieval on the Web, this paper proposes: (i) the context modeling from the extraction of mes- sages in social networking groups and (ii) use of the context to improve the relevance in the documents retrieval on the Web. A case study showed the enriched context capture using the discussion messages can improve the relevance of search results on the Web and contribute to the discussions.
A Q-Study of Game Player Aesthetics

This article investigates computer-game aesthetics using Q methodology. Four criteria (fantasy, curiosity, challenge, and interactivity) useful in evaluating computer games in past research are isolated. A naturalistic Q-sample of statements based on these criteria are then rank ordered by "frequent" and "accomplished" computer gameplayers. Factor analysis ofthe Q-sort indicates those aesthetics associated with "all games, " "video games, " and "home computer game&" Further results compare video-game aesthetics with home-computer-game aesthetics. Suggestions for further research discuss the advantages of basing game evaluation and criticism on subjective elements ofplay.
How to check understanding across languages. An introduction into the Pragmatic Index of Language Distance (PILaD) usable to measure mutual understanding in receptive multilingualism, illustrated by conversations in Russian, Ukrainian and Polish

Abstract The paper proposes, under the roof-concept of a method abbreviated PILaD, a combination of quantitative and qualitative procedures aiming to clarify the relationship of ``closely related languages'' (Voegelin and Harris 1951). The method is based on the functional-pragmatic theory of `Communicative Apparatus', a cross-linguistically operating interactive structure, which is modified by Lingua Receptiva communication. The data consist of 4 Russian-Ukrainian, 4 Polish-Ukrainian and 4 Polish-Russian conversations which were recorded with a digital camera and transcribed in a HIAT transcription format under the multiparty data program EXMARaLDA. Cases of `problematic understanding' defined in terms of problematic utterances are related to the total number of utterances in a discourse. The communicative success is compared across the three language constellations and refined down to every participant. Statistical analysis gives an overall picture of how receptive multilingualism works in the three language constellations. The findings reveal that receptive multilingual communication between Polish, Russian and Ukrainian interactants is generally successful, yet, not symmetric, but depends itself on the direction of intelligibility. A summary of the PILaD method and the data base are attached.
A parallel ultra-high resolution MPEG-2 video decoder for PC cluster based tiled display systems

This paper presents a hierarchical parallel MPEG-2 decoder for playing ultra-high-resolution videos on PC cluster based tiled display systems. To maximize parallelism while minimizing the communication requirements for a PC cluster, our algorithm uses a two-level splitter approach, where a root splitter splits an MPEG-2 video stream at the picture level and passes them to k second-level splitters, each of which splits the pictures into macroblocks and sends them to m × n decoders according to their screen locations. Our experiments with various configurations show that this system is highly scalable and has a low and balanced communication requirement among the PC nodes. On a 4 × 4 display wall system driven by 21 PCs, the implementation can play back a 3840 × 2800 video at 38.9 frames per second.
A Semantic Analysis Method for Concept Map-based Knowledge Modeling

Semantic analysis of a concept map plays an important role in translating human knowledge in the form of concept maps into rigorous and unambiguous representations for further processing by computers. However, recent research limits in the literal analysis of concept labels and concept relatedness that is derived from the structure of concept maps. In this study, we propose and evaluate a semantic analysis method which incorporates a formal representation of a concept map and WordNet-based algorithms to compute semantic similarity. As a fundamental element of knowledge modeling, the work presented in the study implies important contributions in business intelligence research and practice.
Characteristics of novel long-period fiber gratings written by focused high-frequency CO2 laser pulses

In this paper, we report novel long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs) fabricated by using an improved CO2 exposure method, which is based on the thermal shock effect of high-frequency CO2 laser pulses at several kHz. Compared with the method using low-frequency laser pulses at several Hz reported previously, this new technique is more effective due to the significant increase in the transient laser energy density focused on the fibre, which is likely to cause larger densification and residual stress relief and hence larger refractive index change in the fibre. The optical and mechanical characteristics of such a type of LPFGs have been studied by experiment.