Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NewsView: A Recommender System for Usenet based on FAST Data Search

This thesis combines aspects from two approaches to information access, information filtering and information retrieval, in an effort to improve the signal to noise ratio in interfaces to conversational data. These two ideas are blended into one system by augmenting a search engine indexing Usenet messages with concepts and ideas from recommender systems theory. My aim is to achieve a situation where the overall result relevance is improved by exploiting the qualities of both approaches. Important issues in this context are obtaining ratings, evaluating relevance rankings and the application of useful user profiles. An architecture called NewsView has been designed as part of the work on this thesis. NewsView describes a framework for interfaces to Usenet with information retrieval and information filtering concepts built into it, as well as extensive navigational possibilities within the data. My aim with this framework is to provide a testbed for user interface, information filtering and information retrieval issues, and, most importantly, combinations of the three.
Evaluating automatically annotated treebanks for linguistic research

This study discusses evaluation methods for linguists to use when employing an automatically annotated treebank as a source of linguistic evidence. While treebanks are usually evaluated with a general measure over all the data, linguistic studies often focus on a particular construction or a group of structures. To judge the quality of linguistic evidence in this case, it would be beneficial to estimate annotation quality over all instances of a particular construction. I discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of four approaches to this type of evaluation: manual evaluation of the results, manual evaluation of the text, falling back to simpler annotation and searching for particular instances of the construction. Furthermore, I illustrate the approaches using an example from Dutch linguistics, two-verb cluster constructions, and estimate precision and recall for this construction on a large automatically annotated treebank of Dutch. From this, I conclude that a combination of approaches on samples from the treebank can be used to estimate the accuracy of the annotation for the construction of interest. This allows researchers to make more definite linguistic claims on the basis of data from automatically annotated treebanks.
A Wireless LAN-Based Solution for Issues Related to Positioning Information is Increasingly Desirable

Technologies for identifying the locations of persons and objects are advancing rapidly, and various means are used for the identification of locations such as GPS, base station-based positioning information, RFID and wireless LAN. The Wireless Positioning System of NEC Networks & System Integration Corp. enables the solution of customer problems using two methods. These are the method for positioning the target according to the difference in the times of receptions of radio waves and the method of detecting if the target is inside the target area according to the strength of the received radio wave. This article introduces the Wireless Positioning System of NEC Networks & System Integration Corp. by focusing on its mechanism and by considering cases of system introductions.
Clasificación de objetos usando percepción bimodal de palpación única en acciones de agarre robótico

Este trabajo presenta un método para clasificar objetos agarrados con una mano robótica multidedo combinando en un descriptor híbrido datos propioceptivos y táctiles. Los datos propioceptivos se obtienen a partir de las posiciones articulares de la mano y los táctiles se extraen del contacto registrado por células de presión instaladas en las falanges. La aproximación propuesta permite identificar el objeto aprendiendo de forma implícita su geometría y rigidez usando los datos que facilitan los sensores. En este trabajo demostramos que el uso de datos bimodales con técnicas de aprendizaje supervisado mejora la tasa de reconocimiento. En la experimentación, se han llevado a cabo más de 3000 agarres de hasta 7 objetos domésticos distintos, obteniendo clasificaciones correctas del 95%con métrica F1, realizando una única palpación del objeto. Además, la generalización del método se ha verificado entrenando nuestro sistema con unos objetos y posteriormente, clasificando otros nuevos similares.
Repeat radar jammer suppression for a colocated MIMO radar

The digital radio frequency memory repeat jammer, which replicates transmit signals and transmits them back to a radar receiver to mimic real targets, is a notably efficient electronic countermeasure device. It has been pointed out that the colocated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar has an additional advantage in combatting with repeat jammers whose amplifiers operate in the saturation mode and thus can only transmit constant-modulus waveforms, because the amplitude modulation of angular waveforms is difficult to simulate for them. Two waveform design criteria are presented, and both suppress a mutual correlation between angular waveforms and corresponding constant-modulus jamming signals. The two approaches differ on whether the receive beamforming operation is considered. Numerical results validate that the two approaches can both efficiently suppress the mutual correlation and that the second approach outperforms the first approach in terms of the peak sidelobe level.
Computational thinking skills and adaptation quality of virtual learning environments for learning informatics

The paper aims to analyse and propose scientific methods suitable for evaluating the adaptation quality of VirtualLearning Environments (VLEs) matching Informatics learners’ needs. The authors’ approach consists of the consecutiveapplication of the principles of multiple criteria decision analysis for identifying the VLEs adaptation quality criteria, setsportrait method to analyse the interconnections of the VLE adaptation quality criteria and the learners’ computationalthinking skills, fuzzy group decision making theory to obtain final evaluation measures of the VLEs quality criteria, andscalarization method to obtain the final results of evaluating the VLEs quality. While applying these methods, appropriatedecision support system was developed. This system consists of the learners’ computational thinking skills’ questionnaires,observations results and conclusions, VLEs adaptation quality criteria, their ratings (values) and weights, and finalevaluation results that propose a proper decision. This approach should help Universities and schools to create, buy, orfind free VLE software mostly suitable for teaching and learning Informatics. Computational thinking term is detailed inthe paper, and interconnected with the VLEs adaptation quality criteria using sets portrait method. After that, multiplecriteria decision analysis approach is used to evaluate the adaptation quality of VLE in terms of its conformance with thelearners’ computational thinking styles. The experts’ additive utility function is proposed to use for the expert evaluation ofthe adaptation quality of VLEs. Trapezoidal fuzzy numbers method is proposed to use for establishing both weights andratings (values) of the VLEs quality criteria matching learners’ computational thinking styles. Practical example of theexperimental evaluation of three popular open source VLEs is also presented in the paper. Presented research results areparticularly useful for Informatics/software engineering education.
A Tactile-Based Wire Manipulation System for Manufacturing Applications

This paper presents experimental results developed within the WIRES experiment, whose main objective is the robotized cabling of switchgears. This task is currently executed by human operators; the WIRES Project tackles the development of a suitably designed sensorized end effector for the wire precise manipulation. In particular, the developed gripper with tactile sensors are shown and a procedure for the implementation of the insertion task is presented and discussed. Experimental results are reported both for quality of wire shape reconstruction and success rate of insertion task implementation.
The learning and planning of actions

Models of action control have focused on the process of executing pre-specified action sequences, and largely neglected the process of learning and planning in the selection of appropriate actions. This thesis develops a theory of action control in which both planning and execution of actions are the developmental product of learning. The first section presents a framework for learning by interacting with the environment and illustrates planning of actions may proceed from a partially specified environmental state given as the goal. By interacting with the environment the mappings between its actions and their effect on the environment are first established. When planning actions, these mappings are used iteratively to find an action plan. An analysis is presented showing the assumptions under which the system can find an appropriate action plan. This framework is implemented as a parallel distributed processing network and demonstrated in an application to a ship navigation task used by Anzai (1984). The second section focuses on execution of actions and presents a model of skill learning in which performance becomes faster as representations develop for increasingly complex sequences in a hierarchical sequential network. The model exhibits a number of characteristics similar to those observed empirically, including the power law, digraph frequency effect, and frequency effects in action errors.
An External Capacitor-Less Low-Dropout Voltage Regulator Using a Transconductance Amplifier

This brief presents an external capacitor-less nMOS low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator integrated with a standard CSMC 0.6-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\mu }\text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> BiCMOS technology. Over a −55 °C to +125 °C temperature range, the fabricated LDO provides a stable and considerable amount of 3 A output current over wide ranges of output capacitance <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$C_{\mathrm {OUT}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> (from zero to hundreds of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\mu }\text{F}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) and effective-series-resistance (ESR) (from tens of milliohms to several ohms). A LDO voltage of 200 mV has been realized by accurate modeling. Operating with an input voltage ranging from 2.2 to 5.5 V provides a scalable output voltage from 0.8 to 3.6 V. When the load current jumps from 100 mA to 3 A within 3 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\mu }\text{s}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, the output voltage overshoot remains as low as 50 mV without output capacitance, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$C_{\mathrm {OUT}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The system bandwidth is about 2 MHz, and hardly changes with load altering to ensure system stability. To improve the load transient response and driving capacity of the nMOS power transistor, a buffer with high input impedance and low output impedance is applied between the transconductance amplifier and the nMOS power transistor. The total area of fabricated LDO voltage regulator chip including pads is 2.1 mm <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> 2.2 mm.
Dual-Channel Speech Enhancement Based on Extended Kalman Filter Relative Transfer Function Estimation

This paper deals with speech enhancement in dual-microphone smartphones using beamforming along with postfiltering techniques. The performance of these algorithms relies on a good estimation of the acoustic channel and speech and noise statistics. In this work we present a speech enhancement system that combines the estimation of the relative transfer function (RTF) between microphones using an extended Kalman filter framework with a novel speech presence probability estimator intended to track the noise statistics’ variability. The available dual-channel information is exploited to obtain more reliable estimates of clean speech statistics. Noise reduction is further improved by means of postfiltering techniques that take advantage of the speech presence estimation. Our proposal is evaluated in different reverberant and noisy environments when the smartphone is used in both close-talk and far-talk positions. The experimental results show that our system achieves improvements in terms of noise reduction, low speech distortion and better speech intelligibility compared to other state-of-the-art approaches.
Solid-State Transformers for Distribution Systems–Part I: Technology and Construction

Solid-state transformers (SSTs) are an emerging technology that has been developed to improve the stability, reliability, and economic operation of distribution systems. These new transformers are composed of a medium ac voltage (MV) stage, a dc stage, and a low ac voltage (LV) stage. Passive and active dc links are used to construct the dc stage in SSTs in order to offer new functionalities, including hybrid (ac and dc) distribution, reactive power compensation, voltage/frequency regulation, power quality improvement, and distributed generation utilization. On one hand, a distribution SST has its ac stage connected to an MV level, which mandates specific power electronic converter (PEC) topologies, switching element capabilities, and filtering circuits. On the other hand, the dc-link stage has to provide isolation between the MV and LV levels, which requires the employment of isolated dc PECs. Part I of this work provides a review of SST designs and constructions (for deployment in distribution systems), in terms of the required technology, supported functionalities, and construction features.
Correction of Phasor Measurements Independent of Transmission Line Parameters

Phase angle measurements from phasor measurement unit (PMU) data are sensitive to several issues, such as timing error, global positioning system (GPS) signal spoofing attack, transducer sensitivities and latency, and phasor computation algorithms. In some applications, highly accurate phase angle values are essential. In this paper, two methods are developed for correcting the phase angle difference (PAD) between the PMUs at both ends of a line. The method is based on the assumption that the line parameters are unchanged during the measurement period. The proposed scheme does not require knowing the parameters of the transmission line connecting the two PMUs, and uses multi-point measurements to estimate possible PAD bias. An additional benefit of the methods is that the parameters of the transmission line can also be calculated.
Developing a community of practice on education for sustainable development: first steps towards the design of a storyboard

This study is part of a research project that aims to develop an online Community of Practice (CoP) to promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the Portuguese context. Its potential members (teachers, pupils, parents, researchers and others) will collaborate in order to develop educational resources, to develop and share innovative teaching and learning strategies underlying an ESD approach, and help national school projects to implement an ESD approach. The aim of this paper is to present the first phase of the project: to collect the perceptions of a multidisciplinary team of researchers, who have different competences, about the principles that help to develop and sustain a CoP in the scope of ESD. Through a design-based research approach, the main technical and educational guidelines that emerged from a focus group survey will be presented. Some of the main key ideas discussed were (i) the need to be supported with the provision of teacher training and consultancy services, (ii) the identification of teachers that are already leaders in their own schools, and that could assume the leadership of this CoP, and (iii) the importance of opening the community up to other type of users, with different possibilities of access and interaction.
A monopole antenna with butterfly‐like coupling slot for multiple input multiple output applications

The work presented in this article is focused on the design of an omni‐directional and dual‐frequency antenna for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) applications. The proposed antenna consists of a monopole with a pair of L‐shaped strips and a butterfly‐like coupling slot, excited by a coplanar waveguide and a proximity coupling, respectively. Using two completely different elements and exciting multimode orthogonal characteristics current, high isolation for two ports is achieved. To improve the stability of input impedance, a gradient arc structure between the microstrip line and monopole element is adopted. The designed MIMO antenna provides port isolation of better than −20 dB and envelope correlation of lower than 0.02, at two resonant frequencies covering WLAN/WiMAX bands.
Elimination of current oscillation in isolated three‐port power converters using active damping method

Double switching frequency components of the input current in the isolated three-port converter (TPC) can be effectively mitigated using an LC circuit at the input side of the converter. Although the LC circuit prevents the high-frequency current flow into the system, there is a resonant peak in the port current control model that can degrade the control performance and even give rise to instability issues. In this article, an active damping method (ADM) is proposed to enhance the damping ratio of the current control system and decrease the resonance amplitude of the LC circuit. The proposed ADM is fully implemented within the converter control system without any additional circuits or components and as such is seen as a cost-effective and efficient method. Simulation and experiment results show the effectiveness of the proposed method on the input current oscillation elimination in an isolated TPC.
Performance Analysis of a Multilingual Directory Enquiries Application

This research was co-sponsored by the Department of Arts and Culture of the Republic of South Africa, Molo Innovations, IntSyst Labs and the Technology Innovation Agency. We would also like to thank the rest of the SADE application team (Derik Thirion, Anina Lambrechts, Aditi Sharma and Willem Basson) for their various contributions to the development and evaluation of this system.
An integrated approach for optimizing left-turn forbiddance decisions at multiple intersections

Left-turn forbiddance (with right-hand traffic) is a common operation strategy at intersections to improve efficiency. However, existing studies on left-turn forbiddance are often based on local conditions at a single intersection. This study is a first attempt to examine the optimal locations of left-turn forbiddance for multiple intersections along urban arterial roads, and to incorporate traffic redistribution along the arterial road due to left-turn forbiddance. We optimize the selection of locations to prohibit left-turn along arterial roads, the cycle length, and the green ratio to improve the effective capacity of the arterial road while the detour distance due to left-turn traffic redistribution is incorporated. We propose two mixed integer nonlinear programing models with different approaches to determine the green ratio. These are then tested with Weier Road in Jinan, China. We also compare system performances under the proposed models, current signal settings in place, and the Synchro-based model.
Reliability of MANET through the Performance Evaluation of AODV, DSDV, DSR

A mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) is a self-configuring infrastructure less network of mobile devices connected by wireless, it also represent complex distributed systems that comprise wireless mobile nodes that can freely and dynamically self organize into arbitrary and temporary ad hoc network topologies. Manets are infrastructure less and can be set up anytime, anywhere. for the reliability of manet we have analysed the performance of different routing protocols.The performance measurements are based on the various parameters such as throughput ,goodput and routing load. Keywords— Mobile Ad hoc Network, Simulation, AODV, DSR, DSDV, throughput, goodput, routing loads.
Extending Minkowski norm illuminant estimation

The ability to obtain colour images invariant to changes of illumination is called colour constancy. An algorithm for colour constancy takes sensor responses - digital images - as input, estimates the ambient light and returns a corrected image in which the illuminant influence over the colours has been removed. In this thesis we investigate the step of illuminant estimation for colour constancy and aim to extend the state of the art in this field. We first revisit the Minkowski Family Norm framework for illuminant estimation. Because, of all the simple statistical approaches, it is the most general formulation and, crucially, delivers the best results. This thesis makes four technical contributions. First, we reformulate the Minkowski approach to provide better estimation when a constraint on illumination is employed. Second, we show how the method can (by orders of magnitude) be implemented to run much faster than previous algorithms. Third, we show how a simple edge based variant delivers improved estimation compared with the state of the art across many datasets. In contradistinction to the prior state of the art our definition of edges is fixed (a simple combination of first and second derivatives) i.e. we do not tune our algorithm to particular image datasets. This performance is further improved by incorporating a gamut constraint on surface colour -our 4th contribution. The thesis finishes by considering our approach in the context of a recent OSA competition run to benchmark computational algorithms operating on physiologically relevant cone based input data. Here we find that Constrained Minkowski Norms operi ii ating on spectrally sharpened cone sensors (linear combinations of the cones that behave more like camera sensors) supports competition leading illuminant estimation.
A Survey on the Coalgebraic Methods in Computer Science

Unlike the widespread applications of algebraic methods in computer science, coalgebraic methods, as the dual concepts of algebras, have not been noticed by computer scientists till the mid 1990s. In algebraic methods, the constructive elements of data types are studied, while in coalgebraic methods, the observable behaviors of systems are investigated. Coalgebraic methods have distinct advantages in mathematic study of state-based systems since them enable the depth research on those systems? properties such as behavior equivalence, nondeterminism and so on. Coalgebraic methods have also been applied in many research fields, for example, automata theory, semantics of concurrency, specifications of object-oriented software etc. The recent progress of coalgebraic methods, including its basic concepts, categorical foundations, logical foundations and its applications, is summarized for raising the attention of the relative researchers.