Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The phonological influence on phonetic change

This dissertation addresses the broad question about how phonology and phonetics are interrelated, specifically how phonetic language changes, which gradually alter the phonetics of speech sounds, affect the phonological system of the language, and vice versa. Some questions I address are: (i) What aspects of speakers' knowledge of their language are changing during a phonetic change? (ii) What is the relative timing of a phonetic change and phonological reanalysis? (iii) Can a modular feed-forward model of phonology and phonetics account of the observed patterns of phonetic change? (iv) What are the consequences of my results for theories of phonology, phonetics, and language acquisition? (v) What unique insight into the answers to these questions can the study of language change in progress give us over other methodologies? To address these questions, I drew data from the Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus [PNC] (Labov and Rosenfelder, 2011), a collection of sociolinguistic interviews carried out between 1973 and 2013. Using the PNC data, I utilized a number of different statistical modeling techniques to evaluate models of phonetic change and phonologization, including standard mixed effects regression modeling in R (Bates, 2006), and hierarchical Bayesian modeling via Hamiltonian Monte Carlo in Stan (Stan Development Team, 2012). My results are challenging to the conventional wisdom that phonologization is a late-stage reanalysis of phonetic coarticulatory and perceptual effects (e.g. Ohala, 1981). Rather, it appears that phonologization occurs simultaneously with the onset of phonetic changes. I arrive at this conclusion by examining the rate of change of contextual vowel variants, and by investigating mismatches between which variants are expected to change on phonetic grounds versus phonological grounds. In my analysis, not only can a modular feedforward model of phonology and phonetics account for observed patterns of phonetic change, but must be appealed to in some cases. These results revise some the facts to be explained by diachronic phonology, and I suggest the question to be pursued ought to be how phonological innovations happen when there are relatively small phonetic precursors. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Linguistics This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/edissertations/862 First Advisor William Labov
Designing simplicity: usability perspectives on learning management systems

This paper presents an experimental Learning Management System (LMS). The usability aspect of its functions serves as the main focus of this system because the potential for usability problems seems to be especially severe in LMSs, due to their ability to implement complex features and intricate interactions. In order to establish a more efficient e-learning environment, an LMS should have intuitive interfaces and clear information design, allowing learners to concentrate on learning and instructors on learning strategies. The proposed LMS includes all the important functions of delivering learning material, tracking learning activities and managing community tasks, yet by following recent usability techniques it manages to hide all this complexity. Moreover, providing a comprehensive idea of content organization and management along with a simple navigation tool, it allows learners to focus on their learning activities without excessive hassle and instructors, especially those unfamiliar with Information Technologies, to profitably exploit their learning resources.
The geography of prostate cancer incidence in Norway: Are the patterns real?

SUMMARY The etiology of prostate cancer is to a large extent unknown. There are striking international variations in incidence, which may indicate that factors that show geographical variations can provide further clues about etiology. A problem with using incidence data for comparisons in time and space is that the number of cases reported may be affected by the intensity of diagnosing, since many of the cases are latent and asymptomatic. The purpose of this study is to adjust the observed pattern of prostate cancer in communes and counties of Norway for variations which may be due to diagnostic artefacts. It is assumed that a large proportion of local cancers may be an indication of more intensive diagnosing. Data of prostate cancer incidence for 1982-91 with tumours specified by degree of spread were provided by the Cancer Registry. A regression function relating total incidence to % local tumours was used to predict the SIRs adjusted for variations in % local tumours. The maps comparing incidence patterns before and after adjustement show that a large part of the significant deviations from the national mean persists, and that the pattern of negative deviations in the far north is even strengthened. A significant positive correlation between the ratio of incidence to mortality against % local tumours is found, which supports the main hypothesis of the study.
A Privacy-Preserving Framework for Location-Based Service: A Review of Structural Design and Analysis

ABSTRACT Traditional location tracking and positioning systems rely on the implicit assumption that users are willing to reveal their credentials or private location to an untrustworthy service provider; if a situation suddenly deteriorates, personal information can be intercepted and abused by adversary attacks. Addressing the need for location privacy is essential to preserve users’ credentials when they need to access location information from their service providers. Therefore, this review paper will address the phases of authentication and the querying process in location-based services (LBS). The first contribution is to rigorously investigate the mechanisms of location-based authentication and location-based personal identification in order to determine the level of trust for deciding whether traditional methods have provided a strong enough security structure to preserve privacy. The second contribution is to resolve the above privacy problems in the existing LBS systems. The idea of early intervention has brought a conceptual and practical framework into the field of preserving location-privacy-based anonymizer solutions. The framework has been designed based on a simple, centralized architecture, and integrated with two important techniques: location anonymity and encryption technology. In this paper, one-way hash function is applied as a means to create a fingerprint of a message that can be used for subscription or authentication services, and thus data integrity can be preserved. Location blurring (also known as the k-anonymity model) has also been proposed as an important factor in disguising user location when users need to interact with untrusted service providers. In the querying process, time-fuzzy logic is used to examine the degree of confidence whether the user is requesting the service under the right privileges. Finally, performance analysis regarding the derived framework of preserving location privacy is presented.
A decision-making based approach for fault-handling in multi-agent systems

This paper focuses on distributed fault recovery in agent-based systems by providing help for faulty members. In the presented method, if one faulty agent requests for help or agents are informed of fault in one of their teammates, they first decide if they are able to help or not. In the case that they are able to help and several help requests exist, helper agents specify a sequence of help actions through another distributed decision-making phase. The introduced fault clearing method is totally distributed in the sense that each helper agent makes its decisions by itself and no central or special agent exists in the system. In fact, the decision making process and the required information are designed such that the agents cooperate implicitly to prevent the system performance loss. The developed ideas are implemented in a simulated distributed control system. As it is shown, the proposed distributed fault-clearing method through reconfiguring the agents' roles is very effective.
HPV Tip 16'nın Eşlik Ettiği Primer Skuamöz Hücreli Vajinal Kanser

A case with primary vaginal cancer which is rarely seen malignancy of female genital cancers was discussed regarding its diagnosis and management based on the literature. 57 years old female, menopausal for 10 years, nulligravid woman applied to our department with vaginal spotting and chronic vaginal discharge. A 2,5-3 cm ulcero-vegetan lesion was seen by gynecological examination which was located on 1/3 upper part of the vagina at the level of 7 and 9 hours. The lesion biopsy was revealed as VAIN III. Due to persistent suspicion of invasive cancer, surgical treatment was planned to the patient who was evaluated stage 2 according to the FIGO classification. Following confirmation of invasion by frozen section biyopsy, Type 3 hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, pelvic paraaortic lymphadenectomy were performed. The 1/3 upper part of the vagina was excised with 2 cm intact surgical margin. Primary vaginal cancer is a rare seen malignancy. If vaginal malignancy is thought, metastasis should be ruled out firstly. The patients with persistent vaginal discharge and nonvisible lesion should be evaluated carefully for early diagnose.
REFLECTIVE READING JOURNAL IN TEACHING WRITING

A number of studies suggested that journal writing is a supportive tool that encourages learners� reflective activity and that reflective thinking skills can be taught and learned. Accordingly, this study investigated the implementation of reflective reading journal in teaching writing as well as the benefits that the students obtained after writing reflective reading journal. This study employed a case study research design which used three data collection including observation, interview and students� texts. The results of the study revealed that reflective reading journal can be used �effectively to improve students� writing skill through several ways. First, the students were required to produce clearly defined paragraphs which include two sections. The first section included referencing data, such as author and title, and a paraphrase of the reading. The second section contained a response to a specific aspect of the reading. Second, the participants of the research were involved in decision making of topics for reading. Third, they wrote reflective reading journal weekly. Fourth, teacher gave feedback to students� journal entries. In addition,the study also showed that there were some benefits, namely development of ideas, improvement of textual coherence, and Improvement of textual cohesion.Keywords: reflective reading journal; writing; benefit; EFL; ELT.
On the Reliability Function of A K-Out-Of-N System of Components Sharing a Common Environment

The reliability function of a k-out-of-n system which operates in a random environment is studied and compared with the reliability function obtained under the assumption of independence of component-failures. A crossing property of the reliability functions is established under a fairly general condition. It is shown that the reliability function of the system does not belong to any of the aging classes of life distributions considered in the reliability theory.
Virtual Reality in the Assessment and Treatment of Children With Motor Impairment: A Systematic Review

Background and Purpose. Virtual reality (VR) is emerging as a valid tool for the rehabilitation of individuals with a variety of disabilities. The objective of this study was to systematically review studies pertaining to the use of VR technology in the rehabilitation of children with sensorimotor deficits. Methods and Materials. A literature search of PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane, Pedro, Hooked on Evidence and Google Scholar was undertaken. Included were research reports published in peer‐reviewed journals that utilized VR in the assessment and/or treatment of children ages 2 to 18 with sensorimotor disorders. No restrictions were made as to study methodology, outcome measures, or type of VR technology employed. The research methodology and strength of evidence of each study was evaluated by 2 independent reviewers. Summary of the Literature. The search identified 26 studies: 5 examined primarily the degree to which VR induces playfulness, volitional behavior, pleasure and/or motivation; 4 used VR to assess spatial abilities; 17 examined the effects of VR interventions for a variety of treatment objectives. Only 3 studies were randomized control trials, and 8 employed single‐case designs. Evidence strength and quality of methodology of the majority of studies was fair to poor. Most studies presented positive outcomes. Discussion and Conclusion. VR‐based rehabilitation in children with a variety of sensorimotor deficits is feasible and safe, and has potential as an effective assessment and treatment modality. However, higher quality research is necessary before the value of VR in pediatric rehabilitation truly can be ascertained.
Ray's Scheme: Graphical Password Based Hybrid Authentication System for Smart Hand Held Devices

Passwords provide security mechanism for authentication and protection services against unwanted access to resources. One promising alternatives of textual passwords is a graphical based password. According to human psychology, human can easily remember pictures. In this paper, I have proposed a new hybrid graphical password based system. The system is a combination of recognition and pure recall based techniques and that offers many advantages over the existing systems and may be more convenient for the user. My approach is resistant to shoulder surfing attack and many other attacks on graphical passwords. This scheme is proposed for smart hand held devices (like smart phones i.e. PDAs, ipod, iphone, etc) which are more handy and convenient to use than traditional desktop computer systems. Keywords: smart phones, graphical passwords, authentication, network security
Congestion based mathematical programming models for global routing

Global routing is an essential part of physical design, and has been traditionally formulated to minimize either the total wirelength or the maximum channel capacity of a circuit ignoring important issues such as congestion and number of bends. In this paper, a mathematical programming model, which is capable of incorporating different aspects of the global routing problem, such as wirelength, maximum capacity, number of bends in each route and congestion is presented. The main advantage of this model is its flexibility to deal with different aspects of the routing. Our congestion estimation gives lower and upper estimates on the maximum number of wires passing through each channel. Experiments on different benchmarks show that the new model builds a flexible and powerful technique which enhances the global routing solution.
The Oncogenic Functions of MASTL Kinase

MASTL kinase is a master regulator of mitosis, essential for ensuring that mitotic substrate phosphorylation is correctly maintained. It achieves this through the phosphorylation of alpha-endosulfine and subsequent inhibition of the tumor suppressor PP2A-B55 phosphatase. In recent years MASTL has also emerged as a novel oncogenic kinase that is upregulated in a number of cancer types, correlating with chromosome instability and poor patient survival. While the chromosome instability is likely directly linked to MASTL’s control of mitotic phosphorylation, several new studies indicated that MASTL has additional effects outside of mitosis and beyond regulation of PP2A-B55. These include control of normal DNA replication timing, and regulation of AKT/mTOR and Wnt/β-catenin oncogenic kinase signaling. In this review, we will examine the phenotypes and mechanisms for how MASTL, ENSA, and PP2A-B55 deregulation drives tumor progression and metastasis. Finally, we will explore the rationale for the future development of MASTL inhibitors as new cancer therapeutics.
Digital control of dynamic systems

From the Publisher: This well-respected, market-leading text discusses the use of digital computers in the real-time control of dynamic systems. The emphasis is on the design of digital controls that achieve good dynamic response and small errors while using signals that are sampled in time and quantized in amplitude. Both classical and modern control methods are described and applied to illustrative examples. The strengths and limitations of each method are explored to help the reader develop solid designs with the least effort. Two new chapters have been added to the third edition offering a review of feedback control systems and an overview of digital control systems. Updated to be fully compatible with MATLAB versions 4 and 5, the text thoroughly integrates MATLAB statements and problems to offer readers a complete design picture. The new edition contains up-to-date material on state-space design and twice as many end-of-chapter problems to give students more opportunities to practice the material.
Quantification in Swedish child language - with special reference to the quantifier expression alla

1 The purpose of this paper is to analyse and discuss Swedish speaking children’s use and understanding of quantification with special reference to the quantifier expression alla (‘all’). The data has been collected from Richthoff’s corpus, the Göteborg Spoken Language Corpora and an observation period I carried out at a preschool in Göteborg. After describing and discussing several aspects of the syntax and the semantics of Swedish quantification, I argue that we have good reasons to treat Swedish quantifier expressions as a separate part of speech (labelled Q). I then address the following questions: Which quantifier expressions do children use? Which quantifier expressions do adults use? How do children use quantifier expressions? How are quantifier expressions used in speech directed to children? How do children interpret alla – generically or specifically? When do they start interpreting alla generically? I try to see what the data suggest as answers to these questions, with special reference to the quantifier expression alla. I also present data on the syntactic and semantic problems the children appear to have. In section 5 I explain some of the data by introducing the psychological notion “theory of mind”, a label for social cognition apparent in adults. I argue that some of the children’s difficulties with quantifier expressions might be due to their difficulties with shifting perspective in a social situation. Some of their problems, however, seem to arise because the category Q is not fully developed in child language – sometimes they therefore treat the quantifier expressions as other categories. I argue that the children sometimes treat quantifier expressions as modifiers to nouns. At the end of the paper I suggest an account of children’s difficulties with quantification based on a proposal for English and Korean speaking children (Kang 2001). 1 I am very grateful to Elisabet Engdahl for valuable comments on previous versions of this paper, and to Sven Strömqvist, Ulla Richthoff and the staff and children at the preschool Nova, Göteborg, for their help in providing data for my investigation.
Information Prosody Correspondence in HPSG

This paper provides a constraint-based account of information-prosody correspondence within the HPSG framework. The starting point of the paper is Klein's (2000) account of prosodic constituency in HPSG. However, it departs from the standard syntactocentric architecture of grammar, and adpots a grammar design in which syntax, phonology, and information structure are generated in parallel, with all three applying to a common list of domain objects. It is shown that this theoretical architecture elegantly captures many of the various constraints that have been shown to hold in classical views of grammar.
Qui crée la création de valeur

Cet article s’interesse au mouvement inedit de transactions d’entreprise depuis les annees 1990 en France. Dans une perspective de sociologie economique, il propose d’analyser ce mouvement comme la construction d’un marche de la transaction d’entreprise, les fusions-acquisitions ou plus couramment Mergers & Acquisitions (M & A) en anglais, par les professionnels qui en sont les intermediaires : banquiers et avocats d’affaires, cabinets d’audit financier, fonds d’investissement et banquiers de financement. Il montre comment ces intermediaires du marche ont fait emerger l’idee qu’une transaction puisse etre creatrice de valeur, a travers l’utilisation de dispositifs de mesure de cette derniere, normes et homogenes. Ces dispositifs, en formant un cadre cognitif et normatif a travers lequel les professionnels des transactions d’entreprise pensent et agissent, participent a faire des entreprises une marchandise et a en calculer un prix de marche. L’augmentation des transactions depuis 30 ans s’explique alors moins comme le resultat des forces du marche que comme le produit de forces sociales structurant et animant le marche. L’article s’appuie sur une enquete recente dans le secteur des fusions-acquisitions francais croisant entretiens biographiques, observations du travail et recueil documentaire.
Securing Named Data Networking: Attribute-Based Encryption and Beyond

As one of the promising information-centric networking (ICN) architectures, NDN has attracted tremendous research attention and effort in the past decade. In particular, security and privacy remain significant concerns and challenges due to the fact that most of the traditional cryptographic primitives are no longer suitable for NDN architecture. For example, the traditional cryptographic primitives aim to secure point-to-point communications, always requiring explicit descriptions of to where or whom the data packets are intended, while network addressing or locating in NDN becomes implicit. To deal with such issues, the recently developed cryptographic primitives such as ABE have been applied to NDN. Also, to efficiently solve the trust-roots problem and seamlessly deploy cryptographic infrastructures, the concept of SDN has been introduced to NDN as well. This tutorial is devoted to exploring the interesting integration between NDN, ABE, and SDN.
IEE Proceedings Software

In partnership with the IET, we are able to offer IEE Proceedings-Software, a bimonthly journal for practitioners, researchers and managers engaged in software engineering. The scope includes development methods and tools, formal methods, high reliability systems, management of software development and software engineering training. Abstracted in INSPEC, DBLP and ISI, the journal goes to a large number of institutions and individuals worldwide as one of the twelve journals in the prestigious IEE Proceedings package, with a further benefit to authors seeking the widest possible readership being the journal's presence in the widely subscribed-to IET/IEEE Electronic Library (IEL). Regularly appearing special issues on current and emerging issues lead by an expert editorial board member are a new feature. See IEE's Forthcoming Special Issues for the latest calls for papers or order a sample copy of a previously published special issue by going to IEE's Published Special Issues. The journal has built up access to a top-quality base of reviewers and aims for publication within twelve months, decision within six, with papers being published online when ready ahead of printed publication.