Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Batch Video Quality Metric (BVQM) User’s Manual

This handbook provides a user’s manual for the batch video quality metric (BVQM) tool. BVQM runs under the Windows XP® or Red Hat Linux® operating systems. BVQM performs objective automated quality assessments of processed video clip batches (i.e., as output by a video system under test). BVQM reports video calibration and quality metric results such as: temporal registration, spatial registration, spatial scaling, valid region, gain/level offset, and objective video quality estimates. BVQM operates on original and processed video files only, and has no video capture capability. BVQM compares the original video clip to the processed video clip and reports quality estimates on a scale from zero to one. On this scale, zero means that no impairment is visible and one means that the video clip has reached the maximum impairment level (excursions beyond one are possible for extremely impaired video sequences).
Reducing avionics software cost through component based product line development

This paper focuses on two important characteristics of the software architecture: layered architecture and medium grained architecture. It is important to note that both of these characteristics derive directly from the original goals of encapsulating change and maximizing reuse. The layering aspect especially relates to developing an application that is independent of the hardware and avionics specifics of a single aircraft. The medium granularity of the components provides a system that can be deployed on varying numbers of processors in single processor or distributed hardware configurations. Both of these goals directly relate to the original decision of developing a product line software system.
Comprehensive Study of Non-Linear Effects in WDM Optical Networks

The performance of optical components such as photonic switch, OXC, Optical Amplifiers is degraded by the presence of Non-linear effects in Optical networks. Four-wave Mixing (FWM) is the main deteriorating factor in WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) Optical Network. It is necessary to study the impact of FWM on the performance of WDM networks. In this paper, we study the effects of FWM along with Dispersion and Polarization in WDM networks. The simulation is done using OPTSIM and the results of input and output spectrum gives the amount of Non-linearity in WDM Optical Network.
A Rule-Based Approach Toward Extraction of Interaction Information from Scientific Literature

Scientific literature is the most reliable and comprehensive source of knowledge about molecular interaction networks. This knowledge is scattered in scientific literature written in natural languages, much time and labor have to be spent on manually extracting biological molecule interactions from literature. There have been many efforts for automatic extraction of biomedical knowledge from literatures. We propose a pattern matching algorithm with multiple Part-Of-Speech tagging based rules which could effectively reduce the required number of patterns and increase the recovery rate of traditional pattern matching algorithm. Various situations in biomedical texts are studied in the paper. The recovery and accuracy rate of the system is estimated to be 68.7% and 93.0%, respectively.
Gestión del conocimiento versus gestión de la información

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IS REVIEWED EMPHASIZING THE IMPACT THE LATTER HAS HAD ON THE FORMER. THUS, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE CONCEPTS ARE CONSIDERED THROUGH THEIR DIFFERENCES AND AFFINITIES AND THE UNDERLYING CONNECTION EXISTING BETWEEN THEM.
A novel current model for CMOS gates

The current waveform of a CMOS gate can be divided into three regions and the characteristics in each region can be approximated by an exponential function. After analyzing the possible transition of a gate, the current waveform under one input vector can be obtained with only four parameters. The work is based on a switch-level timing simulation for various input vectors. The simulated current waveform, instead of the average estimation, helps in solving VLSI reliability problems due to electromigration and excess voltage drops in the power buses. When comparing the results obtained by using SPICE and the model, agreement was obtained, especially for the time points where current pulses occur. <<ETX>>
Application of a novel anti-windup scheme to a HDD-dual-stage actuator

A novel discrete anti-windup technique is applied to a dual-stage actuator of an experimental hard disk drive (HDD) system. It is shown that this anti-windup technique can improve performance and retain stability of the dual-stage servo-system when the secondary actuator control signal saturates at its allowable design limits. Global stability is achieved despite saturation of both, the secondary actuator and the voice-coil-motor (VCM) actuator. The main contribution of the paper is the application of a theoretically sound anti-windup technique to an industrially relevant servo-system.
Text detection for video analysis

Textual information brings important semantic clues in video content analysis. We describe a method for detection and representation of text in video segments. The method consists of seven steps: channel separation, image enhancement, edge detection, edge filtering, character detection, text box detection, and text line detection. Our results show that this method can be applied to English as well as non-English text (such as Korean) with precision and recall of 85%.
Blended learning environments: Using social networking sites to enhance the first year experience

This study explores blending virtual and physical learning environments to enhance the experience of first year by immersing students into university culture through social and academic interaction between peers. It reports on the progress made from 2008 to 2009 using an existing academic platform, the first year design elective course Imaging Our World , in the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Adelaide. Over one semester, 120 design students, including 27 internationals, engaged with their peers through an online forum within the host site Facebook , in addition to the traditional teaching mechanisms of lectures and tutorials. Students were required to submit work online to Facebook and provide critiques of peers' submissions. Resulting discussions were then transferred into the physical classroom with the aim of building meaningful relationships between peers based on the embryonic online connections. The evaluation process involved pre and post semester questionnaires, weekly feedback from students and project-specific reflections at the completion of the semester. The findings are discussed in light of the conflicting attitudes and assumptions regarding the 'digital native' student cohort, and the use of social media to support learning and teaching in higher education.
Wavelet-based time series prediction for air traffic data

We study analysis and forecasting strategies for time series based on multiscale analysis. The method is illustrated for a set of data collecting several years of booking information from the air traffic company Lufthansa Systems GmbH, Berlin. In particular, we deal with data where the variability of the forecast units leads to different problems in computing. We consider several years of subsequent data and apply a wavelet decomposition over a certain number of scales. In wavelet domain the data are subdivided in low and high frequency parts. Forecast values on each scale are calculated, the inverse wavelet transform yields a forecast for the whole signal. In the present paper we describe the analysis of several historical booking data sets from Lufthansa Systems GmbH dealing with data over a period of 4 years. Based on the wavelet transform we apply a forecast to the data. The forecast itself depends on the behaviour of the data on each scale. The wavelet decomposition can be used to reveal trends and seasonal influences.
Kinect - Innovative Face Recognition System

The human-machine interaction is a increasingly studied field and as been applied in more and more areas, thus having a major emphasis on the development of intelligent systems. This project aims to develop a new system for the recognition of facial characteristics. The system was structured so that it can be called independent and easy to use framework, modular (making possible the addition of new functionalities) and with enough precision so that the results seem almost real. The framework was developed keeping in mind the scalability of the system, and for that we followed good software engineering practices such as design patterns. For the development of the system, we adopted the Microsoft Kinect device together with the OpenCV library. The Kinect was chosen essentially because of its SDK, its capture quality and its huge community, where one can find support for eventual problems that may come across. The choice of OpenCV was also due to its huge community and of its algorithms and classifiers, such as the Cascade classifier and the Eigenface and Fisherface algorithms. The architecture of the framework was tested in a real application, created for gathering experimental data, which allow us to disclosing some of its strong and weak points. As strong points we would like to note the easy use of the framework and its capacity to identify different types of user with a good reliable degree and speed. The points where more work is still nedeed are related with the addition of more modules of detection and the improvement of the existing ones in order to get better resultes and to cover more cases.
TCP performance estimation using neural networks modelling

In recent years, the Internet has evolved from providing connectivity to hosts towards providing performance to applications, leading to significant interest in TCP performance modelling. Hitherto, mathematical approaches have been used to evaluate data transfers performance. Although such models were built upon a sound theoretical basis, they were validated largely using synthetic or endpoint controlled traffic and they are not suitable for short-lived transfers or clients with unknown behaviour, characteristics that are typical for the current Internet. The research presented in this paper aims to overcome these problems by using a supervised adaptive learning approach to build the relationship between TCP performance and the influencing parameters. The proposed model, using knowledge of past connections, was trained and tested using both synthetic and real network traffic. Comparison against the mathematical models showed that the proposed model provides more accurate estimates in the majority of the cases. The tests results indicated that the average error of the TCP throughput, estimated using the proposed model, was reduced to more than half the value obtained using the mathematical approach. The robustness and accuracy of the model allows its use in a variety of areas, such as network planning and evaluation of new TCP implementations.
Partition multifactorielle de la croissance de l’emploi des pôles de la région de Québec-Chaudière-Appalaches : 1981-1996

Plusieurs raisons justifient de s’interesser a la croissance de l’emploi des poles non metropolitains situes a proximite des regions metropolitaines de recensement (RMR). La presente etude propose une analyse de la variation de l’emploi, entre 1981 et 1996, des poles de la region de Quebec–Chaudieres-Appalaches (QCA), au moyen d’une methode de partition multifactorielle derivee de l’analyse shift-share. Les resultats mettent en lumiere un phenomene global de deconcentration de l’emploi, manufacturier notamment, mais aussi de feminisation de l’emploi, s’etendant au-dela des limites de la RMR de Quebec. On constate ainsi non seulement un phenomene de suburbanisation de l’emploi, mais egalement un dynamisme particulierement important des poles d’emploi situes dans un rayon d’approximativement 50 km autour de la RMR de Quebec. Au-dela de cette distance, l’evolution de l’emploi des poles est beaucoup plus differenciee. Les resultats suggerent ainsi que la distance a la RMR joue un role important dans la croissance de l’emploi des poles non metropolitains de la region QCA.
Appariement de phrases courtes pour la traduction automatique par l'exemple

Constitution of linguistic ressources for data-driven translation system is often a critical task. Those translation systems need corpus of aligned sentences for each language pairs. The constitution of those linguistic ressources are often done by human translators. We propose a method designed to automate the constitution of bilingual corpus of short sentences. This tool is based on a vector representation, comonly used in the information retrieval field. A bilingual dictionary is required for each language pair considered. The Web provides monolingual corpus of sentences. The pairing method is then applied to those sentences. The human cost of the overall method of constitution of bilingual corpus of sentence is extremely reduced: once the pairing applied, only a human validation is required on the bicorpus. An experiement on French-English data shows the precision of the pairing method. 800 sentences have been collected with a precision of 0.80 among 100,000 collected sentences for each language. Mots-cles : appariement de phrases, alignement de phrases, constitution automatique de ressources linguistiques, traduction automatique fondee sur les donnees
Estabilitat tèrmica en aire de 3Y-TZP nitrurada superficialment

La zirconia o dioxid de zirconi es un material ceramic amb un gran nombre d’aplicacions degut a la bona combinacio de propietats que posseeix, no obstant aixo presenta un problema: La degradacio ambiental, accentuada en ambients humits i temperatures d’entre 100 i 400oC. Aquest projecte proposa la nitruracio superficial com a mesura per evitar aquest fenomen, tot conservant les propietats mecaniques superficials. S’observa que les condicions optimes de nitruracio son: Nitruracio en atmosfera de nitrogen gas ( cabal de 1000cc/min ), amb les peces recobertes de ZrN pols a 1400oC durant una hora i una velocitat d'escalfament i de refredament de 20oC / min. Aquestes condicions, permeten conservar la duresa i tenacitat superficial de la 3Y-TZP despres del tractament. Tambe s’estudia l’estabilitat estructural del material nitrurat davant de la temperatura, mitjancant diversos tractaments termics en aire i es conclou que el material es estable fins a temperatures de 800oC durant 8 hores.
Multitasking framework for interactive information retrieval

New Directions in Cognitive Information Retrieval presents an exciting new direction for research into cognitive oriented information retrieval (IR) research, a direction based on an analysis of the user’s problem situation and cognitive behavior when using the IR system. This contrasts with the current dominant IR research paradigm which concentrates on improving IR system matching performance. The chapters describe the leading edge concepts and models of cognitive IR that explore the nexus between human cognition, information and the social conditions that drive humans to seek information using IR systems. Chapter topics include: Polyrepresentation, cognitive overlap and the boomerang effect, Multitasking while conducting the search, Knowledge Diagram Visualizations of the topic space to facilitate user assimilation of information, Task, relevance, selection state, knowledge need and knowledge behavior, search training built into the search, children’s collaboration for school projects, and other cognitive perspectives on IR concepts and issues. This book is directly relevant to information scientists, librarians, social scientists and computer scientists interested in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) usability issues. Undergraduate and graduate students, academics. Written for: Information scientists, computer scientists, librarians, library and information science (LIS) professors, LIS students
Generisches Web Service Interface um Simulationsanwendungen in BPEL-Prozesse einzubinden

Der Einsatz von Computer-gestutzten Simulationen in Wirtschaft und Forschung nimmt seit Jahren zu. Vor dem Hintergrund stetig steigender Rechenleistung aktueller Rechnersysteme ist ein Anhalten dieses Trends abzusehen. Computer-gestutzte Simulationen sind Simulationen, die komplett an einem oder mehreren Rechnern durchgefuhrt werden. Diese Arbeit befasst sich lediglich mit Computer-gestutzten Simulationen in der Wissenschaft, im Folgenden der Einfachheit halber Simulationen genannt. Eine genaue Definition des Begriffs Simulation befindet sich in Abschnitt "2.3. 1 Simulationen" dieser Arbeit. Die Grunde fur den Einsatz einer Simulation sind vielfaltig. So lassen sich Kosten sparen, indem ein Experiment simuliert wird, statt dieses in der reellen Welt durchzufuhren. In anderen Fallen ist ein Experiment in der reellen Welt oft nicht durchfuhrbar, z.B. bei der Forschung in der Raumfahrt. Weiterhin bieten Simulationen Vorteile, die bei reellen Experimenten nicht gegeben sind: Aufwandige Vorbereitungen entfallen. Zudem werden mogliche Unterschiede bei mehreren Wiederholungen desselben Experiments weitgehend ausgeschlossen, da die Ausgangssituation bei einer Simulation konstant gehalten werden kann und nicht von Umweltparametern beeinflusst wird. Weiterhin lasst sich eine Simulation unterbrechen und fortsetzen, oder komplett abbrechen wenn bereits wahrend der Simulation genug Erkenntnisse gesammelt werden konnten. Die Auswirkungen auf die reale Welt sind minimal: Die Simulation verursacht Kosten durch die Nutzung von Rechenressourcen. Oft sind auch weniger Mitarbeiter in Simulationen involviert als bei entsprechenden Ausfuhrungen in der realen Welt.
I-sieve: An inline high performance deduplication system used in cloud storage

Data deduplication is an emerging and widely employed method for current storage systems. As this technology is gradually applied in inline scenarios such as with virtual machines and cloud storage systems, this study proposes a novel deduplication architecture called I-sieve. The goal of I-sieve is to realize a high performance data sieve system based on i SCSI in the cloud storage system. We also design the corresponding index and mapping tables and present a multi-level cache using a solid state drive to reduce RAM consumption and to optimize lookup performance. A prototype of I-sieve is implemented based on the open source i SCSI target, and many experiments have been conducted driven by virtual machine images and testing tools. The evaluation results show excellent deduplication and foreground performance. More importantly, I-sieve can co-exist with the existing deduplication systems as long as they support the i SCSI protocol.
A study of the application of the lognormal distribution to corrective maintenance repair time

Abstract : The usual mathematical formulation of availability assumes an exponential distribution for failure and repair times. While such an assumption is sometimes correct for reliability, it is not valid for maintainability. This study was conducted primarily in order to verify that the lognormal distribution is suitable descriptor for corrective maintenance repair times, and to estimate the error caused in assuming an exponential distribution for availability and maintainability calculations when in fact the distribution is lognormal. Approximately 20 sets of existing maintainability demonstration repair time data, of essentially electronic systems, were analyzed using the methods of probability plotting and statistical testing for distributional assumption. The results show that the lognormal distribution assumption cannot be rejected in most of the cases, while the exponential distribution is rejected. However, the error caused when assuming an exponential distribution for MTTR is found to be negligible.
Learning control policies from constrained motion

Many everyday human skills can be framed in terms of performi ng some task subject to constraints imposed by the task or the environment. Co nstraints are usually unobservable and frequently change between contexts. In this thesis, we explore the problem of learning control po licies from data containing variable, dynamic and non-linear constraints on mo tion. We show that an effective approach for doing this is to learn the unconstraine d policy in a way that is consistent with the constraints. We propose several novel algorithms for extracting these po licies from movement data, where observations are recorded under different cons trai t . Furthermore, we show that, by doing so, we are able to learn representations o f movement that generalise over constraints and can predict behaviour under new c onstraints. In our experiments, we test the algorithms on systems of vary ing size and complexity, and show that the novel approaches give significant impr ovements in performance compared with standard policy learning approaches that are naiv to the effect of constraints. Finally, we illustrate the utility of the approac hes for learning from human motion capture data and transferring behaviour to several r obotic platforms.
Detection and recognition of football highlights using HMM

In this paper we report on our experience in using hidden Markov models for the classification of football highlights, using two approaches. A first approach relies on camera motion only, whereas a second one also includes information on the location of players on the playing field. While the former approach requires less information, the latter yields more reliable results.
Modèles épistémologiques de l'évaluation des psychothérapies et méthodologies de la recherche en psychanalyse

L’auteur aborde les objections soulevees par les recherches psychotherapiques selon le modele de la « Psychotherapie empiriquement fondee ». Cette methodologie ne parait pas adaptee pour evaluer de maniere specifique la therapeutique psychanalytique. Des remarques epistemologiques et methodologiques se proposent de signaler les differentes voies de validation des resultats a partir des modeles hermeneutiques et idiographiques. Quant a la recherche empirique sur le processus psychanalytique, une attention particuliere est pretee aux protocoles de cas singuliers.
Brazilian portuguese wordNet: a computational linguistic exercise of encoding bilingual relational lexicons

This paper describes the methodology of encoding th e Brazilian Portuguese WordNet (WN.Br) synsets and the automatic mapping of WN.Brs conceptual relations of hyponymy, co- hyponymy, meronymy, cause, and entailment relations from Princeton WordNet (WN.Pr). After contextualizing the project and outlining the current lexical database structur e and its statistics, it is described the WN.Br editing tool tencode the synsets, its glosses and the equivalence EQ_RELATIO NS between WN.Br and WN.Pr synsets, and to select sample sentences from corpora. The conclusion samples the automatic generation of WN.Brs hyponymy and co-hyponymy conce ptual relations from WN.Pr and outlines the ongoing work.
Multi-Carrier Digital Communications: Theory and Applications of Ofdm

From the Publisher: Multi-carrier modulation, in particular orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), has been successfully applied to a wide variety of digital communications applications for several years. Although OFDM has been chosen as the physical layer standard for a diversity of important systems, the theory, algorithms, and implementation techniques remain subjects of current interest. This book is intended to be a concise summary of the present state of the art of the theory and practice of OFDM technology. This book offers a unified presentation of OFDM theory and high speed and wireless applications. In particular, ADSL, wireless LAN, and digital broadcasting technologies are explained. It is hoped that this book will prove valuable both to developers of such systems, and to researchers and graduate students involved in analysis of digital communications, and will remain a valuable summary of the technology, providing an understanding of new advances as well as the present core technology.