Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Which Way Are You Going? Imitative Decision Learning for Path Forecasting in Dynamic Scenes

Path forecasting is a pivotal step toward understanding dynamic scenes and an emerging topic in the computer vi- sion field. This task is challenging due to the multimodal nature of the future, namely, given a partial history, there is more than one plausible prediction. Yet, the state-of-the-art methods seem not fully responsive to this innate variabil- ity. Hence, how to better foresee the forthcoming trajectory in dynamic scenes has to be more thoroughly pursued. To this end, we propose a novel Imitative Decision Learning (IDL) approach. It delves deeper into the key that inher- ently characterizes the multimodality – the latent decision. The proposed IDL first infers the distribution of such latent decisions by learning from moving histories. A policy is then generated by taking the sampled latent decision into account to predict the future. Different plausible upcoming paths corresponds to each sampled latent decision. This ap- proach significantly differs from the mainstream literature that relies on a predefined latent variable to extrapolate di- verse predictions. In order to augment the understanding of the latent decision and resultant mutimodal future, we in- vestigate their connection through mutual information op- timization. Moreover, the proposed IDL integrates spatial and temporal dependencies into one single framework, in contrast to handling them with two-step settings. As a re- sult, our approach enables simultaneous anticipation of the paths of all pedestrians in the scene. We assess our pro- posal on the large-scale SAP, ETH and UCY datasets. The experiments show that IDL introduces considerable margin improvements with respect to recent leading studies.
Modelo para Medir la Madurez del Análisis de Riesgo de los Activos de Información en el contexto de las Empresas Navieras

espanolEl avance tecnologico ha contribuido al incremento de eventos disruptivos de diferente naturaleza en las empresas que podrian producir perdida de informacion; por tal motivo, es vital realizar analisis de riesgos adecuado. Considerando que las empresas navieras no estan exentas de amenazas, ataques o vulnerabilidades, este articulo propone un Modelo para Medir la Madurez del Analisis de Riesgos de los Activos de Informacion en este contexto empresarial. Para cumplir esto, se ejecutaron tres actividades. En la primera, se analizo y selecciono MAGERIT, OCTAVE y MEHARI como metodologias de analisis de riesgos considerando su uso en otras iniciativas de construccion de modelos de madurez. Luego, se realizaron entrevistas a siete empresas navieras a fin de conocer su postura frente a la problematica planteada. Finalmente, podemos determinar que la construccion de esta propuesta conlleva la ejecucion de un proceso de analisis de riesgo formalizado y con tecnicas proactivas acorde al contexto empresarial establecido. EnglishTechnological progress has contributed to the increase of disruptive events of different nature in companies that could produce loss of information; for this reason, it is vital to carry out adequate risk analysis. Considering that shipping companies are not exempt from threats, attacks or vulnerabilities, this article proposes a Model to Measure the Maturity of Risk Analysis of Information Assets in this business context. To accomplish this, three activities were executed. In the first, MAGERIT, OCTAVE and MEHARI were analyzed and selected as risk analysis methodologies considering their use in other maturity modeling initiatives. Afterwards, seven shipping companies were interviewed in order to know their position regarding the proposed problem. Finally, we can determine that the construction of this proposal involves the execution of a formalized risk analysis process and proactive techniques according to the established business context.
Comparative Study of Hand Gesture Recognition System

Human imitation for his surrounding environment makes him interfere in every details of this great environment, hear impaired people are gesturing with each other for delivering a specific message, this method of communication also attracts human imitation attention to cast it on human-computer interaction. The faculty of vision based gesture recognition to be a natural, powerful, and friendly tool for supporting efficient interaction between human and machine. In this paper a review of recent hand gesture recognition systems is presented with description of hand gestures modelling, analysis and recognition. A comparative study included in this paper with focusing on different segmentation, features extraction and recognition tools, research advantages and drawbacks are provided as well.
A framework for distributed computing over the internet.

The advent of sophisticated desktop and mobile devices has brought vast computing power into the hands of millions of consumers. By providing such a vast resource pool it has paved the way for the evolution of distributed computing into new forms.We present Unison, a framework for distributed computing in Java, to harness this new resource over the Internet. Unison employs the code-shipping paradigm to broker this processing power. Clients only have to insert Java code for whatever computation they desire to perform into our host applet and then upload it together with the associated data to the server. These tasks are distributed in parallel to idle hosts managed by a Unison broker. The framework utilizes CORBA as the underlying communication layer and handles all the communicationneeds of the broker and hosts. Clients are decoupled from the system and only have to concentrate on the functionality of their applications with the added advantage of not having to remain online throughout the computation. This thesis describes the design behind the system and how it overcomes inherent difficulties present in Java. It also includes a description of an implementation of the system and a series of adaptations of real world applications such as local sequence alignment. Using these applications a set of experiments were conducted to compare the performance of Unison with another Java applet based distributed computing system. The results show that Unison is ideally suited for the running of such applications and that the system is able to reach a level of performance comparable to the reference system. X ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library
Supplying to Mom and Pop: Traditional Retail Channel Selection in Megacities

Problem definition: Nanostores are traditional, small and independent retailers that are present in large numbers in the megacities of the developing world. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers can choose to deliver to nanostores either directly—visiting thousands of stores per day—or via wholesalers—saving on distribution cost but forfeiting the direct access to the store owners to develop demand. We study a manufacturer’s channel strategy within a finite time horizon. Academic/practical relevance: The channel strategy in emerging markets has both marketing and operational elements, which lead to a newly formulated problem with novel characteristics. High costs are involved in the nanostore distribution, and the difference in wholesale price, logistics cost, product availability, and market growth leads to a multidimensional problem that is not trivial to analyze. Methodology: We develop an analytical model to derive the optimal channel policy. We conduct a numerical study with parameters tuned by field data. We develop managerial insights based on our formal results and our numerical analysis. Results: The optimal channel policy structure depends mainly on two channel metrics: the gross profitability, which is the gross margin at a particular moment in time; and the growth-adjusted profitability, which includes the growth potential of a particular channel strategy to develop the market and realize future profits. With demand growth over time, we show that, in the optimal policy, there is at most one switch between the wholesale and direct-channel strategies within the time horizon. Managerial implications: Depending on the two metrics, it may be optimal to first expand the market by using the direct channel and then switch to the wholesale channel to exploit the expanded market. In other cases, it may be optimal to first expand the market slowly by using the wholesale channel and then switch to the direct channel to benefit from high demand growth. The optimal channel strategy is also dependent on the time horizon, with a longer time horizon leading to relatively longer use of the direct channel.
Code-mixing in simultaneous language acquisition.

This thesis is based on the recorded speech and field notes of the author's three-year-old child who was acquiring three languages simultaneously (Chichewa, Chitumbuka and English). Chichewa is his mother's first language, Chitumbuka is his father's first language and English is both the language of the preschool that he was attending and the official language in Malawi. This study was unusual in that it involved African languages that are under-researched in the field of language acquisition and dealt with two cognate languages (Chichewa and Chitumbuka) and a non-cognate language, English. The fact that Chichewa and Chitumbuka strongly resemble each other may have made movement between the two easier for the child. The analysis of the child's recorded speech shows that he mixed more at the lexical level (64.2%) and less at the phonological level (6.3%). The findings demonstrate that what the child had learnt at school in English fulfilled a booster function when either Chichewa or Chitumbuka was used. The results also reveal that the child's language mixing was influenced by the topic of discussion, the context and the interlocutor's mixed input. The interlocutor's discourse strategies also had an impact on the child's use of mixing. The results therefore provide support for the bilingual bootstrapping hypothesis, the modeling hypothesis and the discourse hypothesis. The results also demonstrate that Chichewa was generally the matrix or host language when mixing occurred. At school, however, where only English was permitted, the question of a matrix language did not occur. Furthermore, the combination of lexical and grammatical morphemes demonstrates that Chichewa was dominant in the child's speech, in terms of the dominant-language hypothesis proposed by Petersen (1988). This study challenges the Free Morpheme Constraint and the Equivalence Constraint in that they do not appear to be universally applicable. Instead, the Matrix Language Frame Model is supported as it applies to code-mixing involving English and Bantu languages. This model was relevant, as the speech analyzed in this study involved code-mixing between English and the two Bantu languages, Chichewa and Chitumbuka. However, it
Design of learning objects to support constructivist learning environments

Using Constructivism to guide the design of learning objects, we develop a generic structure that classifies knowledge into different types on different levels. With a simple generic structure of learning object, learners can easily share knowledge on the Internet, and knowledge can be rendered in various ways according to different patterns. In addition to the patterns rendered, the ease and efficiency of viewing the whole picture of knowledge and zooming into any degree of details at run time allow the learner to learn the material iteratively in different ways according to her current sense-making, setting up her learning strategies at each iteration of her learning. Thus, by putting learning back into the hands of the learner, our system assists the learner to construct knowledge efficiently in the real constructivist learning environment.
CHANGE DETECTION BETWEEN DIGITAL SURFACE MODELS FROM AIRBORNE LASER SCANNING AND DENSE IMAGE MATCHING USING CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORKS

Abstract. Airborne photogrammetry and airborne laser scanning are two commonly used technologies used for topographical data acquisition at the city level. Change detection between airborne laser scanning data and photogrammetric data is challenging since the two point clouds show different characteristics. After comparing the two types of point clouds, this paper proposes a feed-forward Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to detect building changes between them. The motivation from an application point of view is that the multimodal point clouds might be available for different epochs. Our method contains three steps: First, the point clouds and orthoimages are converted to raster images. Second, square patches are cropped from raster images and then fed into CNN for change detection. Finally, the original change map is post-processed with a simple connected component analysis. Experimental results show that the patch-based recall rate reaches 0.8146 and the precision rate reaches 0.7632. Object-based evaluation shows that 74 out of 86 building changes are correctly detected.
A Brief Look into Biometrics and One Use in Higher Education

Biometrics for the purpose of identification is not a new concept, nor is it limited to one specific field. Both physical and biological unique characteristics are utilized today by biometric technology as a means of recognition (Krishan & Mostafavi, 2018). How exactly are biometrics used today in authorization and identification systems? What are some of the advantages biometric technologies over traditional methods of authentication? What are some of the security and privacy concerns of biometric technology? In this paper, by reviewing multiple published articles in the field of biometrics, we seek to answer these questions, provide insight into the future of biometrics, and discuss the varying responses that biometrics has received from end users, including biometric legislation. We will then look deeper into one particular area of biometric technology, voice recognition, by proposing research in higher education to be conducted on this subject.
Assessment: Complex Concept and Complex Practice

The aim of this article is to clarify some key concepts in the current Norwegian discourse on assessment, the importance of which is essential in working with teachers on developing competence in assessment for learning. Competence is reflected in teachers' assessment practice, which includes the ability to design a cohesive assessment activity. This is a complex task, which is illustrated by two scenarios presenting the link between the many decisions teachers have to make during the process. The article argues that teachers' competence in assessment is related to making appropriate decisions in a specific context with a clear purpose of assessment in mind.
ECONOMIC POLICY FOR SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CASE STUDY OF SLOVAK REPUBLIC

Authors of the article focus on the current issues regarding foreign direct investments and their impact on the economic development of Slovak regions. The aim of this article is to draft overview of stage of current development within the economic and investment policy of the Government of the Slovak Republic to meet the needs of regional development. The introduction part presents the theoretical basis described by local and foreign authors reflecting the level of foreign direct investments use including their influence on the economic progress in particular regions emphasised on the development and promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises. Analysis of the government investment policy is carried out in the specification part underlining the significant role of the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency. Stated knowledge provide the theoretical framework for the experimental part of the article. Experimental part of the article by the means of numerical statistics and comparison method analyses and evaluates the level of investment support provided to small and medium-sized regional enterprises through projects sustained by the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency within the years 2012 and 2017.Successfully concluded projects concerning the foreign investment aid for the particular Slovak regions are analysed in experimental part, which also quantifies investments based on their contribution to the growth in jobs and provides an overview of the cooperating activities among regions of Slovakia from 2007 to 2017. Contributional outcome of the experimental part of the article is presentation of governmental standards, which are required from regions in order to obtain investment aid while job creation is taken into account. Issued conclusions may inspire further economic operators and authorities responsible in area of social and economic regional development in Slovak republic, regions of other Member States and third countries of Europe as well.
SlateQ: A Tractable Decomposition for Reinforcement Learning with Recommendation Sets

Reinforcement learning methods for recommender systems optimize recommendations for long-term user engagement. However, since users are often presented with slates of multiple items---which may have interacting effects on user choice---methods are required to deal with the combinatorics of the RL action space. We develop SlateQ, a decomposition of value-based temporal-difference and Q-learning that renders RL tractable with slates. Under mild assumptions on user choice behavior, we show that the long-term value (LTV) of a slate can be decomposed into a tractable function of its component item-wise LTVs. We demonstrate our methods in simulation, and validate the scalability and effectiveness of decomposed TD-learning on YouTube.
Accuracy of 12 Wearable Devices for Estimating Physical Activity Energy Expenditure Using a Metabolic Chamber and the Doubly Labeled Water Method: Validation Study

Background Self-monitoring using certain types of pedometers and accelerometers has been reported to be effective for promoting and maintaining physical activity (PA). However, the validity of estimating the level of PA or PA energy expenditure (PAEE) for general consumers using wearable devices has not been sufficiently established. Objective We examined the validity of 12 wearable devices for determining PAEE during 1 standardized day in a metabolic chamber and 15 free-living days using the doubly labeled water (DLW) method. Methods A total of 19 healthy adults aged 21 to 50 years (9 men and 10 women) participated in this study. They followed a standardized PA protocol in a metabolic chamber for an entire day while simultaneously wearing 12 wearable devices: 5 devices on the waist, 5 on the wrist, and 2 placed in the pocket. In addition, they spent their daily lives wearing 12 wearable devices under free-living conditions while being subjected to the DLW method for 15 days. The PAEE criterion was calculated by subtracting the basal metabolic rate measured by the metabolic chamber and 0.1×total energy expenditure (TEE) from TEE. The TEE was obtained by the metabolic chamber and DLW methods. The PAEE values of wearable devices were also extracted or calculated from each mobile phone app or website. The Dunnett test and Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were used to examine the variables estimated by wearable devices. Results On the standardized day, the PAEE estimated using the metabolic chamber (PAEEcha) was 528.8±149.4 kcal/day. The PAEEs of all devices except the TANITA AM-160 (513.8±135.0 kcal/day; P>.05), SUZUKEN Lifecorder EX (519.3±89.3 kcal/day; P>.05), and Panasonic Actimarker (545.9±141.7 kcal/day; P>.05) were significantly different from the PAEEcha. None of the devices was correlated with PAEEcha according to both Pearson (r=−.13 to .37) and Spearman (ρ=−.25 to .46) correlation tests. During the 15 free-living days, the PAEE estimated by DLW (PAEEdlw) was 728.0±162.7 kcal/day. PAEE values of all devices except the Omron Active style Pro (716.2±159.0 kcal/day; P>.05) and Omron CaloriScan (707.5±172.7 kcal/day; P>.05) were significantly underestimated. Only 2 devices, the Omron Active style Pro (r=.46; P=.045) and Panasonic Actimarker (r=.48; P=.04), had significant positive correlations with PAEEdlw according to Pearson tests. In addition, 3 devices, the TANITA AM-160 (ρ=.50; P=.03), Omron CaloriScan (ρ=.48; P=.04), and Omron Active style Pro (ρ=.48; P=.04), could be ranked in PAEEdlw. Conclusions Most wearable devices do not provide comparable PAEE estimates when using gold standard methods during 1 standardized day or 15 free-living days. Continuous development and evaluations of these wearable devices are needed for better estimations of PAEE.
WDM-PON with Wavelength-Routed ODN - Pros'n'Cons

Recently, wavelength-routed - filtered - WDM-PON re-attained interest. In ITU-T, WDM-PON is standardized in Study Group 15, Questions 2 and 6. This relates to the draft recommendation G.metro, which exclusively considers wavelengthrouted infrastructure, and to the draft recommendation G.multi and the G.989 series of recommendations on NG-PON2. These allow wavelength-routed as well as power-split Optical Distribution Networks. This option leads to some significant differences for the resulting WDM-PON. Power splitting enables support of legacy fiber plant and wavelength-agnostic bandwidth provisioning, whereas wavelength routing allows higher reach, lower cost of the WDM transceivers, and simpler control of the linear crosstalk which occurs in multichannel systems.
Bifidobacteria and Mucosal-Associated Invariant T (MAIT) Cells: A New Approach to Colorectal Cancer Prevention?

Colorectal cancer is the most preventable form of cancer worldwide. The pathogenesis of colorectal cancer includes gut inflammation, genetic and microbial composition factors. İmpairment of the gut microbiota has been associated with development of colorectal cancer. The genus Bifidobacterium is an important component of the commensal gut microbiota. Bifidobacteria are considered to have important roles in multiple homeostatic functions: immunologic, hormonal and metabolic. Mucosal-associated invariant T cells (MAIT) are components of the immune system involved in protection against infectious pathogens and regulate the pathogenesis of various inflammatory diseases and, potentially, colorectal cancer. Engagement between Bifidobacterium and MAIT cells could exert a beneficial effect on colorectal cancer prevention and treatment.
CRYSTALLIZATION AGES AND GEOCHEMISTRY OF THE MINERS BAY AND CEDAR BAY PLUTONS, PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND, ALASKA

The Late Eocene Eshamy Suite plutons (ESP) intrude turbidites of the Chugach-Prince William (CPW) terrane in western Prince William Sound. The Prince William Sound region of South-Central Alaska consists of the Chugach-Prince William Terrance (CPW), containing the Valdez and Orca Group separated by the Contact fault. The Valdez Group is Late Cretaceous in age and is characterized by a thick sequence of interbedded siltstone, greywacke, and pebble conglomerate likely deposited as turbidites on submarine fans (Tysdal and Plafker, 1978). South of the Valdez is the Orca Group of Paleocene to Eocene age, characterized by folded and faulted rocks that have been intruded by younger plutons (Davidson and Garver, 2017). The CPW has been traditionally interpreted as a Late Cretaceous to Paleocene accretionary wedge complex that was either formed in situ or was deposited farther south and subsequently transported a significant distance along the continental margin (cf. Cowan, 2003; Haeussler et al., 2003).