Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statistical properties of the tongue movement during natural speech

The objective of this paper is to extract and understand the statistics of tongue movementand analyze the pattern of their movement in free speech.The data used here is the audio signals and sensor readings of the tongue movement offour native English speakers with American accent.Tools from signal processing and probability theory are used to characterize the timeseriescorresponding to the tongue movements. For each speech segment we will create afeature vector corresponding to the spectral properties of the movement. By pooling thesefeatures corresponding to each speech epoch, the principal components of the movementsof different subjects are extracted and studied for their similarity.The transition dynamics will be investigated by creating a transition matrix that woulddescribe the probability of the tongue to move from one location to another in freespeech. Such transition matrices corresponding to the four subjects will be compared fortheir statistical similarities.
Compressed Video Processing for Cut Detection

One of the challenging problems in video databases is the organisation of video information. Segmenting a video into a number of clips and characterising each clip has been suggested as one mechanism for organising video information. This approach requires a suitable method to automatically locate cut points (boundaries between consecutive camera shots in a video). Several existing techniques solve this problem using uncompressed video. Since video is increasingly being captured, moved, and stored in compressed form, there is a need for detecting shot boundaries directly in compressed video. The authors address this issue and show certain feature extraction steps in MPEG compressed video that allow the implementation of most of the existing cut detection methods developed for uncompressed video for MPEG video stream. They also examine the performance of three tests for cut detection by viewing the problem of cut detection as a statistical hypothesis testing problem. As the experimental results indicate, the statistical hypothesis testing approach permits fast and accurate detection of video cuts.
Cómo diseñamos y ejecutamos el Proyecto Cacao Centroamérica para estimular al sector cacaotero de Centroamérica

Resumen de los montos de apalancamiento de socios del PCC en cada pais conseguidos entre 2008-2012 Pais monto 2008-2012 Socios (organizaciones) contribuyentes Honduras 1.465. 865FHIA, Aprocacaho, IICA, Funder, Helvetas, Ecomercados, Technoserve, Swiss Contact, CASM, U. de Honduras, ACDI, Chocolates Halba, Socodevi, Pymerural, SAG, U. de San Pedro Sula, Coagricsal, Aguas Puerto CortesNicaragua 617.812Cacaonica, Bioversity International, Promundo Humano, IICA, Ecomercados, UNAG, Lutheran World Relief, ICCO-Holanda, Ritter Sport, INTA, Magfor, UNA, Acawas, Universidad Bangor, P. Corazon, Floca, P. Cambio, HSI, Mesoterra, Fenacoop, Funica, CEI, Alcaldia Waslala, Inawas, PAC, La Campesina Costa Rica 655.887Procau, HSI, Canacacao, Promes/EARTH, Finca La Amistad, MAG, Beca Borlaug, Colegio Sepecue, UDT, CNP, Proyecto Binacional Sixaola, Fondos MAP para investigaciones, WCF, CBTC, Theo Chocolate, CSE, IMAS, UDT, CNP, UCR, Corredor Biologico, Proyecto Cambio-BCIE, Alianza publica privada, Finca Ciclares, CIRAD, GTZ, PCP, CFC-SIRC Common fund for Commodities , Embajada de Francia, Proyecto CCCAC, ATP Omega 3, MAGBelice 146.050 Green and Blacks, European Union, Health for Progress, HIVOS, IICA, Yax cheGuatemala 120.257Fundacion Fray Domingo de Vico, Cooperativa Tuneca, IICA, Asociacion Crecer, Funcafe, Prodever, Fundacion Lachua, Programa de Desarrollo de las Verapaces, FAO, Universidad de San Carlos, Agrocampus Ouest, RURAL PDER-MINECO, RUTA, Ministerio de Cultura, P. Cambio-BCIEPanama 131.275USAID, PMDSBT, IDIAP, MIDA, Cuerpo de Paz, Corredor Biologico, CONEP, ANAM, ASAP, AES, Proyecto Binacional, Universidad de Noruega, Universidad de Panama, PRODEI, APROTEN, Proyecto Cambio-BCIE, Alianza publica privada, ACPOtros paises 305.500UDENAR (Colombia), UNA (Nicaragua), Universite Montpellier, Francia, US Forest Service, World Cocoa Foundation, CIRADTotal 3.442. 646Los significados de los acronimos se encuentran en el recuadro de la pagina XX.
Packet Scheduling for Link-Sharing and Quality of Service Support in Wireless Local Area Networks

The growing deployment of wireless local area networks (WLANs) in corporate environments, the increasing number of wireless Internet service providers and demand for quality of service support create a need for controlled sharing of wireless bandwidth. In this technical report a method for using long-term channel-state information in order to control the sharing of wireless bandwidth is studied. The algorithm enables an operator of a WLAN to equalize the revenue/cost for each customer in the network and to control the link-sharing based on a combination of user-centric and operator-centric factors. As an example, we adapt one of the well-know wireline schedulers for hierarchical link-sharing, the Hierarchical Fair Service Curve Algorithm (H-FSC), for the wireless environment and demonstrate through simulations that the modified algorithm is able to improve the controlled sharing of the wireless link without requiring modifications to the MAC layer. In addition, we present the design and implementation for a Linux based prototype. Measurements in a wireless testbed confirm that the scheduling scheme can perform resource-based link-sharing on currently available hardware conforming to the IEEE 802.11 standard.
Betere prestaties door samen presatatie-indicatoren te ontwikkelen

Uit onderzoek is gebleken dat medewerkersprestaties kunnen verbeteren door samen met medewerkers prestatie-indicatoren te ontwikkelen. Onbekend is hoe deze verbetering precies tot stand komt, terwijl organisaties dat juist moeten weten als zij hetzelfde willen bereiken. Dit artikel test twee mogelijke verklaringen. Uit drie verschillende studies blijkt dat zowel medewerkers als leidinggevenden de kwaliteit van samen ontwikkelde prestatie-indicatoren hoger vinden. Verder blijkt dat kwalitatief goede prestatie-indicatoren medewerkers beter in staat stellen om goed te presteren en ze helpen leidinggevenden om discussies aan te gaan met medewerkers over hun prestaties. Dit zorgt allebei voor betere prestaties van medewerkers.
Cultural Innocence, Commitment and Education in Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine and The Great Ponds

Abstract This paper explores the cultural experience of the Africans before the advent of colonialism and contends that given the people’s rich culture which made their lives meaningful, there was no way the colonialists could have described them as primitive to justify their colonialism. The paper concludes that the two novels’ lack of artistic immediacy is compensated for in the area of education and re-education which the novelist subtly and creatively invests in the two works.
A counterimage to the gravitational arc in Abell 1201: Evidence for IMF variations, or a 1010 M⊙ black hole?

Abell 1201 is a massive galaxy cluster at z=0.169 with a brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) that acts as a gravitational lens to a background source at z=0.451. The lensing configuration is unusual, with a single bright arc formed at small radius (∼2 arcsec), where stars and dark matter are both expected to contribute substantially to the total lensing mass. Here, we present deep spectroscopic observations of the Abell 1201 BCG with MUSE, which reveal emission lines from a faint counter-image, opposite to the main arc, at a radius of 0.6 arcsec. We explore models in which the lensing mass is described by a combination of stellar mass and a standard dark-matter halo. The counter-image is not predicted in such models, unless the dark-matter component is negligible, which would imply an extremely heavy stellar initial mass function (IMF) in this galaxy. We consider two modifications to the model which can produce the observed configuration without resorting to extreme IMFs. Imposing a radial gradient in the stellar mass-to-light ratio, ϒ, can generate a counter-image close to the observed position if ϒ increases by ≳60 per cent within the inner ∼1 arcsec (e.g. variation from a Milky-Way-like to a Salpeter-like IMF). Alternatively, the counter-image can be produced by introducing a central super-massive black hole. The required mass is MBH = (1.3±0.6)× 1010 M⊙, which is comparable to the largest black holes known to date, several of which are also hosted by BCGs. We comment on future observations which promise to distinguish between these alternatives.
Using Existing Infrastructure as Support for Wireless Sensor Networks

With the growing interest in wireless sensor networks, energy efficient communication infrastructures for such networks are becoming increasingly important. In this paper, we compare and simulate asymmetric and symmetric communication in sensor networks. We do this by extending LEACH, a well-known TDMA cluster-based sensor network architecture, to use asymmetric communication. The extension makes it possible to scale up the network size beyond what is feasible with LEACH and its variants LEACH-C and LEACH-F.
The Design of Electronic Medical Record using Speech Recognition : Speech Recognition Examination Based on Speaker and Database system

Electronic Medical Record technologies have been often implemented using mouse, keyboard and scanner. However, it is difficult to input this system a lot of information such as texts of communication physician and patient, a physician’s consulting and prescription. This study proposed Electronic Medical Record using speech recognition. More useful Electronic Medical Record methods such as speech base method recently have attracted wide attention. First, we distinguished speaker dependent system, individual speaker registered enroll words, speaker independent system, random speaker did not register enroll words and Database system based on technical medical terms with 73 words in the IBM ViaVoice. We examined an input system on Electronic Medical Record with automatic speech recognition software for outpatient records. And, there are the best results, speech recognition rates (accuracy), we obtained so far, using the speaker dependent system, gave 95.8% accuracy, using the speaker independent system, gave 88.2% accuracy and the results obtained show that this model lead to improved recognition performance as like Database system based on technical medical terms.
Application of integer quadratic programming in detection of high-dimensional wireless systems

Elghariani, Ali Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2014. Application of Integer Quadratic Programming in Detection of High-Dimensional Wireless Systems . Major Professor: Michael Zoltowski. High-dimensional wireless systems have recently generated a great deal of interest due to their ability to accommodate increasing demands for high transmission data rates with high communication reliability. Examples of such large-scale systems include single-input, single-output symbol spread OFDM system, large-scale single-user multi-input multi-output (MIMO) OFDM systems, and large-scale multiuser MIMO systems. In these systems, the number of symbols required to be jointly detected at the receiver is relatively large. The challenge with the practical realization of these systems is to design a detection scheme that provides high communication reliability with reasonable computational complexity, even as the number of simultaneously transmitted independent communication signals becomes very large. Most of the optimal or near-optimal detection techniques that have been proposed in the literature of relatively low-dimensional wireless systems, such as MIMO systems in which number of antennas is less than 10, become problematic for high-dimensional detection problems. That is, their performance degrades or the computational complexity becomes prohibitive, especially when higher-order QAM constellations are employed. In the first part of this thesis, we propose a near-optimal detection technique which offers a flexible trade-off between complexity and performance. The proposed technique formulates the detection problem in terms of Integer Quadratic Programming (IQP), which is then solved through a controlled Branch and Bound (BB) search tree algorithm. In addition to providing good performance, an important feature of
Q-Learning with a growing RBF network for behavior learning in mobile robotics

The use of artiﬁcial neural networks for approximating value functions in reinforcement learning is a common practice, but usually requires much work on designing the network architecture and reﬁning of the network parame ters. In this paper we present a simple learning system that uses Q-learning with a resource allocating network (RAN) for behaviour learning in mobile robotics. The resource allocating network is used as a function approximator to dynamically represent the continuous sensory space, thus acquiring the sensorimotor mapping for generalization; and Q-learning is used to learn the control policy in ‘off-policy’ fashion that enables the human operator to guide the initial learning process, thus speeding up the reinforcement learn ing. We illustrate our approach using a PeopleBot robot to acquire a wall-following behaviour, and discuss some ob servations on the convergence and online training of our learning algorithm in the experiments.
Measuring gain in language programs : theory and research

focus of interest to teachers, researchers, and program evaluators. Theories of language learning and definitions of language gain have changed in a number of ways over recent decades. This study focuses on how second language research has redefined gain, both substantively in terms of what has been measured, and inferentially, in terms of putative causes underlying individual differences in observed gain. It concludes that there are two main requirements for inferences about language gain to stand up to critical analysis, regardless of the methodology used to assess language abilities. These are that assessments of ability must occur at least twice over the duration of a program, and that all assessment methods must be reliable and valid.
Evaluating interaction with Popie using tdt gestures

Popie is a tool that facilitates entering Japanese text based on flow menu. Tilt gestures interface is a promising interface because of its fast and natural of usage. In this paper we consider the interaction with Popie [1] using tilt hand gestures. Then we studied the speed and accuracy of interacting with Popie using different objects and in different situations. The primary results of our previous research shows that interacting with Popie using a wireless sensor and full hand gestures could be worth [2]. Our experiments demonstrate that tilt gesture has a lot of possibilities to operate Popie remotely in a faster manner using tilt gestures.
Financial Business Cloud for High-Frequency Trading

This paper defines a new business cloud model to create an efficient high-frequency trading platform. High- frequency trading systems, built to analyze trends in tick-by- tick financial data and thus to inform buying and selling decisions, imply speed and computing power. They also require high availability and scalability of back-end systems which require high cost investments. The defined model uses cloud computing architecture to fulfill these requirements, boosting availability and scalability while reducing costs and raising profitability. It incorporates data collection, analytics, trading, and risk management modules in the same cloud, all of which are the main components of a high- frequency trading platform.
Guidelines for Managing B2B Standards Implementation

This chapter presents a model of a Business-to-Business implementation that is developed based upon a literature review and an empirical study. The model is also accompanied by a set of implementation guidelines derived from the study. These results may guide organizations that plan to standardize B2B processes. They may also help organization improve the efficiency of their performance as well as guide future researchers towards new possibilities.
Barriers to uptake of wireless healthcare applications - a review

Wireless technology is growing and a number of vendors are providing solutions in the area of healthcare. These solutions include electronic prescriptions using handheld devices, data capturing at point of entry using wireless devices, communication of patient information and accessing patient databases using handheld devices. While these new systems appear to be providing solutions to some of the problems encountered by the healthcare industries, there are a number of barriers associated with the wireless technology itself, prohibiting the uptake of this technology in healthcare settings. This paper provides a review of such barriers.
Contribution à l’étude de modules radio ultra faible consommation pour réseaux de capteurs en gamme millimétrique

L’objectif de ces travaux etait d’etudier la faisabilite d’un module radio ultra large bande en gamme millimetrique destine a des applications de reseaux de capteurs ultra faible consommation pour des applications domotiques, industrielles ou environnementales. Aujourd'hui, l'usage du canal 60 GHz radio est attrayante pour les applications de reseaux de capteurs car elle beneficie d'une ressource spectrale large (7GHz entre 57GHz et 64GHz), d’une miniaturisation des modules radio, de l'interference limitee avec les autres systemes de communication. Apres avoir compare plusieurs technologies de couche physique nous avons opte pour un module radio en technique impulsionnelle ultra large bande transposee en gamme millimetrique autour de 60GHz, qui presente une faible consommation d'energie, une faible complexite de l'architecture radio, une faible sensibilite a la non-linearite de l'emetteur, une robustesse aux effets de propagation multiple et une resolution temporelle elevee pour des applications de localisation. Nous avons ensuite montre que pour des reseaux de moyenne densite et a faible debit numerique les approches S-MAC et Zigbee sont prometteuses demandant a etre encore ameliorees dans la mesure ou il n’existe pas a ce jour de normes etablies pour les liaisons radio entre nœuds de reseau de capteurs. De plus, afin de ne pas complexifier l’architecture globale du module radio et de diminuer la consommation nous avons choisi une architecture ULB transposee en gamme millimetrique avec une modulation de type OOK et une solution de demodulation basee sur la detection non coherente de l'energie Pour valider le principe, nous avons concu deux circuits utilisant la technologie AsGa 0.1um pHEMT de chez OMMIC. L’un est un emetteur qui fonctionne a 30GHz et l’autre fonctionne a 60GHz. Dans la derniere partie, nous presentons la conception de l’emetteur du nœud de capteur en technologie CMOS 65nm SOI compose d’un oscillateur a 30 GHz controle par un generateur d’impulsion sub nanoseconde, d’un doubleur de frequence et d’un amplificateur dont les alimentations sont declenchees par un autre generateur d’impulsion. La synchronisation, la determination du seuil et la demodulation des donnees sont implementees sous un FPGA afin de les valider et de determiner la consommation d’energie.
Web Reasoning and Rule Systems: Five Years into the Conference

In this note we retrospect on the ve years of the Web Reasoning and Rule Systems conference series and discuss the rationale for the series in the context of the overall eld of the Semantic Web, the activities of the Web Reasoning research community, and the development of standards for rule-based systems on the Web. At the end, we draw the reader's attention to the next event in the series, which will take place in Vienna in September 2012.
Back-pressure-like mechanisms on relay selection policies for cooperative diversity systems

The topic of the current thesis is the reduction of the average packet delayin two-hop wireless cooperative networks with buffer-aided relays. This typeof networks is of particular interest since it constitutes the building block forextended networks with multiple hops and numerous relays.Back-pressure-like algorithms are developed for the HRS and max − linkrelay selection schemes. First, an algorithm is developed and applied for boththe HRS and the max − link protocols. It reduces the average delay considerably,but, in the case of the max − link the diversity of the system is reducedresulting in higher outage probabilities. For this reason, a new algorithm is developedthat aims at maintaining a high diversity throughout the operation ofthe network. Distributed implementations of the algorithms are also discussed.The performance of the proposed algorithms is illustrated via simulations.
Implementation of a Fast Algorithm for Segmenting SAR Imagery

Abstract : This report gives a detailed presentation of the implementation of a new fast algorithm for image segmentation. The original motivation for development of the algorithm was the segmentation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery into homogeneous regions for target detection in the Analysts' Detection Support System. However, the algorithm is a general one based upon Mumford-Shah functionals, and there is no technical reason why it could not also be used for other imaging modalities, including multiband imagery. The algorithm has computational complexity on the order of the Fast Fourier Transform, the benchmark for fast algorithms.
Extending Ourselves: Computational Science, Empiricism, and Scientific Method

Computational methods such as computer simulations, Monte Carlo methods, and agent-based modeling have become the dominant techniques in many areas of science. Extending Ourselves contains the first systematic philosophical account of these new methods, and how they require a different approach to scientific method. Paul Humphreys draws a parallel between the ways in which such computational methods have enhanced our abilities to mathematically model the world, and the more familiar ways in which scientific instruments have expanded our access to the empirical world. This expansion forms the basis for a new kind of empiricism, better suited to the needs of science than the older anthropocentric forms of empiricism. Human abilities are no longer the ultimate standard of epistemological correctness. Humphreys also includes arguments for the primacy of properties rather than objects, the need to consider technological constraints when appraising scientific methods, and a detailed account of how the path from computational template to scientific application is constructed. This last feature allows us to hold a form of selective realism in which anti-realist arguments based on formal reconstructions of theories can be avoided. One important consequence of the rise of computational methods is that the traditional organization of the sciences is being replaced by an organization founded on computational templates. Extending Ourselves will be of interest to philosophers of science, epistemologists, and to anyone interested in the role played by computers in modern science.