Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Work Package 2 Report - Cyber resilience for the shipping industry

This report describes the current state of the research performed as a part of the CyberShip project for its Work Package 2. This work package aims at deﬁning a CyberShip model and KPIs for cyber resilience. This is a project funded by the Danish Maritime Fund (DMF) with the objective of proposing a framework for improving the resilience of the shipping industry.
The Economics Of Information Technology

The Economics of Information Technology is a concise and accessible review of some of the important economic factors affecting information technology industries. These industries are characterized by high fixed costs and low marginal costs of production, large switching costs for users, and strong network effects. These factors combine to produce some unique behavior. The book consists of two parts. In the first part, Professor Varian outlines the basic economics of these industries. In the second part, Professors Farrell and Shapiro describe the impact of these factors on competition policy. The clarity of the analysis and exposition makes this an ideal introduction for undergraduate and graduate students in economics, business strategy, law and related areas.
Bioinformatics Original Paper Unbiased Pattern Detection in Microarray Data Series

Motivation: Following the advent of microarray technology in recent years, the challenge for biologists is to identify genes of interest from the thousands of genetic expression levels measured in each microarray experiment. In many cases the aim is to identify pattern in the data series generated by successive microarray measurements. Results: Here we introduce a new method of detecting pattern in micro-array data series which is independent of the nature of this pattern. Our approach provides a measure of the algorithmic compressibility of each data series. A series which is significantly compressible is much more likely to result from simple underlying mechanisms than series which are incompressible. Accordingly, the gene associated with a compressible series is more likely to be biologically significant. We test our method on microarray time series of yeast cell cycle and show that it blindly selects genes exhibiting the expected cyclic behaviour as well as detecting other forms of pattern. Our results successfully predict two independent non-microarray experimental studies.
EIRDA: An Energy Efficient Interest based Reliable Data Aggregation Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

When designing a protocol for data aggregation two things need to be considered; data reliability and energy efficiency. A good data aggregation protocol is one that achieves high data reliability using the least amount of overhead as possible. In case of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), data aggregation is widely accepted as an essential pattern for energy efficiency. In this paper, we propose An Energy Efficient Interest Based Reliable Data Aggregation (EIRDA) Protocol for WSNs. EIRDA effectively delivers the data to the sink. In EIRDA, we consider static clustering scheme for the uniform distribution of sensor nodes (SNs) in each cluster. Simulation result shows that EIRDA is efficient in terms of energy and achieves higher reliability.
TRECVID 2004 Experiments in Dublin City University

In a move away from previous years' participation in TRECVid ((1) (2) (3)), this year our team focused on the instance search task (INS). We improved our system from last year by applying large vocabulary quantization, soft assignment of visual words, spatial verications and query expansion. Overall, four automatic runs have been submitted for evaluation. In this paper, we present rst our system, then we discuss the results and ndings of our experiments.
Distinct Counting With a Self-Learning Bitmap

Counting the number of distinct elements (cardinality) in a dataset is a fundamental problem in database management. In recent years, there has been significant interest to address the distinct counting problem in a data stream setting, where each incoming data can be seen only once and cannot be stored for long periods of time. Many probabilistic approaches based on either sampling or sketching have been proposed in the computer science literature that only require limited computing and memory resources. However, the performances of these methods are not scale invariant, in the sense that their relative root mean square estimation errors (RRMSE) depend on the unknown cardinalities. This is not desirable in many applications where cardinalities can be dynamic or inhomogeneous and many cardinalities need to be estimated. In this article, we develop a novel approach, called self-learning bitmap (S-bitmap) that is scale invariant for cardinalities in a specified range. S-bitmap uses a binary vector whose entries are updated from 0 to 1 by an adaptive sampling process for inferring the unknown cardinality, where the sampling rates are reduced sequentially as more and more entries change from 0 to 1. We prove rigorously that the S-bitmap estimate is not only unbiased but scale invariant. We demonstrate that to achieve a small RRMSE value of ε or less, our approach requires significantly less memory and uses similar or fewer operations than state-of-the-art methods for many common practice cardinality scales. Both simulation and experimental studies are reported.
Electron Distribution Functions Around a Reconnection X‐Line Resolved by the FOTE Method

Using data from the MMS mission and the First‐Order Taylor Expansion (FOTE) method, here we reveal electron distribution functions around a reconnection X‐line at the Earth's magnetopause. We find cigar distribution of electrons in both the magnetosphere‐side and magnetosheath‐side inflow regions, isotropic distribution of electrons at the separatrix, and loss of high‐energy electrons in the antiparallel direction in the magnetosheath‐side inflow region. We interpret the formation of cigar distribution in the inflow regions using the Fermi mechanism—as suggested in previous simulations, the loss of high‐energy electrons in the magnetosheath side using the parallel electric fields—which evacuate electrons to escape the diffusion region along the antiparallel direction, and the isotropic distribution at the separatrix using the pitch angle scattering by whistler waves—which exist frequently at the separatrix. We also find that the electron distribution functions can change rapidly (within 60 ms) from isotropic to cigar as the spacecraft moves slightly away from the separatrix.
Noah A. Smith

Can computers understand human language? In some ways they already give the appearance of doing so—we have reasonably good dialog systems (in some domains) and very good Web search (from keywords)—but I believe there is at least a career’s worth of work to be done before computers achieve fluency and broaddomain competence with language. Hence my research goals span many aspects of the problem of natural language processing (hereafter, NLP). The key to this problem, I believe, is the right combination of learning from available data, efficient algorithms and representations, and identifying problems that lead NLP research in the right direction. Here I will briefly discuss my current work and goals, organized as follows:
Australian imperialism and East Timor

The Howard Government’s military intervention in East Timor in 1999 was an act of imperialism. It was not forced on a reluctant government by popular pressure, nor were its aims humanitarian. Rather, the intervention used military power to secure longstanding strategic interests of the Australian state. From 1974, successive Australian governments supported Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor in order to foreclose the possibility of rival powers gaining influence in the Indonesian archipelago, which might allow them to threaten Australian interests. But, by September 1999, the Indonesian occupation had become untenable. Australia inserted military forces into East Timor to ensure that the transition to independence would be relatively orderly, avoiding a destabilising power vacuum. The intervention also boosted Australia’s ability to defend its economic and strategic interests in the new nation. The success and domestic popularity of the intervention allowed the Howard Government to increase military spending and act more aggressively to defend Australia’s imperial interests in the Southwest Pacific.
This paper

Privacy choice interfaces commonly take the form of cookie consent banners, advertising choices, sharing settings, and prompts to enable location and other system services. However, a growing body of research has repeatedly demonstrated that existing consent and privacy choice mechanisms are difficult for people to use. Our work synthesizes the approaches used in prior usability evaluations of privacy choice interactions and contributes a framework for conducting future evaluations. We first identify a comprehensive definition of usability for the privacy-choice context consisting of seven aspects: user needs, ability & effort, awareness, comprehension, sentiment, decision reversal, and nudging patterns. We then classify research methods and study designs for performing privacy choice usability evaluations. Next, we draw on classic approaches to usability testing and prior work in this space to identify a framework that can be applied to evaluations of different types of privacy choice interactions. Usability evaluations applying this framework can yield design recommendations that would improve the usability of these choice mechanisms, ameliorating some of the considerable user burden involved in privacy management.
Purdue e-Pubs Purdue e-Pubs

Many heat transfer and fluid flow problems are too complex to model using traditional regression methods. Machine learning (ML) offers a new way to develop predictive models with high accuracy. However, current ML models are often uninterpretable and used as “black boxes”. This paper presents an approach to develop explicit, algebraic correlations from neural networks. An interpretable neural network, namely DimNet, is designed. One can train DimNet with experimental or simulation data and then convert the trained network to an explicit, power-law-like piecewise function. Besides being interpretable, DimNet inherits advantages of neural networks in modeling complex nonlinear problems. The mechanism and effectiveness of DimNet and the correlation development approach is further demonstrated by two case studies: 1) correlating simulation data for the friction factor of flow in smooth pipes; 2) correlating experimental data for flow boiling heat transfer coefficient within microfin tubes. Both case studies show DimNet can produce simple, explicit, algebraic correlations that are both statistically and phenomenologically accurate. The presented approach can be potentially used to develop correlations for various thermal-hydraulic problems, such as the pressure drop and heat transfer of single-and multi-phase flow, heat exchangers, and other thermal-hydraulic equipment.
Oral squamous cell carcinoma with synchronous follicular lymphoma: A rare case report

The occurrence of oral squamous cell carcinoma synchronously with lymphoma arising primarily in cervical lymph nodes is rare. Here, we report a case representing an infrequent finding. A 66-year-old male who was diagnosed with right mandibular squamous cell carcinoma and was subsequently found to have a nodal follicular lymphoma as a second malignancy. The patient underwent surgical resection for the oral squamous cell carcinoma with right selective neck dissection. The multidisciplinary team’s postoperative treatment strategy involved adjuvant radiotherapy for the oral squamous cell carcinoma, while adopting a close follow-up approach for the follicular lymphoma. After an 18-month follow-up, there were no evidence of disease progression. This case report highlights the diagnostic challenges of synchronous primary malignancies occurring in the head and neck region. It also underscores the importance to conduct a comprehensive clinical and histopathological examination to rule out the possibility of synchronous neoplasms.
Association of short-course antimicrobial therapy and bacterial resistance in acute cholangitis: Retrospective cohort study

Background and study aims Although the number of resistant bacteria tends to increase with prolonged antimicrobial therapy, no studies have examined the relationship between the duration of antimicrobial therapy and increase in the number of resistant bacteria in acute cholangitis. We hypothesized that the short-term administration of antimicrobial agents in acute cholangitis would suppress bacterial resistance. Patients and methods This was a single-center, retrospective, observational study of patients with acute cholangitis admitted between January 2018 and June 2020 who met the following criteria: successful biliary drainage, positive blood or bile cultures, bacteria identified from cultures sensitive to antimicrobials, and subsequent cholangitis recurrence by January 2022. The patients were divided into two groups: those whose causative organisms at the time of recurrence became resistant to the antimicrobial agents used at the time of initial admission (resistant group) and those who remained susceptible (susceptible group). Multivariate analysis was used to examine risk factors associated with the development of resistant pathogens. Multivariate analysis investigated antibiotics used with the length of 3 days or shorter after endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and previously reported risk factors for the development of bacterial resistance. Results In total, 89 eligible patients were included in this study. There were no significant differences in patient background or ERCP findings between the groups. The use of antibiotics, completed within 3 days after ERCP, was associated with a lower risk of developing bacterial resistance (odds ratio, 0.17; 95% confidence interval, 0.04–0.65; P =0.01). Conclusions In acute cholangitis, the administration of antimicrobials within 3 days of ERCP may suppress the development of resistant bacteria.
Randomised controlled trial assessing the effects of 6-week telerehabilitation exercise programme on chronic non-specific neck pain: a study protocol

Chronic non-specific neck pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal conditions affecting the work and lifestyle of those suffering from it. Physiotherapy interventions, such as strength training and stretching, have positively influenced neck pain. Patient adherence to home-based exercises is a growing concern that could be easily improved through telerehabilitation exercise programmes. This can also be a cost-effective, time-efficient and patient-suitable service. Therefore, this study aims to establish the effectiveness of telerehabilitation exercise intervention by measuring patient adherence, pain score, disability index, cervical range of motion (CROM) and cervical muscle endurance. This randomised controlled trial will include n=60 participants, aged 18–45 years, in a 6-week home-based exercise programme delivered through telerehabilitation or paper-based instructions. Outcome measures from participants will be obtained at baseline and on completion of 6 weeks. These will include the Visual Analogue Scale for Pain, Neck Disability Index questionnaire, CROM by using the CROM instrument and cervical muscle endurance through the Craniocervical Flexion Test. For baseline differences between groups, an independent samples t-test will be used. Repeated measures analysis of variance will be used for within-group and between-group analyses at three different time points (0 weeks, 3 weeks, 6 weeks). Trial registration number:NCT06076174.
A Biased, Incomplete Perspective on the Evolution of Human Mating Systems

Alan F. Dixson’s Sexual Selection and the Origins of Human Mating Systems presents an incomplete and biased review of the evidence relevant to the evolution of human mating systems. Despite a pretense of drawing on information from multiple disciplines, Dixson largely ignores research conducted within evolutionary psychology as it pertains to human mating. Instead, he focuses almost exclusively on comparative physiology and anatomy in primates to build a case that human evolutionary history is characterized by monogamy and polygamy, rather than the multi-male/multi-female mating system—and associated intense sperm competition—of chimpanzees, for example. This is a well-established conclusion, however. Humans, as a species, tend towards monogamy and polygamy, rather than multi-male/multifemale mating systems, and Dixson builds a strong case for this long-known conclusion. A key problem is that Dixson’s conclusion does not allow for degrees of sperm competition. The frequent refrain throughout the book is that sperm competition played no selective role in the evolution of human mating systems. To use Dixson’s own words (although he directed them at evolutionary psychologists), this conclusion regarding the role of sperm competition is “a case of wishful thinking. ” The conclusion that sperm competition played no role in the evolution of human mating strategies biases the way Dixson views research and presents data throughout the book. Here we address several of the most telling examples of bias: the construction of a false mating system dichotomy, the discussion of female orgasm, and the charges of academic xenophobia against those who disagree with Dixson’s conclusion that sperm competition played no selective role in human evolutionary history.
Mechanism of SO2/H2O enhanced rare earth tailings catalysts in NH3-SCR at medium and high temperature

Rare earth tailings (RET) NH3-SCR catalysts were prepared by mechanical and microwave activation of a large amount of rare earth tailings after beneficiation of Bayan Ebo rare earth ore. The effects of SO2/H2O on the denitrification performance of the RET catalysts were evaluated by conducting denitrification activity tests, SO2/H2O tolerance tests and in situ DRIFTs mechanistic analysis. The results showed that the denitrification activity was significantly increased in the presence of SO2/H2O. And in situ DRIFTs analysis showed that in the presence of SO2/H2O, SO2 could be adsorbed as SO32− groups by the hydroxyl groups on the catalyst surface and react with SO42− to form S2O72− species. And in the presence of NH3, S2O72− would decompose into unstable SO42− species and SO32− and continue to react cyclically to form S2O72− species, providing the RET catalyst provides more acid sites, facilitating the SCR reaction.
Performance Evaluation of A Load Self-Balancing Method for Heterogeneous Metadata Server Cluster Using Trace-Driven and Synthetic Workload Simulation

In cluster-based storage systems, the metadata server cluster must be able to adaptively distribute responsibility for metadata to maintain high system performance and long-term load balance, due to workload skew and metadata servers' heterogeneity. In this paper, we describe a simple and adaptive metadata load management scheme, called self-balancing uniform (SBU) randomization, to efficiently and continually adapt the metadata distribution to current demands in heterogeneous metadata server cluster. We implement our system within a discrete event driven simulation environment, along with two other systems, simple randomization (SR) and performance aware distribution (PAD) to serve as points of comparison, and evaluate the performance of our SBU algorithms against SR and PAD algorithms by both a trace workload and a synthetic workload. Simulation results verify that our SBU algorithm achieves load self-balance, provides consistent response latencies and resource utilization. Simulation results also indicate that SR cannot cope with skew and heterogeneity and PAD requires a larger shared state to achieve optimal performance.
Spatial and Oceanographic Factors Affecting Black-Legged Kittiwake and Thick-Billed Murre Distributions in the Southeastern Bering Sea

Spatial and Oceanographic Factors Affecting Black-legged Kittiwake and Thick-billed Murre Distributions in the Southeastern Bering Sea. by Brian Allan Hoover Master of Science in Marine Science California State University Monterey Bay, 2013 The distribution patterns of Thick-billed Murres (Uria lomvia) and Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) in the southeastern Bering Sea were documented at sea during vessel-based surveys in July-August of 2008 and 2009. The relationships of murre and kittiwake densities with environmental variables were investigated using binomial generalized additive models (GAMs) to model the presence or absence of birds, and Gammaerror distribution GAMs to model the positive densities of birds. Environmental variables included oceanographic factors (Chlorophyll, Chlorophyll anomalies, Daily SST, Monthly SST), spatial factors (Distance to nearest colony, Distance to 300m shelf break, Depth), and a temporal factor (Year). Nocturnal surveys were also conducted in 2009 using a novel surveying protocol to quantify changes in seabird distribution patterns between day and night. Diurnal and nocturnal transects were modeled with environmental variables and acoustically derived measures of prey abundance, to investigate whether birds associated with different regions or food types between day or night. The association of murres with habitat variables did not differ greatly between years, and variability in murre distributions was primarily explained by spatial factors. When pooled between years, murres sighted closest to St. Paul were positively associated with chlorophyll concentrations and with the proximity to their colony, whereas murres from St. George were positively associated with the proximity to their colony, chlorophyll concentration, and a monthly sea surface temperature of 7° Celsius. In contrast, the association of kittiwakes with habitat variables differed significantly between year and when categorized by closest colony. In 2008, kittiwake densities were not strongly associated with any variables, but were most closely related to oceanographic conditions. In 2009, kittiwake sightings were more concentrated
Sociocultural environmental factors and childhood stunting: qualitative studies – a protocol for the Shared Values theme of the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub

Introduction Stunting is a significant and growing global problem that is resisting scientific attempts to understand it in terms of direct nutrition-related determinants. In recent years, research included more complex, indirect and multifactorial determinants and expanded to include multisectoral and lifestyle-related approaches. The United Kingdom Research Initiative Global Challenges Research Fund's (UKRI GCRF) Action Against Stunting Hub starts on the premise that dominant factors of stunting may vary between contexts and life phases of the child. Thus, the construction of a typology of clustered factors will be more useful to design effective programmes to alleviate it. The Shared Values theme seeks to build a bottom-up holistic picture of interlinked cultural contextual factors that might contribute to child stunting locally, by first eliciting shared values of the groups closest to the problem and then enquiring about details of their relevant daily activities and practices, to reveal links between the two. We define shared values as what groups consider ‘valuable, worthwhile and meaningful’ to them. Methods and analysis We will recruit 12–25 local stakeholder groups in each site (in India, Indonesia and Senegal) involved in children’s food and early learning environments, such as mothers, fathers, grandmothers, teachers, market vendors and health workers. The WeValue InSitu process will be used to assist them to collectively elicit, negotiate and self-articulate their own shared values through exploration of shared tacit knowledge. Focus group discussions held immediately subsequently will ask about daily activities relevant to the children’s environment. These contain many examples of cultural contextual factors potentially influencing stunting locally, and intrinsically linked to shared values articulated in the previous session.