Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Web Service Hosting and Revenue Maximization

An architecture of a hosting system is presented, where a number of servers are used to provide different types of web services to paying customers. There are charges for running jobs and penalties for failing to meet agreed Quality-of-Service requirements. The objective is to maximize the total average revenue per unit time. Dynamic policies for making server allocation and job admission decisions are introduced and evaluated. The results of several experiments with a real implementation of the architecture are described. © 2007 University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Printed and published by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Computing Science, Claremont Tower, Claremont Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, England. Bibliographical details MAZZUCCO, M. , MITRANI, I. , PALMER, J., FISHER, M. , MCKEE, P. Web Service Hosting and Revenue Maximization [By] M. Mazzucco, I. Mitrani, J. Palmer, M. Fisher, P. McKee. Newcastle upon Tyne: University of Newcastle upon Tyne: Computing Science, 2007. (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Computing Science, Technical Report Series, No. CS-TR-1047)
Spring 5-15-2015 Static Analysis of Malicious Java Applets

Static Analysis of Malicious Java Applets by Nikitha Ganesh In this research, we consider the problem of detecting malicious Java applets, based on static analysis. In general, dynamic analysis is more informative, but static analysis is more efficient, and hence more practical. Consequently, static analysis is preferred, provided we can obtain results comparable to those obtained using dynamic analysis. We conducted experiments with the machine learning technique, Hidden Markov Model (HMM). We show that in some cases a static technique can detect malicious Java applets with greater accuracy than previously published research that relied on dynamic analysis.
Citation Metrics for Legal Information Retrieval Systems

This paper examines citations in legal information retrieval. Citation metrics can be a factor of relevance in the ranking algorithms of legal information retrieval systems. We provide an overview of the Dutch legal publishing culture. To analyze citations in legal publications, we manually analyze a set of documents and register by what (type of) documents they are cited: document type, intended audience of documents, actual audience of documents and author affiliations. An analysis of 9 cited documents and 217 citing documents shows no strict separation in citations between documents aimed at scholars and documents aimed at practitioners. Our results suggest that citations in legal documents do not measure the impact on scholarly publications and scholars, but measure a broader scope of impact, or relevance, for the legal field.
Munich Personal RePEc Archive Unemployment risk and wage differentials

Workers in less secure jobs are often paid less than identical-looking workers in more secure jobs. We show that this lack of compensating differentials for unemployment risk can arise in equilibrium when all workers are identical, and firms differ, but do so only in offered job security (the probability that the worker is not sent into unemployment). In a setting where workers search on and off the job, wages paid increase with job security for at least all firms in the risky tail of the distribution of firm-level unemployment risk. As a result, unemployment spells become persistent for low-wage and unemployed workers, a seeming pattern of ‘unemployment scarring’, that is created entirely by firm heterogeneity alone. Higher in the wage distribution, workers can take wage cuts to move to more stable employment.
Equality of Capabilities and the Weak Equity Axiom

In this study, we develop a simple, two-person economy model based on the capability approach. We show that the two distribution rules of goods equalizing capabilities (i.e., the least disparity of capabilities and the largest value of an intersection of capabilities) satisfy the weak equity axiom (Sen, 1973) defi ned over our framework. The results suggest that equality of capabilities can deal appropriately with hard case issues (i.e., issues related to the treatment of the disabled). Finally, we present two examples that illustrate an optimal solution for each rule.
Principals’ perceptions of “quality” in Mauritian schools using the Baldrige framework

Purpose – This article aims to report the findings of a research project exploring Mauritian principals’ receptivity to the main tenets inherent in Total Quality Management (TQM). The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) framework (aligned with, and an outcome of, the TQM movement) provides a set of criteria for organizational quality assessment and improvement in the business, healthcare and education sectors. Given the imperative to improve the quality of schools in Mauritius, this study was designed to investigate the usefulness of the widely accepted MBNQA framework in the Mauritian context.Design/methodology/approach – A nationwide questionnaire survey of school principals explored the nature and strength of the Baldrige theory of relationships between leadership, systems and processes of primary and secondary schools and the ensuing outcomes. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted.Findings – The findings indicate that Mauritian school leaders play a critical role in influencin.
Effect of Tryptic Digestion on Sensitivity and Specificity in MALDI-TOF-Based Molecular Diagnostics through Machine Learning

The digestion of protein into peptide fragments reduces the size and complexity of protein molecules. Peptide fragments can be analyzed with higher sensitivity (often > 102 fold) and resolution using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometers, leading to improved pattern recognition by common machine learning algorithms. In turn, enhanced sensitivity and specificity for bacterial sorting and/or disease diagnosis may be obtained. To test this hypothesis, four exemplar case studies have been pursued in which samples are sorted into dichotomous groups by machine learning (ML) software based on MALDI-TOF spectra. Samples were analyzed in ‘intact’ mode in which the proteins present in the sample were not digested with protease prior to MALDI-TOF analysis and separately after the standard overnight tryptic digestion of the same samples. For each case, sensitivity (sens), specificity (spc), and the Youdin index (J) were used to assess the ML model performance. The proteolytic digestion of samples prior to MALDI-TOF analysis substantially enhanced the sensitivity and specificity of dichotomous sorting. Two exceptions were when substantial differences in chemical composition between the samples were present and, in such cases, both ‘intact’ and ‘digested’ protocols performed similarly. The results suggest proteolytic digestion prior to analysis can improve sorting in MALDI/ML-based workflows and may enable improved biomarker discovery. However, when samples are easily distinguishable protein digestion is not necessary to obtain useful diagnostic results.
Application of Color and Musical Language in Chinese Contemporary Animation Film

With quickening space of domestic modernization construction, people’s material and culture life standard gets promoted continuously and art industry also obtains extremely rapid development. As an important branch of art, contemporary animation film develops with an objective speed under current social background. In terms of the essence of animation film, as two important elements, application of color and musical language must be excellent. Their application is mainly directly related to film theme, creation background, creator's personal emotion and so on. Based on the above elements influencing color and musical language, the author starts with three aspects: nationality and strengthening of folk characteristics, realism and reproduction, and symbolism and personalization, and systematically analyzes application of color language and musical language in Chinese contemporary animation film, hoping to provide some theoretical reference for colleagues in this industry to carry out relevant work. Keywords—Chinese contemporary animation; animation film; color fable; musical language
Specific Learning Disorders in Children and Adolescents with Obesity

Specific learning disorders (SLDs) are the most frequently diagnosed developmental disorders in childhood. Different neurocognitive patterns have been found in patients with overweight and obesity, but no data on childhood obesity and SLDs have been reported. To increase our understanding of the relationship between neuropsychological developmental and obesity, we assessed the prevalence of SLD in a pediatric population with obesity. We retrospectively included 380 children and adolescents with obesity. For all participants, auxological, metabolic, demographic features, relationship and social skills, anamnestic data on pregnancy and the perinatal period, stages of development and family medical history were reviewed. SLD was defined according to the DSM-5 criteria. A group of 101 controls of normal weight was included. The overall prevalence of SLD was 10.8%, and SLD was more prevalent in patients with obesity (p < 0.001), with male predominance (p = 0.01). SGA was associated with SLD (p = 0.02). Speech retardation (p < 0.001), limited relationships with peers (p < 0.001) and didactic support (p < 0.001) were noted in the SLD group compared to the group without SLD. A higher prevalence of family history of neuropsychiatric disorders was observed in the SLD group (p = 0.04). A higher fasting glucose level was detected in patients with obesity and SLD compared to subjects without SLD (p = 0.01). An association between obesity and SLD could not be excluded, and an overlap of pathogenic factors for both conditions should be considered.
Recovery after Running an “Everesting” Mountain Ultramarathon

Blood markers of muscle microdamage and systemic inflammation do not adequately explain the reduced performance observed over a prolonged recovery after running a mountain ultramarathon. This case study aimed to determine whether the reduced performance after the Everesting mountain ultramarathon can be further assessed by considering cardiorespiratory and metabolic alterations determined via repeated incremental and continuous running tests. A single runner (age: 24 years, BM: 70 kg, BMI: 22, Vo2peak: 74 mL∙min−1∙kg−1) was observed over a preparatory period of two months with a one-month recovery period. The Everesting consisted of nine ascents and descents of 9349 vertical metres completed in 18:22 (h:min). During the first phase of the recovery, enhanced peak creatine kinase (800%) and C-reactive protein (44%) levels explained the decreased performance. In contrast, decreased performance during the second, longer phase was associated with a decreased lactate threshold and Vo2 (21% and 17%, respectively), as well as an increased energetic cost of running (15%) and higher endogenous carbohydrate oxidation rates (87%), lactate concentrations (170%) and respiratory muscle fatigue sensations that remained elevated for up to one month. These alterations may represent characteristics that can explain the second phase of the recovery process after Everesting.
A Look Into Developer Intentions for App Compatibility in Android

Android apps have become a primary domain of software applications. However, various causes (e.g., fragmentation and SDK evolution) have led to growing compatibility issues in Android, as especially experienced by end users as these issues causing installation/execution failures of apps. Toward systematically understanding the compatibility issues in the Android ecosystem, this paper looks into developers' intentions for achieving compatibility of apps and/or preventing potential compatibility issues. We characterized such intentions as reflected via relevant app attributes, in 100,925 benign and malicious apps developed in years 2010–2017. We observed that, among many other findings, there were always developers whose intentions were clearly against Android's compatibility recommendations. Generally, malware developers' intentions were significantly and largely different from those of benign apps. The intentions were also constantly evolving, gradually moving to target newer platforms yet with years of delay, with a slower pace in malware. The compatibility intentions, however, were not always fulfilled as expected, despite the specific platform versions intended for.
University of Groningen The comparative and degree

Quantifiers in phrasal and clausal comparatives often seem to take distributive scope in the matrix clause: for instance, the sentence John is taller than every girl is is true iff for every girl it holds that John is taller than that girl. Broadly speaking, two approaches exist that derive this reading without postulating the (problematic) wide scope of the quantifier: the negation analysis and the interval analysis of thanclauses. We propose a modification of the interval analysis in which than-clauses are not treated as degree intervals but as degree pluralities. This small change has significant consequences: it yields a straightforward account of differentials in comparatives and it correctly predicts the existence of hitherto unnoticed readings, viz. cumulative readings of clausal comparatives. Finally, this paper also makes the case that using degree pluralities is conceptually appealing: it allows us to restrict the analysis of comparatives by mechanisms that are postulated independently in the semantics of pluralities.
The Effect of Chitosan on Physicochemical Properties of Whey Protein Isolate Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Applications

New scaffolds, based on whey protein isolate (WPI) and chitosan (CS), have been proposed and investigated as possible materials for use in osteochondral tissue repair. Two types of WPI-based hydrogels modified by CS were prepared: CS powder was incorporated into WPI in either dissolved or suspended powder form. The optimal chemical composition of the resulting WPI/CS hydrogels was chosen based on the morphology, structural properties, chemical stability, swelling ratio, wettability, mechanical properties, bioactivity, and cytotoxicity evaluation. The hydrogels with CS incorporated in powder form exhibited superior mechanical properties and higher porosity, whereas those with CS incorporated after dissolution showed enhanced wettability, which decreased with increasing CS content. The introduction of CS powder into the WPI matrix promoted apatite formation, as confirmed by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses. In vitro cytotoxicity results confirmed the cytocompatibility of CS powder modified WPI hydrogels, suggesting their suitability as cell scaffolds. These findings demonstrate the promising potential of WPI/CS scaffolds for osteochondral tissue repair.
PID-based P&O MPPT Controller for Offgrid Solar PV Systems Using Ziegler-Nichols Tuning Method to Step, Ramp and Impulse Inputs

In this paper, PID-based MPPT controller is designed for offgrid solar photovoltaic (PV) system. The Ziegler-Nichols (Z-N) Reaction Curve Tuning Method is employed to obtain the tuned response, and from that the tuned performance parameters as well as the optimum PID gain parameters. The responses of the system to step, ramp and impulse inputs are then compared with those of the offgrid solar photovoltaic (PV) system WITH and WITHOUT the Perturb-and-Observe (P&O) Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). The study shows the superiority the PID-controlled MPPT system over the P&O MPPT and the nonMPPT systems for all the various signal inputs. In particular, the simulated response of the PID-based system to the step input gave the shortest settling time of 22.7 ms (indicating the fastest system response) and zero overshoot (representing minimum losses). The system with P&O MPPT performance placed second with a settling time of 30 ms and 224 % overshoot. The non-MPPT system gave the slowest response with a settling time of 38.5 ms. Keywords—PV system; Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT); Ziegler-Nichols (Z-N) tuning; Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID); Perturb-and Observe (P&O); Photovoltaic (PV)
Optimizing Egalitarian Performance when Colocating Tasks with Types for Cloud Data Center Resource Management

In data centers, up to dozens of tasks are colocated on a single physical machine. Machines are used more efficiently, but the performance of the tasks deteriorates, as the colocated tasks compete for shared resources. Since the tasks are heterogeneous, the resulting performance dependencies are complex. In our previous work [1] , [2] we proposed a new combinatorial optimization model that uses two parameters of a task — its size and its type — to characterize how a task influences the performance of other tasks allocated to the same machine. In this paper, we study the egalitarian optimization goal: the aim is to optimize the performance of the worst-off task. This problem generalizes the classic makespan minimization on multiple processors ($P||C_{\max }$P||Cmax). We prove that polynomially-solvable variants of $P||C_{\max }$P||Cmax are NP-hard for this generalization, and that the problem is hard to approximate when the number of types is not constant. For a constant number of types, we propose a PTAS, a fast approximation algorithm, and a series of heuristics. We simulate the algorithms on instances derived from a trace of one of Google clusters. Compared with baseline algorithms solving $P||C_{\max }$P||Cmax, our proposed algorithms aware of the types of the jobs lead to significantly better tasks’ performance. The notion of type enables us to extend standard combinatorial optimization methods to handle degradation of performance caused by colocation. Types add a layer of additional complexity. However, our results — approximation algorithms and good average-case performance — show that types can be handled efficiently.
Kinetics of Non-Isothermal and Isothermal Crystallization in a Liquid Crystal with Highly Ordered Smectic Phase as Reflected by Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Polarized Optical Microscopy and Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy

The kinetics of the non-isothermal and isothermal crystallization of the crystalline smectic B phase (soft crystal B, SmBcr) in 4-n-butyloxybenzylidene-4′-n′-octylaniline (BBOA) was studied by a combination of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS) and polarized optical microscopy (POM). On cooling, part of the SmBcr phase undergoes conversion to a crystalline phase and the remainder forms a glassy state; after the glass softens, crystallization is completed during subsequent heating. By analyzing the area of the crystal growing in the texture of SmBcr as a function of time, the evolution of degree of crystallinity, D(t), was estimated. It was demonstrated that upon heating, D(t) follows the same Avrami curve as the crystallization during cooling. Non-isothermal crystallization observed during slow cooling rates (3K/min ≤ ϕ ≤ 5K/min) is a thermodynamically-controlled process with the energy barrier Ea ≈ 175 kJ/mol; however, the crystallization occurring during fast cooling (5 K/min > ϕ ≥ 30K/min) is driven by a diffusion mechanism, and is characterized by Ea ≈ 305 kJ/mol. The isothermal crystallization taking place in the temperature range 274 K and 281 K is determined by nucleus formation.
A Comparative Study on the Estimation of the Shear Strength of Rock Masses Using Rock SSPC System and Hoek-Brown Criterion

Normal 0 21 false false false TR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The shear strength of rock masses has vital importance for geotechnical projects such as slope stability, foundation and tunnels. The shear strength of the jointed rock mass can be estimated by different methods including large-scale testing, back calculation, rock mass classification system and empirical criterion. In this study, the peak and residual shear strength envelopes of jointed magmatic rock masses assessed using the Hoek-Brown criterion were compared with those assessed using the SSPC system The rocks masses evaluated in this study were outcropped at Gumushane-Giresun highway, NE of Turkey. The geotechnical units were separated from the rock masses using the lithological features, the weathering state and the frequency of discontinuity. It is determined that the meaningful relationships can be obtained between the values of shear strength parameters of the geotechnical units obtained by Hoek-Brown failure criterion and SSPC system Key Words : : jointed rock masses, magmatic rocks, shear strength, SSPC, Hoek-Brown criterion.
Reconciling industry policy and comparative advantage: The regional distribution of China’s cattle and beef industry

Much has been written in recent years on ‘local state corporatism’, centre-region relations, government and enterprise reform and on sustainable rural and agricultural development in China. Based on some of the theoretical underpinnings of this literature, and on extensive fieldwork in the full range of administrative levels, this paper presents an institutional approach to one Chinese rural industry. For a number of reasons, the Chinese cattle and beef industry serves as a highly revealing case study. While the industry only began developing along commercial lines in the 1990s, institutional forces have been instrumental, and perhaps more important than market forces, in forging the industry along its particular development path. The paper highlights the way by which institutions have affected particular development issues in the industry.
Seasonal Changes in Sleep, RPE, and Scoring Percentage in Division One Collegiate Female Basketball Players

Basketball season occurs over several months and involves heavy traveling, training, competing, and scholarly duties. These demands do not allow much time for rest and recovery. A lack in the quantity and quality of sleep can reduce the ability to manage stress and reduce recovery from training and competition. This can affect the health and well-being of the athlete and their success on the court. In college, sleep schedules may change from high school by staying up later and sleeping in more. College students typically sleep between six and seven hours a night which is less than the recommended nine hours (Eaton, 2007). The question appears to be whether a lack of sleep influences perceived exertion during training, competition and performance. There have been many studies examining the relationship between sleep hygiene and illness but less on performance (Damien, 2007). Twelve female basketball athletes recorded the number of hours of sleep, RPE following practice, and scoring percentage every day for six weeks. Statistical analysis was conducted to note difference in RPE, sleep, and scoring percentage. There was no significant difference in all variables across the six weeks of the in-season. Thesis Mentor: _________________________ Dr. Stephen Rossi Honors Director: _________________________ Dr. Steven Engel April 2019 Department of Health Science and Kinesiology University Honors Program Georgia Southern University