Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Semantic Convergence of ALL and ONLY to tɕin in Chengdu Chinese

The adverbial uses of ALL and ONLY can converge to one and the same visual property word 净 tɕin ‘clean’ in Chengdu Chinese. These two apparently opposite meanings find their common source as “homogeneity”, which may hail from their literal “clean” and “pure” meanings. Crucially, in order for semantic “homogeneity” to apply, plurality is required, be it plurality of a given nominal set or plurality of a set formed by multiple events. The former one, being homogeneous across items, leads to the ALL meaning, whereas the latter one, being homogeneous across time, gives rise to the ONLY sense. As for their application, the ALL operator takes a right-to-left directionality and applies to the plural nominal phrase(s) left to tɕin, while the ONLY operator adopts the left-to-right direction to apply to a constituent within predicate, e.g., the verb, the object, the time adverbial or the location adverbial, depending on contexts. It is with regard to plurality and homogeneity/exhaustivity that the meanings of ALL and ONLY converge to one single item tɕin. Moreover, we find that sensory words in Chengdu Chinese and Cantonese, compared to those in Mandarin, are more likely to serve as adverbials.
Interplay between musical practices and tuning in the <i>marimba de chonta</i> music

Tonal consonance theory assigns a level of dissonance to any pair of pitches played simultaneously. This theory connects timbre with tuning and proposes that tunings must use local minima of dissonance. The timbre of the marimba de chonta produces a broad minimum, a sharp maximum, and some sharp minima of dissonance. Here we show that the combined effect of the traditional tunings and the musical practices of this instrument only allows the use of the broad minimum, leading to special features of this music as a transposition practice that keeps geometrical distances instead of musical intervals.
Encryption Based DWT-SVD Medical Image Watermarking Technique Using Hamming Code

This paper presents a watermarking approach using simple encryption scheme. The proposed approach comprises transform domain techniques based on DWT-SVD along with error correcting code (ECC). In this approach, the original image is decomposed using DWT followed by determining appropriate sub-bands for inserting the secret watermarks. Further, the chosen sub-bands are transformed through SVD. Two watermarks as ‘patient name’ and ‘patient medical image ‘are embedded into singular values of the selected DWT sub-bands. The proposed approach when subjected to various attacks achieved considerable values of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), bit error rate (BER), and normalized correlation (NC). The comparative analysis of our approach with similar approach demonstrates that ours performance is better when subjected to attacks.
Towards an Embedded Stereo Matching Algorithm Based on Multiple Correlation Windows

Stereo matching consists in extracting 3D information from digital images, such as those obtained by a CCD camera. It is an important issue under several real world applications, such as positioning systems for mobile robots, augmented reality systems, etc. In previous works one of the most popular trend to address the stereo matching challenge is that compares scene information from two viewpoints (left-right) with an eppipolar geometry via correlation metrics. In regard to the correlation metrics, most previous works compute the similarity between pixels in the left image and pixels in the right image using a correlation index computed on neighborhoods of these pixels called correlation windows. Unfortunately, in order to preserve edges, small correlation windows need to be used, while, for homogeneous areas, large correlation windows are required. To address this problem, we lay down on the hypothesis that small correlation windows combined with large correlation windows should deliver accurate results under homogeneous areas while at the same time edges are preserved. To validate our hypothesis, in this paper a similarity criterion based on the grayscale homogeneity of the correlation window being processed is presented. Preliminary results are encourageous, validates our hypothesis and demonstrated the viability performance and scope of the proposed approach.
Material and Medium: An examination of sound recycling in Oval’s 94 diskont

Reproduction (playback) is responsible for the presentation of the full spectrum of sound character captured during the recording process. The control of this and the faithfulness to an original sound has informed modern sound aesthetics. Current modes of reproduction, such as streaming, see the listener more interested in an approximate presentation of sound, rather than a broad and more psychoacoustically pleasing one. In the sonic arts, the practice of sound recycling and its associated methodologies, reproduction is re-contextualised, involving material that is borrowed, reworked and often disconnected from its source. Such issues are considered in this article through the examination of sound recycling in 94 diskont (1995), an album produced by the German act Oval. By studying the use of material and medium in the work, an attempt is made to discuss approaches to sound recycling through conceptual frameworks proposed by Bregman, Deleuze, Guattari and Smalley to provide a forum towards the interpretation of sound recycling in wider sonic arts practices.
A Scientific Data Representation Through Particle Flow Based Linear Interpolation

Scientists often desire interactive visual analytics services to efficiently and effectively study their large-scale scientific data generated from simulations or observations. However, as the volume of scientific data is growing exponentially, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve this goal for a typical interactive visual analytics system nowadays. The bottlenecks in visual analytics processes manifest in fetching time series data in a continuous manner. Since the changes in scientific datasets over a period of time are usually small and continuous, it is possible to learn an optical flow based representation of such dynamics. Therefore, the intermediate time steps of data can be efficiently inferred at run time. However, the existing optical flow determination methods cannot be directly applied to scientific datasets due to the highly complex non-rigid transformations in the feature space of scientific datasets. In this paper, we present a new method, named particle flow, that can capture the inherently complex dynamics of scientific datasets. We can effectively reconstruct any intermediate frames by interpolating the starting and ending frames using the resulting particle flow. We have also demonstrated that our approach can be effectively applied in data reduction for scientific datasets. Extensive experiments are conducted to show the accuracy and the efficiency of our approach over existing methods.
Index Maintenance Strategy and Cost Model for Extended Cluster Pruning

With today's dynamic multimedia collections, maintenance of high-dimensional indexes is an important, yet understudied topic. Extended Cluster Pruning (eCP) is a highly-scalable approximate indexing approach based on clustering, that is targeted at stable performance in a disk-based scenario. In this work, we propose an index maintenance strategy for the eCP index, which utilizes the tree structure of the index and its approximate nature. We then develop a cost model for the strategy and evaluate its cost using a simulation model.
The Great Digital Revolution: Humanitarian and Pedagogical Aspects

The article suggests a new view at the effect of digital revolution in economy. And in this connection here are defined the functions of such concepts as the sociocentrism, individocentrism, personacentrism (personality-centeredness). Also the article justifies the prospects of new pedagogical strategy.
Identifying Forged Images Using Image Metadata

Nowadays, we receive, send and click a number of images frequently. Multimedia messages especially images can be easily transferred to anyone in no time and no cost just like text messages. There are many software easily available that can modify an image. With such a wide usage of images in communication networks it becomes difficult to conclude if an image is an original one or a forged one. This paper proposes the usage of image metadata, which is much smaller in size as compared to contents of an image, to authenticate an image. Further, the architecture of a system using a neural network is proposed which extracts attributes from the metadata of an image to predict if an image is an original one or a forged one. The system is also capable of predicting the operation applied and the software/tool used to modify the original image in case of a forged image. Experiments have been conducted on JPEG images which are modified with operations like Crop, Rotate, Resize, Compress, Compress_Rotate and Crop_Rotate to validate our system.
The History, Relevance, and Applications of the Periodic System in Geochemistry

Geochemistry is a discipline in the earth sciences concerned with understanding the chemistry of the Earth and what that chemistry tells us about the processes that control the formation and evolution of Earth materials and the planet itself. The periodic table and the periodic system, as developed by Mendeleev and others in the nineteenth century, are as important in geochemistry as in other areas of chemistry. In fact, systemisation of the myriad of observations that geochemists make is perhaps even more important in this branch of chemistry, given the huge variability in the nature of Earth materials – from the Fe-rich core, through the silicate-dominated mantle and crust, to the volatile-rich ocean and atmosphere. This systemisation started in the eighteenth century, when geochemistry did not yet exist as a separate pursuit in itself. Mineralogy, one of the disciplines that eventually became geochemistry, was central to the discovery of the elements, and nineteenth-century mineralogists played a key role in this endeavour. Early “geochemists” continued this systemisation effort into the twentieth century, particularly highlighted in the career of V.M. Goldschmidt. The focus of the modern discipline of geochemistry has moved well beyond classification, in order to invert the information held in the properties of elements across the periodic table and their distribution across Earth and planetary materials, to learn about the physicochemical processes that shaped the Earth and other planets, on all scales. We illustrate this approach with key examples, those rooted in the patterns inherent in the periodic law as well as those that exploit concepts that only became familiar after Mendeleev, such as stable and radiogenic isotopes.
The Evolution of Blockchain

In his 2016 book, Mougayar analogized the evolution of blockchain to the World Wide Web. He argued that before the Web, we had the Internet—the network connecting computers. The Web came along a few years later and was the first layer on top of the Internet and allowed us to put content on the Internet that was easy to visualize, publish on, and share. More features were added to the Web including ecommerce, communication, and social media. Blockchain technology is a new layer that sits on top of the Internet, yet doesn’t need the World Wide Web—it is on par with the Web. On the long-term, blockchain has the potential to be of the same magnitude of the Web as a space — similar to what the Web gave us back in 1993–1994. (Mougayar 2016).
Exploitation of minors for pornographic purposes the sociodemographic and criminal profile of the perpetrator

The paper presents research in the form of a survey aimed at examining the sociodemographic and criminal profile of the perpetrator of the crime of displaying, acquiring and possession of pornographic material and exploitation of a juvenile for pornography under Article 185 of the Criminal Code of Serbia, with particular reference to the imposed criminal sanctions.The survey was conducted at the beginning of 2018 and included 62 convicted male persons aged 18 to 70, prosecuted under jurisdiction of the Special Prosecutor's Office for Combating High-Tech Crime in the period from 2012 to 2016.The results of the research show that the perpetrators of the said criminal offense are exclusively male individuals of an average age of 36.6 years, whose structure in terms of the working status is extremely diverse, starting from workers of various occupations, students to pensioners.In terms of other socio-demographic characteristics, the results of the survey show that the largest percentage of the convicted offenders have completed secondary school, that the number of the employed and unemployed is the same, that they are not married, gravitate towards urban areas, and have not been convicted before.In terms of the modus operandi, the results of the survey show that two methods of execution are dominant: the first implies the use of P2P technology on the Internet and the use of certain closed networks, which allow searching, downloading and sharing of photos and audio-visual data whereas the other involves creating a false profile on the Facebook social network.
Heat and Noise (Renao)

In this paper we report on an ongoing collaborative research-creation project focused around urban socioaesthetic ambiences. This custom media system sonifies group movement. We propose a speculative application of real-time gestural computation of group activity and poetically composed media which scopes movement and computing to a realm of concerns endemic to public life. What's at stake is the role of media, sensing, and computation in the composition of urban futures, social experience and public life (the commons). The computation intends to catalyze and intensify renao poiesis, while attuning to possibilities for improvised public life to create novel and ethical public futures.
Implementation of Secrete Message Communication in Server/Client Environment Using Splines Based on PKCS

This paper presents an approach for a secret message communication among a client–server group. In order to increase security to distribute secret message (key), we introduce splines using these at a specific permutation. We generate the key and distribute this key. This is to maintain confidentiality. Confidentiality can be achieved through changing the key material, known as re-keying every time a new member joins the group or a existing member leaves the group. The new group key is computed guaranteeing the forward and backward secrecy. Whenever there is a membership change, group key must be changed to prevent a new use from reading past communication. In proposed work, we propose how group communication must establish registration of users, entry and exit of a user. The encryption and decryption algorithm is used between the sender and the receiver. In the process, a spline is installed in the server; the server will distribute or communicate the secret messages to client based on one-to-one mapping with the help of splines; message has been encrypted and distributed to respective clients. In the client side, the decryption batch files to be installed for the verification of secret message authentication.
High Order of Conceptual Thinking

This chapter describe a novel pedagogy for conceptual thinking and peer cooperation with meaning equivalence reusable learning objects (MERLO) that enhances higher-order thinking; it deepens comprehension of conceptual content and improves learning outcomes. The evolution of this instructional methodology follows insights from recent developments: analysis of patterns of evolving concepts in human experience that led to the emergence of concept science, development of digital information, research in neuroscience and brain imaging showing that exposure of learners to multi-semiotic problems enhance cognitive control of inter-hemispheric attentional processing in the lateral brain, and increase higher-order thinking. The research on peer cooperation and indirect reciprocity document the motivational effect of being observed, a psychological imperative that motivates individuals to cooperate and to contribute to better common knowledge. Teaching courses in History and Theory of Architecture to young architecture students with pedagogy for conceptual thinking enhance higher-order thinking, deepen comprehension of conceptual content, and improve learning outcomes; it allows one to connect analysis of historic artifact, identify pattern of design ideas extracted from the precedent, and transfer concepts of good design into the individual's creative design process.
A Study of Speech Phase in Dysarthria Voice Conversion System

Dysarthria is a communication disorder common in people with damaged neuro-muscular apparatus resulting from events such as stroke. For a dysarthric speaker, voice conversion (VC) is one of the well-known approaches to improve speech intelligibility for a dysarthric speaker. Most of the well-known VC methods focus on converting amplitude features without phase information. Previous studies indicated that phase is an important factor in the speech signal. Therefore, we are interested in adding the correct phase information to VC for dysarthria speech. The results of automatic speech recognition and spectrum analysis show that intelligibility is improved by replacing the dysarthria phase with the normal phase during the synthesis step. It implies that the correct phase information must be considered for the dysarthria VC system.
Testing discrete-valued time series for whiteness

We consider the problem of testing a univariate discrete-valued time series for whiteness in the sequency domain, using Walsh–Fourier analysis. We show that the distribution of the lag window estimator of the Walsh spectral density is a scaled chi-square distribution, where the scale and degrees of freedom, both depend on the bandwidth of the smoothing window associated with the estimator. The definition of the bandwidth is extended from the frequency to the sequency domain. To address our problem, we propose three tests: the first one is based on the cumulative Walsh periodogram, and is shown to converge to a Brownian bridge. The second test is based on applying the Cramer–von Mises functional to an estimate of the Walsh spectral density, and is shown to converge to a Normal distribution, while the last test is based on a distance to whiteness, and is shown to have an approximate scaled chi-square distribution. Simulations are reported on the performance of the tests. Finally, we apply the proposed tests to the brain functional connectivity of schizophrenic patients.
Sesotho tone data set

These recordings are of male and female speakers (11 for tasks 1 and 2; 10 for task 3) of the QwaQwa region (Eastern Free State). Ages of the speakers are not known, but all of them were at the time of the research either students or lecturers and administrative staff of the then University of QwaQwa. The dataset is divided into 3 subsets/tasks.
Multimodal Dialogue System Evaluation: A Case Study Applying Usability Standards

This paper presents an approach to the evaluation of multimodal dialogue systems, applying usability metrics defined in ISO standards. Users’ perceptions of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction were correlated with various performance metrics derived from system logfiles and reference annotations. Usability experts rated questions from a preliminary 110-items questionnaire, and an assessment of their agreement on usability concepts has led to a selection of eight main factors: task completion and quality, robustness, learnability, flexibility, likeability, ease of use and usefulness (value) of an application. Based on these factors, an internally consistent and reliable questionnaire with 32 items (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.87) was produced. This questionnaire was used to evaluate the Virtual Negotiation Coaching system for metacognitive skills training in a multi-issue bargaining setting. The observed correlations between usability perception and derived performance metrics suggest that the overall system usability is determined by the quality of agreements reached, by the robustness and flexibility of the interaction, and by the quality of system responses.
Information Support for the Fractal Antennas Construction

An information support for fractal antennas constraction in the shape of different iterations Koch curve and Sierpinski carpet are presented. Material presented can be used for fractal antennas production by wire technology or by typing on a dielectric basis.
Adaptive Sequence Phase Detection

A phase detection sequence is a length-n cyclic sequence such that the location of any length-k contiguous subsequence can be determined from a noisy observation of that subsequence. In this paper, we consider the problem of designing phase detection sequences that allow adaptive phase detection for different noise levels at the detector. We discuss two detection scenarios: depending on the noise level, the detector adaptively chooses the length k of the observation period, or adaptively chooses the detection resolution. We establish the optimal rate regions in both settings.
Transforming the Engineering Organization with Systems Engineering and Quality Management

Abstract Never have the challenges of complex product and systems development been greater. Rising complexity coupled with the need for fast development cycle times and lower development and support costs have driven development efforts into a Faustian dilemma. Is it better to become highly agile by forgoing documentation, process and discipline—or to labor under the burden of restrictive, formal processes which use much needed time for non‐development activities like planning, design and documentation? As some development organizations sell their quality souls for expediency, while ignoring the eventual price they may pay, others stay the course, hoping their ponderous processes do not leave them vulnerable to disruptive start‐ups and new business models. Is there a better path? Yes, modern development concepts properly deployed and implemented in a values‐based quality management environment provide a choice of chaos versus quality. The dramatic growth and development of the Internet of Things (IoT) has produced new kinds of risks and unknowns that can result in dangerous unintended consequences and the increased impact of undiscovered defects on people and processes. Reports of major security defects and breaches of data storage have become commonplace. As has always been the case, effective and successful product and systems development is a function of optimally employing people, process and tools. In what follows, we will describe the important challenges and opportunities in each of these three areas, and show how a values‐based quality management approach provides the context, values and standards for achieving both short‐ and long‐term success. Values‐based quality management has all of the protocols, due diligence, rigor, systems thinking, and scientific thought associated with 1QR. It also includes the added emphasis of 21st century techniques, and the ability to train and retain high‐performers.