Coverage criteria for GUI testing. A widespread recognition of the usefulness of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) has established their importance as critical components of today's software. GUIs have characteristics different from traditional software, and conventional testing techniques do not directly apply to GUIs. This paper's focus is on coverage critieria for GUIs, important rules that provide an objective measure of test quality. We present new coverage criteria to help determine whether a GUI has been adequately tested. These coverage criteria use events and event sequences to specify a measure of test adequacy. Since the total number of permutations of event sequences in any non-trivial GUI is extremely large, the GUI's hierarchical structure is exploited to identify the important event sequences to be tested. A GUI is decomposed into GUI components, each of which is used as a basic unit of testing. A representation of a GUI component, called an event-flow graph, identifies the interaction of events within a component and intra-component criteria are used to evaluate the adequacy of tests on these events. The hierarchical relationship among components is represented by an integration tree, and inter-component coverage criteria are used to evaluate the adequacy of test sequences that cross components. Algorithms are given to construct event-flow graphs and an integration tree for a given GUI, and to evaluate the coverage of a given test suite with respect to the new coverage criteria. A case study illustrates the usefulness of the coverage report to guide further testing and an important correlation between event-based coverage of a GUI and statement coverage of its software's underlying code.

Question: What is the difference between GUI testing and software testing?


Emotion recognition in the wild from videos using images. This paper presents the implementation details of the proposed solution to the Emotion Recognition in the Wild 2016 Challenge, in the category of video-based emotion recognition. The proposed approach takes the video stream from the audio-video trimmed clips provided by the challenge as input and produces the emotion label corresponding to this video sequence. This output is encoded as one out of seven classes: the six basic emotions (Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Sad, Surprise) and Neutral. Overall, the system consists of several pipelined modules: face detection, image pre-processing, deep feature extraction, feature encoding and, finally, an SVM classification.   This system achieves 59.42% validation accuracy, surpassing the competition baseline of 38.81%. With regard to test data, our system achieves 56.66% recognition rate, also improving the competition baseline of 40.47%.

Question: How does the system work?


A Novel Distributed SDN-Secured Architecture for the IoT. Due to their rapid evolution, mobile devices demand for more dynamic and flexible networking services. A major challenges of future mobile networks is the increased mobile traffic. With the recent upcoming technologies of network programmability like Software-Defined Network (SDN), it may be integrated to create a new communication platform for Internet of Things (IoT). In this work, we present how to determine the effectiveness of an approach to build a new secured network architecture based on SDN and clusters. Our proposed scheme is a starting point for some experiments providing perspective over SDN deployment in a cluster environment. With this aim in mind, we suggest a routing protocol that manages routing tasks over Cluster-SDN. By using network virtualization and OpenFlow technologies to generate virtual nodes, we simulate a prototype system controlled by SDN. With our testbed, we are able to manage 500 things. We can analyze every OpenFlow messages and we have discovered that with a particular flow, the things can exchange information unlike the routing principle.

Question: How to determine the effectiveness of an approach to build a new secured network architecture based on SDN and clusters?


Dynamic Malware Detection Using API Similarity. Hackers create different types of Malware such as Trojans which they use to steal user-confidential information (e.g. credit card details) with a few simple commands, recent malware however has been created intelligently and in an uncontrolled size, which puts malware analysis as one of the top important subjects of information security. This paper proposes an efficient dynamic malware-detection method based on API similarity. This proposed method outperform the traditional signature-based detection method. The experiment evaluated 197 malware samples and the proposed method showed promising results of correctly identified malware.

Question: What is the difference between a trojan and a virus?


Advanced Machine Learning Technologies and Applications. The recognition of a character begins with analyzing its form and extracting the features that will be exploited for the identification. Primitives can be described as a tool to distinguish an object of one class from another object of another class. It is necessary to define the significant primitives. The size of vector primitives can be large if a large number of primitives are extracted including redundant and irrelevant features. As a result, the performance of the recognition system becomes poor, and as the number of features increases, so does the computing time. Feature selection, therefore, is required to ensure the selection of a subset of features that gives accurate recognition. In our work we propose a feature selection approach based genetic algorithm to improve the discrimination capacity of the Multilayer Perceptron Neural Networks (MLP).

Question: What is a genetic algorithm?


ON ATTRIBUTE BASED ACCESS CONTROL SCHEME IN CLOUD ENVIRONMENT. *Corresponding author: Email: divyasnkl@gmail.com; Tel.: +91 9486029378

Question: How to get email address of corresponding author?


Classifying Photographic and Photorealistic Computer Graphic Images using Natural Image Statistics. As computer graphics (CG) is getting more photorealistic, for the purpose of image authentication, it becomes increasingly important to construct a detector for classifying photographic images (PIM) and photorealistic computer graphics (PRCG). To this end, we propose that photographic images contain natural-imaging quality (NIQ) and natural-scene quality (NSQ). NIQ is due to the imaging process, while NSQ is due to the subtle physical light transport in a real-world scene. We explicitly model NSQ of photographic images using natural image statistics (NIS). NIS has been used as an image prior in applications such as image compression and denoising. However, NIS has not been comprehensively and systematically employed for classifying PIM and PRCG. In this work, we study three types of NIS with different statistical order, i.e., NIS derived from the power spectrum, wavelet transform and local patch of images. The experiment shows that the classification is in line with the statistical order of the NIS. The local patch NIS achieves a classification accuracy of 83% which outperforms the features derived from modeling the characteristics of computer graphics.

Question: How to classify photorealistic computer graphics?


Streaming Big Data Processing in Datacenter Clouds. Today, we live in a digital universe in which information and technology are not only around us but also play important roles in dictating the quality of our lives. As we delve deeper into this digital universe, we're witnessing explosive growth in the variety, velocity, and volume of data1,2 being transmitted over the Internet. A zetabyte of data passed through the Internet in the past year; IDC predicts that this digital universe will explode to an unimaginable eight Zbytes by 2015. These data are and will be generated mainly from Internet search, social media, mobile devices, the Internet of Things, business transactions, next-generation radio astronomy telescopes, high-energy physics synchrotron, and content distribution. Government and business organizations are now overflowing with data, easily aggregating to terabytes or even petabytes of information.

Question: What is the size of the digital universe?


Multi-dimensional pattern discovery in financial time series using sax-ga with extended robustness. This paper proposes a new Multi-Dimensional SAX-GA approach to pattern discovery using genetic algorithms (GA). The approach is capable of discovering patterns in multi-dimensional financial time series. First, the several dimensions of data are converted to a Symbolic Aggregate approXimation (SAX) representation, which is, then, feed to a GA optimization kernel. The GA searches for profitable patterns occurring simultaneously in the multi-dimensional time series. Based on the patterns found, the GA produces more robust investment strategies, since the simultaneity of patterns on different dimensions of the data, reinforces the strength of the trading decisions implemented. The proposed approach was tested using stocks from S&P500 index, and is compared to previous reference works of SAX-GA and to the Buy & Hold (B&H) classic investment strategy.

Question: What is the difference between the multi-dimensional SAX-GA and the B&H strategy?


Literature Review on Automatic Text Summarization: Single and Multiple Summarizations. The online information available on world wide web is in enormous amount. Search engines like Google, Yahoo were developed to retrieve information from the databases. But actual results were not obtained as the electronic information is increasing day by day. Thus automatic summarization came into demand. Automatic summarization gathers several documents as input and provides the shorter summarized version as output which is informative, unambiguous, save valuable time. Research was done on a single document and moved towards multiple documents. This review categorizes single and multiple summarization methods.

Question: What is the difference between single and multiple summarization?


Aspect based sentiment analysis. In this fast paced and social media frenzy world, decision making has been revolutionized as there are lots of opinions floating on the internet in the form of blogs, social media updates, forums etc. This paper focuses on how banks can utilize these reviews to improve their services. The reviews are scraped from the internet and the sentiment analysis is done on an aspect level to have a much clear idea of where the banks are performing bad according to the customers or users.

Question: What is aspect based sentiment analysis?


Semi-supervised Density-Based Clustering. Most of the effort in the semi-supervised clustering literature was devoted to variations of the K-means algorithm. In this paper we show how background knowledge can be used to bias a partitional density-based clustering algorithm. Our work describes how labeled objects can be used to help the algorithm detecting suitable density parameters for the algorithm to extract density-based clusters in specific parts of the feature space. Considering the set of constraints estabilished by the labeled dataset we show that our algorithm, called SSDBSCAN, automatically finds density parameters for each natural cluster in a dataset. Four of the most interesting characteristics of SSDBSCAN are that (1) it only requires a single, robust input parameter, (2) it does not need any user intervention, (3) it automaticaly finds the noise objects according to the density of the natural clusters and (4) it is able to find the natural cluster structure even when the density among clusters vary widely. The algorithm presented in this paper is evaluated with artificial and real-world datasets, demonstrating better results when compared to other unsupervised and semi-supervised density-based approaches.

Question: What is semi-supervised density-based clustering?


Flexible dual TCP/UDP streaming for H.264 HD video over WLANs. High Definition video streaming over WLANs faces many challenges because video data requires not only data integrity but also frames have strict playout deadline. Traditional streaming methods that rely solely on either UDP or TCP have difficulties meeting both requirements because UDP incurs packet loss while TCP incurs delay. This paper proposed a new streaming method called Flexible Dual-TCP/UDP Streaming Protocol (FDSP) that utilizes the benefit of both UDP and TCP. The FDSP takes advantage of the hierarchical structure of the H.264/AVC syntax and uses TCP to transmit important syntax elements of H.264/AVC video and UDP to transmit non-important elements. The proposed FDSP is implemented and validated under different wireless network conditions. Both visual quality and delay results are compared against pure-UDP and pure-TCP streaming methods. Our results show that FDSP effectively achieves a balance between delay and visual quality, thus it has advantage over traditional pure-UDP and pure-TCP methods.

Question: What is the difference between UDP and TCP?


Genome-Wide Regression and Prediction with the BGLR Statistical Package. Many modern genomic data analyses require implementing regressions where the number of parameters (p, e.g., the number of marker effects) exceeds sample size (n). Implementing these large-p-with-small-n regressions poses several statistical and computational challenges, some of which can be confronted using Bayesian methods. This approach allows integrating various parametric and nonparametric shrinkage and variable selection procedures in a unified and consistent manner. The BGLR R-package implements a large collection of Bayesian regression models, including parametric variable selection and shrinkage methods and semiparametric procedures (Bayesian reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces regressions, RKHS). The software was originally developed for genomic applications; however, the methods implemented are useful for many nongenomic applications as well. The response can be continuous (censored or not) or categorical (either binary or ordinal). The algorithm is based on a Gibbs sampler with scalar updates and the implementation takes advantage of efficient compiled C and Fortran routines. In this article we describe the methods implemented in BGLR, present examples of the use of the package, and discuss practical issues emerging in real-data analysis.

Question: What is the BGLR R-package?


Exploring large scale data for multimedia QA: an initial study. With the explosive growth of multimedia contents on the internet, multimedia search has become more and more important. However, users are often bewildered by the vast quantity of information content returned by the search engines. In this scenario, Multimedia Question-Answering (MMQA) emerges as a way to return precise answers by leveraging advanced media content and linguistic analysis as well as domain knowledge. This paper performs an initial study on exploring large scale data for MMQA. First, we construct a web video dataset and discuss its query strategy, statistics, feature description and groundtruth. We then conduct experiments based on the dataset to answer definition event questions using three schemes. We finally conclude the study with discussion for future work.

Question: What is the size of the dataset?


Caricature synthesis with feature deviation matching under example-based framework. Example-based caricature synthesis techniques have been attracting large attentions for being able to generate attractive caricatures of various styles. This paper proposes a new example-based caricature synthesis system using a feature deviation matching method as a cross-modal distance metric. It employs the deviation values from average features across different feature spaces rather than the values of features themselves to search for similar components from caricature examples directly. Compared with traditional example-based systems, the proposed system can generate various styles of caricatures without requiring paired photograph–caricature example databases. The newly designed features can effectively capture visual characteristics of the hairstyles and facial components in input portrait images. In addition, this system can control the exaggeration of individual facial components and provide several similarity-based candidates to satisfy users' different preferences. Experiments are conducted to prove the above ideas.

Question: What is a caricature synthesis system?


Cryptography and cryptanalysis for embedded systems. A growing number of devices of daily use are equipped with computing capabilities. Today, already more than 98 % of all manufactured microprocessors are employed in embedded applications , leaving less than 2 % to traditional computers. Many of these embedded devices are enabled to communicate amongst each other and form networks. A side effect of the rising interconnectedness is a possible vulnerability of these embedded systems. Attacks that have formerly been restricted to PCs can suddenly be launched against cars, tickets, ID cards or even pacemakers. At the same time the security awareness of users and manufacturers of such systems is much lower than in classical PC environments. This renders security one key aspect of embedded systems design and for most pervasive computing applications. As embedded systems are usually deployed in large numbers, costs are a main concern of system developers. Hence embedded security solutions have to be cheap and efficient. Many security services such as digital signatures can only be realized by public key cryptography. Yet, public key schemes are in terms of computation orders of magnitude more expensive than private key cryptosystems. At the same time the prevailing schemes rely on very similar security assumptions. If one scheme gets broken, almost all cryptosystems employing asymmetric cryptography become useless. The first part of this work explores alternatives to the prevailing public key cryptosystems. Two alternative signature schemes and one public key encryption scheme from the family of post quantum cryptosystems are explored. Their security relies on different assumptions so that a break of one of the prevailing schemes does not affect the security of the studied alternatives. The main focus lies on the implementational aspects of these schemes for embedded systems. One actual outcome is that, contrary to common belief, the presented schemes provide similar and

Question: What is the difference between public key and private key cryptography?


Question: What is a systematic review?


A Framework for Emotion Mining from Text in Online Social Networks. Online Social Networks are so popular nowadays that they are a major component of an individual's social interaction. They are also emotionally-rich environments where close friends share their emotions, feelings and thoughts. In this paper, a new framework is proposed for characterizing emotional interactions in social networks, and then using these characteristics to distinguish friends from acquaintances. The goal is to extract the emotional content of texts in online social networks. The interest is in whether the text is an expression of the writer's emotions or not. For this purpose, text mining techniques are performed on comments retrieved from a social network. The framework includes a model for data collection, database schemas, data processing and data mining steps. The informal language of online social networks is a main point to consider before performing any text mining techniques. This is why the framework includes the development of special lexicons. In general, the paper presents a new perspective for studying friendship relations and emotions' expression in online social networks where it deals with the nature of these sites and the nature of the language used. It considers Lebanese Face book users as a case study. The technique adopted is unsupervised, it mainly uses the k-means clustering algorithm. Experiments show high accuracy for the model in both determining subjectivity of texts and predicting friendship.

Question: What is the framework for emotion mining from text in online social networks?


Design of compact circular disc circularly polarized antenna with Koch curve fractal defected ground structure. A circularly polarized microstrip patch antenna with Koch curve fractal defected ground structure (DGS) for mobile applications is presented. Asymmetric `+' shape slots are incorporated on circular patch for getting circular polarization. The advantages of incorporation of Koch curve fractal DGS for improvement of performance parameters of circular polarized antenna presented. It is shown that with every progressive stage of fractal DGS iteration, in addition to reduction in size of the patch, other performance parameters of the antenna such as 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth, 10 dB impedance bandwidth and radiation efficiency also show significant improvement in their values at cost of marginal reduction of the gain. The design, evaluation and comparison of the proposed antenna with conventional simple circular disc circular polarized antenna without DGS along with intermediate and final iterations of Koch curve fractal DGS are illustrated.

Question: How to design a compact circular polarized antenna with Koch curve fractal defected ground structure?


Personalized Multitask Learning for Predicting Tomorrow ' s Mood , Stress , and Health. While accurately predicting mood and wellbeing could have a number of important clinical benefits, traditional machine learning (ML) methods frequently yield low performance in this domain. We posit that this is because a one-size-fits-all machine learning model is inherently ill-suited to predicting outcomes like mood and stress, which vary greatly due to individual differences. Therefore, we employ Multitask Learning (MTL) techniques to train personalized ML models which are customized to the needs of each individual, but still leverage data from across the population. Three formulations of MTL are compared: i) MTL deep neural networks, which share several hidden layers but have final layers unique to each task; ii) Multi-task Multi-Kernel learning, which feeds information across tasks through kernel weights on feature types; and iii) a Hierarchical Bayesian model in which tasks share a common Dirichlet Process prior. We offer the code for this work in open source. These techniques are investigated in the context of predicting future mood, stress, and health using data collected from surveys, wearable sensors, smartphone logs, and the weather. Empirical results demonstrate that using MTL to account for individual differences provides large performance improvements over traditional machine learning methods and provides personalized, actionable insights.

Question: How to predict mood, stress, and health?


Prevalence of diabetes mellitus and impaired fasting glucose levels in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia: results of a screening campaign.. INTRODUCTION This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes mellitus (DM) in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and to study its relationship with socioeconomic factors.   METHODS The study targeted all Saudi subjects aged 30 years and above who resided in the Eastern Province in 2004. DM screening was conducted by taking the capillary fasting blood glucose (CFBG) after eight hours or more of fasting, or the casual capillary blood glucose (CCBG). A positive screening test for hyperglycaemia was defined as CFBG more than or equal to 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/l), or CCBG more than or equal to 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/l). A positive result was confirmed on another day through the measurement of fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels from a venous sample. A diagnosis of DM was considered if FPG was more than or equal to 126 mg/dl (7.0 mmol/l), or when there was a history of a previous diagnosis.   RESULTS Out of 197,681 participants, 35,929 (18.2 percent) had a positive history of DM or a positive screening test for hyperglycaemia. After confirmation by venous blood testing, the prevalence of DM dropped to 17.2 percent while the prevalence of newly diagnosed DM was 1.8 percent. The prevalence increased with age and was higher in women, widows, divorcees, those who had a low education level and the unemployed.   CONCLUSION The prevalence of DM in Saudi Arabia is one of the highest reported in the world, and its yield of screening is high.

Question: What is the prevalence of diabetes in saudi arabia?


BEYOND STUDENT PERCEPTIONS: ISSUES OF INTERACTION, PRESENCE, AND PERFORMANCE IN AN ONLINE COURSE. The research literature on Web-based learning supports the assumption that interaction is important for a successful course, yet questions exist regarding the nature and extent of the interaction and its effects on student performance. Much of the research is based on student perceptions of the quality and quantity of their interactions and how much they have learned in an online course. The purpose of this study is to examine performance in an online course in relationship to student interaction and sense of presence in the course. Data on multiple independent (measures of interaction and presence) and dependent (measures of performance) variables were collected and subjected to analysis. An attempt was made to go beyond typical institutional performance measures such as grades and withdrawal rates and to examine measures specifically related to course objectives.

Question: What is the purpose of this study?


Online shopping behavior model: A literature review and proposed model. In this study, we conducted extensive reviews of online shopping literatures and proposed a hierarchy model of online shopping behavior. We collected 47 studies and classified them by variables used. Some critical points were found that research framework, methodology, and lack of cross-cultural comparison, etc So we developed a cross-cultural model of online shopping including shopping value, attitudes to online retailer's attributes and online purchasing based on the integrated V-A-B model.

Question: What is the cross-cultural model of online shopping?


TimeMachine: Timeline Generation for Knowledge-Base Entities. We present a method called TIMEMACHINE to generate a timeline of events and relations for entities in a knowledge base. For example for an actor, such a timeline should show the most important professional and personal milestones and relationships such as works, awards, collaborations, and family relationships. We develop three orthogonal timeline quality criteria that an ideal timeline should satisfy: (1) it shows events that are relevant to the entity; (2) it shows events that are temporally diverse, so they distribute along the time axis, avoiding visual crowding and allowing for easy user interaction, such as zooming in and out; and (3) it shows events that are content diverse, so they contain many different types of events (e.g., for an actor, it should show movies and marriages and awards, not just movies). We present an algorithm to generate such timelines for a given time period and screen size, based on submodular optimization and web-co-occurrence statistics with provable performance guarantees. A series of user studies using Mechanical Turk shows that all three quality criteria are crucial to produce quality timelines and that our algorithm significantly outperforms various baseline and state-of-the-art methods.

Question: How to generate a timeline for a knowledge base?


Strategic Surge Pricing and Forecast Communication on On-Demand Service Platforms. On-demand service platforms (e.g., Uber, Lyft) match consumers with independent workers nearby at short notice. To manage fluctuating supply and demand conditions across market locations (zones), many on-demand platforms provide market forecasts to workers and practice surge pricing, wherein the price in a particular zone is temporarily raised above the regular price. We jointly analyze the strategic role of surge pricing and forecast communication explicitly accounting for workers' incentives to move between zones and the platform's incentive to share forecasts truthfully. Conventional wisdom suggests that surge pricing is useful in zones where demand for workers exceeds their supply. However, we show that when the platform relies on independent workers to serve consumers across different zones, surge pricing is also useful in zones where supply exceeds demand. Because individual workers do not internalize the competitive externality that they impose on other workers, too few workers may move from a zone with excess supply to an adjacent zone requiring additional workers. Moreover, the platform may have an incentive to misreport market forecasts to exaggerate the need for workers to move. We show how and why distorting the price in a zone with excess supply through surge pricing can increase total platform profit across zones, by incentivizing more workers to move and by making forecast communication credible. Our analysis offers insights for effectively managing on-demand platforms through surge pricing and forecast sharing, and the resulting implications for consumers and workers.

Question: How does surge pricing work?


Mining Invariants from Console Logs for System Problem Detection. Detecting execution anomalies is very important to the maintenance and monitoring of large-scale distributed systems. People often use console logs that are produced by distributed systems for troubleshooting and problem diagnosis. However, manually inspecting console logs for the detection of anomalies is unfeasible due to the increasing scale and complexity of distributed systems. Therefore, there is great demand for automatic anomaly detection techniques based on log analysis. In this paper, we propose an unstructured log analysis technique for anomaly detection, with a novel algorithm to automatically discover program invariants in logs. At first, a log parser is used to convert the unstructured logs to structured logs. Then, the structured log messages are further grouped to log message groups according to the relationship among log parameters. After that, the program invariants are automatically mined from the log message groups. The mined invariants can reveal the inherent linear characteristics of program work flows. With these learned invariants, our technique can automatically detect anomalies in logs. Experiments on Hadoop show that the technique can effectively detect execution anomalies. Compared with the state of art, our approach can not only detect numerous real problems with high accuracy but also provide intuitive insight into the problems.

Question: How to detect anomalies in logs?


Applications of data hiding in digital images.

Question: What is data hiding?


Multiview Photometric Stereo. This paper addresses the problem of obtaining complete, detailed reconstructions of textureless shiny objects. We present an algorithm which uses silhouettes of the object, as well as images obtained under changing illumination conditions. In contrast with previous photometric stereo techniques, ours is not limited to a single viewpoint but produces accurate reconstructions in full 3D. A number of images of the object are obtained from multiple viewpoints, under varying lighting conditions. Starting from the silhouettes, the algorithm recovers camera motion and constructs the object's visual hull. This is then used to recover the illumination and initialize a multiview photometric stereo scheme to obtain a closed surface reconstruction. There are two main contributions in this paper: First, we describe a robust technique to estimate light directions and intensities and, second, we introduce a novel formulation of photometric stereo which combines multiple viewpoints and, hence, allows closed surface reconstructions. The algorithm has been implemented as a practical model acquisition system. Here, a quantitative evaluation of the algorithm on synthetic data is presented together with complete reconstructions of challenging real objects. Finally, we show experimentally how, even in the case of highly textured objects, this technique can greatly improve on correspondence-based multiview stereo results.

Question: How to reconstruct a shiny object?


Improving the Performance of the FFT-based Parallel Code-phase Search Acquisition of GNSS Signals by Decomposition of the Circular Correlation. Dr. Cyril Botteron leads the GNSS and UWB groups in the electronics and signal processing laboratory at EPFL. He received his PhD degree from the University of Calgary, Canada, in 2003. His current research interests comprise the development of low power radio frequency (RF) integrated circuits and advanced signal processing techniques for ultra-low power communications and global and local positioning applications.

Question: What is the name of the lab at EPFL?


Reward, Motivation, and Reinforcement Learning. There is substantial evidence that dopamine is involved in reward learning and appetitive conditioning. However, the major reinforcement learning-based theoretical models of classical conditioning (crudely, prediction learning) are actually based on rules designed to explain instrumental conditioning (action learning). Extensive anatomical, pharmacological, and psychological data, particularly concerning the impact of motivational manipulations, show that these models are unreasonable. We review the data and consider the involvement of a rich collection of different neural systems in various aspects of these forms of conditioning. Dopamine plays a pivotal, but complicated, role.

Question: What is the role of dopamine in reward learning?


A sub-pW timer using gate leakage for ultra low-power sub-Hz monitoring systems. In this work, we present a novel ultra-low power timer designed using the gate leakage of MOS capacitors. The test chip was fabricated in a 0.13 mum CMOS technology and the total circuit area is 480 mum2. Measurement results show that the circuit functions correctly at a wide range of supply voltages from 300 mV to 1.2 V, making it particularly suitable for subthreshold systems. The temperature sensitivity is 0.16%/degC at 600 mV and 0.6%/degC at 300 mV. The power dissipation is less than 1pW running at 20degC and 300 mV.

Question: What is the power dissipation of the circuit?


Time-of-Flight Sensors in Computer Graphics. A growing number of applications depend on accurate and fast 3D scene analysis. Examples are model and lightfield acquisition, collision prevention, mixed reality, and gesture recognition. The estimation of a range map by image analysis or laser scan techniques is still a time-consuming and expensive part of such systems. A lower-priced, fast and robust alternative for distance measurements are Time-of-Flight (ToF) cameras. Recently, significant advances have been made in producing low-cost and compact ToF-devices, which have the potential to revolutionize many fields of research, including Computer Graphics, Computer Vision and Human Machine Interaction (HMI). These technologies are starting to have an impact on research and commercial applications. The upcoming generation of ToF sensors, however, will be even more powerful and will have the potential to become "ubiquitous real-time geometry devices" for gaming, web-conferencing, and numerous other applications. This STAR gives an account of recent developments in ToF-technology and discusses the current state of the integration of this technology into various graphics-related applications.

Question: What is the difference between a ToF camera and a laser scanner?


The Romance of Learning from Disagreement. The Effect of Cohesiveness and Disagreement on Knowledge Sharing Behavior and Individual Performance Within Teams. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of disagreement and cohesiveness on knowledge sharing in teams, and on the performance of individual team members. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Data were obtained from a survey among 1,354 employees working in 126 teams in 17 organizations. FINDINGS: The results show that cohesiveness has a positive effect on the exchange of advice between team members and on openness for sharing opinions, whereas disagreement has a negative effect on openness for sharing opinions. Furthermore, the exchange of advice in a team has a positive effect on the performance of individual team members and acts as a mediator between cohesiveness and individual performance. IMPLICATIONS: Managers who want to stimulate knowledge sharing processes and performance within work teams may be advised to take measures to prevent disagreement between team members and to enhance team cohesiveness. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Although some gurus in organizational learning claim that disagreement has a positive effect on group processes such as knowledge sharing and team learning, this study does not support this claim.

Question: What is the purpose of this study?


MAPGEN: Mixed-Initiative Planning and Scheduling for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. 8 1094-7167/04/$20.00 © 2004 IEEE IEEE INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS to elucidate the planet's past climate, water activity, and habitability. Science is MER's primary driver, so making best use of the scientific instruments, within the available resources, is a crucial aspect of the mission. To address this criticality, the MER project team selected MAPGEN (Mixed Initiative Activity Plan Generator) as an activity-planning tool. MAPGEN combines two existing systems, each with a strong heritage: the APGEN activity-planning tool1 from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Europa planning and scheduling system2 from NASA Ames Research Center. This article discusses the issues arising from combining these tools in this mission's context.

Question: What is the difference between the APGEN and Europa planning and scheduling systems?


Graph Indexing: Tree + Delta >= Graph. Recent scientific and technological advances have witnessed an abundance of structural patterns modeled as graphs. As a result, it is of special interest to process graph containment queries effectively on large graph databases. Given a graph database G, and a query graph q, the graph containment query is to retrieve all graphs in G which contain q as subgraph(s). Due to the vast number of graphs in G and the nature of complexity for subgraph isomorphism testing, it is desirable to make use of high-quality graph indexing mechanisms to reduce the overall query processing cost. In this paper, we propose a new cost-effective graph indexing method based on frequent tree-features of the graph database. We analyze the effectiveness and efficiency of tree as indexing feature from three critical aspects: feature size, feature selection cost, and pruning power. In order to achieve better pruning ability than existing graph-based indexing methods, we select, in addition to frequent tree-features (Tree), a small number of discriminative graphs (∆) on demand, without a costly graph mining process beforehand. Our study verifies that (Tree+∆) is a better choice than graph for indexing purpose, denoted (Tree+∆ ≥Graph), to address the graph containment query problem. It has two implications: (1) the index construction by (Tree+∆) is efficient, and (2) the graph containment query processing by (Tree+∆) is efficient. Our experimental studies demonstrate that (Tree+∆) has a compact index structure, achieves an order of magnitude better performance in index construction, and most importantly, outperforms up-to-date graphbased indexing methods: gIndex and C-Tree, in graph containment query processing.

Question: What is the size of the canadian military?


Augmented Reality for the Study of Human Heart Anatomy. Augmented reality is increasingly applied in medical education mainly because educators can share knowledge through virtual objects. This research describes the development of a web application, which enhances users' medical knowledge with regards to the anatomy of the human heart by means of augmented reality. Evaluation is conducted in two different facets. In the first one, the authors of this paper evaluate the feasibility of a three-dimensional human heart module using one investigator under the supervision of an expert. In the second, evaluation aims at identifying usability issues by means of the cognitive walkthrough method. Three medical students (naive users) are called upon three target tasks in the web application. Task completion is appreciated in the light of the standard set of cognitive walkthrough questions. Augmented reality content miss hits are revealed by means of the first evaluation in an effort to enhance the educational utility of the three-dimensional human heart. Cognitive walkthrough provides further improvement points, which may further enhance usability in the next software release. The current piece of work constitutes the pre-pilot evaluation. Standardized methodologies are utilized in an effort to improve the application before its wider piloting to proper student populations. Such evaluations are considered important in experiential learning methods aiding online education of anatomy courses.

Question: What is the pre-pilot evaluation?


Toward an Ecological Theory of Adaptation and Aging. 1.3 The environmental docility hypothesis suggests that environmental stimuli ("press", in Murray's terms) have a greater demand quality as the competence of the individual decreases. The dynamics of ecological transactions are considered as a function of personal competence, strength of environmental press, the dual characteristics of the individual's response (affective quality and adaptiveness of behavior), adaptation level, and the optimization function. Behavioral homeostasis is maintained by the individual as both respondent and initiator in interaction with his environment. Hypotheses are suggested to account for striving vs. relaxation and for changes in the individual's level of personal competence. Four transaction-al types discussed are environmental engineering, rehabilitation and therapy, individual growth, and active change of the environment. Recent work in the psychology of stimulation (1) has led to theoretical advances in the area of social ecology. We propose an elaboration in this area that is middle-range, in the sense of attempting to account for a limited aspect of human behavior. This contribution to the theory of man-environment relationships deals with the aspects of human responses that can be viewed in evaluative terms, that is, behavior that can be rated on the continuum of adaptiveness, and inner states that can be rated on the continuum of positive to negative. This is, perhaps, a limited view of the human response repertory, but it stems from the traditional concern of the psychologist with mental health and mental illness. Similarly, our view of environment for this purpose is limited to the "demand quality" of the environment, an abstraction that represents only one of many ways of dimensionalizing the environment. We shall use our knowledge from the area of gerontology to provide content for the theoretical structure, but suggest that the constructs are more generally applicable

Question: What is the difference between the environmental docility hypothesis and the environmental stimulation hypothesis?


High performance CMOS dual supply level shifter for a 0.5V input and 1V output in standard 1.2V 65nm technology process. This paper presents the design of a highly efficient CMOS level shifter qc-level shifter. Unlike many recent level shifters, the proposed qc-level shifter does not use bootstrap capacitors to minimize active area. When implemented on a 65nm CMOS technology, under the large capacitive loading condition (2pF), qc-level shifter has a lower active area (94%), and energy-delay product (21.4%) than the reference bootstrap level shifter circuit (ts-level shifter). In comparison to a conventional shifter (c-level shifter)the corresponding reductions are 9.5% and 55%, respectively. Also qc-level shifter has very small effective input capacitance in comparison with ts-level shifter as it does not need a bootstrap capacitor connected to its input.

Question: What is a qc-level shifter?


CS 224N Assignment 4: Question Answering on SQuAD. In this project, we are interested in building an end-to-end neural network architecture for the Question Answering task on the well-known Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD). Our implementation is motivated from a recent highperformance achieving method that combines coattention encoder with a dynamic pointing decoder known as Dynamic Coattention Network. We explored different ensemble and test decoding techniques that we believe might improve the performance of such systems.

Question: What is the well-known Stanford Question Answering Dataset?


Treatment of molluscum contagiosum with cantharidin: a practical approach.. Molluscum contagiosum is very common. In this article we discuss the use of cantharidin as a treatment option for molluscum contagiosum and give detailed information about distribution sources, how to apply it, and caveats regarding its use.Molluscum contagiosum is a common viral disease of childhood caused by a poxvirus, which presents with small, firm, dome-shaped, umbilicated papules. It is generally benign and self-limited, with spontaneous resolution within 6 months to several years. Watchful waiting can often be an appropriate management strategy; however, some patients either desire or require treatment. Reasons for actively treating molluscum contagiosum may include alleviation of discomfort and itching (particularly in patients where an eczematous eruption - the so-called "molluscum eczema" - is seen in association) or in patients with ongoing atopic dermatitis where more lesions are likely to be present. Other reasons for treatment include limitation of spread to other areas and people, prevention of scarring and superinfection, and elimination of the social stigma of visible lesions. No one treatment is uniformly effective.Treatment options include destructive therapies (curettage, cryotherapy, cantharidin, and keratolytics, among others), immunomodulators (imiquimod, cimetidine, and Candida antigen), and antivirals (cidofovir). In this article we discuss and describe our first-line treatment approach for those molluscum needing treatment - cantharidin.

Question: What is the first line treatment for molluscum contagiosum?


Automatic speech recognition and speech variability: A review. Major progress is being recorded regularly on both the technology and exploitation of automatic speech recognition (ASR) and spoken language systems. However, there are still technological barriers to flexible solutions and user satisfaction under some circumstances. This is related to several factors, such as the sensitivity to the environment (background noise), or the weak representation of grammatical and semantic knowledge. Current research is also emphasizing deficiencies in dealing with variation naturally present in speech. For instance, the lack of robustness to foreign accents precludes the use by specific populations. Also, some applications, like directory assistance, particularly stress the core recognition technology due to the very high active vocabulary (application perplexity). There are actually many factors affecting the speech realization: regional, sociolinguistic, or related to the environment or the speaker herself. These create a wide range of variations that may not be modeled correctly (speaker, gender, speaking rate, vocal effort, regional accent, speaking style, non-stationarity, etc.), especially when resources for system training are scarce. This paper outlines current advances related to these topics. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Question: What is the difference between automatic speech recognition and speech variability?


Gender Differences in the Perception and Use of E-Mail: An Extension to the Technology Acceptance Model. This study extends Davis' (1989) TAM model and Straub's (1994) SPIR addendum by adding gender to an IT diffusion model. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been widely studied in IS research as an explanation of the use of information systems across IS-types and nationalities. While this line of research has found significant cross-cultural differences, it has ignored the effects of gender, even though in socio-linguistic research, gender is a fundamental aspect of culture. Indeed, sociolinguistic research that has shown that men tend to focus discourse on hierarchy and independence while women focus on intimacy and solidarity. This literature provides a solid grounding for conceptual extensions to the IT diffusion research and the Technology Acceptance Model. Testing gender differences that might relate to beliefs and use of computer-based media, the present study sampled 392 female and male responses via a cross-sectional survey instrument. The sample drew from comparable groups of knowledge workers using E-mail systems in the airline industry in North America, Asia, and Europe. Study findings indicate that women and men differ in their perceptions but not use of E-mail. These findings suggest that researchers should include gender in IT diffusion models along with other cultural effects. Managers and co-workers, moreover, need to realize that the same mode of communication may be perceived differently by the sexes, suggesting that more favorable communications environments might be created, environments that take into account not only organizational contextual factors, but also the gender of users. The creation of these environments involves not only the actual deployment of communication media, but also organizational training on communications media.

Question: What is the difference between the perception of men and women?


Generalized Thompson Sampling for Contextual Bandits. Thompson Sampling, one of the oldest heuristics for solving multi-armed bandits, has recently been shown to demonstrate state-of-the-art performance. The em pirical success has led to great interests in theoretical understanding of this heuristic. In this pap er, we approach this problem in a way very different from existing efforts. In particular, motiv ated by the connection between Thompson Sampling and exponentiated updates, we propose a new family of algorithms called Generalized Thompson Sampling in the expert-learning framework, which includes Thompson Sampling as a special case. Similar to most expert-learning algorithms, Generalized Thompson Sampling uses a loss function to adjust the experts' weights. General regr et bounds are derived, which are also instantiated to two important loss functions: square loss a nd logarithmic loss. In contrast to existing bounds, our results apply to quite general contextual bandi ts. More importantly, they quantify the effect of the "prior" distribution on the regret bounds.

Question: What is the connection between Thompson Sampling and exponentiated updates?


Zero-Bending Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (pMUT) With Enhanced Transmitting Performance. A piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (pMUT) has enabled numerous exciting ultrasonic applications. However, residual stress and initial buckling may worsen the transmitting sensitivity of a pMUT, and also limit its application and commercialization. In this paper, we report a new innovative pMUT with a perfectly flat membrane, i.e., zero-bending membrane. Leveraging on the stress-free AlN thin film, framelike top electrode layout, and integrated vacuum cavity, the initial deflection of suspended membrane is significantly suppressed to only 0.005%. The transmitting sensitivity of the zero-bending pMUT is measured as 123 nm/V at a resonant frequency of 2.21 MHz, which is 450% higher than that of the reference pMUT with slightly non-zero initial deflection. Compared with the simulation results, the measured data of zero-bending pMUT achieve 94.5% of its ideal transmitting sensitivity. It is solid evidence that our approach is an effective and reliable way to overcome the residual stress and the initial buckling issue.

Question: What is the transmitting sensitivity of a piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer?


Modeling visual problem solving as analogical reasoning.. We present a computational model of visual problem solving, designed to solve problems from the Raven's Progressive Matrices intelligence test. The model builds on the claim that analogical reasoning lies at the heart of visual problem solving, and intelligence more broadly. Images are compared via structure mapping, aligning the common relational structure in 2 images to identify commonalities and differences. These commonalities or differences can themselves be reified and used as the input for future comparisons. When images fail to align, the model dynamically rerepresents them to facilitate the comparison. In our analysis, we find that the model matches adult human performance on the Standard Progressive Matrices test, and that problems which are difficult for the model are also difficult for people. Furthermore, we show that model operations involving abstraction and rerepresentation are particularly difficult for people, suggesting that these operations may be critical for performing visual problem solving, and reasoning more generally, at the highest level. (PsycINFO Database Record

Question: What is the raven progressive matrices?


Characterization of double-layer capacitors (DLCs) for power electronics applications. The double-layer capacitor (DLC) for power applications is a new device. A simple resistive capacitive equivalent circuit is insufficient to characterize its terminal behaviour. Based on physical reasoning, an equivalent circuit is proposed to provide the power electronics engineer with a model for the terminal behaviour of the DLC. The equivalent model consists of three Re branches, one of them with a voltage dependent capacitor. A method to identify the circuit parameters is presented. Measurements of carbon-based DLCs for power applications are presented, analysed, and the equivalent circuit response is compared with experimental results.

Question: How to characterize a double-layer capacitor?


LiveNet: Improving features generalization for face liveness detection using convolution neural networks. Performance of face liveness detection algorithms in cross-database face liveness detection tests is one of the key issues in face-biometric based systems. Recently, Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) classifiers have shown remarkable performance in intra-database face liveness detection tests. However, a little effort has been made to improve the generalization capability of CNN classifiers for cross-database and unconstrained face liveness detection tests. In this paper, we propose an efficient strategy for training deep CNN classifiers for face liveness detection task. We utilize continuous data-randomization (like bootstrapping) in the form of small mini-batches during training CNN classifiers on small scale face antispoofing database. Experimental results revealed that the proposed approach reduces the training time by 18.39%, while significantly lowering the HTER by 8.28% and 14.14% in cross-database tests on CASIAFASD and Replay-Attack database respectively as compared to state-of-the-art approaches. Additionally, the proposed approach achieves satisfactory results on intra-database and cross-database face liveness detection tests, claiming a good generality over other state-of-the-art face anti-spoofing approaches. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Question: How to improve the generalization capability of CNN classifiers for face liveness detection task?


Internal Coupled-Fed Dual-Loop Antenna Integrated With a USB Connector for WWAN/LTE Mobile Handset. A coupled-fed dual-loop antenna capable of providing eight-band WWAN/LTE operation and suitable to integrate with a USB connector in the mobile handset is presented. The antenna integrates with a protruded ground, which is extended from the main ground plane of the mobile handset to accommodate a USB connector functioning as a data port of the handset. To consider the presence of the integrated protruded ground, the antenna uses two separate shorted strips and a T-shape monopole encircled therein as a coupling feed and a radiator as well. The shorted strips are short-circuited through a common shorting strip to the protruded ground and coupled-fed by the T-shape monopole to generate two separate quarter-wavelength loop resonant modes to form a wide lower band to cover the LTE700/GSM850/900 operation (704-960 MHz). An additional higher-order loop resonant mode is also generated to combine with two wideband resonant modes contributed by the T-shape monopole to form a very wide upper band of larger than 1 GHz to cover the GSM1800/1900/UMTS/LTE2300/2500 operation (1710-2690 MHz). Details of the proposed antenna are presented. For the SAR (specific absorption rate) requirement in practical mobile handsets to meet the limit of 1.6 W/kg for 1-g human tissue, the SAR values of the antenna are also analyzed.

Question: What is a coupled-fed dual-loop antenna?


Multilingual Speech Recognition with a Single End-to-End Model. Training a conventional automatic speech recognition (ASR) system to support multiple languages is challenging because the sub-word unit, lexicon and word inventories are typically language specific. In contrast, sequence-to-sequence models are well suited for multilingual ASR because they encapsulate an acoustic, pronunciation and language model jointly in a single network. In this work we present a single sequence-to-sequence ASR model trained on 9 different Indian languages, which have very little overlap in their scripts. Specifically, we take a union of language-specific grapheme sets and train a grapheme-based sequence-to-sequence model jointly on data from all languages. We find that this model, which is not explicitly given any information about language identity, improves recognition performance by 21% relative compared to analogous sequence-to-sequence models trained on each language individually. By modifying the model to accept a language identifier as an additional input feature, we further improve performance by an additional 7% relative and eliminate confusion between different languages.

Question: How do you train a single sequence-to-sequence model for multiple languages?


A three-phase ZVS PWM DC/DC converter with asymmetrical duty cycle associated with a three-phase version of the hybridge rectifier. This paper proposes the use of a three-phase version of the hybridge rectifier in the three-phase zero-voltage switch (ZVS) DC/DC converter with asymmetrical duty cycle. The use of this new rectifier improves the efficiency of the converter because only three diodes are responsible for the conduction losses in the secondary side. The current in the secondary side of the transformer is half the output current. In addition to this, all the advantages of the three-phase DC/DC converter, i.e., the increased frequency of the output and input currents, the improved distribution of the losses, as well as the soft commutation for a wide load range, are preserved. Therefore, the resulting topology is capable of achieving high efficiency and high power density at high power levels. The theoretical analysis, simulation, and experimental results obtained from a 6-kW prototype, and also a comparison of the efficiency of this converter with the full-bridge rectifier are presented.

Question: What is the difference between a three-phase and a full-bridge rectifier?


A Dolev-Yao Model for Zero Knowledge. In cryptographic protocols, zero knowledge proofs are employed for a principal A to communicate some non-trivial information t to B while at the same time ensuring that B cannot derive any information "stronger" than t . Oen this implies that B can verify that some property holds without being able to produce a proof of this. While a rich theory of zero knowledge proofs exists, there are few formal models addressing verification questions.We propose an extension of the standard Dolev-Yao model of cryptographic protocols which involves not only constructibility of terms but also a form of verifiability. We present a proof system for term derivability, which is employed to yield a decision procedure for checking whether a given protocol meets its zero knowledge specification.

Question: What is a zero knowledge proof?


A Balancing Control Strategy for a One-Wheel Pendulum Robot Based on Dynamic Model Decomposition: Simulations and Experiments. A dynamics-based posture-balancing control strategy for a new one-wheel pendulum robot (OWPR) is proposed and verified. The OWPR model includes a rolling wheel, a robot body with a steering axis, and a pendulum for lateral balancing. In constructing the dynamic model, three elements are generalized in comparison with existing robotic systems: the mass and inertia of the robot body, the "I"-type pendulum, and the steering motion. The dynamics of the robot are derived using a Lagrangian formulation to represent the torques of the wheel during the rolling, yawing, and pitching of the robot body, in terms of the control inputs. The OWPR dynamics are decomposed into state-space models for lateral balancing and steering, and the corresponding controller is designed to be adaptive to changes in the state variables. Simulations and experimental studies are presented that demonstrate and verify the efficiency of the proposed models and the control algorithm.

Question: How do you balance a robot?


Hair animation with collision detection. We propose an efficient method for hair animation. The motion of hairs is modeled by a simplified physical simulation. Collision between hair and a human body or other objects is used to make a realistic hair animation. Fast collision detection is required because the number of hairs is very large. Therefore, a cylindrical representation of human body or other objects is created for efficient collision detection. Because of the cylindrical representation, collision is detected with table look-up and interpolation, and computation complexity is independent of the complexity of the body. Reaction constraint method is applied for the collision response to simulate inelastic contact. This method is successfully applied to generate hair animation.

Question: How to make hair animation with collision detection?


Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms.

Question: What is the difference between information theory and inference?


Replicability Analysis for Natural Language Processing: Testing Significance with Multiple Datasets. With the ever growing amount of textual data from a large variety of languages, domains, and genres, it has become standard to evaluate NLP algorithms on multiple datasets in order to ensure a consistent performance across heterogeneous setups. However, such multiple comparisons pose significant challenges to traditional statistical analysis methods in NLP and can lead to erroneous conclusions. In this paper we propose a Replicability Analysis framework for a statistically sound analysis of multiple comparisons between algorithms for NLP tasks. We discuss the theoretical advantages of this framework over the current, statistically unjustified, practice in the NLP literature, and demonstrate its empirical value across four applications: multi-domain dependency parsing, multilingual POS tagging, cross-domain sentiment classification and word similarity prediction.

Question: What is the difference between a statistically sound and an unjustified analysis?


Mobile ECG measurement and analysis system using mobile phone as the base station. In this paper, we introduce an ECG measurement, analysis and transmission system which uses a mobile phone as a base station. The system is based on a small-sized mobile ECG recording device which sends measurement data wirelessly to the mobile phone. In the mobile phone the received data is analyzed and if abnormalities are found part of the measurement data is sent to a server for the use of medical personnel. The prototype of the system was made with a portable ECG monitor and Nokia 6681 mobile phone. The results show that modern smart phones are indeed capable for this kind of tasks. Thus, with their good networking and data processing capabilities, they are a potential part of the future wireless health care systems.

Question: What is the size of the mobile ECG measurement and analysis system?


Exploring the Placement and Design of Word-Scale Visualizations. We present an exploration and a design space that characterize the usage and placement of word-scale visualizations within text documents. Word-scale visualizations are a more general version of sparklines-small, word-sized data graphics that allow meta-information to be visually presented in-line with document text. In accordance with Edward Tufte's definition, sparklines are traditionally placed directly before or after words in the text. We describe alternative placements that permit a wider range of word-scale graphics and more flexible integration with text layouts. These alternative placements include positioning visualizations between lines, within additional vertical and horizontal space in the document, and as interactive overlays on top of the text. Each strategy changes the dimensions of the space available to display the visualizations, as well as the degree to which the text must be adjusted or reflowed to accommodate them. We provide an illustrated design space of placement options for word-scale visualizations and identify six important variables that control the placement of the graphics and the level of disruption of the source text. We also contribute a quantitative analysis that highlights the effect of different placements on readability and text disruption. Finally, we use this analysis to propose guidelines to support the design and placement of word-scale visualizations.

Question: How do you design a word-scale visualization?


Chip-level and board-level CDM ESD tests on IC products. The electrostatic discharge (ESD) transient currents and failure analysis (FA) between chip-level and board-level charged-device-model (CDM) ESD tests are investigated in this work. The discharging current waveforms of three different printed circuit boards (PCBs) are characterized first. Then, the chip-level and board-level CDM ESD tests are performed to an ESD-protected dummy NMOS and a high-speed receiver front-end circuit, respectively. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) failure pictures show that the board-level CDM ESD test causes much severer failure than that caused by the chip-level CDM ESD test.

Question: What is the difference between chip-level and board-level CDM ESD tests?


Quantifying the evolutionary dynamics of language. Human language is based on grammatical rules. Cultural evolution allows these rules to change over time. Rules compete with each other: as new rules rise to prominence, old ones die away. To quantify the dynamics of language evolution, we studied the regularization of English verbs over the past 1,200 years. Although an elaborate system of productive conjugations existed in English's proto-Germanic ancestor, Modern English uses the dental suffix, '-ed', to signify past tense. Here we describe the emergence of this linguistic rule amidst the evolutionary decay of its exceptions, known to us as irregular verbs. We have generated a data set of verbs whose conjugations have been evolving for more than a millennium, tracking inflectional changes to 177 Old-English irregular verbs. Of these irregular verbs, 145 remained irregular in Middle English and 98 are still irregular today. We study how the rate of regularization depends on the frequency of word usage. The half-life of an irregular verb scales as the square root of its usage frequency: a verb that is 100 times less frequent regularizes 10 times as fast. Our study provides a quantitative analysis of the regularization process by which ancestral forms gradually yield to an emerging linguistic rule.

Question: How does the rate of regularization depend on the frequency of word usage?


On the use of MapReduce for imbalanced big data using Random Forest. In this age, big data applications are increasingly becoming the main focus of attention because of the enormous increment of data generation and storage that has taken place in the last years. This situation becomes a challenge when huge amounts of data are processed to extract knowledge because the data mining techniques are not adapted to the new space and time requirements. Furthermore, real-world data applications usually present a class distribution where the samples that belong to one class, which is precisely the main interest, are hugely outnumbered by the samples of the other classes. This circumstance , known as the class imbalance problem, complicates the learning process as the standard learning techniques do not correctly address this situation. In this work, we analyse the performance of several techniques used to deal with imbal-anced datasets in the big data scenario using the Random Forest classifier. Specifically, oversampling, undersampling and cost-sensitive learning have been adapted to big data using MapReduce so that these techniques are able to manage datasets as large as needed providing the necessary support to correctly identify the underrepresented class. The Random Forest classifier provides a solid basis for the comparison because of its performance, robustness and versatility. An experimental study is carried out to evaluate the performance of the diverse algorithms considered. The results obtained show that there is not an approach to imbalanced big data classification that outperforms the others for all the data considered when using Random Forest. Moreover, even for the same type of problem, the best performing method is dependent on the number of mappers selected to run the experiments. In most of the cases, when the number of splits is increased, an improvement in the running times can be observed, however, this progress in times is obtained at the expense of a

Question: What is the difference between oversampling and undersampling?


Design and Experiment of a Conformal Monopulse Antenna for Passive Radar Applications. This paper proposed a design scheme of wide band monopulse antenna system for the passive radar seeker (PRS) of anti-radiation missile (ARM). To save the installation space of the PRS, the conical conformal log periodic antennas (LPDA) are employed to form the monopulse antenna system. The specific implementation scheme of PRS based on the conically conformal monopulse antennas was designed and analyzed. A practical monopulse antenna system composed of two log periodic antennas was designed and fabricated over the operating frequency range of 1GHz to 8GHz. A loaded resistor with impedance equal to 50Ω is used to reduce the return loss at low frequency. The experimental results demonstrate that acceptable wide band impedance matching and port isolation for each fabricated antenna was achieved. Furthermore, the wide band sum and difference radiation patterns were formed, which validates the proposed conformal monopulse antenna design scheme for the PRS application.

Question: What is a conformal antenna?


KCT: a MATLAB toolbox for motion control of KUKA robot manipulators. The Kuka Control Toolbox (KCT) is a collection of MATLAB functions for motion control of KUKA robot manipulators, developed to offer an intuitive and high-level programming interface to the user. The toolbox, which is compatible with all 6 DOF small and low payload KUKA robots that use the Eth.RSIXML, runs on a remote computer connected with the KUKA controller via TCP/IP. KCT includes more than 30 functions, spanning operations such as forward and inverse kinematics computation, point-to-point joint and Cartesian control, trajectory generation, graphical display and diagnostics. The flexibility, ease of use and reliability of the toolbox is demonstrated through two applicative examples.

Question: What is the name of the KUKA robot?


Low power in-memory computing based on dual-mode SOT-MRAM. In this paper, we propose a novel Spin Orbit Torque Magnetic Random Access Memory (SOT-MRAM) array design that could simultaneously work as non-volatile memory and implement a reconfigurable in-memory logic (AND, OR) without add-on logic circuits to memory chip as in traditional logic-in-memory designs. The computed logic output could be simply read out like a normal MRAM bit-cell using the shared memory peripheral circuits. Such intrinsic in-memory logic could be used to process data within memory to greatly reduce power-hungry and long distance data communication in conventional Von-Neumann computing systems. We further employ in-memory data encryption using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm as a case study to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design. The device to architecture co-simulation results show that the proposed design can achieve 70.15% and 80.87% lower energy consumption compared to CMOS-ASIC and CMOL-AES implementations, respectively. It offers almost similar energy consumption as recent DW-AES implementation, but with 60.65% less area overhead.

Question: What is the difference between SOT-MRAM and MRAM?


Survey on UAV Cellular Communications: Practical Aspects, Standardization Advancements, Regulation, and Security Challenges. The rapid growth of consumer Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is creating promising new business opportunities for cellular operators. On the one hand, UAVs can be connected to cellular networks as new types of user equipment, therefore generating significant revenues for the operators that guarantee their stringent service requirements. On the other hand, UAVs offer the unprecedented opportunity to realize UAV-mounted flying base stations that can dynamically reposition themselves to boost coverage, spectral efficiency and user quality of experience. Indeed, the standards bodies are currently exploring possibilities for serving commercial UAVs with cellular networks. Industries are beginning to trial early prototypes of flying base stations or user equipments, while academia is in full swing researching mathematical and algorithmic solutions to many interesting new problems arising from flying nodes in cellular networks. In this article, we provide a comprehensive survey of all of these developments promoting smooth integration of UAVs in cellular networks. Specifically, we survey the types of consumer UAVs currently available off-the-shelf, the interference issues and potential solutions addressed by standardization bodies for serving aerial users with existing terrestrial base stations, the challenges and opportunities for assisting cellular communications with UAVbased flying relays and base stations, the ongoing prototyping and test bed activities, the new regulations being developed to manage the commercial use of UAVs, and the cyber-physical security of UAV-assisted cellular communications.

Question: What is the difference between a flying base station and a flying relay?


A Sharp PageRank Algorithm with Applications to Edge Ranking and Graph Sparsification. We give an improved algorithm for computing personalized PageRank vectors with tight error bounds which can be as small as Ω(n−p) for any fixed positive integer p. The improved PageRank algorithm is crucial for computing a quantitative ranking of edges in a given graph. We will use the edge ranking to examine two interrelated problems – graph sparsification and graph partitioning. We can combine the graph sparsification and the partitioning algorithms using PageRank vectors to derive an improved partitioning algorithm.

Question: What is the improved page rank algorithm?


Child sexual abuse in sub-Saharan Africa: a literature review.. OBJECTIVE This article reviews the English-language literature on child sexual abuse in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The focus is on the sexual abuse of children in the home/community, as opposed to the commercial sexual exploitation of children.   METHODS English language, peer-reviewed papers cited in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) are examined. Reports from international and local NGOs and UN agencies are also examined.   RESULTS Few published studies on the sexual abuse of children have been conducted in the region, with the exception of South Africa. Samples are predominantly clinical or University based. A number of studies report that approximately 5% of the sample reported penetrative sexual abuse during their childhood. No national survey of the general population has been conducted. The most frequent explanations for the sexual abuse of children in SSA include rapid social change, AIDS/HIV avoidance strategies and the patriarchal nature of society. Child sexual abuse is most frequently perpetrated by family members, relatives, neighbors or others known to the child.   CONCLUSIONS There is nothing to support the widely held view that child sexual abuse is very rare in SSA-prevalence levels are comparable with studies reported from other regions. The high prevalence levels of AIDS/HIV in the region expose sexually abused children to high risks of infection. It is estimated that, approximately.6-1.8% of all children in high HIV-incidence countries in Southern Africa will experience penetrative sexual abuse by an AIDS/HIV infected perpetrator before 18 years of age.

Question: What is the prevalence of child sexual abuse in sub-Saharan Africa?


A resistively degenerated wide-band passive mixer with low noise figure and +60dBm IIP2 in 0.18μm CMOS. This paper presents a wide-band CMOS passive mixer with 8 dB double side band (DSB) noise figure (NF) and 24 dB voltage gain with +60 dBm of uncalibrated IIP2 and +9 dBm of IIP3 at 2 GHz. The linearity is maintained for a wide frequency offset range to ensure interferer performance for in-band jammers. A source degeneration method to improve NF and linearity is introduced and analyzed. Gm boosting methods, such as input cross-coupling, current reuse, complementary input, and back gate connection, are used. The Mixer consumes only 10 mW from a 2V power supply for I and Q both channels including trans-impedance amplifier stages (TIA).

Question: What is the noise figure of a mixer?


Submaximal exercise testing: clinical application and interpretation.. Compared with maximal exercise testing, submaximal exercise testing appears to have greater applicability to physical therapists in their role as clinical exercise specialists. This review contrasts maximal and submaximal exercise testing. Two major categories of submaximal tests (ie, predictive and performance tests) and their relative merits are described. Predictive tests are submaximal tests that are used to predict maximal aerobic capacity. Performance tests involve measuring the responses to standardized physical activities that are typically encountered in everyday life. To maximize the validity and reliability of data obtained from submaximal tests, physical therapists are cautioned to apply the tests selectively based on their indications; to adhere to methods, including the requisite number of practice sessions; and to use measurements such as heart rate, blood pressure, exertion, and pain to evaluate test performance and to safely monitor patients.

Question: What is the difference between maximal and submaximal exercise testing?


Latent Predictor Networks for Code Generation. Many language generation tasks require the production of text conditioned on both structured and unstructured inputs. We present a novel neural network architecture which generates an output sequence conditioned on an arbitrary number of input functions. Crucially, our approach allows both the choice of conditioning context and the granularity of generation, for example characters or tokens, to be marginalised, thus permitting scalable and effective training. Using this framework, we address the problem of generating programming code from a mixed natural language and structured specification. We create two new data sets for this paradigm derived from the collectible trading card games Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone. On these, and a third preexisting corpus, we demonstrate that marginalising multiple predictors allows our model to outperform strong benchmarks.

Question: How to generate code from a mixed natural language and structured specification?


Human EEG responses to 1–100 Hz flicker: resonance phenomena in visual cortex and their potential correlation to cognitive phenomena. The individual properties of visual objects, like form or color, are represented in different areas in our visual cortex. In order to perceive one coherent object, its features have to be bound together. This was found to be achieved in cat and monkey brains by temporal correlation of the firing rates of neurons which code the same object. This firing rate is predominantly observed in the gamma frequency range (approx. 30–80 Hz, mainly around 40 Hz). In addition, it has been shown in humans that stimuli which flicker at gamma frequencies are processed faster by our brains than when they flicker at different frequencies. These effects could be due to neural oscillators, which preferably oscillate at certain frequencies, so-called resonance frequencies. It is also known that neurons in visual cortex respond to flickering stimuli at the frequency of the flickering light. If neural oscillators exist with resonance frequencies, they should respond more strongly to stimulation with their resonance frequency. We performed an experiment, where ten human subjects were presented flickering light at frequencies from 1 to 100 Hz in 1-Hz steps. The event-related potentials exhibited steady-state oscillations at all frequencies up to at least 90 Hz. Interestingly, the steady-state potentials exhibited clear resonance phenomena around 10, 20, 40 and 80 Hz. This could be a potential neural basis for gamma oscillations in binding experiments. The pattern of results resembles that of multiunit activity and local field potentials in cat visual cortex.

Question: What is the potential neural basis for gamma oscillations in binding experiments?


WCP-RNN: a novel RNN-based approach for Bio-NER in Chinese EMRs. Deep learning has achieved remarkable success in a wide range of domains. However, it has not been comprehensively evaluated as a solution for the task of Chinese biomedical named entity recognition (Bio-NER). The traditional deep-learning approach for the Bio-NER task is usually based on the structure of recurrent neural networks (RNN) and only takes word embeddings into consideration, ignoring the value of character-level embeddings to encode the morphological and shape information. We propose an RNN-based approach, WCP-RNN, for the Chinese Bio-NER problem. Our method combines word embeddings and character embeddings to capture orthographic and lexicosemantic features. In addition, POS tags are involved as a priori word information to improve the final performance. The experimental results show our proposed approach outperforms the baseline method; the highest F-scores for subject and lesion detection tasks reach 90.36 and 90.48% with an increase of 3.10 and 2.60% compared with the baseline methods, respectively.

Question: What is the difference between the baseline method and the proposed method?


State-space solutions to standard H2 and H∞ control problems. Simple state-space formulas are presented for a controller solving a standard H∞-problem. The controller has the same state-dimension as the plant, its computation involves only two Riccati equations, and it has a separation structure reminiscent of classical LQG (i.e., H2) theory. This paper is also intended to be of tutorial value, so a standard H2-solution is developed in parallel.

Question: What is a state-space solution?


Adapting instance weights for unsupervised domain adaptation using quadratic mutual information and subspace learning. Domain adaptation (DA) algorithms utilize a label-rich old dataset (domain) to build a machine learning model (classification, detection etc.) in a label-scarce new dataset with different data distribution. Recent approaches transform cross-domain data into a shared subspace by minimizing the shift between their marginal distributions. In this paper, we propose a novel iterative method to learn a common subspace based on non-parametric quadratic mutual information (QMI) between data and corresponding class labels. We extend a prior work of discriminative subspace learning based on maximization of QMI and integrate instance weighting into the QMI formulation. We propose an adaptive weighting model to identify relevant samples that share underlying similarity across domains and ignore irrelevant ones. Due to difficulty of applying cross-validation, an alternative strategy is integrated with the proposed algorithm to setup model parameters. A set of comprehensive experiments on benchmark datasets is conducted to prove the efficacy of our proposed framework over state-of-the-art approaches.

Question: How to adapt instance weights for unsupervised domain adaptation using quadratic mutual information and subspace learning.


A Systematic Gap Analysis of Social Engineering Defence Mechanisms Considering Social Psychology. Social engineering is the acquisition of information about computer systems by methods that deeply include non-technical means. While technical security of most critical systems is high, the systems remain vulnerable to attacks from social engineers. Social engineering is a technique that: (i) does not require any (advanced) technical tools, (ii) can be used by anyone, (iii) is cheap. Traditional penetration testing approaches often focus on vulnerabilities in network or software systems. Few approaches even consider the exploitation of humans via social engineering. While the amount of social engineering attacks and the damage they cause rise every year, the defences against social engineering do not evolve accordingly. Hence, the security awareness of these attacks by employees remains low. We examined the psychological principles of social engineering and which psychological techniques induce resistance to persuasion applicable for social engineering. The techniques examined are an enhancement of persuasion knowledge, attitude bolstering and influencing the decision making. While research exists elaborating on security awareness, the integration of resistance against persuasion has not been done. Therefore, we analysed current defence mechanisms and provide a gap analysis based on research in social psychology. Based on our findings we provide guidelines of how to improve social engineering defence mechanisms such as security awareness programs.

Question: What is a gap analysis?


Facial Expression Recognition in the Wild Using Improved Dense Trajectories and Fisher Vector Encoding. Improved dense trajectory features have been successfully used in video-based action recognition problems, but their application to face processing is more challenging. In this paper, we propose a novel system that deals with the problem of emotion recognition in real-world videos, using improved dense trajectory, LGBP-TOP, and geometric features. In the proposed system, we detect the face and facial landmarks from each frame of a video using a combination of two recent approaches, and register faces by means of Procrustes analysis. The improved dense trajectory and geometric features are encoded using Fisher vectors and classification is achieved by extreme learning machines. We evaluate our method on the extended Cohn-Kanade (CK+) and EmotiW 2015 Challenge databases. We obtain state-of the-art results in both databases.

Question: How to detect facial landmarks in videos?


Proxemic Transitions: Designing Shape-Changing Furniture for Informal Meetings. The field of Shape-Changing Interfaces explores the qualities of physically dynamic artifacts. At furniture-scale, such artifacts have the potential of changing the ways we collaborate and engage with interiors and physical spaces. Informed by theories of proxemics, empirical studies of informal meetings and design work with shape-changing furniture, we develop the notion of proxemic transitions. We present three design aspects of proxemic transitions: transition speed, stepwise reconfiguration, and radical shifts. The design aspects focus on how to balance between physical and digital transformations in designing for proxemic transitions. Our contribution is three-fold: 1) the notion of proxemic transitions, 2) three design aspects to consider in designing for proxemic transitions, and 3) initial exploration of how these design aspects might generate designs of dynamic furniture. These contributions outline important aspects to consider when designing shape-changing furniture for informal workplace meetings.

Question: How can we design for proxemic transitions?


The design of early childhood makerspaces to support positive technological development: Two case studies. Purpose – With the advent of the maker movement, there has been a new push to explore how spaces of learning ought to be designed. The purpose of this paper is to integrate three approaches for thinking about the role of design of the learning environment: the makerspace movement, Reggio Emilia's Third Teacher approach, and the positive technological development (PTD) framework. Design/methodology/approach – This paper describes two case studies that involved the design of two different early childhood makerspaces (ECMSs) through a co-participatory design experience: the Kindergarten Creator Space at the International School of Billund in Denmark; and the ECMS at (removed for blind review), a resource library in Medford, MA. Findings – Based on the foundational education framework of PTD, and ideas from the field of interior design, this paper describes the design principles of several successful makerspaces, and case examples of children who use them. Originality/value – By grounding the theoretical discussion in three approaches, the authors aim to suggest design elements of physical spaces in schools and libraries that can promote young children's learning through making. Recommendations are discussed for practitioners and researchers interested in ECMSs.

Question: What is the design of early childhood makerspaces?


User friendly SLAM initialization. The development of new Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) techniques is quickly advancing in research communities and rapidly transitioning into commercial products. Creating accurate and high-quality SLAM maps relies on a robust initialization process. However, the robustness and usability of SLAM initialization for end-users has often been disregarded. This paper presents and evaluates a novel tracking system for 6DOF pose tracking between a single keyframe and the current camera frame, without any prior scene knowledge. Our system is particularly suitable for SLAM initialization, since it allows 6DOF pose tracking in the intermediate frames before a wide-enough baseline between two keyframes has formed. We investigate how our tracking system can be used to interactively guide users in performing an optimal motion for SLAM initialization. However, our findings from a pilot study indicate that the need for such motion can be completely hidden from the user and outsourced to our tracking system. Results from a second user study show that letting our tracking system create a SLAM map as soon as possible is a viable and usable solution. Our work provides important insight for SLAM systems, showing how our novel tracking system can be integrated with a user interface to support fast, robust and user-friendly SLAM initialization.

Question: How can we use a tracking system to guide users in performing an optimal motion for SLAM initialization?


Logical reversibility of computation. The usual general-purpose computing automaton (e.g.. a Turing machine) is logically irreversibleits transition function lacks a single-valued inverse. Here i t is shown that such machines may he made logically reversible at every step, while retainillg their simplicity and their ability to do general computations. This result is of great physical interest because it makes plausible the existence of thermodynamically reversible computers which could perform useful computations at useful speed while dissipating considerably less than kT of energy per logical step. In the first stage of its computation the logically reversible automaton parallels the corresponding irreversible automaton, except that it saves all intermediate results, thereby avoiding the irreversible operation of erasure. The second stage consists of printing out the desired output. The third stage then reversibly disposes of all the undesired intermediate results by retracing the steps of the first stage in backward order (a process which is only possible because the first stage has been carried out reversibly), thereby restoring the machine (except for the now-written output tape) to its original condition. The final machine configuration thus contains the desired output and a reconstructed copy o f the input, but no other undesired data. The foregoing results are demonstrated explicitly using a type of three-tape Turing machine. The biosynthesis of messenger RNA is discussed as a physical example of reversible computation.

Question: What is the difference between a Turing machine and a cellular automaton?


An End-to-End Spatio-Temporal Attention Model for Human Action Recognition from Skeleton Data. Human action recognition is an important task in computer vision. Extracting discriminative spatial and temporal features to model the spatial and temporal evolutions of different actions plays a key role in accomplishing this task. In this work, we propose an end-to-end spatial and temporal attention model for human action recognition from skeleton data. We build our model on top of the Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), which learns to selectively focus on discriminative joints of skeleton within each frame of the inputs and pays different levels of attention to the outputs of different frames. Furthermore, to ensure effective training of the network, we propose a regularized cross-entropy loss to drive the model learning process and develop a joint training strategy accordingly. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, both on the small human action recognition dataset of SBU and the currently largest NTU dataset.

Question: What is the largest human action recognition dataset?


Democracy and Education Spending in Africa. While it is widely believed that electoral competition influences public spending decisions, there has been relatively little effort to examine how recent democratization in the developing world has resulted in changes in basic service provision. There have been even fewer attempts to investigate whether democracy matters for public spending in the poorest developing countries, where "weak institutions" may mean that the formal adoption of electoral competition has little effect on policy. In this article I confront these questions directly, asking whether the shift to multiparty competition in African countries has resulted in increased spending on primary education. I develop an argument, illustrated with a game-theoretic model, which suggests that the need to obtain an electoral majority may have prompted African governments to spend more on education and to prioritize primary schools over universities within the education budget. I test three propositions from the model using panel data on electoral competition and education spending in African countries. I find clear evidence that democratically elected African governments have spent more on primary education, while spending on universities appears unaffected by democratization.

Question: How much does democracy influence education spending?


IR sensitivity enhancement of CMOS Image Sensor with diffractive light trapping pixels. We report on the IR sensitivity enhancement of back-illuminated CMOS Image Sensor (BI-CIS) with 2-dimensional diffractive inverted pyramid array structure (IPA) on crystalline silicon (c-Si) and deep trench isolation (DTI). FDTD simulations of semi-infinite thick c-Si having 2D IPAs on its surface whose pitches over 400 nm shows more than 30% improvement of light absorption at λ = 850 nm and the maximum enhancement of 43% with the 540 nm pitch at the wavelength is confirmed. A prototype BI-CIS sample with pixel size of 1.2 μm square containing 400 nm pitch IPAs shows 80% sensitivity enhancement at λ = 850 nm compared to the reference sample with flat surface. This is due to diffraction with the IPA and total reflection at the pixel boundary. The NIR images taken by the demo camera equip with a C-mount lens show 75% sensitivity enhancement in the λ = 700–1200 nm wavelength range with negligible spatial resolution degradation. Light trapping CIS pixel technology promises to improve NIR sensitivity and appears to be applicable to many different image sensor applications including security camera, personal authentication, and range finding Time-of-Flight camera with IR illuminations.

Question: What is the IR sensitivity enhancement of CMOS Image Sensor with diffractive light trapping pixels?


Characterization of a RS-LiDAR for 3D Perception. High precision 3D LiDARs are still expensive and hard to acquire. This paper presents the characteristics of RSLiDAR, a model of low-cost LiDAR with sufficient supplies, in comparison with VLP-16. The paper also provides a set of evaluations to analyze the characterizations and performances of LiDARs sensors. This work analyzes multiple properties, such as drift effects, distance effects, color effects and sensor orientation effects, in the context of 3D perception. By comparing with Velodyne LiDAR, we found RS-LiDAR as a cheaper and acquirable substitute of VLP-16 with similar efficiency.

Question: What is the difference between a low-cost LiDAR and a high-cost LiDAR?


Benchmarking distributed data warehouse solutions for storing genomic variant information. Database URL https://github.com/ZSI-Bio/variantsdwh.

Question: What is the URL of the distributed data warehouse solution for storing genomic variant information?