Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Control Flow Integrity for COTS Binaries

Control-Flow Integrity (CFI) has been recognized as an important low-level security property. Its enforcement can defeat most injected and existing code attacks, including those based on Return-Oriented Programming (ROP). Previous implementations of CFI have required compiler support or the presence of relocation or debug information in the binary. In contrast, we present a technique for applying CFI to stripped binaries on ×86/Linux. Ours is the first work to apply CFI to complex shared libraries such as glibc. Through experimental evaluation, we demonstrate that our CFI implementation is effective against control-flow hijack attacks, and eliminates the vast majority of ROP gadgets. To achieve this result, we have developed robust techniques for disassembly, static analysis, and transformation of large binaries. Our techniques have been tested on over 300MB of binaries (executables and shared libraries).
Gender Differences in Salary and Promotion for Faculty in the Humanities, 1977-95

This study uses data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients to evaluate gender differences in salaries and promotion for academics in the humanities. Differences in employment outcomes by gender are evaluated using three methods: the Oaxaca decomposition is used to examine salary differentials, and binary choice models and duration analysis are used to estimate the probability of promotion to tenure. Over time, gender salary differences can largely be explained by academic rank. Substantial gender differences in promotion to tenure exist after controlling for productivity and demographic characteristics. However, the authors observe a slight decline in the gender promotion gap for the most recent cohort evaluated. On the basis of this evidence, the authors conclude that gender discrimination for academics in the humanities tends to operate through differences in promotion, which in turn affects wages.
Pulp and paper from oil palm fronds: wavelet neural networks modeling of soda-ethanol pulping.

Wavelet neural networks (WNNs) were used to investigate the influence of operational variables in the soda-ethanol pulping of oil palm fronds (viz. NaOH concentration (10-30%), ethanol concentration (15-75%), cooking temperature (150-190 oC), and time (60-180 min)) on the resulting pulp and paper properties (viz. screened yield, kappa number, tensile index, and tear index). Performance assessments demonstrated the predictive capability of WNNs, in that the experimental results of the dependent variables with error less than 6% were reproduced, while satisfactory R-squared values were obtained. It thus corroborated the good fit of the WNNs model for simulating the soda-ethanol pulping process for oil palm fronds.
Infections Caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Recipients of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) infections are uncommon in recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. These infections are 10–40 times commoner in recipients of stem cell transplantation than in the general population but they are 10 times less in stem cell transplantation recipients compared to solid organ transplant recipients. The incidence of M. tuberculosis infections in recipients of allogeneic stem cell transplantation ranges between <1 and 16% and varies considerably according to the type of transplant and the geographical location. Approximately 80% of M. tuberculosis infections in stem cell transplant recipients have been reported in patients receiving allografts. Several risk factors predispose to M. tuberculosis infections in recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and these are related to the underlying medical condition and its treatment, the pre-transplant conditioning therapies in addition to the transplant procedure and its own complications. These infections can develop as early as day 11 and as late as day 3337 post-transplant. The course may become rapidly progressive and the patient may develop life-threatening complications. The diagnosis of M. tuberculosis infections in stem cell transplant recipients is usually made on clinical grounds, cultures obtained from clinical specimens, tissues biopsies in addition to serology and molecular tests. Unfortunately, a definitive diagnosis of M. tuberculosis infections in these patients may occasionally be difficult to be established. However, M. tuberculosis infections in transplant recipients usually respond well to treatment with anti-tuberculosis agents provided the diagnosis is made early. A high index of suspicion should be maintained in recipients of stem cell transplantation living in endemic areas and presenting with compatible clinical and radiological manifestations. High mortality rates are associated with infections caused by multidrug-resistant strains, miliary or disseminated infections, and delayed initiation of therapy. In recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, isoniazid prophylaxis has specific indications and bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccination is contraindicated as it may lead to disseminated infection. The finding that M. tuberculosis may maintain long-term intracellular viability in human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells complicates the development of effective vaccines and strategies to eliminate tuberculosis. However, the introduction of linezolid, cellular immunotherapy, and immunomodulation in addition to autologous mesenchymal stem cell transplantation will ultimately have a positive impact on the overall management of infections caused by M. tuberculosis.
A Rare Cause of Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension Resistant to Therapy in The Newborn: Short-Rib Polydactyly Syndrome

Short-rib polydactyly syndrome is an autosomal recessively inherited lethal skeletal dysplasia. The syndrome is characterized by marked narrow fetal thorax, short extremities, micromelia, cleft palate/lip, polydactyly, cardiac and renal abnormalities, and genital malformations. In cases with pulmonary hypoplasia, persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn can develop. In this paper, we present a term newborn with persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn, which has developed secondary to short-rib polydactyly syndrome and was resistant to therapy with inhaled nitric oxide and oral sildenafil.
Predictors of Health-Care Utilization Among Children 6–59 Months of Age in Zambézia Province, Mozambique

Globally, approximately 5.9 million children under 5 years of age died in 2015, a reduction of over 50% since 1990. Millennium Development Goal 4 established the goal of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Multiple countries have surpassed this goal; however, regional and within-country inequities exist. We sought to study determinants of health-care utilization among children 6–59 months of age with fever, diarrhea, and respiratory symptoms in Zambézia Province, Mozambique. We conducted a population-based cross-sectional survey of female heads of household between April and May 2014. Mobile teams conducted interviews in 262 enumeration areas, with three distinct districts being oversampled for improved precision. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression using Stata 13.1 and R 3.2. 2 were used to examine factors associated with health-care utilization. A total of 2,317 children were evaluated in this study. Mothers' median age was 26 years, whereas child median age was 24 months. The proportion of children reporting fever, diarrhea, or respiratory illness in the prior 30 days was 44%, 22%, and 22%, respectively. Health-care utilization varied with 65% seeking health care for fever, compared with 57% for diarrhea and 25% for respiratory illness. In multivariable logistic regression, the characteristics most associated with health-care utilization across illnesses were delivery of last child at a facility, higher maternal education, and household ownership of a radio. The decision or ability to use health care is a multifaceted behavior swayed by societal norms, values, socioeconomics, and perceived need. Recognizing the predictors of a particular population may offer useful information to increase uptake in health-care services.
TVT-Exact and midurethral sling (SLING-IUFT) operative procedures: a randomized study

Abstract Objectives: The aim of the study is to compare results, effectiveness and complications of TVT exact and midurethral sling (SLING-IUFT) operations in the treatment of female stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Methods: A single center nonblind, randomized study of women with SUI who were randomized to TVT-Exact and SLING-IUFT was performed by one surgeon from April 2009 to April 2011. SUI was diagnosed on coughing and Valsalva test and urodynamics (cystometry and uroflowmetry) were assessed before operation and 1 year after surgery. This was a prospective randomized study. The follow up period was 12 months. 76 patients were operated using the TVT-Exact operation and 78 patients – using the SLING-IUFT operation. There was no statistically significant differences between groups for BMI, parity, menopausal status and prolapsed stage (no patients had cystocele greater than stage II). Results: Mean operative time was significantly shorter in the SLING-IUFT group (19 ± 5.6 min.) compared with the TVT-Exact group (27 ± 7.1 min.). There were statistically significant differences in the effectiveness of both procedures: TVT-Exact – at 94.5% and SLING-IUFT – at 61.2% after one year. Hospital stay was statistically significantly shorter in the SLING-IUFT group (1. 2 ± 0.5 days) compared with the TVT-Exact group (3.5 ± 1.5 days). Statistically significantly fewer complications occurred in the SLINGIUFT group. Conclusion: the TVT-Exact and SLING-IUFT operations are both effective for surgical treatment of female stress urinary incontinence. The SLING-IUFT involved a shorter operation time and lower complications rate. , the TVTExact procedure had statistically significantly more complications than the SLING-IUFT operation, but a higher effectiveness.
Preliminary classification criteria for the cryoglobulinaemic vasculitis

Background To develop preliminary classification criteria for the cryoglobulinaemic syndrome or cryoglobulinaemic vasculitis (CV). Methods Study part I developed a questionnaire for CV to be included in the formal, second part (study part II). Positivity of serum cryoglobulins was defined by experts as an essential condition for CV classification. In study part II, a core set of classification items (questionnaire, clinical and laboratory items, as agreed) was tested in three groups of patients and controls—that is, group A (new patients with the CV), group B (controls with serum cryoglobulins but lacking CV) and group C (controls without serum cryoglobulins but with features which can be observed in CV). Results In study part I (188 cases, 284 controls), a positive response to at least two of three selected questions showed a sensitivity of 81.9% and a specificity of 83.5% for CV. This questionnaire was employed and validated in study part II, which included 272 patients in group A and 228 controls in group B. The final classification criteria for CV, by pooling data from group A and group B, required the positivity of questionnaire plus clinical, questionnaire plus laboratory, or clinical plus laboratory items, or all the three, providing a sensitivity of 88.5% and a specificity of 93.6% for CV. By comparing data in group A versus group C (425 controls), the same classification criteria showed a sensitivity 88.5% and a specificity 97.0% for CV. Conclusion Classification criteria for CV were developed, and now need validation.
What controls the [O iii] λ5007 line strength in active galactic nuclei?

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) display an extreme range in the narrow emission-line equivalent widths. Specifically, in the Palomar-Green (PG) quasar sample, the equivalent width of the narrow [O III] λ5007 line has a range of >300 (<0.5 to 157 A), while the broad Hβ line, for example, has a range of 10 only (23 to 230 A). The strength of [O III] λ5007 is modulated by the covering factor (CF) of the narrow-line region (NLR) gas, its density (n e ) and ionization parameter (U). To explore which of these factors produces the observed large range in [O III] λ5007 strength, we measure the strength of the matching narrow Hβ and [O III] λ4363 lines, detected in 40 out of the 87 PG quasars with z < 0.5 in the Boroson & Green sample. The photoionization code CLOUDY is then used to infer CF, n e and U in each object, assuming a single uniform emitting zone. We find that the range of CF (∼0.02-0.2) contributes about twice as much as the range in both n e and U towards modulating the strength of the [O III] λ5007 line. The CF is inversely correlated with luminosity, but it is not correlated with L/L Edd as previously speculated. The single-zone [O III] λ5007 emitting region is rather compact, having R NLR = 40L 0.45 44 pc. These emission lines can also be fitted with an extreme two-zone model, where [O III] λ4363 is mostly emitted by a dense (n e = 10 7 cm -3 ) inner zone at R in NLR = L 0.5 44 pc, and [O III] λ5007 by a low-density (n e = 10 3 cm -3 ) extended outer zone at R out NLR = 750L 0.34 44 pc. Such an extended [O III] λ5007 emission should be well resolved by Hubble Space Telescope imaging of luminous AGN. Further constraints on the radial gas distribution in the NLR can be obtained from the spectral shape of the infrared continuum emitted by the associated dust.
Image Transformation based Features for the Visual Discrimination of Prominent and Non-ProminentWords

This paper investigates how visual information extracted from a speaker’s mouth region can be used to discriminate prominent from non-prominent words. The analysis relies on a database where users interacted in a small game with a computer in a Wizard of Oz experiment. Users were instructed to correct recognition errors of the system. This was expected to render the corrected word highly prominent. Audio-visual recordings with a distant microphone and without visual markers were made. As acoustic features relative energy and fundamental frequency were calculated. From the visual channel image transformation based features from the mouth region were extracted. As image transformations FFT, DCT and PCA with a varying number of coefficients are compared in this paper. Thereby the performance of the visual features by themselves or in combination with the acoustic features is investigated. The comparison is based on the classification with a Support Vector Machine (SVM). The results show that all three image transformations yield a performance of approx. 65% in this binary classification task. Furthermore, the information extracted from the visual channel is complementary to the acoustic information. The combination of both modalities significantly improves performance up to approx. 80%.
Finding Secure Compositions of Software Services: Towards a Pattern Based Approach

In service based systems, there is often a need to replace services at runtime as they become either unavailable or they no longer meet required quality or security properties. In such cases, it is often necessary to build compositions of services that can replace a problematic service because no single service with a sufficient match to it can be located. In this paper, we present an approach for building compositions of services that can preserve required security properties. Our approach is based on the use of secure composition patterns which are applied in connection with basic discovery mechanisms to build secure service compositions.
The cognitive reflection test revisited: exploring the ways individuals solve the test

ABSTRACT Individuals’ propensity not to override the first answer that comes to mind is thought to be a crucial cause behind many failures in reasoning. In the present study, we aimed to explore the strategies used and the abilities employed when individuals solve the cognitive reflection test (CRT), the most widely used measure of this tendency. Alongside individual differences measures, protocol analysis was employed to unfold the steps of the reasoning process in solving the CRT. This exploration revealed that there are several ways people solve or fail the test. Importantly, 77% of the cases in which reasoners gave the correct final answer in our protocol analysis, they started their response with the correct answer or with a line of thought which led to the correct answer. We also found that 39% of the incorrect responders reflected on their first response. The findings indicate that the suppression of the first answer may not be the only crucial feature of reflectivity in the CRT and that the lack of relevant knowledge is a prominent cause of the reasoning errors. Additionally, we confirmed that the CRT is a multi-faceted construct: both numeracy and reflectivity account for performance. The results can help to better apprehend the “whys and whens” of the decision errors in heuristics and biases tasks and to further refine existing explanatory models.
Understanding Information Systems Continuance: An Expectation-Confirmation Model

This paper examines cognitive beliefs and affect influencing one's intention to continue using (continuance) information systems (IS). Expectation-confirmation theory is adapted from the consumer behavior literature and integrated with theoretical and empirical findings from prior IS usage research to theorize a model of IS continuance. Five research hypotheses derived from this model are empirically validated using a field survey of online banking users. The results suggest that users' continuance intention is determined by their satisfaction with IS use and perceived usefulness of continued IS use. User satisfaction, in turn, is influenced by their confirmation of expectation from prior IS use and perceived usefulness. Post-acceptance perceived usefulness is influenced by users' confirmation level. This study draws attention to the substantive differences between acceptance and continuance behaviors, theorizes and validates one of the earliest theoretical models of IS continuance, integrates confirmation and user satisfaction constructs within our current understanding of IS use, conceptualizes and creates an initial scale for measuring IS continuance, and offers an initial explanation for the acceptance-discontinuance anomaly.
A minimal non-solvable group of homeomorphisms

Let PLo.I/ represent the group of orientation-preserving piecewise-linear homeo- morphisms of the unit interval which admit finitely many breaks in slope, under the operation of composition. We find a non-solvable groupW and show thatW embeds in every non-solvable subgroup of PLo.I/. We find mild conditions under which other non-solvable subgroups B, . o Z o/ 1 ,. Z o/ 1 , and 1 . o Z/) embed in subgroups of PLo.I/. We show that all solvable subgroups of PLo.I/ embed in all non-solvable subgroups of PLo.I/. These results continue to apply if we replace PLo.I/ by any generalized Thompson groupFn.
Forecasting Model Based on LSSVM and ABC for Natural Resource Commodity

 Abstract—Reliable forecasts of the price of natural resource commodity is of interest for a wide range of applications. This includes generating macroeconomic projections and in assessing macroeconomic risks. Various approaches have been introduced in developing the required forecasting models. In this paper, a forecasting model based on an optimized Least Squares Support Vector Machine is proposed. The determination of hyper-parameters is performed using a nature inspired algorithm, Artificial Bee Colony. The proposed forecasting model is realized in gold price forecasting. The undertaken experiments showed that the prediction accuracy and Mean Absolute Percentage Error produced by the proposed model is better compared to the one produced using Least Squares Support Vector Machine as an individual.
Automated identification and characterization of parcels (AICP) with OpenStreetMap and Points of Interest

Against the paucity of urban parcels in China, this paper proposes a method to automatically identify and characterize parcels (AICP) with OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Points of Interest (POI) data. Parcels are the basic spatial units for fine-scale urban modeling, urban studies, as well as spatial planning. Conventional ways of identification and characterization of parcels rely on remote sensing and field surveys, which are labor intensive and resource-consuming. Poorly developed digital infrastructure, limited resources, and institutional barriers have all hampered the gathering and application of parcel data in developing countries. Against this backdrop, we employ OSM road networks to identify parcel geometries and POI data to infer parcel characteristics. A vector-based CA model is adopted to select urban parcels. The method is applied to the entire state of China and identifies 82,645 urban parcels in 297 cities. Notwithstanding all the caveats of open and/or crowd-sourced data, our approach could produce reasonably good approximation of parcels identified from conventional methods, thus having the potential to become a useful supplement.
PRESERVICE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS LEVELS

The purpose of this study was to determine preservice science teachers’ metacognitive awareness levels and to investigate whether their metacognitive awareness levels differ in terms of gender and grade level. A total of 188 preservice science teachers participated in the study. Personal Information Form and the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) developed by Schraw and Dennison (1994) were utilized as data collection tools in the study. The data obtained were analyzed using the PASW Statistics 18 (SPSS Inc.). According to the results, preservice science teachers’ metacognitive awareness levels were determined generally high. However, a significant gender difference favoring female preservice science teachers was found in terms of debugging sub-component. When the total and sub-component scores of MAI were examined by grade level, a significant difference was found in the sub-components apart from conditional knowledge and debugging. Suggestions were made based on the findings obtained from the study. Article visualizations: