Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Malicious Firmware Detection with Hardware Performance Counters

Critical infrastructure components nowadays use microprocessor-based embedded control systems. It is often infeasible, however, to employ the same level of security measures used in general purpose computing systems, due to the stringent performance and resource constraints of embedded control systems. Furthermore, as software sits atop and relies on the firmware for proper operation, software-level techniques cannot detect malicious behavior of the firmware. In this work, we propose ConFirm, a low-cost technique to detect malicious modifications in the firmware of embedded control systems by measuring the number of low-level hardware events that occur during the execution of the firmware. In order to count these events, ConFirm leverages the Hardware Performance Counters (HPCs), which readily exist in many embedded processors. We propose a comparison-based technique to detect malicious modifications in firmwares with simple control-flows. For firmwares with more complex control-flows, we use machine learning techniques to automatically extract the relations among different hardware events. This method significantly reduces the number of pre-stored valid HPC signatures without compromising the detection accuracy. Finally, we reduce the consumption of local resources by implementing a remote-based detection mechanism. We evaluate the detection capability and performance overhead of the proposed technique on various types of firmware running on ARMand PowerPC-based embedded processors. Experimental results demonstrate its practicality and effectiveness.
Near Critical Gas Condensate Relative Permeability of Carbonates

Typical gas condensate fields contain a gas/liquid system during depletion. Such systems are difficult to model experimentally because they exhibit near-miscible behavior at high pressure and temperature. One way to simplify labora- tory experimentation is to use a binary retrograde condensate fluid and to adjust temperature to control miscibility. A se- ries of relative permeability test were conducted on a moderate-permeability carbonate core using methanol/n-hexane at near miscible conditions in the presence of immobile water. Potassium carbonate was added to the water to prevent misci- bility with methanol. The experiments used a pseudo-steady-state technique under conditions similar to the near well re- gion of a carbonate gas-condensate reservoir. The flow of gas and condensate at different force ratios was investigated. Relative permeabilities were obtained by matching historical production and pressure data using a coreflood simulator. It was observed that relative permeability depended on fluid composition and flow rate as well as initial condensate and wa- ter saturations. As the wetting phase (condensate) flow rate increased or interfacial tension decreased, relative permeabil- ity versus wetting phase saturation curves shifted towards lower wetting phase saturations. It was found that a simple three-parameter mathematical model that depends on a new dimensionless number called condensate number successfully modeled the gas-condensate relative permeability data. The developed model resulted in a good agreement with published gas-condensate relative permeability data as well as end point relative permeabilities and saturations. The relative perme- ability behavior as a function of IFT highly resembles the one observed in sandstones.
Transporting microstructure and dissipative Euler flows

TRISTAN BUCKMASTER, CAMILLO DE LELLIS,AND LASZL´ O SZ´ EKELYHIDI JR.´Abstract. Recently the second and third author developed an itera-tive scheme for obtaining rough solutions of the 3D incompressible Eu-ler equations in H¨older spaces (arXiv:1202.1751 and arXiv:1205.3626(2012)). The motivation comes from Onsager’s conjecture. The con-struction involves a superposition of weakly interacting perturbed Bel-trami ﬂows on inﬁnitely many scales. An obstruction to better regularityarises from the errors in the linear transport of a fast periodic ﬂow by aslow velocity ﬁeld. In a recent paper P. Isett (arXiv:1211.4065) has improved upon ourmethods, introducing some novel ideas on how to deal with this obstruc-tion, thereby reaching a better H¨older exponent – albeit below the oneconjectured by Onsager. In this paper we give a shorter proof of Isett’sﬁnal result, adhering more to the original scheme and introducing somenew devices. More precisely we show that for any positive e there ex-ist periodic solutions of the 3D incompressible Euler equations whichdissipate the total kinetic energy and belong to the H¨older class C
Increased calbindin-D 28 k immunoreactivity in striatal projection neurons of R 6 / 2 Huntington ’ s disease transgenic mice

Striatal degeneration in Huntington’s disease (HD) is associated with increases in perikaryal calbindin immunolabeling in yet-surviving striatal projection neurons. Since similar increases have also been observed in surviving striatal projection neurons after intrastriatal injection of the excitotoxin quinolinic acid, the increased calbindin in HD striatum has been interpreted to suggest an excitotoxic process in HD. We used immunolabeling to assess if calbindin is elevated in striatal projection neurons of R6/2 HD transgenic mice. These mice bear exon 1 of the human huntingtin gene with 144 CAG repeats and show some of the neuropathological signs (e.g., neuronal intranuclear inclusions) and clinical traits (e.g., wasting prior to early death) of HD. We found an increased frequency of calbindin-immunoreactive neuronal perikarya in the striatum of 6and 12-week-old R6/2 mice compared to wild-type controls. This increase was most notable in the normally calbindin-poor dorsolateral striatum. We found no significant changes in the total area of striatum occupied by the calbindin-negative striosomes and no consistent changes in striatal calbindin mRNA. The increase in calbindin in R6/2 striatal neurons was thus limited to the matrix compartment, and it may be triggered by increased Ca entry due to the demonstrated heightened NMDA sensitivity of these neurons. The data further support the similarity of R6/2 mice to HD, and are consistent with the occurrence of an excitotoxic process in striatum in both. D 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A Simulative Performance Study of the Semantic QoS Provisioning Scheme sQoS

Semantic QoS Provisioning (sQoS) is a novel approach to dynamically control the permitted level of QoS per flow. This scheme has been presented in [1] and [2]. Using a prototype, which has been implemented as a QoS-driver for Windows Vista/7, we have shown that our approach does not affect the performance of the hosts. In this paper, we present a simulative performance study of the proposed scheme. On the basis of a new simulation model of the semantic QoS provisioning scheme sQoS, the behavior of the approach is analyzed within several measurements. These focus on the analysis of the automated detection of the execution context and context position as well as the performance of the network traffic. The results show that the sQoS approach performs well in DiffServ environments and increases the overall performance.
Essays on bankruptcy, credit risk and asset pricing

In this dissertation, I consider a range of topics in bankruptcy, credit risk and asset pricing. The first chapter proposes a structural-equilibrium model to examine some economic implications arising from voluntary filing of Chapter 11. The results suggest that conflict of interests (between debtors and creditors) arising from the voluntary filing option causes countercyclical losses in firm value. The base calibration shows that these losses amount to approximately 5% of the ex-ante firm value and are twice those produced by a model without incorporating the business cycles. Furthermore, besides countercyclical liquidation costs as in Chen (2010) and Bhamra, Kuehn and Strebulaev (2010), countercyclical pre-liquidation distress costs and the conflict of interests help to generate reasonable credit spreads, levered equity premium and leverage ratios. The framework nests several important models and prices the firm’s contingent claims in closed-form. The second chapter proposes a structural credit risk model with stochastic asset volatility for explaining the credit spread puzzle. The base calibration indicates that the model helps explain the credit spread puzzle with a reasonable volatility risk premium. The model fits well to the dynamics of CDS spreads and equity volatility in the data. The third chapter develops a consumption-based learning model to study the interactions among aggregate liquidity, asset prices and macroeconomic variables in
Very late stent thrombosis related to incomplete neointimal coverage or neoatherosclerotic plaque rupture identified by optical coherence tomography imaging.

AIMS Recent data have reported that neoatherosclerosis could develop long after stent implantation and lead to subsequent rupture and acute coronary syndrome (ACS). We sought to identify the presence of in-stent neoatheroma (ISNA) in patients with very late stent thrombosis (VLST) using optical coherence tomography (OCT). METHODS AND RESULTS All patients from two catheterization centres who presented with ACS related to VLST underwent a standard coronary angiography and intra-coronary OCT. ISNA was defined as the combination of diffuse neointimal proliferation, lipid-laden intima with plaque organization, and fibrous cap rupture with no evidence of an uncovered strut. Out of 2139 ACS patients, 20 presented with definite VLST, including 10 with evidence of ISNA lesions, detected using OCT. The mean delay between initial percutaneous coronary intervention and VLST was longer in the ISNA patients compared with non-ISNA patients (10.5 ± 1.6 vs. 4.0 ± 0.6 years, P = 0.003). The mean LDL-cholesterol tended to be higher in ISNA patients compared with non-ISNA patients. OCT analysis revealed significantly thicker neointimal coverage as well as a lower number of uncovered struts in ISNA lesions compared with the other patients. LDL-cholesterol levels were correlated with the average neointima thickness (Spearman's rho = 0.46, P = 0.04). All the ISNA lesions were treated through initial thrombectomy followed by redo stenting in nine patients. CONCLUSION Our data show that ISNA is frequent in patients with VLST. These results suggest that OCT imaging is helpful in identifying the underlying mechanisms of VLST and, therefore, in the clinical decision-making process.
Impact of Southern California anthropogenic emissions on ozone pollution in the mountain states: Model analysis and observational evidence from space

The impact of Southern California (SoCal) anthropogenic emissions on ozone (O3) in the mountain states in May 2010 is studied using the Sulfur Transport and Deposition Model. We identified two to six major transport events from SoCal to different subregions in the mountain states, with transport times of 0–2 days indicated by trajectories, time‐lag correlations, and forward/adjoint sensitivities. Based on forward sensitivity analysis, the contributions from SoCal anthropogenic emissions to the monthly mean daily maximum 8 h average (MDA8) surface O3 in the mountain states decrease with distance from SoCal, and they range from <1 ppbv (in Wyoming) to 15 ppbv (in western Arizona). These contributions show medium (>0.6) to strong (>0.8) positive correlations with the modeled total surface MDA8 O3. For the most strongly affected states of Arizona and New Mexico, these contributions have median values of ~3, ~2, ~5, and ~15 ppbv when the total surface MDA8 O3 exceeded thresholds of 60, 65, 70, and 75 ppbv, respectively. Surface MDA8 O3 values in SoCal show strong nonlinear responses to varied magnitudes of perturbation (e.g., ±50% and 100%) in SoCal anthropogenic emissions and weak nonlinear responses in the mountain states. Case studies show that different scales of transport (e.g., trans‐Pacific, stratospheric intrusions, and interstate) can be dynamically and chemically coupled and simultaneously affect O3 in the mountain states when the meteorological conditions are favorable. During some of these strong transport periods, the contributions of SoCal anthropogenic emissions to hourly O3 in the mountain states can exceed 20 ppbv, close to the magnitude during a summer event reported by Langford et al. (2010). Satellite observations from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer and the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere multispectral retrievals qualitatively demonstrate large and interstate scales of transport, respectively. Suggestions are made for future satellite missions to measure O3 with improved spatial coverage, temporal frequency, and near‐surface sensitivity to provide better observational constraints on interstate pollution transport studies.
Beyond relationship quality: The role of leader–member exchange importance in leader–follower dyads

© 2019 The British Psychological Society In this paper, we introduce a novel construct, leader–member exchange (LMX) importance, which we position as a meta-perception indicating whether followers view their LMX relationship as personally important or valuable to them. Based on social exchange theory, we examine the extent to which the obligation followers feel towards their leader depends jointly on the quality and the importance of the LMX relationship. We examine how LMX importance influences the process through which LMX quality affects employees’ level of organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) by focusing on felt obligation (a measure of followers’ reciprocity obligation in the social exchange process) as a mediating variable. Across two studies, we found that high levels of both LMX quality and LMX importance interacted to engender a greater feeling of obligation in followers to repay the perceived favourable exchanges with their leader. Felt obligation predicted leader-rated OCB, demonstrating support for our hypothesized moderated mediation model. However, psychological empowerment, when included alongside felt obligation (in Study 2), did not mediate the LMX-OCB relationship. Overall, our findings extend the focus of LMX theory beyond the confines of LMX quality to incorporate the importance of the LMX relationship. Practitioner points: Leaders should be aware that followers vary in the extent to which they perceive the leader–follower relationship to be personally important. As such, they may decide to invest heavily in helping followers understand that the relationship is instrumental for their success at work. Leaders should invest not only in trying to build positive relationships, but also in establishing the importance of these relationships. Doing so will maximize the benefits of developing a high-quality relationship. Followers appear to be more willing to reciprocate when they perceive a high-quality relationship with the leader and one when they perceive the relationship to be important. Thus, managers should be aware that the norm of reciprocity may vary depending on how important followers perceive the relationship to be and leaders may need to find other ways to motivate employees who do not see the relationship as important. When followers do not see the leader–follower relationship as important, managers should avoid trying to engage in reciprocity contingent influence tactics and/or try to change followers’ perceptions of the importance of the relationship.
Design and implementation of intelligent home control systems based on active sensor networks

The ubiquitous home network has gained widespread attentions due to its seamless integration into everyday life. This innovative system transparently unifies various home appliances, smart sensors/actuators and wireless communication technologies. The ubiquitous home network gradually forms a complex system to process various tasks. Developing this trend, we suggest a new intelligent home control system based on a wireless sensor/actuator network (we call it as an "Active sensor network"). The proposed intelligent home control system divides and assigns various home network tasks to appropriate components. It can integrate diversified physical sensing information and control various consumer home devices, with the support of active sensor networks having both sensor and actuator components. We develop a new routing protocol LQIR (Link Quality Indicator based Routing) to improve the performance of our active sensor networks. This paper introduces the proposed home control system's design that provides intelligent services for users. We demonstrate its implementation using a real testbed.
When BDDs Fail: Conformance Testing with Symbolic Execution and SMT Solving

Model-based testing is a well known technique that allows one to validate the correctness of software with respect to its model. If a lot of data is involved, symbolic techniques usually outperform explicit data enumeration. In this paper, we focus on a new symbolic test case generation technique. Our approach is based on symbolic execution and on satisfiability (modulo theory; SMT) solving. Our work was motivated by the complete failure of a well-known existing symbolic test case generator to produce any test cases for an industrial Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) implementation. Hence, we have replaced the BDD-based analysis of the existing tool with a combination of symbolic execution and SMT solving. Our new tool generates the test cases for SIP in seconds. However, further experiments showed that our approach is not a substitutive but a complementary approach: we present the technique and the results obtained for two protocol specifications, the first supporting our new technique, the second being witness for the classic BDD-technique.
Facial Micro-Expression Detection in Hi-Speed Video Based on Facial Action Coding System (FACS)

SUMMARY Facial micro-expressions are fast and subtle facial motions that are considered as one of the most useful external signs for detecting hidden emotional changes in a person. However, they are not easy to detect and measure as they appear only for a short time, with small muscle contraction in the facial areas where salient features are not available. We propose a new computer vision method for detecting and measuring timing characteristics of facial micro-expressions. The core of this method is based on a descriptor that combines pre-processing masks, histograms and concatenation of spatial-temporal gradient vectors. Presented 3D gradient histogram descriptor is able to detect and measure the timing characteristics of the fast and subtle changes of the facial skin surface. This method is specifically designed for analysis of videos recorded using a hi-speed 200fps camera. Final classification of micro expressions is done by using a k-meanclassifier and a votingprocedure. The Facial Action CodingSystem was utilized to annotate the appearance and dynamics of the expressions in our new hi-speed micro-expressions video database. The efficiency of the
Morning and Evening-Type Differences in Slow Waves during NREM Sleep Reveal Both Trait and State-Dependent Phenotypes

Brain recovery after prolonged wakefulness is characterized by increased density, amplitude and slope of slow waves (SW, <4 Hz) during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. These SW comprise a negative phase, during which cortical neurons are mostly silent, and a positive phase, in which most neurons fire intensively. Previous work showed, using EEG spectral analysis as an index of cortical synchrony, that Morning-types (M-types) present faster dynamics of sleep pressure than Evening-types (E-types). We thus hypothesized that single SW properties will also show larger changes in M-types than in E-types in response to increased sleep pressure. SW density (number per minute) and characteristics (amplitude, slope between negative and positive peaks, frequency and duration of negative and positive phases) were compared between chronotypes for a baseline sleep episode (BL) and for recovery sleep (REC) after two nights of sleep fragmentation. While SW density did not differ between chronotypes, M-types showed higher SW amplitude and steeper slope than E-types, especially during REC. SW properties were also averaged for 3 NREM sleep periods selected for their decreasing level of sleep pressure (first cycle of REC [REC1], first cycle of BL [BL1] and fourth cycle of BL [BL4]). Slope was significantly steeper in M-types than in E-types in REC1 and BL1. SW frequency was consistently higher and duration of positive and negative phases constantly shorter in M-types than in E-types. Our data reveal that specific properties of cortical synchrony during sleep differ between M-types and E-types, although chronotypes show a similar capacity to generate SW. These differences may involve 1) stable trait characteristics independent of sleep pressure (i.e., frequency and durations) likely linked to the length of silent and burst-firing phases of individual neurons, and 2) specific responses to increased sleep pressure (i.e., slope and amplitude) expected to depend on the synchrony between neurons.
Energy-efficient link layer for wireless microsensor networks

Wireless microsensors are being used to form large, dense networks for the purposes of long-term environmental sensing and data collection. Unfortunately these networks are typically deployed in remote environments where energy sources are limited. Thus, designing fault-tolerant wireless microsensor networks with long system lifetimes can be challenging. By applying energy-efficient techniques at all levels of the system hierarchy, system lifetime can be extended. In this paper, energy-efficient techniques that adapt underlying communication parameters will be presented in the context of wireless microsensor networks. In particular, the effect of adapting link and physical layer parameters, such as output transmit power and error control coding, on system energy consumption will be examined.
Comparative effectiveness of continuing a virologically effective first-line boosted protease inhibitor combination or of switching to a three-drug regimen containing either efavirenz, nevirapine or abacavir.

OBJECTIVES To compare virological effectiveness in patients who continued on a virologically successful first-line boosted protease inhibitor (PI)-containing combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) regimen or who switched to a PI-free cART including efavirenz, nevirapine or abacavir. METHODS From the French Hospital Database on HIV, we selected 439 patients with undetectable viral load (VL) on a first-line boosted PI-containing cART regimen who switched to a PI-free combination including efavirenz, nevirapine or abacavir. Each of these patients was matched with three patients who continued to take their first-line cART regimen, on the basis of gender, age, CD4 cell count, VL, date of cART initiation and the duration of VL undetectability. Time to virological failure (VF) was analysed with Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox models. RESULTS The 12 month probabilities of VF were 3.7% and 5.7% in non-switch and switch patients, respectively, and 3.9%, 7.2% and 9.0% in patients switching to efavirenz-, nevirapine- and abacavir-containing cART, respectively. After adjustment, only patients switching to abacavir-containing cART had a higher risk of VF than non-switch patients (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.99; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-3.79). CONCLUSIONS Switching from a virologically successful first-line boosted PI-containing cART regimen to a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-containing cART regimen containing either efavirenz or nevirapine is virologically safe, while switching to abacavir-containing cART should be avoided.