Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding the Timed Distributed Trace of a Partially Synchronous System at Runtime

It has gained broad attention to understand the timed distributed trace of a cyber-physical system at runtime, which is often achieved by verifying properties over the observed trace of system execution. However, this verification is facing severe challenges. First, in realistic settings, the computing entities only have imperfectly synchronized clocks. A proper timing model is essential to the interpretation of the trace of system execution. Second, the specification should be able to express properties with real-time constraints despite the asynchrony, and the semantics should be interpreted over the currently-observed and continuously-growing trace. To address these challenges, we propose PARO - the partially synchronous system observation framework, which i) adopts the partially synchronous model of time, and introduces the lattice and the timed automata theories to model the trace of system execution; ii) adopts a tailored subset of TCTL to specify temporal properties, and defines the 3-valued semantics to interpret the properties over the currently-observed finite trace; iii) constructs the timed automaton corresponding to the trace at runtime, and reduces the satisfaction of the 3-valued semantics over finite traces to that of the classical boolean semantics over infinite traces. PARO is implemented over MIPA - the open-source middleware we developed. Performance measurements show the cost-effectiveness of PARO in different settings of key environmental factors.
Hand in the Cookie Jar: An Experimental Investigation of Equity‐Based Compensation and Managerial Fraud

The use of equity-based compensation is an increasingly popular means by which to align the incentives of top management with those of the shareholders. However, recent theoretical and empirical research indicates that the use of equity-based compensation has the unintended consequence of creating the incentive to commit managerial fraud of the type being reported in the press. This paper reports experimental evidence that shows that the amount of fraud committed by subjects is positively correlated with the level of equity, as is the level of effort. In addition, the amount of fraud that is committed is negatively correlated with the probability of detection and subjects' risk aversion. The experimental design permits the identification of causal relations in the directions just noted.
The Effects of Synthetic and Dietary Therapeutics on Learning, Memory, Motor Coordination, and Seizure in an Angelman Syndrome Mouse Model

viii Chapter 1: Literature Review . 1 Angelman Syndrome . 1 An AS Null-Mutation Mouse Model . 2 Seizure Susceptibility and EEG Patterns . 3 Targeted Therapeutics and the GABAergic System . 5 Ganaxolone . 8 The Ketogenic Diet and Ketone Bodies.10 Potential Anticonvulsant Mechanisms of the Ketogenic Diet . 11 Ketone body production . 11 Decreased blood glucose.13 Enhanced energy metabolism . 14 GABAergic alterations.15 Ketone Ester Supplementation . 16 References . 18 Chapter 2: Ketone Ester Supplementation Attenuates Seizure Activity, and Improves Behavior and Hippocampal Synaptic Plasticity in an Angelman Syndrome Mouse Model . 33 Abstract . 33 Introduction . 34 Materials and Methods . 36 Animals . 36 Ketone Ester Administration.36 Blood and Weight Measurements . 37 Behavioral Testing . 38 Audiogenic Seizures . 39 Kainic Acid Injections . 40 Extracellular Recordings . 40 Western Blot Analysis . 41 Metabolic Analysis of Brain Amino Acids . 42 Analytical methods . 42 ii GC-MS assay . 42 Statistical Analysis . 43 Results . 43 Ketone Supplementation Lowered Blood Glucose, Elevated Blood Ketones, and Normalized Body Weight in AS Mice . 43 Ketone Supplementation Had No Effect on General Locomotor Activity or Anxiety . 45 Administration of a Ketone Ester Improved Motor Coordination, Learning, and Overall Neurologic Function.45 Ketone Supplementation Improves Associative Learning and Recognition Memory in AS Mice . 47 BD-AcAc2 Decreases Audiogenic and Chemically-Induced Seizure Activity in AS Mice . 49 Ketone Ester Supplementation in AS Mice Results in Improvements in Early Phase LTP . 50 Alterations in Hippocampal GAD65 and GAD67 Expression GABA/Glutamate Ratio Following Ketone Ester Administration . 51 Discussion . 52 References . 55 Chapter 3: Effects of the Synthetic Neurosteroid Ganaxolone on Seizure Activity and Behavioral Deficits in an Angelman Syndrome Mouse Model . 64 Abstract . 64 Introduction . 65 Materials and Methods . 67 Animals . 67 Ganaxolone Administration . 67 Behavioral Testing . 67 Audiogenic Seizures . 69 Pentylenetetrazol-Induced Seizures . 69 Extracellular Recordings . 70 Statistical Analysis . 71 Results . 71 Short-Term Ganaxolone Administration Decreases Anxiety and Improves Motor Deficits in AS Mice . 71 Short-Term Ganaxolone Treatment Decreases Audiogenic Seizure Frequency and Latency . 73 Ganaxolone Decreases Anxiety and Improves Motor Coordination . 73 Long-Term Ganaxolone Treatment Recovers Spatial Working Memory and LTP Deficits . 75 Long-Term Ganaxolone Treatment Attenuates Seizure Activity . 77 Discussion . 78 References . 83 Chapter 4: Discussion . 91 Future Directions . 91 iii Concluding Remarks . 94 References . 96 Appendix A: IACUC Approval for Animal Research . 101 Appendix B: Copyright Permissions . 102 About the Author . End Page
Uncertainty discourses in the context of climate change: A corpus-assisted analysis of UK national newspaper articles

Abstract Uncertainty is intrinsic to science, to knowledge acquisition and risk assessment. When communicating about climate change, however, uncertainty can be used and understood as ‘not knowing’, that is, as ignorance. In this article we aim to understand how ‘uncertainty’ is used in a specific cultural and media context at two important periods in time. Using a corpus linguistic approach, we examine how ‘uncertainty’ was used in the context of UK press coverage of climate change in 2010 (following ‘Climategate’) and in 2014−15, after the latest IPCC report had been published. We find that after Climategate and the (failed) Copenhagen summit, ‘uncertainty’ was used to question the authority and credibility of climate science; after the latest IPCC report and in the run-up to the (more successful) Paris summit, discussions focused on uncertainties inherent in various climate change mitigation activities and associated with the economy, environment and politics more generally.
The Effects of Varied Opportunities to Respond Embedded in a Group Contingency Program

The Effects of Varied Opportunities to Respond Embedded in a Group Contingency Program Teresa Donna Bolt Department of Counseling Psychology and Special Education, BYU Master of Science This study investigated the effects of using a group contingency program with three students with disabilities in a small group special education setting. These students exhibited both academic and behavioral difficulties. With the use of Class Wide Function-Related Intervention Team (CW-FIT) students increased their active engagement and correct responses, as well as decreased their disruptive behaviors; however, these behaviors did not maintain overtime. CW-FIT with high opportunities to respond showed an even greater improvement than CW-FIT with low opportunities to respond. Increased opportunities to respond resulted in higher levels of active engagement and correct responses and decreases in disruptive behavior for all three students. These results indicate that CW-FIT in combination with high opportunities to respond can help manage students’ behavior and help them increase correct responding.
Language Identification from Text Using N-gram Based Cumulative Frequency Addition

This paper describes the preliminary results of an efficient language classifier using an ad-hoc Cumulative Frequency Addition of N-grams. The new classification technique is simpler than the conventional Naive Bayesian classification method, but it performs similarly in speed overall and better in accuracy on short input strings. The classifier is also 5-10 times faster than N-gram based rank-order statistical classifiers. Language classification using N-gram based rank-order statistics has been shown to be highly accurate and insensitive to typographical errors, and, as a result, this method has been extensively researched and documented in the language processing literature. However, classification using rank-order statistics is slower than other methods due to the inherent requirement of frequency counting and sorting of N-grams in the test document profile. Accuracy and speed of classification are crucial for a classier to be useful in a high volume categorization environment. Thus, it is important to investigate the performance of the N-gram based classification methods. In particular, if it is possible to eliminate the counting and sorting operations in the rank-order statistics methods, classification speed could be increased substantially. The classifier described here accomplishes that goal by using a new Cumulative Frequency Addition method.
Effect of repetitions on static and dynamic strength

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of repetitions on static and dynamic strength. The study is divided into two parts, the first part investigated static and dynamic strength during one, three and six repetitions per minute, and the second part of the study analyzed dynamic strength data collected using the Multiaxial Multipurpose Isokinetic Dynamometer. The study comprised of dynamic strength test data at three speeds of one, five and ten inch per second. Five male subjects participated in the first part of the study, and the results were analyzed by plotting a time series to observe the pattern of change in strength with repetitions. The results show a linear decrease in static and dynamic strength; the rate of decrease was the highest for static six repetitions per minute and the least during the dynamic one repetition per minute test. There was a decrease of 48.72% in strength for static six repetitions/minute routine and a decrease of 5.15% during dynamic one repetition per minute routine. Plot of Median Frequency (MDF) of EMG signals showed the highest rate of fatigue occurrence during static six repetition/minute and the least during dynamic one repetition/minute routine. The results of the second part of the study also show a linear decrease in dynamic strength for the three speeds. The highest percentage decrease in strength was 15.62% during one inch per second routine, and least decrease in strength was 8.7% during the ten inch per second pull routine. During the push cycle, the highest percentage decrease in strength was 18.56% during five inch/second routine and the least decrease was 8.28% during one inch/second. Another important fact is that all subjects were able to exert a maximum strength of 64.89 lb during five inch per second pull routine. This value was
Uniform Ferrite-Loaded Open Waveguide Structure With CRLH Response and Its Application to a Novel Backfire-to-Endfire Leaky-Wave Antenna

A uniform ferrite-loaded open waveguide structure with composite right/left-handed (CRLH) response and its application to a novel backfire-to-endfire leaky-wave antenna are presented. The structure consists of a ferrite-filled rectangular waveguide open to free space at one of its small sides and biased perpendicularly to its large sides. Based on the fact that the leakage from the open side represents only a small perturbation in terms of guidance, an analytical dispersion relation for the approximately equivalent perfect magnetic conductor closed waveguide structure is derived. The unique dispersive properties of this structure, including its inherent CRLH balanced response (gapless nonzero group velocity transition between the left- and right-handed bands) and low-loss characteristics due to off-resonance operation, are extensively described, parametrically studied, and concretized by design guidelines. This theory is validated by both finite-element method and finite integration technique full-wave results and demonstrated experimentally. The leakage of the structure is exploited to build a full-space backfire-to-endfire scanning leaky-wave antenna, which is capable of both fixed-bias frequency scanning and fixed-frequency bias scanning, while being a perfectly uniform structure not requiring any chip tuning components. This feature, and its subsequent design simplicity, represents a fundamental advantage over previous CRLH metmaterial implementations. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed ferrite waveguide is the first and unique uniform structure exhibiting a CRLH response.
On Perception-Based Error Protection for Mobile Multimedia

Representation of multimedia requires large amounts of data. Therefore, multimedia source signals are compressed to reduce the data rate that would otherwise be required for its transmission. However, compression renders multimedia data more vulnerable to transmission errors. Therefore, error protection is needed when transmitting multimedia to mobile users over wireless channels. As channel coding adds parity symbols to the data for error protection, which in turn increases transmission data rate, efficient utilization of this added parity budget becomes a key for insuring quality of service for mobile multimedia. Computing the optimal parity allocation among packets of a multimedia stream may not be possible in realtime due to the huge number of ways the parity can be assigned to these packets. Therefore, it is important to design powerful error protection schemes while imposing low computational and memory demands on the system. This is particularly true for systems having limited resources, such as mobile handheld devices. Given that human beings are the final judges on the quality of multimedia services, it will also be beneficial to use perceptual quality metrics that correlate well with human perception when evaluating different error protection schemes. In this work, we have considered the above aspects when designing error protection for mobile multimedia: Providing near optimal performance while keeping complexity low; designing and evaluating of error protection schemes based on perceptual quality metrics. The thesis is divided into five parts. In the first part, region of interest (ROI) identification, coding and advantages of ROI coding are investigated. In addition, a framework is proposed for using ROI coding in wireless imaging. The second part provides a number of unequal error protection (UEP) schemes for wireless imaging ranging from very simple and less efficient equal error protection to very complex yet optimal error protection. The proposed error protection schemes provide an excellent trade-off between performance and omplexity. In the third part, a framework for perception-based error protection of images and video streams is proposed. This framework is based on the fact that the human visual system is more sensitive to quality degradation in the ROI compared to the background. The proposed error protection scheme provides excellent performance. Part four deals with realtime systems and/or systems having limited memory and processing resources. Specifically, an UEP is proposed for wireless imaging systems which provides near optimal performance and puts very low processing/memory demands on the systems. Finally, in the fifth part, optimal UEP is analyzed. Based on the analysis, optimal UEP is modeled using several mathematical models. Each of the considered models is evaluated for its fitness in providing error protection. The simulation results show that most of the investigated models give excellent performance.
A novel algorithm for AS path inference based on BGP routing tables

Inferring the Autonomous System (AS) level end-to-end paths is valuable for both network operators and researchers. It has been widely researched by scholars. Many algorithms are based on the AS topology with labeling AS business relationships, and give the path sets which satisfied for the shortest valley-free property. However, they all consider the paths in the candidate paths set undifferentiated, which brings a great difficulty for application. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for AS-level path inference. The key idea of our algorithm is to exploit the frequency of the AS path appearing in the BGP route tables, and translate it into path weight. In the case of given the path length, we reserve K-paths regarded as the inferred path set and we can sort the candidate paths with the path weight. After testing with the path in the BGP route tables, we find that 90% of inferred AS path sets are accurate in the sense that one of the paths in the set matches the actual AS path when the path length (i.e., the AS hops counts) and the number of reserved paths are short.
Reply to the comment

In the comment [1], Zanardi and Rasetti argue that several claims in our re-cent letter [2] are questionable. Here we show these claims remain true. Our points are that (i) the Hamiltonian (1) in Ref. [2] describes amplitude damping as well as phase damping; (ii) the free-Hamiltonian-elimination (FHE) has feasi-ble implementation in practice and there exists a simple FHE procedure which is designed without the knowledge of the noise parameters λ ( i ) ; (iii) the gate operation constructed in the letter [2] is an encoded universal operation, not an encoded controlled NOT (CNOT).
Autobiographical memory in multiple sclerosis patients: Assessment and cognitive facilitation

The multifocal nature of lesions in multiple sclerosis hints at the occurrence of autobiographical memory (AbM) impairment. However, the dearth of studies on AbM in multiple sclerosis is noticeable, notwithstanding the importance of AbM in everyday life. In the first section of this study, 25 multiple sclerosis patients and 35 controls underwent a detailed episodic AbM assessment. Results obtained by means of ANOVA suggested an AbM retrieval deficit in every patient. That pattern of performance paved the way for the second section of the study, in which we followed up 10 out of the 25 patients. Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of a cognitive facilitation programme designed to alleviate AbM retrieval deficits, based on the key role of mental visual imagery on AbM. Statistical group analyses by means of ANOVA and individual analyses using the χ2 test showed significant differences in AbM test results, in post-facilitation relative to pre-facilitation training, in all 10 patients. Moreover, the patients' comments showed that the positive effects were transferred in their daily life functioning. We would like to suggest that the facilitation programme efficiently enhanced the process of self-centred mental visual imagery, which might have compensated for poor retrieval of personal memories by providing better access to visual details and detailed visual scenes of personal recollections.
Compaction Bands in Porous Rock

Compaction bands are localized, planar zones of compressed material that form perpendicular to the maximum compressive stress. Compaction bands have been observed in porous sandstone formations in the field and in laboratory compression tests on porous sandstone, plaster, glass beads, polycarbonate honeycombs and metal foams. Because the permeability of the compacted material is much reduced, compaction bands can form barriers to fluid flow and adversely affect attempts to inject or withdraw fluids from porous reservoirs. An analysis of conditions for the onset of compaction bands as a bifurcation from homogeneous deformation indicates that they can occur when the stress strain curve for uniaxial compressive deformation has a peak. Formation of compaction bands is favored by significant compactive inelastic deformation and by a reduction in the yield stress for shear with increasing compressive mean stress. These conditions are typical for stress states on a “cap” yield surface often used to model the inelastic deformation of porous geomaterials.
Anaemia among children in a drought affected community in south-central Ethiopia

Introduction As part of a field trial (PACTR201411000882128) to provide evidence on the combined use of long-lasting insecticidal nets and indoor residual spray for malaria prevention, we measured haemoglobin values among children aged 6 to 59 months. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of anaemia, and to determine the risk factors of anaemia and change in haemoglobin value in Adami Tullu district in south-central Ethiopia. Methods Repeated cross-sectional surveys among 2984 children in 2014 and 3128 children in 2015; and a cohort study (malaria as exposure and anaemia as outcome variable) were conducted. The study area faced severe drought and food shortages in 2015. Anaemia was diagnosed using HemoCue Hb 301, and children with haemoglobin <11 g/dl were classified as anaemic. Multilevel and Cox regression models were applied to assess predictors of anaemia. Results The prevalence of anaemia was 28.2% [95% Confidence Interval (CI), 26.6–29.8] in 2014 and increased to 36.8% (95% CI, 35.1–38.5) in 2015 (P<0.001). The incidence of anaemia was 30; (95% CI, 28–32) cases per 100 children years of observation. The risk of anaemia was high (adjusted Hazard Ratio = 10) among children with malaria. Children from poor families [Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR); 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1–1.6)], stunted children (AOR 1.5; 95% CI; 1.2–1.8), and children aged less than 36 months (AOR; 2.0; 95% CI, 1.6–2.4) were at risk of anaemia compared to their counterparts. There was no significant difference in risk of anaemia among the trial arms. Conclusions Young age, stunting, malaria and poverty were the main predictors of anaemia. An increase in the prevalence of anaemia was observed over a year, despite malaria prevention effort, which could be related to the drought and food shortage. Therefore, conducting trials in settings prone to drought and famine may bring unexpected challenges.
Improving Host Security with System Call Policies

Many operating system services require special privilege to execute their tasks. A programming error in a privileged service opens the door to system compromise in the form of unauthorized acquisition of privileges. In the worst case, a remote attacker may obtain superuser privileges. In this paper, we discuss the methodology and design of privilege separation, a generic approach that lets parts of an application run with different levels of privilege. Programming errors occurring in the unprivileged parts can no longer be abused to gain unauthorized privileges. Privilege separation is orthogonal to capability systems or application confinement and enhances the security of such systems even further. Privilege separation is especially useful for system services that authenticate users. These services execute privileged operations depending on internal state not known to an application confinement mechanism. As a concrete example, the concept of privilege separation has been implemented in OpenSSH. However, privilege separation is equally useful for other authenticating services. We illustrate how separation of privileges reduces the amount of OpenSSH code that is executed with special privilege. Privilege separation prevents known security vulnerabilities in prior OpenSSH versions including some that were unknown at the time of its implementation.