Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Execution Transactions To Recover From Buffer Overflow Attacks

We examine the problem of containing buffer overflow attacks in a safe and efficient manner. Briefly, we dynamically augment source code to catch stack and heap-based buffer overflow and underflow attacks, and recover from them by allowing the program to continue execution. Our hypothesis is that we can treat each code function as a transaction that can be aborted when an attack is detected, without affecting the application’s ability to correctly execute. Furthermore, our approach allows us to selectively enable or disable components of this defensive mechanism in response to external events, allowing for a direct tradeoff between security and performance. We apply our system to the problem of containing worms, combining this defensive mechanism with a honeypot-like configuration. This approach allows us to detect previously unknown attacks and automatically adapt an application’s defensive posture at a negligible performance cost. The primary benefits of our scheme are its low impact on application performance, its ability to respond to attacks without human intervention, its capacity to handle previously unknown vulnerabilities, and the preservation of service availability. We implemented the scheme as a stand-alone tool, DYBOC, which we use to instrument a number of vulnerable applications. Our performance benchmarks indicate a slow-down of 20.1% for Apache in full-protection mode. We validate our transactional hypothesis via two experiments: first, by applying our scheme to 17 vulnerable applications, successfully fixing 14 of them; second, by examining the behavior of Apache when each of 154 potentially vulnerable routines are made to fail, resulting in correct behavior in 139 of cases.
Active Electric Imaging: Body-Object Interplay and Object's “Electric Texture”

This article deals with the role of fish's body and object's geometry on determining the image spatial shape in pulse Gymnotiforms. This problem was explored by measuring local electric fields along a line on the skin in the presence and absence of objects. We depicted object's electric images at different regions of the electrosensory mosaic, paying particular attention to the perioral region where a fovea has been described. When sensory surface curvature increases relative to the object's curvature, the image details depending on object's shape are blurred and finally disappear. The remaining effect of the object on the stimulus profile depends on the strength of its global polarization. This depends on the length of the object's axis aligned with the field, in turn depending on fish body geometry. Thus, fish's body and self-generated electric field geometries are embodied in this “global effect” of the object. The presence of edges or local changes in impedance at the nearest surface of closely located objects adds peaks to the image profiles (“local effect” or “object's electric texture”). It is concluded that two cues for object recognition may be used by active electroreceptive animals: global effects (informing on object's dimension along the field lines, conductance, and position) and local effects (informing on object's surface). Since the field has fish's centered coordinates, and electrosensory fovea is used for exploration of surfaces, fish fine movements are essential to perform electric perception. We conclude that fish may explore adjacent objects combining active movements and electrogenesis to represent them using electrosensory information.
Disengagement in pair programming: Does it matter?

Pair Programming (PP) requires close collaboration and mutual engagement. Most existing empirical studies of PP do not focus on developers' behaviour during PP sessions, and focus instead on the effects of PP such as productivity. However, disengagement, where a developer is not focusing on solving the task or understanding the problem and allows their partner to work by themselves, can hinder collaboration between developers and have a negative effect on their performance. This paper reports on an empirical study that investigates disengagement. Twenty-one industrial pair programming sessions were video and audio recorded and qualitatively analysed to investigate circumstances that lead to disengagement. We identified five reasons for disengagement: interruptions during the collaboration, the way the work is divided, the simplicity of the task involved, social pressure on inexperienced pair programmers, and time pressure. Our findings suggest that disengagement is sometimes acceptable and agreed upon between the developers in order to speed up problem solving. However, we also found episodes of disengagement where developers “drop out” of their PP sessions and are not able to follow their partner's work nor contribute to the task at hand, thus losing the expected benefits of pairing. Analysis of sessions conducted under similar circumstances but where mutual engagement was sustained identified three behaviours that help to maintain engagement: encouraging the novice to drive, verbalisation and feedback, and asking for clarification.
Structural Change and Economic Dynamics

We exploit the provincial variability of COVID-19 cases registered in Italy to select the territorial predictors of the pandemic. Absent an established theoretical diffusion model, we apply machine learning to isolate, among 77 potential predictors, those that minimize the out-of-sample prediction error. We ﬁrst estimate the model considering cumulative cases registered before the containment measures displayed their effects (i.e. at the peak of the epidemic in March 2020), then cases registered between the peak date and when containment measures were relaxed in early June. In the ﬁrst estimate, the results highlight the dominance of factors related to the intensity and interactions of economic activities. In the second, the relevance of these variables is highly reduced, suggesting mitigation of the pandemic following the lockdown of the economy. Finally, by considering cases at onset of the “second wave”, we conﬁrm that the territorial distribution of the epidemic is associated with economic factors.
FPGA-Based Embedded Motion Estimation Sensor

Accurate real-time motion estimation is very critical to many computer vision tasks. However, because of its computational power and processing speed requirements, it is rarely used for real-time applications, especially for micro unmanned vehicles. In our previous work, a FPGA system was built to process optical flow vectors of 64 frames of image per second. Compared to software-based algorithms, this system achieved much higher frame rate but marginal accuracy. In this paper, a more accurate optical flow algorithm is proposed. Temporal smoothing is incorporated in the hardware structure which significantly improves the algorithm accuracy. To accommodate temporal smoothing, the hardware structure is composed of two parts: the derivative (DER) module produces intermediate results and the optical flow computation (OFC) module calculates the final optical flow vectors. Software running on a built-in processor on the FPGA chip is used in the design to direct the data flow and manage hardware components. This new design has been implemented on a compact, low power, high performance hardware platform for micro UV applications. It is able to process 15 frames of image per second and with much improved accuracy. Higher frame rate can be achieved with further optimization and additional memory space.
Impact of different speaking modes on EMG-based speech recognition

We present our recent results on speech recognition by surface electromyography (EMG), which captures the electric potentials that are generated by the human articulatory muscles. This technique can be used to enable Silent Speech Interfaces, since EMG signals are generated even when people only articulate speech without producing any sound. Preliminary experiments have shown that the EMG signals created by audible and silent speech are quite distinct. In this paper we first compare various methods of initializing a silent speech EMG recognizer, showing that the performance of the recognizer substantially varies across different speakers. Based on this, we analyze EMG signals from audible and silent speech, present first results on how discrepancies between these speaking modes affect EMG recognizers, and suggest areas for future work. Index Terms: speech recognition, surface electromyography, silent speech, articulation
Anti-Inflammatory Mechanism of Compound K in Activated Microglia and Its Neuroprotective Effect on Experimental Stroke in Mice

Microglial activation plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of various neurologic disorders, such as cerebral ischemia, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease. Thus, controlling microglial activation is a promising therapeutic strategy for such brain diseases. In the present study, we found that a ginseng saponin metabolite, compound K [20-O-d-glucopyranosyl-20(S)-protopanaxadiol], inhibited the expressions of inducible nitric-oxide synthase, proinflammatory cytokines, monocyte chemotactic protein-1, matrix metalloproteinase-3, and matrix metalloproteinase-9 in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated BV2 microglial cells and primary cultured microglia. Subsequent mechanistic studies revealed that compound K suppressed microglial activation via inhibiting reactive oxygen species, mitogen-activated protein kinases, and nuclear factor-κB/activator protein-1 activities with enhancement of heme oxygenase-1/antioxidant response element signaling. To address the anti-inflammatory effects of compound K in vivo, we used two brain disease models of mice: sepsis (systemic inflammation) and cerebral ischemia. Compound K reduced the number of Iba1-positive activated microglia and inhibited the expressions of tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1β in the LPS-induced sepsis brain. Furthermore, compound K reduced the infarct volume of ischemic brain induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion and suppressed microglial activation in the ischemic cortex. The results collectively suggest that compound K is a promising agent for prevention and/or treatment of cerebral ischemia and other neuroinflammatory disorders.
Trust and initial acceptance of Mobile Banking in Pakistan

This paper focuses on the risks influencing the initial adoption of mobile banking in Pakistan. Results of this study indicate that risk perception, derived from eight different facets, is a salient antecedent to innovative technology acceptance. A quantitative survey sheds more light on this research. The data was collected in Pakistan during March – April 2011 and includes 306 responses
The classification of two-component Cuntz-Krieger algebras

Cuntz-Krieger algebras with exactly one nontrivial closed ideal are classi(cid:12)ed up to stable isomorphism by the Cuntz invariant. The proof relies on R(cid:28)rdam’s classi(cid:12)cation of simple Cuntz-Krieger algebras up to stable isomorphism and the author’s classi(cid:12)cation of two-component reducible topological Markov chains up to ﬂow equivalence.
Hepatitis C Virus-Like Particle Budding: Role of the Core Protein and Importance of Its Asp111

ABSTRACT In the absence of a hepatitis C virus (HCV) culture system, the use of a Semliki Forest virus replicon expressing genes encoding HCV structural proteins that assemble into HCV-like particles provides an opportunity to study HCV morphogenesis. Using this system, we showed that the HCV core protein constitutes the budding apparatus of the virus and that its targeting to the endoplasmic reticulum by means of the signal sequence of E1 protein is essential for budding. In addition, the aspartic acid at position 111 in the HCV core protein sequence was found to be crucial for virus assembly, demonstrating the usefulness of this system for mapping amino acids critical to HCV morphogenesis.
The Theory of Exact and Superlative Index Numbers Revisited

This paper proposes to clarify some important questions that are still open in thefield of index number theory. The main results are the following: (i) the so-called Quadratic Identity on which the superlative index numbers are based can be applied in more general cases than those traditionally considered; (ii) it is not only the Tornqvist index number that does not rely on separability restrictions, but also some other indicators of absolute or relative changes are not based on such restrictions; (iii) in practice, however, all the index numbers or indicators that are considered to be superlative in Diewert’s (1976) sense generally fail by construction to be really "superlative"; (iv )t hese hybrid index numbers may be far from providing the expected secondorder approximation to the true index and may be found beyond the Laspeyres-Paasche interval even in the homothetic case. In conclusion, it would be more appropriate to construct a range of alternative index numbers (including even those that are not "superlative") rather than follow the common practice of searching for only one "optimal" formula.
Parents’ and College Students’ Perceptions of Support and Family Environment

The main objectives of this multimethod exploratory study were to compare parent and college student perceptions of communication patterns, financial/emotional support, family environment, and achieved adulthood during the transition to adulthood while in college. First, focus groups including eight parent figures and 16 students were conducted to provide feedback on important topics as well as on survey instruments. Survey responses from 152 parent figures and their college-age children were then used for the exploratory survey study. Parents reported providing more financial support, more positive family interactions, and less negative family interactions compared to their college-age children. The majority of students as well as parents did not view themselves and their children as having fully completed the transition to adulthood as indicated by the majority using the “in-between” response when asked if their child (or student himself or herself) had reached adulthood.
Direct and Indirect Effects of Agreeableness on Overconfidence

Agreeableness is generally thought to be a personality trait with positive outcomes, especially with regards to the creation and maintenance of harmonious interpersonal relationships. The potential negative consequences of agreeableness are discussed less often. This study explores the potential for overconfidence among agreeable people. In addition, self-esteem and perceived similarity were examined as an explanation for the indirect effects of agreeableness on overconfidence. Specifically, within each pair of 104 student dyads who had worked jointly on a project in an undergraduate course, one acted as a rater and the other as a ratee. The raters were asked to evaluate their partner’s performance, while the ratees were asked how they thought the raters had evaluated their performance. Our measure of overconfidence was the gap between the partner’s evaluation of the participant’s performance and the participant’s belief in how this performance was evaluated. Additional measures filled out by the subjects included agreeableness, friendship, self-esteem, and perceived similarity. Results indicated that self-esteem and perceived similarity provide an approach for understanding the indirect effects of the agreeableness-overconfidence association.
Alveolar nitric oxide versus measures of peripheral airway dysfunction in severe asthma

Alveolar nitric oxide (NO) is a measure of peripheral airway inflammation in asthma, potentially associated with disease severity. The relationship between alveolar NO and physiological tests of peripheral airway (dys)function has not been investigated. The present authors hypothesised that peripheral airway inflammation and dysfunction are inter-related and associated with asthma severity. Alveolar NO was compared between 17 patients with mild-to-moderate asthma and 14 patients with severe asthma and related to total lung capacity (TLC), residual volume (RV)/TLC, thoracic gas volume (FRC), slope of the single breath nitrogen washout curve (dN2), closing capacity (CC)/TLC and fall in forced vital capacity at the provocative concentration of methacholine causing a 20% fall in forced expiratory volume in one second. In patients with severe asthma, strong correlations were found between alveolar NO and RV/TLC % pred, FRC % pred, dN2, and CC/TLC. Patients with oral steroid-dependent asthma had higher alveolar NO levels (2.7 ppb) compared with the other patients with severe (0.6 ppb) and mild-to-moderate asthma (0.3 ppb). The present authors conclude that alveolar nitric oxide is closely related to parameters of peripheral airway dysfunction in patients with severe asthma, and that oral steroid-dependent asthmatics have more peripheral airway disease than nonsteroid-dependent asthmatics. This suggests that patients on chronic oral steroid treatment have more extensive disease and require additional anti-inflammatory treatment to better target the peripheral airways.
Media Substitution in Cable Cord-Cutting: The Adoption of Web-Streaming Television

This study sought to better understand what factors best predict consumers’ intention to cut the cord on cable television and adopt video streaming as their primary source of television. Utilizing media substitution theory as the conceptual framework, this study conducted a nationwide survey (N = 200). Findings show that perceived advantages of streaming applications over traditional television best predicted intentions to cut the cord on cable and adopt Web streaming; these perceptions mediated the relation between user frustrations with using older television technology and intentions to cut the cord. Entertainment needs were not significant predictors of cord-cutting intentions.
Experience with the conventional and frozen elephant trunk techniques: a single-centre study.

OBJECTIVES The treatment of patients with extensive thoracic aortic disease involving the arch and descending/thoracoabdominal aorta is often performed using an elephant trunk procedure. We retrospectively analysed our results comparing two different techniques: the conventional elephant trunk (cET) and the frozen elephant trunk (FET) operation. METHODS Between January 2003 and December 2011, 171 consecutive patients underwent total aortic arch replacement with either a cET (n = 125) or FET (n = 46) technique. The mean age was 64 ± 13 years and was significantly higher in the FET group (P < 0.01). Acute Type A aortic dissection was the indication for surgery in 53.6% of cET and 17.4% of FET patients, and degenerative or atherosclerotic aneurysm accounted for 33.6% of cET and 58.7% of FET patients. The remaining patients were operated on for chronic Type A or acute or chronic Type B dissections with arch involvement. RESULTS In-hospital mortality was 21.6 vs 8.7% for cET and FET patients, respectively (P = 0.1). Logistic regression analysis revealed Type A aortic dissection (odds ratio (OR) 3.1, P = 0.01) as the only independent predictor of hospital mortality. Stroke occurred in 16 vs 13% of cET vs FET patients (P = 0.4). Type A aortic dissection was an independent predictor of stroke by multivariable analysis (OR 2.6, P = 0.03), and axillary arterial cannulation was protective against stroke (OR 0.4, P = 0.04). The occurrence of new-onset paraplegia was significantly higher in the FET group (21.7 vs 4.0%, P < 0.001), and aortic repair with the FET technique was an independent predictor for paraplegia (OR 6.6, P = 0.001). Among patients receiving FET, a body core temperature during circulatory arrest of ≥ 28 °C in combination with a prolonged circulatory arrest time of >40 min was an independent predictor for permanent spinal cord injury (OR 5.0, 95% CI 1.1-20, P = 0.038). The estimated 1-, 3- and 5-year survival were 70 ± 4, 70 ± 4 and 68 ± 4% (cET) and 4 ± 7 and 60 ± 9, 40 ± 1% (FET), with mean survival time 5.2 ± 0.3 vs 3.8 ± 0.5 years (cET vs FET, log-rank P = 0.9). CONCLUSIONS The FET procedure for extensive thoracic aortic disease is associated with an acceptable mortality rate, but with a higher incidence of perioperative spinal cord injury than cET. Arch replacement with a cET technique should be strongly considered in patients with expected prolonged circulatory arrest times, particularly if operated on under mild or moderate hypothermia. Axillary cannulation is associated with superior neurological outcomes and Type A acute aortic dissection is a risk factor for mortality and poor neurological outcomes in this patient population.
MODEL SELECTION AND INFERENCE: FACTS AND FICTION

Model selection has an important impact on subsequent inference. Ignoring the model selection step leads to invalid inference. We discuss some intricate aspects of data-driven model selection that do not seem to have been widely appreciated in the literature. We debunk some myths about model selection, in particular the myth that consistent model selection has no effect on subsequent inference asymptotically. We also discuss an “impossibility” result regarding the estimation of the finite-sample distribution of post-model-selection estimators.
Relational Blocking for Causal Discovery

Blocking is a technique commonly used in manual statistical analysis to account for confounding variables. However, blocking is not currently used in automated learning algorithms. These algorithms rely solely on statistical conditioning as an operator to identify conditional independence. In this work, we present relational blocking as a new operator that can be used for learning the structure of causal models. We describe how blocking is enabled by relational data sets, where blocks are determined by the links in the network. By blocking on entities rather than conditioning on variables, relational blocking can account for both measured and unobserved variables. We explain the mechanism of these methods using graphical models and the semantics of d-separation. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of relational blocking for use in causal discovery by showing how blocking can be used in the causal analysis of two real-world social media systems.
Graded Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent coupling of voltage-gated CaV1.2 channels

In the heart, reliable activation of Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum during the plateau of the ventricular action potential requires synchronous opening of multiple CaV1.2 channels. Yet the mechanisms that coordinate this simultaneous opening during every heartbeat are unclear. Here, we demonstrate that CaV1.2 channels form clusters that undergo dynamic, reciprocal, allosteric interactions. This ‘functional coupling’ facilitates Ca2+ influx by increasing activation of adjoined channels and occurs through C-terminal-to-C-terminal interactions. These interactions are initiated by binding of incoming Ca2+ to calmodulin (CaM) and proceed through Ca2+/CaM binding to the CaV1.2 pre-IQ domain. Coupling fades as [Ca2+]i decreases, but persists longer than the current that evoked it, providing evidence for ‘molecular memory’. Our findings suggest a model for CaV1.2 channel gating and Ca2+-influx amplification that unifies diverse observations about Ca2+ signaling in the heart, and challenges the long-held view that voltage-gated channels open and close independently. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.05608. 001