Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Anti-Reverse Engineering Technique using Native code and Obfuscator-LLVM for Android Applications

Android applications are exposed to reverse engineering attacks. In particular, the applications written in Java are more prone to reverse engineering in comparison to the applications written in native-code languages such as C or C++ on the Android platform. This is because Java applications are distributed as byte codes, while applications written in native-code languages are distributed as low-level binary codes. In this paper, we propose a new technique to protect Android applications against reverse engineering. Three key characteristics of the proposed approach are as follows. First, we write the main parts of the application in native-code using Android NDK. This not only makes reverse engineering more difficult, but it is also more effective in terms of code reuse. Second, we introduce obfuscation, which hides the intent of the native codes and obscures theirs structure, at the intermediate representation (IR) level. Finally, we integrate an integrity verification scheme which detects whether the critical module of the application has been modified prior to execution of the application. Based on the results of experimentation on five known Android applications, we show that the proposed techniques can be applied without a significant effect on performance.
Properties of hot stars in the Wolf-Rayet galaxy NGC 5253 from ISO-SWS spectroscopy

ISO-SWS spectroscopy of the Wolf--Rayet galaxy NGC 5253 is presented, and analysed to provide estimates of its hot young star population. Our approach differs from previous investigations in that we are able to distinguish between the regions in which different infrared fine-structure lines form, using complementary ground-based observations. The high-excitation nebular [S IV] emission is formed in a very compact region, which we attribute to the central super-star nucleus, and lower excitation [Ne III] nebular emission originates in the galactic core. We use photoionization modelling coupled with the latest theoretical O-star flux distributions to derive effective stellar temperatures and ionization parameters of Teff≥ 38 kK, log Q ∼ 8.25 for the compact nucleus, with Teff∼ 35 kK, log Q ≤ 8 for the larger core. Results are supported by more sophisticated calculations using evolutionary synthesis models. We assess the contribution that Wolf--Rayet stars may make to highly ionized nebular lines (e.g. [O IV]). From our Brα flux, the 2-arcsec nucleus contains the equivalent of approximately 1000 O7 V star equivalents and the starburst there is 2--3 Myr old; the 20-arcsec core contains about 2500 O7 V star equivalents, with a representative age of ∼5 Myr. The Lyman ionizing flux of the nucleus is equivalent to that of the 30 Doradus region. These quantities are in good agreement with the observed mid-infrared dust luminosity of 7.8 × 108 L⊙. Since this structure of hot clusters embedded in cooler emission may be common in dwarf starbursts, observing a galaxy solely with a large aperture may result in confusion. Neglecting the spatial distribution of nebular emission in NGC 5253 implies `global' stellar temperatures (or ages) of 36 kK (4.8 Myr) and 39 kK (2.9 or 4.4 Myr) from the observed [Ne III/ II] and [S IV/ III] line ratios, assuming logQ=8.
High performance access to radio astronomy data: a case study

As CPU performance has rapidly improved, increased pressure has been placed on the performance of accessing external data in order to keep up with demand. Increasingly often the I/O subsystem and related software is unable to meet this demand and valuable CPU resources are left underutilized, while users are forced to wait longer than necessary for results. This problem is especially acute for many scientific applications which use large data sets and require high performance. The paper presents experiences with working to alleviate an I/O bottleneck in radio astronomy applications at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). It presents the model, the ExtensibLe File Systems model (ELFS), for improving both the performance of data access and the usability of access software. It then presents the current situation at NRAO, the solution, performance results and plans for future work. <<ETX>>
Beyond quality and accessibility: Source selection in consumer health information searching

A systematic understanding of factors and criteria that affect consumers' selection of sources for health information is necessary for the design of effective health information services and information systems. However, current studies have overly focused on source attributes as indicators for 2 criteria, source quality and accessibility, and overlooked the role of other factors and criteria that help determine source selection. To fill this gap, guided by decision‐making theories and the cognitive perspective to information search, we interviewed 30 participants about their reasons for using a wide range of sources for health information. Additionally, we asked each of them to report a critical incident in which sources were selected to fulfill a specific information need. Based on the analysis of the transcripts, 5 categories of factors were identified as influential to source selection: source‐related factors, user‐related factors, user‐source relationships, characteristics of the problematic situation, and social influences. In addition, about a dozen criteria that mediate the influence of the factors on source‐selection decisions were identified, including accessibility, quality, usability, interactivity, relevance, usefulness, familiarity, affection, anonymity, and appropriateness. These results significantly expanded the current understanding of the nature of costs and benefits involved in source‐selection decisions, and strongly indicated that a personalized approach is needed for information services and information systems to provide effective access to health information sources for consumers.
Motor inhibition associated with the affordance of briefly displayed objects

Research has demonstrated that left- and right-hand responses are facilitated when they are performed with the hand compatible with the orientation of a viewed object. This suggests that graspable objects automatically activate the motor representations that correspond to their orientation. It has recently been proposed that similar positive stimulus–response compatibility effects (PCE) may turn into negative compatibility effects (NCE) when a prime object is displayed very briefly. These NCEs are suggested to reflect motor inhibition mechanisms—motor activation triggered by briefly viewed objects may be treated by the motor system as unwanted, and thus it is rapidly inhibited. We examined whether the motor activation triggered by the orientation of a task-irrelevant object is similarly inhibited when the object is displayed briefly. In Experiment 1, a NCE was observed between the orientation of an object and the responding hand when the object was displayed for 30 or 70 ms. The effect turned into a PCE when the object was displayed for 370 ms. Experiment 2 confirmed that this motor inhibition effect was produced by the handle affordance of the object rather than some abstract visual properties of the object.
Lesson study : professional learning for our time

Foreword Charles Desforges 1. Lesson Study: How it Works and What it Does for your Teachers and your School Peter Dudley 2. Professional Learning and Practice Development through Lesson Study: An International Review of Research Haiyan Xu and David Pedder 3. Leading Lesson Study in Schools and Across School Systems Jim O'Shea, Sue Teague, Gill Jordan, Jean Lang, and Peter Dudley 4. Lesson Study as a Means to Help Teachers of Pupils with Specific Needs or Difficulties to Identify and Overcome Barriers to Learning Annamari Ylonen and Brahm Norwich 5. Lesson Study in Initial Teacher Learning: Key to the Pedagogic Black Box Wasyl Cajkler and Phil Wood 6. Evolving and Reforming the Curriculum through Lesson Study Hiroyuli Kuno 7. Lesson Study: Some Prospects for Further Development David Pedder
Professional Development of Pre-Service Teachers: The Case of Practicum Experience

The reported study focuses on pre-service teachers’ professional development during the teaching practice. The cohort studied comprised participants in their final year in the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science with Graduate Certificate in Education programmes of a university in Fiji. Analysis of the data obtained using a survey questionnaire indicates that overall, the pre-service teachers were satisfied with the practicum experience. This is assumed to demonstrate that the practicum experience contributed well towards their professional preparation for work expected of them in Fiji secondary schools. Participants also identified some concerns as needing attention. To conclude, the paper provides suggestions for improving the preparation of teachers by strengthening the identified areas of the practicum offered by the university. The study has implications for other teacher education providers in small developing island states and even beyond for the purpose of enhancing learning in student teachers’ for future work.
Automatic Discovery and Geotagging of Objects from Street View Imagery

Many applications such as autonomous navigation, urban planning and asset monitoring, rely on the availability of accurate information about objects and their geolocations. In this paper we propose to automatically detect and compute the GPS coordinates of recurring stationary objects of interest using street view imagery. Our processing pipeline relies on two fully convolutional neural networks: the first segments objects in the images while the second estimates their distance from the camera. To geolocate all the detected objects coherently we propose a novel custom Markov Random Field model to perform objects triangulation. The novelty of the resulting pipeline is the combined use of monocular depth estimation and triangulation to enable automatic mapping of complex scenes with multiple visually similar objects of interest. We validate experimentally the effectiveness of our approach on two object classes: traffic lights and telegraph poles. The experiments report high object recall rates and GPS accuracy within 2 meters, which is comparable with the precision of single-frequency GPS receivers.
Ethnic differences in mammographic densities.

BACKGROUND Breast cancer incidence is considerably lower among Japanese and Chinese women than among Caucasian and Native Hawaiian even in second and third generation migrants. Mammographic densities, which refer to the radiological appearance of the healthy female breast, are related to breast cancer risk. The purpose of this project was to explore the hypothesis that women from ethnic groups at high breast cancer risk are more likely to have high levels of densities than women from low breast cancer risk groups. METHODS In a cross-sectional design, 514 pre- and post-menopausal women recruited at mammography screening clinics completed a self-administered questionnaire. We used a computer-assisted method to measure the dense and the total areas of the breast and to compute per cent breast density. Student's t-tests and multiple linear regression were applied to examine ethnic differences and to explore determinants of mammographic densities, respectively. RESULTS The unadjusted mean dense area was 15% smaller in Chinese and Japanese women than in the Caucasian/Hawaiian group. However, because of their smaller breast size, the per cent of the breast occupied by dense tissue in Chinese and Japanese women was 20% higher than in Caucasian women. Body mass index, age, menopausal status, parity, and oestrogen therapy were associated with mammographic densities, but they did not account for all ethnic differences. CONCLUSIONS Whereas this study detected some ethnic differences in mammographic densities, the importance of dense areas and per cent densities as indicators of breast cancer risk in ethnically diverse populations remains to be clarified.
Vitamin D concentrations in an UK inner-city multicultural outpatient population

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is still thought to be widespread in the UK and in recent years the number of cases of rickets reported in children has increased. In this study, the distribution of vitamin D and the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency have been determined for a multi-ethnic population from the inner-city area of Birmingham, UK, where a vitamin D testing service has been readily available for over 10 years. Methods: Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration was determined using an automated platform (Nichol's Advantage Speciality System) for 830 outpatient samples collected randomly at the end of summer (September). Results: In our total study population, prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, defined as a 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration < 10 μg/L, was high (24%): one in eight Caucasians, one in four Black Afro-Caribbeans and one in three Asians were found to be deficient. Levels of deficiency were much higher in Asian women, with almost one in two individuals (43%) found to have a vitamin D level below 10 μg/L. Conclusion: Our study has shown that widespread vitamin D deficiency in a UK inner-city population remains an issue. In concordance with other studies, we found a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in Afro-Caribbean and Asians, and, in particular, women. It is clear that more routine screening of vitamin D is needed.
Temporal shift in the presence of a chemical cue contributes to a diel shift in sociality

Spatial and temporal variation in animal aggregations may be due to variation in the presence of cues for aggregation (or disaggregation) or to variation in the receptivity of the animal to a particular cue or suite of cues. Spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus, forage solitarily but are often found aggregated in their diurnal shelters. An important proximate cause of aggregation among spiny lobsters is a scent they produce that influences shelter choice by conspecifics. We examined how variability in the presence of, or response to, such a chemical cue may contribute to diel shifts in sociality among spiny lobsters. We conducted a series of Y-maze shelter choice experiments using lobsters that were either maintained under altered dark:light schedules in the experimental arena or under natural lighting in the head tanks. Lobsters that were maintained on a light schedule 8 h later than normal chose shelters at their dawn (corresponding to the middle of the night for lobsters in the head tanks); however, their choices of shelter were not influenced by scents of conspecifics. Lobsters that were maintained on a schedule 8 h earlier than normal chose shelters in the middle of their night (corresponding to dawn for the lobsters in the head tanks). Their choices of shelter were significantly influenced by conspecific scents. These results suggest that the chemical cues for aggregation, released by spiny lobsters, are present discontinuously, that spiny lobsters are influenced by conspecific odours continuously, and that aggregation is controlled by temporal variation in the presence of a chemical cue. Copyright 2000 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Mixed signals from hybrid genomes

Admixture results from interbreeding between individuals from different populations or species that were previously genetically isolated from each other (Fig. ). Identifying admixture events in the genome is not always a straightforward task, because the genetic signature left behind fades with time as recombination events fragment the genomic segments introduced during the interbreeding event. Additionally, when the genetic architecture of populations or species that admix is not very different (e.g. they coalesce to a common ancestor recently), admixture signatures may be difficult to detect. Ignoring the effects of admixture can, however, pose severe problems for population genetic analyses that rely on the distribution of polymorphic markers across the genome. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Bosse et al. ( ) analyse genomic data from modern pigs to understand hybridization processes that occurred between domestic pigs from European and Asiatic origin, and between pigs and wild boars. Their results are interesting regarding the fine‐scale distribution of admixture across the pig genome, and the way in which this admixture biases estimates of the effective population size in European domestic pigs. The implications of these results are significant, as they serve as a cautionary note on genomic analyses that depend on the distribution of polymorphic variants in potentially admixed populations.
Student Success in Web Based Distance Learning: Measuring Motivation to Identify At Risk Students and Improve Retention in Online Classes

This study demonstrates the relationship between student values and commitment in the environment of California community college World Wide Web-based instruction. It provides evidence that student motivation can be ascertained in the first week of class and is a strong indicator of "at risk" status and later dropout. A recent model of motivation has suggestedthat task values have an influence on student choice behaviors. Correlations obtained in this study demonstrate that students who have high task choice values may be expected to persist in a class. Gender, ethnicity, subject, level of prior English classes, or ESL (English as a Second Language), did not influence persistence in the class. It was found that students with low task values, low prior grades in English, and older students (over 28 years) may be more likely to drop out of a class that is completely Web-based, and that this can be reliably measured. (Contains 19 references.) (Author/MES) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Clinical outcomes with bioactive agents alone or in combination with grafting or guided tissue regeneration.

AIM The purpose of the present review was to determine the clinical effect of the use of bioactive agents (BAs) for the treatment of intra-osseous and furcation defects. MATERIAL AND METHODS The effectiveness of the BAs was evaluated when used in addition to open flap debridement either alone or in association with grafts and/or guided tissue regeneration (GTR). Among the included agents, recombinant human platelet-derived growth factor-BB (rhPDGF-BB), platelet-rich plasma (PRP), commercially available enamel matrix derivative (cEMD) and peptide P-15 (P-15) have been clinically tested for treating periodontal defects. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The results of the present review indicate that: (1) cEMD either alone or in combination with grafts can be effectively used to treat intra-osseous defects and the clinical results appear to be stable long term; (2) the additional use of a graft seems to enhance the clinical outcome of cEMD; (3) the combined use of rhPDGF-BB and P-15 with a graft biomaterial has shown beneficial effects in intra-osseous defects; (4) contrasting results were reported for PRP and graft combinations; and (5) limited evidence supports the use of BAs either alone or in association with graft/GTR for the treatment of furcation defects.
Pervasive Natural Selection in the Drosophila Genome?

Over the past four decades, the predominant view of molecular evolution saw little connection between natural selection and genome evolution, assuming that the functionally constrained fraction of the genome is relatively small and that adaptation is sufficiently infrequent to play little role in shaping patterns of variation within and even between species. Recent evidence from Drosophila, reviewed here, suggests that this view may be invalid. Analyses of genetic variation within and between species reveal that much of the Drosophila genome is under purifying selection, and thus of functional importance, and that a large fraction of coding and noncoding differences between species are adaptive. The findings further indicate that, in Drosophila, adaptations may be both common and strong enough that the fate of neutral mutations depends on their chance linkage to adaptive mutations as much as on the vagaries of genetic drift. The emerging evidence has implications for a wide variety of fields, from conservation genetics to bioinformatics, and presents challenges to modelers and experimentalists alike.
Anaerobic Biodegradation Tests of Poly(lactic acid) under Mesophilic and Thermophilic Conditions Using a New Evaluation System for Methane Fermentation in Anaerobic Sludge

Anaerobic biodegradation tests of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) powder were done at the thermophilic (55 °C) and mesophilic temperature (35 °C) under aquatic conditions [total solid concentrations of the used sludge were 2.07% (at 55 °C) and 2.24% (at 35 °C)] using a newly developed evaluation system. With this system, the evolved biogas is collected in a gas sampling bag at atmospheric pressure. This method is more convenient than using a pressure transducer or inverted graduated cylinder submerged in water. PLA was degraded about 60% in 30 days, about 80% in 40 days and about 90% in 60 days at 55 °C. On the other hand, the PLA degradation started in 55 days at 35 °C and degradation rate was much slower than at 55 °C.
The symphyseal single-tooth implant for anchorage of a mandibular complete denture in geriatric patients: a clinical report.

Little information exists to define the minimum number of implants required for sufficient anchorage of mandibular overdentures. To date, 2 implants placed in the interforaminal region have been considered the minimum. The aim of this study was to examine whether a single symphyseal implant would suffice for adequate anchorage of a mandibular complete denture in elderly patients (octogenarians), and whether this surgically, prosthetically, and financially simple concept would also satisfy patients needing replacement of the mandibular dentition. Nine patients with a mean age of 82.2 years underwent placement of a single symphyseal endosseous implant and anchorage of a complete denture using a ball attachment. Standardized recall examinations, including patient response and inspections of the peri-implant soft tissue and bone conditions, were carried out at 3- to 6-month intervals for a period of 1 1/2 years. It was found that anchorage with a single implant led to both a significant improvement in patients' subjective satisfaction (P < .01) and a significant reduction in reported symptoms (P < .01). During the observation phase, pocket depth and bone resorption initially increased around implants but stabilized after the sixth month. Denture management (placement and removal) also improved during the recall period (P < .01). The results of this study indicate that oral rehabilitation by mandibular complete dentures anchored on a single implant can be considered an economical therapeutic alternative to a conventional mandibular complete denture for very old (octogenarian) patients.