Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
RENN: Efficient Reverse Execution with Neural-Network-Assisted Alias Analysis

Reverse execution and coredump analysis have long been used to diagnose the root cause of software crashes. Each of these techniques, however, face inherent challenges, such as insufficient capability when handling memory aliases. Recent works have used hypothesis testing to address this drawback, albeit with high computational complexity, making them impractical for real world applications. To address this issue, we propose a new deep neural architecture, which could significantly improve memory alias resolution. At the high level, our approach employs a recurrent neural network (RNN) to learn the binary code pattern pertaining to memory accesses. It then infers the memory region accessed by memory references. Since memory references to different regions naturally indicate a non-alias relationship, our neural architecture can greatly reduce the burden of doing hypothesis testing to track down non-alias relation in binary code. Different from previous researches that have utilized deep learning for other binary analysis tasks, the neural network proposed in this work is fundamentally novel. Instead of simply using off-the-shelf neural networks, we designed a new recurrent neural architecture that could capture the data dependency between machine code segments. To demonstrate the utility of our deep neural architecture, we implement it as RENN, a neural network-assisted reverse execution system. We utilize this tool to analyze software crashes corresponding to 40 memory corruption vulnerabilities from the real world. Our experiments show that RENN can significantly improve the efficiency of locating the root cause for the crashes. Compared to a state-of-the-art technique, RENN has 36.25% faster execution time on average, detects an average of 21.35% more non-alias pairs, and successfully identified the root cause of 12.5% more cases.
Corporate Debt Maturity Profiles and Bank Loan Covenants

Should firms disperse their debt maturity dates or concentrate their debts on a particular maturity? We examine a sample of U.S. bank loans from 2002 and 2016 and find that firms with a dispersed debt maturity structure have fewer covenant restrictions in their loan contracts. Less frequent use of covenant, however, does not seem to result in an increase in borrowers’ propensity to take risks. Dispersing debt maturity significantly reduces covenants after controlling for other debt features, and the reduction effect is stronger when borrowers are exposed to rollover risk and when they need monitoring. This study highlights that dispersion in debt maturity structure mitigates agency problem associated with shareholder–creditor conflicts by lowering rollover risk and increasing monitoring power, which results in banks requiring less restrictive covenant structure in corporate loan contracts. JEL classification: G12; G21; G31; G32
A Population-Based Intervention to Improve Management of Patients on Chronic Acid Suppression: A Group-Randomized Trial

• Objective: To determine the effectiveness of providing physicians with patient-specific suggestions and pharmacist support for the care of patients on chronic acid suppression medication. • Design: Prospective group-randomized trial. • Patients and setting: Commercially insured adults on chronic (> 90 days) acid suppression in a Massachusetts physician network. • Intervention: Patient-specific management suggestions and pharmacist support. • Measures: Medication changes, patient symptoms, gastrointestinal diagnostic testing, specialty visits, and health care charges 9 months after enrollment. • Results: 1532 of 175,000 patients (0.88%) had filled more than 90 days of an acid suppression medication within any 6-month period of the previous year. We enrolled 95% of eligible physicians and 45% (385) of eligible patients. Upon completion of the study, intervention patients were more likely to have had medication changes consistent with program suggestions, but the changes were small. Intervention patients for whom diagnostic testing was recommended were more likely to undergo serologic testing for Helicobacter pylori (33% versus 1%; P < 0.001). The intervention did not result in changes in patient symptoms, quality of life, specialty visits, or health care costs. • Conclusion: Patient-specific feedback and teambased care changed medication prescribing and diagnostic test use in primary care. Failure of the intervention to change patient outcomes or costs of care suggest that there are limitations to care redesign that relies on administrative data and voluntary patient participation.
Communication Optimization by Data Replication for Distributed Graph Algorithms

This thesis investigates the performance of distributed graph algorithms on network graphs. More precisely, it looks at ways the communication structure can be optimized by replicating the data from a few vertices to all parallel tasks. We propose multiple simple heuristics that can be used to choose replicated vertices and evaluate their performance both in a communication model as well as based on a practical distributed implementation using sparse matrix-vector multiplication as a model problem. Additionally, we used the distributed implementation as the basis for the PageRank algorithm. Experimental results seem to indicate that data replication indeed has the potential to speed up distributed graph algorithms quite signi cantly. On a few network graphs, we observed runtime reductions of more than 25%, but only when the data assigned to each vertex was su ciently large, i.e., when communication latencies play only a small role. On other graphs however, we were not able to observe any speedups. This is consistent with results from the communication model, where we observed very mixed impacts of data replication.
Comparison of different methods of assessing alveolar ridge dimensions prior to dental implant placement.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to compare ridge-mapping measurement before surgical flap reflection and measurement using images from cone beam computerized tomography (CBCT) to direct caliper measurement following surgical exposure of the bone. METHODS Sixteen subjects with 25 sites for planned implant placement or ridge augmentation were recruited. An acrylic stent was fabricated for each subject. The stent provided three buccal/lingual pairs of consistent measurement points for each implant site located 4, 7, and 10 mm from the summit of the alveolar soft tissue. Two independent examiners participated. RESULTS Comparisons of bucco-lingual ridge width using ridge-mapping versus direct caliper measurements showed that 94% and 89% of the pairs of measurement deviations were within +/- 1 mm for examiners 1 and 2, respectively. The corresponding comparison of CBCT images versus direct caliper measurements showed 70% and 55% agreement for examiners 1 and 2, respectively. CBCT image measurements provided lower levels of agreement than ridge-mapping measurements because of the more frequent and larger magnitudes of deviations compared to direct caliper measurements. CONCLUSIONS Most often, ridge mapping provides measurements of the bucco-lingual ridge width consistent with those obtained by direct caliper measurement following surgical exposure of the bone. As applied in this study, CBCT was less consistent compared to direct caliper measurements and did not provide any additional, significant diagnostic information.
Incretins — new paradigms for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus

Over the last years there have been many studies looking at the influence of intestinal peptides on endogenous insulin secretion stimulated by meal. Observations that patients with type 2 diabetes are characterized by significant reduction in insulin secretion may explain present interest in the issue of resistance to incretins action and their potential influence on beta cell dysfunction in type 2 diabetic patients. Clinical data suggest that two new types of drugs: incretin mimetics and dipeptydyl-peptidase IV inhibitors by increasing incretin effect may play a role in limitation of progression of beta cell damage.
Running head: EMOTION AND DEPRESSION IN SPEECH-IN-NOISE PERCEPTION Speech-in-Noise Perception in Older Adults: Impact of Emotional Semantic Valence and Clinical Depression by

Depression influences and can be influence by interpersonal interactions, which rely on speechin-noise comprehension. The semantic emotional salience of words may influence listening abilities in noise. This study examined the effects of emotional valence and depression on speechin-noise comprehension in older adults (OA). Participants were 28 older adults (Mage = 72.75, SD = 5.93) with current depression (n = 9), remitted depression (n = 9), or healthy controls (n = 10). In an experimental-word-in-noise task, participants heard spoken words that were neutral, positive, or negatively-valenced. It was hypothesized that older adults with depression would show a reduction in the expected positive bias observed in healthy older adults on speech comprehension. No group differences were found in speech-in-noise comprehension ability in older adults. Across groups, there were main effects of signal-to-noise ratio and valence on EWIN task accuracy. Findings partially support a positivity bias in older adults, regardless of depression status. EMOTION AND DEPRESSION IN SPEECH-IN-NOISE PERCEPTION iii Acknowledgements First and foremost, thank you to my supervisor, Dr. Claude Alain, who provided his energy, support, compassion, and mentorship throughout this research project and writing process. Thanks to my subsidiary supervisor, Dr. Jed Meltzer, for his contributions and suggestions to this work. Thanks to team members in the EEG and MEG labs at Baycrest, for their assistance and feedback on this project, particularly Vanessa Chan for all her help. Thank you to the research assistants, Parnian Tajbakhsh and Leah Monson, who helped collect and process data. My appreciation goes out to members of Baycrest Health Sciences, the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto, and to fellow graduate students who provided feedback and support this past year. Thank you to my partner, Joshua Tolkamp, who has been my rock and helped in every way he could. Finally, a special thank you to all of the research participants who took part in this study; your generosity, patience, and kindness is appreciated. EMOTION AND DEPRESSION IN SPEECH-IN-NOISE PERCEPTION iv Table of
RARE : A Recurrent Attentive Recommendation Engine for News Aggregators

With news stories coming from a variety of sources, it is crucial for news aggregators to present interesting articles to the user to maximize their engagement. This creates the need for a news recommendation system which understands the content of the articles as well as accounts for the users’ preferences. Methods such as Collaborative Filtering, which are well known for general recommendations, are not suitable for news because of the short life span of articles and because of the large number of articles published each day. Apart from this, such methods do not harness the information present in the sequence in which the articles are read by the user and hence are unable to account for the specific and generic interests of the user which may keep changing with time. In order to address these issues for news recommendation, we propose the Recurrent Attentive Recommendation Engine (RARE). RARE consists of two components and utilizes the distributed representations of news articles. The first component is used to model the user’s sequential behaviour of news reading in order to understand her general interests, i.e., to get a summary of her interests. The second component utilizes an article level attention mechanism to understand her specific interests. We feed the information obtained from both the components to a Siamese Network in order to make predictions which pertain to the user’s generic as well as specific interests. We carry out extensive experiments over three real-world datasets and show that RARE outperforms the state-of-the-art. Furthermore, we also demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in handling the cold start cases.
Physiology, Psychology, and Stock Market Performance: Evidence from Sleeplessness and Distraction in the World Cup

We study the stock market impact of one physiological factor, sleeplessness due to watching World Cup games overnight, and two psychological factors, distraction from games during trading hours and mood changes due to wins and losses of the games. We uncover significantly negative effects of sleeplessness and distraction on stock returns, and the effects are stronger for countries with better soccer game records. While we find a market decline after soccer losses as documented in the existing literature, it is weakened after considering sleeplessness and distraction.
Issam Hallak-Working Paper2.rtf

The paper explores the determinants of up-front fees on sovereign bank loans. Remuneration of bank loans is typically channelled through the floating interest benchmark, the interest spread, and a battery of fees. There is substantial evidence of the spread paying for long-run sovereign repayment capacity. Little is known, however, about the role of the fees paid up-front. Based on a uniquely extensive sample of LDCs sovereign loan contracts, this study provides substantial evidence of up-front fees capturing the costs due to the expected renegotiations and agency issues. This contradicts previous studies based on spreads only, predicting a pricing difference between public and private debt to LDCs sovereigns. July 2001 JEL Classification Numbers: F34; G21
Factors associated with employee engagement in South Africa Factors associated with employee engagement in south aFrica

Main findings: The results of study 1 showed that two psychological conditions, namely psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability, were positively associated with employee engagement. Work role fit was the best predictor of psychological meaningfulness and employee engagement. The results of study 2 showed that all job resources were positively associated with employee engagement. Organisational support and growth opportunities were the best predictors of vigour, dedication and absorption.
The advantages of diving deep: Fin whales quadruple their energy intake when targeting deep krill patches

How predators maximize energetic gains while minimizing the costs associated with exploiting heterogeneous prey remains a difficult ecological principle to test in natural systems. Deep‐diving, air‐breathing predators face conflicting demands of oxygen conservation to extend dive time and oxygen usage from the exercise required to find and capture prey. How predators balance these opposing factors is additionally complicated by prey patches that are heterogeneous spatially, temporally and in quality. Tags deployed on foraging fin whales revealed that deeper dives consisted of higher feeding rates (lunges/hr), as generally predicted by optimal foraging theory. By simultaneously measuring prey density and distribution in the local environment, we show that whales increased their dive depths in order to forage on the densest prey patches. Despite the increased travel time needed to find deeper prey during a breath‐hold dive, the increase in feeding rates of fin whales and modelled prey consumption quadrupled compared to shallow foraging. Because the cost of transport is low at this extreme in body size, we posit that feeding on the deep prey patches significantly increases the energetic efficiency of foraging. Given the increasing recognition that anthropogenic disturbance can curtail deep foraging dives in many cetacean species, endangered fin whales may be susceptible to significant energetic losses that may impact individual fitness and population health in some areas. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Prevalence of Anaemia among Adolescent Girls: A One Year Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: India has the world’s highest prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia among women, with 60 to 70 percent of the adolescent girls being anaemic. Adolescence is considered as a nutritionally critical period of life. The pre-pregnancy nutritional status of young girls is important as it impacts on the course and the outcome of their pregnancy. Hence, the health of adolescent girls demands special attention Objectives: To assess the prevalence and the severity of anaemia among adolescent girls in rural areas; To study the association of anaemia with respect to the age of the participants and their socio-economic status. Materials and Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional study which was conducted for a period of one year from Jan 2008 – Dec 2008 at villages which were under Vantamuri PHC, a field practice area of J.N Medical College, Belgaum. A total of 840 adolescent girls (10-19 years of age) were included in the study. A pre-designed and pre-tested proforma was used to obtain the details of the socio-demographic variables. A relevant clinical examination of the participants was done. Following this, 2ml of blood was obtained by venipuncture. The blood samples were analyzed by using an automated cell counter. The diagnosis was established as anaemia when the haemoglobin level was less than 12gm/dl. Results: The prevalence of anaemia was 41.1% (with that of severe anaemia being 0.6%, that of moderate anaemia being 6.3% and that of mild anaemia being 34.6%. It was observed that the prevalence of anaemia was high in late adolescents (1519yrs) as compared to that in the early adolescents (10-14yrs). A majority of the girls had mild anaemia.The prevalence of anaemia was considerably high among the girls who belonged to the low socio-economic status. Conclusion: A high prevalence of anaemia was found among the adolescent girls, which was considerably high in the late adolescents. There was a significant association of anaemia with the socio-economic status. The prevalence of anaemia was high in girls who belonged to the low socio-economic status.
Insiders versus short sellers: informed traders’ competition around earnings announcements

This paper studies the interaction between corporate insiders and short sellers after earnings announcements. We show that insiders and short sellers are skilled information processors who compete for trading on publicly available information. For a sample of US firms we find that both types of informed investor trade intensively in the same stocks for about a third of firm-quarters in our sample. In line with competition, speed of information dissemination is significantly higher for stocks with intensive trading by both insiders and short sellers. Insider traders make profit by trading on interpretation of public information. Overall, the evidence suggests that insiders and short sellers tend to accelerate their trades after earnings announcements and make stock prices more efficient.
Supplementary information : Three-dimensional all-dielectric photonic topological insulator A . Derivation of the effective Hamiltonian from electromagnetic perturbation theory

It is known that a change in the material content of a resonator modifies the resonance frequency, which can be described within the framework of the perturbation theory [ 1, 2, 3]. Here, we apply a similar approach for a set of degenerate electromagnetic modes in all-dielectric metacrystal under consideration. A material permittivity change εεrr → εεrr + δεεrr within the volume ΔVV, inside a dielectric cylinder of volume VV transforms an unperturbed resonant mode characterized by field components EE, HH, and the resonance frequency ωω, into a perturbed mode characterized by EE′, HH′, and ωω′. Using the Maxwell’s equations, one can derive the following equation relating the unperturbed and perturbed modes:
Analysis of an hp-Version of the Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Hyperbolic Conservation Laws

A priori error estimates are derived for hp-versions of the finite element method for discontinuous Galerkin approximations of a model class of linear, scalar, first-order hyperbolic conservation laws. These estimates are derived in a mesh-dependent norm in which the coefficients depend upon both the local mesh size hK and a number PK which can be identified with the spectral order of the local approximations over each element. The results generalize those of Johnson and Pitkaranta to hp-methods.
Consensus Recommendations for Gastric Emptying Scintigraphy A Joint Report of The Society of Nuclear Medicine and The American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society

This consensus statement from members of the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society and the Society of Nuclear Medicine recommends a standardized method for measuring gastric emptying by scintigraphy (GES). A low-fat, egg white meal with imaging at 0, 1, 2, 4 hours after meal ingestion, as described by a published multicenter protocol, provides standardized information about normal and delayed gastric emptying. Adoption of this standardized protocol will resolve the lack of uniformity of testing, add reliability and credibility to the results, and improve the clinical utility of the gastric emptying test.
Growth, carcass and meat quality traits of two South African meat rabbit breeds

Rabbits could contribute to meat production in South Africa. However, little research has been done on rabbit farming in the country, including on the performance of locally available meat breeds. This study examined the meat production of the New Zealand White (NZVV) and Phendula rabbit breeds. The live weights (LW) and average daily gains (ADG) of 80 (44 male, 36 female) NZW and 40 (22 male, 18 female) Phendula rabbits, housed in single-sex groups of three, were recorded from weaning (5 weeks) until slaughter (11 weeks). The slaughter weight, and carcass, organ, and carcass portion weights were recorded for 10 male rabbits and 10 females of each breed, and the physical and proximate chemical quality of the loin meat was determined. The breeds differed for the reference carcass (RC) yield (NZW: 85.3 +/- 0.14%; Phendula: 84.9 +/- 0.24%) and the proportions of the low-value fore (NZW: 38.6 +/- 0.26%; Phendula: 37.6 +/- 0.28%) and high-value intermediate (NZW: 19.6 +/- 0.16%; Phendula: 20.4 +/- 0.28%) parts. Females had greater LW and ADG at 11 weeks old, and reduced dressing percentages, but greater RC yields owing to lighter heads and red offal. Females also had smaller proportions of the fore part. Meat quality did not differ between the breeds or sexes. Overall, both breeds compared well to previous reports. However, they appeared to mature relatively early, as indicated by the significant sex differences, and the high carcass and meat fat content.
Effect of Big 4 on Earning Response Coefficient: Evidence from Pakistan

This study investigates the effect of Big 4(Audit Expertise/ Audit Quality) on Earning Response Coefficient. The sample consist of 250 firms enlisted in Pakistan Stock Exchange(Previously known as Karachi Stock Exchange) comprising 2000 firms years observations over the time span of 2008 to 2015. The study examines that after controlling the established determinants of ERC (Beta, Growth, Size and Earning Persistence), Does Big 4(Audit Expertise /Audit Quality) can affect the Earning Response Coefficient. Secondary data was collected from state Bank of Pakistan and firms own Sites. Eview Software and STATA have been used while analyzing the data. The finding of the results shows that the Big4 (Audit Expertise/Audit Quality) has positive and significant effect on Earning Response Coefficient. This means that the corporate governance facet (Audit Expertise/Audit Quality) can greatly influence the Earning Response Coefficient (ERC). An important contribution of this study is that the evidence comes from Pakistan which is Emerging Economy, but a lot of existence literature and evidence is available on developed countries.