Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-interactive Authentication Scheme Providing Privacy among Drivers in Vehicle-to-Vehicle Networks

In this paper, we present a non-interactive authentication scheme providing privacy among drivers in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication networks. Where the drivers, who are members of V2V networks, are organized into groups. Each group has a shared public key between members. Additionally, each member has a private key provided by the Third Trusted Party (TTP). In our proposed scheme, we ensure driver's privacy by allowing members to change their own set of public keys frequently using the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA). The TTP sends to each member a token of his original set of public keys. This member can find non-interactively a new token corresponding to the new set of public keys, and hence vehicles can exchange the safety critical information without requiring a control from the TTP. In case of a malicious behavior, the identity of the signer can be revealed only by the TTP.
Teaching Computer Science to 5-7 year-olds: An initial study with Scratch, Cubelets and unplugged computing

Changes to school curriculums increasingly require the introduction of computer science concepts to younger children. This practical report compares three existing tools for teaching computer science concepts: unplugged computing, tangible computing and MIT's Scratch. We specifically focus on the use of these tools for school pupils aged 5--7. We describe a comparative study with 28 pupils from three rural UK primary schools that explores engagement with, and effectiveness of, each tool. As far as we are aware this is the first such comparative study of its kind. We demonstrate that the studied tools can be used to successfully introduce core computer science concepts to pupils as young as 5 years of age, that the methods used by teachers to deliver computing curriculums may greatly impact the learning outcomes, and that particular care needs to be taken to ensure that pupils focus on learning concepts rather than learning tools.
Robust Adaptive Scheduled Switched Control

An algorithm for robust adaptive control design for a class of nonlinear single-input-single-output (SISO) switched systems is presented. The control scheme achieves prespecified exponential stability, bounded-input-bounded-state (BIBS) stability, and arbitrary switched system stability. This is achieved for any bounded time varying parametric uncertainty and disturbance without requiring a priori knowledge of such bounds. The algorithm is based on a standard adaptive control architecture with a scheduled periodic switching between a standard adaptation law and an exponentially stabilizing robust one. The results are illustrated through simulations.
Exploring intrinsically disordered proteins using site-directed spin labeling electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy

Proteins are highly variable biological systems, not only in their structures but also in their dynamics. The most extreme example of dynamics is encountered within the family of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDPs), which are proteins lacking a well-defined 3D structure under physiological conditions. Among the biophysical techniques well-suited to study such highly flexible proteins, Site-Directed Spin Labeling combined with EPR spectroscopy (SDSL-EPR) is one of the most powerful, being able to reveal, at the residue level, structural transitions such as folding events. SDSL-EPR is based on selective grafting of a paramagnetic label on the protein under study and is limited neither by the size nor by the complexity of the system. The objective of this mini-review is to describe the basic strategy of SDSL-EPR and to illustrate how it can be successfully applied to characterize the structural behavior of IDPs. Recent developments aimed at enlarging the panoply of SDSL-EPR approaches are presented in particular newly synthesized spin labels that allow the limitations of the classical ones to be overcome. The potentialities of these new spin labels will be demonstrated on different examples of IDPs.
Enhancing Developmentally Oriented Primary Care: An Illinois Initiative to Increase Developmental Screening in Medical Homes

In 2005, the Enhancing Developmentally Oriented Primary Care (EDOPC) project of the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services began a project to improve the delivery and financing of preventive health and developmental services for children in Illinois. The leaders of this initiative sought to increase primary care providers' use of validated tools for developmental, social/emotional, maternal depression, and domestic violence screening and to increase early awareness of autism symptoms during pediatric well-child visits in children aged 0 to 3 years. These screenings facilitate identification of children at risk and those who need referral for further evaluation. Primary barriers to such screenings include lack of practitioner confidence in using validated screening tools. In this article we describe the accomplishments of the EDOPC project, which created training programs to address these barriers. This training is delivered by EDOPC staff and peer educators (physicians and nurse practitioners) in medical practices. The EDOPC project enhanced confidence and intent to screen among a large group of Illinois primary health care providers. Among a sample of primary care sites at which chart reviews were conducted, the EDOPC project increased developmental screening rates to the target of 85% of patients at most sites and increased social/emotional screening rates to the same target rate in nearly half of the participating practices.
Efficient Exact Gradient Update for training Deep Networks with Very Large Sparse Targets

An important class of problems involves training deep neural networks with sparse prediction targets of very high dimension D. These occur naturally in e.g. neural language models or the learning of word-embeddings, often posed as predicting the probability of next words among a vocabulary of size D (e.g. 200 000). Computing the equally large, but typically non-sparse D-dimensional output vector from a last hidden layer of reasonable dimension d (e.g. 500) incurs a prohibitive O(Dd) computational cost for each example, as does updating the D x d output weight matrix and computing the gradient needed for backpropagation to previous layers. While efficient handling of large sparse network inputs is trivial, the case of large sparse targets is not, and has thus so far been sidestepped with approximate alternatives such as hierarchical softmax or sampling-based approximations during training. In this work we develop an original algorithmic approach which, for a family of loss functions that includes squared error and spherical softmax, can compute the exact loss, gradient update for the output weights, and gradient for backpropagation, all in O(d^2) per example instead of O(Dd), remarkably without ever computing the D-dimensional output. The proposed algorithm yields a speedup of D/4d , i.e. two orders of magnitude for typical sizes, for that critical part of the computations that often dominates the training time in this kind of network architecture.
High sex ratios in China's future

In China in recent years, male live births have exceeded those of females by amounts far greater than those that occur naturally in human populations, a trend with significant demographic consequences. The resulting imbalance in the first-marriage market is estimated to be about 1 million males per year after 2010. These "excess" males were not easily accommodated in models with substantial changes in first-marriage patterns. The current sex ratio at birth has little effect on a couple's probability of having at least one son, so future increases in the sex ratio may well occur, especially given increasing access to sex-selective abortion.
Whither the Experts? Social Affordances and the Cultivation of Experts in Community Q&A Systems

Community based Question and Answer systems have been promoted as web 2.0 solutions to the problem of finding expert knowledge. This promise depends on systems’ capacity to attract and sustain experts capable of offering high quality, factual answers. Content analysis of dedicated contributors’ messages in the Live QnA system found: (1) few contributors who focused on providing technical answers (2) a preponderance of attention paid to opinion and discussion, especially in non-technical threads. This paucity of experts raises an important general question: how do the social affordances of a site alter the ecology of roles found there? Using insights from recent research in online community, we generate a series of expectations about how social affordances are likely to alter the role ecology of online systems.
Elastic FWI for VTI media: A synthetic parameterization study

We thank the members of the A(nisotropy)- and i(maging)-teams at CWP for fruitful discussions. The model was provided to us by Romain Brossiere (Universit´e Joseph Fourier, Grenoble) and Olav Barkved (Petoro, Norway). This work was supported by the Consortium Project on Seismic Inverse Methods for Complex Structures at CWP and competitive research funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The reproducible numerical examples are generated with the Madagascar open-source software package freely available from http://www.ahay. org.
Alpha and beta globin messenger ribonucleic acid. Different amounts and rates of initiation of translation.

Abstract This paper demonstrates that regulation of synthesis of the two globin chains in the rabbit reticulocyte is complex: cells contain about 1.5 times more ribosome-associated α mRNA than β, but ribosomes initiate translation of each α mRNA only about 65% as frequently as a β mRNA. Hence regulation of globin synthesis occurs not only as a result of mRNA availability, but also as a consequence of selective ratios of initiation. These experiments utilize seven antibiotics—emetine, anisomycin, sparsomycin, blasticidin, cycloheximide, fusidic acid, and streptovitacin. We show that at concentrations which inhibit protein synthesis in reticulocyte extracts 60 to 80%, all reduce the rate of propagation of nascent globin chains, but do not directly inhibit initiation of new chains. This results in accumulation of large polyribosomes, in which the mRNA molecules are saturated with ribosomes. Under these conditions protein synthesis is not limited by chain initiation and the relative amount of the two globin chains produced should be proportional to the relative amount of the mRNA; indeed we find that all drugs induce a change in the ratio of α:β globin synthesized from 1.0 to about 1.5. Using two techniques to determine the classes of polyribosomes which are synthesizing each globin chain, we have confirmed the finding of Hunt et al., (Hunt, T., Hunter, T., and Munro, A., Nature, 220, 481 (1968)) that β chains are made on larger polyribosomes than α chains. We believe that this is due solely to the decreased rate of ribosome attachment to an α mRNA relative to a β mRNA. In accord with this notion, we show that in the presence of any of the seven translation inhibitors, both classes of globin chains are made on the same classes of very large polyribosomes, and that these ribosomes contain relatively more nascent α chains than β chains.
Portfolio selection using fuzzy mean-variance approach

Portfolio selection issue continuously gaining an interest among scholars. The portfolio’s ability to maximize the diversification benefit for investors becomes main focus of portfolio management. Portfolio selection model ability to solve uncertainty issue in investing is a key in deriving a new and robust model. Previous studies show that there are many factors that influence the portfolio’s diversification benefit. In this paper, we utilized a fuzzy approach to innovate the expected asset’s return variable in the mean-variance model. The model was derived by adopting the idea in Markowitz (mean-variance model) and Vercher, Bermudez & Segura (VBS fuzzy model). The fuzzy mean-variance model was used to construct 139 efficient portfolios based on the large and small market capitalization. The portfolios performances were examined using efficient frontier index (EFI) in the whole period of study, in rising, sideway and falling stock market trends. As a result, empirical evidence of the model revealed that the new model able to maximize portfolio’s diversification benefit especially in the falling market trend outperformed the conventional meanvariance and the VBS fuzzy model.
Effect of Urine Application on System Efficiency and Economics under Maize (Zea mays L.) and Toria (Brassica campestris L.) Cropping System

Maize – toria is the most prevalent cropping sequence adopted by the farmers in the north eastern hill region of India. This system is followed in the mid hill areas without proper nutrient management leading to fast depletion of soil fertility and crop productivity. The rising prices and lack of availability of inorganic fertilizers at right time to the farmers due to poor transport facility necessitates some alternative ways of nutrients supply (Munda et al., 2011). On the other hand, use of animal and crop waste in the form of farm yard manure (FYM) or compost is common practices in majority of the farm community. However, the progress of organic agriculture has been very slow due to rapid declination of organic raw materials such as animal waste, crops residues and green manure which is due to burning of waste and residues and also due to utilization of straw and grass as animal feed (Tejada et al., 2008).
A Predictable Communication Scheme for Embedded Multiprocessor Systems

Networks-on-chip (NoC) are emerging as a widely accepted alternative for the traditional bus architectures. However, their applicability by the system designers is far away from being intuitive due to their lack of predictability. This communication predictability can be obtained statically or dynamically. A dynamic allocation is more suitable for flexible multiprocessor systems and requires the implementation of a quality-of-service (QoS) mechanism. This paper explores the main QoS schemes suitable for such systems: connection-oriented and connectionless. The simulation results show that the connectionless scheme provides a better predictability in terms of message latency with an acceptable buffer requirement. This work provides the designer with valuable guidelines to choose a priori the QoS parameters such that they can be confident on the predicted results
Tuning support vector machines for robust phoneme classification with acoustic waveforms

This work focuses on the robustness of phoneme classification to additive noise in the acoustic waveform domain using support vector machines (SVMs). We address the issue of designing kernels for acoustic waveforms which imitate the state-ofthe-art representations such as PLP and MFCC and are tuned to the physical properties of speech. For comparison, classification results in the PLP representation domain with cepstral mean-and-variance normalization (CMVN) using standard kernels are also reported. It is shown that our custom-designed kernels achieve better classification performance at high noise. Finally, we combine the PLP and acoustic waveform representations to attain better classification than either of the individual representations over the entire range of noise levels tested, from quiet condition up to −18dB SNR.
Climatological analysis of passage-type tropical cyclones from the Western North Pacific into the South China Sea

Tropical cyclone (TC) climatological characteristics with passage from the Western North Pacific (WNP) into the South China Sea (SCS) during the June November season are analyzed in this study. These TCs tend to form in the WNP west of 150°E, and on average westward by 7 12° in longitude than TCs that do not track into the SCS. Their formation locations migrate with the monsoon trough, moving northward from June to August, and southward from September to November. The probability of a WNP TC moving into the SCS varies seasonally, with only 12 18% of the WNP TCs doing so during August-September due to more northern TC formation. However, this probability rises to 25 26% in June July and 25 32% in October November with more southern TC formation. The passage-type TCs generally form in the eastern part of an elongated lower-level cyclonic anomaly of the 10-day low-pass filtered environmental circulation in the 10 20°N zone, which is paired with an anticyclonic anomaly to the north. Between this circulation pair, anomalous easterly flows steer these TCs westward, giving them a westward track into the SCS. The formation of these passage-type TCs is associated with a southward displacement of the monsoon trough and a westward intensification of the Pacific subtropical high in August and September. During June July (October November), the associated features appear as a southeastward (meridional) expansion of the monsoon trough and a northward displacement of the Pacific subtropical high. Article history: Received 14 July 2016 Revised 1 September 2016 Accepted 4 October 2016
Reputation Systems for Self-Organized Networks

Self-organized networks such as mobile ad-hoc, Internet-based peer-to-peer, wireless mesh and Fourth generation (4G) wireless networks depend on cooperation of nodes. Reputation systems help nodes decide with whom to cooperate and which nodes to avoid. They have been studied and applied almost separately in diverse disciplines such as economics, computer science, and social science, resulting in effort duplication and inconsistent terminology. We aim to bring together these efforts by outlining features and fundamental questions common to reputation systems in general. We derive methodologies to address these questions for both reputation system design and research from our own experiences and evaluations by simulation and analytical modeling. We argue for using deviation tests, discounting, passing on only first-hand information, introducing secondary response, and stressing the importance of identity.
PVFS: A Parallel File System for Linux Clusters

As Linux clusters have matured as platforms for low-cost, high-performance parallel computing, software packages to provide many key services have emerged, especially in areas such as message passing and networking. One area devoid of support, however, has been parallel file systems, which are critical for high-performance I/O on such clusters. We have developed a parallel file system for Linux clusters, called the Parallel Virtual File System (PVFS). PVFS is intended both as a high-performance parallel file system that anyone can download and use and as a tool for pursuing further research in parallel I/O and parallel file systems for Linux clusters. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of PVFS and present performance results on the Chiba City cluster at Argonne. We provide performance results for a workload of concurrent reads and writes for various numbers of compute nodes, I/O nodes, and I/O request sizes. We also present performance results for MPI-IO on PVFS, both for a concurrent read/write workload and for the BTIO benchmark. We compare the I/O performance when using a Myrinet network versus a fast-ethernet network for I/O-related communication in PVFS. We obtained read and write bandwidths as high as 700 Mbytes/sec with Myrinet and 225 Mbytes/sec with fast ethernet.
First Principles Study of Interactions of Graphene Layer Adsorbed With Beryllium

The interactions between graphene layer, graphene layer adsorbed with Beryllium are studied. Band gap energies at different positions are studied by means of DFT calculations and in all the cases the band gap has been increased . Negative differential resistance is observed for 0V and -1V applied at 900 k for graphene layer adsorbed with Beryllium at various temperatures due to non linear carrier transport under a strong electric field while studying the electrical characteristics. This NDR property enables a number of important applications, such as high frequency oscillators, ultrafast logic devices and multi state memory devices. Graphene has received intense interest in fields such as physics, chemistry, biology and materials science due to its exceptional electrical, mechanical, thermal and optical properties as well as its unique twodimensional (2D) structure and large surface area.
Chapter 13: Mining Electronic Health Records in the Genomics Era

Abstract: The combination of improved genomic analysis methods, decreasing genotyping costs, and increasing computing resources has led to an explosion of clinical genomic knowledge in the last decade. Similarly, healthcare systems are increasingly adopting robust electronic health record (EHR) systems that not only can improve health care, but also contain a vast repository of disease and treatment data that could be mined for genomic research. Indeed, institutions are creating EHR-linked DNA biobanks to enable genomic and pharmacogenomic research, using EHR data for phenotypic information. However, EHRs are designed primarily for clinical care, not research, so reuse of clinical EHR data for research purposes can be challenging. Difficulties in use of EHR data include: data availability, missing data, incorrect data, and vast quantities of unstructured narrative text data. Structured information includes billing codes, most laboratory reports, and other variables such as physiologic measurements and demographic information. Significant information, however, remains locked within EHR narrative text documents, including clinical notes and certain categories of test results, such as pathology and radiology reports. For relatively rare observations, combinations of simple free-text searches and billing codes may prove adequate when followed by manual chart review. However, to extract the large cohorts necessary for genome-wide association studies, natural language processing methods to process narrative text data may be needed. Combinations of structured and unstructured textual data can be mined to generate high-validity collections of cases and controls for a given condition. Once high-quality cases and controls are identified, EHR-derived cases can be used for genomic discovery and validation. Since EHR data includes a broad sampling of clinically-relevant phenotypic information, it may enable multiple genomic investigations upon a single set of genotyped individuals. This chapter reviews several examples of phenotype extraction and their application to genetic research, demonstrating a viable future for genomic discovery using EHR-linked data.
On computing tree and path decompositions with metric constraints on the bags

We here investigate on the complexity of computing the tree-length and the tree-breadth of any graph G, that are respectively the best possible upper-bounds on the diameter and the radius of the bags in a tree decomposition of G. Path-length and path-breadth are similarly defined and studied for path decompositions. So far, it was already known that tree-length is NP-hard to compute. We here prove it is also the case for tree-breadth, path-length and path-breadth. Furthermore, we provide a more detailed analysis on the complexity of computing the tree-breadth. In particular, we show that graphs with tree-breadth one are in some sense the hardest instances for the problem of computing the tree-breadth. We give new properties of graphs with tree-breadth one. Then we use these properties in order to recognize in polynomial-time all graphs with tree-breadth one that are planar or bipartite graphs. On the way, we relate tree-breadth with the notion of k-good tree decompositions (for k = 1), that have been introduced in former work for routing. As a byproduct of the above relation, we prove that deciding on the existence of a k-good tree decomposition is NP-complete (even if k = 1). All this answers open questions from the literature.