Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diffusive Convection under Rapidly Varying Conditions

In most observations of diffusive convection in the ocean and in lakes, the characteristic diffusive staircases evolve over long time scales under quasi-stationary background conditions. In the Baltic Sea, however, diffusive staircases develop inside the flanks of intermittent intrusions that induce strong inverse temperature gradients over a vertical range of a few meters, varying on time scales of hours to days. Here, results are discussed from an extensive field campaign conducted in summer 2016 in the southern Baltic Sea, including temperature microstructure data from ocean gliders and an autonomous profiling platform. We find conditions favorable for diffusive instability in the vicinity of warm and cold intrusions with density ratios as small as Rρ = 1.3. The staircases evolving under these conditions are characterized by a small number of steps (typically 1–4) with order 0.1–1-m thickness, temperature differences exceeding 1 K across individual diffusive interfaces, and exceptionally large diffusive heat fluxes of order 10 W m−2. The standard heat flux parameterization of Kelley agrees within a factor of 2 with the directly observed interfacial heat fluxes, except for large fluxes at low Rρ, which are strongly overestimated. The glider surveys reveal a surprisingly small lateral coherency of order 100 m of the staircase patterns, and a spreading of the diffusively unstable intrusions across isopycnals.
Czech Subjectivity Lexicon : A Lexical Resource for Czech Polarity Classification

This paper introduces Czech subjectivity lexicon – the new lexical resource for sentiment analysis in Czech. The lexicon is a dictionary of 4947 evaluative items annotated with part of speech and tagged with positive or negative polarity. We describe the method for building the basic vocabulary and the criteria for its manual refinement. Also, we suggest possible enrichment of the fundamental lexicon. We evaluate the current version of the dictionary by implementing it to the classifiers for automatic polarity detection and compare the results of both plain and supplemented system.
Security Vulnerability Profiles of Mission Critical Software: Empirical Analysis of Security Related Bug Reports

—While some prior research work exists on characteristics of software faults (i.e., bugs) and failures, very little work has been published on analysis of software applications vulnerabilities. This paper aims to contribute towards ﬁlling that gap by presenting an empirical investigation of application vulnerabilities. The results are based on data extracted from issue tracking systems of two NASA missions. These data were organized in three datasets: Ground mission IV&V issues, Flight mission IV&V issues, and Flight mission Developers issues. In each dataset, we identiﬁed security related software bugs and classiﬁed them in speciﬁc vulnerability classes. Then, we created the security vulnerability proﬁles, i.e., determined where and when the security vulnerabilities were introduced and what were the dominating vulnerabilities classes. Our main ﬁndings include: (1) In IV&V issues datasets the majority of vulnerabilities were code related and were introduced in the Implementation phase. (2) For all datasets, around 90% of the vulnerabilities were located in two to four subsystems. (3) Out of 21 primary classes, ﬁve dominated: Exception Management, Memory Access, Other, Risky Values, and Unused Entities. Together, they contributed from 80% to 90% of vulnerabilities in each dataset.
Signal processing algorithms for temperauture drift in a MEMS-gyro-based head mouse

This paper presents a comparison between different signal processing algorithms applied to a gyro-based computer head mouse for persons with movement disorders. MEMS-gyros can be used to sense the head movement and rotation. However, the measured gyro signals are influenced by noise, offset, drift and especially temperature drift. Thus, there is a need to improve the signal by signal processing algorithms. Different gyros have different characteristics and the algorithms should be useful for any selected MEMS-gyro. In this paper, three different signal processing algorithms were designed and evaluated by simulation in MATLAB and implementation in a dsPIC, with the aim to compensate for the temperature drift problem. The algorithms are high-pass filtering, Kalman algorithm and Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm. Comparisons and system test show that these filters can be used for temperature drift compensation and the Kalman filter showed the best in the application of a MEMS-gyro-based computer head mouse.
A Secure Role-Based Cloud Storage System For Encrypted Patient-Centric Health Records

With the rapid developments occurring in cloud services, there has been a growing trend to use cloud for large-scale data storage. Due to the increasing popularity of cloud storage, many healthcare organizations have started moving electronic health records (EHRs) to cloud-based storage systems. However, this has raised the important security issue of how to protect and prevent unauthorized access to EHR data stored in a public cloud. Several cryptographic access control schemes have been proposed to protect the security of data stored in the cloud by integrating cryptographic techniques with access control models. In this paper, we consider a novel role-based encryption technique to build a secure and flexible large-scale EHR system where role-based access control policies are enforced in a cloud environment. Then we discuss a practical EHR system called the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) system recently developed by the Australian Government, and show how the security weaknesses in the PCEHR system can be addressed by our proposed scheme. The proposed system has the potential to be useful in commercial healthcare systems as it captures practical access policies based on roles in a flexible manner and provides secure data storage in the cloud enforcing these access policies.
An implementation of hierarchical service function chaining using OpenDaylight platform

In recent year, the rise of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-defined Networking (SDN) makes the service chain and application provisioning process much agile and simpler, promoting the development of Service Function Chaining (SFC). Service Function Chaining (SFC) provides flexibility and agility for deploying and managing network services. The most challenging problems in SFC are deploying and organizing in large scale, multi-region data center with multiple operational teams. One feasible solution for these issues is decomposing SFC into multiple nested lower-level domains, establishing a hierarchical structure. In this paper, we present a Hierarchical Service Function Chaining (H-SFC) architecture using SDN to enable multi-layered service function chains. We implement the architecture in the OpenDaylight SFC environment and prove that it could simplify SFC management and orchestration.
Population Momentum: Implications for Wildlife Management

Abstract Maintenance of sustainable wildlife populations is one of the primary purposes of wildlife management. Thus, it is important to monitor and manage population growth over time. Sensitivity analysis of the long-term (i.e., asymptotic) population growth rate to changes in the vital rates is commonly used in management to identify the vital rates that contribute most to population growth. Yet, dynamics associated with the long-term population growth rate only pertain to the special case when there is a stable age (or stage) distribution of individuals in the population. Frequently, this assumption is necessary because age structure is rarely estimated. However, management actions can greatly affect the age distribution of a population. For initially growing and declining populations, we instituted hypothetical management targeted at halting the growth or decline of the population, and measured the effects of a changing age structure on the population dynamics. When we changed vital rates, the age structure became unstable and population momentum caused populations to grow differently than that predicted by the long-term population growth rate. Interestingly, changes in fertility actually reversed the direction of short-term population growth, leading to long-term population sizes that were actually smaller or larger than that when fertility was changed. Population momentum can significantly affect population dynamics and will be an important factor in the use of population models for management.
Camera geolocation from mountain images

This paper presents a novel approach to camera geolocation from mountain images. Existing mountain view-based geolocation techniques use only mountain skylines and assume that such skylines are available and can be reliably extracted from query images. However, in real-life scenarios the skyline in a query image may be blurred or invisible, due to occlusions, adverse weather conditions and atmospheric effects, and poor image quality. Geolocating mountain view images with poor skylines is a challenge. In addition, when geolocating a query image, existing techniques do not estimate the camera roll angle, assuming that the roll angle is always small and its impact to the geolocation accuracy is negligible. However, in our research we have observed that even a small camera roll angle of only a few degrees can significantly alter the skyline features extracted from the query image and thus cause geolocation failure due to feature mismatching between the query and feature database. It is another challenge to reliably handle query images with non-negligible camera roll angles. In this paper, we propose a novel solution to these challenges by exploiting additional visual features extracted from mountain ridges beyond skylines and performing search-based camera roll angle estimation. Our proposed approach has been extensively tested on real-world challenging query images from five different regions in three continents. The experimental results from our proposed approach is significantly superior to those obtained from state-of-the-art skyline-based image geolocation approaches.
An Analysis of the Spatial Integration of Groundnut Markets in Nigeria

Correspondence author: < blarrybunmi@gmail.com > The study examined the spatial integration of groundnut markets in Nigeria. It covered two producing states of Kano and Niger and four consumption states of Oyo, Lagos, Cross River and Abia States. The monthly retail prices between January, 2008 and December, 2013 obtained from markets in the state capitals were used. Econometric models employed were Unit root test, Cointegration and Ravallion multiple regression. Results indicated that Kano/Abia pair gave index of market concentration (IMC)1=0.2 and IMC2=0.2 indicating a high short-run market integration for the periods. The Kano/Cross River pair gave IMC1=0.4 and IMC2=3.6, indicating high and low shortrun market integration in periods one and two respectively. Kano /Lagos pair gave IMC1=0.04 and IMC2=0.1 implying a high short-run market integration for the periods. The Kano /Oyo pair gave IMC1=0.1 and IMC2=0.4 implying high shortrun market integration for the periods. Niger /Abia pair gave IMC1=0.3 and IMC2=0.3, hence producing the same result as the Kano/Oyo pair. Niger/Cross River pair gave IMC1=0.01 and IMC2=0.03, implying a high short run market integration for the periods, The remaining pairs of Niger/Lagos (IMC1=0.2 and IMC2=0.9) and Niger/Oyo (IMC1=0.1 and IMC2=0.2) exhibited high short run market integration. These results implied a high marketing efficiency in the groundnut markets. Kano/Oyo, Niger/Abia and Niger/Lagos pairs also have a high degree of marketing efficiency. Kano/Cross River pair lag period one showed a very high degree of market integration, hence high marketing efficiency. There study recommends a nation-wide policy to improve groundnut marketing efficiency, affordability and consumption of groundnut end-users.
The EBI RDF platform: linked open data for the life sciences

Motivation: Resource description framework (RDF) is an emerging technology for describing, publishing and linking life science data. As a major provider of bioinformatics data and services, the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) is committed to making data readily accessible to the community in ways that meet existing demand. The EBI RDF platform has been developed to meet an increasing demand to coordinate RDF activities across the institute and provides a new entry point to querying and exploring integrated resources available at the EBI. Availability: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/rdf Contact: jupp@ebi.ac.uk
A 131 GHz push-push VCO in 90-nm CMOS technology

A 131 GHz cross-coupled push-push voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is realized in 90-nm CMOS technology. It can be tuned from 129.8 to 132 GHz, with an estimated phase noise of -108.4 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz offset. The oscillator provides a push-push output power of -15.2 dBm and a fundamental output power of +0.33 dBm, under core current of 20 mA from a 1-V supply voltage. Maximum push-push and fundamental output powers are -11.4 dBm and +2.1 dBm, respectively. To the authors' knowledge, this is the highest frequency CMOS VCO ever reported.
A Discriminatively Trained Fully Connected Conditional Random Field Model for Blood Vessel Segmentation in Fundus Images

Goal: In this work, we present an extensive description and evaluation of our method for blood vessel segmentation in fundus images based on a discriminatively trained fully connected conditional random field model. Methods: Standard segmentation priors such as a Potts model or total variation usually fail when dealing with thin and elongated structures. We overcome this difficulty by using a conditional random field model with more expressive potentials, taking advantage of recent results enabling inference of fully connected models almost in real time. Parameters of the method are learned automatically using a structured output support vector machine, a supervised technique widely used for structured prediction in a number of machine learning applications. Results: Our method, trained with state of the art features, is evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively on four publicly available datasets: DRIVE, STARE, CHASEDB1, and HRF. Additionally, a quantitative comparison with respect to other strategies is included. Conclusion: The experimental results show that this approach outperforms other techniques when evaluated in terms of sensitivity, F1-score, G-mean, and Matthews correlation coefficient. Additionally, it was observed that the fully connected model is able to better distinguish the desired structures than the local neighborhood-based approach. Significance: Results suggest that this method is suitable for the task of segmenting elongated structures, a feature that can be exploited to contribute with other medical and biological applications.
Human Dimensions and Communication of Florida's Climate

and Society, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL; Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL; School of Public Administration, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL; Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; School of Law, St. Thomas University, Miami Gardens, FL; Sustainability Institute, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL
Evidence for Hyperbolic Temporal Discounting of Reward in Control of Movements

Suppose that the purpose of a movement is to place the body in a more rewarding state. In this framework, slower movements may increase accuracy and therefore improve the probability of acquiring reward, but the longer durations of slow movements produce devaluation of reward. Here we hypothesize that the brain decides the vigor of a movement (duration and velocity) based on the expected discounted reward associated with that movement. We begin by showing that durations of saccades of varying amplitude can be accurately predicted by a model in which motor commands maximize expected discounted reward. This result suggests that reward is temporally discounted even in timescales of tens of milliseconds. One interpretation of temporal discounting is that the true objective of the brain is to maximize the rate of reward—which is equivalent to a specific form of hyperbolic discounting. A consequence of this idea is that the vigor of saccades should change as one alters the intertrial intervals between movements. We find experimentally that in healthy humans, as intertrial intervals are varied, saccade peak velocities and durations change on a trial-by-trial basis precisely as predicted by a model in which the objective is to maximize the rate of reward. Our results are inconsistent with theories in which reward is discounted exponentially. We suggest that there exists a single cost, rate of reward, which provides a unifying principle that may govern control of movements in timescales of milliseconds, as well as decision making in timescales of seconds to years.
Renal Effects of the Novel Selective Adenosine A1 Receptor Blocker SLV329 in Experimental Liver Cirrhosis in Rats

Liver cirrhosis is often complicated by an impaired renal excretion of water and sodium. Diuretics tend to further deteriorate renal function. It is unknown whether chronic selective adenosine A1 receptor blockade, via inhibition of the hepatorenal reflex and the tubuloglomerular feedback, might exert diuretic and natriuretic effects without a reduction of the glomerular filtration rate. In healthy animals intravenous treatment with the novel A1 receptor antagonist SLV329 resulted in a strong dose-dependent diuretic (up to 3.4-fold) and natriuretic (up to 13.5-fold) effect without affecting creatinine clearance. Male Wistar rats with thioacetamide-induced liver cirrhosis received SLV329, vehicle or furosemide for 12 weeks. The creatinine clearance of cirrhotic animals decreased significantly (−36.5%, p<0.05), especially in those receiving furosemide (−41.9%, p<0.01). SLV329 was able to prevent this decline of creatinine clearance. Mortality was significantly lower in cirrhotic animals treated with SLV329 in comparison to animals treated with furosemide (17% vs. 54%, p<0.05). SLV329 did not relevantly influence the degree of liver fibrosis, kidney histology or expression of hepatic or renal adenosine receptors. In conclusion, chronic treatment with SLV329 prevented the decrease of creatinine clearance in a rat model of liver cirrhosis. Further studies will have to establish whether adenosine A1 receptor antagonists are clinically beneficial at different stages of liver cirrhosis.
Cost/performance tradeoffs in network interconnects for clusters of commodity PCs

The definition of a commodity component is quite obvious when it comes to the PC as a basic compute engine and building block for clusters of PCs. Looking at the options for a more or less performant interconnect between those compute nodes it is much less obvious which interconnect still qualifies as commodity and which not. We are trying to answer this question based on an in-depth analysis of a few common more or less expensive interconnects on the market. Our measurements and observations are based on the experience of architecting, procuring and installing Xibalba, a 128 node - 192 processor versatile cluster for a variety of research applications in the CS department of ETH Zurich. We define our unique way to measure the performance of an interconnect and use our performance characterization to find the best cost performance point for networks in PC clusters. Since our work is tied to the purchase of a machine at fair market value we can also reliably comment on cost performance of the four types of interconnects we considered. We analyze the reason for performance and non-performance for different Fast Ethernet architectures with a set of micro-benchmarks and conclude our study with performance numbers of some applications. Thus, the reader gets an idea about the impact of the interconnect on the overall application performance in commodity PC clusters.
Modelling queues in static traffic assignment

The paper presents a method to include congestion phenomena in the context of a static assignment and thus to achieve a more realistic modelling of congested networks but to avoid the computation time penalty induced by fully dynamic assignment methods, especially those incorporating flow simulation. The proposed method is not an assignment procedure in the pure sense since it does not compute routes and volumes. Instead, the result of a static assignment is modified. The idea of the proposed method is simple: travel demand is redistributed along routes computed by any static assignment procedure beforehand. In a first phase the volume of each route are passed from one link to the next along the route until capacity of a link is reached. For the computation of queue lengths, an assignment time period must be assumed. In order to avoid dependency on the processing order of links and routes, the volumes are propagated incrementally in small portions. The second phase of the method computes the delay times caused by congested links. During this phase no further traffic is fed to the network. Only the traffic stored in the queues is propa-gated along the routes according to the same rules as before. This again is done in small time slices. The second phase ends when all queues are dissolved and no more traffic is in the net-work. If this pseudo-dynamic assignment is computed after a normal static assignment method, in-formation about queue-lengths and delay times are generated, but they do not yet influence route choice of the drivers. Feedback to route choice can easily be implemented in assignment methods that assign the total volume in increments. Here the pseudo-dynamic assignment can be computed after each incremental step to compute modified travel times for the next increment. The computational effort of one incremental step in both phases is comparable to the update step of the link volumes as it is part of every assignment procedure. The computing time of the pseudo-dynamic assignment is dominated by the chosen number of incremental steps in the two phases. For the first phase a sufficiently large value should be used in order to ensure a sufficient independence from the link processing order. For the second phase a coarser step-ping is possible. If used in practical situations with realistic traffic volumes and realistic net-work sizes the additional computing time of the proposed simple method is already close to the maximum that would be accepted by users. The pseudo-dynamic assignment is implemented in the transport planning software package VISUM and is already in use in some projects. The final paper will report results from application and a comparison to SATURN results. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135582.