Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
AS Tree Selection for Inter-Domain Multipoint MPLS Tunnels

In this paper, we study the problem of inter-domain AS tree selection for multipoint tunnel set-up within an alliance of ASs. We first describe the framework of our work, based on the introduction of a service plane for automatic multi-domain service provisioning. We introduce an abstract representation of domain relationship by means of directional metrics which are applied to a triplet (ingress point, transit AS, egress point) where the ingress and egress points can be ASs or routers. Then, we focus on the multipoint AS Selection problem that arises in such an architecture. The corresponding constrained Steiner problem is known to be a hard problem, and the introduction of directional metrics increases its complexity. We propose an original approach that allows one to reach almost optimal solutions with tractable computation times. Besides its performance, one contribution of this paper is that some steps of the proposed heuristic can be precomputed, independently of the tunnel demands. By extensive tests on random topologies derived from the Internet, we show that our heuristic is often equal or a few percent close to the optimal, and that, in the case of precomputation, its time consumption can be much lower than other well-known algorithms.
A novel reliable data dissemination protocol for real-time data in wireless sensor networks

The real-time data dissemination schemes exploit the spatiotemporal communication approach which forwards data at the delivery speed calculated with the desired time deadline and the end-to-end distance in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, the schemes do not focus on the reliable communication. Recently, MMSPEED is a well-known scheme for both reliable and real-time data delivery based on multipath. For construction of the multipath in MMSPEED, the relay nodes branch off by local decision. Namely, in order to improve the reliability, MMSPEED locally chooses branch nodes among neighbor nodes which fulfill the real-time constraints and have the better reachability to the sink. However, since the paths are branched off blindly, the branched paths have no information of each other. So, the paths could be merged each other. The end-to-end reliability of multipath could decrease due to the failure of the merged path. Moreover, as the reachability to the sink is not estimated but calculated, the value could not be applied for reliability in real world. In this paper, we propose a reliable and real-time service protocol with geographical parallel track concept. The parallel track concept provides the information of each path to all paths. In the proposed protocol, the branch of multipath occurs only by real-time constraint. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol is superior to the related studies in terms of successful data delivery in desired time deadline.
Monitoring Cropland Dynamics of the Yellow River Delta based on Multi-Temporal Landsat Imagery over 1986 to 2015

Natural deltas can provide human beings with flat and fertile land to be cultivated. It is important to monitor cropland dynamics to provide policy-relevant information for regional sustainable development. This paper utilized Landsat imagery to study the cropland dynamics of the Yellow River Delta during the last three decades. Multi-temporal Landsat data were used to account for the phenological variations of different plants. Several spectral and textural features were adopted to increase the between-class separability. The robust random forest classifier was used to generate the land cover maps of the Yellow River Delta for 1986, 1995, 2005 and 2015. Experimental results indicated that the proposed methodology showed good performance with an average classification accuracy of 89.44%. The spatial-temporal analysis indicated that the cropland area increased from 467.6 km 2 in 1986 to 718.5 km 2 in 2015 with an average growth rate of 8.65 km 2 /year. The newly created croplands were mainly due to the reclamation of grassland and bare soil while the losses of croplands were due to abandoned cultivation and urban sprawl. The results demonstrate that a sustainable perspective should be adopted by the decision makers in order to simultaneously maintain food security, industrial development and ecosystem safety.
Memristors and memristive circuits - an overview

The memristor as a basic circuit element has drawn wide attention in the international research community of electrical engineers, physicists, and biologists. Memristors - being prominent for the realization of non-volatile VLSI resistive random access memories (RRAM) and for their applicability as synapses in neuromorphic systems provide even further surprising properties in electric circuits, which opens up new horizons to future applications. This article is in accordance with the special session of ISCAS2012 having the same title. We present a tutorial overview of the state-of-the-art of theory and applications of single memristor devices as well as memristive circuits.
High-speed measurement of reflective liquid crystal cell parameter with a polarization-converting device (Invited Paper)

We propose a high-speed optical measurement method for determining cell parameters such as cell thicknesses and twist angles of reflective liquid crystal (LC) cells. A polarization-converting device prepared using a circularly-homogeneously aligned LC (CH-LC) cell and a charge couple device (CCD) camera are used. The spatial light intensity distribution from the reflective LC cell through the CH-LC cell and the local minimum point are measured. Then the cell parameters can be derived by using the coordinate values of the point and the Jones matrix analysis.
Developing security protocols by refinement

We propose a development method for security protocols based on stepwise refinement. Our refinement strategy guides the transformation of abstract security goals into protocols that are secure when operating over an insecure channel controlled by a Dolev-Yao-style intruder. The refinement steps successively introduce local states, an intruder, communication channels with security properties, and cryptographic operations realizing these channels. The abstractions used provide insights on how the protocols work and foster the development of families of protocols sharing a common structure and properties. In contrast to post-hoc verification methods, protocols are developed together with their correctness proofs. We have implemented our method in Isabelle/HOL and used it to develop different entity authentication and key transport protocols.
Fostering an informal learning community of computer technologies at school

Computer technologies develop at a challenging fast pace. Formal education should not only teach students basic computer skills to meet current computer needs, but also foster student development of informal learning ability for a lifelong learning process. On the other hand, students growing up in the digital world are often more skilled with computer technologies than their teachers. We describe an online course design project in which a group of students designed an online health course for their middle school, and teachers played the roles of facilitators and learners. We suggest fostering an informal learning community of computer technologies at school as a supplemental method of formal computer education to address the shift in educational context and as a place offering opportunities for students to work on real-life projects and solve real-life problems.
SOLAR REFLECTANCE OF CRYODEPOSITS, PART I: H20 ON LN2-COOLED BLACK PAINT

A careful study of the reflectance of water cryodeposits was made in a vacuum integrating sphere in the solar wavelength range (0.30 to 2.55 ym). These deposits were formed on liquidnitrogen-cooled black epoxy paint substrates. The reflectances of these deposits were studied while varying the deposit thickness, view angle, and wavelength. The reflectance dependence on thickness also was predicted theoretically, and the values obtained were in excellent agreement with the experimentally determined values. Most of the water deposits studied were of amorphous structure, but, upon warming, the deposits crystallized, resulting in a significant change in the reflectance.
Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance of Single Silver Nano-Hemisphere

In this work, we use 3D finite difference time domain (3D-FDTD) to calculate the plasmon resonance effect for a single silver hemisphere in which the palsmon line shape have distinct peaks when the particles are located on a glass substrate. The dependence of the resonance on hemisphere size and the ratio of height over radius are characterized, and it is found that the surface interface effect played an important role on the plasman resonace effect for a single silver hemisphere.
Gibberellin-Stimulation of Rhizome Elongation and Differential GA-Responsive Proteomic Changes in Two Grass Species

Rapid and extensive rhizome development is a desirable trait for perennial grass growth and adaptation to environmental stresses. The objective of this study was to determine proteomic changes and associated metabolic pathways of gibberellin (GA) -regulation of rhizome elongation in two perennial grass species differing in rhizome development. Plants of a short-rhizome bunch-type tall fescue (TF; Festuca arundinacea; ‘BR’) and an extensive rhizomatous Kentucky bluegrass (KB; Poa pratensis; ‘Baron’) were treated with 10 μM GA3 in hydroponic culture in growth chambers. The average rhizome length in KB was significantly longer than that in TF regardless of GA3 treatment, and increased significantly with GA3 treatment, to a greater extent than that in TF. Comparative proteomic analysis using two-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry was performed to further investigate proteins and associated metabolic pathways imparting increased rhizome elongation by GA. A total of 37 and 38 differentially expressed proteins in response to GA3 treatment were identified in TF and KB plants, respectively, which were mainly involved in photosynthesis, energy and amino acid metabolism, protein synthesis, defense and cell development processes. Accelerated rhizome elongation in KB by GA could be mainly associated with the increased abundance of proteins involved in energy metabolism (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, fructose-bisphosphate aldolase, and ATP synthase), amino acid metabolism (S-adenosylmethionine and adenosylhomocysteinase), protein synthesis (HSP90, elongation factor Tu and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A), cell-wall development (cell dividion cycle protein, alpha tubulin-2A and actin), and signal transduction (calreticulin). These proteins could be used as candidate proteins for further analysis of molecular mechanisms controlling rhizome growth.
Red and orange resonant-cavity LEDs

Usually resonant-cavity light-emitting diodes (RCLEDs) are used as emitters for plastic optical fiber communication. However, there are some arguments that may lead to the introduction of RCLEDs in a much wider range of applications. A typical high-brightness AlGaInP LED consists of a Bragg mirror, the active region and some layers for current spreading and light extraction. The thickness of these layers can add up to several ten microns which causes long epitaxial growth times. The total thickness of a RCLED can be significantly lower. Furthermore, since no lattice mismatched layers such as GaP are involved, the total incorporated strain is low which simplifies wafer handling and device processing. For this reason we studied RCLEDs with a dominant wavelength around 632 nm (superred) and 605 nm (orange). The processes for epitaxial growth and chip fabrication were optimized for homogeneity on 4 inch wafers and suitability for low-cost mass production, respectively. Possible applications for our RCLEDs are optical scanners, indicators, signal lights and other applications which benefit from the enhanced directionality of RCLEDs.
Challenges of privacy-preserving OLAP techniques

Over the last five years, on-line analytical processing (OLAP) became one of the essential information processing technologies. OLAP technology has been successfully used in different areas: retail, financial services, telecommunication, health care etc. Because of this security of data stored in Data Warehouses became one of the most important aspect of this technology, especially when we speaking about data privacy. We review existing privacy-preserving OLAP techniques and identify new challenges of this technology. In particular, OLAP databases are placed often in the untrusted clouds, so it is crucial to create techniques for evaluating widely used statistical functions (mean value, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, and so on) over the encrypted data. For this purpose, we review and compare encryption schemes with special features (partly homomorphic, order-preserving, deterministic etc.) and suggest architecture of application for private OLAP over the encrypted database.
Calcined materials as components of soilless root media: Phosphate sorption characteristics and effects on phosphate and water use in greenhouse production of Impatiens wallerana

The use of calcined clays contributes properties of nutrient and water retention to soilless root media, which varies greatly depending on the parent clay and calcining treatment. This research characterized phosphate (PO4) sorption of various calcined clay products, including low volatile and regular volatile material (LVM and RVM) 2:1 Attasorb clays (Engelhard Corp.), 2:1 Terra Green LVM clays (Oil-Dri Co.), and Turface (Profile Products LLC) at various particle sizes; 1:1 kaolin clays (Thiele Kaolin Co.) in powder form, and diatomaceous earth (Diatomite, Eagle Picher Minerals, Inc.). Three of the calcined materials, Terra Green montmorillonite and Attasorb attapulgite (which had high PO4-sorption based on isotherms), and diatomaceous earth (which had negligible PO4-sorption) were evaluated as components of soilless root media in two separate greenhouse experiments. The effect of the calcined materials, rate of incorporation (0%, 5%, 10% and 20% by volume in a mix with peat and perlite), and PO4-P application rate (0, 5, 15, 45 mgL PO4-P) on plant growth, effluent P content and water use were determined during production and post-production of Impatiens wallerana Hook f. ‘Tempo Rose’. The calcined materials varied in their ability to adsorb PO4-P and generally yielded L-type isotherms. Laboratory results indicated potential for substantive P retention by several of the calcined materials when used in container production. For most materials, PO4-P sorption did not show pronounced pH dependence. During production and post-production, the test materials not only improved PO4-P retention but also water retention and water use efficiency while still maintaining optimal physical properties at incorporation rates of 5 to 10%. Diatomaceous earth resulted in PO4-P retention not significantly different from the calcined clays. CALCINED MATERIALS AS COMPONENTS OF SOILLESS ROOT MEDIA: PHOSPHATE SORPTION CHARACTERISTICS AND EFFECTS ON PHOSPHATE AND WATER USE IN GREENHOUSE PRODUCTION OF IMPATIENS WALLERANA
The problem of truth and the ontological foundation of cognition

A cognitive task corresponds to asking two kinds of questions: HOW? WHY? , and answering respectively by descriptions or explanations. Modern science is built upon a self limitation, that is, " don't try the essences (natures) but limit to quantitative appearances " (letter by G. Galilei to M. Welser ,1612) which cuts off ontological investigations from the scientific program. Each separate appearance is extracted by a suitable measuring apparatus and ordered as an element of a metric space ,a whole is a collection of numbers corresponding to the measures of the appearances; whence the success of mathematics in scientific description. Regularities suggest stable correlations (the laws) with a validity domain established by falsification methods. The working language is " formal " and the truth of a proposition is its correspondence to the language rules. However, there remains two open problems, namely, i) the inverse reconstruction : how we organize appearances into coherent bodies and ii) the completeness of the direct approach: how, in the jargon of the Gestalt psychology, we select perceptual saliencies by picking up only a few among the many appearances which occur to our experience and consider these few ones as meaningful. The concept of meaning does not occur in descriptions but only in explanations. It appears in science as a meta-principle, as e.g. Darwinian fitness, but it is outside the set of rules which characterizes a formal language. We might try to extend the language by including the metarules , but it would be an endless effort. The pretension of a formal language to provide a complete description is incompatible with its coherence, unless one postulates a finitistic universe where all events and the corresponding evaluation procedures require a finite number of steps. These problems have been dealt with by two opposite investigation lines, loosely corresponding to the so called " analytic " and " continental " philosophers. The former ones identify philosophy with descriptions, reducing all problems to questions within a formal language. The second ones see cognition as intentional, that is, pointing at something but they leave open the question whether the cognitive features are outside or only inside our mind. The scientific endeavour seems to be within the first line and we have seen the development of different sciences, each one corresponding to a different group of descriptions, selected by picking up limited of measuring procedures and hence limited sets of appearances. On …
A Low-Cost and Accurate Indoor Localization Algorithm Using Label Propagation Based Semi-supervised Learning

We present a novel approach to indoor wireless localization using label propagation based on semi-supervised learning. Our aim is to reduce the effort of collecting labeled data in the offline training phrase, which are expensive to obtain. This learning algorithm combines labeled and unlabeled data in learning process to fully realize a global consistency assumption: similar data should have similar labels, which has intimate connections with random walks to propagate label through the dataset along high density areas defined by unlabeled data. We test our algorithm in 802.11 wireless LAN environments, and demonstrate the advantage of our approach in both accuracy and its ability to utilize a much smaller set of labeled training data.
Learning long-term dependencies using layered graph neural networks

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are a powerful tool for processing graphs, that represent a natural way to collect information coming from several areas of science and engineering — e.g. data mining, computer vision, molecular chemistry, molecular biology, pattern recognition —, where data are intrinsically organized in entities and relationships among entities. Nevertheless, GNNs suffer, so as recurrent/recursive models, from the long-term dependency problem that makes the learning difficult in deep structures. In this paper, we present a new architecture, called Layered GNN (LGNN), realized by a cascade of GNNs: each layer is fed with the original data and with the state information calculated by the previous layer in the cascade. Intuitively, this allows each GNN to solve a subproblem, related only to those patterns that were misclassified by the previous GNNs. Some experimental results are reported, based on synthetic and real-world datasets, which assess a significant improvement in performances w.r. t. the standard GNN approach.
Voltage and Dopant Concentration Measurements of Semiconductors using a Band-Pass Toroidal Energy Analyzer Inside a Scanning Electron Microscope

Abstract This paper presents experimental results obtained from a scanning electron microscope (SEM) second-order focusing toroidal electron energy analyzer attachment. The results demonstrate that the analyzer can be used to obtain high signal-to-noise voltage and dopant concentration measurements on semiconductors in the presence of different electric field conditions at the sample. The experimentally calculated relative error of measurement typically varies from 31 to 63, corresponding to secondary electron (SE) signal mean shifts of 9–18 mV. The millivolt accuracy of these results is over one order of magnitude better than earlier quantitative dopant concentration measurements made by a retarding field analyzer.
GU-MLT-LT: Sentiment Analysis of Short Messages using Linguistic Features and Stochastic Gradient Descent

This paper describes the details of our system submitted to the SemEval-2013 shared task on sentiment analysis in Twitter. Our approach to predicting the sentiment of Tweets and SMS is based on supervised machine learning techniques and task-specific feature engineering. We used a linear classifier trained by stochastic gradient descent with hinge loss and elastic net regularization to make our predictions, which were ranked first or second in three of the four experimental conditions of the shared task. Furthermore, our system makes use of social media specific text preprocessing and linguistically motivated features, such as word stems, word clusters and negation handling.
A uniqueness proof for the Wulff Theorem

Synopsis The Wulff problem is a generalisation of the isoperimetric problem and is relevant for the equilibrium of (small) elastic crystals. It consists in minimising the (generally anisotropic) surface energy among sets of given volume. A solution of this problem is given by a geometric construction due to Wulff. In the class of sets of finite perimeter this was first shown by J. E. Taylor who, using methods of geometric measure theory, also proved uniqueness. Here a more analytic uniqueness proof is presented. The main ingredient is a sharpened version of the Brunn–Minkowski inequality.
User-web interactions: how wholistic/analytic web users search the web?

User-Web interactions have emerged as an important research in the field of information science. In this study, we examine extensively the Web searching performed by general users. Our goal is to investigate the effects of users' cognitive styles on their Web search behavior in relation to two broad components: Information Searching and Information Processing Approaches. We use questionnaires, a measure of cognitive style, Web session logs and think-aloud as the data collection instruments. Our study findings show wholistic Web users tend to adopt a top-down approach to Web searching, where the users searched for a generic topic, and then reformulate their queries to search for specific information. They tend to prefer reading to process information. Analytic users tend to prefer a bottom-up approach to information searching and they process information by scanning search result pages.
Three-Dimensional Pseudomanifolds on Eight Vertices

A normal pseudomanifold is a pseudomanifold in which the links of simplices are also pseudomanifolds. So, a normal 2-pseudomanifold triangulates a connected closed 2-manifold. But, normal -pseudomanifolds form a broader class than triangulations of connected closed -manifolds for . Here, we classify all the 8-vertex neighbourly normal 3-pseudomanifolds. This gives a classification of all the 8-vertex normal 3-pseudomanifolds. There are 74 such 3-pseudomanifolds, 39 of which triangulate the 3-sphere and other 35 are not combinatorial 3-manifolds. These 35 triangulate six distinct topological spaces. As a preliminary result, we show that any 8-vertex 3-pseudomanifold is equivalent by proper bistellar moves to an 8-vertex neighbourly 3-pseudomanifold. This result is the best possible since there exists a 9-vertex nonneighbourly 3-pseudomanifold which does not allow any proper bistellar moves.