Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DIVE A multi-user virtual reality system

The Distributed Interactive Virtual Environment (DIVE) is a heterogeneous distributed virtual reality system based on UNIX and Internet networking protocols. Each participating process has a copy of a replicated database and changes are propagated to the other processes with reliable multicast protocols. DIVE provides a dynamic virtual environment where applications and users can enter and leave the environment on demand. Several user-related abstractions have been introduced to ease the task of application and user interface construction. <<ETX>>
Towards unified ad-hoc data processing

It is important to provide efficient execution for ad-hoc data processing programs. In contrast to constructing complex declarative queries, many users prefer to write their programs using procedural code with simple queries. As many users are not expert programmers, their programs usually exhibit poor performance in practice and it is a challenge to automatically optimize these programs and efficiently execute the programs. In this paper, we present UniAD, a system designed to simplify the programming of data processing tasks and provide efficient execution for user programs. We propose a novel intermediate representation named UniQL which utilizes HOQs to describe the operations performed in programs. By combining both procedural and declarative logics, we can perform various optimizations across the boundary between procedural and declarative codes. We describe optimizations and conduct extensive empirical studies using UniAD. The experimental results on four benchmarks demonstrate that our techniques can significantly improve the performance of a wide range of data processing programs.
DSPs, BRAMs and a Pinch of Logic: New Recipes for AES on FPGAs

We present an AES cipher implementation that is based on the BlockRAM and DSP units embedded within Xilinx's Virtex-5 FPGAs. An iterative "basic" module outputs a 32 bit column of an AES round each clock cycle, with a throughput of 1.76 Gbit/s when processing two 128 bit inputs. This construct is replicated four times for a 128 bit datapath for a full AES round with 6.21 Gbit/s throughput when processing eight inputs. Finally, the "round" module is replicated ten times for a fully unrolled design that yields over 55 Gbit/s of throughput. The combination and arrangement of the specialized embedded functions available in the FPGA allows us to implement our designs using very few traditional user logic elements such as flip-flops and lookup tables, yet still achieve these high throughputs. The complete source code for these designs is made publicly available for use in further research and for replicating our results. Our contribution ends with a discussion of comparing cipher implementations in the literature, and why these comparisons can be meaningless without a common reporting style, platform, or within the context of a specific constrained application.
Leukocyte Subset Changes in Response to a 164-km Road Cycle Ride in a Hot Environment

The purpose of this observational study was to determine the circulating leukocyte subset response to completing the 2013 Hotter’N Hell Hundred recreational 164-km road cycle event in a hot and humid environmental condition. Twenty-eight men and four women were included in this study. Whole blood samples were obtained 1–2 hours before (PRE) and immediately after (POST) the event. Electronic sizing/sorting and cytometry were used to determine complete blood counts (CBC) including neutrophil, monocyte, and lymphocyte subsets. The concentration of circulating total leukocytes (103·μL−1) increased 134% from PRE to POST with the greatest increase in neutrophils (319%, p<0.0001). Circulating monocytes (including macrophages) increased 24% (p=0.004) and circulating lymphocytes including B and T cells increased 53% (p<0.0001). No association was observed between rolling time or relative intensity and leukocyte subset. Completing the Hotter n′ Hell Hundred (HHH), a 100 mile recreational cycling race in extreme (hot and humid) environmental conditions, induces a substantial increase in total leukocytes in circulation. The contribution of increases in specific immune cell subsets is not equal, with neutrophils increasing to greater than 4-fold starting values from PRE to POST race. It is likely that exercise in stressful environmental conditions affects the complement of circulating immune cells, although activational state and characterization of specific leukocyte subsets remains unclear. The observed increase in circulating cell sub-populations suggests that the circulating immune surveillance system may be acutely affected by exercise in hot and humid conditions.
Separation of a mixture of independent sources through a maximum likelihood approach

Fig. 1. Absolute value of the crosstalk with respect to the number of samples (NS) used to estimate the cross cumulants. Each point is the average of 10 experiments. to estimate the cross-cumulants. Each point in Fig. 1 corresponds to the average over 10 experiments, in which the mixing matrix is randomly chosen: The matrix entries mC3 (i # j) are random numbers in the range [-1, +1]. With 500 samples, a residual crosstalk of about-20 dB is obtained. In the case of nonstationary signals, cross-cumulant estimation must be done on few samples and has a larger variance. Consequently, it can lead to more inaccurate estimation of the mixing matrix. We still obtained an interesting performance: a residual crosstalk of about-15 to-20 dB, with various signals (colored noise, speech) and statistics estimated over 500 samples. In this correspondence, we proved that the mixing matrix can be. estimated using fourth-ordercross-cumulants, for two mixtures of two non-Gaussian sources. Solutions are obtained by rooting a fourth-order polynomial equation. Using second-order cross-cumulants allows us to simplify the method; the solution is then obtained by rooting two second-order polynomial equations and gives the result if one source is Gaussian. The methods are then quite simple, but its roots are very sensitive to the accuracy of the estimated cumulants. In fact, this direct solution is less accurate than indirect methods, especially adaptive a l g o r i b s. Moreover, we restricted the study to the separation of two sources, and theoretical solutions for three sources or more seems not easily tractable. However, in the case of two mixtures of two sources, it may give a good starting point with a small computation cost for any adaptive algorithm. REFERENCES J.-F. Cardoso, " Blind identification of independent signals, " in Proc.
Emulated and software defined networking convergence

Emulab is a network testbed that provides network topologies defined by the user, in a controllable, predictable, and repeatable environment. It includes PC nodes with full access to the experimenter, running an operating system of his/her choice. Emulab works as a programmable patch panel to create an arbitrary topology by dynamically configuring network switches. The current approach that provides the switches programmability has strict requirements. These restrictions limit the models of switches to build an Emulab facility and demand a significant amount of work in the process of adding new switch models. This paper proposes the implementation of OpenFlow as an interface to configure the Emulab switches; this provides a new approach to add new switch models and improves the list of supported switches in Emulab with OpenFlow-compliant models.
EM threat analysis for wireless systems.

Modern digital radio systems are complex and must be carefully designed, especially when expected to operate in harsh propagation environments. The ability to accurately predict the effects of propagation on wireless radio performance could lead to more efficient radio designs as well as the ability to perform vulnerability analyses before and after system deployment. In this report, the authors--experts in electromagnetic (EM) modeling and wireless communication theory--describe the construction of a simulation environment that is capable of quantifying the effects of wireless propagation on the performance of digital communication.
Signal Reconstruction Using Cepstrum of Higher Order Statistics

— This paper presents an algorithm for reconstructing phase and magnitude responses of the impulse response when only the output data are available. The system is driven by a zero-mean independent identically distributed (i.i.d) non-Gaussian sequence that is not observed. The additive noise is assumed to be Gaussian. This is an important and essential problem in many practical applications of various science and engineering areas such as biomedical, seismic, and speech processing signals. The method is based on evaluating the bicepstrum of the third-order statistics of the observed output data. Simulations results are presented that demonstrate the performance of this method.
Seasonal export of carbon, nitrogen, and major solutes from Alaskan catchments with discontinuous permafrost

[1] Frequent measurements of stream chemistry during snowmelt and summer storms were used in three watersheds that differ in permafrost coverage (high, 53%; medium, 18%; and low, 4%) to determine the role of water flow paths on the fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, and major solutes from Alaskan catchments. Permafrost was important in the seasonal pattern of stream chemistry as there was a distinct shift in chemistry and flow from winter through snowmelt and into summer in the permafrost-dominated catchment. Furthermore, the active layer above the permafrost was important for the late summer release of NO3 and DOC, suggesting a deeper active layer may increase N and C loss in permafrost-dominated areas. Overall, permafrost constrained water flow to the active layer, resulting in higher DOC but lower dissolved mineral fluxes (Ca 2+ Mg 2+ K + Na + )i n the high-permafrost watershed than in the watersheds with less permafrost coverage. However, the decline in dissolved mineral fluxes was not linearly related to permafrost coverage across watersheds. The flux of weathering ions may also be explained by total water runoff, since the medium-permafrost watershed, which had the greatest runoff on an areal basis, yielded the greatest loss of all major elements (Ca 2+ Mg 2+ K + Na + SO4 NO3 NH4 Cl) except DOC. Despite differences among watersheds in permafrost coverage, hydrologic flow paths, area, and total runoff, all watersheds were net sources of every individual ions or elements (Cl ,P O4 ,S O4 , DOC, DON, NO3 ,N a + ,K + Mg 2+ , Ca 2+ ) except NH4 , which was a small fraction of the total N concentration in streams.
Speech processing using joint features derived from the modified group delay function

The paper discusses the significance of joint cepstral features derived from the modified group delay function and MFCC in speech processing. We start with a definition of cepstral features derived from the modified group delay function called the modified group delay feature (MODGDF) which is derived from the Fourier transform phase. Robustness issues like similarities of the MODGDF to RASTA and cepstral mean subtraction are discussed. The efficiency with which formants can be reconstructed for noisy cellular speech using joint features derived from early fusion is illustrated. The joint features are used for four speech processing tasks phoneme, syllable, speaker, and language recognition. Based on the results of analysis and performance evaluation, the significance of joint features derived from the MODGDF and MFCC are discussed.
Protocol for a qualitative study on promoting dietary change and positive food choices for poor people with low income who experience cardiovascular disease in Pakistan

Introduction There is a misconception that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the burden of wealthy nations, but, in fact, it is the leading cause of death and disability-adjusted life worldwide. Healthy diets are an essential factor in the prevention of CVD. However, promoting healthy diet is challenging, particularly for people with low-socioeconomic status (SES), because poverty is linked with many risk behaviours such as smoking, unhealthy eating and obesity. Multiple factors, cultural values and beliefs interact and make healthy eating very challenging. The effects of these factors in the context of low-SES populations with CVD are largely unknown. To address this gap, this study will examine the factors that affect decisions about consuming healthy diet in Pakistanis with low SES who suffer from CVD. Methods and analysis A qualitative method of interpretive description will be used. 25 participants will be selected from two cardiac rehabilitation (CR) centres in Karachi, Pakistan. Face-to-face interviews using a critical realist framework will be used to understand individual and contextual factors in the food choices of people with low SES and CVD. ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software will be used to identify themes and patterns in the interview data. Ethics and discussion Ethical approvals were received from the Ethics Review board of University of Alberta, Canada and Aga Khan University, Karachi Pakistan. The findings will generate new knowledge about which and how factors influence the food choices of Pakistanis with CVD and low SES to provide an insight into the development of an operational framework for designing interventions for prevention of CVD. For knowledge-translation purposes, we will publish the findings in highly accessed, peer-reviewed scientific and health policy journals at the national and international level. This research protocol received IRDC (International Development Research Centre) doctoral award from International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.
Evaluating sustainable appropriation of urban public parks

1 INTRODUCTION Urban public parks offer a great potential to raise the quality of life for urban citizens, while at the same time their creation and maintenance requires substantious amounts of money. Surveys have shown that citizens consider parks to be an important element for their well-being, even if used only occasionally. By offering opportunities for equal participation irrespective of gender, age, nationality or social-economic status, parks also enhance social sustainability. We consider social sustainability as the necessary element for the two remaining pillars of sustainability, namely economic and ecological. By equal participation, we mean the possibility for every potential and actual park user to engage in activities as desired, as long as these activities do not prohibit or discourage others to use the park. There are two processes opposing equal participation: First, if a park user leaves or does not show up at all because he or she does not feel comfortable in the park, we speak of processes of exclusion. If the space appropriation in the park is dominated by a certain group of visitors, then there are processes of domination.
Analysis of Probabilistic Cache Related Pre-emption Delays

This paper integrates analysis of probabilistic cache related pre-emption delays (pCRPD) and static probabilistic timing analysis (SPTA) for multipath programs running on a hardware platform that uses an evict-on-miss random cache replacement policy. The SPTA computes an upper bound on the probabilistic worst-case execution time (pWCET) of the program, which is an exceedance function giving the probability that the execution time of the program will exceed any given value on any particular run. The pCRPD analysis determines the maximum effect of a pre-emption on the pWCET. The integration between SPTA and pCRPD updates the pWCET to account for the effects of one or more pre-emptions at any arbitrary points in the program. This integration is a necessary step enabling effective schedulability analysis for probabilistic hard real-time systems that use pre-emptive or co-operative scheduling. The analysis is illustrated via a number of benchmark programs.
Intrusion Detection : Detecting Masquerade Attacks Using UNIX Command Lines

Masquerading attacks use legitimate means, such as valid usernames and passwords, to bypass safeguards ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information resources. Often these attacks originate from inside the organization. Attackers using valid credentials are difficult to detect without first generating a profile for the user credentials and then comparing user activity against established patterns. Significant anomalies in the user’s behavior patterns can be detected using a data mining-based classification algorithm. This project uses a naïve Bayes classifier to discover consistent and useful user behavior patterns which can then be used to discern anomalous behavior and known attacks. Experiments are performed by examining the data set comprised of truncated UNIX command sequences to detect masquerades based on the probability of commands.
Easy and fast evaluation of grasp stability by using ellipsoidal approximation of friction cone

This paper presents an easy and fast method of testing force closure when a multi-fingered hand grasps an object. Different from previous methods, we consider approximating the friction cone by using a few ellipsoids. By using this method, the total force/moment set applied to the grasped object can be obtained by a common set of multiple ellipsoids. This method is effective since we can test the force closure by simply calculating the inequalities of quadratic form. Moreover, by using the ellipsoidal approximation, we propose an easy method of evaluating the grasp stability. We show that the grasp stability can be calculated by using simple equations. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by several numerical examples where we show that the proposed method is fairly accurate and can evaluate the grasp stability faster than conventional methods.
The comparative biology of diving in two genera of European Dytiscidae (Coleoptera)

Surfacing behaviour is fundamental in the ecology of aquatic air‐breathing organisms; however, it is only in vertebrates that the evolutionary ecology of diving has been well characterized. Here, we explore the diving behaviour of dytiscid beetles, a key group of surface‐exchanging freshwater invertebrates, by comparing the dive responses of 25 taxa (Deronectes and Ilybius spp.) acclimated at two temperatures. The allometric slopes of dive responses in these dytiscids appear similar to those of vertebrate ectotherms, supporting the notion that metabolic mode shapes the evolution of diving performance. In both genera, beetles spend more time submerged than on the surface, and surface time does not vary with the temperature of acclimation. However, presumably in order to meet increased oxygen demand at higher temperatures, Deronectes species increase surfacing frequency, whereas Ilybius species decrease dive time, an example of ‘multiple solutions. ’ Finally, widespread northern species appear to possess higher diving performances than their geographically restricted southern relatives, something which may have contributed to their range expansion ability.
An Ontology based Hybrid Approach to Derive Multidimensional Schema for Data warehouse

Due to the diversity of data source data integration has become a challenging task. Data warehouse system plays a vital role to integrate the data for making important business decisions. Data within the data warehouse is arranged as multidimensional schema. In past many works exist to carry out the design of the multidimensional schema for data warehouse from either requirements and/or data sources. These approaches are either manual or automated which work with only relational sources. But as today the data warehouse system needs to deal with semi-structured and unstructured sources, the design task becomes much tedious. Recently, ontology has been very useful for different data integration projects. The use of ontology could solve the syntactic and semantic conflicts that arise from heterogeneous sources. It also provides a way for automating the design of multidimensional schema and populating the data warehouse in a more meaningful way. This paper proposes a framework using ontology for the design of multidimensional schema. Our framework uses a hybrid approach where the reconciliation of requirements and data source are done at the early stage of design. We adopt ontology reasoning in order to automatically derive multidimensional elements such as facts and dimensions.
Is Trust Necessary to Increase Loyalty in Adult Consumers?

The aim of this study is to examine if brand experience can predict brand loyalty of older adult consumers through brand trust. This cross-sectional study involved 390 Indonesian older adult consumers of a mineral water who completed a self-report questionnaire. Mediation analysis suggested that brand experience was significant for predicting brand loyalty, either directly or indirectly, suggesting partial mediation. This result further implied that older adult consumers’ experience of a brand can maintain ongoing brand loyalty.In addition, brand trust does not necessarily influence the relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty, which implies that experience is sufficient to maintain older adult consumers’ loyalty to the product. The limitations of this research and potential future research is also discussed
Infrastructure-assisted smartphone-based ADL recognition in multi-inhabitant smart environments

We propose a hybrid approach for recognizing complex Activities of Daily Living that lie between the two extremes of intensive use of body-worn sensors and the use of infrastructural sensors. Our approach harnesses the power of infrastructural sensors (e.g., motion sensors) to provide additional `hidden' context (e.g., room-level location) of an individual and combines this context with smartphone-based sensing of micro-level postural/locomotive states. The major novelty is our focus on multi-inhabitant environments, where we show how spatiotemporal constraints can be used to significantly improve the accuracy and computational overhead of traditional coupled-HMM based approaches. Experimental results on a smart home dataset demonstrate that this approach improves the accuracy of complex ADL classification by over 30% compared to pure smartphone-based solutions.