Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
"On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog": a twitter case study of anonymity in social networks

Twitter does not impose a Real-Name policy for usernames, giving users the freedom to choose how they want to be identified. This results in some users being Identifiable (disclosing their full name) and some being Anonymous (disclosing neither their first nor last name). In this work we perform a large-scale analysis of Twitter to study the prevalence and behavior of Anonymous and Identifiable users. We employ Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) to classify Twitter users as Highly Identifiable, Identifiable, Partially Anonymous, and Anonymous. We find that a significant fraction of accounts are Anonymous or Partially Anonymous, demonstrating the importance of Anonymity in Twitter. We then select several broad topic categories that are widely considered sensitive--including pornography, escort services, sexual orientation, religious and racial hatred, online drugs, and guns--and find that there is a correlation between content sensitivity and a user's choice to be anonymous. Finally, we find that Anonymous users are generally less inhibited to be active participants, as they tweet more, lurk less, follow more accounts, and are more willing to expose their activity to the general public. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to conduct a large-scale data-driven analysis of user anonymity in online social networks.
PathART: path-sensitive adaptive random testing

As test data widely spreading on the input domain may not thoroughly test the program's logic, in this paper, we propose an approach to generating test data widely spreading on a program's execution paths. In particular, we analyze execution paths of the program, distill constraints for executing the paths, calculate the path distance between test data according to their satisfaction for paths' constraints, and then generate test data far away from each other based on their path distance. The experimental results show that our approach significantly reduces the number of test data generated before the first fault is found.
An Efficient Method for Rendering Underwater Optical Effects Using Graphics Hardware

The display of realistic natural scenes is one of the most important research areas in computer graphics. Therendering of water is one of the essential components. This paper proposes an efficient method for renderingimages of scenes within water. For underwater scenery, the shafts of light and caustics are attractive and importantelements. However, computing these effects is difficult and time‐consuming since light refracts when passingthrough waves. To address the problem, our method makes use of graphics hardware to accelerate the computation.Our method displays the shafts of light by accumulating the intensities of streaks of light by using hardware colorblending functions. Making use of a Z‐buffer and a stencil buffer accelerates the rendering of caustics. Moreover,by using a shadow mapping technique, our method can display shafts of light and caustics taking account ofshadows due to objects.
Fetch-and-carry with CERO: observations from a long-term user study with a service robot

This paper describes the motivation, methodology, and findings of a long-term usage study of CERO, a service robot intended to assist partly motion-impaired people with the transportation of light objects in an office environment. We describe the user's experiences with utilizing the robot over a period of 3 months, and the overall process of adapting service robot usage as part of a workgroup setting. The results of the study suggest the need for different modes of operation of a robot. We also question the view of service robots as personalized devices only, and point out the importance of providing transitions between remote- and close proximity control in the use of service robots.
Linear High-Order Distributed Average Consensus Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents a linear high-order distributed average consensus (DAC) algorithm for wireless sensor networks. The average consensus property and the convergence rate of the high-order DAC algorithm are analyzed. In particular, the convergence rate is determined by the spectral radius of a network topology-dependent matrix. Numerical results indicate that this simple linear high-order DAC algorithm can accelerate the convergence without additional communication overhead and reconfiguration of network topology.
Parameter investigation in brain storm optimization

Human being is the most intelligent organism in the world and the brainstorming process popularly used by them has been demonstrated to be a significant and promising way to create great ideas for problem solving. Brain storm optimization (BSO) is a new kind of swarm intelligence algorithm inspired by human being creative problem solving process. BSO transplants the brainstorming process in human being into optimization algorithm design and gains successes. BSO generally uses the grouping, replacing, and creating operators to produce ideas as many as possible to approach the problem solution generation by generation. In these operators, BSO involves mainly three control parameters named: (1) p_replce to control the replacing operator; (2) p_one to control the creating operator to create new ideas between one cluster and two clusters; and (3) p_center (p_one_center and p_two_center) to control using cluster center or random idea to create new idea. In this paper, we make investigations on these parameters to see how they affect the performance of BSO. More importantly, a new BSO variant designed according to the investigation results is proposed and its performance is evaluated.
The continuum limit of the quark mass step scaling function in quenched lattice QCD

The renormalisation group running of the quark mass is determined non-perturbatively for a large range of scales, by computing the step scaling function in the Schr? dinger Functional formalism of quenched lattice QCD both with and without O(a) improvement. A one-loop perturbative calculation of the discretisation effects has been carried out for both the Wilson and the Clover-improved actions and for a large number of lattice resolutions. The non-perturbative computation yields continuum results which are regularisation independent, thus providing convincing evidence for the uniqueness of the continuum limit. As a byproduct, the ratio of the renormalisation group invariant quark mass to the quark mass, renormalised at a hadronic scale, is obtained with very high accuracy.
Extracting Multi-facet Community Structure from Bipartite Networks

Bipartite networks can represent various kinds of structures, dynamics, and interaction patterns found in social activities. M. E. J. Newman proposed a measure by which you can quantitatively evaluate the quality of network division, but his work is only applicable to uniform networks. This article extends his work and proposes a new modularity measure that can be applied to bipartite networks as well. Unlike the biparitite modularity measures previously proposed, the new measure acknowledges the fact that each individual in the society has more than just one aspect, and can thus be used to extract multi-faceted community structures from bipartite networks. The mathematical properties of the proposal is examined and compared with previous work. Empirical evaluation is conducted by using a data set synthesized from an artificial model and a real-life data set found in the field of ethnography.
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization and International Atomic Energy Agency the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Exploratory Analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data

The present contribution briefly reviews the state-of-the-art in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data exploratory analysis. Hypothesis-driven methods are discussed in contrast with data-driven model-free techniques in the context of processing and interpretation of brain imaging data. The specificity of applying various exploratory methods to fMRI time series is highlighted and, consequently, their benefits and limitations are comparatively pointed out and typified by experimental investigations reported in literature and by our own research as well. The emphasis is put on the independent component analysis (ICA) considered as a promising data-driven multivariate approach to neuroimaging data analysis. ICA is based on a minimum of statistical assumptions on the latent sources, namely non-Gaussianity and mutual independence, and it allows to discover in data feature reporting on the organization of the nervous system. In this respect, we reconsidered some previously published data on neural substrates of response inhibition in a visuo-motor task and which, subject of ICA, revealed activity predominantly localized to auditory regions, with time courses consistent with the experimental paradigm. Our results concluded that exploratory approaches can discover activity in fMRI data beyond that predicted in advance and modeled as regressors in a linear model, so that new independent regressors may be added in a linear model with potential benefits in model accuracy and physiological interpretation.
Single Instance Storage in Windows (cid:1) 2000

Certain applications, such as Windows 2000’s Remote Install service, can result in a set of files in which many different files have the same content. Using a traditional file system to store these files separately results in excessive use of disk and main memory file cache space. Using hard or symbolic links would eliminate the excess resource requirements, but changes the semantics of having separate files, in that updates to one “copy” of a file would be visible to users of another “copy. ” We describe the Single Instance Store (SIS), a component within Windows ® 2000 that implements links with the semantics of copies for files stored on a Windows 2000 NTFS volume. SIS uses copy-on-close to implement the copy semantics of its links. SIS is structured as a file system filter driver that implements links and a user level service that detects duplicate files and reports them to the filter for conversion into links. Because SIS links are semantically identical to separate files, SIS creates them automatically when it detects files with duplicate contents. This paper describes the design and implementation of SIS in detail, briefly presents measurements of a remote install server showing a 58% disk space savings by using SIS, and discusses other possible uses of SIS.
The Accuracy of Sub-Pixel Localisation in the Canny Edge Detector

We examine the accuracy of the sub-pixel location of edges in the Canny detector using a discrete step edge model and Monte-Carlo simulation. Comparison is made with previously published analysis in the continuous domain. In this paper we identify potential systematic errors due to a combination of the width of the smoothing kernel and the quadratic interpolation scheme which we show can be reduced to less than one-fiftieth of a pixel with lookup table. We present data which permits prediction of the likely error in the sub-pixel estimate as a function of grey level step height in the presence of noise.
Role of protein tyrosine phosphatases in the regulation of interferon‐γ‐induced macrophage nitric oxide generation: implication of ERK pathway and AP‐1 activation

NO is a potent molecule involved in the cytotoxic events mediated by macrophages (MØ) against microorganisms. We reported previously that inhibition of MØ protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) mediates a protective effect against Leishmania infection, which was NO‐dependent. Herein, we show that the PTP inhibitors of the peroxovanadium (pV) class, bpV(phen) and bpV(pic), can similarly increase murine MØ IFN‐γ‐induced NO generation. Using various second messenger (JAK2, MEK, Erk1/Erk2, and p38) antagonists, we found that the Erk1/Erk2 pathway was the principal pathway submitted to regulation by PTPs in the context of IFN‐γ‐driven MØ activation and increase in NO production. We observed that bpV(phen) increases inducible NO synthase (iNOS) expression, resulting in enhanced NO production, whereas the bpV(pic) increase of NO production does not seem to result from a modulation of iNOS expression. Transcription factors STAT‐1α and NF‐κB, recognized for their importance in NO generation, were not affected by the pV treatment. However, AP‐1 was strongly activated by bpV(phen) but not by bpV(pic). Collectively, our results suggest that increased IFN‐γ‐induced NO production, observed after bpV(phen) treatment, involves the activation of the transcription factor AP‐1 by Erk1/Erk2‐ and stress‐activated protein kinase/JNK‐dependent transduction mechanisms.
Fra-1 is a key driver of colon cancer metastasis and a Fra-1 classifier predicts disease-free survival

Fra-1 (Fos-related antigen-1) is a member of the AP-1 (activator protein-1) family of transcription factors. We previously showed that Fra-1 is necessary for breast cancer cells to metastasize in vivo, and that a classifier comprising genes that are expressed in a Fra-1-dependent fashion can predict breast cancer outcome. Here, we show that Fra-1 plays an important role also in colon cancer progression. Whereas Fra-1 depletion does not affect 2D proliferation of human colon cancer cells, it impairs growth in soft agar and in suspension. Consistently, subcutaneous tumors formed by Fra-1-depleted colon cancer cells are three times smaller than those produced by control cells. Most remarkably, when injected intravenously, Fra-1 depletion causes a 200-fold reduction in tumor burden. Moreover, a Fra-1 classifier generated by comparing RNA profiles of parental and Fra-1-depleted colon cancer cells can predict the prognosis of colon cancer patients. Functional pathway analysis revealed Wnt as one of the central pathways in the classifier, suggesting a possible mechanism of Fra-1 function in colon cancer metastasis. Our results demonstrate that Fra-1 is an important determinant of the metastatic potential of human colon cancer cells, and that the Fra-1 classifier can be used as a prognostic predictor in colon cancer patients.
Prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) experience a markedly increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but the causal factors have yet to be completely elucidated. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a cluster of risk factors of CVD and identifies additional cardiovascular risk beyond the sum of its individual components. In this study, we investigated the prevalence of MetS and its possible relationship with disease-related factors in patients with RA. MATERIAL AND METHODS Fifty-two patients with RA and 30 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were studied. Adult Treatment Panel III of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP-ATP III) and modified World Health Organization (WHO) criteria were used to define MetS. RA disease activity is assessed by the disease activity score of 28 joints (DAS28), and the functional status of patients was evaluated by Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ). RESULTS Although there was no difference between groups regarding the frequency of MetS according to NCEP-ATP III criteria (17.3% and 6.5% in RA and control groups, respectively (p=0.158)) if modified WHO criteria were used, the prevalence of MetS was significantly higher in patients with RA (28.8%) than in controls (9.7%) (p=0.04). Central obesity and hypertension were found to be more frequent in patients with RA by both NCEP-ATP III and WHO criteria. RA patients with MetS had higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure, BMI and frequency of smoking than patients without MetS. Disease-related factors were similar in RA patients with or without MetS. CONCLUSION The evaluation of patients with RA for MetS, which is a multidimensional risk factor of CVD, may be beneficial.
Experimental investigation on mass transfer for regeneration of liquid desiccant

Desiccants can be used in conjunction with solar en ergy to provide a viable alternative to traditional air conditioning techniques. Liquid desiccant regeneration was prove d to be an effective method to extract the moisture from solution with a relatively less energy in order to regenerate the desiccant. An exp erimental study was carried out to analyze the effe ct of temperature for regeneration process using an injected air through the liquid de siccant solution (calcium chloride dihydrate) by a dryer. Many tests with different operating conditions such as air temperature, humid ity ratio, air velocity and solution level are inve stigated in order to demonstrate that this salt is capable to absorb moisture and can be reg nerated at a low temperature. Experimental resu ts howed that the mass transfer is affected by the air conditions. Also, the vapour pr essure difference between the air and liquid desicc ant surface is the driving force of the mass transfer process. In this analysis it was also determined that the CaCl 2.2H2O could be regenerated at low temperature around 48 to 60°C hence the possibility of using the flat plate s olar collectors for its regeneration and this salt c n be used in a system (LDCS).
The termination competition 2006

The third Termination Competition took place in June 2006. We present the background, results and conclusions of this competition. 1 Motivation and history In the past decades several techniques have been developed to prove termination of programs and rewrite systems. In the late nineties the emphasis in this research shifted towards automation: for a new tech- nique the nal goal was not to use it by hand in order to prove termi- nation of a number of systems, but to implement it in such a way that termination proofs could be found fully automatically using a com- puter. Since around 2000 several tools were developed for this goal. In 2003 the idea came up to organize a competition on these tool by developing an extensive set of termination problems called TPDB (ter- mination problem data base), and run the tools on them and compare the results. The main objectives for such a competition were and are:
Integrating Line Tracking and 2D Haar Wavelet response for palmprint identification

The progress of palmprint identification has become more advanced. Efforts to produce this kind of biometric recognition have been focused on the accuracy and speed to recognize. The critical part of recognition is features representations. It must be distinctive yet produce sparse data distribution and later could be used to differentiate intended classes. This paper proposes Line Tracking that is utilized in order to detect line points to be integrated with 2D Haar Wavelet (2D HW) as the descriptors. Recognition is evaluated by matching the feature vectors to consider who own the palmprint. The provided class is constrained into only registered users. Achieved average matching score is 97.27% using 10-fold cross-validation.
Waning Immunity Is Associated with Periodic Large Outbreaks of Mumps: A Mathematical Modeling Study of Scottish Data

Vaccination programs for childhood diseases, such as measles, mumps and rubella have greatly contributed to decreasing the incidence and impact of those diseases. Nonetheless, despite long vaccination programmes across the world, mumps has not yet been eradicated in those countries: indeed, large outbreaks continue. For example, in Scotland large outbreaks occurred in 2004, 2005, and 2015, despite introducing the MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella) vaccine more than 20 years ago. There are indications that this vaccine-preventable disease is re-emerging in highly vaccinated populations. Here we investigate whether the resurgence of mumps is due to waning immunity, and further, could a booster dose be the solution to eradicate mumps or would it just extend the period of waning immunity? Using mathematical modeling we enhance a seasonally-structured disease model with four scenarios: no vaccination, vaccinated individuals protected for life, vaccinated individuals at risk of waning immunity, and introduction of measures to increase immunity (a third dose, or a better vaccine). The model is parameterised from observed clinical data in Scotland 2004–2015 and the literature. The results of the four scenarios are compared with observed clinical data 2004–2016. While the force of infection is relatively sensitive to the duration of immunity and the number of boosters undertaken, we conclude that periodic large outbreaks of mumps will be sustained for all except the second scenario. This suggests that the current protocol of two vaccinations is optimal in the sense that while there are periodic large outbreaks, the severity of cases in vaccinated individuals is less than in unvaccinated individuals, and the size of the outbreaks does not decrease sufficiently with a third booster to make economic sense. This recommendation relies on continuous efforts to maintain high levels of vaccination uptake.
3D edutainment environment: learning physics through VR/AR experiences

Virtual Reality (VR) as well as Augmented Reality (AR) environment can be used as media for edutaining. They provide pleasant environments for educating students through experiences. In this paper, we present a 3D edutainment environment which provides an experience-based learning environment for understanding the Newtonian physics law. We design a physics-based simulation application that simulates a domino effect in the 3D environment. Using this application, the user can learn physics by interacting and experiencing different kinds of domino effect in the VR/AR environment. We propose a new way to help the user tuning the simulation conditions to produce a desired simulation effect by illustrating an expected trajectory of the object of interest. Therefore, the user can easily distinguish the simulation results from different configurations by comparing the trajectories of the selected object.
Design and evaluation of time-interleaved variable center-frequency sigma-delta modulators

In this paper, a procedure for the design of time-interleaved variable center-frequency sigma-delta modulator is developed and presented. The proposed sigma-delta modulators will be suitable for high performance data conversion in Global Navigation Satellite Systems applications. By the application of this method, different orders of a generalized multi-path topology that can operate at any arbitrary center-frequency from DC to Nyquist are constructed using delayed-resonators. This topology is well-suited for Butterworth, Chebyshev and Inverse-Chebyshev loop-filters, where designers have the flexibility of specifying the center-frequency, attenuation parameters as well as the bandwidth. Detailed simulations are performed at the behavioral level using non-idealities such as non-unity gains and leaky resonators and their effects on the signal-to-noise ratios are evaluated.