Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recursive mechanism: towards node differential privacy and unrestricted joins

Existing differential privacy (DP) studies mainly consider aggregation on data sets where each entry corresponds to a particular participant to be protected. In many situations, a user may pose a relational algebra query on a database with sensitive data, and desire differentially private aggregation on the result of the query. However, no existing work is able to release such aggregation when the query contains unrestricted join operations. This severely limits the applications of existing DP techniques because many data analysis tasks require unrestricted joins. One example is subgraph counting on a graph. Furthermore, existing methods for differentially private subgraph counting support only edge DP and are subject to very simple subgraphs. Until recent, whether any nontrivial graph statistics can be released with reasonable accuracy for arbitrary kind of input graphs under node DP was still an open problem. In this paper, we propose a novel differentially private mechanism that supports unrestricted joins, to release an approximation of a linear statistic of the result of some positive relational algebra calculation over a sensitive database. The error bound of the approximate answer is roughly proportional to the empirical sensitivity of the query --- a new notion that measures the maximum possible change to the query answer when a participant withdraws its data from the sensitive database. For subgraph counting, our mechanism provides a solution to achieve node DP, for any kind of subgraphs.
Single and binary black holes and their influe nce on nuclear structure

Massive central objects affect both the structure and evolution of galactic nuclei. Adiabatic growth of black holes generates power-law central density profiles with logarithmic slopes in the range from ~1.5 to ~2.5, in good agreement with the profiles observed in the nuclei of galaxies fainter than visual magnitude -20. However the shallow nuclear profiles of bright galaxies require a different explanation. Binary black holes are an inevitable result of galactic mergers, and the ejection of stars by a massive binary displaces a mass of order the binary's own mass, creating a core or shallow power-law cusp. This model is at least crudely consistent with core sizes in bright galaxies. Uncertainties remain about the effectiveness of stellar- and gas-dynamical processes at inducing coalescence of binary black holes, and uncoalesced binaries may be common in low-density nuclei.
Reliability Estimates for Regression Predictions: Performance Analysis

In machine learning, the reliability estimates for individual predictions provide more information about individual prediction error than the average accuracy of predictive model (e.g. relative mean squared error). Such reliability estimates may represent decisive information in the risk-sensitive applications of machine learning (e.g. medicine, engineering, and business), where they enable the users to distinguish between more and less reliable predictions. In the atuhors’ previous work they proposed eight reliability estimates for individual examples in regression and evaluated their performance. The results showed that the performance of each estimate strongly varies depending on the domain and regression model properties. In this paper they empirically analyze the dependence of reliability estimates’ performance on the data set and model properties. They present the results which show that the reliability estimates perform better when used with more accurate regression models, in domains with greater number of examples and in domains with less noisy data.
Parsing the Past - Identification of Verb Constructions in Historical Text

Even though NLP tools are widely used for contemporary text today, there is a lack of tools that can handle historical documents. Such tools could greatly facilitate the work of researchers dealing with large volumes of historical texts. In this paper we propose a method for extracting verbs and their complements from historical Swedish text, using NLP tools and dictionaries developed for contemporary Swedish and a set of normalisation rules that are applied before tagging and parsing the text. When evaluated on a sample of texts from the period 1550--1880, this method identifies verbs with an F-score of 77.2% and finds a partially or completely correct set of complements for 55.6% of the verbs. Although these results are in general lower than for contemporary Swedish, they are strong enough to make the approach useful for information extraction in historical research. Moreover, the exact match rate for complete verb constructions is in fact higher for historical texts than for contemporary texts (38.7% vs. 30.8%).
Assessment of Pregnancy Status, Malaria Knowledge and Malaria Fever Morbidity among Women of Reproductive Ages in Nigeria

Abstract Background Malaria is one the major health problem in Nigeria. During pregnancy, it poses serious threat to the survival of both unborn foetus and the mothers. This study determined the effect of adequate malaria knowledge and pregnancy status of women on use of mosquito nets and reported malaria fever morbidity. Methods The data were collected during the Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS) from 4632 women. Data analyses were carried out with descriptive statistics and Seemingly Unrelated Bivariate Probit regression. Results Results show that 13.19% of the women were pregnant, of which about one-third slept under mosquito nets. Also, 25.26% reported malaria associated fever in the previous two weeks to the time of interview, while 78.28% correctly answered that mosquitoes are responsible for malaria. Knowledge on malaria prevention was low with 55.70% and 14.93% indicating sleeping under mosquito nets and ITN, respectively. Probability of sleeping under mosquito nets significantly increased with knowing that sleeping under mosquito nets and ITN could prevent malaria while it decreased with having fever, age, urban residence and knowing that use of mosquito spray and coil can prevent malaria. The probability of having fever increased significantly with household size, being pregnant and age at first birth but decreased with age, knowing that sleeping under ITN, cutting grasses and closing door/windows would prevent malaria. Conclusions Use of mosquito nets among the women was low. Also, efforts to enhance their knowledge on malaria prevention and ensuring adequate access to mosquito nets especially for pregnant women would curtail the impact of malaria.
Notice of RetractionStudy on pressure-sensitivity of PU/PVDF blend hollow fiber membrane filtration

Compared with the filtration performance of PVDF hollow fiber membrane, pressure-sensitivity of Polyurethane/polyvinylidene difluoride (PU/PVDF) blend membrane filtration was studied. The experiment results showed that while operating either under external pressure or internal pressure, membrane flux and trans-membrane pressure (TMP) of the blend membrane appeared non-linear relationship, membrane resistance and membrane flux presented a positive correlation. In addition, for membrane resistance stabilization, the membrane filtration process need to keep up 30min in a constant-flux. It could be analyzed that with the change of working conditions, the structure of micro-void changed accordingly, so the blend membrane exhibit pressure-responsibility. This performance of the blend membrane could enhance recovery of membrane flux, and mitigate membrane fouling during membrane filtering raw water by coagu-flocculation preprocessing.
Molecular analysis of the duck plague virus US10 gene and its encoding protein

In the past years, a number of conventional and advanced bioinformatics methods have been employed for predicting gene structure and function. Here, we used many bioinformatics softwares to analyse the duck plague virus US10 gene (GenBank accession number: EU195084). The results indicated that this gene encoded an estimated 322 putative protein, contained the conserved domain of the Gene66 (IR5) protein. The protein found many functional sites, but without any transmembrane region and signal peptide. Secondary structure prediction showed that random coil (52.48%) and alpha helix (44.10%) had a high proportion. Analysis of the antigenicity indicated that in the position of 28-44, 100-120 and 302-322 amino acids distributed the most likely epitopes. Phylogenetic tree of the amino acids sequences showed this gene had a closer evolutionary relationship with Mardivirus. These results provided rational data to elucidate biological function and physiological features of the gene and its encoding protein.
Theories for Ubiquitous Processes and Data Platform for a 15-year Grand Challenge

Overview This paper is written as background for a proposed Grand Challenge in Computing Research, entitled Science for Global Ubiquitous Computing. The paper has a specific purpose: to trace the evolution of theoretical models for distributed and mobile computing, and the mutual influence between these models on the one hand and software design and development on the other. It also discusses many concepts that are necessary for understanding global and ubiquitous computing. Some predictions are given of what may be achieved towards the Grand Challenge within the short term.
Transverse measures, the modular class, and a cohomology pairing for Lie algebroids

We show that every Lie algebroid A over a manifold P has a natural representation on the line bundle QA = ∧ top A ⊗ ∧ top TP. The line bundle QA may be viewed as the Lie algebroid analog of the orientation bundle in topology, and sections of QA may be viewed as transverse measures to A. As a consequence, there is a well-defined class in the first Lie algebroid cohomology H 1 (A) called the modular class of the Lie algebroid A. This is the same as the one introduced earlier by Weinstein using the Poisson structure on A � . We show that there is a natural pairing between the Lie algebroid cohomology spaces of A with trivial coefficients and with coefficients inQA. This generalizes the pairing used in the Poincare duality of finite-dimensional Lie algebra cohomology. The case of holomorphic Lie algebroids is also discussed, where the existence of the modular class is connected with the Chern class of the line bundle QA.
Nano-CF: A coordination framework for macro-programming in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are being used for a number of applications involving infrastructure monitoring, building energy monitoring and industrial sensing. The difficulty of programming individual sensor nodes and the associated overhead have encouraged researchers to design macro-programming systems which can help program the network as a whole or as a combination of subnets. Most of the current macro-programming schemes do not support multiple users seamlessly deploying diverse applications on the same shared sensor network. As WSNs are becoming more common, it is important to provide such support, since it enables higher-level optimizations such as code reuse, energy savings, and traffic reduction. In this paper, we propose a macro-programming framework called Nano-CF, which, in addition to supporting in-network programming, allows multiple applications written by different programmers to be executed simultaneously on a sensor networking infrastructure. This framework enables the use of a common sensing infrastructure for a number of applications without the users being concerned about the applications already deployed on the network. The framework also supports timing constraints and resource reservations using the Nano-RK operating system. Nano-CF is efficient at improving WSN performance by (a) combining multiple user programs, (b) aggregating packets for data delivery, and (c) satisfying timing and energy specifications using Rate-Harmonized Scheduling. Using representative applications, we demonstrate that Nano-CF achieves 90% reduction in Source Lines-of-Code (SLoC) and 50% energy savings from aggregated data delivery.
Mathematical Correction for Fingerprint Similarity Measures to Improve Chemical Retrieval

In many modern chemoinformatics systems, molecules are represented by long binary fingerprint vectors recording the presence or absence of particular features or substructures, such as labeled paths or trees, in the molecular graphs. These long fingerprints are often compressed to much shorter fingerprints using a simple modulo operation. As the length of the fingerprints decreases, their typical density and overlap tend to increase, and so does any similarity measure based on overlap, such as the widely used Tanimoto similarity. Here we show that this correlation between shorter fingerprints and higher similarity can be thought of as a systematic error introduced by the fingerprint folding algorithm and that this systematic error can be corrected mathematically. More precisely, given two molecules and their compressed fingerprints of a given length, we show how a better estimate of their uncompressed overlap, hence of their similarity, can be derived to correct for this bias. We show how the correction can be implemented not only for the Tanimoto measure but also for all other commonly used measures. Experiments on various data sets and fingerprint sizes demonstrate how, with a negligible computational overhead, the correction noticeably improves the sensitivity and specificity of chemical retrieval.
Are you sure about that? On the origins of confidence in concept learning

Humans possess a rich repertoire of abstract concepts about which they can often judge their confidence. These judgements help guide behaviour, but the mechanisms underlying them are still poorly understood. Here, we examine the evolution of people’s sense of confidence as they engage in probabilistic concept learning. Participants learned a continuous function of four continuous features, reporting their predictions and confidence about these predictions. Participants indeed had insight into their uncertainties: confidence was correlated with the accuracy of predictions, increasing as learning progressed. There were substantial individual differences. In contrast to many classical models that try to explain only the predictions, we formalized human function learning in Bayesian terms as Gaussian process inference. This model generates posterior distributions, allowing us to link predictions and confidence judgements. Gaussian process inference well matched participants’ predictions, and also the confidence judgements of metacognitively competent participants. Our results show that human confidence judgements during learning are tied to uncertainty, suggesting that concept learning is fundamentally probabilistic.
Analysis of stabilization circuits for phase-noise reduction in microwave oscillators

Two configurations for oscillator phase-noise reduction using stabilization circuits have been demonstrated in the literature. One of them is based on the self-injection of the oscillator signal, after it passes through a long delay line or a high-quality-factor resonator. The second one is a stabilization loop, containing a frequency discriminator. In this paper, an in-depth analytical comparison of these two configurations, respectively based on injection locking and phase-locking principles, is presented. Analytical expressions are provided for the variation of the steady-state solution and its phase noise versus the parameters of the feedback network. The expressions are rigorously validated with harmonic balance. Instabilities reported by other authors are investigated through bifurcation analysis. The new expressions enable a good understanding of the amplitude and frequency jumps and sharp phase-noise maxima obtained simulations and measurements versus the feedback parameters. A practical 5-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator has also been implemented, for validation purposes.
A FRAMEWORK FOR PROGRAMMATIC CONTROL OF ANIMATION OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL CHARACTERS

Our objective is to add a significant level of automation to the process of animating human and animal avatars using commercially available animation packages. One of possible solutions is controlling the animation in an external unit. The proposed framework, called KINE+ supports importing a 3D model data from an animation package, a bone-based animation control and, finally, exporting the generated motion definitions back to a 3D package. Two applications have been also presented.
Chromospheric Ca II Emission in Nearby F, G, K, and M Stars

We present chromospheric Ca II H and K activity measurements, rotation periods, and ages for ∼1200 F, G, K, and M type main-sequence stars from ∼18,000 archival spectra taken at Keck and Lick Observatories as a part of the California and Carnegie Planet Search Project. We have calibrated our chromospheric S-values against the Mount Wilson chromospheric activity data. From these measurements we have calculated median activity levels and derived R, stellar ages, and rotation periods from general parameterizations for 1228 stars, ∼1000 of which have no previously published S-values. We also present precise time series of activity measurements for these stars.
Experiments on the Tactile Effects of a Sound-Specific Vibration Interface

In this paper, we present the tactile effects of a sound-specific vibration interface. The sound-specific vibration interface generates vibration patterns with varying frequencies of sound by activating 16 oscillators in a 4times4 array within a set time frame. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of this vibration interface depending on the position of the body to which it is attached and the types of vibration patterns it produces. In addition, we also compare the results of the vibration device with those of two other vibration interfaces: a vibrating mouse and a vibrating head-set. In the survey, participants played a first person shooting game, wearing one of the three mentioned vibration interfaces The results of the surveys show that the sound specific vibration interface is more effective than the other vibration devices and most effective when attached to the shoulder. The survey on different patterns of vibrations also indicate that a certain vibration pattern is more effective than others.
Path planning with general end-effector constraints: using task space to guide configuration space search

In this paper, we address the path planning problem with general end-effector constraints (PPGEC) for robot manipulators. Two approaches are proposed. The first approach is adapted from an existing randomized gradient descent (RGD) method for closed-chain robots. The second approach is radically different. We call it ATACE alternate task-space and configuration-space exploration. Unlike the first approach which searches purely in C-space, ATACE works in both task space and C-space. It explores the task space for end-effector paths satisfying given constraints, and utilizes trajectory tracking technique(s) as a local planner(s) to track these paths in the configuration space. We have implemented both approaches and compare their relative performances in different scenarios. ATACE outperforms RGD in majority (but not all) of the scenarios. We outline intuitive explanations for the relative performances of these two approaches.
A Complete Bangla OCR System for Printed Chracters

Bangla character recognition is very important field of research because Bangla is most popular language in the Indian subcontinent. Research on Bangla character recognition has been started since mid 1980’s. Different types of techniques already applied and the performance is examined. This paper is a complete Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system for printed Bangla characters. Preprocessing steps includes binarization, noise removal, skew detection and correction, segmentation in various levels and scaling. Features are extracted from scaled character and Freeman chain code used for representing a character. Multilayer feed forward neural network is used to classify and recognize character.
Traffic stops, race, and perceptions of fairness

ABSTRACT Traffic stops are the most common reason for face-to-face encounters between police officers and citizens. Contact with police can affect citizens’ behaviour toward the police, particularly when citizens perceive unfair treatment by officers during these encounters. Yet, few studies have examined how experiencing a traffic stop affects citizens’ decisions to seek assistance from police or report non-crime emergencies. This study analysed data from the Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS) to examine (a) the relationship between experiencing traffic stops and calling police for help and/or to report non-crime emergencies and (b) why perceptions of fairness and reasons for the traffic stop might affect these outcomes across different racial/ethnic categories. Results from multivariate logistic regression models show that citizens stopped for traffic violations are significantly less likely to seek help from the police and/or to report non-crime emergencies compared to those with other types of face-to-face police contacts. Additionally, those who perceived unfair treatment during traffic stops were less likely to report non-crime emergencies compared to those who felt the police treated them fairly. The effects of perception of fairness and the reason for a stop on reporting non-crime emergencies were significantly different among Hispanic citizens compared to White citizens. Policy implications of the results are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided.
Optical network control overlay using silicon VOA arrays

A silicon-based variable optical attenuator (VOA) is used to overlay optical control data on an underlying high-speed optical data channel. We demonstrate experimentally the addition of a 10.7-MHz (5 Kb/s) control subcarrier with <1-dB penalty to a high-speed channel (500 Mb/s) and quantify the penalty versus control data rate. The modest modulation bandwidth of the VOA enables control subcarriers at frequencies sufficiently high to avoid gain saturation-induced crosstalk in erbium amplifiers, while using the same devices required for channel gain equalization or power control. At OC-192 data rates, we predict that control-channel data rates of 10 Kb/s can be tolerated with <0.5-dB penalty.