Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compiled Code Acceleration of NAMD on FPGAs

Spatial computing, as implemented on reconfigurable platforms, such as FPGAs, presents an effective solution to high performance computing applications where computations are applied repeatedly to streams of data. Bridging the gap between program descriptions and hardware system implementations, however, is a challenging problem. ROCCC is a C/C++ to VHDL compiler that focuses on extensive loop, array and procedure code transformations. In this paper we report on using ROCCC to compile NAMD, a modern and popular molecular dynamics program, and executing it on the SGI Altix 4700 with a RASC blade. The critical region of NAMD is a loop nest that computes the non-bonded forces on the atoms in a molecule. An instance of this loop consists of 52 floating point operations performed on several input arrays. Using ROCCC, this loop was translated to VHDL and then mapped onto the Virtex 4 LX200 of the RASC blade. Our results show a speedup exceeding 800x over a 1.6 GHz Itanium processor with a potential sustained rate of 7.7 Gflops on the FPGA for a single precision floating point
Noise and delay uncertainty studies for coupled RC interconnects

The performance of high-speed VLSI circuits is increasingly limited by interconnect coupling noise. In this paper we present a closed-form crosstalk noise model with accuracy comparable to that of SPICE for an arbitrary ramp input. We also develop a simplified delay model for estimating delays on coupled RC lines considering input slew times for both agressor and victim lines. We then apply our model along with SPICE simulation to perform various studies of delay uncertainty in coupled interconnects. With respect to the effects of changing aggressor slew time on victim delay (i.e., delay variation), we observe that the victim delay is worst when the aggressor is switching very fast (e.g., step input). For local interconnects the delay variation (change in victim delay with varying input slew) can be as high as 70%. On the other hand, delay variation is around 10% for global interconnects. We also observe that the difference between minimum and maximum delay (i.e., delay uncertainty) decreases significantly as slew times are increased. Delay uncertainty on the victim wire is high for global wires as compared to local wires, a consequence of differing ratios of coupling to parallel-plate capacitance, and wire to load capacitance. We believe that our noise and delay analytical models form an effective basis for methodologies that lead to less over-design and guard-banding in high-performance system designs.
On the incompatibility of connectivity and local pooling in Erdős-Rényi Graphs

For a wireless communications network, Local Pooling (LoP) is a desirable property due to its sufficiency for the optimality of low-complexity greedy scheduling techniques. However, LoP in network graphs with a primary interference model enforces an edge sparsity that may be prohibitive to other desirable properties in wireless networks, such as connectivity. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the edge density on both LoP and the size of the largest component under the primary interference model, as the number of nodes in the network grows large. For Erdös-Rényi graphs, we employ threshold functions to establish critical values for the edge probability necessary for these properties to hold. These thresholds demonstrate that LoP and connectivity (or even the presence of a giant component) cannot both hold asymptotically for a large class of edge probability functions. A similar incompatibility for random geometric graphs is suggested by our simulation results.
Novel architectures for real-time matching in hyperspectral images

Hyperspectral images are nowadays used in multiple fields, such as medical diagnosis, assessment of food quality, or enviromental monitoring, just to name some. Due to their inherent nature, a great number of these applications require the implementation of a real time hyperspectral image processing system. However, most of the research effort so far has been concentrated on the development of mathematical algorithms to process these images, rather than in the implementation of them into a piece of hardware able to face with real time requirements. In this paper, the architectural design and hardware implementation of two hyperspectral matching algorithms (spectral angle and cross correlation) onto a Virtex-5 FPGA device are presented. In this sense, the goal of this work is not only to reduce image processing times by mapping these algorithms onto a programmable hardware platform, but also to provide a comparison between them in different terms, such as area occupation and throughput, than the ones normally used in the hyperspectral literature. The results demonstrate the achievement of speed-up factors of almost 600 times when compared with pure software implementations, as well as the higher hardware efficiency of the spectral angle with respect to the cross correlation algorithm. In addition, the benefits of adopting a pipelined architectural approach for the implementation of both algorithms are also proved, leading to a reduction in the time required for processing one hyperspectral cube of more than one order of magnitude with respect to state-of-the-art FPGA implementations.
Probability and suboptimal distance based lifetime prolong algorithms for wireless sensor networks

In the wireless sensor networks, prolonging network lifetime is an important aim. Unbalanced energy consumption influences the network lifetime greatly. First this study proposes probability based energy balancing algorithms. A hybrid transmission mechanism is introduced. The sensor node forwards data either by one-hop direct transmission or by multiple small hops with the probability. This study focuses on a novel transmission probabilities finding algorithm, in which the transmission probabilities for each slice are obtained to even out the energy consumption efficiently. Then, a sub-optimal distance based energy optimization algorithm is proposed to optimize energy consumption. It optimizes the slice width and selects relays by sub-optimal distance near the optimum radio range, saves more energy and improves the network lifetime efficiently. Our claims are well supported by comparative simulations.
Framework and Models for Multistep Attack Detection

Cyber attacks are becoming increasingly complex, especially when the target is a modern IT infrastructure, characterized by a layered architecture that integrates several security technologies such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems. These contexts can be violated by a multistep attack, that is a complex attack strategy that comprises multiple correlated intrusion activities. While a modern Intrusion Detection System detects single intrusions, it is unable to link them together and to highlight the strategy that underlies a multistep attack. Hence, a single multistep attack may generate a high number of uncorrelated intrusion alerts. The critical task of analyzing and correlating all these alerts is then performed manually by security experts. This process is time consuming and prone to human errors. This paper proposes a novel framework for the analysis and correlation of security alerts generated by state-of-the-art Intrusion Detection Systems. Our goal is to help security analysts in recognizing and correlating intrusion activities that are part of the same multistep attack scenario. The proposed framework produces correlation graphs, in which all the intrusion alerts that are part of the same multistep attack are linked together. By looking at these correlation graphs, a security analyst can quickly identify the relationships that link together seemingly uncorrelated intrusion alerts, and can easily recognize complex attack strategies and identify their final targets. Moreover, the proposed framework is able to leverage multiple algorithms for alert correlation.
Full-Genome Characterisation of Orungo, Lebombo and Changuinola Viruses Provides Evidence for Co-Evolution of Orbiviruses with Their Arthropod Vectors

The complete genomes of Orungo virus (ORUV), Lebombo virus (LEBV) and Changuinola virus (CGLV) were sequenced, confirming that they each encode 11 distinct proteins (VP1-VP7 and NS1-NS4). Phylogenetic analyses of cell-attachment protein ‘outer-capsid protein 1′ (OC1), show that orbiviruses fall into three large groups, identified as: VP2(OC1), in which OC1 is the 2nd largest protein, including the Culicoides transmitted orbiviruses; VP3(OC1), which includes the mosquito transmitted orbiviruses; and VP4(OC1) which includes the tick transmitted viruses. Differences in the size of OC1 between these groups, places the T2 ‘subcore-shell protein’ as the third largest protein ‘VP3(T2)’ in the first of these groups, but the second largest protein ‘VP3(T2)’ in the other two groups. ORUV, LEBV and CGLV all group with the Culicoides-borne VP2(OC1)/VP3(T2) viruses. The G+C content of the ORUV, LEBV and CGLV genomes is also similar to that of the Culicoides-borne, rather than the mosquito-borne, or tick borne orbiviruses. These data suggest that ORUV and LEBV are Culicoides- rather than mosquito-borne. Multiple isolations of CGLV from sand flies suggest that they are its primary vector. OC1 of the insect-borne orbiviruses is approximately twice the size of the equivalent protein of the tick borne viruses. Together with internal sequence similarities, this suggests its origin by duplication (concatermerisation) of a smaller OC1 from an ancestral tick-borne orbivirus. Phylogenetic comparisons showing linear relationships between the dates of evolutionary-separation of their vector species, and genetic-distances between tick-, mosquito- or Culicoides-borne virus-groups, provide evidence for co-evolution of the orbiviruses with their arthropod vectors.
The Wnt/β-Catenin Pathway Regulates the Expression of the miR-302 Cluster in Mouse ESCs and P19 Cells

MicroRNAs of the miR-302 cluster are involved in early embryonic development and somatic cell reprogramming. Expression of the miR-302 gene is regulated by the binding of the pluripotency factors Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog to the miR-302 promoter. The specific expression pattern of the miR-302 gene suggested that additional transcription factors might be involved in its regulation. Here, we show that the miR-302 promoter is a direct target of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. We found that the miR-302 promoter contains three different functional Tcf/Lef binding sites. Two of the three sites were located within the cluster of Oct4/Sox2/Nanog binding sites and were essential for Wnt/β-catenin-mediated regulation of the miR-302 gene. Tcf3, the only Tcf/Lef factor that bound to the miR-302 promoter, acted as a repressor of miR-302 transcription. Interestingly, mutations in the two Tcf/Lef binding sites and the Oct4/Nanog binding sites abolished miR-302 promoter responsiveness to Wnt signaling, suggesting that the Tcf/Lef and the Oct4/Nanog sites interact genetically.
Applying the principles of good research practice for cross-culutral adaptation to pediatric health-related quality of life questionnaires

Although still debated about its definition and conceptualization, the healthrelated quality of life (HRQOL) concept is simply defined as the patient’s evaluation of the impact of a health condition and its treatment on daily life. HRQOL is a multidimensional construct that covers physical, emotional, mental, social, and behavioral components of well-being and functioning. HRQOL is possible to conceptualize through objective indicators. A great deal of attention has been paid to ensure reliable and valid HRQOL measurements through the development of questionnaires with sound psychometric properties. Continually from the past decade, HRQOL is more frequently used in prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation both, nationally and internationally. This requires that HRQOL measures are available across different nations/languages. With this in mind, questionnaires with good psychometric properties need to be simultaneously developed across different nations and cultures or, a slightly different but equally successful approach, the translation, subsequent analysis, and adaptation of existing and accepted measures into other languages is performed while considering aspects of the cultural settings. So far, cross-cultural adaptation of questionnaires has been recognized as one of the priority in HRQOL research. It is early recognized that HRQOL assessments have some specific characteristics when children and adolescents are considered. The development of pediatric HRQOL measurement followed specific pathways with several important issues: specific HRQOL domains, age and developmental characteristics, self- and proxy-rating, generic and disease specific approaches to assessments, and psychometric considerations. Up to date, no clear guidelines for the cross-cultural adaptation of pediatric HRQOL questionnaires were developed. The aim of this thesis was to operationalize a model of the cross-cultural adaptation of pediatric HRQOL questionnaires.
Performance Analysis and Coding Strategy of ECOC SVMs

The theoretical upper bound of generalization error for ECOC SVMs is derived based on Fat-Shattering dimensionality and covering number. The factors affecting the generalization performance of ECOC SVMs are analyzed. From the analysis, it is believed that in real classification tasks, the performance of ECOC depends on the performance of the classifiers corresponding to its coding columns, which is irrelevant to the mathematical characteristics of the ECOC itself. The essence of ECOC SVMs is how to construct an optimal voting machine consisting of a number of SVMs, how to choose Sub-SVMs which have better generalization ability, and how to determine the number of Sub-SVMs taking part in voting, that is the most important issue. Data sets including “Segment” are selected for test. All the ECOC code columns are constructed using an exhaustive technique. A Sub-SVM is trained for each code column, and the generalization ability of each Sub-SVM is evaluated by classification intervals and error rates estimated by cross validation. Then, all the ECOC code columns are sorted by the generalization performance of Sub-SVMs. Three categories of ECOC SVMs, including superior, inferior and ordinary categories, are constructed from the sorted ECOC code columns, by using forward, backward and original sequences. Experimental results show that the performance of ECOC SVMs which consist of Sub-SVMs with better generalization ability is better and vice versa, which validates our view and points out the direction for improving ECOC SVMs.
Research on feature extraction from remote sensing image

Remote sensing image as a digital product, one of its important significance lies in quickly extracting information and applying the information to practice. However, in the process of extracting information, one of the basic problems is to conduct feature extraction. In this paper, the point and line features of remote sensing image are extracted, and the comparison of a variety of feature extraction methods is also completed. On one hand, the point feature is extracted by Movarec operator, Forstner operator, SUSAN operator and Harris operator, etc; on the other hand, the line feature is extracted by Sobel operator, LOG operator and Canny operator, etc. As well as, a comparative analysis among the distribution of feature extraction, the amount of feature points and the time of extraction is completed. Finally, a matching is carried on for corner point extraction methods, ERDAS software is used to assess the accuracy of extraction methods and achieves good results.
Optimizing BDD-based verification analysing variable dependencies

Automatic verification of sequential designs has been made possible by the use of efficient representations for propositional logic such as Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs). However, the efficient use of BDDs is only, possible provided a good ordering of the state variables of the design. This paper presents a novel heuristics, called variable weighting, that provides an initial variable ordering for sequential designs. Experiments are provided to illustrate the quality of this algorithm. An important result is that it combines extremely, well with existing dynamic variable reordering techniques. In all experiments, the combination of variable weighting and reordering outperforms reordering alone.
Special issue on social science research methods education

Social sciences research methods are an important feature of many public administration programmes. Yet, until recently, little attention has been paid to methods education in this field of teaching and research (Marks and Van der Meer, 2016). The contributors to this special issue explore social science research methods education from a range of different disciplinary perspectives, including education, social policy and sociology, medicine and health and politics. These articles identify a series of teaching and learning issues of relevance to a range of subjects across the social sciences, including, but certainly not restricted to, public administration. For example, the articles identify the challenge of engaging students with research methods, and particularly quantitative methods; a difficulty that has already been widely observed across the social sciences (see MacInnes, 2014; Wiles et al., 2009). Solutions to these problems are explored, including the development of new teaching strategies that encourage students to participate in their own learning. Furthermore, all of the papers identify the importance of research methods being seen as a core component of the learning experience, which is not relegated to a particular year of study or seen in isolation from the rest the curriculum. As such, the articles in this special issue of Teaching Public Administration show the shared challenges of teaching research methods experienced by different disciplines and offer practical solutions to these challenges.
Gender and Work Hours Transitions in Australia: Drop Ceilings and Trap-Door Floors

We introduce the ideas of “drop ceilings”, that full-time employees who switch to reduced hours thereafter face an hours ceiling such that a return to full-time employment is difficult, and of “trap-door floors”, that full-time employees may be denied the opportunity to reduce their hours and instead face a choice between full-time employment and quitting the job. These ideas derive from the potential existence of norms around the ideal worker and motherhood. Relevant hypotheses are developed and tested using information on usual and preferred working time from the first two waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The key findings are that women face drop ceilings significantly more often than men; that professionals and managers confront trap-door floors significantly more often than employees in other occupations; and that trap-door floor effects are generally stronger than drop ceiling effects in the data.
A query-by-humming music information retrieval from audio signals based on multiple F0 candidates

In this paper, we propose a query-by-humming (QbH) system that retrieves musical pieces given as audio signals. Most conventional QbH systems assume that the symbolic melody information is given a priori, which is not always true. In our system, the database for retrieval is generated from 1ch audio signal that contains many sounds. We generate the database by estimating fundamental frequencies (F0) of the audio signals frame by frame. To improve the retrieval accuracy, we exploit multiple F0 candidates to absorb the impact of F0 estimation errors. From the experiment, we obtained about 15 points of improvement by using multiple F0 candidates, compared with the QbH system with only one F0 candidate.
Introduction to the Quantsol ' Novel concepts and 3 rd generation photovoltaics ' session

Femtosecond laser investigations of phase separations and transitions of numerous composites are reviewed. Self-organization phenomena led to nano-sized periodic structures which can be controlled by the substrate chemistry and the condensed phase contact. Laser Ablation basically is a phase separation process driven by laser radiation. A certain component which can attain any aggregate state such as solid films, inter-matrix phases, liquid films, particulates, are removed from a solid substrate phase [1]. The advantage of sub-picosecond laser pulses such as the high thermal energy localization and the possibility to tune the nonlinear absorptivity of transparent foreign phases in a wide range by the laser intensity attracted vivid attention since more than a decade [1-4]. In this context, femtosecond laser investigations of the separation and phase transitions of inorganic, organic and biological composites, films and coatings are reviewed [3-19]. The possibility to generate submicrometer structures is limited by the laser wavelength in the far field. Self-organization phenomena triggered by sub-picosecond laser treatments, however, led to interesting nano-sized periodic structures which could be manipulated by the substrate chemistry [11,12] and the liquid containment [13-15]. Fig. 1 fs-Laser-induced phase separation of a TiN film from silicon. 150 fs, 800 nm, F = 3.0 J/cm, circular polarization. Increasing laser pulse number (a) N = 50; (b) N = 80; (c) N = 100; (d) N = 200. [16] High precision of ablation can be normally reached in homogeneous phases as e.g. in the bulk of a TiN layer (Fig. 1a). Average ablation rates below 10 nm per pulse can be achieved. However, complications arise in the case of silicon as a substrate. Once the coating layer to be separated has been perforated, silicon cannot be ablated efficiently and columns of redeposited and converted material (mainly SiOx) are formed (Fig. 1b-d) [16]. Fig. 2 fs-laser-treated TiN. (a) F = 3.8 J/cm, N = 10, 130 fs. (b) F = 0.3 J/cm, N = 100, 130 fs [17] Femtosecond laser irradiation in the multi-pulse regime of various compound ceramic materials led to periodic nanostructures [11-15]. A cavity on aluminium nitride generated by N = 100 pulses with a fluence of F = 3.8 J/cm, well above the ablation threshold, Fth = 0.5 J/cm, showed ripples perpendicularly oriented to the field vector (Fig. 2a [17]). Two periodicities could be discriminated: above the threshold, at 3.8 J/cm, grooves (ripples) with lengths of few μm's and a period of 590 nm are formed. Near the threshold, at 0.3 J/cm, however, a new type of ripples with a period around 170 nm much less than the laser wavelength occurs. This observation indicates a correlation between the order of periodicity and the laser fluence. Actually, only these two types of structures were observed: no transient index gratings were created as a result (a)