Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diversity for off-the-shelf components

"Commercial-off-the-shelf" (COTS) or, generally, "offthe-shelf" (OTS) software items are increasingly used in building systems, instead of only relying on bespoke software items1. This trend is driven by a wish to reduce costs, and by some hope that greater re-use of software may lead to higher quality (via more feedback from use). Thus, for instance, the U.S. Dept of Defence policy is now to encourage the use of COTS items. This trend extends to critical systems with high dependability requirements, like a computer-based railway signalling systems by Alcatel (Austria) [1]. A serious problem with OTS items (software, but also complex digital hardware) is that they often lack the guarantee of good development practice, and the extensive documentation of it, which are traditionally the basis for accepting/certifying software for critical applications. Even for commercial applications with modest dependability requirements, using OTS items requires some trust that they will not become a "weak link", making the final product intolerably unreliable. If the OTS items have already seen much operational use, this experience could be used to forecast their dependability in a new context; but this experience is seldom documented with sufficient accuracy and detail to allow confident predictions. Much of the on-going discussion about OTS items addresses this issue. A notorious case of a U.S. warship being disabled by a crash of Windows NT in 1997 [2] is often quoted to illustrate the problems with dependence on COTS items. The debate is open about how COTS items could be certified to have sufficient reliability but what is clear is that a solution will not be widely available any time soon.
Parametric approach to the retrieval of lossy compressed color images

The rapid development of the Internet in the early 1990s caused an explosive growth of publicly accessible multimedia resources. It created new viewpoint on storage, distribution and processing of enormous collections of images. Along with the development of the World Wide Web there is much effort dedicated to create a content-based image retrieval systems which are able to efficiently index, retrieve and manage large scale databases. In this paper we propose a color indexing method based on the Gaussian Mixture Model of color histograms. The model parameters serve as signatures enabling fast and efficient color image retrieval. In this paper we show that the proposed approach is robust to color image distortions introduced by lossy compression artifacts and therefore it is well suited for indexing and retrieval of Internet based collections of color images stored in lossy compression formats.
Colonization by endophytic Ochrobactrum anthropi Mn1 promotes growth of Jerusalem artichoke

The Ochrobactrum anthropi Mn1 strain, taxonomically identified using 16S ribosomal DNA sequence, was isolated from roots of Jerusalem artichoke. Its endophytic colonization was investigated microscopically using green fluorescent protein introduced by vector pHC60. The strain entered Jerusalem artichoke tissues through the root, and was localized in the roots and stems. The plant growth‐promoting (PGP) effects of O. anthropi Mn1 were assessed in greenhouse as well as field trials with different nitrogen supplies. Only under moderate to ample nitrogen supply, could O. anthropi Mn1 promoted growth of host plant. The PGP effects of the strain were symbiotic nitrogen fixation, root morphological optimization and enhanced nutrient uptake. We hypothesize that the symbiotic interspecies interaction might be quorum sensing related.
An algebraic generalization of image $J$

As is well known, the image of the J-homomorphism in the stable homotopy groups of spheres is described in terms of the first line of the Adams-Novikov E2-term. In this paper we consider an algebraic analogue of the image of J using the spectrum T(m)(j) defined by Ravenel and determine the Adams-Novikov first line for small values of j.
Nonlocal-interaction equations on uniformly prox-regular sets

We study the well-posedness of a class of nonlocal-interaction equations on general domains $\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^{d}$, including nonconvex ones. We show that under mild assumptions on the regularity of domains (uniform prox-regularity), for $\lambda$-geodesically convex interaction and external potentials, the nonlocal-interaction equations have unique weak measure solutions. Moreover, we show quantitative estimates on the stability of solutions which quantify the interplay of the geometry of the domain and the convexity of the energy. We use these results to investigate on which domains and for which potentials the solutions aggregate to a single point as time goes to infinity. Our approach is based on the theory of gradient flows in spaces of probability measures.
Location of Weak CSS Sources on the Evolutionary Path of Radio-Loud AGN

Abstract According to the currently accepted paradigm compact steep spectrum (CSS) sources are precursors of larger/older objects and gigahertz peaked spectrum (GPS) sources may be earlier stages of CSS sources. In this paper we confront this paradigm with the outcome of recent observations of CSS sources that are significantly weaker than those known before. In particular we claim that not all CSS sources must end up as large scale objects; if the activity phase of an AGN's central engine is shorter than the lifetime of a large scale radio source (up to ˜108 yr) the radio source associated with such an AGN decays earlier, e.g. at the CSS stage. We point out that a theory of thermal–viscous instabilities in the accretion disks of AGN may explain many features of radio sources at all stages of their evolution.
Mechatronic setup for measurement of dynamical properties of electronic gyroscopes

The aim of the presented work was the design and realization of a mechatronic setup for measurements of dynamical properties of electronic gyroscopes. A motivation for the project was a need for identification of MEMS gyroscope parameters, not disclosed in their data sheets. The built setup is capable of producing controlled, angular excitations, necessary for measuring dynamical properties of MEMS gyroscopes. It registers gyroscope response synchronized with the excitation. An example of identification of gyroscope parameters is also presented. Results of the measurements are used to calibrate a currently developed local navigation system for visually impaired pedestrians.
Optimizing Xen VMM Based on Intel® Virtualization Technology

To achieve full virtualization support on Xen, Intel extended the Xen project to support unmodified guest OSs using Intel virtualization technology. In this paper, we describe the performance tuning work in the process of enabling full virtualization on Xen. Firstly, we briefly summarize our extensions on performance tuning tools. Then, through data analysis collected by the performance tuning toolkits, we observe that system performance bottlenecks are mainly introduced by memory and I/O virtualization overheads. Finally, we describe our optimizations and possible proposals to address these bottlenecks for resolving performance bugs in Xen/VT architecture. In that process, more specifically, we improved the virtual platform performance by 10% for compute-intensive benchmarks, by moving virtual PIC to hypervisor. In the meantime, we enhanced virtual IDE disk DMA operation performance through concurrent processing and increased virtual network interface card performance more than ten times by reconstruction using an event-driven mechanism. In addition, to achieve higher quality in system X, we also optimized a virtual video graphic card, and several times we got performance gain through our shared virtual video memory approach.
Immune Response Elicited by DNA Vaccination Using Lactococcus lactis Is Modified by the Production of Surface Exposed Pathogenic Protein

In this study, we compared immune responses elicited by DNA immunization using Lactococcus lactis or L. lactis expressing the Staphylococcus aureus invasin Fibronectin Binding Protein A (FnBPA) at its surface. Both strains carried pValac:BLG, a plasmid containing the cDNA of Beta-Lactoglobulin (BLG), and were designated LL-BLG and LL-FnBPA+ BLG respectively. A TH2 immune response characterized by the secretion of IL-4 and IL-5 in medium of BLG reactivated splenocytes was detected after either oral or intranasal administration of LL-FnBPA+ BLG. In contrast, intranasal administration of LL-BLG elicited a TH1 immune response. After BLG sensitization, mice previously intranasally administered with LL-BLG showed a significantly lower concentration of BLG-specific IgE than the mice non-administered. Altenatively administration of LL-FnBPA+ BLG didn't modify the BLG-specific IgE concentration obtained after sensitization, thus confirming the TH2 orientation of the immune response. To determine if the TH2-skewed immune response obtained with LL-FnBpA+ BLG was FnBPA-specific or not, mice received another L. lactis strain producing a mutated form of the Listeria monocytogenes invasin Internalin A intranasally, allowing thus the binding to murine E-cadherin, and containing pValac:BLG (LL-mInlA+ BLG). As with LL-FnBPA+ BLG, LL-mInlA+ BLG was not able to elicit a TH1 immune response. Furthermore, we observed that these difference were not due to the peptidoglycan composition of the cell wall as LL-FnBPA+ BLG, LL-mInlA+ BLG and LL-BLG strains shared a similar composition. DNA vaccination using LL-BLG elicited a pro-inflammatory TH1 immune response while using LL-FnBPA+ BLG or LL-mInlA+ BLG elicited an anti-inflammatory TH2 immune response.
A Visual SLAM Solution Based on High Level Geometry Knowledge and Kalman Filtering

In this paper, two new methods are proposed for robotic simultaneous localization and map building (SLAM), namely high level geometric knowledge constraint and newly acquired feature initialization. These methods are implemented within classic extended Kalman filter (EKF) framework. Novelties lie in two aspects. First, high level geometric information, such as common geometric primitives (e.g. lines and triangles) constructed by observed feature points, is incorporated to EKF to enhance the robustness and resistance to noise. Second, a visual measurement approach, multiple view geometry (MVG), is employed for new feature initialization that is considered as a key factor affecting the lower bound error in robotic mapping. Simulations are performed, which can be deemed as concrete verifications and extensions to previous results reported by other researchers. The numerical results show great potentials
On information flow for intrusion detection: what if accurate full-system dynamic information flow tracking was possible?

Current intrusion detection systems (IDSes) fall into two very limiting categories: appearance-based or behavior-based. These rely on specifying good vs. bad behavior in terms of patterns in the malicious input or in the trace of execution during the attack. Some successful IDS systems have specified attacks in terms of information flow and the influences data sources have on the system, but only in very limited domains such as control data attacks, and typically using information flow tracking mechanisms customized to their purpose. Intrusion detection based on a general method for information flow tracking would allow for very explicit and general definitions of attacks that precluded entire categories of vulnerabilities and exploits, but our current methods for dynamic information flow tracking (DIFT) are inadequate to make this a reality. DIFT works by tagging (or tainting) data and tracking it to measure the information flow throughout the system. Existing DIFT systems have limited support for address and control dependencies, and therefore cannot track information flow within a full system, except in an ad-hoc, application-specific fashion. As a first step toward making information flow a new paradigm for intrusion detection, we present a prototype DIFT system that supports address and control dependencies in a general way. As a motivating example to demonstrate this system, we define an attack by the amount of control that external network entities have over what a networked system is doing. This coarse definition is not precise enough to detect attacks but serves as a demonstration of our approach to DIFT. We measure the amount of information flow between tainted sources and the control path of the CPU for a variety of scenarios and show that our prototype system gives intuitive, meaningful results.
Quantify Self-Organized Storage Capacity in Supporting Infrastructure-less Transportation Operation

This paper introduces an architecture for supporting transportation operation in an ad hoc way using the technologies of mobile sensing, computing and communication. The architecture utilizes the self-organized storage capacity formed at the intersections in metropolitan areas to deliver cyber traffic control signals to passing vehicles. It is built on top of the communication network in the forms of VANET and VDTN to support distributed computing using traffic data collected by mobile devices. The paper presents the key network components. The major challenge is the unique interdependence between the coordinated traffic signals and the persistence of the self-organized storage, an issue not being tackled in early work. The key impact factor is the pattern of the coordinated traffic signals. As a work-in-progress, the paper will present preliminary results in identifying the interdependence and its impact on the capacity of the self-organized storage. These results will lead to understandings on the sustainability of the architecture.
A Coaxial Line to Post-Wall Waveguide Transition for a Cost-Effective Transformer between a RF-Device and a Planar Slot-Array Antenna in 60-GHz Band

Interfaces between a coaxial structure and a post-wall waveguide are proposed as the essential components for cost-effective millimeter-wave modules. PTFE substrate is selected in terms of loss and manufacturability. The reflection and the transmission characteristics are investigated. The short-stepped and the short-taper-stepped feeding structures provide 14.7% and 13.2% bandwidths for the reflection smaller than -15 dB, respectively. The 46 x 40 mm 2 size antenna fed by the short-stepped structure in PTFE substrate gives 27.3 dBi with 58.2% efficiency at 60.0 GHz. Feeding structures in PTFE substrate fulfill electrical and manufacturing demands in millimeter-wave bands.
APPROXIMATE LEVEL-CROSSING PROBABILITIES FOR INTERACTIVE VISUALIZATION OF UNCERTAIN ISOCONTOURS

A major method for quantitative visualization of a scalar field is depiction of its isocontours. If the scalar field is afflicted with uncertainties, uncertain counterparts to isocontours have to be extracted and depicted. We consider the case where the input data is modeled as a discretized Gaussian field with spatial correlations. For this situation we want to compute level-crossing probabilities that are associated to grid cells. To avoid the high computational cost of Monte Carlo integrations and direction dependencies of raycasting methods, we formulate two approximations for these probabilities that can be utilized during rendering by looking up precomputed univariate and bivariate distribution functions. The first method, called maximum edge crossing probability, considers only pairwise correlations at a time. The second method, called linked-pairs method, considers joint and conditional probabilities between vertices along paths of a spanning tree over the n vertices of the grid cell; with each possible tree an n-dimensional approximate distribution is associated; the choice of the distribution is guided by minimizing its Bhattacharyya distance to the original distribution. We perform a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the approximation errors on synthetic data and show the utility of both approximations on the example of climate simulation data.
Customer Relationship Management: Implementation Process Perspective

Customer relationship management (CRM) can help organizations manage customer interactions more effectively to maintain competitiveness in the present economy. As more and more organizations realize the significance of becoming customer-centric in today's competitive era, they adopted CRM as a core business strategy and invested heavily. CRM, an integration of information technology and relationship marketing, provides the infrastructure that facilitates long-term relationship building with customers at an enterprise-wide level. Successful CRM implementation is a complex, expensive and rarely technical projects. This paper presents the successful implementation of CRM from process perspective in a trans-national organization with operations in different segments. This study will aid in understanding transition, constraints and the implementation process of CRM in such organizations.
Requirements and Strategy for Presentation Stage Synchronization of Multi-object Multimedia Applications

For Multi-object Multimedia Applications(MMAs),synchronization between the media objects is an inevitable problem. Current available literature focus on transmission synchronization and only two media objects are considered. Experiments show that synchronization performance is unacceptable in MMAs without presentation stage synchronization strategy even if local media objects are played. In MMAs, each media object has its own importance and each media object pair has its own synchronization requirements. We analysis these factors in detailand quantitative criteria are given. Accordingly, synchronization performance metrics which considers these factors comprehensively is proposed. In order to ensure reasonable synchronization performance, Versatile Synchronization Strategy(VSS) is proposed.Synchronization operations of important media objectsand media object pairs with strict requirements are scheduled as the priority jobs. Experimental results show that it works well. It is a promising presentation stage synchronization strategy for MMAs.
A New Quadtree-Based Symmetry Transform ( QST ) With Application to Arab-andalusian images Indexing

This paper describes a new method for the Arab-andalusian images features extraction for indexing. Our original approach is based on the extraction of symmetry information using a quadtree-based symmetry Transform (QST). Our method is inspired by the way that the artits (Maalam) draw the shapes of the patterns. We build a quadtree on the image center then we give a measure of symmetry, a feature vector is constructed and a similarity measure is given to compare two images. We have evaluated the algorithm on our Arab-andalusian database and found that the algorithm is able to discriminate small variations of symmetry. The obtained results significantly support the capabilities of our proposed approach to classify and recognize arab-andalusian images in terms of symmetry information.
Design and analysis of sequential and parallel single-source shortest-paths algorithms

We study the performance of algorithms for the Single-Source Shortest-Paths (SSSP) problem on graphs with nodes and edges with nonnegative random weights. All previously known SSSP algorithms for directed graphs required superlinear time. We give the first SSSP algorithms that provably achieve linear average-case execution time on arbitrary directed graphs with random edge weights. For independent edge weights, the linear-time bound holds with high probability, too. Additionally, our result implies improved average-case bounds for the All-Pairs Shortest-Paths (APSP) problem on sparse graphs, and it yields the first theoretical average-case analysis for the “Approximate Bucket Implementation” of Dijkstra’s SSSP algorithm (ABI–Dijkstra). Furthermore, we give constructive proofs for the existence of graph classes with random edge weights on which ABI–Dijkstra and several other well-known SSSP algorithms require superlinear averagecase time. Besides the classical sequential (single processor) model of computation we also consider parallel computing: we give the currently fastest average-case linear-work parallel SSSP algorithms for large graph classes with random edge weights, e.g., sparse random graphs and graphs modeling the WWW, telephone calls or social networks. Kurzzusammenfassung. In dieser Arbeit untersuchen wir die Laufzeiten von Algorithmen fur das Kurzeste-Wege Problem (Single-Source Shortest-Paths, SSSP) auf Graphen mit Knoten, Kanten und nichtnegativen zufalligen Kantengewichten. Alle bisherigen SSSP Algorithmen benotigten auf gerichteten Graphen superlineare Zeit. Wir stellen den ersten SSSP Algorithmus vor, der auf beliebigen gerichteten Graphen mit zufalligen Kantengewichten eine beweisbar lineare average-case-Komplexitat aufweist. Sind die Kantengewichte unabhangig, so wird die lineare Zeitschranke auch mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit eingehalten. Auserdem impliziert unser Ergebnis verbesserte averagecase-Schranken fur das All-Pairs Shortest-Paths (APSP) Problem auf dunnen Graphen und liefert die erste theoretische average-case-Analyse fur die “Approximate Bucket Implementierung” von Dijkstras SSSP Algorithmus (ABI-Dijkstra). Weiterhin fuhren wir konstruktive Existenzbeweise fur Graphklassen mit zufalligen Kantengewichten, auf denen ABIDijkstra und mehrere andere bekannte SSSP Algorithmen durchschnittlich superlineare Zeit benotigen. Neben dem klassischen seriellen (Ein-Prozessor) Berechnungsmodell betrachten wir auch Parallelverarbeitung; fur umfangreiche Graphklassen mit zufalligen Kantengewichten wie z.B. dunne Zufallsgraphen oder Modelle fur das WWW, Telefonanrufe oder soziale Netzwerke stellen wir die derzeit schnellsten parallelen SSSP Algorithmen mit durchschnittlich linearer Arbeit vor.
Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies an Investigation of Topological Characteristics of Manufacturing Supply Chain Networks Title: an Investigation of Topological Characteristics of Manufacturing Supply Chain Networks an Investigation of Topological Characteristics of Manufacturing Supply Ch

Due to the increasingly complex nature of the modern supply chain networks (SCNs), a recent research trend has focussed on modelling SCNs as complex adaptive systems. Despite the substantial number of studies devoted to such hypothetical modelling efforts, studies analysing the topological properties of real world SCNs have been relatively rare, mainly due to the scarcity of data. This paper aims to analyse the topological properties of twenty-six SCNs from the manufacturing sector. Moreover, this study aims to establish a general set of topological characteristics that can be observed in real world SCNs from the manufacturing sector, so that future theoretical work modelling the growth of SCNs in this sector can mimic these observations. It is found that the manufacturing sector SCNs tend to be scale free with degree exponents below two, tending towards hub and spoke configuration, as opposed to most other scale-free networks which have degree exponents above two. This observation becomes significant, since the importance of the degree exponent threshold of two in shaping the growth process of networks is well understood in network science. Other observed topological characteristics of the SCNs include disassortative mixing (in terms of node degree as well as node characteristics) and high modularity. In some networks, we find that node centrality is strongly correlated with the value added by each node to the supply chain. Since the growth mechanism that is most widely used to model the evolution of SCNs, the Barabasi-Albert model, does not generate scale-free topologies with degree exponent below two, it is concluded that a novel mechanism to model the growth of SCNs is required to be developed. Acknowledgements: The authors acknowledge the Australian Research Council (ARC) for funding this work under grant DP140103643.