Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MAMMOTH: A massive-scale emulation platform for Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly used in a plethora of fields to enable radically new ways for various purposes, ranging from monitoring the environment to enhancing the wellbeing of human life. With the ever-increasing size of such networks, it is fundamental to understand the issues that come with scaling on different networking layers. A cost-efficient approach to examine large-scale networks is to use simulators or emulators to test the infrastructure and its ability to support the desired applications. In this paper, we investigate and compare the currently available simulation/emulation software. We found out that the current solutions are mostly appropriate for small- and medium-scale emulation, however they are not suitable for large-scale testing that reaches millions of node running concurrently. We then propose a large-scale IoT emulator called MAMMotH and present a brief overview of its design. Finally we discuss some of the current issues and future directions, e.g. radio link simulation.
A Robust Entropy-Based Audio-Fingerprint

Audio fingerprints (AFP's) are compact, content-based representations of audio signals used to measure distances among them. An AFP has to be small, fast computed and robust to signal degradations. In this paper an entropy based AFP is presented that performed very well when the signal was corrupted with lossy compression, scaling and even 1 kHz low-pass filtering in the experiments. The AFP is determined by computing the instantaneous amount of information of the audio signal in two-second frames with fifty percent overlapping, the resulting entropy signal is binary coded in order to compare different interpretations (e.g. live vs. studio recording) of the same song with good results. The AFP's robustness is compared with that of Haitsma-Kalker's hash string based AFP with encouraging results
Automatic shoe sole pattern retrieval system based on image content of shoeprint

The development of a system for automatic retrieval of scene-of-crime shoeprint images from a reference database of shoeprint images is presented in this paper. The approach is based on the image content of shoeprint and a few recent techniques in this area: (1) image probability method for dot texture identification; (2) number of edge's cross dot detect on wavelet edge detect for interlaced texture identification; (3) inflexion's number detect on shape analysis for waving line texture and line texture identification and cross dot's number detect for nubbly texture identification; (4) Hough transform for round texture identification. Experimental results from the application of sole pattern image database are given to show its ability of identifying images and retrieving similar images. The retrieval speed and performance of the system are satisfying.
An effective algorithm for Image security based on Compression and Decomposition method

Security is the main concern in any field. With the frequent attacks, it is a big challenge for the users to protect the digital images which are transmitting over internet. Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) [7] provides a solution up to a greater extent. This paper mainly concentrates on the invisible watermarking. By using the Wavelets, invisible watermark embed into the original watermark. The main focus concentrated on the wireless communications; hence it is important to consider some factors into consideration, they are size of an image and requirements of bandwidth. Keeping in view of all these parameters, compression and transmission should be done. The proposed algorithm uses the SVD method along with compression. The proposed algorithm is robust against all common attacks which exist in image processing field. Tests have been done and results are satisfactory in terms of imperceptibility and security.
Detection of Copper(II) Ions Using Glycine on Hydrazine-Adsorbed Gold Nanoparticles via Raman Spectroscopy

A facile, selective, and sensitive detection method for the Cu2+ ions in environmental and biological solutions has been newly developed by observing the unique CN stretching peaks at ~2108 cm−1 upon the dissociative adsorption of glycine (GLY) in hydrazine buffer on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). The relative abundance of Cu species on AuNPs was identified from X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis. UV-Vis spectra also indicated that the Au particles aggregated to result in the color change owing to the destabilization induced by the GLY-Cu2+ complex. The CN stretching band at ~2108 cm−1 could be observed to indicate the formation of the CN species from GLY on the hydrazine-covered AuNP surfaces. The other ions of Fe3+, Fe2+, Hg2+, Mg2+, Mn2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, Cr3+, Co2+, Cd2+, Pb2+, Ca2+, NH4+, Na+, and K+ at high concentrations of 50 µM did not produce such spectral changes. The detection limit based on the CN band for the determination of the Cu2+ ion could be estimated to be as low as 500 nM in distilled water and 1 µM in river water, respectively. We attempted to apply our method to estimate intracellular ion detection in cancer cells for more practical purposes.
Reduced basis approximation and a posteriori error estimates for parametrized elliptic eigenvalue problems

We develop a new reduced basis (RB) method for the rapid and reliable approximation of parametrized elliptic eigenvalue problems. The method hinges upon dual weighted residual type a posteriori error indicators which estimate, for any value of the parameters, the error between the high-fidelity finite element approximation of the first eigenpair and the corresponding reduced basis approximation. The proposed error estimators are exploited not only to certify the RB approximation with respect to the high-fidelity one, but also to set up a greedy algorithm for the offline construction of a reduced basis space. Several numerical experiments show the overall validity of the proposed RB approach.
Statistical aging analysis with process variation consideration

As CMOS devices become smaller, process and aging variations become a major issue for circuit reliability and yield. In this paper, we analyze the effects of process variations on aging effects such as hot carrier injection (HCI) and negative bias temperature instability (NBTI). Using Monte-Carlo based transistor-level simulations including principal component analysis (PCA), the correlations between process variations and aging variations are considered. The accuracy of analysis is improved (2–7%) compared to other methods in which the correlations are ignored, especially in smaller technologies.
Checking Target Absence 1

This fMRI study investigates the neural underpinning and the cognitive factors associated with monitoring in visual search. A visual search task was designed by pseudo-randomly mixing four experimental conditions, which were obtained through the factorial combination of salience (pop-out vs. non pop-out) and target presence (present vs. absent). The fastest responses were obtained when a salient target was presented, while responses were slowest with target-absent conditions, which required extensive evaluation of the visual scene. Partial Least Square multivariate analysis was used to analyze the fMRI data. The first Latent Variable revealed a set of fronto-parietal and occipital regions, which was cohesively activated especially when the presence of the target stimulus was not easy to discard, such as when all stimuli in the visual scene were non-targets or when one stimulus among the rest was salient (pop-out) but not a target. The most extensive and robust activation within this cohesive set of regions was located in the right inferior/middle frontal gyrus. This finding corroborates evidence in favor of a role of the right lateral prefrontal cortex, and associated regions, for evaluative operations, extending previous findings to the visual search domain.
A Fast Mutual Information Calculation

In modern signal analysis, chaos-theoretic interpretation is becoming more and more popular. One of the most important parameters of chaotic systems is their information gain or entropy rate. Its measurement provides performance limits for nonlinear signal models in source coding and prediction applications. We have developed a fast algorithm for the estimation of the entropy rate for attractors reconstructed from nite-length signals with the method of delays. With conventional algorithms, the computational load increases almost exponentially with the reconstruction dimension. We exploit dynamical memory organization principles to arrive at a linear increase, i.e. whenever we increment the reconstruction dimension by one, the calculation time of the new algorithm increases only by 1=10 of the calculation time needed in two dimensions. Furthermore, the calculation time is proportional to N log 2 N where N is the signal length.
Text to hypertext: can clustering solve the problem in digital libraries?

Automatic hypertext generation remains an extremely challenging endeavor in the digital library world. In this paper we present a solution for automatically connecting relevant information in dynamic textual digital libraries. This textual information is generally unconnected and often unexplored due to the large flow of information entering from remote and local sources. Often, full-text indexes exist for this information but embedded links to related information are conspicuously absent. Links that do exist are usually generated in an arduous and time-consuming manual process. That is why the ability to automatically generate links has a potentially high payoff. Our solution for the automatic generation of hypertext links relies on the techniques of document segmentation and document clustering. Hypertext links are automatically generated during the document clustering process using the incremental cover-coefficient-based clustering algorithm. The issues of link completeness and link quahty are also addressed in this paper. Link completeness is studied by comparing the cluster-based approach of link generation to the exhaustive link generation approach. Results indicate that links are more complete in the higher similarity range than in the lower similarity range. Initial link quality user studies indicate that the cluster-based hypertext link generation approach is promising. In the future, we plan to concluct fw. ther studies on link quality and investigate ways to increase the effectiveness of our approach.
Sentiment Sentence Extraction Using a Hierarchical Directed Acyclic Graph Structure and a Bootstrap Approach

As the World Wide Web rapidly grows, a huge number of online documents are easily accessible on the Web. We obtain a huge number of review documents that include user’s opinions for products. To classify the opinions is one of the hottest topics in natural language processing. In general, we need a large amount of training data for the classification process. However, construction of training data by hand is costly. The goal of our study is to construct a sentiment tagging tool for particular domains. In this paper, we propose a method of sentiment sentence extraction for the 1st step of the system. For the task, we use a Hierarchical Directed Acyclic Graph (HDAG) structure. We obtained high accuracy with the graph based approach. Furthermore, we apply a bootstrap approach to the sentiment sentence extraction process. The experimental result shows the effectiveness of the method.
Assessing physiological sensitivity in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

People who have endured horrific events often bear predictable psychological harm. The symptoms of this harm can persist to produce a recognised clinical syndrome, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The lived reality of PTSD is a condition in which sufferers experience unbearable emotional reactions to traumatic reminders and exist in a persistent state of fear. Although the psychiatric and psychological construct of PTSD has been hotly contested, research and clinical opinion seem to converge around a state of enhanced sensitivity to threat, underpinned by chronic physiological hyper-arousal. This thesis has been concerned with the development of assessment measures that are sensitive to physiological hyper-arousal, including pupillometry and visual contrast sensitivity. In three experiments, a sample of 73 participants recruited from military, addiction and homelessness charity services were assessed for PTSD symptomology with the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-V, and the self-report Impact of Event Scale-Revised. During passive viewing of emotive images, individuals with PTSD showed pupil responses that were influenced more by emotive stimuli than controls, and showed a reduced constriction of the pupil to light; revealing altered states of arousal. Due to methodological differences, a task assessing pupil responses to emotive sound clips failed to replicate this result. The assessment of visual contrast sensitivity revealed the heterogeneous nature of PTSD. Multi-dimensional assessment of symptom subscales showed that higher levels of re-experiencing symptoms were related to heightened visual sensitivity, but avoidant symptoms were related to lower sensitivity. Overall, the assessment of psychophysiological responses in PTSD demonstrated the utility of pupillometry for the assessment of PTSD, contributed to the literature on the regulation of the autonomic nervous system in PTSD, and highlighted the diversity of the clinical construct due to opposing effects of the symptom subscales.
Visualizing the flow of users on a wireless network

This information visualization project depicts the flow of users within the various access points of the eduroam network of the University of Coimbra. The developed application allows the visualization of an interactive graph (see Figure 1), which covers a certain time span, and animates the changes in the network's flow of information over time. The nodes of the graph represent access points and the links represent transitions of users between them. A transition is registered when a user stops the connection to an access point and connects to another one. Clustering is used to merge access points that are deeply connected, promoting the visual clarity of the artifact while providing additional information to the viewer.
Myths, misunderstandings, and missing information: Experiences of nurse practitioners providing primary care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender patients

Abstract:Nurse practitioners (NPs) are advanced practice nurses who provide holistic care including health promotion and disease prevention to diverse populations across the life span. A current gap in the literature is research that examines NP practice as it relates to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) patients. Individuals who identify as LGBT have health concerns specific to their sexual orientation or gender identity that may not be recognized by healthcare providers, such as NPs, and which may result in poorer health outcomes than for non-LGBT persons. This exploratory qualitative descriptive study was designed to examine in detail the practice experiences of NPs in providing primary health care to LGBT patients. A convenience sample of 22 NPs, supplemented with snowball sampling, was drawn from the registry of licensed NPs in the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Data were collected via semi-structured individual interviews, which were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Some brief measures of quantitative data were also collected for demographic purposes. The qualitative data were analyzed using inductive analysis. Special attention was given to ensuring credibility, dependability, transferability, and confirmability of the data and their interpretation. Key themes that emerged from analysis of the data included: filling in the knowledge gaps; fostering a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship; and sexual and psychosocial health. The research findings also highlighted the gaps that exist in the training and education on LGBT health that NPs received from their educational programs.
Photosynthetic reaction center as a quantum heat engine

Two seemingly unrelated effects attributed to quantum coherence have been reported recently in natural and artificial light-harvesting systems. First, an enhanced solar cell efficiency was predicted and second, population oscillations were measured in photosynthetic antennae excited by sequences of coherent ultrashort laser pulses. Because both systems operate as quantum heat engines (QHEs) that convert the solar photon energy to useful work (electric currents or chemical energy, respectively), the question arises whether coherence could also enhance the photosynthetic yield. Here, we show that both effects arise from the same population–coherence coupling term which is induced by noise, does not require coherent light, and will therefore work for incoherent excitation under natural conditions of solar excitation. Charge separation in light-harvesting complexes occurs in a pair of tightly coupled chlorophylls (the special pair) at the heart of photosynthetic reaction centers of both plants and bacteria. We show the analogy between the energy level schemes of the special pair and of the laser/photocell QHEs, and that both population oscillations and enhanced yield have a common origin and are expected to coexist for typical parameters. We predict an enhanced yield of 27% in a QHE motivated by the reaction center. This suggests nature-mimicking architectures for artificial solar energy devices.
On the role of algebra in the efficient verification of proofs

This article extracts the elements of algebra that play a central role in the design of efficient probabilistic verifiers or “probabilistically checkable proof systems (PCPs)”. The main algebraic elements are low-degree polynomials over finite fields. Their role can be broken up into three essential elements: 1. Their classical role in the design of error-correcting codes. 2. Their recently discovered property of being efficiently locally checkable. 3. The existence of characterizations via polynomials of fundamental complexity classes including NP, PSPACE and NEXPTIME.
Generation of Leishmania Hybrids by Whole Genomic DNA Transformation

Genetic exchange is a powerful tool to study gene function in microorganisms. Here, we tested the feasibility of generating Leishmania hybrids by electroporating genomic DNA of donor cells into recipient Leishmania parasites. The donor DNA was marked with a drug resistance marker facilitating the selection of DNA transfer into the recipient cells. The transferred DNA was integrated exclusively at homologous locus and was as large as 45 kb. The independent generation of L. infantum hybrids with L. major sequences was possible for several chromosomal regions. Interfering with the mismatch repair machinery by inactivating the MSH2 gene enabled an increased efficiency of recombination between divergent sequences, hence favouring the selection of hybrids between species. Hybrids were shown to acquire the phenotype derived from the donor cells, as demonstrated for the transfer of drug resistance genes from L. major into L. infantum. The described method is a first step allowing the generation of in vitro hybrids for testing gene functions in a natural genomic context in the parasite Leishmania.
Learning and adaptation of a Stylistic Myoelectric Interface: EMG-based robotic control with individual user differences

In this study, we propose an interface to intuitively control robotic devices by using myoelectric signals detected from human users. In particular, we show experiments in which myoelectric signals measured from a forearm are used to control a robotic hand. When a user performs different motions (e.g., grasping and pinching), different myoelectric signals are measured. On the other hand, when different users perform the same motion (e.g, grasping), also, different myoelectric signals are measured. Therefore, designing a myoelectric interface that can be used for different users to perform different motions is difficult. In this study, we propose a bilinear model to explain myoelectric signals that depend on users and motions. The bilinear model is composed of two linear factors: 1) the user-dependent factor and 2) the motion-dependent factor. Since the motion-dependent factor can be interpreted as a common representation of motion among multiple users, it allows to construct a myoelectric interface that is commonly applicable to multiple users to robotic devices. We present a learning procedure for the model using a set of myoelectric signals captured from multiple subjects, and present an adaptation procedure that adapts the model to a new user through only a few interactions. We call the combination of the model and the adaptation procedure the Stylistic Myoelectric Interface. Through experiments, the interface was applied to EMG-based robotic hand control and its effectiveness for multiple users was demonstrated.
An Array Architecture for Reconngurable Datapaths

A reconngurable architecture is proposed for prototyping datapath designs. The design consists of a regular array of identical lookup-table-based tiles. Tiles in one dimension can be mapped as pipe stages of a datapath. Tiles in the other dimension correspond to the width of the datapath. The design has been veriied through a VHDL description of the tile array with a SPARC CY7C601 datapath executing simple C benchmarks.
Pattern and motion vision in cats with selective loss of cortical directional selectivity

Neurons in the visual cortex of cats reared in 8 Hz stroboscopic illumination show a profound loss of directional selectivity, but no detectable deficits in orientation selectivity, contrast sensitivity, and temporal frequency response, and only a slight reduction in spatial resolution. In the present study, spatial vision, temporal resolution, and a variety of motion detection and discrimination thresholds were examined behaviorally in such cats. These psychophysical measurements revealed nearly normal spatial and temporal vision, but severe abnormalities in visual discriminations based on differences in stimulus direction. Specifically, strobe-reared cats showed normal orientation discrimination and temporal frequency resolution, nearly normal contrast sensitivity at low spatial frequencies, and a slight reduction of sensitivity to high spatial frequencies. At high contrasts, the cats were able to discriminate opposite directions of motion over a wide range of visible speeds, and their performance was indistinguishable from that of normal cats. However, a comparison of contrast thresholds for detecting moving gratings and for discriminating their direction of motion revealed severe abnormalities in strobe-reared animals. At low spatial frequencies (0.28 cycles/deg), normal cats could discriminate the direction of grating motion at contrasts that were just barely visible, whereas the strobe-reared cats could detect the grating at contrasts similar to those required by normal cats, but required contrasts about 10 X the threshold to identify the direction of motion. Normal cats showed nearly identical contrast sensitivity for detecting and discriminating gratings of high spatial frequency at high temporal frequency (drift rates), but when the temporal frequency was low, their sensitivity for detection exceeded that for direction discrimination. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)