Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Malware detection based on mining API calls

Financial loss due to malware nearly doubles every two years. For instance in 2006, malware caused near 33.5 Million GBP direct financial losses only to member organizations of banks in UK. Recent malware cannot be detected by traditional signature based anti-malware tools due to their polymorphic and/or metamorphic nature. Malware detection based on its immutable characteristics has been a recent industrial practice. The datasets are not public. Thus the results are not reproducible and conducting research in academic setting is difficult. In this work, we not only have improved a recent method of malware detection based on mining Application Programming Interface (API) calls significantly, but also have created the first public dataset to promote malware research. Our technique first reads API call sets used in a collection of Portable Executable (PE) files, then generates a set of discriminative and domain interpretable features. These features are then used to train a classifier to detect unseen malware. We have achieved detection rate of 99.7% while keeping accuracy as high as 98.3%. Our method improved state of the art technology in several aspects: accuracy by 5.24%, detection rate by 2.51% and false alarm rate was decreased from 19.86% to 1.51%. This project's data and source code can be found at http://home.shirazu. ac.ir/~sami/malware.
Severity of Barotrauma Influences the Physiological Status, Postrelease Behavior, and Fate of Tournament-Caught Smallmouth Bass

Abstract Much research on the fish physiological consequences of tournaments has been conducted to date and has provided anglers and tournament organizers with strategies for reducing stress and mortality. However, one aspect of tournaments that has received little attention is barotrauma. At a fall competitive angling event on Rainy Lake in northwestern Ontario, we evaluated the incidence of barotrauma among tournament-caught smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu; we then tagged and released a subset of fish that had severe barotrauma indicators and compared physiology, postrelease behavior, and fate between these fish and those with negligible signs of barotrauma. Overall, 76% of fish had at least one sign of barotrauma (either hemorrhaging or swim bladder distention), but only 32% of fish had two or more indicators and were thus deemed to have severe barotrauma. When telemetered fish were released at a common site, we determined that fish with negligible signs of barotrauma evacuated the release site mo.
Promoting Consumer Choice and Empowerment through Tenant Choice of Supportive Housing Case Manager

This paper presents findings from in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with 31 formerly homeless tenants and nine direct service staff at a supportive housing site, where a structured process for matching tenants with case managers (“Tenant Choice”) was piloted in which tenants were offered the option of choosing their respective case managers. Tenant Choice aims to increase the opportunity for tenants to make choices that will enable them to have more control over their treatment and recovery and obtain the optimal match between tenant and case manager. This study sought to understand how tenants and staff experienced Tenant Choice, determine whether Tenant Choice was meeting its goals, and identify areas for improvement. The major themes identified were: (1) pre-existing satisfaction drove tenant choices; (2) personal qualities of case managers were valued by tenants over professional qualifications and work experience; (3) the views of tenants and staff differed regarding whether minimal contact versus extended contact leads to better choices and working relationships; (4) the option of choice was valued by tenants regardless of whether it led to a change of case manager; and (5) staff concerns failed to materialize.
The Effect of Age on Short-Term Orthokeratology

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of age on the response to short-term (one hour) open eye orthokeratology (OK) lens wear. Methods. Sixty volunteer subjects were divided into three groups (n = 20 per group) comprising children (group I, mean age: 9.5 ± 1.7 years), young adults (group II, mean age: 24.6 ± 3.7 years), and older adults (group III, mean age: 43.9 ± 6.1 years). Subjects wore reverse-geometry lenses (BE; UltraVision Pty. Ltd., Brisbane, Australia) under open-eye conditions for 1 hour in one eye only. Unaided logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) visual acuity, corneal astigmatism calculated from simulated keratometric (SimK) readings, corneal asphericity and apical radius of curvature (Medmont corneal topographer), and total corneal, stromal, and epithelial thickness (Holden-Payor optical pachometer) were measured before and after lens wear. Two-tailed paired Student t-test were used to examine changes after OK, and analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc t tests were used to compare between groups with a critical p value of 0.05. Results. All groups showed statistically significant (p < 0.05) improvement in unaided visual acuity, a trend for more positive (less prolate) corneal asphericity, increase in apical corneal radius, and decrease in central total corneal thickness after OK lens wear. Compared with groups I and II, group III showed significantly less change (p < 0.05) in visual acuity, apical corneal radius, corneal asphericity, central total corneal thickness, and epithelial thickness. Conclusions. Corneal and visual changes found in this study confirm previous reports of the rapid effects of short-term OK lens wear. Older lens wearers showed a reduced or delayed response to reverse-geometry lens wear in the short term, suggesting a reduced corneal epithelial response to interventions with increasing age.
Classroom Teachers' and Music Specialists' Perceived Ability to Implement the National Standards for Music Education

This study was designed as an examination of teacher perceptions about factors affecting the successful teaching of the National Standards for Music Education. Subjects of the study were music specialists and fourth-grade classroom teachers—or generalists—from public elementary schools throughout Florida. A survey was administered to both groups to determine opinions regarding the feasibility of implementing each of the nine National Standards for Music Education (singing, playing instruments, improvising, composing/arranging, reading/notating, listening/analyzing, evaluating, understanding music as it relates to other subjects, and understanding musk as it relates to history and culture) by rating seven items (contact time, resources, assistance, ability, training, interest, responsibility, and level of assistance). Results indicated that, with respect to all seven items, music specialists are considerably more amenable to the implementation of all nine standards than are general educators. Certain standards are more feasible for both music teachers and generalists to integrate, whereas others should be solely implemented by music teachers. Music specialists are less dependent on the assistance of generalists, but the generalists need the assistance of music specialists to successfully implement most standards. Both groups expressed a concern about the lack of time and resources to effectively teach what is required by most standards.
New Graduate Nurses’ Professional Commitment: Antecedents and Outcomes

PURPOSE This study examines the factors that increase new graduate nurses' professional commitment and how this professional commitment in turn affects professional turnover intentions, anxiety, and physical health symptoms. DESIGN The study was carried out in association with the nursing undergraduate's affiliation of Quebec, Canada. A three-wave longitudinal design was employed among nursing students. Nurses were surveyed before they entered the labor market, and then twice after they started working. METHODS Participants were contacted by post at their home address. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION Professional commitment explains why good work characteristics and the provision of organizational resources related to patient care reduce nurses' anxiety and physical symptoms, and increase their professional turnover intentions. Pre-entry professional perceptions moderate the effects of work characteristics on professional commitment such that when participants hold positive pre-entry perceptions about the profession, the propensity to develop professional commitment is higher. CLINICAL RELEVANCE There is a worldwide shortage of nurses. From a nurse training perspective, it is important to create realistic perceptions of the nursing role. In hospitals, providing a good work environment and resources conducive to their professional ethos is critical for ensuring nurses do not leave the profession early on in their careers.
An Investigation of Workforce Diversity Programmes: A Multiple Perspective Approach

Organisations are facing enormous changes in the demographic composition of the workforce. Racial groups that have traditionally been professionally isolated from one another are working together as more minorities are assimilated into the workforce (Lewan, 1990). The Hudson Institute's Workforce 2000 statistics project that women, minorities, and immigrants will soon make up the majority of new entrants into the American workforce (Johnston & Packer, 1987). This diversity brings numerous racial and cultural differences into corporations. As a result, managing diversity increasingly appears on the agendas of organisational leaders (Cox & Blake, 1991).
School‐based Research and Development of Environmental Education: a case study

SUMMARY This article provides a case of school‐based research and development of environmental education. In collaboration with an external researcher, four teachers from a secondary agricultural school used an action research model in critically examining their own teaching practice and materials with the intention of developing the environmental dimension of their teaching. Jointly they became engaged in a process of problematising their own teaching practice, analysing a key issue of mutual concern, generating potential solutions, confronting the selected solution with the everyday practice of teaching and evaluating the residts. The research and development process, some of the main outcomes and their potential implications for environmental education are presented.
Childhood Obesity and Impulsivity: An Investigation With Performance-Based Measures

Abstract The study investigated whether obese children are more impulsive than lean children, taking into account the multidimensionality of the construct. Responses of 41 overweight children were compared to those of 40 lean children. The Stop Task, Circle Drawing Task and Opposite Worlds Task were administered to measure executive inhibitory control, and the Maudsley Index of Childhood Delay Aversion and the Door Opening Task were administered to measure motivational inhibitory control. On the Stop Task, the overweight children showed less inhibitory control. On the Opposite Worlds task, we found no significant difference, whereas on the Circle Drawing Task an unexpected group difference was found. Although on the Door Opening Task the overweight children showed greater reward sensitivity, they were equally motivated to wait on the Maudsley Index of Childhood Delay. We conclude that the findings were different depending on the measure used, but that they suggest that overweight children can be characterised by a decrease in executive and motivational inhibitory control.
Integration of Data from Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks Using Model-Driven Collaborative Tools

Ubiquitous environments such as Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks need applications that allow them to integrate data and services to build knowledge that can be used to make decisions and to improve standards of living and user safety, among others. We have designed a collaborative virtual environment that covers the needs of integration of knowledge from different vehicles to endow the final user with the necessary information. This environment has been carried out following a model-driven approach that generates a groupware application for improving collaborative work and access to services. The implemented tool facilitates the development and implementation of collaborative frameworks in VANETs, where every vehicle acts as a node.
New Potentials for Teacher Education: Teaching and Learning as Inquiry

Wholistic perspectives on language and learning pervade current educational research and theory. Although these theories have affected what is taught in teacher education programs, they are only beginning to influence how that content is taught and learned. Until teacher educators explore more fully how to live their own models, they will have a limited effect on changing the current course of teacher education or of education in elementary and secondary schools. This article first describes the current scene in teacher education by discussing beliefs about learning that build from recent understandings about language, and constraints on change that exist within college settings. The second half of the article presents a variety of changes that teacher educators have been exploring in their classrooms and programs. These changes are based on insights from current theories of learning and language. They reflect the attempts of teacher educators to create learning environments that support all learners as inquirers.
Power control by interference prediction for broadband wireless packet networks

A Kalman-filter method for power control is proposed for broadband, packet-switched time division multiple access wireless networks. By exploiting the temporal correlation of co-channel interference, a Kalman filter is used to predict future interference power. Based on the predicted interference and estimated path gain between the transmitter and receiver, the transmission power is determined to achieve a desired signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). A condition to ensure power stability in the packet-switched environment is established and proven for a special case of the Kalman-filter method. The condition generalizes the existing one for a fixed path-gain matrix, as for circuit-switched networks. Performance results reveal that the Kalman-filter method for power control provides a significant performance improvement. Specifically, when messages consist of ten packets on average, the 90th and 95th percentile of the SINR by the new method are 3.79 dB and 5.46 dB above those when no power control is in use, and lie just 0.96 dB and 1.14 dB below the upper-bound performance of the optimal power control, respectively, in a system with four-sector cells and an interleaved frequency assignment of a reuse factor of 2/8. In addition, the new method performs noticeably better than the delta-modulation method and a simple scheme that uses the last measurement as predicted interference power. In an example of 8-PSK modulation and average message length of 20 packets, the SINR performance gain by the new method improves the network throughput by about 150% and 70%, relative to no power control and the simple scheme, respectively.
Prediction and identification‐based prediction of Chinese hepatitis C viral‐specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte epitopes

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) play a critical role in the host immune response to infection by the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). In the current study, a number of HCV CTL epitopes that represent the HLA polymorphisms found in the majority of Chinese people were predicted based on genomic and bioinformatic approaches. The predicted epitopes were evaluated for validity by examining the peptide‐binding affinity for MHC class I molecules, the stability of peptide–MHC complexes, and frequencies of IFN γ‐positive T cells. Among the predicted epitope peptides, HLA‐A2 restricted epitopes [NS4B (1793–1801) SMMAFSAAL] and HLA‐B7 restricted epitopes [P7 (774–782) AAWYIKGRL] were able to induce high frequencies of IFN γ‐producing T cells, and the specific CTLs for other epitopes were not detected in peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with HCV. Moreover, NS4B (1793–1801) exhibited high binding affinity for HLA‐A2 molecules, and its stability of peptide–MHC class I complexes was sufficient, indicating that the high binding affinity for MHC class I molecules is an important factor for immunogenicity. Primary analyses of the immunogenicity of predicted epitopes, such as in the current study, will contribute to the future design of an efficient vaccine that will be able to induce vigorous, sustainable, and broad HCV‐specific CTL responses for the Chinese population. J. Med. Virol. 83:1315–1320, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Theoretical Analysis of Binaural Transfer Function MVDR Beamformers with Interference Cue Preservation Constraints

The objective of binaural noise reduction algorithms is not only to selectively extract the desired speaker and to suppress interfering sources (e.g., competing speakers) and ambient background noise, but also to preserve the auditory impression of the complete acoustic scene. For directional sources this can be achieved by preserving the relative transfer function (RTF) which is defined as the ratio of the acoustical transfer functions relating the source and the two ears and corresponds to the binaural cues. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the performance of three algorithms that are based on the binaural minimum variance distortionless response (BMVDR) beamformer, and hence, process the desired source without distortion. The BMVDR beamformer preserves the binaural cues of the desired source but distorts the binaural cues of the interfering source. By adding an interference reduction (IR) constraint, the recently proposed BMVDR-IR beamformer is able to preserve the binaural cues of both the desired source and the interfering source. We further propose a novel algorithm for preserving the binaural cues of both the desired source and the interfering source by adding a constraint preserving the RTF of the interfering source, which will be referred to as the BMVDR-RTF beamformer. We analytically evaluate the performance in terms of binaural signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR), signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the three considered beamformers. It can be shown that the BMVDR-RTF beamformer outperforms the BMVDR-IR beamformer in terms of SINR and outperforms the BMVDR beamformer in terms of SIR. Among all beamformers which are distortionless with respect to the desired source and preserve the binaural cues of the interfering source, the newly proposed BMVDR-RTF beamformer is optimal in terms of SINR. Simulations using acoustic transfer functions measured on a binaural hearing aid validate our theoretical results.
Paper No . 493 Asymmetric price adjustments : A supply side approach

Using a model of dynamic price competition, this paper provides an explanation from the supply side for the well-established observation that retail prices adjust faster when input costs rise than when they fall. The opportunity of profitable storing for the next period induces competitive firms to immediately increase their prices in anticipation of higher future input costs. This relaxes competition and firms earn positive profits. Conversely, when input costs are expected to decline, firms adjust their prices only after a cost reduction materializes, and the firms’ incentives for price undercutting lead to the standard Bertrand outcome.
Efficient algorithms for globally optimal trajectories

Presents serial and parallel algorithms for solving a system of equations that arises from the discretization of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation associated to a trajectory optimization problem of the following type. A vehicle starts at a prespecified point x/sub 0/ and follows a unit speed trajectory x(t) inside a region in /spl Rfr//sup m/, until an unspecified time T that the region is excited. A trajectory minimising a cost function of the form /spl int//sub 0//sup T/ r(x(t))dt+q(x(T)) is sought. The discretized Hamilton-Jacobi equation corresponding to this problem is usually served using iterative methods. Nevertheless, assuming that the function r is positive, one is able to exploit the problem structure and develop one-pass algorithms for the discretized problem. The first m resembles Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm and runs in time O(n log n), where n is the number of grid points. The second algorithm uses a somewhat different discretization and borrows some ideas from Dial's shortest path algorithm; it runs in time O(n), which is the best possible, under some fairly mild assumptions. Finally, the author shows that the latter algorithm can be efficiently parallelized: for two-dimensional problems and with p processors, its running time becomes O(n/p), provided that p=O(/spl radic/n/log n). <<ETX>>
La démarche narrative en économie

Economic analysis appears primarily based on modelisation and making use of quantitative methods. In particular narratives on case studies which had for long prevailed in industrial economics have noticeably receded. Yet, is it as straightforward? Is it not thinkable to propose a structured narrative approach that would have increased scientific legitimacy and added diversity in the field? The paper focuses on these issues. The first part discusses to what extent narratives may be said having disappeared from economics scientific production. It illustrates that they still play an effective ancillary role as a key source for theorisation. Evidence is given from the analysis of the qwerty story and its relationship to the emergence of the path dependency theory. Other seminal economic works are reviewed which show that, properly performed, the narrative approach has scope for bringing new insights under the dominant quantitative perspective. Then, the second part of the paper concentrates on the narrative approach as an exploratory method and on the circumstances under which it may lead to innovative developments. Classification JEL : B 41
A Comparative Study on Supervised and Unsupervised Learning Approaches for Multilingual Text Categorization

Recently users of internationally distributed information networks need tools and methods that enable them to discover, retrieve and categorize relevant information, in whatever language and form it may have been stored. This drives a convergence of numerous interests from diverse research communities focusing on the issues related to multilingual text categorization. In this work we compare and evaluate the performance of the leading supervised and unsupervised approaches for multilingual text categorization by using various performance measures and standard document corpora. For simplicity, we selected support vector machines (SVM) and latent semantic indexing (LSI) techniques as representatives of supervised and unsupervised methods for multilingual text categorization, respectively. The preliminary results show that our platform models including both supervised and unsupervised learning methods have the potentials for multilingual text categorization
Primary structure effects on peptide group hydrogen exchange

The rate of exchange of peptide group NH hydrogens with the hydrogens of aqueous solvent is sensitive to neighboring side chains. To evaluate the effects of protein side chains, all 20 naturally occurring amino acids were studied using dipeptide models. Both inductive and steric blocking effects are apparent. The additivity of nearest‐neighbor blocking and inductive effects was tested in oligo‐and polypeptides and, suprisingly, confirmed. Reference rates for alanine‐containing peptides were determined and effects of temperature considered. These results provide the information necessary to evaluate measured protein NH to ND exchange rates by comparing them with rates to be expected for the same amino acid sequence is unstructured aligo‐ and polypeptides. The application of this approach to protein studies is discussed. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.