Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Rapid Secret Sharing Scheme for Resource Constrained Environments

A method of rapid secret sharing scheme based on STAR codes is proposed. Due to the characteristic of array codes such as STAR codes, the computation in secret sharing scheme need only XOR operation on GF(2), which is distinguished with the modulation and other complex operation on GF(q) in the traditional schemes. Thus, it's more rapid and suitable for large capacity secret sharing, and also appropriate for resource constrained environments, such as embedded systems. The process of distribution and reconstruction of the secret key in our scheme is depicted in details, and an example of (5, 8) threshold secret sharing scheme based on (8, 5, 4) STAR code is demonstrated. Our scheme is proved to be perfect and ideal.
An Adaptive Model for Probabilistic Sentiment Analysis

Online reviews, which are getting increasingly prevalent with the rapid growth of Web 2.0, have been shown to be second only to ``word-of-mouth'' in terms of influencing purchase decisions. It is therefore imperative to analyze them and distill useful knowledge that could be of economic values to vendors and other interested parties. Previous studies have confirmed that the sentiments expressed in the online reviews are strongly correlated with the sales performance of products. In particular, a model called ARSA has been proposed for predicting sales performance using a model called S-PLSA. In this paper, we build upon that work, and present an adaptive sentiment analysis model called S-PLSA+, which not only can capture the hidden sentiment factors in the reviews, but has the capability to be incrementally updated as more data become available. We show how the proposed S-PLSA+ model can be applied to sales performance prediction using the ARSA model. A case study is conducted in the movie domain, and results from preliminary experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model.
NumChecker: Detecting kernel control-flow modifying rootkits by using Hardware Performance Counters

This paper presents NumChecker, a new Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) based framework to detect control-flow modifying kernel rootkits in a guest Virtual Machine (VM). NumChecker detects malicious modifications to a system call in the guest VM by checking the number of certain hardware events that occur during the system call's execution. To automatically count these events, NumChecker leverages the Hardware Performance Counters (HPCs), which exist in most modern processors. By using HPCs, the checking cost is significantly reduced and the tamper-resistance is enhanced. We implement a prototype of NumChecker on Linux with the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). Our evaluation demonstrates its practicality and effectiveness.
Validity of the Connor Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC) in people from 60-to-75 years old

The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the CD-RISC in community dwelling older people, and compare its factorial structure with the original one. We used the following scales: CD-RISC (resilience), PSS (perceived stress), the mental component of the SF-12, GDS (Geriatric Depression) and MOS (social support). It was finally a scale with three dimensions including 17 items. Convergent validity was performed to test whether the means of the variables used are significantly associated with resilience and global scores of Spanish version of CD-RISC scale were directly correlated with the scores of MOS and mental component of SF-12, and inversely related with the scores of PSS and GDS scales. In conclusion the Spanish CD-RISC scale includes 17 items divided into three dimensions, shows acceptable psychometric properties and correlates with social support, perceived stress, depression and mental component of quality of life.
The Effect of Associated Group Identities on Team Identity

The primary purpose of this study was to assess the proposition that identification with a university, city and/ or state could affect an individual’s identification process with a sport team (Heere & James, 2007a). The team identity scale was modified and used to measure multiple group identities. A secondary purpose was to provide further evidence of the reliability and validity of the multidimensional group identity instrument. The results provide some evidence that the group identity instrument is reliable and valid in four settings: team, university, city, and state. For this particular sample, team identity was positively influenced by the associated group identities. The findings support the use of a group identity scale to test different group identities and support the proposition that identification with a focal group such as a sport team does not exist in a vacuum and may be influenced by an individual’s relationship with other groups.
Screening of Available Tools for Dynamic Mooring Analysis of Wave Energy Converters

The focus on alternative energy sources has increased significantly throughout the last few decades, leading to a considerable development in the wave energy sector. In spite of this, the sector cannot yet be considered commercialized, and many challenges still exist, in which mooring of floating wave energy converters is included. Different methods for assessment and design of mooring systems have been described by now, covering simple quasi-static analysis and more advanced and sophisticated dynamic analysis. Design standards for mooring systems already exist, and new ones are being developed specifically forwave energy converter moorings, which results in other requirements to the chosen tools, since these often have been aimed at other offshore sectors. The present analysis assesses a number of relevant commercial software packages for full dynamic mooring analysis in order to highlight the advantages and drawbacks. The focus of the assessment is to ensure that the software packages are capable of fulfilling the requirements of modeling, as defined in design standards and thereby ensuring that the analysis can be used to get a certified mooring system. Based on the initial assessment, the two software packages DeepC and OrcaFlex are found to best suit the requirements. They are therefore used in a case study in order to evaluate motion and mooring load response, and the results are compared in order to provide guidelines for which software package to choose. In the present study, the OrcaFlex code was found to satisfy all requirements.
Robust solution of prioritized inverse kinematics based on Hestenes-Powell multiplier method

A robust numerical solution of the prioritized inverse kinematics is proposed. It is based on the augmented Lagrangian function and Hestenes-Powell's multiplier method. It originates the weighted inverse kinematics and only requires a small modification including an accumulation of the error of the high-priority constraint at each step of iteration and an estimation of Lagrange's multiplier. Hence, it is preferable to the conventional method, which is accompanied with an explicit complex computation of the kernel space, from the viewpoint of both the implementation cost and the computation cost per step. A drawback is that the proposed method becomes slow in some situations since Lagrange's multiplier linearly converges, while the joint displacements superlinearly converge. In some unlucky situations, it requires more computation cost in total than the conventional method. However, the proposed method is robust even in cases where the high-priority constraint is unsatisfiable. In fact, the proposed method solely succeeded in all the tested cases including unsolvable ones.
Bridging Heterogeneous Representations of Binary Relations: First Results

In previous work we argued that semantic discrepancies between different ontologies do not reduce to the fact that a concept (relation) in an ontology is somehow related to another concept (relation) in another ontology. On the contrary, semantic discrepancies are likely to be more articulate; e.g. the same “real world” entity can be modelled as a concept or a relation. For example, consider an ontology modelling orders by means of a PurchaseOrder class with attributes (i.e. functional roles) holding the details of the actual order (buyer, good, date, delivery option, etc.). In a second ontology not all the details on the purchase orders are modelled, and the information is summarised into the BoughtBy role ranging from Taxable to Person. This kind of differences are among the so-called schematic differences, well studied in schema integration (see, e.g., [1]) but still not deeply investigated in ontology integration. To address this problem we introduced in [3] a Distributed Description Logic (DDL for short) able to represent heterogeneous mappings involving a class and a relation, in addition to mappings between homogeneous components (i.e. concepts into concepts, and roles into roles). This formalism enables the modeller to express the semantic relation between concepts and roles (and vice-versa). For example, the modeller can map the concept PurchaseOrder of Ontology 1 and the role BoughtBy of Ontology 2 via, so-called, heterogeneous bridge rules like
Clustering approach to bone and soft tissue segmentation of digital radiographic images of extremities

We present an algorithm for segmentation of computed radiography (CR) images of extremities into bone and soft tissue regions. The algorithm is region-based in which the regions are con- structed using a region-growing procedure based on two different statistical tests. Following the region-growing process, a tissue clas- sification method is employed. The purpose of the classification is to label each region as either bone or soft tissue. This binary classifi- cation goal is achieved by using a voting procedure that consists of the clustering of regions in each neighborhood system into two classes. The voting procedure provides a crucial compromise be- tween the local and the global analysis of the image, which is nec- essary due to strong exposure variations seen on the imaging plate. Also, the existence of regions whose size is large enough such that exposure variations can be observed through them makes it neces- sary to use overlapping blocks during the classification. After the tissue classification step, the resulting bone and soft tissue regions are refined by fitting a second-order surface to each tissue, and reevaluating the label of each region according to the distance be- tween the region and surfaces. The performance of the algorithm is tested on a variety of extremity images using manually segmented images as the gold standard. The experiments show that our algo- rithm provides a bone boundary with an average area overlap of 90% compared to the gold standard. © 2003 SPIE and IS&T.
On the origin of species: insights from the ecological genomics of lake whitefish

In contrast to the large amount of ecological information supporting the role of natural selection as a main cause of population divergence and speciation, an understanding of the genomic basis underlying those processes is in its infancy. In this paper, we review the main findings of a long-term research programme that we have been conducting on the ecological genomics of sympatric forms of whitefish (Coregonus spp.) engaged in the process of speciation. We present this system as an example of how applying a combination of approaches under the conceptual framework of the theory of adaptive radiation has yielded substantial insight into evolutionary processes in a non-model species. We also discuss how the joint use of recent biotechnological developments will provide a powerful means to address issues raised by observations made to date. Namely, we present data illustrating the potential offered by combining next generation sequencing technologies with other genomic approaches to reveal the genomic bases of adaptive divergence and reproductive isolation. Given increasing access to these new genomic tools, we argue that non-model species studied in their ecological context such as whitefish will play an increasingly important role in generalizing knowledge of speciation.
A Matter of Significance: Can Sampling Error Invalidate Cloze Estimates of Text Readability?

This quantitative study intends to better understand the impact of the location of the first deleted word upon the estimation of text difficulty yielded by successive cloze tests based on random deletion from a single passage. The variation in sampling of language features across five cloze tests based on the same passage is random and thus not statistically significant. However, there is a statistically significant difference in result distributions of matched groups after scoring for exact replacement. These differences in performance appear partly due to differences in the frequencies of nouns, verbs, and grammatical metaphor between the different tests derived from the base passage. Although the differences between the tests in this investigation appear to fall within the tolerances indicated by commonly used criterion scores, the range of mean scores for particular school grades suggests that more generalised estimation of text difficulty should be based on exhaustive sampling rather than relying on one test based on a specific passage. This study is significant because it illuminates widespread concerns regarding the usefulness of cloze techniques for the purpose for which they were first devised and suggests reasons for the impact of two forms of sampling error.
Validation of an Endocrine Disrupting Chemical ( EDC ) Microarray Gene Chip for the Detection of EDC Mixtures in Ambient Water

Scientists at the Aquatic Toxicology Program at UC Davis have developed a medaka fish model DNA microarray to evaluate the expression of genes associated with the presence of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in surface and groundwater. There is a tremendous potential in the application of DNA microarray technology as a screening tool to determine the presence of EDCs in the aquatic environment. Developing and using this approach will greatly benefit the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring Program (GAMA) in their effort to monitor the occurrence of EDCs that have profound implications when present in ground and surface waters that affect both human and wildlife. The Qurt medaka (Orysias latipes) is an ideal model for studying EDCs due to its short generation time (6-8 wks) and daily year-round spawning under controlled photoperiod and temperature conditions. Gonad histopathology in medaka is an essential core endpoint for the rapid detection of endocrine disrupting activity. The Qurt strain medaka is a gonochoristic species with an XX/XY sex determination system. The genotypic sex can be identified at early embryonic stages due to sex-linked occurrence of leucophores. As leucophore differentiation occurs at the 2-day-old embryo stage in males, but not in females, the genotypic sex can be identified before sexual differentiation, which facilitates the examination of gender-specific effects of EDCs during critical stages of development. We selected three receptor agonist/antagonist as prototype EDCs: estrogen/anti-estrogen [i.e., 17-β-estradiol/faslodex TM (ICI 182,780)]; androgen/anti-androgen (i.e.,11-ketotestosterone/flutamide); and thyroidogen/ anti-thyroidogen (i.e., thyroid hormone (T3)/amiodarone). Biologically effective concentrations (BEC) for each of the six prototypic EDCs were identified by conducting a series of range-finding experiments using 1-week-old male and female Qurt medaka larvae.
THE IMPACT OF A CLASSROOM-BASED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PROGRAM ON TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF FIGURES xi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Statement of the Problem 1 Research Questions 4 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW Background 5 Benefits of Physical Activity 8 Current Levels of Physical Activity 10 Theoretical Framework of Student Engagement 11 Academic Component 15 Behavioral Component 15 Cognitive Component 16 Psychological Component 16 The Role of Motivation in the Student Engagement Process 18 Amotivation 19 External Regulation 20 Introjected Regulation 20 Regulation through Identification 20 Integrated Regulation 20 Physical Activity and Engagement Research 22
A piecewise transistor-level simulation technique for the steady state and phase noise analysis of integer N PLLs

Brute force transistor-level simulation of PLL is precise but suffers long simulation time and convergence problems, both with time domain and harmonic-balance techniques. On the other hand common behavioral phase domain simulation is rapid but doesn’t consider the non-idealities at transistor-level. In this paper we propose a piecewise transistor-level simulation method, which stands between the two above approaches, and combines the advantages of both. In the proposed method, a hierarchical simulation process is applied to compute an accurate steady state, and a small-signal model is created for phase noise calculation. The phase noise is obtained rapidly and accurately.
Automated TV-set Raster Tuning System

System for automated control and tuning of TVset raster has been developed. The artificial intelligence elements such as multilayer perceptron, RBF and Cohonen networks effectively have been used in the system to tuning parameters of image correction algorithms, approximation of non-linearities and for the rough determination of a position of the TVset relative to CCD-camera. The accuracy of raster tuning and compensating of the nonlinear and geometrical distortions carried out by system with the use of above-mentioned approach much exceed the ones, achievable via hand-operated tuning.
BalloonProbe: reducing occlusion in 3D using interactive space distortion

Using a 3D virtual environment for information visualization is a promising approach, but can in many cases be plagued by a phenomenon of literally not being able to see the forest for the trees. Some parts of the 3D visualization will inevitably occlude other parts, leading both to loss of efficiency and, more seriously, correctness; users may have to change their viewpoint in a non-trivial way to be able to access hidden objects, and, worse, they may not even discover some of the objects in the visualization due to this inter-object occlusion. In this paper, we present a space distortion interaction technique called the BalloonProbe which, on the user's command, inflates a spherical force field that repels objects around the 3D cursor to the surface of the sphere, separating occluding objects from each other. Inflating and deflating the sphere is performed through smooth animation, ghosted traces showing the displacement of each repelled object. Our prototype implementation uses a 3D cursor for positioning as well as for inflating and deflating the force field ``balloon''. Informal testing suggests that the BalloonProbe is a powerful way of giving users interactive control over occlusion in 3D visualizations.
Microfluidic and Nanofluidic Resistive Pulse Sensing: A Review

The resistive pulse sensing (RPS) method based on the Coulter principle is a powerful method for particle counting and sizing in electrolyte solutions. With the advancement of micro- and nano-fabrication technologies, microfluidic and nanofluidic resistive pulse sensing technologies and devices have been developed. Due to the unique advantages of microfluidics and nanofluidics, RPS sensors are enabled with more functions with greatly improved sensitivity and throughput and thus have wide applications in fields of biomedical research, clinical diagnosis, and so on. Firstly, this paper reviews some basic theories of particle sizing and counting. Emphasis is then given to the latest development of microfuidic and nanofluidic RPS technologies within the last 6 years, ranging from some new phenomena, methods of improving the sensitivity and throughput, and their applications, to some popular nanopore or nanochannel fabrication techniques. The future research directions and challenges on microfluidic and nanofluidic RPS are also outlined.
Brief communication: how much larger is the relative volume of area 10 of the prefrontal cortex in humans?

It has long been thought that the prefrontal cerebral cortex has been greatly expanded in the human brain. Semendeferi et al. ([2001] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 114:224-241) showed that Brodmann's area 10 is relatively larger in the human compared to pongid brains. The question is: how much larger relatively is it? Using their data, it can be shown that the relative increase for human prefrontal area 10 is only 6% larger. Looking at the data base of neural structures provided by Stephan et al. ([1981] Folia Primatol. (Basel) 35:1-29), it is apparent that 6% is a relatively low residual value from a predicted value based on allometric considerations between total brain weight and any given neural structure. When this small increase is combined with their earlier findings on area 13 of prefrontal cortex (Semendeferi et al. [1997] J. Hum. Evol. 32:375-388), it appears that the prefrontal cortex in humans is not some 200% larger as claimed by some researchers (Deacon [1997] Symbolic Species, New York: W.W. Norton; cf. Holloway [1998] Am Sci 86:184-186), and that the findings of Semendeferi et al. ([2001] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 114:224-241) are in agreement with the earlier work (Semendeferi and Damasio [2000] J. Hum. Evol. 38:317-332; Semendeferi et al. [1997] J. Hum. Evol. 32:375-388), showing that the human frontal lobe volume is what would be expected for a primate of its brain size. While the prefrontal cortex may have increased relatively in Homo sapiens, the increase is likely to have been far less than currently believed.
Multispectral imaging of paintings

Identifying the materials of a painting is a crucial step in any conservation process. When the objective is to prepare an intervention plan, it is absolutely necessary to understand the matters the restorer is going to encounter. Also, when the aim is a better understanding of the artwork, and perhaps an authenticity check, it is highly relevant to know which materials were employed, since they may differ depending on the period of execution and on the specific artist as well. To identify materials on a painting's surface in a reliable manner, currently the most popular and trustworthy method is the analysis of microsamples of the paint layer. However, chemical analyses although reliable, have a number of drawbacks. The first is linked to the fact that this is an invasive method. The samples used need to be detached from the painting and will not be put back in place. Moreover, the achieved results are in principle - and often also in practice - valid only for that specific specimen and cannot generally be extended to neighboring areas.
On the Convexity of Energy-Efficient Packet Scheduling Problem with Finite Blocklength Codes

This paper considers an energy-efficient packet scheduling problem over green data networks, aiming at minimizing the transmission energy subject to the First-In-First-Out and strict delay constraints. Traditionally, such a problem is studied based on the classical Shannon capacity formula. However, Shannon capacity is valid only when the code blocklength approaches infinity and therefore is not practical for some applications in 5G system which allow short delays only. In this paper, we formulate the packet scheduling problem using the recently developed channel capacity formula for the finite blocklength code. It turns out that the newly formulated problem is much more challenging to solve than the traditional ones. Nevertheless, we analytically show that our scheduling problem can possess certain desirable monotonic and convex properties. Based on these properties, by applying a successive upper bound minimization (SUM) method, an iterative packet scheduling algorithm is proposed to efficiently solve the considered problem. Simulation results show that, compared with the proposed design using the finite blocklength channel capacity, the traditional design based on Shannon capacity will seriously underestimate the required transmission energy for reliable communications.