Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploiting synchronization in the analysis of shared-memory asynchronous programs

As asynchronous programming becomes more mainstream, program analyses capable of automatically uncovering programming errors are increasingly in demand. Since asynchronous program analysis is computationally costly, current approaches sacrifice completeness and focus on limited sets of asynchronous task schedules that are likely to expose programming errors. These approaches are based on parameterized task schedulers, each of which admits schedules which are variations of a default deterministic schedule. By increasing the parameter value, a larger variety of schedules is explored, at a higher cost. The efficacy of these approaches depends largely on the default deterministic scheduler on which varying schedules are fashioned. We find that the limited exploration of asynchronous program behaviors can be made more efficient by designing parameterized schedulers which better match the inherent ordering of program events, e.g., arising from waiting for an asynchronous task to complete. We follow a reduction-based "sequentialization" approach to analyzing asynchronous programs, which leverages existing (sequential) program analysis tools by encoding asynchronous program executions, according to a particular scheduler, as the executions of a sequential program. Analysis based on our new scheduler comes at no greater computational cost, and provides strictly greater behavioral coverage than analysis based on existing parameterized schedulers; we validate these claims both conceptually, with complexity and behavioral-inclusion arguments, and empirically, by discovering actual reported bugs faster with smaller parameter values.
Not Quite this and not Quite that: Anorexia Nervosa, Counselling Psychology, and Hermeneutic Inquiry in a Tapestry of Ambiguity

As a group of researchers exploring how to best understand the complex topic of families discovering their loved one has anorexia nervosa (AN), we found that we had to weave ambiguity into our design. Embracing ambiguity allowed us to create a tapestry that acknowledges the ambiguity of AN, counselling psychology (and other helping professions), and hermeneutic inquiry. In fact, the “not quite this and not quite that” features of these three constructs emerged as the thread that holds the inquiry together. We review the topic of AN through a lens of ambiguity. Further, we position both the field of counselling psychology and the research method of hermeneutic inquiry as compatible frameworks in the study of AN, in both practice and research. By acknowledging, and at times even embracing, ambiguity, we respect the complexity of the situation we are studying.
SENTENCE BOUNDARY DETECTION ON BROADCAST NEWS

Sentence boundary detection is an important task that augments automatic speech recognition word output with syntactic structure to allow for ease in reading and facilitate natural language processing tasks. This paper’s approach recovers setence boundaries based on a combination of prosodic and word-based features. Sentence boundaries are modeled as hidden events, predicted by language models supplemented by prosodic likelihoods computed from a decision tree. A typical language model is utilized and a part of speech class based model is integrated as well. The methods are then tested on the Broadacst News corpus.
Characterizations of Cloud Droplet Shatter Artifacts in Two Airborne Aerosol Inlets

Aircraft-based aerosol sampling in clouds is complicated by the generation of shatter artifact particles from aerodynamic or impaction breakup of cloud droplets and ice particles in and around the aerosol inlet. Aerodynamic breakup occurs when the Weber number of a droplet, which primarily depends on the droplet size and the magnitude of the relative motion of the droplet and the local air mass, exceeds a critical value. Impaction breakup of a droplet occurs when the droplet's impaction breakup parameter, K, which is a combination of Weber and Ohnesorge numbers, exceeds a critical value. Considering these two mechanisms, the critical breakup diameters are estimated for two aerosol inlets of different designs—a conventional forward-facing solid diffuser inlet (SDI) and a cross-flow sampling sub-micron aerosol inlet (SMAI). From numerical simulations, it is determined that cloud droplets of all sizes will experience impaction breakup in SDI, while only droplets larger than ∼16 μm will experience impaction breakup in SMAI. The relatively better in-cloud sampling performance of SMAI is because of its cone design that slows the flow just upstream of the sample tube. The slowing upstream flow, however, causes aerodynamic breakup of drops larger than ∼100 μm. The critical breakup diameters determined from analysis of field data largely validate numerical predictions. The cross-flow sampling design of SMAI is seen to ensure that shatter artifacts in the inlet are minimal even when there are a significant number of particles larger that the critical breakup size. The study results, thus, suggest that the SMAI design presents an effective approach to sample interstitial particles from aircraft. © 2013 American Association for Aerosol Research
Comprehensive corrective feedback on low and high proficiency writers: Examining attitudes and preferences

This study investigated the effects of comprehensive feedback on learners’ grammatical accuracy during text revision and in new writing tasks in light of proficiency level. It also sought to determine to what extent learners’ proficiency level plays a role in their feedback preferences and attitudes towards the feedback. The participants were 52 low proficiency and 39 high proficiency foreign language university learners, who were randomly assigned to a direct corrective feedback, a metalinguistic feedback with rule reminders, and a self-correction group. All learners wrote four compositions and completed a questionnaire after the treatment to elicit their attitudes towards the feedback and their feedback preferences. Results showed that the treatment effectively enhanced both low and high proficiency learners’ immediate grammatical accuracy and accuracy improvement. Also, a relation between proficiency level and learners’ attitudes towards the feedback as well as an association between proficiency level and learners’ feedback preferences were found.
Feature Oriented Programming: A step towards flexible composition of modular programming

Feature Oriented Programming is the study of feature modularity, a way of implementing a product lines. Software product lines (aka program families) generate families of programs and not monolithic software. In FOP a feature is a unit of functionality that satisfies a requirement. From a set of features, many different software systems can be generated that share common features and differ in other features. This paper focuses on the technical aspects of FOP by modifying the reusability concepts through interfaces, objects and lifters. Lifters are generalization of inheritance comprising the reusability of features.
Analysis and Design of X Band CMOS Quadruture VCO using Transformer-Resonator Coupling with Deep mode switching

A fully integrated X-Band quadrature VCO is presented. The VCO is implemented using transformer-coupled resonator in 0.18 μm CMOS technology, in which two VCOs are coupled by direct current modulation method to generate I-Q signals. The VCO is realized employing the drain-gate transformer feedback configuration proposed here. This allows VCO to use the quality factor enhancement in coupled resonator using a transformer and the deep switching-off technique. By turning off switching transistors of the differential VCO core deeply, the phase noise performance is improved more than 10 dB. The measured phase noise values are -110 and -118 dBc/HZ at the offset frequencies of 600 kHz and 1 MHz respectively, which is about 10 dB better than the previously reported quadrature Si VCOs in 5 ~ 12 GHz frequency range. The tuning range of 250 MHz is achieved with the control voltage from 0 to 1 V. The VCO draws 8 mA in two differential core circuits with 3 V supply.
An improved supercomputer sorting benchmark

The authors propose that the process of sorting be more formally adopted as a performance benchmark for commercial supercomputer applications. To this end they have investigated the use of entropy as a measure of data distribution and propose that it, along with larger datasets, be added to existing sorting benchmarks (such as NAS). Some of the key points in adopting such a benchmark are presented, and the results of applying such a benchmark to the CM-5 supercomputer are discussed. As a result of carefully examining this problem, the authors were able to sort 1 billion 32-b keys in less than 17 s on a 1024 processor CM-5. <<ETX>>
Learning High-level Prior with Convolutional Neural Networks for Semantic Segmentation

This paper proposes a convolutional neural network that can fuse high-level prior for semantic image segmentation. Motivated by humans' vision recognition system, our key design is a three-layer generative structure consisting of high-level coding, middle-level segmentation and low-level image to introduce global prior for semantic segmentation. Based on this structure, we proposed a generative model called conditional variational auto-encoder (CVAE) that can build up the links behind these three layers. These important links include an image encoder that extracts high level info from image, a segmentation encoder that extracts high level info from segmentation, and a hybrid decoder that outputs semantic segmentation from the high level prior and input image. We theoretically derive the semantic segmentation as an optimization problem parameterized by these links. Finally, the optimization problem enables us to take advantage of state-of-the-art fully convolutional network structure for the implementation of the above encoders and decoder. Experimental results on several representative datasets demonstrate our supreme performance for semantic segmentation.
A 5Gb/s Transmitter with Reflection Cancellation for Backplane Transceivers

We present a 5Gb/s transmitter that cancels the reflected signals from any impedance discontinuity located at up to 64UI away from the transmitter and spread over 8UI interval. Measured results from our 0.11mum CMOS design reveal a 150mV eye-opening, from a nearly closed eye, when reflection cancellation is activated. The design consumes 510muA for the PLL operation, 60mA for data generation, and 50mA for data transmission, all from a 1.2V supply
GTO: A Broadcast Protocol for Highway Environments over Diverse Traffic Conditions

Several data dissemination protocols in VANETs have been proposed in the literature, however, most of these protocols do not efficiently address broadcast storm and network partition problems simultaneously. This work attempts to fill this gap by proposing a suitable broadcast protocol in vehicular networks, designated GTO, that addresses both the broadcast storm and network partition problems in highway environment. In GTO protocol, all vehicles send beacon packets notifying whether there is or not the information, besides we employ the technique of zone of preference to rebroadcast messages to further vehicles. We compared the proposed protocol with the other five protocols - ATENA, DV-CAST, SRD, AID and Flooding - The results of evaluation show that our proposed protocol was more efficient to disseminate the information, within area of interest, than other five protocols in different traffic conditions.
A Solution for Grouping Vietnamese Synonym Feature Words in Product Reviews

Feature-based opinion mining is an interesting opinion mining issue. For this problem, feature words/phrases are discovered at sentence level. However, customers usually use different words/phrases referring to the same feature in reviews. To produce a meaningful summary, synonym feature words/phrases in domain, need to be grouped under the same feature. This paper proposes a solution for grouping synonym features in Vietnamese customer reviews based on semi-supervised SVM-kNN classification and HAC clustering. Experimental results on reviews in mobile phone domain demonstrate that the proposed method is promising for the task. The Purity, Accuracy measures are 0.68 and 0.65 respectively.
On using syntactic action refinement to derive compositionally a timed efficient implementation

In this paper, we present a durational process algebra incorporating syntactic action refinement. We study its correctness with respect to the semantic refinement in an interleaving model, namely the labelled transition systems. This defined refinement is compositional over the language operators and may provide at a given level of abstraction a timed efficient implementation for a specification.
A Survey on Blackhole Attack Detection Methods in Manet

The mobile ad hoc network is the wireless network. MANET is gaining technology because users want to use wireless devices. It is a group of mobile devic es connected by wireless link with no access point. Every mobile device in a network is independent. The mobile devi ces are easy to move randomly and organize themselves arbitrarily. The each mobile node is responsible fo r routing the message from one node to the other li ke a router, cause network more vulnerable to the different atta cks. Security has become a primary challenge issues in ad hoc network. Black hole attack is one of the security i ssue in which the traffic is redirected to such a n ode that actually does not exist in the network. The black hole attac k in network traffic connecting the victim node and attack node then network is most important issue that needs eff icient solutions. This paper discusses about the Bl ack hole attack detection technique.
KVM virtualization impact on active round-trip time measurements

Active measurements tools transmit probe packets between a sender and a receiver to estimate performance metrics such as round-trip time, jitter and loss. In this paper we evaluate how KVM virtualization affects measurements of performance metrics, specifically the round-trip time (RTT). To understand the impact we investigate the interplay of various environment and measurement parameters with virtualization. A number of experiments are performed in order to investigate which parameters had major impact on the RTT. The paper shows that the measurements are affected by CPU load in the host as well as network load while I/O load seemed to have limited impact.
Methylmercury Exposure in Adolescence: Effects on Delay Discounting and Sensitivity to d-Amphetamine in Mice

ii Acknowledgements . iii List of Tables . vi List of Figures . vii Chapter 1 . 1 Abstract . 2 Delay discounting and its modulation by dopamine . 3 Neurobehavioral effects of early-life exposure to methylmercury . 5 Adolescence: A period of vulnerability . 8 The current study . 9 References . 10 Chapter 2 . 21 Abstract . 22 Effects of Adolescent Methylmercury Exposure on Delay Discounting in Mice . 23 Methods. 25 Results . 31 Discussion . 33 References . 38 Tables . 46
Addressing digital inequalities amongst young people: conflicting discourses and complex outcomes

Abstract Despite the ongoing discourse about the constantly connected and digitally savvy youth in the UK, a growing evidence base demonstrates that there are still significant inequalities in young people’s ability to access and use the internet. There is a small, but significant, proportion of young people who do not have internet access at home, nor have sufficient digital skills to engage online in ways that are meaningful to them. This paper presents findings from a two-year school and local council-run initiative in England to provide 30 such digitally disadvantaged young people with a laptop and stable internet connection at home as well as school support. Drawing on rich qualitative data (home and school visits; parent, student, and teacher interviews), we explore the experiences of young people, parents, and teachers who were part of this digital inclusion scheme. Specifically, we examine how the long-standing essentialist discourses around ‘digital youth’ and determinist ideas of technology and social change inform how such a scheme is perceived, enacted, and experienced by the teachers, parents, and young people involved with the initiative, as well as the implications these discourses have for the ways the outcomes of such projects are judged.
Revisiting Automatic Transliteration Problem for Code-Mixed Romanized Indian Social Media Text

Although automatic Transliteration for Indian languages is a well studied paradigm, but availab le t ransliteration techniques fail in the Indian social media context due to phenomena such as wordplay, creative spelling, codemixing, and phonetic romanized typing; all implying that transliteration for Indian social media text has to be revisited. The paper reports an init ial study on automatic transliteration for a Facebook message corpus in mixed English-Bengali-Hind i fo r restoration of Hindi and Bengali code-mixed words into Devanagari and Bengali script respectively.
Effects of purified lignin on in vitro rumen metabolism and growth performance of feedlot cattle

Objective The objectives were to assess the effects of purified lignin from wheat straw (sodium hydroxide dehydrated lignin; SHDL) on in vitro ruminal fermentation and on the growth performance of feedlot cattle. Methods In vitro experiments were conducted by incubating a timothy-alfalfa (50:50) forage mixture (48 h) and barley grain (24 h) with 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 mg/mL of rumen fluid (equivalent to 0, 2, 4, 8, and 16 g SHDL/kg diet). Productions of CH4 and total gas, volatile fatty acids, ammonia, dry matter (DM) disappearance (DMD) and digestion of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) or starch were measured. Sixty Hereford-Angus cross weaned steer calves were individually fed a typical barley silage-barley grain based total mixed ration and supplemented with SHDL at 0, 4, 8, and 16 g/kg DM for 70 (growing), 28 (transition), and 121 d (finishing) period. Cattle were slaughtered at the end of the experiment and carcass traits were assessed. Results With forage, SHDL linearly (p<0.001) reduced 48-h in vitro DMD from 54.9% to 39.2%, NDF disappearance from 34.1% to 18.6% and the acetate: propionate ratio from 2.56 to 2.41, but linearly (p<0.001) increased CH4 production from 9.5 to 12.4 mL/100 mg DMD. With barley grain, SHDL linearly increased (p<0.001) 24-h DMD from74.6% to 84.5%, but linearly (p<0.001) reduced CH4 production from 5.6 to 4.2 mL/100 mg DMD and NH3 accumulation from 9.15 to 4.49 μmol/mL. Supplementation of SHDL did not affect growth, but tended (p = 0.10) to linearly reduce feed intake, and quadratically increased (p = 0.059) feed efficiency during the finishing period. Addition of SHDL also tended (p = 0.098) to linearly increase the saleable meat yield of the carcass from 52.5% to 55.7%. Conclusion Purified lignin used as feed additive has potential to improve feed efficiency for finishing feedlot cattle and carcass quality.
A global optimization approach to robust multi-model fitting

We present a novel Quadratic Program (QP) formulation for robust multi-model fitting of geometric structures in vision data. Our objective function enforces both the fidelity of a model to the data and the similarity between its associated inliers. Departing from most previous optimization-based approaches, the outcome of our method is a ranking of a given set of putative models, instead of a pre-specified number of “good” candidates (or an attempt to decide the right number of models). This is particularly useful when the number of structures in the data is a priori unascertainable due to unknown intent and purposes. Another key advantage of our approach is that it operates in a unified optimization framework, and the standard QP form of our problem formulation permits globally convergent optimization techniques. We tested our method on several geometric multi-model fitting problems on both synthetic and real data. Experiments show that our method consistently achieves state-of-the-art results.
Efficient optimization for data visualization as an information retrieval task

Visualization of multivariate data sets is often done by mapping data onto a low-dimensional display with nonlinear dimensionality reduction (NLDR) methods. Many NLDR methods are designed for tasks like manifold learning rather than low-dimensional visualization, and can perform poorly in visualization. We have introduced a formalism where NLDR for visualization is treated as an information retrieval task, and a novel NLDR method called the Neighbor Retrieval Visualizer (NeRV) which outperforms previous methods. The remaining concern is that NeRV has quadratic computational complexity with respect to the number of data. We introduce an efficient learning algorithm for NeRV where relationships between data are approximated through mixture modeling, yielding efficient computation with near-linear computational complexity with respect to the number of data. The method inherits the information retrieval interpretation from the original NeRV, it is much faster to optimize as the number of data grows, and it maintains good visualization performance.
Properties of cambisol in beech-fir forests of Velebit and

Background and Purpose: Cambisol is the best represented soil in Dinaric beech-fir forests. The paper presents and compares properties of cambisol in the areas of northern Velebit and Gorski Kotar. Materials and Methods: Localities with cambisols over limestone were selected on Velebit and Gorski Kotar. All the localities were reconnoitred and their affiliation to the association Omphalodo-Fagetum was established. Soil samples were taken in 47 pedological profiles. The following were analyzed: pH values, organic carbon and total nitrogen content, nitrate and ammonia nitrogen content, physiologically active phosphorus and potassium content, and soil texture. The data were statistically processed by Statistica 7.1. Results: Cambisol on Velebit is deeper than cambisol in Gorski Kotar. A lower pH value was recorded in cambisol on Velebit. Cambisols of Velebit and Gorski Kotar belong to humus-rich soils and soils that are very rich in total nitrogen content. A statistically significantly higher NH4 content was recorded within the entire cambisol profiles in Gorski Kotar. The A horizon of cambisol profiles opened on Velebit is poorly supplied with physiologically active phosphorus, whereas in Gorski Kotar the supply ranges from poor to good. With regard to texture, cambisol in the A horizon on Velebit and in Gorski Kotar is predominantly silty clay loam and in the B horizon it is light clay. Conclusion: Based on the obtained results, the pH value of cambisol on Velebit is lower (more acid) than in all the other localities in Gorski Kotar. In terms of NH4 content, a statistically significant difference between Velebit and Gorski Kotar was established with the t-test and the variance analysis.