Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The First-Order Logic of Hyperproperties

We investigate the logical foundations of hyperproperties. Hyperproperties generalize trace properties, which are sets of traces, to sets of sets of traces. The most prominent application of hyperproperties is information flow security: information flow policies characterize the secrecy and integrity of a system by comparing two or more execution traces, for example by comparing the observations made by an external observer on execution traces that result from different values of a secret variable. In this paper, we establish the first connection between temporal logics for hyperproperties and first-order logic. Kamp's seminal theorem (in the formulation due to Gabbay et al.) states that linear-time temporal logic (LTL) is expressively equivalent to first-order logic over the natural numbers with order. We introduce first-order logic over sets of traces and prove that HyperLTL, the extension of LTL to hyperproperties, is strictly subsumed by this logic. We furthermore exhibit a fragment that is expressively equivalent to HyperLTL, thereby establishing Kamp's theorem for hyperproperties.
On similarity-based queries for time series data

Studies similarity queries for time series data, where similarity is defined in terms of a set of linear transformations on the Fourier series representation of a sequence. We have shown in an earlier work that this set of transformations is rich enough to formulate operations such as moving average and time scaling. In this paper, we present a new algorithm for processing queries that define similarity in terms of multiple transformations instead of a single one. The idea is, instead of searching the index multiple times and each time applying a single transformation, to search the index only once and apply a collection of transformations simultaneously to the index. Our experimental results on both synthetic and real data show that the new algorithm for simultaneously processing multiple transformations is much faster than sequential scanning or index traversal using one transformation at a time. We also examine the possibility of composing transformations in a query or of rewriting a query expression such that the resulting query can be efficiently evaluated.
Cognitive map-based web site design: empirical analysis approach

Purpose – This study proposes a new approach to an adaptive web site design using the cognitive map (CM). Design/methodology/approach – The responses from 134 questionnaires were used in order to compute the causality coefficients of the CM objectively. In addition, using the evaluations of 64 college students with regard to three typical web sites, reference criteria were built that could be used by web site designers to determine the best web site design, given constraints and requirements. On the basis of the CM and two scenarios, a web site design simulation was performed.Findings – The results showed that the proposed approach could be used effectively to analyze web site design in an adaptive and practical manner when the market situation is constantly changing.Originality/value – The implications of this article will help decision makers predict the chain of effects that could result from changes in part of the web site design factors, before actually making those changes to a web site. Also, since .
Early prenatal diagnosis of ICF syndrome by mutation detection

Muriel Rigolet1,2, Annie Grégoire1,2, Geneviève Lefort3, Patricia Blanchet3, Christine Courbes3, Michel Rodière4, Pierre Sarda3 and Evani Viegas-Péquignot1,2* 1U741-INSERM, Paris, France 2UMR-S741, Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7, Paris, France 3Service de Génétique Médicale, Hôpital Arnaud de Villeneuve, CHU de Montpellier, Montpellier, France 4Service de Pédiatrie, Hôpital Arnaud de Villeneuve, CHU de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
Dynamically reconfigurable system-on-programmable-chip

Today's high-density FPGAs and intellectual property (IP) components enable the integration of complex systems in one programmable chip. New design strategies and concepts have to be developed in order to utilize the new system-level integration facilities. The approach introduced in this paper describes the implementation of a communication infrastructure that provides a number of on-chip IP-sockets. By using the FPGA feature of partial dynamic reconfiguration, different IP components can be plugged into these sockets at run-time. This leads to a reconfigurable system that can be adapted to varying demands. In this context, we designed a 32-bit RISC processor and an AMBA (Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture) on-chip interconnection bus. Finally, we mapped these components on to a reconfigurable system-level FPGA. The resulting hardware sizes and the utilization of the FPGA's resources are presented.
Scalable Gaussian Processes for Characterizing Multidimensional Change Surfaces

We present a scalable Gaussian process model for identifying and characterizing smooth multidimensional changepoints, and automatically learning changes in expressive covariance structure. We use Random Kitchen Sink features to flexibly define a change surface in combination with expressive spectral mixture kernels to capture the complex statistical structure. Finally, through the use of novel methods for additive non-separable kernels, we can scale the model to large datasets. We demonstrate the model on numerical and real world data, including a large spatio-temporal disease dataset where we identify previously unknown heterogeneous changes in space and time.
Development of Optimized Welding Solutions for X100 Linepipe Steel

This investigation is part of a major consolidated program of research sponsored by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the Pipeline Research Council International (PRCI) to advance weld design, establish weld testing procedures, improve assessment methodologies, and develop optimized welding solutions for joining high strength steel pipe. The work presented in this summary report addresses the optimization of gas metal arc welding (GMAW) methods for X100 pipe line girth welds. Specifically, the project focused on achieving a higher level of reliability and consistency in X100 girth weld mechanical performance to support larger scale implementation of the material in pipe line projects. To that end, the team began with a state of the art review to identify the major challenges facing the industry with regard to X100 and to help focus the work scope for the program. The technical approach involved a reassessment of essential welding variables for pulse gas metal arc welding that aimed directly at the welding thermal cycle and the response of welding consumables and pipe steels to the welding process. By considering the fundamental aspects of the welding process, the materials, and their interactions in a holistic way, the researchers developed a methodology for welding process control based on True Energy and True Heat Input which can significantly reduce the variation in weld thermal cycles and, therefore, weld performance. Also, the team developed a method for welding material assessment based on Gleeble® 1 thermal simulations. This research will improve the reliability of selecting the best welding materials for an application, thereby further enhancing weld performance. This report presents results for several GMAW welding consumables that achieve a range of strength mismatch conditions in order to illustrate the application for improving the reliability and consistency in weld performance.
Death of a dogma: eukaryotic mRNAs can code for more than one protein

mRNAs carry the genetic information that is translated by ribosomes. The traditional view of a mature eukaryotic mRNA is a molecule with three main regions, the 5′ UTR, the protein coding open reading frame (ORF) or coding sequence (CDS), and the 3′ UTR. This concept assumes that ribosomes translate one ORF only, generally the longest one, and produce one protein. As a result, in the early days of genomics and bioinformatics, one CDS was associated with each protein-coding gene. This fundamental concept of a single CDS is being challenged by increasing experimental evidence indicating that annotated proteins are not the only proteins translated from mRNAs. In particular, mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics and ribosome profiling have detected productive translation of alternative open reading frames. In several cases, the alternative and annotated proteins interact. Thus, the expression of two or more proteins translated from the same mRNA may offer a mechanism to ensure the co-expression of proteins which have functional interactions. Translational mechanisms already described in eukaryotic cells indicate that the cellular machinery is able to translate different CDSs from a single viral or cellular mRNA. In addition to summarizing data showing that the protein coding potential of eukaryotic mRNAs has been underestimated, this review aims to challenge the single translated CDS dogma.
Improving Electrical Breakdown Strength of Polymer Nanocomposites by Tailoring Hybrid-Filler Structure for High-Voltage Dielectric Applications

In general, dielectric multifiller polymer composites have the potential to achieve enhanced performances by integrating the desirable properties of each filler. However, the improvement in thermophysical and dielectric properties is often accompanied by a deterioration of electrical breakdown strength (EBD). Here, we explore a two-filler polymer nanocomposite structure, based on polyolefins with montmorillonite and calcium carbonate fillers, and present an effective approach to obtain enhanced EBD by tailoring the composite morphology (by designing the pseudo-two-dimensional nanoclays to preferentially physisorb on the surfaces of calcium carbonates, so as to change the nature of the filler/polymer interfaces). It is shown that, in these structured polymer nanocomposites, the breakdown performance is substantially improved, exceeding the performance of the unfilled polymers and of the respective single-filler composites. The enhanced dielectric behavior originates from the specific composite morphology, .
Integrating mechanistic and empirical model projections to assess climate impacts on tree species distributions in northwestern North America

Empirical and mechanistic models have both been used to assess the potential impacts of climate change on species distributions, and each modeling approach has its strengths and weaknesses. Here, we demonstrate an approach to projecting climate‐driven changes in species distributions that draws on both empirical and mechanistic models. We combined projections from a dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) that simulates the distributions of biomes based on basic plant functional types with projections from empirical climatic niche models for six tree species in northwestern North America. These integrated model outputs incorporate important biological processes, such as competition, physiological responses of plants to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and fire, as well as what are likely to be species‐specific climatic constraints. We compared the integrated projections to projections from the empirical climatic niche models alone. Overall, our integrated model outputs projected a greater climate‐driven loss of potentially suitable environmental space than did the empirical climatic niche model outputs alone for the majority of modeled species. Our results also show that refining species distributions with DGVM outputs had large effects on the geographic locations of suitable habitat. We demonstrate one approach to integrating the outputs of mechanistic and empirical niche models to produce bioclimatic projections. But perhaps more importantly, our study reveals the potential for empirical climatic niche models to over‐predict suitable environmental space under future climatic conditions.
Better Estimated IEM Input Parameters Using Random Fractal Geometry Applied on Multi-Frequency SAR Data

Microwave remote sensing can measure surface geometry. Via the processing of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, the earth surface geometric parameters can be provided for geoscientific studies, especially in geological mapping. For this purpose, it is necessary to model the surface roughness against microwave signal backscattering. Of the available models, the Integral Equation Model (IEM) for co-polarized data has been the most frequently used model. Therefore, by the processing of the SAR data using this model, the surface geometry can be studied. In the IEM, the surface roughness geometry is calculable via the height statistical parameter, the rms-height. However, this parameter is not capable enough to represent surface morphology, since it only measures the surface roughness in the vertical direction, while the roughness dispersion on the surface is not included. In this paper, using the random fractal geometry capability, via the implementation of the power-law roughness spectrum, the precision and correctness of the surface roughness estimation has been improved by up to 10%. Therefore, the random fractal geometry is implemented through the calculation of the input geometric parameters of the IEM using the power-law surface spectrum and the spectral slope. In this paper, the in situ roughness measurement data, as well as SAR images at frequencies of L, C, and X, have been used to implement and evaluate the proposed method. Surface roughness, according to the operational frequencies, exhibits a fractal or a diffractal behavior.
Comparative analysis of human papillomavirus infections in cervical scrapes and biopsy specimens by general SPF10 PCR and HPV genotyping

Human papillomavirus (HPV) can be detected by DNA amplification from clinical samples. The aim of the present study was to compare the HPV status in both cervical scrape and biopsy specimens obtained from 174 patients, using the recently developed broad spectrum SPF10 PCR‐LiPA method. The detection rate of HPV in these materials was determined and the spectrum of HPV genotypes was compared. Cervical scrapes and biopsy specimens were obtained, either on the same day (group I), or with an interval of up to almost 2 years (group II, mean interval 97 days, range 1–469 days). HPV DNA was amplified by SPF10 PCR and detected in a microtitre plate hybridization assay. Of the HPV‐positive cases, the genotype was determined by reverse hybridization of the same SPF10 amplimer on a line probe assay (LiPA), discriminating between HPV genotypes 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33–35, 39, 40, 42–45, 51–54, 56, 58, 59, 66, 68, 70, and 74. The results showed that the detection rate and the spectrum of HPV genotypes in cervical scrapes and the corresponding biopsy specimens were highly comparable in both patient groups, even when multiple genotypes were present. In both groups, multiple HPV genotypes were more frequently detected in cervical scrapes than in the corresponding biopsy specimens. In conclusion, HPV infection can be diagnosed in cervical scrapes and biopsy specimens using the SPF10 PCR‐LiPA system. Analysis of cervical scrapes accurately reflects the spectrum of HPV genotypes in the patient's cervical region, even with a sampling interval between the cervical scrape and the biopsy specimen. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
FlAsH-FALI inactivation of a protein at the third-instar neuromuscular junction.

Fluorescein-assisted light inactivation (FALI) is a powerful method for studying acute loss of protein function, even if the corresponding mutations lead to early lethality. In this protocol, FALI is mediated by the membrane-permeable FlAsH (4′,5′-bis(1,3,2-dithioarsolan-2-yl)fluorescein) compound that binds with high specificity to the genetically encoded tetracysteine tag and thus allows the inactivation of protein function in vivo with exquisite spatial (<40 Å) and temporal (<30 sec) resolution. It also enables the analysis of kinetically distinct processes such as synaptic vesicle exocytosis and endocytosis. This protocol describes efficient inactivation of a protein using FlAsH-FALI at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) of third-instar larvae. Note that FlAsH-FALI in other tissues is also theoretically possible with minor adaptations to the protocol described here. We explain controls for positional effects, for unspecific FlAsH binding to endogenous proteins, and for phototoxicity. Following FlAsH-FALI, protein function can be studied using a number of secondary assays, including electrophysiology, immunohistochemistry, and electron microscopy or FM1-43 labeling of synaptic vesicle pools.
Nursing Homes

Nursing homes provide a broad range of long-term care services – personal, social, and medical services designed to assist people who have functional or cognitive limitations in their ability to perform self-care and other activities necessary to live independently. Increasingly, nursing homes are also providing skilled nursing care, medical services, and therapies for short term, post-acute care following a hospitalization.
Feature based volumetric video compression for interactive playback

In this paper, we describe a compression scheme for encoding time-varying isosurfaces and amorphous volumetric features (volumes within specified value ranges) in a unified way, which allows for on-line reconstruction and rendering. Since the size of even one frame in a time-varying data set is very large, transmission and online reconstruction are the main bottlenecks for interactive visualization of time-varying volume and surface data. To increase the run-time decompression speed and compression ratio, we decompose the volume into small blocks and encode only the significant blocks that contribute to the isosurface and volumetric features. The result shows that our compression scheme achieves high compression ratio with fast reconstruction, which is effective for client-side rendering of time-varying isosurfaces with amorphous volumetric features.
Social choice and the mathematics of manipulation

1. Introduction 2. The Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem 3. Additional results for single-valued elections 4. The Duggan-Schwartz theorem 5. Additional results for multi-valued elections 6. Ballots that rank sets 7. Elections with outcomes that are lotteries 8. Elections with variable agendas References Index.
Efficient Feature Selection in Conceptual Clustering

Feature selection has proven to be a valuable technique in supervised learning for improving predictive accuracy while reducing the number of attributes considered in a task. We investigate the potential for similar benefits in an unsupervised learning task, conceptual clustering. The issues raised in feature selection by the absence of class labels are discussed and an implementation of a sequential feature selection algorithm based on an existing conceptual clustering system is described. Additionally, we present a second implementation which employs a technique for improving the efficiency of the search for an optimal description and compare the performance of both algorithms.
A blot on the profession

Technically, some ovaries will be accessible only by the vaginal route, but the converse also applies. Other factors may also be important: some patients experience extreme discomfort from a full bladder and prefer vaginal collection; others may have psychological or cultural objections to this method. We believe that flexibility in approach to oocyte recovery offers the best outcome. A F RIDDLE M C DAVIES J S PAMPIGLIONE B A MASON Hallam Medical Centre, London WIN SLR
Stopping atoms with laser light.

We have produced a sample of free sodium atoms at rest in the laboratory by decelerating atoms in an atomic beam using momentum transfer from a counterpropagating, resonant laser beam. These atoms have a density of about ${10}^{5}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ and a velocity spread of about 15 m/s full width at half maximum corresponding to a kinetic temperature less than 100 mK.
A light-weight wireless handshake

In many wireless systems, it is desirable to precede a data transmission with a handshake between the sender and the receiver. For example, RTS-CTS is a handshake that prevents collisions due to hidden terminals. Past work, however, has shown that the overhead of such handshake is too high for practical deployments. We present a new approach to wireless handshake that is almost overhead free. The key idea underlying the design is to separate a packet's PLCP header and MAC header from its body and have the sender and receiver first exchange the data and ACK headers, then exchange the bodies of the data and ACK packets without additional headers. The header exchange provides a natural handshake at almost no extra cost. We empirically evaluate the feasibility of such lightweight handshake and some of its applications. Our testbed evaluation shows that header-payload separation does not hamper packet decodabilty. It also shows that a light handshake enables hidden terminals, i.e., nodes that interfere with each other without RTS/CTS, to experience less than 4% of collisions. Furthermore, it improves the accuracy of bit rate selection in bursty and mobile environments producing a throughput gain of about 2x.
Statistical analysis of time-resolved emission from ensembles of semiconductor quantum dots: Interpretation of exponential decay models

We present a statistical analysis of time-resolved spontaneous emission decay curves from ensembles of emitters, such as semiconductor quantum dots, with the aim of interpreting ubiquitous non-single-exponential decay. Contrary to what is widely assumed, the density of excited emitters and the intensity in an emission decay curve are not proportional, but the density is a time integral of the intensity. The integral relation is crucial to correctly interpret non-single-exponential decay. We derive the proper normalization for both a discrete and a continuous distribution of rates, where every decay component is multiplied by its radiative decay rate. A central result of our paper is the derivation of the emission decay curve when both radiative and nonradiative decays are independently distributed. In this case, the well-known emission quantum efficiency can no longer be expressed by a single number, but is also distributed. We derive a practical description of non-single-exponential emission decay curves in terms of a single distribution of decay rates; the resulting distribution is identified as the distribution of total decay rates weighted with the radiative rates. We apply our analysis to recent examples of colloidal quantum dot emission in suspensions and in photonic crystals, and we find that this important class of emitters is well described by a log-normal distribution of decay rates with a narrow and a broad distribution, respectively. Finally, we briefly discuss the Kohlrausch stretched-exponential model, and find that its normalization is ill defined for emitters with a realistic quantum efficiency of less than 100%.
Rapid focus reduction neutralization test of influenza A and B viruses in microtiter system

A rapid neutralization test for influenza A and B viruses was developed. In this method, a 96-well tissue culture plate was used for the preparation of cell monolayers and the peroxidase-antiperoxidase staining technique was used for the visualization of foci infected with these viruses. In the presence of trypsin and tragacanth gum, clear foci developed 1 day after infection. A linear relationship between virus dilutions and numbers of foci was observed. When neutralizing antibodies in some test sera were assayed, a good correlation was observed between the titers obtained by the focus method and those obtained by the ordinary plaque method. In addition, many serum specimens were investigated by the neutralization test, and it was demonstrated that the test is useful for serological studies of influenza.