Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distributed Key Generation for Encrypted Deduplication: Achieving the Strongest Privacy

Large-scale cloud storage systems often attempt to achieve two seemingly conflicting goals: (1) the systems need to reduce the copies of redundant data to save space, a process called deduplication; and (2) users demand encryption of their data to ensure privacy. Conventional encryption makes deduplication on ciphertexts ineffective, as it destroys data redundancy. A line of work, originated from Convergent Encryption [27], and evolved into Message Locked Encryption [13] and the latest DupLESS architecture [12], strives to solve this problem. DupLESS relies on a key server to help the clients generate encryption keys that result in convergent ciphertexts. In this paper, we first introduce a new security notion appropriate for the setting of deduplication and show that it is strictly stronger than all relevant notions. We then provide a rigorous proof of security against this notion, in the random oracle model, for the DupLESS architecture which is lacking in the original paper. Our proof shows that using additional secret, other than the data itself, for generating encryption keys achieves the best possible security under current deduplication paradigm. We also introduce a distributed protocol that eliminates the need for the key server. This not only provides better protection but also allows less managed systems such as P2P systems to enjoy the high security level. Implementation and evaluation show that the scheme is both robust and practical.
FRUIT ABUNDANCE AND LOCAL DISTRIBUTION OF WINTERING HERMIT THRUSHES (CATHARUS GUTTATUS) AND YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS (DENDROICA CORONATA) IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Abstract We conducted winter censuses of two short-distance migrants, Hermit Thrushes (Catharus guttatus) and Yellow-rumped Warblers (Dendroica coronata), over seven years in five different habitats to determine whether their local abundances could be predicted by fruit pulp biomass. Sampled habitats were stands of upland and bottomland hardwood, loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), longleaf pine (P. palustris), and young (<10 years) longleaf pine. Hermit Thrush abundance, which was highest in bottomland hardwood habitats, was positively related to total dry mass of fruit pulp. Those results are consistent with the hypothesis that resource availability affects the local distribution of migrant passerines on their wintering grounds. Our results also indicate that bottomland hardwood habitats in the southeastern United States may be especially important to wintering Hermit Thrushes. Yellow-rumped Warbler abundance was correlated with ripe-fruit pulp dry mass of Myrica cerifera, a major source of winter food for that species. However, because M. cerifera pulp dry mass was confounded with habitat type, we could not distinguish the relative importance of fruit resources and habitat for Yellowrumped Warblers. Our results underscore the importance of fruit to wintering birds. However, the overall percentage of variation in winter bird abundance explained by differences in ripefruit biomass was modest, indicating that other factors are also important.
first-principles investigation of hydrous defects and IR frequencies in forsterite: The case for Si vacancies

Abstract We investigate charge-balanced hydrous magnesium and silicon defects [(2H)XMg, (4H)XSi] by first principles. Two new lowest-energy hydrogen configurations are proposed for (4H)XSi. With these new configurations, the distribution of O-H stretching phonon frequencies in Group I (>3450 cm-1) are better reproduced. Substitution of silicon with four hydrogen atoms gives rise to significant elongation of distances between O atoms at the tetrahedron of the silicon vacancy. Our calculations indicate that the correlation between O-O distances and O-H stretching phonon frequencies, which has been well established for hydrous minerals, does not apply directly to nominally anhydrous minerals and should not be used to determine the identity of hydrous defects responsible for infrared absorption peaks.
Bias to Experience Approaching Motion in a Three-Dimensional Virtual Environment

We used two-frame apparent motion in a three-dimensional virtual environment to test whether observers had biases to experience approaching or receding motion in depth. Observers viewed a tunnel of tiles receding in depth, that moved ambiguously either toward or away from them. We found that observers exhibited biases to experience approaching motion. The strengths of the biases were decreased when stimuli pointed away, but size of the display screen had no effect. Tests with diamond-shaped tiles that varied in the degree of pointing asymmetry resulted in a linear trend in which the bias was strongest for stimuli pointing toward the viewer, and weakest for stimuli pointing away. We show that the overall bias to experience approaching motion is consi'stent with a computational strategy of matching corresponding features between adjacent foreshortened stimuli in consecutive visual frames. We conclude that there are both adaptational and geometric reasons to favor the experience of approaching motion.
Game-Tree Search with Combinatorially Large Belief States

In games such as kriegspiel chess (a chess variant where players have no direct knowledge of the opponent's pieces' locations) the belief state's sizes dwarf those of other partial information games like bridge, scrabble, and poker-and there is no easy way to generate states satisfying the given observations. We show that statistical sampling approaches can be developed to do well in such games. We show that it is not necessary for the random sample to consist only of game boards that satisfy each and every one of a player's observations. In fact, we win 24% more often by beginning with such completely consistent boards and gradually switching (as the game progressed) to boards that are merely consistent with the latest observation. This surprising result is explained by noting that as the game progresses, a board that is consistent with the last move becomes more and more likely to be consistent with the entire set of observations, even if we have no idea what sequence of moves might have actually generated this board.
Flexibility and stabilization of HgII-mediated C:T and T:T base pairs in DNA duplex

Abstract Owing to their great potentials in genetic code extension and the development of nucleic acid-based functional nanodevices, DNA duplexes containing HgII-mediated base pairs have been extensively studied during the past 60 years. However, structural basis underlying these base pairs remains poorly understood. Herein, we present five high-resolution crystal structures including one first-time reported C–HgII–T containing duplex, three T–HgII–T containing duplexes and one native duplex containing T–T pair without HgII. Our structures suggest that both C–T and T–T pairs are flexible in interacting with the HgII ion with various binding modes including N3–HgII–N3, N4–HgII–N3, O2–HgII–N3 and N3–HgII–O4. Our studies also reveal that the overall conformations of the C–HgII–T and T–HgII–T pairs are affected by their neighboring residues via the interactions with the solvent molecules or other metal ions, such as SrII. These results provide detailed insights into the interactions between HgII and nucleobases and the structural basis for the rational design of C–HgII–T or T–HgII–T containing DNA nanodevices in the future.
Turbulent supernova shock waves and the sterile neutrino signature in megaton water detectors

The signatures of sterile neutrinos in the supernova neutrino signal in megaton water Cerenkov detectors are studied. Time dependent modulation of the neutrino signal emerging from the sharp changes in the oscillation probability due to shock waves is shown to be a smoking gun for the existence of sterile neutrinos. These modulations and indeed the entire neutrino oscillation signal is found to be different for the case with just three active neutrinos and the cases where there are additional sterile species mixed with the active neutrinos. The effect of turbulence is taken into account and it is found that the effect of the shock waves, while modified, remains significant and measurable. Supernova neutrino signals in water detectors can therefore give unambiguous proof for the existence of sterile neutrinos, the sensitivity extending beyond that for terrestrial neutrino experiments. In addition the time dependent modulations in the signal due to shock waves can be used to trace the evolution of the shock wave inside the supernova.
When Words Compete: Levels of Processing in Perception of Spoken Words

Current theories of spoken-word recognition posit two levels of representation and process: lexical and sublexical. By manipulating probabilistic phonotactics and similarity-neighborhood density, we attempted to determine if these two levels of representation have dissociable effects on processing. Whereas probabilistic phonotactics have been associated with facilitatory effects on recognition, increases in similarity-neighborhood density typically result in inhibitory effects on recognition arising from lexical competition. Our results demonstrated that when the lexical level is invoked using real words, competitive effects of neighborhood density are observed. However, when strong lexical effects are removed by the use of nonsense word stimuli, facilitatory effects of phonotactics emerge. These results are consistent with a two-level framework of process and representation embodied in certain current models of spoken-word recognition.
Genetic and Environmental Overlap Between Substance Use and Delinquency in Adolescence: An Analysis by Same-Sex Twins

During adolescence, many teens begin to experiment with substances and engage in delinquent behavior. The current study seeks to examine whether and to what extent genetic and environmental factors contribute to the association between substance use (i.e., marijuana and alcohol) and different forms of delinquent offending (i.e., violent and nonviolent) across males and females. Analyses were based on same-sex twins (N = 1,072) from the sibling subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The results revealed moderate to large genetic overlap between substance use and delinquent behavior for males. Much of the covariation between alcohol use and offending behavior for females was attributable to common environmental factors, while common genetic factors explained a large portion of the overlap between marijuana use and offending in males and females. The implications of these findings for sex differences in prevention and intervention efforts are discussed from a biosocial perspective.
Toward a User Preferences Agent Based Web Service Composition

The basic idea of Service Oriented Architecture (SO A) is to compose an application as a set of service s that are language and platform independent, communicate with each other. Therefore, the software’s nowadays ar e designed and built through composing web services to support enterprise applications integration. In this paper, an agent was introduced to compose web services ba sed on user preferences to fulfill a certain proces s, where the user preferences are essential for determinin g which web service are to be selected. In other word, the agent designed to maintain the following function: an intelligent web services selection and planning based on user preferences(such as price or availability), along with web services execution, tracking and a daptation.
Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation

The 5th Edition of Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation by Burgelman, Christensen, and Wheelwright continues its unmatched tradition of market leadership, by using a combination of text, readings, and cases to bring to life the latest business research on these critical business challenges. Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation takes the perspective of the general manager at the product line, business unit, and corporate levels. The book not only examines each of these levels in some detail, but also addresses the interaction between the different levels of general management - for example, the fit between product strategy and business unit strategy, and the link between business and corporate level technology strategy. Each part of the book starts with an introductory chapter laying out an overall framework and offering a brief discussion of key tools and findings from existing literature. The remainder of each part offers a selected handful of seminar readings and case studies. Almost all of the cases deal with recent events and situations, including several that are concerned with the impact of the Internet. A few "classics" have been retained, however, because they capture a timeless issue or problem in such a definitive way that the historical date of their writing is irrelevant.
The feature extraction and classification for signals based on the S-transform

The S-transform is an very efficient time-frequency representation method. According to the contrast of the traditional methods, the S-transform has a progressive anti-noise property and time-frequency resolution. Making use of the advantage of the S-transform, the characteristic variables of the modulation signal can be gotten, which can be used to distinguish the different type of modulation signals. The simulation experiment results show that the S-transform can express the instantaneous frequency of modulation signals clearly. Through extracting the linear feature, this paper goes deep into scooping out the new characteristic and extracts the character vectors, which can be used to set up a classification and recognition model. It can be used to correctly classify the different type of modulation signals.
Autoregressive Modelling of Hilbert Envelopes for Wide-band Audio Coding

Frequency Domain Linear Prediction (FDLP) represents the technique for approximating temporal envelopes of a signal using autoregressive models. In this paper, we propose a wide-band audio coding system exploiting FDLP. Specifically, FDLP is applied on critically sampled sub-bands to model the Hilbert envelopes. The residual of the linear prediction forms the Hilbert carrier, which is transmitted along with the envelope parameters. This process is reversed at the decoder to reconstruct the signal. In the objective and subjective quality evaluations, the FDLP based audio codec at $66$ kbps provides competitive results compared to the state-of-art codecs at similar bit-rates.
The Physical Self-Concept. What does it mean to be Old: What does it mean to be Young?

2 Does the concept of physical self remain stable across age? Or does the concept of physical self change as the body wearies and changes in shape? Do the components emphasised in our evaluation of our physical selves change with age or remain stable? Without evaluating such questions it is inappropriate to talk about Physical Self-Concept as though it is the same thing, with just different scores, for the elderly and for the young. This research evaluates the Physical Self-Concept of two distinctly different groups, the elderly (over 60 years of age) and a group of young people (aged 11-15 years). It also evaluates the relative importance of the various dimensions of Physical Self-Concept. Data were collected in Sydney, Australia, using the Physical Self-Concept Scale (Richards, 1987), from volunteer older people (average age 69 years) and a representative group of high school students (average age 13.5years). Internal reliabilities and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were used to determine if the instrument was suitable in terms of reliability and factorial structure for each of the groups. Sound psychometric properties were found for the Richards Physical Self Concept Instrument across age and gender. Analyses showed factor scores are differentiated by sex and by age for some factors. Remarkable similarities and only some significant differences were found for older and younger and also male and female groups.
RSA Verifiable Signature Sharing Scheme Based on Secure Distributed Key Generations

This paper studies the Verifiable Signature Sharing (VΣS) introduced by Franklin and Reiter, which enables the recipient of a signature to share it among n proxies so that a subset of them can reconstruct it later. By the use of secure distributed key generation based on discrete-log, threshold cryptosystems and verifiable secret sharing scheme, new protocols for RSA VΣS are presented. The protocols are efficient and provable secure and can tolerate the malicious behavior of up to half of the proxies.
A detection and recognition method for prohibition traffic signs

The automatic detection and recognition of traffic signs have practical importance for intelligent traffic system. A method for some prohibition traffic signs designed for drivers is proposed in this paper. The color information in HSI color space and the symmetry property of circles are used to detect signs, and the Histograms of Oriented Gradients feature and the nearest distance method are used to recognize them. The proposed algorithms are tested on datasets we collected in the real environment, and the experimental results demonstrate their satisfying performance.
Globally, unrelated protein sequences appear random

MOTIVATION To test whether protein folding constraints and secondary structure sequence preferences significantly reduce the space of amino acid words in proteins, we compared the frequencies of four- and five-amino acid word clumps (independent words) in proteins to the frequencies predicted by four random sequence models. RESULTS While the human proteome has many overrepresented word clumps, these words come from large protein families with biased compositions (e.g. Zn-fingers). In contrast, in a non-redundant sample of Pfam-AB, only 1% of four-amino acid word clumps (4.7% of 5mer words) are 2-fold overrepresented compared with our simplest random model [MC(0)], and 0.1% (4mers) to 0.5% (5mers) are 2-fold overrepresented compared with a window-shuffled random model. Using a false discovery rate q-value analysis, the number of exceptional four- or five-letter words in real proteins is similar to the number found when comparing words from one random model to another. Consensus overrepresented words are not enriched in conserved regions of proteins, but four-letter words are enriched 1.18- to 1.56-fold in alpha-helical secondary structures (but not beta-strands). Five-residue consensus exceptional words are enriched for alpha-helix 1.43- to 1.61-fold. Protein word preferences in regular secondary structure do not appear to significantly restrict the use of sequence words in unrelated proteins, although the consensus exceptional words have a secondary structure bias for alpha-helix. Globally, words in protein sequences appear to be under very few constraints; for the most part, they appear to be random. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Processing independent and inter-linked documents in XML databases

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) model has recently gained huge popularity because of its ability to represent a wide variety of structured and semi-structured data. Several Query languages have been proposed for the XML data model, the most-widely known is XQuery. Traditional XML query processing research has concentrated on data retrieval from independent XML documents and on the associate structures. In this paper, we review these algorithms and structures and show their superiority when processing independent XML documents. However, the direct application of these algorithms to process queries against interlinked XML documents is shown to generate incorrect results. A new algorithm and the associate structures suitable to process queries against both independent and inter-linked XML data are developed and shown to generate correct results.
Spectral Design of Dynamic Networks via Local Operations

Motivated by the relationship between the eigenvalue spectrum of the Laplacian matrix of a network and the behavior of dynamical processes evolving in it, we propose a distributed iterative algorithm in which a group of $n$ autonomous agents self-organize the structure of their communication network in order to control the network's eigenvalue spectrum. In our algorithm, we assume that each agent has access only to a local (myopic) view of the network around it. In each iteration, agents in the network peform a decentralized decision process to determine the edge addition/deletion that minimizes a distance function defined in the space of eigenvalue spectra. This spectral distance presents interesting theoretical properties that allow an efficient distributed implementation of the decision process. Our iterative algorithm is stable by construction, i.e., locally optimizes the network's eigenvalue spectrum, and is shown to perform extremely well in practice. We illustrate our results with nontrivial simulations in which we design networks matching the spectral properties of complex networks, such as small-world and power-law networks.
The next generation of virtual prototyping: Ultra-fast yet accurate simulation of HW/SW systems

Virtual Prototypes (VPs) have been now widely adopted by industry as platforms for early SW development, HW/SW co-verification, performance analysis and architecture exploration. Yet, rising design complexity, the need to test an increasing amount of software functionality as well as the verification of timing properties pose a growing challenge in the application of VPs. New approaches overcome the accuracy-speed bottleneck of today's virtual prototyping methods. These next-generation VPs are centered around ultra-fast host-compiled software models. Accuracy is obtained by advanced methods, which reconstruct the execution times of the software and model the timing behavior of the operating system, target processor and memory system. It is shown that simulation speed can further be increased by abstract TLM-based communication models and efficient hardware peripheral models. Additionally, an industrial flow for efficient model development is outlined. This support of ultra-fast and accurate HW/SW co-simulation will be a key enabler for successfully developing tomorrow's multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) platforms.
Incorporating Invocation Time in Predicting Web Service QoS via Triadic Factorization

With the development of Service-Oriented technologies, the amount of Web services grows rapidly. QoS-Aware Web service recommendation can help service users to design more efficient service-oriented systems. However, existing methods assume the QoS information for service users are all known and accurate, but in real case, there are always many missing QoS values in history records, which increase the difficulty of the missing QoS value prediction. By considering the user-service-time three dimension context information, we study a Temporal QoS-Aware Web Service Prediction Framework which aims to recommend best candidates to service user's requirements and meanwhile improve the QoS prediction accuracy. One major challenge is that how to deal with the high dimension, sparse QoS value data. Tensor which is known as multi-way array provides a natural representation for such QoS value data. Therefore, we formalize this problem as a tensor factorization model and propose a Tucker Decomposition (TD) algorithm which is able to deal with the triadic relations of user-service-time model. Extensive experiments are conducted based on our real-world QoS dataset collected on Planet-Lab, comprised of service invocation response-time values from 408 users on 5,473 Web services at 56 time periods. Comprehensive empirical studies demonstrate that our approach is more accuracy than other approaches and achieves 100X to 1000X memory space reduction.