Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new notion of angle between three points in a metric space

We give a new notion of angle in general metric spaces; more precisely, given a triple a points $p,x,q$ in a metric space $(X,d)$, we introduce the notion of angle cone ${\angle_{pxq}}$ as being an interval ${\angle_{pxq}}:=[\angle^-_{pxq},\angle^+_{pxq}]$, where the quantities $\angle^\pm_{pxq}$ are defined in terms of the distance functions from $p$ and $q$ via a duality construction of differentials and gradients holding for locally Lipschitz functions on a general metric space. Our definition in the Euclidean plane gives the standard angle between three points and in a Riemannian manifold coincides with the usual angle between the geodesics, if $x$ is not in the cut locus of $p$ or $q$. We show that in general the angle cone is not single valued (even in case the metric space is a smooth Riemannian manifold, if $x$ is in the cut locus of $p$ or $q$), but if we endow the metric space with a positive Borel measure $m$ obtaining the metric measure space $(X,d,m)$ then under quite general assumptions (which include many fundamental examples as Riemannian manifolds, finite dimensional Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded from below, Gromov-Hausdorff limits of Riemannian manifolds with Ricci curvature bounded from below, and normed spaces with strictly convex norm), fixed $p,q \in X$, the angle cone at $x$ is single valued for $m$-a.e. $x \in X$. We prove some basic properties of the angle cone (such as the invariance under homotheties of the space) and we analyze in detail the case $(X,d,m)$ is a measured-Gromov-Hausdorff limit of a sequence of Riemannian manifolds with Ricci curvature bounded from below, showing the consistency of our definition with a recent construction of Honda.
The Circadian Binding of CLOCK Protein to the Promoter of C/ebpα Gene in Mouse Cells

C/EBPα plays important roles in metabolism as well as in the maintenance of energy homeostasis. Here we describe loss of the circadian oscillation of C/ebpα expression in liver of Clock mutant mice. Reporter assays indicate Clock and Bmal significantly induced C/ebpα gene expression whereas Cry suppressed. Real time reporter assays showed that two mutated E-boxes disrupted C/ebpα promoter dependent-oscillation. Chromatin immunoprecipitation suggests Clock can bind to two E-boxes in the C/ebpα promoter with a circadian manner in vivo. Thus, C/ebpα gene transcription is under circadian control of a core clock component, Clock. The data suggests that circadian disturbances may affect metabolic abnormalities through the C/ebpα pathway in liver.
Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America.

This volume fills the need for a comprehensive, up-to-date portrait of parties and party systems in Latin America. It includes chapters on all the large and medium-sized countries, as well as those smaller countries with older democratic traditions: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The book is framed by an introduction that provides a theoretical and comparative conceptual map for charting Latin American party systems and a conclusion that looks ahead to the challenges and trends for party building in the 1990's. The twelve country case studies address five analytical themes. Finally, and most important, the authors characterise the nature of the party system in each country - how institutionalised it is and how it can be classified.
Glucose effects on gastric motility and tone evoked from the rat dorsal vagal complex

1 To examine the effects of glucose on the central components of the vago‐vagal reflex control of gastric function, we performed both in vivo and in vitro experiments on neurones in the medial nucleus of the tractus solitarius (mNTS) and in the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus (DMV). 2 In the in vivo anaesthetized rat preparation, unilateral microinjection of d‐glucose (10 or 50 mm (60 nl)−1) in mNTS produced inhibition of gastric motility and an increase in intragastric pressure. d‐glucose had no effect in the DMV. 3 In the in vitro rat brainstem slice preparation, whole‐cell recordings of DMV neurones showed that increasing the glucose concentration of the perfusion solution from 5 mm to 15 or 30 mm produced outward currents of 35 ± 5 pA (n= 7) and 51 ± 10 pA (n= 11), respectively. These were blocked by tetrodotoxin and picrotoxin, indicating that glucose was acting indirectly to cause the release of GABA. Decreasing the glucose concentration of the perfusing solution by one‐half produced an inward current of 36 ± 5 pA (n= 7). 4 Stimulation of the NTS evoked inhibitory postsynaptic currents (IPSCs) in DMV neurones. The amplitude of the evoked IPSCs was positively correlated with glucose concentration. Perfusion with the ATP‐sensitive K+ (KATP) channel opener diazoxide mimicked the effect of reduced glucose, while perfusion with the KATP channel blocker glibenclamide mimicked the effects of increased glucose. 5 Our data indicate that glucose had no direct excitatory effect on DMV neurones, but DMV neurones appear to be affected by an action of glucose on cell bodies of mNTS neurones via effects on an ATP‐sensitive potassium channel.
Ordering in Mixtures of a Triblock Copolymer with a Room Temperature Ionic Liquid

Well-ordered block copolymer (BCP) morphologies are obtained by blending PEO−PPO−PEO triblock copolymer surfactants with the room temperature ionic liquid (IL) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate. The selective association of the IL with the PEO blocks increases the segregation strength by raising the effective interaction parameter between the PEO and PPO blocks. Therefore, the copolymer/IL blends form well-ordered microdomains in the melt, whereas the neat copolymers are phase mixed. The IL is shown to interact with the PEO chains of the copolymers by a depression in the melting point of the PEO crystals with increasing IL concentration. Wide-angle X-ray diffraction and polarized optical microscopy also show a disruption of PEO crystallization in the copolymer/blends. Infrared spectroscopy indicates a favorable enthalpic interaction between the PEO blocks and the IL, which does not exist between PPO and the IL. Small-angle X-ray scattering confirms the enhanced ordering of the copolymers upo.
CARE: A Platform for Reliable Comparison and Analysis of Reverse-Engineering Techniques

Reverse engineering of behavior models has received a lot of attention over the last few years. However, no standard benchmark exists for the comparison and analysis of published miners. Evaluation is usually performed on few case studies, which fails to demonstrate effectiveness in a broad context. This paper proposes a general, approach-independent, platform for the intensive evaluation of behavior miners. Its goals are essentially: provide a benchmark mechanism for reverse engineering; allow analysis of miners w.r. t. a class of programs and/or behaviors; help users in choosing the best suited approach for their objective.
Delayed and Temporally Imprecise Neurotransmission in Reorganizing Cortical Microcircuits

Synaptic neurotransmission is modified at cortical connections throughout life. Varying the amplitude of the postsynaptic response is one mechanism that generates flexible signaling in neural circuits. The timing of the synaptic response may also play a role. Here, we investigated whether weakening and loss of an entire connection between excitatory cortical neurons was foreshadowed in the timing of the postsynaptic response. We made electrophysiological recordings in rat primary somatosensory cortex that was undergoing experience-dependent loss of complete local excitatory connections. The synaptic latency of pyramid–pyramid connections, which typically comprise multiple synapses, was longer and more variable. Connection strength and latency were not correlated. Instead, prolonged latency was more closely related to progression of connection loss. The action potential waveform and axonal conduction velocity were unaffected, suggesting that the altered timing of neurotransmission was attributable to a synaptic mechanism. Modeling studies indicated that increasing the latency and jitter at a subset of synapses reduced the number of action potentials fired by a postsynaptic neuron. We propose that prolonged synaptic latency and diminished temporal precision of neurotransmission are hallmarks of impending loss of a cortical connection.
Improving Real-Time GPS by incorporating TelegraphCQ in Jamdroid Architecture

Data Stream Management System is a new class of stream handling with SQL-like queries & robustness at relatively high streams of data. TelegraphCQ is an open source DSMS tool developed towards handling live streams of data. Jamdroid, on the other hand, is a new collaborative project, developed on Android platform, that gathers road traffic reports from all its end-users, compiles the data and reports back to the navigation software of the users. It involves a data analysis algorithm running on the user device, and Internet servers that retrieve the data from the user, merge them, and send them back to the community. Such a system is meant to be accessed by a large number of users, and has to be fast-responsive enough to deal with all the requests; hence, provisions must be made for effective live stream handling. We will see how such a system can gain immensely by incorporating Data Stream Management System, using open-source TelegraphCQ, for data stream processing & querying.
When Good Becomes Evil: Keystroke Inference with Smartwatch

One rising trend in today's consumer electronics is the wearable devices, e.g., smartwatches. With tens of millions of smartwatches shipped, however, the security implications of such devices are not fully understood. Although previous studies have pointed out some privacy concerns about the data that can be collected, like personalized health information, the threat is considered low as the leaked data is not highly sensitive and there is no real attack implemented. In this paper we investigate a security problem coming from sensors in smartwatches, especially the accelerometer. The results show that the actual threat is much beyond people's awareness. Being worn on the wrist, the accelerometer built within a smartwatch can track user's hand movements, which makes inferring user inputs on keyboards possible in theory. But several challenges need to be addressed ahead in the real-world settings: e.g., small and irregular hand movements occur persistently during typing, which degrades the tracking accuracy and sometimes even overwhelms useful signals. In this paper, we present a new and practical side-channel attack to infer user inputs on keyboards by exploiting sensors in smartwatch. Novel keystroke inference models are developed to mitigate the negative impacts of tracking noises. We focus on two major categories of keyboards: one is numeric keypad that is generally used to input digits, and the other is QWERTY keyboard on which a user can type English text. Two prototypes have been built to infer users' banking PINs and English text when they type on POS terminal and QWERTY keyboard respectively. Our results show that for numeric keyboard, the probability of finding banking PINs in the top 3 candidates can reach 65%, while for QWERTY keyboard, a significant accuracy improvement is achieved compared to the previous works, especially of the success rate of finding the correct word in the top 10 candidates.
Sharing a world with wolves: perspectives of educators working in wolf-focussed education

Abstract This paper outlines a qualitative investigation where wolf-focussed education was examined from the perspective of educators who work at programmes/centres around North America. Using a phenomenological methodology and a critical lens, methods involved semi-structured interviews with 17 educators from 15 different wolf centres, a brief content analysis of the centres’ websites, observations at two sites, and photographs. When it came to the experience of being a wolf educator certain motifs or essences emerged and these are discussed in light of the academic literature and their relevance to environmental education and research and include: the significance of personal, political, regional and cultural contexts; the key role that scientific knowledge and learning has for many wolf educators, the importance of ethics to the educators when teaching about and working with wolves, the significance of direct experiences with wolves, and engagement with conservation issues. This research highlights the importance of education as one strategy for wolf conservation, especially if it does not shy away from the messiness of controversial conservation issues and helps people grapple with the social, ethical, regional and cultural aspects of knowing wolves and our relationships as humans with them.
Search and Bargaining in the Product Market and Price Rigidities

This paper develops a model of pricing dynamics in business to business relationships. The formation of business relationships is a process of search and matching between retailers and wholesalers in the product market. The size of each transaction and the related price are set through bilateral bargaining. There are three key factors that influence the reaction of prices and quantities to cost shocks: the persistence of the shocks, the adjustment of final goods production and the search externalities. These factors determine how firms adjust, whether through the intensive margin, through the extensive margin or through both. Based on this, we assess to what extent wholesale prices affect the allocation of consumption in closed economy and deliver expenditure switching in open economy.
Dynamic Optimal Insurance and Lack of Commitment

This paper analyzes dynamic risk-sharing contracts between profit-maximizing insurers and risk-averse agents who face idiosyncratic income uncertainty and may self-insure through savings. We study Markov-perfect insurance contracts in which neither party can commit beyond the current period. We show that the limited commitment assumption on the insurer's side is only restrictive when he is endowed with a rate of return advantage and the agent has sufficiently large initial assets. In such a case, the consumption profile is distorted relative to the first-best. In a Markov-perfect equilibrium, the agent's asset holdings determine his period outside option and are thus, an integral part of insurance contracts, unlike the case when the insurer can commit. Whether the parties can contract on the agent's savings decisions or not affects the agreement as long as the insurer makes positive profits.
Brahmastra: Driving Apps to Test the Security of Third-Party Components

We present an app automation tool called Brahmastra for helping app stores and security researchers to test third-party components in mobile apps at runtime. The main challenge is that call sites that invoke third-party code may be deeply embedded in the app, beyond the reach of traditional GUI testing tools. Our approach uses static analysis to construct a page transition graph and discover execution paths to invoke third-party code. We then perform binary rewriting to "jump start" the third-party code by following the execution path, efficiently pruning out undesired executions. Compared with the state-of-the-art GUI testing tools, Brahmastra is able to successfully analyse third-party code in 2.7× more apps and decrease test duration by a factor of 7. We use Brahmastra to uncover interesting results for two use cases: 175 out of 220 children's apps we tested display ads that point to web pages that attempt to collect personal information, which is a potential violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA); and 13 of the 200 apps with the Facebook SDK that we tested are vulnerable to a known access token attack.
Productivity and ICT: a review of the evidence

We survey the micro and macro literature on the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on productivity. The “Solow Paradox” of the absence of an impact of ICT on productivity no longer holds, if it ever did. Both growth accounting and econometric evidence suggest an important role for ICTs in accounting for productivity. In fact, the empirical estimates suggest a much larger impact of ICT on productivity than would be expected from the standard neoclassical model that we focus on. We discuss the various explanations for these results, including the popular notion of complementary organizational capital. Finally, we offer suggestions for where the literature needs to go.
3D Caricature Generation System on the Mobile Handset Using a Single Photograph

In this paper, we introduce the 3D caricature generations system working on the mobile handset. Mobile handset is quite a good research target because of popular use and has restrictions on using general method used on PC computing environment. We propose simple but quite effective algorithm on face detection and face modeling. These algorithms do not degrade the performance of the system and show good results at the experiment. The proposed system use our own OpenGL-ES implementation which shows good performance compared with commercial implementation result for 3D graphics. Based on the good 3D capability, we can implement efficient morphing algorithm and animation effect. Additionally, we can have the ability to change caricature's accessory, background image and put emotional effect, aging effect on generated caricature. Although the result image is not same with drawing image by artist but gets satisfactory feedback from users who used this system.
Particularizing the Tensions Between Canonical and Bodily Discourses

This case study tells the story of Geneva Wilson, an African American teacher of British literature. The study positions the entirely White male curriculum and Geneva’s Black female body as texts that embody oppositional dominant and nondominant Discourses. Findings reveal a contentious relationship between the categorical canonicity Geneva experienced, and was required to teach, and her body. Intertextual frictions complicated the culturally responsive practices she felt efficacious in actualizing. Geneva mitigated Discoursal incongruences by performing a secondary dominant Discourse and designing subversively culturally responsive experiences for her students. The study highlights the need to nuance and particularize the effects of canonicity and to situate investigations of White male curricula relative to literacy teachers’ storied existences and contextually specific teaching experiences.
A complex network approach for a regional power grid analysis

Nowadays energy issues are no longer negligible. Primary sources, used every day for our livelihood, will not last forever and we'll have to face this problem. Even renewable energies, always considered as part of the solution, are not stable enough to substitute or significantly integrate our traditional system. Smart grid researchers try to face these challenges through the proposal of a new concept of intelligent grid equipped with sensors and devices able to constantly monitor demand and supply of the electrical grid. This architecture will be able to direct energy only where and when it is needed, avoiding waste and improving power quality at the same time. After a short recap about grid proprieties and challenges, we propose a study of the model of our regional power grid in Sardinia, using concept and parameters typical of complex network analysis. We comment all the design choices adopted during the model construction, pointing out the importance of using appropriate weights to define connections between substations, in order to represent the behavior of the grid properly. We show, through an example, how the betweenness can change employing different cost settings and lay the foundation for a future work.
A Thesis for the Degree of Master Voluntary Relaying MAC Protocol for Rate Adaptive Wireless Local Area Networks

To exploit multi-rate capability as well as improve performance in wireless local area networks (WLANs), many rate adaptation mechanisms are proposed on IEEE 802.11 media access control (MAC) layer. However, they lead to performance anomaly problem due to guarantee of throughput fairness. To solve this problem, many cooperative MAC protocols were proposed that are classified into packet aggregation, grouping, and relaying schemes. As the results of comparison, we focus on the relaying mechanism which efficiently supports the multirate transmission. However, no effort has been invested to exploit the multi-rate capability for power saving mechanism. Thus, we propose a Voluntary Relaying MAC Protocol, called VRMP, to achieve both performance improvement and power saving by leveraging the multirate capability. In voluntary relaying scheme, if a node can support low rate node’s packet at higher rate and has sufficient power, after cooperatively sending data packet at higher rate, all nodes go into sleep mode as quickly as possible to reduce power consumption. Simulation and analysis results show that the VRMP outperforms the legacy mechanism in terms of throughput, transmission delay and power consumption.
A Granger Causality Measure for Point Process Models of Ensemble Neural Spiking Activity

The ability to identify directional interactions that occur among multiple neurons in the brain is crucial to an understanding of how groups of neurons cooperate in order to generate specific brain functions. However, an optimal method of assessing these interactions has not been established. Granger causality has proven to be an effective method for the analysis of the directional interactions between multiple sets of continuous-valued data, but cannot be applied to neural spike train recordings due to their discrete nature. This paper proposes a point process framework that enables Granger causality to be applied to point process data such as neural spike trains. The proposed framework uses the point process likelihood function to relate a neuron's spiking probability to possible covariates, such as its own spiking history and the concurrent activity of simultaneously recorded neurons. Granger causality is assessed based on the relative reduction of the point process likelihood of one neuron obtained excluding one of its covariates compared to the likelihood obtained using all of its covariates. The method was tested on simulated data, and then applied to neural activity recorded from the primary motor cortex (MI) of a Felis catus subject. The interactions present in the simulated data were predicted with a high degree of accuracy, and when applied to the real neural data, the proposed method identified causal relationships between many of the recorded neurons. This paper proposes a novel method that successfully applies Granger causality to point process data, and has the potential to provide unique physiological insights when applied to neural spike trains.
Towards a Formal Standard for Interoperability in M & S / System of Systems Integration

Modeling and Simulation (M&S) is finding increasing application in development and testing of command and control systems comprised of information-intensive component systems. In this paper, we apply a System of Systems (SoS) perspective on the integration of M&S with such systems. We employ recently developed interoperability concepts based on linguistic categories along with the Discrete Event System Specification formalism to propose a standard for interoperability. We will show how the developed standard is implemented in DEVS/SOA netcentric modeling and simulation framework.