Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Volume Visualization and Volume Rendering Techniques

There is a wide range of devices and scientiﬁc simulation generating volumetric data. Visualizing such data, ranging from regular data sets to scattered data, is a challenging task. This course will give an introduction to the volume rendering transport theory and the involved issues such as interpolation, illumination, classiﬁcation and others. Different volume rendering techniques will be presented illustrating their fundamental features and differences as well as their limitations. Furthermore, acceleration techniques will be presented including pure software optimizations as well as utilizing special purpose hardware as VolumePro but also dedicated hardware such as polygon graphics subsystems.
FINANCIAL PLANNING WITH 0-1 KNAPSACK PROBLEMS, PART I: DOMINATION RESULTS

The 011 knapsack problem provides an important model for financial planning. It is used to determine what subset of items provides the greatest return. Typically, it is used in situations such as budgeting, where there are only enough funds to sponsor a subset of projects. This paper provides results that allow us to determine when one project "dominates" another, that is, when some project is always preferable to another. Those results are useful since they allow us the ability to reduce the number of variables and the overall budget constraint. This leads to a smaller, more tightly constrained problem. In some cases, establishing domination results leads to a complete solution of knapsack problems.
ACTIVE SENSING IN SENSOR–BASED MOTION PLANNING WITH DYNAMICS

This paper studies active sensing strategies for an autonomous wheeled mobile robot moving on a flat surface among unknown static obstacles. The robot is defined by its geometry, its dynamic motion equations and a control policy. The latter comes from a path planning algorithm which produces changing intermediate goal coordinates to pursue, and motoring signals based on local information. We want to know which is the (minimum) area we need to explore with the robot sensors in order to guarantee that a certain intended motoring signal is safe. The proposed solution depends on a) the sensor system design, b) the robot actual velocity and c) the robot dynamics. All these factors must be taken into account for safety and efficiency reasons. The result is an adaptive scanning procedure based on the robot motion circumstances at every time.
Prepaid Electricity Plan and Electricity Consumption Behavior

By using customer‐level residential billing data from 2008 to 2010 of a major utility company in Phoenix metropolitan area, this study adopts a matching approach and a difference‐in‐differences method to estimate empirically the impact of a prepaid electricity plan on residential electricity consumption, after correcting for selection bias. Results show that the prepaid program is associated with a 12% reduction in electricity usage, customers with lower level of wealth or those with higher amount of arrearage prior to switching to the prepaid program tend to save more electricity after switching, and prepaid customers save more electricity in the summer than winter.
3D head pose estimation using range images for face recognition

This paper describes a robust three-dimensional (3D) head pose estimation method based on face geometry and linear regression model. Given an unknown range image, we extract six invariant facial features based on face curvature characteristics. For estimating the head pose, we estimate the initial head pose using the SVD method, and perform a refinement procedure to compensate for remaining errors for the X and Y axis. To compensate for the Z axis, we orthogonally project feature points onto the Z plane and estimate the face center line based on the linear regression model. Experimental results show that less than a 0.5 degree error on average for each axis has been achieved.
Low-power, low-phase-noise CMOS voltage-controlled-oscillator with integrated LC resonator

Integrated low-power, low-phase-noise voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) have been designed using a 0.5 /spl mu/m CMOS technology with three metal layers. The achieved phase noise is as low as -110 dBc/Hz at an offset frequency of 200 kHz, at a power consumption of only 6.6 mW with a 3.3 V power supply. The tuning range is as large as 14%.
Automatic Music Clustering using Audio Attributes

Abstract—Music brings people together, it allows us to experience the same emotions. Currently musical genre classification is done manually and requires even the trained human ear considerable effort. Therefore, clustering songs automatically and then drawing valuable insights from those clusters is an interesting problem and can add great value to music information retrieval systems. Most of the work in this field has involved extracting the audio content from audio files. This paper explores a novel technique to cluster songs based on Echonest Audio Attributes and K-Means algorithm. I experiment with different sets of attributes and genres. Most notably, I achieve 75-85% accuracy on a 4 genre-dataset of Classical, Rap, Metal and Acoustic songs. This result is better than results reported for human song clustering.
European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) 5-15-2012 HOW SMARTPHONE APPS CAN HELP PREDICTING MUSIC SALES

Predicting music sales is of particular interest for sales managers (e.g. for pricing), inventory management (for CD sales) and server balancing (for music download). In the past years, research therefore proposed several models for music sales prediction. These models have, however, some shortcomings which we want to overcome with a new approach. We suggest using a novel data set that is a byproduct of smartphone apps that help users to identify music. Shazam is probably the most popular of these music identification services for smartphones. This study examines the relationship between Shazam charts and song sales using data from the UK over a period from September 2010 to May 2011. Using seemingly unrelated regression we identify that Shazam charts precede sales charts by about two weeks and serve as good predictors for sales charts. Further, we find that the rock, pop, and hip hop genre and artist’s popularity positively affect song sales.
Differential contribution of cis-regulatory elements to higher order chromatin structure and expression of the CFTR locus

Higher order chromatin structure establishes domains that organize the genome and coordinate gene expression. However, the molecular mechanisms controlling transcription of individual loci within a topological domain (TAD) are not fully understood. The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene provides a paradigm for investigating these mechanisms. CFTR occupies a TAD bordered by CTCF/cohesin binding sites within which are cell-type-selective cis-regulatory elements for the locus. We showed previously that intronic and extragenic enhancers, when occupied by specific transcription factors, are recruited to the CFTR promoter by a looping mechanism to drive gene expression. Here we use a combination of CRISPR/Cas9 editing of cis-regulatory elements and siRNA-mediated depletion of architectural proteins to determine the relative contribution of structural elements and enhancers to the higher order structure and expression of the CFTR locus. We found the boundaries of the CFTR TAD are conserved among diverse cell types and are dependent on CTCF and cohesin complex. Removal of an upstream CTCF-binding insulator alters the interaction profile, but has little effect on CFTR expression. Within the TAD, intronic enhancers recruit cell-type selective transcription factors and deletion of a pivotal enhancer element dramatically decreases CFTR expression, but has minor effect on its 3D structure.
Failure detectors and the wait-free hierarchy (extended abstract)

Fault-tolerant consensus cannot be achieved in asynchronous systems with shared read/write memory. Researchers have addressed thid imitation by considering shared objects more powerful than read/write memory and by augmenting such systems with failure detectors. The former approach has led to the development of the wait-free hiemr-chg, which characterizes concurrent data types by their ability to achieve consensus. The latter approach has led to the identification of the weakest failure detector that can be used to solve consensus with read/write memory. This paper combines these research paths by considering failure detectors that augment the synchronization power of different types in the wait-free hierarchy. It provides a hierarchy of failure detectors, one corresponding to each level in the wait-free hierarchy, and demonstrates that each is the weakest to increase the consensus power of its corresponding set of types.
Examining the design space of insect inspired notifications

Our work investigates new designs for notification cues, leveraging knowledge about insects that people gained through lifelong experiences. We conducted a user study to identify people's knowledge about nine typical and easily differentiated insect-species. We conclude that this information can be used in creating notifications that can be perceived intuitively. We discuss how results of this study can inform design decisions in all four design dimensions of notification systems, and consider the future potential of notifications based on such biomimicry patterns.
Performance analysis and improvement of JPV primality test for smart IC cards

JPV algorithm, proposed by Joye et al. was predicted to be faster than the combined prime generation algorithm but it runs slower in practice. This discrepancy is because only the number of Fermat test calls was compared in estimating a total running time. We present a probabilistic analysis on the total running time of JPV algorithm. This analysis is very accurate and corresponds to the experiment with only 1-2% error. Furthermore, we propose an improved JPV algorithm that uses Euclid function. It is faster than JPV algorithm and similar to the combined algorithm with the same space requirement.
An algorithm and implementation of network topology discovery based on SNMP

A network topology algorithm based on SNMP was put forward and implemented. This algorithm could confirm the connection between ports and improve the efficiency of discovery through combining the topology discovery of the network layer and the link layer. It could solve the problem of subnet information redundancy and incomplete information of address forwarding table during the discovery. The experimental results show that this algorithm could find accurate network topology and the efficiency of topology discovery was improved.
Ergodic secrecy sum rate for multiuser MIMO downlink systems using block diagonalization

To date, the achievable ergodic secrecy sum rate has been studied for multiuser MIMO downlink systems with single-antenna receivers only. In this paper, we study multiuser MIMO downlink systems with multiple-antenna receivers and an external single-antenna eavesdropper to be kept ignorant of the transmitted messages. We adopt the block diagonalization technique at the transmitter to remove inter-user interference, and derive closed-form expressions of the achievable rate for the intended users and the information leakage rate for the eavesdropper. Furthermore, we analyze asymptotic characteristics of the ergodic secrecy sum rate for the system in the high and low SNR regime, and obtain a tight lower bound in the regime of large transmit and receive antennas. Finally, numerical results validate the accuracy of the theoretical analysis.
15 Gb/s transmission over 25 km using negative dispersion fiber on lightwave systems without dispersion compensation

With the advancements in communicating equipments, protocols-standards and software, optical fibers are also upgrading with course of time. MetroCor fiber has a low negative dispersion as well as small dispersion slope which enables this fiber to be more efficient than Single Mode Fiber (SMF). At smaller transmitting power the fiber is known as linear whereas on increased power levels non-linear state is introduced, which brings non-linearities in the transmission. This paper focuses on the relationship between frequency of Continuous Wave (CW) laser with the quality factor of lightwave systems along with the implementation of metrocor fiber instead of SMF without enforcing dispersion compensation techniques (pre, post and symmetric), enabling the system more simpler and yielding high efficiency in absence of these techniques. Adequate results has been discussed from a number of optimizations and simulations for better understanding.
Improved method for predicting protein fold patterns with ensemble classifiers.

Protein folding is recognized as a critical problem in the field of biophysics in the 21st century. Predicting protein-folding patterns is challenging due to the complex structure of proteins. In an attempt to solve this problem, we employed ensemble classifiers to improve prediction accuracy. In our experiments, 188-dimensional features were extracted based on the composition and physical-chemical property of proteins and 20-dimensional features were selected using a coupled position-specific scoring matrix. Compared with traditional prediction methods, these methods were superior in terms of prediction accuracy. The 188-dimensional feature-based method achieved 71.2% accuracy in five cross-validations. The accuracy rose to 77% when we used a 20-dimensional feature vector. These methods were used on recent data, with 54.2% accuracy. Source codes and dataset, together with web server and software tools for prediction, are available at: http://datamining.xmu. edu.cn/main/~cwc/ProteinPredict.html.
Up-regulation of plasma membrane H+-ATPase under salt stress may enable Aeluropus littoralis to cope with stress

Most plants encounter stress such as drought and salinity that adversely affect growth, development and crop productivity. The expression of the gene glutathione-s-transferases (GST) extends throughout various protective mechanisms in plants and allows them to adapt to unfavorable environmental conditions. GSTF1 (the first phi GSTFs class) gene expression patterns in the wheat cultivars Mahuti and Alamut were studied under salt and ABA treatments using a qRT-PCR technique. Results showed that gene expression patterns were significantly different in these two cultivars. Data showed that in Mahuti, there was an increase of transcript accumulation under salt and ABA treatments at 3h, 10h and 72h respectively. In Alamut, however, the pattern of transcript accumulation was different; the maximum was at 3h. In contrast, there were no significant differences observed between the cultivars for GSTF1 gene expression profiles at three levels of NaCl concentration (50, 100, and 200 mM) or in ABA (Abscisic Acid) treatment. It is likely that difference of gene expression patterns between the cultivars (Mahuti as a salt tolerant cultivar and Alamut as a salt sensitive cultivar) is due to distinct signaling pathways which activate GSTF1 expression. Lack of a significant difference between the GSTF1 gene expression profile under salt and ABA treatments suggests that the GSTF1 gene is not induced by stress stimuli. Of course it is possible that other levels of NaCl and ABA treatments cause a change in the GSTF1 gene.
Dynamic utility-based good deal bounds

We introduce and study no-good-deal valuation bounds deflned in terms of ex- pected utility. A utility-based good deal is a payofi whose expected utility is too high in comparison to the utility of its price. Forbidding good deals induces, via duality, restrictions on pricing kernels and thereby gives tighter valuation bounds on payofis than absence of arbitrage alone. Our approach extends earlier work by • Cern¶ (2003) in several directions: We give rigorous results for a general proba- bility space instead of flnite ›; we systematically use duality results to provide a streamlined approach with simple arguments; we do all this rigorously for both static and dynamic situations; and we give a systematic comparison between local and global (conditional) pricing kernel restrictions for the temporally dynamic setting. For the dynamic case, we show in a Levy framework that deflning no- good-deal valuation measures by imposing local conditional restrictions on their instantaneous market prices of risk gives valuation bounds having very good dy- namic properties as processes over time. We also show that global restrictions cannot yield such results in general.
Aegis: Automatic Enforcement of Security Policies in Workflow-driven Web Applications

Organizations often expose business processes and services as web applications. Improper enforcement of security policies in these applications leads to business logic vulnerabilities that are hard to find and may have dramatic security implications. Aegis is a tool to automatically synthesize run-time monitors to enforce control-flow and data-flow integrity, as well as authorization policies and constraints in web applications. The enforcement of these properties can mitigate attacks, e.g., authorization bypass and workflow violations, while allowing regulatory compliance in the form of, e.g., Separation of Duty. Aegis is capable of guaranteeing business continuity while enforcing the security policies. We evaluate Aegis on a set of real-world applications, assessing the enforcement of policies, mitigation of vulnerabilities, and performance overhead.
Tango Lite: a Multiprocessor Simulation Environment. Unpublished Intro- Duction and User's Guide, Figure 4: Low Communication/computation Ratio for 16 Virtual Processors Figure 3: Medium Communication/computation Ratio for 16 Virtual Processors Figure 2: High Communication/computation Ratio Using 16

15 14] Dirk Grunwald. A users guide to AWESIME: An object oriented parallel programming and simulation system. A simulation platform for distributed shared memories. ratio. Clearly we need to develop a test suite for real direct execution simulation applications, but our preliminary results are very encouraging. Before leaving this section it is important to note that these results do not address the important issue of relative speedup due to parallelization of the virtual computer simulator. This issue is discussed in detail in 9]. 7 Conclusions This paper outlines the idea of using lightweight threads to support a parallel direct execution simulator, such as LAPSE. The traditional process-based implementation suuers from high context-switch and interprocess communication overheads, and we show that a thread-based implementation can reduce much of this overhead. In support of this approach, we have outlined a method for providing thread-speciic address spaces, something not commonly supported by lightweight thread systems but required for supporting virtual processors. Preliminary results show that the thread-based LAPSE ooers the potential for signiicant performance improvement over the process-based approach. We observed up to a ten fold improvement for the ring based message-passing code. Based on the results of the research presented here we feel that a thread-based approach to direct execution simulation bears further investigation. Our next step is to modify existing application codes to run on the thread-based LAPSE simulator. This would allow us to more carefully investigate issues such as the eeect on performance due to the computa-tion/communication ratio and varying communication patterns. thread on a given processor this unnecessary machinery can be avoided which would increase performance. We have not yet optimized for the one thread per process case. As shown in Figure 3, the thread-based approach still signiicantly outperforms the process-based version for the medium communication/computation ratio. Again the costs for the thread-based approach rise much more slowly than for the process-based approach. Figure 4 shows the improvement in performance when the communication/computation ratio is low. Again it is seen that the costs associated with the process-based approach grow much more quickly than the thread-based approach as the number of processes (threads) per processor is increased. It is interesting to note that the process-based approach slightly out-performs the thread-based approach for the two and four processes (threads) per processor. This most likely has to do with thread scheduling as we now discuss. Our preliminary implementation of the thread-based approach …
An infinite family of self-consistent models for axisymmetric flat galaxies

We present the formulation of a new infinite family of self-consistent stellar models, designed to describe axisymmetric flat galaxies. The corresponding density-potential pair is obtained as a superposition of members belonging to the generalized Kalnajs family, by imposing the condition that the density can be expressed as a regular function of the gravitational potential, in order to derive analytically the corresponding equilibrium distribution functions (DFs). The resulting models are characterized by a well-behaved surface density, as in the case of generalized Kalnajs discs. Then, we present a study of the kinematical behaviour which reveals, in some particular cases, a very satisfactory behaviour of the rotational curves (without the assumption of a dark matter halo). We also analyse the equatorial orbit's stability, and Poincare surfaces of section are performed for the three-dimensional orbits. Finally, we obtain the corresponding equilibrium DFs, using the approaches introduced by Kalnajs and Dejonghe.
Universally composable adaptive oblivious transfer (with access control) from standard assumptions

In this paper, we provide the first scheme that realises an attribute-based access control system for static resources that offers maximal privacy and is secure in the universal composability framework (UC). More precisely, we offer a protocol for adaptive oblivious transfer, where the sender can enforce an attribute-based access control policy for each record and nevertheless learns neither which record a user retrieves nor which attributes a user has. As additional results we provide a new structure-preserving signature scheme from the SXDH assumption and a new universally composable adaptive oblivious transfer protocol that is secure under two DDH-like assumptions and is the most efficient one secure under ``non $q$-type'' assumptions. We believe the new signature scheme to be of independent interest as a building block that is compatible with Groth-Sahai non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs.
Site-Specific PEGylation of Therapeutic Proteins

The use of proteins as therapeutics has a long history and is becoming ever more common in modern medicine. While the number of protein-based drugs is growing every year, significant problems still remain with their use. Among these problems are rapid degradation and excretion from patients, thus requiring frequent dosing, which in turn increases the chances for an immunological response as well as increasing the cost of therapy. One of the main strategies to alleviate these problems is to link a polyethylene glycol (PEG) group to the protein of interest. This process, called PEGylation, has grown dramatically in recent years resulting in several approved drugs. Installing a single PEG chain at a defined site in a protein is challenging. Recently, there is has been considerable research into various methods for the site-specific PEGylation of proteins. This review seeks to summarize that work and provide background and context for how site-specific PEGylation is performed. After introducing the topic of site-specific PEGylation, recent developments using chemical methods are described. That is followed by a more extensive discussion of bioorthogonal reactions and enzymatic labeling.