Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A privacy-aware query authentication index for encrypted database in cloud

Cloud computing has been spotlighted as a new paradigm of database management system. However, cloud service provider might be untrusted so that two issues of data security, including data confidentiality and query result integrity, become major concerns for users. Existing bucket-based data authentication methods have problems of data disclosure and transmission overhead, due to the unsophisticated data grouping strategy. In this paper, we propose a privacy-aware query authentication index which guarantees data confidentiality and query result integrity for users. We privately partition a spatial database into small groups by using periodic function and generate a signature of each group. The group signature is used to check the correctness and completeness of outsourced data when answering a range query to users. Through performance evaluation, it is shown that proposed method outperforms the existing method in terms of range query processing time up to 3 times.
Tuning Curves, Neuronal Variability, and Sensory Coding

Tuning curves are widely used to characterize the responses of sensory neurons to external stimuli, but there is an ongoing debate as to their role in sensory processing. Commonly, it is assumed that a neuron's role is to encode the stimulus at the tuning curve peak, because high firing rates are the neuron's most distinct responses. In contrast, many theoretical and empirical studies have noted that nearby stimuli are most easily discriminated in high-slope regions of the tuning curve. Here, we demonstrate that both intuitions are correct, but that their relative importance depends on the experimental context and the level of variability in the neuronal response. Using three different information-based measures of encoding applied to experimentally measured sensory neurons, we show how the best-encoded stimulus can transition from high-slope to high-firing-rate regions of the tuning curve with increasing noise level. We further show that our results are consistent with recent experimental findings that correlate neuronal sensitivities with perception and behavior. This study illustrates the importance of the noise level in determining the encoding properties of sensory neurons and provides a unified framework for interpreting how the tuning curve and neuronal variability relate to the overall role of the neuron in sensory encoding.
Duplicate Reviews Detection

With the rapid development of Internet, BBS has become an important place for the people to acquire information and write reviews. However the existing of a vast number of duplicate reviews has been a new problem, so the effective detection and removing of duplicate reviews is crucial to the BBS information acquisition and supervision system. Considering its characteristics, we proposed a method of duplicate reviews detection based on SHA-1 algorithm in the paper. The experimental results show that the proposed method is very effective.
Similarity management of 'cloned and owned' variants

The 'clone and own' approach to software product lines assumes that variants are created by cloning and evolve more or less independently afterwards. In this paper, we describe a process to manage similarity of such 'cloned and owned' variants along the timeline. The process uses annotations for recording developer intentions and it leverages automatic change propagation. We describe a case study where we manage similarity for clowned-and-owned Haskell-based variants of a simple human-resources management system.
Damages of digitized historical images as objects for content based applications

This work presents the preliminary results achieved within a FIRB project aimed to develop innovative support tools for automatic or semi-automatic restoration of damaged digital images concerning archaeological and monumental inheritance of Mediterranean coast. In particular, this paper is focused on a methodology for describing image degradation and its meta-representation for content based storing and retrieval. Our innovative idea is to decompose and store in a conventional RDBMS the images content, considering the damages as objects of the images. Moreover, a set of descriptors(a subset of MPEG7 descriptors) is used for the damage meta representation aimed to content based application. Finally we developed a user-friendly database management tool for manipulating the contents of the database.
Flotsam : Evaluating Implementations of the Raft Consensus Algorithm CS 244 B Project Report

The Raft consensus algorithm [1] is designed to be easily understood and implemented. Many opensource projects now implement Raft as a library or standalone service or incorporate it into more complicated distributed systems. However, the quality of these implementations has not been studied extensively. This work presents a system, Flotsam, for empirically testing Raft open-source implementations for errors. Randomized test cases are generated and tested in a virtualized environment based on Docker. Test operations are specified using a general interface to allow new implementations to be simply “plugged in”, and outputs are checked against each other using configurable criteria after injecting. This work identifies several implementations of Raft and tests them against each other using Flotsam. The promise of this approach, both for assessing Raft implementations and for testing distributed systems in general, is demonstrated through initial test results.
Modeling of human hand link structure from optical motion capture data

This paper proposes the total protocol to determine the link structure of a human hand using optical motion capture data. The difficulty in capturing hand motion comes from the hand's relatively high degrees of freedom located in very small space. To deal with the problem caused by closeness between markers, the number of markers is reduced. The effect of reduced markers is compensated by simplifying the problem. The adverse effect of skin movement and the limited range of movement is avoided by regulating the calibration motion appropriately. A link estimation experiment is performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Contactless Palm Vein Recognition Using a Mutual Foreground-Based Local Binary Pattern

Local binary pattern (LBP) is popular for the texture representation owing to its discrimination ability and computational efficiency, but when used to describe the sparse texture in palm vein images, the discrimination ability is diluted, leading to lower performance, especially for contactless palm vein matching. In this paper, an improved mutual foreground LBP method is presented for achieving a better matching performance for contactless palm vein recognition. First, the normalized gradient-based maximal principal curvature algorithm and k -means method are utilized for texture extraction, which can effectively suppress noise and improve accuracy and robustness. Then, an LBP matching strategy was adopted for similarity measurements on the basis of extracted palm veins and their neighborhoods, which include the vast majority of useful distinctive information for identification while eliminating interference by excluding the background. To further improve the LBP performance, the matched pixel ratio was adopted to determine the best matching region (BMR). Finally, the matching score obtained in the process of finding the BMR was fused with results of LBP matching at the score level to further improve the identification performance. A series of rigorous contrast experiments using the palm vein data set in the CASIA multispectral palmprint image database were conducted. The obtained low equal error rate (0.267%) and comparisons with the most state-of-the-art approaches demonstrate that our method is feasible and effective for contactless palm vein recognition.
Diagnostic accuracy of the Gerontological Personality Disorder Scale (GPS) in Dutch general practice

Objective: Personality disorders (PDs) often remain unrecognized in older adults by doctors in general practice. Therefore, this study evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of a screening instrument, the Gerontological Personality Disorder Scale (GPS), in a Dutch general-practice population of older adults. Method: The psychometric properties of the GPS patient (GPS-pv) and informant (GPS-iv) versions were assessed in a sample of 302 (144 male) patients (average age: 69.9 years) and 302 (124 male) informants (average age: 64.7 years), respectively, using an informant-based personality questionnaire (the Hetero-Anamnestische Persoonlijkheidsvragenlijst ) as a reference criterion. Results: The internal consistency (average item correlation) of the subscale and total scores of the GPS-pv and GPS-iv were . 12 (HAB), . 16 (BIO), and . 10 (total); and . 16 (HAB), . 15 (BIO), and . 12 (total), respectively. The test--retest reliability was strong for both the GPS-pv (rs = .56 [HAB], rs = .67 [BIO], rs = .66 [total]) and the GPS-iv (rs = .52 [HAB], rs = .65 [BIO], rs = .68 [total]) versions. The sensitivity and specificity of the GPS-pv were . 83 and . 27, respectively, with a cutoff score of ≥1. Raising the cutoff score to ≥2, the sensitivity dropped to . 59, whereas the specificity rose to . 57. For the GPS-iv, a cutoff score of ≥3 maximized the sensitivity (.78) and specificity (.65). Conclusion: The diagnostic accuracy of the GPS-iv was preferable to that of the GPS-pv. This is the first psychometric study to use the GPS as an age-specific screening instrument for PDs.
Constructivist Learning and Teaching

Radical changes have been advocated in recent reports on mathematics education, such as NCTM’s Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 1989) and Everybody Counts (MSEB and National Research Council 1989). Unfortunately, many educators are focusing on alterations in content rather than the reports’ recommendations for fundamental changes in instructional practices. Many of these instructional changes can best be understood from a constructivist perspective. Although references to constructivist approaches are pervasive, practical descriptions of such approaches have not been readily accessible. Therefore, to promote dialogue about instructional change, each “Research into Practice” column this year will illustrate how a constructivist approach to teaching might be taken for a specific topic in mathematics.
A Flexible Fringe Projection Vision System with Extended Mathematical Model for Accurate Three-Dimensional Measurement

In order to acquire an accurate three-dimensional (3D) measurement, the traditional fringe projection technique applies complex and laborious procedures to compensate for the errors that exist in the vision system. However, the error sources in the vision system are very complex, such as lens distortion, lens defocus, and fringe pattern nonsinusoidality. Some errors cannot even be explained or rendered with clear expressions and are difficult to compensate directly as a result. In this paper, an approach is proposed that avoids the complex and laborious compensation procedure for error sources but still promises accurate 3D measurement. It is realized by the mathematical model extension technique. The parameters of the extended mathematical model for the ’phase to 3D coordinates transformation’ are derived using the least-squares parameter estimation algorithm. In addition, a phase-coding method based on a frequency analysis is proposed for the absolute phase map retrieval to spatially isolated objects. The results demonstrate the validity and the accuracy of the proposed flexible fringe projection vision system on spatially continuous and discontinuous objects for 3D measurement.
Low Complexity General Antenna Selection Algorithm for MU-MIMO-BC Systems

A general antenna selection algorithm is proposed in this paper. The algorithm can greatly lower down the computation complexity through two efficient user rejection criterions and has the merit that it can be applied in the case of arbitrary number of receive antennas. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has good performance and very low computation complexity.
How Random is a Corpus? The Library Metaphor

Abstract There is a stark contrast between the random sample model underlying the statistical analysis of corpus frequency data and our intuitive knowledge that sentences are more than random bags of words. The 'library metaphor' illustrates how randomness results from the selection of a corpus as the basis for a linguistic study. At the same time it reveals two reasons why corpus data do not fully meet the assumptions of the random sample model. Finally, practicable methods for identifying and quantifying non-randomness are introduced and demonstrated on the example of passive verb forms.
Wide-area distributed cooperative load-frequency consensus control with limited information exchange

This paper presents a simulation study of an architecture of distributed cooperative controllers operating over a wide-area system, which employs consensus algorithms to attain a common objective among control areas, with limited information exchange. A 4-area case study for load frequency control (LFC) is used to illustrate the implementation of the distributed architecture and of a second order consensus algorithm. Topological analysis is employed to determine the minimum information exchange. Results demonstrate that the control scheme is feasible and allows to scale small-area and medium-area control schemes to wide-area control with minimum information exchange.
Design and Implementation of Vehicle Travelling Data Recorder Based on the Newest Chinese Standard

A Vehicle Travelling Data Recorder (VTDR) based on the newest Chinese standard (GB/T 19056-2012) is designed and implemented. The VTDR can collect, store and query the data in real time, write the stored data to the U disk, and display the related information on the screen. The practical tests show that it fully complies with the newest Chinese standard, including collecting data in real-time and reliably, and storing data safely and accurately.
Poly(Glycerol Sebacate)–Poly(l-Lactide) Nonwovens. Towards Attractive Electrospun Material for Tissue Engineering

Two types of poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) prepolymers were synthesized and electrospun with poly(l-lactic acid) (PLA), resulting in bicomponent nonwovens. The obtained materials were pre-heated in a vacuum, at different times, to crosslink PGS and investigate morphological and structural dependencies in that polymeric, electrospun system. As both PGS and PLA are sensitive to pre-heating (crosslinking) conditions, research concerns both components. More interest is focused on the properties of PGS, considering further research for mechanical properties and subsequent experiments with PGS synthesis. Electrospinning of PGS blended with PLA does not bring difficulties, but obtaining elastomeric properties of nonwovens is problematic. Even though PGS has many potential advantages over other polyesters when soft tissue engineering is considered, its full utilization via the electrospinning process is much harder in practice. Further investigations are ongoing, especially with the promising PGS prepolymer with a higher esterification degree and its variations.
A 25-Gb/s, 2.1-pJ/bit, Fully Integrated Optical Receiver With a Baud-Rate Clock and Data Recovery

This paper presents the design of a single-chip, 25-Gb/s optical receiver comprising of a front-end amplifier, a clock and data recovery (CDR), and a 1:4 demultiplexer. Incorporating with an integrating-type receiver front end, a new baud-rate CDR is proposed to achieve both high sensitivity and highly energy-efficient operations. Compared to conventional 2 $\times $ oversampling CDRs that require edge samples for timing adjustment, the baud rate CDR reduces the number of sampling phases by half to save both area and power consumption. In addition, a hybrid loop filter consisting of analog decimation and digital postprocessing is proposed. It greatly relaxes the speed requirement of an all-digital loop filter while keeping the flexibility of a programmable loop bandwidth. By applying a pseudo random bit sequence (PRBS) 231−1 test pattern and using a photo detector whose responsivity is 0.53 A/W, the input sensitivities of the optical receiver at 20 and 25 Gb/s operations are about −13.8 and −8.7 dBm respectively, for a bit error rate (BER) of less than 10−12. The recovered data jitter at the demultiplexer output is about 1.7-ps rms. The measured jitter tolerance (JTOL) exceeds the mask defined by the IEEE 802.3ba standard. Implemented in a 40-nm CMOS process, the chip area is only 0.09 mm2. The energy efficiency of the entire receiver is 2.1 pJ/bit at 25-Gb/s operation.
The effect of context-aware recommendations on customer purchasing behavior and trust

Despite the growing popularity of Context-Aware Recommender Systems (CARSs), only limited work has been done on how contextual recommendations affect the behavior of customers in real-life settings. In this paper, we study the effects of contextual recommendations on the purchasing behavior of customers and their trust in the provided recommendations. In particular, we did live controlled experiments with real customers of a major commercial Italian retailer in which we compared the customers' purchasing behavior and measured their trust in the provided recommendations across the contextual, content-based and random recommendations. As a part of this study, we have investigated the role of accuracy and diversity of recommendations on customers' behavior and their trust in the provided recommendations for the three types of RSes. We have demonstrated that the context-aware RS outperformed the other two RSes in terms of accuracy, trust and other economics-based performance metrics across most of our experimental settings.
Synthesis and characterization of surface modified banana trunk as absorbent for benzene removal from aqueous solution

Petroleum monoaromatics especially benzene contamination in water and wastewater is the major concern in the industry today. Various removal techniques have been studied. The adsorptive removal process is considered as one of the most cost-efficient and feasible methods because it does not require a large amount of energy and additional chemical. In adsorption technology, several problems such as adsorbent cost, adsorption selectivity and adsorbent reusability are the main concerns. Therefore, the potential conversion and modification of agrowaste adsorbent into an effective adsorbent alternative to removing benzene constituent from the wastewater were studied. The banana trunk (BT) was selected as an agrowaste model in the present study. The raw BT (Raw-BT) was first mercerized and this mercerized BT (M-BT) was then reacted with different surfactants, namely cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, CTAB (M-CTAB-BT), 4-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)phenyl-polyethylene glycol, Triton X-100 (M-TX100-BT) and sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS (M-SDS-BT). Surface etherification was also conducted by using 3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl trimethylammonium chloride, CTA with the mass ratio of 1 and this etherified BT (M-1CTA-BT) was then coated with SDS (M-1CTA-SDS-BT). All the adsorbents were characterized by using a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, a field emission scanning electron microscope, an x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyzer and nitrogen adsorption/desorption analysis. The experimental batch adsorption studies showed that the adsorption capacity increased in the following order: Raw-BT < M-BT < M-CTAB-BT < M-TX100-BT < M-1CTA-SDS-BT. The Langmuir maximum benzene adsorption capacity, qL,max achieved by the M-1CTA-SDS-BT was 468.187 × 10-3 mmol/g. The fundamental adsorption equilibrium and kinetic studies revealed that the benzene adsorption data were fitted well into the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second order kinetic models which suggested that the adsorption process was governed by a physical phenomenon. The film diffusion was considered as the rate-limiting step for the overall benzene adsorption process. The adsorbents were chemically stable within the pH range. It was revealed the benzene adsorption was an endothermic and non-spontaneous process. The regeneration study using 50 % ethanol-water as the desorbing agent, demonstrated that the modified adsorbents could withstand five adsorption/desorption cycles without a drastic reduction of adsorption uptake (8.5 - 13.0 %). The BT could potentially be employed as an adsorbent precursor for benzene adsorptive removal from aqueous solution.
Multipath channel estimation via the MPM algorithm

In this paper, we consider the problem of multipath channel estimation from data observed at the receiver matched filter output. An approach based on the MPM algorithm is proposed in the literature assuming white noise at the output of the matched filter. We present an improvement to this method that takes into account the noise correlation involved by the matched filtering. Results obtained under both the white-noise and the correlated noise hypotheses are compared, showing that the latter approach performs significantly better in terms of false-alarm and paths detection probabilities, as well as in terms of mean quadratic error on the estimation of amplitudes and delays. Simulations examples are proposed.
Obtaining Uncertainty to Generate Summarization

This paper describes Huazhong Normal University’s participation in TAC 2010. For the guided summarization task, we use a better basic summarization system which makes many improvements to the method we used in TAC 2009. Our system is based on uncertainty methods, including cloud. Our teams IDs are 6 and 23, and they are among the best of all the 43 automatic summarization systems in TAC 2010.
Activity of the c-myc Replicator at an Ectopic Chromosomal Location

ABSTRACT DNA replication starts at multiple discrete sites across the human chromosomal c-myc region, including two or more sites within 2.4 kb upstream of the c-myc gene. The corresponding 2.4-kb c-myc origin fragment confers autonomously replicating sequence (ARS) activity on plasmids, which specifically initiate replication in the origin fragment in vitro and in vivo. To test whether the region that displays plasmid replicator activity also acts as a chromosomal replicator, HeLa cell sublines that each contain a single copy of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae FLP recombinase target (FRT) sequence flanked by selectable markers were constructed. A clonal line containing a single unrearranged copy of the transduced c-myc origin was produced by cotransfecting a donor plasmid containing the 2.4-kb c-myc origin fragment and FRT, along with a plasmid expressing the yeast FLP recombinase, into cells containing a chromosomal FRT acceptor site. The amount of short nascent DNA strands at the chromosomal acceptor site was quantitated before and after targeted integration of the origin fragment. Competitive PCR quantitation showed that the c-myc origin construct substantially increased the amount of nascent DNA relative to that at the unoccupied acceptor site and to that after the insertion of non-myc DNA. The abundance of nascent strands was greatest close to the c-myc insert of the integrated donor plasmid, and significant increases in nascent strand abundance were observed at sites flanking the insertion. These results provide biochemical and genetic evidence for the existence of chromosomal replicators in metazoan cells and are consistent with the presence of chromosomal replicator activity in the 2.4-kb region of c-myc origin DNA.