Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring Online Advertising Transparency in Singapore: An Investigation of Threats to Users

Recent studies have highlighted the role that internet advertising plays in supporting the revenue of rogue websites (Taplin, 2013). Certainly, such advertising generates enormous profit margins for operators of these websites, and present an ongoing threat to the viability of Singapore’s creative industries. However, a recent study by Watters (2013) investigated the harms to users from viewing the increasingly “high risk” nature of advertising being hosted on these sites.An analysis of advertising transparency was undertaken using the methodology developed by Watters (2013). A total of 5,000 webpages representing ten pages sampled from Google’s ad transparency report were downloaded in Singapore, and each ad banner categorised as being High Risk or Mainstream, where each page was verified as being in breach of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for movies and TV shows. 10% of ads were Mainstream, 90% were High Risk. The prevalence of Mainstream ads being served to Singaporeans is one order of magnitude greater than similar advertising being shown to Australians. The policy implications of this result and future research directions, including methodology enhancements, are discussed.
Lean-burn operation for natural gas/air mixtures: the dual-fuel engines

The research activity on internal combustion engines is increasingly cast to find an alternative solution to reduce the wide utilization of petroleum fuels like diesel oil and gasoline, for environmental, political and economic concerns. Natural gas (NG) is an ideal fuel to be operated in internal combustion engines, since its characteristics allow for much lower environmental impact and reduced fuel consumption with respect the conventional fuels. It also is particularly suitable to be operated under high volumetric compression ratio engines, thus providing higher efficiency, and moreover it is characterized by a wide flammability range. This latter aspect promotes the employment of a lean burn strategy, thus further increasing the engine efficiency and reducing the exhaust emissions. The dual-fuel natural gas/diesel concept allows extending the lean flammability limit of NG with respect to SI-NG operations and simultaneously reducing the NOX-PM trade-off affecting diesel combustion. Such a technology consists in introducing NG as main fuel in a conventional diesel engine. A certain amount of diesel pilot injection is preserved to act as the ignition source for the air/NG mixture. The easiness of dual-fuel conversion makes such technology rather inviting especially as a retrofit for the existing diesel vehicles, which could not meet the more and more stringent emission regulations in the future. In the present study, the dual-fuel combustion process with its inherent complexity is investigated both from an experimental and a numerical point of view. The experimental activity has the main target to analyze the problems connected with the conversion of a heavy-duty diesel engine to dual-fuel operation, and to put into evidence the influence of the main engine parameters on performance and pollutants formation. The numerical activity, characterized by a mixed 1-D/3-D approach, has been carried out with the initial target of a correct understanding of the complex dual-fuel combustion mechanism. A detailed multi-dimensional simulation of the whole working cycle of the engine has been subsequently performed, to provide for the correct representation of the fluid-dynamic effect involved in dual-fuel operations. Such an approach allows for the complete description of the engine overall behavior and the dual-fuel combustion in detail.
Working Paper 02-10 - The PLANET model - Methodological Report: The Car Stock Module

The vehicle stock module calculates the size and composition of the car stock. Its output is a full description of the car stock in every year, by vehicle type, age and (emission) technology of the vehicle. The vehicle stock is represented in the detail needed to compute transport emissions. The integration of the car stock module in PLANET will allow to better capture the impact of changes in fixed and variable taxes levied on cars. Among these impacts, the effect on the environment is of particular interest.
An Enhanced Method for Identifying Android Malware Detection

In worldwide, all people are living with mobile applications for most of their life time. A statistical survey shows that mobile user exceeds 5 billions by 2019. There is a necessity to download different kinds of applications in different occasions. The library in android OS used for displaying media content has multiple vulnerabilities which enable the attackers to exploit media files and run the malicious code. The new ranges of attacks have been opened up today. The malware application does fraudulent activities automatically in the mobile without the knowledge of users. It is very difficult to identify the malware among such applications. Thus a challenge rises for protecting the mobile phones from these attacks. The existing method, “Significant Permission Identification for Machine-Learning-Based Android Malware Detection (SIGPID)”, which uses Multi-Level Data Pruning process to identify significant permissions. In SIGPID, three level pruning process namely Permission Ranking with Negative Rate (PRNR), Support based Permission Ranking (SPR) and Permission Mining with Association Rule (PMAR) are applied to the dataset followed by SVM classification. The large dimension of the dataset negatively affects the malware detection efficiency. To reduce features of malicious apps further, an enhanced method called “Enhanced Model of Significant Permission Identification (ESID)” is proposed to identify android malware applications using data mining techniques. It adds the process to remove non-significant permissions and to classify the benign apps and malicious apps using SVM before installing an android application in the mobile. The experimental result shows that the better accuracy of 93.75% in identifying the malicious apps.
Real-time Modeling and Analysis of a Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) Wireless System over Acoustic Channel

Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems employ multiple transmitter and receiver antennas, and offer a manifold increase in system capacity and improvement in signal quality, as compared to conventional wireless systems being used at present. MIMO uses spatial multiplexing and exploits multipath propagation to its benefit for increasing system capacity as opposed to conventional wireless systems, while the spatial diversity at the transmitter as well as the receiver ensures better signal quality in terms of the bit-error rate (BER). This thesis is concerned with the modeling and analysis of a MIMO wireless system using the air acoustic transmission channel. Various performance measures have been carried out on this system in real-time and the results analyzed. The system has been modeled for a stationary indoor environment and demonstrates the application of MIMO principles for data rate maximization. The designed system is a 2 x 2 MIMO digital transmission system which simultaneously transmits two independent BPSK modulated bit streams. This system makes use of a Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) based MIMO equalization scheme which requires the channel state information (CSI) to be known at the transmitter. Therefore, MIMO channel estimation is also part of the implementation. The acoustic transmission channel varies considerably from the radio channel. It uses a low carrier frequency and supports very low data rates. In addition, the multipath delay spread may be significantly larger due to slow propagation speed of acoustic waves over large distances. It is comparatively more difficult to model the acoustic channel and multiple filter taps are required for better channel estimation. However, the MIMO principles are equally valid for the acoustic channel as indicated by the results presented in this thesis.
The associations of SNF5 with prognosis and immune responses in bladder cancer

Background Bladder cancer (BC) is the second most common malignancy in the urinary system. Improving survival has been hampered by high heterogeneity and drug resistance. SNF5, a subunit of the SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complex, is commonly lost or inactivated in multiple malignancies. The role of SNF5 in bladder cancer has not yet been elucidated. This is the first exploration into the associations of SNF5 with prognosis and its functions in BC. Methods Using datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas projects and our institution, we investigated the predictive value of SNF5 in bladder cancer, as well as the relationships with clinical characteristics. The differential genes expression analysis, gene ontology (GO) analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis, gene set enrichment analyses (GSEA) were performed to investigate the functions of SNF5. The Immune Cell Abundance Identifier (ImmuCellAI) algorithm was used to infer the fractions of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). Next, we conducted gene set variation analysis (GSVA) and Tumor Immune Dysfunction and Exclusion (TIDE) algorithm to assess the effects of SNF5 on antitumor response and sensitivity to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). Results SNF5 had the potential to predict bladder cancer and a negative correlation with survival. SNF5 was involved in immune response. Low expression of SNF5 promoted infiltration of immune cells into tumor, enhanced the abilities to process and present antigens by activating the MHC-T cell receptor activation pathway. Moreover, decreased SNF5 activated CTLA-4 pathway, upregulating CTLA-4 expression, but SNF5 did not modify the expression of PD-1 or PD-L1. A higher TIDE score was generated in the low-expression group, which indicated that patients with low expression might derive greater benefit from ICB. Conclusions Our findings indicated that SNF5 was not only a good biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis of BC, but a potential new target in the immunotherapy for BC.
Analiza złożonych struktur promieniujących za pomocą hybrydowej metody FDTD/MoM - PO

Streszczenie. W artykule przedstawiono hybrydową metodę analizy złożonych obiektów promieniujących i/lub rozpraszających fale elektromagnetyczne. Omówione podejście łączy w sobie zalety dwóch konwencjonalnych metod pełnofalowych: metody momentów (MoM) i metody FDTD. W celu zwiększenia efektywności analizy obiektów dużych elektrycznie metodę momentów połączono dodatkowo z asymptotycznym przybliżeniem optyki fi zycznej (PO). Skuteczność proponowanego podejścia hybrydowego (FDTD/MoM-PO) pokazano na przykładzie analizy anteny refl ektorowej. Słowa kluczowe: elektromagnetyzm obliczeniowy, metoda FDTD, metoda momentów, metody hybrydowe, optyka fi zyczna, anteny Symbole UKD: 537.86 Abstract. In this paper, the FDTD/MoM-PO hybrid technique is presented. Th e proposed approach is applied to complex electromagnetic problems such as those involving antennas radiating in the presence of dielectric bodies. Th e method combines the ability of the FDTD method to deal with arbitrary material properties, and versatility of the MoM-PO method for conducting structures. Numerical results show that the FDTD/MoM-PO hybrid technique off ers a noticeable memory and CPU time saving.
Measurements by Means of Optical Tracking in the High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel Göttingen, HEG

Measurements of aerodynamic forces and moments in ground-based hypersonic shock tunnels are complicated by the brevity of the available test time of these facilities. A practical way to perform these measurements in a nonintrusive way, avoiding possible interference with support structures, is the free-flight technique paired with optical tracking: After detachment from an initial support, the test model moves freely with the flow. A sequence of images is acquired at high speed capturing the model movement. An algorithm is used to match the model contour in the images with the known model contour. From the resulting model displacement over time, aerodynamic forces and moments are calculated by assuming constant acceleration during a time window of steady flow conditions. The development and implementation of this technique at the High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel Gottingen, HEG of the German Aerospace Center is described and exemplified using an experiment with a free-flying capsule model.
Comparison of frequency-selective screen-based linear to circular split-ring polarisation convertors

This study presents the use of periodic arrays of freestanding slot frequency-selective screens (FSS) as a means for generating circularly polarised signals from an incident linearly polarised signal at normal incidence to the structure. Measured and simulated results for crossed, linear and various ring slot element shapes in single and double-layer polarisation convertor structures are presented for 10 GHz operation. It is shown that 3 dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidths of 21% can be achieved with the one-layer perforated screen design and that the rate of change is lower than the double-layer structures. An insertion loss of 0.34 dB can be achieved for the split circular ring double-layer periodic array, and of the three topologies presented the hexagonal split-ring polarisation convertor gives the lowest variation of AR with angle of incidence 1.8 dB/45° and 3.6 dB/45° for the single and double-screen FSS, respectively. In addition, their tolerance to angle of incidence variation is presented. The capability of the surfaces reported here as twist polariser or spatial isolator components has been demonstrated with up to -30 dB isolation between incident and re-reflected signals for the double-layer designs being measured.
Case studies

Imagine your childhood neighborhood. Retrace the steps that you would take each day to play outside, visit friends, or simply explore. Perhaps there are many experiences that you dwell on, such as the place where you crashed your bike, the smell of cookies at your neighbor’s house, or the distance you ran when you raced your friends around the block. If you were to write a short story, in order to provide enough depth you would likely need to focus on just one aspect of your childhood experience in that neighborhood. Wilson (1996) remarks that an environment as rich as this has varying dimensions such as constancy and change, simplicity and complexity; you knew your way around in the neighborhood, but there was always more to find. The same is true for case studies in educational research. Case studies are a qualitative research method that focus on one unit of study (Merriam, 1998). This chapter seeks to clearly define case studies, explore their weaknesses and strengths, and discuss when and for what research questions they are most appropriate to use as an educational research method.
Automatic spotlight distribution for indirect illumination

Context. Indirect illumination – the light contribution from bounce light in an environment – is an important effect when creating realistic images. Historically it has been approximated very poorly by applying a constant ambient term. This approximation is unacceptable if the goal is to create realistic results as bouncing light contributes a lot of light in the real world. Objectives. This thesis proposes a technique to use a reflective shadow map to place and configure spotlights in an environment to approximate global illumination. Methods. The proposed spotlight distribution technique is implemented in a delimited real time graphics engine, and the results are compared to a naive spotlight distribution method. Results. The image resulting from the proposed technique has a lower quality than the comparison in our test scene. Conclusions. The technique could be used in its current state for applications where the view can be controlled by the developer such as in 3D side scrolling games or as a tool to generate editable indirect illumination. Further research needs to be conducted to make it more broadly viable.
A Real-Time Dual-Channel Speech Reinforcement System for Intra-Cabin Communication

In order to facilitate the communication experience in a cabin (as among passengers located at distant seats in big vehicles), suitable systems involving the presence of microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers are needed. However when the sound is acquired and reproduced within the same acoustic environment, instability problems can arise due to acoustic feedback. The main objective of Speech Reinforcement techniques consists in reducing the occurrence of feedback effects, thus allowing for a comfortable intra-cabin communication. In this work we focus on the PEM-AFROW algorithm, an effective technique for acoustic feedback control, recently appeared in the literature. Moreover a suppressor filter is included within the feedback loop in order to improve the overall system stability and increase its inherent robustness to higher gain values. The overall algorithmic scheme is able to deal with the DualChannel communication case study, i.e. in presence of two communicating speakers and with the speech information flowing in both directions. This means that, in contrast to the SingleChannel case study, echo paths, introduced by the double microphone and loudspeaker, must be considered. In order to keep the latencies low and allow a real-time processing, the partitioned block frequency domain adaptive filter (PB-FDAF) algorithm has been adopted. Voice Activity and Double Talk Detectors have been also included into the algorithmic framework. Performed computer simulations in various acoustic conditions have shown the effectiveness of the approach.
Prediction of the Tool Displacement for Robot Milling Applications using Co-Simulation of an Industrial Robot and a Removal Process

Industrial robots are used in a great variety of applications for handling, welding and milling operations. They represent a cost-saving and flexible alternative for machining applications. A reduced pose and path accuracy, especially under process force load due to the high mechanical compliance, restrict the use of industrial robots for further machining applications. In this paper a method is presented to predict the resulting path deviation of the robot under process force. A process force simulation based on a material removal calculation is proposed. The presented material removal simulation allows the calculation of the chip geometry even in complex cutter work piece engagement conditions. The removal simulation is validated by means of conducted milling tests. By coupling the removal simulation with a robot model the path deviation can be predicted.
Transportation of Cable Suspended Load using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Real-time Model Predictive Control approach

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have received an increasing amount of attention recently with many applications being actively investigated across the globe, and several related open research questions being actively pursued. Possible applications include search and rescue, disaster relief, environmental monitoring and surveillance, transportation, and construction. Transportation of cable suspended payloads using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is one such application which is the topic of this research. Autonomous transportation of objects using UAV can contribute to the safe and reliable supply of food and medicine in remote or disaster-affected areas and even in commercial delivery of goods. The state-of-the-art approaches towards the slung load transportation either develop non-linear feedback control laws to stabilize the system to a predefined trajectory or employ open loop off-line trajectory planning schemes to generate optimal control inputs to the system. Most of these techniques often rely on availability of an accurate model of the system backed up with simulation results. Very few results exist which target experimental validation of the proposed method. Based on the findings of the previously conducted literature survey, it appears that the application of closed loop on-line trajectory generation and control schemes to transport a slung payload in swing free manner remains unanswered. The work in this thesis sets off to answer the research questions in this direction and address the issues that come along with experimental validation. Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a promising framework, which provides the means to tackle both the trajectory generation problem and the feedback control problem in an unified manner. As a result, it forms the most important component of this thesis. Specific research problem that is addressed in this thesis is to transport a cable suspended load using quadrotor from one point to another, while minimizing the swing through the use of Linear Time Invariant MPC techniques. A non-linear dynamic model for the quadrotor-slung load system is obtained and the structure within the system dynamics is exploited to decide the control strategy. Two different MPC formulations viz. MPC with integral action and MPC with delta-u formulation are simulated and compared to Linear Quadratic control with integral action which acts as a benchmark controller. Backed with simulation results, it is shown through experimental validation that it is possible to control the swing of cable suspended load using linear control techniques. MPC being an computationally expensive task, state-of-the-art fast optimization solvers such as FORCES PRO is used to achieve on-line implementation of MPC for the quadrotor-slung load system. To this end, a new software framework for implementation of MPC is developed which establishes a wireless link with the quadrotor resulting in a real-time networked control loop.
Digital Control of the Parallel Interleaved Solar Array Regulator Using the Digital Signal Processor

In this paper, a digital control approach for the parallel interleaved solar array regulator (SAR) is proposed. The proposed control scheme achieves stable operation in the entire region of the solar array (SA). Additionally, by making the effective load characteristic of the SAR seen by the SA as a resistive load sink, the current sharing among the converter modules is possible. Also, this method can be applied to conventional parallel buck and boost converters. The small signal analysis with the digital sampling effect is performed. A SAR system that consists of two 100W parallel module buck converters with a TMS320F2812 DSP has been experimented using a real 200W solar array to validate the proposed digital control scheme.
Introduction to Reshaping Defence Diplomacy: New Roles for Military Cooperation and Assistance

The following text is taken from the website of the International Institute for Strategic Studies: "Over the last decade there have been major changes in patterns of international defence diplomacy. Defence diplomacy – peacetime military cooperation and assistance – has traditionally been used for realpolitik purposes of strengthening allies against common enemies. Since the early 1990s, however, the Western democracies have increasingly used defence diplomacy for a range of new purposes. These include strategic engagement with former or potential enemies, in particular Russia and China, encouraging multilateral regional cooperation, supporting the democratisation of civil-military relations and assisting states in developing peacekeeping capabilities. This Adelphi Paper analyses the new defence diplomacy and the policy challenges and dilemmas it poses. The new defence diplomacy runs alongside the old and there are tensions between the two, in particular between the new goal of promoting democracy and the old imperative of supporting authoritarian allies. These tensions cannot easily be resolved, but external defence diplomacy assistance is likely to play a continuing role in supporting conflict prevention, the reform and democratisation of armed forces and the development of peacekeeping capabilities. "