Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Designing networks: A mixed‐integer linear optimization approach

Designing networks with specified collective properties is useful in a variety of application areas, enabling the study of how given properties affect the behavior of network models, the downscaling of empirical networks to workable sizes, and the analysis of network temporal evolution. Despite the importance of the task, there currently exists a gap in our ability to systematically generate networks that adhere to theoretical guarantees for the given property specifications. In thisarticle, we propose the use of Mixed‐Integer Linear Optimization modeling and solution methodologies to address this Network Generation Problem. We present useful modeling techniques and apply them to mathematically express and constrain a broad class of network properties in the context of an optimization formulation. We derive complete formulations for the generation of networks that attain specified levels of connectivity, spread, assortativity and robustness, and we illustrate these via a number of computational case studies. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 68(4), 283–301 2016
A New Approach for Vanishing Point Detection in Architectural Environments

A man-made environment is characterized by a lot of parallel lines and a lot of orthogonal edges. In this article, a new method for detecting the three mutual orthogonal directions of such an environment is presented. Since realtime performance is not necessary for architectural application, like building reconstruction, a computationally more intensive approach was chosen. On the other hand, our approach is more rigorous than existing techniques, since the information given by the condition of three mutual orthogonal directions in the scene is identified and incorporated. Since knowledge about the camera geometry can be deduced from the vanishing points of three mutual orthogonal directions, we use this knowledge to reject falsely detected vanishing points. Results are presented from interpreting outdoor scenes of buildings.
Molecular mechanisms of flowering under long days and stem growth habit in soybean.

Precise timing of flowering is critical to crop adaptation and productivity in a given environment. A number of classical E genes controlling flowering time and maturity have been identified in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr. ]. The public availability of the soybean genome sequence has accelerated the identification of orthologues of Arabidopsis flowering genes and their functional analysis, and has allowed notable progress towards understanding the molecular mechanisms of flowering in soybean. Great progress has been made particularly in identifying genes and modules that inhibit flowering in long-day conditions, because a reduced or absent inhibition of flowering by long daylengths is an essential trait for soybean, a short-day (SD) plant, to expand its adaptability toward higher latitude environments. In contrast, the molecular mechanism of floral induction by SDs remains elusive in soybean. Here we present an update on recent work on molecular mechanisms of flowering under long days and of stem growth habit, outlining the progress in the identification of genes responsible, the interplay between photoperiod and age-dependent miRNA-mediated modules, and the conservation and divergence in photoperiodic flowering and stem growth habit in soybean relative to other legumes, Arabidopsis, and rice (Oryza sativa L.).
A longitudinal survey of Internet host reliability

An accurate estimate of host reliability is important for correct analysis of many fault-tolerance and replication mechanisms. In a previous study, we estimated host system reliability by querying a large number of hosts to find how long they had been functioning, estimating the mean time-to-failure (MTTF) and availability from those measures, and in turn deriving an estimate of the mean time-to-repair (MTTR). However, this approach had a bias towards more reliable hosts that could result in overestimating MTTR and underestimating availability. To address this bias we have conducted a second experiment using a fault-tolerant replicated monitoring tool. This tool directly measures TTF, TTR, and availability by polling many sites frequently from several locations. We find that these more accurate results generally confirm and improve our earlier estimates, particularly for TTR. We also find that failure and repair are unlikely to follow Poisson processes.
Combining Cardinal Direction Relations and Relative Relations in QSR

We propose a calculus, c COA , combining, thus more expressive than each of, two orientation calculi well-known in QSR: Frank’s projection-based cardinal direction calculus, CDA , and a coarser version, ROA , of Freksa’s relative orientation calculus. An original constraint propagation procedure, PcS4c+() , for c COA -CSPs is presented, which aims at (1) achieving path consistency ( Pc ) for the CDA projection; (2) achieving strong 4-consistency ( S4c ) for the ROA projection; and (3) more ( + ) —the “+” consists of the implementation of the interaction between the two combined calculi. Dealing with the ﬁrst two points is not new, and involves mainly the CDA composition table and the ROA composition table, which can be found in, or derived from, the literature. The originality of the propagation algorithm comes from the last point. Two tables, one for each of the two directions CDA -to- ROA and ROA -to- CDA , capturing the interaction between the two kinds of knowledge, are deﬁned, and used by the algorithm. The importance of taking into account the interaction is shown with a real example providing an inconsistent knowledge base, whose inconsistency (a) cannot be detected by reasoning separately about each of the two components of the knowledge, just because, taken separately, each is consistent, but (b) is detected by the proposed algo-rithm, thanks to the interaction knowledge propagated from each of the two compnents to the other.
Hamilton cycles in 3‐out

Let G3‐out denote the random graph on vertex set [n] in which each vertex chooses three neighbors uniformly at random. Note that G3‐out has minimum degree 3 and average degree 6. We prove that the probability that G3‐out is Hamiltonian goes to 1 as n tends to infinity. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg. , 2009
MiddlePolice: Toward Enforcing Destination-Defined Policies in the Middle of the Internet

Volumetric attacks, which overwhelm the bandwidth of a destination, are amongst the most common DDoS attacks today. One practical approach to addressing these attacks is to redirect all destination traffic (e.g., via DNS or BGP) to a third-party, DDoS-protection-as-a-service provider (e.g., CloudFlare) that is well provisioned and equipped with filtering mechanisms to remove attack traffic before passing the remaining benign traffic to the destination. An alternative approach is based on the concept of network capabilities, whereby source sending rates are determined by receiver consent, in the form of capabilities enforced by the network. While both third-party scrubbing services and network capabilities can be effective at reducing unwanted traffic at an overwhelmed destination, DDoS-protection-as-a-service solutions outsource all of the scheduling decisions (e.g., fairness, priority and attack identification) to the provider, while capability-based solutions require extensive modifications to existing infrastructure to operate. In this paper we introduce MiddlePolice, which seeks to marry the deployability of DDoS-protection-as-a-service solutions with the destination-based control of network capability systems. We show that by allowing feedback from the destination to the provider, MiddlePolice can effectively enforce destination-chosen policies, while requiring no deployment from unrelated parties.
Food and Prices in India : Impact of Rising Food Prices on Welfare

T he paper presents the impact of a simulated increase in food prices on the household’s welfare in India from the NSS Survey ”Consumer Expenditure” (Round 61st). It attempts to understand which households are the most vulnerable to rising food prices. Demand reactions and elasticities are computed from the Almost Ideal Demand System. Only demand is taking into account. The effect is computed assuming that the other influential parameters have not changed. This study shows that there are differential impacts on different categories of households. Rural households are more vulnerable than urban households. In addition, the poorest households of both sectors are more penalized by rising food price than the richest households. The impact depends also on the commodity which price has increased. Indeed, an increase in cereal prices affects more the households than the same increase in fruit price.
On achieving group strategyproof information dissemination in wireless networks

We study the dissemination of common information from a source to multiple peers within a multihop wireless network, where peers are equipped with uniform omni-directional antennas and have a fixed cost per packet transmission. While many peers may be interested in the dissemination service, their valuation or utility for such a service is usually private information. A desirable routing and charging mechanism encourages truthful utility reports from the peers. We provide both negative and positive results towards such mechanism design. We show that in order to achieve the group strategyproof property, a compromise in routing optimality or budget-balance is inevitable. In particular, the fraction of optimal routing cost that can be recovered through peer charges cannot be significantly higher than ½. To answer the question whether constant-ratio cost recovery is possible, we further apply a primal-dual schema to simultaneously build a routing solution and a cost sharing scheme, and prove that the resulting mechanism is group strategy-proof and guarantees ⅛-approximate cost recovery against an optimal routing scheme.
The peculiarity of the construction of an optical-electronic system for measurement of geometrical parameters of objects in the micrometer range

The optical-electronic system for measuring of geometrical parameters of micrometrical objects is a difficult process that requires the observance of certain features designing or improvement. The observance of that will provide a higher measurement accuracy compared with the accuracy metrics of measurement that were developed without compliance with these design features. Every feature of the design reduces the error of the functioning of individual nodes of the system or errors in nodes under the influence of various internal or external factors. When reducing or eliminating each factor of occurrence of the error, respectively, will increase the overall measurement accuracy. In this work, the result of introducing measurement error for each factor is determined experimentally and proved the correctness of such actions. Experimental researches of the measurement error to the stage of compliance with subtleties in the improvement of the opto-electronic system was 10 ± 1.5 μm, and after improvement with considering of the specifics of the design measurement error of geometrical parameters was 10 ± 0,33 μm.
Auditory information design

The prospect of computer applications making “noises” is disconcerting to some. Yet the soundscape of the real world does not usually bother us. Perhaps we only notice a nuisance? This thesis is an approach for designing sounds that are useful information rather than distracting “noise”. The approach is called TaDa because the sounds are designed to be useful in a Task and true to the Data. Previous researchers in auditory display have identified issues that need to be addressed for the field to progress. The TaDa approach is an integrated approach that addresses an array of these issues through a multifaceted system of methods drawn from HCI, visualisation, graphic design and sound design. A task-analysis addresses the issue of usefulness. A data characterisation addresses perceptual faithfulness. A case-based method provides semantic linkage to the application domain. A rule-based method addresses psychoacoustic control. A perceptually linearised sound space allows transportable auditory specifications. Most of these methods have not been used to design auditory displays before, and each has been specially adapted for this design domain. The TaDa methods have been built into computer-aided design tools that can assist the design of a more effective display, and may allow less than experienced designers to make effective use of sounds. The case-based method is supported by a database of examples that can be searched by an information analysis of the design scenario. The rule-based method is supported by a direct manipulation interface which shows the available sound gamut of an audio device as a 3D coloured object that can be sliced and picked with the mouse. These computer-aided tools are the first of their kind to be developed in auditory display. The approach, methods and tools are demonstrated in scenarios from the domains of mining exploration, resource monitoring and climatology. These practical applications show that sounds can be useful in a wide variety of information processing activities which have not been explored before. The sounds provide information that is difficult to obtain visually, and improve the directness of interactions by providing additional affordances.
Analysis of Power Cycling Capability of IGBT Modules in a Conventional Matrix Converter

This paper analyzes the power cycling capability of IGBT modules in a conventional matrix converter used as a motor drive. The analysis is made under various condition for this topology, including low speed operation capability, high speed thermal and power cycle capability and etc. It was found that the power cycling mean time to failure (MTTF) of IGBT in a matrix converter is low when the input and output frequency is close to each other or when the output frequency of the converter is low. As a result, the chip size of the conventional matrix converter may be larger than the other candidates. In the end of the paper, some guidance of designing a matrix converter for long term reliabilities is also discussed.
Automatically Bridging UML Profiles to MOF Metamodels

In Model-Driven Engineering, UML profiles and MOF-based Domain Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) are the most used approaches for describing domain specific applications. The choice of the right approach depends on several aspects, such as tool support, expressivity, complexity of models, company policies. In general, profiled UML models are very much used since they are intuitive for designers and model editors already exist, however they are intrinsically complex for model manipulation (e.g., Transformation, analysis), conversely, domain specific models are more concise and easy to be manipulated, but they require an initial effort in terms of designers training and model editors development. In this paper we propose an approach that allows getting the best of the two worlds: on one side designers can use UML profiles familiar to them, on the other side DSML models (automatically generated from profiled UML models) enable a better model manipulation. Our approach is based on an automatic bridge between UML profiles and MOF metamodels (which are the main artifacts of MOF-based DSMLs). The bridge is transparent to the user since it autonomously operates both on UML profiles and all the involved models. The bridge is realized through model transformation techniques in the Eclipse platform. In this paper we show its application on a case study based on SysML.
Protecting Location Privacy against Location-Dependent Attacks in Mobile Services

Privacy protection has recently received considerable attention in location-based services. A large number of location cloaking algorithms have been proposed for protecting the location privacy of mobile users. In this paper, we consider the scenario where different location-based query requests are continuously issued by mobile users while they are moving. We show that most of the existing k-anonymity location cloaking algorithms are concerned with snapshot user locations only and cannot effectively prevent location-dependent attacks when users' locations are continuously updated. Therefore, adopting both the location k-anonymity and cloaking granularity as privacy metrics, we propose a new incremental clique-based cloaking algorithm, called ICliqueCloak, to defend against location-dependent attacks. The main idea is to incrementally maintain maximal cliques needed for location cloaking in an undirected graph that takes into consideration the effect of continuous location updates. Thus, a qualified clique can be quickly identified and used to generate the cloaked region when a new request arrives. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed ICliqueCloak algorithm are validated by a series of carefully designed experiments. The experimental results also show that the price paid for defending against location-dependent attacks is small.
Charging pile siting recommendations via the fusion of points of interest and vehicle trajectories

By mining of the requirements of lots of electric vehicle users for charging piles, this paper proposes the charging pile siting algorithm via the fusion of Points of Interest and vehicle trajectories. The proposed algorithm computes appropriate charging pile locations by: 1) mining user Points of Interest from social network; 2) mining parking sites of vehicle form GPS trajectories and 3) fusing the Points of Interest and parking sites together then clustering the fusions with our improved DBSCAN algorithm, whose clustering results indicates the final appropriate charging pile locations. Experimental results show that our proposed methods are more efficient than existing methods.
Scanning the European corn borer (Ostrinia spp.) genome for adaptive divergence between host‐affiliated sibling species

It has recently been shown that the European corn borer, a major pest of maize crops, is actually composed of two genetically differentiated and reproductively isolated taxa, which are found in sympatry over a wide geographical range in Eurasia. Each taxon is adapted to specific host plants: Ostrinia nubilalis feeds mainly on maize, while O. scapulalis feeds mainly on hop or mugwort. Here, we present a genome scan approach as a first step towards an integrated molecular analysis of the adaptive genomic divergence between O. nubilalis and O. scapulalis. We analysed 609 AFLP marker loci in replicate samples of sympatric populations of Ostrinia spp. collected on maize, hop and mugwort, in France. Using two genome scan methods based on the analysis of population differentiation, we found a set of 28 outlier loci that departed from the neutral expectation in one or the other method (of which a subset of 14 loci were common to both methods), which showed a significantly increased differentiation between O. nubilalis and O. scapulalis, when compared to the rest of the genome. A subset of 12 outlier loci were sequenced, of which 7 were successfully re‐amplified as target candidate loci. Three of these showed homology with annotated lepidopteran sequences from public nucleotide databases.
Foundations of evidence-based practice: critical care trial networks.

C ritical care management involves not only a struggle to sort through alarms, tubes, and catheters, but a struggle to find the right scientific evidence upon which to base our management decisions. Our teachers and mentors urge us to deliver an “evidence-based” decision as often as possible. But, in fact, careful examination of our evidence-based medicine decisions suggests that practices in the intensive care unit (ICU) are based on a blend of local, national, and international opinion from thought-leading experts in specific areas of critical care. These opinions often come to us in the form of consensus statements, which are important roadmaps for evidence-based practice. Practice guidelines from consensus statements are forged from available data and experience. Often the only available literature for these guidelines derives from retrospective observations or single-center efforts.
Anatomical atlases based on volume visualization

A framework for the generation of atlases of the human body based on the linkage of volume data to a knowledge base is presented. The model has a two layer structure. The lower level is a volume model with a set of semantic attributes belonging to each voxel. Its spatial representation is derived from data sets of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer tomography. The semantic attributes are assigned by an anatomist using a volume editor. The upper level is a set of relations between these attributes which are also specified by the expert. Interactive visualization tools, such as multiple surface display, transparent rendering, and cutting, are provided. It is shown that the combination of this object-oriented data structure with advanced volume visualization tools provides the look and feel of a real dissection. <<ETX>>
Direct Association with Inner Centromere Protein (INCENP) Activates the Novel Chromosomal Passenger Protein, Aurora-C*

A family of serine/threonine kinase Aurora constitutes a key regulator in the orchestration of mitotic events. The human Aurora paralogues Aurora-A, Aurora-B, and Aurora-C have a highly conserved catalytic domain. Extensive studies on the role of Aurora-A and Aurora-B have revealed distinct localizations and functions in regulating mitotic processes, whereas little is known about Aurora-C. The present study shows that human Aurora-C is a chromosomal passenger protein that forms complexes with Aurora-B and inner centromere protein (INCENP), which are known passenger proteins. We show that INCENP binds and activates Aurora-C in vivo and in vitro. Furthermore, Aurora-C co-expressed with INCENP elicits the phosphorylation of endogenous histone H3 in mammalian cells, even though this phosphorylation is not sufficient to establish chromosome condensation in interphase cells. We therefore suggest that Aurora-C is a novel chromosomal passenger protein that cooperates with Aurora-B to regulate mitotic chromosome dynamics in mammalian cells.
Estrogen Inhibits Bone Resorption by Directly Inducing Apoptosis of the Bone-resorbing Osteoclasts

Estrogen deficiency causes bone loss, which can be prevented by estrogen replacement therapy. Using a recently developed technique for isolation of highly purified mammalian osteoclasts, we showed that 17 β-estradiol (E2) was able to directly inhibit osteoclastic bone resorption. At concentrations effective for inhibiting bone resorption, E2 also directly induced osteoclast apoptosis in a dose- and time-dependent manner. ICI164,384 and tamoxifen, as pure and partial antagonists, respectively, completely or partially blocked the effect of E2 on both inhibition of osteoclastic bone resorption and induction of osteoclast apoptosis. These data suggest that the protective effects of estrogen against postmenopausal osteoporosis are mediated in part by the direct induction of apoptosis of the bone-resorbing osteoclasts by an estrogen receptor– mediated mechanism.