Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OS Fingerprinting and Tethering Detection in Mobile Networks

Fingerprinting the Operating System (OS) running on a device based on its traffic has several applications, such as NAT detection, policy enforcement in enterprise networks, and billing for shared access in mobile networks. In this paper, we propose to utilize several features in TCP/IP headers for OS identification, and use real traffic traces to evaluate the accuracy of fingerprinting. Our trace-driven study shows that several techniques that successfully fingerprint desktop OSes are not effective for fingerprinting mobile devices. Therefore, we propose new features for fingerprinting OSes on mobile devices. We also consider NAT/tethering detection, an important application of OS fingerprinting. We use the presence of multiple OSes from the same IP address along with TCP timestamp, clock frequency, and boot time to detect tethering. Evaluation shows that our approach effectively detects tethering and outperforms existing schemes.
Voice analysis in adverse conditions: the Centennial Olympic Park Bombing 911 call

This study, considers an analysis of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park Bombing 911 phone call with respect to several speech processing issues. First, since background noise is present in the recording, five previously formulated speech enhancement algorithms are compared for quality improvement. Some of these include: nonlinear spectral subtraction, MMSE filtering, and auto-LSP constrained iterative Wiener filtering. Afterwards, the problem of automatic speaker height estimation from voice data is considered. Finally, the implications that such an analysis could have on extracting further information from the 911 call are discussed.
Fair Allocation of Indivisible Goods

As introduced in Chapter 11 (Thomson, 2015), Fair Division refers to the general problem of fairly dividing a common resource among agents having different —and sometimes antagonistic— interests in the resource. But under this general term one can actually gather a cluster of very different problems, all calling for different solution concepts: after all, one can easily figure out that we cannot allocate a set of objects like a bicycle, a car or a house like we allocate pieces of land. In this chapter, we will focus on fair division of indivisible goods. In other words, the resource is here a set O = {o1, . , op} of objects (that may also be called goods or items). Every object must be allocated as is, that is, an object loses its value if it is broken or divided into pieces to be allocated to several individuals. This assumption makes sense in a lot of real-world situations, where indivisible goods can be for example physical objects such as houses or cars in divorce settlements, or “virtual” objects like courses to allocate to students (Othman et al., 2010) or Earth observation images (Lemâıtre et al., 1999). Moreover, we assume in this chapter that the objects are non-shareable, which means that the same item cannot be allocated to more than one agent. This assumption seems to be questionable when the objects at stake are rather non-rival, that is, when the consumption of one unit by an agent will not prevent another one from having another unit (what we referred to as “virtual” objects). In most applications, such non-rival objects are available in limited quantity though (e.g. number of attendants in a course). This kind of problems can always be modeled with non-shareable goods by introducing several units of the same good. What mainly makes fair division of indivisible goods specific, if not more difficult, is that classical fairness concepts like envy-freeness or proportionality are sometimes unreachable, unlike in the divisible (a.k.a. cake-cutting) case. As an illustration of this difference, consider a (infinitely divisible) piece of land which has to be split among two individuals, Alice and Bob. One classical way to proceed (see Chapter 13,
process model for requirement elicitation

Requirement elicitation is the process of extracting the requirements from the project stakeholders. The success of the project depends on how well requirements have been extracted, whether they are completely obtained or not. As from Standish report it is clear that the number of project fail due to failure of the elicitation process to recognize the need of the customer. Interviewing stakeholder is a communication intensive activity involving various techniques & tactics requiring communication skills apart form experience and knowledge. Interviews are most natural technique also used in other domains like press interviews, interrogations, criminal examinations etc. where it has been refined, matured and used effectively. In this paper we present an interview process model for requirement elicitation, which explores nine set of questions adopted from other domains to effectively extract the requirements from stakeholders and also in a case where they fail to express their needs or are not cooperating. It also highlights the verbal & nonverbal communication, inhibitors & facilitators of communication and its analysis relevant to the interviews. The model uses layering of the questions in a fixed format and suggest criterion for analysis of the response by using psychological parameters.
The Pricing of Options Depending on a Discrete Maximum

Abstract The object of this paper is to provide a price for options depending on the maximum value of the underlying asset when the contract stipulates that the maximum is taken at discrete times during the life of the option. A general method is provided for the computation of a lower bound to the price using results on the Brownian meander complementing the commonly used upper bound which approximates the discrete maximum by the continuous maximum. Moreover, in the particular case of the European Put Lookback option, a correction factor associated to the lower bound provides a very good numerical approximation to the price of the option which was otherwise obtained by Monte-Carlo methods.
Are common names becoming less common? The rise in uniqueness and individualism in Japan

We examined whether Japanese culture has become more individualistic by investigating how the practice of naming babies has changed over time. Cultural psychology has revealed substantial cultural variation in human psychology and behavior, emphasizing the mutual construction of socio-cultural environment and mind. However, much of the past research did not account for the fact that culture is changing. Indeed, archival data on behavior (e.g., divorce rates) suggest a rise in individualism in the U.S. and Japan. In addition to archival data, cultural products (which express an individual’s psyche and behavior outside the head; e.g., advertising) can also reveal cultural change. However, little research has investigated the changes in individualism in East Asia using cultural products. To reveal the dynamic aspects of culture, it is important to present temporal data across cultures. In this study, we examined baby names as a cultural product. If Japanese culture has become more individualistic, parents would be expected to give their children unique names. Using two databases, we calculated the rate of popular baby names between 2004 and 2013. Both databases released the rankings of popular names and their rates within the sample. As Japanese names are generally comprised of both written Chinese characters and their pronunciations, we analyzed these two separately. We found that the rate of popular Chinese characters increased, whereas the rate of popular pronunciations decreased. However, only the rate of popular pronunciations was associated with a previously validated collectivism index. Moreover, we examined the pronunciation variation of common combinations of Chinese characters and the written form variation of common pronunciations. We found that the variation of written forms decreased, whereas the variation of pronunciations increased over time. Taken together, these results showed that parents are giving their children unique names by pairing common Chinese characters with uncommon pronunciations, which indicates an increase in individualism in Japan.
Verification of a Synchronous Machine Model for Stator Ground Fault Simulation Through Measurements in a Large Generator

This paper presents a synchronous machine model designed to simulate internal ground faults along the stator windings. The purpose of this model is to help to set the 100 % stator ground fault protection based on the measurement of the third harmonic in the grounding resistor. The setting of the above protection is not easy, as the third harmonic in the generator depends on the operation point and the saturation of the machine. The main contribution of this paper is that the model has been validated through the measurements on a 106 MVA hydro-generator under no-faulty condition obtaining good results. The model has been also tested under faulty conditions obtaining coherent results.
Influence of hydralazine on interstitial fluid pressure in experi­ mental tumors - a preliminary study

Background. Interstitial fluid pressure (IFP) has been recognised as the most important obstacle in macromolecular drug delivery to solid tumors. Our interest was to reduce differentialy tumor IFP with respect to IFP in surrounding and normal tissues in order to increase drug delivery to tumors as well to increase tumor blood flow and potentialy tumor tissue oxygenation. In this preliminary study we used hydralazine, a longacting arterial vasodilator. Materials and methods. Measurements of interstitial fluid pressure were performed in vivo on CBA mice bearing SAF tumors using wick-in-needle technique. Altogether eleven measurements were obtained on dif ferent animals with tumors of different size. Results. IFP in tumors after hydralazine administration was significantly lower than initial values in corresponding tumors. On average tumor IFP decreased for 33 % from initial value. On the contrary, no change in IFP in normal tissue was observed after hydralazine administration. Also, after injection of physiological saline instead of hydralazine there was no change in IFP neither in tumors nor in muscle. The results of our preliminary study on the effect of hydralazine on IFP in SAF tumor model is in accordance to previously reported studies. The decrease in tumor IFP was only observed in tumors, but not in muscle and surrounding subcutis. Conclusion. Hydralazine is a vasodilator which is capable of decreasing tumor IFP, reproducibly and with favorably long lasting dynamics.
Design and Implementation of an Open Source 'Thin SIM' System for Collecting Data & Supporting Global Health Care

Cutting edge communication technologies such as smartphones remain far from prevalent in most of the settings with the greatest need for improved health and development programs. As a result, designers of ICT4D initiatives often weigh difficult tradeoffs between the usability of smartphone applications for structured data collection versus the battery life, durability, cost and familiarity of basic phones. However, as this paper and our deployment experiences demonstrate, such tradeoffs are not always necessary. Most mobile network operators in sub-Saharan Africa offer value added services via simple, menu-driven applications that run directly from the SIM card. While conventional SIM applications can only be accessed by mobile network operators, this paper describes the design and implementation of a 'thin SIM' approach that does not require mobile network operator involvement. We have implemented this tool with more than 3,000 health workers and describe particular deployment experiences in Kenya, Benin, Nepal and Guatemala. We then reflect on a number of important limitations of the thin SIM approach, and opportunities for further development and deployment. Ultimately, we argue that there is an important role for SIM applications as one part of a configurable data collection toolkit for supporting global health and development programs.
Galaxy threshing and the origin of ultra-compact dwarf galaxies in the Fornax cluster

A recent all-object spectroscopic survey centred on the Fornax cluster of galaxies has discovered a population of subluminous and extremely compact members, called 'ultra-compact dwarf' (UCD) galaxies. In order to clarify the origin of these objects, we have used self-consistent numerical simulations to study the dynamical evolution a nucleated dwarf galaxy would undergo if orbiting the centre of the Fornax cluster and suffering from its strong tidal gravitational field. We find that the outer stellar components of a nucleated dwarf are removed by the strong tidal field of the cluster, whereas the nucleus manages to survive as a result of its initially compact nature. The developed naked nucleus is found to have physical properties (e. g. size and mass) similar to those observed for UCDs. We also find that although this formation process does not have a strong dependence on the initial total luminosity of the nucleated dwarf, it does depend on the radial density profile of the dark halo in the sense that UCDs are less likely to be formed from dwarfs embedded in dark matter haloes with central 'cuspy' density profiles. Our simulations also suggest that very massive and compact stellar systems can be rapidly and efficiently formed in the central regions of dwarfs through the merging of smaller star clusters. We provide some theoretical predictions on the total number and radial number density profile of UCDs in a cluster and their dependencies on cluster masses.
Sign of Gaussian curvature from eigen plane using principal components analysis

Describes a method to recover the sign of the local Gaussian curvature at each point on the visible surface of a 3-D object. Multiple (p>3) shaded images are acquired under different conditions of illumination. The required information is extracted from a 2-D subspace obtained by applying principal components analysis (PCA) to the p-dimensional space of normalized irradiance measurements. The number of dimensions is reduced from p to 2 by considering only the first two principal components. The sign of the Gaussian curvature is recovered based on the relative orientation of measurements obtained on a local five point test pattern to those in the 2-D subspace, called the eigen plane. The method does assume generic diffuse reflectance. The method recovers the sign of Gaussian curvature without assumptions about the light source directions or about the specific functional form of the diffuse surface reflectance. Multiple (p>3) light sources minimize the effect of shadows by allowing a larger area of visible surface to be analyzed. Results are demonstrated by experiments on synthetic and real data. The results are more accurate and more robust compared to previous approaches.
Parameter estimation of ordinary differential equations

This paper addresses the development of a new algorithm for parameter estimation of ordinary differential equations. Here, we show that (1) the simultaneous approach combined with orthogonal cyclic reduction can be used to reduce the estimation problem to an optimization problem subject to a fixed number of equality constraints without the need for structural information to devise a stable embedding in the case of non-trivial dichotomy and (2) the Newton approximation of the Hessian information of the Lagrangian function of the estimation problem should be used in cases where hypothesized models are incorrect or only a limited amount of sample data is available. A new algorithm is proposed which includes the use of the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) Gauss–Newton approximation but also encompasses the SQP Newton approximation along with tests of when to use this approximation. This composite approach relaxes the restrictions on the SQP Gauss–Newton approximation that the hypothesized model should be correct and the sample data set large enough. This new algorithm has been tested on two standard problems.
A Combined Model to Ensure Complete Security and Reliability in Cloud Computing

— Cloud Computing is the fastest growing technique in the IT (Information Technology) industry as its main idea is to maximising the capacity and capabilities vigorously without investing in new infrastructure and licensing software. It provides a large amount of storage capacity over the internet but the management and security of the data and services over the cloud is not entirely trustworthy. Because of the lack in trust, most of the businesses are still reluctant to deploy their business over cloud, so security is the major concern in cloud computing and becoming a major issue in the implementation of cloud. In this paper, a new framework is proposed which focuses on almost every aspect of security i.e. protection of data from beginning to end, i.e., from cloud owner to user. This work focuses on major four aspects of security, i.e., Confidentiality, Availability, Integrity and Non-Repudiation. This framework will work on all the categories of Cloud i.e. Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud and proposes an algorithm to select the correct category of cloud to put a data on to it.
Intra-host mathematical model of chronic wasting disease dynamics in deer (Odocoileus)

ABSTRACT Bioassays of native cervid hosts have established the presence of infectious chronic wasting disease (CWD) prions in saliva, blood, urine, and feces of clinically diseased and pre-clinical infected deer. The intra-host trafficking of prions from the time of initial infection to shedding has been less well defined. We created a discrete-time compartmentalized model to simulate the misfolding catalysis, trafficking, and shedding of infectious prions throughout the organ systems of CWD-infected cervids. Using parameter values derived from experimental infections of North American deer (Odocoileus spp.), the exponential-based model predicts prion deposition over time with: 1) nervous tissues containing the highest deposition of prions at 20 months post-infection and 2) excreted fluids containing low levels of prions throughout infection with the highest numbers of prions predicted to be shed in saliva and feces (as high as 10 lethal doses (1.34 × 1029 prions) in 11–15 months). These findings are comparable to prion deposition described in literature as assayed by conventional and ultrasensitive amplification assays. The comparison of our model to published data suggests that highly sensitive assays (sPMCA, RT-QuIC, and bioassay) are appropriate for early prion detection in bodily fluids and secretions. The model provides a view of intra-host prion catalysis leading to pre-clinical shedding and provides a framework for continued development of antemortem diagnostic methods.
Robust stability of uncertain genetic regulatory networks with multivariable regulation functions

This paper investigates robust stability of uncertain genetic regulatory networks (GRNs). It is assumed that the uncertainties are in the form of a parameter vector that determines the coe-cients of the model via given functions. And the novel multivariable regulation functions are introduced here to describe the underlying relationship be- tween difierent biochemical substance. Firstly, it is shown that, by using Lyapunov functional method and linear matrix inequality technology (LMI), a criteria is established to ensure the robust asymptotical stabil- ity of GRNs. Moreover, it is also shown that by using the square matrix representation (SMR) of matrix polynomials and by adopting polyno- mially parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions, a condition in form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) for robust stability for all admissible uncertainties can be obtained. An example with real biological model is provided to illustrate the use of the proposed methodology.
Multichannel vibrotactile display for sensory substitution during teleoperation

This paper presents the design and testing of a multi-channel vibrotactile display composed of cylindrical handle with four embedded vibrating elements driven by piezoelectric beams. The experimental goal of the paper is to analyze the performance of the device during a teleoperated force controlled task. As a test bed, a teleoperator system composed of two PHANToM haptic devices is used to trace a rectangular path while the operator attempts to maintain a constant force at the remote manipulator's tip. Four sensory modalities are compared. The first is visual feedback alone. Then, visual feedback is combined with vibration, force feedback, and force feedback plus vibration. Comparisons among these four modes are presented in terms of mean force error. Results show that force feedback combined with vibration provide the best feedback for the task. They also indicate that the vibrotactile device provides a clear benefit in the intended application, by reducing the mean force errors by 35 percent when compared to visual feedback alone.
An Intelligent Evaluation Model Based on the LEACH Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper aims to introduce some key parameters for the tracking application in wireless sensor networks. In this work the LEACH protocol with J-sim simulation tool has been implemented, and consequently some useful trade-off analysis results among the EDCR (Energy, Density, Coverage and Reliability) parameters has been obtained. Based on these results, an intelligent evaluation model is proposed in this paper.
FITTING A CONTAMINATED NORMAL DISTRIBUTION TO THE RESIDUALS OF FINANCIAL DATA

The family of GARCH models provides a means of estimating and correcting for the heteroscedasticity of the log returns of financial series. The standardised residuals (innovations) of the GARCH fit are, however, heavy-tailed implicating that the assumption of conditional normality does not hold for real data. Fitting a contaminated normal (CN) distribution on the standardised residuals can account for the heavy tails as well as for possible skewness of the innovations. We extended this method further to simultaneous maximum likelihood estimation of all the parameters. Monte Carlo simulations of normal, as well as heavy-tailed error-distributions (skewed and symmetrical), are used to compare Value-at-Risk and Expected Shortfall determined by the CN distribution with other methods. This method is also applied to South African stock exchange data.
Bringing natural language information retrieval out of the closet

A prototype information retrieval system was developed that gives users fast and easy access to textual information. This system uses a statistical ranking methodology that allows a user to input a query using only natural language, such as a sentence or a noun phrase, with no special syntax required. The system returns a set of text titles or descriptions, ranked in order of likely relevance to the query. The user can then select one or more titles for further examination of the corresponding text. The prototype was tested by over forty users, all proficient in doing manual research in the subject area, but few proficient in doing online research. The system was very fast, providing response times on the order of one second for searching a gigabyte of data and was also very effective, retrieving at least one relevant record within the first ten records retrieved for 53 out of 68 test queries. All users were able to get satisfactory results within a short time after seeing a demonstration, and those that had never used an online retrieval system did as well as those with experience. This is in sharp contrast to Boolean based retrieval systems where continual use is necessary to obtain consistently good results.