Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient Privacy-Preserving Spatial Data Query in Cloud Computing

With the rapid development of geographic location technology and the explosive growth of data, a large amount of spatial data is outsourced to the cloud server for reducing the local high storage and computing burdens, but at the same time causes security issues. Thus, extensive privacy-preserving spatial data query schemes have been proposed. Most of the existing schemes use Asymmetric Scalar-Product-Preserving Encryption (ASPE) to encrypt data, but ASPE has proven to be insecure against known plaintext attack. And the existing schemes require users to provide more information about query range and thus generate a large amount of ciphertexts, which causes high storage and computational burdens. To solve these issues, based on enhanced ASPE designed in our conference version, we first propose a basic Privacy-preserving Spatial Data Query (PSDQ) scheme by using a new unified index structure, which only requires users to provide less information about query range. Then, we propose an enhanced PSDQ scheme (PSDQ<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^+$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:msup><mml:mrow/><mml:mo>+</mml:mo></mml:msup></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="yang-ieq1-3283020.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>) by using Geohash-based <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$R$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>R</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="yang-ieq2-3283020.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>-tree structure (called <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$GR$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>G</mml:mi><mml:mi>R</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="yang-ieq3-3283020.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>-tree) and efficient pruning strategy, which greatly reduces the query time. Formal security analysis proves that our schemes achieve Indistinguishability under Chosen Plaintext Attack (IND-CPA), and extensive experiments demonstrate that our schemes are efficient in practice.
Does Higher Education Influence on Women Empowerment? A Perceptual Study

In today’s world higher education is crucial not only as a source of knowledge but also as a means to increase one’s employability. Even though this statement holds good for both men and women, higher education has a more predominant role in the life of woman because higher education not only promotes the financial stability of women but also boost self-confidence and independence in her personality. In order to understand to what extent higher education influences the various aspects of women empowerment namely Social, Psychological, Economic, Political and Educational, a perceptual study of women with higher education has been undertaken in Karnataka. A multiple regression analysis was used to check the influence of higher education on women empowerment and depicted the path analysis using Structured Equation Model. The study revealed that higher education significantly influences the overall empowerment of women and it also exhibited that there is no association between women’s perception on overall empowerment among demographic parameter except monthly income.
Tightly Integrated Doppler Velocity Log Aided Inertial Navigational System

Background: Underwater navigation is an important aid for many industries, including oil and gas exploration, marine and subsea operations. These industries are highly dependent on a detailed map of the seabed, which can be supplied by AUVs, in order to conduct underwater operations safely and reliably. One commonly used velocity sensor on AUVs are called Doppler Velocity Log (DVL). Such sensors utilize the Doppler shift in sonic pulses to calculate vehicle velocities for system navigation. The main focus in this thesis has been on examining the quality of a tightly integrated DVL (referred to as Method 1) aided INS and to compare the quality of this method with an cartesian DVL (referred to as Method 2). Testing the performance of the two methods on real sensor data. Method: Analyses and simulations were carried out by the use of the generic aided inertial navigation software developed by Kongsberg Maritime, NavLab. NavLab is implemented in Matlab, and is used for performing navigation calculations for navigational purposes. Particular attention was given to the velocity measurements from the DVL device, as the velocity measurements bounds the velocity error of the navigation system. Findings: The proposed implementation of the tightly integrated DVL was proven to be a feasible method, as the Extended Kalman filter (EKF) was able to estimate velocities in transducer beams with an approximate mean errors of 0.02%. However, the EKF was not tuned for Method 1, meaning that the internal Kalman filter dynamics for Method 1 presented in this thesis are not sufficiently accounted for, and lead to that the navigational error did not decrease when using Method 1, relative to Method 2. This leads to a lack of a firm conclusion between the two methods. However, the work presented in this thesis forms a solid foundation for further research within the field of velocity and position estimation for AUVs in Kongsberg Maritime and the important issue of Extended Kalman filter tuning in Method 1 has been illuminated.
Orthogonal weighted empirical likelihood-based variable selection for semiparametric instrumental variable models

ABSTRACT In this article, we consider the variable selection for a class of semiparametric instrumental variable models. By combining orthogonal weighting technology and empirical likelihood method, we propose an orthogonal weighted empirical likelihood-based variable selection procedure. Under some mild conditions, the consistency and sparsity of the variable selection procedure are studied. Furthermore, some simulation studies and a real data analysis are carried out to examine the finite-sample performance of the proposed method.
E' tempo di cambiare: riflessioni sui paradigmi utili nello studio dei disturbi dell'apprendimento nella prospettiva RDoC

La prospettiva Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) propone di avviare un ampio programma di studi che non sia legato a diagnosi comportamentali specifiche (come nel DSM o nell'ICD) ma affronti in modo integrato i disturbi mentali tenendo conto di livelli diversi di analisi e del contesto evolutivo in cui questi si sviluppano. Per far questo, nel loro articolo bersaglio, Antonietti e colleghi propongono di utilizzare paradigmi di ricerca differenti da quelli utilizzati a tutt'oggi. In questa prospettiva viene analizzato come il paradigma case control (largamente utilizzato finora) non tenga conto delle frequenti comorbidità presenti con i vari DSA né dell'effetto della pratica (un problema affrontato spesso, ma in modo non efficace, con il reading level match). Inoltre, utilizzando come esempio la dislessia, si illustra come gli studi basati su questi paradigmi abbiano generato una grande varietà di risultati che non consentono di convergere su un'interpretazione unitaria. In alternativa, in linea con la logica RDoC, si può pensare a studi che considerino campioni di bambini non selezionati o con disturbi "misti", in cui cioè vi sia "almeno" un disturbo di apprendimento, e che non abbiano un singolo comportamento-target ma affrontino insieme più comportamenti. Viene però anche sottolineato che è necessario pensare a studi e paradigmi diversi che affrontino in modo separato la complessità dei comportamenti di apprendimento nella prospettiva di analisi multi-livello. Viene, infine, presentato uno studio che esemplifica alcune delle caratteristiche della prospettiva RDoC. In questo si dimostra che l'abilità di un gruppo non selezionato di bambini di costruirsi rappresentazioni consolidate di singoli eventi (instances) predice la prestazione nei compiti di lettura, scrittura e calcolo in cui è importante il riferimento a conoscenze pregresse (come la scrittura di parole a trascrizione ambigua) ma non in quelli che per essere risolti richiedono il riferimento ad uno specifico algoritmo (come la scrittura di pseudo-parole).
Fathering Here, Fathering There… A Phenomenological Study of the Impact of Forced Migration and Resettlement on Syrian Refugee Fathers in Canada

Refugee fathers have been largely ignored by family researchers and service providers. This article presents an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) of data from semi-structured interviews conducted between November 2020 and March 2021 with 17 Syrian refugee fathers resettled in Canada. The interviews focused on the meanings refugee men gave to fatherhood, their fathering practices, and the sense they made of their experience of being a Syrian refugee father in Canada. This article highlights how Syrian fatherhood is shaped by cultural norms of the home country as well as by religious beliefs. However, participants’ definitions of fatherhood as head of the household, primary breadwinners and decisionmakers in the family, holding unique positions both within their families and in their communities, shifted during the resettlement process. Following resettlement, these meanings were revisited and redefined. Hyper-fatherhood and adjusted fatherhood practices are new types of fatherhood that emerged during resettlement for Syrian refugees.
Verification of an Approximate Thermodynamic Equation with Application to Study on Arctic Stratospheric Temperature Changes

Temperature changes in the Arctic lower stratosphere on both short- and long-term time scales are critical for changing the magnitude of ozone losses in the Arctic vortex. In this paper, an approximate month-to-month temperature change equation is constructed and extended to a new form for decade-to-decade changes. Then we provide a verification of these equations and show an example of an application for partitioning between the dynamical and radiative contributions to the Arctic lower-stratospheric temperature decadal changes, as well as the trends, using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim) data during the period of 1980–99. At 100 hPa, the month-to-month Arctic temperature increment is a small term compared to the dynamical heating and diabatic heating, which are largely canceling terms with maximum magnitudes in November–April and October–March, respectively. However, it is not the case for their decadal changes and the decadal change of the Arctic current-month temperature compared to those of the regressed dynamical heating and radiative heating, where the current-month decadal changes and the corresponding trends are approached except in March and a rough agreement exists between these trends and those reported in other studies. The dynamical plus diabatic heating term and the temperature increment, as well as their decadal changes, are roughly balanced during the annual oscillation. However, some departures exist in both cases because of the large deviations or uncertainties of relevant terms and also probably due to the quasigeostrophic approximation and the eddy heat flux approximation of the dynamical heating, and a restricted condition of the eddy heat flux approximation is given at the end.
Os investidores se importam com a sustentabilidade?

Este estudo verifica a relevância da sustentabilidade nas companhias brasileiras listadas na Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão (B3). A amostra de 279 empresas da B3 é investigada de 2006 até 2018. A sustentabilidade foi analisada com base em duas proxies: Relatórios de Sustentabilidade (RS) e participação no Índice de Sustentabilidade Empresarial (ISE). Além disso, o impacto ambiental da empresa foi verificado e classificado de acordo com a atividade principal da empresa, conforme a Lei 10.165/2000. O modelo de Ohlson (1995), adaptado por Collins et al. (1997), foi utilizado para verificar a relevância da sustentabilidade. Ao todo foram publicados 1.303 RS, sendo que 28 empresas divulgaram o RS em todo o período, enquanto 116 não apresentavam. Quanto à relevância da sustentabilidade para os investidores, a empresa pertencer à carteira ISE ou ter uma atividade de impacto ambiental possui preço menor que o das empresas não participantes do ISE ou sem atividade de impacto ambiental, enquanto a emissão do RS não foi significativa. Porém ao associar as proxies de sustentabilidade com o impacto ambiental, o preço das ações é maior. Por fim, se tiver no ISE, emitir RS e ter impacto ambiental os custos superam os benefícios, indicando que o preço da ação é menor do que as empresas sem essas características. Destarte, há evidências que os investidores se importam com a sustentabilidade para tomada de decisão.
Salient object detection via reliable boundary seeds and saliency refinement

Salient object detection can identify the most distinctive objects in a scene. In this study, a novel graph-based approach is proposed to detect a salient object via reliable boundary seeds and saliency refinement. A natural image is firstly mapped to a graph with superpixels as nodes. Saliency information is then diffused over the graph using seeds. For the reason that the boundary nodes may contain salient nodes, it is not appropriate to use all boundary nodes as the background seeds. Therefore, a boundary saliency measurement is proposed to obtain more accurate background seeds. After that, the information of background seeds is diffused by a two-stage scheme. A background-based map and a foreground-based map are generated based on the two-stage scheme. Furthermore, in order to enhance the detection accuracy, a refinement model is presented to fuse the information of background-based and foreground-based maps. Experiments on seven public datasets show the proposed algorithm out-performs the state-of-the-art salient object detection algorithms.
A Method of 0 l Restriction with Multi-scale Product for Image Denoising

In order to eliminate image noise and retain more image feature information, this paper introduced an image denoising method based on sparse representation and multidimensional calculation under 0 l restriction, using 0 l restriction to optimize dictionary atoms according to the randomness of image noise and directly eliminate atoms that have been used less frequently to improve calculation effectiveness. Besides, since residual images may also contain useful information, noise reduction was conducted against residual images by applying wavelet transform modulus maximum and multi-scale product calculation, the result of noise reduction realized through dictionary sparse representationwas integrated with the result of denoising residual images firstly to obtain denoised images. The result of the experiment shows that comparing with K-SVD algorithm, the time complexity of the algorithm used in the paper is lower and therefore can obtain higher PSNR value.
Comparison of Homo-Polyimide Films Derived from Two Isomeric Bis-Benzimidazole Diamines

Heteroaromatic polyimides (PIs) containing benzimidazole have attracted tremendous attention due to their positive impact on the properties of PIs. Some research on PIs containing 4,4′-[5,5′-bi-1H-benzimidazole]-2,2′-diylbis-benzenamine (4-AB) has been reported. However, reports are lacking on homo-polyimides (homo-PIs) containing 3,3′-[5,5′-bi-1H-benzimidazole]-2,2′-diylbis-benzenamine (3-AB), which is one of the isomers of 4-AB. In this paper, the influence of amino groups’ positions on the performance of homo-PIs was investigated. It was found that the net charge of the amine N group in 4-AB was lower than that of 3-AB, resulting in higher reactivity of 4-AB. Consequently, PIs containing 4-AB displayed better mechanical performance. Molecular simulation confirmed that 3-AB and its corresponding PI chain exhibited distorted conformation, leading to the PI films containing 3-AB having a lighter color. In addition, the 3-AB structure was calculated to have higher rotational energy compared to 4-AB, resulting in a higher glass transition temperature (Tg) in PIs prepared from 3-AB. On the other hand, PIs containing 4-AB exhibited a higher level of molecular linearity, leading to a lower coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) compared to PIs prepared from 3-AB. Furthermore, all PIs showed higher thermal stability with a 5% weight loss temperature above 530 °C and Tg higher than 400 °C.
Funnel control for nonlinear systems with higher relative degree

We consider tracking control for nonlinear multi‐input, multi‐output systems which have arbitrary strict relative degree and input‐to‐state stable internal dynamics. For a given reference signal, our aim is to design a controller which achieves that the tracking error evolves within a prespecified performance funnel around the reference signal. To this end, we introduce a new controller which involves the first r−1 derivatives of the tracking error, where r is the strict relative degree of the system.
Aktuelle Verbreitung der Hirschkäfers (Lucanus cervus) im nördlichen Rheinland-Pfalz mit Schwerpunkt Moseltal

Regionale Kartierungen mittels Aufrufe über Medien waren im nördlichen Rheinland-Pfalz eine geeignete Methode, Vorkommen von Hirschkäfern zu lokalisieren, wenn auch der potentielle Lebensraum Wald nur unzureichend erfasst werden konnte. Eine Validierung jeder Meldung war jedoch notwendig, um Verwechselungen mit Dorcus parallelipipedus zu vermeiden. Die Kartierung im nördlichen Rheinland-Pfalz zeigte, dass gegenwärtig Hirschkäfer an Rhein, Mosel und Lahn sowie den angrenzenden Gebieten verbreitet Vorkommen. Hirschkäfer erwiesen sich als erfolgreiche Kulturfolger, nicht als Habitatspezialisten. Nesthabitate konnten als Schwerpunkte von Individuenmeldungen gut eingegrenzt und anschließend durch gezielte Suche, teilweise mit Hilfe von radiotelemetrisch verfolgten Weibchen, identifiziert werden. Hirschkäfer werden heute selbst in Gebieten, in denen sie häufig Vorkommen, von der Bevölkerung ohne vorherige Sensibilisierung kaum wahrgenommen. Für den Schutz der Art ergeben sich damit neue Aspekte.
Interference Likelihood Mapping with Case Studies

ABSTRACT Interference is a growing concern among GNSS users, particularly in parts of the world where radio frequency (RF) transmission is not strictly regulated. Intentional interference and jamming is cheap and relatively easy to obtain in the form of Personal Privacy Devices (PPD). These devices can sometime cause unintended interference and jamming to important infrastructure like an airport (Mitch, et. al. 2013). This paper describes a method for creating an interference map using NovAtel OEM7 Interference Tool Kit (ITK). ITK can be used to measure the power of a received interferer. When data is collected for an area around a static and continuously operating interference source then it can be used to map out the interference over the affected area. This paper describes a method for mapping the interference and, using a model of power loss over distance, create a map of the likelihood of the position of the interferer. This paper includes simulated results and three case studies with live (real-data) interference sources from India, Canada, and Japan.
Extreme Low Flow during Long-Lasting Phases of River Runoff in the Central Part of the East European Plain

In the rivers of the central part of the East European Plain (the Volga at Staritsa, the Oka at Kaluga, and the Don at Stanitsa Kazanskaya), long phases (10–15 years or more) of increased/decreased annual and seasonal runoff have occurred, as well as differences in the frequencies of extremely low flow conditions from the late 19th century to 2020. Phase boundaries were identified by cumulative deviation curves and statistical homogeneity. The frequencies of specific water flow values were estimated using the empirical curves of the exceedance probability of annual and seasonal water flows based on their long-term time series. In the century-long changes of rivers considered, two long contrasting phases were revealed. These phases are characterized by increased and decreased runoff of hydrological seasons. Near simultaneously, a phase of increased runoff was first observed for the freshet season. On the contrary, phases of decreased runoff were first observed for low-water seasons. The runoff phases differ significantly in duration and differences in flow. Significant differences were revealed in the frequency of low-water years for a low runoff with an exceedance probability above or equal to 75% and above or equal to 95%.
QUESTION ANSWERING SYSTEM WITH REPEATED QUESTION IDENTIFICATION.

This paper proposes a method to introduce the complexity of finding the solution to a given question. Question answering system is being currently used in various forms. But due to the increase in the number of users using these system, the chance of repeated searching increases. The system implements an automatic system for answering repeated questions based on semantic question similarity. The system aims at solving one of the important issues in the information era; i.e. answering questions which are repeatedly asked in different forms. Retrieved answer along with the question is stored in a database. Repeated question is retrieved to check the current question, semantic patterns are used to match already answered questions to the new one from the database. Repeated question answering will solve the problem of wastage of resources. The system uses conceptual graph formalism will be a efficient system than normal question answering system.
Vehicle Longitudinal Control with the Sliding Mode Method Considering Uncertainty of the Model

Abstract: In this paper, the control algorithm for longitudinal control of a passenger car that is moving on the highway and urban traffic is provided. Longitudinal dynamic equation including resisting forces acting on the vehicle presented and structural and non-structural uncertainties in the model are investigated. To control the speed of vehicles on the highway and vehicle distance control in city traffic, vehicle longitudinal control laws have been proposed. To control the speed of vehicles on the highway and in city traffic, vehicle longitudinal control laws have been proposed. In order to control the nonlinear systems, the sliding mode method which is a robust control method has been used for the design controller. The controller consists of two algorithms as speed control and distance control that their duty is done with the force generation to move the vehicle and overcome the disturbances and uncertainties using tracing of it by car. Finally, to ensure the ability of control and efficiency under different conditions, the control rules are applied to the vehicle dynamics equation.
Numerical simulation of impact forces by a falling sphere in air using ALE finite element method

ABSTRACT A numerical method is developed to simulate the process that a falling rigid sphere hits rigid ground and bounces back in air. The problem is treated as fluid-structure interaction problem based on the ALE finite element flow analysis. In order to introduce the numerical process of impact into the present staggered fluid-structure time marching algorithm, the impact force is applied to the equation of motion of the sphere. The magnitude of the impact force is determined by iteration so that the velocity of the sphere after impact converges to zero. Application of the impact force at a single time instant causes unphysical pressure oscillation. This has been suppressed by applying the impact force smoothly over multiple short time steps. In the present method impulse is evaluated instead of impact force. Computations with different density ratio of the sphere to air showed effect of the air on the sphere motion.