Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying and harnessing concurrency abstractions

My research lies broadly in the areas of programming languages and verication, with the goal of building reliable soware systems. I am drawn to soware components that are usually characterized by “ugly” or “subtle” code—places where clean code and condence of correctness take a back seat to performance. I aim to (1) discover new abstractions for cleanly expressing such code without compromising performance and (2) develop verication techniques to explain why subtle code works. For the past several years I have targeted concurrent programming, where multiple computations (threads) overlap in time. To write reliable concurrent code, a programmer must consider all of the possible interactions between threads whose relative timing is unpredictable. e traditional way to tame concurrency is to disallow it: “critical sections” of code can be protected by locks, preventing interference from concurrent threads. But if parallelism is a goal—and it increasingly is—critical sections become critical bottlenecks that limit parallel speedup. Unfortunately, alternatives like lockfree synchronization are considered a “black art” even among concurrency experts. My work focuses on identifying, harnessing, specifying and verifying abstractions in concurrent programming , from low-level systems code to application programs. For example, I have systematically studied lock-free algorithms, showing how to (1) construct them from abstract building blocks; (2) apply them to parallel programming while guaranteeing determinism; (3) specify them with a clear contract for their clients; and (4) verify them with visual protocols embodying their key ideas. Below I discussmywork inmore detail, rst from the perspective of language and library design (§1), and then from the perspective of verication (§2). I then discuss the most important problems I intend to study next (§3). To keep focused, this statement does not discuss my earlier work on metaprogramming [9, 10], parsing [8, 11], termination analysis [7], or the π-calculus [17].
Mindfulness Research and the Future

We consider some of the ways in which mindfulness theory can provide new solutions to current problems and address potential future problems that may result from changes in demographics and technology. Specific research questions are suggested to see how increasing mindfulness and decreasing mindlessnesscan work to diminish these social problems as they occur specifically in the classroom, the workplace, and the social predicament of getting old. We discuss (a) recasting some of the problems of the elderly into problems of perspective about the elderly, (b) mindful ways of dealing with increased ethnic diversity, (c) differentiating between changing the workplace work and changing the character of the work itself and (d) the advantages and ways of increasingmindfulness in the classroom.
Aren't there two parties in an employment relationship? Antecedents and consequences of organization–employee agreement on contract obligations and violations

Past studies have paid little attention to an organization's perspective on reciprocal obligations in the employment relationship, despite its importance to overall satisfaction and the survival of the relationship. This study assesses parties' levels of agreement on the reciprocal obligations of the psychological contract, and their consequences on parties' perceptions of contract violations. Furthermore, the study examines subsequent reactions of both parties to perceived violations. Results indicate that managers and employees tend to disagree on the employee's obligations and violations of the contract but not on the organization's obligations and violations. More importantly, results from multivariate regression analyses indicate that employee tenure with the manager and leader–member exchange (LMX) as reported by the manager were positively related to agreement on employees' obligations. Agreement on employees' obligations was related to perceptions of violation by the manager, but in a direction opposite to that hypothesized. Both managers' perceptions of employee violations and employees' perceptions of organization violations were related to employee outcomes assessed by the managers and the employees. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Model-Based Active Testing Approach to Sequential Diagnosis

Model-based diagnostic reasoning often leads to a large number of diagnostic hypotheses. The set of diagnoses can be reduced by taking into account extra observations (passive monitoring), measuring additional variables (probing) or executing additional tests (sequential diagnosis/test sequencing). In this paper we combine the above approaches with techniques from Automated Test Pattern Generation (ATPG) and Model-Based Diagnosis (MBD) into a framework called Fractal (FRamework for ACtive Testing ALgorithms). Apart from the inputs and outputs that connect a system to its environment, in active testing we consider additional input variables to which a sequence of test vectors can be supplied. We address the computationally hard problem of computing optimal control assignments (as defined in Fractal) in terms of a greedy approximation algorithm called FractalG. We compare the decrease in the number of remaining minimal cardinality diagnoses of FractalG to that of two more Fractal algorithms: FractalATPG and FractalP. FractalATPG is based on ATPG and sequential diagnosis while FractalP is based on probing and, although not an active testing algorithm, provides a baseline for comparing the lower bound on the number of reachable diagnoses for the Fractal algorithms. We empirically evaluate the trade-offs of the three Fractal algorithms by performing extensive experimentation on the ISCAS85/74XXX benchmark of combinational circuits.
Marine-derived fungi: diversity of enzymes and biotechnological applications

The ocean is considered to be a great reservoir of biodiversity. Microbial communities in marine environments are ecologically relevant as intermediaries of energy, and play an important role in nutrient regeneration cycles as decomposers of dead and decaying organic matter. In this sense, marine-derived fungi can be considered as a source of enzymes of industrial and/or environmental interest. Fungal strains isolated from different substrates, such as invertebrates, decaying wood, seawater, sediments, and mangrove detritus, have been reported to be producers of hydrolytic and/or oxidative enzymes, with alginate lyase, amylase, cellulase, chitinase, glucosidase, inulinase, keratinase, ligninase, lipase, nuclease, phytase, protease, and xylanase being among the enzymes produced by fungi of marine origin. These enzymes present temperature and pH optima ranging from 35 to 70∘C, and 3.0 to 11.0, respectively. High-level production in bioreactors is mainly performed using submerged-state fermentation. Certain marine-derived fungal strains present enzymes with alkaline and cold-activity characteristics, and salinity is considered an important condition in screening and production processes. The adaptability of marine-derived fungi to oceanic conditions can be considered an attractive point in the field of fungal marine biotechnology. In this review, we focus on the advances in discovering enzymes from marine-derived fungi and their biotechnological relevance.
‘The Danish speak so many languages it's really embarrassing’. The impact of L1 English on adult language students' motivation

Abstract The decline of language learning in the UK – a concern for academics, linguists and educators alike – has been rationalised by the demotivating effect of Global English: as many UK learners have English, arguably the most powerful global language to date, as a first language, they may lack motivations to learn other languages. However, to this day, few studies have explored language learning motivation in learners with English as L1 in relation to Global English. This study investigates the impact of L1 English on learner motivation in mature students studying a variety of languages ab initio at the Open University. Eleven semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted, evaluated using Grounded Theory, and interpreted using L2 Motivational Self System. Results not only suggest that motivation for this self-selected group of language learners could best be described as a complex web of highly intrinsic and person-in-context motivators but, crucially, that their unique perception of learner identity – contrasting their motivations to other UK learners – allowed these students to use the perceived ‘L1 learner disadvantage’ to their advantage.
Vignettes for Emotion Recognition Research and Affective Therapy With Children

We created 54 brief vignettes that covered six emotion categories: happy, sad, angry, surprised, disgusted, and afraid. The vignettes described emotion- eliciting situations and were validated by administration of them to 5- and 6-year-olds who were asked to pick one of three emotion labels provided that would best match the feeling of the character in the vignette. Each vignette was scored for percentage of correct responses. We retained the five vignettes in each emotion category that were correctly identified most frequently. The "surprise" vignettes were most difficult for children to identify correctly, whereas the happy vignettes were easiest. Due to their validation with young children, the 30 vignettes provided here would be appropriate for use in emotion recognition research or affective therapy programs with children.
School Spending for Professional Development: A Cross-Case Analysis of Seven Schools in One Urban District

This article provides a cross-case analysis of professional development spending in a sample of 7 elementary schools in the Cincinnati Public School District. I collected district- and school-level data on professional development spending by employing an intensive data-gathering method that included a detailed examination of district budget and planning documents and extensive interviews with district and school administrators. Expenditures relating to professional development were then classified according to a new professional development cost structure for comparing expenditures across schools. The data suggested that the schools spent a significant amount on professional development activities, averaging more than 7,700 per teacher. However, expenditures varied greatly among schools, ranging from 2,900 to more than $16,000 per teacher. Professional development spending varied according to school performance, the availability of discretionary school funds, and the preferences of school staffs. More than half of the spending was funded through the schools' own discretionary funds, with the remainder provided by the district's central office on behalf of the schools' staffs.
DRIMM-Synteny: decomposing genomes into evolutionary conserved segments

MOTIVATION The rapidly increasing set of sequenced genomes highlights the importance of identifying the synteny blocks in multiple and/or highly duplicated genomes. Most synteny block reconstruction algorithms use genes shared over all genomes to construct the synteny blocks for multiple genomes. However, the number of genes shared among all genomes quickly decreases with the increase in the number of genomes. RESULTS We propose the Duplications and Rearrangements In Multiple Mammals (DRIMM)-Synteny algorithm to address this bottleneck and apply it to analyzing genomic architectures of yeast, plant and mammalian genomes. We further combine synteny block generation with rearrangement analysis to reconstruct the ancestral preduplicated yeast genome. CONTACT kspham@cs.ucsd. edu SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
FPGA-Realization of a Motion Control IC for Robot Manipulator

Robotic control is currently an exciting and highly challenging research focus. Several solutions for implementing the control architecture for robots have been proposed (Kabuka et al., 1988; Yasuda, 2000; Li et al., 2003; Oh et al., 2003). Kabuka et al. (1998) apply two highperformance floating-point signal processors and a set of dedicated motion controllers to build a control system for a six-joint robots arm. Yasuda (2000) adopts a PC-based microcomputer and several PIC microcomputers to construct a distributed motion controller for mobile robots. Li et al. (2003) utilize an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) to implement autonomous fuzzy behavior control on mobile robot. Oh et al. (2003) present a DSP (Digital Signal Processor) and a FPGA to design the overall hardware system in controlling the motion of biped robots. However, these methods can only adopt PC-based microcomputer or the DSP chip to realize the software part or adopt the FPGA chip to implement the hardware part of the robotic control system. They do not provide an overall hardware/software solution by a single chip in implementing the motion control architecture of robot system. For the progress of VLSI technology, the Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have been widely investigated due to their programmable hard-wired feature, fast time-to-market, shorter design cycle, embedding processor, low power consumption and higher density for implementing digital system. FPGA provides a compromise between the special-purpose ASIC (application specified integrated circuit) hardware and general-purpose processors (Wei et al., 2005). Hence, many practical applications in motor control (Zhou et al., 2004; Yang et al., 2006; Monmasson & Cirstea, 2007) and multi-axis motion control (Shao & Sun, 2005) have been studied, using the FPGA to realize the hardware component of the overall system. The novel FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) technology is able to combine an embedded processor IP (Intellectual Property) and an application IP to be an SoPC (Systemon-a-Programmable-Chip) developing environment (Xu et al., 2003; Altera, 2004; Hall & Hamblen, 2004), allowing a user to design an SoPC module by mixing hardware and software. The circuits required with fast processing but simple computation are suitable to be implemented by hardware in FPGA, and the highly complicated control algorithm with heavy computation can be realized by software in FPGA. Results that the software/hardware codesign function increase the programmable, flexibility of the designed digital system and reduce the development time. Additionally, software/hardware parallel processing enhances the controller performance. Our previous works (Kung & Shu, 2005; Kung et al., 2006; Kung &
On the extremely fair treatment of probabilistic algorithms

A proof system based on linear temporal logic for the qualitative verification of concurrent probabilistic programs is proposed. The concept of extreme fairness is introduced as an approximation to the notion of probabilistic executions. The proof system proposed is shown to be relatively complete with respect to validity over all extremely fair computations. The proof methodology is demonstrated by proving correctness of a new probabilistic algorithm for solving the mutual exclusion problem ([CLP]).
Understanding the Link Between Discrimination, Mental Health Outcomes, and Life Chances Among Latinos

Discriminatory experiences have been found to be related to poor mental health outcomes and negative life chances among marginalized communities in the United States. However, little is known about the impact of perceived discrimination on the Latino population. The present article reviews and critiques existing empirical evidence linking perceived discrimination to life chances and mental health outcomes among Latinos. The gaps in the literature reveal that most of the discrimination research was conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s, focused on Mexicans, and excluded other Latino/Hispanic populations, such as Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. The findings of this study will help to inform the understanding of the discriminatory experiences of Latinos in the United States.
Improving the Selection of Bases of BRDFs for Appearance Preservation

An important step in the appearance preservation of real materials is the analysis of how they interact with light. Since this phenomena happens at a microscopic level, heuristics with different complexity have been developed to capture and reproduce it. In order to minimize sampling efforts, one of these approaches consists in representing the reflectance of a material as a linear combination of a basis of known reflectance functions. To accomplish realistic and efficient representations, this basis must be expressive and contain a reduced number of elements. This work presents three approaches to select such basis. The first one performs an empirical leave-one-out optimization procedure. The other two are based on classical and evolutionary clustering algorithms. To improve clustering results, a new BRDF-oriented fitness function is designed. These approaches are evaluated using NNLS algorithm to estimate sampled materials and a comparison based on numerical precision is performed.
Interacting with 21st-century Computers Computing Everywhere for Everyone This Discussion Reflects on Four Themes from Weiser's Original Vision from a Human-computer Interaction Perspective: Computing Everywhere, Personal Computing, the Social Dimension of Computing, and Privacy Implications. the Au

Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen how technology can become invisible and provide services that ease people’s lives, “invisibly enhancing the world that already exists. ”1 While Mark Weiser’s vision was formulated with the user at the center, technical challenges still must be resolved to realize his vision. This becomes even more obvious when looking at the prototypes Weiser and his group created, the skill sets of the people involved at Xerox PARC, and the resulting publications and patents. At the same time, the importance of designing for the “user experience” has been widely acknowledged both in research and industry, including manufacturers of mobile devices and computers alike.2,3 Today, mobile phones are the prime computing platform worldwide,4 tablet computers are a fast-growing market, and many schools are installing digital whiteboards in their classrooms. Furthermore, processors have become a part of many devices. Some TVs are now computers enhanced with hard drives, networking capabilities, and special user interfaces, and smart home appliances can be networked and wirelessly controlled. High-end cars also include many networked processors. When we talk about ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), we refer to all these types of developments. Even though mobile phones are ubiquitous, they’re only one, albeit important, part in the ubicomp infrastructure currently emerging. Here, we discuss ubicomp’s impact on users and their interaction with devices. Traditionally, new technologies open up opportunities for new types of applications and forms of humancomputer interaction (HCI). 5 A prominent example was the transition from text-based user interfaces to graphical systems in the 1990s, and more recently the rise of tangible user interfaces.6 In the last decade, ubicomp has similarly inspired and enabled new approaches to HCI. Focusing on four themes from Weiser’s original article—computing everywhere, personal computing, computing beyond the individual, and privacy implications—we discuss these themes from an HCI perspective and reflect on remaining research challenges.1
Social Support Networks of Chronically Strained Couples: Similarity and Overlap

The structure and composition of social support networks were examined in a sample of fifty-seven chronically strained couples. Data were collected with structured interviews and arranged in `support matrices' of network members by support functions, and each network member was individually tagged. Scores representing the size of the overall support networks and the number of support providers in specific functional categories were computed separately for relatives and for friends/acquaintances. Principal component analysis (PCA) with couples as `cases' was used to evaluate common and individual determinants of support networks. In addition, for all categories of support providers the actual overlap between wives' and husbands' networks was computed. The determinants of the overall and specific support networks were largely couple specific, resulting in a considerable similarity of spouses' networks regarding size and composition. However, the sets of confidants of husbands and wives were almost completely disjunctive. Specific sex differences were also found. The results are discussed with respect to the health-promoting functions of marriage.
Pure Alexia as a Visual Impairment: A Reconsideration

Abstract We contrast two types of explanation for the syndrome of pure alexia: the visual impairment hypothesis, according to which the reading difficulty is just the most obvious manifestation of an impairment in visual perception; and the word form hypothesis, according to which the reading difficulty results from damage to reading-specific mechanisms. We argue that the word form hypothesis cannot account for certain findings in the literature on pure alexia, and that the visual impairment hypothesis is consistent with the available data. In addition, we present two new studies in support of the visual impairment hypothesis. In the first study, a pure alexic patient was found to be impaired on tests that assess the specific type of visual impairment hypothesised to underlie pure alexia. He was not impaired on the less specific tests that had been used previously to argue that perception is intact in pure alexia. In the second study, the additive factors method was used to identify the locus of impairmen.
Leaving and experiencing: why academics expatriate and how they experience expatriation

Globalisation has led to increasing international mobility amongst business and education professionals. Whilst expatriate management literature focuses on expatriate assignment of corporate executives, expatriate academics remain an under researched group. Higher education literature has focused on internationalisation of education systems, notably the growth in international strategic alliances between universities, and mobility amongst students. Therefore compared with what is known about the student body, very little is known about the experiences of internationally mobile academics. Drawing on a qualitative study of academics, this paper evaluates the use of metaphor for understanding the “motivation to go” overseas and the “experience” of expatriation. It evaluates four metaphors which have emerged from the study for expatriating and four others for the experience of expatriation. Finally it suggests that the voluntary, self‐selecting expatriate should be much more extensively researched.