Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional enhancements of cooperative session control for “Minimum Core” architecture

This paper proposes functional enhancements of cooperative session control for “Minimum Core” architecture. In past work, the authors invented a cooperative session control in which the call setup time is guaranteed through cooperating core and overlay networks while minimizing processing and traffic load on the core network. In the session control, each peer selects the core or overlay network for session establishment based on the measured latency on the overlay network. Proprietary technology (the so-called Blacklist method) was applied for latency decision on the overlay network. However, the performance of the native Blacklist method degrades during peer join and leave events. Accordingly, this paper proposes two approaches: Voluntary Latency Acquisition (VLA) and Blacklist Sharing (BS) as enhancements of the Blacklist method. These approaches allow the efficient detection of new blacklist entries that emerge due to peer join and leave events. This paper also reports simulation results that reveal the basic properties of the invented session control in a large-scale network and its performance during peer join and leave events.
Response to Julie Novkov's review of Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State

1. Rethinking civil rights and American political development 2. The birth of the NAACP, mob violence, and the challenge of public opinion 3. The unsteady march into the Oval Office 4. Anti-lynching legislation and the sinking of the Republican ship in Congress 5. Defending the right to live 6. Civil rights bound Appendix: manuscript sources.
Detection of Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities in C/C++ with Pattern Based Limited Symbolic Evaluation

Buffer overflow vulnerability is one of the major security threats for applications written in C/C++. Among the existing approaches for detecting buffer overflow vulnerability, though flow sensitive based approaches offer higher precision but they are limited by heavy overhead and the fact that many constraints are unsolvable. We propose a novel method to efficiently detect vulnerable buffer overflows in any given control flow graph through recognizing two patterns. The proposed approach first uses syntax analysis to filter away those branches that cannot possibly comply with any of the two patterns before applying a limited symbolic evaluation for a precise matching against the patterns. The proposed approach only needs to evaluate a limited set of selected branch predicates according to the patterns and avoids the need to deal with a large number of general branch predicates. This significantly improves the scalability while not sacrificing the detection precision. Our experiments demonstrate the scalability and efficiency of the proposed method, which demonstrates its applicability.
A NOTE ON ABREU-MATSUSHIMA MECHANISMS

IN A STIMULATING RECENT PAPER, Abreu and Matsushima (1992) (hereafter A-M) show how a class of social choice functions can be virtually implemented in iteratively undominated strategies. This work has several important features: the mechanisms used are finite and not too difficult to understand, and so less objectionable in this regard than many in the literature; the class of social choice functions implemented is large; and the solution concept-Nash equilibrium determined uniquely by iterative elimination of strongly dominated strategies-is relatively uncontroversial. The point of this note is to argue that the mechanisms used by A-M unfortunately tend to generate games in which the iterative removal of strongly dominated strategies sometimes is indeed (or ought to be) controversial.2 We proceed by first examining an example of a related but simpler implementation problem in which the argument is easily exposed, then indicating how the argument applies generally in the A-M setup. Consider the following much-discussed two-player coordination game:
Design of output feedback controller for consensus of linear systems having non-uniform ranks With switching topology

This paper studies the design problem of a controller to achieve a consensus of a group of N identical and high-order linear systems that possibly have non-uniform ranks but do not have finite zeros. The local interactions among the N systems are modeled by a switching graph that ranges over a finite set of connected and undirected graphs and has a non-vanishing dwell time. Under these conditions, we propose a controller for the consensus of the N systems which uses only relative output measurements from the neighboring systems for the purpose of feedback.
Civic integration in Western Europe: three debates

Abstract Since the late 1990s, civic integration has become the dominant immigrant integration policy in Western Europe. This article reviews three debates surrounding the new policy: first, whether there is policy convergence or persistent variation along national models of integration; secondly, whether civic integration marks a retreat from multiculturalism, or is merely layered on resilient multiculturalist policies; and, thirdly, whether the new policy is liberal or illiberal, and whether it entails a return of cultural assimilation. It is argued that civic integration converges cross-nationally with respect to policy goals and instruments, while extant variation is often incoherent or touching more on the form than the substance of policy; that civic integration is national-level policy that tends to coexist with ongoing de facto multiculturalism, especially at local level; and that civic integration mostly remains in a liberal register, as it is still integration and not assimilation, which would connote forced identity change.
Fictitious Play Approach to a Mobile Unit Situation Awareness Problem

Until now the fictitious play approach to optimization has only been demonstrated on a dynamic traffic routing problem; therefore, it is necessary to apply this method to other problems in order to demonstrate its effectiveness as a heuristic optimization method. We used the large scale situational awareness simulation developed for the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) on “Low-Energy Electronic Design for Mobile Platforms” to test the fictitious play approach, since we already possessed bench mark solutions from a simulated annealing approach previously applied. We found that the fictitious play approach yielded similar solutions to simulated annealing and required comparable computational effort, while they both outperformed pure random search. This demonstrates the effectiveness of a fictitious play approach to optimization for the large scale situational awareness simulation, providing additional evidence as to fictitious play’s value as an optimization heuristic. (Programming: Integer: Heuristic ; Simulation; Military)
Scale-free Clustering a Quest for the Hidden Knowledge

Clustering is a data mining procedure in which information is extracted without supervision from a dataset. The goal of clustering is to partition the dataset into clusters in such a way that the objects in the same cluster are similar with each other, whereas objects in different clusters are different from each other. The most well-known approaches to the clustering problem are presented along with the question of clustering validity. When comparing these methods with the design principles for clustering methods, it can be seen that all the principles are not always met. Each method has also its own drawbacks, and there is no method suitable for all situations. Three complex network models, random, small-world and scale-free, are introduced, and the scale-free model is studied more closely. The possible uses of graph theory in clustering are presented, and the scale-free model is brought to clustering in the form of scale-free minimum spanning tree (SFMST). The structure is used as a way of obtaining clustering. The new clustering method proposed in this thesis, the SFMST clustering, has been created with the design principles in mind: the method needs only one control parameter; it can find clusters with different shapes, sizes and densities; the optimal number of clusters can be detected automatically; the method is not too demanding computationally. The method has been tested and evaluated with different datasets, both real and artificial. The results have been found promising and the method can be said to be a potential clustering method. Universal Decimal Classification: 001.82, 025.44/. 47, 004.82, 004.421, 004.62, 519.17 Inspec Thesaurus: knowledge acquisition; data mining; pattern clustering; pattern classification; network analysis; graph theory
Vector neural net identifying many strongly distorted and correlated patterns

We suggest an effective and simple algorithm providing a polynomial storage capacity of a network of the form M ~ N2s+1, where N is the dimension of the stored binary patterns. In this problem the value of the free parameter s is restricted by the inequalities N >> slnN ≥ 1. The algorithm allows us to identify a large number of highly distorted similar patterns. The negative influence of correlations of the patterns is suppressed by choosing a sufficiently large value of the parameter s. We show the efficiency of the algorithm by the example of a perceptron identifier, but it also can be used to increase the storage capacity of full connected systems of associative memory.
Topological gravity in Minkowski space

The two-category with three-manifolds as objects, h-cobordisms as morphisms, and diffeomorphisms of these as two-morphisms, is extremely rich; from the point of view of classical physics it defines a nontrivial topological model for general relativity. A rather striking amount of work on pseudoisotopy theory [Hatcher, Waldhausen, Cohen-Carlsson-Goodwillie-Hsiang-Madsen. ] can be formulated as a (generalized) TQFT in this framework. The resulting theory is far from trivial even in the case of Minkowski space, when the relevant three-manifold is the standard sphere.
Metrics for Mass-Count Disparity

Mass-count disparity is the technical underpinning of the "mice and elephants" phenomenon - that most samples are small, but a few are huge - which may be the most important attribute of heavy-tailed distributions. We propose to visualize this phenomenon by plotting the conventional distribution and the mass distribution together in the same plot. This then leads to a natural quantification of the effect based on the distance between the two distributions. Such a quantification addresses this important phenomenon directly, taking the full distribution into account, rather than focusing on the mathematical properties of the tail of the distribution. In particular, it shows that the Pareto distribution with tail index 1 \le a \le 2 actually has a relatively low mass-count disparity; the effects often observed are the result of combining some other distribution with a Pareto tail.
Diverse motion variations for physics-based character animation

We present an optimization framework for generating diverse variations of physics-based character motions. This allows for the automatic synthesis of rich variations in style for simulated jumps, flips, and walks. While well-posed motion optimization problems result in a single optimal motion, we explore using underconstrained motion descriptions and then optimizing for diversity. As input, the method takes a parameterized controller for a successful motion instance, a set of constraints that should be preserved, and a pairwise distance metric between motions. An offline optimization then produces a highly diverse set of motion styles for the same task. We demonstrate results for a variety of 2D and 3D physics-based motions and show that this approach can generate compelling new motions.
Effects of epistemic motivation on conservatism, intolerance, and other system justifying attitudes

Social and political institutions are maintained in part by the attitudes and beliefs that are held by individuals belonging to those institutions. The community of social scientists agrees on precious few things, but it is widely accepted as an axiom of social science that cognitive support for prevailing social arrangements is essential to the survival of those arrangements (e.g., Eyerman J Giddens, 1979; Jones & Gerard, 1967; Kelman, 1969; Kluegel & Smith, 1986; Lane, 1962; Muller, Jukam, & Seligson, 1982; Piven & Cloward, 1977; Tyler & Smith, 1998; Weatherford, 1992). The assumption that social systems require and gain stability through legitimation is common to theoretical perspectives founded by such diverse figures as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim and it is accepted by contemporary structuralists, functionalists, status-expectation states theorists, feminists, symbolic interactionists, social constructionists, and even postmodern social theorists (e.g., Abercrombie, 1980; Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Berger, Ridgeway, Fisek, & Norman, 1998; DiMagglo & Powell, 1983; Elster, 1989; Giddens, 1979; Habermas, 1975; House, 1990; MacKinnon, 1989; Sampson, 1983; Scheff, 1990).
A Heterogeneous Population of Potassium Conductances Contributes to the Diverse Firing Properties of Postnatal Mouse Vestibular Ganglion Neurons

How mechanical information is encoded in the vestibular periphery has not been clarified. To begin to address the issue we examined the intrinsic firing properties of postnatal mouse vestibular ganglion neurons using the whole-cell, tight-seal technique in current-clamp mode. We categorized two populations of neurons based on the threshold required to evoke an action potential. Low-threshold neurons fired with an average minimum current injection of –43 pA whereas high-threshold neurons required –176 pA. Using sinewave stimuli, we found that the neurons were inherently tuned with best frequencies that ranged up to 40 Hz. To investigate the membrane properties that contributed to the variability in firing properties we examined the same neurons in voltage-clamp mode. High-threshold neurons had larger cell bodies and wholecell capacitances but a resting conductance density of 0.18 nS/pF, nearly identical to that of lowthreshold neurons, suggesting that cell size was an important parameter determining threshold. We also found that vestibular ganglion neurons expressed a heterogeneous population of potassium conductances. TEA-sensitive conductances contributed to the position of the tuning curve in the frequency domain. A 4-AP-sensitive conductance was active at rest and hyperpolarized resting potential, limited spontaneous activity, raised threshold and prevented repetitive firing. In response to sinewave stimulation the 4-AP-sensitive conductance prevented action potential generation at low frequencies and thus contributed to the high-pass corner of the tuning curve. The mean low-pass corner (~29 Hz) was determined by the membrane time constant. Together these factors contributed to the sharply tuned, band-pass characteristics intrinsic to postnatal vestibular ganglion neurons. Page 2 of 51
On dynamic feature location

Feature location aims at locating pieces of code that implement a given set of features (requirements). It is a necessary first step in every program comprehension and maintenance task if the connection between features and code has been lost.We have developed a semi-automatic technique for feature location using a combination of static and dynamic program analysis. Formal concept analysis is used to explore the results of the dynamic analysis.We describe new experiences with our technique. Specifically, we investigate the gain of information and increase of costs when the system under analysis is profiled at basic block level rather than routine level as in our earlier work. Furthermore, we explore the influence of the scenarios used for the dynamic analysis (minimal versus combined scenarios).
Efficient physics-based sound synthesis of the piano using DSP methods

In the recent years, digital waveguide modeling of musical instruments has proven to be an effective tool for sound synthesis purposes, but some practical questions still have remained unanswered. In this paper a new equivalent structure of the digital waveguide for string synthesis is presented. This structure can be used for highly efficient modeling of beating and two-stage decay, an important characteristic of the piano sound. The complexity of the traditional structure can be reduced by replacing one of the string models with a resonator bank.
Dramatic Increases of Soil Microbial Functional Gene Diversity at the Treeline Ecotone of Changbai Mountain

The elevational and latitudinal diversity patterns of microbial taxa have attracted great attention in the past decade. Recently, the distribution of functional attributes has been in the spotlight. Here, we report a study profiling soil microbial communities along an elevation gradient (500–2200 m) on Changbai Mountain. Using a comprehensive functional gene microarray (GeoChip 5.0), we found that microbial functional gene richness exhibited a dramatic increase at the treeline ecotone, but the bacterial taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing did not exhibit such a similar trend. However, the β-diversity (compositional dissimilarity among sites) pattern for both bacterial taxa and functional genes was similar, showing significant elevational distance-decay patterns which presented increased dissimilarity with elevation. The bacterial taxonomic diversity/structure was strongly influenced by soil pH, while the functional gene diversity/structure was significantly correlated with soil dissolved organic carbon (DOC). This finding highlights that soil DOC may be a good predictor in determining the elevational distribution of microbial functional genes. The finding of significant shifts in functional gene diversity at the treeline ecotone could also provide valuable information for predicting the responses of microbial functions to climate change.
An Analytical Model for Evaluating Static Power of Homogeneous FPGA Architectures

As capacity of the field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) continues to increase, power dissipated in the logic and routing resources has become a critical concern for FPGA architects. Recent studies have shown that static power is fast approaching the dynamic power in submicron devices. In this article, we propose an analytical model for relating homogeneous island-style-based FPGA architecture to static power. Current FPGA power models are tightly coupled with CAD tools. Our CAD-independent model captures the static power for a given FPGA architecture based on estimates of routing and logic resource utilizations from a pre-technology mapped netlist. We observe an average correlation ratio (C-Ratio) of 95% and a minimum absolute percentage error (MAPE) rate of 15% with respect to the experimental results generated by the Versatile Placement Routing (VPR) tool over the MCNC benchmarks. Our model offers application engineers and FPGA architects the capability to evaluate the impact of their design choices on static power without having to go through CAD-intensive investigations.
Bio-Inspired Ultrasonic System for Time of Flight Detection

The design and development of bio-inspired ultrasonic systems particularly that of some species of bats, has received the most attention due to the potential benefit of application in the field of biomedical engineering and robotics. In this paper an ultrasonic based device for the emulation of bat’s echo-location system, by means of piezo-polymer sensors and a neural network, capable to perform brain activity tasks during ranging and navigation, is presented. The acquisition and processing of echo signals, according to bat’s behavior, is performed by a first level of circuits emulating basilar membrane and hair cells inside the cochlea in which, ultrasounds transmission and reception occur, and a second level (neural network) for time of flight evaluation. The complete system has been designed, developed, and implemented onto dsPIC for real time application according to tasks performed by bio-sonar apparatus. Keywords— Sonar application; Ultrasonic Transducers; Biomimetics; Neural Networks; Microcontroller; Electronics.
Visualizing Dynamic Quantitative Data in Hierarchies - TimeEdgeTrees: Attaching Dynamic Weights to Tree Edges

In this paper we introduce a technique for visualizing the dynamics of quantitative data in static hierarchical structures. We exploit the straight links of orthogonal tree diagrams as a timeline on which we visually encode dynamic quantitative information. We use color coding and varying thicknesses to represent the time-varying data. Bimodal data can also be displayed by exploiting both sides of the time axes simultaneously. Our TimeEdgeTrees tool allows us to explore dynamic quantitative data in tree diagrams by interactive data filtering and zooming. The spatial proximity of neighboring hierarchically structured elements allows us to easily explore trends, countertrends, periodicity, temporal shifts, or anomalies during the evolution synchronously. Interactive features such as expanding or collapsing of subhierarchies additionally help to detect the aforementioned phenomena on different levels of granularity. The usefulness of our visualization technique is illustrated by water level data acquired at more than 450 measurement stations along German rivers for 768
Ssk1p-Independent Activation of Ssk2p Plays an Important Role in the Osmotic Stress Response in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Alternative Activation of Ssk2p in Osmotic Stress

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, external high osmolarity activates the HOG MAPK pathway, which controls various aspects of osmoregulation. MAPKKK Ssk2 is activated by Ssk1 in the SLN1 branch of the osmoregulatory HOG MAPK pathway under hyperosmotic stress. We observed that Ssk2 can be activated independent of Ssk1 upon osmotic shock by an unidentified mechanism. The domain for the Ssk1p-independent activation was identified to be located between the amino acids 177∼240. This region might be involved in the binding of an unknown regulator to Ssk2 which in turn activates Ssk2p without Ssk1p under hyperosmotic stress. The osmotic stress response through the Ssk1p-independent Ssk2p activation is strong, although its duration is short compared with the Ssk1p-dependent activation. The alternative Ssk2p activation is also important for the salt resistance.
Model-Based Conformance Testing of WS-BPEL Compositions

We propose in this paper a new approach for conformance testing of WS-BPEL compositions. It is based on Timed Automata as model for testing WS-BPEL implementations, a distributed testing architecture and an algorithm for online test generation and execution. We also implemented our solution in the form of a prototype tool named WSCCT.