Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the use of Continued Fractions for Stream Ciphers

In this paper, we present a new approach to stream ciphers. This method draws its strength from public key algorithms such as RSA and the development in continued fractions of certain irrational numbers to produce a pseudo-random stream. Although the encryption scheme proposed in this paper is based on a hard mathematical problem, its use is fast.
The SPA2 protein of yeast localizes to sites of cell growth

A yeast gene, SPA2, was isolated with human anti-spindle pole autoantibodies. The SPA2 gene was fused to the Escherichia coli trpE gene, and polyclonal antibodies were prepared to the fusion protein. Immunofluorescence experiments indicate that the SPA2 gene product has a sharply polarized distribution in yeast cells. In budded cells the SPA2 protein is present at the tip of the bud; in unbudded cells, it is localized to one edge of the cell. When a-cells are induced to form schmoos with alpha-factor, the SPA2 protein is found at the tip of the schmoo. These areas of SPA2 localization correspond to cellular sites expected to be involved in bud formation and/or cell growth. The SPA2 antigen is present in a-cells, alpha-cells, and a/alpha-diploid cells, but is absent in mutant cells in which the SPA2 gene has been disrupted. spa2 mutant cells are viable, but display defects in the direction and control of cell growth. Compared to wild-type cells, spa2 mutant cells have slightly altered budding patterns. Entry into stationary phase is impaired for spa2 mutants, and mutants with one particular allele, spa2-7, form multiple buds under nutrient-limiting conditions. Thus, SPA2 is a newly identified yeast gene that is involved in the direction and control of cell division, and whose gene product localizes to the site of cell growth.
uvby - H β CCD photometry and membership segregation of the open cluster NGC 2682 (M 67)

Following deep astrometric and photometric study of the cluster NGC 2682 (M 67), we are able to accurately determine its fundamental parameters. Being an old and rich cluster, M 67 is relevant for the analysis of the Galactic disk evolution. M 67 is well studied but lacks a wide and deep Stromgren photometric study. The brightest stars of the open cluster M 67 were used as uvby − Hβ standard stars in our studies of NGC 1817 and NGC 2548, and the extension of the field covered, as well as the number of observations, allowed us to obtain the best set of Stromgren data ever published for this cluster. We discuss the results of our CCD uvby − Hβ intermediate-band photometry, covering an area of about 50 � × 50 � down to V ∼ 19. Moreover, a complete membership segregation based on astrometric and photometric criteria is obtained. The photometric analysis of a selected sample of stars yields a reddening value of E(b − y) = 0.03 ± 0.03, a distance modulus of V0 − MV = 9.7 ± 0.2 and [Fe/H] = 0.01 ± 0.14. Through isochrone fitting we found an age of logt = 9.6 ± 0.1 (4.2 ± 0.2 Gyr). A clump of approximately 60 stars around V = 16, (b − y) = 0.4 could be interpreted as a population of pre-cataclysmic variable stars (if members), or as a stream of field G-type stars placed at twice the distance of the cluster (if non-members).
Error Detection by Data Flow Analysis Restricted to Executable Paths

BEAM is a tool for finding errors in C++ programs by source code analysis. It uses data flow analysis to find paths leading to an error. Classical data flow analysis propagates information along all paths, including non-executable ones, which results in reporting errors that are not real. To avoid this problem, BEAM restricts data flow analysis to paths that are executable, and in addition also consistent with user’s assumptions on initial state of memory. However, the user is not required to specify his assumptions. The main contribution of this paper is an algorithm for finding an executable path to error, while avoiding path enumeration.
Improving Energy Efficiency of GPU based General-Purpose Scientific Computing through Automated Selection of Near Optimal Configurations

Modern GPUs have been rapidly and increasingly used as a powerful engine for a variety of general-purpose computing applications due to their enormous parallelism and throughput capabilities. However, GPU power consumption still remains high since more and more transistors are integrated into its chip. Until now, how to increase and optimize energy efficiency (e.g., performance-per-Watt ratio) of GPU-based computing applications is still a largely unsolved challenge. In this paper, we propose a novel framework to improve the energy efficiency of GPU-based General-Purpose Computing (GPGPU) applications. Based on a statistical regression model capable of dynamically estimating the runtime GPU power consumption, our framework can infer and select near-optimal GPGPU programming configurations to improve the energy efficiency of any given GPGPU program. Through preliminary empirical validation of a number of GPGPU benchmarks, we demonstrated that our framework can be robustly used to measurably improve the energy efficiency of various GPGPU programs. Improving Energy Efficiency of GPU based General-Purpose Scientific Computing through Automated Selection of Near Optimal Configurations Xiaohan Ma, Mario Rincon, and Zhigang Deng Department of Computer Science, University of Houston Emails: xiaohan@cs.uh.edu, mrinconnigro@uh.edu, zdeng@cs.uh.edu Published in October 20th, 2011
Nonlinear techniques and neural activity: emergent trends in MEG data

Nonlinear spatio-temporal analysis was performed on neural activity recorded with 148-channel whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG). The analysis consists of two phases: artifact removal and nonlinear feature evaluation. Known artifacts, produced by cardiac and eye movement, and unknown artifacts have been isolated from neural activity by using two adaptive filters in a cascade configuration. Secondly, phase space reconstruction of multivariate MEG measurements were performed using both temporal and spatial embedding. Indices of nonlinear dynamics are defined and evaluated showing invariant features both in time and space.
What ' s di erent with spiking neurons ?

In standard neural network models neurons are described in terms of mean ring rates, viz., an analog signal. Most real neurons, however, communicate by pulses. In this chapter the main diierences between spike coding and rate coding are described. The integrate-and-re model is studied as a simple model of a spiking neuron. Fast transients, synchrony, and coincidence detection are discussed as examples where spike coding is relevant. In most chapters of this book, neuronal activity is described as a rate. In a simple rate model the output i of a neuron i is a nonlinear transform of its input u i : i = g(u i) (1) where u i = X j w ij j + h ext (2) is the input which arises from other neurons and/or from external stimulation. The weight w ij is the coupling strength between neuron j and neuron i. i is called the ring rate of the neuron. But what is this 'rate'? 1.1 Temporal average-spike count Most neurons in the cortex and in other areas of the brain communicate by short electrical pulses which are called 'action potentials' or simply 'spikes'. In experiments spikes can be recorded by an electrode which is placed close to the soma or the axon of a neuron. Most neurons in the cortex emit even in the absence of external stimulation some action potentials. This is called thèspontaneous activity'. During spontaneous activity, the temporal sequence of action potentials (the 'spike train') is irregular. There are only few occasional spike events.
CRFS: A Lightweight User-Level Filesystem for Generic Checkpoint/Restart

Checkpoint/Restart (C/R) mechanisms have been widely adopted by many MPI libraries [1 -- 3] to achieve fault-tolerance. However, a major limitation of such mechanisms is the intensive IO bottleneck caused by the need to dump the snapshots of all processes into persistent storage. Several studies have been conducted to minimize this overhead [4, 5], but most of these proposed optimizations are performed inside specific MPI stack or check pointing library or applications, hence they are not portable enough to be applied to other MPI stacks and applications. In this paper, we propose a filesystem based approach to alleviate this checkpoint IO bottleneck. We propose a new filesystem, named Checkpoint-Restart File system (CRFS), which is a lightweight user-level filesystem based on FUSE (File system in User space). CRFS is designed with Checkpoint/Restart I/O traffic in mind to efficiently handle the concurrent write requests. Any software component using standard filesystem interfaces can transparently benefit from CRFS's capabilities. CRFS intercepts the checkpoint file write system calls and aggregates them into fewer bigger chunks which are asynchronously written to the underlying filesystem for more efficient IO. CRFS manages a ? exible internal IO thread pool to throttle concurrent IO to alleviate IO contention for better IO performance. CRFS can be mounted over any standard filesystem like ext3, NFS and Lustre. We have implemented CRFS and evaluated its performance using three popular C/R capable MPI stacks: MVAPICH2, MPICH2 and OpenMPI. Experimental results show significant performance gains for all three MPI stacks. CRFS achieves up to 5.5X speedup in checkpoint writing performance to Lustre filesystem. Similar level of improvements are also obtained with ext3 and NFS filesystems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such portable and light-weight filesystem designed for generic Checkpoint/Restart data.
Representing conditional branches for high-level synthesis applications

The authors outline a new representation of behavioral specification for high-level synthesis applications. The main features of the representation are correct handling of conditional branches; the ability to tradeoff between control-select and data-select forms; keeping minimum necessary precedence relationships; correct representation of all conditional actions; and simplified mutual exclusion testing and correct determination of bit-widths and value transfers. The representation is simple and can be easily generated automatically. <<ETX>>
Information Technology and Bilateral FDI: Theory and Evidence

This paper investigates the impact of communication cost on the FDI activities of multinational corporations (MNCs). First, we provide a theoretical foundation for a gravity-type FDI model, which shows that physical distance and communication technology are important determinants of FDI activities. Second, we apply the IT-augmented gravity model to bilateral FDI data for a total of 47 OECD and non-OECD countries from 1980 to 1997 and find that distance is negatively related to inward FDI stocks while the growth of IT, measured by teledensity and celldensity, has encouraged FDI significantly. The impact is found to be more prominent on FDI from G7 countries to OECD countriesthan to non-OECD countries, and more prominent in the 1990s than in the 1980s. Moreover, IT plays a more effective role by reducing communication cost when distance is beyond a threshold range.
Watermarking in the space/spatial-frequency domain using two-dimensional Radon-Wigner distribution

A two-dimensional (2-D) signal with a variable spatial frequency is proposed as a watermark in the spatial domain. This watermark is characterized by a linear frequency change. It can be efficiently detected by using 2-D space/spatial-frequency distributions. The projections of the 2-D Wigner distribution--the 2-D Radon-Wigner distribution, are used in order to emphasize the watermark detection process. The watermark robustness with respect to some very important image processing attacks, such as for example, the translation, rotation, cropping, JPEG compression, and filtering, is demonstrated and tested by using Stirmark 3.1.
Toward Robot Learning of Tool Manipulation from Human Demonstration

Robots that manipulate everyday tools in unstructured, human settings could more easily work with people and perform tasks that are important to people. Task demonstration could serve as an intuitive way for people to program robots to perform tasks. By focusing on task-relevant features during both the demonstration and the execution of a task, a robot could more robustly emulate the important characteristics of the task and generalize what it has learned. In this paper we describe a method for robot task learning that makes use of the perception and control of the tip of a tool. For this approach, the robot monitors the tool’s tip during human use, extracts the trajectory of this task relevant feature, and then manipulates the tool by controlling this feature. We present preliminary results where a humanoid robot learns to clean a flexible hose with a brush. This task is accomplished in an unstructured environment without prior models of the objects or task.
TRE signal processing by positive photon discrimination

IC debug is facilitated with time resolved photon emission. Latest technologies are now working at ultra low power supply voltages, <1 V. At such voltages, background noise begins to mask commutation peaks, thus biasing the analysis. With the positive photon discrimination approach, signal is extracted even below the noise level.
Examining the notion of interpreter role through a different linguistic lens

In this chapter, Shaffer documents our understanding of interpreter role by analyzing how the metaphorical descriptions of interpreter role have evolved according to different linguistic theories. Essentially, Shaffer is challenging our understanding of role and the concept of mediation by introducing readers to a perspective that draws on a linguistic framework that differs from the traditional: cognitive linguistics (Evans and Green 2006). The consideration of interpreter role within a cognitive linguistic framework enables us to draw on a paradigm in our fi eld that is largely untapped in the literature of signed language interpreting studies. Many readers will be familiar with the historical shift in the discussion of interpreter role over time. Shaffer refers to Roy’s seminal (1993) article that discusses the inadequacy of then-existing role metaphors in interpreting and acknowledges that earlier discussions were typically linked to sociological considerations of the status of Deaf people and the subsequent empowerment of Deaf people. The paradigm shift of the interpreter role from helper to conduit to bilingual–bicultural ally was well documented during the 1990s (e.g., McIntire and Sanderson 1995; Pollitt 1997), and the role of signed language interpreters in the United States has been analyzed from a “systems approach” by comparing the transition of perceptions of interpreter role in line with new legislation and different iterations of the code of ethics (Swabey and Mickelson 2008). The predominant reason for the paradigm shift was likely directly in relation to the recognition of the status of signed languages as real languages,
Nonbinary multi-parallel-concatenated single-parity-check (NB-MPCSPC) codes over partial-response channels

In this paper, we propose a high-rate nonbinary multi-parallel-concatenated single-parity-check (NB-MPCSPC) code as a low-complexity coding scheme for data storage channels. The proposed scheme is composed of parallel branches of nonbinary SPC codes over a Galois Field (GF) and can be flexibly designed to achieve a wide range of code rates and codeword lengths. The encoding can be directly implemented based on the parity-check matrix; while the decoding is simplified by using the first-order MacLaurin Series to approximate the check-node operation. Compared with its binary counterpart, the proposed nonbinary coding scheme significantly improves bit-error-rate (BER) performance in the error-floor region. Simulation results show that a noticeable performance gain is obtained over conventional binary low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes when used in turbo equalization for partial-response channels.
Current concepts of mechanical and neural factors in ocular motility

Purpose of reviewThe oculomotor periphery was classically regarded as a simple mechanism executing complex behaviors specified explicitly by neural commands. A competing view has emerged that many important aspects of ocular motility are properties of the extraocular muscles and their associated connective tissue pulleys. This review considers current concepts regarding aspects of ocular motility that are mechanically determined versus those that are specified explicitly as innervation. Recent findingsWhile it was established several years ago that the rectus extraocular muscles have connective tissue pulleys, recent functional imaging and histology has suggested that the rectus pulley array constitutes an inner mechanism, analogous to a gimbal, that is rotated torsionally around the orbital axis by an outer mechanism driven by the oblique extraocular muscles. This arrangement may account mechanically for several commutative aspects of ocular motor control, including Listing's Law, yet permits implementation of non-commutative motility. Recent human behavioral studies, as well as neurophysiology in monkeys, are consistent with implementation of Listing's Law in the oculomotor periphery, rather than centrally. SummaryVaried evidence now strongly supports the conclusion that Listing's Law and other important ocular kinematics are mechanically determined. This finding implies more limited possibilities for neural adaptation to some ocular motor pathologies, but indicates possibilities for surgical treatments.
Nominal GDP targeting rules: can they stabilize the economy?

As the monetary aggregates have become less reliable guides for monetary policy, considerable interest has developed in identifying some other fundamental guide for policy. Many analysts argue that the best guide might be nominal gross domestic product (GDP). Some of these analysts also argue the Federal Reserve should target nominal GDP using one of several possible rules. Such a rule would specify how the Federal Reserve should adjust policy to affect a short-term interest rate in response to deviations of nominal GDP from target. > Clark examines the performance of nominal GDP targeting rules using statistical simulations of the economy. First, he reviews the argument that policymakers should target nominal GDP using a rule. Second, he describes some alternative targeting rules. Finally, he shows how these rules would perform based on simulation analysis of models of the U.S. economy. He concludes that policymakers cannot be certain that a simple nominal GDP targeting rule would improve economic performance.
Moving Object Recognition By Neural Fuzzy Network For Visual Surveillance System

Moving object recognition by shapebased neural fuzzy network is proposed in this paper. The moving objects considered in this paper include pedestrians, cars, motorcycles, and dogs. Given the shape of the moving object, we calculate its contour. The distance between the contour center and each contour point is calculated and smoothed. Parts of the feature vectors are obtained from discrete Fourier transform coefficients of the smoothed distance. The other feature is the length-width ratio of the object’s shape, which is derived from vertical and horizontal projection of the shape of the object. Based on the feature vector, we use the Self-cOnstructing Neural Fuzzy Inference Network (SONFIN) for recognition. The experiment shows that SONFIN recognizes moving objects with high accuracy. The performance of SONFIN is also shown to be better than a neural network.
Keyframes detection and analysis in vocal folds recordings using hierarchical motion techniques and texture information

This paper presents the study of vocal videostroboscopic videos to detect morphological pathologies using a combination of motion information and segmentation. The motion permits us to obtain the keyframes of total (or minimum) closure and maximum opening and to have the initialization for the segmentation process. The segmentation is made analyzing the image textures applying Gabor filtering. After this stage, where the pathology is (if it exists) is delimited using derivative techniques and interpolation. Finally, the pathology is localized and we can extract some features of each fold.
Transient frequency modulation: A new approach to beat-frequency current sharing issues in multiphase switching regulators

Under high-frequency load transient conditions, conventional multiphase voltage regulators (VRs) suffer from large beat-frequency oscillations of the phase currents. This phenomenon can result in extra electrical and thermal stress on power components, so compromising system reliability. In this paper, a novel multiphase switching regulator topology is proposed, which is composed of a conventional multiphase PWM modulator, a frequency modulator and a load transient detector. The proposed topology, when compared to the conventional multi-phase PWM modulators during repetitive load transients, significantly reduces current oscillations, guaranteeing system reliability and current balancing for any load frequency higher or lower than switching frequency.
A 1-D Theoretical Receiving Model for CMUT

It is always difficult to optimize parameters of capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUT) because of high computational cost of Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis and prototype manufacturing cost. Thus a theoretical model is required in designing a CMUT. This paper presents such a 1-D theoretical model for CMUT reception, which makes it easier to optimize the parameters of the CMUT with respect to output voltage and bandwidth. It also helps in understanding the influence of each parameter. A typical example is given for model verification. The results obtained from the proposed 1-D lumped model are compared to those from 3-D FEM simulation. Our 1-D theoretical model can be used to study the behavior of a CMUT reception at much lower computational cost without losing accuracy.
Detection of C3O in the Low-Mass Protostar Elias 18

We have performed new laboratory experiments which gave us the possibility to obtain an estimate of the amount of carbon chain oxides (namely C3O2, C2O, and C3O) formed after irradiation (with 200 keV protons) of pure CO ice, at 16 K. The analysis of laboratory data indicates that in dense molecular clouds, when high CO depletion occurs, an amount of carbon chain oxides as high as (2–3) × 10−3 with respect to gas phase carbon monoxide can be formed after ion irradiation of icy grain mantles. Then we searched for gas phase C2O and C3O toward 10 low-mass young stellar objects. Among these we detected the C3O line at 38486.891 MHz toward the low-mass protostar Elias 18. On the basis of the laboratory results we suggest that in dense molecular clouds gas phase carbon chain oxides are formed in the solid phase after cosmic ion irradiation of CO-rich icy mantles and released to the gas phase after desorption of icy mantles. We expect that the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), thanks to its high sensitivity and resolution, will increase the number of carbon chain oxides detected in dense molecular clouds.
Effect of oxide interface roughness on the threshold voltage fluctuations in decanano MOSFETs with ultrathin gate oxides

In this paper we use the density gradient (DG) simulation approach to study, in 3D, the effect of local oxide thickness fluctuations on the threshold voltage of decanano MOSFETs on a statistical scale. The random 2D surfaces used to represent the interface are constructed using the standard assumptions for the auto-correlation function of the interface. The importance of the quantum mechanical effects when studying oxide thickness fluctuations are illustrated in several simulation examples.