Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vehicular Ad Hoc networks: Multi-hop information dissemination in an urban scenario

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) are, in conjunction with infrastructure-based communication systems, the main part for intelligent transportation systems (ITS). This technology can significantly alter individual mobility by changing the traditional human controlled car to an autonomous vehicle. Studies and simulations already investigated the high potential of ITS with respect to various use cases like collision avoidance or traffic optimization. The critical aspect for these and all other ITS applications is the efficient information exchange between the vehicles. Much effort has been spent on the design of broadcast protocols for a VANET permitting optimal information dissemination under different environmental conditions. We will give a short overview of these broadcast schemes leading us to the decision to develop a modified version. We determine parameters of the proposed message exchange process and verify its performance in an urban scenario with three different events of interests and regions in comparison to a simple broadcast scheme. Our evaluation shows that a single broadcasting scheme can hardly meet all demands of the communication process by balancing between good information dissemination and an efficient usage of the radio resources.
The Ecology of Acidobacteria: Moving beyond Genes and Genomes

The phylum Acidobacteria is one of the most widespread and abundant on the planet, yet remarkably our knowledge of the role of these diverse organisms in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems remains surprisingly rudimentary. This blatant knowledge gap stems to a large degree from the difficulties associated with the cultivation of these bacteria by classical means. Given the phylogenetic breadth of the Acidobacteria, which is similar to the metabolically diverse Proteobacteria, it is clear that detailed and functional descriptions of acidobacterial assemblages are necessary. Fortunately, recent advances are providing a glimpse into the ecology of members of the phylum Acidobacteria. These include novel cultivation and enrichment strategies, genomic characterization and analyses of metagenomic DNA from environmental samples. Here, we couple the data from these complementary approaches for a better understanding of their role in the environment, thereby providing some initial insights into the ecology of this important phylum. All cultured acidobacterial type species are heterotrophic, and members of subdivisions 1, 3, and 4 appear to be more versatile in carbohydrate utilization. Genomic and metagenomic data predict a number of ecologically relevant capabilities for some acidobacteria, including the ability to: use of nitrite as N source, respond to soil macro-, micro nutrients and soil acidity, express multiple active transporters, degrade gellan gum and produce exopolysaccharide (EPS). Although these predicted properties allude to a competitive life style in soil, only very few of these prediction shave been confirmed via physiological studies. The increased availability of genomic and physiological information, coupled to distribution data in field surveys and experiments, should direct future progress in unraveling the ecology of this important but still enigmatic phylum.
GLOBAL THEORY OF QUANTUM BOUNDARY CONDITIONS AND TOPOLOGY CHANGE

We analyze the global theory of boundary conditions for a constrained quantum system with classical configuration space a compact Riemannian manifold M with regular boundary Γ=∂M. The space ℳ of self-adjoint extensions of the covariant Laplacian on M is shown to have interesting geometrical and topological properties which are related to the different topological closures of M. In this sense, the change of topology of M is connected with the nontrivial structure of ℳ. The space ℳ itself can be identified with the unitary group of the Hilbert space of boundary data . This description, is shown to be equivalent to the classical von Neumann's description in terms of deficiency index subspaces, but it is more efficient and explicit because it is given only in terms of the boundary data, which are the natural external inputs of the system. A particularly interesting family of boundary conditions, identified as the set of unitary operators which are singular under the Cayley transform, (the Cayley manifold), turns out to play a relevant role in topology change phenomena. The singularity of the Cayley transform implies that some energy levels, usually associated with edge states, acquire an infinity energy when by an adiabatic change the boundary conditions reaches the Cayley submanifold 𝒞_. In this sense topological transitions require an infinite amount of quantum energy to occur, although the description of the topological transition in the space ℳ is smooth. This fact has relevant implications in string theory for possible scenarios with joint descriptions of open and closed strings. In the particular case of elliptic self-adjoint boundary conditions, the space 𝒞_ can be identified with a Lagrangian submanifold of the infinite dimensional Grassmannian. The corresponding Cayley manifold 𝒞_ is dual of the Maslov class of ℳ. The phenomena are illustrated with some simple low dimensional examples.
Demand for Green Buildings: Office Tenants’ Stated Willingness-to-Pay for Green Features

This study analyzes the demand for green office building features among US office tenants. An on-line survey of a random sample of office tenants in 17 major US markets is employed, with 708 responses representing a 23% response rate. Tenants provided their perspective on green buildings and their stated willingness to pay for individual green features. Office tenants have the highest willingness to pay for improved indoor air quality and access to natural light. The results show that public firms, along with those in the Energy and Information Technology industries are most likely to pay for green-labeled buildings. Regional and demographic preferences are shown in both willingness to pay and attribute ranking. The findings provide implications for policy-makers and real estate property developers in terms of which green building features are considered to be most important for green building practices, and how demand for green features potentially differ across regions.
Recovering parametric geons from multiview range data

Focuses on approximating object part shapes by distinctive types of volumetric primitives. Shape approximation is accomplished by fitting volumetric models called 'parametric geons' to multiview range data of single-part objects and classifying the fitting residuals. Parametric geons are seven qualitative shape types defined by parameterized equations which control the size and degree of tapering and bending. Model fitting is performed by minimizing an objective function which measures the similarity in both size and shape between models and objects. Multiple view data, global shape constraints and global optimization are employed to obtain unique models and to compensate for noise and minor variations in object shape. This approach has been studied in experiments with both synthetic 3D data and actual rangefinder data of perfect and imperfect geon-like objects. <<ETX>>
Study of a Miniaturized Quasi-Self-Complementary UWB Antenna in Frequency and Time Domain

A compact antenna for UWB communication systems has been realized by employing a quasi-self- complementary structure together with a triangular notch on microstrip feed line in this paper. The optimal design of this type of antenna can offer an ultra wide return loss bandwidth with reasonable radiation properties. It features a quite small physical dimension of 16 mm×25 mm, corre- sponding to an electrically size of 0.24 λ. A good agree- ment is achieved between the simulated and the measured antenna characteristics. The major parameters that influ- ence the performance of the antenna are investigated numerically to gain an insight into the antenna operation. Time domain performance of the antenna is also examined in order to assess its suitability for impulse radio applications.
On an Efficient Random Access Scheme for Capillary Machine Type Communication

In capillary machine type communications, random multi-access lends itself as a natural choice at the link layer due to the largely intermittent, event-driven traffic involved. A major challenge to that end arises, however, from the anticipated large scale of the network. Considering a carrier sense multiple access based random access protocol where infrastructural support is available in the form of a coordinator node, this paper presents a framework to help sustain efficient protocol performance when faced with temporal variation in packet traffic. The coordinator dynamically determines a timely contention parameter by means of an online algorithm based on certain analytic characterizations of the protocol performance, and the end-nodes get opportunistically notified of it. Throughput, fairness and delay-variation performance produced by the proposed scheme turns out to be consistently close to an optimal protocol in identical settings, in contrast with that of the binary exponential backoff based solutions.
A superlinearly convergent algorithm for large scale multi-stage stochastic nonlinear programming

This paper presents an algorithm for solving a class of large scale nonlinear programming which is originally derived from the multi-stage stochastic convex nonlinear programming. With the Lagrangian-dual method and the Moreau-Yosida regularization, the primal problem is transformed into a smooth convex problem. By introducing a self-concordant barrier function, an approximate generalized Newton method is designed in this paper. The algorithm is shown to be of superlinear convergence. At last, some preliminary numerical results are provided.
GradRanking : Online Personalized University Recommendation System

Ranking systems are applied in many ways nowadays and have become a commodity to use when it comes to making decisions. Education is one of the most important parts of human life. Choosing a right place is crucial from many perspectives: quality of life, knowledge gained, post-graduation prospects. Making a right choice what institution to attend is based on many factors and is hard to make in a limited amount of time. In our masters project we address this issue and present an online personalized university recommendation system GradRanking.com. We collected information on 1250 universities in the U.S. and over 118,000 student profiles who applied to those institutions. We also use social networks like LinkedIn and GlassDoor as a source of information to understand where students tend to go after graduation: academia or professional career, and depending on the chosen path, help decide which universities provide better opportunities.
A Simple and Efficient Computational Approach to Chafed Cable Time-Domain Reflectometry Signature Prediction

A method for the prediction of time-domain signatures of chafed coaxial cables is presented. The method is quasi-static in nature, and is thus efficient enough to be included in inference and inversion routines. Unlike previous models proposed, no restriction on the geometry or size of the chafe is required in the present approach. The model is validated and its speed is illustrated via comparison to simulations from a commercial, three-dimensional electromagnetic simulator.
Strategies for Agile Software Testing Automation: An Industrial Experience

Testing Automation has been growing in software engineering. Many organizations are investing in automated testing in order to prevent defects and increase testing effectiveness during software development. In agile methodologies, this task is considered an important activity, considered the key of the agile testing. This paper presents three testing automation strategies applied to three different software projects adopting Scrum agile methodology. The results indicated positive agile practices to be considered when adopting testing automation strategy, such as: team collaboration, task distribution, testing tools, knowledge managements. The challenges, results, and lessons learned from this experience are also discussed.
Analysing Android's Full Disk Encryption Feature

Since Android 4.0, which was released in October 2011, users of Android smartphones are provided with a built-in encryption feature to protect their home partitions. In the work at hand, we give a structured analysis of this software-based encryption solution. For example, software-based encryption always requires at least a small part of the disk to remain unencrypted; in Android this is the entire system partition. Unencrypted parts of a disk can be read out and are open to system manipulations. We present a tool named EvilDroid to show that with physical access to an encrypted smartphone only (i.e., without user level privileges), the Android system partition can be subverted with keylogging. Additionally, as it was exemplary shown by attacks against Galaxy Nexus devices in 2012, Android-driven ARM devices are vulnerable to cold boot attacks. Data recovery tools like FROST exploit the remanence effect of RAM to recover data from encrypted smartphones, at worst the disk encryption key. With a Linux kernel module named Armored, we demonstrate that Android’s software encryption can be improved to withstand cold boot attacks by performing AES entirely on the CPU without RAM. As a consequence, cold boot attacks on encryption keys can be defeated. We present both a detailed security and a performance analysis of Armored.
Sparsification of Two-Variable Valued CSPs

A valued constraint satisfaction problem (VCSP) instance $(V,\Pi,w)$ is a set of variables $V$ with a set of constraints $\Pi$ weighted by $w$. Given a VCSP instance, we are interested in a re-weighted sub-instance $(V,\Pi'\subset \Pi,w')$ such that preserves the value of the given instance (under every assignment to the variables) within factor $1\pm\epsilon$. A well-studied special case is cut sparsification in graphs, which has found various applications. We show that a VCSP instance consisting of a single boolean predicate $P(x,y)$ (e.g., for cut, $P=\mbox{XOR}$) can be sparsified into $O(|V|/\epsilon^2)$ constraints if and only if the number of inputs that satisfy $P$ is anything but one (i.e., $|P^{-1}(1)| \neq 1$). Furthermore, this sparsity bound is tight unless $P$ is a relatively trivial predicate. We conclude that also systems of 2SAT (or 2LIN) constraints can be sparsified.
Epidemiology of Carbapenemase-Producing Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter baumannii in Mediterranean Countries

The emergence and global spread of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter baumannii are of great concern to health services worldwide. These β-lactamases hydrolyse almost all β-lactams, are plasmid-encoded, and are easily transferable among bacterial species. They are mostly of the KPC, VIM, IMP, NDM, and OXA-48 types. Their current extensive spread worldwide in Enterobacteriaceae is an important source of concern. Infections caused by these bacteria have limited treatment options and have been associated with high mortality rates. Carbapenemase producers are mainly identified among Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, and A. baumannii and still mostly in hospital settings and rarely in the community. The Mediterranean region is of interest due to a great diversity and population mixing. The prevalence of carbapenemases is particularly high, with this area constituting one of the most important reservoirs. The types of carbapenemase vary among countries, partially depending on the population exchange relationship between the regions and the possible reservoirs of each carbapenemase. This review described the epidemiology of carbapenemases produced by enterobacteria and A. baumannii in this part of the world highlighting the worrisome situation and the need to screen and detect these enzymes to prevent and control their dissemination.
Sense of Virtual Community : Conceptual Framework and Empirical Validation

In this article, we introduce the “sense of virtual community” construct and explore the factors that are expected to affect it. We also examine the moderating effect of the virtual community origin. By analyzing 172 responses, we found that the sense of virtual community is affected by the virtual community characteristics such as (1) leaders’ enthusiasm, (2) perceived similarity, (3) off-line activities, and (4) playfulness. From the moderated regression analysis, we also found that the virtual community origin moderates the relationship between virtual community characteristics and sense of virtual community.
Progress in computational molecular biology

The nature of biological research is changing rapidly, due in large part to the advent of technologies for rapid generation of significant molecular data and the introduction of sophisticated computational methods. In this progress report, I discuss recent work in computational biology, focusing on gene expression analysis, high throughput screening of pharmaceutical leads, and information extraction from the biomedical literature.
Simulations of Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals Using Pseudospectral Methods

Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs), stellar-mass compact objects (SCOs) inspiralling into a massive black hole, are one of the main sources of gravitational waves expected for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). To extract the EMRI signals from the expected LISA data stream, which will also contain the instrumental noise as well as other signals, we need very accurate theoretical templates of the gravitational waves that they produce. In order to construct those templates we need to account for the gravitational backreaction, that is, how the gravitational field of the SCO affects its own trajectory. In general relativity, the backreaction can be described in terms of a local self-force, and the foundations to compute it have been laid recently. Due to its complexity, some parts of the calculation of the self-force have to be performed numerically. Here, we report on an ongoing effort towards the computation of the self-force based on time-domain multi-grid pseudospectral methods.
Environmental management and the small firm: an international comparison

This article explores the different approaches taken to environmental regulation of the small firm in the UK and The Netherlands and the relationship of such regulation with the attitudes of small business owner‐managers. Using evidence from 40 interviews with businesses in both countries, we contrast the engagement and orientation of these enterprises with the business‐environment agenda. In both countries, government rhetoric stresses the harmony between business and environmental objectives: on the ground, attitudes of owner‐managers stress that these goals are far from complementary. In the UK, owner‐managers feel that environmental issues are a legitimate area of concern, but government should take the lead in addressing business‐environmental issues. Here, businesses are reacting to a policy context where environmental issues are seen as either a cost on the business, or presented as having simplistic win‐win outcomes. Businesses themselves, however, perceive it very much as an additional burden. In The Netherlands, SMEs have been targeted by the State by joint regulation through legislation, licensing and voluntary initiatives. This results in generally higher levels of environmental care. Small firms in The Netherlands appear to have accepted the importance of this and their shared responsibility for environmental care. In view of the shifting business‐environment policy debate in the UK, it is unlikely that the current reliance on voluntary initiatives and economic incentives will bear fruit. Different approaches may need, therefore, to be explored.
WORKING PAPER NO . 14-3 RECALL AND UNEMPLOYMENT

Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) covering 1990-2011, we document that a surprisingly large number of workers return to their previous employer after a jobless spell and experience more favorable labor market outcomes than job switchers. Over 40% of all workers separating into unemployment regain employment at their previous employer; over a fifth of them are permanently separated workers who did not have any expectation of recall, unlike those on temporary layoff. Recalls are associated with much shorter unemployment duration and better wage changes. Negative duration dependence of unemployment nearly disappears once recalls are excluded. We also find that the probability of finding a new job is more procyclical and volatile than the probability of a recall. Incorporating this fact into an empirical matching function significantly alters its estimated elasticity and the time-series behavior of matching efficiency, especially during the Great Recession. We develop a canonical search-and-matching model with a recall option where new matches are mediated by a matching function, while recalls are free and triggered by both aggregate and job-specific shocks. The recall option is lost when the unemployed worker accepts a new job. A quantitative version of the model captures well our cross-sectional and cyclical facts through selection of recalled matches. JEL Codes: E24, E32, J64
Using integrated research and interdisciplinary science: Potential benefits and challenges to managers of parks and protected areas

Introduction Our purpose in this paper is to build a case for utilizing interdisciplinary science to enhance the management of parks and protected areas. We suggest that interdisciplinary science is necessary for dealing with the complex issues of contemporary resource management, and that using the best available integrated scientific information be embraced and supported at all levels of agencies that manage parks and protected areas. It will take the commitment of park managers, scientists, and agency leaders to achieve the goal of implementing the results of interdisciplinary science into park management. Although such calls go back at least several decades, today interdisciplinary science is sporadically being promoted as necessary for supporting effective protected area management (e.g., Machlis et al. 1981; Kelleher and Kenchington 1991). Despite this history, rarely has “interdisciplinary science” been defined, its importance explained, or guidance provided on how to translate and then implement the associated research results into management actions (Tress et al. 2006; Margles et al. 2010). With the extremely complex issues that now confront protected areas (e.g., climate change influences, extinctions and loss of biodiversity, human and wildlife demographic changes, and unprecedented human population growth) information from more than one scientific discipline will need to be brought to bear in order to achieve sustained management solutions that resonate with stakeholders (Ostrom 2009). Although interdisciplinary science is not the solution to all problems, we argue that interdisciplinary research is an evolving and widely supported best practice. In the case of park and protected area management, interdisciplinary science is being driven by the increasing recognition of the complexity and interconnectedness of human and natural systems, and the notion that addressing many problems can be more rapidly advanced through interdisciplinary study and analysis.