Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experimental Risk Assessment and Comparison Using Software Fault Injection

One important question in component-based software development is how to estimate the risk of using COTS components, as the components may have hidden faults and no source code available. This question is particularly relevant in scenarios where it is necessary to choose the most reliable COTS when several alternative components of equivalent functionality are available. This paper proposes a practical approach to assess the risk of using a given software component (COTS or non-COTS). Although we focus on comparing components, the methodology can be useful to assess the risk in individual modules. The proposed approach uses the injection of realistic software faults to assess the impact of possible component failures and uses software complexity metrics to estimate the probability of residual defects in software components. The proposed approach is demonstrated and evaluated in a comparison scenario using two real off-the-shelf components (the RTEMS and the RTLinux real-time operating system) in a realistic application of a satellite data handling application used by the European Space Agency.
Neural Interpretation of Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent fMRI Maps at Submillimeter Columnar Resolution

Whether conventional gradient-echo (GE) blood oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is able to map submillimeter-scale functional columns remains debatable mainly because of the spatially nonspecific large vessel contribution, poor sensitivity and reproducibility, and lack of independent evaluation. Furthermore, if the results from optical imaging of intrinsic signals are directly applicable, regions with the highest BOLD signals may indicate neurally inactive domains rather than active columns when multiple columns are activated. To examine these issues, we performed BOLD fMRI at a magnetic field of 9.4 tesla to map orientation-selective columns of isoflurane-anesthetized cats. We could not convincingly map orientation columns using conventional block-design stimulation and differential analysis method because of large fluctuations of signals. However, we successfully obtained GE BOLD iso-orientation maps with high reproducibility (r = 0.74) using temporally encoded continuous cyclic orientation stimulation with Fourier data analysis, which reduces orientation-nonselective signals such as draining artifacts and is less sensitive to signal fluctuations. We further reduced large vessel contribution using the improved spin-echo (SE) BOLD method but with overall decreased sensitivity. Both GE and SE BOLD iso-orientation maps excluding large pial vascular regions were significantly correlated to maps with a known neural interpretation, which were obtained in contrast agent-aided cerebral blood volume fMRI and total hemoglobin-based optical imaging of intrinsic signals at a hemoglobin iso-sbestic point (570 nm). These results suggest that, unlike the expectation from deoxyhemoglobin-based optical imaging studies, the highest BOLD signals are localized to the sites of increased neural activity when column-nonselective signals are suppressed.
The Relationship between Internalising Symptom Development and Academic Attainment in Early Adolescence

Evidence for the longitudinal associations between internalising symptom development and academic attainment is sparse and results from existing studies are largely inconclusive. The approaches that have been used in existing studies examining this relationship have in common the limitation of grouping together all individuals in the sample which makes the assumption that the relationship between time, symptoms and attainment across all individuals is the same. The current study aimed to use heterogeneous trajectories of symptom development to examine the longitudinal associations between internalising symptom development and change in academic attainment over a three years period in early adolescence, a key period for internalising symptom development. Internalising symptoms were assessed for 3 consecutive years in a cohort from age 11–14 years (n = 2647, mean age at T1 = 11.7 years). National standardised test scores prior to the first wave and subsequent to the last wave were used as measures of academic attainment. Heterogeneous symptom development trajectories were identified using latent class growth analysis and socio-demographic correlates, such as gender, SES and ethnicity, of the different trajectory groupings were investigated. Derived trajectory groupings were examined as predictors of subsequent academic attainment, controlling for prior attainment. Results demonstrate that symptom trajectories differentially predicted change in academic attainment with increasing trajectories associated with significantly worse academic outcomes when compared to pupils with low levels of symptoms in all waves. Hence, a trajectory based approach provides a more nuanced breakdown of complexities in symptom development and their differential relationships with academic outcomes and in doing so helps clarify the longitudinal relationship between these two key domains of functioning in early adolescence.
Intersections of compactly many open sets are open

By definition, the intersection of finitely many open sets of any topological space is open. Nachbin observed that, more generally, the intersection of compactly many open sets is open. Moreover, Nachbin applied this to obtain elegant proofs of various facts concerning compact sets in topology and elsewhere. A simple calculation shows that Nachbin's observation amounts to the well known fact that if a space $X$ is compact, then the projection map $Z \times X \to Z$ is closed for every space $Z$. It is also well known that the converse holds: if a space $X$ has the property that the projection $Z \times X \to Z$ is closed for every space $Z$, then $X$ is compact. We reformulate this as a converse of Nachbin's observation, and apply this to obtain further elegant proofs of (old and new) theorems concerning compact sets. We also provide a new proof of (a reformulation of) the fact that a space $X$ is compact if and only if the projection map $Z \times X \to Z$ is closed for every space $Z$. This is generalized in various ways, to obtain new results about spaces of continuous functions, proper maps, relative compactness, and compactly generated spaces. In particular, we give an intrinsic description of the binary product in the category of compactly generated spaces in terms of the Scott topology of the lattice of open sets.
Wide-Area Video Understanding: Tracking, Video Summarization and Algorithm-Platform Co-Design

Author(s): Zhang, Shu | Advisor(s): Roy-Chowdhury, Amit | Abstract: Analyzing scenes captured in video over wide areas, either in a single view or in multiple views, is the focus of this thesis. The thesis considers three inter-related problems in this domain - tracking in a network of cameras, summarization of the collected videos, and algorithm design that is robust to the physical conditions of the environment and the hardware platforms on which they are implemented. The inter-relationships between various objects in the scene (termed as context) are explored in the developed solution strategies.In this thesis, we explore the problems of multi-target tracking in a wide-area scene, where the context information is shown to effectively improve the results because of the target interactions. We present a context-aware multi-target tracking algorithm in an overlapping camera network. The proposed algorithm is able to track multiple interacting targets in a wide-area camera network. From observations that both individuals and groups of targets interact with each other in natural scenes, we develop a Switching Network Tracker (SNT) that tracks both individuals and groups. In addition, due to the lack of the availability of public non-overlapping camera network datasets, we propose a new camera network tracking dataset (CamNeT) with multiple challenges. A baseline algorithm where the context information is considered is provided along with the dataset.We also explore the video summarization problem. In a wide-area scene, most of the data is redundant. Therefore, we develop an algorithm, Context-Aware Video Summarization (CAVS) algorithm, that can capture the important video portions through information about individual local motion regions, as well as the interactions between these motion regions (context information). The summarization problem is then solved as the methodology of sparse coding with generalized sparse group lasso. Moreover, although complex algorithms have been developed, there are few methods considering the real applications when there is a performance constraint. We study this fundamental problem in computer vision, which is to co-design the algorithm-platform for an unknown dataset under certain performance constraints. Our algorithm calculates a similarity between a test video and each unique training scenario. Similarity between training and test dataset indicates the same algorithm-platform can be applied to both of them. We test our algorithm on two applications: pedestrian detection and tracking.We conclude the thesis by highlighting future research directions.
An uncertain data model construction method based on nonparametric estimation

Uncertain data may exist in many application fields, due to the inaccurate raw data, the use of coarse-grained data set, for the purposes of privacy protection, and the data integration etc. The original features of the data may be changed or ignored if the uncertainties were mishandled. Therefore the effective management and analysis of uncertain objects should rely on an appropriate uncertain data model depicting the characteristic of uncertainties. For the uncertainties in the values of data attributes, this paper proposed an uncertain data model construction method based on nonparametric estimation, which can represent the uncertainty distribution characteristic efficiently without assuming the data distribution. And the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm was verified through the experiments on UCI and real data sets.
mTOR regulates the expression of DNA damage response enzymes in long‐lived Snell dwarf, GHRKO, and PAPPA‐KO mice

Studies of the mTOR pathway have prompted speculation that diminished mTOR complex‐1 (mTORC1) function may be involved in controlling the aging process. Our previous studies have shown diminished mTORC1 activity in tissues of three long‐lived mutant mice: Snell dwarf mice, growth hormone receptor gene disrupted mice (GHRKO), and in this article, mice deficient in the pregnancy‐associated protein‐A (PAPPA‐KO). The ways in which lower mTOR signals slow aging and age‐related diseases are, however, not well characterized. Here, we show that Snell, GHKRO, and PAPPA‐KO mice express high levels of two proteins involved in DNA repair, O‐6‐methylguanine‐DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) and N‐myc downstream‐regulated gene 1 (NDRG1). Furthermore, we report that lowering mTOR enhances MGMT and NDRG1 protein expression via post‐transcriptional mechanisms. We show that the CCR4‐NOT complex, a post‐transcriptional regulator of gene expression, is downstream of the mTORC1 pathway and may be responsible for the upregulation of MGMT and NDRG1 in all three varieties of long‐lived mice. Our data thus suggest a novel link between DNA repair and mTOR signaling via post‐transcriptional regulation involving specific alteration in the CCR4‐NOT complex, whose modulation could control multiple aspects of the aging process.
ACOUSTIC EMISSION TECHNIQUE TO ASSIST THE FORMULA ONE DESIGNER IN STRUCTURAL DESIGN

One of the important features of the racing car is the power to weight ratio, and to this end, weight has been considerably reduced by the use of carbon fibre in the modern Formula One car. The weight saving obtained from carbon fibre components is utilised by the strategic placement of ballast (since there is a minimum weight limit set by the racing authority, the FIA), ordinarily as low as possible in the car. The placement of the ballast partially controls the position of the Centre of Gravity (CoG) and is the position through which inertial forces act. This is considered a primary performance measure along with the tyres, aerodynamics and engine power in fighting for podium positions. Designers of Formula One cars strive to find the minimum weight for that purpose. Colin Chapman, the legendary car designer, once said that his car only had to make the chequered flag of that race; it should fail immediately after that. The FIA have stringent technical regulations pertaining to driver safety. Included within these are mandatory testing procedures (which are witnessed) for the safety structures of the car, helping the driver to survive from high impact forces. Also to finish the race without failure, many of the critical components of the car are proof tested between races. Acoustic Emission is a passive testing technique that can detect the damage mechanisms of carbon fibre structures whilst under load. This technique will be shown in this paper to provide useful feed back to the designer to hone his design during the testing stage. This paper illustrates the use of the Felicity Ratio (FR) as used in the ASTM E1067, “Standard Practise for Acoustic Emission Examination of Fiberglass reinforced Plastic resin (FRP) Tanks and Vessels. ”
GeckoGripper: A soft, inflatable robotic gripper using gecko-inspired elastomer micro-fiber adhesives

This paper proposes GeckoGripper, a novel soft, inflatable gripper based on the controllable adhesion mechanism of gecko-inspired micro-fiber adhesives, to pick-and-place complex and fragile non-planar or planar parts serially or in parallel. Unlike previous fibrillar structures that use peel angle to control the manipulation of parts, we developed an elastomer micro-fiber adhesive that is fabricated on a soft, flexible membrane, increasing the adaptability to non-planar three-dimensional (3D) geometries and controllability in adhesion. The adhesive switching ratio (the ratio between the maximum and minimum adhesive forces) of the developed gripper was measured to be around 204, which is superior to previous works based on peel angle-based release control methods. Adhesion control mechanism based on the stretch of the membrane and superior adaptability to non-planar 3D geometries enable the micro-fibers to pick-and-place various 3D parts as shown in demonstrations.
Optimization Techniques for Fuzzy Description Logics

Sophisticated uncertainty representation and reasoning are necessary for the alignment and integration of Web data from different sources. For this purpose the extension of the Description Logics using fuzzy set theory has been proposed, resulting to fuzzy Description Logics (DLs). However, despite the fact that since the initial proposal a lot of work has been done in the area, the practicability of very expressive fuzzy DLs still remains open, due to the absence of practically scalable systems. This paper presents optimization techniques that can improve the performance of fuzzy-DL systems' reasoning.
Spatial scale and sampling resolution affect measures of gap disturbance in a lowland tropical forest: implications for understanding forest regeneration and carbon storage

Treefall gaps play an important role in tropical forest dynamics and in determining above-ground biomass (AGB). However, our understanding of gap disturbance regimes is largely based either on surveys of forest plots that are small relative to spatial variation in gap disturbance, or on satellite imagery, which cannot accurately detect small gaps. We used high-resolution light detection and ranging data from a 1500 ha forest in Panama to: (i) determine how gap disturbance parameters are influenced by study area size, and the criteria used to define gaps; and (ii) to evaluate how accurately previous ground-based canopy height sampling can determine the size and location of gaps. We found that plot-scale disturbance parameters frequently differed significantly from those measured at the landscape-level, and that canopy height thresholds used to define gaps strongly influenced the gap-size distribution, an important metric influencing AGB. Furthermore, simulated ground surveys of canopy height frequently misrepresented the true location of gaps, which may affect conclusions about how relatively small canopy gaps affect successional processes and contribute to the maintenance of diversity. Across site comparisons need to consider how gap definition, scale and spatial resolution affect characterizations of gap disturbance, and its inferred importance for carbon storage and community composition.
Aspects of a Tornadic Left-Moving Thunderstorm of 25 May 1999

Abstract A severe left-moving thunderstorm occurred on 25 May 1999 between the cities of Lubbock and Amarillo, Texas. Over its 3.5-h lifetime, the storm was responsible for flash flooding, reports of hail of up to 7 cm in diameter, and two weak tornadoes. Satellite imagery reveals that it was traveling along the northward-moving outflow boundary of the storm from which it formed. The left mover displayed anticyclonic rotation, as was seen in storm-relative radial velocity imagery from the Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) located at Lubbock. The tornadoes developed west of Canyon, Texas, near the intersection of the left mover and a southward-moving boundary. The occurrence of tornadoes with a left mover is a particularly noteworthy event; to the authors' knowledge, only four other tornadic left movers have been reported in the meteorological literature.
Comparison of Single and Blend Acidifiers as Alternative to Antibiotics on Growth Performance, Fecal Microflora, and Humoral Immunity in Weaned Piglets

The banning of the use of antibiotics as feed additive has accelerated investigations of alternative feed additives in animal production. This experiment investigated the effect of pure citric acid or acidifier blend supplementation as substitute for antibiotic growth promoters on growth performance, fecal microbial count, and humoral immunity in weaned piglets challenged with Salmonella enterica serover Typhimurium and Escherichia coli KCTC 2571. A total of 60 newly weaned piglets (crossbred, 28-d-old; average 8 kg initial weight) were randomly assigned to four dietary treatments in a completely randomized design. Dietary treatments included NC (negative control; basal diet), PC (positive control; basal diet+0.002% apramycin), T1 (basal diet+0.5% pure citric acid), and T2 (basal diet+0.4% acidifier blend). All piglets were orally challenged with 5 mL of culture fluid containing 2.3×108 cfu/mL of E. coli KCTC 2571 and 5.9×108 cfu/mL of S. typhimurium at the beginning of the experiment. The PC group showed the highest ADG and ADFI, whereas gain:feed was improved in the PC and T1 group (p<0.05). All dietary treatments showed significant reduction in fecal counts of Salmonella and E. coli, compared to NC (p<0.05), with PC being better than T1 and T2. Significant elevation in fecal Lactobacillus spp. counts was shown by treatments with T1, T2, and PC, whereas Bacillus spp. counts were increased by treatment with T1 and T2 compared to NC and PC diet (p<0.05). Serum IgG concentration was increased by T1 diet (p<0.05), whereas IgM and IgA were not significantly affected by any of the dietary treatments (p>0.05). From these above results, it can be concluded that, as alternatives to antibiotics dietary acidification with pure citric acid or acidifiers blend did not fully ameliorate the negative effects of microbial challenges in respect of growth performance and microbial environment, however improved immunity suggested further research with different dose levels.
USENIX Association Proceedings of the FREENIX Track : 2003 USENIX Annual

Writing secure, trusted software for UNIX platforms is difficult. There are a number of approaches to enabling more secure development, but it is apparent that the current set of solutions are neither achieving acceptance nor having sufficient impact. In this paper, we introduce a library to address a particularly difficult problem in secure code development: partitioning processes to isolate privileges in trusted code. Privilege separation is a technique that isolates trusted code, therefore reducing the amount of code that needs to be carefully audited. While the technique is not new, it is not widely used due to difficulties of implementation. We present Privman, a library that makes privilege separation easy. The primary benefit of the Privman library is a systematic, reusable framework and library for developing partitioned applications. We demonstrate the feasibility of the approach by applying it to two real systems, thttpd and WU-FTPD.
Predicting Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer Susceptibility from Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms

Large-scale genome-wide genetic profiling using markers of SNPs provides opportunities to investigate the possibility of using those biomarkers for predicting genetic risks. Recent computational studies have identified some associated genetic variations which can explain a fraction of breast cancer risk and prostate cancer risk. We attempt to build accurate classification models for predicting disease susceptibility based on human SNPs. We firstly carry out feature selection via logistic regression coupled with a likelihood ratio test and remove a large number of irrelevant SNPs. Then, we employ supervised learning method SVM to build classification models. Our computational results show that our feature selection method based on logistic regression and likelihood ratio test can effectively select relevant features for SVM on the prostate cancer dataset, whereas it does not help SVM very much when applied on the breast cancer dataset.
Vis4Heritage: Visual Analytics Approach on Grotto Wall Painting Degradations

For preserving the grotto wall paintings and protecting these historic cultural icons from the damage and deterioration in nature environment, a visual analytics framework and a set of tools are proposed for the discovery of degradation patterns. In comparison with the traditional analysis methods that used restricted scales, our method provides users with multi-scale analytic support to study the problems on site, cave, wall and particular degradation area scales, through the application of multidimensional visualization techniques. Several case studies have been carried out using real-world wall painting data collected from a renowned World Heritage site, to verify the usability and effectiveness of the proposed method. User studies and expert reviews were also conducted through by domain experts ranging from scientists such as microenvironment researchers, archivists, geologists, chemists, to practitioners such as conservators, restorers and curators.