Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vehicle Lighting Recognition System Based on Erosion Algorithm and Effective Area Separation in 5G Vehicular Communication Networks

For the safety of meeting vehicles at night, a design scheme of vehicle lighting recognition system for 5G vehicular communication networks is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a camera is used for image acquisition, and then the acquired RGB image is converted to a hue-saturation-lightness (HSL) image in Dedicated cloud. Secondly, a $3\times 3$ convolution kemel is constructed, and the threshold of this HSL is used to create a mask. In which we traverse the original image data and perform uitwise operations on the original image, as well as mask by using the Urightest point as the center of calculation. Lastly, the effective area of the image is divided according to the farthest point of the lane line extension, which can shield the sky and street lights. In addition, all of interference points are excluded according to the symmetry of the headlights shape, the number of false detection is reduced effectively. So, the highlight areas can be marked to indicate the lights from the front vehicles. The results of the analysis are issued to the driving assistant system. The experimental results show that the system can identify the front vehicle lighting with an accuracy of 96.8%. With the help of the identified lighting position, the matrix lamp is set to realize the dynamic management of the beam, and it can be applied to traffic at night for preventing traffic accidents.
FPGA implementation of error control codes in VHDL: An undergraduate research project

Error control codes (ECC) play an important role in the detection and correction of data errors over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The main idea of ECC is to add redundant bits to the message on the transmitter, which can be used to detect and correct certain errors on the receiver. ECC are used in numerous applications such as telecommunications, Internet, and data storage. Different types of ECC exist such as linear block, convolutional, and turbo codes. This paper presents results from an innovative undergraduate research project involving implementation of linear block, cyclic and convolutional codes in very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL) using a field‐programmable gate array (FPGA). FPGA is a suitable platform for implementing ECC due to the advantages of performance, time to market, cost, reliability, and long‐term maintenance. As part of this project, (7,4) Hamming code used for linear block and cyclic codes and convolutional codes with constraint length k of 3 and code rate (k/n) of 1/2 were implemented in VHDL on a Xilinx Spartan‐6 FPGA using ISE 14.7. Two undergraduate students at Purdue University Northwest worked on this project. This was the students’ first exposure to ECC, VHDL, and FPGA, as undergraduate students are usually not introduced to these topics in traditional electrical and computer engineering curriculum. The goal of this project was to provide students with hands‐on experience using industry‐standard VHDL software and FPGA hardware platforms to implement ECC. This paper presents the results of this innovative project including register‐transfer level schematics, simulations, and VHDL code for encoders and decoders for the various ECC implemented, and students’ reflections on the project.
Experimental Study of Spoofing Alerts in 4g Lte Networks

Modern mobile phones should receive and display alert messages, such as AMBER alerts, emergency alerts, and (unblockable) presidential alerts, under the mandate of the Warning, Alert, and Response Act of 2006. In January 2018, an alert message that a ballistic missile was heading to Hawaii had been sent out in Hawaii state. Although it turned out to be caused by human error, it showed how this alert message could affect people. In addition, in October 2018, a test to broadcast unblockable presidential alert messages to all of the United States was conducted. These cases have raised concerns about what problems might arise when alert messages are misused or spoofed. In this thesis, we investigate the alert spoofing attacks in 4G LTE networks and provide 1) the detailed analysis of this attack, 2) design and implementation of such systems, 3) possible counter measures, and most importantly 4) the impact of such attacks in both indoor and outdoor environments. Our attack can be carried out using a software defined radio, and our modifications to the open source NextEPC and srsLTE software libraries. We evaluate our attack in a controlled environment and estimate the impact of such an attack based on empirical measurements. We find that with only four malicious portable base stations of a single Watt of transmit power each, almost all of the 50,000-seat stadium can be attacked with 90% success rate. The true impact of such an attack would, of course, depend on the density of cell phones in the range: false alerts in crowded cities or stadiums could potentially result in cascades of panic. Solving this problem will require large collaborative efforts among government, standardization organizations, network providers, and manufacturers. We also provide possible solutions to defend against such a spoofing attack.
A new hybrid method for the fair assignment of productivity targets to indirect corporate processes

Abstract Increasingly complex value chains and rising competition require firms to employ advanced planning mechanisms. Planning is frequently done by corporate entities based on performance analysis techniques. Within planning processes, total resource levels that should be allocated are regularly defined ex-ante, giving rise to decision problems that go beyond basic efficiency analysis. We have developed a method allowing the allocation of an ex-ante defined resource level across various processes of an organisation. We propose a mixed-integer/linear program that incorporates a social welfare function, allowing decision makers to consider fairness aspects. The practicability of the method is demonstrated in a real-life case study. The model-based allocation strategy is compared to alternative approaches. The proposed approach is beneficial in two dimensions: Either fewer activities are required to reach the total productivity target, or a lower overall strain level among the activities in respect of their improvement efforts can be achieved.
Animations for Learning: Design Philosophy and Student Usage in Interactive Textbooks

Animations have been used in science and engineering to facilitate student learning of difficult concepts. For example, microwaves have been animated to help electrical engineering students visualize field behaviors, and electron flow in electrolyte solutions have been animated to address misconceptions in college chemistry. Much research has examined the effectiveness of animations and visualizations in engineering education. Further, many types of animations utilize various formats for conveying the dynamic concepts. Some formats utilize captions, some are continuous, some give student controls like pause and play speed, some use animations for only motion, and so on. We have developed an animation format philosophy over the last 7 years that has been applied to multiple engineering and math disciplines with wide-spread adoptions. Our animations are integrated into web-based interactive textbooks and been viewed 30 million times by over 500,000 students across 600 universities. The philosophy includes two general actions: Unveiling a complex concept, and visualizing a dynamic process. This paper describes that animation format philosophy, including pedagogical considerations made in designing animations, multiple examples, and reasons for implementing an animation.
“Dependability Assurance Framework for Safety Sensitive Consumer Devices” 標準化

Version Beta 21 ____________________________________________________________ OMG Document Number: ptc/2015-09-118-01sysa/2015-08-24 Normative reference: http://www.omg. org/spec/DAFSSCD Normative Machine readable Consumable files: ptc/2015-08-03: SSCD DAC Template SACM xmi machine readable files sysa/2014-11-02: http://www.omg. org/spec/SSCD/20141101/SSCD-DAC-Templaes-SACM-XMIfiles.zip ptc/2015-08-04: SSCD DCM xmi file sysa/2014-11-03: http://www.omg. org/spec/SSCD/20141101/SSCD-DCM.xmi ptc/2015-08-05: SSCD DPM.xmi file sysa/2014-11-04: http://www.omg. org/spec/SSCD/20141101/SSCD-DPM.xmi
ParaAim: Testing Android Applications Parallel at Activity Granularity

Widely used commercial Android applications (apps) turn to be of complex GUIs and hundreds of activities. Testing this kind of apps is challenging. Existing automated testing tools cannot complete the testing of these complex apps in a short time. However, scaling these tools for parallelism to accelerate the testing is not straightforward. In this paper, we borrow the basic concepts from parallel computing, and introduce the parallel testing platform ParaAim. ParaAim partitions an app testing job into a set of tasks at the activity granularity. Starting from a specific entrance activity, ParaAim explores the UI-states of the app and each newly discovered activity spawns a new task. ParaAim dispatches the new task to an idle device and sets it up to the entrance by replaying an event sequence. In this manner, the independent parts of the app are explored simultaneously. We focus on the efficiency of this parallel GUI exploration schema. ParaAim assigns the tasks that have more possibility to find new activities with high priority for better performance. Event sequence minimization is also studied to reduce the time cost of replay, and we design widget fuzzy match technique to handle the state inconsistency issue. We evaluated ParaAim with 20 popular commercial apps on different settings of Android device cluster. The results show that ParaAim scales well and evidently increases the average speed of exploration to nearly 2 times with two devices, and 3 times with four devices, than a single device.
THE ROLE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON ENHANCING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

The main aim of the study is to examine the role of artificial intelligence (AI) on Enhancing Customer Experience in Palestine through different industries, such as banks and telecommunication companies. Interviews and a structured questionnaire were the primary data of this study. The results of the study revealed that there is a positive significant relationship between AI and Customer Experience. AI explained 26.4% of the variance of the customer experience (R2=0.264, F (1,89)=28.634, P < 0.05). Customer Experience has two dimensions; Customer service and after-sale support, the study shows that AI predicted 22.9% of the variance of customer service, whereas it predicted 7% of After-Sale Support. Moreover, providing Personalized Customer Service throughout the customer’s buying journey has a great impact on customer experience. The study recommends enterprises to offer more personalized services for customers which it influences their overall experience with the enterprise. Likewise, it’s highly recommended to employ AI in call centers and the other after-sales support services to shortening the customers waiting time.
A Survey of Air-to-Ground Propagation Channel Modeling for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), particularly for small UAVs, due to their affordable prices, wide availability, and relative ease of operability. Existing and future applications of UAVs include remote surveillance and monitoring, relief operations, package delivery, and communication backhaul infrastructure. Additionally, UAVs are envisioned as an important component of 5G wireless technology and beyond. The unique application scenarios for UAVs necessitate accurate air-to-ground (AG) propagation channel models for designing and evaluating UAV communication links for control/non-payload as well as payload data transmissions. These AG propagation models have not been investigated in detail, relative to terrestrial propagation models. In this paper, a comprehensive survey is provided on available AG channel measurement campaigns, large and small scale fading channel models, their limitations, and future research directions for UAV communication scenarios.
Refugees and online education: student perspectives on need and support in the context of (online) higher education

ABSTRACT Online education and in particular Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are often regarded as a way to solve global educational challenges. In this article, we highlight the students’ uptake of such a ‘digital solution’. Presenting initial findings from a research project in Germany, we situate our investigation in the specific context of digital educational offers for refugees, using Kiron Open Higher Education as an example. Kiron has designed an innovative academic model, with MOOCs at its core, to ease refugees’ access into higher education. Drawing from student data of 1375 Kiron students we look at students’ actual usage of the offer and the accompanying support services as well as the difficulties refugee students face while navigating online higher education. Results show, amongst others, rather low completion rates in the online courses and point to a much more nuanced picture of how students make use of the offer – putting online education as an easy, straightforward formula to the integration of disadvantaged students into question.
Organizational Size: A Significant Predictor of it Innovation Adoption

Companies or organizations have to constantly adopt new technological innovations one way or the other in order to improve or keep their efficiency or competitive advantages in business. The present study examined ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) technology adoption in university settings to investigate if there is a statistically significant relationship between university size and ATM technology adoption. The results provided significant evidence that there is a statistically significant relationship between university size and ATM technology adoption in university settings. Correspondingly, organizational size can serve as a predictor of other IT adoptions in other settings, such as in firms or financial institutions.
Predicting Ethereum Prices using Machine Learning and Block Chain Information

With the growing interest in cryptocurrency and its algorithm, studies on cryptocurrency price predations have been extensively conducted in various academic disciplines. Since the cryptocurrency is generated and consumed by the Blockchain system, it has been considered that Blockchain-specific information would be the main components in predicting cryptocurrency prices. Specifically, this point of view has been largely employed in the studies of Bitcoin price predictions. However, this study recognizes that Ethereum, a popular and leading cryptocurrency in the market, has distinct Blockchain information as compared to that of Bitcoin. We attempt to investigate the relationships between inherent Ethereum Blockchain information and Ethereum prices. Furthermore, the research examines how Blockchain information of other coins in the market is associated with Ethereum prices. The results of data analysis show that Ethereum Blockchain information and Blockchain information of other coins have strong correlations with the final Ethereum prices.
From surface to surface -Transformations de surface tactile pour l'interaction incarnée dans le cockpit. (From surface to surface - Touch surface shape changes for embodied interaction in the cockpit)

La « surface », dans les systemes interactifs tactiles est a la fois le support du toucher et de l’image. Alors qu’au fil du temps les surfaces tactiles se sont transformees dans leur epaisseur, forme et rigidite, la modalite d’interaction se limite, comme sur les premiers dispositifs, a une mise en contact simple du doigt avec l’ecran dans un geste qui feint de manipuler ce qui est affiche. Le sens du toucher, meme pour des dispositifs tactiles installes dans des systemes critiques comme dans l’aeronautique ou l’automobile, reste essentiellement sollicite en tant que prolongement de la vision, pour pointer et controler. Alors que les theories de la phenomenologie de la perception, de la perception ecologique et des interactions tangibles et incarnees reconnaissent l’importance du corps, de la motricite et des interactions avec l’environnement dans les phenomenes perceptifs, il parait reducteur de continuer a considerer la vision comme sens premier et principal de l’interaction tactile.Nous pensons que la transformation de la forme physique de l’interface tactile est un moyen efficace pour reincarner l’espace d’interaction tactile en utilisant mieux les capacites motrices des utilisateurs ainsi que leurs habiletes a negocier, manipuler et s’orienter dans leur environnement. A partir d’une caracterisation des risques potentiels du developpement des interactions tactiles dans le contexte d’un cockpit d’avion de ligne (augmentation de la charge cognitive, sur-sollicitation du canal visuel, alteration de la conscience de la situation, etc.), nous explorons les apports d’une interface tactile a changement de forme pour ameliorer la collaboration pilotes-systeme au travers de la conception, la fabrication et l’evaluation de trois prototypes fonctionnels. Avec l’etude qualitative et quantitative du prototype GazeForm, nous montrons que le changement de forme d’une surface tactile en fonction de la position du regard permet de diminuer la charge de travail, ameliorer la performance, reduire les mouvements oculaires et ameliorer la distribution de l’attention visuelle comparativement a un ecran tactile classique. Par l’elaboration du concept Multi-plie nous mettons en evidence les dimensions et proprietes de la transformation par pliure d’une surface d’affichage interactive. Avec les evaluations qualitatives des deux dispositifs illustrant le concept, le premier presentant une serie d’ecrans tactiles articules et le deuxieme une surface d'affichage tactile « plissable », nous demontrons qu’une surface tactile continue pliable offre un support pertinent a l'interaction incarnee et permet d’augmenter la sensation de controle pour la gestion d’un systeme critique. Enfin, pour generaliser la connaissance produite a d’autres contextes d’usages avec une forte division de l’attention visuelle (conduite automobile, salle de controle, appareil tactile portable en mobilite) nous proposons un espace de conception pour les interfaces tactiles reconfigurables.
Privacy-Enhancing Technologies for Medical and Genomic Data: From Theory to Practice

The impressive technological advances in genomic analysis and the significant drop in the cost of genome sequencing are paving the way to a variety of revolutionary applications in modern healthcare. In particular, the increasing understanding of the human genome, and of its relation to diseases, health and to responses to treatments brings promise of improvements in better preventive and personalized medicine. Unfortunately, the impact on privacy and security is unprecedented. The genome is our ultimate identifier and, if leaked, it can unveil sensitive and personal information such as our genetic diseases, our propensity to develop certain conditions (e.g., cancer or Alzheimer’s) or the health issues of our family. Even though legislation, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), aims at mitigating abuses based on genomic and medical data, it is clear that this information also needs to be protected by technical means. In this thesis, we investigate the problem of developing new and practical privacyenhancing technologies (PETs) for the protection of medical and genomic data. Our goal is to accelerate the adoption of PETs in the medical field in order to address the privacy and security concerns that prevent personalized medicine from reaching its full potential. We focus on two main areas of personalized medicine: clinical care and medical research. For clinical care, we first propose a system for securely storing and selectively retrieving raw genomic data that is indispensable for in-depth diagnoses and treatments of complex genetic diseases such as cancer. Then, we focus on genetic variants and devise a new model based on additively-homomorphic encryption for privacy-preserving genetic testing in clinics. Our model, implemented in the context of HIV treatment, is the first to be tested and evaluated by practitioners in a real operational setting. For medical research, we first propose a method that combines somewhathomomorphic encryption with differential privacy to enable secure feasibility studies on genetic data stored at an untrusted central repository. Second, we address the problem of sharing genomic and medical data when the data is distributed across multiple mistrustful institutions. We begin by analyzing the risks that threaten patients’ privacy in systems for the discovery of genetic variants, and we propose practical mitigations to the re-identification risk. Then, for clinical sites to be able to share the data without worrying about the risk of data breaches, we develop a new system based on collective homomorphic encryption: it achieves trust decentralization and enables researchers to securely find eligible patients for clinical studies. Finally, we design a new framework, complementary to the previous ones, for quantifying the risk of unintended disclosure caused by potential inference attacks that are jointly combined by a malicious adversary,
Examining the relationship between social capital and knowledge usage in the nonprofit industry

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between social capital and knowledge usage through the prerequisites embedded in internal and external social links necessary for knowledge to be applied. The methodology applied in this paper is based on a survey conducted among 215 nonprofit organisations from the European Union and the Western Balkans that implement international and local development projects, a desk research and in-depth interviews. The results reveal that nonprofit organisations are more inclined to links that come internally from individuals of similar relational, cognitive and nodal features while external social capital and structural features represent a field that should be further developed in the context of knowledge usage. This paper empirically documents the relationship between social capital and knowledge usage in nonprofit organisations, being one of the rare studies of that kind in the nonprofit industry and the social capital and knowledge management research.
An Improved Method for Interest Point Detection in Human Activity Video

An improved method for human activity recognition in RGB-D video using improved color-depth local spatio-temporal features (CoDe4D) detection method is presented in this paper. Firstly, histogram equalization and correction function are employed to suppress noise of rgb frame and depth frame, respectively. Then a saliency map is constructed by the improved CoDe4D method. In this way, feature points can be obtained by the saliency map, which integrates both depth information and RGB information. Next, the depth cuboid similarity feature (DCSF) is utilized to describe feature vectors. Meanwhile, visual words are generated by bag of feature method. To further improved the estimation accuracy, the SVM with generalized histogram intersection kernel is applied to train and predict categories. It shows good performance on MSR Daily Activity 3D datasets.