Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fault injection‐based assessment of aspect‐oriented fault tolerance

Aspect‐oriented programming provides an interesting approach for implementing software‐based fault tolerance as it allows the core functionality of a program and its fault tolerance features to be coded separately. This paper presents a comprehensive fault injection study that estimates the fault coverage of several software implemented fault tolerance mechanisms designed to detect or mask transient hardware faults. We compare their fault coverage for two target programs and for three implementation techniques: manual programming in C and two variants of aspect‐oriented programming. We also compare the impact of different compiler optimization levels on the fault coverage. The software‐implemented fault tolerance mechanisms investigated are: i) triple time‐redundant execution with voting and forward recovery, ii) a novel dual signature control flow checking mechanism, and iii) a novel combination of several mechanisms that are shown to achieve perfect fault detection coverage for some of our target programs. The faults injected were single bit‐flips in memory words and instructions set architecture registers holding live data. The study shows that the variations in fault coverage among the implementation techniques generally are small, while it varies significantly (from 88% to 100%) for the different fault tolerance mechanisms.
Simulated longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) restoration increased streamflow—A case study in the Lower Flint River Basin

Water scarcity in the southeastern United States has increased in recent decades due to population growth, land use intensification and climate variability. Precipitation is relatively abundant, but declines in streamflow suggest a need to better manage water yield. Restoration of low‐density, frequent‐fire longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) woodlands, which once dominated the southeastern Coastal Plain, represents a possible strategy to increase water yield and mitigate water scarcity. The Flint River Basin has seen recent conflicts over water appropriations and lies within the historic range of longleaf pine. We used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to evaluate the potential effect of longleaf pine restoration on streamflow in the Ichawaynochaway Creek, a major tributary of the Flint River. Parameters governing plant water use, for example, leaf area and leaf physiology, were adjusted to create a longleaf pine land cover. We simulated the conversion of ~95,000 ha of existing forest to longleaf pine, an increase from 3% to 35% of landcover in the basin. Modelled evapotranspiration was lower for longleaf pine compared with other forest types in the region, and conversion to longleaf pine increased annual water yield by 17.9 ± 1.6 mm, or 5.2%. Proportional changes in monthly streamflow were up to 74% higher during low flow periods, when in‐stream habitat is most vulnerable. Restoration of longleaf pine could be a promising way to mitigate water scarcity in the southeastern United States and adding flow during extreme droughts may prove vitally important for conserving imperilled aquatic organisms.
Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, Increasing Customer Loyalty, and Maintaining A Competitive Edge

From the Publisher: Cliff Figallo shares his proven experience and vision for planning, developing, and maintaining a successful Web community. He also explores the many ways that hosting a Web community can benefit your enterprise. Cliff acquaints you with the basic tools and technologies involved and offers step-by-step explanations for everything.
Influence of publication year, add-on design, and geographical region on the progression of Alzheimer’s disease: a modeling analysis of literature aggregate data

Background Our objective was to develop a disease progression model for cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and to determine whether disease progression of AD is related to the year of publication, add-on trial design, and geographical regions. Methods Placebo-controlled randomized AD clinical trials were systemically searched in public databases. Longitudinal placebo response (mean change from baseline in the cognitive subscale of the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale [ADAS-cog]) and the corresponding demographic information were extracted to establish a disease progression model. Covariate screening and subgroup analyses were performed to identify potential factors affecting the disease progression rate. Results A total of 142 publications (148 trials) were included in this model-based meta-analysis. The typical disease progression rate was 5.82 points per year. The baseline ADAS-cog score was included in the final model using an inverse-U type function. Age was found to be negatively correlated with disease progression rate. After correcting the baseline ADAS-cog score and the age effect, no significant difference in disease progression rate was found between trials published before and after 2008, and between trials using add-on design and those that did not use add-on design. However, a significant difference was found among different trial regions. Trials in East Asian countries showed the slowest decline rate and the largest placebo effect. Conclusions Our model successfully quantified AD disease progression by integrating baseline ADAS-cog score and age as important predictors. These factors and geographic location should be considered when optimizing future trial designs and conducting indirect comparisons of clinical outcomes.
CONTRIBUCIÓN DEL SISTEMA DE PENSIONES PRIVADO DE CAPITALIZACIÓN INDIVIDUAL AL DESARROLLO DEL MERCADO DE CAPITALES EN BOLIVIA, 1997– 2009

El establecimiento del Sistema de Pensiones de Capitalizacion Individual en Bolivia aprobado en el ano 1996, constituye el reemplazo de un sistema tradicional de reparto colectivo, de contribuciones comunes y administradas por el Estado, por un sistema de capitalizacion individual, de contribuciones definidas y administradas por el sector privado. A mas de una decada de su establecimiento, es posible realizar una estimacion mas completa y precisa de sus resultados e impactos. Este estudio presenta una evaluacion cualitativa y cuantitativa del impacto de los Fondos de Pensiones de Capitalizacion Individual sobre el desarrollo del Mercado de Capitales en Bolivia en lo que respecta a su regulacion, composicion, tamano y profundidad financiera considerando alternativamente la participacion del sector privado y publico. Como base de demostracion empirica, se plantea un modelo econometrico basado en el analisis de series de tiempo cointegradas que hacen hincapie en los factores financieros concentrados en una variable de profundidad financiera, cuyo resultado confirma el importante aporte del Sistema de Pensiones Privado a la mejora en la calidad de regulacion, tamano, trasparencia y crecimiento del mercado financiero en Bolivia.
Active antimicrobial food and beverage packaging

Abstract: Active antimicrobial packaging can be defined as a packaging system that interacts with the food product or the surrounding headspace either to kill the microorganisms that might be present in the food product or food package, or to reduce, inhibit or retard their growth. This chapter reviews: (a) the diverse families of antimicrobial compounds, their mode of action and their aptitude to be processed and be part of a packaging system; (b) the diverse techniques used to include the agents into the packaging materials, reduce their degradation and facilitate their action and the issues to be considered in packaging design; and (c) the diverse methods which can be applied to determine the activity of the wide range of antimicrobial packaging items.
Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy and Its Relationship with the Perceived Stress and the Breastfeeding Performance in Iranian Mothers with Late Preterm Infants, 2019

BackgroundLate preterm infants suffer from many short-term and long-term problems after birth. The key factor in fighting these problems is effective breastfeeding. The present study aimedto determine the breastfeeding self-efficacy and its relationship with the perceived stress and breastfeeding performance in mothers with late preterm infants. MethodsIn this prospective study, 171 nursing mothers with late preterm infants born in Alzahra Medical Center of Tabriz, Iran, who met the conditions of this study were selected through convenience sampling. The Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (BSES- SF) was employed to measure breastfeeding self-efficacy and 14-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS14) was used to measure the perceived stress during 24 hours after giving birth and when the child was 4 months old the breastfeeding performance was measured by the standard breastfeeding performance questionnaire. The data were analyzed by Pearson and Spearman’s correlation tests, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Multiple Linear Regression.ResultsThe mean (standard deviation) of breastfeeding self-efficacy equaled 50.0 (7.8) from the scores ranging between13-65 and the mean (standard deviation) of the perceived stress equaled to 26.5 (8.8) from the scores ranging between 0-56. The median (25-75 percentiles) of breastfeeding performance score in the mothers equaled 2.0 (1.0 to 3.0) from the scores ranging between 0-6. On the basis of multiple linear regression and through adjusting the personal-social characteristic, by increasing the score of the breastfeeding self-efficacy, the perceived stress was decreased to a statistically significant amount (B=-0.1, 95%CI=-0.3 to 0.0), however, there was no statistically significant relationship between breastfeeding self-efficacy and breastfeeding performance (p=0.418). ConclusionDue to the modifiable variability of breastfeeding self-efficacy and its role in perceived maternal stress, the development of appropriate strategies to further increase breastfeeding self-efficacy and provide more support to these mothers and infants is of particular importance.
As salas de aula nas escolas modernizadas pela Parque Escolar. Entre um voluntarismo retórico e uma míngua de efeitos nos processos educativos

The interest in studying the influence of the physical environment of school spaces on behavior, attitudes and teaching strategies is part of the context of the modernization program for secondary schools, still under execution, by Parque Escolar E.P.E. The ongoing investigation aims to determine how school principals, teachers and students perceive the changes introduced in modernized school spaces and the extent to which these have caused changes in the ways of teaching and learning, using the Design Manual: architecture and pedagogical implicit model. The study fits into a qualitative and quantitative methodology, with a strong research component of post-occupation study, and is being developed in three secondary schools in Porto’s district. The partial results of the analysis of the data collected in the survey, by questionnaire to the teachers, and by interview, to the Directors. The results show that the collective perception about the characteristics of the new school spaces, the conditions for teaching and learning and the effect on changing teaching practices are not coincident.
A Mechanism to Improve the Performance of IEEE 802.11 MAC Protocol

Ad hoc networks are gaining popularity due to their less cost and ease deployment. Efficiency of these networks depend on the performance and reliability of the medium access control (MAC) protocol applied in such networks. Since the channel is shared by nodes, an efficient MAC should allow the nodes to access channel without degrading the performance. The performance of IEEE 802.11 gets degraded due to the presence of hidden and exposed terminal. IEEE 802.11 DCF was designed to overcome these problem using a virtual carrier sensing mechanism. Though IEEE 802.11 DCF is able to overcome the hidden and exposed terminal problem, the throughput and channel utilization is lower due to the inability of the hidden and exposed node to either transmit or receive. In this paper we proposed a mechanism that permits the hidden node to transmit and the exposed node to receive. The proposed mechanism also overcome the RTS induced and CTS-induced problem. We performed extensive simulation using NS-2 simulator. It is observed that the proposed scheme outperforms 802.11 DCF in-terms of throughput and packet delivery ratio with marginally increased in control overhead.
Optimal land use planning on selection and placement of energy crops for sustainable biofuel production

Perennial grasses such as Miscanthus and switchgrass and crop residues have been identified as a potential long term biofuel feedstock sources for the USA. However, environmental impacts of bioenergy crops production need to be carefully evaluated such that effective sustainable production practices can be developed. The overarching goal of the study was to estimate potential impacts of bioenergy crop production on watershed scale hydrology and water quality and to develop a multiobjective optimization framework for optimal selection and placement of energy crops at watershed scale for sustainable bioenergy production. Distributed hydrological model SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) was used to simulate energy crops growth and its impact on hydrology and water quality. A multi-level spatial optimization framework (MLSOPT) was developed for watershed scale optimal section and placement of energy crops. Cibin, born in Kerala state (known as “Gods own Country”) of India, did his Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree in Agricultural Engineering from Kerala Agricultural University, India in 2006. He graduated with a Master of Technology (M.Tech) in Hydraulics and Water Resources Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), India in 2008. He then worked as Engineering Consultant in L&T Ramboll Consulting Engineering Limited, Hyderabad, India for one year. He joined Ph.D. program at Purdue University in August 2009. Cibin plans to continue as a Post-Doc in the ABE department at Purdue.
AN ANALYSIS AND RISK ASSESSMENT OF VULNERABILITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR IOT DEVICES

The Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer a buzz word. In place since 2008/2009 at a time when there was more “things or objects” connected to the Internet than people, there has been an exponential rise in connected devices, and according to a projection by the International Data Corporation (IDC), there will be 41.6 billion connected IoT devices, generating 79.4 zettabytes (ZB) of data by 2025. These IoT devices can be found within our homes, businesses and almost every industry, like fitness and health care. With the increasing scale of IoT presenting on networks, comes the additional upsurge in cyber-attacks on these systems and an upsurge in management of cyber vulnerabilities is needed in parallel. This paper will review what kind of vulnerabilities IoT devices of all ages are susceptible too and what state of the art vulnerability management practices are available to address those threats. Based on findings, we will propose the use of a Vulnerability Risk Assessment Tool (VRAT) to determine the approximate risk an IoT device could pose, as well as issue a recommended vulnerability management action for that device based on the risk rating.
Altered Default Mode Network Is Associated With Cognitive Impairment in CADASIL as Revealed by Multimodal Neuroimaging

Background and Purpose: Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy caused by mutations in the NOTCH3 gene is a hereditary cerebral small vessel disease, manifesting with stroke, cognitive impairment, and mood disturbances. Functional or structural changes in the default mode network (DMN), which plays important role in cognitive and mental maintenance, have been found in several neurological and mental diseases. However, it remains unclear whether DMN is altered in patients with cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL). Methods: Multimodal imaging methods, including MRI and positron emission tomography (PET), were applied to evaluate the functional, structural, and metabolic characteristics of DMN in 25 patients with CADASIL and 42 healthy controls. Results: Compared with controls, patients with CADASIL had decreased nodal efficiency and degree centrality of the dorsal medial pre-frontal cortex and hippocampal formation within DMN. Structural MRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) showed decreased gray matter volume and fiber tracks presented in the bilateral hippocampal formation. Meanwhile, PET imaging showed decreased metabolism within the whole DMN in CADASIL. Furthermore, correlation analyses showed that these nodal characteristics, gray matter volume, and metabolic signals of DMN were related to cognitive scores in CADASIL. Conclusions: Our results suggested that altered network characteristics of DMN might play important roles in cognitive deficits of CADASIL.
Operational Process Innovation : improving the fit between operational process and competitive flexibility at GM the Furniture Factory

GM ‘the Furniture Factory’ is a manufacturer producing both cabinets and tables for living rooms. The company has about 50 employees, and an annual turnover of around 3.5 to 4 million euros. In order to stay competitive inside the higher segment of the market, GM wants to focus more on flexibility. Therefore the overall goal of this research project is: The goal of the research is to advice GM on how to improve its operation process design and operation planning & control in order to fit with the strategic focus on competitive flexibility.
Prediction of Wind Loads on Tall Buildings: Development and Applications of an Aerodynamic Database

The Western University Aerodynamic Database (WAD) has been developed as an alternative means for structural engineers to estimate the preliminary design wind loads on tall buildings. The database consists of aerodynamic loads obtained from either the force-balance or pressure model tests on 56 tall buildings in their simulated actual surroundings carried out in the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory at Western University. The data for a given building include the statistics of the normalized aerodynamic loads such as the means, root-mean squares, and power spectral density functions of the base bending moments in two orthogonal directions and base torque. To estimate the preliminary design wind loads on a target building, the fuzzy logic theory is employed to select the reference buildings from the database whose aerodynamic characteristics and upstream conditions are similar to those of the target building. A modified three-dimensional moment gust loading factor approach is proposed to estimate the wind-induced responses of the target building for all wind directions. The WAD-based procedure for estimating the wind-induced responses is validated by comparing the estimated responses with the corresponding responses obtained from the force-balance or pressure model tests for 36 tall buildings included in WAD. The comparison suggests that the WAD-based procedure can provide reasonably accurate estimates of base moments and accelerations of tall buildings, and is therefore considered adequate to be used in their preliminary design. Finally, the wind-induced responses predicted using the WAD-based procedures are also compared with those obtained from the wind load provisions in three major design codes, i.e. ASCE 7-10, NBCC 2010 and AS/NZS 1170.2: 2011, as well as the NatHaz Aerodynamic Load Database developed at University of Notre Dame. The results of the comparison study show that the WAD-based predictions of the wind loads are more accurate than the above-mentioned methods, indicating that the WAD-based procedure is a viable alternative to evaluating the preliminary design wind loads for tall buildings.
Does it work? evaluating a new pay system

This report focuses on the evaluation of the impact of new pay systems in large, unionised multi-site organisations by the organisations themselves. Evaluation of the effectiveness of a pay system, however, does not take place in a vacuum and relates to the aims and objectives of the pay system concerned. Moreover, evaluation is not an end in itself. It is, therefore, relevant to consider if any further steps were taken as a result of evaluation. Accordingly our research questions were: • What were the aims and objectives of organisations when introducing new pay arrangements? • What data did organisations collect and review to inform their evaluation? • What steps have organisations taken as a result of their evaluation? We re-appraised our data from 10 NHS trusts in England which had introduced some innovations in pay and grading in the 1990s. Additionally, we looked at seven multi-site unionised organisations outside the NHS in both the public and private sectors, which had recently made changes to their reward systems, carrying out interviews and inspecting documents. The main output is a template for the evaluation of Agenda for Change by NHS organisations.
The Impact of the Defense Industry Consolidation on the Aerospace Industry

Abstract : The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of the defense industry consolidation on the aerospace industry. The defense industry is comprised of twelve sectors that impact different industries. This research focused on the formal aspects of the aerospace industry which supports six of the twelve defense sectors. The aerospace industry is identified by six North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) or Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes. Using the structure-conduct- performance paradigm, a method in industrial organization, this thesis focused on how the defense consolidation affected the structure and behavior of the aerospace industry. For structure, this study examined the industry concentration, buyers and sellers, vertical integration, and product differentiation. Barriers to entry, asset specificity, capital investment, and research and development intensity were analyzed for conduct. Profitability ratios, returns to scale, and impact on cost overruns of government contracts were analyzed for the area of performance. Finally, this study identified trends by comparing the aerospace industry to total manufacturing industry, and comparing the surviving large downstream firms to the aerospace industry and total manufacturing industry.