Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-state open opinion model based on positive and negative social influences

Since the tremendous success of social networking websites, the related analytical research has been widely studied. Among these studies, social influence has been a significant and popular topic. We rely on the social influence model to predict and learn the influence diffusion process. However, traditional models only categorize nodes into two types of states, active and inactive. In addition, most previous models have only taken positive influences into account. Moreover, if inactive nodes are influenced successfully and turn into active nodes, these nodes cannot change their states forever. In this work, we not only break the above limitations but also propose a novel propagation method in our model. We proposes five states to represent the multiple states of influence. According to the new propagation method, the strength of the social influence may be reduced over time. Eventually, we utilize the measurement of precisions to compare with related models. The proposed multi-state model outperforms other two-state models in precisions of prediction. The experimental results show the superiority of multiple states.
BPS : A Bufferless Switching Technique for NoCs ∗

Wires are an abundant resource in on-chip networks. This wiring capability has led to networks with very wide links, compared with the ones that we can find on off-chip networks. As an example of such systems, in [2, 8], two different NoCs are proposed with link widths of 80 and 256 bits, respectively. These wide links provide low latency communication between the nodes of the network because the packet is composed by a low number of flits. However, there are a high number of systems that can not take advantage of these wide links, because their packet size is small and they cannot fulfill the link width. For instance, in [1, 9], the authors present two systems whose smallest packet size is 64 bits. These packets will waste a link more than 64 bits wide since only part of the link will be used. Several previous works also propose to use multiple parallel channels in the same direction to exploit the high wiring capability available in NoCs [3,6,10]. The authors of these works study
A novel proposal to effectively combine multipath data forwarding for data center networks with congestion control and load balancing using Software-Defined Networking Approach

Modern data center networks (DCNs) often use multi-rooted topologies, which offer multipath capability, for increased bandwidth and fault tolerance. However, traditional routing algorithms for the Internet have no or limited support for multipath routing, and cannot fully utilize available bandwidth in such DCNs. As a result, they route all the traffic through a single path, and thus form congestion. Multipath (MP) routing might be a good alternative, but is not sufficient alone to handle congestion that comes from the contention of end stations. Dynamic load balancing, on the other hand, protects the network from sudden congestions which could be caused by load spikes or link failures. However, little work has been done to incorporate all these features in a single and comprehensive solution for Data Center Ethernet (DCE). In this paper, we propose a novel method that attempts to integrate dynamic load balancing, multi-path scheme with congestion control (CC), with the use of pure Software-Defined-Networking (SDN) approach. SDN decouples control plane from the data forwarding plane, which reduces the overheads of the network switches. The major objectives that our solution attempts to achieve are, efficient utilization of network resources, high throughput and minimal frame loss.
Privacy-Preserving Location-based Services for Mobile Users in Wireless Networks

Mobility is key to personal freedom. With the increasing availability of mobile devices, many providers begin to offer location-based services. Although these services greatly enrich our mobility experiences, with them also comes the privacy concerns, as a location-based service provider now can continuously track the location of a user. This tracking may allow unauthorized access and cause serious consequences. Although a few solutions have been proposed to address the privacy concerns in various aspects, there has not been any comprehensive study of the problem; furthermore, most of the existing solutions require that a user trust a third party such as a location server. In this paper, we investigate privacy-preserving locationbased services for the three components involved in providing location-based services: the location-based service component, the localization component, and the communications component. The focus of our study is on the location-based service component, but we also take the other two components into consideration. We identify two major types of location-based services and present novel designs to implement them without using a trusted server. Specifically, we first identify the general locationnotification service, whose goal is to transfer location information of users to authorized entities. We design a security protocol to implement the service without trusting the location server. Thus our design uses the efficiency of a location server but does not suffer from associated privacy issues. Next, we investigate the design of an even more challenging location-based service: a location service whose goal is not transfering user location information but computing an outcome that is a function of user locations. We use dating service as an example and illustrate that an efficient protocol can be built such that no extra information about user locations is revealed during the service. For the localization component, we present an impossibility result and propose a privacy preserving localization technique based on directed signals. For the communications component, we propose an anonymous communication protocol. Our extensive evaluations show that our protocols have low overheads and are suitable for Sheng Zhong is supported in part by NSF grant ANI-0207399. Yang Richard Yang is supported in part by NSF grants ANI-0207399 and ANI-0238038. personal mobile devices.
An implementation of event and filter confidentiality in pub/sub systems and its application to e-health

The publish/subscribe model offers a loosely-coupled communication paradigm where applications interact indirectly and asynchronously. Publisher applications generate events that are forwarded to subscriber applications by a network of brokers. Subscribers register by specifying filters that brokers match against events as part of the routing process. Brokers might be deployed on untrusted servers where malicious entities can get access to events and filters. Supporting confidentiality of events and filters in this setting is still an open challenge. First of all, it is desirable that publishers and subscribers do not share secret keys, such a requirement being against the loose-coupling of the model. Second, brokers need to route events by matching encrypted events against encrypted filters. This should be possible even with very complex filters. Existing solutions do not fully address these issues. This work describes the implementation of a novel schema that supports (i) confidentiality for events and filters; (ii) filters that express very complex constraints on events even if brokers are not able to access any information on both events and filters; (iii) and finally, does not require publishers and subscribers to share keys. We then describe an e-Health application scenario for monitoring patients with chronic diseases and show how our encryption schema can be used to provide confidentiality of the patients' personal and medical data, and control who can receive the patients' data and under which conditions.
Symbolic Fenchel Conjugation In honour of

Of key importance in convex analysis and optimization is the notion of duality, and in particular that of Fenchel duality. This work explores improvements to existing algorithms for the symbolic calculation of subdifferentials and Fenchel conjugates of convex functions defined on the real line. More importantly, these algorithms are extended to enable the symbolic calculation of Fenchel conjugates on a class of real-valued functions defined on R. These algorithms are realized in the form of the Maple package SCAT. 1 Background and Motivation To make the development available to a wide variety of practitioners we include the following brief discussion on the basics of convex analysis. 1.1 Definition and Basic Results Suppose f is a function defined on R that takes on values in (−∞,∞] = R ∪ {∞} = R̄. Recall that f is convex if f(λx1 + (1− λ)x2) ≤ λf(x1) + (1− λ)f(x2), for every x1, x2 ∈ R, and all λ ∈ [0, 1]. Recall also that the effective domain of f , dom f , is the set of all points where f is finite-valued. Convex functions lie at the heart of convex, functional and real analysis, as well convex optimization. Several excellent overviews of the subject are available, ranging from Rockafellar’s [13] and Luenberger’s [12] classics, to more modern treatments by Boyd and Vandenberghe [7] and by Borwein and Lewis [5]. Calculus teaches that a minimizer x̄ of a differentiable function f is necessarily a critical point: ∇f(x̄) = 0. Since many interesting functions are not everywhere differentiable, this leads naturally to a generalized derivative, the subdifferential of f at x by ∂f(x) = {y ∈ R : 〈y, x′ − x〉 ≤ f(x′)− f(x), ∀x′ ∈ Rn}.
A Nature-Inspired Optimization-Based Optimum Fuzzy Logic Photovoltaic Inverter Controller Utilizing an eZdsp F28335 Board

Photovoltaic (PV) inverters essentially convert DC quantities, such as voltage and current, to AC quantities whose magnitude and frequency are controlled to obtain the desired output. Thus, the performance of an inverter depends on its controller. Therefore, an optimum fuzzy logic controller (FLC) design technique for PV inverters using a lightning search algorithm (LSA) is presented in this study. In a conventional FLC, the procedure for obtaining membership functions (MFs) is usually implemented using trial and error, which does not lead to satisfactory solutions in many cases. Therefore, this study presents a technique for obtaining MFs that avoids the exhaustive traditional trial-and-error procedure. This technique is implemented during the inverter design phase by generating adaptive MFs based on the evaluation results of the objective function formulated with LSA. The mean squared error (MSE) of the inverter output voltage is used as an objective function in this study. LSA optimizes the MFs such that the inverter provides the lowest MSE for the output voltage, and the performance of the PV inverter output is improved in terms of amplitude and frequency. First, the design procedure and accuracy of the optimum FLC are illustrated and investigated through simulations conducted in a MATLAB environment. The LSA-based FLC (LSA-FL) are compared with differential search algorithm (DSA)-based FLC (DSA-FL) and particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based FLC (PSO-FL). Finally, the robustness of the LSA-FL is further investigated with a hardware that is operated via an eZdsp F28335 control board. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed controller can successfully obtain the desired output when different loads are connected to the system. The inverter also has a reasonably low steady-state error and fast response to reference variation.
Economic Integration : An Empirical Assessment

Recent theoretical work suggests that increased openness to international trade, democratization, and regional standards of living pose threats to internal market integration. These theories are assessed using a statistical model of commodity trade, which we use to measure the extent of integration between regional commodity markets within Russia. Monthly time-series data on regional commodity prices spanning 1995 through 1999 indicate substantial fluctuations in integration over this period: an initial period of widespread integration gradually gave way to a period of disconnectedness in 1995 through 1997, which seems to have subsided by mid-1998. These fluctuations exhibit strong negative relationships with national and regional measures of international trade and democratization; but strong positive relationships with national and regional measures of standards of living. They also exhibit negative relationships with inflation and inflation volatility. Inspired by the breakup of the Soviet Empire, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, as well as the emergence of the European Union, a series of recent theoretical analyses have provided characterizations of the role of trade openness, democratization, and regional standards of living in influencing political and economic integration within a country or neighboring regions. We analyze these theories using data from the Russian Federation, whose struggles to obtain national unity both politically and economically make it a particularly relevant testing ground. Our analysis begins with a characterization of economic integration between regions within Russia. Based on an analysis of regional commodity price data spanning 1995–1999, we find substantial fluctuations in integration: an initial period of widespread integration gradually gave way to a period of disconnectedness in 1995 through 1997, which seems to have subsided by mid-1998. Given this characterization, we then evaluate the relationship observed between a set of economic variables and our measured pattern of market integration. We find fluctuations in integration exhibit strong negative relationships with national and regional measures of international trade and democratization; but strong positive relationships with national and regional measures of standards of living. They also exhibit negative relationships with inflation and inflation volatility. Regarding international trade and democratization, Alesina, Spoloare and Wacziarg (2000) and Casella (2001) construct models in which increased opportunities for international trade threaten internal integration by prompting regions within a country to substitute away from trade relationships with domestic partners towards relationships with international partners that offer broader trading opportunities. Alesina and Spoloare (1997) construct a model in which the democratization of a centrally controlled nation threatens internal integration by giving regions enhanced freedom to form trading and political coalitions with other regions outside the original country. Finally, Casella and Feinstein (2001)
Explicit Finite Volume Schemes of Arbitrary High Order of Accuracy for Hyperbolic Systems with Stiff Source Terms

In this article we propose a new class of finite volume schemes of arbitrary accuracy in space and time for systems of hyperbolic balance laws with stiff source terms. The new class of schemes is based on a three stage procedure. First, in order to achieve high order accuracy in space, a nonlinear weighted essentially non-oscillatory reconstruction procedure is applied to the cell averages at the current time level. Second, the temporal evolution of the resulting reconstruction polynomials is computed locally inside each cell exploiting directly the full system of governing equations. In previous ADER schemes, this was achieved via the Cauchy-Kovalewski procedure, where the governing equation is repeatedly differentiated with respect to space and time to construct a Taylor series expansion of the local solution. As the CauchyKovalewski procedure is based on Taylor series expansions, it is not able to handle systems with stiff source terms since the Taylor series diverges for this case. Therefore, in this article, we present a new strategy that replaces the Cauchy-Kovalewski procedure for high order time interpolation: we present a special local space-time discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element scheme that is able to handle arbitrarily stiff source terms in a stable manner. The solution of this space-time DG method can be proven to have several important robustness properties in the presence of stiff source terms. This step is the only part of the entire algorithm which is locally implicit. The third and last step of the proposed ADER finite volume schemes consists of the standard explicit space-time integration over each control volume, using the local space-time DG solutions at the Gaussian integration points for the intercell fluxes and for the space-time integral over the source term. We will show numerical convergence studies for nonlinear systems in one space dimension with both non-stiff and with very stiff source terms up to sixth order of accuracy in space and time. The application of the new method to a large set of different test cases is shown, in particular the stiff scalar model problem of LeVeque and Yee [34], the
GRAPH BASED WORKLOAD DRIVEN PARTITIONING SYSTEM FOR NOSQL DATABASE

Cloud computing is the rising technology, which deploys the scalable web applications and provides the storage solutions to the individuals and enterprises. The massively scalable NoSQL data store exhibits the highly desirable scalability and availability by using various partitioning methods, to handle the exponentially growing demands of the users. The data stores are partitioned horizontally and distributed across the geographically dispersed data centers to balance the load. However, if the partitions are not formed properly, it may result in expensive distributed transactions. There are number of existing partitioning techniques available like Hash and Range partitioning, but they are not effectively applied to the workload consisting of fairly small transactions, that touch fewer records and which also do not considers the n-to-n relationship between them. In this paper, “Graph-based Workload Driven Partitioning System for NoSQL Database using OLTP workload” is proposed to improve the scalability minimizing the distributed transaction. This system works in two phases: 1) generates the graph from transaction workload such as the database tuples are represented as nodes and number of tuples accessed in same transaction are connected by edges. Then graph partitioning technique is applied to find min-cut balanced partition. 2) Uses the decision tree classifier, which gives a range predicate partitioning identical to the partitions, formed by the graph partitioning algorithm. The TPC-C schema is implemented by utilizing Apache CouchDB NoSQL data store, in order to assess the proposed system. The experimental end result indicates that the graph-based schemes significantly improves the response time and latency.
Does a Mediterranean Model of Family Functioning in the Perception of Italian and Spanish Adolescents Exist? A Cross-National Study

The current study explored the influence of belonging to a different areas, South of Italy and Spain, on perception of parenting and family functioning adolescents in order to highlight the similarities and differences among two samples and verify if Mediterranean model of family exists”. Empirical evidence of the existence of a Mediterranean family model has been conducted to verify which common and differentiating features exist in the perception of family ties among adolescents. Data highlighted that adolescents belonging to these areas report similar levels in different component of familial ties that can be defined as “Links and Roles”: On the contrary, important differences were underlined on the perception of levels of rigidity and enmeshment within family: on the base of Marcia’s model of identity status, we called this dimension “Foreclosure status”. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014. v5n1p377
Plenoptic Image Motion Deblurring

We propose a method to remove motion blur in a single light field captured with a moving plenoptic camera. Since motion is unknown, we resort to a blind deconvolution formulation, where one aims to identify both the blur point spread function and the latent sharp image. Even in the absence of motion, light field images captured by a plenoptic camera are affected by a non-trivial combination of both aliasing and defocus, which depends on the 3D geometry of the scene. Therefore, motion deblurring algorithms designed for standard cameras are not directly applicable. Moreover, many state of the art blind deconvolution algorithms are based on iterative schemes, where blurry images are synthesized through the imaging model. However, current imaging models for plenoptic images are impractical due to their high dimensionality. We observe that plenoptic cameras introduce periodic patterns that can be exploited to obtain highly parallelizable numerical schemes to synthesize images. These schemes allow extremely efficient GPU implementations that enable the use of iterative methods. We can then cast blind deconvolution of a blurry light field image as a regularized energy minimization to recover a sharp high-resolution scene texture and the camera motion. Furthermore, the proposed formulation can handle non-uniform motion blur due to camera shake as demonstrated on both synthetic and real light field data.
Study of Pattern and Trends of Transfusion Transmitted Infections in Apparent Healthy Voluntary Blood Donors in Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital of Prakasam District-6 Years Study

Blood is a life saving resource and also a potential vector for harmful and sometimes chronic fatal infectious diseases like HIV, HBV, HCV. These transfusions transmitted Infections (TTI) are threat to safe blood transfusion. Objectives: The objectives of the study were. 1). To evaluate the seroprevalence and trends of TTI among apparent healthy, voluntary blood donors. 2). To compare the prevalence of seropositivity with other regions of India and with different regions of Andhra Pradesh. Study was conducted for a period of 6 years from January 2009 to December 2014 at blood bank, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Ongole, of Prakasam District which is a Southern coastal region of Andhra Pradesh. MATERIALS and METHODS: All Voluntary donors reporting to the blood bank, RIMS, Ongole over a period of 6 years from 2009 to 2014 were screened for HIV, HBV, HCV, Syphilis and Malaria by using ELISA method and RPR method. Results: Total 12, 533 voluntary blood donors were screened of which 11, 903 were males (94.97%) and 630 were females (5.03%). Overall Seropositivity of HIV, HBV, HCV, Syphilis were 0.23%, 3.16 %, 0.39%, 0.06 % respectively. No blood donor tested showed positivity for Malarial parasite. Conclusion: With the implementation of strict donor selection criteria, use of sensitive screening tests and with promotion of non remunerated, repeat voluntary blood donor services, it may be possible to reduce the incidence of TTI’s.