Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Vector-Based Efficient Data Hiding in Encrypted Images via Multi-MSB Replacement

As an essential technique for data privacy protection, reversible data hiding in encrypted images (RDHEI) methods have drawn intensive research interest in recent years. In response to the increasing demand for protecting data privacy, novel methods that perform RDHEI are continually being developed. We propose two effective multi-MSB (most significant bit) replacement-based approaches that yield comparably high data embedding capacity, improve overall processing speed, and enhance reconstructed images’ quality. Our first method, Efficient Multi-MSB Replacement-RDHEI (EMR-RDHEI), obtains higher data embedding rates (DERs, also known as payloads) and better visual quality in reconstructed images when compared with many other state-of-the-art methods. Our second method, Lossless Multi-MSB Replacement-RDHEI (LMR-RDHEI), can losslessly recover original images after an information embedding process is performed. To verify the accuracy of our methods, we compared them with other recent RDHEI techniques and performed extensive experiments using the widely accepted BOWS-2 dataset. Our experimental results showed that the DER of our EMR-RDHEI method ranged from 1.2087 bit per pixel (bpp) to 6.2682 bpp with an average of 3.2457 bpp. For the LMR-RDHEI method, the average DER was 2.5325 bpp, with a range between 0.2129 bpp and 6.0168 bpp. Our results demonstrate that these methods outperform many other state-of-the-art RDHEI algorithms. Additionally, the multi-MSB replacement-based approach provides a clean design and efficient vectorized implementation.
Fast nonlinear model predictive planner and control for an unmanned ground vehicle in the presence of disturbances and dynamic obstacles

This paper presents a solution for the tracking control problem, for an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), under the presence of skid-slip and external disturbances in an environment with static and moving obstacles. To achieve the proposed task, we have used a path-planner which is based on fast nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC); the planner generates feasible trajectories for the kinematic and dynamic controllers to drive the vehicle safely to the goal location. Additionally, the NMPC deals with dynamic and static obstacles in the environment. A kinematic controller (KC) is designed using evolutionary programming (EP), which tunes the gains of the KC. The velocity commands, generated by KC, are then fed to a dynamic controller, which jointly operates with a nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO) to prevent the effects of perturbations. Furthermore, pseudo priority queues (PPQ) based Dijkstra algorithm is combined with NMPC to propose optimal path to perform map-based practical simulation. Finally, simulation based experiments are performed to verify the technique. Results suggest that the proposed method can accurately work, in real-time under limited processing resources.
CGMN: A Contrastive Graph Matching Network for Self-Supervised Graph Similarity Learning

Graph similarity learning refers to calculating the similarity score between two graphs, which is required in many realistic applications, such as visual tracking, graph classification, and collaborative filtering. As most of the existing graph neural networks yield effective graph representations of a single graph, little effort has been made for jointly learning two graph representations and calculating their similarity score. In addition, existing unsupervised graph similarity learning methods are mainly clustering-based, which ignores the valuable information embodied in graph pairs. To this end, we propose a contrastive graph matching network (CGMN) for self-supervised graph similarity learning in order to calculate the similarity between any two input graph objects. Specifically, we generate two augmented views for each graph in a pair respectively. Then, we employ two strategies, namely cross-view interaction and cross-graph interaction, for effective node representation learning. The former is resorted to strengthen the consistency of node representations in two views. The latter is utilized to identify node differences between different graphs. Finally, we transform node representations into graph-level representations via pooling operations for graph similarity computation. We have evaluated CGMN on eight real-world datasets, and the experiment results show that the proposed new approach is superior to the state-of-the-art methods in graph similarity learning downstream tasks.
K-Means Clustering of COVID-19 Cases in Indonesia’s Provinces

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been rapidly spreading, causing a severe health crisis all around the world, including Indonesia. As expected, due to Indonesia’s diverse topography and population, there are variations in the number of cases amongst its provinces. Therefore clustering is needed to develop a map of COVID-19 cases to enable optimal handling of this pandemic. The provinces are clustered using K-means method according to their respective COVID-19 case numbers. Data taken from Indonesian Ministry of Health in November 2020 is used in this study, covering COVID-19 cases in Indonesia’s 34 provinces. K-means results in seven optimal clusters with variance ratio of 0.185. Clusters 1 to 3 cover most provinces in Java, including DKI Jakarta in Cluster 1 as the province with the most cases. Each of Clusters 4 and 5 consists of 5 provinces, while each of Clusters 6 and 7 consists of 10 provinces. Cluster 7 comprises provinces with lowest cases of COVID-19.
Development effort estimation in free/open source software from activity in version control systems

Abstract Effort estimation models are a fundamental tool in software management, and used as a forecast for resources, constraints and costs associated to software development. For Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) projects, effort estimation is especially complex: professional developers work alongside occasional, volunteer developers, so the overall effort (in person-months) becomes non-trivial to determine. The objective of this work it to develop a simple effort estimation model for FOSS projects, based on the historic data of developers’ effort. The model is fed with direct developer feedback to ensure its accuracy. After extracting the personal development profiles of several thousands of developers from 6 large FOSS projects, we asked them to fill in a questionnaire to determine if they should be considered as full-time developers in the project that they work in. Their feedback was used to fine-tune the value of an effort threshold, above which developers can be considered as full-time. With the help of the over 1,000 questionnaires received, we were able to determine, for every project in our sample, the threshold of commits that separates full-time from non-full-time developers. We finally offer guidelines and a tool to apply our model to FOSS projects that use a version control system.
Black-box Safety Analysis and Retraining of DNNs based on Feature Extraction and Clustering

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have demonstrated superior performance over classical machine learning to support many features in safety-critical systems. Although DNNs are now widely used in such systems (e.g., self driving cars), there is limited progress regarding automated support for functional safety analysis in DNN-based systems. For example, the identification of root causes of errors, to enable both risk analysis and DNN retraining, remains an open problem. In this article, we propose SAFE, a black-box approach to automatically characterize the root causes of DNN errors. SAFE relies on a transfer learning model pre-trained on ImageNet to extract the features from error-inducing images. It then applies a density-based clustering algorithm to detect arbitrary shaped clusters of images modeling plausible causes of error. Last, clusters are used to effectively retrain and improve the DNN. The black-box nature of SAFE is motivated by our objective not to require changes or even access to the DNN internals to facilitate adoption. Experimental results show the superior ability of SAFE in identifying different root causes of DNN errors based on case studies in the automotive domain. It also yields significant improvements in DNN accuracy after retraining, while saving significant execution time and memory when compared to alternatives.
Focusing on the hybrid quantum computing - Tabu search algorithm

Quantum Computing is an emerging paradigm which is gathering a lot of popularity in the current scientific and technological community. Widely conceived as the next frontier of computation, Quantum Computing is still at the dawn of its development. Thus, current solving systems suffer from significant limitations in terms of performance and capabilities. Some interesting approaches have been devised by researchers and practitioners in order to overcome these barriers, being quantum-classical hybrid algorithms one of the most often used solving schemes. The main goal of this paper is to extend the results and findings of the recently proposed hybrid Quantum Computing - Tabu Search Algorithm for partitioning problems. To do that, we focus our research on the adaptation of this method to the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem. In overall, we have employed six well-known instances belonging to TSPLIB to assess the performance of Quantum Computing - Tabu Search Algorithm in comparison to QBSolv. Furthermore, as an additional contribution, this work also supposes the first solving of the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem using a Quantum Computing based method. Aiming to boost whole community's research in QC, we have released the project's repository as open source code for further application and improvements.
Detecting Soccer Balls with Reduced Neural Networks

Object detection techniques that achieve state-of-the-art detection accuracy employ convolutional neural networks, implemented to have lower latency in graphics processing units. Some hardware systems, such as mobile robots, operate under constrained hardware situations, but still benefit from object detection capabilities. Multiple network models have been proposed, achieving comparable accuracy with reduced architectures and leaner operations. Motivated by the need to create a near real-time object detection system for a soccer team of mobile robots operating with x86 CPU-only embedded computers, this work analyses the average precision and inference time of multiple object detection systems in a constrained hardware setting. We train open implementations of MobileNetV2 and MobileNetV3 models with different underlying architectures, achieved by changing their input and width multipliers, as well as YOLOv3, TinyYOLOv3, YOLOv4 and TinyYOLOv4 in an annotated image dataset captured using a mobile robot. We emphasize the speed/accuracy trade-off in the models by reporting their average precision on a test data set and their inference time in videos at different resolutions, under constrained and unconstrained hardware configurations. Results show that MobileNetV3 models have a good trade-off between average precision and inference time in constrained scenarios only, while MobileNetV2 with high width multipliers are appropriate for server-side inference. YOLO models in their official implementations are not suitable for inference in CPUs.
Adapting agile development practices for hyper-agile environments: lessons learned from a COVID-19 emergency response research project

Agile development is known for efficient software development practices that enable teams to quickly develop software to cope with changing requirements. Although there is evidence that agile practices are helpful in such environments, the literature does not inform us as to whether agile practices can also be beneficial in hyper-agile environments. Such environments are characterized by an extremely fast pace of change with fluid requirements. COVID-19 vaccine distribution is one such problem that governments have had to deal with. To solve this problem, governments need to come up with robust responses by formulating teams that have the capability to provide software solutions enabling information visibility into the vaccine distribution process. Such emergent teams need to quickly understand the distribution process, oftentimes define the process itself because it might be non-existent, and build software systems to solve the problem in a matter of days. Not much is known about how systems can be developed at such a fast pace. We adopt a clinical research methodology and employ agile software development practices to develop such a mission-critical system. In the process of building the system, we learn important lessons that can be used to adapt and extend agile methodologies to be used in hyper-agile development environments. We offer these lessons as important first steps to understanding the best practices needed to develop software systems that have the capability to provide visibility into the unprecedented health challenge of distribution of life-saving COVID-19 vaccine.
Automatic Generation and Marking of UML Database Design Diagrams

Interactive question systems improve student engagement and provide opportunities for increased practice and skill mastery. Developing database design diagrams is a key skill for database courses, but providing evaluation feedback is time-consuming for instructors and accurate auto-grading is challenging due to the variability of student answers especially when labeling diagram components. This work presents a system for the automatic creation and real-time evaluation of database design questions using UML diagrams. Students directly interact with the question text, and the system continuously generates a visual representation of their answer as well as provides immediate feedback at any time. By utilizing a web-based, customizable user interface, the system supports precise marking and the ability to practice variants of design questions to mastery. A classroom evaluation demonstrates high student satisfaction compared to traditional UML design questions and preference for using the software to improve their learning outcomes.
Design of telemedicine information query system based on wireless sensor network

INTRODUCTION: A wireless sensor network-based remote medical information query system is proposed and designed. OBJECTIVE: The proposed method aims at improving the throughput of the hospital information remote query system and reducing the response time METHODS: The system structure is divided into three levels. The presentation layer is responsible for displaying the query operation interface of the function layer. The function layer realizes the query function according to the user instructions. The wireless sensor network is responsible for the transmission of instructions. The data layer starts the query of telemedicine information based on the Top-k query algorithm. In wireless sensor networks, the improved ant colony algorithm is used to optimize it, which improves the information transmission performance of the system. RESULTS: The experimental results show that the designed system can complete the medical information query according to the needs of users, the system throughput and the residual energy of sink nodes are high, and the maximum response time of the system is always less than 0.5s. CONCLUSION: It shows that the designed system has strong practical application performance and high application value.
Integrating Lattice-Free MMI Into End-to-End Speech Recognition

In automatic speech recognition (ASR) research, discriminative criteria have achieved superior performance in DNN-HMM systems. Given this success, the adoption of discriminative criteria is promising to boost the performance of end-to-end (E2E) ASR systems. With this motivation, previous works have introduced the minimum Bayesian risk (MBR, one of the discriminative criteria) into E2E ASR systems. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of the MBR-based methods are compromised: the MBR criterion is only used in system training, which creates a mismatch between training and decoding; the on-the-fly decoding process in MBR-based methods results in the need for pre-trained models and slow training speeds. To this end, novel algorithms are proposed in this work to integrate another widely used discriminative criterion, lattice-free maximum mutual information (LF-MMI), into E2E ASR systems not only in the training stage but also in the decoding process. The proposed LF-MMI training and decoding methods show their effectiveness on two widely used E2E frameworks: Attention-Based Encoder-Decoders (AEDs) and Neural Transducers (NTs). Compared with MBR-based methods, the proposed LF-MMI method: maintains the consistency between training and decoding; eschews the on-the-fly decoding process; trains from randomly initialized models with superior training efficiency. Experiments suggest that the LF-MMI method outperforms its MBR counterparts and consistently leads to statistically significant performance improvements on various frameworks and datasets from 30 hours to 14.3k hours. The proposed method achieves state-of-the-art (SOTA) results on Aishell-1 (CER 4.10%) and Aishell-2 (CER 5.02%) datasets. Code is released.
Automatic modulation classification with <scp>2D</scp> transforms and convolutional neural network

Abstract This article focuses on automatic modulation classification (AMC) in wireless communication systems. A convolutional neural network (CNN) with three layers is introduced for the AMC process. Over degraded channels, it is assumed that the constellation diagrams of received signals do not show sharp points as in the case of pure signals. Instead, the points spread to constitute circle‐shaped objects. With more deterioration in channel conditions, these circle‐shaped objects begin to show overlapping. This behavior motivates us to use object detection, when dealing with the modulation classification task. The selection of the adopted transforms in this article is made from the object detection perspective. Different 2D transforms are considered on the constellation diagrams and compared for better classification performance. These transforms are the Radon transform (RT), the curvelet transform, and the phase congruency (PC). They are applied on the 2D constellation diagrams prior to the classification task with the CNN. The classification of the modulation format at different signal‐to‐noise ratios (SNRs) is considered in this article from the constellation diagrams, and the preprocessed constellation diagrams using RT, curvelet transform, and PC. Seven types of modulation formats are considered in this study to represent both spread and dense constellation diagram patterns, and the study extends from −10 to 10 dB. Analysis of the results indicating the most suitable preprocessor according to the constellation type and the SNR involved is provided.
Stability Experiments: The Overlooked Dual of Memory Experiments

Topological quantum computations are built on a foundation of two basic tasks: preserving logical observables through time and moving logical observables through space. Memory experiments, which check how well logical observables are preserved through time, are a well established benchmark. Strangely, there is no corresponding well established benchmark for moving logical observables through space. This paper tries to fill that gap with "stability experiments", which check how well a quantum error correction system can determine the product of a large region of stabilizers. Stability experiments achieve this by testing on a region that is locally a normal code but globally has a known product of stabilizers.
Responsible AI, SDGs, and AI Governance in Africa

More than ever before, AI is now an area of national strategic importance. This has become quite evident with the proliferation of national AI strategies since the first was launched in Canada in 2017. There is now an ever-growing body of national AI strategies especially in countries situated in the Global South. AI is seen as a key driver of economic development and the strategies describe how countries plan to exploit AI technologies to achieve national development goals. However, AI technologies also generate problematic and unintended consequences, and the national strategies often describe governance mechanisms for mitigating such issues. As the national development goals of many countries also align with the UN SDGs, this paper explores the relationship between responsible governance of AI, the attainment of the UN SDGs and the implications for African countries. The paper shows that there is a clear link between the development of AI and the attainment of the SDGs. Also, based on an analysis of two AI policy tracking repositories - the OECD AI Policy Observatory and Oxford AI Readiness Index &#x2013; this paper shows how African countries have lagged behind countries in the Global South in terms of the development of governance structures for AI. This has far-reaching implications for the attainment of the SGDs and the paper provides recommendations in this area.
Cyberattack and Cyberwarfare Strategies for Businesses

A cyberattack is an attempt by cybercriminals as individuals or organizations with unauthorized access using one or more computers and computer systems to steal, expose, change, disable or eliminate information, or to breach computer information systems, computer networks, and computer infrastructures. Cyberattackers gain a benefit from victims, which may be criminal such as stealing data or money, or political or personal such as revenge. In cyberattacks, various targets are possible. Some potential targets for businesses include business and customer financial data, customer lists, trade secrets, and login credentials.Cyberattackers use a variety of methods to gain access to data, including malware such as viruses, worms, and spyware and phishing methods, man-in-the-middle attacks, denial-of-service attacks, SQL injection, zero-day exploit, and DNS tunneling.Related to cyberattack, the term cyberwarfare is gaining popularity nowadays. Cyberwarfare is the use of cyberattacks by a state or an organization to cause harm as in warfare against another state's or organization's computer information systems, networks, and infrastructures.Military, civil, and ideological motivations, or hacktivism can be used to launch a cyberwarfare. For these reasons, cyberwarfare may be used to conduct espionage, sabotage, propaganda, and economic disruption.Considering highly digitalized business processes such as e-mails, digital banking, online conference, and digital manufacturing methods, damage of cyberwarfare to businesses and countries are unavoidable. As a result, developing strategies for defending against cyberattacks and cyberwarfare is critical for businesses. The concepts of cyberattack and cyberwarfare, as well as business strategies to be protected against them will be discussed in this chapter.