bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
ImageSpirit
Authors: Cheng Ming-Ming , Zheng Shuai , Lin Wen-Yan , Vineet Vibhav , Sturgess Paul , Crook Nigel , Mitra Niloy J. , Torr Philip
Published: January 2015

Humans describe images in terms of nouns and adjectives while algorithms operate on images represented as sets of pixels. Bridging this gap between how humans would like to access images versus their typical representation is the goal of image parsing, which involves assigning object and attribute labels to pixels. In this article we propose treating nouns as object labels and adjectives as visual attribute labels. This allows us to formulate the image parsing problem as one of jointly estimating per-pixel object and attribute labels from a set of training images. We propose an efficient (interactive time) solution. Using the extracted labels as handles, our system empowers a user to verbally refine the results. This enables hands-free parsing of an image into pixel-wise object/attribute labels that correspond to human semantics. Verbally selecting objects of interest enables a novel and natural interaction modality that can possibly be used to interact with new generation devices (e.g., smartphones, Google Glass, livingroom devices). We demonstrate our system on a large number of real-world images with varying complexity. To help understand the trade-offs compared to traditional mouse-based interactions, results are reported for both a large-scale quantitative evaluation and a user study.
Directional Dipole Model for Subsurface Scattering
Authors: Frisvad Jeppe Revall , Hachisuka Toshiya , Kjeldsen Thomas Kim
Published: January 2015

Rendering translucent materials using Monte Carlo ray tracing is computationally expensive due to a large number of subsurface scattering events. Faster approaches are based on analytical models derived from diffusion theory. While such analytical models are efficient, they miss out on some translucency effects in the rendered result. We present an improved analytical model for subsurface scattering that captures translucency effects present in the reference solutions but remaining absent with existing models. The key difference is that our model is based on ray source diffusion, rather than point source diffusion. A ray source corresponds better to the light that refracts through the surface of a translucent material. Using this ray source, we are able to take the direction of the incident light ray and the direction toward the point of emergence into account. We use a dipole construction similar to that of the standard dipole model, but we now have positive and negative ray sources with a mirrored pair of directions. Our model is as computationally efficient as existing models while it includes single scattering without relying on a separate Monte Carlo simulation, and the rendered images are significantly closer to the references. Unlike some previous work, our model is fully analytic and requires no precomputation.
Robust Simulation of Sparsely Sampled Thin Features in SPH-Based Free Surface Flows
Authors: He Xiaowei , Wang Huamin , Zhang Fengjun , Wang Hongan , Wang Guoping , Zhou Kun
Published: January 2015

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is efficient, mass preserving, and flexible in handling topological changes. However, sparsely sampled thin features are difficult to simulate in SPH-based free surface flows, due to a number of robustness and stability issues. In this article, we address this problem from two perspectives: the robustness of surface forces and the numerical instability of thin features. We present a new surface tension force scheme based on a free surface energy functional, under the diffuse interface model. We develop an efficient way to calculate the air pressure force for free surface flows, without using air particles. Compared with previous surface force formulae, our formulae are more robust against particle sparsity in thin feature cases. To avoid numerical instability on thin features, we propose to adjust the internal pressure force by estimating the internal pressure at two scales and filtering the force using a geometry-aware anisotropic kernel. Our result demonstrates the effectiveness of our algorithms in handling a variety of sparsely sampled thin liquid features, including thin sheets, thin jets, and water splashes.
Top-k and Clustering with Noisy Comparisons
Authors: Davidson Susan , Khanna Sanjeev , Milo Tova , Roy Sudeepa
Published: January 2015

We study the problems of max/top-
k
and clustering when the comparison operations may be performed by oracles whose answer may be erroneous. Comparisons may either be of
type
or of
value
: given two data elements, the answer to a type comparison is “yes” if the elements have the same type and therefore belong to the same group (cluster); the answer to a value comparison orders the two data elements. We give efficient algorithms that are guaranteed to achieve correct results with high probability, analyze the cost of these algorithms in terms of the total number of comparisons (i.e., using a fixed-cost model), and show that they are essentially the best possible. We also show that fewer comparisons are needed when values and types are correlated, or when the error model is one in which the error decreases as the distance between the two elements in the sorted order increases. Finally, we examine another important class of cost functions, concave functions, which balances the number of rounds of interaction with the oracle with the number of questions asked of the oracle. Results of this article form an important first step in providing a formal basis for max/top-
k
and clustering queries in crowdsourcing applications, that is, when the oracle is implemented using the crowd. We explain what simplifying assumptions are made in the analysis, what results carry to a generalized crowdsourcing setting, and what extensions are required to support a full-fledged model.
A Large-Scale Evaluation of Automated Unit Test Generation Using EvoSuite
Authors: Fraser Gordon , Arcuri Andrea
Published: January 2015

Research on software testing produces many innovative automated techniques, but because software testing is by necessity incomplete and approximate, any new technique faces the challenge of an empirical assessment. In the past, we have demonstrated scientific advance in automated unit test generation with the E
VO
S
UITE
tool by evaluating it on manually selected open-source projects or examples that represent a particular problem addressed by the underlying technique. However, demonstrating scientific advance is not necessarily the same as demonstrating practical value; even if
VO
S
UITE
worked well on the software projects we selected for evaluation, it might not scale up to the complexity of real systems. Ideally, one would use large “real-world” software systems to minimize the threats to external validity when evaluating research tools. However, neither choosing such software systems nor applying research prototypes to them are trivial tasks.

In this article we present the results of a large experiment in unit test generation using the
VO
S
UITE
tool on 100 randomly chosen open-source projects, the 10 most popular open-source projects according to the SourceForge Web site, seven industrial projects, and 11 automatically generated software projects. The study confirms that
VO
S
UITE
can achieve good levels of branch coverage (on average, 71% per class) in practice. However, the study also exemplifies how the choice of software systems for an empirical study can influence the results of the experiments, which can serve to inform researchers to make more conscious choices in the selection of software system subjects. Furthermore, our experiments demonstrate how practical limitations interfere with scientific advances, branch coverage on an unbiased sample is affected by predominant environmental dependencies. The surprisingly large effect of such practical engineering problems in unit testing will hopefully lead to a larger appreciation of work in this area, thus supporting transfer of knowledge from software testing research to practice.
Conditional Commitments
Authors: Kholy Warda El , Bentahar Jamal , Menshawy Mohamed EL , Qu Hongyang , Dssouli Rachida
Published: January 2015

While modeling interactions using social commitments provides a fundamental basis for capturing flexible and declarative interactions and helps in addressing the challenge of ensuring compliance with specifications, the designers of the system cannot guarantee that an agent complies with its commitments as it is supposed to, or at least an agent doesn't want to violate its commitments. They may still wish to develop efficient and scalable algorithms by which model checking conditional commitments, a natural and universal frame of social commitments, is feasible at design time. However, distinguishing between different but related types of conditional commitments, and developing dedicated algorithms to tackle the problem of model checking conditional commitments, is still an active research topic. In this article, we develop the temporal logic CTL

cc

that extends Computation Tree Logic (CTL) with new modalities which allow representing and reasoning about two types of communicating conditional commitments and their fulfillments using the formalism of interpreted systems. We introduce a set of rules to reason about conditional commitments and their fulfillments. The verification technique is based on developing a new symbolic model checking algorithm to address this verification problem. We analyze the computational complexity and present the full implementation of the developed algorithm on top of the MCMAS model checker. We also evaluate the algorithm's effectiveness and scalability by verifying the compliance of the NetBill protocol, taken from the business domain, and the process of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, taken from the health-care domain, with specifications expressed in CTL

cc

. We finally compare the experimental results with existing proposals.
A Unified Test Case Prioritization Approach
Authors: Hao Dan , Zhang Lingming , Zhang Lu , Rothermel Gregg , Mei Hong
Published: January 2015

Test case prioritization techniques attempt to reorder test cases in a manner that increases the rate at which faults are detected during regression testing. Coverage-based test case prioritization techniques typically use one of two overall strategies: a
total strategy
or an
additional strategy
. These strategies prioritize test cases based on the total number of code (or code-related) elements covered per test case and the number of additional (not yet covered) code (or code-related) elements covered per test case, respectively. In this article, we present a unified test case prioritization approach that encompasses both the total and additional strategies. Our unified test case prioritization approach includes two models (
basic
and
extended
) by which a spectrum of test case prioritization techniques ranging from a purely total to a purely additional technique can be defined by specifying the value of a parameter referred to as the
f

p

value. To evaluate our approach, we performed an empirical study on 28 Java objects and 40 C objects, considering the impact of three internal factors (model type, choice of
f

p

value, and coverage type) and three external factors (coverage granularity, test case granularity, and programming/testing paradigm), all of which can be manipulated by our approach. Our results demonstrate that a wide range of techniques derived from our basic and extended models with uniform
f

p

values can outperform purely total techniques and are competitive with purely additional techniques. Considering the influence of each internal and external factor studied, the results demonstrate that various values of each factor have nontrivial influence on test case prioritization techniques.
Data brokers are watching you
Authors: Anthes Gary
Published: January 2015

You would be surprised by how much they know about you, and what they are doing with your information.
Future tense: Wow!
Authors: Bainbridge William Sims
Published: January 2015

From the intersection of computational science and technological speculation, with boundaries limited only by our ability to imagine what could be.

Human life is filled with illusions, so virtual worlds are not especially unreal.
A little queue theory
Authors: Armour Phillip G.
Published: January 2015

When more work means less done.
Naïve Evaluation of Queries over Incomplete Databases
Authors: Gheerbrant Amélie , Libkin Leonid , Sirangelo Cristina
Published: January 2015

The term
naïve evaluation
refers to evaluating queries over incomplete databases as if nulls were usual data values, that is, to using the standard database query evaluation engine. Since the semantics of query answering over incomplete databases is that of certain answers, we would like to know when naïve evaluation computes them, that is, when certain answers can be found without inventing new specialized algorithms. For relational databases it is well known that unions of conjunctive queries possess this desirable property, and results on preservation of formulae under homomorphisms tell us that, within relational calculus, this class cannot be extended under the open-world assumption.

Our goal here is twofold. First, we develop a general framework that allows us to determine, for a given semantics of incompleteness, classes of queries for which naïve evaluation computes certain answers. Second, we apply this approach to a variety of semantics, showing that for many classes of queries beyond unions of conjunctive queries, naïve evaluation makes perfect sense under assumptions different from open world. Our key observations are: (1) naïve evaluation is equivalent to monotonicity of queries with respect to a semantics-induced ordering, and (2) for most reasonable semantics of incompleteness, such monotonicity is captured by preservation under various types of homomorphisms. Using these results we find classes of queries for which naïve evaluation works, for example, positive first-order formulae for the closed-world semantics. Even more, we introduce a general relation-based framework for defining semantics of incompleteness, show how it can be used to capture many known semantics and to introduce new ones, and describe classes of first-order queries for which naïve evaluation works under such semantics.
Report on the 4th Workshop on Context-awareness in Retrieval and Recommendation (CaRR 2014)
Authors: Said Alan , De Luca Ernesto W. , Quercia Daniele
Published: January 2015

Context-aware information is widely available in various ways and is becoming more and more important for enhancing retrieval performance and recommendation results. The current main issue to cope with is not only recommending or retrieving the most relevant items and content, but defining them ad hoc. Other relevant issues include personalizing and adapting the information and the way it is displayed to the user's current situation and interests.

The workshop on Context-awareness in Retrieval and Recommendation is a forum for research on context-awareness in information retrieval, recommender systems and human computer interaction. The fourth iteration of the workshop was organized in conjunction to the 36th European Conference on Information Retrieval in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Report on the WebQuality 2014 Workshop
Authors: Jatowt Adam , Castillo Carlos , Caverlee James , Tanaka Katsumi
Published: January 2015

The 4th Joint WICOW/AIRWeb Workshop on Web Quality (WebQuality 2014) was held in conjunction with the 23rd International World Wide Web Conference in Seoul, South Korea on the 7th April 2014. This report briefly summarizes the workshop.
Statements, data types and intrinsic procedures in the Fortran standards (1966-2008)
Authors: Gorelik A. M.
Published: January 2015

This paper contains the tables of statements, data types and intrinsic procedures in consecutive Fortran standards: from Fortran 66 up to Fortran 2008.
An experimental survey of energy management across the stack
Authors: Kambadur Melanie , Kim Martha A.
Published: January 2015

Modern demand for energy-efficient computation has spurred research at all levels of the stack, from devices to microarchitecture, operating systems, compilers, and languages. Unfortunately, this breadth has resulted in a disjointed space, with technologies at different levels of the system stack rarely compared, let alone coordinated.

This work begins to remedy the problem, conducting an experimental survey of the present state of energy management across the stack. Focusing on settings that are exposed to software, we measure the total energy, average power, and execution time of 41 benchmark applications in 220 configurations, across a total of 200,000 program executions.

Some of the more important findings of the survey include that effective parallelization and compiler optimizations have the potential to save far more energy than Linux's frequency tuning algorithms; that certain non-complementary energy strategies can undercut each other's savings by half when combined; and that while the power impacts of most strategies remain constant across applications, the runtime impacts vary, resulting in inconsistent energy impacts.
Compiler verification meets cross-language linking via data abstraction
Authors: Wang Peng , Cuellar Santiago , Chlipala Adam
Published: January 2015

Many real programs are written in multiple different programming languages, and supporting this pattern creates challenges for formal compiler verification. We describe our Coq verification of a compiler for a high-level language, such that the compiler correctness theorem allows us to derive partial-correctness Hoare-logic theorems for programs built by linking the assembly code output by our compiler and assembly code produced by other means. Our compiler supports such tricky features as storable cross-language function pointers, without giving up the usual benefits of being able to verify different compiler phases (including, in our case, two classic optimizations) independently. The key technical innovation is a mixed operational and axiomatic semantics for the source language, with a built-in notion of
abstract data types
, such that compiled code interfaces with other languages only through axiomatically specified methods that mutate encapsulated private data, represented in whatever formats are most natural for those languages.
Cybertron
Authors: Xiao Tian , Guo Zhenyu , Zhou Hucheng , Zhang Jiaxing , Zhao Xu , Ye Chencheng , Wang Xi , Lin Wei , Chen Wenguang , Zhou Lidong
Published: January 2015

I/O reduction has been a major focus in optimizing data-parallel programs for big-data processing. While the current state-of-the-art techniques use static program analysis to reduce I/O, Cybertron proposes a new direction that incorporates runtime mechanisms to push the limit further on I/O reduction. In particular, Cybertron tracks how data is used in the computation accurately at runtime to filter unused data at finer granularity dynamically, beyond what current static-analysis based mechanisms are capable of, and to facilitate a new mechanism called
constraint based encoding
for more efficient encoding. Cybertron has been implemented and applied to production data-parallel programs; our extensive evaluations on real programs and real data have shown its effectiveness on I/O reduction over the existing mechanisms at reasonable CPU cost, and its improvement on end-to-end performance in various network environments.
Validation of memory accesses through symbolic analyses
Authors: Nazaré Henrique , Maffra Izabela , Santos Willer , Barbosa Leonardo , Gonnord Laure , Quintão Pereira Fernando Magno
Published: January 2015

The C programming language does not prevent out-of-bounds memory accesses. There exist several techniques to secure C programs; however, these methods tend to slow down these programs substantially, because they populate the binary code with runtime checks. To deal with this problem, we have designed and tested two static analyses - symbolic region and range analysis - which we combine to remove the majority of these guards. In addition to the analyses themselves, we bring two other contributions. First, we describe live range splitting strategies that improve the efficiency and the precision of our analyses. Secondly, we show how to deal with integer overflows, a phenomenon that can compromise the correctness of static algorithms that validate memory accesses. We validate our claims by incorporating our findings into AddressSanitizer. We generate SPEC CINT 2006 code that is 17% faster and 9% more energy efficient than the code produced originally by this tool. Furthermore, our approach is 50% more effective than Pentagons, a state-of-the-art analysis to sanitize memory accesses.
Tardis
Authors: Barr Earl T. , Marron Mark
Published: January 2015

Developers who set a breakpoint a few statements too late or who are trying to diagnose a subtle bug from a single core dump often wish for a time-traveling debugger. The ability to rewind time to see the exact sequence of statements and program values leading to an error has great intuitive appeal but, due to large time and space overheads, time traveling debuggers have seen limited adoption. A managed runtime, such as the Java JVM or a JavaScript engine, has already paid much of the cost of providing core features - type safety, memory management, and virtual IO - that can be reused to implement a low overhead time-traveling debugger. We leverage this insight to design and build affordable time-traveling debuggers for managed languages. Tardis realizes our design: it provides affordable time-travel with an average overhead of only 7% during normal execution, a rate of 0.6MB/s of history logging, and a worst-case 0.68s time-travel latency on our benchmark applications. Tardis can also debug optimized code using time-travel to reconstruct state. This capability, coupled with its low overhead, makes Tardis suitable for use as the default debugger for managed languages, promising to bring time-traveling debugging into the mainstream and transform the practice of debugging.
Foundations of path-dependent types
Authors: Amin Nada , Rompf Tiark , Odersky Martin
Published: January 2015

A scalable programming language is one in which the same concepts can describe small as well as large parts. Towards this goal, Scala unifies concepts from object and module systems. An essential ingredient of this unification is the concept of objects with type members, which can be referenced through path-dependent types. Unfortunately, path-dependent types are not well-understood, and have been a roadblock in grounding the Scala type system on firm theory.

We study several calculi for path-dependent types. We present DOT which captures the essence - DOT stands for Dependent Object Types. We explore the design space bottom-up, teasing apart inherent from accidental complexities, while fully mechanizing our models at each step. Even in this simple setting, many interesting patterns arise from the interaction of structural and nominal features.

Whereas our simple calculus enjoys many desirable and intuitive properties, we demonstrate that the theory gets much more complicated once we add another Scala feature, type refinement, or extend the subtyping relation to a lattice. We discuss possible remedies and trade-offs in modeling type systems for Scala-like languages.
Static analysis for independent app developers
Authors: Brutschy Lucas , Ferrara Pietro , Müller Peter
Published: January 2015

Mobile app markets have lowered the barrier to market entry for software producers. As a consequence, an increasing number of independent app developers offer their products, and recent platforms such as the MIT App Inventor and Microsoft's TouchDevelop enable even lay programmers to develop apps and distribute them in app markets.

A major challenge in this distribution model is to ensure the quality of apps. Besides the usual sources of software errors, mobile apps are susceptible to errors caused by the non-determinism of an event-based execution model, a volatile environment, diverse hardware, and others. Many of these errors are difficult to detect during testing, especially for independent app developers, who are not supported by test teams and elaborate test infrastructures.

To address this problem, we propose a static program analysis that captures the specifics of mobile apps and is efficient enough to provide feedback during the development process. Experiments involving 51,456 published TouchDevelop scripts show that our analysis analyzes 98% of the scripts in under a minute, and five seconds on average. Manual inspection of the analysis results for a selection of all scripts shows that most of the alarms are real errors.
Call sequence prediction through probabilistic calling automata
Authors: Zhao Zhijia , Wu Bo , Zhou Mingzhou , Ding Yufei , Sun Jianhua , Shen Xipeng , Wu Youfeng
Published: January 2015

Predicting a sequence of upcoming function calls is important for optimizing programs written in modern managed languages (e.g., Java, Javascript, C#.) Existing function call predictions are mainly built on statistical patterns, suitable for predicting a single call but not a sequence of calls. This paper presents a new way to enable call sequence prediction, which exploits program structures through Probabilistic Calling Automata (PCA), a new program representation that captures both the inherent ensuing relations among function calls, and the probabilistic nature of execution paths. It shows that PCA-based prediction outperforms existing predictions, yielding substantial speedup when being applied to guide Just-In-Time compilation. By enabling accurate, efficient call sequence prediction for the first time, PCA-based predictors open up many new opportunities for dynamic program optimizations.
Confined gradual typing
Authors: Allende Esteban , Fabry Johan , Garcia Ronald , Tanter Éric
Published: January 2015

Gradual typing combines static and dynamic typing flexibly and safely in a single programming language. To do so, gradually typed languages implicitly insert casts where needed, to ensure at runtime that typing assumptions are not violated by untyped code. However, the implicit nature of cast insertion, especially on higher-order values, can jeopardize reliability and efficiency: higher-order casts can fail at any time, and are costly to execute. We propose Confined Gradual Typing, which extends gradual typing with two new type qualifiers that let programmers control the flow of values between the typed and the untyped worlds, and thereby trade some flexibility for more reliability and performance. We formally develop two variants of Confined Gradual Typing that capture different flexibility/guarantee tradeoffs. We report on the implementation of Confined Gradual Typing in Gradualtalk, a gradually-typed Smalltalk, which confirms the performance advantage of avoiding unwanted higher-order casts and the low overhead of the approach.
ASPIRE
Authors: Vora Keval , Koduru Sai Charan , Gupta Rajiv
Published: January 2015

Many vertex-centric graph algorithms can be expressed using asynchronous parallelism by relaxing certain read-after-write data dependences and allowing threads to compute vertex values using stale (i.e., not the most recent) values of their neighboring vertices. We observe that on distributed shared memory systems, by converting synchronous algorithms into their asynchronous counterparts, algorithms can be made tolerant to high inter-node communication latency. However, high inter-node communication latency can lead to excessive use of stale values causing an increase in the number of iterations required by the algorithms to converge. Although by using bounded staleness we can restrict the slowdown in the rate of convergence, this also restricts the ability to tolerate communication latency. In this paper we design a relaxed memory consistency model and consistency protocol that simultaneously tolerate communication latency and minimize the use of stale values. This is achieved via a coordinated use of best effort refresh policy and bounded staleness. We demonstrate that for a range of asynchronous graph algorithms and PDE solvers, on an average, our approach outperforms algorithms based upon: prior relaxed memory models that allow stale values by at least 2.27x; and Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) model by 4.2x. We also show that our approach frequently outperforms GraphLab, a popular distributed graph processing framework.
Space-efficient multi-versioning for input-adaptive feedback-driven program optimizations
Authors: Zhou Mingzhou , Shen Xipeng , Gao Yaoqing , Yiu Graham
Published: January 2015

Function versioning is an approach to addressing input-sensitivity of program optimizations. A major side effect of it is notable code size increase, which has been hindering its broad applications to large code bases and space-stringent environments. In this paper, we initiate a systematic exploration into the problem, providing answers to some fundamental questions: Given a space constraint, to which function we should apply versioning? How many versions of a function should we include in the final executable? Is the optimal selection feasible to do in polynomial time? This study proves selecting the best set of versions under a space constraint is NP-complete and proposes a heuristic algorithm named CHoGS which yields near optimal results in quadratic time. We implement the algorithm and conduct experiments through the IBM XL compilers. We observe significant performance enhancement with only slight code size increase; the results from CHoGS show factors of higher space efficiency than those from traditional hotness-based methods.
Bounded exhaustive test input generation from hybrid invariants
Authors: Rosner Nicolás , Bengolea Valeria , Ponzio Pablo , Khalek Shadi Abdul , Aguirre Nazareno , Frias Marcelo F. , Khurshid Sarfraz
Published: January 2015

We present a novel technique for producing bounded exhaustive test suites from hybrid invariants, i.e., invariants that are expressed imperatively, declaratively, or as a combination of declarative and imperative predicates. Hybrid specifications are processed using known mechanisms for the imperative and declarative parts, but combined in a way that enables us to exploit information from the declarative side, such as
tight bounds
computed from the declarative specification, to improve the search both on the imperative and declarative sides. Moreover, our technique automatically evaluates different possible ways of processing the imperative side, and the alternative settings (imperative or declarative) for parts of the invariant available both declaratively and imperatively, to decide the most convenient invariant configuration with respect to efficiency in test generation. This is achieved by transcoping, i.e., by assessing the efficiency of the different alternatives on small scopes (where generation times are negligible), and then extrapolating the results to larger scopes.

We also show experiments involving collection classes that support the effectiveness of our technique, by demonstrating that
(i)
bounded exhaustive suites can be computed from hybrid invariants significantly more efficiently than doing so using state-of-the-art purely imperative and purely declarative approaches, and
(ii)
our technique is able to automatically determine efficient hybrid invariants, in the sense that they lead to an efficient computation of bounded exhaustive suites, using transcoping.
From object algebras to attribute grammars
Authors: Rendel Tillmann , Brachthäuser Jonathan Immanuel , Ostermann Klaus
Published: January 2015

Oliveira and Cook (2012) and Oliveira et al. (2013) have recently introduced object algebras as a program structuring technique to improve the modularity and extensibility of programs. We analyze the relationship between object algebras and attribute grammars (AGs), a formalism to augment context-free grammars with attributes. We present an extension of the object algebra technique with which the full class of L-attributed grammars - an important class of AGs that corresponds to one-pass compilers - can be encoded in Scala. The encoding is modular (attributes can be defined and type-checked separately), scalable (the size of the encoding is linear in the size of the AG specification) and compositional (each AG artifact is represented as a semantic object of the host language). To evaluate these claims, we have formalized the encoding and re-implemented a one-pass compiler for a subset of C with our technique. We also discuss how advanced features of modern AG systems, such as higher-order and parameterized attributes, reference attributes, and forwarding can be supported.
GPS
Authors: Turon Aaron , Vafeiadis Viktor , Dreyer Derek
Published: January 2015

Weak memory models formalize the inconsistent behaviors that one can expect to observe in multithreaded programs running on modern hardware. In so doing, however, they complicate the already-difficult task of reasoning about correctness of concurrent code. Worse, they render impotent the sophisticated formal methods that have been developed to tame concurrency, which almost universally assume a strong (
i.e
. sequentially consistent) memory model.

This paper introduces
GPS
, the first program logic to provide a full-fledged suite of modern verification techniques - including ghost state, protocols,
and
separation logic - for high-level, structured reasoning about weak memory. We demonstrate the effectiveness of GPS by applying it to challenging examples drawn from the Linux kernel as well as lock-free data structures. We also define the semantics of GPS and prove in Coq that it is sound with respect to the axiomatic C11 weak memory model.
Region-based memory management for GPU programming languages
Authors: Holk Eric , Newton Ryan , Siek Jeremy , Lumsdaine Andrew
Published: January 2015

Graphics processing units (GPUs) can effectively accelerate many applications, but their applicability has been largely limited to problems whose solutions can be expressed neatly in terms of linear algebra. Indeed, most GPU programming languages limit the user to simple data structures - typically only multidimensional rectangular arrays of scalar values. Many algorithms are more naturally expressed using higher level language features, such as algebraic data types (ADTs) and first class procedures, yet building these structures in a manner suitable for a GPU remains a challenge. We present a region-based memory management approach that enables rich data structures in Harlan, a language for data parallel computing. Regions enable rich data structures by providing a uniform representation for pointers on both the CPU and GPU and by providing a means of transferring entire data structures between CPU and GPU memory. We demonstrate Harlan's increased expressiveness on several example programs and show that Harlan performs well on more traditional data-parallel problems.
Abstract semantic differencing via speculative correlation
Authors: Partush Nimrod , Yahav Eran
Published: January 2015

We address the problem of computing semantic differences between a program and a patched version of the program. Our goal is to obtain a precise characterization of the difference between program versions, or establish their equivalence. We focus on infinite-state numerical programs, and use abstract interpretation to compute an over-approximation of program differences.

Computing differences and establishing equivalence under abstraction requires abstracting relationships between variables in the two programs. Towards that end, we use a correlating abstract domain to compute a sound approximation of these relationships which captures semantic difference. This approximation can be computed over any interleaving of the two programs. However, the choice of interleaving can significantly affect precision. We present a
speculative search algorithm
that aims to find an interleaving of the two programs with minimal abstract semantic difference. This method is unique as it allows the analysis to dynamically alternate between several interleavings.

We have implemented our approach and applied it to real-world examples including patches from Git, GNU Coreutils, as well as a few handpicked patches from the Linux kernel and the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Our evaluation shows that we compute precise approximations of semantic differences, and report few false differences.
Ocean Spray
Authors: Veron Fabrice
Published: January 2015

Ocean spray consists of small water droplets ejected from the ocean surface following surface breaking wave events. These drops get transported in the marine atmospheric boundary layer, in which they exchange momentum and heat with the atmosphere. Small spray droplets are transported over large distances and can remain in the atmosphere for several days, where they will scatter radiation; evaporate entirely, leaving behind sea salt; participate in the aerosol chemical cycle; and act as cloud condensation nuclei. Large droplets remain close to the ocean surface and affect the air-sea fluxes of momentum and enthalpy, thereby enhancing the intensity of tropical cyclones. This review summarizes recent progress and the emerging consensus about the number flux and implications of small sea spray droplets. I also summarize shortcomings in our understanding of the impact of large spray droplets on the meteorology of storm systems.
Consolidating Memories
Authors: McGaugh James L.
Published: January 2015

Our own experiences, as well as the findings of many studies, suggest that emotionally arousing experiences can create lasting memories. This autobiographical article provides a brief summary of the author's research investigating neurobiological systems responsible for the influence of emotional arousal on the consolidation of lasting memories. The research began with the finding that stimulant drugs enhanced memory in rats when administered shortly after training. Those findings suggested the possibility that endogenous systems activated by arousal might influence neural processes underlying memory consolidation. Subsequent findings that adrenal stress hormones activated by learning experiences enhance memory consolidation provided strong evidence supporting this hypothesis. Other findings suggest that the enhancement is induced by stress hormone activation of the amygdala. The findings also suggest that the basolateral amygdala modulates memory consolidation via its projections to brain regions involved in processing different aspects and forms of memory. This emotional-arousal-activated neurobiological system thus seems to play an important adaptive role in insuring that the strength of our memories will reflect their emotional significance.
Childhood Antecedents and Risk for Adult Mental Disorders
Authors: Pine Daniel S. , Fox Nathan A.
Published: January 2015

Progress in treating and preventing mental disorders may follow from research that integrates development, genetics, and neuroscience. This review first delineates how longitudinal research has identified three particular groups of disorders shown to differ on the basis of symptom trajectories and risk-factor profiles. In the next section, the review describes how research on genetic contributions to psychopathology has elucidated the nature of risk for two groups of disorders, the neurodevelopmental and psychotic disorders. In the third section, the review describes how research on environmental contributions to psychopathology has targeted early temperament, its associated perturbations in information-processing functions, and its relations to a third group of disorders, the emotional disorders. For all three groups of disorders, such integrative research has generated ideas about novel interventions. The hope is that over the coming decade such ideas will lead to novel treatments that alter the trajectory of risk in developmental psychopathology.
Aging and the Muscle-Bone Relationship
Authors: Novotny Susan A. , Warren Gordon L. , Hamrick Mark W.
Published: January 2015

Aging-induced declines in muscle size and quality are thought to contribute to catabolic alterations in bone, but changes in bone with age also profoundly alter its response to muscle-derived stimuli. This review provides an overview of some of the alterations that occur in muscle and bone with aging, and discusses the cellular and molecular mechanisms that may impact these age-associated changes.
More Becomes Less: Management Strategy Has Definitely Changed over the Past Decade of Splenic Injury—A Nationwide Population-Based Study
Authors: Soo Kwan-Ming , Lin Tsung-Ying , Chen Chao-Wen , Lin Yen-Ko , Kuo Liang-Chi , Wang Jaw-Yuan , Lee Wei-Che , Lin Hsing-Lin
Published: January 2015

Background. Blunt spleen injury is generally taken as major trauma which is potentially lethal. However, the management strategy has progressively changed to noninvasive treatment over the decade. This study aimed to (1) find out the incidence and trend of strategy change; (2) investigate the effect of change on the mortality rate over the study period; and (3) evaluate the risk factors of mortality.Materials and Methods. We utilized nationwide population-based data to explore the incidence of BSI during a 12-year study period. The demographic characteristics, including gender, age, surgical intervention, blood transfusion, availability of CT scans, and numbers of coexisting injuries, were collected for analysis. Mortality, hospital length of stay, and cost were as outcome variables.Results. 578 splenic injuries were recorded with an estimated incidence of 48 per million per year. The average 12-year overall mortality rate during hospital stay was 5.28% (29/549). There is a trend of decreasing operative management in patients (X2,P=0.004). The risk factors for mortality in BSI from a multivariate logistic regression analysis were amount of transfusion (OR 1.033,P<0.001, CI 1.017–1.049), with or without CT obtained (OR 0.347,P=0.026, CI 0.158–0.889), and numbers of coexisting injuries (OR 1.346,P=0.043, CI 1.010–1.842).Conclusion. Although uncommon of BSI, management strategy is obviously changed to nonoperative treatment without increasing mortality and blood transfusion under the increase of CT utilization. Patients with more coexisting injuries and more blood transfusion had higher mortality.
Relationship between Hyperuricemia and Lipid Profiles in US Adults
Authors: Peng Tao-Chun , Wang Chung-Ching , Kao Tung-Wei , Chan James Yi-Hsin , Yang Ya-Hui , Chang Yaw-Wen , Chen Wei-Liang
Published: January 2015

Background. Although the link between hyperuricemia and metabolic syndrome had been recognized, the association of the dyslipidemia among individuals with hyperuricemia remains not comprehensively assessed.Methods. Using NHANES III study, we examined the relation between serum lipid profiles and different serum uric acid levels, including serum total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein-B, lipoprotein (a), apolipoprotein AI, ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol, and ratio of apolipoprotein-B to AI.Results. After adjusting for potential confounders, average differences (95% confidence interval) comparing the top to the bottom (reference) serum uric acid were 0.29 (0.19, 0.39) mmol/L for total cholesterol, 0.33 (0.26, 0.41) mmol/L for triglycerides, 0.14 (0.01, 0.27) mmol/L for LDL cholesterol, −0.08 (−0.11, −0.05) mmol/L for HDL, and 0.09 (0.05, 0.12) g/L for serum apolipoprotein-B. Notably, ratios of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein-B to AI were also linearly associated with uric acid levels (Pfor trend < 0.001).Conclusions. This study suggested that serum LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, total cholesterol, apolipoprotein-B levels, ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol, and ratio of apolipoprotein-B to AI are strongly associated with serum uric acid levels, whereas serum HDL cholesterol levels are significantly inversely associated. In the clinical practice, the more comprehensive strategic management to deal with dyslipidemia and hyperuricemia deserves further investigation.
Comparing Miniopen and Minimally Invasive Transforaminal Interbody Fusion in Single-Level Lumbar Degeneration
Authors: Lo Wei-Lun , Lin Chien-Min , Yeh Yi-Shian , Su Yu-kai , Tseng Yuan-Yun , Yang Shun-Tai , Lin Jai-Wei
Published: January 2015

Degenerative diseases of the lumbar spine, which are common among elderly people, cause back pain and radicular symptoms and lead to a poor quality of life. Lumbar spinal fusion is a standardized and widely accepted surgical procedure used for treating degenerative lumbar diseases; however, the classical posterior approach used in this procedure is recognized to cause vascular and neurologic damage of the lumbar muscles. Various studies have suggested that using the minimally invasive transforaminal interbody fusion (TLIF) technique provides long-term clinical outcomes comparable to those of open TLIF approaches in selected patients. In this study, we compared the perioperative and short-term advantages of miniopen, MI, and open TLIF. Compared with open TLIF, MI-TLIF and miniopen TLIF were associated with less blood loss, shorter hospital stays, and longer operative times; however, following the use of these procedures, no difference in quality of life was measured at 6 months or 1 year. Whether miniopen TLIF or MI-TLIF can replace traditional TLIF as the surgery of choice for treating degenerative lumbar deformity remains unclear, and additional studies are required for validating the safety and efficiency of these procedures.
On the r-Central Coefficient Matrices of the Catalan Triangles
Authors: Yin Juan , Yang Sheng-Liang
Published: January 2015

We introduce the definition of the r-central coefficient matrices of a given Riordan array. Applying this definition and Lagrange Inversion Formula, we can calculate the r-central coefficient matrices of Catalan triangles and obtain some interesting triangles and sequences.
Severe Acute Pancreatitis in Pregnancy
Authors: Abdullah Bahiyah , Kathiresan Pillai Thanikasalam , Cheen Lim Huay , Ryan Ray Joshua
Published: January 2015

This is a case of a pregnant lady at 8 weeks of gestation, who presented with acute abdomen. She was initially diagnosed with ruptured ectopic pregnancy and ruptured corpus luteal cyst as the differential diagnosis. However she then, was finally diagnosed as acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis with spontaneous complete miscarriage. This is followed by review of literature on this topic. Acute pancreatitis in pregnancy is not uncommon. The emphasis on high index of suspicion of acute pancreatitis in women who presented with acute abdomen in pregnancy is highlighted. Early diagnosis and good supportive care by multidisciplinary team are crucial to ensure good maternal and fetal outcomes.
Ameloblastic Fibroma of the Maxilla with Bilateral Presentation: Report of a Rare Case with Review of the Literature
Authors: Ealla Kranti Kiran Reddy , Basavanapalli Vijayabaskar Reddy , Velidandla Surekha Reddy , Manikya Sangameshwar , Ragulakollu Rajesh , Danappanavar Prasanna M. , Vennila Vijayasree
Published: January 2015

Ameloblastic fibroma (AF) is an uncommon benign odontogenic tumour, with both epithelial and mesenchymal neoplastic proliferation. It occurs most frequently in the posterior region of the mandible, while its occurrence in the maxilla is extremely rare. They are usually encountered in children, emphasizing it as an important diagnostic consideration. Herein, we report the first case of a bilateral maxillary ameloblastic fibroma in a 2-year-old female child patient who presented with a chief complaint of swelling in the right mid facial region.