Incremental Model Synchronization

Changing artifacts is intrinsic to the development and maintenance of software projects. The changes made to one artifact, however, do not come about in isolation. Software models are often vastly entangled. As such, a minuscule modification in one ripples in- consistency through several others. The primary goal of the this thesis is to investigate techniques and processes for the synchronization of artifacts in model driven development environments in which projects comprise manifold interdependent models, each being a live document that is continuously altered and evolved. The co-evolution of these artifacts demands an efficient mechanism to keep them consistent in such dynamic environments. To achieve this consistency, we intend to explore methods and algorithms for impact anal- ysis and the propagation of modifications across heterogenous interdependent models. In particular, we consider large scale models that are generated from other models by complex artifact generators. After creation, both the generated artifacts, and also the ones they are generated from, are subject to evolutionary changes throughout which their mutual consistency should be maintained. In such situations, the model transformation is the pri- mary benchmark of consistency rules between source and target models. But the rules are often implanted inside the implementation of artifact generators and hence unavailable. Trivially, the artifacts can be synchronized by regeneration. More often than not however, regeneration of such artifacts from scratch tends to be unwieldy due to their massive size. This thesis is a summary of research on effective change management methodologies in the context of model driven development. In particular, it presents two methods of in- crementally synchronizing software models related by existing model transformations, so that the synchronization time is proportional to the magnitude of change and not to the size of models. The first approach treats model transformations as black-boxes and adds to it incremental synchronization by a technique called conceptualization. The black-box is distinguished from other undertakings in that it does not require the extraction, re- engineering and re-implementation of consistency rules embedded inside transformations. The second approach is a white-box approach that uses static analysis to automatically transform the source code of the transformation into an incremental one. In particular it uses partial evaluation to derive a specialized, incremental transformation from the exist- ing one. These two approaches are complementary and together support a comprehensive range of model transformations

Software Watermarking

Software watermarking is a defence technique used to prevent software piracy by embedding a signature, i.e., an identifier reliably representing the owner, in the code. When an illegal copy is made, the ownership can be claimed by extracting this identifier. The signature has to be hidden inside the program and it has to be difficult for an attacker to detect, tamper or remove it. In this paper we show how the ability of the attacker to identify the signature can be modelled in the framework of abstract interpretation as a completeness property. We view attackers as abstract interpreters that can precisely observe only the properties for which they are complete. In this setting, hiding a signature in the code corresponds to inserting it in terms of a semantic property that can be retrieved only by attackers that are complete for it. Indeed, any abstract interpreter that is not complete for the property specifying the signature cannot detect, tamper or remove it. The goal of this work is to introduce a formal framework for the modelling, at a semantic level, of software watermarking techniques and their quality features

Semifragile Speech Watermarking Based on Least Significant Bit Replacement of Line Spectral Frequencies

There are various techniques for speech watermarking based on modifying the linear prediction coefficients (LPCs); however, the estimated and modified LPCs vary from each other even without attacks. Because line spectral frequency (LSF) has less sensitivity to watermarking than LPC, watermark bits are embedded into the maximum number of LSFs by applying the least significant bit replacement (LSBR) method. To reduce the differences between estimated and modified LPCs, a checking loop is added to minimize the watermark extraction error. Experimental results show that the proposed semifragile speech watermarking method can provide high imperceptibility and that any manipulation of the watermark signal destroys the watermark bits since manipulation changes it to a random stream of bits

Effect of testosterone and fluoxetine on aggressive behaviors of fighting fish, Betta splendens

Effects of oral administration of testosterone and fluoxetine exposure on aggressive behavior of the fighting fish, Betta splendens, were investigated. Testosterone diluted in ethanol and sprayed on pre-weighted pellet to achieve concentrations of 0, 1, 2 and 4 mg/kg of hormone in food. Two main behaviors were recorded: the time in front of mirror and duration of the gill flaring using a mirror 8 and 15 days after the start of the experiment. Then, half of the specimens in each treatment subjected to waterborne fluoxetine at a concentration of 100 µg/L for 24 hours and the behavior was recorded. After 8 days of feeding, the time in front of mirror and duration of gill flaring were not significantly different between the treatments. Duration of the gill flaring increased significantly after 15 days; however there was no significant difference for the behavior in front of the mirror. Over time the aggressive behaviors were reduced significantly after fluoxetine exposure. This study indicated that fluoxetine in the aquatic environment alters the aggressive behaviors of the fighting fish

A Survey of Social Cognitive Determinants of Physical Activity among Iranian Women Using Path Analysis Method

Introduction: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 400 women selected from urban health centers in Isfahan through stratified sampling. The study was designed to evaluate the social cognitive theoretical model in explaining determinants of physical activity among women using path analysis method.Methods: In a hypothetical framework, the relationship between self-efficacy, outcome expectation, social support and self-regulation and physical activity were assessed using path analysis and indices of fitness. Furthermore, the predictive power of the model was evaluated.Results: Social cognitive theoretical model had a good predictive power for physical activity. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed the suitability of the theoretical model; this model is able to cover 80 % of physical activity variance. Evaluation of social cognitive theoretical model using path analysis showed that self-regulation was the strongest determinant of physical activity. Social support and outcome expectation had very weak effects on physical activity; nonetheless, their effect was enhanced by the presence of self-regulation. Self-efficacy had a weak effect on physical activity, however as an intermediate variable, it reinforced the impact of social support and outcome expectation on physical activity.Conclusions: The use of the present hypothetical model is suggested as an appropriate framework in research related to physical activity among women as well as to strengthening self-regulation skills in designing and implementing programs promoting physical activities

A review on the Current Areas of Geriatric`s Research in Iran

Introduction: Population aging is becoming a global challenge for developing countries. The aim of the present paper is to review the current literature on geriatric health and to propose possible research areas. Methods: By reviewing scientific databases, all published papers in geriatric health within the last 5 years (until 31 December, 2019) were extracted. Inclusion criteria were being about elderly health conducted on Iranian elderly population and published no longer than 5 years ago. Unrelated, foreign studies and qualitative, trend analysis, and case series were excluded. The keywords were classified into 5 macro domain of General, Biological, psychological, Social and Spiritual domains. Results: Until 31 December, 2019, 713 related studies were finally retrieved. 56.8% of keywords belonged to the Biological macro domain. Among which, neurologic disorders had the highest proportion of studies (n=108, 15.1%). The most prevalent subdomain was the “Sociological” (P=15.4%) and the most prevalent keyword was “Quality of life”. The lowest proportion of studies was belonged to Hematology and Otolaryngology (0.4% each). Among the top institutions in terms of publication output are University of Social welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences (11%), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (9.7%), and Iran University of Medical Sciences (9%).   Conclusion: Most of the literature concerning elderly`s health in Iran has focused on biologic aspect of health. There seems to be an urgent need to develop a research roadmap to cover all aspects of research among elderlies. Various prepositions to develop and promote context-based and innovative strategies are also provided

Digital audio and speech watermarking based on the multiple discrete wavelets transform and singular value decomposition

The ever-increasing illegal manipulation of genuine audio products has been a dilemma for the music industry. This situation calls for immediate, yet effective, solutions to avoid further financial losses and intellectual property violations. Audio and speech watermarking has been proposed as a possible solution, since this technology embeds copyright information into audio files as a proof of their ownership. In this paper, we propose an effective, robust, and an inaudible audio and speech watermarking algorithm. The effectiveness of the algorithm has been brought by virtue of applying a cascade of two powerful mathematical transforms; the discrete wavelets transform (DWT) and the singular value decomposition (SVD). Experimental results will be presented in this paper to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm

Optimization of a Blind Speech Watermarking Technique against Amplitude Scaling

This paper presents a gain invariant speech watermarking technique based on quantization of the Lp-norm. In this scheme, first, the original speech signal is divided into different frames. Second, each frame is divided into two vectors based on odd and even indices. Third, quantization index modulation (QIM) is used to embed the watermark bits into the ratio of the Lp-norm between the odd and even indices. Finally, the Lagrange optimization technique is applied to minimize the embedding distortion. By applying a statistical analytical approach, the embedding distortion and error probability are estimated. Experimental results not only confirm the accuracy of the driven statistical analytical approach but also prove the robustness of the proposed technique against common signal processing attacks