Using Dynamic Information in the Interprocedural Static Slicing of Binary Executables

Although the slicing of programs written in a high-level language has been widely studied in the literature, relatively few papers have been published on the slicing of binary executable programs. The lack of existing solutions for the latter is really hard to understand since the application domain for slicing binaries is similar to that for slicing high-level languages. Furthermore, there are special applications of the slicing of programs without source code like source code recovery, code transformation and the detection of security critical code fragments. In this paper, in addition to describing the method of interprocedural static slicing of binaries, we discuss how the set of the possible targets of indirect call sites can be reduced by dynamically gathered information. Our evaluation of the slicing method shows that, if indirect function calls are extensively used, both the number of edges in the call graph and the size of the slices can be significantly reduced.Ákos Kiss obtained his M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Szeged in 2000. He is currently working on his Ph.D. thesis and his chosen field of research is the analysis and optimization of binary executables. He was the chief programmer of a code compaction project which sought to reduce ARM binaries. He is also interested in GCC and in open source developmentJudit Jász obtained her M.Sc. in Computer Science recently from the University of Szeged and is currently a Ph.D student. Her main research interest is adapting slicing methods—originally intended for high-level languages—to binary executables. She is also actively working on improving the GCC compiler.Tibor Gyimóthy is the head of the Software Engineering Department at the University of Szeged in Hungary. His research interests include program comprehension, slicing, reverse engineering and compiler optimization. He has published over 60 papers in these areas and was the leader of several software engineering R&D projects. He is the Program Co-Chair of the 21th International Conference on Software Maintenance, which will be held in Budapest, Hungary in 2005.     

Electrochemical reduction of lanthanides in propylene carbonate

The electrochemical reduction of europium, ytterbium and samarium in propylene carbonate was investigated by cyclic voltammetry. These reactions proceed in two stages, where the first is due to the formation of divalent ions. The influence of the water content in the stability of Sm²⁺ is analysed, since Sm²⁺ is partly oxidised by the wter present in the propylene carbonate. The stability of the divalent species decreases in the order: Eu²⁺ > Yb²⁺ > Sm²⁺.     

Molecular Mechanisms of Taste Recognition: Considerations about the Role of Saliva

The gustatory system plays a critical role in determining food preferences and food intake, in addition to nutritive, energy and electrolyte balance. Fine tuning of the gustatory system is also crucial in this respect. The exact mechanisms that fine tune taste sensitivity are as of yet poorly defined, but it is clear that various effects of saliva on taste recognition are also involved. Specifically those metabolic polypeptides present in the saliva that were classically considered to be gut and appetite hormones (i.e., leptin, ghrelin, insulin, neuropeptide Y, peptide YY) were considered to play a pivotal role. Besides these, data clearly indicate the major role of several other salivary proteins, such as salivary carbonic anhydrase (gustin), proline-rich proteins, cystatins, alpha-amylases, histatins, salivary albumin and mucins. Other proteins like glucagon-like peptide-1, salivary immunoglobulin-A, zinc-α-2-glycoprotein, salivary lactoperoxidase, salivary prolactin-inducible protein and salivary molecular chaperone HSP70/HSPAs were also expected to play an important role. Furthermore, factors including salivary flow rate, buffer capacity and ionic composition of saliva should also be considered. In this paper, the current state of research related to the above and the overall emerging field of taste-related salivary research alongside basic principles of taste perception is reviewed.     

Dielectric Properties of Ultrathin CaF2 Ionic Crystals

Mechanically exfoliated 2D hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is currently the preferred dielectric material to interact with graphene and 2D transition metal dichalcogenides in nanoelectronic devices, as they form a clean van der Waals interface. However, h-BN has a low dielectric constant (≈3.9), which in ultrascaled devices results in high leakage current and premature dielectric breakdown. Furthermore, the synthesis of h-BN using scalable methods, such as chemical vapor deposition, requires very high temperatures (>900 °C) , and the resulting h-BN stacks contain abundant few-atoms-wide amorphous regions that decrease its homogeneity and dielectric strength. Here it is shown that ultrathin calcium fluoride (CaF₂) ionic crystals could be an excellent solution to mitigate these problems. By applying >3000 ramped voltage stresses and several current maps at different locations of the samples via conductive atomic force microscopy, it is statistically demonstrated that ultrathin CaF₂ shows much better dielectric performance (i.e., homogeneity, leakage current, and dielectric strength) than SiO₂, TiO₂, and h-BN. The main reason behind this behavior is that the cubic crystalline structure of CaF₂ is continuous and free of defects over large regions, which prevents the formation of electrically weak spots.     

Investigation of spatial ability test completion times in virtual reality using a desktop display and the Gear VR

Virtual Reality - The interaction time of students who did spatial ability tests in a virtual reality environment is analyzed. The spatial ability test completion times of 240 and 61 students were...     

Engineering Field Effect Transistors with 2D Semiconducting Channels: Status and Prospects

The continuous miniaturization of field effect transistors (FETs) dictated by Moore's law has enabled continuous enhancement of their performance during the last four decades, allowing the fabrication of more powerful electronic products (e.g., computers and phones). However, as the size of FETs currently approaches interatomic distances, a general performance stagnation is expected, and new strategies to continue the performance enhancement trend are being thoroughly investigated. Among them, the use of 2D semiconducting materials as channels in FETs has raised a lot of interest in both academia and industry. However, after 15 years of intense research on 2D materials, there remain important limitations preventing their integration in solid‐state microelectronic devices. In this work, the main methods developed to fabricate FETs with 2D semiconducting channels are presented, and their scalability and compatibility with the requirements imposed by the semiconductor industry are discussed. The key factors that determine the performance of FETs with 2D semiconducting channels are carefully analyzed, and some recommendations to engineer them are proposed. This report presents a pathway for the integration of 2D semiconducting materials in FETs, and therefore, it may become a useful guide for materials scientists and engineers working in this field.     

Stable nitrogen isotope analysis of amino Acid enantiomers by gas chromatography/combustion/isotope ratio mass spectrometry

The analysis of the stable nitrogen isotope compositions of individual amino acid stereoisomers through the use of gas chromatography/combustion/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC/C/IRMS) is presented. Nitrogen isotopic compositions of single amino acids or of their enantiomers is possible without the labor-intensive and time-consuming preparative-scale chromatographic procedures required for conventional stable isotope analysis. Following hydrolysis and derivatization, single-component isotope analysis is accomplished on nanomole quantities of each of the stereoisomers of an amino acid, utilizing the effluent stream of gas chromatographic separation. Nitrogen isotope fractionation is minimal during acylation of the amino acid, with no additional nitrogen being added stoichiometrically to the derivative. Thus, the isotopic composition of the nitrogen in the derivative is that of the original compound. Replicate stable nitrogen isotope analyses of 11 amino acids, and their trifluoroacetyl (TFA)/isopropyl (IP) ester derivatives, determined by both conventional isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) and GC/C/IRMS, indicate that the GC procedure is highly reproducible (standard deviations typically 0.3-0.4‰) and that isotopic differences between the amino acid and its TFA/IP derivative are, in general, less than 0.5‰.     

Potential fabric-reinforced composites: a comprehensive review

Journal of Materials Science - Fabric-based laminated composites are used considerably for multifaceted applications in the automotive, transportation, defense, and structural construction sectors....