Sequence Of Instructions Research Articles

A Streamlined Framework of Metamorphic Malware Classification via Sampling and Parallel Processing

Nowadays, malware remains a significant threat to the current cyberspace. More seriously, malware authors frequently use metamorphic techniques to create numerous variants, which throws malware researchers a heavy burden. Being able to classify these metamorphic malware samples into their corresponding families could accelerate the malware analysis task efficiently. Based on our comprehensive analysis, these variants are usually implemented by making changes to their assembly instruction sequences to a certain extent. Motivated by this finding, we present a streamlined and efficient framework of malware family classification named MalSEF, which leverages sampling and parallel processing to efficiently and effectively classify the vast number of metamorphic malware variants. At first, it attenuates the complexity of feature engineering by extracting a small portion of representative samples from the entire dataset and establishing a simple feature vector based on the Opcode sequences; then, it generates the feature matrix and conducts the classification task in parallel with collaboration utilizing multiple cores and a proactive recommendation scheme. At last, its practicality is strengthened to cope with the large volume of diversified malware variants based on common computing platforms. Our comprehensive experiments conducted on the Kaggle malware dataset demonstrate that MalSEF achieves a classification accuracy of up to 98.53% and reduces time overhead by 37.60% compared to the serial processing procedure.

Combining experiments, theory, and computer simulation: Application of dynamics analysis of unbalanced wheels rolling without sliding on horizontal paths

AbstractRigid solid body dynamics is a key element of the undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum. In a context of reverse engineering and/or sustainable development, being able to analyze the mechanical and material properties of a system without damaging it is a required skill. In this work, two systems based on wheels rolling over horizontal paths without sliding are studied: an unbalanced hollow cylinder and a wheel with displaced mass assembly. Four generations of last year's bachelor's students in mechanical engineering, representing a hundred people a year, followed a total of 12 h of practical sessions working on such systems. Without focusing on the programming part, this paper aims at showing how computer tools can help and improve a rigid solid body dynamics course. The objectives were to develop, apply, and analyze this teaching sequence, allowing students to (i) perform and characterize experimental measurements, (ii) establish systems motion equations, and (iii) think about dynamics results through cross‐talks between different techniques such as geometrical and analytical methods as well as computer‐assisted design tools. Different analysis methods of these systems could be discussed in the context of the classes, successfully bringing pertinent reflections to the students. The possibility of transferring such discussions to other contexts proved to be wide, thanks to computer science, dynamics software, other analysis methods and applications.

Bridging physical and virtual ecologies of action: giving and following instructions in co-located VR-gaming sessions

Using multimodal conversation analysis, this study examines how communicative practices are adapted to the affordances for interaction in co-located encounters where participants are getting acquainted with VR-technology and games. The analysis focuses on instructional activities and investigates how an expert player guides others in learning how to handle VR equipment and getting to know the game mechanics during the initial moments of starting a new game.
 The data comprises video-recordings of informal social gatherings of 3-4 young adults who take turns in trying out different VR games. The gaming situations were organized in a temporary game lab using consumer-grade VR equipment, a large screen that displayed video feed from the game console and loudspeakers for the game sound.
 The analysis demonstrates how the experienced player who has no direct agency over the virtual world uses verbal and carefully placed tactile means to help novice players (who in turn have restricted access to the material world) navigate the initial stages of entering a game. Their complying actions, on the other hand, are characterized by finely tuned bodily adjustments in interplay with affordances of the technology. The instruction sequences, therefore, represent interactional moments in which the participants mutually attend to asymmetries, orienting to bridging physical and virtual ecologies of action.

How to make (mathematical) assertions with directives

It is prima facie uncontroversial that the justification of an assertion amounts to a collection of other (inferentially related) assertions. In this paper, we point at a class of assertions, i.e. mathematical assertions, that appear to systematically flout this principle. To justify a mathematical assertion (e.g. a theorem) is to provide a proof—and proofs are sequences of directives. The claim is backed up by linguistic data on the use of imperatives in proofs, and by a pragmatic analysis of theorems and their proofs. Proofs, we argue, are sequences of instructions whose performance inevitably gets one to truth. It follows that a felicitous theorem, i.e. a theorem that has been correctly proven, is a persuasive theorem. When it comes to mathematical assertions, there is no sharp distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary success.

CEP-DTHP : A Complex Event Processing using the Dual-Tier Hybrid Paradigm Over the Stream Mining Process

CEP is a widely used technique for the reliability and recognition of arbitrarily complex patterns in enormous data streams with great performance in real time. Real-time detection of crucial events and rapid response to them are the key goals of sophisticated event processing. The performance of event processing systems can be improved by parallelizing CEP evaluation procedures. Utilizing CEP in parallel while deploying a multi-core or distributed environment is one of the most popular and widely recognized tackles to accomplish the goal. This paper demonstrates the ability to use an unusual parallelization strategy to effectively process complicated events over streams of data. This method depends on a dual-tier hybrid paradigm that combines several parallelism levels. Thread-level or task-level parallelism (TLP) and Data-level parallelism (DLP) were combined in this research. Many threads or instruction sequences from a comparable application can run concurrently under the TLP paradigm. In the DLP paradigm, instruc-tions from a single stream operate on several data streams at the same time. In our suggested model, there are four major stages: data mining, pre-processing, load shedding, and optimization. The first phase is online data mining, following which the data is materialized into a publicly available solution that combines a CEP engine with a library. Next, data pre-processing encompasses the efficient adaptation of the content or format of raw data from many, perhaps diverse sources. Finally, parallelization approaches have been created to reduce CEP processing time. By providing this two-type parallelism, our proposed solution combines the benefits of DLP and TLP while addressing their constraints. The JAVA tool will be used to assess the suggested technique. The performance of the suggested technique is compared to that of other current ways for determining the efficacy and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

Effects of integrated form-focused instruction on vocabulary learning for Chinese English learners

ABSTRACT Vocabulary is an essential component of language learning. Despite the fact that form-focused instruction (hereinafter FFI) has been demonstrated to be effective in language learning, it remains unclear when and how FFI can contribute to vocabulary learning. To address this question, this study takes the timing of FFI into consideration and investigates the effects of integrated FFI, which incorporates form focus into meaning-oriented communicative activities in the instructional sequence, on vocabulary learning and Chinese English learners’ preferences for integrated FFI in vocabulary learning. One hundred and four first-year students from a senior high school were randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a control group for an eight-week experiment. The experimental group received integrated FFI while the control group maintained their previous traditional PPP vocabulary teaching. A pretest and two posttests were employed to assess students’ vocabulary knowledge before and after instructional treatment. A questionnaire and an interview were administered to perceive students’ preferences for this teaching method. The results revealed that integrated FFI facilitated students’ vocabulary learning and its effect was long-lasting for at least two weeks. The students also expressed a strong preference for this innovative teaching method. These findings have significant implications for pedagogical practices in language teaching and learning.

A task-based framework for oral language instruction in support of young language learners in French immersion

Abstract In Canada, French immersion (FI) is a popular language program. In addition to needing strong pedagogies for language and content instruction, primary FI teachers need to attend to students’ age, cognitive level, and lack of exposure to the target language. We turned our attention to the potential of task-based instruction to conduct a two-year classroom-based study exploring communicative tasks designed specifically for young language students in FI. The study led to the development of an instructional sequence for task-based instruction for children ages 5–6, grounded in the Gradual Release of Responsibility model and scaffolded instruction. In addition to presenting this pedagogical framework, we discuss identify promising task-based pedagogical principles at play and highlight pathways for classroom application. We also discuss communicative tasks proposed to young students and offer the use of symbolic play as a type of task that shows promise for young learners in second language learning contexts.

Planning Teaching Sequences Based on Problem Solving from a Scientific Dissemination Tool

Background: The problem-solving approach has been highlighted in chemistry teaching. Objectives: To analyse the theoretical-methodological adjustments on the problem-solving approach carried out by chemistry teachers in their teaching plans. Design: Carrying out a problem-solving training activity. Setting and participants: This research involved twenty basic chemistry teachers, students of the professional master’s degree course in chemistry in the national education network offered by the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco. Data collection and analysis: We used the content analysis technique through a priori and a posteriori categories to analyse the teachers’ plans built from guiding studies published on the RPEQ website. Results: We noticed that the teachers used few elements as presented in the guiding studies, building different plans according to their classroom contexts and demonstrating autonomy and creativity. Conclusions: We observe the potentiality of the RPEQ website regarding its functionality as a digital didactic resource serving as a basis for teachers to plan teaching situations that are different from the traditional method.

Human-like scene interpretation by a guided counterstream processing

In modeling vision, there has been a remarkable progress in recognizing a range of scene components, but the problem of analyzing full scenes, an ultimate goal of visual perception, is still largely open. To deal with complete scenes, recent work focused on the training of models for extracting the full graph-like structure of a scene. In contrast with scene graphs, humans' scene perception focuses on selected structures in the scene, starting with a limited interpretation and evolving sequentially in a goal-directed manner [G. L. Malcolm, I. I. A. Groen, C. I. Baker, Trends. Cogn. Sci. 20, 843-856 (2016)]. Guidance is crucial throughout scene interpretation since the extraction of full scene representation is often infeasible. Here, we present a model that performs human-like guided scene interpretation, using an iterative bottom-up, top-down processing, in a "counterstream" structure motivated by cortical circuitry. The process proceeds by the sequential application of top-down instructions that guide the interpretation process. The results show how scene structures of interest to the viewer are extracted by an automatically selected sequence of top-down instructions. The model shows two further benefits. One is an inherent capability to deal well with the problem of combinatorial generalization-generalizing broadly to unseen scene configurations, which is limited in current network models [B. Lake, M. Baroni, 35th International Conference on Machine Learning, ICML 2018 (2018)]. The second is the ability to combine visual with nonvisual information at each cycle of the interpretation process, which is a key aspect for modeling human perception as well as advancing AI vision systems.

Comparison of practice vs theory model training for vacuum-assisted delivery: A randomized controlled trial

ObjectiveTo assess the effect of two modalities of simulation training on acquisition/retention of skills for performing operative vaginal delivery. DesignRandomized, controlled, single-centre study. SettingA tertiary referral hospital in Italy. ParticipantsTwenty residents from a single university programme and two young specialists. InterventionGroup 1 had an individual training session with a single senior specialist using a fixed simulator model. After the session, trainees watched a pre-recorded 1-h lecture on vacuum-assisted operative vaginal delivery. Group 1 repeated the simulator session using the same test after 8–12 weeks and 12 months. Group 2 watched the pre-recorded lecture then undertook the same sessions as Group 1. Video recordings of all test performances were evaluated by five specialists in a blinded manner. Main outcome measureEach procedure was evaluated using a Global Rating Scale (GRS), scored with 0–5 points for each item on an Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS) dataset with seven items (total 35 points). OSATS were evaluated over time, compared for the whole population, and weighted for route and year of residency. The primary outcome was comparison of the effectiveness of training between the two groups based on year of residency by assessing videos of the baseline test and GRS for OSATS scores. The secondary outcome was overall retention of skills at 8–12 weeks and 12 months. ResultsTwenty-two participants were recruited and randomized to either Group 1 (n = 11) or Group 2 (n = 11). Five participants did not complete follow-up. The primary outcome of GRS for OSATS scores at time 0 differed significantly between groups for total GRS score, and ‘Call for help’ and ‘Explanation to woman and relatives’ item scores (p = 0.002 and p = 0.007, respectively). In a multiple linear regression analysis, OSATS scores were not independently influenced by year of residency. At 8–12-week follow-up, the ‘Call for help’ item score showed a significant improvement in Group 1 (p = 0.018), although this was not confirmed when year of residency was included as an independent variable. At 12-month follow-up, none of the item scores demonstrated a significant change (p = 0.033). Year of residency did not influence the difference between groups. One-way analysis of variance found significant differences between the groups for ‘Localization of the flexion point’ (p = 0.005), ‘Traction of vacuum cup’ (p = 0.039) and ‘Use of second hand of the operator’ (p = 0.009) item scores and total GRS score (p = 0.007). The values weighted by year of residency did not demonstrate any significant difference. The secondary outcomes evaluated all the candidates of both groups for retention of technical skills over time. A significant effect of time was found for total GRS score (p < 0.001) and OSATS item scores. ConclusionsIndependent of the sequence of theoretical teaching and simulation training, trainees demonstrated high retention – and, actually, improvement – of technical skills for operative vaginal delivery at 12-month follow-up.

GraphAGILE: An FPGA-Based Overlay Accelerator for Low-Latency GNN Inference

This paper presents GraphAGILE, a domain-specific FPGA-based overlay accelerator for graph neural network (GNN) inference. GraphAGILE consists of (1) <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">a novel unified architecture design</i> with an <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">instruction set</i> , and (2) <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">a compiler</i> built upon the instruction set that can quickly generate optimized code. Due to the proposed instruction set architecture (ISA) and the compiler, GraphAGILE does not require any FPGA reconfiguration when performing inference on various GNN models and input graphs. For the architecture design, we propose a novel hardware module named Adaptive Computation Kernel (ACK), that can execute various computation kernels of GNNs, including general matrix multiplication (GEMM), sparse-dense matrix multiplication (SpDMM), and sampled dense-dense matrix multiplication (SDDMM). The compiler takes the specifications of a GNN model and the graph meta data (e.g., the number of vertices and edges) as input, and generates a sequence of instructions for inference execution. We develop the following compiler optimizations to reduce inference latency: (1) computation order optimization that automatically reorders the computation graph to reduce the total computation complexity, (2) layer fusion that merges adjacent layers to reduce data communication volume, (3) data partitioning with a partition-centric execution scheme that partitions the input graph to fit the available on-chip memory of FPGA, (4) kernel mapping that automatically selects execution mode for ACK, and performs task scheduling to overlap computation with data communication and achieves dynamic load balance. We implement GraphAGILE on a state-of-the-art FPGA platform, Xilinx Alveo U250. GraphAGILE can execute widely used GNN models, including GCN, GAT, GIN, GraphSAGE, SGC and other GNN models supported by GraphGym. Experimental results show that GraphAGILE achieves up to <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$47.1\times$</tex-math></inline-formula> ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$3.9\times$</tex-math></inline-formula> ) reduction in end-to-end latency, including the latency of compilation and hardware execution, compared with the state-of-the-art implementations on CPU (GPU), and achieves up to <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2.9\times$</tex-math></inline-formula> reduction in hardware execution latency compared with the state-of-the-art FPGA accelerators.

Comparing the Effects of Concepts-First and Iterative Fraction Instruction Sequences

Comparing the Effects of Concepts-First and Iterative Fraction Instruction Sequences

Understanding Algebraic Expressions Through Figural Patterns

This instructional sequence develops your students’ meaningful understanding of algebraic expressions.

Assessing the threat of Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon devices

In November 2020, Apple introduced a new architecture, Apple Silicon, that would power all new laptops and desktops. Based on ARM64 and with many custom features added by Apple, this marked a complete switch from the Intel-based systems that have powered Apple laptops and desktops for many years. With such a radical change, it was obvious that many existing digital forensics and incident response techniques would need to be re-evaluated on the platform. Similarly, several new additions to the operating system are interesting as potential abuse vectors for malware and malicious actors. In this paper, we document our effort to understand the largest threat surface unique to Apple Silicon devices. This feature, called Rosetta 2, allows 64-bit Intel applications and libraries to execute seamlessly on Apple Silicon. Rosetta 2 achieves this by translating Intel-specific code on the fly into functionally equivalent Apple Silicon instruction sequences. Through this feature, a significant number of existing applications can be executed without needing to be recompiled for Apple Silicon. Apple added this capability to ease the transition to Apple Silicon devices as not all legacy applications will be recompiled in a timely manner and some may not be ported at all. Such a capability piqued our research team's interest as there have been many malware samples created for Intel systems that were used to target individuals, corporations, and governments. Our goal was to discover which classes of existing malware samples and which offensive techniques remain functional via Rosetta 2. To accomplish this, we acquired a wide ranging set of macOS malware samples, executed them on Apple Silicon devices, and observed the results. We then documented the APIs abused by existing macOS malware and wrote proof-of-concept applications that mirrored these techniques. In this paper, we document the results of this research, including a discussion of the ease with which existing malicious applications and techniques seamlessly function through Rosetta 2.

Deepening Undergraduate Students’ Thinking about Central Dogma through Problem-Based Learning

A common belief among pre-medical and medical students is that biochemistry is not relevant to practicing medicine. The problem-based approach of case studies has been used in medical education to scaffold the application of content to clinical cases, but few studies report on a similar use in undergraduate biochemistry. Case studies in biochemistry and related disciplines have been previously reported as increasing learning motivation and supporting depth of knowledge. Additionally, students engaging in case studies outperform students in traditional instruction. The objective of this qualitative case study was to find how the timing of a medical case study within the instructional sequence in an undergraduate biochemistry course supported students in applying the central dogma of molecular biology to explain the transfer of Huntington’s disease from parent to child. The CBL+ group reviewed the case study before class while the CBL− group was presented with the case study during class. Analysis of open response tasks added to the pre- and post-surveys suggested that the case study supported both groups in applying the central dogma to the case, but the earlier presentation of the case to the CBL+ group promoted deeper thinking about the mechanistic causation of the transfer of the disease.

Proposal of a Mathematical Modelling Activity to Facilitate Students’ Learning of Ordinary Differential Equation Concepts

We present results that come from analysing students’ processes of solving tasks designed particularly for the learning of differential equations in a situational context. A teaching sequence was implemented during a semester-long course that comprised several tasks to cover the content of the course. Following a qualitative analysis, we show how a contextualised task can favour the construction of meanings associated with differential equations and how the interpretation of the terms present in those equations is developed. We also highlight some difficulties that may arise in students’ interpretations when the task involves meanings from other disciplines.

PRESCHOOLERS’ INTUITIVE PROBABILISTIC THINKING DURING OUTDOOR PLAY

Young children encounter uncertainty and challenges on a daily basis; through their intuitions, experiences and experimentation they construct knowledge, skills and dispositions towards probabilistic concepts. The aim of this exploratory ethnographic study is to identify how young children engage with probabilistic thinking and reasoning while playing outdoors. Twelve 3–4-year-old children and two practitioners were observed during free and structured activities outdoors. Critical events, that reflect contexts of probability, chance and uncertainty, were identified for further analysis based on participants’ linguistic interactions. Children’s probabilistic thinking was mainly expressed in three instances: while solving problems, in creative play, and while considering risk and safety issues. These authentic understandings can become the basis for more instructional pedagogical sequences on probability in early years.

“You Have to Do It Like the Duckies Hatch Their Egg”: Parent and Sibling Teaching of Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge in Early Childhood

ABSTRACT This study investigated parents’ and siblings’ knowledge use during naturalistic teaching episodes in the home. Thirty-seven middle-class families were observed for six 90-minute sessions (siblings aged 4 and 6 years). Parent and sibling teaching sequences were coded for knowledge type (conceptual, procedural), conceptual subcategories (social conventional behavior; game discussions; academic concepts; problem solving) and procedural knowledge subcategories (game procedures; general skill procedures). Research Findings: Findings indicated no significant mean difference between mothers’ and fathers’ and older and younger siblings’ conceptual and procedural teaching. However, parents taught proportionally more conceptual knowledge than siblings, indicating that siblings taught proportionally more procedural knowledge compared to parents. In terms of conceptual subcategories, parents taught more social conventional behaviors, whereas siblings taught more academic concepts. Siblings also taught more general skill procedures compared to parents. Practice or Policy: Overall, our findings indicate that the home environment is a rich context for the naturalistic teaching of conceptual and procedural knowledge by both parents and siblings, thus advancing our understanding of the role of family dynamics on children’s learning and development.

Mentoring Programs in Organizations: An Online Graduate-Level Course Design Case

In this article, I present the design case of a fully online graduate-level course intended to prepare instructional designers and human performance improvement practitioners with an introduction to the knowledge and skills that are foundational for the design and implementation of mentoring systems to improve individuals’ and organizational performance. In addition, the course design case provides an opportunity for instructional designers and faculty instructors to observe how learners can engage in an organizational mentoring systems feasibility study and as mentees in a mentoring relationship, in a fully asynchronous online course. The purpose of these two projects is to provide learners with an experience to reflect upon their personal mentoring systems experiences thereby becoming better informed for future engagement in the design, development, implementation, and maintenance, of an organizational mentoring system that would deliver desired results. Further, the political environment in which the design case took place, the theoretical framework, and instructional sequencing, are made transparent so that other professional instructional designers and instructors can “observe” the decision inputs and immediate outcomes of the design to add to their store of design knowledge.

Reframing Part-Work Pedagogy: Three Portraits

Part-work is a skill through which an individual performs and maintains one musical part while another part is performed at the same time. Rich and varied part-work experiences feature prominently in the musical lives of children. Despite this, elementary general music teachers often frame part-work as a skill needed in the short term to perform specific concert repertoire or as a skill needed in preparation for future participation in choirs, bands, and orchestras. In this article, three vignettes involving part-work in general music are juxtaposed with vignettes involving part-work beyond school settings. These narratives are offered in an effort to reframe part-work pedagogy as a means of enabling personally meaningful engagements with and through music. Practical considerations of this reframing are explored using Georgia Newlin’s teaching sequences for part-singing development as a foundation.