diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/SparkHadoopUtil.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/SparkHadoopUtil.scala
index 57f9faf5ddd1..ee725be39f93 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/SparkHadoopUtil.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/SparkHadoopUtil.scala
@@ -175,8 +175,13 @@ class SparkHadoopUtil extends Logging {
   private def getFileSystemThreadStatistics(path: Path, conf: Configuration): Seq[AnyRef] = {
     val qualifiedPath = path.getFileSystem(conf).makeQualified(path)
     val scheme = qualifiedPath.toUri().getScheme()
-    val stats = FileSystem.getAllStatistics().filter(_.getScheme().equals(scheme))
-    stats.map(Utils.invoke(classOf[Statistics], _, "getThreadStatistics"))
+    if (scheme == null) {
+      Seq.empty
+    } else {
+      FileSystem.getAllStatistics
+        .filter { stats => scheme.equals(stats.getScheme()) }
+        .map(Utils.invoke(classOf[Statistics], _, "getThreadStatistics"))
+    }
   }
 
   private def getFileSystemThreadStatisticsMethod(methodName: String): Method = {
diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/io/CompressionCodec.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/io/CompressionCodec.scala
index 1ac7f4e448eb..2343e69815b9 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/io/CompressionCodec.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/io/CompressionCodec.scala
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 
 package org.apache.spark.io
 
-import java.io.{InputStream, OutputStream}
+import java.io.{IOException, InputStream, OutputStream}
 
 import com.ning.compress.lzf.{LZFInputStream, LZFOutputStream}
 import net.jpountz.lz4.{LZ4BlockInputStream, LZ4BlockOutputStream}
@@ -122,8 +122,53 @@ class SnappyCompressionCodec(conf: SparkConf) extends CompressionCodec {
 
   override def compressedOutputStream(s: OutputStream): OutputStream = {
     val blockSize = conf.getInt("spark.io.compression.snappy.block.size", 32768)
-    new SnappyOutputStream(s, blockSize)
+    new SnappyOutputStreamWrapper(new SnappyOutputStream(s, blockSize))
   }
 
   override def compressedInputStream(s: InputStream): InputStream = new SnappyInputStream(s)
 }
+
+/**
+ * Wrapper over [[SnappyOutputStream]] which guards against write-after-close and double-close
+ * issues. See SPARK-7660 for more details. This wrapping can be removed if we upgrade to a version
+ * of snappy-java that contains the fix for https://github.com/xerial/snappy-java/issues/107.
+ */
+private final class SnappyOutputStreamWrapper(os: SnappyOutputStream) extends OutputStream {
+
+  private[this] var closed: Boolean = false
+
+  override def write(b: Int): Unit = {
+    if (closed) {
+      throw new IOException("Stream is closed")
+    }
+    os.write(b)
+  }
+
+  override def write(b: Array[Byte]): Unit = {
+    if (closed) {
+      throw new IOException("Stream is closed")
+    }
+    os.write(b)
+  }
+
+  override def write(b: Array[Byte], off: Int, len: Int): Unit = {
+    if (closed) {
+      throw new IOException("Stream is closed")
+    }
+    os.write(b, off, len)
+  }
+
+  override def flush(): Unit = {
+    if (closed) {
+      throw new IOException("Stream is closed")
+    }
+    os.flush()
+  }
+
+  override def close(): Unit = {
+    if (!closed) {
+      closed = true
+      os.close()
+    }
+  }
+}
diff --git a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/metrics/InputOutputMetricsSuite.scala b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/metrics/InputOutputMetricsSuite.scala
index ca226fd4e694..1b17c3ad359d 100644
--- a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/metrics/InputOutputMetricsSuite.scala
+++ b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/metrics/InputOutputMetricsSuite.scala
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ import java.io.{FileWriter, PrintWriter, File}
 import org.apache.spark.SharedSparkContext
 import org.apache.spark.deploy.SparkHadoopUtil
 import org.apache.spark.scheduler.{SparkListenerTaskEnd, SparkListener}
+import org.apache.spark.util.Utils
 
 import org.scalatest.FunSuite
 import org.scalatest.matchers.ShouldMatchers
@@ -106,4 +107,23 @@ class InputOutputMetricsSuite extends FunSuite with SharedSparkContext with Shou
       }
     }
   }
+
+  test("getFileSystemThreadStatistics should guard against null schemes (SPARK-8062)") {
+    val tempDir = Utils.createTempDir()
+    val outPath = new File(tempDir, "outfile")
+
+    // Intentionally call this method with a null scheme, which will store an entry for a FileSystem
+    // with a null scheme into Hadoop's global `FileSystem.statisticsTable`.
+    FileSystem.getStatistics(null, classOf[FileSystem])
+
+    // Prior to fixing SPARK-8062, this would fail with a NullPointerException in
+    // SparkHadoopUtil.getFileSystemThreadStatistics
+    try {
+      val rdd = sc.parallelize(Array("a", "b", "c", "d"), 2)
+      rdd.saveAsTextFile(outPath.toString)
+      sc.textFile(outPath.toString).count()
+    } finally {
+      Utils.deleteRecursively(tempDir)
+    }
+  }
 }
diff --git a/docs/mllib-collaborative-filtering.md b/docs/mllib-collaborative-filtering.md
index ef18cec9371d..57cf04b1f20e 100644
--- a/docs/mllib-collaborative-filtering.md
+++ b/docs/mllib-collaborative-filtering.md
@@ -102,7 +102,8 @@ other signals), you can use the `trainImplicit` method to get better results.
 
 {% highlight scala %}
 val alpha = 0.01
-val model = ALS.trainImplicit(ratings, rank, numIterations, alpha)
+val lambda = 0.01
+val model = ALS.trainImplicit(ratings, rank, numIterations, lambda, alpha)
 {% endhighlight %}
 </div>
 
diff --git a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/SparkPageRank.scala b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/SparkPageRank.scala
index 8d092b6506d3..bd7894f184c4 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/SparkPageRank.scala
+++ b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/SparkPageRank.scala
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ object SparkPageRank {
     showWarning()
 
     val sparkConf = new SparkConf().setAppName("PageRank")
-    val iters = if (args.length > 0) args(1).toInt else 10
+    val iters = if (args.length > 1) args(1).toInt else 10
     val ctx = new SparkContext(sparkConf)
     val lines = ctx.textFile(args(0), 1)
     val links = lines.map{ s =>
diff --git a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/mllib/DecisionTreeRunner.scala b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/mllib/DecisionTreeRunner.scala
index 205d80dd0268..f2586ad8bc30 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/mllib/DecisionTreeRunner.scala
+++ b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/mllib/DecisionTreeRunner.scala
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ object DecisionTreeRunner {
         .text(s"input path to test dataset.  If given, option fracTest is ignored." +
           s" default: ${defaultParams.testInput}")
         .action((x, c) => c.copy(testInput = x))
-      opt[String]("<dataFormat>")
+      opt[String]("dataFormat")
         .text("data format: libsvm (default), dense (deprecated in Spark v1.1)")
         .action((x, c) => c.copy(dataFormat = x))
       arg[String]("<input>")
diff --git a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/mllib/GradientBoostedTreesRunner.scala b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/mllib/GradientBoostedTreesRunner.scala
index 431ead8c0c16..7b0ded4a4264 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/mllib/GradientBoostedTreesRunner.scala
+++ b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/mllib/GradientBoostedTreesRunner.scala
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ object GradientBoostedTreesRunner {
         .text(s"input path to test dataset.  If given, option fracTest is ignored." +
           s" default: ${defaultParams.testInput}")
         .action((x, c) => c.copy(testInput = x))
-      opt[String]("<dataFormat>")
+      opt[String]("dataFormat")
         .text("data format: libsvm (default), dense (deprecated in Spark v1.1)")
         .action((x, c) => c.copy(dataFormat = x))
       arg[String]("<input>")
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/StreamingKMeans.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/StreamingKMeans.scala
index 5ab7e1aa58db..9b10ce6dec6e 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/StreamingKMeans.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/StreamingKMeans.scala
@@ -174,7 +174,7 @@ class StreamingKMeans(
 
   /** Set the decay factor directly (for forgetful algorithms). */
   def setDecayFactor(a: Double): this.type = {
-    this.decayFactor = decayFactor
+    this.decayFactor = a
     this
   }
 
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/util/NumericParser.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/util/NumericParser.scala
index f7cba6c6cb62..629b0af4e63f 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/util/NumericParser.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/util/NumericParser.scala
@@ -98,6 +98,8 @@ private[mllib] object NumericParser {
         }
       } else if (token == ")") {
         parsing = false
+      } else if (token.trim.isEmpty){
+          // ignore whitespaces between delim chars, e.g. ", ["
       } else {
         // expecting a number
         items.append(parseDouble(token))
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/StreamingKMeansSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/StreamingKMeansSuite.scala
index 850c9fce507c..83ee4a96cc9a 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/StreamingKMeansSuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/StreamingKMeansSuite.scala
@@ -133,6 +133,13 @@ class StreamingKMeansSuite extends FunSuite with TestSuiteBase {
     assert(math.abs(c1) ~== 0.8 absTol 0.6)
   }
 
+  test("SPARK-7946 setDecayFactor") {
+    val kMeans = new StreamingKMeans()
+    assert(kMeans.decayFactor === 1.0)
+    kMeans.setDecayFactor(2.0)
+    assert(kMeans.decayFactor === 2.0)
+  }
+
   def StreamingKMeansDataGenerator(
       numPoints: Int,
       numBatches: Int,
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LabeledPointSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LabeledPointSuite.scala
index 110c44a7193f..fc08bac3bdbd 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LabeledPointSuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LabeledPointSuite.scala
@@ -32,6 +32,11 @@ class LabeledPointSuite extends FunSuite {
     }
   }
 
+  test("parse labeled points with whitespaces") {
+    val point = LabeledPoint.parse("(0.0, [1.0, 2.0])")
+    assert(point === LabeledPoint(0.0, Vectors.dense(1.0, 2.0)))
+  }
+
   test("parse labeled points with v0.9 format") {
     val point = LabeledPoint.parse("1.0,1.0 0.0 -2.0")
     assert(point === LabeledPoint(1.0, Vectors.dense(1.0, 0.0, -2.0)))
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/util/NumericParserSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/util/NumericParserSuite.scala
index f68fb95eac4e..5027311db7ff 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/util/NumericParserSuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/util/NumericParserSuite.scala
@@ -39,4 +39,11 @@ class NumericParserSuite extends FunSuite {
       }
     }
   }
+
+  test("parser with whitespaces") {
+    val s = "(0.0, [1.0, 2.0])"
+    val parsed = NumericParser.parse(s).asInstanceOf[Seq[_]]
+    assert(parsed(0).asInstanceOf[Double] === 0.0)
+    assert(parsed(1).asInstanceOf[Array[Double]] === Array(1.0, 2.0))
+  }
 }
diff --git a/python/pyspark/mllib/__init__.py b/python/pyspark/mllib/__init__.py
index c3217620e3c4..d9678122921d 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/mllib/__init__.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/mllib/__init__.py
@@ -22,7 +22,9 @@
 # MLlib currently needs and NumPy 1.4+, so complain if lower
 
 import numpy
-if numpy.version.version < '1.4':
+
+ver = [int(x) for x in numpy.version.version.split('.')[:2]]
+if ver < [1, 4]:
     raise Exception("MLlib requires NumPy 1.4+")
 
 __all__ = ['classification', 'clustering', 'feature', 'linalg', 'random',
diff --git a/sbin/start-master.sh b/sbin/start-master.sh
index 17fff58f4f76..a7f5d5702fd8 100755
--- a/sbin/start-master.sh
+++ b/sbin/start-master.sh
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@
 sbin="`dirname "$0"`"
 sbin="`cd "$sbin"; pwd`"
 
+ORIGINAL_ARGS="$@"
+
 START_TACHYON=false
 
 while (( "$#" )); do
@@ -53,7 +55,9 @@ if [ "$SPARK_MASTER_WEBUI_PORT" = "" ]; then
   SPARK_MASTER_WEBUI_PORT=8080
 fi
 
-"$sbin"/spark-daemon.sh start org.apache.spark.deploy.master.Master 1 --ip $SPARK_MASTER_IP --port $SPARK_MASTER_PORT --webui-port $SPARK_MASTER_WEBUI_PORT
+"$sbin"/spark-daemon.sh start org.apache.spark.deploy.master.Master 1 \
+  --ip $SPARK_MASTER_IP --port $SPARK_MASTER_PORT --webui-port $SPARK_MASTER_WEBUI_PORT \
+  $ORIGINAL_ARGS
 
 if [ "$START_TACHYON" == "true" ]; then
   "$sbin"/../tachyon/bin/tachyon bootstrap-conf $SPARK_MASTER_IP
diff --git a/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/HiveQl.scala b/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/HiveQl.scala
index 3d39e6c1bd12..a76561756789 100644
--- a/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/HiveQl.scala
+++ b/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/HiveQl.scala
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.lib.Node
 import org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.metadata.Table
 import org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.parse._
 import org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.plan.PlanUtils
+import org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.session.SessionState
 
 import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.SparkSQLParser
 import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.analysis._
@@ -224,12 +225,23 @@ private[hive] object HiveQl {
      * Otherwise, there will be Null pointer exception,
      * when retrieving properties form HiveConf.
      */
-    val hContext = new Context(new HiveConf())
+    val hContext = new Context(hiveConf)
     val node = ParseUtils.findRootNonNullToken((new ParseDriver).parse(sql, hContext))
     hContext.clear()
     node
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Returns the HiveConf
+   */
+  private[this] def hiveConf(): HiveConf = {
+    val ss = SessionState.get() // SessionState is lazy initializaion, it can be null here
+    if (ss == null) {
+      new HiveConf()
+    } else {
+      ss.getConf
+    }
+  }
 
   /** Returns a LogicalPlan for a given HiveQL string. */
   def parseSql(sql: String): LogicalPlan = hqlParser(sql)