Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Building a community

zine. It represents a community—a community of communities, really—with technical interests in microelectronics design, design automation, and test. Once a year, these communities find a meeting ground: the Design Automation Conference (DAC) for the design and design automation communities, and the International Test Conference (ITC) for the test community. This issue and the following one showcase our relationships with the DAC and ITC forums. DAC is the premier event in the electronic design automation community. For decades, the DAC exhibition floor has served as a catalyst for the commercialization of research that has evolved into marketable products and successful companies. DAC has also had an important role in nurturing a $4 billion industry with more than 250 companies. Many of these companies started with nothing more than an idea, an algorithm, or a proven methodology. DAC also represents a community of excellent researchers in design automation. Traditionally, IEEE D&T has had strong ties with the DAC community. In fact, several of our distinguished editorial board members are active participants in organizing the DAC technical program, as are many of our guest editors, authors, and readers. This issue pulls together a distinguished team of contributors in a special DAC section, with five articles (selected from a set of 10 papers nominated by the DAC technical program committee) that truly represent the best of DAC in practice. These articles feature technical advances that are the most likely to directly affect design practice. These contributions address diverse topics such as efficient simulation of phase-locked loops, protocol synthesis, design verification, practical asynchronous circuit design, and low-power design. Although prompted by their excellent contribution to DAC, each of these articles was written as an original contribution to IEEE D&T. I thank guest editors David Blaauw and Luciano Lavagno, and DAC panels chair Sharad Malik, for their dedication in putting this issue together. I also thank Bryan Ackland (DAC general chair) and the DAC executive committee for lending their moral and financial support to IEEE D&T. Preceding the special DAC section is a special issue on embedded processors. Guest editor Peter Marwedel has put together six articles (chosen from a total of 16 submitted manuscripts) that address the most pressing challenges in building systems for embedded processors. Topics range from at-speed testing of on-chip systems to the promise and challenges in developing embedded compiler technology. Moreover, in The Road Ahead, Andrew Kahng addresses design cost and expands the notion of nonrecurring engineering cost. Finally, I welcome Adit Singh to the editorial board as an area editor for defect-based test. It is truly the high caliber of professionals like Adit and the high quality of technical contributions to IEEE D&T that make my job so pleasant and rewarding. I hope you find this issue a valuable source of information and an important link to our community of fellow professionals.
Respiratory outcomes and atopy in school-age children who were preterm at birth, with and without bronchopulmonary dysplasia

OBJECTIVE: To assess pulmonary function and the prevalence of atopy in school-age children who were very low birth weight as infants and to compare those who had bronchopulmonary dysplasia to those who did not. METHOD: We studied 85 (39 male and 46 female) at a mean age of 84 (range, 62 to 107) months who were very low birth weight infants. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia was defined as oxygen dependency at 36 weeks gestational age. We excluded 8 patients (4 for cerebral palsy and 4 for no collaboration). Detailed perinatal and clinical data were collected. Lung function was evaluated using conventional spirometry. Atopy (assessed by the allergy skin-prick test) was considered when at least one positive skin test occurred in a panel of the most common environmental allergens in the local region. Comparisons between the bronchopulmonary dysplasia and no bronchopulmonary dysplasia groups were performed using the Mann-Whitney, χ2 and Fisher's exact tests. RESULTS: We compared the bronchopulmonary dysplasia (n = 13) and no bronchopulmonary dysplasia (n = 64) groups. Atopy was observed in 4 (30.8%) of the bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients and in 17 (26.6%) of the no bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients (p = 0.742). Two (15.4%) patients with bronchopulmonary dysplasia had a family history of atopy vs. 17 (26.6%) in the no bronchopulmonary dysplasia group (p = 0.5). Lung function tests showed airway obstruction in 2 (15.4%) of the bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients and in 10 (15.6%) of the no bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients (p = 1.0). Four (33.3%) of the bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients had small airway obstruction vs. 14 (22.2%) of the no bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients (p = 0.466). CONCLUSION: Our data showed no significant differences in lung function between bronchopulmonary dysplasia and no bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients at school age and no evidence of an association between atopy and bronchopulmonary dysplasia.
Loss of the liver X receptor LXRα/β in peripheral sensory neurons modifies energy expenditure

Peripheral neural sensory mechanisms play a crucial role in metabolic regulation but less is known about the mechanisms underlying vagal sensing itself. Recently, we identified an enrichment of liver X receptor alpha and beta (LXRα/β) in the nodose ganglia of the vagus nerve. In this study, we show mice lacking LXRα/β in peripheral sensory neurons have increased energy expenditure and weight loss when fed a Western diet (WD). Our findings suggest that the ability to metabolize and sense cholesterol and/or fatty acids in peripheral neurons is an important requirement for physiological adaptations to WDs. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.06667. 001
Health Problems in Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia due to 21-Hydroxylase Deficiency

Following the introduction of life-saving glucocorticoid replacement 60 years ago, congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) has evolved from being perceived as a paediatric disorder to being recognized as a lifelong, chronic condition affecting patients of all age groups. Increasing evidence suggests that patients with CAH have an increased risk to develop health problems during adult life, with signs and symptoms of forerunner conditions of adult disease already emerging during the time of paediatric care. Transition of paediatric CAH patients to medical care in the adult setting is an important step to ensure optimal lifelong treatment, aiming to achieve good health and normal life expectancy and quality of life. Thus, primary and secondary prevention of health problems has to become a task of increasing importance for those involved in the care of CAH patients throughout their life.
Amelioration of obstructive sleep apnea in REM sleep behavior disorder: implications for the neuromuscular control of OSA.

OBJECTIVES The relationship between REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) remains unclear. We aimed to (1) explore the association of REM-related EMG activity (REMREEA) with OSA in RBD patients; (2) compare the severity of OSA between RBD patients with OSA (RBD-OSA) and their age-, sex-, AHI-, and BMI- matched OSA controls. DESIGN a. Correlation study in consecutive RBD subjects and b. case-control study SETTING Sleep laboratory PARTICIPANTS 71 RBD patients in the correlation study and 55 subjects (28 RBD-OSA cases and 27 OSA controls) in the case-control study. INTERVENTION N/A METHODS: Polysomnographic assessment to document the sleep architecture, sleep apnea related parameters, and REMREEA. RESULTS (1) In the correlation study, increased REMREEA was associated with lower severity of OSA in RBD patients, including total AHI (r = -0.263), NREM AHI (r = -0.242), obstructive AHI (r = -0.265), and mean apnea duration (r = -0.353) (P < 0.05). (2) In the case-control study, RBD-OSA patients had lesser severity of sleep apnea parameters than OSA controls in terms of higher nadir SpO(2) (85.7% ± 4.9% vs 80.8% ± 5.9%, P < 0.01), shorter maximum hypopnea duration (53.8 ± 16.7 vs 69.4 ± 22.4 seconds, P < 0.05), and maximum (45.8 ± 20.5 vs 60.8 ± 19.6 sec, P < 0.01) and mean apnea duration (22.3 ± 8.1 vs 26.3 ± 5.8 sec, P < 0.05). Significant interaction effects indicated that the usual REM sleep exacerbation of sleep apneas was seen only in OSA controls but not in RBD subjects. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated that excessive EMG activity in RBD might protect patients against severe OSA and suggests this may be a naturalistic model for understanding neuromuscular control of OSA.
Delineating Bacteriostatic and Bactericidal Targets in Mycobacteria Using IPTG Inducible Antisense Expression

In order to identify novel high value antibacterial targets it is desirable to delineate whether the inactivation of the target enzyme will lead to bacterial death or stasis. This knowledge is particularly important in slow growing organisms, like mycobacteria, where most of the viable anti-tubercular agents are bactericidal. A bactericidal target can be identified through the conditional deletion or inactivation of the target gene at a relatively high cell number and subsequently following the time course of survival for the bacteria. A simple protocol to execute conditional inactivation of a gene is by antisense expression. We have developed a mycobacteria specific IPTG inducible vector system and monitored the effect of antisense inhibition of several known essential genes in mycobacteria by following their survival kinetics. By this method, we could differentiate between genes whose down regulation lead to bacteriostatic or bactericidal effect. Targets for standard anti-tubercular drugs like inhA for isoniazid, rpoB and C for rifampicin, and gyr A/B for flouroquinolones were shown to be bactericidal. In contrast targets like FtsZ behaved in a bacteriostatic manner. Induction of antisense expression in embB and ribosomal RNA genes, viz., rplJ and rpsL showed only a marginal growth inhibition. The specificity of the antisense inhibition was conclusively shown in the case of auxotrophic gene ilvB. The bactericidal activity following antisense expression of ilvB was completely reversed when the growth media was supplemented with the isoleucine, leucine, valine and pantothenate. Additionally, under these conditions the expression of several genes in branched chain amino acid pathway was severely suppressed indicating targeted gene inactivation.
Language and Interpersonal Cognition: Causal Effects of Variations in Pronoun Usage on Perceptions of Closeness

Four studies examined the hypothesis that subtle language variations can have a causal impact on perceptions of relationships. In interpersonal interactions, language can function implicitly to reflect, perpetuate, and communicate relationship perceptions. Previous research has shown that interpersonal closeness and plural pronoun use are correlated; the current research demonstrates that manipulating pronoun use can lead people to perceive their own and other relationships as closer and higher in quality. In Study 1, participants who read about a relationship that was described using the pronoun we versus she and I perceived the relationship to be closer and of higher quality. Study 2 showed that pronoun variations similarly affected perceptions of participants’ own ongoing relationships; Study 3 showed similar effects for perceptions of an actual interpersonal interaction. Study 4 examined potential mechanisms of this effect.
METHODS FOR CALCULATING TEMPERATURE PROFILES OF HOT-MIX ASPHALT CONCRETE AS RELATED TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF ASPHALT PAVEMENTS

METHODS OF PREDICTING THE TEMPERATURE OF HOT-MIX ASPHALT CONCRETE, AS A FUNCTION OF TIME AND PLACE, IN THE MIX FROM THE MOMENT IT LEAVES THE PAVER UNTIL COMPACTION TO SPECIFIED DENSITY IS COMPLETED WERE INVESTIGATED TO PROVIDE A MEANS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS THAT MAY BE MARGINAL WITH RESPECT TO OBTAINING ADEQUATE COMPACTION AND TO STIMULATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROCEDURES FOR OBTAINING ADEQUATE COMPACTION UNDER ADVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS. A NUMERICAL OR FINITE DIFFERENCE SOLUTION WAS USED AS THE BASIS FOR A COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR CALCULATING TEMPERATURES AS A FUNCTION OF TIME, PLACE IN THE MIX, AND VARIOUS ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS. FOR USE IN THE COMPUTER PROGRAM, DATA FOR WIND VELOCITIES WERE CONVERTED TO BIOT NUMBERS AND DATA FOR SOLAR ALTITUDE WERE CONVERTED TO SOLAR RADIANT FLUX. CONSTANT PHYSICAL PROPERTIES FOR THE MIX AND BASE WERE ASSUMED AND USED DIRECTLY FOR DATA INPUT TO THE COMPUTER PROGRAM. THE EFFECT OF WIND VELOCITY, SOLAR RADIATION AND ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE IS GREATER ON MIX TEMPERATURES NEAR THE UPPER SURFACE OF THE MIX THAN ON MIX TEMPERATURES NEAR THE LOWER SURFACE OF THE MIX. INITIAL BASE TEMPERATURE DISTRUBITION AFFECTS TEMPERATURES NEAR THE LOWER SURFACE OF THE MIX TO A MUCH GREATER EXTENT THAN IT AFFECTS TEMPERATURES NEAR THE UPPER SURFACE. STUDY RESULTS INDICATE THAT TEMPERATURES OF THE HOT-MIX ASPHALT CONCRETE NEAR THE LOWER SURFACE DECREASE MORE RAPIDLY THAN TEMPERATURES NEAR THE UPPER SURFACE. SINCE COMPACTIVE EFFORT IS LESS NEAR THE LOWER SURFACE, TEMPERATURES NEAR THE LOWER SURFACE ARE OF PARTICULAR SIGNIFICANCE IN OBTAINING SPECIFIC DENSITIES. THE NUMERICAL METHOD OF DETERMINING THE TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION IN HOT-MIX ASPHALT CONCRETE LENDS ITSELF WELL TO COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AND PROVIDES A MEANS OF INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF AN ALMOST LIMITLESS NUMBER OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS ON THE COOLING OF HOT-MIX ASPHALT CONCRETE DURING CONSTRUCTION.
Detection of Rotation in a Binary Microlens: PLANET Photometry of MACHO 97-BLG-41

We analyze PLANET collaboration data for MACHO 97-BLG-41, the only microlensing event observed to date in which the source transits two disjoint caustics. The PLANET data, consisting of 46 V-band and 325 I-band observations from five southern observatories, span a period from the initial alert until the end of the event. Our data are incompatible with a static binary lens, but are well fitted by a rotating binary lens of mass ratio q = 0.34 and angular separation d ≈ 0.5 (in units of the Einstein ring radius), in which the binary separation changes in size by δd = -0.070 ± 0.009 and in orientation by δθ = 5. °61 ± 0. °36 during the 35.17 days between the separate caustic transits. We use this measurement, combined with other observational constraints, to derive the first kinematic estimate of the mass, distance, and period of a binary microlens. The relative probability distributions for these parameters peak at a total lens mass M ~ 0.3 M☉ (M-dwarf binary system), lens distance DL ~ 5.5 kpc, and binary period P ~ 1.5 yr. The robustness of our model is demonstrated by its striking agreement with MACHO/GMAN data that cover several sharp features in the light curve not probed by the PLANET observations, and which did not enter our modeling procedure in any way. Available data sets thus indicate that the light curve of MACHO 97-BLG-41 can be modeled as a source crossing two caustics of a physically realistic rotating binary. Thus, contrary to a recent suggestion, the additional effects of a postulated planetary companion to the binary lens are not required.
Stability analysis of QCN: the averaging principle

Data Center Networks have recently caused much excitement in the industry and in the research community. They represent the convergence of networking, storage, computing and virtualization. This paper is concerned with the Quantized Congestion Notification (QCN) algorithm, developed for Layer 2 congestion management. QCN has recently been standardized as the IEEE 802.1Qau Ethernet Congestion Notification standard. We provide a stability analysis of QCN, especially in terms of its ability to utilize high capacity links in the shallow-buffered data center network environment. After a brief description of the QCN algorithm, we develop a delay-differential equation model for mathematically characterizing it. We analyze the model using a linearized approximation, obtaining stability margins as a function of algorithm parameters and network operating conditions. A second contribution of the paper is the articulation and analysis of the Averaging Principle (AP)---a new method for stabilizing control loops when lags increase. The AP is distinct from other well-known methods of feedback stabilization such as higher-order state feedback and lag-dependent gain adjustment. It turns out that the QCN and the BIC-TCP (and CUBIC) algorithms use the AP; we show that this enables them to be stable under large lags. The AP is also of independent interest since it applies to general control systems, not just congestion control systems.
Evaluation of neutrophilic CD64, interleukin 10 and procalcitonin as diagnostic markers of early- and late-onset neonatal sepsis

Abstract The assay of infection markers can improve diagnostic sensitivity in neonatal sepsis. We determined the levels of neutrophilic CD64 (nCD64), procalcitonin (PCT) and interleukin 10 (IL-10) in infants with neonatal sepsis. Forty-nine newborn infants who met the criteria of sepsis were subjected to a routine sepsis evaluation as well as measurement of PCT and IL-10 levels and nCD64 expression. Of these 49 ‘infected’ infants, 16 had a positive blood culture (culture-positive sepsis) and 33 infants were diagnosed to have clinical sepsis with negative blood cultures (culture-negative sepsis). Another 49 healthy newborn infants were included as a control group. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of PCT, IL-10 and nCD64 for the diagnosis of sepsis were determined. IL-10 had the highest sensitivity of 92% and specificity of 84% using a cut-off of ≥17.3 pg/ml. For PCT, the highest sensitivity of 65% and specificity of 60% were found at a cut-off value of ≥36.4 pg/ml. nCD64 had a maximal sensitivity of 92% and specificity of 71% at a cut-off value of 2.6%. Combinations of different markers may improve the sensitivity and specificity of biomarker tests. We found that the best combination was IL-10 and nCD64, which together provided sensitivity of 95% and specificity of 83%, and a negative predictive value of 86%.
Identifying Infeasible GUI Test Cases Using Support Vector Machines and Induced Grammars

Model-based GUI software testing is an emerging paradigm for automatically generating test suites. In the context of GUIs, a test case is a sequence of events to be executed which may detect faults in the application. However, a test case may be infeasible if one or more of the events in the event sequence are disabled or made inaccessible by a previously executed event (e.g., a button may be disabled until another GUI widget enables it). These infeasible test cases terminate prematurely and waste resources, so software testers would like to modify the test suite execution to run only feasible test cases. Current techniques focus on repairing the test cases to make them feasible, but this relies on executing all test cases, attempting to repair the test cases, and then repeating this process until a stopping condition has been met. We propose avoiding infeasible test cases altogether by predicting which test cases are infeasible using two supervised machine learning methods: support vector machines (SVMs) and grammar induction. We experiment with three feature extraction techniques and demonstrate the success of the machine learning algorithms for classifying infeasible GUI test cases in several subject applications. We further demonstrate a level of robustness in the algorithms when training and classifying test cases of different lengths.
Toward supercontinuum generation with non-symmetric double core microstructured fibers

In this paper we report on the fabrication of a non-symmetric double core microstructured fiber made of in-house synthesized silicate glass. The micro-structured fiber uses three rings of holes around two cores separated with a single hole. This fiber has a birefringence of about 10-3 at 1.5 μm and zero dispersion wavelengths at 1.3- 1.5 nm range. For experimental verification of nonlinear properties of the fiber we use a femtosecod Ti:Sapphire oscillator emitting in the range of 750-900 nm in the normal dispersion regime of the pumped fiber. Measurements we performed with excitation of one of the core and readout at the output from both cores separately. Registered spectra show a strong coupling between cores and there is no evident difference between signals for excited or other core. Generated spectrum is flat and relatively narrow, which is a result of pumping in normal region of fiber dispersion as we predicted with simulations.
An Anti-Infection Tissue-Engineered Construct Delivering Vancomycin: its Evaluation in a Goat Model of Femur Defect

A tissue-engineered construct (TEC) has previously been used for treating bone defects due to its strong osteogenic capability. However, transplantation of a TEC involves an open surgery that can cause infection. To overcome the potential risk of infection after TEC transplantation, we designed a system for the controlled release of antibiotics using fibrin gel-coated vancomycin alginate beads (FG-Vanco-AB) that can supply sustained antibiotics at the graft site. A TEC with FG-Vanco-AB was transplanted into critically sized bone defects of the right femur in a goat. As a control, the TEC without FG-Vanco-AB was transplanted into the left femur defect of the same goat. The breakpoint sensitivity of vancomycin for S. aureus (5 mg/L) was used as a known standard. Study results showed that the duration of time with vancomycin concentrations greater than 5 mg/L in the right graft site, blood, and left graft site were 28 days, 7 days, and 2 days, respectively. The bioactivity regarding vancomycin release was analysed by antibiotic disc diffusion. The vancomycin concentration was decreased from the centre of the graft to both ends of the femur. Radionuclide bone imaging showed no significant difference between the right and left TECs at either 28 or 56 days post-operation. Computed tomography and histological observation showed both sides' bone defects were healed by TEC at 112 days post-operation, and there was no significant difference in computed tomography value. These results suggest that FG-Vanco-AB in transplanted bone provided the ability to kill bacteria in local bone tissue while not interfering with the process of bone reconstruction and wound healing.
Frustratingly Short Attention Spans in Neural Language Modeling

Neural language models predict the next token using a latent representation of the immediate token history. Recently, various methods for augmenting neural language models with an attention mechanism over a differentiable memory have been proposed. For predicting the next token, these models query information from a memory of the recent history which can facilitate learning mid- and long-range dependencies. However, conventional attention mechanisms used in memory-augmented neural language models produce a single output vector per time step. This vector is used both for predicting the next token as well as for the key and value of a differentiable memory of a token history. In this paper, we propose a neural language model with a key-value attention mechanism that outputs separate representations for the key and value of a differentiable memory, as well as for encoding the next-word distribution. This model outperforms existing memory-augmented neural language models on two corpora. Yet, we found that our method mainly utilizes a memory of the five most recent output representations. This led to the unexpected main finding that a much simpler model based only on the concatenation of recent output representations from previous time steps is on par with more sophisticated memory-augmented neural language models.