Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parallelism-Aware Memory Interference Delay Analysis for COTS Multicore Systems

In modern Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) multicore systems, each core can generate many parallel memory requests at a time. The processing of these parallel requests in the DRAM controller greatly affects the memory interference delay experienced by running tasks on the platform. In this paper, we present a new parallelism-aware worst-case memory interference delay analysis for COTS multicore systems. The analysis considers a COTS processor that can generate multiple outstanding requests and a COTS DRAM controller that has a separate read and write request buffer, prioritizes reads over writes, and supports out-of-order request processing. Focusing on LLC and DRAM bank partitioned systems, our analysis computes worst-case upper bounds on memory-interference delays, caused by competing memory requests. We validate our analysis on a Gem5 full-system simulator modeling a realistic COTS multicore platform, with a set of carefully designed synthetic benchmarks as well as SPEC2006benchmarks. The evaluation results show that our analysis produces safe upper bounds in all tested benchmarks, while the current state-of-the-art analysis significantly under-estimates the delays.
Investigation of Targetin, a Microtubule Binding Agent which Regresses the Growth of Pediatric High and Low Grade Gliomas

Background Pediatric gliomas, the most common solid childhood neoplasm, manifest unique molecular signatures that distinguish them from adult gliomas. Unfortunately, most studies have focused on adult gliomas and extrapolate the findings to treat pediatric gliomas. In this study, we assessed the efficacy of Targetin, a folate conjugated analogue of Noscapine, on the treatment of pediatric low and high grade gliomas. Method An assortment of standard cancer assays were used with different drug doses and experimental durations. Results We found that pediatric glioma cells are more susceptible to lower doses of Targetin than parental Noscapine. Targetin functions by disrupting the microtubule network, and can likewise perturb DNA synthesis, delay the cellular transition within the S and G2M cell cycle phases, diminish anchorage independent growth and the migratory/invasiveness of pediatric glioma cells. Moreover, Targetin impairs the expression of several regulators of cancer progression belonging to prominent signalling pathways in pediatric gliomas; including Platelet Derived Growth Factor alpha and some members of the Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase cascade. Conclusion Targetin has an excellent anti-neoplastic profile and functions to modulate the expression of several genes belonging to key cancer progression pathways in pediatric gliomas. Collectively, findings from this study highlight the usefulness of Targetin for the treatment of pediatric high and low grade gliomas.
On the Time Series Analysis of Consumer Price Index data of Nigeria -1996 to 2013

In this paper titled ‘ On the Time Series Analysis of Consumer Price Index data of Nigeria -1996 to 2013’, the monthly CPI data collected from the CBN website was used. Although Time Series approach was adopted in the main analysis of the data, descriptive statistics of the data showed, inter alia, that the indicator has neither fallen below 21.19 nor risen above 152.29 within the specified period. A Seasonal Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model of best fit to the data was discovered to be SARIMA (1, 2, 1) (0, 0, 1)12. Forecasts were made using the model and a t- test for the difference of two means of the forecast and the observed CPI values was carried out at 5% level of significance. Interestingly, the test shows no significant difference between the two.
Miniature Inverted–Repeat Transposable Elements (MITEs) Have Been Accumulated through Amplification Bursts and Play Important Roles in Gene Expression and Species Diversity in Oryza sativa

Miniature inverted–repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are predicted to play important roles on genome evolution. We developed a BLASTN-based approach for de novo identification of MITEs and systematically analyzed MITEs in rice genome. The genome of rice cultivar Nipponbare (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica) harbors 178,533 MITE-related sequences classified into 338 families. Pairwise nucleotide diversity and phylogenetic tree analysis indicated that individual MITE families were resulted from one or multiple rounds of amplification bursts. The timing of amplification burst varied considerably between different MITE families or subfamilies. MITEs are associated with 23,623 (58.2%) genes in rice genome. At least 7,887 MITEs are transcribed and more than 3,463 were transcribed with rice genes. The MITE sequences transcribed with rice coding genes form 1,130 pairs of potential natural sense/antisense transcripts. MITEs generate 23.5% (183,837 of 781,885) of all small RNAs identified from rice. Some MITE families generated small RNAs mainly from the terminals, while other families generated small RNAs predominantly from the central region. More than half (51.8%) of the MITE-derived small RNAs were generated exclusively by MITEs located away from genes. Genome-wide analysis showed that genes associated with MITEs have significantly lower expression than genes away from MITEs. Approximately 14.8% of loci with full-length MITEs have presence/absence polymorphism between rice cultivars 93-11 (O. sativa ssp. indica) and Nipponbare. Considering that different sets of genes may be regulated by MITE-derived small RNAs in different genotypes, MITEs provide considerable diversity for O. sativa.
Effect of Internet Literacy in Understanding Older Adults’ Social Capital and Expected Internet Support

This article investigates whether knowledge of Internet usage among older adults is related to social capital as well as their expectations to obtain social support online. A U.S. national survey of adults aged 60 and older (n = 1,101) found that Internet literacy is significantly associated with their expected Internet support and bridging and bonding social capital even after controlling for age, Internet use, and other factors.
Three Essays on the Property Value Impact of Neighborhood Disamenities

This dissertation employs hedonic analysis to examine market demand for three neighborhood disamenities. The first chapter investigates the property value impact of a No Child Left Behind “failing” school designation. The second chapter studies the property value impact of a local homicide. The third chapter examines the property value impact of proximity to a mosque post 9/11. Each disamenity has a negative and significant effect on property values with the magnitude of impact varying across household type. THREE ESSAYS ON THE PROPERTY VALUE IMPACT OF NEIGHBORHOOD DISAMENITIES
Latvian Family Physicians’ Experience and Attitude in Diagnosing and Managing Depression

Abstract Depression is among the most common mental disorders in primary care. Despite high prevalence rates it remains to be under-diagnosed in primary care settings over the world. This study was aimed to identify Latvian family physicians’ (FPs) experience and attitude in diagnosing and managing depression. It was carried out within the framework of the National Research Programme BIOMEDICINE 2014–2017. After educational seminars on diagnosing and managing depression, FPs were asked to complete a structured questionnaire. In total 216 respondents were recruited. Most of the doctors, or 72.2% (n = 156), agreed with the statement that patients with depression use primary care facilities more often than other patients. More than a half of physicians, or 66.3% (n = 143) quite often asked their patients about their psycho-emotional status and 65.7% (n = 142) of clinicians thought that they can successfully assess a patient’s psychoemotional status and possible mental disorders. The majority, or 91.6 % (n = 198), supposed that routine screening for depression is necessary in Latvia. Despite the fact that a significant number, or 62.6% (n = 135) of FPs thought that their practice was well suitable for the treatment of depressive patients, half of the respondents, or 50.9% (n = 110), assessed their ability to build a trustful contact and to motivate patients for treatment as moderate. Although FPs acknowledged the importance and necessity to treat depression, current knowledge and management approaches were far from optimal. This justifies the need to provide specific training programmes for FPs.
Acute phase response in toxicity studies. I. Survey of beagle dogs subjected to single-dose toxicity studies.

In the field of routine single-dose toxicity studies, we occasionally meet with transient leukocytosis associated with an increase in fibrinogen in beagle dogs within a few days after treatment with the test article. Only a little is known, however, about the toxicological significance of these changes. However, these changes were thought to belong to the category of "Acute Phase Response, APR," which has been known for a long time in connection with injury, trauma or infection. Aiming at proper understanding of these experiences, we surveyed 25 single-dose toxicity studies (7 intravenous bolus, 5 intravenous infusion, 12 oral and 1 subcutaneous treatment, hereafter referred to simply as i.v. bolus, i.v. infusion, oral and s.c.) in beagle dogs, provided with data from hematological examinations. We set the following criteria as a positive response in the present survey: increases of 50% or more in either or both WBC or fibrinogen compared to the predosing value, transiently from Day 1 to Day 3 of the study. Among 25 studies surveyed, about 1/2 of the studies exhibited increases of 50% or more in either or both fibrinogen or WBC counts compared to the predosing values showing dose-dependency transiently on Day 1 or Day 2. These changes were remarkable after intravenous application. Oral application produced similar effects, although the incidence and severity were low compared to the i.v. routes. Regarding blood chemical and hematological changes other than changes in fibrinogen and WBC counts, there were no essential differences between the groups of studies with and without the changes in fibrinogen and WBC counts. These changes were thought to be characteristic and to have occurred as incidents unrelated to other changes. The reported changes seen in single-dose toxicity studies may belong to the category of APR as the non-specific mechanism of living bodies as stated by Burns et al. (1996).
Toward a theory of rapid creativity in teams

Team creativity presents an interesting dilemma. On one hand, organizational teams are increasingly being asked to produce creative outcomes rapidly and within tight timelines. On the other hand, teams need sufficient time to explore different perspectives, play with ideas, and overcome the process losses that occur from working in interdependent groups. In this chapter, we address this dilemma by developing a model for understanding how teams can maximize the speed of the team creative process. We propose that teams' potential for rapid creativity is a function of aligning the team structure and standardization of the creative process with the team development cycle. When these three elements are aligned, teams are more likely to generate creative outcomes in a rapid manner.
Development of a Test Method for the Evaluation of DNA Damage in Mouse Spermatogonial Stem Cells

Although alternative test methods based on the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) are being developed to replace animal testing in reproductive and developmental toxicology, they are still in an early stage. Consequently, we aimed to develop alternative test methods in male animals using mouse spermatogonial stem cells (mSSCs). Here, we modified the OECD TG 489 and optimized the in vitro comet assay in our previous study. This study aimed to verify the validity of in vitro tests involving mSSCs by comparing their results with those of in vivo tests using C57BL/6 mice by gavage. We selected hydroxyurea (HU), which is known to chemically induce male reproductive toxicity. The 50% inhibitory concentration (IC_50) value of HU was 0.9 mM, as determined by the MTT assay. In the in vitro comet assay, % tail DNA and Olive tail moment (OTM) after HU administration increased significantly, compared to the control. Annexin V, PI staining and TUNEL assays showed that HU caused apoptosis in mSSCs. In order to compare in vitro tests with in vivo tests, the same substances were administered to male C57BL/6 mice. Reproductive toxicity was observed at 25, 50, 100, and 200 mg/kg/day as measured by clinical measures of reduction in sperm motility and testicular weight. The comet assay, DCFH-DA assay, H&E staining, and TUNEL assay were also performed. The results of the test with C57BL/6 mice were similar to those with mSSCs for HU treatment. Finally, linear regression analysis showed a strong positive correlation between results of in vitro tests and those of in vivo. In conclusion, the present study is the first to demonstrate the effect of HU-induced DNA damage, ROS formation, and apoptosis in mSSCs. Further, the results of the current study suggest that mSSCs could be a useful model to predict male reproductive toxicity.
Analysis of Acoustic Feedback/Echo Cancellation in Multiple-Microphone and Single-Loudspeaker Systems Using a Power Transfer Function Method

In this work, we analyze a general multiple-microphone and single-loudspeaker audio processing system, where a multichannel adaptive system is used to cancel the effect of acoustic feedback/echo, and a beamformer processes the feedback/echo canceled signals. We introduce and derive an accurate approximation of a frequency domain measure - the power transfer function - and show how it can be used to predict the convergence rate, system stability bound and the steady-state behavior of the entire cancellation system across frequency and time. We consider three example adaptive algorithms in the cancellation system: the least mean square, normalized least mean square, and the recursive least squares algorithms. Furthermore, we derive expressions to determine the step size parameter in the adaptive algorithms to achieve a desired system behavior, e.g., convergence rate at a specific frequency. Finally, we compare and discuss the performance of all three adaptive algorithms, and we verify the derived expressions through simulation experiments.
Towards reliable storage systems

Users are storing increasingly massive amounts of data. Storage software complexity is growing. The use of cheap and less reliable hardware is increasing. The combination of these trends presents us with a terrific challenge: How can we promise users that storage systems work robustly in spite of the complex failures that can arise? In the first part of this dissertation, we respond to this question with our analysis of three reliability components present in many modern file systems: the file system checker (fsck), failure detection and recovery policies (failure policy), and journaling. We find that these subsystems are deficient in handling partial disk failures: in the fsck analysis, we find that some repairs are buggy (making the repaired file system more corrupted) and some repairs are missing (leaving some corruptions unattended). In the failure policy analysis, we observe a major problem of diffused fault handling, which causes policies to be inconsistent, buggy, and inflexible to change. In the journaling analysis, we uncover that current journaling frameworks cannot recover from checkpoint write failures, and hence write failures are intentionally ignored. The results of our analysis hint that managing failures is hard (as also hinted by the developer's comment), and hence demand for novel solutions towards building more reliable storage systems. In the second part of this dissertation, we present our solutions to the problems above. First, we re-architect the file systemchecker by introducing SQCK, a robust file systemchecker that employs a declarative query language. By writing hundreds of checks and repairs in a query language (e.g., SQL), the high-level intent of the checker can be specified in a clear and compact manner. We show that SQCK is able to perform the same functionality as the Linux ext2/3 checker with elegant and compact queries. Second, we present EDP, a static analysis tool that shows how error codes flow through file systems and storage drivers. We observe that low-level errors are sometimes lost as they travel through the many layers of the storage subsystem: out of the 9022 function calls through which the analyzed error codes propagate, we find that 1153 calls (13%) do not correctly save the propagated error codes. Our detailed analysis shows that many violations are not corner-case mistakes; the return codes of some functions are consistently ignored. Finally, we present I/O shepherding, a new reliability infrastructure for file systems. With I/O shepherding, the reliability policies of a file system are well-defined, easy to understand, and simple to tailor to environment and workload. As part of this framework, we also introduce chained transactions, a novel and more powerful transactional model for checkpoint recoveries. We show that I/O shepherding enables simple, powerful, and correctly-implemented reliability policies by implementing an increasingly complex set of policies.
A finite element discretization for stream-function problems on multiply connected domains

The no-normal-flow condition states that the stream-function is constant at solid boundaries. For multiply connected domains these (unknown) constants differ per boundary and must be determined from integral conditions. This complicates discretization and solution of the problem considerably. In this paper we describe a simple, elegant, and systematic way for solving this problem within the context of a finite element discretization and apply our ideas to global ocean circulation simulation.
Effectiveness of influenza vaccine against life-threatening RT-PCR-confirmed influenza illness in US children, 2010-2012.

BACKGROUND No studies have examined the effectiveness of influenza vaccine against intensive care unit (ICU) admission associated with influenza virus infection among children. METHODS In 2010-2011 and 2011-2012, children aged 6 months to 17 years admitted to 21 US pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) with acute severe respiratory illness and testing positive for influenza were enrolled as cases; children who tested negative were PICU controls. Community controls were children without an influenza-related hospitalization, matched to cases by comorbidities and geographic region. Vaccine effectiveness was estimated with logistic regression models. RESULTS We analyzed data from 44 cases, 172 PICU controls, and 93 community controls. Eighteen percent of cases, 31% of PICU controls, and 51% of community controls were fully vaccinated. Compared to unvaccinated children, children who were fully vaccinated were 74% (95% CI, 19% to 91%) or 82% (95% CI, 23% to 96%) less likely to be admitted to a PICU for influenza compared to PICU controls or community controls, respectively. Receipt of 1 dose of vaccine among children for whom 2 doses were recommended was not protective. CONCLUSIONS During the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 US influenza seasons, influenza vaccination was associated with a three-quarters reduction in the risk of life-threatening influenza illness in children.
Resolved Spectroscopy of a Gravitationally Lensed L^{*} Lyman Break Galaxy at z˜5: Evidence for a Starburst-Driven, Galactic-Scale Bi-Polar Outflow

We exploit the gravitational potential of a massive, rich cluster at z= 0.77 to study the internal properties of a gravitationally lensed galaxy at z= 4.88 . Using high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging together with optical (VIMOS) and near-infrared (SINFONI) integral field spectroscopy, we have studied the rest-frame ultraviolet and optical properties of the lensed galaxy seen through the cluster RCS0224−002. Using a detailed gravitational lens model of the cluster, we reconstruct the source-frame morphology on 200 pc scales and find an ~L* Lyman-break galaxy with an intrinsic size of only 2.0 × 0.8 kpc , a velocity gradient of ≲60 km s^(−1) and an implied dynamical mass of 1.0 × 10^(10) M_⊙ within 2 kpc. We infer an integrated star formation rate of just 12 ± 2 M_⊙ yr^(−1) from the intrinsic [O ii]λ3727 emission-line flux. The Lyα emission appears redshifted by +200 ± 40 km s^(−1) with respect to the [O ii] emission. The Lyα is also significantly more extended than the nebular emission, extending over 11.9 × 2.4 kpc. Over this area, the Lyα centroid varies by less than 10 km s^(−1) . We model the asymmetric Lyα emission with an underlying Gaussian profile with an absorber in the blue wing and find that the underlying Lyα emission-line centroid is in excellent agreement with the [O ii] emission-line redshift. By examining the spatially resolved structure of the [O ii] and Lyα emission lines, we investigate the nature of this system. The model for local starburst galaxies suggested by Mas-Hesse et al. provides a good description of our data, and suggests that the galaxy is surrounded by a galactic-scale bipolar outflow which has recently bursted out of the system. The outflow, which appears to be currently located ≳30 kpc from the galaxy, is escaping at a speed of upto ~500 km s^(−1) . Although the mass of the outflow is uncertain, the geometry and velocity of the outflow suggests that the ejected material is travelling far faster than escape velocity and will travel more than 1 Mpc (comoving) before eventually stalling.
Towards Cyber Defense: Research in Intrusion Detection and Intrusion Prevention Systems

Summary Cyber attack is one of the most rapidly growing threats to the world of cutting edge information technology. As new tools and techniques are emerging everyday to make information accessible over the Internet, so is their vulnerabilities. Cyber defense is inevitable in order to ensure reliable and secure communication and transmission of information. Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) are the major technologies dominating in the area of cyber defense. Tremendous efforts have already been put in intrusion detection research for decades but intrusion prevention research is still in its infancy. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current research in both Intrusion Detection Systems and recently emerged Intrusion Prevention Systems. Limitations of current research works in both fields are also discussed in conclusion.
Hiring People With Criminal Records in South Carolina: Examining Businesses’ Hiring Practices and Views on Incentives

The stigma of a criminal history has well-documented adverse effects on the efforts of ex-offenders to secure employment. What is less well understood is whether interventions or educational efforts targeting employers would improve access to the labor market for this population. We report results from two surveys to better understand attitudes toward hiring ex-offenders among samples of South Carolina businesses. Our results suggest that about half of employers routinely conduct background checks and approximately 60% would consider hiring someone with a criminal record. A key additional focus of our study was whether businesses were aware of various programs and incentives to encourage the hiring of ex-offenders. Our results suggest relatively low levels of awareness among the surveyed businesses and provide limited support for the idea that awareness is linked to more favorable attitudes toward hiring ex-offenders. We conclude with an assessment of study limitations and directions for future research.