Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-Time Acoustical Diffraction and First-Order Specular Reflection Modeling Using the GPU

Although the inclusion of spatial sound cues in virtual environments and video games can lead to increases in presence and immersion, spatial sound cues are often overlooked and neglected by designers of virtual environments and video games. However, simulating the propagation of a sound after being emitted from a sound source until it reaches the listener can be computationally very expensive given the potentially huge number of interactions that must be accounted for. Sound can be reflected specularly, diffusely, be refracted and diffracted in the presence of an occluding object/obstacle but for simplicity, diffraction is completely ignored despite the fact that diffraction is an important means of sound propagation. Driven by the gaming industry, consumer computer graphics hardware and the graphics processing unit (GPU) in particular, has greatly advanced in recent years, outperforming the computational capacity of central processing units (CPUs). Given the widespread use and availability of computer graphics hardware, a recent initiative involves the application of GPUs to spatial sound generation and processing. Here we describe a computationally efficient GPU-based acoustical occlusion method that approximates acoustical occlusion/diffraction and first order specular reflection effects for real-time, dynamic, and interactive virtual environments and video games.
Optimizing NAND flash-based SSDs via retention relaxation

As NAND Flash technology continues to scale down and more bits are stored in a cell, the raw reliability of NAND Flash memories degrades inevitably. To meet the retention capability required for a reliable storage system, we see a trend of longer write latency and more complex ECCs employed in an SSD storage system. These greatly impact the performance of future SSDs. In this paper, we present the first work to improve SSD performance via retention relaxation. NAND Flash is typically required to retain data for 1 to 10 years according to industrial standards. However, we observe that many data are over-written in hours or days in several popular workloads in datacenters. The gap between the specification guarantee and actual programs' needs can be exploited to improve write speed or ECCs' cost and performance. To exploit this opportunity, we propose a system design that allows data to be written in various latencies or protected by different ECC codes without hampering reliability. Simulation results show that via write speed optimization, we can achieve 1:8-5:7× write response time speedup. We also show that for future SSDs, retention relaxation can bring both performance and cost benefits to the ECC architecture.
Space-time block codes versus space-frequency block codes

In wireless broadband systems the available time, frequency and spatial diversity can be exploited using complex space-time-frequency codes. However, in order to retain a flexible scheme with low complexity we prefer a concatenated system where a channel code picks up time and frequency diversity and a simple orthogonal design is used to obtain spatial diversity. The channel needs to be constant during transmission of one orthogonal design. In a 4G OFDM system the elements of the orthogonal design can be distributed as space-time block code over successive OFDM symbols which might cause problems in fast fading or as space-frequency block code over neighbouring subcarriers which causes problems in severe frequency-selective channels. We analyse the suitability and performance of both schemes under 4G conditions and propose a space-time-frequency mapping which might be a good compromise in terms of performance and delay.
An Examination of Underlying Causes for Differences in Affect-Rich and Affect-Poor Choice

Real life decision-making frequently involves some level of affect, and research has demonstrated that individuals decide differently when outcomes are more or less rich with feeling. This difference in choice has previously been attributed to probability insensitivity in the presence of affect. In a series of three studies, we explored this possibility, while also testing alternative explanations, namely, that differences exist because of outcome characteristics such as comparability or precision. Individuals made choices between affect-rich side effects and affect-poor monetary lotteries in either a strictly numeric format, or with the addition of an icon array. Across the three studies we found little evidence that the icon array was beneficial, casting doubt on the previous explanation that differences in affect-rich and affect-poor choice are due to probability insensitivity. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find evidence that differences in choice could be attributed to outcome comparability, as there continued to be decrements in affect-rich choice, despite making affect-rich outcomes more comparable. As predicted, when precision in each affective context was better equated by describing monetary outcomes in less precise terms, the difference in affect-rich and affect-poor choice disappeared. It appears that it is difficult to choose well when outcomes are vague, which we suggest is potentially the result of a challenge integrating probability and outcome information. This research is a first step in providing a viable explanation for the “affect gap” and contributes to our understanding of how and why affect-rich and affect-poor choice may differ.
Fast mask assignment using positive semidefinite relaxation in LELECUT triple patterning lithography

One of the most promising techniques in the 14 nm logic node and beyond is triple patterning lithography (TPL). Recently, LELECUT type TPL technology, where the third mask is used to cut the patterns, is discussed to alleviate native conflict and overlay problems in LELELE type TPL. In this paper, we formulate LELECUT mask assignment problem which maximizes the compliance to the lithography and apply a positive semidefinite relaxation. In our proposed method, the positive semidefinite relaxation is defined by extracting cut candidates from the layout, and a mask assignment is obtained from an optimum solution of the relaxation by randomized rounding technique.
Minimum description length synthetic aperture radar image segmentation

We present a new minimum description length (MDL) approach based on a deformable partition--a polygonal grid--for automatic segmentation of a speckled image composed of several homogeneous regions. The image segmentation thus consists in the estimation of the polygonal grid, or, more precisely, its number of regions, its number of nodes and the location of its nodes. These estimations are performed by minimizing a unique MDL criterion which takes into account the probabilistic properties of speckle fluctuations and a measure of the stochastic complexity of the polygonal grid. This approach then leads to a global MDL criterion without an undetermined parameter since no other regularization term than the stochastic complexity of the polygonal grid is necessary and noise parameters can be estimated with maximum likelihood-like approaches. The performance of this technique is illustrated on synthetic and real synthetic aperture radar images of agricultural regions and the influence of different terms of the model is analyzed.
Removal of Gutta-Percha/Zinc-Oxide-Eugenol Sealer or Gutta-Percha/Epoxy Resin Sealer from Severely Curved Canals: An In Vitro Study

The aim of this study was to compare the cleanliness of root canal walls after retreatment using two rotary retreatment files to hand instruments in severely curved canals obturated with gutta-percha and two different sealers. Single rooted mandibular premolars (n = 90) with root curvatures were instrumented and obturated with gutta-percha and an epoxy resin (Group 1, n = 45) or zinc oxide eugenol sealer (Group 2, n = 45). Following retreatment of the specimens (n = 15 ProTaper Universal Retreatment Files (Subgroup B) or R-Endo retreatment files (Subgroup C) after 1 month, split specimens were examined under a stereomicroscope and the percentage of remaining root filling material was statistically compared using one way ANOVA with Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons (P = 0.05). The R-Endo system performed significantly better than the other two file systems (P < 0.05). None of the systems used in this study cleaned root canals thoroughly. The R-Endo system did provide cleaner walls when compared to the other instruments used. The type of root filling materials had an impact on the outcomes with all techniques.
Compilation and Worst-Case Reaction Time Analysis for Multithreaded Esterel Processing

The recently proposed reactive processing architectures are characterized by instruction set architectures (ISAs) that directly support reactive control fow including concurrency and preemption. These architectures provide efficient execution platforms for reactive synchronous programs; however, they do require novel compiler technologies, notably with respect to the handling of concurrency. Another key quality of the reactive architectures is that they have very predictable timing properties, which make it feasible to analyze their worst-case reaction time (WCRT). We present an approach to compile programs written in the synchronous language Esterel onto a reactive processing architecture that handles concurrency via priority-based multithreading. Building on this compilation approach, we also present a procedure for statically determining tight, safe upper bounds on the WCRT. Experimental results indicate the practicality of this approach, with WCRT estimates to be accurate within 22% on average.
Spatial Interactions of Peers and Performance of File Sharing Systems

We propose a new model for peer-to-peer networking which takes the network bottlenecks into account beyond the access. This model allows one to cope with key features of P2P networking like degree or locality constraints or the fact that distant peers often have a smaller rate than nearby peers. We show that the spatial point process describing peers in their steady state then exhibits an interesting repulsion phenomenon. We analyze two asymptotic regimes of the peer-to-peer network: the fluid regime and the hard--core regime. We get closed form expressions for the mean (and in some cases the law) of the peer latency and the download rate obtained by a peer as well as for the spatial density of peers in the steady state of each regime, as well as an accurate approximation that holds for all regimes. The analytical results are based on a mix of mathematical analysis and dimensional analysis and have important design implications. The first of them is the existence of a setting where the equilibrium mean latency is a decreasing function of the load, a phenomenon that we call super-scalability.
Passive protection of mice against Streptococcus pneumoniae challenge by naturally occurring and vaccine-induced human anti-PhtD antibodies

Currently marketed Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccines are based on polysaccharide capsular antigens from the most common strains. Pneumococcal histidine triad protein D (PhtD) is a conserved surface protein that is being evaluated as a candidate for a vaccine with improved serotype coverage. Here, we measured the functional activity of human anti-PhtD antibodies in a passive protection model wherein mice were challenged with a lethal dose of S. pneumoniae by intravenous injection. This functional activity was compared with anti-PhtD antibody concentrations measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to estimate the 50% protective dose (ED50). Anti-PhtD antibodies affinity purified from pooled normal human sera passively protected mice with an ED50 of 1679 ELISA units/ml (95% confidence interval, 1420–1946). Sera from subjects injected with aluminum-adjuvanted PhtD in a phase I trial had similar activity per unit of antibody (ED50 = 1331 ELISA units/ml [95% confidence interval, 762–2038]). Vaccine-induced activity in the passive protection model was blocked by pre-incubation with recombinant PhtD but not by a control S. pneumoniae antigen (LytB). These results show that human anti-PhtD antibodies, whether naturally acquired or induced by the PhtD candidate vaccine, are functional. This supports the development of the PhtD candidate as part of a broadly protective pneumococcal vaccine.
Cottonwood Leaf Beetle (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) Larval Performance on Eight Populus Clones

Abstract The cottonwood leaf beetle, Chrysomela scripta F. , is the most serious defoliator of young plantation-grown Populus in the eastern United States, yet there is a paucity of data on larval feeding performance across Populus clones used in tree breeding. Field experiments were conducted in 1998 and 1999 to determine the overall feeding performance of larval C. scripta on 8 Populus selections from a pedigree family. Using a randomized complete block design, entire trees were enclosed in mesh cages, and female C. scripta were allowed to oviposit in sleeve cages on each tree. Larval cohorts were culled to 10 upon hatch and allowed to develop to pupation within each sleeve cage. Larval survival, pupal weight, adult emergence, and total mortality were recorded as performance parameters. Significant but inconsistent performance differences were found among clones, suggesting that some clones were less suitable for C. scripta larval development in some insect generations. Larval performance was generally poorer on clones with higher P. trichocarpa parentage. C. scripta performance was significantly poorer in 1999 and showed a decline throughout the 1999 growing season, but it is not clear whether this was caused by conditions of the host plants, weather patterns, or changes made in the source of insects for infestation. Clones with foliar characteristics detrimental to larval C. scripta performance could be used for plantings or in developing C. scripta-resistant hybrid Populus selections for short-rotation woody crop systems.
The Relationship between the ACTN3 Genotype and Measures of Stress, Exercise Performance and Body Composition

Antonio J, Knafo S, Ellerbroek A, Vargas L, Silver T, Peacock C, Tartar J. The Relationship between the ACTN3 Genotype and Measures of Stress, Exercise Performance, and Body Composition: A Pilot Trial. JEPonline 2017;20(6):139-153. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between the expression of the ACTN3 gene (RR homozygous or RX heterozygous) and measures of stress, performance (i.e., bench press strength and endurance), and body composition. Strength was determined via a 1-RM (onerepetition maximum) for the bench press, and muscular endurance was determined by the number of repetitions to failure that were performed on the bench press at 60% of 1-RM. Body composition was assessed via a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). One hundred and five subjects completed the study ([mean ± SEM]: body weight: R/group: 73.8 ± 1.7 kg vs. XX group: 66.6 ± 2.8 kg). There were no significant differences between XX and R/(carriers of ACTN3) for fat mass, lean body mass, % fat or body weight. However, R/demonstrated significantly greater bone mineral content (mean ± SEM: R/= 2951 ± 70 g, XX = 2622 ± 73 g) and density (R/= 1.35 ± 0.02, XX = 1.28 ± 0.03 g/cm). No differences were found for any of the other parameters. In exercise-trained individuals, carriers of the gene (R/-) demonstrated greater bone mineral content and density.
Exploring nitrogen remobilization for seed filling using natural variation in Arabidopsis thaliana

Nineteen Arabidopsis accessions grown at low (LOW N) and high (HIGH N) nitrate supplies were labelled using 15N to trace nitrogen remobilization to the seeds. Effects of genotype and nutrition were examined. Nitrate availability affected biomass and yield, and highly modified the nitrogen concentration in the dry remains. Surprisingly, variations of one-seed dry weight (DW1S) and harvest index (HI) were poorly affected by nutrition. Nitrogen harvest index (NHI) was highly correlated with HI and showed that nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) was increased at LOW N. Nitrogen remobilization efficiency (NRE), as 15N partitioning in seeds (15NHI), was also higher at LOW N. The relative specific abundance (RSA) in seeds and whole plants indicated that the 14NO3 absorbed post-labelling was mainly allocated to the seeds (SEEDS) at LOW N, but to the dry remains (DR) at HIGH N. Nitrogen concentration (N%) in the DR was then 4-fold higher at HIGH N compared with LOW N, whilst N% in seeds was poorly modified. Although NHI and 15NHI were highly correlated to HI, significant variations in NUE and NRE were identified using normalization to HI. New insights provided in this report are helpful for the comprehension of NUE and NRE concepts in Arabidopsis as well as in crops and especially in Brassica napus.
Dietary Caprylic Acid (C8:0) Does Not Increase Plasma Acylated Ghrelin but Decreases Plasma Unacylated Ghrelin in the Rat

Focusing on the caprylic acid (C8:0), this study aimed at investigating the discrepancy between the formerly described beneficial effects of dietary medium chain fatty acids on body weight loss and the C8:0 newly reported effect on food intake via ghrelin octanoylation. During 6 weeks, Sprague-Dawley male rats were fed with three dietary C8:0 levels (0, 8 and 21% of fatty acids) in three experimental conditions (moderate fat, caloric restriction and high fat). A specific dose-response enrichment of the stomach tissue C8:0 was observed as a function of dietary C8:0, supporting the hypothesis of an early preduodenal hydrolysis of medium chain triglycerides and a direct absorption at the gastric level. However, the octanoylated ghrelin concentration in the plasma was unchanged in spite of the increased C8:0 availability. A reproducible decrease in the plasma concentration of unacylated ghrelin was observed, which was consistent with a decrease in the stomach preproghrelin mRNA and stomach ghrelin expression. The concomitant decrease of the plasma unacylated ghrelin and the stability of its acylated form resulted in a significant increase in the acylated/total ghrelin ratio which had no effect on body weight gain or total dietary consumption. This enhanced ratio measured in rats consuming C8:0 was however suspected to increase (i) growth hormone (GH) secretion as an increase in the GH-dependent mRNA expression of the insulin like growth Factor 1 (IGF-1) was measured (ii) adipocyte diameters in subcutaneous adipose tissue without an increase in the fat pad mass. Altogether, these results show that daily feeding with diets containing C8:0 increased the C8:0 level in the stomach more than all the other tissues, affecting the acylated/total ghrelin plasma ratio by decreasing the concentration of circulating unacylated ghrelin. However, these modifications were not associated with increased body weight or food consumption.
Tumor-suppressive microRNA-145 induces growth arrest by targeting SENP1 in human prostate cancer cells

Prostate cancer (PCa) prevails as the most commonly diagnosed malignancy in men and the third leading cause of cancer‐related deaths in developed countries. One of the distinct characteristics of prostate cancer is overexpression of the small ubiquitin‐like modifier (SUMO)‐specific protease 1 (SENP1), and the upregulation of SENP1 contributes to the malignant progression and cell proliferation of PCa. Previous studies have shown that the expression of microRNA‐145 (miRNA‐145) was extensively deregulated in PCa cell lines and primary clinical prostate cancer samples. Independent target prediction methods have indicated that the 3′‐untranslated region of SENP1 mRNA is a potential target of miR‐145. Here we found that low expression of miR‐145 was correlated with high expression of SENP1 in PCa cell line PC‐3. The transient introduction of miR‐145 caused cell cycle arrest in PC‐3 cells, and the opposite effect was observed when miR‐145 inhibitor was transfected. Further studies revealed that the SENP1 3′‐untranslated region was a regulative target of miR‐145 in vitro. MicroRNA‐145 also suppressed tumor formation in vivo in nude mice. Taken together, miR‐145 plays an important role in tumorigenesis of PCa through interfering SENP1.
Compensatory Structural Adaptive Modifications of Vagina in Response to Functional Demand in Goat

Vaginal biopsies and smears were collected from ten adult local healthy goats. Routine histological methods were carried out on vaginal biopsies and then stained with PAS stain. The smears were stained with Methylene blue. All samples were inspected under light microscope. The present study found that many constituents of the wall of the vagina, which have an important functional role, were absent; among these were the vaginal glands, goblet cells, muscularis mucosa, and lymphatic nodules. On the other hand, vagina showed special compensatory histological mechanisms, namely, the deep epithelial folds, the well-developed germinated stratum basale, the apparent basement membrane, and the profuse defensive cells, such as neutrophils, macrophages, lymphocytes, plasma cells, and mast cells. The general stains of this study could not recognize dendritic cells although they play an important functional role. Moreover, the herein study declared also that the vaginal smears showing many adaptive cellular mechanisms among these were, the keratinization, the process of sheet formation that lines the vaginal lumen, the process of metachromasia which is related to the cellular activity in protein synthesis, keratin, and finally the presence of endogenous microorganisms. It was concluded that all the above cellular compensatory adaptive mechanisms may compensate the lacking vaginal constituents and act to raise the immune response of the vagina.
A Text Classification based method for context extraction from online reviews

Recommender systems are systems that filter information depending on users' profiles and suggest items that might match their preferences. While the majority of existing researches compute recommendation by considering only users and items, Context Aware Recommendation Systems (CARS) consider, in addition to users and items, others features related to the context. A first issue in CARS studies is to identify the contextual features. In this paper, we investigate the use of Text Classification techniques to extract contextual features from users' reviews. We conduct experiments to identify the best classification algorithm for our dataset. We evaluate our approach on hotel reviews. We focus on extracting the trip type, as contextual information, from these reviews. Results show that the Multinomial Naive Bayes performs best in our dataset, with a Fl score of 60.1 %. Since contextual information are not always provided in the reviews, we think that our results are promising. We conclude that this research area needs deeper studies.
Measurement of radiation-pressure-induced optomechanical dynamics in a suspended Fabry-Perot cavity

We report on experimental observation of radiation-pressure induced effects in a high-power optical cavity. These effects play an important role in next-generation gravitational wave detectors, as well as in quantum nondemolition interferometers. We measure the properties of an optical spring, created by coupling of an intense laser field to the pendulum mode of a suspended mirror, and also the parametric instability (PI) that arises from the coupling between acoustic modes of the cavity mirrors and the cavity optical mode. We measure an unprecedented optical rigidity of K=(3.08{+-}0.09)x10{sup 4} N/m, corresponding to an optical rigidity that is 6000 times stiffer than the mechanical stiffness, and PI strength R{approx_equal}3. We measure the unstable nature of the optical spring resonance, and demonstrate that the PI can be stabilized by feedback to the frequency of the laser source.