Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Temperature management in data centers: why some (might) like it hot

The energy consumed by data centers is starting to make up a significant fraction of the world's energy consumption and carbon emissions. A large fraction of the consumed energy is spent on data center cooling, which has motivated a large body of work on temperature management in data centers. Interestingly, a key aspect of temperature management has not been well understood: controlling the setpoint temperature at which to run a data center's cooling system. Most data centers set their thermostat based on (conservative) suggestions by manufacturers, as there is limited understanding of how higher temperatures will affect the system. At the same time, studies suggest that increasing the temperature setpoint by just one degree could save 2-5% of the energy consumption. This paper provides a multi-faceted study of temperature management in data centers. We use a large collection of field data from different production environments to study the impact of temperature on hardware reliability, including the reliability of the storage subsystem, the memory subsystem and server reliability as a whole. We also use an experimental testbed based on a thermal chamber and a large array of benchmarks to study two other potential issues with higher data center temperatures: the effect on server performance and power. Based on our findings, we make recommendations for temperature management in data centers, that create the potential for saving energy, while limiting negative effects on system reliability and performance.
The vitamin B6 requirement in oral contraceptive users.

Women using oral contraceptives (OCs) have been found to excrete increased amounts of several metabolites arising from tryptophan catabolism, the most pronounced change being in xanthurenic acid and kynurenic acid excretion. The abnormality is largely corrected by the administration of pyridoxine, suggesting an increased need for vitamin B6 in OC users. Although a majority of malnourished and well-nourished women show the abnormality in tryptophan metabolism following OC use, investigators differ in their assessment of vitamin B6 status using other tests. The question of vitamin B6 deficiency in OC users is controversial. 2 types of multiparameter assessment approaches have been used to elucidate the vitamin B6 requirement of OC users. In a study of malnourished India women, it was observed that daily supplements of 10 mg pyridoxine from the day of starting contraception largely prevented the development of the abnormality in tryptophan metabolism. This level of supplementation also prevented the OC-mediated deterioration in vitamin B6 status as determined byerythrocyte aspartate aminotransferase activation. In another type of multiparametric approach Brown et al. and Laklem et al. measured the pyridoxine status of OC users on known intakes of the vitamin in a depletion followed by repletion study. Despite the current controversy, it might be advisable to supplement women using OC with pyridoxine to ensure a daily intake of at least 5 mg vitamin B6.
Nonparametric modeling of clustered customer survival data

Abstract We incorporate a random clustering effect into the nonparametric version of Cox Proportional Hazards model to characterize clustered survival data. The simulation studies provide evidence that clustered survival data can be better characterized through a nonparametric model. Predictive accuracy of the nonparametric model is affected by number of clusters and distribution of the random component accounting for clustering effect. As the functional form of the covariate departs from linearity, the nonparametric model is becoming more advantageous over the parametric counterpart. Finally, nonparametric is better than parametric model when data are highly heterogenous and/or there is misspecification error.
"Body-In-The-Loop": Optimizing Device Parameters Using Measures of Instantaneous Energetic Cost

This paper demonstrates methods for the online optimization of assistive robotic devices such as powered prostheses, orthoses and exoskeletons. Our algorithms estimate the value of a physiological objective in real-time (with a body “in-the-loop”) and use this information to identify optimal device parameters. To handle sensor data that are noisy and dynamically delayed, we rely on a combination of dynamic estimation and response surface identification. We evaluated three algorithms (Steady-State Cost Mapping, Instantaneous Cost Mapping, and Instantaneous Cost Gradient Search) with eight healthy human subjects. Steady-State Cost Mapping is an established technique that fits a cubic polynomial to averages of steady-state measures at different parameter settings. The optimal parameter value is determined from the polynomial fit. Using a continuous sweep over a range of parameters and taking into account measurement dynamics, Instantaneous Cost Mapping identifies a cubic polynomial more quickly. Instantaneous Cost Gradient Search uses a similar technique to iteratively approach the optimal parameter value using estimates of the local gradient. To evaluate these methods in a simple and repeatable way, we prescribed step frequency via a metronome and optimized this frequency to minimize metabolic energetic cost. This use of step frequency allows a comparison of our results to established techniques and enables others to replicate our methods. Our results show that all three methods achieve similar accuracy in estimating optimal step frequency. For all methods, the average error between the predicted minima and the subjects’ preferred step frequencies was less than 1% with a standard deviation between 4% and 5%. Using Instantaneous Cost Mapping, we were able to reduce subject walking-time from over an hour to less than 10 minutes. While, for a single parameter, the Instantaneous Cost Gradient Search is not much faster than Steady-State Cost Mapping, the Instantaneous Cost Gradient Search extends favorably to multi-dimensional parameter spaces.
Afro-Diasporic Seasonings

Abstract This paper offers some perspectives concerning the centrality of food for the way Dominican immigrants in New York City negotiate the micro-politics of place and community. It examines how immigrants navigate the urban spaces through food routes, form new social networks and re-imagine places of home in a new society. Using the concept of “Afro-diasporic seasonings” is a way to point to the struggles, movements, and wider contexts of memory-history that made possible the present relations between these people, foods and places. This exploration is approached from three angles. First, I share some findings about how Dominican immigrants season their foods and lives in New York City. Second, I discuss place-seasonings, or how the process of finding housing has a tremendous impact on self-making and community formation. Third, I contextualize Dominican migrants' food practices within Afro-diasporic trajectories.
Women's Political Representation: The Importance of Ideology

Women's low rate of participation at the highest levels of politics is an enduring problem in gender stratification. Previous cross-national research on women in national legislatures has stressed three explanations for differences in women's political representation: social structure, politics, and ideology. Despite strong theory suggesting the importance of ideology, it has not found support in previous cross-national statistical studies. But ideology has not been as well measured as structural and political factors. In this article, we demonstrate that gender ideology strongly affects the number of women in national legislatures. We do so by introducing a newly available measure of national gender ideology into a cross-national model of women in legislatures. We demonstrate that ideology, when measured more precisely, strongly predicts differences in women's political representation.
Oxford-Style Debates in a Microbiology Course for Majors: A Method for Delivering Content and Engaging Critical Thinking Skills †

Developing scientific expertise in the classroom involves promoting higher-order cognitive skills as well as content mastery. Effective use of constructivism can facilitate these outcomes. However this is often difficult to accomplish when delivery of content is paramount. Utilizing many of the tenets of constructivist pedagogy, we have designed an Oxford-style debate assignment to be used in an introductory microbiology course. Two teams of students were assigned a debatable topic within microbiology. Over a five-week period students completed an informative web page consisting of three parts: background on the topic, data-based positions for each side of the argument, and a data-based persuasive argument to support their assigned position. This was followed by an in-class presentation and debate. Analysis of student performance on knowledge-based questions shows that students retain debate-derived content acquired primarily outside of lectures significantly better than content delivered during a normal lecture. Importantly, students who performed poorly on the lecture-derived questions did as well on debate-derived questions as other students. Students also performed well on questions requiring higher-order cognitive skills and in synthesizing data-driven arguments in support of a position during the debate. Student perceptions of their knowledge-base in areas covered by the debate and their skills in using scientific databases and analyzing primary literature showed a significant increase in pre- and postassignment comparisons. Our data demonstrate that an Oxford-style debate can be used effectively to deliver relevant content, increase higher-order cognitive skills, and increase self-efficacy in science-specific skills, all contributing to developing expertise in the field.
CT and MR of the brain in glutaric acidemia type I: a review of 59 published cases and a report of 5 new patients.

PURPOSE To identify a pattern of findings on CT or MR of the brain in glutaric acidemia type I typical enough to permit a correct diagnosis. METHODS Clinical history and findings and brain CT and MR results in 59 previously reported patients (MR in 12) and in 5 new patients (all examined with MR and 3 also with CT) were reviewed. RESULTS In half the patients macrocephaly was present, and in half the onset was acute, often following infection and mimicking encephalitis. Although brain atrophy or hypoplasia was found in 61% and white matter changes in 51% of the patients, open opercula (usually very widely open) and often also wide cerebrospinal fluid spaces anterior to the temporal lobes were seen in 93%. Basal ganglia lesions, presenting as volume loss and high T2 signal in the caudate head and often also the lentiform nucleus bilaterally, were found in 44% and extracerebral fluid collections in 7 of 64 patients. CONCLUSION The finding of very widely open opercula suggests glutaric acidemia type I, and if combined with basal ganglia lesions is almost pathognomonic, especially in a child with macrocephaly.
WebWitness: Investigating, Categorizing, and Mitigating Malware Download Paths

Most modern malware download attacks occur via the browser, typically due to social engineering and drive-by downloads. In this paper, we study the "origin" of malware download attacks experienced by real network users, with the objective of improving malware download defenses. Specifically, we study the web paths followed by users who eventually fall victim to different types of malware downloads. To this end, we propose a novel incident investigation system, named WebWitness. Our system targets two main goals: 1) automatically trace back and label the sequence of events (e.g., visited web pages) preceding malware downloads, to highlight how users reach attack pages on the web; and 2) leverage these automatically labeled in-the-wild malware download paths to better understand current attack trends, and to develop more effective defenses. We deployed WebWitness on a large academic network for a period of ten months, where we collected and categorized thousands of live malicious download paths. An analysis of this labeled data allowed us to design a new defense against drive-by downloads that rely on injecting malicious content into (hacked) legitimate web pages. For example, we show that by leveraging the incident investigation information output by WebWitness we can decrease the infection rate for this type of drive-by downloads by almost six times, on average, compared to existing URL blacklisting approaches.
Male students: engagement with academic and pastoral support services

While recognising that women are often disadvantaged in comparison to men, this research was commissioned by Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) in light of emerging differences in participation, retention and attainment between undergraduate male and female students in higher education. It investigates patterns of male and female undergraduate engagement with services that have been found to improve student retention and attainment.
The Association between miR-196a2 rs11614913 Polymorphism and Digestive System Cancer Risk: A Meta-Analysis of 34 Studies

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) negatively regulate the gene expression and act as tumor suppressors or oncogenes in carcinogenesis. The association between single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in miR-196a2 rs11614913 and the susceptibility of digestive system cancers was inconsistent in previous studies. Methods: A standardized search of PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane library databases for publications on miR-196a2 rs11614913 polymorphism and digestive system cancer risk was performed. Then the genotype data were analyzed in a meta-analysis. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to evaluate the association. Test of heterogeneity, sensitivity analysis and assessment of publication bias were conducted in the present meta-analysis by STATA software 12.0. Results: An updated meta-analysis based on 34 independent case-control studies consisting of 13,013 cases and 16,046 controls was performed to address this association. There was a remarkable association between miR-196a2 rs11614913 polymorphism and overall digestive system cancer risk, especially in Asian populations. Moreover, subgroup analysis revealed that variant C allele increased risk of colorectal carcinoma, gastric cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), compared with wild T allele. Conclusions: There was a remarkable association between miR-196a2 rs11614913 polymorphism and overall digestive system cancer risk, especially in Asian populations.
Recurrent genomic alterations characterize medulloblastoma arising from DNA double-strand break repair deficiency

Inactivation of homologous recombination (HR) or nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) predisposes to a spectrum of tumor types. Here, we inactivated DNA double-strand break repair (DSBR) proteins, DNA Ligase IV (Lig4), Xrcc2, and Brca2, or combined Lig4/Xrcc2 during neural development using Nestin-cre. In all cases, inactivation of these repair factors, together with p53 loss, led to rapid medulloblastoma formation. Genomic analysis of these tumors showed recurring chromosome 13 alterations via chromosomal loss or translocations involving regions containing Ptch1. Sequence analysis of the remaining Ptch1 allele showed a variety of inactivating mutations in all tumors analyzed, highlighting the critical tumor suppressor function of this hedgehog-signaling regulator. We also observed genomic amplification or up-regulation of either N-Myc or cyclin D2 in all medulloblastomas. Additionally, chromosome 19, which contains Pten, was also selectively deleted in medulloblastoma arising after disruption of HR. Thus, our data highlight the preeminence of Ptch1 as a tumor suppressor in cerebellar granule cells and reveal other genomic events central to the genesis of medulloblastoma.
Phonetic and Phonological Processes: The Case of Nasalization

The aim of this paper is to differentiate between universal phonetic processes and language-specific phonological processes. Cross-linguistic data on coarticulatory nasalization of vowels preceding a nasal consonant were obtained across different speech rates in American English and Spanish. The data show that in American English the temporal extent of vowel nasalization varies with speech rate, whereas in Spanish, nasalization has a constant temporal extent across speech rates. It is argued that the different behavior of nasalization in these two languages reflects different inputs to speech production: In Spanish, vowels followed by a nasal are targeted as oral and nasalization is an unintended vocal tract constraint, whereas, in American English, vowels are targeted as nasalized and vowel nasalization is a phonological effect, intentionally implemented by the speaker. It is suggested that in American English, vowels followed by a tautosyllabic nasal are phonologically specified as nasal as a result of sound change. Data on perceived vowel nasalization in American English are reviewed and shown to be compatible with this proposal.
A New Open Door: The Smartphone's Impact on Work-to-Life Conflict, Stress, and Resistance

Use of job-provided or personally owned smartphones at work and at home, henceforth office-home smartphone (OHS), has created a "new open door policy," portending many changes for employees and organizations. We examine the unique attributes of OHS use, such as flexibility, productivity, and work overload, along with the impact of these attributes on work-to-life conflict and other work-related outcomes. The findings of this study show that an increased work overload due to OHS use results in greater work-to-life conflict, which creates job stress and user resistance to OHS; however, productivity gained due to OHS use can reduce work overload. Our findings indicate that business organizations can minimize negative effects of OHS by promoting an organizational culture that supports segmentation of work and attempts to minimize work-to-life conflict and its consequences. Results also provide guidance to scholars seeking a comprehensive research model on the use of smartphones traversing work and home.
Russian Elections and TV News

Recent parliamentary and presidential election campaigns in the Russian Federation offer a chance to study the political role of television in a post-Soviet state. Television has many roles to play during an election in a developing democracy: It should inform voters about choices, report on the events of the campaign, and educate voters about the electoral process itself. This article examines how the news coverage of parliamentary and presidential elections on Russia's primary state television channel and on its largest private television station fulfilled these goals. The results of coding television news during the campaign periods for the 1995 Duma campaign and the 1996 presidential race show that these channels generally failed to contribute fully to the legitimization of the electoral process. During the parliamentary campaign, state-controlled Russian Public Television (ORT) focused on pro-government parties and neglected coverage of the competition. Although the elections coverage on the private NTV station was more balanced, the elections were relatively ignored in favor of aggressive coverage of the war in Chechnya. By the 1996 presidential election, the two stations both abandoned the pretense of neutrality to promote the incumbent presidential candidate, Boris Yeltsin. What emerges from this study is evidence of a missed opportunity to consolidate the growth of an independent media in Russia—and the failure of voters to obtain disinterested information from primary television outlets in a fragile democracy.
Three Ethnic and Racial Identity Measures: Concurrent and Divergent Validity for Diverse Adolescents

Racial and ethnic identity research encompasses ethnic identity (Phinney, 1992), collective self-esteem (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992), and racial identity (Sellers, Chavous, & Cooke, 1998). Distinguishing racial and ethnic identity constructs is difficult due to the complexity of racial and ethnic identity and conceptual differences between several psychometrically sound instruments (Ponterotto & Park-Taylor, 2007). This study investigated simultaneously the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure, the Collective Self-Esteem Scale–Race, and the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity in a sample of 160 diverse adolescents, comparing across measures to identify similar and dissimilar theoretical and item content. Reliability scores were adequate. Expectations for convergent validity were met. Significant moderate correlations were found for group membership and saliency of identity subscales (r = .31 to .46). Theoretically similar public or private regard subscales evidenced convergent validity at moderate to high levels (r = .73 and .91). No significant correlations emerged between private identity and public identity subscales. Identity researchers are encouraged to explore the nuanced theoretical bases on which measures were developed and the tremendous potential for application to specific research questions for specific groups within specific cultural contexts.
Decrease in Order of Human Sperm Lipids During Capacitation1

Abstract Ejaculated mammalian sperm must undergo a final maturation (capacitation) before they can acrosome-react and fertilize eggs. Loss of the sperm sterols, cholesterol and desmosterol, is an obligatory step in the capacitation of human sperm. Because sterols can increase the order of membrane phospholipids, it has been suggested that the importance of sterol loss is that it decreases membrane lipid order. The present study tested the hypotheses that sterol loss decreases sperm membrane lipid order during capacitation and that lipid disorder is a sufficient stimulus for capacitation. Steady-state fluorescence anisotropy of the membrane probe, 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene, decreased during capacitation, indicating a decrease in lipid order. The decrease was dependent on the loss of sperm sterols, suggesting that it reflected diminished sterol-mediated phospholipid ordering. However, the lipid-fluidizing agents, benzyl alcohol and 2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethyl 8-(cis-2-n-octylcyclopropyl) octanoate, did not cause sperm capacitation or overcome inhibition by cholesterol. In summary, loss of sperm sterols caused a significant decline in lipid order during capacitation; however, decreased bulk lipid order was not sufficient to trigger the subsequent events that complete capacitation.
Transforming subject knowledge: drama student-teachers and the pursuit of pedagogical content knowledge

For many prospective teachers of drama, passion for their subject is a highly motivating force. In this paper I seek to shed light on the process by which personal constructs of drama as a subject are transformed during a period of teacher education, and answer key questions about the ways in which drama student-teachers develop their pedagogical knowledge. I draw upon a research project undertaken at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, using questionnaires and interviews with three cohorts of student-teachers at various points during their studies. The findings point to a complex interplay between prior and on-course experiences in shaping the student-teachers' positions about the body of subject knowledge they are required to know and apply. The study also highlights the importance of subject knowledge as the frame within which pedagogical content knowledge is constructed, a relationship that is not properly recognised within the current competencies-based model of teacher education.