Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Balancing Accuracy and Execution Time for Similar Virtual Machines Identification in IaaS Cloud

Identification of VMs exhibiting similar behavior can improve scalability in monitoring and management of cloud data centers. Existing solutions for automatic VM clustering may be either very accurate, at the price of a high computational cost, or able to provide fast results with limited accuracy. Furthermore, the performance of most solutions may change significantly depending on the specific values of technique parameters. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to model VM behavior using Mixture of Gaussians (MoGs) to approximate the probability density function of resources utilization. Moreover, we exploit the Kullback-Leibler divergence to measure the similarity between MoGs. The proposed technique is compared against the state of the art through a set of experiments with data coming from a private cloud data center. Our experiments show that the proposed technique can provide high accuracy with limited computational requirements. Furthermore, we show that the performance of our proposal, unlike the existing alternatives, does not depend on any parameter.
The potential angiogenic role of macrophages in the formation of choroidal neovascular membranes.

PURPOSE To investigate the distribution of inflammatory mediators such as interleukin (IL)-1beta and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and angiogenic cytokines such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and to identify their cellular source in surgically excised choroidal neovascular membranes (CNVMs) of various origins. METHODS Immunoperoxidase staining was performed on paraffin-embedded sections of 11 surgically excised CNVMs to identify cellular distribution and localization of cytokines. Immunofluorescent double staining was performed to detect the cellular source of cytokines. RESULTS Cytokeratin-positive cells were detected in the RPE layer, in stromal cells, and around neovascular vessels. Macrophages identified by their cellular marker CD68 showed almost the same distribution as cytokeratin-positive cells, although they were most prominent in the stroma. A substantial number of neovascular vessels were also immunoreactive to IL-1beta and TNF-alpha. Immunofluorescent double staining revealed that the RPE layers immunopositive for cytokeratin were also immunopositive for all cytokines, whereas stromal cells immunostained for CD68 were positive for IL-1beta and TNF-alpha, but not for VEGF. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that IL-1beta and TNF-alpha secreted by macrophages may promote, at least in part, angiogenesis in CNVMs by stimulating VEGF production in RPE cells.
How Do People Escape Rumination? Development of a Laboratory Task to Assess the Role of Negative Valenced Distraction

ii Vita . iv List of Tables . ix List of Figures . x Introduction. 1 Hypotheses . 9 Method . 10 Participants. 10 Baseline Questionnaires . 11 Demographic Questions . 11 Psychopathology . 12 Centers for Epidemiological Studies – Depression Scale (CES-D) . 12 Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory (DSHI) . 12 Emotion Dysregulation . 13 Difficulties with Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) . 13 Rumination. 13 Ruminative Responses Scale – Brooding (RRS-B) . 13 Responses to Positive Affect (RPA) . 14 Disgust Sensitivity . 14 Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale – Revised (DPSS-R) . 14
A Life-Cycle Model of Habitual Dependence in Leisure Demand

This model proposes an extension of the traditional habits in consumption literature to encompass the time-persistence of leisure demand. The model establishes a link between the habitual leisure and income effects, which amplifies the traditional effects on savings, investment and consumption distribution across periods. The disutility of habits stock varies with the strength of habit formation. At the same time, the wage elasticity of demand for leisure and the income elasticity of consumption are shown to be functions of the strength of habit formation. The model concludes that while habitual leisure captures the effects of persistence in leisure, it fails to reflect the time dependency properties of consumption. This warrants a new approach to modelling consumption and leisure demand that includes the possibility for time dependent and weakly inseparable consumption and leisure.
The Effects of Rehearsal on the Functional Neuroanatomy of Episodic Autobiographical and Semantic Remembering: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

This study examined the effects of rehearsal on the neural substrates supporting episodic autobiographical and semantic memory. Stimuli were collected prospectively using audio recordings, thereby bringing under experimental control ecologically valid, naturalistic autobiographical stimuli. Participants documented both autobiographical and semantic stimuli over a period of 6–8 months, followed by a rehearsal manipulation during the 3 d preceding scanning. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, participants were exposed to recordings that they were hearing for the first, second, or eighth time. Rehearsal increased the rated vividness with which information was remembered, particularly for autobiographical events. Neuroimaging findings revealed rehearsal-related suppression of activation in regions supporting episodic autobiographical and semantic memory. Episodic autobiographical and semantic memory produced distinctly different patterns of regional activation that held even after eight repetitions. Region of interest analyses further indicated a functional anatomical dissociation in response to rehearsal and memory conditions. These findings revealed that the hippocampus was specifically engaged by episodic autobiographical memory, whereas both memory conditions engaged the parahippocampal cortex. Our data suggest that, when retrieval cues are potent enough to engage a vivid episodic recollection, the episodic/semantic dissociation within medial temporal lobe structures endure even with multiple stimulus repetitions. These findings support the multiple trace theory, which predicts that the hippocampus is engaged in the retrieval of rich episodic recollection regardless of repeated reactivation such as that occurring with the passage of time.
Evolutionary relationships between 15 Plasmodium species from New and Old World primates (including humans): a 18S rDNA cladistic analysis

We present a new phylogenetic analysis of 15 primate Plasmodium species based on 18S rDNA sequences including new sequences of Plasmodium coatneyi, P. fieldi, P. gonderi, P. hylobati and P. simium. The results are discussed in the context of the parasite host species and their geographical distribution. Contrary to other phylogenies constructed with this 18S rDNA molecule, we observed that the topology of phylogenetic trees was not affected either by the quality of the nucleotide matrices, or by the species present in the outgroup. This analysis showed the following. (1) The polyphyly of human Plasmodium is confirmed. (2) The monophyly of Plasmodium from Old World monkeys is confirmed by the new added sequences and P. gonderi, an African species, possibly could be at the root of this group. (3) The most parsimonious biogeographical hypothesis is that P. vivax originated in Asia; thus, its related species P. simium appears to be derived through a transfer from the human P. vivax to New World monkey species in South America. (4) Sampling efforts of non-human primate Plasmodium could permit improvement of the knowledge of primate Plasmodium phylogeny and also consideration of the risks of malaria emergence from monkey reservoirs.
Epithelial and Stromal Cell Urokinase Plasminogen Activator Receptor Expression Differentially Correlates with Survival in Rectal Cancer Stages B and C Patients

Urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) has been proposed as a potential prognostic factor for colorectal cancer (CRC) patient survival. However, CRC uPAR expression remains controversial, especially regarding cell types where uPAR is overexpressed (e.g., epithelium (uPARE) or stroma-associated cells (uPARS)) and associated prognostic relevance. In this study, two epitope-specific anti-uPAR monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) could discriminate expression of uPARE from uPARS and were used to examine this association with survival of stages B and C rectal cancer (RC) patients. Using immunohistochemistry, MAbs #3937 and R4 were used to discriminate uPARE from uPARS respectively in the central and invasive frontal regions of 170 stage B and 179 stage C RC specimens. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were used to determine association with survival. uPAR expression occurred in both epithelial and stromal compartments with differential expression observed in many cases, indicating uPARE and uPARS have different cellular roles. In the central and invasive frontal regions, uPARE was adversely associated with overall stage B survival (HR = 1.9; p = 0.014 and HR = 1.5; p = 0.031, respectively) reproducing results from previous studies. uPARS at the invasive front was associated with longer stage C survival (HR = 0.6; p = 0.007), reflecting studies demonstrating that macrophage peritumoural accumulation is associated with longer survival. This study demonstrates that different uPAR epitopes should be considered as being expressed on different cell types during tumour progression and at different stages in RC. Understanding how uPARE and uPARS expression affects survival is anticipated to be a useful clinical prognostic marker of stages B and C RC.
Predicting Persistent Back Symptoms by Psychosocial Risk Factors: Validity Criteria for the ÖMPSQ and the HKF-R 10 in Germany

Objective 10% of all individuals in Germany develop persistent symptoms due to nonspecific back pain (NSBP) causing up to 90% of direct and indirect expenses for health care systems. Evidence indicates a strong relationship between chronic nonspecific back pain and psychosocial risk factors. The Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (ÖMPSQ) and the German Heidelberger Kurzfragebogen Rückenschmerz (HKF-R 10) are deemed valid in prediction of persistent pain, functional loss or amount of sick leave. This study provides and discusses validity criteria for these questionnaires using ROC-curve analyses. Quality measurements included sensitivity and specificity, likelihood-ratio related test-efficiencies and clinical utility in regard to predictive values. Methods 265 patients recruited from primary and secondary care units completed both questionnaires during the same timeframe. From the total, 133 patients returned a 6-month follow-up questionnaire to assess the validity criteria for outcomes of pain, function and sick leave. Results Based on heterogeneous cut-offs for the ÖMPSQ, sensitivity and specificity were moderate for outcome of pain (72%/75%). Very high sensitivity was observed for function (97%/57%) and high specificity for sick leave (63%/85%). The latter also applied to the HKF-R 10 (pain 50%/84%). Proportions between sensitivity and specificity were unbalanced except for the ÖMPSQ outcome of pain. Likelihood-ratios and positive predictive values ranged from low to moderate. Conclusion Although the ÖMPSQ may be considered useful in identification of long-term functional loss or pain, over- and underestimation of patients at risk of chronic noncspecific back pain led to limited test-efficiencies and clinical utility for both questionnaires. Further studies are required to quantify the predictive validity of both questionnaires in Germany.
Attribution, social comparison and academic performance

The project will explore the manner in which young people aged 15-19 explain and evaluate their academic performance. Houston (1994) found that high ability individuals may explain their success and failure in a different manner from those who are less able, and differently from that predicted by previous research. The research will explore patterns of attribution, social comparison and achievement as a function of ability in both high and low status, selective and non selective, educational settings. A questionnaire survey will be conducted at three points during the academic year - in the first term, then just before GCSE, A level and college exams, and then on receipt of exam results. This will provide empirical data on the social psychological processes of attribution and social comparison as well as information about the academic aspirations, attitudes and performance of young people in a wide range of schools and colleges.
A PSO Tuning Approach for Lip Detection on Color Images

Lip detection is used in many applications such as face detection and lips reading. We have proposed a novel approach for detecting lip using particle swarm optimization (PSO). PSO is used to obtain an optimized map. The image is mapped to Y CbCr color space. The main idea of the method is based on that lip has the high values of Cr and low values of Cb. The proposed algorithm has been examined on CVL and Iranian databases and we have reached to the 92 percent correction rate which comparing to the previous approach, there is 11 percent increase in lip detection. We find out that the proposed algorithm is flexible which it is independent of lightening conditions.
Investigations on the Robustness of an Evolved Learning Mechanism for a Robot Arm

This paper reports on a continuing research effort to evolve robot controllers with neural networks and to understand how Nature builds such systems. In an earlier paper [8] we showed that an artificial evolutionary system was able to evolve and grow a neural network, which learned to control a camera to track a light source and showed that the learning mechanisms could perform its task as well as in simulation. In this paper we continue transferring the evolved controller to the real-world and tested the robustness of the learning mechanism as follows: Once the system was able to track a red object with the cameras, we fixed the positions of the cameras and used the same principles to teach a robot arm to move a colored object from an initial location at the periphery of the visual field to the center of it, using visual (e.g., color and movement detection) and proprioceptive (e.g., position of the joints of the arm) feedback. The arm could solve the task not only for two-degrees of freedom, but also for three degrees of freedom. These results suggest that to overcome the ”reality gap” between simulation and the real world one should evolve mechanisms enabling the real-world system to explore its own possibilities instead of specifying the system precisely in simulation.
The Cosmic Infrared Background Resolved by Spitzer. Contributions of Mid-Infrared Galaxies to the Far-Infrared Background.

Aims. We quantify the contributions of 24 mu m galaxies to the Far-Infrared ( FIR) Background at 70 and 160 mu m. We provide new estimates of the Cosmic Infrared Background ( CIB), and compare it with the Cosmic Optical Background ( COB). Methods. Using Spitzer data at 24, 70 and 160 mu m in three deep fields, we stacked more than 19000 MIPS 24 mu m sources with S-24 >= 60 mu Jy at 70 and 160 mu m, and measured the resulting FIR flux densities. Results. This method allows a gain up to one order of magnitude in depth in the FIR. We find that the Mid-Infrared ( MIR) 24 mu m selected sources contribute to more than 70% of the Cosmic Infrared Background ( CIB) at 70 and 160 mu m. This is the first direct measurement of the contribution of MIR-selected galaxies to the FIR CIB. Galaxies contributing the most to the total CIB are thus z similar to 1 luminous infrared galaxies, which have intermediate stellar masses. We estimate that the CIB will be resolved at 0.9 mJy at 70 and 3 mJy at 160 mu m. By combining the extrapolation of the 24 mu m source counts below analysis, we obtain lower limits of 7.1 +/- 1.0 and 13.4 +/- 1.7 nW m(-2) sr(-1) for the CIB at 70 and 160 mu m, respectively. Conclusions. The MIPS surveys have resolved more than three quarters of the MIR and FIR CIB. By carefully integrating the Extragalactic Background Light ( EBL) SED, we also find that the CIB has the same brightness as the COB, around 24 nW m(-2) sr(-1). The EBL is produced on average by 115 infrared photons for one visible photon. Finally, the galaxy formation and evolution processes emitted a brightness equivalent to 5% of the primordial electromagnetic background ( CMB).
Universality in unitary random matrix ensembles when the soft edge meets the hard edge

Unitary random matrix ensembles Z_{n,N}^{-1} (det M)^alpha exp(-N Tr V(M)) dM defined on positive definite matrices M, where alpha > -1 and V is real analytic, have a hard edge at 0. The equilibrium measure associated with V typically vanishes like a square root at soft edges of the spectrum. For the case that the equilibrium measure vanishes like a square root at 0, we determine the scaling limits of the eigenvalue correlation kernel near 0 in the limit when n, N tend to infinity such that n/N - 1 = O(n^{-2/3}). For each value of alpha > -1 we find a one-parameter family of limiting kernels that we describe in terms of the Hastings-McLeod solution of the Painleve II equation with parameter alpha + 1/2.
Coding schemes for broadcast erasure channels with feedback: the two multicast case

We consider the single hop broadcast packet erasure channel (BPEC) with two multicast sessions (each of them destined to a different group of $N$ users) and regularly available instantaneous receiver ACK/NACK feedback. Using the insight gained from recent work on BPEC with unicast and degraded messages [1], [2], we propose a virtual queue based session-mixing algorithm, which does not rely on knowledge of channel statistics and achieves capacity for $N=2$ and iid erasures. Since the optimal extension of this algorithm to $N>2$ is not straightforward, we then describe a low complexity algorithm which outperforms standard timesharing for arbitrary $N$ and is actually asymptotically better than timesharing, for any finite $N$, as the erasure probability goes to zero. We finally provide, through an information-theoretic analysis, sufficient but not necessary asymptotic conditions between $N$ and $n$ (the number of transmissions) for which the achieved sum rate, under \textit{any} coding scheme, is essentially identical to that of timesharing.
The use of cooperative procedures in teacher education and professional development

Abstract Two aspects of teacher education for cooperative learning are the content taught and the processes used to teach the content. Of the two, the processes used may have the most powerful influences on the desired outcomes. One important theory related to the processes of learning is social interdependence theory. It posits that there are three ways to structure the learning processes in educational situations: cooperatively, competitively and individualistically. To structure cooperation among participants, five basic elements are needed: positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction, social skills and group processing. The large body of research on social interdependence indicates that cooperative, compared to competitive and individualistic learning, tends to promote (a) higher levels of achievement, retention and transfer of what is taught; (b) long-term implementation; (c) the internalisation of the required attitudes values and behaviour patterns; (d) the integration of the new procedures into teachers’ professional identity; and (e) membership in the community of practice. Each of these processes will be examined in this article.
Knowledge Spillovers in Europe: A Patent Citations Analysis

This paper addresses the pattern of knowledge flows as indicated by patent citations between European regions. Our findings support the hypothesis that there are important barriers to knowledge flows in Europe. Patent citations occur more often between regions which belong to the same country and which are in geographical proximity. Furthermore, patent citations are industry specific and occur most often between regions that are specialised in industrial sectors with specific technological linkages between them. Patent citations are also more frequent when the citing region belongs to the same linguistic group as the cited region.
Thermotropic lateral translational motion of intramembrane particles in the inner mitochondrial membrane and its inhibition by artificial peripheral proteins

Freeze fracturing and deep etching have been used to study thermotropic lateral translational motion of intramembrane particles and membrane surface anionic groups in the inner mitochondrial membrane. When the inner membrane is equilibrated at low temperature, the fracture faces of both halves of the membrane reveal a lateral separation between intramembrane particles and particle free, large smooth patches. Such separation is completely reversed through free lateral translational diffusion by reversing the temperature. The low temperature induced, particle-free, smooth membrane patches appear to represent regions of protein-excluding, ordered bilayer lipid which form during thermotropic liquid crystalline to gel state phase transitions. When polycationic ferritin is electrostatically bound to anionic groups exposed at the membrane surface at concentrations which inhibit the activities of cytochrome c oxidase and succinate permease, the bound ferritin migrates with intramembrane particles during the thermotropic lateral separation between the membrane particles and smooth patches. When bound polycationic ferritin is cross-bridged with native ferritin, an artificial peripheral protein lattice forms in association with the surface anionic groups and diminishes the thermotropic lateral translational motion of intramembrane particles in the membrane. These results reveal that the anionic groups of metabolically active integral proteins which are known to be exposed at the surface of the inner mitochondrial membrane migrate with intramembrane particles in the plane of the membrane under conditions which induce lipid-protein lateral separations. In addition, cross-bridging of the anionic groups through an artificial peripheral protein lattice appears to diminish such induced lipid protein lateral separations.
Cataracts and hypertension in salt-sensitive rats. A possible ion transport defect.

In previous unrelated studies, we observed a 35 to 50% incidence of cataract formation in several groups of Dahl salt-sensitive hypertensive rats (DS) over a 4-year period. In the present study we evaluated longitudinal changes in blood pressure in DS in which cataracts eventually developed and those in which cataracts did not develop when all animals were maintained on a high sodium diet. Lenses were evaluated by slit-lamp microscopy to determine if cataractous lesions were similar among rats, to classify lesion types, and to define the age at which cataracts were detectable in DS. The possible participation of several cataractogenic risk factors as major influences on cataract formation also was evaluated. Finally, aqueous humor concentrations and lenticular content of sodium and potassium were determined to evaluate the possibility that a defect in ion transport at the lens epithelium and ciliary body might play a role in cataractogenesis in DS, since ion transport defects have been shown to lead to lens opacification in other models of genetic and experimental cataracts. Parallel studies were performed in Dahl salt-resistant control rats (DR). A high incidence of cataract formation was found in DS. Although systolic blood pressure was not consistently greater in adult DS with cataracts compared with values in age-matched DS without cataracts, the initial pressor response to a high salt diet was greatest in weanling DS in which cataractous lesions later developed. Slit-lamp analysis revealed that cataracts in this genetic model were cortical, with one mixed cortical, nuclear lesion. Posterior subcapsular lesions were not observed, suggesting that lesions were not steroid-induced. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)