Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Limitations on MLC Flash Page Reuse and its Effects on Durability

Flash memory is prevalent in modern servers and devices. Coupled with the scaling down of flash technology, the popularity of flash memory motivates the search for methods to increase flash reliability and lifetime. Erasures are the dominant cause of flash cell wear, but reducing them is challenging because flash is a write-once medium— memory cells must be erased prior to writing. An approach that has recently received considerable attention relies onwrite-once memory (WOM) codes, designed to accommodate additional writes on write-once media. However, most techniques proposed for reusing flash pages with WOM codes are limited to SLC flash, and are not applicable to MLC flash due to the specific constraints it imposes. In this study, we use a hardware evaluation platform to identify the limitations of reprogramming flash pages on state-of-the-art MLC flash chips, and to directly measure the short and long-term effects of page reuse on SSD durability and energy consumption. Our findings provide key guidelines for FTL designs that employ WOM codes for reusing flash pages.
Examining Parental Involvement in Impoverished Schools

Examining Parental Involvement in Impoverished Schools by Tara L. Broadus MEd, Texas A and M University-Commerce, 2008 BS, Texas A and M University-Commerce, 2004 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education
Role models revisited: youth, novelty, and the impact of female candidates

ABSTRACT Do female politicians serve as political role models? This paper is the first to employ panel data to examine whether the presence of non-presidential female candidates leads to an increased propensity for political engagement – specifically, discussion – among women. We hypothesize that younger people who are still learning and establishing political engagement habits will become more politically engaged when exposed to female role models. We do not find evidence of a role model effect overall or among co-partisans. We do find that younger women become significantly more likely to discuss politics when they experience a viable and new female candidate. Importantly, we only find this effect when the female candidate is not a current office holder, suggesting the novelty of female candidates may be key. We do not find a similar effect among older women.
2 2 M ar 2 00 6 A new random mapping model

In this paper we introduce a new random mapping model, T D̂ n , which maps the set {1, 2, . , n} into itself. The random mapping T D̂ n is constructed using a collection of exchangeable random variables D̂1, . , D̂n which satisfy ∑n i=1 D̂i = n. In the random digraph, G D̂ n , which represents the mapping T D̂ n , the in-degree sequence for the vertices is given by the variables D̂1, D̂2, . , D̂n, and, in some sense, G D̂ n can be viewed as an analogue of the general independent degree models from random graph theory. We show that the distribution of the number of cyclic points, the number of components, and the size of a typical component can be expressed in terms of expectations of various functions of D̂1, D̂2, . , D̂n. We also consider two special examples of T D̂ n which correspond to random mappings with preferential and antipreferential attachment, respectively, and determine, for these examples, exact and asymptotic distributions for the statistics mentioned above. Results for the distribution of the number of successors and predecessors of a typical vertex in Gn in terms of expectations of various functions of D̂1, D̂2, . , D̂n are obtained in a companion paper [23]. Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics, Heriot–Watt University,Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK. E-mail address: J.Hansen@ma.hw. ac.uk Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 87, 61-614 Poznań, Poland. E-mail address: jaworski@amu.edu. pl J.Jaworski acknowledges the generous support by the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship No. 501863 (RANDIGRAPH) within the 6th European Community Framework Programme. 1
Automatic thresholding of gray-level using multistage approach

A multistage approach is presented for thresholding document images, along with its application. The proposed method is based on two stages. Global thresholding is used in the first stage to give a preliminary result. A second stage then refines the threshold value based on local spatial characteristics of the regions formed in the first stage. It automatically customizes the thresholding of regions that have specific and consistent characteristics but are different to other regions in the image. This technique works well for both simple images, in which the background and foreground are distinct and separable and complex images containing multiple regions with different shading/textures. A typical application is postal envelope analysis. The results of evaluation show significant improvement compared to several other global and local thresholding techniques.
Effects of Neuroticism on Partial and Whole Body Reactions under Stress

Effects of neuroticism on partial and whole body reaction times were investigated under stress, or choking conditions in student participants (N = 127). We measured simple and choice reaction times of parts of the body and choice reaction times of the whole body in the participants with high and low neuroticism such as depression, cyclic tendency, inferiority feelings, and nervousness under the controlled stress scenario of being in front of people. Results indicated significant differences in reaction times of partial body, discriminative decisions and choice reaction times of participants in the high neuroticism group. Results of whole body reaction times were opposite to that of partial body reactions. However, a two-way factorial analysis of variance indicated neither a significant main effect, nor interactions between reaction times and personality traits. Whole body reactions suggest that the effects of stimulus transduction process from motor commands to motor outputs via motor neurons has a greater effect in the central nervous system than recognition and decision-making. However, it is possible that changes in the intracortical mechanisms related to cognitions and emotions could be correlated in partial body movements with nearly no muscular activity. Our findings suggested that delays indiscrimination, decision-making, and choice times could affect the performance of individuals.
The Use of UML Class Diagrams To Teach Database Modelling and Database Design

It is now nearly 30 years since Peter Chen’s watershed paper “The Entity-Relationship Model – towards a Unified View of Data”. [1] The entity relationship model and variations and extensions to it have been taught in colleges and universities for many years. In his original paper Peter Chen looked at converting his new ER model to the then existing data structure diagrams for the Network model. In recent years there has been a tendency to use a Unified Modelling Language (UML) class diagram for conceptual modelling for relational databases, and several popular course text books use UML notation to some degree [2] [3]. This paper looks at the usefulness of using UML class diagrams for teaching database design in undergraduate courses. In this paper we look specifically at two concepts which can cause problems for the novice database designer. Firstly transferring the concept of a weak entity from an Entity Relationship model to UML and secondly the notation for structural constraints in different diagramming notations. We also look at the mixture of notations which students mistakenly use when modelling. This is often the result of different notations being used on different courses throughout their degree. Peter Chen wrote in his original paper “The entity-relationship model can be used as a tool in the structured design of databases using the network model” today we could write “the UML class diagram can be used as a tool in the structured design of databases using the relational model”. Or can we?
Chinese Herbal Therapy and Western Drug Use, Belief and Adherence for Hypertension Management in the Rural Areas of Heilongjiang Province, China

Background Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) including Chinese herbal therapy has been widely practiced in China. However, little is known about Chinese herbal therapy use for hypertension management, which is one of the most prevalent chronic conditions in China. Thus we described Chinese herbal therapy and western drug users, beliefs, hypertension knowledge, and Chinese herbal and western drug adherence and determinants of Chinese herbal therapy use among patients with hypertension in rural areas of Heilongjiang Province, China. Methodology and Principal Findings This face-to-face cross sectional survey included 665 hypertensive respondents aged 30 years or older in rural areas of Heilongjiang Province, China. Of 665 respondents, 39.7% were male, 27.4% were aged 65 years or older. At the survey, 14.0% reported using Chinese herbal therapy and 71.3% reported using western drug for hypertension management. A majority of patients had low level of treatment adherence (80.6% for the Chinese herbal therapy users and 81.2% for the western drug users). When respondents felt that their blood pressure was under control, 72.0% of the Chinese herbal therapy users and 69.2% of the western drug users sometimes stopped taking their medicine. Hypertensive patients with high education level or better quality of life are more likely use Chinese herbal therapy. Conclusions and Significance Majority of patients diagnosed with hypertension use western drugs to control blood pressure. Chinese herbal therapy use was associated with education level and quality of life.
DSGE Modeling at the Fund: Applications and Further Developments

Researchers in policymaking institutions have expended significant effort to develop a new generation of macro models with more rigorous microfoundations. This paper provides a summary of the applications of two of these models. The Global Economy Model is a quarterly model that features a large assortment of nominal and real rigidities, which are necessary to create plausible short-run dynamics. However, because this model is based on a representative-agent paradigm, its Ricardian features make it unsuitable to study many fiscal policy issues. The Global Fiscal Model, which is an annual model that uses an overlapping-generations structure, has been designed to analyze the longer-term consequences of alternative fiscal policies.
Proteomics Analysis of Alfalfa Response to Heat Stress

The proteome responses to heat stress have not been well understood. In this study, alfalfa (Medicago sativa L. cv. Huaiyin) seedlings were exposed to 25°C (control) and 40°C (heat stress) in growth chambers, and leaves were collected at 24, 48 and 72 h after treatment, respectively. The morphological, physiological and proteomic processes were negatively affected under heat stress. Proteins were extracted and separated by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2-DE), and differentially expressed protein spots were identified by mass spectrometry (MS). Totally, 81 differentially expressed proteins were identified successfully by MALDI-TOF/TOF. These proteins were categorized into nine classes: including metabolism, energy, protein synthesis, protein destination/storage, transporters, intracellular traffic, cell structure, signal transduction and disease/defence. Five proteins were further analyzed for mRNA levels. The results of the proteomics analyses provide a better understanding of the molecular basis of heat-stress responses in alfalfa.
Consistency of the BIC order estimator

We announce two results on the problem of estimating the order of a Markov chain from observation of a sample path. First is that the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) leads to an almost surely consistent estimator. Second is that the Bayesian minimum description length estimator, of which the BIC estimator is an approximation, fails to be consistent for the uniformly distributed i.i. d. process. A key tool is a strong ratio-typicality result for empirical k-block distributions. Complete proofs are given in the authors’ article to appear in The Annals of Statistics.
Minimum message length inference of secondary structure from protein coordinate data

Motivation: Secondary structure underpins the folding pattern and architecture of most proteins. Accurate assignment of the secondary structure elements is therefore an important problem. Although many approximate solutions of the secondary structure assignment problem exist, the statement of the problem has resisted a consistent and mathematically rigorous definition. A variety of comparative studies have highlighted major disagreements in the way the available methods define and assign secondary structure to coordinate data. Results: We report a new method to infer secondary structure based on the Bayesian method of minimum message length inference. It treats assignments of secondary structure as hypotheses that explain the given coordinate data. The method seeks to maximize the joint probability of a hypothesis and the data. There is a natural null hypothesis and any assignment that cannot better it is unacceptable. We developed a program SST based on this approach and compared it with popular programs, such as DSSP and STRIDE among others. Our evaluation suggests that SST gives reliable assignments even on low-resolution structures. Availability: http://www.csse. monash.edu. au/~karun/sst Contact: arun.konagurthu@monash.edu (or lloyd.allison@monash.edu)
Psoriasis and uveitis: a literature review

Psoriasis is a systemic, chronic, immunologically mediated disease, with significant genetic and environmental influences. It affects from 1 to 3% of the world population. Recently, the relation between psoriasis and different comorbidities, particularly metabolic syndrome, has become extremely relevant. Uveitis is characterized by a process of intraocular inflammation resulting from various causes. Considering psoriasis and uveitis as immune-mediated diseases, this study aims to evaluate the possible association of psoriasis and/or psoriatic arthritis with uveitis and its subtypes. Few studies have evaluated the association of uveitis and psoriasis without joint involvement. It seems that psoriasis without arthropathy is not a risk factor for the development of uveitis. Uveitis tends to develop more frequently in patients with arthropathy or pustular psoriasis than in patients with other forms of psoriasis. Ophthalmic examination should be performed periodically in patients with psoriasis and uveitis. If ophthalmopathy is diagnosed, the patient should receive adequate treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs or immunomodulators to prevent vision loss.
Four Case Studies: The Reading Attitudes and Practices of Teachers and Students in Second Grade

Dr. Cynthia Bertelsen, Advisor The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of reading attitudes and practices in second-grade teachers and students. Surveys and interviews were conducted with secondgrade teachers and students in Northwest Ohio. Four teachers participated in surveys and interviews. Thirty-eight students participated in an attitude survey, and 24 students were interviewed. After the results were analyzed, four case studies emerged with many common trends including teacher attitudes, student attitudes, the students’ views about the teacher’s reading attitude, and the instructional practices found in the classroom. The results of this study indicated that teachers seem to be enthusiastic about reading, but they lack the time needed to read during the school year. Likewise, a majority of second-grade students seem to have positive attitudes toward reading. The instruction in second-grade classrooms appears to include read alouds, book talks, student reading, and hands-on activities. However, most teachers are not incorporating time for students to discuss books. As a result of this research, it is recommended that teachers continue to be an explicit model of reading to students. Teachers must also balance their instruction to engage students in positive reading attitudes. Principals and librarians should support the reading of teachers by providing book clubs throughout the school year.
A Comparison of Critical Thinking in Groups of Third‐year Medical Students in Text, Video, and Virtual PBL Case Modalities

Purpose To determine whether critical thinking in problem-based learning (PBL) group discourse differed according to case modality. Method The study was conducted in 2000 in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. Third-year medical students on their pediatrics clerkship were divided into three groups: face-to-face with a text case, face-to-face with a digital video case, and virtual with a digital video case. Twenty-four groups were divided among the three case modalities. Using an existing coding scheme, each distinct codable unit of discourse was placed into one of 35 indicators reflective of five critical-thinking stages. For each group's discourse, a critical-thinking ratio was calculated for each of the stages. The Kruskal–Wallis test was used to compare the critical-thinking ratios for each stage across the three modalities. Residual conversation to indicate processes occurring within the group was also coded. Results A content analysis of the transcripts of 13 of the 24 group discussions occurred. The virtual groups had the highest critical-thinking ratio. Except for the problem-identification stage, the video groups had higher ratios that the text groups did. Conclusions This exploratory study examined how the mode of case presentation affected the critical thinking of groups using the PBL format. Students who learned in a virtual modality with a digital video case engaged in more critical thinking. The data suggest that the video enhanced critical thinking in both face-to-face and virtual PBL groups.
Knockdown of Inhibitory Guanine Nucleotide Binding Protein Giα‐2 by Antisense Oligodeoxynucleotides Attenuates the Development of Hypertension and Tachycardia in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Background We previously showed that the levels of both Giα‐2 and Giα‐3 proteins were augmented in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) before the onset of hypertension. In addition, intraperitoneal injection of pertussis toxin, which inactivates both Giα proteins, prevented the development of hypertension in SHRs. The aim of the present study was to determine the specific contributions of Giα‐2 and Giα‐3 proteins to the development of hypertension. Methods and Results Antisense oligodeoxynucleotide of Giα‐2 and Giα‐3 encapsulated in PEG/DOTAP/DOPE cationic liposomes were administrated intravenously into 3‐week‐old prehypertensive SHRs and Wistar Kyoto rats, whereas the control Wistar Kyoto rats and SHRs received PBS, empty liposomes, or sense. The knockdown of Giα‐2 but not Giα‐3 protein attenuated tachycardia and prevented the development of hypertension up to age 6 weeks; thereafter, blood pressure started increasing and reached the same level as that of untreated SHRs at 9 weeks. Furthermore, Giα‐2 and Giα‐3 antisense oligodeoxynucleotide treatments significantly decreased the enhanced levels of Giα‐2 and Giα‐3 proteins, respectively, and enhanced levels of superoxide anion and NADPH oxidase activity in heart, aorta, and kidney and hyperproliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells from SHRs aged 6 weeks. In addition, antisense oligodeoxynucleotide treatment with Giα‐2 but not Giα‐3 restored enhanced inhibition of adenylyl cyclase by oxotremorine to WKY levels. Conclusions These results suggested that the enhanced expression of Giα‐2 but not Giα‐3 protein plays an important role in the pathogenesis of hypertension and tachycardia in SHRs.
Recruitment of lateral rostral prefrontal cortex in spontaneous and task-related thoughts

Behavioural and neuroimaging studies suggest that spontaneous and task-related thought processes share common cognitive mechanisms and neural bases. Lateral rostral prefrontal cortex (RPFC) is a brain region that has been implicated both in spontaneous thought and in high-level cognitive control processes, such as goal/subgoal integration and the manipulation of self-generated thoughts. We therefore propose that the recruitment of lateral RPFC may follow a U-shaped function of cognitive demand: relatively high in low-demand situations conducive to the emergence of spontaneous thought, and in high-demand situations depending on processes supported by this brain region. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activity while healthy participants performed two tasks, each with three levels of cognitive demands, in a block design. The frequency of task-unrelated thoughts, measured by questionnaire, was highest in the low cognitive demand condition. Low and high cognitive demand conditions were each compared to the intermediate level. Lateral RPFC and superior parietal cortex were recruited in both comparisons, with additional activations specific to each contrast. These results suggest that RPFC is involved both when (a) task demands are low, and the mind wanders, and (b) the task requires goal/subgoal integration and manipulation of self-generated thoughts.
Economics and Social Interaction: From transactions to encounters: the joint generation of relational goods and conventional values

The paper investigates the numerous reciprocal influences between interpersonal events of a communicative/affective nature, and the entities or actions we commonly identify as economic. A face-to-face interaction, or ‘encounter’, is depicted as a special productive process in which agents besides exchanging ordinary goods or delivering services create and get pleasure (or displeasure) from ‘relational consumption goods’. Inputs include ‘relational capital goods’ e.g. relation-specific information, or the social climate of a workshop which in turn are affected by encounters. Consideration of relational goods helps to push the economic discourse deeper into numerous important phenomena, to sharpen the investigation of the goals economic agents may have in mind when entering an encounter, and to understand the choice of institutions which are used to host various types of transactions. Some implications for public policy and private decisionmaking are sketched.
Essai de validation de la théorie des Trois Temps

En fonction de la theorie des Trois Temps, nous formulons quatre hypotheses sur l'horizon temporel applique au syndrome de la depression : -1° le temps present du depressif est interminablement long. - 2° le mal-etre present est precede d'un temps passe sain avec entre eux une depression significative : Passe > Present. - 3° le role du futur, efface ou meme absent, serait tenu par un futur-therapeutique dont l'ecart avec le mal-etre present serait significatif: Present < Futur-th, et revelateur d'un souhait de guerison, cet ecart permettant la mesure de la qualite de vie-intrinseque du depressif. - 4°. le futur-therapeutique constitue en fait le passe a retrouver du depressif: Futur-th. = Passe. La validite conceptuelle de cette theorie a ete verifiee en appliquant l'Echelle Synoptique des Trois Temps (ES3T) a 110 sujets diagnostiques depressifs (DSMIII-R) et les quatre hypotheses formulees ci-avant ont ete confirmees par differentes methodes statistiques. L'equivalence entre le Passe et le Futur-th a ete constatee pour 60% des sujets. Les cas ou le Passe est inferieur au Futur-th confirment la severite de la depression, dans les cas contraires, la presence de tendances suicidaires est diagnostiquee.