Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Analysis of Persistent Memory Use with WHISPER

Emerging non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies promise durability with read and write latencies comparable to volatile memory (DRAM). We define Persistent Memory (PM) as NVM accessed with byte addressability at low latency via normal memory instructions. Persistent-memory applications ensure the consistency of persistent data by inserting ordering points between writes to PM allowing the construction of higher-level transaction mechanisms. An epoch is a set of writes to PM between ordering points. To put systems research in PM on a firmer footing, we developed and analyzed a PM benchmark suite called WHISPER (Wisconsin-HP Labs Suite for Persistence) that comprises ten PM applications we gathered to cover all current interfaces to PM. A quantitative analysis reveals several insights: (a) only 4% of writes in PM-aware applications are to PM and the rest are to volatile memory, (b) software transactions are often implemented with 5 to 50 ordering points (c) 75% of epochs update exactly one 64B cache line, (d) 80% of epochs from the same thread depend on previous epochs from the same thread, while few epochs depend on epochs from other threads. Based on our analysis, we propose the Hands-off Persistence System (HOPS) to track updates to PM in hardware. Current hardware design requires applications to force data to PM as each epoch ends. HOPS provides high-level ISA primitives for applications to express durability and ordering constraints separately and enforces them automatically, while achieving 24.3% better performance over current approaches to persistence.
The history of family and community life through the study of civil registers: Paros in the 20th century

A plenitude of information can be shed on family history and community life by studying civil registers. The case study here is the island of Paros in the period 1894–1997. This period of one century saw the transformation of the insular rural society to one dominated by the third-sector economy and the passage from illiteracy to total literacy. These structural socio-economic changes influenced the timing at which people were procreating, marrying and even dying. The labour-intensive hard work in the fields, as well as religious regulations, had shaped a highly seasonal pattern in conceptions and consequently in births, which was in action well into the first half of the twentieth century, but is attenuating as we approach the present day. Marriage remains a seasonal phenomenon in the examined population (although not to the extent it used to be) because the canon rules of the Orthodox Church are still determining the timing of weddings. Mortality was highly seasonal for infants and children up to the 1940s, revealing that certain diseases (mainly diarrhoea and contagious diseases) were striking at certain periods of the year, while adult mortality presents a different seasonal pattern. Causes of death, which are available from civil registers, were used to explain the seasonal variations of deaths. Civil registers are also used to study the famine which struck the island (along with the rest of Greece) in 1941–42 as a direct effect of the Second World War.
Android Malware Detection & Protection: A Survey

Android has become the most popular smartphone operating system. This rapidly increasing adoption of Android has resulted in significant increase in the number of malwares when compared with previous years. There exist lots of antimalware programs which are designed to effectively protect the users’ sensitive data in mobile systems from such attacks. In this paper, our contribution is twofold. Firstly, we have analyzed the Android malwares and their penetration techniques used for attacking the systems and antivirus programs that act against malwares to protect Android systems. We categorize many of the most recent antimalware techniques on the basis of their detection methods. We aim to provide an easy and concise view of the malware detection and protection mechanisms and deduce their benefits and limitations. Secondly, we have forecast Android market trends for the year up to 2018 and provide a unique hybrid security solution and take into account both the static and dynamic analysis an android application.
Ontogenetic Development of Rat Intestinal Bile Acid Transport Requires Thyroxine But Not Corticosterone

Absorption of bile acids by the distal ileum is an essential component of the enterohepatic circulation. In neonatal rats, the appearance of the apical sodium-dependent bile acid transporter (ASBT) at 17 d of age coincides with increases in serum corticosterone and thyroxine. We tested the hypothesis that these hormones modulate ASBT expression during ileal development. Taurocholate uptake into the isolated ileum of normal 20-d-old pups exhibited saturable (Km = 0.52 mM, Jmax = 0.34 pmol mg/min) and nonsaturable (Kdiff = 0.015 min−1) components and was two to five times greater than uptake in the proximal intestine. Hypothyroid or euthyroid pups received daily thyroxine injections starting at 6 d of age. At 12 d of age, serum concentrations of thyroxine, ileal abundance of ASBT mRNA, and ileal rates of taurocholate uptake were low in hypothyroid pups that received an injection of vehicle (HT−) or thyroxine (HT+) and in euthyroid pups that received an injection of vehicle (ET−) or thyroxine (ET+). At 20 and 26 d, ileal ASBT mRNA abundance and taurocholate uptake rate remained low in HT− pups but increased dramatically in ET− and ET+ pups, paralleling the increase in serum thyroxine. Restoration of normal plasma thyroxine in HT− pups by thyroxine injections (HT+) restored normal ASBT development. Sodium-glucose co-transporter activity and mRNA expression were independent of serum thyroxine levels. Corticosterone levels were significantly lower in pups that were adrenalectomized at 10 d of age. ASBT mRNA abundance and taurocholate uptake rate increased markedly with age but were the same in adrenalectomized, sham-operated, and nonoperated pups. Hence, endogenous thyroxine but not corticosterone regulates the developmentally timed appearance of ASBT.
‘Mapping’ and ‘doing’ critical geographies of home

This paper reviews the diverse literatures on negative experiences of home at the domestic scale and sets out an agenda to further ‘critical geographies of home’. Tying into broader debates in critical geography on the delineations between the ‘mapping’ of exclusionary landscapes versus the ‘doing’ of something to transform them, the paper finds that the line between these two modes should not always be dichotomously drawn. Now is the time that the burgeoning interest in, and catalogue of research on, home is capitalized upon by pushing towards a critical geography that simultaneously illuminates and catalyses the addressing of domestic injustice.
A Fully-Abstract Model for the (cid:25) -calculus

This paper provides both a fully abstract (domain-theoretic) model for the (cid:25) -calculus and a universal (set-theoretic) model for the (cid:12)nite (cid:25) -calculus with respect to strong late bisimulation and congruence. This is done by: considering categorical models, de(cid:12)ning a metalanguage for these models, and translating the (cid:25) -calculus into the metalanguage. A technical nov-elty of our approach is an abstract proof of full abstraction: The result on full abstraction for the (cid:12)-nite (cid:25) -calculus in the set-theoretic model is axiomat-ically extended to the whole (cid:25) -calculus with respect to the domain-theoretic interpretation. In this proof, a central role is played by the description of non-determinism as a free construction and by the equational theory of the metalanguage.
A Comparison of Two Sight Word Reading Fluency Drill Formats

The authors compared the effects of two sight word fluency drills (i.e., reading racetrack and list drills). They used a repeated acquisition design across 8 second-grade students identified as at risk for reading difficulties. More participants performed better when they read words on the reading racetrack than on the list; however, results were mixed. The study also showed that the participants preferred the reading racetrack over the list. Findings indicate that teachers should consider using the racetrack drill as part of supplemental reading instruction, particularly when student motivation is a factor. Suggestions for practice and future research are discussed.
Teacher demand: crisis what crisis?

This paper is based on two studies of teacher recruitment and retention commissioned by the General Teaching Council of Wales and the ESRC. Using official statistics from a variety of secondary sources, it shows trends over time in teacher numbers in England and Wales, and examines teacher vacancies, pupil‐teacher ratios and teacher wastage. It concludes that although individual indicators, examined in isolation, are an inadequate basis for assessments of the situation, there is no evidence in the data of any ‘crisis’ of teacher supply or demand in Wales (or indeed most of England). There are regional, occasional and subject‐specific disparities, but there are now more teachers than ever before, while the number of pupils in schools is falling. The paper, therefore, considers a variety of possible explanations for the widely‐held belief that there is a serious shortage of teachers.
Methodological triangulation: a vehicle for merging quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Triangulation is the use of multiple methods, theories, data and/or investigators in the study of a common phenomenon(a). The four types of triangulation, its benefits and some of the problems of implementation are discussed. The paper concludes that triangulation is not an end in itself; rather it is a vehicle for the conduct of a study that, when used appropriately, may produce very valuable results.
DISCUS: an end-to-end solution for ubiquitous broadband optical access

Fiber to the premises has promised to increase the capacity in telecommunications access networks for well over 30 years. While it is widely recognized that optical-fiber-based access networks will be a necessity in the short to medium-term future, its large upfront cost and regulatory issues are pushing many operators to further postpone its deployment, while installing intermediate unambitious solutions such as fiber to the cabinet. Such high investment cost of both network access and core capacity upgrade often derives from poor planning strategies that do not consider the necessity to adequately modify the network architecture to fully exploit the cost benefit that a fiber-centric solution can bring. DISCUS is a European Framework 7 Integrated Project that, building on optical-centric solutions such as long-reach passive optical access and flat optical core, aims to deliver a cost-effective architecture for ubiquitous broadband services. DISCUS analyzes, designs, and demonstrates end-to-end architectures and technologies capable of saving cost and energy by reducing the number of electronic terminations in the network and sharing the deployment costs among a larger number of users compared to current fiber access systems. This article describes the network architecture and the supporting technologies behind DISCUS, giving an overview of the concepts and methodologies that will be used to deliver our end-to-end network solution.
Validity and Efficacy of a Pediatric Airway Foreign Body Training Course in Resident Education

Objectives: We evaluated the validity and efficacy of a pediatric airway foreign body simulation for otolaryngology resident training. Methods: We created a course using a high-fidelity toddler mannequin designed to instruct and evaluate otolaryngology residents in pediatric airway foreign body management. Seven junior and 5 senior residents participated. Their performance was evaluated by 2 observers using an Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS) instrument. Results: By the third trial, all junior and senior residents scored a proficiency level of “independent without errors” or “independent and efficient,” and the performance of the junior residents was not different from that of the senior residents. After completing the course, the junior residents self-rated their abilities as commensurate with those of a senior resident, and senior residents rated themselves capable of performing foreign body extraction without supervision. All participants felt that the course and simulator had good overall realism and a realistic feel, demonstrating face validity. Perhaps most importantly, the residents' highest ratings were for “facilitated management of complications” and “facilitated working with the operating room team” — areas difficult to teach during live surgical procedures. Conclusions: This pediatric airway foreign body course using a high-fidelity simulator has face and construct validity, and results in statistically improved performance and self-evaluation of all participants.
Contrast preserving decolorization

Decolorization - the process to transform a color image to a grayscale one - is a basic tool in digital printing, stylized black-and-white photography, and in many single channel image processing applications. In this paper, we propose an optimization approach aiming at maximally preserving the original color contrast. Our main contribution is to alleviate a strict order constraint for color mapping based on human vision system, which enables the employment of a bimodal distribution to constrain spatial pixel difference and allows for automatic selection of suitable gray scale in order to preserve the original contrast. Both the quantitative and qualitative evaluation bears out the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Floral ontogeny of Annonaceae: evidence for high variability in floral form.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Annonaceae are one of the largest families of Magnoliales. This study investigates the comparative floral development of 15 species to understand the basis for evolutionary changes in the perianth, androecium and carpels and to provide additional characters for phylogenetic investigation. METHODS Floral ontogeny of 15 species from 12 genera is examined and described using scanning electron microscopy. KEY RESULTS Initiation of the three perianth whorls is either helical or unidirectional. Merism is mostly trimerous, occasionally tetramerous and the members of the inner perianth whorl may be missing or are in double position. The androecium and the gynoecium were found to be variable in organ numbers (from highly polymerous to a fixed number, six in the androecium and one or two in the gynoecium). Initiation of the androecium starts invariably with three pairs of stamen primordia along the sides of the hexagonal floral apex. Although inner staminodes were not observed, they were reported in other genera and other families of Magnoliales, except Magnoliaceae and Myristicaceae. Initiation of further organs is centripetal. Androecia with relatively low stamen numbers have a whorled phyllotaxis throughout, while phyllotaxis becomes irregular with higher stamen numbers. The limits between stamens and carpels are unstable and carpels continue the sequence of stamens with a similar variability. CONCLUSIONS It was found that merism of flowers is often variable in some species with fluctuations between trimery and tetramery. Doubling of inner perianth parts is caused by (unequal) splitting of primordia, contrary to the androecium, and is independent of changes of merism. Derived features, such as a variable merism, absence of the inner perianth and inner staminodes, fixed numbers of stamen and carpels, and capitate or elongate styles are distributed in different clades and evolved independently. The evolution of the androecium is discussed in the context of basal angiosperms: paired outer stamens are the consequence of the transition between the larger perianth parts and much smaller stamens, and not the result of splitting. An increase in stamen number is correlated with their smaller size at initiation, while limits between stamens and carpels are unclear with easy transitions of one organ type into another in some genera, or the complete replacement of carpels by stamens in unisexual flowers.
The Book of Life: How the Completion of the Human Genome Project was Revealed to the Public

The production of a ‘working draft’ of the human genome was announced on 26 June 2000 at a linked US/UK press conference involving President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair. This article analyses the politicians’ speeches, the accompanying press releases, with contributions from leading scientists associated with the project and British national newspaper coverage of this event. We ask why research on the human genome has not led to widespread negative reactions comparable to those provoked by cloning and GM food. Part of the answer lies in the metaphors, images, literary and cultural references used in the announcement of this development, especially by scientists and politicians attempting to steer the discourse towards public euphoria. Much of this rhetoric draws on the projected benefits for medicine and health care, particularly ‘dread diseases’ like cancer. Nevertheless some of the print media still focused on the ‘negative’ tropes of ‘designer people’ and on ‘genetic determinism’.
Inheritance of very high oleic acid content and its relationship with several morphological and physiological traits.

Safflower oil with high oleic acid content has a great value for both food and non-food uses. The trait is mainly controlled by recessive alleles at the Ol locus, although the influence of modifying genes has been suggested. The objective of the present research was to study the inheritance of very high oleic acid content (>85%) and its relationship with other traits such as nuclear male sterility (NMS), flowering time, presence of spines, and corolla colour. The line CR-9, characterized by very high oleic acid content, male fertility, early flowering, absence of spines, and orange corolla, was crossed to the line CL2, characterized by conventional fatty acid profile, NMS, late flowering, presence of spines, and white corolla. The analysis of the F2 seed and plant (F3 seeds averaged) generation confirmed monogenic inheritance of very high oleic acid content, although the presence of modifying genes produced a reduction of oleic acid content in the high oleic acid class to minimum values of 81%, 74%, and 68% at the F2 seed, F2 plant, and F3 seed level, respectively. NMS and white corolla were recessive and controlled by a single gene. The presence of spines was monogenic and dominant. Oleic acid content segregated independently from the other traits evaluated. The results confirmed the great effect of modifying genes on the expression of very high oleic acid content and revealed that the Ol locus is not closely linked to genes involved in the expression of the traits evaluated.
Joint modeling of high-frequency price and duration data

High frequency financial data is irregularly spaced in time. The information content that determines the time between subsequent trades introduces is potentially related to volatility. We introduce a new continuous time model to jointly model stock return and duration between trades. This model include a bivariate Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process for two latent processes: log-volatility of stock returns and log-intensity of the elapsed time between trades. We apply this model to tickby-tick stock price data. We find that volatility and intensity have strong persistence and are contemporaneously positively correlated. A Monte Carlo study points out that more accurate measurement of volatility can be obtain by conditioning on observed duration between trades in addition to conditioning on the returns. ∗Mailing address: Department of Economics, Campus Box 8110, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 276958110, USA. e-mail: denis pelletier@ncsu.edu. Web site: http://www4.ncsu.edu/∼dpellet. †Mailing address: Department of Economics, Campus Box 8110, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 276958110, USA. e-mail: hzheng2@ncsu.edu. Web site: http://www4.ncsu.edu/∼hzheng2.
Serosurvey of leptospirosis and investigation of a possible novel serovar Arborea in farmed deer in New Zealand

Abstract AIM: To investigate the prevalence of Leptospira spp. and possible novel serovar Arborea infection in farmed deer in New Zealand. METHODS: In September 2006, five serum samples from a serum bank from each of 70 farms sampled for a previous national prevalence survey were forwarded to the World Health Organisation/Food and Agriculture Organisation/World Organisation for Animal Health (WHO/FAO/OIE) reference laboratory for leptospirosis in Brisbane, Australia, to test for reactivity to a reference panel of 23 serovars, most believed to be exotic to New Zealand, using the microscopic agglutination test (MAT). Eleven farms were seropositive for Arborea, a serovar novel to New Zealand. In July 2007, 126 additional banked serum samples from nine of those 11 farms (n=8–20/farm) were sent to the reference laboratory for similar serology. Two farms in the Southland region were considered positive for serovar Arborea. Tissue from deer kidneys (n=43) from these two farms collected at a deer slaughter premises (DSP) was cultured in November 2007 and November 2008. Sera from those deer were also sent to the laboratory in Brisbane. RESULTS: From the initial 350 sera, 96 (27.4%) and 19 (5.4%) samples were positive for Leptospira borgpetersenii serovar Hardjo-bovis and Leptospira interrogans serovar Pomona respectively. There were cross-reactions between serovar Hardjo-bovis with serovars Medanensis and Szwajizak. Serological evidence of serovars Tarassovi, Grippotyphosa, Celledoni, Australis, Zanoni, Robinsoni, Canicola, Kremastos, Bulgarica, Cynopteri, Ballum, Bataviae, Djasiman, Javanica, Panama, Shermani and Topaz was negative or sporadic, generally with titres of 1:50 and therefore likely non-specific. Fourteen (4.0%) samples from 11 farms were positive for serovar Arborea, justifying further investigation. The prevalence of serovar Arborea was 15% and 30% on two farms, from the 126 samples. None of 43 kidney and serum samples collected subsequently from those two farms were positive by culture or serology for serovar Arborea. CONCLUSIONS: While there were samples serologically positive for serovar Arborea in deer, attempts to isolate the organism were unsuccessful. The sample size for the follow-up investigation was insufficient to validate the presence or absence of infection, so further study should be undertaken to verify the status of this serovar of Leptospira spp. in New Zealand, in both deer and other livestock species.
Fast Sparse Approximation for Least Squares Support Vector Machine

In this paper, we present two fast sparse approximation schemes for least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM), named FSALS-SVM and PFSALS-SVM, to overcome the limitation of LS-SVM that it is not applicable to large data sets and to improve test speed. FSALS-SVM iteratively builds the decision function by adding one basis function from a kernel-based dictionary at one time. The process is terminated by using a flexible and stable epsilon insensitive stopping criterion. A probabilistic speedup scheme is employed to further improve the speed of FSALS-SVM and the resulting classifier is named PFSALS-SVM. Our algorithms are of two compelling features: low complexity and sparse solution. Experiments on benchmark data sets show that our algorithms obtain sparse classifiers at a rather low cost without sacrificing the generalization performance