Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new service migration strategy for next future network

The performance of web service could be influenced when network congestion appears. Methods of service migration can always reduce the communication cost especially when the service is popular and it takes up a lot of network resources. Many essential factors should be taken into account when we make the migration decisions, such as server load, delay, migration cost, etc. There are many strategies put forward and most have good performance. However, the invisible problem the previous work does not consider is that the previous migration strategies are passive and non-directional. The paper proposes a new strategy in which non-source node initiates a migration request actively and provides local network information for the source node in order to make the selection decision. We design a new cost model and a basic infrastructure to support our strategy. The simulation results show that our approach gets satisfactory performance gains.
Atherosclerosis and innate immune signaling

Atherosclerosis, the leading cause of death in developed countries, is characterized by chronic inflammation in the artery wall. It has been appreciated for decades that this disease is linked to hypercholesterolemia and the accumulation of macrophages in the artery wall, yet the exact mechanisms underlying this inflammatory process remain unclear. The role of innate and adaptive immune responses in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis has been an area of intense study. It now appears that activation of innate immune signaling pathways designed to protect us from microbes may be responsible for initiating and feeding the chronic inflammatory cascade that characterizes this disease. In this review, we discuss the recent identification of Toll‐like receptors and their downstream signaling pathways as critical contributors to atherosclerosis. Unraveling the contribution of individual Toll‐like receptors and identifying the ligands that activate these pathways will be a central focus of atherosclerosis research in the next few years. The involvement of these pathways in atherogenesis will not only open up new avenues of investigation, but it also provides new targets for therapeutic manipulation that could ameliorate the atherosclerotic inflammatory response directly.
Licos Centre for Transition Economics Licos Discussion Paper Grime and Punishment: Job Insecurity and Wage Arrears in the Russian Federation Grime and Punishment: Job Insecurity and Wage Arrears in the Russian Federation

John Bonin and two anonymous referees were particularly helpful in their comments on an earlier draft. Abstract Using information from two complementary household survey data sets, we show that for many Russian workers, the dominant form of labor market adjustment in the transition process has been the delayed receipt of wages. Other forms of adjustment at the intensive margin have not been used much. Wage arrears are found across the private, state and budgetary sector. There are large regional variations in the incidence of wage arrears. Workers in the metropolitan center are significantly less affected by delayed and incomplete wage payments than workers in the provinces. There is less evidence that individual characteristics contribute much toward the incidence of wage arrears. As with the incidence of unemployment however, there is evidence that the persistence of arrears is concentrated on a subset of the working population. We show that workers can only exercise the exit option of a job quit from a firm paying wages in arrears if the outside labor market is sufficiently dynamic. "All these new ideas, reforms, theories, have penetrated even to us in the provinces, but to see the whole picture and see it clearly, one must be in the capital"
Argali Abundance in the Afghan Pamir Using Capture–Recapture Modeling From Fecal DNA

Abstract Estimating population size in a mark–recapture framework using DNA obtained from remotely collected genetic samples (e.g., feces) has become common in recent years but rarely has been used for ungulates. Using DNA extracted from fecal pellets, we estimated the size of an argali (Ovis ammon) population that was believed to be isolated from others within the Big Pamir Mountains, Afghanistan, an area where access was difficult and expensive. We used closed-capture models to estimate abundance, and Pradel models to examine closure assumptions, both as implemented in Program MARK. We also made visual counts of argali in the Big Pamirs, allowing comparison of count indices of abundance with modeled estimates. Our model-averaged estimate for female argali in the Big Pamir was 172 (95% CI = 117–232), which was about 23% higher than our best assessment using uncorrected visual counts. However, mark–recapture models suggested that males were not a closed population; thus, we were unable to provide a meaningful estimate of overall population size. Males either suffered much higher mortality than females during the sampling period, or, more likely, males moved in and out of the Big Pamir area. Although information from DNA did not provide a clear overall population estimate, it suggested that the Big Pamir was not isolated from other argali populations, which could not have been confirmed with visual observations alone. Estimating argali population size using mark–recapture models and fecal DNA is feasible but may be too expensive for frequent monitoring of large and remote populations. Our study demonstrates the importance of sex identification and separate abundance estimation for each sex, especially if movement ecology differs by sex.
A Joint Model for Question Answering and Question Generation

We propose a generative machine comprehension model that learns jointly to ask and answer questions based on documents. The proposed model uses a sequence-to-sequence framework that encodes the document and generates a question (answer) given an answer (question). Significant improvement in model performance is observed empirically on the SQuAD corpus, confirming our hypothesis that the model benefits from jointly learning to perform both tasks. We believe the joint model's novelty offers a new perspective on machine comprehension beyond architectural engineering, and serves as a first step towards autonomous information seeking.
Unintended Nutrition Consequences: Firm Responses to the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act

This paper investigates how firms responded to standardized nutrition labels on food products required by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA). Using a longitudinal quasi-experimental design, we test our predictions using two large-scale samples that span 30 product categories. Results indicate that the NLEA reduced brand nutritional quality relative to a control group of products not regulated by the NLEA. At the same time, among regulated products, brand taste increased. Although this reduction in nutrition represents an unintended consequence of regulation, there were a set of category, firm, and brand conditions under which the NLEA produced a positive effect on brand nutritional quality. We find that firms were more likely to improve brand nutrition when firm risk or firm power is low. Lower risk occurs when the firm is introducing a new brand rather than changing an existing brand, and weaker power in a category is reflected by lower market share in a category. Furthermore, firms competing in low-health categories (e.g., potato chips) or small-portion categories (e.g., peanut butter) improved nutrition more than firms competing in high-health categories (e.g., bread) or large-portion categories (e.g., frozen dinners). Recommendations for firm strategy and the design of consumer information policy are examined in light of these surprising firm responses.
Bank Quality, Judicial Efficiency and Borrower Runs: Loan Repayment Delays in Italy

Exposure to liquidity risk makes banks vulnerable to runs from both depositors and from wholesale, short-term investors. This paper shows empirically that banks are also vulnerable to run-like behavior from borrowers who delay their loan repayments (default). Firms in Italy defaulted more against banks with high levels of past losses. We control for borrower fundamentals with firm-quarter fixed effects; thus, identification comes from a firm's choice to default against one bank versus another, depending upon their health. This `selective' default increases where legal enforcement is weak. Poor enforcement thus can create a systematic loan risk by encouraging borrowers to default en masse once the continuation value of their bank relationships comes into doubt.
Buckling Analysis of Debonded Sandwich Panel Under Compression

A sandwich panel with initial through-the-width debonds is analyzed to study the buckling of its faceskin when subject to an in-plane compressive load. The debonded faceskin is modeled as a beam on a Winkler elastic foundation in which the springs of the elastic foundation represent the sandwich foam. The Rayleigh-Ritz and finite-difference methods are used to predict the critical buckling load for various debond lengths and stiffnesses of the sandwich foam. The accuracy of the methods is assessed with a plane-strain finite-element analysis. Results indicate that the elastic foundation approach underpredicts buckling loads for sandwich panels with isotropic foam cores. Hampton, VA 23681-0001
The photopic negative response of the macaque electroretinogram: reduction by experimental glaucoma.

PURPOSE To investigate the photopic flash electroretinograms (ERGs) of macaque monkeys in which visual field defects developed as a consequence of experimental glaucoma. METHODS Unilateral experimental glaucoma was induced in 10 monkeys by argon laser treatment of the trabecular meshwork. Visual field sensitivity was assessed behaviorally by static perimetry. Photopic ERGs were recorded to brief- (< or = 5 msec) and long-duration (200 msec) red ganzfeld flashes on a rod-suppressing blue-adapting background. Electroretinograms were recorded in four other monkeys, after intravitreal injection of tetrodotoxin (TTX; 3.8-8 p.M) to suppress action potentials of retinal ganglion and amacrine cells, and in six normal adult human subjects. RESULTS Experimental glaucoma removed a cornea-negative response, the photopic-negative response (PhNR), from the ERG. The PhNR in control eyes was maximal approximately 60 msec after a brief flash, 100 msec after onset, and 115 msec after offset of the long-duration stimulus. The PhNR in experimental eyes was greatly reduced when the mean deviation of the visual field sensitivity was as little as -6 dB. As visual sensitivity declined further, the PhNR was reduced only slightly more. The a- and b-waves were unchanged, even when sensitivity decreased by more than 16 dB. Tetrodotoxin also selectively reduced the PhNR. The PhNR was observed in normal human ERGs. CONCLUSIONS The cornea-negative PhNR of the photopic ERG depends on spiking activity and is reduced in experimental glaucoma when visual sensitivity losses are still mild. The PhNR most likely arises from retinal ganglion cells and their axons, but its slow timing raises the possibility that it could be mediated by glia. Regardless of the mechanism of its generation, the PhNR holds promise as an indicator of retinal function in early glaucomatous optic neuropathy.
Genome Scan of M. tuberculosis Infection and Disease in Ugandans

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is an enduring public health problem globally, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Several studies have suggested a role for host genetic susceptibility in increased risk for TB but results across studies have been equivocal. As part of a household contact study of Mtb infection and disease in Kampala, Uganda, we have taken a unique approach to the study of genetic susceptibility to TB, by studying three phenotypes. First, we analyzed culture confirmed TB disease compared to latent Mtb infection (LTBI) or lack of Mtb infection. Second, we analyzed resistance to Mtb infection in the face of continuous exposure, defined by a persistently negative tuberculin skin test (PTST-); this outcome was contrasted to LTBI. Third, we analyzed an intermediate phenotype, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα) expression in response to soluble Mtb ligands enriched with molecules secreted from Mtb (culture filtrate). We conducted a full microsatellite genome scan, using genotypes generated by the Center for Medical Genetics at Marshfield. Multipoint model-free linkage analysis was conducted using an extension of the Haseman-Elston regression model that includes half sibling pairs, and HIV status was included as a covariate in the model. The analysis included 803 individuals from 193 pedigrees, comprising 258 full sibling pairs and 175 half sibling pairs. Suggestive linkage (p<10−3) was observed on chromosomes 2q21-2q24 and 5p13-5q22 for PTST-, and on chromosome 7p22-7p21 for TB; these findings for PTST- are novel and the chromosome 7 region contains the IL6 gene. In addition, we replicated recent linkage findings on chromosome 20q13 for TB (p = 0.002). We also observed linkage at the nominal α = 0.05 threshold to a number of promising candidate genes, SLC11A1 (PTST- p = 0.02), IL-1 complex (TB p = 0.01), IL12BR2 (TNFα p = 0.006), IL12A (TB p = 0.02) and IFNGR2 (TNFα p = 0.002). These results confirm not only that genetic factors influence the interaction between humans and Mtb but more importantly that they differ according to the outcome of that interaction: exposure but no infection, infection without progression to disease, or progression of infection to disease. Many of the genetic factors for each of these stages are part of the innate immune system.
A Neural Greedy Model for Voice Separation in Symbolic Music

Music is often experienced as a simultaneous progression of multiple streams of notes, or voices. The automatic separation of music into voices is complicated by the fact that music spans a voice-leading continuum ranging from monophonic, to homophonic, to polyphonic, often within the same work. We address this diversity by deﬁning voice separation as the task of partitioning music into streams that exhibit both a high degree of external perceptual separation from the other streams and a high degree of internal perceptual consistency, to the maximum degree that is possible in the given musical input. Equipped with this task deﬁnition, we manually annotated a corpus of popular music and used it to train a neural network with one hidden layer that is connected to a diverse set of perceptually informed input features. The trained neural model greedily assigns notes to voices in a left to right traversal of the input chord sequence. When evaluated on the extraction of consecutive within voice note pairs, the model obtains over 91% F-measure, surpassing a strong baseline based on an iterative application of an envelope extraction function.
Life cycles, molecular phylogeny and historical biogeography of the ‘pygmaeus’ microphallids (Digenea: Microphallidae): widespread parasites of marine and coastal birds in the Holarctic

SUMMARY The ‘pygmaeus’ microphallids (MPG) are a closely related group of 6 digenean (Platyhelminthes: Trematoda) Microphallus species that share a derived 2-host life cycle in which metacercariae develop inside daughter sporocysts in the intermediate host (intertidal and subtidal gastropods, mostly of the genus Littorina) and are infective to marine birds (ducks, gulls and waders). Here we investigate MPG transmission patterns in coastal ecosystems and their diversification with respect to historical events, host switching and host-parasite co-evolution. Species phylogenies and phylogeographical reconstructions are estimated on the basis of 28S, ITS1 and ITS2 rDNA data and we use a combination of analyses to test the robustness and stability of the results, and the likelihood of alternative biogeographical scenarios. Results demonstrate that speciation within the MPG was not associated with co-speciation with either the first intermediate or final hosts, but rather by host-switching events coincident with glacial cycles in the Northern Hemisphere during the late Pliocene/Pleistocene. These resulted in the expansion of Pacific biota into the Arctic-North Atlantic and periodic isolation of Atlantic and Pacific populations. Thus we hypothesize that contemporary species of MPG and their host associations resulted from fragmentation of populations in regional refugia during stadials, and their subsequent range expansion from refugial centres during interstadials.
Educational Attainment and Suicide Rates in the United States

We examined the relationship between educational attainment and suicide rate in the United States for 2001. Suicide rates, adjusted for age, were compared with percentage of college graduates, median household income, and poverty in 50 states in 2001. The correlations of suicide rates with educational attainment and median household income were both negative and statistically significant. Poverty was not significantly related to suicide rates. We concluded that higher education and income were associated with a decrease in suicide rates in 2001. Data from other years require examination for this conclusion to be generalizable.
Reference to Locations

We propose a semantics for locative expressions such as near Jones or west of Denver, an important subsystem for NLP applications. Locative expressions denote regions of space, and serve as arguments to predicates, locating objects and events spatially. Since simple locatives occupy argument positions, they do NOT participate in scope ambiguities---pace one common view, which sees locatives as logical operators. Our proposal justifies common representational practice in computational linguistics, accounting for how locative expressions function anaphorically, and explaining a wide range of inference involving locatives. We further demonstrate how the argument analysis may accommodate multiple locative arguments in a single predicate. The analysis is implemented for use in a database query application.
Lifestyle Behaviors of Parents of Children in Pediatric Weight Management

Objective: Our objective was to examine the lifestyle behaviors of parents of children in pediatric weight management. Methods: Parents were recruited upon presentation of their children (body mass index [BMI] ≥85th percentile) to a pediatric weight management clinic. Parents’ demographic, anthropometric, and lifestyle habit data were collected by self-report. Parents were grouped into weight status categories based on their BMIs; lifestyle data were compared across BMI categories and to national recommendations. Results: Parents (n = 266; 84% women; BMI, mean ± SD, 31.8 ± 7.2 kg/m2) were predominantly overweight/obese (82%), and most did not meet dietary recommendations (71%). Healthy-weight parents reported more daily steps versus parents who were overweight/obese (all P < .05). Most parents (~60%) met guidelines for physical activity, sedentary activity, and sleep. Conclusion: The high prevalence of overweight and obesity combined with suboptimal dietary behaviors highlight the need to address both children’s and parents’ lifestyle habits in pediatric weight management.
Decreased c‐kit function inhibits enhanced skin carcinogenesis in c‐Ha‐ras protooncogene transgenic mice

We previously showed that rasH2 transgenic mice carrying the human c‐Ha‐ras protooncogene are highly susceptible to chemical skin carcinogenesis. In the dermis of rasH2 mice, mast cells are recruited constitutively, and the number of mast cells increases more than in wild‐type mice in response to treatment with 7,12‐dimethylbenz[a]anthracene and 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol‐13‐acetate. To determine whether enhanced skin tumor development in rasH2 mice is dependent on the recruitment of mast cells, we generated rasH2 KITW/Wv mice by crossing rasH2 mice and W or Wv KIT mutants, and examined the chemical skin carcinogenesis. In rasH2 KITW/Wv mice, mast cells were not found in the dermis either before or after treatment with 7,12‐dimethylbenz[a]anthracene and 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol‐13‐acetate. Papilloma multiplicity was up to 4.6‐fold higher in rasH2 KIT+/+ mice compared with their rasH2 KITW/Wv siblings. At 12 weeks after the experiment began, the volumes of tumors were significantly smaller in rasH2 KITW/Wv relative to rasH2 KIT+/+ mice (rasH2 KITW/Wv: 29.2 ± 19.9 mm3 versus rasH2 KIT+/+: 179.6 ± 726.6 mm3; P = 0.0153). There was no difference in the latency or multiplicity of papillomas between mice without the rasH2 transgene, KITW/Wv mice and their wild‐type littermates. Western blot analysis showed that expression of H‐RAS protein in the skin was equivalent in rasH2 KITW/Wv and rasH2 KIT+/+ mice. In conclusion, the inhibition of c‐kit decreased H‐ras‐induced skin carcinogenesis. The suppression of c‐kit may be a unique and effective target as a preclinical model of cancer treatment where the activation of H‐ras has a significant role. Targeting mast cells could also be a potential strategy for treating malignancies. (Cancer Sci 2007; 98: 1549–1556)
Bismuth iodide crystals as a detector material: some optical and electrical properties

This paper describes the preliminary results obtained from our study of optical and electrical properties of BiI3 crystals. The bismuth iodine polycrystals were grown using commercial starting material by vertical Bridgman method. For our measurements we used only single crystal samples that were cut out from grown crystals perpendicular to C6-axis.
Mukai implies McKay

Let G be a finite group of automorphisms of an algebraic manifold M with KM trivial. Suppose that G acts trivially on a global basis s ∈ H(KM ), so that the stabiliser group StabG(x) is a subgroup of SL(TxM) for each x ∈ M . Write Y = Hilb G M for the Hilbert scheme of G-clusters in M . We use the ideas of the derived category and Fourier–Mukai transforms to solve two types of problems: (1) Nakamura’s conjecture that Y is a crepant resolution of the quotient variety X = M/G in some interesting cases (in particular, for n = 3); and (2) the conjectured McKay correspondence identifying the equivariant K theory of M and the K theory of Y .
Analysis of Hook Formation Mechanism in Ultra Low Carbon Steel using CON1D Heat Flow - Solidification Model

Subsurface hook formation at the meniscus during the continuous casting of steel slabs is an important cause of surface defects, owing to their easy entrapment of mold flux and inclusion-laden gas bubbles. This work investigates the fundamentals of meniscus solidification and how hooks form by a combination of advanced computational models and plant measurements. From experimental results, the pitch deviation of oscillation mark depends on mold level fluctuation so the pitch deviation shows the stability of production conditions. The predicted shell thickness at upper end of the oscillation mark is related to the measured thickness of hook. During hook formation, the initial solidifying shell is partly melted by the molten steel. The extent of melting correlates with the location of the liquidus line near the meniscus for a given set of casting conditions. Thus, shallower hooks also correlate with a thinner initial solidifying shell. Deviations between these predicted hook characteristics and measurements correlate with level fluctuations, as indicated by variations in oscillation mark pitch. This work shows that hook shape is greatly affected by heat flux at the meniscus region.