Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of crack location and depth in a cantilever beam using a modular neural network approach

In this paper, the flexural vibration in a cantilever beam having a transverse surface crack is considered. The modal frequency parameters are analytically computed for various crack locations and depths using a fracture mechanics based crack model. These computed modal frequencies are used to train a neural network to identify both the crack location and depth. The sensitivity of the modal frequencies to a crack increases when the crack is near the root and decreases as the crack moves to the free end of the cantilever beam. Because of the sensitive nature of this problem, a modular neural network approach is used. First, the crack location is identified with computed modal frequency parameters. Next, the crack depth is identified with computed modal frequency parameters and the identified crack location. A comparative study is made using the modular neural network architecture with two widely used neural networks, namely the multi-layer perceptron network and the radial basis function network. The proposed modular neural network method with a radial basis function network is found to perform better than the multi-layer perceptron network. In addition, the radial basis function network takes less computational time to train the network than the multi-layer perceptron network. This modular neural network architecture can be used as a non-destructive procedure for health monitoring of structures.
Assessing optimal software architecture maintainability

Over the last decade, several authors have studied the maintainability of software architectures. In particular, the assessment of maintainability has received attention. However, even when one has a quantitative assessment of the maintainability of a software architecture, one still does not have any indication of the optimality of the software architecture with respect to this quality attribute. Typically, the software architect is supposed to judge the assessment result based on his or her personal experience. In this paper, we propose a technique for analysing the optimal maintainability of a software architecture based on a specified scenario profile. This technique allows software architects to analyse the maintainability of their software architecture with respect to the optimal maintainability. The technique is illustrated and evaluated using industrial cases.
Iterative Decoding of Concatenated Convolutional Codes: Implementation Issues

This tutorial paper gives an overview of the implementation aspects related to turbo decoders, where the term turbo generally refers to iterative decoders intended for parallel concatenated convolutional codes as well as for serial concatenated convolutional codes. We start by considering the general structure of iterative decoders and the main features of the soft-input soft-output algorithm that forms the heart of iterative decoders. Then, we show that very efficient parallel architectures are available for all types of turbo decoders allowing high-speed implementations. Other implementation aspects like quantization issues and stopping rules used in conjunction with buffering for increasing throughput are considered. Finally, we perform an evaluation of the complexities of the turbo decoders as a function of the main parameters of the code.
Mysteries of DropBox: Property-Based Testing of a Distributed Synchronization Service

File synchronization services such as Dropbox are used by hundreds ofmillions of people to replicate vital data. Yet rigorous models of theirbehavior are lacking. We present the first formal -- and testable -- model ofthe core behavior of a modern file synchronizer, and we use it to discoversurprising behavior in two widely deployed synchronizers. Our model isbased on a technique for testing nondeterministic systems that avoidsrequiring that the system's internal choices be made visible to the testing framework.
SMOTE: Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique

An approach to the construction of classifiers from imbalanced datasets is described. A dataset is imbalanced if the classification categories are not approximately equally represented. Often real-world data sets are predominately composed of "normal" examples with only a small percentage of "abnormal" or "interesting" examples. It is also the case that the cost of misclassifying an abnormal (interesting) example as a normal example is often much higher than the cost of the reverse error. Under-sampling of the majority (normal) class has been proposed as a good means of increasing the sensitivity of a classifier to the minority class. This paper shows that a combination of our method of oversampling the minority (abnormal)cla ss and under-sampling the majority (normal) class can achieve better classifier performance (in ROC space)tha n only under-sampling the majority class. This paper also shows that a combination of our method of over-sampling the minority class and under-sampling the majority class can achieve better classifier performance (in ROC space)t han varying the loss ratios in Ripper or class priors in Naive Bayes. Our method of over-sampling the minority class involves creating synthetic minority class examples. Experiments are performed using C4.5, Ripper and a Naive Bayes classifier. The method is evaluated using the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUC)and the ROC convex hull strategy.
The PDCA cycle in practice: the experience of managing subjects of the administration course of the Federal University of Paraíba - UFPB - Campus I

The objective of this study is to relate the application of the PDCA cycle in the management of the subjects ‘special topics in management – TEA IV’ systems and methods – SM that its principles are applicable in services and processes that are present in public organisations; that teamwork is fundamental for the success of the application; and that the PDCA cycle can be used in the process management in universities. Therefore, it is believed that the continuity of this programme may become a beneficial strategy for the management of the subjects, maintaining the positive aspects and potentiating new benefits.
A Short Form of the Taiwan Health Literacy Scale (THLS) for Chinese-Speaking Adults

— The Taiwan Health Literacy Scale (THLS) was developed to cope with the need of measuring heath literacy of Chinese-speaking adults in Taiwan. Although the scale was proven having good reliability and validity, it was not popularly adopted by the practitioners due to the length, and the time required completing. Based on the THLS, this research further invited healthcare professionals to review the original scale for a possible shorten work. Under the logic of THLS, the research adopted an analytic hierarchy process technique to consolidate the healthcare experts’ assessments to shorten the original scale. There are fifteen items out of the original 66 items were identified having higher loadings. Confirmed by the experts and passed a pilot test with 40 undergraduate students, a short form of THLS is then introduced. This research then used 839 samples from the major cities of the Hua-lien county in the eastern part of Taiwan to test the reliability and validity of this new scale. The reliability of the scale is high and acceptable. The current scale is also highly correlated with the original, of which provide evidence for the validity of the scale.
Optimal Demand for Long-Term Bonds when Returns are Predictable

This paper further explores the horizon e®ect in the optimal static and dynamic demand for risky assets under return predictability as documented by Barberis (2000). Contrary to the case of stocks, the optimal demand for longterm Government bonds of a buy-and-hold investor is not necessarily increasing in the investment horizon, and may in fact be decreasing for some initial levels of the predicting variable. The paper provides an analytical explanation based on the dependence of the mean variance ratio on the investor's time horizon. Under stationarity of the predicting variable, unusually high or unusually low levels of the predictor tend to dissapear over time inducing the mean of cumulative returns to grow less or more than linearly as the investment horizon increases. If this e®ect dominates that on the variance, optimal demands can either be increasing or decreasing in the investment horizon. On the other hand, the solution to the investor's dynamic allocation problem in the presence of bonds indicates that long-term Government bonds do not provide a good hedge for adverse changes in the investor's opportunity set: optimal dynamic demands for bonds do not di®er from static portfolio choices at any horizon. JEL classi ̄cation: G11, G12
Sequential Noise Compensation by Sequential Monte Carlo Method

We present a sequential Monte Carlo method applied to additive noise compensation for robust speech recognition in time-varying noise. The method generates a set of samples according to the prior distribution given by clean speech models and noise prior evolved from previous estimation. An explicit model representing noise effects on speech features is used, so that an extended Kalman filter is constructed for each sample, generating the updated continuous state estimate as the estimation of the noise parameter, and prediction likelihood for weighting each sample. Minimum mean square error (MMSE) inference of the time-varying noise parameter is carried out over these samples by fusion the estimation of samples according to their weights. A residual resampling selection step and a Metropolis-Hastings smoothing step are used to improve calculation efficiency. Experiments were conducted on speech recognition in simulated non-stationary noises, where noise power changed artificially, and highly non-stationary Machinegun noise. In all the experiments carried out, we observed that the method can have significant recognition performance improvement, over that achieved by noise compensation with stationary noise assumption.
Diffusion tensor imaging of the hippocampal formation in temporal lobe epilepsy.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a noninvasive technique that can be used to assess the integrity of cerebral tissue. The purpose of this study was to assess DTI measurements in the hippocampal formation (HF) and to investigate the role of DTI in lateralizing the seizure focus in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). METHODS We evaluated 12 patients with unilateral TLE and 14 healthy subjects. We collected diffusion-weighted images along six different directions with a b value of 1000 s/mm(2), as well as an image acquired without diffusion weighting (b = 0 s/mm(2)). A 1.5-T imager was used to acquire 17 (3-mm) coronal sections covering the temporal lobes. We compared the mean diffusivity (trace D) and fractional anisotropy (FA) from symmetrical voxels by sampling the anterior HF bilaterally. We compared measurements with the EEG, high-resolution MR imaging, and clinical information. RESULTS The patient group had significantly increased diffusivity and decreased FA in the HF ipsilateral to the seizure focus, as compared with values in the contralateral HF. When compared with healthy subjects, patients had significantly higher mean diffusivity in the ipsilateral HF; ipsilateral FA values were lower and did not reach statistical significance. Measurements in the contralateral HF did not show differences. Left-right and absolute diffusivity indices lateralized the abnormal HF in eight and five of 12 patients, respectively. CONCLUSION Abnormal DTI measurements and the epileptogenic HF are associated in unilateral TLE. This finding may reflect hippocampal sclerosis and may aid in presurgical evaluation.
The Ability of the Antagonist Yeast Pichia Guilliermondii Strain Z1 to Suppress Green Mould Infection in Citrus Fruit

In previous studies it was shown that Pichia guilliermondii strain Z1, isolated from healthy Moroccan citrus Valencia-Late oranges, was effective against Penicillium italicum. Here the effectiveness of strain Z1 was assessed against Penicillium digitatum, the causal agent of green mould, under different temperature (5-25°C) and relative humidity (RH) (45-100%) regimes for its reliable and large-scale application in packinghouse. All main effects and interactions were significant (P<0.0001). In the pathogen control, the largest lesion diameter was at an RH range between 98 and 100%, regardless of the incubation temperature. The efficacy of strain Z1 was not dependent on the environment and reduced disease incidence by >80%. Its applications as a formulated product significantly reduced the incidence of infected fruit (55%) and the percentage of infected wounds (47%) compared to the only pathogen control treatment. However, disease control with formulated product was significantly less than that obtained with thiabendazole (30%) or strain Z1 culturable cells (35%). These results highlight that strain Z1 is an effective biological control agent for control of green mould under varying environmental conditions, and control may be optimized by combining its use with other environmentally-safe post-harvest treatments or improved formulation.
IL-17 A stimulates granulocyte colony-stimulating factor production via ERK 1 / 2 but not p 38 or JNK in human renal proximal tubular epithelial cells

Yuki Hirai,* Masayuki Iyoda,* Takanori Shibata, Yoshihiro Kuno, Mio Kawaguchi, Nobuyuki Hizawa, Kei Matsumoto, Yukihiro Wada, Fumio Kokubu, and Tadao Akizawa Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo; Department of Respiratory Medicine, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba; and Department of Respiratory Medicine, Showa University Fujigaoka Hospital, Yokohama, Japan
Efficient Code Assignment Techniques for Local Memory on Software Managed Multicores

Scaling the memory hierarchy is a major challenge when we scale the number of cores in a multicore processor. Software Managed Multicore (SMM) architectures come up as one of the promising solutions. In an SMM architecture, there are no caches, and each core has only a local scratchpad memory [Banakar et al. 2002]. As the local memory usually is small, large applications cannot be directly executed on it. Code and data of the task mapped to each core need to be managed between global memory and local memory. This article solves the problem of efficiently managing code on an SMM architecture. The primary requirement of generating efficient code assignments is a correct management cost model. In this article, we address this problem by proposing a cost calculation graph. In addition, we develop two heuristics CMSM (Code Mapping for Software Managed multicores) and CMSM_advanced that result in efficient code management execution on the local scratchpad memory. Experimental results collected after executing applications from the MiBench suite [Guthaus et al. 2001] demonstrate that merely by adopting the correct management cost calculation, even using previous code assignment schemes, we can improve performance by an average of 12%. Combining the correct management cost model and a more optimized code mapping algorithm together, our heuristics can reduce runtime in more than 80% of the cases, and by up to 20% on our set of benchmarks, compared to the state-of-the-art code assignment approach [Jung et al. 2010]. When compared with Instruction-level Parallelism (ILP) results, CMSM_advanced performs an average of 5% worse. We also simulate the benchmarks on a cache-based system, and find that the code management overhead on SMM core with our code management is much less than memory latency of a cache-based system.
An endogenous antigenic peptide bypasses the class I antigen presentation defect in RMA-S

The RMA-S cell line was derived from the Raucher virus-induced murine cell line RBL-5 by ethylmethane sulfonate mutagenesis and anti-H-2 antibody plus complement selection (Ljunggren, H.-G., and K. Karre. 1985. J. Exp. Med. 162:1745). RMA-S is defective in the ability to present endogenously synthesized antigens to class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) (Townsend, A., C. Ohlen, J. Bastin, H.-G. Ljunggren, L. Foster, and K. Karre. 1989. Nature [Lond.]. 340:443; Ohlen, C., J. Bastin, H.- G. Ljunggren, L. Foster, E. Wolpert, G. Klein, A. R. M. Townsend, and K. Karre. 1990. J. Immunol. 145:52). This defect has been attributed to the inability of RMA-S to deliver antigenic peptides derived from antigens in the cytosol into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), where they can associate with class I MHC molecules (Townsend, A., C. Ohlen, J. Bastin, H.-G. Ljunggren, L. Foster, and K. Karre. 1989. Nature [Lond.]. 340:443). We show that RMA-S can present at least one endogenous antigen, vesicular stomatitis virus nucleoprotein (VSV-N), to class I MHC-restricted CTL. RMA-S presents VSV-N to CTL both when infected with VSV or transfected with the VSV nucleoprotein gene. The natural antigenic VSV nucleoprotein peptides purified from either RMA or RMA-S are indistinguishable when analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography. We also show that the genetic defect responsible for the RMA-S phenotype maps to the murine chromosome 17. This chromosome encodes the murine class I MHC genes as well as two genes, HAM-1 and - 2, with homology to the adenosine triphosphate-dependent transporter superfamily (Monaco, J. J., S. Cho, and M. Attaya. 1990. Science [Wash. DC]. 250:1723). These results suggest that the system that delivers antigenic peptides from the cytosol to the ER in RMA-S may still be present and retain partial function.
SCALABILITY ANALYSIS OF PARALLEL GMRES IMPLEMENTATIONS

Abstract Applications involving large sparse nonsymmetric linear systems encourage parallel implementations of robust iterative solution methods, such as GMRES(k). Two parallel versions of GMRES(k) based on different data distributions and using Householder reflections in the orthogonalization phase are analyzed with respect to scalability (their ability to maintain fixed efficiency with an increase in problem size and number of processors). A theoretical algorithm-machine model for scalability of GMRES(k) with fixed k is derived and validated by experiments on three parallel computers, each with different machine characteristics. The analysis for an adaptive version of GMRES(k), in which the restart value k is adapted to the problem, is also presented and scalability results for this case are briefly discussed.
On secure beamforming for wiretap channels with partial channel state information at the transmitter

In this paper, we consider the secure transmission in ergodic fast fading multiple-input single-output single-antenna-eavesdropper (MISOSE) wiretap channels with only the statistics of eavesdropper's channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). Two kinds of the legitimate CSIT are assumed, that is, full and statistical legitimate CSIT. With full legitimate CSIT, we generalize and optimize the previously proposed artificial noise (AN) aided secure beamforming to improve its secrecy rate performance. The AN covariance matrix in our scheme is more flexible than previous scheme and the region of non-zero secrecy rate is enlarged significantly according to our simulations. For the case with statistical legitimate CSIT, we further prove that the secure beamforming is secrecy capacity achieving for the Rayleigh faded channels. In this case, the AN is not necessary. Extensions to cases where legitimate receiver and eavesdropper have multiple antennas will also be discussed.
Human Adult Vena Saphena Contains Perivascular Progenitor Cells Endowed With Clonogenic and Proangiogenic Potential

Background— Clinical trials in ischemic patients showed the safety and benefit of autologous bone marrow progenitor cell transplantation. Non–bone marrow progenitor cells with proangiogenic capacities have been described, yet they remain clinically unexploited owing to their scarcity, difficulty of access, and low ex vivo expansibility. We investigated the presence, antigenic profile, expansion capacity, and proangiogenic potential of progenitor cells from the saphenous vein of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery. Methods and Results— CD34-positive cells, negative for the endothelial marker von Willebrand factor, were localized around adventitial vasa vasorum. After dissection of the vein from surrounding tissues and enzymatic digestion, CD34-positive/CD31-negative cells were isolated by selective culture, immunomagnetic beads, or fluorescence-assisted cell sorting. In the presence of serum, CD34-positive/CD31-negative cells gave rise to a highly proliferative population that expressed pericyte/mesenchymal antigens together with the stem cell marker Sox2 and showed clonogenic and multilineage differentiation capacities. We called this population “saphenous vein–derived progenitor cells” (SVPs). In culture, SVPs integrated into networks formed by endothelial cells and supported angiogenesis through paracrine mechanisms. Reciprocally, endothelial cell–released factors facilitated SVP migration. These interactive responses were inhibited by Tie-2 or platelet-derived growth factor-BB blockade. Intramuscular injection of SVPs in ischemic limbs of immunodeficient mice improved neovascularization and blood flow recovery. At 14 days after transplantation, proliferating SVPs were still detectable in the recipient muscles, where they established N-cadherin–mediated physical contact with the capillary endothelium. Conclusions— SVPs generated from human vein CD34-positive/CD31-negative progenitor cells might represent a new therapeutic tool for angiogenic therapy in ischemic patients.
Nurse stress in hospital and satellite haemodialysis units.

AIM To explore nurse stress in both in-centre hospital haemodialysis and satellite haemodialysis unit in an Australian city's health service. METHOD Focus groups from both in-centre and satellite dialysis units were undertaken followed by questionnaires generated by the focus group data. RESULTS In-centre nursing staff rated the busyness of the unit as the maximum stress and stated that they felt this high level of stress on a daily basis. The most notable stressor for the staff at the satellite unit related to patient behaviour and the perceived unrealistic expectations of the patient followed by patients arriving unwell at the unit. CONCLUSION Nurses suffer stress on a daily basis in both in-centre and satellite dialysis units. The major stressors differ from in-centre to satellite dialysis units.