Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Benefits of IEEE-754 Features in Modern Symmetric Tridiagonal Eigensolvers

Bisection is one of the most common methods used to compute the eigenvalues of symmetric tridiagonal matrices. Bisection relies on the Sturm count: For a given shift s, the number of negative pivots in the factorization $T - \sigma I = LDL^T$ equals the number of eigenvalues of T that are smaller than s. In IEEE-754 arithmetic, the value ∞ permits the computation to continue past a zero pivot, producing a correct Sturm count when T is unreduced. Demmel and Li showed [IEEE Trans. Comput. , 43 (1994), pp. 983-992] that using ∞ rather than testing for zero pivots within the loop could significantly improve performance on certain architectures. When eigenvalues are to be computed to high relative accuracy, it is often preferable to work with $LDL^T$ factorizations instead of the original tridiagonal T. One important example is the MRRR algorithm. When bisection is applied to the factored matrix, the Sturm count is computed from $LDL^T$ which makes differential stationary and progressive qds algorithms the methods of choice. While it seems trivial to replace T by $LDL^T$, in reality these algorithms are more complicated: In IEEE-754 arithmetic, a zero pivot produces an overflow followed by an invalid exception (NaN, or “Not a Number”) that renders the Sturm count incorrect. We present alternative, safe formulations that are guaranteed to produce the correct result. Benchmarking these algorithms on a variety of platforms shows that the original formulation without tests is always faster provided that no exception occurs. The transforms see speed-ups of up to $2.6\times$ over the careful formulations. Tests on industrial matrices show that encountering exceptions in practice is rare. This leads to the following design: First, compute the Sturm count by the fast but unsafe algorithm. Then, if an exception occurs, recompute the count by a safe, slower alternative. The new Sturm count algorithms improve the speed of bisection by up to $2\times$ on our test matrices. Furthermore, unlike the traditional tiny-pivot substitution, proper use of IEEE-754 features provides a careful formulation that imposes no input range restrictions.
Locally Heated Low Temperature Wafer Level MEMS Packaging With Closed-Loop AuSn Solder-Lines

In this paper, locally heated closed-loop AuSn solder-line bonding method was proposed and evaluated for a low-temperature, high strength, and hermetic MEMS packaging. We fabricated two different test specimens including substrate-heated specimen and locally heated specimen in order to verify the performance of locally heated method. In air tightness test, the substrate-heated specimen and locally heated specimen show the maximum leak rate of 13.5±9.8×10−10 mbar-l/s and 18.8±9.9×10−10 mbar-l/s with the same internal volume of 6.89±0.2×10−6 l, respectively. In the critical pressure test, any fracture was not found in the bonded specimens at applied pressure of 10±2bar. From these results, we approximately extracted the bonding strength of the proposed bonding process of 3.53±0.07MPa. By EDS (Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometer) analysis at bonded interface, we found that bonded interface (between AuSn solder and Ti/Au layer) of substrate-heated specimen was stronger than that of locally heated specimen.Copyright © 2002 by ASME
Shufflets: Shared Mid-level Parts for Fast Object Detection

We present a method to identify and exploit structures that are shared across different object categories, by using sparse coding to learn a shared basis for the 'part' and 'root' templates of Deformable Part Models (DPMs). Our first contribution consists in using Shift-Invariant Sparse Coding (SISC) to learn mid-level elements that can translate during coding. This results in systematically better approximations than those attained using standard sparse coding. To emphasize that the learned mid-level structures are shiftable we call them shufflets.Our second contribution consists in using the resulting score to construct probabilistic upper bounds to the exact template scores, instead of taking them 'at face value' as is common in current works. We integrate shufflets in Dual- Tree Branch-and-Bound and cascade-DPMs and demonstrate that we can achieve a substantial acceleration, with practically no loss in performance.
Empirical implications on lexical association measures

An empirical study is presented showing how factors such as co-occurrence frequency, linguistic constraints in the candidate data and type of collocation to be identified influence the identification accuracy achieved, on the one hand, by a mere frequency-based approach and, on the other hand, by well known statistical association measures such as mutual information, Dice coefficient, relative entropy and loglikelihood statistics. The empirical results confirm the weakness of the statistical measures with respect to identifying collocations from data with a high proportion of low frequency data, and reveal differences between the individual association measures depending on the class of collocations to be identified, whether they are applied to full or base form data, and whether the test samples contain low frequency data or not.
Effect of Gmelina arborea Roxb in experimentally induced inflammation and nociception

Background: Gmelina arborea Roxb (Verbenaceae), also known as “Gambhari”, is an important medicinal plant in the Ayurveda. There are no meticulous scientific reports on effect of the plant on inflammation and pain. Objective: To study the anti-inflammatory and anti-nociceptive properties of aqueous extracts (AE) and methanol extracts (ME) of G. arborea. Materials and Methods: The AE and ME of stembark of G. arborea was prepared by cold maceration and Soxhlet extraction technique respectively. Anti-inflammatory activity was determined in Wistar albino rats in a model of acute plantar inflammation induced by carrageenan. The anti-nociceptive activity was evaluated by using hot plate test and writhing test in Swiss albino mice. Significant differences between the experimental groups were assessed by analysis of variance. Results: AE and ME at dose of 500 mg/kg showed maximum inhibition in carrageenan induced inflammation up to 30.15 and 31.21% respectively. In hot plate test, the AE and ME showed the maximum response of 8.8 ± 0.97 (P < 0.01) and 8.2 ± 1.24 (P < 0.01) respectively at dose of 500 mg/kg when compared with control. AE showed maximum inhibition of writhing response (84.3%) as compared to ME (77.9%) in writhing test at a dose of 500 mg/kg. Conclusion: The findings suggested that G. arborea possess significant anti-inflammatory and anti-nociceptive activities.
Fast Contrast-Enhanced 4D MRA and 4D Flow MRI Using Constrained Reconstruction (HYPRFlow): Potential Applications for Brain Arteriovenous Malformations

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: HYPRFlow is a novel imaging strategy that provides fast, high-resolution contrast-enhanced time-resolved images and measurement of the velocity of the entire cerebrovascular system. Our hypothesis was that the images obtained with this strategy are of adequate diagnostic image quality to delineate the major components of AVMs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: HYPRFlow and 3D TOF scans were obtained in 21 patients with AVMs with correlative DSA examinations in 14 patients. The examinations were scored for image quality and graded by using the Spetzler-Martin criteria. Mean arterial transit time and overlap integrals were calculated from the dynamic image data. Volume flow rates in normal arteries and AVM feeding arteries were measured from the phase contrast data. RESULTS: HYPRFlow was equivalent to 3D-TOF in delineating normal arterial anatomy, arterial feeders, and nidus size and was concordant with DSA for AVM grading and venous drainage in 13 of the 14 examinations. Mean arterial transit time on the AVM side was 0.49 seconds, and on the normal contralateral side, 2.53 seconds with P < . 001. Across all 21 subjects, the mean arterial volume flow rate in the M1 segment ipsilateral to the AVM was 4.07 ± 3.04 mL/s; on the contralateral M1 segment, it was 2.09 ± 0.64 mL/s. The mean volume flow rate in the largest feeding artery to the AVM was 3.86 ± 2.74 mL/s. CONCLUSIONS: HYPRFlow provides an alternative approach to the MRA evaluation of AVMs, with the advantages of increased coverage, 0.75-second temporal resolution, 0.68-mm isotropic spatial resolution, and quantitative measurement of flow in 6 minutes.
Light-field retargeting with focal stack seam carving

With increasing sensor resolutions of digital cameras, light-field imaging is becoming more and more relevant, and might even replace classical 2D imaging in photography sooner or later. It enables, for instance, digital refocussing and perspective changes after capturing. Rescaling light fields to different resolutions and aspect ratios, however, is challenging. As for regular image and video content, a linear scaling alters the aspect ratio of recorded objects in an unnatural way. In contrast, image and video retargeting utilizes a nonlinear and content-based scaling. Applying image retargeting to individual video frames independently does not retain temporal consistency. Similarly, applying image retargeting naively to the spatial domain of light fields will not retain angular consistency. We present a first approach to light-field retargeting. It allows compressing or stretching light-fields while retaining angular consistency.
Oriental Medicine Kyung-Ok-Ko Prevents and Alleviates Dehydroepiandrosterone-Induced Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome in Rats

Kyung-Ok-Ko (KOK), a traditional herbal prescription composed of Rehmannia glutinosa Liboschitz var. purpurae, Lycium chinense, Aquillaria agallocha, Poria cocos, Panax ginseng, and honey, has been widely used in traditional Oriental medicine as a vitalizing medicine or as the prescription for patients with age-associated disorders such as amnesia and stroke. However, the potential protective value of KOK for the treatment of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is largely unknown. We investigated whether pre-administration (daily from 2 hours before PCOS induction) and post-administration (daily after induction of PCOS) of KOK (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 g/kg/day, p.o.) could have a protective effect in a dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA, s.c.)-induced PCOS rat model. Pre-administration of KOK significantly decreased the elevated body weight and ovary weight, elevated size and number of follicular cysts, elevated level of serum glucose, and estradiol after DHEA injection. KOK reduced the elevated percentage of CD8 (+) T lymphocytes in lymph nodes, the elevated mRNA expression of CD11b and CD3 in ovaries, and infiltration of macrophages in ovarian tissue with PCOS. KOK diminished the increased mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α), chemokines (IL-8, MCP-1), and iNOS in the ovaries, and increased the reduced mRNA expression of growth factors (EGF, TGF-β) by DHEA injection. Post-administration of KOK also improved the DHEA-induced PCOS-like symptoms, generally similar to those evident from pre-administration of KOK. KOK may effectively prevent and improve DHEA-induced PCOS via anti-inflammatory action, indicating its preventive and therapeutic potential for suppressing PCOS.
Struggles for Meaning and Struggles for Control: The Diffusion of Bandwagon Technology in Two Institutional Environments

Using comparative case studies, this paper shows how institutional contexts influence the process of diffusion of a complex technology by determining the pattern of material resources and authority available to actors in their struggles to control the technology, and by constituting the discursive resources that may be mobilized in their struggles to shape its meaning in preferred ways. The paper also reveals how governance structures may be contested and realigned when they conflict with interests legitimized by dominant institutional logics. This form of contestation and adjustment constitutes one mechanism by which institutional frameworks are tested, stretched and reproduced or redefined.
Tones of Reduced T1-T4 Mandarin Disyllables

The lexical meaning of Chinese words is determined by syllables and lexical tones. Phonologically, there are four full tones. Empirically, however, it remains a puzzle how tones are recognized when they are reduced in natural speech. This article presents three studies on tones of reduced disyllables: (1) a corpus study on disyllabic reduction, (2) two tone categorical identification experiments on fully pronounced and reduced disyllables, and (3) an analysis of word identification responses of two disyllables. Utilizing a segment-aligned corpus, disyllables were classified by ear into four degrees of contraction (from none to full), i.e., where a disyllable is gradiently reduced towards one syllable. The results suggested that the onset of the second syllable was most likely to be shortened or deleted. For studying the lexical effect of tones, a Ganong-style word bias experiment was conducted on T1-T4 continua of three T1-T4 disyllables. Results of the fully pronounced stimuli confirmed that the lexical status of the disyllables affected the tone classification of F0 contours along a continuum from T1 to T4, showing distinct differences of tone identification in real words and nonwords. Then, this effect disappeared when the onset of the second syllable was removed to simulate a partly reduced disyllable. Insufficient segmental information seemed to deactivate the word-nonword contrast, i.e. lexical status seemed to override any acoustic information available. Tones tended to be recognized as those from a real word throughout the continua. Finally, responses to two T1-T4 disyllables from the identification experiment done by Tseng & Lee (2010) were re-analyzed. The results suggested that reduction degree, F0 shapes, word unit type, and exposure frequency seemed to play a role in the recognition of words and tones.
Binding Affinity and Capacity for the Uremic Toxin Indoxyl Sulfate

Protein binding prevents uremic toxins from removal by conventional extracorporeal therapies leading to accumulation in maintenance dialysis patients. Weakening of the protein binding may enhance the dialytic elimination of these toxins. In ultrafiltration and equilibrium dialysis experiments, different measures to modify the plasma binding affinity and capacity were tested: (i), increasing the sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration to achieve a higher ionic strength; (ii), increasing the temperature; and (iii), dilution. The effects on the dissociation constant KD and the protein bound fraction of the prototypical uremic toxin indoxyl sulfate (IS) in plasma of healthy and uremic individuals were studied. Binding of IS corresponded to one site binding in normal plasma. KD increased linearly with the NaCl concentration between 0.15 (KD = 13.2 ± 3.7 µM) and 0.75 M (KD = 56.2 ± 2.0 µM). Plasma dilution further reduced the protein bound toxin fraction by lowering the protein binding capacity of the plasma. Higher temperatures also decreased the protein bound fraction of IS in human plasma. Increasing the NaCl concentration was effective to weaken the binding of IS also in uremic plasma: the protein bound fraction decreased from 89% ± 3% to 81% ± 3% at 0.15 and 0.75 M NaCl, respectively. Dilution and increasing the ionic strength and temperature enhance the free fraction of IS allowing better removal of the substance during dialysis. Applied during clinical dialysis, this may have beneficial effects on the long-term outcome of maintenance dialysis patients.
Scalable synthesis of sequence-defined, unimolecular macromolecules by Flow-IEG

Significance Automated chemical processes, such as DNA sequencing and nucleic acid and peptide synthesis, have transformed the fields of genetics and biotechnology. There is no analogous automated or semiautomated process, however, to provide unimolecular, sequence-defined synthetic polymers to those interested in studying them. The combination of multistep continuous flow chemistry and polymer synthesis by iterative exponential growth (Flow-IEG) enables the semiautomated synthesis of perfect polymers reported herein. The user-friendly nature, scalability, and modularity of Flow-IEG provides a general strategy for the automated synthesis of sequence and architecturally defined, uniform macromolecules. We envision this polymer synthesis machine will serve as an enabling tool for both fundamental explorations and advanced applications in biotechnology, medicinal chemistry, and materials science. We report a semiautomated synthesis of sequence and architecturally defined, unimolecular macromolecules through a marriage of multistep flow synthesis and iterative exponential growth (Flow-IEG). The Flow-IEG system performs three reactions and an in-line purification in a total residence time of under 10 min, effectively doubling the molecular weight of an oligomeric species in an uninterrupted reaction sequence. Further iterations using the Flow-IEG system enable an exponential increase in molecular weight. Incorporating a variety of monomer structures and branching units provides control over polymer sequence and architecture. The synthesis of a uniform macromolecule with a molecular weight of 4,023 g/mol is demonstrated. The user-friendly nature, scalability, and modularity of Flow-IEG provide a general strategy for the automated synthesis of sequence-defined, unimolecular macromolecules. Flow-IEG is thus an enabling tool for theory validation, structure–property studies, and advanced applications in biotechnology and materials science.
Produção e Caracterização de Microesferas de Quitosana Modificadas Quimicamente

Chitosan microspheres can be used as biomaterial, in biotechnology processes and as adsorbents. This work is concerned with the production of chitosan microspheres using spraying and coagulation processes, which allows us to control the operating parameters and to produce chitosan microspheres of several ranges and sizes. The microspheres were modified chemically in order to study their thermal, mechanical and chemical resistance. The methods used were: 1) crosslinking with glutaraldehyde; 2) crosslinking with epichlorohydrin; 3) acetylation. The microspheres obtained presented mean particle size of 140 µm and standard deviation of 11.9 µm. The modified microspheres showed thermal degradation around 300 °C, an increase of chemical stability using HCl solution and a decrease of mechanical resistance.
Leakage Fingerprints: A Non-negligible Vulnerability in Side-Channel Analysis

Low-entropy masking schemes and shuffling technique are two common countermeasures against traditional side-channel analysis. Improved Rotating S-box Masking (RSM) is a combination of both countermeasures and is implemented by DPA contest committee to improve the software security level of AES-128. Compared with the original version, improved RSM mainly introduces both the offset and shuffle array as security foundations to counteract the existing attacks. In this paper, we first point out a general vulnerability referred to as "leakage fingerprints" and make use of it to successfully crack the offset array with 100% accuracy, which breaks down the masking countermeasure in the first step. Then, we show that cracking the shuffle array is still feasible but not necessary since several other vulnerabilities in the implementation level can be exploited to bypass the shuffle countermeasure directly. By selectively combining all these vulnerabilities, a dozen of attacks can be put forward, and we perform two of them as examples to verify their effectiveness. Official evaluation results show that, both attacks submitted by us are practical and feasible, and also operate with high efficiency. In terms of two major performance metrics, our best scheme requires 4 traces to reveal the AES master key with 80% Global Success Rate (GSR) and only 2 traces are enough to reduce the Maximum Partial Guessing Entropy (PGE) under 10.
A self-consistent polycrystal model for the spontaneous polarization of ferroelectric ceramics

Motivated by the observation that the spontaneous polarization process of a ferroelectric polycrystal under the influence of a superimposed stress and/or electric field involves heterogeneous evolution of the ferroelectric phase among its constituent grains, a self-consistent electromechanical model is developed to determine the effective behaviour of the polycrystalline ceramic from such a heterogeneous electromechanical state. We start out from consideration of a micromechanics-based thermodynamic process to establish the kinetic equation of the crystallite and use it to evaluate the evolution of its ferroelectric domain. Then together with the Curie–Weiss law for the dielectric constants of the tetragonal phase, a dual-phase mixture theory is adopted to determine the change of its electromechanical moduli as temperature cools down below its Curie point. The overall property of the polycrystal is subsequently calculated by the self-consistent model through orientational average over its constituent grains. This two-level micromechanics model is applied to examine the shift of Curie temperature and evolution of the effective electromechanical moduli of a BaTiO3 ceramic under cooling. The calculated results show that its Curie temperature decreases with increasing hydrostatic pressure, but increases with a superimposed axial compression or a biased electric field. The predicted temperature shift and change of the dielectric constants are found to be consistent with experimental observations.
Real-Time Rendering and Animation of Vegetation

Vegetation rendering and animation in real-time applications still pose a significant problem due to the inherent complexity of plants. Both the high geometric complexity and intricate light transport require specialized techniques to achieve high-quality rendering of vegetation in real time. This thesis presents new algorithms that address various areas of both vegetation rendering and animation. For grass rendering, an efficient algorithm to display grass is introduced. Also, a method to efficiently render leaves is introduced. Leaves exhibit a complex light transport behavior due to subsurface scattering and special attention is given to the translucency of leaves, an integral part of leaf shading. To animate a tree, a novel deformation method based on a structural mechanics model that incorporates the important physical properties of branches is introduced. To drive this deformation, an optimized spectral approach that also incorporates the physical properties of branches is used. Additionally, a method to use dynamic skylight models in spherical harmonics precomputed radiance transfer techniques is introduced, allowing to change the skylight parameters in real time.
Association of mitochondrial DNA displacement loop polymorphisms and aggressive periodontitis in a Chinese population: a pilot study

Abstract To examine whether certain mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups and/or alterations affect susceptibility to aggressive periodontitis (AgP), we analyzed the mtDNA D-Loop region in a Han Chinese population. The mtDNA haplogroups were analyzed in 58 patients with AgP and 50 periodontally healthy controls. The frequency of haplogroups A in AgP group was significantly higher than that in the control group (p = 0.007). Furthermore, the frequency of haplogroup D was higher in the control group than that in AgP group (p = 0.007). The frequencies of D-Loop polymorphisms m.16126T > C, m.16290C > T and m.152 T > C were significantly higher in patients with AgP compared with controls (p = 0.029, 0.014 and 0.022, respectively). Additionally, the frequencies of three other D-Loop polymorphisms, m.16223C > T m.489 T > C and m.515CA deletion (del) were significantly lower in patients with AgP compared with controls (p = 0.042, 0.003 and 0.026, respectively). Our study showed for the first time, an association between AgP and mtDNA haplogroups. Haplogroups A was implicated as a risk factor for AgP, while haplogroups D exhibited a protective effect in this disease. These observations may provide a new perspective on the study of the pathogenesis of periodontitis.