Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Online robust optimization framework for QoS guarantees in distributed soft real-time systems

In distributed soft real-time systems, maximizing the aggregate quality-of-service (QoS) is a typical system-wide goal, and addressing the problem through distributed optimization is challenging. Subtasks are subject to unpredictable failures in many practical environments, and this makes the problem much harder. In this paper, we present a robust optimization framework for maximizing the aggregate QoS in the presence of random failures. We introduce the notion of K-failure to bound the effect of random failures on schedulability. Using this notion we define the concept of K-robustness that quantifies the degree of robustness on QoS guarantee in a probabilistic sense. The parameter K helps to tradeoff achievable QoS versus robustness. The proposed robust framework produces optimal solutions through distributed computations on the basis of Lagrangian duality, and we present some implementation techniques. Our simulation results show that the proposed framework can probabilistically guarantee sub-optimal QoS which remains feasible even in the presence of random failures.
Biphasic Positive Airway Pressure or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure: A Randomized Trial

BACKGROUND: There is currently no clear evidence that nasal-biphasic positive airway pressure (n-BiPAP) confers any advantage over nasal-continuous positive airway pressure (n-CPAP). Our hypothesis was that preterm infants born before 30 weeks' gestation and <2 weeks old when extubated onto n-BiPAP will have a lower risk of extubation failure than infants extubated onto n-CPAP at equivalent mean airway pressure. METHODS: We conducted an unblinded multicenter randomized trial comparing n-CPAP with n-BiPAP in infants born <30 weeks' gestation and <2 weeks old. The primary outcome variable was the rate of extubation failure within 48 hours after the first attempt at extubation. Block randomization stratified by center and gestation (<28 weeks or ≥28 weeks) was performed. RESULTS: A total of 540 infants (270 in each group) were eligible to be included in the statistical analysis; 57 (21%) of n-BiPAP group and 55 (20%) of n-CPAP group failed extubation at 48 hours postextubation (adjusted odds ratio 1.01; 95% confidence interval 0.65–1.56; P = .97). Subgroup analysis of infants born before and after 28 weeks’ gestation showed no significant differences between the 2 groups. There were no significant differences between arms in death; oxygen requirement at 28 days; oxygen requirement at 36 weeks' corrected gestation; or intraventricular hemorrhage, necrotizing enterocolitis requiring surgery, or pneumothorax. CONCLUSIONS: This trial shows that there is no added benefit to using n-BIPAP over n-CPAP at equivalent mean airway pressure in preventing extubation failures in infants born before 30 weeks' gestation and <2 weeks old.
Mobile Verification by Palmprint Biometrics

This paper presents a method for verifying the identity of a mobile device user in real time by capturing an image of the user’s palm with a mobile camera. A consistent region of interest is extracted from the center of the palm using a method that is robust to orientation, scale, and lighting. A set of directional line filters then detects the stable palm lines from this region, and the result is scored based on similarity to a stored template. Expiremental results show the proposed method to be effective in verifying an individual’s identity, achieving an Equal Error Rate of 2.04%.
Shock compression and the equation of state of fully dense and porous polyurethane

The principal shock Hugoniot of fully dense polyurethane is well established experimentally but there is considerable uncertainty in our knowledge of the Gruneisen parameter which is needed if an equation of state is to be developed to describe off-Hugoniot states. Primary and reflected shock Hugoniot data on polyurethane foams have been systematically analyzed to determine the shocked densities, pressures and energies. This has enabled the variation with density of the Gruneisen parameter to be more precisely defined at densities above and below the normal density. A Gruneisen form of equation of state is then developed which is shown to give good agreement with results from a number of multiple shock experiments on polyurethane foams. The equation of state is valid for densities in the range 0.3–3.0 g/cc and pressures up to 50 GPa.
Learning similarity measure for multi-modal 3D image registration

Multi-modal image registration is a challenging problem in medical imaging. The goal is to align anatomically identical structures; however, their appearance in images acquired with different imaging devices, such as CT or MR, may be very different. Registration algorithms generally deform one image, the floating image, such that it matches with a second, the reference image, by maximizing some similarity score between the deformed and the reference image. Instead of using a universal, but a priori fixed similarity criterion such as mutual information, we propose learning a similarity measure in a discriminative manner such that the reference and correctly deformed floating images receive high similarity scores. To this end, we develop an algorithm derived from max-margin structured output learning, and employ the learned similarity measure within a standard rigid registration algorithm. Compared to other approaches, our method adapts to the specific registration problem at hand and exploits correlations between neighboring pixels in the reference and the floating image. Empirical evaluation on CT-MR/PET-MR rigid registration tasks demonstrates that our approach yields robust performance and outperforms the state of the art methods for multi-modal medical image registration.
Detection of Human Cytomegalovirus Gene in Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded Fetal Tissues

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is an opportunistic pathogen that can cause infection at any time during the course of a lifetime and constitutes an important cause of intrauterine infection and death in newborns, especially if associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection (1-3). It is generally assumed that intrauterine transmission occurs transplacentally during maternal viremia (4,5). Therefore, the placenta may act as a portal of entry for the virus, as well as acting as a barrier. Despite its important role very little is known about the interactions between the placenta and CMV. Since the initial description of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in 1981, it has been proposed that CMV may play an important role in the transmission and progression of perinatal HIV infection. A number of mechanisms have been identified in vitro that could explain the adverse effects of coinfection with CMV on the course of HIV disease. CMV may activate HIV directly or as a result of a superantigen effect with increased cytokine production; it may permit HIV to infect cells otherwise resistant to infection (6,7); or it may suppress immune function in infected individuals (8), thereby facilitating the escape of HIV from host defense mechanisms. In this study, we retrospectively evaluated a 34-week gestation fetus who was born into a full-blown blown AIDS mother with positive seral CMV Ig-M. The fetus died in utero but neither the placenta nor the fetus demonstrated any histological stigma of congenital viral infection at autopsy. Since detection of viral genome indicates the presence of virus in the infected cells, we applied a newly developed ligation-dependant polymerase
Realization of phased arrays for reflector observing systems

This paper presents a cryogenically cooled, dual polarization, low noise Phased Array Feeds receiver for radio astronomy application, which operated at 4–8 GHz. It is designed to be mounted at the focal plane of a dish antenna by producing 4 dense covered, simultaneously operated beams with benefits of increasing Field of View, survey speed, and improving the aperture efficiency of the dish. Development of Vivaldi antenna array, MMIC technology low noise amplifier and analogue beam formers are demonstrated. Receiver noise temperature test is carried out at room temperature and cryogenically cooled condition, which indicates a dramatically improvement from 250 K to 45 K.
IQ Imbalance Compensation Scheme in the Presence of Frequency Offset and Dynamic DC Offset for a Direct Conversion Receiver

A direct conversion architecture reduces the cost and power consumption of a receiver. However, a direct conversion receiver may suffer from direct current (DC) offset, frequency offset, and IQ imbalance. This paper presents an IQ imbalance estimation scheme for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) direct conversion receivers. The proposed IQ imbalance estimation scheme operates in the presence of dynamic DC offset and frequency offset. The proposed scheme calculates IQ imbalance from a simple equation. It employs the knowledge of the preamble symbols of the IEEE 802.11 a/g standards, while it does not require the impulse response of the channel. Numerical results obtained through computer simulation show that the bit error rate (BER) performance for the proposed IQ imbalance estimation scheme has a degradation of about 4 dB with a large DC offset, frequency offset, and IQ imbalance.
Wavelet Fisher's Information Measure of 1=f α Signals

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: cramirez@gdl.cinvestav. mx;Tel. : +52-9988814400; Fax. : +52-9988814451.Received: 6 July 2011; in revised form: 30 July 2011 / Accepted: 18 August 2011 /Published: 6 September 2011Abstract: This article deﬁnes the concept of wavelet-based Fisher’s information measure(wavelet FIM) and develops a closed-form expression of this measure for 1=f signals.Wavelet Fisher’s information measure characterizes the complexities associated to 1=fsignals and provides a powerful tool for their analysis. Theoretical and experimental studiesdemonstrate that this quantity is exponentially increasing for >1 (non-stationary signals)and almost constant for <1 (stationary signals). Potential applications of wavelet FIM arediscussed in some detail and its power and robustness for the detection of structural breaksin the mean embedded in stationary fractional Gaussian noise signals studied.Keywords: 1=f processes; structural breaks; Fisher information; fractal index estimation;fractional Gaussian noise1. Introduction1=f signals, also known as scaling processes, model a large variety of phenomena occurring indiverse ﬁelds of science and engineering [1–4], from voltage ﬂuctuations in resistors, semiconductors andvacuum tubes [5] to Internet trafﬁc [6], laser propagation [7,8], turbulence, ﬁnancial time series, amongothers. In recent years, considerably effort has been undertaken to the robust estimation of the parameters
Action recognition using exemplar-based embedding

In this paper, we address the problem of representing human actions using visual cues for the purpose of learning and recognition. Traditional approaches model actions as space-time representations which explicitly or implicitly encode the dynamics of an action through temporal dependencies. In contrast, we propose a new compact and efficient representation which does not account for such dependencies. Instead, motion sequences are represented with respect to a set of discriminative static key-pose exemplars and without modeling any temporal ordering. The interest is a time-invariant representation that drastically simplifies learning and recognition by removing time related information such as speed or length of an action. The proposed representation is equivalent to embedding actions into a space defined by distances to key-pose exemplars. We show how to build such embedding spaces of low dimension by identifying a vocabulary of highly discriminative exemplars using a forward selection. To test our representation, we have used a publicly available dataset which demonstrates that our method can precisely recognize actions, even with cluttered and non-segmented sequences.
Phase structure of non-commutative field theories and spinning brane bound states

General spinning brane bound states are constructed, along with their near-horizon limits which are relevant as dual descriptions of non-commutative field theories. For the spinning D-brane world volume theories with a B-field a general analysis of the gauge coupling phase structure is given, exhibiting various novel features, already at the level of zero angular momenta. We show that the thermodynamics is equivalent to the commutative case at large N and we discuss the possibility and consequences of finite N. As an application of the general analysis, the range of validity of the thermodynamics for the NCSYM is discussed. In view of the recently conjectured existence of a 7-dimensional NCSYM, the thermodynamics of the spinning D6-brane theory, for which a stable region can be found, is presented in detail. Corresponding results for the spinning M5-M2 brane bound state, including the near-horizon limit and thermodynamics, are given as well.
Epidemiologic study of Taylorella equigenitalis strains by field inversion gel electrophoresis of genomic restriction endonuclease fragments

Contagious equine metritis (CEM), a sexually transmitted bacterial disease, was first described in thoroughbred horses. It also occurs in nonthoroughbred horses, in which it produces isolated, apparently unrelated outbreaks. Thirty-two strains of Taylorella equigenitalis, the causative agent of CEM, from all over the world were characterized by field inversion gel electrophoresis of fragments of genomic DNA obtained by digestion with low-cleavage-frequency restriction enzymes. This resulted in a division into five clearly distinct groups. Strains from thoroughbred horses from all continents belonged to one group. Strains from nonthoroughbred horses from various countries were different from strains from thoroughbred horses; four groups could be determined. Two groups contained both streptomycin-resistant and streptomycin-susceptible strains. The data indicate that CEM in nonthoroughbreds did not originate from the thoroughbred population; also, the reverse was not demonstrated. Thus, extensive international transportation directives regarding the testing of nonthoroughbred horses for CEM may need reconsideration.
Up‐Regulation of Base Excision Repair Activity for 8‐Hydroxy‐2'‐Deoxyguanosine in the Mouse Brain After Forebrain Ischemia‐Reperfusion

The repair enzyme 8‐oxoguanine glycosylase/apyrimidinic/apurinic lyase (OGG) removes 8‐hydroxy‐2′‐deoxyguanosine (oh8dG) in human cells. Our goal was to examine oh8dG‐removing activity in the cell nuclei of male C57BL/6 mouse brains treated with either forebrain ischemia‐reperfusion (FbIR) or sham operations. We found that the OGG activity in nuclear extracts, under the condition in which other nucleases did not destroy the oligodeoxynucleotide duplex, excised oh8dG with the greatest efficiency on the oligodeoxynucleotide duplex containing oh8dG/dC and with less efficiency on the heteroduplex containing oh8dG/dT, oh8dG/dG, or oh8dG/dA. This specificity was the same as for the recombinant type 1 OGG (OGG1) of humans. We observed that the OGG1 peptide and its activity in the mouse brain were significantly increased after 90 min of ischemia and 20‐30 min of reperfusion. The increase in the protein level and in the activity of brain OGG1 correlated positively with the elevation of FbIR‐induced DNA lesions in an indicator gene (the c‐fos gene) of the brain. The data suggest a possibility that the OGG1 protein may excise oh8dG in the mouse brain and that the activity of OGG1 may have a functional role in reducing oxidative gene damage in the brain after FbIR.
How to break an API: cost negotiation and community values in three software ecosystems

Change introduces conflict into software ecosystems: breaking changes may ripple through the ecosystem and trigger rework for users of a package, but often developers can invest additional effort or accept opportunity costs to alleviate or delay downstream costs. We performed a multiple case study of three software ecosystems with different tooling and philosophies toward change, Eclipse, R/CRAN, and Node.js/npm, to understand how developers make decisions about change and change-related costs and what practices, tooling, and policies are used. We found that all three ecosystems differ substantially in their practices and expectations toward change and that those differences can be explained largely by different community values in each ecosystem. Our results illustrate that there is a large design space in how to build an ecosystem, its policies and its supporting infrastructure; and there is value in making community values and accepted tradeoffs explicit and transparent in order to resolve conflicts and negotiate change-related costs.
Melatonin and clonidine premedication has similar impact on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of propofol target controlled‐infusions

Recently oral melatonin has been proposed as an agent for premedication. In this study, we compared melatonin with clonidine, considering its anxiolytic properties as well as the influence of both agents on the pharmacokinetic, hypnotic, and hemodynamic effects of propofol during propofol–remifentanil total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA). The dataset under analysis included 32 patients scheduled for a functional endoscopic sinus surgery. The population pharmacokinetic modeling was done with NONMEM. The PK of propofol was described with a two‐compartment disposition model, whereas the BIS and AAI were described with a sigmoidal Emax model linked with the propofol concentration via the biophase compartment. The anxiolytic effect was assessed by means of the visual analog scale for anxiety (VAS‐A). The population PK/PD model was successfully developed to describe the data. No significant differences in the PK/PD of propofol were noted due to the premedication with clonidine and melatonin. Melatonin was less effective than clonidine in reducing patients' anxiety at the induction of anesthesia, whereas clonidine premedication was associated with greater decrease in heart rate and blood pressure. A decreased EC50 (2.47 vs. 3.17 mg/L) and increased slope (2.71 vs. 1.30) of the sigmoidal Emax relationship was observed for the AAI index, as compared with the BIS measurements.
Loss of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity in trap cultures during long-term subculturing

Long-term successional dynamics of an inoculum of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) associated with the maize rhizosphere (from traditionally managed agroecosystems in Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico), was followed in Bracchiaria comata trap cultures for almost eight years. The results indicate that AMF diversity is lost following long-term subculturing of a single plant host species. Only the dominant species, Claroideoglomus etunicatum, persisted in pot cultures after 13 cycles. The absence of other morphotypes was demonstrated by an 18S rDNA survey, which confirmed that the sequences present solely belonged to C. etunicatum. Members of Diversisporales were the first to decrease in diversity, and the most persistent species belonged to Glomerales.
An Auditory Model Based Transcriber of Singing Sequences

In this paper, a new system for the automatic transcription of singing sequences into a sequence of pitch and duration pairs is presented. Although such a system may have a wider range of applications, it was mainly developed to become the acoustic module of a queryby-humming (QBH) system for retrieving pieces of music from a digitized musical library. The first part of the paper is devoted to the systematic evaluation of a variety of state-of-the art transcription systems. The main result of this evaluation is that there is clearly a need for more accurate systems. Especially the segmentation was experienced as being too error prone ( % segmentation errors). In the second part of the paper, a new auditory model based transcription system is proposed and evaluated. The results of that evaluation are very promising. Segmentation errors vary between 0 and 7 %, dependent on the amount of lyrics that is used by the singer. The paper ends with the description of an experimental study that was issued to demonstrate that the accuracy of the newly proposed transcription system is not very sensitive to the choice of the free parameters, at least as long as they remain in the vicinity of the values one could forecast on the basis of their meaning.
Wildcards for lightweight information integration in virtual desktops

We present a flexible information integration approach which addresses the dynamic integration needs in a personal desktop environment where only partial mappings are defined between the sources to be integrated. Our approach is based on query rewriting using substitution rules. In addition to exploiting defined mappings, we employ substitution strategies, which are inspired by the idea of using wildcards in querying and filtering tasks. Starting from a triple based query language as used for querying RDF data, unmapped ontological elements are substituted in a controlled way with variables, leading to a controlled form of query relaxation. In addition, the approach also provides evidences for refining the existing mapping based on the results of executing the relaxed queries. Different strategies for replacing non-matched ontology elements with variables are presented and evaluated over real-world data sets.
Realizing Benefits from Enterprise Architecture: a Measurement Model

Enterprise architecture (EA) management has become an intensively discussed approach to manage enterprise transformations. Despite the popularity and potential of EA, both researchers and practitioners lament a lack of knowledge about the realization of benefits from EA. To determine the benefits from EA, we explore the various dimensions of EA benefit realization and report on the development of a validated and robust measurement instrument. In this paper, we test the reliability and construct validity of the EA benefit realization model (EABRM), which we have designed based on the DeLone & McLean IS success model and findings from exploratory interviews. A confirmatory factor analysis confirms the existence of an impact of five distinct and individually important dimensions on the benefits derived from EA: EA artefact quality, EA infrastructure quality, EA service quality, EA culture, and EA use. The analysis presented in this paper shows that the EA benefit realization model is an instrument that demonstrates strong reliability and validity.
Approximate Variance-stabilizing Transformations for Gene-expression Microarray Data

MOTIVATION A variance stabilizing transformation for microarray data was recently introduced independently by several research groups. This transformation has sometimes been called the generalized logarithm or glog transformation. In this paper, we derive several alternative approximate variance stabilizing transformations that may be easier to use in some applications. RESULTS We demonstrate that the started-log and the log-linear-hybrid transformation families can produce approximate variance stabilizing transformations for microarray data that are nearly as good as the generalized logarithm (glog) transformation. These transformations may be more convenient in some applications.