Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating Strategies for Running from the Cops

Moving target search (MTS) or the game of cops and robbers has a broad field of application reaching from law enforcement to computer games. Within the recent years research has focused on computing move policies for one or multiple pursuers (cops). The present work motivates to extend this perspective to both sides, thus developing algorithms for the target (robber). We investigate the game with perfect information for both players and propose two new methods, named TrailMax and Dynamic Abstract Trailmax, to compute move policies for the target. Experiments are conducted by simulating games on 20 maps of the commercial computer game Baldur's Gate and measuring survival time and computational complexity. We test seven algorithms: Cover, Dynamic Abstract Minimax, minimax, hill climbing with distance heuristic, a random beacon algorithm, TrailMax and DATrailMax. Analysis shows that our methods outperform all the other algorithms in quality, achieving up to 98% optimality, while meeting modern computer game computation time constraints.
Hardware-assisted secure communication for FPGA-based embedded systems

In recent years, embedded systems have evolved rapidly and become ubiquitous as they are found in a large number of devices. At the same time, as a result of recent technological advancements and high demand of connectivity, such systems are particularly susceptible to security attacks. Software-based security solutions cannot provide complete protection and are relatively slow. On the other hand, hardware-assisted techniques improve execution time but still involve dedicated software modules. In this paper, we have proposed a hardware based mechanism to process sensitive information in complete isolation without requiring any software process. The proposed solution is evaluated for an image processing based authentication system and it has demonstrated negligible area, power consumption and performance overhead.
Optimal distributed algorithms for minimum weight spanning tree, counting, leader election, and related problems

This paper develops linear time distributed algorithms for a class of problems in an asynchronous communication network. Those problems include Minimum-Weight Spanning Tree (MST), Leader Election, counting the number of network nodes, and computing a sensitive decomposable function (e.g. majority, parity, maximum, OR, AND). The main problem considered is the problem of finding the MST. This problem, which has been known for at least 9 years, is one of the most fundamental and the most studied problems in the field of distributed network algorithms. Any algorithm for any one of the problems above requires at least &OHgr;(E + VlogV) communication and &OHgr;(V) time in the general network. In this paper, we present new algorithms, which achieve those lower bounds. The best previous algorithm requires &THgr;(E + VlogV) in communication and &THgr;(V log V) in time. Our result enables to improve algorithms for many other problems in distributed computing, achieving lower bounds on their communication and time complexities.
Elevated blood pressure and risk of mitral regurgitation: A longitudinal cohort study of 5.5 million United Kingdom adults

Background Mitral regurgitation in people without prior cardiac disease is considered a degenerative disease with no established risk factors for its prevention. We aimed to test the hypothesis that elevated systolic blood pressure (SBP) across its usual spectrum is associated with higher risk of mitral regurgitation. Methods and findings We used linked electronic health records from the United Kingdom Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) from 1 January 1990 to 31 December 2015. CPRD covers approximately 7% of the current UK population and is broadly representative of the population by age, sex, and ethnicity. About 5.5 million UK patients with no known cardiovascular or valve disease at baseline were included in this cohort study. We investigated the relationship between blood pressure (BP) and risk of mitral regurgitation using Cox regression models. Our primary exposure variable was SBP and our primary outcome was incident reports of mitral regurgitation, which were identified from hospital discharge reports or primary care records. Of the 5,553,984 patients in the CPRD that met our inclusion criteria, during the 10-year follow-up period, 28,655 (0.52%) were diagnosed with mitral regurgitation and a further 1,262 (0.02%) were diagnosed with mitral stenosis. SBP was continuously related to the risk of mitral regurgitation with no evidence of a nadir down to 115 mmHg (p < 0.001). Each 20 mmHg increment in SBP was associated with a 26% higher risk of mitral regurgitation (hazard ratio [HR] 1.26; CI 1.23, 1.29). The observed association was partially mediated by diseases affecting the left ventricle during follow-up (myocardial infarction [MI], ischaemic heart disease [IHD], cardiomyopathy, and heart failure). However, the percentage of excess risk mediated (PERM) by these proximate causes of secondary mitral regurgitation was only 13% (CI 6.1%, 20%), and accounting for them had little effect on the long-term association between SBP and mitral regurgitation (mediator-adjusted HR 1.22; CI 1.20, 1.25; p < 0.001). Associations were similar for each 10 mmHg increment in diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (p < 0.001) or each 15 mmHg increment in pulse pressure (PP) (p < 0.001). By contrast, there was no association between SBP and risk of mitral stenosis (HR per 20 mmHg higher SBP 1.03; CI 0.93, 1.14; p = 0.58). These analyses are based on routinely collected data from health records which may be sensitive to measurement errors, and the observed associations may not be generalizable to less severe and subclinical cases of mitral regurgitation. Conclusions Long-term exposure to elevated BP across its whole spectrum is associated with an increased risk of primary and secondary mitral regurgitation. These findings suggest that BP control may be of importance in the prevention of mitral regurgitation.
Subgroup and Cosets of Subgroups

Summary. We introduce notion of subgroup, coset of a subgroup, sets of left and right cosets of a subgroup. We define multiplication of two subset of a group, subset of reverse elemens of a group, intersection of two subgroups. We define the notion of an index of a subgroup and prove Lagrange theorem which states that in a finite group the order of the group equals the order of a subgroup multiplied by the index of the subgroup. Some theorems that belong rather to [1] are proved.
Drying adhesives

The solvent is the indispensable composition of the adhesives that is needed for tooth adhesion. In etch and Rinse (E&R) adhesives, the function of the solvent is to promote penetration of the monomers in the exposed collagen network of the demineralized dentin. In self-etch adhesives (SEAs), the solvent (water) is used for the ionization medium of the acidic monomers. The solvent is present within the primers (3-step E&Rs and 2-step SEAs) or the solvated resin blends (2-step E&Rs and 1-step SEAs). In dental adhesives, ethanol, water and acetone are the commonly used solvents. After application of adhesives, the evaporation of solvent is very important. Remaining solvents hamper the polymerization of adhesives and reduce its mechanical properties. Also, the permeability and nanoleakage of adhesive layer may be increased by the hydrophilicity of remaining solvents. On adhesion procedure, air-drying accelerate the removal of remaining solvent from the adhesive. Air-drying for 3 4 seconds advocated by manufacturers is too short to evaporate the solvent. Actually, air-drying for more than 10 seconds is recommended and it is longer than the instruction of manufacturers. However, complete evaporation is impossible through clinical air-drying time. The use of warm air stream is a clinical tool to increase the evaporation rate of adhesive. This method improves the bond strength and the quality of the hybrid layer (less nanoleakage and pores within the adhesive layer). Finally, the use of solvent-free adhesives (bonding resin) may enhance the tooth adhesion free from the residual solvent. Because these adhesives are hydrophobic and dense, these have less water sorption and solubility than solvated resin blends. The solvent free layers show minimum nanoleakage compared to solvated resin blends.
XCR1+ dendritic cells promote memory CD8+ T cell recall upon secondary infections with Listeria monocytogenes or certain viruses

Alexandre et al. demonstrate the XCR1+ DCs are instrumental in memory CD8+ T cell responses to Listeria, VSV or vaccinia virus infection, but not CMV. Depending on the infection, robust memory CTL responses require cytokine- and chemokine-dependent cross-talk between XCR1+ DCs and NK cells or other IFN-γ–producing lymphocytes.
From Bandits to Experts: On the Value of Side-Observations

We consider an adversarial online learning setting where a decision maker can choose an action in every stage of the game. In addition to observing the reward of the chosen action, the decision maker gets side observations on the reward he would have obtained had he chosen some of the other actions. The observation structure is encoded as a graph, where node i is linked to node j if sampling i provides information on the reward of j. This setting naturally interpolates between the well-known "experts" setting, where the decision maker can view all rewards, and the multi-armed bandits setting, where the decision maker can only view the reward of the chosen action. We develop practical algorithms with provable regret guarantees, which depend on non-trivial graph-theoretic properties of the information feedback structure. We also provide partially-matching lower bounds.
Representativeness and optimal use of body mass index (BMI) in the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD)

Objectives To assess the completeness and representativeness of body mass index (BMI) data in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), and determine an optimal strategy for their use. Design Descriptive study. Setting Electronic healthcare records from primary care. Participants A million patient random sample from the UK CPRD primary care database, aged ≥16 years. Primary and secondary outcome measures BMI completeness in CPRD was evaluated by age, sex and calendar period. CPRD-based summary BMI statistics for each calendar year (2003–2010) were age-standardised and sex-standardised and compared with equivalent statistics from the Health Survey for England (HSE). Results BMI completeness increased over calendar time from 37% in 1990–1994 to 77% in 2005–2011, was higher among females and increased with age. When BMI at specific time points was assigned based on the most recent record, calendar–year-specific mean BMI statistics underestimated equivalent HSE statistics by 0.75–1.1 kg/m2. Restriction to those with a recent (≤3 years) BMI resulted in mean BMI estimates closer to HSE (≤0.28 kg/m2 underestimation), but excluded up to 47% of patients. An alternative strategy of imputing up-to-date BMI based on modelled changes in BMI over time since the last available record also led to mean BMI estimates that were close to HSE (≤0.37 kg/m2 underestimation). Conclusions Completeness of BMI in CPRD increased over time and varied by age and sex. At a given point in time, a large proportion of the most recent BMIs are unlikely to reflect current BMI; consequent BMI misclassification might be reduced by employing model-based imputation of current BMI.
On Processing Top-k Spatio-Textual Preference Queries

In this paper we propose a novel query type, termedtop-k spatio-textual preference query, that retrieves a set of spatiotextual objects ranked by the goodness of the facilities in their neighborhood. Consider for example, a tourist that looks for “hotels that have nearby a highly rated Italian restaurant that serves pizza”. The proposed query type takes into account not only the spatial location and textual description of spatio-textual objects (such as hotels and restaurants), but also additional information such as ratings that describe their quality. Moreover, spatio-textual objects (i.e., hotels) are ranked based on the features of facilities (i.e., restaurants) in their neighborhood. Computing the score of each data object based on the facilities in its neighborhood is costly. To address this limitation, we propose an appropriate indexing technique and develop an efficient algorithm for processing our novel query. Moreover, we extend our algorithm for processing spatio-textual preference queries based on alternative score definitions under a unified framework. Last but not least, we conduct extensive experiments for evaluating the performance of our methods.
Time for Reactive System Modeling: Interactive Timing Analysis with Hotspot Highlighting

Modeling tools typically provide no information about timing properties and costly parts of the system under development. In this paper we propose a generic approach to integrate timing analysis and modeling tools. This approach includes visual highlighting to guide the user to worst-case execution time hotspots, detailed timing information for specific model elements, and the separation of different types of timing values. Our solution includes both a way to keep track of model elements subject to timing analysis during the compilation process, and a flexible and formally defined timing analysis interface for communicating timing information between a high-level modeling tool and a lower-level timing analysis tool. We present a complete open-source, Eclipse-based prototype tool chain that is evaluated both using a systematic benchmark suite and a user study.
Low-power 3D integrated ferromagnetic computing

As CMOS scaling becomes more and more challenging there is strong impetus for beyond CMOS device research to add new functionality to ICs. In this article, a promising technology with non-volatile ferromagnetic computing states - the so-called perpendicular Nanomagnetic Logic (pNML) - is reviewed. After introducing the 2D planar implementation of NML with magnetization perpendicular to the surface, the path to monolithically 3D integrated systems is discussed. Instead of CMOS substitution, additional functionality is added by a coprocessor architecture as a prospective back-end-of-line (BEOL) process. The unconventional computation in the ferromagnetic domain can lead to highly dense computing structures without leakage currents, atto-joule dissipation per bit operation and data-throughputs comparable to state-of-the-art high-performance CMOS CPUs.
Incremental language models for speech recognition using finite-state transducers

In the context of the weighted finite-state transducer approach to speech recognition, we investigate a novel decoding strategy to deal with very large n-gram language models often used in large-vocabulary systems. In particular, we present an alternative to full, static expansion and optimization of the finite-state transducer network. This alternative is useful when the individual knowledge sources, modeled as transducers, are too large to be composed and optimized. While the recognition decoder perceives a single, weighted finite-state transducer, we apply a divide-and-conquer technique to split the language model into two parts which add up exactly to the original language model. We investigate the merits of these 'incremental language models' and present some initial results.
Swarm Controlled Emergence - Designing an Anti-Clustering Ant System

A new approach to prevent negative emergent behaviors of adaptive or organic computing systems is presented. One characteristic of such computing systems is the use self-organisation principles from nature and components that make decentralized decisions. To control such systems is a difficult task. In this paper we propose to control by introducing a swarm of so called anti-components to the system that can prevent the negative emergence. As an example serves a model that is inspired by the emergent behavior of ants to cluster different items. This model system has been used for several applications in computer science already. Different types of anti-components (or anti-agents) that can prevent a clustering behavior are designed for this system. Several cluster validity measures are used to investigate the clustering behavior of a system that contains standard clustering agents together with anti-clustering agents. It is shown that such systems can show a complex behavior over time where a phase of item distributions with increasing order is followed by distributions with increasing degree of clustering. It is also shown that a medium number of certain anti-clustering agents (which in a larger number completely prevent any clustering) may even help the system to perform a good clustering faster
Early-onset ischaemic stroke: Analysis of 58 polymorphisms in 17 genes involved in methionine metabolism

Summary The hypothesis underlying this study is that variations in genes involved in methionine metabolism may contribute to genetic susceptibility for early-onset ischaemic stroke. We investigated 58 polymorphisms in AHCY, BHMT, BHMT2, CBS, ENOSF1, FOLH1, MTHFD1, MTHFR, MTR, MTRR, NNMT, PON1, PON2, SLC19A1, SHMT1, TCN2, TYMS genes on genomic DNA from 501 young patients who survived ischaemic stroke and 1,211 sex and age comparable controls. Genotype distribution was significantly different between patients and controls for the following SNPs: rs10037045 BHMT, rs682985 BHMT2, rs1051319 CBS, rs202680 FOLH1, rs2274976 MTHFR, rs1979277 SHMT1, rs20721958 TCN2. On multiple logistic regression analysis adjusted for traditional risk factors, rs10037045 BHMT, rs682985 BHMT2, rs1051319 CBS, and rs202680 FOLH1 remained independent risk factors for stroke. After haplotype reconstruction, generalised linear model analyses adjusted for traditional risk factors and using the FDR multiple testing correction showed significant associations between ischaemic stroke and BHMT, CBS, FOLH1, MTR, PON2, TCN2 and TYMS haplotypes. This study identifies significant genetic associations between premature ischaemic stroke and haplotypes in BHMT, CBS, FOLH1, MTR, PON2, TCN2 and TYMS genes involved in methionine metabolism.
Non-intrusive appliance load monitoring using low-resolution smart meter data

We propose two algorithms for power load disaggregation at low-sampling rates (greater than 1sec): a low-complexity, supervised approach based on Decision Trees and an unsupervised method based on Dynamic Time Warping. Both proposed algorithms share common pre-classification steps. We provide reproducible algorithmic description and benchmark the proposed methods with a state-of-the-art Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based approach. Experimental results using three US and three UK households, show that both proposed methods outperform the HMM-based approach and are capable of disaggregating a range of domestic loads even when the training period is very short.
Phase-sensitive light: coherence theory and applications to optical imaging

Spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) can produce pairs of entangled photons, i.e., a stream of biphotons. SPDC has been utilized in a number of optical imaging applications, such as optical coherence tomography, ghost imaging, holography and lithography, to obtain performance that cannot be realized with standard optical sources. However, a debate continues as to whether the improved imaging characteristics of such systems should be attributed to the entanglement property of the photon pairs. This thesis sets out to unify— and generalize—classical and quantum imaging within the framework of Gaussian-state light fields, which encompasses thermal light—the source used in conventional imagers— and biphoton-state light as special instances. Within this framework, we are able to provide a complete understanding of the boundary between classical and quantum behavior in optical coherence tomography (OCT), ghost imaging and two-photon imaging. Furthermore, we show that almost all characteristics of biphoton-state imagers are due to phase-sensitive cross correlations, and hence are obtainable with classical phase-sensitive sources. Thesis Supervisor: Jeffrey H. Shapiro Title: Julius A. Stratton Professor
Function of the Glyoxylate-condensing Enzymes I. Growth of Escherichia coli on n-Valeric Acid

Growth of Escherichia coli E-26 on valeric acid results in the formation of a mutant population characterized by the ability to form constitutively several glyoxylate-condensing enzymes. This mutant also differs from the parent organism in the ability to effect rapid growth on a series of short-chain fatty acids. These mutants were utilized in postulating genetic relationships among the various glyoxylate-condensing activities and also in correlating the presence of these enzymes with the ability of the mutants to initiate growth quickly on short-chain fatty acids.
Charge-pumping extraction techniques for hot-carrier induced interface and oxide trap spatial distributions in MOSFETs

A thorough analysis of charge-pumping extraction techniques for hot-carrier induced defect spatial distribution in MOSFETs has been carried out. We discuss the main features of the existing approaches reflecting upon their shortcomings and applicability limits. For our investigations a new simple and accurate compact model for the MOSFET local oxide capacitance has been employed. The spatial distribution extracted from experiment is in a good agreement with the findings of our physics-based model of hot-carrier degradation.
Bayesian Surface Estimation from Multiple Cameras Using a Prior Based on the Visual Hull and its Application to Image Based Rendering

The problem of visible surface estimation for image-based rendering is tackled using a new approach, which combines visual hull and surface estimation techniques. It is shown that the new method combines the best features of both approaches, being more robust than direct surface element estimation and more flexible than the visual hull. The new method uses an estimate of the visual hull as a prior on the ill-posed problem of surface element estimation. To improve the computational preformance of the algorithm, a multiresolution approach to surface patch estimation is used. The patches thus estimated can then be tracked over time, to provide an accurate model of the surface geometry, which is then used for estimation of the scene from arbitrary viewpoints. After a brief description of the algorithm, results are presented to show the improvement in performance which can be obtained using either technique alone. The paper concludes with a discussion of extensions to the work currently under investigation.
Growth and Cu and Zn uptake of two forage grasses affected by application of vermicompost spiked with different metal contents

To identify environmental risks of vermicompost-borne pollutants after consecutive application for different times, pot experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of application of polluted vermicompost produced by Eisenia fetida on growth and Cu and Zn uptake of Mexico corn (Euchlaena mexicana) and Sudan grass (Sorghum hybrid Sudangrass) as well as soil characteristics. The results showed that application of vermicompost significantly increased shoot biomass of the two forage grasses, but decreased Mexico corn root biomass. Tissue Cu and Zn contents and soil bio-available fractions of Cu and Zn were significantly increased as the increase of application times, while soil pH and water soluble organic carbon (DOC) decreased. A significantly positive correlation was obtained between soil exchangeable and reducible fractions of Cu and Zn and forage grass tissue metal contents, whereas DOC performed a significantly negative correlation. So, application of polluted vermicompost could contribute to accumulate of soil Cu and Zn exchangeable and reducible fractions, and pose a potential threat to increase tissue Cu and Zn contents of the cultured plants. Key words: Vermicompost, Cu and Zn, tissue uptake, biomass, fractionations.