Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DRIVE: Using implicit caching hints to achieve disk I/O reduction in virtualized environments

Co-hosting of virtualized applications results in similar content across multiple blocks on disk, which are fetched into memory (the host's page cache). Content similarity can be harnessed both to avoid duplicate disk I/O requests that fetch the same content repeatedly, as well as to prevent multiple occurrences of duplicate content in cache. Typically, caches store the most recently or frequently accessed blocks to reduce the number of disk read accesses. These caches are referenced by block number, and can not recognize content similarity across multiple blocks. Existing work in memory deduplication merges cache pages after multiple identical blocks have already been fetched from disk into cache, while existing work in I/O deduplication reserves a portion of the host-cache to be maintained as a content-aware cache. We propose a disk I/O reduction system for the virtualization environment that addresses the dual problems of duplicate I/O and duplicate content in the host-cache, without being invasive. We build a disk read-access optimization called DRIVE, that identifies content similarity across multiple blocks, and performs hint-based read I/O redirection to improve cache effectiveness, thus reducing the number of disk reads further. A metadata store is maintained based on the virtual machine's disk accesses and implicit caching hints are collected for future read I/O redirection. The read I/O redirection is performed from within the virtual block device in the virtualized system, to manipulate the entire host-cache as a content-deduplicated cache implicitly. Our trace-based evaluation using a custom simulator, reveals that DRIVE always performs equal to or better than the Vanilla system, achieving up to 20% better cache-hit ratios and reducing the number of disk reads by up to 80%. The results also indicate that our system is able to achieve up to 97% content deduplication in the host-cache.
The Core of Bluetongue Virus Binds Double-Stranded RNA

ABSTRACT Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) viruses conceal their genome from the host to avoid triggering unfavorable cellular responses. The crystal structure of the core of one such virus, bluetongue virus, reveals an outer surface festooned with dsRNA. This may represent a deliberate strategy to sequester dsRNA released from damaged particles to prevent host cell shutoff.
Aeroallergen‐induced dyspnea in freely moving guinea pigs: quantitative measurement by bias flow ventilated whole body plethysmography

Guinea pigs were sensitized and boostered with i.p. injections of ovalbumin (OA) 10 μg + Al(OH)3, 100 mg. Thirteen days after the last injection animals (800‐1100 g) were placed in bias flow ventilated whole body plethysmographs and allowed to stabilize for 2 h. Lung function was recorded for up to 2 h before and 5 h after aeroallergen challenge (OA 20 mg/ml, 60 s, 20 psi)by a noninvasive pulmonary analyzer for unrestrained rodents. Aeroallergen challenge produced immediate dyspnea and gasping (peaking between 8 and 17 min). Gasping was associated with an increase in amplitude in the box pressure fluctuations (93%), and in the slope of the fluctuations (391%). Respiratory rate increased (103 to 175 breaths/min. 78%), the product of breathing rate times box pressure amplitude increased (161 to 432, 180%). Relaxation time (the time it takes the box pressure signal to drop from its peak to 1/3 of its peak value) declined (0.16 to 0.05 s. 72%). All of these lung dysfunction changes were highly significant (p<0.001). Lung dysfunction persisted for 60 to 120 min after challenge. One of 8 animals tested died within 10 min. None of the animals exhibited late asthmatic responses during the 5 h post‐challenge period. Based on these data we conclude that this technique allows quantitative analysis of dyspnea, gasping, and an abnormal pattern (waveform) of breathing. The increase in the slope of the fluctuations, especially at the start of expiration, the concomitant decline in relaxation time, and increased pause time between respiratory cycles appear to be reliable and reproducible markers of early asthmatic responses in the airways of freely moving guinea pigs.
VIRE: Active RFID-based Localization Using Virtual Reference Elimination

RFID technologies are gaining much attention as they are attractive solutions to many application domains. Localization based on active RFID technologies provides a much needed added-value to further expand the application domain. LANDMARC was the first attempt using active RFID for indoor location sensing with satisfactory results. However, the LANDMARC approach suffers from two drawbacks. First, it does not work well in a closed area with severe radio signal multi-path effects. Second, to further improve the localization accuracy, more reference tags are needed which is costly and may trigger the RF interference phenomenon. The proposed VIRE approach can overcome the above drawbacks without additional cost. Based on the concept of virtual reference tags, a proximity map is maintained by each reader. An elimination algorithm is used to eliminate those unlikely locations to reduce the estimation error. Our experimental results show that the new method consistently enhances the precision of indoor localization from 17 to 73 percent over the LANDMARC approach at different tag locations in different environments.
Saccharomyces carlsbergensis fdp mutant and futile cycling of fructose 6-phosphate

In Saccharomyces, the addition of glucose to cells grown in media lacking sugars causes irreversible inactivation of fructose bisphosphatase. One function of this process might be to prevent a futile cycle of formation and hydrolysis of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. We tested such cycling by assessing the labeling of the 1-position of glucose in polysaccharides from [6-14C]glucose (J.P. Chambost and D. G. Fraenkel, J. Biol. Chem. 225:2867-2869, 1980) by using mutants impaired in glucose growth and known not to inactivate the phosphatase normally (i.e., the fdp mutant of Saccharomyces carlsbergensis [van de Poll et al., J. Bacteriol. 117:965-970, 1974] and the similar cif mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae [Navon et al., Biochemistry 18:4487-4499, 1979] ), as well as in the wild-type strain tested in the 1-h period before inactivation is complete. There was marginal, if any, cycling in any situation, and we conclude that the phosphatase activity is controlled by means other than inactivation or that the extent of cycling is too low to be significant, or both. For the fdp mutant data are also presented on growth, rate of glucose metabolism, metabolite accumulations, enzyme levels, and glucose transport, but the primary lesion is unknown.
Towards the Design and Implementation of a Cloud-centric Assured Information Sharing System

In this paper we describe the design and implementation of cloud-based assured information sharing systems. In particular, we will describe our current implementation of a centralized cloud-based assured information sharing system and the design of a decentralized hybrid cloud-based assured information sharing system of the future. Our goal is for coalition organizations to share information stored in multiple clouds and enforce appropriate policies.
Avatar embodiment realism and virtual fitness training

In this paper we present a preliminary study of the impact of avatar realism on illusion of virtual body ownership (IVBO), when using a full body virtual mirror for fitness training. We evaluated three main types of user representation: realistic and non-realistic avatars as well as no avatar at all. Our results revealed that same-gender realistic human avatar elicited a slightly higher level of illusion and performance. However qualitative analysis of open questions revealed that the feeling of power was higher with non-realistic strong-looking avatars.
Kodak consumer video benchmark data set : concept definition and annotation * *

Semantic indexing of images and videos in the consumer domain has become a very important issue for both research and actual application. In this work we developed Kodak’s consumer video benchmark data set, which includes (1) a significant number of videos from actual users, (2) a rich lexicon that accommodates consumers’ needs, and (3) the annotation of a subset of concepts over the entire video data set. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic work in the consumer domain aimed at the definition of a large lexicon, construction of a large benchmark data set, and annotation of videos in a rigorous fashion. Such effort will have significant impact by providing a sound foundation for developing and evaluating large-scale learningbased semantic indexing/annotation techniques in the consumer domain. This report includes information about the concept definitions, the annotation process, video collection process, and the data structures used in the release file. The released dataset includes the annotations, extracted visual features (for videos from Kodak), and URLs of videos from YouTube. The Appendix section also includes the full list of concepts (more than 100 concepts in 7 categories) that have been defined in the consumer video domain.
Hydrologic‐response simulations for the North Fork of Caspar Creek: second‐growth, clear‐cut, new‐growth, and cumulative watershed effect scenarios

This study demonstrates that comprehensive hydrologic‐response simulation can be a useful tool for studying cumulative watershed effects. The simulations reported here were conducted with the Integrated Hydrology Model (InHM). The location of the 473 ha study site is the North Fork of the Caspar Creek Experimental Watershed, near Fort Bragg, California. Existing information from a long‐term monitoring programme and new soil‐hydraulic property measurements made for this study were used to parameterize InHM. Long‐term continuous wet‐season simulations were conducted for the North Fork catchments and main stem for second‐growth, clear‐cut and new‐growth scenarios. The simulation results show that the increases and decreases, respectively, for throughfall and potential evapotranspiration related to clear‐cutting had quantifiable impacts on the simulated hydrologic response at both the catchment and watershed scales. Model performance was best for the new‐growth simulation scenarios. To improve upon the simulations reported here would require additional soil‐hydraulic property information from across the study area. Although principally focused on the integrated hydrologic response, the effort reported here demonstrates the potential for characterizing distributed responses with physics‐based simulation. The search for a comprehensive understanding of hydrologic response will require both data‐intensive discovery and concept‐development simulation, from both integrated and distributed perspectives. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Perceptually-Based Evaluation of the Errors Usually Made When Automatically Transcribing Music

This paper investigates the perceptual importance of typical errors occurring when transcribing polyphonic music excerpts into a symbolic form. The case of the automatic transcription of piano music is taken as the target application and two subjective tests are designed. The main test aims at understanding how human subjects rank typical transcription errors such as note insertion, deletion or replacement, note doubling, incorrect note onset or duration, and so forth. The Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) analysis framework is used and the results show that pitch errors are more clearly perceived than incorrect loudness estimations or temporal deviations from the original recording. A second test presents a first attempt to include this information in more perceptually motivated measures for evaluating transcription systems.
Motivation for Coordination - a Complementary Approach to Enterprise Architecture Management Research

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is a prominent discipline that aims at guiding decisions in local information systems (IS) investments toward organization-wide objectives. Due to shortcomings resulting from the guidance of EAM as a strong hierarchical, top-down driven coordination practice, scholars have recently introduced the concept of architectural thinking. Complementary to top-down driven coordination, architectural thinking aims at local decisionmakers for applying collectivistic considerations in their decisions and hence guiding IS endeavors beyond local utilities. Yet, the question of how to enable and foster this collectivistic orientation remains unanswered. Inspired by stewardship theory, this research conceptualizes a collectivistic-oriented decisionmaker by the means of motivation. A literature review is conducted for identifying and exploring pertinent motivation mechanisms that foster the adoption of a collectivistic orientation among decision-makers, enriched with focus group data. To this end, five groups of situational and psychological mechanisms are reported. These findings set out a guidance for prospective EAM research in approaching architectural coordination through a collectivistic orientation in decision-making.
Creep constitutive laws for rocks with evolving structure

Abstract Zones of localized strain are common geological features at all spatial scales, are persistent in time and have important implications for rock strength. Technical advances now allow mechanical tests to be carried out to high strain, and, thus, there is both need and the opportunity to formulate constitutive laws for rocks as their structure (i.e. fabric, texture and mineralogy) changes. This paper reviews some attempts to describe quantitatively the mechanical behaviour of calcite rocks deformed to large strains. To include the effect of evolving structure on strength, three or more interlinked laws are needed: an evolution equation describing the rate of change for each structural variable; a kinetic equation relating mechanical and thermodynamic loading and the structural variables to the rate of strain; and a kinematic equation involving a time integral of inelastic strain rate. Structure variables may be explicitly identified or implicitly determined without identification. Appropriate explicit state variables might include aspects of the dislocation microstructure or the grain size, as are common in studies of plasticity in metals. But because natural tectonic situations are more complex, a much broader class of state variables will be needed. Among these additional variables might be crystal lattice preferred orientation, progress variables for metamorphic reactions, solid-solution chemistry, porosity and pore fluid fugacity.
Speaker identification for security systems using reinforcement-trained pRAM neural network architectures

Speaker identification may be employed as part of a security system requiring user authentication. In this case, the claimed identity of the user is known from a magnetic card and PIN number, for example, and an utterance is requested to confirm the identity of the user. A fast response is necessary in the confirmation phase and a fast registration process for new users is desirable. The time encoded signal processing and recognition (TESPAR) digital language is used to preprocess the speech signal. A speaker cannot be identified directly from the single TESPAR vector since there is a highly nonlinear relationship between the vector's components such that vectors are not linearly separable. Therefore the vector and its characteristics suggest that classification using a neural network will provide an effective solution. Good classification performance has been achieved using a probabilistic RAM (pRAM) neuron. Four probabilistic pRAM neural network architectures are presented. A performance of approximately 97% correct classifications has been obtained, which is similar to results obtained elsewhere (M. Sharma and R.J. Mammone, 1996), and slightly better than a MLP network. No speech recognition stage was used in obtaining these results, so the performance relates only to identifying a speaker's voice and is therefore independent of the spoken phrase. This has been achieved in a hardware-realizable system which may be incorporated into a smart-card or similar application.
Global relationship of wood and leaf litter decomposability: the role of functional traits within and across plant organs

Aim Recent meta-analyses have revealed that plant traits and their phylogenetic history influence decay rates of dead wood and leaf litter, but it remains unknown if decay rates of wood and litter covary over a wide range of tree species and across ecosystems. We evaluated the relationships between species-specific wood and leaf litter decomposability, as well as between wood and leaf traits that control their respective decomposability. Location Global. Methods We compiled data on rates of wood and leaf litter decomposition for 324 and 635 tree species, respectively, and data on six functional traits for both organs. We used hierarchical Bayesian meta-analysis to estimate, for the first time, species-specific values for wood and leaf litter decomposability standardized to reference conditions (k*wood and k*leaf) across the globe. With these data, we evaluated the relationships: (1) between wood and leaf traits, (2) between each k* and the selected traits within and across organs, and (3) between wood and leaf k*. Results Across all species k*wood and k*leaf were positively correlated, phylogenetically clustered and correlated with plant functional traits within and across organs. k* of both organs was usually better described as a function of within- and cross-organ traits, than of within-organ traits alone. When analysed for angiosperms and gymnosperms separately, wood and leaf k* were no longer significantly correlated, but each k* was still significantly correlated to the functional traits. Main conclusions We demonstrate important relationships among wood and leaf litter decomposability as after-life effects of traits from the living plants. These functional traits influence the decomposability of senesced tissue which could potentially lead to alterations in the rates of biogeochemical cycling, depending on the phylogenetic structure of the species pool. These results provide crucial information for a better representation of decomposition rates in dynamic global vegetation models.
Adaptive Position based Reliable Routing Protocol (APBRRP) for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Routing packets in mobile ad hoc networks has been considered to a great extent, even though the hypothesis on full connectivity is generally not valid in a real time system which means that a practical routing protocol ought to handle intermittent connectivity and the absence of end-to-end connections. In this paper, we propose a location aware routing mechanism called adaptive position based routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks, which is enhanced with a positioning service which well suits real time mobile ad hoc networks. In order to achieve low overhead, APBRRP uses a beaconless strategy combined with a position-based resolution during forwarding packets. Also the proposed protocol is combined with a local database holding mechanism which is updated using route overhearing. The proposed routing protocol APBRRP is compared with the reactive AODV routing protocol by performance metrics delay, overhead and delivery ratio. By the extensive simulation results using NS2 the results proved that our proposed APBRRP outperforms AODV.
CogALex-V Shared Task: ROOT18

In this paper, we describe ROOT 18, a classifier using the scores of several unsupervised distributional measures as features to discriminate between semantically related and unrelated words, and then to classify the related pairs according to their semantic relation (i.e. synonymy, antonymy, hypernymy, part-whole meronymy). Our classifier participated in the CogALex-V Shared Task, showing a solid performance on the first subtask, but a poor performance on the second subtask. The low scores reported on the second subtask suggest that distributional measures are not sufficient to discriminate between multiple semantic relations at once.
Biological activity of some plant extracts against Pieris brassicae (Linn.)

In the present study, aqueous extract of eight plants, namely Azadirachta indica A. Juss, Melia azedarach Linn. , Lantana camara L. Moldenke. , Cannabis sativa Linn. , Nerium indicum Mill. , Eucalyptus sp. , Ricinus communis Linn. and Solanum nigrum Linn. were tested for antifeedant and toxic effects against Pieris brassicae (Linn.). The ethanol extract of four potential plants were further tested for their biological activity against the test insects. Aqueous extract of A. indica and M. azedarach repelled maximum number of larvae protected 94.0 per cent and 89.2 per cent cabbage foliage, respectively. Aqueous extract of M. azedarach, N. indicum and A. indica showed higher mortality of larvae (19.6, 19.6 and 18.5%, respectively) while R. communis was the least toxic resulting in 8.9 per cent larval mortality. In case of ethanol extract, seed extract of M. azedarach protected 58.3 per cent cabbage foliage while Eucalyptus sp. protected minimum cabbage foliage. The maximum protection to the cabbage foliage was provided at 5 per cent of M. azedarach (88.3%) and A. indica (82.5%). Ethanol extract of A. indica exhibited statistically higher larval mortality of 50.0 per cent and N. indicum the lowest mortality of 3.2 per cent. In general, antifeedant and larval mortality was dose dependent.
Least 1-Norm SVMs: a new SVM variant between standard and LS-SVMs

Least Squares Support Vector Machines (LS-SVMs) were proposed by replacing the inequality constraints inherent to L1-SVMs with equality constraints. So far this idea has only been suggested for a least squares (L2) loss. We describe how this can also be done for the sum- of-slacks (L1) loss, yielding a new classifier (Least 1-Norm SVMs) which gives similar models in terms of complexity and accuracy and that may also be more robust than LS-SVMs with respect to outliers.
Concept Modeling and Its Application to Patent Modeling

This paper briefly introduces the notion of concept modeling, explore some existing techniques, and discuss their advantages and drawbacks. In an effort to find a general concept model, focus of our research was primarily on documents describing patents. Proposed is model for patents which allows efficient detection of individual concepts and relations among them, both within and across patent boundaries. This approach is based on a hybrid solution - employing existing conceptual indexing technique for extraction of individual concepts, and RDF/OWL descriptions for patent-specific data.