Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Achieving linear convergence for distributee dispath response in power systems over directed graphs

Inspired by potential application in power systems and a fully distributed primal-dual method, we investigate how a novel distributed optimization algorithm can be used to solve the dispath response problem in power systems with a distributed manner, whose main target is to minimize the generation cost of the whole network. The problem we study here can be formulated as a kind of optimization problem, and its global objective function is a sum of all local agents' individual cost function and the individual cost function is only known by itself. The agents' communication graph in the networks is directed, strongly connected and the weight matrix is row-stochastic matrix that means each agent in the network only needs to know its in-degree which also means the total information it received from its neighbors. Our main contribution of this paper is to design a novel distributed optimization algorithm with fixed step-size, which combines with the distributed primal-dual method. If all agents' individual cost functions are convex and smooth, we prove that the convergence rate of our method can achieve a geometrical rate to the optimal solution. Finally, simulation test is presented to illustrate the efficacy of our method as well as testify the theoretical finding.
Depth-based Gait Feature Representation

This paper proposes a novel gait feature representation that well describes characteristics of a walking person from the perspective of a range sensor. Most existing methods for gait feature extraction use a sequence of his/her silhouette as their input, so that they inevitably suffer from the difficulty of silhouette extraction in real scenes and change of view direction, which prevent them from being applied in practice. The proposed method, on the other hand, does not require such accurate segmentation, and is not affected by view change since captured range data has three-dimensional information. In addition, our method can explicitly separate dynamic feature from a static one, e.g., body shape, which have never been realized. Experimental results of gait authentication show its effectiveness.
Dietary arachidonic and oleic acid intake in ulcerative colitis etiology: a prospective cohort study using 7-day food diaries

Introduction Dietary fatty acids may be involved in the etiology of ulcerative colitis (UC). Arachidonic acid (AA), an n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid, is a precursor of the proinflammatory cytokines prostaglandin E2 and leukotriene B4, and its metabolism is competitively inhibited by oleic acid (OA). This study aimed to prospectively investigate whether AA is positively and OA is negatively associated with incident UC development, using data from 7-day food diaries. Methods A total of 25 639 men and women, aged between 40 and 79 years, from Norfolk, UK, were recruited into the prospective European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC)-Norfolk cohort between 1993 and 1997. At baseline, participants completed 7-day food diaries, checked by nutritionists using a database containing 11 000 foods and 55 000 portion sizes. The cohort was monitored until June 2004 to identify participants who developed UC. Each patient was matched for age and sex with four controls, and conditional logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios for AA and OA intakes, and UC association. Results Of the participants, 26 (58% men) developed incident UC (53% left sided) after a median follow-up time of 3.8 years (0.5–8.3 years). The highest AA tertile was positively associated with an odds ratio of 6.09 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.05–35.23], with a trend across tertiles [odds ratio (OR) 2.43, 95% CI 1.06–5.61, P=0.04]. The highest tertile of OA intake was inversely associated with a 0.03 OR for UC (95% CI 0.002–0.56) and an inverse trend (OR 0.30, 95% CI 0.10–0.90, P=0.03). Conclusion Dietary AA was positively and OA was inversely associated with UC development, with large effect sizes in a dose-dependent manner. This supports roles for measuring these nutrients in future etiological studies and modifying intake in future interventional studies in patients with established disease.
Effect of Coupled Plasma Filtration Adsorption on Endothelial Cell Function in Patients with Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome

Objective The purpose of our study was to investigate the effect of coupled plasma filtration adsorption (CPFA) on endothelial cell (EC) function in patients with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). Methods Besides routine therapy, the 24 MODS patients underwent both CPFA and high volume hemofiltration (HVHF), scheduled randomly at intervals of 12 hours. Patient serum from 0, 5, and 10 hours of therapy was collected to measure soluble E-selectin (sE-selectin) and soluble thrombomodulin (sTM) by the ELISA method. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) were incubated for 24 hours with the patient serum and the supernatant liquid was gathered to detect sTM and sE-selectin. The proliferation function of the ECs was detected by methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) method. Results 1. The serum levels of sE-selectin and sTM were significantly higher in MODS patients than in controls; serum sE-selectin and sTM decreased remarkably after a single circulation in CPFA (p<0. 05) but not in HVHF (p>0. 05); the level of sE-selectin and sTM in systemic circulation had no change during CPFA or HVHF (p>0.05); 2. sTM in supernatant liquid incubated with serum from 5 hours of CPFA and 10 hours of HVHF decreased remarkably (p<0.05), while sE-selectin decreased significantly (p<0. 05) from 10 hours of CPFA, but there was no change from 5 hours and 10 hours of HVHF (p>0. 05); 3. when incubated with serum taken from the device pre- or post-CPFA, the optical density (OD) value of the latter was higher. The OD value increased gradually when incubated with serum from 0, 5, and 10 hours of CPFA (p<0.05), but changed little from HVHF. Conclusions CPFA can eliminate sE-selectin and sTM and improve the secretion function of ECs. CPFA was somewhat better and earlier than HVHF, while to a certain degree it can weaken the inhibitory effect of serum on the proliferation function of ECs.
Image Thresholding by Minimizing Tsallis Divergence Measure

This paper presents a novel image segmentation method that performs histogram thresholding based on the conception of Tsallis generalized divergence. Firstly, to fit the image segmentation task, the original formula of Tsallis divergence was simplified, and then the symmetrical version was constructed. After that, the criterion of divergence sum of the objective and background between original and thresholded image was set up based on the symmetrical version of the Tsallis divergence. The optimal threshold obtained by minimizing the criterion of divergence sum. Finally, the proposed method was tested on different gray level images, and the performance was evaluated using uniformity measure, shape measure, and CPU run time. Experimental results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Synthesis and characterization of a novel bisphthalonitrile containing benzoxazine

The novel bisphthalonitrile containing benzoxazine (BPNBZ) has been synthesized using bisphenol-A, 4-aminophenoxylphthalonitrile and paraformaldehyde. The structure of the monomer was supported by FTIR spec- troscopy, 1 H-NMR, and 13 C-NMR spectra, which have exhibited that the reactive benzoxazine ring and cyano groups exist in molecular structure of BPNBZ. The cure reaction of BPNBZ was monitored by the disappearance of the nitrile peak and the tri-substituted benzene ring that is attached with oxazine ring peak at 2231, 951 cm -1 . The thermal polymerization of the BPNBZ was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and dynamic rheometer. It was shown that the bisph- thalonitrile containing benzoxazine had completely cured with two-stage polymerization mechanisms according to oxazine ring-opening and phthalonitrile ring-forming. The thermal decomposition behaviors of the polymer were examined by ther- mogravimetry analysis (TGA) in nitrogen and in air. The materials achieve char yields above 73% under nitrogen at 800°C and above 78% under air at 600°C, which exhibited the cured resin has good thermal stability and thermo-oxidative stability.
Missense mutations of PBP2a are associated with reduced susceptibility to ceftaroline and ceftobiprole in African MRSA.

OBJECTIVES Ceftaroline and ceftobiprole are new cephalosporins, which are active against MRSA by inhibiting PBP2a. Recently, high rates of resistance to ceftaroline were reported from Ghana. The objective of this study was to assess rates of resistance to ceftaroline and ceftobiprole in MRSA from Africa and to describe potential missense mutations of PBP2a. METHODS MRSA isolates derived from Staphylococcus aureus colonization (n = 37) and infection (n = 23) and were collected in Côte d'Ivoire (n = 17), DR Congo (n = 6), Gabon (n = 21) and Nigeria (n = 16). The MICs were determined by the broth microdilution method. The mecA gene was sequenced and missense mutations were associated with the corresponding MLST ST. RESULTS In total, 16.7% (n = 10) and 15% (n = 9) of isolates were resistant to ceftaroline and ceftobiprole, respectively. The corresponding MICs of ceftaroline and ceftobiprole correlated significantly (r = 0.92). Isolates belonging to ST241 harboured a triple mutation of PBP2a (N146K-N204K-G246E), which was associated with high rates of resistance to ceftaroline (90.9%) and ceftobiprole (81.8%). CONCLUSIONS Resistances to ceftaroline and ceftobiprole were only detected in Nigeria and were associated with ST241 and a triple mutation of PBP2a.
HAKE D ROP REGULARIZATION

This paper proposes a powerful regularization method named ShakeDrop regularization. ShakeDrop is inspired by Shake-Shake regularization that decreases error rates by disturbing learning. While Shake-Shake can be applied to only ResNeXt which has multiple branches, ShakeDrop can be applied to not only ResNeXt but also ResNet, and PyramidNet in a memory efficient way. Important and interesting feature of ShakeDrop is that it strongly disturbs learning by multiplying even a negative factor to the output of a convolutional layer in the forward training pass. ShakeDrop outperformed state-of-the-arts on CIFAR10/100. The full version of the paper including other experiments is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.02375.
An RNA-based approach to sequence the mitogenome of Hypoptopoma incognitum (Siluriformes: Loricariidae)

Abstract Hypoptopoma incognitum is a fish of the fifth most species-rich family of vertebrates and abundant in rivers from the Brazilian Amazon. Only two species of Loricariidae fish have their complete mitogenomes sequence deposited in the Genbank. An innovative RNA-based approach was used to assemble the complete mitogenome of H. incognitum with an average coverage depth of 5292×. The typical vertebrate mitochondrial features were found; 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes, 13 protein-coding genes, and a non-coding control region. Moreover, the use of this approach allowed the measurement of mtRNA expression levels, the punctuation pattern of editing, and the detection of heteroplasmies.
A study of young people's use of ICT in domestic environments : an activity theory perspective

This study examines the learning of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills by young people in domestic environments. The theoretical framework is based on Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Cole, 1996; Engestrom, 1987; Nardi, 1996) and it is used to examine the ICT activities occurring in young people's homes. The study is about both the exploration of home ICT use and the 'exploratory tools' used as well; it is an experiment, therefore, in the practical application of Activity Theory. The thesis uses Activity Theory to examine how a group of individuals engage with ICT; it also uses this theoretical perspective to inform the interview questions and the subsequent formulation of a framework for data analysis. The primary focus is on the interactions, contexts and opportunities for learning afforded by the home environment. The thesis explores the claims that 'young people learn ICT in their homes'. The interviews suggest that young people engage in a very wide range of 'exotic' tasks and activities and that the skills necessary to undertake these are 'picked up' as and when required. Activity Theory is used to help clarify the complex interactions involved in learning in these contexts. An analysis of the interviews reinforces the view that home-based ICT is very different to school-based ICT. Young people overcome the problems and pitfalls encountered during their everyday engagement with ICT by accessing a variety of artefactual resources resulting from other Activity Systems. The study also looks at how the affordances of the young people's environment can offer a range of learning opportunities. The interviews also suggest that in these contexts, young people will learn only if there is a perceived need and establishes that due to the nature of the technology currently in use, a certain level of technical expertise seems to be an important prerequisite.
Lifetime Reliability of Multi-core Systems: Modeling and Applications

Advancements in technology have enabled the integration of a great amount of processor cores on a single silicon die, known as multi-core systems. Quite a few commercial designs have been launched into market in recent years, for example, nVidia 128-core GeForce 8800 GPU [77] and ARM11 PrimeXsys pl atform [7]. Some research groups even predicted that thousand-core pro cessors would be commercialized in next decade. When we rejoice in the admirable functionality and performance provided by these products, the ever-shrinkin g feature size is subtly undermining this apparent flourish, posting serious challe nges to the silicon integrated circuit (IC) community. The ever-increasing on-chip power and temperature density has significantly accelerated the aging effect induced by permanent failure m echanisms of state-ofthe-art IC products and hence dramatically shortened produ cts’ service life. Thus, it becomes a challenging task for designers to meet multi-co re hips’ lifetime reliability requirement. This is not a trivial task: because t h aging rate depends on operational temperature, supply voltage, and operation l frequency, almost all design-stage decisions and even the system workload affect the reliability stress on processor cores. Needless to say, efficient stress estimati on is urgently required by designers. Unfortunately, there is neither natural way nor well-accepted literature on this issue. To tackle this problem, we develop a comprehensive mathemat ical model that
Algorithm of object hovering detection and tracking based on moving track

This paper provides an algorithm of irregular behavior recognition which is based on moving track. The algorithm can track hovering objects efficiently in the protection area and be competent for unmanned intelligent monitoring. Firstly, background subtraction method is used to detect objects. Secondly, the combined algorithm with modified Camshift (continuously adaptive mean shift) and Kalman filter is utilized to track objects. According to the moving track, we determine whether objects are suspicious or not. Finally, experiment shows that the algorithm has good reliability, robustness and also meets the real-time requirement.
Model based verification of cyber range event environments

We apply model based verification to cyber range event environment configurations, allowing for the early detection of errors in event environment configurations, and a reduction in the time and resources used during deployment. We categorize misconfiguration errors detected using the Common Cyber Environment Representation (CCER) ontology. We also provide an overview of a methodology to specify verification rules and the corresponding error messages. These rules have successfully detected errors in the designs of several cyber range event environments, thereby reducing cost and time to deployment.
Replication-driven Live Reconfiguration for Fast Distributed Transaction Processing

Recent in-memory database systems leverage advanced hardware features like RDMA to provide transactional processing at millions of transactions per second. Distributed transaction processing systems can scale to even higher rates, especially for partitionable workloads. Unfortunately, these high rates are challenging to sustain during partition reconfiguration events. In this paper, we first show that state-of-the-art approaches would cause notable performance disruption under fast transaction processing. To this end, this paper presents DrTM+B, a live reconfiguration approach that seamlessly repartitions data while causing little performance disruption to running transactions. DrTM+B uses a pre-copy based mechanism, where excessive data transfer is avoided by leveraging properties commonly found in recent transactional systems. DrTM+B's reconfiguration plans reduce data movement by preferring existing data replicas, while data is asynchronously copied from multiple replicas in parallel. It further reuses the log forwarding mechanism in primary-backup replication to seamlessly track and forward dirty database tuples, avoiding iterative copying costs. To commit a reconfiguration plan in a transactionally safe way, DrTM+B designs a cooperative commit protocol to perform data and state synchronizations among replicas. Evaluation on a working system based on DrTM+R with 3-way replication using typical OLTP workloads like TPC-C and SmallBank shows that DrTM+B incurs only very small performance degradation during live reconfiguration. Both the reconfiguration time and the downtime are also minimal.
Comparison of two polymer‐based immunohistochemical detection systems: ENVISION+™ and ImmPRESS™

The non‐specific background reaction produced in avidin–biotin‐based immunohistochemistry, particularly after harsh antigen retrieval procedures, has promoted the use of non‐avidin–biotin systems, yet there are few reports comparing the performance of non‐avidin–biotin, polymer‐based methods. In this study we compare two of these methods, ENVISION+™ and ImmPRESS™, in animal tissues. We examined the immunoreactivity of 18 antigens in formalin‐fixed, paraffin‐embedded tissues. Antigens were located in the cytoplasmic membrane (CD11d, CD18 and CD79a), cytoplasm (calretinin, COX‐1, COX‐2, Glut‐1, HepPar 1, KIT, Melan A, tryptase and uroplakin III) or nucleus (MUM‐1, PGP 9.5 and thyroid transcription factor 1). We also evaluated three infectious agents (Aspergillus, calicivirus and West Nile virus). The staining with ENVISION+™ or ImmPRESS™ was performed simultaneously for each antigen. The intensity of the reaction and background staining were scored. ImmPRESS™ yielded similar or higher reaction intensity than ENVISION+™ in 16/18 antigens. ImmPRESS™ produced abundant background with the other two antigens (calretinin and COX‐2), which hindered interpretation of the specific reaction. The cost of ImmPRESS™ was 25% lower than for ENVISION+™. Based on these results, ImmPRESS™ is a good polymer‐based detection system for routine immunohistochemistry.
Joint image and motion reconstruction for PET using a B-spline motion model

We present a novel joint image and motion reconstruction method for PET. The method is based on gated data and reconstructs an image together with a motion function. The motion function can be used to transform the reconstructed image to any of the input gates. All available events (from all gates) are used in the reconstruction. The presented method uses a B-spline motion model, together with a novel motion regularization procedure that does not need a regularization parameter (which is usually extremely difficult to adjust). Several image and motion grid levels are used in order to reduce the reconstruction time. In a simulation study, the presented method is compared to a recently proposed joint reconstruction method. While the presented method provides comparable reconstruction quality, it is much easier to use since no regularization parameter has to be chosen. Furthermore, since the B-spline discretization of the motion function depends on fewer parameters than a displacement field, the presented method is considerably faster and consumes less memory than its counterpart. The method is also applied to clinical data, for which a novel purely data-driven gating approach is presented.
PhD Education Outcomes: Results of a National Survey of Nursing PhD Alumni

AIM A national survey was conducted to examine the relationship between individual students’ experiences and nursing PhD program characteristics and program outcomes. BACKGROUND In light of the shortage of doctorally prepared nurse scientists and a growth in nursing PhD programs, an examination of the PhD nursing education experience in relation to educational outcomes is timely. METHOD Data were collected from graduates of a 50 percent random sample of nursing PhD programs in the United States. RESULTS Graduates who had worked as research assistants, attended classroom-based programs, and worked as a nurse no more than 12 hours per week during their PhD education were more likely to have successful publication records and receive external research grant funding than graduates who did not have these experiences. CONCLUSION On the basis of traditionally accepted measures of research productivity, our results indicate that nursing PhD programs have limited success in producing nurse researchers.
Análisis Fenomenológico Narrativo de una Persona con Diagnóstico de Trastorno Obsesivo Compulsivo, Reconsideraciones sobre el Cuadro Clínico

Nos hemos propuesto caracterizar fenomenologica y narrativamente el relato autobiografico de Malena M. , una mujer de 37 anos con diagnostico de TOC. Realizamos una entrevista en profundidad y llevamos a cabo un analisis fenomenologico-narrativo del relato surgido de la misma. Para el analisis atendimos, en primer lugar, a la composicion y a los elementos estructurales del relato: 1) el desarrollo de la trama; y 2) el modo de subjetivar, describir la agencia y la caracterizacion de los personajes. En segundo lugar, atendimos a los factores que determinan la coherencia narrativa; esto es: aquellos elementos que permiten conectar y dar sentido a los diferentes componentes de la historia. Por ultimo, analizamos el sistema de Categorias Vitales Esenciales (CVE) que se configura a lo largo del relato. Nuestros resultados indican que en el plano de la composicion, prevalece la caracterizacion del nudo o situacion problematica, por sobre el desenlace. Esta caracteristica y la predominancia de predicados ontologicos junto al empleo de justificaciones y explicaciones lo convierten en un relato clausurado de tipo estanco. La subjetivacion y la caracterizacion de la protagonista son pobres. En terminos agenciales, se produce un viraje de una actitud activa a otra pasiva a partir del conflicto central del relato. A partir de dicho momento la protagonista es asaltada por ideas obsesivas y por la necesidad imperiosa de llevar a cabo conductas rituales ante situaciones peligrosas o amenazantes. De acuerdo con nuestro analisis el relato presenta caracteristicas comunes con otrosrelatos a los que hemos definido como de tipo fobico-anacasticos. En la discusion revisamos ciertas particularidades de los estilos narrativos en estos y otros tipos de cuadros y profundizamos sobre los aportes de nuestro modelo para la comprension en profundidad de los trastornos psicopatologicos.