Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Complexity results and heuristics for pipelined multicast operations on heterogeneous platforms

We consider the communications involved by the execution of a complex application deployed on a heterogeneous platform. Such applications extensively use macro-communication schemes, such as multicast operations, where messages are broadcast to a set of predefined targets. We assume that there are a large number of messages to be multicast in pipeline fashion, and we seek to maximize the throughput of the steady-state operation. We target heterogeneous platforms, modeled by a graph where links have different communication speeds. We show that the problem of computing the best throughput for a multicast operation is NP-hard, whereas the best throughput to broadcast a message to every node in a graph can be computed in polynomial time. Thus, we introduce several heuristics to deal with this problem and prove that some of them are approximation algorithms. We perform, simulations to test these heuristics and show that their results are close to a theoretical upper bound on the throughput that we obtain with a linear programming approach.
How useful is population data for informing visual field progression rate estimation?

PURPOSE Bayesian estimators allow the frequency of visual field progression rates in the population (the prior distribution) to constrain rate estimates for individuals. We examined the benefits of a prior distribution accounting for one of progression's major risk factors--whether intraocular pressure is treated--to gauge the maximum benefit expected from developing priors for other glaucoma risk factors. METHODS Our prior distribution was derived from published data from either treated (matched-prior condition) or untreated (unmatched-prior condition) glaucoma patients. We simulated MD values (6-monthly) with true underlying progression rates drawn from the same distribution as the prior for the matched-prior condition. We estimated rates through linear regression, and determined the likelihood of obtaining this estimate as a function of a range of true underlying progression rates (the likelihood function). The maximum likelihood estimate of rate was the most likely value of the posterior distribution (the product of the prior distribution and likelihood function). RESULTS For short (4) visual field series, the matched-prior condition, unmatched-prior condition, and linear regression gave median errors (estimated minus true rate) of 0.02, 0.20, and 0.00 dB/y, respectively. Positive predictive values for determining rapidly progressing (<-1 dB/y) rates were 0.46, 0.42, and 0.38, with negative predictive values of 0.93, 0.94, and 0.95. For more extended series the magnitude of the differences between techniques decreased, although the order was unchanged. CONCLUSIONS Performance shifts in bayesian estimators of visual field progression are modest even when prior distributions do not reflect large risk factors, such as IOP treatment.
S-AMP: Approximate message passing for general matrix ensembles

We propose a novel iterative estimation algorithm for linear observation models called S-AMP. The fixed points of S-AMP are the stationary points of the exact Gibbs free energy under a set of (first- and second-) moment consistency constraints in the large system limit. S-AMP extends the approximate message-passing (AMP) algorithm to general matrix ensembles with a well-defined large system size limit. The generalization is based on the S-transform (in free probability) of the spectrum of the measurement matrix. Furthermore, we show that the optimality of S-AMP follows directly from its design rather than from solving a separate optimization problem as done for AMP.
Clonal spread of fluoroquinolone non-susceptible Streptococcus pyogenes.

BACKGROUND Fluoroquinolones are an important group of antibiotics widely used in adults, and, despite the absence of official approval, these drugs are also used in children. So far, resistance to fluoroquinolones in Streptococcus pyogenes is very rare. METHODS During a national surveillance programme in Belgium from 1999 to 2002, 2793 non-duplicate S. pyogenes recovered from tonsillopharyngitis patients were screened for fluoroquinolone resistance. Mutations in topoisomerase genes and the presence of any efflux pump activity were investigated to elucidate the fluoroquinolone resistance mechanisms. Clonality was assessed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and emm typing. RESULTS Non-susceptibility to fluoroquinolones, defined as ciprofloxacin MIC > or = 2 mg/L, was identified in 152 (5.4%) of 2793 S. pyogenes. Fifty-five (36%) fluoroquinolone non-susceptible isolates were investigated for known resistance mechanisms; all showed mutations in parC, and 29 (19%) isolates also in parE; antibiotic efflux was not noted. Two major PFGE types comprised 88% of fluoroquinolone non-susceptible S. pyogenes and belonged to serotypes emm6 and emm75. Overall, emm6 and emm75 constituted >90% of all fluoroquinolone non-susceptible isolates and showed a significant temporal and geographical shift within Belgian provinces. Although fluoroquinolone-susceptible S. pyogenes also showed fluctuations in the predominant S. pyogenes serotypes, emm6 or emm75 were under-represented in this population. Approx. 55% of the fluoroquinolone non-susceptible isolates were recovered from children ( < or =16 years). CONCLUSIONS We show here, for the first time, a multi-clonal spread of fluoroquinolone non-susceptible S. pyogenes exhibiting a known resistance mechanism. Non-susceptibility to fluoroquinolones in paediatric isolates is of concern.
THEORY OF ZERO-POWER RFID SENSORS BASED ON HARMONIC GENERATION AND ORTHOGONALLY POLARIZED ANTENNAS

In this paper a novel approach is proposed to solve the issue of the absolute accuracy required by the most of the passive chip-less RFID sensors. To this purpose the sensor information is encoded as the phase difierence between two signals, one of the two acting as the reference signal for the other one. First the tag receives a carrier at frequency f0, then two equal signals at frequency 2f0 are generated by means of a diode-based frequency doubler and a power divider. At this point one of the two signals is phase-shifted using a passive sensing element. Finally the 2f0 signals are re-irradiated by exploiting two orthogonally polarized antennas. With this approach the sensor information can be extracted by a suitable reader equipped with two complex (I/Q) receivers. The idea will be flrst developed from a theoretical basis and then verifled with several particular cases. The novel tag concept is compatible with paper substrate and inkjet printing technology since antennas diodes and passive sensing elements, i.e., all the main tag components, are going to be developed on paper materials.
Lack of adaptive response of gamma radiation for protection against neutron-induced teratogenesis.

BACKGROUND Although there are some reports on neutron teratology, there is little information on the adaptive response of gamma radiation for protection against neutron-induced teratogenesis. This study examined whether or not a low dose of gamma radiation can induce an adaptive response in mouse fetuses exposed to a subsequent dose of neutrons in vivo. METHODS Pregnant ICR mice were exposed to a priming dose of 0.3 Gy (0.9 Gy/min) of gamma rays on day 10.5 of gestation and challenged with 0.8 Gy (0.94 Gy/minute) of neutrons 24 h later. The mice were sacrificed on day 18.5 of gestation. The fetuses were examined for mortality, growth retardation, and other morphologic abnormalities. RESULTS The tail length in the 0.3 Gy of gamma rays + 0.8 Gy of neutrons group was significantly shorter than in the 0.8 Gy of neutrons group. Although there was no significant difference compared with the 0.8 Gy of neutrons group, the number of live fetuses in the 0.3 Gy of gamma rays +0.8 Gy of neutrons group was lower. There was no evidence of primed exposure-related reductions in the malformed fetuses. Although there was no significant difference compared with the unprimed group, the number of malformed offspring in the primed group was higher. Furthermore, the incidence of kinked tail and adactyly was significantly higher in the primed mice than in the unprimed mice. CONCLUSIONS Overall, this study shows that exposure to 0.3 Gy of gamma rays failed to induce an adaptive response of fetogenesis to a neutron challenge dose.
Retrieval by Color Features in Image Databases

Content-based search and retrieval techniques for multimedia content utilize various descriptors for different image features. However, most content-based image retrieval systems use low-level visual features for representation and retrieval of images. The color content, being one of the easily computable features is often used in contentbased search for retrieving images in large image databases. The paper presents a simple and fast technique for image indexing and retrieval based on a description of the spatial distribution of dominant colors. The idea in this study is to empirically evaluate the effect of color features to the query. Furthermore, some similarity measures are defined that allow the definition of effective visual queries for fast interactive image database browsing applications. We use the image histograms to characterize the global and local color properties of an image and to preserve its intrinsic geometric information. The color feature is probably the most visible visual feature for the most humans. This is the new approach in the image organization and retrieval of image, in image databases. Our approach combines the representation of the color as the global image feature and the color as the representation of the spatial information in the images.
Towards Mapping Timbre to Emotional Affect

Controlling the timbre generated by an audio synthesizer in a goal-oriented way requires a profound understanding of the synthesizer’s manifold structural parameters. Especially shaping timbre expressively to communicate emotional affect requires expertise. Therefore, novices in particular may not be able to adequately control timbre in view of articulating the wealth of affects musically. In this context, the focus of this paper is the development of a model that can represent a relationship between timbre and an expected emotional affect. The results of the evaluation of the presented model are encouraging and thus support its use in steering or augmenting the control of the audio synthesis. We explicitly envision this paper as a contribution to the field of Synthesis by Analysis in the broader sense, albeit being potentially suitable to other related domains.
A Touch of Evil: High-Assurance Cryptographic Hardware from Untrusted Components

The semiconductor industry is fully globalized and integrated circuits (ICs) are commonly defined, designed and fabricated in different premises across the world. This reduces production costs, but also exposes ICs to supply chain attacks, where insiders introduce malicious circuitry into the final products. Additionally, despite extensive post-fabrication testing, it is not uncommon for ICs with subtle fabrication errors to make it into production systems. While many systems may be able to tolerate a few byzantine components, this is not the case for cryptographic hardware, storing and computing on confidential data. For this reason, many error and backdoor detection techniques have been proposed over the years. So far all attempts have been either quickly circumvented, or come with unrealistically high manufacturing costs and complexity. This paper proposes Myst, a practical high-assurance architecture, that uses commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, and provides strong security guarantees, even in the presence of multiple malicious or faulty components. The key idea is to combine protective-redundancy with modern threshold cryptographic techniques to build a system tolerant to hardware trojans and errors. To evaluate our design, we build a Hardware Security Module that provides the highest level of assurance possible with COTS components. Specifically, we employ more than a hundred COTS secure cryptocoprocessors, verified to FIPS140-2 Level 4 tamper-resistance standards, and use them to realize high-confidentiality random number generation, key derivation, public key decryption and signing. Our experiments show a reasonable computational overhead (less than 1% for both Decryption and Signing) and an exponential increase in backdoor-tolerance as more ICs are added.
Privacy in context: Privacy issues in Ubiquitous Computing applications

This paper presents a review of privacy issues and guidelines for developing and assessing privacy-sensitive ubiquitous computing applications. Privacy is discussed to determine factors that affect peoples own privacy preferences in public and private environments. Ubiquitous environments based on invisible computers provide a particular challenge where limited user interfaces exist to inform users of the level of data collection and its usage. There is acceptance by designers of privacy-sensitive applications for a balance between control and feedback that is essential for systems to meet legal requirements for deployment to be successful. A survey of principles and design guidelines has been completed and these are used in the assessment of a context aware smart classroom environment. This paper aims to provide a foundation for developing and assessing privacy-sensitive applications.
Evaluation of a Benchtop HIV Ultradeep Pyrosequencing Drug Resistance Assay in the Clinical Laboratory

ABSTRACT Detection of low-abundance drug resistance mutations (DRMs) of HIV-1 is an evolving approach in clinical practice. Ultradeep pyrosequencing has shown to be effective in detecting such mutations. The lack of a standardized commercially based assay limits the wide use of this method in clinical settings. 454 Life Sciences (Roche) is developing an HIV ultradeep pyrosequencing assay for their benchtop sequencer. We assessed the prototype plate in the clinical laboratory. Plasma samples genotyped by the standardized TruGene kit were retrospectively tested by this assay. Drug-treated subjects failing therapy and drug-naive patients were included. DRM analysis was based on the International AIDS Society USA DRM list and the Stanford algorithm. The prototype assay detected all of the DRMs detected by TruGene and additional 50 low-abundance DRMs. Several patients had low-abundance D67N, K70R, and M184V reverse transcriptase inhibitor mutations that persisted long after discontinuation of the drug that elicited these mutations. Additional patient harbored low-abundance V32I major protease inhibitor mutation, which under darunavir selection evolved later to be detected by TruGene. Stanford analysis suggested that some of the low-abundance DRMs were likely to affect the resistance burden in these subjects. The prototype assay performs at least as well as TruGene and has the advantage of detecting low-abundance drug resistance mutations undetected by TruGene. Its ease of use and lab-scale platform will likely facilitate its use in the clinical laboratory. The extent to which the detection of low-abundance DRMs will affect patient management is still unknown, but it is hoped that use of such an assay in clinical practice will help resolve this important question.
Distraction suppression for vision-based pose estimation at city scales

This paper is concerned with the problem of egomotion estimation in highly dynamic, heavily cluttered urban environments over long periods of time. This is a challenging problem for vision-based systems because extreme scene movement caused by dynamic objects (e.g., enormous buses) can result in erroneous motion estimates. We describe two methods that combine 3D scene priors with vision sensors to generate background-likelihood images, which act as probability masks for objects that are not part of the scene prior. This results in a system that is able to cope with extreme scene motion, even when most of the image is obscured. We present results on real data collected in central London during rush hour and demonstrate the benefits of our techniques on a core navigation system - visual odometry.
"It's a maybe test": men's experiences of prostate specific antigen testing in primary care.

BACKGROUND Prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing in primary care is an important and contentious issue. Due to concerns about the test and the value of early detection, countries such as the UK advocate 'informed choice' instead of population screening. It is not known whether this policy is actually adhered to in primary care. Furthermore, little is known of the experiences of men who face this decision. AIM To explore the experiences, understanding, and views of men who considered or undertook PSA testing in UK primary care. DESIGN OF STUDY Qualitative interview-based study. SETTING Primary care, Wales, UK. METHOD Semi-structured one-to-one interviews were conducted with 28 men, representing a range of clinical outcomes. Transcripts were coded and subjected to thematic analysis. RESULTS Three themes were identified: the decision-making context, the locus of decision making, and uncertainty related to the PSA test. CONCLUSION The decision to undertake PSA testing was affected by both social and media factors and it did not appear to be a patient-led decision. The decision created considerable uncertainty for men and this uncertainty persisted after the test, even if the result was normal. Raised PSA led to further investigations and this exacerbated the uncertainty. Anxiety and regret were consequences of this uncertainty.
Verbal fluency in HIV infection: A meta-analytic review

Given the largely prefrontostriatal neuropathogenesis of HIV-associated neurobehavioral deficits, it is often presumed that HIV infection leads to greater impairment on letter versus category fluency. A meta-analysis of the HIV verbal fluency literature was conducted (k = 37, n = 7110) to assess this hypothesis and revealed generally small effect sizes for both letter and category fluency, which increased in magnitude with advancing HIV disease severity. Across all studies, the mean effect size of category fluency was slightly larger than that of letter fluency. However, the discrepancy between category and letter fluency dissipated in a more conservative analysis of only those studies that included both tests. Thus, HIV-associated impairments in letter and category fluency are of similar magnitude, suggesting that mild word generation deficits are evident in HIV, regardless of whether traditional letter or semantic cues are used to guide the word search and retrieval process (JINS, 2007, 13, 183–189.)
Static leakage control in null convention logic standard cells in 28 nm UTBB-FDSOI CMOS

A key advantage of asynchronous systems, in which the clock is re-placed by local handshaking signals between functional units, is their ability to operate correctly across a wide range of conditions including supply, temperature, aging and manufacturing variability. In this letter, we describe the design, simulation and layout of a representative example of a quasi-delay-insensitive asynchronous logic family, Null Convention Logic, based on a 28nm ultra-thin body and box, fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (UTBB-FDSOI) process. This technology choice supports a flexible trade-off between leakage power and performance using substrate/well bias, including a potential for temperature dependent biasing. Simulation results indicate that it is possible to reduce the effects of increased temperature on leakage current by more than 2X with a small impact (~10%) on propagation delay.
Working Within the Walls: The Effect of Care From Coworkers on Correctional Employees

Most of the existing literature on correctional officer job satisfaction examines factors such as leadership, job environment, stress, and the enduring struggle between the keepers and the kept. This study examined the perceived effect of ―care‖ from coworkers on the work of correctional officers. Care is defined as the expression of interest by one or others in another’s life outside of the scope of work. Correctional officers in a southern prison system were surveyed regarding their perceptions of care from all levels of employees within the correctional system. The results indicate that correctional employee perceptions of care from coworkers is an emerging factor influencing how employees view their work and should be examined in greater detail. Stress is a part of everyday life. All humans experience stressors, although the causes, intensity, and duration of these stressors vary widely. Reactions to stress and stressors can include weight loss or gain, family and relationship tension, depression, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, and a litany of other physical symptoms (Weiten & Lloyd, 2005). As Slate and Vogel (1997) note, job stress can be quite costly to an organization in terms of decreased productivity, employee turnover, health care and disability payments, sick leave, and absenteeism. Employers and organizations seek to reduce their employees’ stress in the hopes of increasing productivity and job satisfaction (Herzberg, 1968). What happens when the very job itself is stressful? Can agencies successfully reduce jobrelated stress when duty positions must be manned twenty-four hours a day and days off are scarce? This is the everyday reality for many men and women who have careers with criminal justice agencies. Much of the focus on stress in the correctional environment has been on role problems/role ambiguity, job dangerousness, and the nature of the work itself (Lambert, Hogan, & Barton, 2002). Research has also pointed to the role that supervisors and administration play in stress among line personnel. Research on social factors, particularly the effect that care from coworkers has on the feelings of correctional
COMPARABILITY: THE KEY TO THE APPLICABILITY OF FOOD WEB RESEARCH

However food webs have always been considered as a central issue of ecology, their value and usefulness are frequently questioned. In this paper, I overview some causes of this skepticism and discuss in which cases two or more food webs can be compared. I suggest that the comparability of different food webs is a key to possible applications. I show how are two important topics of recent community ecology (keystone species and food web aggregation) related to the comparability problem. Finally, I overview some recent applications of food web research, where comparability can help understanding.
Synchrotron scanning reveals the palaeoneurology of the head-butting Moschops capensis (Therapsida, Dinocephalia)

Dinocephalian therapsids are renowned for their massive, pachyostotic and ornamented skulls adapted for head-to-head fighting during intraspecific combat. Synchrotron scanning of the tapinocephalid Moschops capensis reveals, for the first time, numerous anatomical adaptations of the central nervous system related to this combative behaviour. Many neural structures (such as the brain, inner ear and ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve) were completely enclosed and protected by bones, which is unusual for non-mammaliaform therapsids. The nearly complete ossification of the braincase enables precise determination of the brain cavity volume and encephalization quotient, which appears greater than expected for such a large and early herbivore. The practice of head butting is often associated with complex social behaviours and gregariousness in extant species, which are known to influence brain size evolution. Additionally, the plane of the lateral (horizontal) semicircular canal of the bony labyrinth is oriented nearly vertically if the skull is held horizontally, which suggests that the natural position of the head was inclined about 60–65°to the horizontal. This is consistent with the fighting position inferred from osteology, as well as ground-level browsing. Finally, the unusually large parietal tube may have been filled with thick conjunctive tissue to protect the delicate pineal eye from injury sustained during head butting.