Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding Protocols for Byzantine Clock Synchronization

All published fault-tolerant clock synchronization protocols are shown to result from refining a single paradigm. This allows the different clock synchronization protocols to be compared and permits presentation of a single correctness analysis that holds for all. The paradigm is based on a reliable time source that periodically causes events; detection of such an event causes a processor to reset its clock. In a distributed system, the reliable time source can be approximated by combining the values of processor clocks using a generalization of a ``fault-tolerant average'''', called a convergence function. The performance of a clock synchronization protocol based on our paradigm can be quantified in terms of the two parameters that characterize the behavior of the convergence function used: accuracy and precision.
Needs Assessment and Asset/Capacity Building: A Promising Development in Practice

From time to time there have been sharp and barbed criticisms of needs assessment—for example, starting from a deficit perspective (a potentially negative view based on problems and issues) as opposed to an asset‐based perspective (a more positive view based on strengths and resources). In the last 10–15 years, this has led to a hybrid model of asset/capacity building and needs assessment that is increasingly noticeable in community improvement, public safety, health, and other similar projects. Needs assessment and asset/capacity building are compared and contrasted in this chapter as a premise for synthesizing the new hybrid approach. The steps necessary for making the hybrid come to life are explained in some detail, as well as a few methods that might be used in implementing it. Two current examples of hybrid studies are analyzed, followed by implications of and issues inherent in following this new course of action.
Progressive Transmission of Images Over Fading Channels Using Rate-Compatible LDPC Codes

In this paper, we propose a combined source/channel coding scheme for transmission of images over fading channels. The proposed scheme employs rate-compatible low-density parity-check codes along with embedded image coders such as JPEG2000 and set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT). The assignment of channel coding rates to source packets is performed by a fast trellis-based algorithm. We examine the performance of the proposed scheme over correlated and uncorrelated Rayleigh flat-fading channels with and without side information. Simulation results for the expected peak signal-to-noise ratio of reconstructed images, which are within 1 dB of the capacity upper bound over a wide range of channel signal-to-noise ratios, show considerable improvement compared to existing results under similar conditions. We also study the sensitivity of the proposed scheme in the presence of channel estimation error at the transmitter and demonstrate that under most conditions our scheme is more robust compared to existing schemes
Ageing Child Sex Offenders in Prison: Denial, Manipulation and Community

Within the prison population there exists a subculture consisting of those prisoners who need protection; these individuals are the ones who reside in the vulnerable prisoner unit and include informers, ex‐police officers, those with special educational needs and sex offenders. In short, this unit houses all those individuals who are at risk of attack from their fellow prisoners. Life within this subculture is different from life in the mainstream population; it is no less difficult, no less of an alien environment within which to survive, but the characteristics of the men ensure that the dominant moral order is unlike that of the main prison wings. Based on intensive fieldwork carried out with men aged 50 years and over in three English prisons, this article examines how child sex offenders, the most vilified subsection of the prison population, survive, and observes the differing ways in which both acceptance of, and resistance to, the prison regime become manipulated actions executed by extremely knowledgeable agents.
Simulating Switched-Capacitor Filters with SpectreRF

Version 6b, 21 January 2005 SpectreRF provides powerful and unique new analyses that offer designers of switchedcapacitor filters the ability to predict the performance of their circuits in ways that were not previously possible. It allows designers to quickly and directly predict the transfer and noise characteristics of filters described at the transistor level while including all of the important second-order effects. Previously, designers had to choose between using a traditional circuit simulator such as SPICE and a discrete-time simulator such as Switcap. SPICE simulates from a transistor-level description and so includes all of the desired second-order effects, but is not capable of directly computing the transfer and noise characteristics of circuit. While it may be possible to use Spice to indirectly predict such things, doing so is difficult, slow, and error prone. Switcap does directly compute the transfer and noise characteristics of switched-capacitor filters, but works from a highlevel behavioral description. It cannot accept a transistor-level description and cannot include many of the second-order effects that critically important to designers.
Liver and thyroid function and autoimmunity during interferon-β1b treatment for MS

Background: The occurrence or recurrence of autoimmune diseases or of autoantibodies (autoAb) has been reported during type I interferon (IFN) treatment. Objective: To define the frequency of thyroid and liver dysfunction and of autoimmunity during IFN-β1b (IFNB) treatment of MS. Methods: Prospective 1-year multicenter follow-up of 156 patients with MS recruited by 18 centers was conducted. Thyroid-stimulating hormone and anti-thyroid autoAb were measured by an immunoradiometric method, thyroid hormones by chromatographic assay, and non-organ-specific autoAb by indirect immunofluorescence. Tests were repeated every 3 months. The probability of having liver, thyroid, or autoAb alterations was analyzed longitudinally with the generalized estimating equations (GEE) method. Results: Thyroid dysfunction was observed in 5.3% of cases at baseline and 8.3% de novo during IFNB treatment. GEE analysis showed that the probability of having thyroid alteration did not change significantly during treatment compared with baseline. Liver alteration was observed in 4.6% of cases at baseline and 37.5% de novo during IFNB treatment (p < 0.0001). GEE analysis showed that the probability of having liver alteration was higher (p < 0.002) at months 3 and 6 compared with baseline, returning to values similar to baseline by month 9. AutoAb were detected in 16.1% of patients at baseline and in 20% during IFNB. GEE analysis showed that the probability of having autoAb did not change significantly during treatment compared with baseline. Thyroid or liver alteration or autoAb occurring de novo during IFNB were usually transient. Conclusions: Differently from the frequency of liver function alteration (which significantly increased during the first months of IFNB treatment, suggesting a probable causal relationship with IFNB), the frequency of thyroid dysfunction or of autoimmunity showed random and insignificant changes over time, probably not related to IFNB treatment.
Microbiome analysis among bats describes influences of host phylogeny, life history, physiology and geography

Metagenomic methods provide an experimental approach to inform the relationships between hosts and their microbial inhabitants. Previous studies have provided the conceptual realization that microbiomes are dynamic among hosts and the intimacy of relation between micro‐ and macroorganisms. Here, we present an intestinal microflora community analysis for members of the order Chiroptera and investigate the relative influence of variables in shaping observed microbiome relationships. The variables ranged from those considered to have ancient and long‐term influences (host phylogeny and life history) to the relatively transient variable of host reproductive condition. In addition, collection locality data, representing the geographic variable, were included in analyses. Results indicate a complex influence of variables in shaping sample relationships in which signal for host phylogeny is recovered at broad taxonomic levels (family), whereas intrafamilial analyses disclosed various degrees of resolution for the remaining variables. Although cumulative probabilities of assignment indicated both reproductive condition and geography influenced relationships, comparison of ecological measures among groups revealed statistical differences between most variable classifications. For example, ranked ecological diversity was associated with host phylogeny (deeper coalescences among families were associated with more microfloral diversity), dietary strategy (herbivory generally retained higher diversity than carnivory) and reproductive condition (reproductively active females displayed more diverse microflora than nonreproductive conditions). Overall, the results of this study describe a complex process shaping microflora communities of wildlife species as well as provide avenues for future research that will further inform the nature of symbiosis between microflora communities and hosts.
IL-10 Is Required for Prevention of Necrosis in the Small Intestine and Mortality in Both Genetically Resistant BALB/c and Susceptible C57BL/6 Mice Following Peroral Infection with Toxoplasma gondii1

The role for IL-10 in the immunopathogenesis of acute toxoplasmosis following peroral infection was examined in both genetically susceptible C57BL/6 and resistant BALB/c mice. C57BL/6-background IL-10-targeted mutant (IL-10−/−) mice all died in 2 wk after infection with 20 cysts of the ME49 strain, whereas only 20% of control mice succumbed. Histological studies revealed necrosis in the small and large intestines and livers of infected IL-10−/− mice. The necrosis in the small intestine was the most severe pathologic response and was not observed in control mice. Treatment of infected IL-10−/− mice with either anti-CD4 or anti-IFN-γ mAb prevented intestinal pathology and significantly prolonged time to death. Treatment of these animals with anti-IL-12 mAb also prevented the pathology. Significantly greater amounts of IFN-γ mRNA were detected in the lamina propria lymphocytes obtained from the small intestine of infected IL-10−/− mice than those from infected control mice. In common with C57BL/6-background IL-10−/− mice, BALB/c-background IL-10−/− mice all died developing intestinal pathology after infection. Control BALB/c mice all survived even after infection with 100 cysts and did not develop the intestinal lesions. Treatment with anti-IFN-γ mAb prevented the pathology and prolonged time to death of the infected IL-10−/− mice. These results strongly suggest that IL-10 plays a critical role in down-regulating IFN-γ production in the small intestine following sublethal peroral infection with Toxoplasma gondii and that this down-regulatory effect of IL-10 is required for prevention of development of IFN-γ-mediated intestinal pathology and mortality in both genetically resistant BALB/c and susceptible C57BL/6 mice.
Wireless monitoring of temperature and humidity using sensor array

In this paper a wireless based scheme has been proposed for monitoring of temperature and humidity. A highly sensitive signal conditioning circuitry for capacitive humidity and resistive temperature sensors have been developed. The humidity and temperature sensed by these sensors are converted into square waves of central frequencies 101 kHz and ~9 kHz respectively. The sensitivities obtained are 39.1Hz/pF and 234.95 Hz/°C respectively. These two sensing modules have been integrated with a microcontroller unit for signal processing through UART. Further, XBee module of ZigBee based on IEEE802.15. 4, has been successfully implemented for wireless transmission and reception.
Analysis of fungal ball rhinosinusitis by culturing fungal clumps under endoscopic surgery.

OBJECTIVE This study was designed to investigate the clinical microbiology of fungal ball (FB) rhinosinusitis by culturing fungal clumps collected under endoscopic surgery. METHODS From April to November of 2012, fungal clumps were sampled by endoscopic surgery from patients diagnosed with FB using clinical and histopathological methods. The specimens were subjected to smear microscopy, and cultured for bacteria and fungi analysis. RESULTS Out of the 81 specimens from 80 patients, 69 (69/81, 85.19%) specimens were detected a mixed infection of bacteria and fungi. However, only 25 (25/81, 30.86%) specimens resulted in fungal growth. There were 12 (12/81, 14.81%) specimens with fungal infections alone. The cultured fungi included 36 strains belonging to five genera, and most of them were Aspergillus spp. (30/36, 83.3%). The cultured bacteria included 94 strains belonging to 16 genera, and the most frequently seen was Staphylococcus spp. (23/94, 35.94%). When it was fungal and Pseudomonas aeruginosa mixed infection, the fungal growth was inhibited (P = 0.002). CONCLUSION Patients with fungal ball usually have mixed fungal and bacterial infections. The fungi from these samples are sometimes difficult to culture, which may be the result of the inhibition by bacteria in vitro and in vivo.
Reinforcement learning demonstrator for opportunistic spectrum access on real radio signals

This demonstration presents a proof-of-concept for opportunistic spectrum access. It particularly focuses on reinforcement learning algorithm called UCB (Upper Confidence Bound) designed by the machine learning community to solve the MAB problem (Multi-Armed Bandit). The demonstrator shows the first worldwide implementation of reinforcement learning algorithms for OSA (opportunistic spectrum access) on real radio environment using USRP N210 platforms.
Reputations and polyadic interactions among great apes

‘Reputation’ refers to information about the past behaviour of others, learnable either by direct observation, eavesdropping, or gossip. Reputations are thought to play a key role among human societies in ensuring that people behave cooperatively. When it is gained by eavesdropping, it is called ‘indirect reputation’. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the role that ‘indirect reputation’ plays in the lives of non-human great apes, with a special focus on chimpanzees. There were two projects: (1) an observational study of captive chimpanzees (Chester Zoo, U.K.), and (2) social preference experiments with chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans (Leipzig Zoo, Germany). All results are put into the context of the evolution of cognitive abilities. The observational project focused on grooming behaviour. The aim was to examine how individuals observe the grooming of others when involved in polyadic (multi-individual) grooming cliques. I also provide detailed information on the social structure of the Chester Zoo chimpanzees, and a detailed introduction and catalogue of polyadic grooming cliques. For the purpose of studying reputation, there was an analysis of how individuals differ (according to age, sex, and social position) of how individuals behave in a ‘peripheral groomer’ position. This occurs when an individual (A) sees a pair of groomers (e.g. B C) and joins them, forming a triad (e.g. A --> B C). In this position, the peripheral is at a disadvantage because of the likelihood of being ignored. A number of analyses were conducted on the peripheral’s behaviour: partner choice, payoff (whether groomed in return), and how long the peripheral persisted in grooming (duration of attempt). The result relevant to reputation was that younger individuals gave up more quickly when the recipient of their grooming was socially closer to the third groomer than to them (AB BC). This result implies that chimpanzees understand how their own relationship with the recipient (AB) compared with the relationship between third parties (BC). This result was corroborated in a psychology experiment that tested for 'image scoring' ('A monitors the giving behaviour of B towards C'). Here, apes were allowed to passively observe two play-acted incidents among humans: (1) a 'nice person' gave food to a human who begged for it, and (2) a 'nasty person' refused. After, the ape could approach one or both human actors (nice/nasty) sitting side-byside holding grapes (but neither offering grapes if approached). The subject’s expectation of which human was more likely to offer food was measured by comparing the proportion of time that subjects spent near each person. Chimpanzees spent significantly more time near the ‘nice’ person compared to ‘nasty’ (result not significant for other species). Both this and the observational work suggest that chimpanzees, at least, are cognisant of 'indirect reputation'.
Reciprocal Resource Fairness: Towards Cooperative Multiple-Resource Fair Sharing in IaaS Clouds

Resource sharing in virtualized environments have been demonstrated significant benefits to improve application performance and resource/energy efficiency. However, resource sharing, especially for multiple resource types, poses several severe and challenging problems in pay-as-you-use cloud environments, such as sharing incentive, free-riding, lying and economic fairness. To address those problems, we propose Reciprocal Resource Fairness (RRF), a novel resource allocation mechanism to enable fair sharing multiple types of resource among multiple tenants in new-generation cloud environments. RRF implements two complementary and hierarchical mechanisms for resource sharing: inter-tenant resource trading and intra-tenant weight adjustment. We show that RRF satisfies several highly desirable properties to ensure fairness. Experimental results show that RRF is promising for both cloud providers and tenants. Compared to existing cloud models, RRF improves virtual machine (VM) density and cloud providers' revenue by 2.2X. For tenants, RRF improves application performance by 45% and guarantees 95% economic fairness among multiple tenants.
Video Stream Retrieval of Unseen Queries using Semantic Memory

Retrieval of live, user-broadcast video streams is an under-addressed and increasingly relevant challenge. The on-line nature of the problem requires temporal evaluation and the unforeseeable scope of potential queries motivates an approach which can accommodate arbitrary search queries. To account for the breadth of possible queries, we adopt a no-example approach to query retrieval, which uses a query's semantic relatedness to pre-trained concept classifiers. To adapt to shifting video content, we propose memory pooling and memory welling methods that favor recent information over long past content. We identify two stream retrieval tasks, instantaneous retrieval at any particular time and continuous retrieval over a prolonged duration, and propose means for evaluating them. Three large scale video datasets are adapted to the challenge of stream retrieval. We report results for our search methods on the new stream retrieval tasks, as well as demonstrate their efficacy in a traditional, non-streaming video task.
The role of Bolsa Familia in the labour/education problematic for children in Brazil

Brazil is a massive country in both size and population, and is considered an economic and political leader in Latin America. However, it suffers from many development issues faced by other developing countries around the globe; the state struggles to educate the entire population and it has not yet fully eradicated child labour. The specific problematic in this thesis, is the opportunity cost associated with child labour and education, and its relationship with conditional cash transfer programs. Child labour is thought to be an impediment of human development as it is often considered a means of continuing the cycle of poverty. It is likely that many children work to support themselves or their families. The focus of this thesis is to discuss the effects of the education conditionality imposed by Brazil’s conditional cash transfer program on child labour in the country. The research question of this thesis is, what is the trade-off between education and child labour in relation to Brazil’s conditional cash transfer program, Bolsa Familia? The main conclusion of this thesis is that the trade-off between school and work is not as black and white as originally assumed; education and child labour are for the most part not substitutes. Bolsa Familia has had a greater impact on increasing enrolment and retention than reducing child labour in Brazil, leading to the assumption that many children are likely combining both school and work. Recipient children are more likely to miss school to help with domestic activities, but non-recipient children are more likely to miss school to work or look for work.
Deploying Wireless Sensor Devices in Intelligent Transportation System Applications

As future intelligent infrastructure will bring together and connect individuals, vehicles and infrastructure through wireless communications, it is critical that robust communication technologies are developed. Mobile wireless sensor networks are self-organising mobile networks where nodes exchange data without the need for an underlying infrastructure. In the road transport domain, schemes which are fully infrastructure-less and those which use a combination of fixed (infrastructure) devices and mobile devices fitted to vehicles and other moving objects are of significant interest to the ITS community as they have the potential to deliver a ‘connected environment’ where individuals, vehicles and infrastructure can co-exist and cooperate, thus delivering more knowledge about the transport environment, the state of the network and who indeed is travelling or wishes to travel. This may offer benefits in terms of real-time management, optimisation of transportation systems, intelligent design and the use of such systems for innovative road charging and possibly carbon trading schemes as well as through the CVHS (Cooperative Vehicle and Highway Systems) for safety and control applications. As the wireless sensor networks technology is still relatively new and very little is known about its real application in the transport domain. Our involvement in the transport-related projects provides us with an opportunity to carry out research and development of wireless sensor network applications in transport systems. This chapter outlines our experience in the ASTRA (ASTRA, 2005), TRACKSS (TRACKSS, 2007) and EMMA (EMMA, 2007) projects and provides an illustration of the important role that the wireless sensor technology can play in future ITS. This chapter also presents encouraging results obtained from the experiments in investigating the feasibility of utilising wireless sensor networks in vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communication in real ITS applications.