Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Minimal Energy Skew Routing in Lossy Wireless Sensor Networks

For several sensor networks applications, it is critical to extend the lifetime of each individual sensor node in order to remain operational for the longest time possible. T herefore, the power consumption rate should be evenly distributed over all the nodes in the system. Traditional ro uting algorithms attempt to minimize the total power consumption of the system, but they do not attempt to evenly d istribute the load over all the nodes in the network. In this paper, we present an efficient routing algorithm that minimizes the energy skew among nodes in a network with lossy links. We propose an ε-optimal polynomial time centralized multi-hop routing te chnique that maximizes the lifetime a system of distributed power sources, conside ring the quality of the wireless links and the vagaries of the radio communication channel. Our technique aims to ev enly distribute the power consumption rate which yields in a minimal-skew solution. We theoretically prove t hat our technique is efficient. Finally, we illustrate the quality of the solutions provided by our algorithms on a set o f benchmarks that consider the quality of the wireless channels based on models using real RF transcievers. We show that our solution provides significant increase in the lifetime of the network (up to five times) at the cost of a sligh t increase in the latency of the end-to-end paths (up to 10%).
Simple reparameterization to improve convergence in linear mixed models

Slow convergence and mixing are one of the main problems of Markov chain Monte Carlo (McMC) algorithms applied to mixed models in animal breeding. Poor convergence is to a large extent caused by high posterior correlation between variance components and solutions for the levels of associated effects. A simple reparameterization of the conventional model for variance component estimation is presented which improves McMC sampling and provides the same posterior distributions as the conventional model. Reparameterization is based on the rescaling of hierarchical (random) effects in a model, which alleviates posterior correlation. The developed model is compared against the conventional model using several simulated data sets. Results show that presented reparameterization has better behaviour of associated sampling methods and is several times more efficient for the low values of heritability.
Connected components algorithms for mesh-connected parallel computers

We present a new CREW PRAM algorithm for nding connected components. For a graphG with n vertices andm edges, algorithmA0 requires at mostO(logn) parallel steps and performsO((n+m) logn) work in the worst case. The advantage our algorithm has over others in the literature is that it can be adapted to a 2-D mesh-connected communication model in which all CREW operations are replaced byO(logn) parallel row and column operations without increasing the time complexity. We present the mapping of A0 to a mesh-connected computer and describe two implementations, A1 and A2. Algorithm A1, which uses an adjacency matrix to represent the graph, performs O(n logn) work. Hence, it only achieveswork e ciency on dense graphs. The second implementation,A2, uses a sparse representation of the adjacency matrix and again performs O(logn) row and column operations but reduces the work to O((m + n) logn) on all graphs. We report MasPar MP-1 performance gures for implementations of the algorithms described. The implementations are exercised on a variety of parametrically generated graphs, di ering in structure and connectivity. These graphs are generated externally and read in as input for the algorithms, permitting comparison of di erent implementations on identical graphs.
Study on computer usage patterns depending on end users' contexts

Users context is exploited by an increased number of applications, especially mobile ones, in order to provide their clients with context-oriented services. With our work we try to extend the usage context to laptop and desktop applications and environments. This paper aims analyzing user behavior on three different habitats: at work, at school and at home. The main purpose of this paper is to find a pattern in computer application usage for these three environments. PC applications using pattern will be useful in the process design and creation of a context-aware application which will simulate different environments on the same computer based on user context.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper Series Sovereign Debt Crises and Credit to the Private Sector Sovereign Debt Crises and Credit to the Private Sector Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

We use micro–level data to analyze emerging markets' private sector access to international debt markets during sovereign debt crises. Using fixed effect analysis, we find that these crises are systematically accompanied by a decline in foreign credit domestic private firms, both during debt renegotiations and for over two years after the restructuring agreements are reached. This decline is large (over 20 percent), statistically significant, and robust when we control for a host of fundamentals. We find that this effect is concentrated in the nonfinancial sector and is different for exporters and for firms in the non–exporting sector. We also find that the magnitude of the effect depends on the type of debt restructuring agreement. for outstanding research assistance at different stages of this project. We thank Peter Schott for providing export data. All errors are ours. The views in this paper are solely the responsibility of the authors and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or any other person associated with the Federal Reserve System.
Detecting question-bearing turns in spoken tutorial dialogues

Current speech-enabled Intelligent Tutoring Systems do not model student question behavior the way human tutors do, despite ev-idence indicating the importance of doing so. Our study examined a corpus of spoken tutorial dialogues collected for development of ITSpoke, an Intelligent Tutoring Spoken Dialogue System. The authors extracted prosodic, lexical, syntactic, and student and task dependent information from student turns. Results of running 5-fold cross validation machine learning experiments using AdaBoosted C4.5 decision trees show prediction of student question-bearing turns at a rate of 79 . 7 %. The most useful features were prosodic, especially the pitch slope of the last 200 milliseconds of the student turn. Student pre-test score was the most-used feature. Findings indicate that using turn-based units is accept-able for incorporating question detection capability into practical Intelligent Tutoring Systems.
Discovering Small‐Molecule Estrogen Receptor α/Coactivator Binding Inhibitors: High‐Throughput Screening, Ligand Development, and Models for Enhanced Potency

Small molecules, namely coactivator binding inhibitors (CBIs), that block estrogen signaling by directly inhibiting the interaction of the estrogen receptor (ER) with coactivator proteins act in a fundamentally different way to traditional antagonists, which displace the endogenous ligand estradiol. To complement our prior efforts at CBI discovery by de novo design, we used high‐throughput screening (HTS) to identify CBIs of novel structure and subsequently investigated two HTS hits by analogue synthesis, finding many compounds with low micromolar potencies in cell‐based reporter gene assays. We examined structure–activity trends in both series, using induced‐fit computational docking to propose binding poses for these molecules in the coactivator binding groove. Analysis of the structure of the ER–steroid receptor coactivator (SRC) complex suggests that all four hydrophobic residues within the SRC nuclear receptor box sequence are important binding elements. Thus, insufficient water displacement upon binding of the smaller CBIs in the expansive complexation site may be limiting the potency of the compounds in these series, which suggests that higher potency CBIs might be found by screening compound libraries enriched with larger molecules.
Topological features and iterative node elimination for speeding up subgraph isomorphism detection

In this paper we tackle the problem of subgraph isomorphism detection on large graphs, which may commonly be intractable, even with state of the art algorithms. Rather than competing with other matching algorithms, we define enhancements that can be used by (almost) any subgraph isomorphism algorithm, both current and future. These enhancements consist of a number of topological features to be added to the nodes, and a technique which we term “iterative node elimination”. The fusion of these enhancements is shown to be able to reduce subgraph isomorphism matching times by a factor of over 4,500.
Fast, Inexpensive Content-Addressed Storage in Foundation

Foundation is a preservation system for users' personal, digital artifacts. Foundation preserves all of a user's data and its dependencies--fonts, programs, plugins, kernel, and configuration state--by archiving nightly snapshots of the user's entire hard disk. Users can browse through these images to view old data or recover accidentally deleted files. To access data that a user's current environment can no longer interpret, Foundation boots the disk image in which that data resides under an emulator, allowing the user to view and modify the data with the same programs with which the user originally accessed it. This paper describes Foundation's archival storage layer, which uses content-addressed storage (CAS) to retain nightly snapshots of users' disks indefinitely. Current state-of-the-art CAS systems, such as Venti [34], require multiple high-speed disks or other expensive hardware to achieve high performance. Foundation's archival storage layer, in contrast, matches the storage efficiency of Venti using only a single USB hard drive. Foundation archives disk snapshots at an average throughput of 21 MB/s and restores them at an average of 14 MB/s, more than an order of magnitude improvement over Venti running on the same hardware. Unlike Venti, Foundation does not rely on the assumption that SHA-1 is collision-free.
Early planning of care and rehabilitation after amputation for vascular disease by means of Katz Index of Activities of Daily Living.

The aim of the study was to investigate whether the Swedish version of the Katz Index of ADL (Activities of Daily Living), on days 5-7 after amputation for vascular disease, had predictive value regarding length of hospital stay, discharge to the patient's own home or death within 1 month. Patients who had recently undergone primary unilateral trans-tibial amputation, living in their own homes before the amputation, were included. Fifty-two patients with a median age of 78 years (60-92) were assessed with the Katz Index of ADL. Results revealed that of the 10 (20%) patients discharged to their own homes within 1 month, only 2 belonged to grades A-C, that is, were independent in the majority of functions in personal ADL. Within 6 months 62% were discharged to their own homes. Eighty-four percent of the patients in grades D-G, i.e. most dependent on others, were still at the hospital or dead 1 month post-operatively. All the patients who belonged to grades A-F survived the first month post-operatively. The Katz Index of ADL had predictive value regarding early outcome in terms of length of hospital stay, discharge to the patient's own home or death within 1 month, and positive predictive value regarding survival the first month post-operatively.
Effective heritability of targets of sex‐ratio selection under environmental sex determination

Selection is expected to maintain primary sex ratios at an evolutionary equilibrium. In organisms with temperature‐dependent sex determination (TSD), targets of sex‐ratio selection include the thermal sensitivity of the sex‐determining pathway (hereafter, sex determination threshold) and nest‐site choice. However, offspring sex may be canalized for nests located in thermally extreme environments; thus, genetic variance for the sex determination threshold is not expressed and is invisible to direct selection. The concept of ‘effective heritability’ accounts for this dependence and provides a more realistic prediction of the expected evolutionary response to selection in the wild. Past estimates of effective heritability of the sex determination threshold, which were derived from laboratory data, suggested that the potential for the sex determination threshold to evolve in the wild was extremely low. We re‐evaluated original estimates of this parameter by analysing field‐collected measures of nest temperatures, vegetation cover and clutch sex ratios from nests in a population of painted turtles (Chrysemys picta). We coupled these data with measurements of broad‐sense heritability of the sex determination threshold in C. picta, using an experiment that splits clutches of eggs between a constant temperature (i.e. typical laboratory incubation) and a daily fluctuating temperature (i.e. similar to natural nests) with the same mean. We found that (i) the effective heritability of the sex determination threshold appears to have been historically underestimated and the effective heritability of nest‐site choice has been overestimated and (ii) significant family‐by‐incubation treatment interaction exists for sex for C. picta between constant‐ and fluctuating‐temperature regimes. Our results suggest that the thermal sensitivity of the sex‐determining pathway may play a larger, more complex role in the microevolution of TSD than traditionally thought.
Increased spontaneous activity of a network of hippocampal neurons in culture caused by suppression of inhibitory potentials mediated by anti-gad antibodies

Introduction: Anti-glutamic acid decarboxylase autoantibodies (GAD-Ab) are commonly considered the marker of autoimmune diabetes; they were first described in patients affected by stiff-person syndrome and recently, in ataxic or epileptic patients. The pathogenetic role of GAD-Ab remains unclear but inhibition of GABA synthesis or interference with GABA exocytosis are hypothesized. The aim of the study was to assess whether GAD-Ab interfere with neuronal transmission. Patients and methods: Serum from a GAD-Ab positive epileptic patient (by IHC and RIA), serum from a GAD-positive (only by RIA) diabetic case, sera from two epileptic GAD-Ab negative patients and a normal control were selected. Post-synaptic inhibitory potentials (IPSPs) were registered on hippocampal neurons in culture before and after the application of diluted sera in a patch clamp study. Results: A significant increase in the frequency of IPSPs was observed after application of GAD-positive epileptic serum, while no effect was noted using sera from negative controls. Conclusion: The inhibition in neuronal transmission only after application of GAD-positive epileptic serum, suggests an interference with GABA function and consequently with neuronal inhibition supporting a pathogenetic role of GAD-Ab in the development of epilepsy.
Peripheral blood progenitor cell collection by large-volume leukapheresis in low-weight children.

Large-volume leukapheresis (LVL), defined as the processing of at least three blood volumes in a single session for peripheral blood progenitor cell (PBPC) collection, was performed in 32 small children weighing < or = 25 kg, aged 10 months to 8 years, with a variety of malignancies. Harvesting of PBPC was started after 4 days of cytokine (G-CSF, 12 micrograms/kg s.c.) alone. Procedures were performed using a continuous flow blood cell separator (COBE Spectra). The automated program of lymphocytapheresis was modified to achieve a collection rate of 0.9 ml/min. The extracorporeal line was primed with a unit of a packed red blood cells before the procedure. Acid citrate dextrose (ACD) was used as anticoagulant with an ACD inlet ratio of 1:14 and an ACD infusion rate of 1.1 ml/min/L of total blood volume. The inlet flow ranged between 6 and 35 ml/min (median 20 ml/min). A total of 37 apheresis procedures were performed (median 1, range 1-3). In 84% of patients, a single apheresis yields the minimum number of PBPC cells required for transplantation. No consistent side effects were observed, and LVL was well tolerated by children. A median of 7.7 x 10(8) kg MNC, 5.4 x 10(6)/kg CD34+, and 6.2 x 10(4)/kg CFU-GM per apheresis were harvested. Patients with neuroblastoma had a significantly lower yield than other patients. To date, 27 patients have been transplanted after myeloablative treatment, and rapid and sustained engraftment was achieved in all cases. The number of CD34+ cells infused was highly correlated with engraftment kinetics. LVL can be safely and easily performed in small children, allowing adequate PBPC collection for transplantation with rapid hematologic recovery.
Dentoalveolar surgery techniques combined with orthodontic treatment: A literature review

Surgery on the dentoalveolar process combined with orthodontic treatment was emphasized as an alternative method for reducing the treatment time and improving the orthodontic treatment on post-adolescent and adult patients. This combined treatment facilitates and accelerates orthodontic tooth movement. This article reviews the clinical practice in surgery-assisted orthodontic treatment in relation to historical perspective, indications and biological principles, as well as limitations and risks of dento-osseous surgical techniques, including dento-osseous osteotomy and/or ostectomy, dento-osseous microfracture, dento-osseous corticotomy, and/or corticoectomy, and dental distraction.
Measuring Global Trends in the Status of Biodiversity: Red List Indices for Birds

The rapid destruction of the planet's biodiversity has prompted the nations of the world to set a target of achieving a significant reduction in the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. However, we do not yet have an adequate way of monitoring progress towards achieving this target. Here we present a method for producing indices based on the IUCN Red List to chart the overall threat status (projected relative extinction risk) of all the world's bird species from 1988 to 2004. Red List Indices (RLIs) are based on the number of species in each Red List category, and on the number changing categories between assessments as a result of genuine improvement or deterioration in status. The RLI for all bird species shows that their overall threat status has continued to deteriorate since 1988. Disaggregated indices show that deteriorations have occurred worldwide and in all major ecosystems, but with particularly steep declines in the indices for Indo-Malayan birds (driven by intensifying deforestation of the Sundaic lowlands) and for albatrosses and petrels (driven by incidental mortality in commercial longline fisheries). RLIs complement indicators based on species population trends and habitat extent for quantifying global trends in the status of biodiversity. Their main weaknesses are that the resolution of status changes is fairly coarse and that delays may occur before some status changes are detected. Their greatest strength is that they are based on information from nearly all species in a taxonomic group worldwide, rather than a potentially biased subset. At present, suitable data are only available for birds, but indices for other taxonomic groups are in development, as is a sampled index based on a stratified sample from all major taxonomic groups.
Phasing: Private Set Intersection Using Permutation-based Hashing

Private Set Intersection (PSI) allows two parties to compute the intersection of private sets while revealing nothing more than the intersection itself. PSI needs to be applied to large data sets in scenarios such as measurement of ad conversion rates, data sharing, or contact discovery. Existing PSI protocols do not scale up well, and therefore some applications use insecure solutions instead. We describe a new approach for designing PSI protocols based on permutation-based hashing, which enables to reduce the length of items mapped to bins while ensuring that no collisions occur. We denote this approach as Phasing, for Permutation-based Hashing Set Intersection. Phasing can dramatically improve the performance of PSI protocols whose overhead depends on the length of the representations of input items. We apply Phasing to design a new approach for circuit-based PSI protocols. The resulting protocol is up to 5 times faster than the previously best Sort-Compare-Shuffle circuit of Huang et al. (NDSS 2012). We also apply Phasing to the OT-based PSI protocol of Pinkas et al. (USENIX Security 2014), which is the fastest PSI protocol to date. Together with additional improvements that reduce the computation complexity by a logarithmic factor, the resulting protocol improves run-time by a factor of up to 20 and can also have similar communication overhead as the previously best PSI protocol in that respect. The new protocol is only moderately less efficient than an insecure PSI protocol that is currently used by real-world applications, and is therefore the first secure PSI protocol that is scalable to the demands and the constraints of current real-world settings.
Computer-Based Coding of Occupation Codes for Epidemiological Analyses

Mapping job titles to standardized occupation classification (SOC) codes is an important step in evaluating changes in health risks over time as measured in inspection databases. However, manual SOC coding is cost prohibitive for very large studies. Computer based SOC coding systems can improve the efficiency of incorporating occupational risk factors into large-scale epidemiological studies. We present a novel method of mapping verbatim job titles to SOC codes using a large table of prior knowledge available in the public domain that included detailed description of the tasks and activities and their synonyms relevant to each SOC code. Job titles are compared to our knowledge base to find the closest matching SOC code. A soft Jaccard index is used to measure the similarity between a previously unseen job title and the knowledge base. Additional information such as standardized industrial codes can be incorporated to improve the SOC code determination by providing additional context to break ties in matches.