Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An efficient online path profiling framework for Java just-in-time compilers

Collecting hot paths is important for restructuring and optimizing the target program effectively. It is, however, challenging for just-in-time (JIT) compilers, which must collect path profiles on the fly at runtime. Here, we propose an efficient online path profiling technique, called structural path profiling (SPP), suitable for JIT compilers. The key idea is to partition the target method into a hierarchy of the nested graphs based on the loop structure, and then to profile each graph independently. With SPP, we can collect accurate path profiles efficiently with low overhead. The experimental results show that our technique can collect path profiles with an accuracy of around 90% compared to the offline complete path profiles, while it incurs only 2-3% overhead on average in the active profiling phase.
A 34.8%-PAE CMOS transmitter frontend for 24-GHz FMCW radar applications

A high-efficiency transmitter frontend circuit suitable for 24-GHz frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar applications is presented in this paper. In addition to the power amplifier (PA) stage, a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is incorporated in the frontend for frequency modulation while a VCO buffer and a driving amplifier (DA) are utilized to provide an adequate driving level and reverse isolation. To take full advantage of the power available from the transistors, both the PA and DA stages are matched to the near-optimum impedances suggested by the load-pull simulation. Moreover, a positive-feedback technique is employed in the PA design for further efficiency enhancement. The proposed circuit is fabricated in a standard 90-nm CMOS process. Operated at a supply voltage of 1.2-V, the 24-GHz frontend demonstrates a peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 34.8% with a peak output power of 16.3 dBm.
Strain-Dependent Effect of Macroautophagy on Abnormally Folded Prion Protein Degradation in Infected Neuronal Cells

Prion diseases are neurodegenerative disorders caused by the accumulation of abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) in the central nervous system. With the aim of elucidating the mechanism underlying the accumulation and degradation of PrPSc, we investigated the role of autophagy in its degradation, using cultured cells stably infected with distinct prion strains. The effects of pharmacological compounds that inhibit or stimulate the cellular signal transduction pathways that mediate autophagy during PrPSc degradation were evaluated. The accumulation of PrPSc in cells persistently infected with the prion strain Fukuoka-1 (FK), derived from a patient with Gerstmann–Sträussler–Scheinker syndrome, was significantly increased in cultures treated with the macroautophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3MA) but substantially reduced in those treated with the macroautophagy inducer rapamycin. The decrease in FK-derived PrPSc levels was mediated, at least in part, by the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/MEK signalling pathway. By contrast, neither rapamycin nor 3MA had any apparently effect on PrPSc from either the 22L or the Chandler strain, indicating that the degradation of PrPSc in host cells might be strain-dependent.
A Formally Veri(cid:12)ed Quadratic Uni(cid:12)cation Algorithm

We present a case study of using ACL2 to verify an non-trivial algorithm that uses e(cid:14)cient data structures. The algorithm receives as input two (cid:12)rst-order terms and it returns a most general uni(cid:12)er of these terms if they are uni(cid:12)able, failure otherwise. The veri(cid:12)ed implementation stores terms as directed acyclic graphs in a stobj by means of a pointer structure. Its time complexity is O ( n 2 ) and its space complexity is O ( n ), and it can be executed in ACL2 at a speed comparable to a similar C implementation of the same algorithm. We report the main issues encountered to achieve this formally veri(cid:12)ed implementation.
Asymmetric peptidomimetics containing L-tartaric acid core inhibit the aspartyl peptidase activity and growth of Leishmania amazonensis promastigotes

Aspartyl-type peptidases are promising chemotherapeutic targets in protozoan parasites. In the present work, we identified an aspartyl peptidase activity from the soluble extract of Leishmania amazonensis promastigotes, which cleaved the fluorogenic peptide 7-methoxycoumarin-4-acetyl-Gly-Lys-Pro-Ile-Leu-Phe-Phe-Arg-Leu-Lys(DNP)-D-Arg-amide (cathepsin D substrate) under acidic pH conditions at 37°C, showing a KM of 0.58 μM and Vmax of 129.87 fluorescence arbitrary units/s mg protein. The leishmanial aspartyl peptidase activity was blocked by pepstatin A (IC50 = 6.8 μM) and diazo-acetyl-norleucinemetilester (IC50 = 10.2 μM), two classical aspartyl peptidase inhibitors. Subsequently, the effects of 6 asymmetric peptidomimetics, containing L-tartaric acid core, were tested on both aspartyl peptidase and growth of L. amazonensis promastigotes. The peptidomimetics named 88, 154 and 158 promoted a reduction of 50% on the leishmanial aspartyl peptidase activity at concentrations ranging from 40 to 85 μM, whereas the peptidomimetic 157 was by far the most effective, presenting IC50 of 0.04 μM. Furthermore, the peptidomimetics 157 and 154 reduced the parasite proliferation in a dose-dependent manner, displaying IC50 values of 33.7 and 44.5 µM, respectively. Collectively, the peptidomimetic 157 was the most efficient compound able to arrest both aspartyl peptidase activity and leishmanial proliferation, which raises excellent perspectives regarding its use against this human pathogenic protozoan.
The Effect of Human Activities and Their Associated Noise on Ungulate Behavior

Background The effect of anthropogenic noise on terrestrial wildlife is a relatively new area of study with broad ranging management implications. Noise has been identified as a disturbance that has the potential to induce behavioral responses in animals similar to those associated with predation risk. This study investigated potential impacts of a variety of human activities and their associated noise on the behavior of elk (Cervus elaphus) and pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) along a transportation corridor in Grand Teton National Park. Methodology/Principal Findings We conducted roadside scan surveys and focal observations of ungulate behavior while concurrently recording human activity and anthropogenic noise. Although we expected ungulates to be more responsive with greater human activity and noise, as predicted by the risk disturbance hypothesis, they were actually less responsive (less likely to perform vigilant, flight, traveling and defensive behaviors) with increasing levels of vehicle traffic, the human activity most closely associated with noise. Noise levels themselves had relatively little effect on ungulate behavior, although there was a weak negative relationship between noise and responsiveness in our scan samples. In contrast, ungulates did increase their responsiveness with other forms of anthropogenic disturbance; they reacted to the presence of pedestrians (in our scan samples) and to passing motorcycles (in our focal observations). Conclusions These findings suggest that ungulates did not consistently associate noise and human activity with an increase in predation risk or that they could not afford to maintain responsiveness to the most frequent human stimuli. Although reduced responsiveness to certain disturbances may allow for greater investment in fitness-enhancing activities, it may also decrease detections of predators and other environmental cues and increase conflict with humans.
A Dual Algorithm for Olfactory Computation in the Locust Brain

We study the early locust olfactory system in an attempt to explain its well-characterized structure and dynamics. We first propose its computational function as recovery of high-dimensional sparse olfactory signals from a small number of measurements. Detailed experimental knowledge about this system rules out standard algorithmic solutions to this problem. Instead, we show that solving a dual formulation of the corresponding optimisation problem yields structure and dynamics in good agreement with biological data. Further biological constraints lead us to a reduced form of this dual formulation in which the system uses independent component analysis to continuously adapt to its olfactory environment to allow accurate sparse recovery. Our work demonstrates the challenges and rewards of attempting detailed understanding of experimentally well-characterized systems.
Background estimation in experimental spectra

A general probabilistic technique for estimating background contributions to measured spectra is presented. A Bayesian model is used to capture the defining characteristics of the problem, namely, that the background is smoother than the signal. The signal is allowed to have positive and/or negative components. The background is represented in terms of a cubic spline basis. A variable degree of smoothness of the background is attained by allowing the number of knots and the knot positions to be adaptively chosen on the basis of the data. The fully Bayesian approach taken provides a natural way to handle knot adaptivity and allows uncertainties in the background to be estimated. Our technique is demonstrated on a particle induced x-ray emission spectrum from a geological sample and an Auger spectrum from iron, which contains signals with both positive and negative components.
Typing of group A streptococci by random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis

Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis was evaluated in comparison with restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) of genomic DNA and serotyping in the typing of 160 epidemiologically unrelated group A streptococci (GAS). Amplification of genomic DNA of GAS was performed with a single primer with an arbitrarily selected nucleotide sequence of 12 nucleotides. In total, 31 RAPD patterns and 15 REA patterns were observed among the isolates studied. The results of RAPD analysis were in accordance with the results of REA for 86% of the isolates, as both methods identified 15 different strains among 138 isolates. However, RAPD analysis differentiated 16 additional strains among 22 isolates. RAPD analysis was somewhat better than REA for differentiation of isolates of the same and different serotypes. However, not all of the serotypes were differentiated by RAPD analysis either. In conclusion, RAPD analysis provides a practical alternative for genomic typing of GAS. It can be recommended for the typing of GAS, especially if used in parallel with serotyping.
Design of a high-linear mems pressure sensor available for TPMS

A capacitive MEMS pressure sensor with high linearity is presented, which is based on a fixed spherical cap electrode and a multiple-layered membrane. In this sensor, the touch process of electrodes starts at the beginning of measuring range, and a hole-shape structure made by DRIE is added. The device can enable a good linearity during the whole measuring range. The analysis of touch status and linearity is performed, so that the novel structure is verified to be effective. Further more, the fabrication process of this sensor is proposed and introduced. This high-linear MEMS pressure sensor can provide a good choice to tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS), which will work at the press range of 100KPa to 800KPa.
Physical-layer security for indoor visible light communications

This paper considers secure transmission over the visible light communication (VLC) channel by the means of physical-layer security techniques. In particular, we consider achievable secrecy rates of the multiple-input, single-output (MISO) wiretap VLC channel. The VLC channel is modeled as a deterministic and real-valued Gaussian channel subject to amplitude constraints. We utilize null-steering and artificial noise strategies to achieve positive secrecy rates when the eavesdropper's channel state information (CSI) is perfectly known and entirely unknown to the transmitter, respectively. In both scenarios, the legitimate receiver's CSI is available to the transmitter. We numerically evaluate achievable secrecy rates under typical VLC scenarios and show that simple precoding techniques can significantly improve the confidentiality of VLC links.
Activation of gp130 transduces hypertrophic signals via STAT3 in cardiac myocytes.

BACKGROUND gp130, a signal transducer of the IL-6-related cytokines, is expressed ubiquitously, including in the heart. The activation of gp130 in cardiac myocytes was reported to induce myocardial hypertrophy. The downstream side of gp130 consists of two distinct pathways in cardiac myocytes, one a Janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK/STAT) pathway, the other a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. In the present study, we examined whether the JAK/STAT pathway, especially the STAT3-mediated pathway, plays a critical role in gp130-dependent myocardial hypertrophy by transfecting wild-type and mutated-type STAT3 cDNA to cardiac myocytes. METHODS AND RESULTS We constructed three kinds of replication-defective adenovirus vectors carrying wild-type (AD/WT) or mutated-type (AD/DN) STAT3 cDNA or adenovirus vector itself (AD). Cultured murine cardiac myocytes infected with adenovirus were stimulated with leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), and the expression of c-fos and atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) mRNAs and [3H]leucine incorporation were examined. There were no significant differences in MAPK activity among the three groups. Compared with AD-transfected cardiac myocytes, induction of c-fos and ANF mRNAs and protein synthesis after LIF stimulation were significantly augmented in AD/WT-transfected cells. In contrast, induction of c-fos and ANF mRNA expression and protein synthesis were attenuated after LIF stimulation in cardiac myocytes transfected with AD/DN. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that the STAT3-dependent signaling pathway downstream of gp 130 promotes cardiac myocyte hypertrophy under stimulation with LIF.
A Run-Time Type-Checking Debugger for C

This document outlines progress to date on the run-time type-checking project funded in part by IBM. The project has been carried out during the last year by Alexey Loginov and Suan Yong, under the supervision of Professors Susan Horwitz and Thomas Reps. The goal of the project is the design and implementation of a debugging tool based on dynamic type checking. The major accomplishment during the last year has been an implementation of the tool for the (complete) ANSI C language. The tool instruments a program to monitor the type stored in each memory location (which may differ from the static type of that location due to the use of unions, pointers, and casting). Whenever a value is written into a location, the location’s run-time type tag is updated to match the type of the value. Also, the location’s static type is compared with the value’s type; if there is a mismatch, a warning message is issued. Whenever the value in a location is used, its run-time type tag is checked, and if the type is inappropriate in the context in which the value is being used, an error message is issued. In preliminary tests, the tool has been used to find bugs in several Solaris utilities. The information provided by the tool is usually succinct and precise in showing the error location. The following activities (discussed in more detail below) are planned for the coming year:
Secure Beamforming for Multiple-Antenna Amplify-and-Forward Relay Networks

In this paper, we investigate the secure relay beamforming problems for the amplify-and-forward (AF) relay network, where the transmitter sends the information to the receiver with the help of a multiple-antenna relay in the presence of an eavesdropper. We first study the secrecy rate maximization (SRM) problem in the case of complete channel state information (CSI). The rank-1 relay beamformer, which has been solved in our previous work in “Secure relay beamforming with imperfect channel side information,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol. , vol. 62, no. 5, pp. 2140-2155, June 2013, is rigorously proved to be globally optimal. Then, we turn to the case of partial eavesdropper's CSI (ECSI), where the uncertainty of ECSI is characterized as a bounded region, and study the worst-case secrecy rate maximization (WCSRM) problem. Different from the common spherical uncertainty region, the uncertainty region adopted in our paper imposes independent constraints on the channel gain and direction. With the proposed uncertainty region, we give an in-depth analysis of the WCSRM problem. We solve the rank-1 relay beamformer in an explicit form and move a step further by establishing the sufficient conditions for the global optimality of the rank-1 solution. Besides, the rank-2 relay beamformer with a special singular value decomposition (SVD) structure is also considered. By reducing the optimization variables into single variable, we show that the proposed rank-2 solution can be solved by simple line search. The asymptotic optimality of the proposed rank-2 relay beamformer in the high relay power region is also proved under mild conditions. Finally, numerical results are presented to verify the analysis in the paper.
Lunar subsurface investigated from correlation of seismic noise

By correlating seismic noise recorded by four sensors placed on the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission, we have retrieved a well-defined dispersed Rayleigh wave pulse. Inversion of its group velocity provides new constraints on the lunar subsurface structure. The estimated ”signal-to-noise” ratio (SNR) of the retrieved Rayleigh wavetrain is strongly dependent on solar illumination, effectively making solar heating a source of seismic noise on the Moon. This result suggests that in future planetary missions it is feasible to extract information on the internal structure of extraterrestrial objects by correlating seismic noise even when natural quakes are absent.
Does the mixing length parameter depend on metallicity? - Further tests of evolutionary sequences using homogeneous databases

This paper is a further step in the investigation of the morphology of the color-magnitude diagram of Galactic globular clusters, and the fine-tuning of theoretical models, made possible by the recent observational efforts to build homogeneous photometric databases. In particular, we examine here the calibration of the morphological parameter W HB vs. metallicity, originally proposed by Brocato et al. ([CITE]; B98), which essentially measures the color position of the red-giant branch. We show that the parameter can be used to have a first-order estimate of the cluster metallicity, since the dispersion around the mean trend with [Fe/H] is compatible with the measurement errors. The tight W HB -[Fe/H] relation is then used to show that variations in helium content or age do not affect the parameter, whereas it is strongly influenced by the mixing-length parameter α (as expected). This fact allows us, for the first time, to state that there is no trend of α with the metal content of a cluster. A thorough examination of the interrelated questions of the α -elements enhancement and the color- T eff transformations, highlights that there is an urgent need for an independent assessment of which of the two presently accepted metallicity scales is the true indicator of a cluster's iron content. Whatever scenario is adopted, it also appears that a deep revision of the $V-I$-temperature relations is needed.
Gliomas Based on Oligonucleotide Microarray Analysis Distinctive Molecular Profiles of High-Grade and Low-Grade Updated

Astrocytomas are heterogeneous intracranial glial neoplasms ranging from the highly aggressive malignant glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) to the indolent, low-grade pilocytic astrocytoma. We have investigated whether DNA microarrays can identify gene expression differences between highgrade and low-grade glial tumors. We compared the transcriptional profile of 45 astrocytic tumors including 21 GBMs and 19 pilocytic astrocytomas using oligonucleotide-based microarrays. Of the 6800 genes that were analyzed, a set of 360 genes provided a molecular signature that distinguished between GBMs and pilocytic astrocytomas. Many transcripts that were increased in GBM were not previously associated with gliomas and were found to encode proteins with properties that suggest their involvement in cell proliferation or cell migration. Microarray-based data for a subset of genes was validated using real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. Immunohistochemical analysis also localized the protein products of specific genes of interest to the neoplastic cells of high-grade astrocytomas. Our study has identified a large number of novel genes with distinct expression patterns in high-grade and low-grade gliomas.
Methods and Metrics for Evaluating Analytic Insider Threat Tools

The insider threat is a prime security concern for government and industry organizations. As insider threat programs come into operational practice, there is a continuing need to assess the effectiveness of tools, methods, and data sources, which enables continual process improvement. This is particularly challenging in operational environments, where the actual number of malicious insiders in a study sample is not known. The present paper addresses the design of evaluation strategies and associated measures of effectiveness; several quantitative/statistical significance test approaches are described with examples, and a new measure, the Enrichment Ratio, is proposed and described as a means of assessing the impact of proposed tools on the organization's operations.
Information bottleneck based speaker diarization of meetings using non-speech as side information

Background noise and errors in speech/non-speech detection cause significant degradation to the output of a speaker diarization system. In a typical speaker diarization system, non-speech segments are excluded prior to unsupervised clustering. In the current study, we exploit the information present in the non-speech segments of a recording to improve the output of the speaker diarization system based on information bottleneck framework. This is achieved by providing information from non-speech segments as side (irrelevant) information to information bottleneck based clustering. Experiments on meeting recordings from RT 06, 07, 09, evaluation sets have shown that the proposed method decreases the diarization error rate by around 18% relative to the baseline speaker diarization system based on information bottleneck framework. Comparison with a state of the art system based on HMM/GMM framework shows that the proposed method significantly decreases the gap in performance between the information bottleneck system and HMM/GMM system.
Thermodynamics of Fcc Al Crystal from First Principles | Performance of Local Density and Generalized Gradient Approximations

Phonon dispersion relations in fcc Al crystal were calculated from flrst principles using density functional perturbation theory, as implemented in ABINIT code. The results are compared with experimental data as well as with the results of previously done ab initio calculations based on the direct method. A slightly better agreement of density functional perturbation theory phonons with experiment can be observed. The ab initio phonon energies were used to evaluate the partition function of the crystal, using the Monkhorst{Pack integration scheme. The quasiharmonic approximation was applied to relate the temperature dependent part of the free energy to volume. The lattice constant dependence of phonon energies was found to be almost linear, so the second order polynomial was considered as su‐cient to approximate the dependence. A few examples of thermodynamic characteristics were evaluated: isobaric speciflc heat, linear thermal expansion coe‐cient, isothermal bulk modulus, and compared with the experimental data. The calculation was done both in the local density and the generalized gradient approximations for the exchange-correlation energy. The agreement with the experimental data appears to be very satisfactory, although better in the local density approximation than in the generalized gradient approximation.