Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance Optimization for Sparse AtAx in Parallel on Multicore CPU

The sparse matrix operation, y ← y+AtAx, where A is a sparse matrix and x and y are dense vectors, is a widely used computing pattern in High Performance Computing (HPC) applications. The pattern poses challenge to efficient solutions because both a matrix and its transposed version are involved. An efficient sparse matrix format, Compressed Sparse Blocks (CSB), has been proposed to provide nearly the same performance for both Ax and Atx. We develop a multithreaded implementation for the CSB format and apply it to solve y←y+AtAx. Experiments show that our technique outperforms the Compressed Sparse Row (CSR) based solution in POSKI by up to 2.5 fold on over 70% of benchmarking matrices. key words: sparse AtAx, compressed sparse block, compressed sparse rows, multicore platform
A reinforcement learning approach for dynamic selection of virtual machines in cloud data centres

In recent years Machine Learning techniques have proven to reduce energy consumption when applied to cloud computing systems. Reinforcement Learning provides a promising solution for the reduction of energy consumption, while maintaining a high quality of service for customers. We present a novel single agent Reinforcement Learning approach for the selection of virtual machines, creating a new energy efficiency practice for data centres. Our dynamic Reinforcement Learning virtual machine selection policy learns to choose the optimal virtual machine to migrate from an over-utilised host. Our experiment results show that a learning agent has the abilities to reduce energy consumption and decrease the number of migrations when compared to a state-of-the-art approach.
Inbreeding reveals mode of past selection on male reproductive characters in Drosophila melanogaster

Directional dominance is a prerequisite of inbreeding depression. Directionality arises when selection drives alleles that increase fitness to fixation and eliminates dominant deleterious alleles, while deleterious recessives are hidden from it and maintained at low frequencies. Traits under directional selection (i.e., fitness traits) are expected to show directional dominance and therefore an increased susceptibility to inbreeding depression. In contrast, traits under stabilizing selection or weakly linked to fitness are predicted to exhibit little-to-no inbreeding depression. Here, we quantify the extent of inbreeding depression in a range of male reproductive characters and then infer the mode of past selection on them. The use of transgenic populations of Drosophila melanogaster with red or green fluorescent-tagged sperm heads permitted in vivo discrimination of sperm from competing males and quantification of characteristics of ejaculate composition, performance, and fate. We found that male attractiveness (mating latency) and competitive fertilization success (P2) both show some inbreeding depression, suggesting they may have been under directional selection, whereas sperm length showed no inbreeding depression suggesting a history of stabilizing selection. However, despite having measured several sperm quality and quantity traits, our data did not allow us to discern the mechanism underlying the lowered competitive fertilization success of inbred (f = 0.50) males.
In-Cloud Malware Analysis and Detection: State of the Art

With the advent of Internet of Things, we are facing another wave of malware attacks, that encompass intelligent embedded devices. Because of the limited energy resources, running a complete malware detector on these devices is quite challenging. There is a need to devise new techniques to detect malware on these devices. Malware detection is one of the services that can be provided as an in-cloud service. This paper reviews current such systems, discusses there pros and cons, and recommends an improved in-cloud malware analysis and detection system. We introduce a new three layered hybrid system with a lightweight antimalware engine. These features can provide faster malware detection response time, shield the client from malware and reduce the bandwidth between the client and the cloud, compared to other such systems. The paper serves as a motivation for improving the current and developing new techniques for in-cloud malware analysis and detection system.
Motivation and Learner Characteristics Affecting Online Learning and Learning Application

Many studies have been conducted to verify the effect of learner characteristics and motivation in traditional classroom, but very few are found in online learning research. This study sought to identify what learner characteristics and motivation types affected a group of undergraduate students' learning and application of learning for a course conducted online. Utilizing quantitative and qualitative analyses, the study found that gender and employment status affected online learners' learning and learning application. Several motivation variables were also found to significantly influence online learners' learning application. Discussions of instructional strategies to promote learner motivation and satisfaction in online learning environment were included.
The commodification of knowledge about knowledge: Knowledge management and the reification of epistemology

No sooner had some sociologists, philosophers and social theorists declared that context is constitutive of knowledge than it seems that pithy variations on the theme are beginning to show up as marketable commodities. The contextual turn in the philosophy of knowledge has taken several divergent and con icting forms, ranging from individual-subjective to relational-situational and through to broadly socialinstitutional models of knowing and the known. However, as will no doubt be familiar to readers of this journal, these different models all share an opposition to the ‘traditional’ view of knowledge as a set of disembodied, neutral, rei ed facts about the world. Those inclined to participate in the furore over ‘information societies’ and ‘knowledge economies’ have, with great patience, laid out the case that these proclamations rest on precisely such a misleading and out-dated view of knowledge and attempted to inject notions of meaning, interpretation and social context into the debate. Knowledge, they argue, must be understood in relation to knowers, whether construed in individual (‘the knowing subject’) or collective terms (‘epistemic cultures’; ‘knowledge systems’). It is therefore surely ironic to  nd the socialization of theories of knowledge being faced with its own rei cation in the form of veritable social epistemological principles developed and sold in the market for management consulting. The papers in this special issue address different aspects of this phenomenon—Knowledge Management (KM)—the background and key elements of which are laid out in our introduction. In the wake of concepts such as ‘Mode 2 knowledge’ (Gibbons et al., 1994), ‘Triple Helix of academic-government-industry partnerships’ (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1997) and Post Academic Science (Ziman, 1996), there has been an upsurge in the scholarly focus on the institutional aspects of knowledge production (e.g. Jacob and Hellström, 2000). In a recent special issue of this journal entitled ‘Sites of Knowledge
The Impacts of State Control Policies on College Tuition Increase

This study examined state efforts to control tuition increases over the past 10 years. Using data from 50 states and 540 public 4-year universities and colleges, we examined average tuition increases in dollar amount and percentage of change by the type of state tuition control policy and by the authority for tuition-setting power. The state policy efforts considered for this study include setting tuition caps, providing incentives, and linking tuition policy to financial aid policy. Findings revealed that two state policies (i.e., linking tuition to financial aid and providing incentives to limit the tuition increase) are effective in controlling tuition. Tuition was more likely to increase when individual institutions have tuition-setting authority. This study also reveals that a state’s tuition cap policy can adversely affect tuition control.
Strengthening Class1 Gen2 RFID tags

Refresh techniques can greatly enhance security and privacy of Class-1 Generation-2 RFID tags (Gen2 tags), without requiring any cryptographic capabilities from the tags. We propose a refresh-based RFID system and define a notion of privacy for the system. Privacy analysis investigates a novel security property of public-key encryption schemes, which plays the fundamental role to satisfy the defined privacy requirement. While conventional refresh-based solutions only help enhance privacy, the proposed solution also provides the limited authentication.
Elevated Concentrations of Eotaxin and Interleukin-5 in Human Neurocysticercosis

ABSTRACT Symptomatic neurocysticercosis, a major cause of epilepsy worldwide, results from inflammation around Taenia soliumlarvae, but the mechanisms are unknown. Eotaxin, not previously reported in cases of human infection, and interleukin-5 (IL-5) but not IL-8 concentrations were elevated in patient serum, and IL-5 levels were also elevated in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Eosinophil-selective mediators may be involved in the pathogenesis of cysticercosis. IL-6 concentrations were also elevated in patient CSF, possibly indicative of an acute-phase response.
Particle filter for joint estimation of multi-object dynamic state and multi-sensor bias

The paper formulates the problem of sequential Bayesian estimation of a compound state consisting of a multi-object dynamic state and a multi-sensor bias. The compound state is modelled by a doubly stochastic point process, where the multi-object bias is a parent, whereas the multi-object state is the offspring point process. The prediction and the update steps for the first-order moment of the posterior density of the doubly-stochastic point process can be expressed analytically. The implementation, however, in general has to be done numerically. The paper presents a particle filter implementation illustrated in the context of multi-target tracking using range-azimuth measuring sensors with unknown biases.
Sensitivity of the LMD General Circulation Model to Greenhouse Forcing Associated with Two Different Cloud Water Parameterizations

Abstract The atmospheric general circulation model of the Laboratoire de Meteorologic Dynamique is coupled to a slab ocean model and is used to investigate the climatic impact of a C02 doubling. Two versions of the model are used with two different representations of the cloud-radiation interaction. Both of them contain a prognostic equation for the cloud liquid water content, but they differ in the treatment of the precipitation mechanism. The annual and global mean of the surface warming is similar in the two experiments in spite of regional differences. To understand the behavior of the model versions, the total climate change is split into a direct C02 forcing and different feedback effects (water vapor. cloud, and surface albedo). The results show that, in the second model version, the cloud feedback decreases significantly, especially at high latitudes, due to an increase of low-level clouds in the 2×C02 simulation. The modification of the cloud scheme influences also the water vapor variation and t.
A New Readability Formula for Primary-Grade Reading Materials

IN RECENT YEARS there has been considerable interest in, and use of, formulas for judging the reading difficulty of printed materials. Most of this interest has dated from the offering in 1943 of the original Flesch formula (4). This formula and the later studies of Dale and Chall (3) have been used extensively in the evaluation of industrial communications, books, magazines, and government publications. A recent summary of articles and books dealing with readability studies lists over ninety-six publications on this topic in 1943-50 (5). An examination of these formulas and studies reveals that the interest has been focused largely on the evaluation of materials written for adults. None of the three leading formulasthe Flesch (4), the Lorge (7), or the Dale-Chall (3)-is applicable to materials written for individuals reading on levels below Grade IV. Other formulas, such as the Lewerenz (6) or Wilkinson (9) are available for evaluating primary materials, but, in the author's opinion, these are lengthy and cumbersome. Because of the obvious values in having objective measures of reading difficulty, the author and his co-workers have attempted to devise a formula that would be useful with primary-grade reading materials. There are a number of elements which may be used to estimate reading difficulty. Among these are word length, sentence length, and per cent of personal words or personal sentences. In addition, the number of syllables, the number of affixes or of prepositional phrases, and the proportion of difficult words mentioned in various word lists have been used. Dale and Chall have reviewed the relation of these various elements to reading difficulty. They find that the best prediction of reading difficulty is obtained from the number of difficult words (those outside a list of 3,000 words known to 80 per cent of fourthgraders) and average sentence length. Two other elements of almost equal predictive value are the number of affixes and the number of words outside the Dale list of 769 words (2). This is a list of the words found both in the International Kindergarten Union list (1) and the first 1,000 words of Thorndike and Lorge's Teacher's Word Book (8). The author and his co-workers have
The Effects of Personality and Media Differences on the Performance of Dyads Addressing a Cognitive Conflict Task

Prior information systems research has found that numerous contextual factors, including individual differences, can influence which communication technologies are chosen for various situations. Because the adaptability of information and communication technologies to individual preferences and different environments is continuously improving, it has become increasingly feasible and important to investigate the relationships between individual characteristics (such as personality) and features of technology. In this study, the communication environment (face to face vs. synchronous computer mediated) and partners’ personality types (extraversion-introversion) in two-person groups were contrasted in a laboratory experiment. Dyads addressed a cognitive conflict task—allocation of limited funds to controversial social causes. Contrary to the hypotheses, introverts exerted influence over extraverts. As expected, extraverts were more satisfied with the process than introverts, and face-to-face dyads required less time, were more satisfied, and perceived less conflict than computer-mediated dyads. Given the ease with which some modern technologies can be melded to each individual’s preferences and that prior research has shown that individual differences influence the selection of technologies, these results have important implications for future information systems researchers and technology designers.
Top-down or Bottom-up Occupational Therapy Assessment: Which Way Do We Go?

Trombly (1993) advised occupational therapists to use top-down assessments that focus on critical roles as well as occupational performance issues, which include the ability to engage in activities of daily living, education, work, play, leisure and social participation. Hocking (2001) further provided a hierarchical conceptualisation of occupation as a guide for top-down occupational therapy assessment. In Hocking’s (2001) view, top-down occupational therapy assessments are conceptualised as a hierarchy that consists of the meaning of occupation and its importance to creating and maintaining an individual’s occupational identity at the top; the function or purpose of the occupation in the individual’s life; the form that those occupations take; and, lastly, the occupational performance components. From this hierarchical perspective, occupational therapists need first to understand clients as occupational beings, with the client’s unique occupational identity or meaning. The purpose of the client’s occupation and its contribution to his or her own and others’ lifestyles should then be identified. The observable characteristics of the occupations that are problematic need to be addressed subsequently. Finally, the individual’s performance components or skills may be assessed if the cause of his or her occupational dysfunction is not evident and needs to be clarified (Tam et al 2008). Since therapists can adopt a bottom-up, a top-down or a mixed directional approach to clients’ assessment, it is important to be cognisant of both assessment approaches and the implications associated with each. Occupational therapists should decide which assessment direction is the most appropriate so as to ensure the provision of high quality, client-centred services.
How to Model a Customized Visualization

Modelling a customized view is a daunting task that takes into account several parameters, the most important being the user profile. In this paper we study many facets of modelisation and the issues that must be taken into account. We propose an approach in four steps to model a personalised visualization: extract data, guess user's needs and preferences, generate a visualization and finally improve it by user evaluation. It has been applied to the context of weather information in Canada.
Longitudinal Relationships between Reproductive Hormones and Cognitive Decline in Older Men: The Concord Health and Ageing in Men Project.

CONTEXT The longitudinal relationship between declining levels of reproductive hormones and cognitive function remains unclear in older men. OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to examine the temporal relationship between changes in major reproductive hormone levels and cognitive decline over time. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Men age 70 years and older from the Concord Health and Ageing in Men Project (CHAMP) were assessed at baseline (2005-2007; n = 1705), 2-year followup (2007-2009; n = 1367), and 5-year followup (2010-2013; n = 958). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES At all assessments, T, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), estradiol (E2), and estrone (E1) were measured by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, and SHBG, LH, and FSH by immunoassay. Dementia was diagnosed at baseline by clinical assessment and review by a specialist panel. Cognitive function was measured at all three assessments by the Mini Mental State Examination. RESULTS None of the baseline reproductive hormones predicted cognitive decline in men without dementia over 5 years. However, the change in serum hormones over time was associated with cognitive decline. In univariate analysis, change in all the studied hormones, except for E2, was significantly associated with cognitive decline. However, in multivariate-adjusted models accounting for potential confounders, only change in serum T (β = 0.067), DHT (β = 0.394), calculated free T (β = 0.005), and E1 (β = 0.009) remained significantly associated (P < .05) with cognitive decline. Men who had dementia at baseline had significantly greater decline in serum T levels, but not in other studied hormones, over the 5 years. CONCLUSIONS Our findings show that decline in androgen status is associated with cognitive decline in older men, but the causality of this association requires further elucidation.
SHAPE , SURFACE PARAMETER , AND ATTITUDE PROFILE ESTIMATION USING A MULTIPLE HYPOTHESIS UNSCENTED KALMAN FILTER

Multiple hypothesis testing using an underlying Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) to estimate state parameters has been previously demonstrated where the state includes the attitude, angular rate, position, velocity, and surface parameters of the space object. This algorithm is extended to include multiple components, and multiple bandpasses. An example scenario is presented where the models are proxy geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites with different bus configurations (e.g. cylinder vs. rectangular prism) and in different controlled states (e.g. nadir-tracking vs. inertial).
Rethinking crop-disease management in fungus-growing ants

Ant fungus farming has become a prominent model for studying the evolution of mutualistic cooperation, with recent advances in reconstructing the evolutionary origin and elaborations of the symbiosis (1, 2), discovering additional partners and clarifying their interactions (3, 4), and analyzing host–symbiont conflict suppression (5). The attine ants are rivaled in their farming sophistication only by the Macrotermitinae, which evolved a similar obligate dependence on fungus gardens (6). The discovery of new antagonistic and mutualistic partners in the attine symbiosis has attracted wide attention, but the prevailing coevolutionary paradigm behind key components of this mutualism is now challenged by a study by Sen et al. in this issue of PNAS (7).
High quality 3D laser ranging under general vehicle motion

This paper describes an end-to-end system capable of generating high-quality 3D point clouds from the popular LMS200 laser on a continuously moving platform. We describe the hardware, data capture, calibration and data stream processing we have developed which yields remarkable detail in the generated point clouds of urban scenes. Given the increasing interest in outdoor 3D navigation and scene reconstruction by mobile platforms, our aim is to provide a level of hardware and algorithmic detail suitable for replication of our system by interested parties who do not wish to invest in dedicated 3D laser rangers.
SAR image denoising using total variation based regularization with sure-based optimization of the regularization parameter

Images obtained using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) are corrupted by speckle. Speckle noise results from the chaotic interference of backscattered electromagnetic waves and makes the analysis, interpretation and classification of SAR images difficult. In this paper, we present a denoising algorithm based on Total Variation (TV) regularization. While this kind of denoising algorithm is not new, we propose to select the regularization parameter by minimizing the estimate of the mean square error (MSE) between the denoised image and the clean image. We do not have to know the clean image because we use a statistically unbiased MSE estimate - Stein's Unbiased Risk Estimate (SURE), that depends on the observed image and the estimated image. However, since it is difficult to derive SURE analytically for this kind of problem, we estimate SURE using stochastic methods. We present results using both a simulated image and real SAR image.
The Influence of Facebook Usage on Perceptions of Social Support, Personal Efficacy, and Life Satisfaction

This research focused on: 1) The impact of Facebook usage on perceptions of social support, and 2) the relationship between Facebook usage, social support, and efficacy in predicting life satisfaction. Our findings showed that social support as perceived by Facebook users was significantly higher for face-toface friends, for three types of social support (emotional, informational, and instrumental). Also, the greater the number of hours spent on Facebook, the more social support was perceived from both face-toface and Facebook friends. Only goal efficacy and interpersonal control had a significant relationship with life satisfaction. Implications for organizational leaders are discussed. THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT AT WORK