Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SFIO a striped file I/O library for MPI

This paper presents the design and evaluation of a Striped File I/O (SFIO) library for parallel I/O within an MPI environment. We present techniques for optimizing communications and disk accesses for small striping factors. Using MPI derived datatype capabilities, we transmit fragmented data over the network by single MPI transfers. We present the I/O performance of the SFIO library on DEC Alpha clusters, both for the Fast Ethernet and for the TNET communication networks.
Revealing the new potential of an indandione unit for constructing efficient yellow thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters with short emissive lifetimes

Simultaneously accomplishing a high efficiency and a slow efficiency roll-off at practical luminance levels remains challenging for thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this study, for the first time, we reveal the new potential of an indandione unit featuring double carbonyl moieties, which is widely used in organic solar cells, as an electron-accepting core for constructing efficient TADF emitters. As a proof of concept, two TADF emitters, 5PXZ-PIDO and 5,6PXZ-PIDO, are developed by connecting an indandione (IDO) core with electron-donating phenoxazine (PXZ) units via phenylene π-bridges. Impressively, both emitters exhibit a distinct TADF nature with short DF lifetimes of ∼2 μs, and display relatively high photoluminescence quantum yields (ΦPLs) of over 70%. More importantly, a yellow OLED based on 5,6PXZ-PIDO achieves a high external quantum efficiency of 14.2% and an ultra-slow efficiency roll-off of 16.0% at a practical luminance of 1000 cd m−2, which is outstanding among previously reported carbonyl-based TADF emitters. This finding unlocks the huge potential of indandione-based molecules as TADF emitters for high-performance OLEDs.
A Finite Element Model of a MEMS-based Surface Acoustic Wave Hydrogen Sensor

Hydrogen plays a significant role in various industrial applications, but careful handling and continuous monitoring are crucial since it is explosive when mixed with air. Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) sensors provide desirable characteristics for hydrogen detection due to their small size, low fabrication cost, ease of integration and high sensitivity. In this paper a finite element model of a Surface Acoustic Wave sensor is developed using ANSYS12© and tested for hydrogen detection. The sensor consists of a YZ-lithium niobate substrate with interdigital electrodes (IDT) patterned on the surface. A thin palladium (Pd) film is added on the surface of the sensor due to its high affinity for hydrogen. With increased hydrogen absorption the palladium hydride structure undergoes a phase change due to the formation of the β-phase, which deteriorates the crystal structure. Therefore with increasing hydrogen concentration the stiffness and the density are significantly reduced. The values of the modulus of elasticity and the density at different hydrogen concentrations in palladium are utilized in the finite element model to determine the corresponding SAW sensor response. Results indicate that with increasing the hydrogen concentration the wave velocity decreases and the attenuation of the wave is reduced.
Acute respiratory distress syndrome: A clinical review

The acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a complex disorder of heterogeneous etiologies characterized by a consistent, recognizable pattern of lung injury. Extensive epidemiologic studies and clinical intervention trials have been conducted to address the high mortality of this disorder and have provided significant insight into the complexity of studying new therapies for this condition. The existing clinical investigations in ARDS will be highlighted in this review. The limitations to current definitions, patient selection, and outcome assessment will be considered. While significant attention has been focused on the parenchymal injury that characterizes this disorder and the clinical support of gas exchange function, relatively limited focus has been directed to hemodynamic and pulmonary vascular dysfunction equally prominent in the disease. The limited available clinical information in this area will also be reviewed. The current standards for cardiopulmonary management of the condition will be outlined. Current gaps in our understanding of the clinical condition will be highlighted with the expectation that continued progress will contribute to a decline in disease mortality.
The development of a highly stretchable, durable, and printable textile electrode

In textile and wearable electronics, the demand for a stretchable, durable, and easily manufacturable electrode is ever increasing. This paper describes the development of a highly stretchable and durable textile electrode fabricated by simple stencil and screen printing methods. It specifically investigated the effects of an interface layer as a planarization layer between the conductive electrode and the textile on the durability of the textile electrode. A stretchable conductive paste was synthesized by mixing Ag flake powder in polyester. The conductive electrode was encapsulated with Ecoflex material. The stretchability and durability of the textile electrodes were evaluated via stretching, bending, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) folding, twisting, and dynamic endurance tests. The stretching and MIT folding tests indicated that the interface layer significantly enhanced the durability of the textile electrode. A highly stretchable and flexible textile electrode exhibited a low sheet resistance of 0.05 Ω/square, excellent stretchability of 70%, and a critical bending radius of 1.5 mm. The textile electrodes also withstood dynamic stretching and bending endurance tests of 10,000 cycles. The illumination of a light-emitting diode with the conductive electrode was also stable under 70% tensile strain and in water. The potential application of the textile electrode as a strain sensor was demonstrated by applying it to a glove to detect finger motion. The strain sensors responded well to the finger motion, with considerable stability and repeatability.
Synthesis and characterisation of Al2O3/Ni-type composites obtained by spark plasma sintering

This paper presents the influence of sintering on the structure, morphology and compressing strength of alumina/nickel composite compacts obtained by spark plasma sintering (SPS). Al2O3/Ni composites were prepared by SPS in argon atmosphere at temperatures in the range of 1000–1200 –C with a holding time of 2, 5 and 10 minutes. The heating rate was 200 C min−1. These composites have been characterised by X-ray diffraction, SEM and EDX. The relative density and compressive strength of the as-obtained compacts were determined. The results showed that the alumina particles are uniformly dispersed in a quasi-continuous Ni network, and there was no sign of phase changes during sintering. The maximum strength of the alumina/nickel composite with a content of 75 vol. − Al2O3 and 25 vol. − Ni was about 240 MPa for the samples sintered at 1200 C for 10 minutes. Special block from the conference RoPM2017 guest edited by Ionel Chicinas, Technical University, Cluj-Napoca.
X-ray background synthesis: the infrared connection

We present a synthesis model of the X-ray background based on the cross-correlation between mid-infrared and X-ray surveys, where the distribution of type 2 sources is assumed to follow that of luminous infrared galaxies while type 1 sources are traced by the observed ROSAT distribution. The best flts to both the X-ray number counts and background spectrum require at least some density evolution. We explore a limited range of parameter space for the evolutionary variables of the type 2 luminosity function. Matching the redshift distribution to that observed in deep Chandra and XMM-Newton flelds, we flnd weak residuals as a signature of Fe emission from sources in a relatively peaked range of redshift. This extends the recent work of Franceschini et al., and emphasizes the possible correlation between obscured AGN and star-forming activity.
Adaptive traffic monitoring for software dataplanes

Network operators have recently been developing multi-Gbps traffic monitoring tools that execute on commodity hardware and are part of the packet-processing pipelines realizing software dataplanes. These solutions allow sophisticated tasks to be performed on a per-packet basis, without relying on sampling or passive trace analysis, by leveraging the processing power available on servers. Although advances in packet capture have enabled intercepting packets from network cards at high rates, bottlenecks can still arise in the monitoring process as a result of concurrent access to shared processor resources, variations of the traffic skew, and unbalanced packet-rate spikes. In this paper we present an adaptive traffic monitoring approach that copes with emerging bottlenecks by timely detecting changes in the operational conditions and reconfiguring monitoring-related operations for subsets of traffic flows. Our solution performs responsive adaptations at the time scale of milliseconds and does not require a significant amount of resources. To demonstrate the capabilities of our approach we implemented it as part of a generic packet-processing pipeline and show that lossless traffic monitoring can be achieved for a wide range of conditions.
A Receptor-Like Inositol Lipid Phosphatase Is Required for the Maturation of Developing Cochlear Hair Bundles

A screen for protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) expressed in the chick inner ear yielded a high proportion of clones encoding an avian ortholog of protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor Q (Ptprq), a receptor-like PTP. Ptprq was first identified as a transcript upregulated in rat kidney in response to glomerular nephritis and has recently been shown to be active against inositol phospholipids. An antibody to the intracellular domain of Ptprq, anti-Ptprq, stains hair bundles in mice and chicks. In the chick ear, the distribution of Ptprq is almost identical to that of the 275 kDa hair-cell antigen (HCA), a component of hair-bundle shaft connectors recognized by a monoclonal antibody (mAb) that stains inner-ear hair bundles and kidney glomeruli. Furthermore, anti-Ptprq immunoblots a 275 kDa polypeptide immunoprecipitated by the anti-HCA mAb from the avian inner ear, indicating that the HCA and Ptprq are likely to be the same molecule. In two transgenic mouse strains with different mutations in Ptprq, anti-Ptprq immunoreactivity cannot be detected in the ear. Shaft connectors are absent from mutant vestibular hair bundles, but the stereocilia forming the hair bundle are not splayed, indicating that shaft connectors are not necessary to hold the stereocilia together; however, the mice show rapid postnatal deterioration in cochlear hair-bundle structure, associated with smaller than normal transducer currents with otherwise normal adaptation properties, a progressive loss of basal-coil cochlear hair cells, and deafness. These results reveal that Ptprq is required for formation of the shaft connectors of the hair bundle, the normal maturation of cochlear hair bundles, and the long-term survival of high-frequency auditory hair cells.
Endogenous adenosine modulates stimulation‐induced depression at the frog neuromuscular junction.

1. Endogenous adenosine, which is produced by enzymatic degradation of ATP released from synaptic vesicles, has been shown to be a potent inhibitor of acetylcholine release from motor nerve terminals. It has been proposed that this auto‐inhibition mechanism might contribute significantly to tetanic stimulation‐induced depression. 2. Levels of facilitation and depression during a 20 Hz stimulus train differ greatly in different terminals, but are strongly and non‐linearly correlated with the terminal's release characteristics (the amount of transmitter released per unit terminal length, or ‘release efficacy’). There is a weaker, approximately linear, correlation between depression and release efficacy at 2 Hz stimulation. 3. The effects of both endogenous and exogenously applied adenosine are also highly variable for different nerve terminals. We have shown that much of this variability can be attributed to the release efficacy of each terminal in the case of endogenous effects, and to the size of the nerve terminal in the case of exogenously applied adenosine receptor agonists. 4. When nerve terminals are pooled according to their individual release characteristics, endogenous adenosine can be shown to contribute significantly to stimulation‐induced depression of release primarily in terminals that release enough transmitter to generate significant levels of adenosine, but do not release so much transmitter that depletion of releasable quanta is severe.
Supporting Information Needs by Ostensive Definition in an Adaptive Information Space

In this report I describe those characteristics of information needs that I consider to be the most important for their effective modelling in Information Retrieval (IR). Using these characteristics as terms of reference, I highlight inadequacies of current IR approaches. I propose a new approach that is not only a hybrid of positive aspects of the existing approaches, but that also embodies a significant and novel addition - the ostensive definition of developing information needs. The new approach displays interesting properties - eg the contextual interpretation of information items. I describe these properties and explain why I feel it makes a more appropriate model for the provision of an environment in which to perform searching tasks. I believe that it will facilitate less formal, more spontaneous access to stored information, and that it will reduce the difference in degrees of effectiveness attained by users of varied experience. It has important media, language, and domain independence characteristics that make it particularly suitable for the next generation of information systems. The approach, centred around a graphical interaction environment, brings with it new, possibly unique, problems in visualisation - challenging one of the accepted assumptions of information spaces.
A predictive motion planner for guidance of autonomous UAV systems

This paper investigates Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems motion planning for ground attack missions involving enemy defenses. The UAV dynamics are modeled as a unicycle, linearized using dynamic extension and expanded over a finite prediction horizon as a piece-wise affine function. The motion planning problem is then formulated as a constrained, convex minimization in the form of Linear Quadratic Model Predictive Control (LQMPC). Avoidance of enemy defenses is achieved using linear inequality constraints. The design is tested in a simulated ground attack mission involving a layered enemy defense system using MATLAB. Preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility of using LQMPC to guide a UAV in ground attack missions involving complex enemy defenses.
Near-Ultraviolet Observations of HD 221170: New Insights into the Nature of r-Process-rich Stars

Employing high-resolution spectra obtained with the near-UV-sensitive detector on the Keck I HIRES, supplemented by data obtained with the McDonald Observatory 2d-coudé, we have performed a comprehensive chemical composition analysis of the bright r-process-rich metal-poor red giant star HD 221170. Analysis of 57 individual neutral and ionized species yielded abundances for a total of 46 elements and significant upper limits for an additional five. Model stellar atmosphere parameters were derived with the aid of ~200 Fe peak transitions. From more than 350 transitions of 35 neutron-capture (Z > 30) species, abundances for 30 neutron-capture elements and upper limits for three others were derived. Utilizing 36 transitions of La, 16 of Eu, and seven of Th, we derive ratios of log ϵ(Th/La) = -0.73 (σ = 0.06) and log ϵ(Th/Eu) = -0.60 (σ = 0.05), values in excellent agreement with those previously derived for other r-process-rich metal-poor stars such as CS 22892-052, BD +17 3248, and HD 115444. Based on the Th/Eu chronometer, the inferred age is 11.7 ± 2.8 Gyr. The abundance distribution of the heavier neutron-capture elements (Z ≥ 56) is fitted well by the predicted scaled solar system r-process abundances, as also seen in other r-process-rich stars. Unlike other r-process-rich stars, however, we find that the abundances of the lighter neutron-capture elements (37 < Z < 56) in HD 221170 are also in agreement with the abundances predicted for the scaled solar r-process pattern.
Fuzzy multi-objective sparse feature learning

Neural networks are currently popular learning models to represent and analyze data. We address two issues about that in this paper. On the one hand, the parameters between neurons are often restricted to be constants, which greatly limits the learning ability and reduces the robustness of the neural network. For that, it is necessary to make the parameters fuzzy. In this paper, we introduce the fuzzy set theory to neural networks where the parameters are expressed by fuzzy numbers. Meanwhile, the loss term and sparsity of the network become fuzzy. On the other hand, a user-defined weighting parameter need to be determined to keep the trade-off between the fuzzy loss term and fuzzy sparsity. In order to solve the two issues simultaneously, the main contribution of this paper is to combine fuzzy set theory with multi-objective sparsity to apply to neural networks, for the first time, and propose a fuzzy multi-objective sparse feature learning (FMSFL) model, where a multi-objective optimization model is established, and reconstruction error and sparsity of fuzzy model are considered as two objectives. In the experiments, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our model, and both learning capability and robustness of the neural networks based on the proposed model are improved.
Forwarding, Splitting, and Block Ordering to Optimize BDD-based Bisimulation Computation

In this paper we present optimizations for a BDD-based algorithm for the computation of several types of bisimulations which play an important role for minimisation of large systems thus enabling their verification. The basic principle of the algorithm is partition refinement. Our proposed optimizations take this refinement-structure as well as the usage of BDDs for the representation of the system into account: (1) block forwarding updates in-situ newly refined blocks of the partition, (2) split-driven refinement approximates the blocks that may be refined, and (3) block ordering heuristically suggests a good order in which the blocks will be refined. We provide substantial experimental results on examples from different applications and compare them to alternative approaches. The experiments clearly show that the proposed optimization techniques result in a significant performance speed-up compared to the basic algorithm as well as to alternative approaches.
High-Affinity Accumulation of a Maytansinoid in Cells via Weak Tubulin Interaction

The microtubule-targeting maytansinoids accumulate in cells and induce mitotic arrest at 250- to 1000-fold lower concentrations than those required for their association with tubulin or microtubules. To identify the mechanisms of this intracellular accumulation and exceptional cytotoxicity of maytansinoids we studied interaction of a highly cytotoxic maytansinoid, S-methyl DM1 and several other maytansinoids with cells. S-methyl DM1 accumulated inside the cells with a markedly higher apparent affinity than to tubulin or microtubules. The apparent affinities of maytansinoids correlated with their cytotoxicities. The number of intracellular binding sites for S-methyl DM1 in MCF7 cells was comparable to the number of tubulin molecules per cell (~ 4–6 × 107 copies). Efflux of 3 [H]-S-methyl DM1 from cells was enhanced in the presence of an excess of non-labeled S-methyl DM1, indicating that re-binding of 3 [H]-S-methyl DM1 to intracellular binding sites contributed to its intracellular retention. Liposomes loaded with non-polymerized tubulin recapitulated the apparent high-affinity association of S-methyl DM1 to cells. We propose a model for the intracellular accumulation of maytansinoids in which molecules of the compounds diffuse into a cell and associate with tubulin. Affinities of maytansinoids for individual tubulin molecules are weak, but the high intracellular concentration of tubulin favors, after dissociation of a compound-tubulin complex, their re-binding to a tubulin molecule, or to a tip of a microtubule in the same cell, over their efflux. As a result, a significant fraction of microtubule tips is occupied with a maytansinoid when added to cells at sub-nanomolar concentrations, inducing mitotic arrest and cell death.
LDPC Decoder Message Formatting Based on Activity Factor Minimization Using Differential Density Evolution

The power consumption of digital implementations of low-density parity-check decoders is studied using a density evolution approach which allows the capture of the switching statistics of the messages through the code communications network. Messages are crafted specifically to reduce the switching activity during a decoding cycle, which forms the major cause of power consumption. Low-power message formats are designed, particularly differential signaling with various bit sizes. The performance and potential of these novel message formats are evaluated and compared to hardware measurements and simulations. It is shown that the power consumption of an LDPC decoder can be as low as a few tens of pico joules per decoded information bit, even with standard state-of-the art silicon technology.
Evaluation of a novel biologically inspired trajectory generator in human-robot interaction

In many future joint-action scenarios, humans and robots will have to interact physically in order to cooperate successfully. Ideally, human-robot interaction should not require training on the human side, but should be intuitive and simple. Previously, we reported on a simple case of physical human-robot interaction, a hand-over task [1]. Even such a basic task as manually handing over an object from one agent to another requires that both partners agree upon certain basic prerequisites and boundary conditions. While some of them are negotiated explicitly, e.g. by verbal communication, others are determined indirectly and adaptively in the course of the cooperation. In the previous study we compared a human-human hand-over interaction with the same task performed by a human and a robot. However, the trajectories used for the robot, a conventional trapezoidal velocity profile in joint coordinates and a minimum-jerk profile of the end-effector, have little resemblance to the natural movements of humans. In this study we introduce a novel trajectory generator that is a variation of the traditional minimum-jerk profile, the ‘decoupled minimum-jerk’ profile. Its trajectory is much closer to those observed in human-human experiments. We evaluated its performance concerning human comfort and acceptance in a simple hand-over experiment by using a post-test questionnaire. The evaluation of the questionnaire revealed no difference with respect to comfort, human-likeness, or subjective safety of the new planner compared to the minimum-jerk profile. Thus, the ‘decoupled minimum-jerk’ planner, which offers important advantages with respect to target approach, proved to be a promising alternative to the previously used minimum-jerk profile.