Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Controlling the Size of Interior Core of Silicon Nanowires

As the physical and electrical properties of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are determined by their dimension, it is necessary to control their dimension to integrate them in a device. SiNWs were synthesized via Vapor-Liquid-Solid (VLS) mechanism in hot-wire chemical vapor process (HWCVP) technique using silane as a Si source and Sn as a catalyst. Different sizes of nano-template have been made by depositing of different amount of Sn using thermal evaporation method. The size of nano-template is found to be increased with the quantity of Sn. The diameter of resulted SiNWs depends on the size of the nano-template and it increases with the nano-template size. However, the diameter of SiNWs is found to be much larger than the used nano-template which is due to the deposition of silicon film on the sidewalls of the growing SiNWs. It is demonstrated here that the diameter of the interior core of SiNWs can be controlled desirable by adjusting the size of the nano-template.
A Spiking Neural Network Model of Model-Free Reinforcement Learning with High-Dimensional Sensory Input and Perceptual Ambiguity

A theoretical framework of reinforcement learning plays an important role in understanding action selection in animals. Spiking neural networks provide a theoretically grounded means to test computational hypotheses on neurally plausible algorithms of reinforcement learning through numerical simulation. However, most of these models cannot handle observations which are noisy, or occurred in the past, even though these are inevitable and constraining features of learning in real environments. This class of problem is formally known as partially observable reinforcement learning (PORL) problems. It provides a generalization of reinforcement learning to partially observable domains. In addition, observations in the real world tend to be rich and high-dimensional. In this work, we use a spiking neural network model to approximate the free energy of a restricted Boltzmann machine and apply it to the solution of PORL problems with high-dimensional observations. Our spiking network model solves maze tasks with perceptually ambiguous high-dimensional observations without knowledge of the true environment. An extended model with working memory also solves history-dependent tasks. The way spiking neural networks handle PORL problems may provide a glimpse into the underlying laws of neural information processing which can only be discovered through such a top-down approach.
Slack: maximizing performance under technological constraints

Many emerging processor microarchitectures seek to manage technological constraints (e.g., wire, delay, power, and circuit complexity) by resorting to non-uniform designs that provide resources at multiple quality levels (e.g., fast/slow bypass paths, multi-speed functional units, and grid architectures). In such designs, the constraint problem becomes a control problem, and the challenge becomes designing a control policy that mitigates the performance penalty of the non-uniformity. Given the increasing importance of non-uniform control policies, we believe it is appropriate to examine them, in their own right. To this end, we develop slack for use in creating control policies that match program execution behavior to machine design. Intuitively, the slack of a dynamic instruction i is the number of cycles i can be delayed with no effect on execution time. This property makes slack a natural candidate for hiding non-uniform latencies. We make three contributions in our exploration of slack. First, we formally define slack, distinguish three variants (local, global and apportioned), and perform a limit study to show that slack is prevalent in our SPEC2000 workload. Second, we show how to predict slack in hardware. Third, we illustrate how to create a control policy based on slack for steering instructions among fast (high power) and slow (lower power) pipelines.
Peri-Implantation Undernutrition Programs Blunted Angiotensin II Evoked Baroreflex Responses in Young Adult Sheep

An adverse environment around conception and implantation influences later fetal growth and development to term in humans and sheep. Indeed, preimplantation undernutrition of rats elevated the systolic blood pressure of the resultant adult offspring. In this study, adult cardiovascular function is examined in a slower growing, non–litter-bearing species after peri-implantation undernutrition. Eight ewes were fed to 50% equivalent food intake of 12 control ewes from 1 to 30 days (term ≈147 days) only. Following consumption of an adequate diet to term, natural lambing, and then weaning, resting cardiovascular status and baroreflex function were examined in the resultant young adult offspring. Birth weight and postnatal growth to 1 year of age were unaffected by early undernutrition; however, nutrient-restricted sheep had increased pulse pressure, a reduced rate pressure product, and a leftward shift in their baroreflex function curve. Baroreflex sensitivity during angiotensin II infusion was also blunted in early nutrient-restricted sheep but the tachycardia following a reduction in central blood pressure appeared potentiated, relative to controls. The data suggest that peri-implantation undernutrition may program long-term cardiovascular dysfunction that ultimately increases the risk of hypertension later in life. An increase in regional angiotensin II activity during this critical early phase of development is a likely candidate mechanism for the effects observed. The data have broad implications for the health outcome of those offspring from mothers who were poorly nourished during early, often unknown pregnancy and for embryos artificially manipulated because of infertility treatment.
Mining input grammars from dynamic taints

Knowing which part of a program processes which parts of an input can reveal the structure of the input as well as the structure of the program. In a URL http://www.example. com/path/, for instance, the protocol http, the host www.example. com, and the path path would be handled by different functions and stored in different variables. Given a set of sample inputs, we use dynamic tainting to trace the data flow of each input character, and aggregate those input fragments that would be handled by the same function into lexical and syntactical entities. The result is a context-free grammar that reflects valid input structure. In its evaluation, our AUTOGRAM prototype automatically produced readable and structurally accurate grammars for inputs like URLs, spreadsheets or configuration files. The resulting grammars not only allow simple reverse engineering of input formats, but can also directly serve as input for test generators.
Functionalization of carbon nanotubes to improve the tribological properties of poly(furfuryl alcohol) composite coatings

The functionalization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) was achieved by grafting furfuryl alcohol (FA) onto surfaces of the MWNTs. The functional MWNTs were examined by infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Furthermore, the functional MWNTs were incorporated into the poly(furfuryl alcohol) (PFA) resin and the tribological behaviors of resultant PFA composite coatings were investigated using a ring-on-block wear tester under dry friction condition, and the worn surfaces were studied by scanning electron microscopy. The dispersion of MWNTs in PFA composites was examined using field emission scanning electron microscope. The results indicated that an esterification was formed in the acylating MWNTs and FA, and the functionalization led to an improvement in the dispersion of MWNTs and the tribological properties of PFA composite coatings.
Cultural impact on e-service use in Saudi Arabia: The need for Service Oriented Culture

This paper reports the results of a mixed method approach to answer: To what extent do cultural values impact on e-service use in Saudi Arabia, and if so how? This paper will firstly, introduce the importance of culture and define the aspects of Saudi culture with focus on our scope: the need for Service Oriented Culture. It will then, briefly, describe the method used and present the qualitative and quantitative findings related to the need for Service Oriented Culture. This research aims to cover a gap in the literature by investigating to what extent the presence of Service Oriented Culture, as one of Saudi Arabia’s cultural values, impacts on e-service use in Saudi Arabia. Surprisingly, the tested hypothesis was rejected: the presence of Service Oriented Culture is not a positive predictor of Intention to Use e-services in Saudi Arabia. It is evidenced that consideration of the impact of the cultural values will mainly contribute to the enhancement of ICTs implementation and use.
Violent children: a framework for assessment

Violence by and towards young people has become a major public health issue. Increased lethality, more random violence and fewer safe places largely account for the high levels of fear experienced by both children and adults. In the field of child protection and domestic violence, where traditionally the child is referred as the victim not the perpetrator, child psychiatrists are well versed, practised and skilled in the assessment of children and families. However, young people are increasingly being referred to child and adolescent mental health teams for assessment because of violent acts that they have carried out. This is reflected in heavy case-loads of children with conduct disorder who have multimorbidity and complex need. In England and Wales, health (including mental health), social care and education services are mandated to assist youth offending teams. This all begs the question of what specific training and skills child psychiatrists are given or acquire to carry out this difficult task. This paper raises salient issues and presents possible frameworks within which this work might be undertaken.
Stimulation of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 expression in immortalized human trophoblast cells cultured under low levels of oxygen.

Low levels of oxygen characterize certain biological settings such as the first trimester human placenta and rapidly growing tumors. Hypoxia in tumors and expression of high levels of tumor-associated plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) indicate a poor prognosis for some cancer patients. Furthermore, PAI-1 may promote tumor invasion and metastasis by modulating cell adhesion and detachment from the extracellular matrix. In this study, we used immortalized human trophoblasts (HTR-8/SVneo cells) derived from first trimester placenta to study the effect of exposure to low levels of oxygen on PAI-1 expression. Cell viability following 24-h exposure to 1% oxygen was similar to that of cells cultured under 20% oxygen. Exposure to hypoxia resulted in time-dependent increases in PAI-1 mRNA and protein levels, as determined by Northern blot analysis and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Culture with cobalt chloride or Tiron also resulted in increased PAI-1 mRNA levels, while carbon monoxide inhibited the hypoxia-mediated increase, thereby indicating that a heme protein is involved in the stimulation of PAI-1 expression by hypoxia. Incubation with transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) also resulted in increased levels of PAI-1 mRNA. However, addition of a neutralizing anti-TGF-beta antibody to hypoxic cultures did not abrogate the increase in PAI-1 mRNA levels, suggesting that hypoxia stimulates PAI-1 expression via a pathway that does not require TGF-beta production. These results indicate that, through their effect on PAI-1 expression, oxygen levels may play an important role in modulating cellular migration and invasion.
Thermomechanical formation and thermal detection of polymer nanostructures

In thermomechanical data storage, a heated atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever tip scans over and melts small data bit indentations with radius of curvature as small as 20 nm into a thin polymer film. Small changes in the cantilever temperature, which correspond to changes in the thermal resistance between the cantilever and the data substrate, can detect the presence of previously written data bits. This chapter reviews work on modeling and measurement of heat and mass transfer during thermomechanical formation and thermal detection of polymer nanostructures for data storage. A study explores the impact of molecular confinement on viscous polymer flow in nanostructured thin films that finds a two order of magnitude increase in polymer viscosity and a shift from a no-slip to a slip in the polymer-substrate contact condition. Modeling and measurement of bit formation show that a cantilever temperature of 200 °C is required for bit formation at times greater than 1 ms, increasing to 500 °C for bit formation near 10 µs. A study of cantilever thermal reading sensitivity shows that the cantilever compares well with other AFM-based metrology approaches, with a sensitivity exceeding 10 5 µV / nm . This chapter reviews work on heat and mass transfer that governs the processes of thermomechanical data write, read, and erase.
A Simple Formula for Obtaining Markedly Improved Mutation Rate Estimates

In previous work by M. E. Jones and colleagues, it was shown that mutation rate estimates can be improved and corresponding confidence intervals tightened by following a very easy modification of the standard fluctuation assay: cultures are grown to a larger-than-usual final density, and mutants are screened for in only a fraction of the culture. Surprisingly, this very promising development has received limited attention, perhaps because there has been no efficient way to generate the predicted mutant distribution to obtain non-moment-based estimates of the mutation rate. Here, the improved fluctuation assay discovered by Jones and colleagues is made amenable to quantile-based, likelihood, and other Bayesian methods by a simple recursion formula that efficiently generates the entire mutant distribution after growth and dilution. This formula makes possible a further protocol improvement: grow cultures as large as is experimentally possible and severely dilute before plating to obtain easily countable numbers of mutants. A preliminary look at likelihood surfaces suggests that this easy protocol adjustment gives markedly improved mutation rate estimates and confidence intervals.
Analysis of RHD genes in Taiwanese RhD‐negative donors by the multiplex PCR method

The determination of the RhD phenotype is important in transfusion medicine. However, due to the complexity of D antigen expression, the routine serological method cannot differentiate all RhD variants. In addition, the induction of the anti‐D antibody is still the major cause of severe hemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN). Therefore, it is important to understand RHD gene profiles. To analyze the RHD gene profiles of Taiwanese RhD‐negative donors, the multiplex PCR method was applied to amplify RHD specific exons 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9. Based on the PCR results, the 156 RhD‐negative donors were divided into 12 groups according to the different expression patterns of the RHD gene. These 12 groups were further divided into three categories: type I=Rh Del (21.8%); type II = partial D, containing some exons (9.0%); and type III = true RhD‐negative (69.2%). The results indicated that 21.8% of RhD‐negative donors in Taiwan were RhDel, and 9% carried a part of the RHD gene. Six defined RhD variants were found in this study: four ROHar, one DVa, and two DIVb. However, no true RhD‐negative or RhDel donor with the CcdEe phenotype was found in this analysis. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 17:80–84, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
BiologicalApplicationsof the CarbonRodAtomizer in AtomicAbsorptionSpectroscopy 1 . Preliminary Studies on Magnesium , Iron , Copper , Lead , and Zinc in Blood and Plasma

A new technique in atomic absorption spectroscopy is described, which replaces the use of a flame. Samples are injected into a cavity drilled transversely through a carbon rod, and subsequently dried, ashed, and atomized by the application of electric current. The resulting brief absorption signal is recorded and compared with standards. The procedure is particularly suitable for biological work since sample volume requirements are in the submicroliter range. The samples require no pretreatment. The method has given excellent results initially when applied to the measurement of magnesium, iron, copper, lead, and zinc in blood and plasma.
Interactive learning: design and evaluation

In education, 'interactivity' is the catalyst that can transform the traditional classroom setting into an active media environment. Yet the standards for interactivity within education are by no means clear. Educators and multimedia designers are confronted with many questions concerning the effectiveness of interactive courseware as a learning tool. The authors draw on their experience of producing the interactive courseware package Virtual Language University, an interactive multimedia package for language learning that has over 1500 interactive tasks. Specific topics in the paper include screen design, navigation, effective task writing choices in the type of user feedback, scoring and testing. Attention is given to decision-making procedures that deepen understanding, promote interactivity and encourage self-direction. Finally, preliminary evaluation of the package is discussed.
Objective and subjective performance evaluations of wet wipes including herbal components

In this study, wet wipes were produced for body applications with nonwoven fabrics consisting of polyester and cellulose (viscose and Tencel®). Fabrics were wetted by natural-based wetting solutions (rose water, olive oil) which were functionalized by sodium alginate and natural antibacterial agents (cinnamaldehyde and geraniol) without preservatives. Besides physical characteristics (weight, thickness, porosity, fiber orientation), bending rigidity, Handle-O-Meter measurements, and moisture management test parameters of the nonwoven fabrics were determined. Subjective hand and wiping performances of produced wipes were determined by subjective evaluations carried out on 10 female subjects. According to the results, 100% Tencel® and its blend with viscose have good absorption and moderate transfer characteristics. Polyester content up to 60% is acceptable for wet wipes for the body according to their liquid absorption, transfer, and subjective evaluation results if fabric weight is sufficient. Among the functionalized wetting solutions, antibacterial performance of the solution including olive oil, sodium alginate and cinnamaldehyde was the maximum and it has acceptable hand values according to objective Handle-O-Meter results and subjective evaluation results.
HARDWARE ACCELERATION FOR POWER EFFICIENT DEEP PACKET INSPECTION

The rapid growth of the Internet leads to a massive spread of malicious attacks like viruses and malwares, making the safety of online activity a major concern. The use of Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) is an effective method to safeguard the Internet. One key procedure in NIDS is Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). DPI can examine the contents of a packet and take actions on the packets based on predefined rules. In this thesis, DPI is mainly discussed in the context of security applications. However, DPI can also be used for bandwidth management and network surveillance. DPI inspects the whole packet payload, and due to this and the complexity of the inspection rules, DPI algorithms consume significant amounts of resources including time, memory and energy. The aim of this thesis is to design hardware accelerated methods for memory and energy efficient high-speed DPI. The patterns in packet payloads, especially complex patterns, can be efficiently represented by regular expressions, which can be translated by the use of Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA). DFA algorithms are fast but consume very large amounts of memory with certain kinds of regular expressions. In this thesis, memory efficient algorithms are proposed based on the transition compressions of the DFAs. In this work, Bloom filters are used to implement DPI on an FPGA for hardware acceleration with the design of a parallel architecture. Furthermore, devoted at a balance of power and performance, an energy efficient adaptive Bloom filter is designed with the capability of adjusting the number of active hash functions according to current workload. In addition, a method is given for implementation on both two-stage and multi-stage platforms. Nevertheless, false positive rates still prevents the Bloom filter from extensive utilization; a cache-based counting Bloom filter is presented in this work to get rid of the false positives for fast and precise matching. Finally, in future work, in order to estimate the effect of power savings, models will be built for routers and DPI, which will also analyze the latency impact of dynamic frequency adaption to current traffic. Besides, a low power DPI system will be designed with a single or multiple DPI engines. Results and evaluation of the low power DPI model and system will be produced in future.
Ddos Experiment Methodology *

The main objectives of the EMIST DDoS group is to advance the state of the art in rigorous evaluation of distributed denial of service attack-defense scenarios in the Internet. Over the last three years, we have developed an evaluation methodology using a combination of simulation, emulation, modeling, and analysis techniques that allows independent comparison of different DDoS defense systems. We have identified five high-level dimensions that the experimenter needs to carefully design in order to conduct an effective evaluation: (1) attack mechanism, (2) background traffic, (3) network topology (4) defense mechanism, (5) measurements and metrics. The methodology provides a sequence of well defined steps that guide the experimenter in defining and conducting the evaluation. In this paper, we briefly discuss the current state of art in each of these five dimensions of attack-defense evaluation and provide references for in-depth information. Section 2 discusses the distribution and activities of hosts involved in a DDoS attack for both current and future attacks. Section 3 discusses legitimate traffic workload creation using various types of background traffic generators. Section 4 discusses topological characteristics of the Internet and how they impact DDoS attack-defense evaluation. Section 5 discusses various types of defense technologies that can be evaluated using the methodology framework and lastly Section 6 discusses the necessary and sufficient set of measurements and metrics for evalu-
FastLane: An Agile Congestion Signaling Mechanism for Improving Datacenter Performance

Abstract : The drive towards richer, more interactive content places increasingly stringent latency requirements on datacenters. A critical component of meeting these is ensuring that the network responds agilely to congestion, bounding network latency and improving high-percentile flow completion times. We propose a new approach to rapidly detecting and responding to congestion. We introduce FastLane, a congestion signaling mechanism that allows senders to respond more quickly. By delivering signals to senders with high probability and low latency, FastLane allows them to retransmit packets sooner, avoiding resource-wasting timeouts. It also enables senders to make more informed decisions by differentiating between out-of-order delivery and packet loss. We demonstrate through simulation and implementation that FastLane reduces high-percentile flow completion times by over 80% by effectively managing congestion hot-spots. These benefits come at minimal cost-FastLane consumes no more than 2% of bandwidth and 5% of buffers.