Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Load shifting control and management of domestic microgeneration systems for improved energy efficiency and comfort

In this paper, an intelligent energy management system based on energy saving and user's comfort is introduced and applied to a residential smart home as a case study. The proposed multi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP)-based architecture takes the advantages of several key modeling aspects such as load shifting capability and domestic energy micro-generation characteristics. To demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed model, several computer simulations are carried out under different operating scenarios with real data and different system constraints. Moreover, the superior performance of the proposed energy management system is shown in comparison with the conventional models. The numerical results also indicate that through wise management of demand and generation sides, there is a possibility to reduce domestic energy use and improve the user's satisfaction degree.
Efficient computation of sum-products on GPUs through software-managed cache

We present a technique for designing memory-bound algorithms with high data reuse on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) equipped with close-to-ALU software-managed memory. The approach is based on the efficient use of this memory through the implementation of a software-managed cache. We also present an analytical model for performance analysis of such algorithms. We apply this technique to the implementation of the GPU-based solver of the sum-product or marginalize a product of functions (MPF) problem, which arises in a wide variety of real-life applications in artificial intelligence, statistics, image processing, and digital communications. Our motivation to accelerate MPF originated in the context of the analysis of genetic diseases, which in some cases requires years to complete on modern CPUs. Computing MPF is similar to computing the chain matrix product of multi-dimensional matrices, but is more difficult due to a complex data-dependent access pattern, high data reuse, and a low compute-to-memory access ratio. Our GPU-based MPF solver achieves up to 2700-fold speedup on random data and 270-fold on real-life genetic analysis datasets on GeForce 8800GTX GPU from NVIDIA over the optimized CPU version on an Intel 2.4GHz Core 2 with a 4MB L2 cache.
Time Of Arrival Based Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks : A Linear Approach

In this paper, we aim to determine the location information of a node deployed in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). We estimate the position of an unknown source node using localization based on linear approach on a single simulation platform. The Cramer Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) for position estimate is derived first and the four linear approaches namely Linear Least Squares (LLS), Subspace Approach (SA), Weighted Linear Least Squares (WLLS) and Two-step WLS have been derived and presented. Based on the simulation study the results have been compared. The simulation results show that the Two- step WLS approach is having higher localization accuracy. Keywords: Source Localization, Time of Arrival,Linear Least Squares, Subspace Approach, Weighted Linear Least Squares, Two-step WLS and CRLB.
User Interface Android Application for A Context-Centric Model for Organizing A Personal Knowledge Network

User Interface Android Application for A Context-Centric Model for Organizing A Personal Knowledge Network Nagendra Vemulapalli Productivity of a knowledge-Worker is directly related to the ease with which knowledge buried in a variety of documents can be accessed. When the semantic relationships between the documents are not axiomatic, the search process by search engine and the common method of organizing documents as a pecking order of folders which are tagged with meaningful names is highly inefficient. A simple model for organizing documents as a semantic network is described in this paper. The semantic network uses tags which are automatically generated by content analysis augmented by user markup when warranted [1]. In this model, the documents are semantically related to one or more contexts. A user can describe the work-process as a shallow hierarchy of contexts. All the relevant documents could be displayed on the request of the user through a client which is an Android application. This report describes the design of an Android application which acts as a client to provide access to users over the knowledge network described above.
Robust skin detection based on the fuzzy integral

Skin detection is a low-level operation used in multiple application fields, e.g. video surveillance, human computer interface. The paper presents a multi-procedure methodology followed by a fusion stage that can be applied in the robust detection of skin. Two well-known methodologies are fused with a novel one, which is presented here as well, through the application of the fuzzy integral. The automated parameterization of the resulting procedure and its performance on a benchmark database are finally described.
Immunohistochemical Detection of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus Antigen in Neurovascular Lesions

At necropsy, no gross lesions were observed except for reddish consolidation of approximately 10% of the anterioventral portions of the lungs in 1 pig. Likewise, no significant gross lesions were seen in the tissues submitted from the sow. Results of experimental studies indicate that PRRSV infection is a multisystemic disease characterized initially by viremia with subsequent virus distribution and replication in multiple organs, causing interstitial pneumonia, lymphadenopathy, myocarditis, and encephalitis. 5-8,16,18 Nervous signs are uncommonly reported and are described as incoordination, paresis, splay-leggedness, and tremors in young pigs. Characteristic PRRSV-induced central nervous system (CNS) lesions include encephalitis with lymphohistiocytic perivascular cuffing, gliosis, and less often mild vasculitis.
Design and Vibration Sensitivity Analysis of a MEMS Tuning Fork Gyroscope with an Anchored Diamond Coupling Mechanism

In this paper, a new micromachined tuning fork gyroscope (TFG) with an anchored diamond coupling mechanism is proposed while the mode ordering and the vibration sensitivity are also investigated. The sense-mode of the proposed TFG was optimized through use of an anchored diamond coupling spring, which enables the in-phase mode frequency to be 108.3% higher than the anti-phase one. The frequencies of the in- and anti-phase modes in the sense direction are 9799.6 Hz and 4705.3 Hz, respectively. The analytical solutions illustrate that the stiffness difference ratio of the in- and anti-phase modes is inversely proportional to the output induced by the vibration from the sense direction. Additionally, FEM simulations demonstrate that the stiffness difference ratio of the anchored diamond coupling TFG is 16.08 times larger than the direct coupling one while the vibration output is reduced by 94.1%. Consequently, the proposed new anchored diamond coupling TFG can structurally increase the stiffness difference ratio to improve the mode ordering and considerably reduce the vibration sensitivity without sacrificing the scale factor.
Reduced Data Dualscale Entropy Analysis of HRV Signals for Improved Congestive Heart Failure Detection

Abstract Heart rate variability (HRV) is an important dynamic variable of the cardiovascular system, which operates on multiple time scales. In this study, Multiscale entropy (MSE) analysis is applied to HRV signals taken from Physiobank to discriminate Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) patients from healthy young and elderly subjects. The discrimination power of the MSE method is decreased as the amount of the data reduces and the lowest amount of the data at which there is a clear discrimination between CHF and normal subjects is found to be 4000 samples. Further, this method failed to discriminate CHF from healthy elderly subjects. In view of this, the Reduced Data Dualscale Entropy Analysis method is proposed to reduce the data size required (as low as 500 samples) for clearly discriminating the CHF patients from young and elderly subjects with only two scales. Further, an easy to interpret index is derived using this new approach for the diagnosis of CHF. This index shows 100 % accuracy and correlates well with the pathophysiology of heart failure.
Serotonin‐containing terminals synapse on septohippocampal neurons in the rat

Serotonin [5‐hydroxytryptamine (5‐HT)] is thought to be involved in mnemonic functions and dysfunctions possibly by directly contacting neurons in the medicl septal and diagonal band nuclei (i.e., the septal complex) that project to the hippocampal formation. However, there is no cellular substrate for this modulation. Thus, we examined the ultrastructure and synaptic association of 5‐HT‐containing terminals in relation to septohippocampal neurons in the septal complex of the rat brain. Projection neurons were identified by retrograde transport of wheat germ agglutinated apo‐horseradish perodidase conjugated to colloidal gold particles (WANG) following an injection into the ventral hippocampal formation of uneashetized adult rats. After a 1 day survival, setions through the septal complex were labeled with antibodies to 5‐HT immunoreactivity (5‐HT‐I) were observed in close proximity to neurons containing retogardely transported WAHG. By electron microscopy, 5‐HT‐I immunoreacitity (5‐HT‐I) were observed in close proximity to neurons containing retrogadely transported WAHG. By electron microscopy, 5‐HT‐I was found exclusively in axons and axon terminals. Axons were primarily unmyelinated. Terminals with 5‐HT‐I were 0.35–1.2 μm in diameter and contained numerous small, clear vesicles and 0–4 large, dense‐core vesicles. The 5‐HT‐labeled terminals: (1) contacted perikarya and dendrites (220 of 349); (2) were closely apposed to other terminals (25 of 349); or (3) had no neuronal contacts in the plane of section analyzed (104 of 349). The 5‐HT‐labeled terminals formed exclusively symmetric synases on perikarya; some of these perikarya as well as some large dendrites similarly contacted by the 5‐HT‐labeled terminals also contained WAHG affiliated with lysosomes and multivesicular and “sequestration” bodies in the cytoplasm. However, the majority of terminals with 5‐HT‐I formed contacts on the shafts of small unlabeled dendrites (69% of 220); most of these were characterized as either asymmetric synapses or appositions not separated by astrocytes in the plane of section analyzed. We conclude that 5‐HT‐containing terminals in the rat septal complex: (1) directly modulate septohippocampal and other neurons through symmetric (potentially inhibitory) synapses on soma and proximal dendrites; and (2) form primarily asymmetric (potentially excitatory) synapses with distal (small) dendrites from neurons of unidentified origin. These findings suggest that serotonin may affect learning and memory through modulation of septal efferents to the hippocampal formation and may have direct relevance to the neuropathological basis for Alzheimer's disease. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Serum albumin level and physical disability as predictors of mortality in older persons.

OBJECTIVES To study the relationship between serum albumin level and all-cause mortality in an elderly population and to evaluate the role of albumin level in combination with physical disability status in predicting mortality. DESIGN Cohort study with a mean follow-up of 3.7 years. SETTING Three communities: East Boston, Mass, New Haven, Conn, and Iowa and Washington counties, Iowa. SUBJECTS A total of 1486 men and 2630 women aged 71 years and older who consented to have blood drawn. RESULTS During follow-up, 447 men and 488 women died. In both sexes, there was a graded increase in mortality rate with decreasing albumin level. After adjusting for age, race, education, chronic conditions, and disability status, hypoalbuminemia (< 35 g/L) was associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality in comparison with the reference group (ie, those with albumin levels greater than 43 g/L) (men: relative risk [RR], 1.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1 to 3.1; women: RR, 3.7; 95% CI, 2.5 to 5.5). Among those with albumin levels in the range usually considered normal (35 g/L to 50 g/L), there was a graded increase in mortality risk from the highest normal to the lowest normal groups. For women, results were similar in separate analyses that considered deaths occurring during the first year and 1 year or more after baseline, while for men the relationship decreased after 1 year. Lower albumin level was associated with an elevated risk of mortality for all categories of causes of death. A 15-level measure that characterized participants according to albumin level and disability status demonstrated that mortality increased with decreasing albumin level and increasing disability level. CONCLUSIONS Serum albumin level is an independent risk factor for all-cause mortality in older persons. A combined measure of albumin and disability reveals a strong gradient in mortality risk and may serve as a simple but useful index of frailty that can identify a high-risk group of older men and women who could be targeted for preventive and treatment efforts.
Investigating nonlinear viscoelastic properties of molten carbon black/poly(ethylene‐co‐butyl acrylate) composites, using fourier transform rheometry and other test techniques

A series of molten carbon black (CB)/poly(ethylene-co-butyl acrylate) (EBA) composites were investigated through Fourier transform (FT) rheometry and other techniques. Filler loadings were above the critical percolation value, and consequently, strongly nonlinear viscoelastic properties were observed, with, in addition, an unusual complexity of carbon black effects when compared with other systems, for instance filled elastomers. FT rheometry appears particularly sensitive to such a complexity with typical variations of torque harmonics, as dynamic torsional strain is increased at constant frequency and temperature. How CB particles are distributed in the material appears as the key to understand experimental results. Indeed, in CB–EBA composites, filler particles concentrate in amorphous regions of the polymer, which are also butyl acrylate (BA)-rich regions. At room temperature, such composites are basically dual-phase systems: ethylene segments (PE)-rich crystallites and CB-rich amorphous BA regions. Solid-state mechanical properties reflect this morphology. As temperature increases, crystallites melt down allowing a pseudofluid state to be eventually reached but the dual-phase morphology is essentially kept. It follows that, under increasing (dynamic) strain, such complex dual-phase molten systems exhibit a response that initially reflects a contribution from PE-rich regions, easier to deform than CB-rich amorphous BA regions, before the expected response of the filled BA phase is observed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 4071–4082, 2006
Affective loop experiences: designing for interactional embodiment

Involving our corporeal bodies in interaction can create strong affective experiences. Systems that both can be influenced by and influence users corporeally exhibit a use quality we name an affective loop experience. In an affective loop experience, (i) emotions are seen as processes, constructed in the interaction, starting from everyday bodily, cognitive or social experiences; (ii) the system responds in ways that pull the user into the interaction, touching upon end users' physical experiences; and (iii) throughout the interaction the user is an active, meaning-making individual choosing how to express themselves—the interpretation responsibility does not lie with the system. We have built several systems that attempt to create affective loop experiences with more or less successful results. For example, eMoto lets users send text messages between mobile phones, but in addition to text, the messages also have colourful and animated shapes in the background chosen through emotion-gestures with a sensor-enabled stylus pen. Affective Diary is a digital diary with which users can scribble their notes, but it also allows for bodily memorabilia to be recorded from body sensors mapping to users' movement and arousal and placed along a timeline. Users can see patterns in their bodily reactions and relate them to various events going on in their lives. The experiences of building and deploying these systems gave us insights into design requirements for addressing affective loop experiences, such as how to design for turn-taking between user and system, how to create for ‘open’ surfaces in the design that can carry users' own meaning-making processes, how to combine modalities to create for a ‘unity’ of expression, and the importance of mirroring user experience in familiar ways that touch upon their everyday social and corporeal experiences. But a more important lesson gained from deploying the systems is how emotion processes are co-constructed and experienced inseparable from all other aspects of everyday life. Emotion processes are part of our social ways of being in the world; they dye our dreams, hopes and bodily experiences of the world. If we aim to design for affective interaction experiences, we need to place them into this larger picture.
Preparation And Charactrisation Of Tramadol Microspheres For Post-Operative Pain

ABSTRACT Tramadol is a centrally acting opioid analgesic mainly used for post-operative pain with the absence of clinical relevant cardiovascular or respiratory side effects. It has a short half-life of 3-5hrs. Due to their short half-life they need to be administered frequently. For the sustained delivery of Tramadol, microspheres containing Polycaprolactone (PCL) and Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in different ratios were prepared by o/o solvent evaporation method using Span 20 and span 80 as surfactants. Encapsulation efficiency and drug loading of microspheres increased with decrease in concentration of emulsifying agent. The encapsulation efficiency and drug loading of the microspheres increased with increase in PVP concentration due to affinity between the drug and the hydrophilic polymer. The particle size increases with increase in the HLB values of the surfactants used. SEM (Scanning electron microscope) revealed microspheres were discrete, spherical. FTIR of pure and encapsulated drug in all formulation showed no significant difference in characteristic peaks, suggesting stability of tramadol during encapsulation process. Rapid drug release was observed in microspheres with higher concentration of PVP (polyvinylpyrrolidone), PVP acts as channeling agent.
Optimal integer delay budgeting on directed acyclic graphs

Delay budget is an excess delay each component of a design can tolerate under a given timing constraint. Delay budgeting has been widely exploited to improve the design quality. We present an optimal integer delay budgeting algorithm. Due to numerical instability and discreteness of libraries of components during library mapping in design optimization flow, integer solution for delay budgeting is essential. We prove that integer budgeting problem - a 20-year old open problem in design optimization based on Y. Liao and C.K. Wong (1983) - can be solved optimally in polynomial time. We applied optimal delay budgeting in mapping applications on FPGA platform using pre-optimized cores of FPGA libraries. For each application we go through synthesis and place and route stages in order to obtain accurate results. Our optimal algorithm outperforms ZSA algorithm by R. Nair et al. (1989) in terms of area by 10% on average for all applications. In some applications, optimal delay budgeting can speedup runtime of place and route up to 2 times.
Multi-dimensional Self-tuning in Transactional Memory

The Transactional Memory (TM) paradigm promises to greatly simplify the development of concurrent applications. This led, over the years, to the creation of a plethora of TM implementations delivering wide ranges of performance across workloads. Yet, no universal TM implementation fits each and every workload. In fact, the best TM in a given workload can reveal to be disastrous for another one. This forces developers to face the complex task of tuning TM implementations, which significantly hampers the wide adoption of TMs. This thesis addresses the challenge of automatically identifying the best TM implementation for a given workload. The proposed system, ProteusTM, hides behind the TM interface a large library of implementations. Under the hood, it leverages an innovative, multi-dimensional online optimization scheme, combining two popular machine learning techniques: Collaborative Filtering and Bayesian Optimization. ProteusTM was extensively evaluated, obtaining average performance < 3% from optimal, and gains up to 100× over static alternatives.
Renormalizing the nonrenormalizable.

A perturbatively nonrenormalizable variant of the Gross-Neveu model of Euclidean quantum field theory with bare propagator p/${\mathrm{p}}^{2\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}}$ is considered. We outline a rigorous argument proving that by appropriate choice of the bare coupling constant the model may be renormalized nonperturbatively, which results in a theory governed at short distances by a non-Gaussian fixed point of the renormalization group.
The Doppler Echocardiographic Myocardial Performance Index Predicts Left-Ventricular Dilation and Cardiac Death after Myocardial Infarction

To investigate the value of the Doppler-derived myocardial performance index to predict early left-ventricular (LV) dilation and cardiac death after a first acute myocardial infarction (AMI), Doppler echocardiography was performed within 24 h of hospital admission, on day 5, 1 and 3 months after AMI in 125 consecutive patients. The index measured on day 1 correlated well with the change in end-diastolic volume index observed from day 1 to 3 months following AMI (r = 0.66, p < 0.0001). One-year survival in patients with Doppler index <0.63 was 89%, and 37% in patients with index ≧0.63, (p < 0.0001). Multivariate analysis identified myocardial performance index ≧0.63 (relative risk 5.6, p < 0.0001), E-wave deceleration time <140 ms (relative risk 2.7, p = 0.008) and Killip class ≧II (relative risk 4.0, p = 0.04) to be independent predictors of cardiac death. Therefore, we conclude that the Doppler echocardiographic myocardial performance index is a predictor of LV dilation and cardiac death after a first AMI.
An analytical method for the detection of methylation differences at specific chromosomal loci using primer extension and ion pair reverse phase HPLC

We have developed a rapid, accurate, and quantitative method for the detection of methylation differences at specific CpG sites based on bisulfite treatment of DNA followed by primer extension and ion‐pair reversed‐phase high performance liquid chromatography (IP RP HPLC). The application of the method is illustrated by analysis of differentially imprinted alleles arising from Prader‐Willi and Angelman syndromes. In order to convert unmethylated cytosines to uracil, plasmid and genomic DNA samples were treated with sodium bisulfite and the targeted sequence was then amplified using oligodeoxynucleotide primers specific for the bisulfite‐deaminated DNA. The PCR product(s) from this step was used as a template for a primer extension reaction and the products were subsequently analyzed chromatographically using IP RP HPLC. This method eliminates the need to use restriction enzymes to determine the methylation status of the amplicon and circumvents the need for radio labeling for the quantitative measurements. Finally, this method removes the need for nucleotide sequencing because it is not solely reliant on the presence or absence of one or more PCR products, as is the case with related methods. Hum Mutat 20:305–311, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.