Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
X: A Comprehensive Analytic Model for Parallel Machines

To continuously comply with Moore's Law, modern parallel machines become increasingly complex. Effectively tuning application performance for these machines therefore becomes a daunting task. Moreover, identifying performance bottlenecks at application and architecture level, as well as evaluating various optimization strategies, are becoming extremely difficult when the entanglement of numerous correlated factors is being presented. To tackle these challenges, we present a visual analytical model named "X". It is intuitive and sufficiently flexible to track all the typical features of a parallel machine. Different from the conventional analytic models that focus on the temporal state of a representative core or thread, our proposed X-model concentrates on the spatial state of the parallel machines -- the distribution of concurrent threads among different subsystems of these machines, while predicting the overall throughput based on such state. One major highlight of our model is its tractability as it only requires a small number of essential parameters from the application and architecture. Meanwhile, it is able to effectively help users investigate the combined-effects of different types of parallelism: the instruction-level-parallelism (ILP), the thread-level-parallelism (TLP), the memory-level-parallelism (MLP) and the data-level-parallelism (DLP). Through the X-model, developers and architects can quickly draw an intuitive figure called X-graph to identify performance bottlenecks and play "what-if " scenarios to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed optimization techniques by investigating their individual and combined effects.
Inducible NO Synthase ExpressionB Activation and k MyD88-Mediated NF-Parasite Development via Plasmodium Limits Sporozoite-Mediated Hepatocyte Wounding

Plasmodium sporozoites traverse several host cells before infecting hepatocytes. In the process, the plasma membranes of the cells are ruptured, resulting in the release of cytosolic factors into the microenvironment. This released endogenous material is highly stimulatory/immunogenic and can serve as a danger signal initiating distinct responses in various cells. Thus, our study aimed at characterizing the effect of cell material leakage during Plasmodium infection on cultured mouse primary hepatocytes and HepG2 cells. We observed that wounded cell-derived cytosolic factors activate NF- (cid:1) B, a main regulator of host inﬂammatory responses, in cells bordering wounded cells, which are potential host cells for ﬁnal parasite infection. This activation of NF- (cid:1) B occurred shortly after infection and led to a reduction of infection load in a time-dependent manner in vitro and in vivo, an effect that could be reverted by addition of the speciﬁc NF- (cid:1) B inhibitor BAY11-7082. Furthermore, no NF- (cid:1) B activation was observed when Spect (cid:2) / (cid:2) parasites, which are devoid of hepatocyte traversing properties, were used. We provide further evidence that NF- (cid:1) B activation causes the induction of inducible NO synthase expression in hepatocytes, and this is, in turn, responsible for a decrease in Plasmodium -infected hepatocytes. Furthermore, primary hepatocytes from MyD88 (cid:2) / (cid:2) mice showed no NF- (cid:1) B activation and inducible NO synthase expression upon infection, suggesting a role of the Toll/IL-1 receptor family members in sensing cytosolic factors. Indeed, lack of MyD88 hepatocytes Our present data show
Client requirement based path selection algorithm for Tor network

In Tor network, the relays run by volunteers are non-uniform in nature, mainly with respect to the bandwidths of the relay. Browsing with Tor is often slow due to the design where the path taken from client to server is not the shortest path but ensures that it is secure in such a way that user's anonymity is maintained. Due to this, speed and anonymity is inversely proportional in the Tor network. Furthermore, since Tor uses circuits with relays in different geographical locations, it makes the connection further protracted. With so many factors affecting the performance, there is a need to improve on the current functionalities and contribute to low latency, anonymous browsing. In this paper, we try to enhance the speed of the client's browsing by segregating the relays based on their derived bandwidth as given in the consensus file and selecting path for clients based on their requirement. We discard some of the relays which are below the 12.5 percentile of all the valid relays while creating circuits for clients with high bandwidth requirement. Based on the simulations that we ran on Shadow Simulator, we have observed that, in our proposed algorithm, we are ensuring that low bandwidth relays are not congested with connection from clients with high bandwidth requirement. This has improved the low bandwidth client speed significantly. In our simulations, we also observe that there is no compromise in anonymity in our proposed algorithm.
Surprise, Surprise: What Drives the Rand/U.S. Dollar Exchange Rate Volatility?

This paper investigates possible drivers of volatility in the South African rand since the onset of the global financial crisis. We assess the role played by local and international economic surprises, commodity price volatility, global market risk perceptions, and local political uncertainty. As a measure of rand volatility, the study uses a market-based implied volatility indicator for the rand / U.S. dollar exchange rate. Economic surprisesâ€”the difference between market expectations and data printsâ€”are captured by Citiâ€™s Economic Surprise Index which is available for South Africa and its main economic partners. The results suggest that rand volatility is mainly driven by commodity price volatility, and global market volatility, as well as domestic political uncertainty. In addition, economic surprises originating in the United States matter, but not those originating from South Africa, Europe, or China.
Identifying the evolution of disasters and responses with network-text analysis

Disasters and responses have evolved over-time, and the evolution has been affected by various factors, such as societal change, climate change, and technological advance. To better prepare the future disasters, we need to estimate the evolution trend of the past disasters and the responses. This paper analyzes the academic articles of the field with network-text analyses. The analyses captured the word level and the topic level evolution over-time with statistical significance tests. Further, we turn the text mining results into the network analysis data to identify the key words and topics in the evolution paths. The proposed method suggests the swift of interests, i.e. the new ways of organizational interoperation, the evolution of logistic issues, in the disaster and response field.
Combined modeling of sparse and dense noise improves Bayesian RVM

Using a Bayesian approach, we consider the problem of recovering sparse signals under additive sparse and dense noise. Typically, sparse noise models outliers, impulse bursts or data loss. To handle sparse noise, existing methods simultaneously estimate sparse noise and sparse signal of interest. For estimating the sparse signal, without estimating the sparse noise, we construct a Relevance Vector Machine (RVM). In the RVM, sparse noise and ever present dense noise are treated through a combined noise model. Through simulations, we show the efficiency of new RVM for three applications: kernel regression, housing price prediction and compressed sensing.
Layered object categorization

In this paper, we propose a novel framework of object categorization, namely layered object categorization, which takes advantage of hierarchical category information and performs object categorization at different levels. The proposed hierarchical structure of object categories is built bottom-up and top-down simultaneously accordingly to cognitive rules. First, part-based models are learnt to evaluate structure similarities at the basic level and objects are divided into basic categories. Then the decision cues for object categorization at different layers are optimally selected. Prior knowledge about inter-category relationships is utilized to infer objectspsila higher inclusive concept labels, while the most discriminative visual details of each category at the lower specific levels are selected automatically. We evaluate the proposed method with a hierarchical database and show promising results. The layered object categorization provides an efficient way for dynamically adapting the object categorization results to different applications.
Real-Time Continuous 6 D Relocalisation for Depth Cameras

This paper presents results of a system performing visual 6-D relocalisation at every single frame and in real time, such as is useful in re-exploration of scenes or for loop-closure in earnest. Our method uses ideas from fast state-of-the-art binary descriptors combined with a Locality-Sensitive-Hashing technique to perform nearest-neighbour search as well as a 3D validation and sampling strategy. Albeit appealing for speed and memory footprint reasons, binary descriptors lead to a weak discrimination response which produces several false positive matches. This results in having to invest longer in removing outliers to compute a valid pose than when using more expensive descriptors. To alleviate this problem we propose a geometric validation stage that assists in the selection of good sample matches and benefits from the depth information available in depth cameras such as RGB-D or stereo. Our experiments suggest the feasibility of our approach with a relocalisation performance of 73% while running at 54Hz. Furthermore, in our tests, our system reduces in 95% the memory footprint compared to a system using conventional floating-point descriptors.
SIRPα+ dendritic cells regulate homeostasis of fibroblastic reticular cells via TNF receptor ligands in the adult spleen

Significance Homeostasis of Pdpn+ fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs) is thought to be regulated by hematopoietic cells. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of such homeostasis have been poorly understood, especially under the steady-state condition in adults. We show that dendritic cells, particularly CD4+ conventional dendritic cells (cDCs), are crucial for the homeostasis of FRCs in the adult spleen under the steady-state condition. The production of TNF receptor ligands by CD4+ cDCs regulates such homeostasis of FRCs, with SIRPα and CD47 likely being indispensable for the production of TNFR ligands by CD4+ cDCs. The CD47–SIRPα interaction on CD4+ cDCs may thus control the homeostasis of FRCs, which in turn maintain homeostasis of T cells in the white pulp of the spleen. In secondary lymphoid organs, development and homeostasis of stromal cells such as podoplanin (Pdpn)–positive fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs) are regulated by hematopoietic cells, but the cellular and molecular mechanisms of such regulation have remained unclear. Here we show that ablation of either signal regulatory protein α (SIRPα), an Ig superfamily protein, or its ligand CD47 in conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) markedly reduced the number of CD4+ cDCs as well as that of Pdpn+ FRCs and T cells in the adult mouse spleen. Such ablation also impaired the survival of FRCs as well as the production by CD4+ cDCs of tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) ligands, including TNF-α, which was shown to promote the proliferation and survival of Pdpn+ FRCs. CD4+ cDCs thus regulate the steady-state homeostasis of FRCs in the adult spleen via the production of TNFR ligands, with the CD47–SIRPα interaction in cDCs likely being indispensable for such regulation.
The gluten response in children with celiac disease is directed toward multiple gliadin and glutenin peptides.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Gluten (GLU)-specific T-cell responses in HLA-DQ2 positive adult celiac disease (CD) patients are directed to an immunodominant alpha-gliadin (GLIA) peptide that requires deamidation for T-cell recognition. The aim of the current study was to determine which GLU peptide(s) are involved early in disease. METHODS We have characterized the GLU-specific T-cell response in HLA-DQ2 positive children with recent onset CD. RESULTS We found that 50% of these patients do not respond to the alpha-GLIA peptide but to a diverse set of GLIA and glutenin (GLT) peptides, including 6 novel epitopes. Moreover, individual patients respond to distinct (combinations of) GLU peptides. T-cell cross-reactivity toward homologous GLIA and GLT peptides was observed, which might play a role in the initial spreading of the GLU-specific T-cell response. Although all pediatric patients displayed deamidation-dependent responses, deamidation-independent responses were found in the majority of patients as well. Finally, T-cell responses to 3 of these novel GLU peptides were found in adult CD patients. CONCLUSIONS The diversity of the GLU-specific T-cell response is far greater than was previously appreciated. Both adult and young CD patients can respond to a diverse repertoire of GLU peptides. The observation that T-cell responses to 3 of the novel peptides are independent of deamidation indicates that T-cell responses can be initiated toward native GLU peptides. The possibility that deamidation drives the GLU response toward immunodominant T-cell stimulatory peptides after disease initiation is discussed.
OrangeFS : Advancing PVFS

PVFS [6] is a frequently used high performance, parallel file system that was developed to meet research and high performance data transfer needs. The resources to develop PVFS into a production quality file system were not available. A second code branch of PVFS, called Orange, was created and cooperatively developed with PVFS over the last two years. The work on the Orange branch lead to the release of OrangeFS [4] which aims to add production quality features to the open source, community driven code base. The features of a production quality file system are not only needed to meet changing research and high performance data transfer demands but also to support large scale file systems and make parallel file systems available in more traditional computing environments. The features currently under development and planned include:
Routing Discovering Based on Ant Colony Algorithm in Ad Hoc Networks

To satisfy the situation requirements for Routing, Routing discovering has emerged as a main issue in mobile Ad Hoc networks. The high adaptability to network topology change is of utmost importance for Routing. In this paper, we propose a novel routing discovering algorithm (RACO) based on Ant colony optimization. It is to solve the limitation of ACO by using the characteristics of Ad Hoc networks and the concept related-node. In order to evaluate and validate the performance of RACO better, we simulate RACO and RCO to AODV protocols using NS2.The studies show that RACO can reduce the convergence time effectively and iteration of algorithm.
A 0.7-V low-phase-noise multi-mode coupled class-B/class-C voltage-controlled oscillator for millimeter-wave applications

An ultra-low power dual-band multi-mode millimeter- wave voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with low phase noise is demonstrated. The proposed design includes switchable transformers to enhance the tuning range, a class-B and class-C coupled oscillator to achieve low phase noise, low power consumption, and quick start-up, and the push-push technique to achieve the W-band oscillation. Fabricated in 90-nm CMOS process, the measured phase noise at 10-MHz offset frequency is better than - 115.2 dBc/Hz for the frequency from 38.4 GHz to 46.5 GHz. The power consumption is 12mW under a 0.7-V supply. The FOM and FOMT are -185 and -187.8 dBc/Hz, respectively. The pushpush oscillation frequency varies from 76.7 GHz to 93.2 GHz.
Distinct Firing Patterns of Identified Basket and Dendrite-Targeting Interneurons in the Prefrontal Cortex during Hippocampal Theta and Local Spindle Oscillations

The medial prefrontal cortex is involved in working memory and executive control. However, the collective spatiotemporal organization of the cellular network has not been possible to explain during different brain states. We show that pyramidal cells in the prelimbic cortex fire synchronized to hippocampal theta and local spindle oscillations in anesthetized rats. To identify which types of interneurons contribute to the synchronized activity, we recorded and juxtacellularly labeled parvalbumin- and calbindin-expressing (PV+/CB+) basket cells and CB-expressing, PV-negative (CB+/PV−) dendrite-targeting interneurons during both network oscillations. All CB+/PV− dendrite-targeting cells strongly decreased their firing rate during hippocampal theta oscillations. Most PV+/CB+ basket cells fired at the peak of dorsal CA1 theta cycles, similar to prefrontal pyramidal cells. We show that pyramidal cells in the ventral hippocampus also fire around the peak of dorsal CA1 theta cycles, in contrast to previously reported dorsal hippocampal pyramidal cells. Therefore, prefrontal neurons might be driven by monosynaptic connections from the ventral hippocampus during theta oscillations. During prefrontal spindle oscillations, the majority of pyramidal cells and PV+/CB+ basket cells fired preferentially at the trough and early ascending phase, but CB+/PV− dendrite-targeting cells fired uniformly at all phases. We conclude that PV+/CB+ basket cells contribute to rhythmic responses of prefrontal pyramidal cells in relation to hippocampal and thalamic inputs and CB+/PV− dendrite-targeting cells modulate the excitability of dendrites and spines regardless of these field rhythms. Distinct classes of GABAergic interneuron in the prefrontal cortex contribute differentially to the synchronization of pyramidal cells during network oscillations.
Dilemma of prescribing aripiprazole under the Taiwan health insurance program: a descriptive study

Objectives Refractory major depressive disorder (MDD) is a serious problem leading to a heavy economic burden. Antipsychotic augmentation treatment with aripiprazole and quetiapine is approved for MDD patients and can achieve a high remission rate. This study aimed to examine how psychiatrists in Taiwan choose medications and how that choice is influenced by health insurance payments and administrative policy. Design Descriptive study. Outcome measures Eight questions about the choice of treatment strategy and atypical antipsychotics, and the reason to choose aripiprazole. Intervention We designed an augmentation strategy questionnaire for psychiatrists whose patients had a poor response to antidepressants, and handed it out during the annual meeting of the Taiwanese Society of Psychiatry in October 2012. It included eight questions addressing the choice of treatment strategy and atypical antipsychotics, and the reason whether or not to choose aripiprazole as the augmentation antipsychotic. Results Choosing antipsychotic augmentation therapy or switching to other antidepressant strategies for MDD patients with an inadequate response to antidepressants was common with a similar probability (76.1% vs 76.4%). The most frequently used antipsychotics were aripiprazole and quetiapine, however a substantial number of psychiatrists chose olanzapine, risperidone, and sulpiride. The major reason for not choosing aripiprazole was cost (52.1%), followed by insurance official policy audit and deletion in the claims review system (30.1%). Conclusion The prescribing behavior of Taiwanese psychiatrists for augmentation antipsy-chotics is affected by health insurance policy.
Probabilistic terrain modeling of mobile robots for outdoor applications using a scanning laser

In this paper the real-time three-dimensional terrain estimation and modeling problem of mobile robots for outdoor applications is considered. A uniform probabilistic sensor model for scanning lasers is created to transform measurements into elevation estimation in the form of normal distributions by multi-level coordination transformation, with uncertainties from un-modeled errors or sensors accuracies are treated as Gaussian noises. Under the elevation map description framework of the terrain model, the obtained elevation estimations are assigned to terrain cells according to their confidence boundary, and can be fused in a probabilistic manner to update the elevation map. Moreover, the terrain occlusion are considered and solved by local window detection method to improve the accuracy of the terrain model. Outdoor experimental results of a tracked robot with a scanning laser are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A Closed-loop Multimode Variable Bit Rate Characteristic Waveform Interpolation Coder

A variable bit rate characteristic waveform interpolation (VBR-CWI) speech codec with about 1.86kbps average bit rate which combines closed-loop multimode techniques is presented in this paper. Each kind of characteristic waveform (CW) surface is regarded as only rapidly evolving waveforms (REWs), only slowly evolving waveforms (SEWs) or mixed REWs plus SEWs in different cases of CWs evolving performance. A cost criterion based on weighted signal-to-noise (WSNR) value in the spectral domain is used to make the mode selection. Experiments show that the proposed closed-loop multimode VBR-CWI coder has reduced the average bit rate markedly and improved the synthesis speech quality to some extent compared to the original fixed bit rate coder. Further research can be done in order to have a more accurate perceptual objective quality measurement instead of WSNR and there is also need to pay attention to computational complexity of closed-loop method in real-time applications.
Addressing the Hidden Terminal Problem for Heterogeneous Coexistence Between TDM and CSMA Networks in White Space

Cognitive radio (CR) technologies have led to several wireless standards (e.g., IEEE 802.11af and IEEE 802.22) that enable secondary networks to access the TV white-space (TVWS) spectrum. Different unlicensed wireless technologies with different PHY/MAC designs are expected to coexist in the same TVWS spectrum-we refer to such a situation as heterogeneous coexistence. The heterogeneity of the PHY/MAC designs of coexisting CR networks can potentially exacerbate the hidden terminal problem. This problem cannot be addressed by the conventional handshaking/coordination mechanism between two homogeneous networks employing the same radio access technology. In this paper, we present a coexistence protocol, called Spectrum Sharing for Heterogeneous Coexistence (SHARE), that mitigates the hidden terminal problem for the coexistence between two types of networks: one that employs a time-division-multiplexing-based MAC protocol and one that employs a carrier-sense-multiple-access-based MAC protocol. Specifically, SHARE utilizes beacon transmissions and dynamic quiet periods to avoid packet collisions caused by the hidden terminals. Our analytical and simulation results show that SHARE reduces the number of packet collisions and guarantees weighted fairness in partitioning the spectrum among the coexisting secondary networks.