Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Fast and General Software Solution to Mutual Exclusion on Uniprocessors

This paper presents a technique to solve the mutual exclusion problem for uniprocessors purely in software. The idea is to execute atomic sequences without any hardware protection and, in the rare case that the atomic sequence is interrupted, to rollforward to the end of the sequence. The main contribution of this paper is to discuss the OS-related issues of this technique and to demonstrate its practicality, both in terms of flexibility and performance. It proposes a purely software-based technique that achieves mutual exclusion without any memory-accesses. Experiments show that this technique has the potential to outperform equivalent hardware mechanisms.
Performance of three-layer composites with densified surface layers of Nothofagus pumilio and N. antarctica from Southern Patagonian forests

ABSTRACT Nothofagus pumilio and N. antarctica forests of Southern Patagonia, Argentina are currently being managed for production of saw logs with fast growing conditions. The result of these management strategies is faster growing forests, but also an increase in the percentage of low-density wood. The motivation for this study was to find a way to valorise this low-density wood. Surface and bulk densification treatments were applied these wood species and were then applied as face layers in three-layer composites. The mechanical properties of three-layer composites were studied. The modulus of elasticity, modulus of rupture, and modulus of hardness were improved compared to many types of structural composite lumber. This increase in mechanical properties of N. pumilio and N. antarctica wood opens the possibility for its use in structural composites and added value to these otherwise underutilised and undervalued species.
MEGA6: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis version 6.0.

We announce the release of an advanced version of the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis (MEGA) software, which currently contains facilities for building sequence alignments, inferring phylogenetic histories, and conducting molecular evolutionary analysis. In version 6.0, MEGA now enables the inference of timetrees, as it implements the RelTime method for estimating divergence times for all branching points in a phylogeny. A new Timetree Wizard in MEGA6 facilitates this timetree inference by providing a graphical user interface (GUI) to specify the phylogeny and calibration constraints step-by-step. This version also contains enhanced algorithms to search for the optimal trees under evolutionary criteria and implements a more advanced memory management that can double the size of sequence data sets to which MEGA can be applied. Both GUI and command-line versions of MEGA6 can be downloaded from www.megasoftware. net free of charge.
Mercury but not Organochlorines Inhibits Muscarinic Cholinergic Receptor Binding in the Cerebrum of Ringed Seals (Phoca hispida)

Elevated concentrations of organochlorines and mercury (Hg) have been reported in marine mammals on a global scale. While risk assessments are generally based on quantifying body burdens of toxicants, much less is known about associated adverse health effects and their underlying mechanisms. The purpose of this study was to characterize the inhibitory effects of methylmercury (MeHg+), mercuric chloride (Hg2+), p,p′-DDT, Arochlor 1254, chlordane, dieldrin, lindane, and toxaphene on [3H]quinuclidinyl benzilate ([3H]-QNB) binding to the muscarinic cholinergic (mACh) receptor in cellular membranes isolated from the cerebrum of ringed seals (Phoca hispida). [3H]-QNB binding to the mACh receptor was saturable with a mean receptor density (B max) of 826.9 ± 68.4 fmol/mg and ligand affinity (K d) of 0.31 ± 0.04 nM. MeHg+ and Hg2+ were the only neurotoxicants that inhibited radioligand binding by greater than 50%. Hg2+ was significantly more potent at inhibiting mACh receptor binding than MeHg+ when the IC50 data were compared (IC50 = 1.92 ± 0.06 μM versus 2.75 ± 0.22 μM), but when the data were normalized to derive inhibition constants (K i) there was no statistical difference in inhibition (Hg2+ = 1.38 ± 0.07 μM; MeHg+ = 1.26 ± 0.12 μM). Toxaphene also inhibited mACh receptor binding by 22.4%, but this was only significant at the highest concentration tested (320 μM). Overall, these data suggest that Hg, and not organochlorines, inhibits ligand binding to the mACh receptor. These mechanistic findings may be used to support and develop specific biomarkers of Hg exposure and neurotoxicity in sensitive ecological species. This study was funded by Collaborative Mercury Research Network (COMERN) and National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada Discovery Research Grants to H. M. Chan. Samples were collected under the Northern Contaminants Program, Canada. Assistance by Christopher J. Stamler, Sonja Ostertag, and Donna Leggee is greatly appreciated.
The Main Advantages of Community Based Participatory Health Programs: An Experience from the Islamic Republic of Iran

Introduction: Community based participatory program is an approach that emphasize on community empowerment as an important tool in health promotion especially in low and middle income countries. The aim of this study is in-depth understanding the strengths point of active community based participatory programs in Iran in order to develop a scientific foundation and basis for future policy and decision making. Methods: This study was a qualitative study using focus group discussions. Thirteen community based programs related to health that were active for last five years were selected and assessed. Data analysis was based on deductive-inductive content analysis approach considering the predetermined structure according to study questions. Results: In this study, strengths points of community participatory health programs based on the locality of the implementation of the programs; governmental organization and nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) were evaluated. The main strengths of these programs were the presence of the spirit of empathy and high motivation in working for community, absorbing the community assistance, community empowerment, presence of female volunteers, using local volunteers, creation of social prestige and evidence based decision making for community problem solving. Conclusion: Capacity building of the community, NGOs and policymakers plays key role in participation mechanisms, partnership, team working and mobilizing of necessary resources in the promotion of participatory community based health programs.
EpistAid: Interactive Interface for Document Filtering in Evidence-based Health Care

Evidence-based health care (EBHC) is an important practice of medicine which attempts to provide systematic scientific evidence to answer clinical questions. In this context, Epistemonikos (www.epistemonikos.org) is one of the first and most important online systems in the field, providing an interface that supports users on searching and filtering scientific articles for practicing EBHC. The system nowadays requires a large amount of expert human effort, where close to 500 physicians manually curate articles to be utilized in the platform. In order to scale up the large and continuous amount of data to keep the system updated, we introduce EpistAid, an interactive intelligent interface which supports clinicians in the process of curating documents for Epistemonikos within lists of papers called evidence matrices. We introduce the characteristics, design and algorithms of our solution, as well as a prototype implementation and a case study to show how our solution addresses the information overload problem in this area.
Automatic Detection of Blood Vessels in Retinal Images for Diabetic Retinopathy Diagnosis

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a leading cause of vision loss in diabetic patients. DR is mainly caused due to the damage of retinal blood vessels in the diabetic patients. It is essential to detect and segment the retinal blood vessels for DR detection and diagnosis, which prevents earlier vision loss in diabetic patients. The computer aided automatic detection and segmentation of blood vessels through the elimination of optic disc (OD) region in retina are proposed in this paper. The OD region is segmented using anisotropic diffusion filter and subsequentially the retinal blood vessels are detected using mathematical binary morphological operations. The proposed methodology is tested on two different publicly available datasets and achieved 93.99% sensitivity, 98.37% specificity, 98.08% accuracy in DRIVE dataset and 93.6% sensitivity, 98.96% specificity, and 95.94% accuracy in STARE dataset, respectively.
Hole-Assisted Few-Mode Multicore Fiber for High-Density Space-Division Multiplexing

A seven-core few-mode multicore fiber in which each core supports both the LP01 mode and the two degenerate LP11 modes has been designed and fabricated for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. The hole-assisted structure enables low inter-core crosstalk and high mode density at the same time. LP01 inter-core crosstalk has been measured to be lower than -60 dB/km. LP11 inter-core crosstalk has been measured to be around -40 dB/km using a different setup. The LP11 free-space excitation-induced crosstalk is simulated and analyzed. This fiber allows multiplexed transmission of 21 spatial modes per polarization per wavelength. Data transmission in LP01/LP11 mode over 1 km of this fiber has been demonstrated with negligible penalty.
Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Based Metabonomic Study of Therapeutic Effect of the Surface Layer of Poria cocos on Adenine-Induced Chronic Kidney Disease Provides New Insight into Anti-Fibrosis Mechanism

The surface layer of Poria cocos (Fu-Ling-Pi, FLP) is commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine and its diuretic effect was confirmed in rat. Ultra performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight high-sensitivity mass spectrometry and a novel mass spectrometryElevated Energy data collection technique was employed to investigate metabonomic characteristics of chronic kidney disease (CKD) induced from adenine excess and the protective effects of FLP. Multiple metabolites are detected in the CKD and are correlated with progressive renal injury. Among these biomarkers, lysoPC(18∶0), tetracosahexaenoic acid, lysoPC(18∶2), creatinine, lysoPC (16∶0) and lysoPE(22∶0/0∶0) in the FLP-treated group were completely reversed to levels in the control group which lacked CKD. Combined with biochemistry and histopathology results, the changes in serum metabolites indicate that the perturbations of phospholipids metabolism, energy metabolism and amino acid metabolism are related to adenine-induced CKD and to the interventions of FLP on all the three metabolic pathways. FLP may regulate the metabolism of these biomarkers, especially their efficient utilization within the context of CKD. Furthermore, these biomarkers might serve as characteristics to explain the mechanisms of FLP.
Selective Detection of Membrane Proteins Without Antibodies

A method has been developed, called the mass western experiment in analogy to the Western blot, to detect the presence of specific proteins in complex mixtures without the need for antibodies. Proteins are identified with high sensitivity and selectivity, and their abundances are compared between samples. Membrane protein extracts were labeled with custom isotope-coded affinity tag reagents and digested, and the labeled peptides were analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Ions corresponding to anticipated tryptic peptides from the proteins of interest were continuously subjected to collision-induced dissociation in an ion trap mass spectrometer; heavy and light isotope-coded affinity tag-labeled peptides were simultaneously trapped and fragmented accomplishing identification and quantitation in a single mass spectrum. This application of ion trap selective reaction monitoring maximizes sensitivity, enabling analysis of peptides that would otherwise go undetected. The cell surface proteins prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) and ErbB2 were detected in prostate and breast tumor cell lines in which they are expressed in known abundances spanning orders of magnitude.
Identification of a major GpVI-binding locus in human type III collagen

We have analyzed the adhesion of human and murine platelets, and of recombinant human and murine GpVI ectodomains, to synthetic triple-helical collagen-like peptides. These included 57 peptides derived from the sequence of human type III collagen and 9 peptides derived from the cyanogen bromide fragment of bovine type III collagen, α1(III)CB4. We have identified several peptides that interact with GpVI, in particular a peptide designated III-30 with the sequence GAOGLRGGAGPOGPEGGKGAAGPOGPO. Both human and murine platelets bound to peptide III-30 in a GpVI-dependent manner. III-30 also supported binding of recombinant GpVI ectodomains. Cross-linked III-30 induced aggregation of human and murine platelets, although with a lower potency than collagen-related peptide. Modifications of the peptide sequence indicated that the hydroxyproline residues play a significant role in supporting its GpVI reactivity. However, many peptides containing OGP/GPO motifs did not support adhesion to GpVI. These data indicate that the ability of a triple-helical peptide to bind GpVI is not solely determined by the presence or spatial arrangement of these OGP/GPO motifs within the peptides.
Analyzing a stochastic inventory system for deteriorating items with stochastic lead time using simulation modeling

We consider an inventory system for continuous decaying items with stochastic lead time and Poisson demand. Shortage is allowed and all the unsatisfied demands are backlogged. Moreover, replenishment is one for one. Our objective is to minimize the long-run total expected cost of the system. Firstly, we have developed the mathematical model with deterministic lead time. Since the stochastic lead time makes the model complex especially when lead time has complicated probability distribution and it is difficult to prove convexity of the objective function, we have applied simulation modeling approach. The simulation model has no limitation on lead time or any other parameters. The simulation model is validated by comparing its outputs and analytical model's results for the deterministic lead time case. Furthermore, we use optimizer module of the applied software to find near optimal solutions for a number of examples with stochastic lead time.
The Multicell Multiuser MIMO Uplink with Very Large Antenna Arrays and a Finite-Dimensional Channel

We consider multicell multiuser MIMO systems with a very large number of antennas at the base station (BS). We assume that the channel is estimated by using uplink training. We further consider a physical channel model where the angular domain is separated into a finite number of distinct directions. We analyze the so-called pilot contamination effect discovered in previous work, and show that this effect persists under the finite-dimensional channel model that we consider. In particular, we consider a uniform array at the BS. For this scenario, we show that when the number of BS antennas goes to infinity, the system performance under a finite-dimensional channel model with P angular bins is the same as the performance under an uncorrelated channel model with P antennas. We further derive a lower bound on the achievable rate of uplink data transmission with a linear detector at the BS. We then specialize this lower bound to the cases of maximum-ratio combining (MRC) and zero-forcing (ZF) receivers, for a finite and an infinite number of BS antennas. Numerical results corroborate our analysis and show a comparison between the performances of MRC and ZF in terms of sum-rate.
Gene-set approach for expression pattern analysis

Recently developed gene set analysis methods evaluate differential expression patterns of gene groups instead of those of individual genes. This approach especially targets gene groups whose constituents show subtle but coordinated expression changes, which might not be detected by the usual individual gene analysis. The approach has been quite successful in deriving new information from expression data, and a number of methods and tools have been developed intensively in recent years. We review those methods and currently available tools, classify them according to the statistical methods employed, and discuss their pros and cons. We also discuss several interesting extensions to the methods.
Instantaneous Reactive Power Minimization and Current Control for an Indirect Matrix Converter Under a Distorted AC Supply

This paper presents a current control scheme with instantaneous reactive power minimization for an indirect matrix converter. The strategy uses the commutation state of the converter in the subsequent sampling time according to an optimization algorithm given by a simple cost function and the discrete system model. Using this strategy, harmonics in the input current generated by the resonance of the input filter are strongly reduced. Simulation and experimental results with a laboratory prototype are provided in order to validate the control scheme, and the effects of a distorted source voltage and filter resonance are analyzed.
Efficient Mutual Interference Minimization and Power Allocation for OFDM-Based Cognitive Radio

The ever-increasing demand for precious radio spectrum along with the inefficient usage of licensed band has led to the advent of the cognitive radio (CR) technology, which aims to provide opportunistic spectrum usage to unlicensed users and thus lead to the co-existence and interference control problem among heterogeneous systems. In this paper, an interference minimization and subcarrier power allocation approach for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based cognitive network is proposed. A transmission power negotiation signaling between CR transmitter and receiver is established through the use of encoded cyclic prefix (CP). Therefore, mutual interference to primary and other cognitive users can be minimized with reduced unnecessary transmission power. In addition, system performance of the receiver can be guaranteed in the process of mutual interference minimization. Beside this, subcarrier power allocation profile can be chosen from a set of predefined profiles and can be sent at the same time without additional signaling link and extra delay to the network. The transceiver structure and control signal encoding and decoding algorithm are investigated. The performance of the proposed signaling links are also analyzed and evaluated through simulations in different channel scenarios. In addition, interference minimization technique is validated through the simulation of probability density function (PDF) and then in a cognitive radio network with randomly distributed nodes to assess the overall perceived interference.
Estimating individual employment status using mobile phone network data

This study provides the first confirmation that individual employment status can be predicted from standard mobile phone network logs externally validated with household survey data. Individual welfare and households vulnerability to shocks are intimately connected to employment status and professions of household breadwinners. At a societal level unemployment is an important indicator of the performance of an economy. By deriving a broad set of novel mobile phone network indicators reflecting users financial, social and mobility patterns we show how machine learning models can be used to predict 18 categories of profession in a South-Asian developing country. The model predicts individual unemployment status with 70.4 percent accuracy. We further show how unemployment can be aggregated from individual level and mapped geographically at cell tower resolution, providing a promising approach to map labor market economic indicators, and the distribution of economic productivity and vulnerability between censuses, especially in heterogeneous urban areas. The method also provides a promising approach to support data collection on vulnerable populations, which are frequently under-represented in official surveys.
Do I Want to Pay to Download Movies? Predicting Acceptance of Legal Online Movie Download Services

This study attempts to broaden our understanding of the nature and characteristics of legal online movie download services by comparing them to other types of online services, and more importantly, explore factors that influence consumers' acceptance of these legal online movie download services. In order to accomplish this, four aspects of the legal online movie download service (common, information system, entertainment and legal) have been identified and verified, using theory of planned behavior (TPB) and technology acceptance model (TAM) as the theoretical framework. Results show that the information aspect (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) and entertainment aspect (perceived playfulness) have significant relationship with attitude toward the service, while legal aspect (risk aversion) affects subjective norm related to accepting the service. Results show that attitude and subjective norm have impact on intent to adopt the movie download service while perceived behavioral control, which is seen as an important factor for other online service adoption, did not demonstrate any significant relationship with behavioral intent. Interpretation of regression analysis and implication of the findings is discussed.
Feature Extraction and Classification of EEG Signals for Rapid P300 Mind Spelling

The Mind Speller is a Brain-Computer Interface which enables subjects to spell text on a computer screen by detecting P300 Event-Related Potentials in their electroencephalograms. This BCI application is of particular interest for disabled patients who have lost all means of verbal and motor communication. We report on the implementation of a feature extraction procedure on a new ultra low-power 8-channel wireless EEG device. The feature extraction procedure is based on downsampled EEG signal epochs, the Student's t-statistic of the Continuous Wavelet Transform, and the Common Spatial Pattern technique. For classification, we use a linear Least-Squares Support Vector Machine. The results show that subjects are potentially able to communicate a character in less than ten seconds with an accuracy of 94.5%, which is more than twice as fast as the state of the art. In addition since our EEG device is wireless it offers an increased comfort to the subject.
Structural comparison studies of PbPc and CuPc thin films

The thin film of Lead Phthalocyanine (PbPc) and Cupper Phthalocyanine (CuPc) on glass are prepared by Vacuum deposition method. Deposition of PbPc and CuPc on pre-cleaned glass substrates under the pressure of 10-6 Torr are achieved by slowly varying the current. The rate of evaporation is properly controlled and maintained constant during all the evaporations. The thicknesses of the films are 150 nm, 300 nm and 450 nm on glass substrate. The thickness of sample 450 nm annealed at 323 K and 373 K temperature. Diffraction is one of the most powerful methods of the study and structure of materials, which may involve X-rays, electrons. The relative ease and convenience, large diffraction angle, representation of the average crystalline lattice throughout the film and simultaneous display of diffraction pattern from the film make the XRD method a successful analytical technique for the study of thin films. The sample has been analysed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) to get structural analysis of the PbPc and CuPc thin films