Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Framework for statistical design of a flip-flop

This paper presents a statistical framework for the design of flip-flops under process variations in order to maximize their timing yield. In nanometer CMOS technologies, process variations significantly impact the timing performance of sequential circuits which may eventually cause their malfunction. Therefore, developing a framework for designing such circuits is inevitable. Our framework generates the values of the nominal design parameters; i.e., the size of gates and transmission gates of flip-flop such that maximum timing yield is achieved for flip-flops. While previous works focused on improving the yield of flip-flops, less research was done to improve the timing yield in the presence of process variations.
Recherche de mutations ponctuelles de l'ADN mitochondrial dans l'os pour une détermination de l'âge

Ces dernieres annees, de nombreux travaux ont demontre la presence de mutations mitochondriales en relation avec l'âge dans divers types tissulaires. Le sujet de notre travail consiste a demontrer de maniere fiable et specifique la detection de telles mutations, d'etablir leurs relations avec l'âge, et de determiner si elles peuvent presenter un interet en Medecine Legale ou en Anthropologie afin d'augmenter les indices de determination de l'âge. Dans un premier temps, sur le tissu musculaire et les cellules buccales, nous avons mis au point une technique combinant la technologie PNA (Peptid Nucleic Acid) et la PCR en Temps Reel (qPCR), demontrant une detection sensible et une quantification des taux de mutation de l'heteroplasmie A189G, et la relation avec l'âge dans le tissu musculaire. Ces resultats ont demontre la meilleure sensibilite de la technique PNA/qPCR par rapport a la technique de sequencage automatique pour la detection d'heteroplasmie et ont pu etre confirmes par la technique de Southern blot. Dans un deuxieme temps, nous avons travaille a partir de tissu osseux provenant d'une part d'individus d'âge connu dans le cadre d'identification en Medecine Legale et d'autre part de squelettes de Siberie Orientale identifies par l'analyse de marqueurs osteologiques du vieillissement. Nous avons demontre l'accumulation de l'heteroplasmie A189G dans les individus âges de plus de 70 ans pour ceux dont l'âge est connu, et dans les individus âges identifies comme tel par les indicateurs osteologiques. Le sequencage automatique nous a permis d'identifier deux autres heteroplasmies (T72C et A73G) presentes dans des individus âges de plus de 50 ans dans le tissu musculaire et osseux, heteroplasmies deja decrites dans la litterature. L'ensemble de ces resultats peut presenter un interet dans la detection et l'interpretation de l'heteroplasmie de l'ADN mitochondrial dans les etudes medico-legale et anthropologique.
Direct comparison of boron, phosphorus, and aluminum gettering of iron in crystalline silicon

This paper presents a direct quantitative comparison of the effectiveness of boron diffusion, phosphorus diffusion, and aluminum alloying in removing interstitial iron in crystalline silicon in the context of silicon solar cells. Phosphorus diffusion gettering was effective in removing more than 90% of the interstitial iron across a range of diffusion temperatures, sheet resistances, and iron doses. Even relatively light phosphorus diffusions (145 X/h) were found to give very effective gettering, especially when combined with extended low temperature annealing. Aluminum alloying was extremely effective and removed more than 99% of the implanted iron for a range of alloying temperatures and aluminum film thicknesses. In contrast, our experimental results showed that boron diffusion gettering is very sensitive to the deposition conditions and can change from less than 5% of the Fe being gettered to more than 99.9% gettered by changing only the gas flow ratios and the post-oxidation step. V C 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3569890]
Magnetic Resonance Imaging–Guided Percutaneous Biopsy of Mediastinal Masses: Diagnostic Performance and Safety

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance and safety of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging–guided percutaneous mediastinal biopsy procedures using a 0.23-T open MR system with optical tracking navigation. Materials and MethodsA retrospective analysis of 59 participants (38 males and 21 females; mean age, 45 years; range, 16–73 years) who underwent MR imaging–guided percutaneous mediastinal biopsy procedures was performed. The access techniques included extrapleural (40 of 59; 67.8%) and transpulmonary (19 of 59; 32.2%) needle paths. Tissue sampling techniques included fine-needle aspiration (22 of 59; 37.3%) and core-needle biopsy (37 of 59; 62.7%). Histopathological analysis of surgical specimen and clinical and imaging follow-ups were used as the reference standard. The procedures were evaluated for technical success rate, number of biopsy passes, diagnostic performance, procedure time, and complications. ResultsTechnical success was achieved in 57 of the 59 procedures (96.6%). For the fine-needle aspiration, a mean of 3 passes (range, 2–4 passes) was performed. For the core-needle biopsy, a mean of 4 passes (range, 3–6 passes) was performed. Pathological and cytological analysis of biopsy specimens showed 41 of 57 malignant lesions (71.9%) and 16 of 57 benign lesions (28.1%), with a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of 93.2% (41 of 44), 100% (13 of 13), 100% (41 of 41), 81.2% (13 of 16), and 94.7% (54 of 57), respectively. Procedure time was 30 minutes (range, 20–50 minutes). Mild hemoptysis occurred in 3 cases, and in 2 cases, a small pneumothorax occurred. ConclusionsMagnetic resonance imaging–guided biopsy of mediastinal masses has a high diagnostic performance and is safe for use in clinical practice.
Biogenesis of the yeast lysosome (vacuole): biosynthesis and maturation of proteinase yscB.

The biosynthesis and processing of the vacuolar (lysosomal) proteinase yscB was followed in vivo and in vitro. In vitro transcription–translation of the cloned proteinase yscB gene results in a high mol. wt precursor protein (HMr‐precursor) of Mr = 73,000. In vivo a precursor of identical mol. wt is found in sec6l mutant cells deficient in translocation of secretory protein precursors into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). In contrast to N‐glycosylated intermediate mol. wt forms of proteinase yscB, the HMr‐precursor of the enzyme is not N‐glycosylated, indicating its appearance outside the ER. sec18 Mutant cells, wild type for translocation of proteins into the ER but blocked in the delivery step of secretory proteins to the Golgi apparatus, accumulate a lower mol. wt precursor (LMr‐precursor) of proteinase yscB of Mr = 41,500. Processing of the HMr‐precursor of proteinase yscB to the LMr‐precursor requires proteolytic cleavage which is independent of the proteinase yscA gene product, a protein known to be involved in the processing event of the LMr‐precursor of proteinase yscB to the mature enzyme of Mr = 33,000. A LMr‐precursor of proteinase yscB of Mr = 42,000 accumulates in proteinase yscA‐deficient mutant cells (allele pep4‐3). This form is enzymatically active. Incubation in vitro of the LMr‐precursor of proteinase yscB with mature proteinase yscA leads to further activation and to processing of the enzyme yielding the mature 33,000 Mr protein. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Aging simulation using facial muscle model

Recently, the techniques of face recognition have been widely used in security application such as security monitoring, and access control. However, there are still some challenges in face recognition system which the light changes, expression changes, head movements, accessory occlusion and aging effect are the main issues. For the aging effect, the shape and texture change degrades the performance of face recognition system. Therefore, there are many algorithms focusing on how to simulate the aging face image. In this paper, the modeling of face image is an important procedure for aging simulation. We propose an aging simulation scheme based on the facial muscle model. Then the estimated aging is calculated by the texture variation of a target age from subspace of age groups. Finally, the PCA is applied to face recognition system. The simulation results presented in the paper are compared with the ground truth image of the same person. Simulation results show that the proposed aging simulation scheme is able to improve performance of face recognition system.
Structure of Vibriophage D10 Tail Sheath Revealed by Electron Microscopy and Computational Image Processing

Vibriophage D10, a member of the Vibrio cholerae O-1El-Tor phage typing scheme, is used to detect the spread of the cholera epidemic and belongs to the Myoviridae family. The outer sheath of the tail of vibriophage is highly contractile in nature. We have used electron microscopy and computational image-processing techniques to determine the structure of this contractile tail sheath. The three-dimensional density map of the tail sheath reveals the presence of ∼35 Å long and ∼25 Å wide protrusions, extending out of the tail structure. The electron micrographs revealed that the tail sheaths of a considerable number of D10 phage particles undergo axial compression up to 51% at almost neutral pH (7.2) and at room temperature (20°). We find that the genome of the phage particles is ejected out when the tail sheath of the phage particles are deliberately made to contract by subjecting them to a surrounding environment of pH 10.5. We infer that the contraction of the tail sheath is responsible for the loss of the phage genome even at neutral pH and room temperature. This may be a plausible reason for the unusual behavior of rapid decline of the phage within a span of 48–72 h of its preparation.
Contributions to the theory of finite fields

The present paper contains a number of results in the theory of finite fields or higher congruences. The method may be considered as an appUcation of the theory of /»-polynomials, which I have developed in a recent paperf On a special class of polynomials. In this special case the /»-polynomials form a commutative ring. However, this paper may be read without reference to the former investigations and one may say that the method applied is the representation of the finite field in its group ring. It should be mentioned at this point that a number of the results have direct applications in the theory of algebraic numbers. In chapter 1 the special properties of the /»-polynomials with coefficients in a finite field have been derived and the main results are the theorems that every /»-polynomial has primitive roots and that every /»-modulus is simple. A coroUary is the theorem of Hensel, that every finite field has a basis consisting of conjugate elements. Through the introduction of a symboUc multiplication of elements in a /»-modulus we make every such modulus a ring usuaUy containing divisors of zero. The results of this first chapter I have previously given without proofs.J In chapter 2 various theorems of decomposition and theorems on prime polynomials belonging to a product of /»-polynomials have been derived. Theorems 4 and 5 seem to be the most interesting of the results. In the next chapter these results are applied to the construction of irreducible polynomials. Theorem 1 gives a general type of irreducible polynomials. Next the complete prime polynomial decomposition of the simplest /»-polynomials are given, and it is shown how most known irreducible polynomials (mod /») can be obtained in this way, thus obtaining a unified method for deriving various formerly known results. In the last paragraph one finds a new class of irreducible polynomials closely related to the Unear fractional substitutions. The last chapter contains a few rudiments of the theory of finite fields considered as cyclic fields and also a particularly simple proof for the general law of reciprocity.
A metaprogramming framework for formal verification

We describe the metaprogramming framework currently used in Lean, an interactive theorem prover based on dependent type theory. This framework extends Lean's object language with an API to some of Lean's internal structures and procedures, and provides ways of reflecting object-level expressions into the metalanguage. We provide evidence to show that our implementation is performant, and that it provides a convenient and flexible way of writing not only small-scale interactive tactics, but also more substantial kinds of automation.
CAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PARADOXICALLY STRENGTHEN THE IMPORTANCE OF FINANCE

Beyond communication needs, integration of CSR into strategy and performance management systems is organized around the following relationships: CSR vs. Performance; CSR vs. Strategy; Financial Performance vs. Corporate Social Performance. On the basis of these relationships, and with different levels of sensitivity to CSR, an organization may face cognitive and operational barriers when implementing systems to manage all aspects of its performance. With a transposition of the above relationships in the banking industry, this research attempts to show that the search at any price of an fully integrated management system may lead to a strengthening of the financial dimension of performance and may affect ownership of CSR
Structural design optimization for deep convolutional neural networks using stochastic computing

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs) have been demonstrated as effective models for understanding image content. The computation behind DCNNs highly relies on the capability of hardware resources due to the deep structure. DCNNs have been implemented on different large-scale computing platforms. However, there is a trend that DCNNs have been embedded into light-weight local systems, which requires low power/energy consumptions and small hardware footprints. Stochastic Computing (SC) radically simplifies the hardware implementation of arithmetic units and has the potential to satisfy the small low-power needs of DCNNs. Local connectivities and down-sampling operations have made DCNNs more complex to be implemented using SC. In this paper, eight feature extraction designs for DCNNs using SC in two groups are explored and optimized in detail from the perspective of calculation precision, where we permute two SC implementations for inner-product calculation, two down-sampling schemes, and two structures of DCNN neurons. We evaluate the network in aspects of network accuracy and hardware performance for each DCNN using one feature extraction design out of eight. Through exploration and optimization, the accuracies of SC-based DCNNs are guaranteed compared with software implementations on CPU/GPU/binary-based ASIC synthesis, while area, power, and energy are significantly reduced by up to 776x, 190x, and 32835x.
Targeting of Dicer-2 and RNA by a Viral RNA Silencing Suppressor in Drosophila Cells

ABSTRACT RNA interference (RNAi) is a eukaryotic gene-silencing mechanism that functions in antiviral immunity in diverse organisms. To combat RNAi-mediated immunity, viruses encode viral suppressors of RNA silencing (VSRs) that target RNA and protein components in the RNAi machinery. Although the endonuclease Dicer plays key roles in RNAi immunity, little is known about how VSRs target Dicer. Here, we show that the B2 protein from Wuhan nodavirus (WhNV), the counterpart of Flock House virus (FHV), suppresses Drosophila melanogaster RNAi by directly interacting with Dicer-2 (Dcr-2) and sequestering double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA). Further investigations reveal that WhNV B2 binds to the RNase III and Piwi-Argonaut-Zwille (PAZ) domains of Dcr-2 via its C-terminal region, thereby blocking the activities of Dcr-2 in processing dsRNA and incorporating siRNA into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). Moreover, we uncover an interrelationship among diverse activities of WhNV B2, showing that RNA binding enhances the B2–Dcr-2 interaction by promoting B2 homodimerization. Taken together, our findings establish a model of suppression of Drosophila RNAi by WhNV B2 targeting both Dcr-2 and RNA and provide evidence that an interrelationship exists among diverse activities of VSRs to antagonize RNAi.
A W-band monolithic low noise AlGaAs/InGaAs pseudomorphic HEMT amplifier mounted on a small hermetically-sealed package with waveguide interface

A W-band monolithic low noise AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT amplifier mounted on a small hermetically-sealed package has been developed for use in Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer. A six-stage amplifier cascading three two-stage MMIC amplifier chips is assembled on a small hermetically-sealed package with waveguide interface and has achieved a noise figure of 4.3 dB with a gain of 28.1 dB at 91 GHz. The overall amplifier measures 12/spl times/32.8/spl times/5.4 mm/sup 3/. This is the first W-band multi-stage monolithic low noise amplifier mounted on a hermetically-sealed package. <<ETX>>
Modified classification of normal Lung Sounds applying Quantile Vectors

In this paper a novel Lung Sound Automatic Verification (LSAV) system and front-end Quantile based acoustic models to classify Lung Sounds (LS) are proposed. The utilization of Quantiles allowed an easier and objective assessment with smaller computational demand. Moreover, less-complex Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) were computed than those previously reported. The LSAV system allowed us to reach practically negligible error in healthy (normal) LS verification. LASV system efficiency and the optimal GMM's were evaluated by using Equal Error Rate (EER) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) techniques respectively. These approaches could provide a tool for broader medical evaluation which does not rely, as it is often the case, on a qualitative and subjective description of LS.
A Hybrid Strategy for Fine-Grained Sentiment of Microblog

Currently, most sentiment analysis of microblog has been focused on coarse-grained sentiment analysis, but fine-grained sentiment is better for reflecting the opinion of the public when they are facing the social focus. Therefore, a hybrid strategy which is a combination of Naive Bayesian and two-layer CRFs is put forward, which has been applied to the finegrained sentiment analysis of Chinese microblog. First, microblog is classified into two types: sentiment and non-sentiment by using Naive Bayesian classification algorithm. And then the first-layer CRFs model is built for the topic emotional sentence. Finally CRFs algorithm is used again to do multi-classification to assign a specific sentiment category. Experimental results show that a good result in sentiment identification based on the combination of Naive Bayesian and CRFs, and also show the advantage of the combination of Naive Bayesian and CRFs interrelated with emotional sentence extraction based on CRFs.
Vehicle detection based on morphology from highway aerial images

Vehicle detection from high resolution aerial images has been studied for many years. However, a robust and efficient vehicle detection method is still challenging. In this paper, a novel and robust method for automatic vehicle detection from highway aerial image was presented. In this method, a GIS road vector map is used to constrain a vehicle detection system to the highway networks. After the structure element is identified, morphological preprocessing method is used to identify candidate vehicles. Experiment is conducted with 0.15 m resolution aerial image. And the result demonstrated that the novel method has an excellent detection performance, thus the method is very promising.
Comparison of series and parallel optical modulators for microwave down-conversion

Photonic down-conversion of microwave signals using a pair of broad-band optical modulators is investigated theoretically and experimentally for cascaded and parallel modulator topologies. Improvement of 14 dB, roughly equal to the composite modulator insertion loss, was measured. Low-biasing and balanced detection in parallel links allows a further improvement of over 20 dB through increased laser power without detector saturation.
Molecular cloning and nucleotide sequence of the pectin methyl esterase gene of Erwinia chrysanthemi B374

The gene encoding pectin methyl esterase (pme) has been cloned from Erwinia chrysanthemi B374. Expression of pme in Escherichia coli allowed the enzyme to be characterized. Pectin methyl esterase (PME) was found to have an apparent molecular weight of 36000 Daltons and an isoelectric point of approximately 9.9. The structural gene was sequenced and consists of a 1098‐bp open reading frame encoding a polypeptide of 39318 Daltons, which includes an amino‐terminal signal peptide. The isolation of the Erwinia gene provides a simple method for the production of PME free from depolymerizing pectinases thereby extending its potential uses.
Locational marginal price forecasting by locally linear neuro-fuzzy model

Price forecasting in competitive electricity markets plays a crucial role for any decision making. This is a difficult task since price time series are non-stationary, and with variable mean and variance, and also have periodic monthly and seasonal behavior. This paper introduces an approach to forecast several-hours-ahead electricity locational marginal price (LMP) using locally linear neuro-fuzzy (LLNF) model for the PJM market. The autocorrelation method is used to make the appropriate input vectors. The LLNF model leads to more accurate results compared to the Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural network.
Fifteen years of performance-based design in New Zealand

The paper gives an overview of performance-based design in New Zealand with particular reference to fire, seismic, and durability design of timber structures. The performance-based code came into force 15 years ago when it superseded the previous prescriptive codes. Major changes were introduced, particularly in fire engineering, where every specific limitation, such as that on the maximum number of storeys for timber buildings, was removed. The compliance of each design with the performance requirements may be demonstrated using either of an approved verification method (specified calculations), an acceptable solution (prescriptive requirements), or an alternative solution (special oneoff design). This new regime allowed more freedom in design and the use of new construction systems, but with the simultaneous deregulation of the building industry, a reduction in quality followed, with poor details and sloppy construction leading to a number of problems such as “leaky buildings”. For this reason, more stringent regulations were recently introduced, with a much more rigorous system of quality control.
A 650Mb/s-to-8Gb/s referenceless CDR circuit with automatic acquisition of data rate

The CDR circuit is a key enabling block in high-speed serial links. With an external reference clock for frequency acquisition, high-performance CDR circuits typically operate at a single pre-defined data rate. In rapidly growing telecommunication applications, however, it is desirable for a CDR circuit to be able to cover a wide range of bit rates for improved flexibility. In the WDM technique, for example, the data can be transmitted with different bit rates. Thus, it is desired that the CDR circuit detects the change in the input data rate and automatically acquire the new data rate without any need for external programming.