Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Experimental User Level Implementation of TCP

With high speed networks supporting data rates of a few hundreds Mbps and distributed applications demanding high performance, existing communication system and protocol architectures are under discussion. In this report, we describe an implementation of the TCP/IP stack with TCP [1] in user space and IP in kernel space. The goal by placing TCP in user space is to obtain a flexible transport protocol which can in future allows integrated communication subsystems based on Application Level Framing (ALF) and Integrated Layer Processing (ILP) [2]. ALF and ILP are expected to achieve more efficient data transfer, and more application control in the communication process.
On Joint Source-Channel Coding for the Non-White Gaussian Case

The paper presents performance limits for transmitting correlated Gaussian signals over additive, Gaussian channels with memory and limited transmit power. Both absolute performance limits as well as performance limits for linear systems are given. A bandwidth matching technique is introduced for the adaptation of the signal to the channel. This can be used as an instrument for resource allocation when combining subband source decomposition and OFDM transmission in a source-channel coding environment
A 0.8 V CMOS TSPC adiabatic DCVS logic circuit with the bootstrap technique for low-power VLSI

The paper reports a novel 0.8 V CMOS true-single-phase-clocking (TSPC) adiabatic differential cascode voltage switch (DCVS) logic circuit with the bootstrap technique for low-power VLSI. Via the pass transistors and compensating transistors, the TSPC scheme has been obtained for easy clocking. Using the capacitance coupling from the bootstrap transistors, this 0.8 V TSPC adiabatic DCVS logic circuit with the bootstrap technique consumes 31% less energy as compared to the one using the clocked adiabatic latch (CAL) approach.
Every Team Makes Mistakes: An Initial Report on Predicting Failure in Teamwork

Voting among different agents is a powerful tool in problem solving, and it has been widely applied to improve the performance in machine learning. However, the potential of voting has been explored only in improving the ability of finding the correct answer to a complex problem. In this paper we present a novel benefit in voting, that has not been observed before: we show that we can use the voting patterns to assess the performance of a team and predict their final outcome. This prediction can be executed at any moment during problem-solving and it is completely domain independent. We present a preliminary theoretical explanation of why our prediction method works, where we show that the accuracy is better for diverse teams composed by different agents than for uniform teams made of copies of the same agent. We also perform experiments in the Computer Go domain, where we show that we can obtain a high accuracy in predicting the final outcome of the games. We analyze the prediction accuracy for 3 different teams, and we show that the prediction works significantly better for a diverse team. Since our approach is completely domain independent, it can be easily applied to a variety of domains, such as the video games in the Arcade Learning Environment.
Physical Activity : Null Results from Two Randomized Controlled Trials

All material supplied via JYX is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorised user. Theory-Based Interventions Combining Mental Simulation and Planning Techniques to Improve Physical Activity: Null Results from Two Randomized Controlled Trials Meslot, Carine; Gauchet, Aurélie; Allenet, Benoît; François, Olivier; Hagger, Martin
The Effect of Disease Modifying Therapies on Disease Progression in Patients with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Importance A number of officially approved disease-modifying drugs (DMD) are currently available for the early intervention in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). The aim of the present study was to systematically evaluate the effect of DMDs on disability progression in RRMS Methods We performed a systematic review on MEDLINE and SCOPUS databases to include all available placebo-controlled randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of RRMS patients that reported absolute numbers or percentages of disability progression during each study period. Observational studies, case series, case reports, RCTs without placebo subgroups and studies reporting the use of RRMS therapies that are not still officially approved were excluded. Risk ratios (RRs) were calculated in each study protocol to express the comparison of disability progression in RRMS patients treated with a DMD and those RRMS patients receiving placebo. The mixed-effects model was used to calculate both the pooled point estimate in each subgroup and the overall estimates. Results DMDs for RRMS were found to have a significantly lower risk of disability progression compared to placebo (RR = 0.72, 95%CI: 0.66–0.79; p<0.001), with no evidence of heterogeneity or publication bias. In subsequent subgroup analyses, neither dichotomization of DMDs as “first” and “second” line RRMS therapies [(RR = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.65–0.80) vs. (RR = 0.72, 95% = 0.57–0.91); p = 0.96] nor the route of administration (injectable or oral) [RR = 0.75 (95% CI = 0.64–0.87) vs. RR = 0.74 (95% CI = 0.66–0.83); p = 0.92] had a differential effect on the risk of disability progression. Either considerable (5–20%) or significant (>20%) rates of loss to follow-up were reported in many study protocols, while financial and/or other support from pharmaceutical industries with a clear conflict of interest on the study outcomes was documented in all included studies. Conclusions Available DMD are effective in reducing disability progression in patients with RRMS, independently of the route of administration and their classification as “first” or “second” line therapies. Attrition bias needs to be taken into account in the interpretation of these findings.
Slotless Protocols for Fast and Energy-Efficient Neighbor Discovery

In mobile ad-hoc networks, neighbor discovery protocols are used to find surrounding devices and to establish a first contact between them. Since the clocks of the devices are not synchronized and their energy-budgets are limited, usually duty-cycled, asynchronous discovery protocols are applied. Only if two devices are awake at the same point in time, they can rendezvous. Currently, time-slotted protocols, which subdivide time into multiple intervals with equal lengths (slots), are considered to be the most efficient discovery schemes. In this paper, we break away from the assumption of slotted time. We propose a novel, continuous-time discovery protocol, which temporally decouples beaconing and listening. Each device periodically sends packets with a certain interval, and periodically listens for a given duration with a different interval. By optimizing these interval lengths, we show that this scheme can, to the best of our knowledge, outperform all known protocols such as DISCO, U-Connect or Searchlight significantly. For example, Searchlight takes up to 740 % longer than our proposed technique to discover a device with the same duty-cycle. Further, our proposed technique can also be applied in widely-used asymmetric purely interval-based protocols such as ANT or Bluetooth Low Energy.
A Bayesian regression approach to the inference of regulatory networks from gene expression data

MOTIVATION There is currently much interest in reverse-engineering regulatory relationships between genes from microarray expression data. We propose a new algorithmic method for inferring such interactions between genes using data from gene knockout experiments. The algorithm we use is the Sparse Bayesian regression algorithm of Tipping and Faul. This method is highly suited to this problem as it does not require the data to be discretized, overcomes the need for an explicit topology search and, most importantly, requires no heuristic thresholding of the discovered connections. RESULTS Using simulated expression data, we are able to show that this algorithm outperforms a recently published correlation-based approach. Crucially, it does this without the need to set any ad hoc threshold on possible connections.
What Makes Kevin Spacey Look Like Kevin Spacey

We reconstruct a controllable model of a person from a large photo collection that captures his or her {\em persona}, i.e., physical appearance and behavior. The ability to operate on unstructured photo collections enables modeling a huge number of people, including celebrities and other well photographed people without requiring them to be scanned. Moreover, we show the ability to drive or {\em puppeteer} the captured person B using any other video of a different person A. In this scenario, B acts out the role of person A, but retains his/her own personality and character. Our system is based on a novel combination of 3D face reconstruction, tracking, alignment, and multi-texture modeling, applied to the puppeteering problem. We demonstrate convincing results on a large variety of celebrities derived from Internet imagery and video.
Social presence in two- and three-dimensional videoconferencing

New three-dimensional videoconferencing systems are trying to overcome the artificial nature of two-dimensional desktop video conferencing. The phenomenon of Social Presence serves as a measure of how natural persons feel when they are connected with a distant other through a telecommunication interface. We present a study measuring the difference in Social Presence in three conditions: (1) desktop 2D videoconferencing, (2) desktop 3D videoconferencing, and (3) face-to-face communication in a real environment, each with three participants involved. We applied two Social Presence measurement scales in an experiment with 42 subjects and found that in one scale Social Presence is rated higher in 3D than 2D. Further results are discussed in the paper. Keywords--Social Presence, Co-Presence, Videoconferencing, Presence measurement
Simulation of the impact of network topologies on standardization decisions

Choosing the right set of communication standards is fundamental in any kind of interaction, especially in the coordination of economic activities. The related decision problem, generally referred to as the ldquostandardization problemrdquo, mainly results from interdependencies due to positive network effects. This paper describes the standardization problem, an abstract decision model for assessing the economic value of using standards in communication networks. Previous research investigates the standardization problem mostly in random networks. Motivated by the network analysis of recently examined other network topologies, this paper presents a comparison of simulation results for standardization problems in random, small world and scale free networks. It shows amongst others that random networks exhibit a special solution structure tending to complete standardization. Small world and scale free networks on the other hand, have different solution structures, one with partial standardization as the most common optimal solution and complete standardization, depending from their specific creation parameters.
CaV1.3 Channels Are Essential for Development and Presynaptic Activity of Cochlear Inner Hair Cells

Cochlear inner hair cells (IHCs) release neurotransmitter onto afferent auditory nerve fibers in response to sound stimulation. During early development, afferent synaptic transmission is triggered by spontaneous Ca2+ spikes of IHCs, which are under efferent cholinergic control. Around the onset of hearing, large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels are acquired, and Ca2+ spikes as well as the cholinergic innervation are lost. Here, we performed patch-clamp measurements in IHCs of mice lacking the CaV1.3 channel (CaV1.3-/-) to investigate the role of this prevailing voltage-gated Ca2+ channel in IHC development and synaptic function. The small Ca2+ current remaining in IHCs from 3-week-old CaV1.3-/- mice was mainly mediated by L-type Ca2+ channels, because it was sensitive to dihydropyridines but resistant to inhibitors of non-L-type Ca2+ channels such as ω-conotoxins GVIA and MVIIC and SNX-482. Depolarization induced only marginal exocytosis in CaV1.3-/- IHC, which was solely mediated by L-type Ca2+ channels, whereas robust exocytic responses were elicited by photolysis of caged Ca2+. Secretion triggered by short depolarizations was reduced proportionally to the Ca2+ current, suggesting that the coupling of the remaining channels to exocytosis was unchanged. CaV1.3-/- IHCs lacked the Ca2+ action potentials and displayed a complex developmental failure. Most strikingly, we observed a continued presence of efferent cholinergic synaptic transmission and a lack of functional large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels up to 4 weeks after birth. We conclude that CaV1.3 channels are essential for normal hair cell development and synaptic transmission.
Improving access to health services – challenges in Lean application

Purpose – Healthcare organisations face significant productivity pressures and are undergoing major service transformation. The purpose of this paper is to disseminate findings from a Lean healthcare project using a National Health Service Single Point of Access environment as the case study. It demonstrates the relevance and extent that Lean can be applied to this type of healthcare service setting. Design/methodology/approach – Action research was applied and Lean tools used to establish current state processes, identify wastes and develop service improvement opportunities based upon defined customer values. Findings – The quality of referral information was found to be the root cause of a number of process wastes and causes of failure for the service. Recognising the relationship and the nature of interaction with the service’s customer/supplier lead to more effective and sustainable service improvement opportunities and the co-creation of value. It was also recognised that not all the Lean principles .
Bandwidth compression for continuous amplitude channels based on vector approximation to a continuous subset of the source signal space

Two methods for transmission of a continuous amplitude source signal over a continuous amplitude channel with a power constraint are proposed. For both methods, bandwidth reduction is achieved by mapping from a higher dimensional source space to a lower dimensional channel space. In the first system, a source vector is quantized and mapped to a discrete set of points in a multidimensional PAM signal constellation. In the second system the source vector is approximated with a point in a continuous subset of the source space. This operation is followed by mapping the resulting vector to the channel space by a one-to-one continuous mapping resulting in continuous amplitude channel symbols. The proposed methods are evaluated for a memoryless Gaussian source with an additive white Gaussian noise channel, and offer significant gains over previously reported methods. Specifically, in the case of two-dimensional source vectors, and one-dimensional channel vectors, the gap to the optimum performance theoretically attainable is less than 1.0 dB for a wide range of channel signal-to-noise ratios.
Intrinsic fate determinants of neural and multipotent CNS precursor cells

The cells of the mammalian central nervous system (CNS) arise from multipotential precursor cells. The mechanisms that drive precursor cells toward a distinct cell fate are not well understood. Since transcription factors are known to control fate decisions, I attempted to determine the role of transcription factors Emx1, Emx2 and Pax6 that are particularly interesting since they specify area identities in the mouse telencephalon. To analyze their roles in precursor cells I chose gain-of-function experiments. Overexpression of these transcription factors showed that Emx2, Emx1 and Pax6 affect precursor cells in a region-specific manner. Emx2 transduction increases proliferation by promoting symmetric cell divisions, whereas blockade of endogenous Emx2 by antisense Emx2 mRNA limits the number and fate of progenitors generated by an individual cortical precursor cell. In the Emx2-/- asymmetrical cell divisions are increased in the cerebral cortex in vivo. In contrast to Emx2 Pax6 decreases proliferation. Pax6 deficient cells show more symmetrical cell divisions while Pax6 promotes asymmetric cell divisions in vitro. Emx2 endows in vitro cortical precursor cells with the capacity to generate multiple cell types, including neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Emx1 keeps cells in an undifferentiated cell type, while Pax6 increases the proportion of neurons and can also convert astrocytes to neurons. The bHLH transcription factors Olig2 and Mash1 are up-regulated upon Emx2-transduction whereas Pax6 negatively influences those transcription factors and specifically up-regulates Ngn2. Thus, Emx2 is the first cell-intrinsic determinant able to instruct CNS precursors towards a multipotential fate. These results demonstrated an important role of Pax6 as intrinsic fate determinant of the neurogenic potential of glial cells. Taken together, Emx2 and Pax6 have opposing roles in cell proliferation, mode of cell division and cell fate.
Complete multi-view reconstruction of dynamic scenes from probabilistic fusion of narrow and wide baseline stereo

This paper presents a novel approach to achieve accurate and complete multi-view reconstruction of dynamic scenes (or 3D videos). 3D videos consist in sequences of 3D models in motion captured by a surrounding set of video cameras. To date 3D videos are reconstructed using multiview wide baseline stereo (MVS) reconstruction techniques. However it is still tedious to solve stereo correspondence problems: reconstruction accuracy falls when stereo photo-consistency is weak, and completeness is limited by self-occlusions. Most MVS techniques were indeed designed to deal with static objects in a controlled environment and therefore cannot solve these issues. Hence we propose to take advantage of the image content stability provided by each single-view video to recover any surface regions visible by at least one camera. In particular we present an original probabilistic framework to derive and predict the true surface of models. We propose to fuse multi-view structure-from-motion with robust 3D features obtained by MVS in order to significantly improve reconstruction completeness and accuracy. A min-cut problem where all exact features serve as priors is solved in a final step to reconstruct the 3D models. In addition, experimental results were conducted on synthetic and challenging real world datasets to illustrate the robustness and accuracy of our method.
Transcriptomic Analysis of Grapevine (cv. Summer Black) Leaf, Using the Illumina Platform

Proceeding to illumina sequencing, determining RNA integrity numbers for poly RNA were separated from each of the four developmental stages of cv. Summer Black leaves by using Illumina HiSeq™ 2000. The sums of 272,941,656 reads were generated from vitis vinifera leaf at four different developmental stages, with more than 27 billion nucleotides of the sequence data. At each growth stage, RNA samples were indexed through unique nucleic acid identifiers and sequenced. KEGG annotation results depicted that the highest number of transcripts in 2,963 (2Avs4A) followed by 1Avs4A (2,920), and 3Avs4A (2,294) out of 15,614 (71%) transcripts were recorded. In comparison, a total of 1,532 transcripts were annotated in GOs, including Cellular component, with the highest number in “Cell part” 251 out of 353 transcripts (71.1%), followed by intracellular organelle 163 out of 353 transcripts (46.2%), while in molecular function and metabolic process 375 out of 525 (71.4%) transcripts, multicellular organism process 40 out of 525 (7.6%) transcripts in biological process were most common in 1Avs2A. While in case of 1Avs3A, cell part 476 out of 662 transcripts (71.9%), and membrane-bounded organelle 263 out of 662 transcripts (39.7%) were recorded in Cellular component. In the grapevine transcriptome, during the initial stages of leaf development 1Avs2A showed single transcript was down-regulated and none of them were up-regulated. While in comparison of 1A to 3A showed one up-regulated (photosystem II reaction center protein C) and one down regulated (conserved gene of unknown function) transcripts, during the hormone regulating pathway namely SAUR-like auxin-responsive protein family having 2 up-regulated and 7 down-regulated transcripts, phytochrome-associated protein showed 1 up-regulated and 9 down-regulated transcripts, whereas genes associated with the Leucine-rich repeat protein kinase family protein showed 7 up-regulated and 1 down-regulated transcript, meanwhile Auxin Resistant 2 has single up-regulated transcript in second developmental stage, although 3 were down-regulated at lateral growth stages (3A and 4A). In the present study, 489 secondary metabolic pathways related genes were identified during leaf growth, which mainly includes alkaloid (40), anthocyanins (21), Diterpenoid (144), Monoterpenoid (90) and Flavonoids (93). Quantitative real-time PCR was applied to validate 10 differentially expressed transcripts patterns from flower, leaf and fruit metabolic pathways at different growth stages.
J ul 2 00 9 Submitted to ApJ The Disruption and Fueling of M 33

The disruption of the M33 galaxy is evident from its extended gaseous structure. We present new data from the Galactic Arecibo L-Band Feed Array HI (GALFA-HI) Survey that show the full extent and detailed spatial and kinematic structure of M33’s neutral hydrogen. Over 18% of the HI mass of M33 (MHItot = 1.4 × 10 9 M⊙) is found beyond the star forming disk as traced in the far-ultraviolet (FUV). The most distinct features are extended warps, an arc from the northern warp to the disk, diffuse gas surrounding the galaxy, and a southern cloud with a filament back to the galaxy. The features extend out to 22 kpc from the galaxy center (18 kpc from the edge of the FUV disk) and the gas is directly connected to M33’s disk. Only five discrete clouds (i.e., gas not directly connected to M33 in position-velocity space) are catalogued in the vicinity of M33, and these clouds show similar properties to Galactic and M31 halo clouds. M33’s gaseous features most likely originate from the tidal disruption of M33 by M31 1-3 Gyr ago as shown from an orbit analysis which results in a tidal radius < 15 kpc in the majority of M33’s possible orbits. M33 is now beyond the disruptive gravitational influence of M31 and the gas appears to be returning to M33’s disk and redistributing its star formation fuel. M33’s high mean velocity Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 Astronomy Department, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411 Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1042 Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 School of Physics, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter, United Kingdom EX4 4QL Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1582 Arecibo Observatory, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo, PR 00612 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101