Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NATBLASTER: Establishing TCP Connections Between Hosts Behind NATs ∗

Firewalls and Network Address Translation (NAT) devices are becoming increasingly prevalent, and they pose a significant p roblem for connection establishment for peer-to-peer protocols. When properly configured, these middle-boxes 1 inhibit TCP connections solicited from outside the local network. This paper proposes novel mechanisms to create direct TCP connections between two hosts behind middle-boxes with minimal help from a third-party. We implement two of these solutions on common hardware within a common environment. We are able to create direct TCP connections between two hosts which are both located behind typical NATs designed for small networks. Once this connection is established, the applications can communicate with each other using a standard TCP implementation with no further external help.
Semiosphere and/as the research object of semiotics of culture

Since 1984 when J. Lotman’s article “On semiosphere” was published, this concept has been moving from one terminological field to another. In the disciplinary terminological field of the Tartu–Moscow School semiotics of culture, ‘semiosphere’ is connected with terms ‘language — secondary modelling system — text — culture’. From interdisciplinary terminological fields, the associations either with biosphere and noosphere, or with logosphere, are more important. As a metadisciplinary concept, semiosphere belongs to the methodology of culture studies and is associated with the concepts of holism and the part and the whole. In this context, semiosphere marks the complementarity of disciplines studying culture, the movement towards the creation of general culture studies and “understanding methodology”. On the background of the contemporary trends of science it has to be remembered that semiosphere is simultaneously an objectand a metaconcept. The dynamism of culture as a research object forces science to search for new description languages but the new description languages in turn influence the cultural dynamics as they offer new possibilities for selfdescription. Often, however, from a historical perspective, a new description language is nothing but a methodological translation. Thus also the term semiosphere joins together several concepts that are related to semiotics of culture and that have gained new relevance on the background of the culture’s developmental dynamics. The concept of semiosphere brings semiotics of culture again into contact with its history, as it also brings applicational cultural analysis into contact with the history of culture and with the newest phenomena in culture. These contacts determine the place of the semiotics of culture among the sciences studying culture. 1 The article is based on the presentation at the First International Meeting for the Study of the Semiosphere, organized by Irene Machado and her colleagues in Sao Paulo, Brazil, August 22–27, 2005.
Acetaminophen-Induced Hepatotoxicity in a Liver Tissue Model Consisting of Primary Hepatocytes Assembling around an Endothelial Cell Network

Primary hepatocytes have been used in drug development for the evaluation of hepatotoxicity of candidate compounds. However, the rapid depression of their hepatic characters in vitro must be improved to predict toxicity with higher accuracy. We have hypothesized that a well organized tissue construct that includes nonparenchymal cells and appropriate scaffold material(s) could overcome this difficulty by remediating the viability and physiological function of primary hepatocytes. In this study, we constructed an in vitro liver tissue model, consisting of mouse primary hepatocytes assembling around an endothelial cell network on Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm gel, and examined its response to acetaminophen treatment. The increase in lactate dehydrogenase release after the exposure to acetaminophen was induced earlier in the liver tissue model than in monolayer hepatocytes alone, suggesting that the tissue model was more sensitive to an acetaminophen-induced toxicity. On the basis of our results, we conclude that liver tissue models of this kind may enhance the responses of hepatocytes against xenobiotics via the maintenance of hepatic genes and functions such as cytochrome P450s. These findings will contribute to the development of more accurate systems for evaluating hepatotoxicity.
An Energy-efficient Grid based Clustering Topology for a Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is an emerging technology. It is predicted that in future, WSN will change the human life totally. Energy optimization in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)is one of the challenging issue. Wireless Sensor Network composed of a set of tiny sensor nodes. The nodes are continuously sense and transmit the data. WSN have a wireless nature, due to this has a limited lifetime. So increase the lifetime of Wireless Sensor Network and Minimize energy cost in wireless sensor network are an important problem. To solve this problem clustering technique are always used, among the entire clustering technique grid based clustering is more efficient. Grid based clustering is more simple and feasible, and has so much advantage with respect to other clustering method. In this we proposed a grid based clustering algorithm for minimizing energy consumption, where clustering is formed depending upon the interest of nodes.
A New Energy Efficient Protocol for Minimizing Multi-Hop Latency in Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, efficient usage of energy helps in improving the network lifetime. As the battery of a sensor node, in most cases, cannot be recharged or replaced after the deployment of the sensors, energy management becomes a critical issue in such networks. In order to detect an event, a sensor network spends majority of the time in monitoring its environment, during which a significant amount of energy can be saved by placing the radio in the low-power sleep mode. This can be achieved by using a dual frequency radio setup. However, such energy saving protocols increase the latency encountered in setting up a multihop path. We, in this paper, propose a reservation scheme, latency minimized energy efficient MAC protocol (LEEM), which is a novel hop-ahead reservation scheme in a dual frequency radio to minimize the latency in the multihop path data transmission by reserving the next hop's channel a priori. Thus, in a multihop sensor network, a packet can be forwarded to the next hop, as soon as it is received by a sensor node, which helps in eliminating the delay incurred for setting up the path. Simulation results show that LEEM consumes lesser power and reduces end-to-end latency by around 50% than that of the existing schemes
Dataset of potential targets for Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv through comparative genome analysis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causative agent of the disease, tuberculosis and H37Rv is the most studied clinical strain. We use comparative genome analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv and human for the identification of potential targets dataset. We used DEG (Database of Essential Genes) to identify essential genes in the H37Rv strain. The analysis shows that 628 of the 3989 genes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv were found to be essential of which 324 genes lack similarity to the human genome. Subsequently hypothetical proteins were removed through manual curation. This further resulted in a dataset of 135 proteins with essential function and no homology to human.
Initialization, Training, and Context-Dependency in HMM-Based Formant Tracking

This paper presents an algorithm for formant tracking using HMMs and analyzes the influence of HMM initialization, training and context-dependency on the accuracy of the formant tracks obtained with the HMMs. Formant trackers usually include two different phases: one in which the speech is analyzed and formant candidates are obtained, and another in which, by imposing different constraints, the most likely formants are chosen. While the first stage usually relies on standard spectrum estimation techniques, the second stage has evolved notably in the recent years. Traditionally the second phase tries to impose continuity constraints on the formant selection process. Lately there has been ongoing research to include phonemic knowledge in the second stage to make formant tracking more reliable. In order to incorporate phonemic knowledge newer approaches make use of the orthographic transcription of the speech utterance. From the orthographic transcription, the phonemic transcription is obtained, and from this and the speech itself a phonemic segmentation can be obtained. This phonemic segmentation, along with the phonemic transcription and some knowledge of the nominal formant positions for the different phonemes provides extra information that can be used to obtain more accurate formant tracks. This paper presents a complete HMM-based data-driven algorithm for formant tracking suitable to combine different levels of acoustic and phonemic information. A detailed analysis on the performance of this algorithm is discussed for: different initialization strategies using different levels of knowledge, different degrees of training, and context-independent and dependent HMMs. Experimental speaker-dependent results show that the efficient use of phonemic information in HMM training and context-dependent modeling significantly reduces the formant tracking error rate especially for formants$ F_2$and$ F_3$.
Exploring Meta-Knowledge for Knowledge Management Systems: A Delphi Study

In recent years, information and communication technologies have been implemented in organizations to support the management of organizational knowledge and facilitate more effective knowledge sharing and problem solving. These technologies are collectively termed knowledge management systems (KMS). Unfortunately, the results of implementing KMS in organizations have not been as encouraging as expected. Specific problems facing organizations involve information overload, not using the systems effectively, or reinventing the wheel. Considering the fact that KMS were expected to solve exactly this latter problem, there is a need for studying why these systems fail and how we can improve them. In this paper, we focus on one aspect of the problem—namely, that organization members are not utilizing the knowledge stored in KMS. We propose that by incorporating some knowledge about the knowledge—termed meta-knowledge—we may improve the ability of organization members to locate knowledge and form attitudes about it. This, in turn, can result in better use of KMS and the application of organizational knowledge. To identify the specific metaknowledge required for the design of KMS, we conduct an exploratory Delphi study using a panel of 28 professionals from seven organizations. Our results show that the relevance of the knowledge, the experience of the knowledge source in the problem domain, and the credibility of the knowledge are the three most important elements of meta-knowledge.
Temporal and color consistent disparity estimation in stereo videos

In this paper, a novel method for stereo videos disparity estimation is proposed. Temporal consistency in the disparity and color spaces of the video are combined to enhance the disparity estimation algorithm. Outlier detection along the temporal dimension in the color space is used to find areas where disparity can be temporally enhanced from previous and future frames. Moreover, a forward-backward approach is utilized for consistency checking and error correction in cases of fast motion in the video, which usually introduce disparity artifacts. The method can work in real-time even in the hard case of high definition (HD) videos. Experimental results prove that the proposed approach outperforms state of the art methods in a publicly available dataset.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports How Rigid Are Producer Prices? How Rigid Are Producer Prices?

This paper presents preliminary findings and is being distributed to economists and other interested readers solely to stimulate discussion and elicit comments. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and are not necessarily reflective of views at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors. Abstract How rigid are producer prices? A longstanding conventional wisdom among economists holds that producer prices are more rigid than, and so play less of an allocative role than do, consumer prices. In the 1987-2008 microdata collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the producer price index (PPI), we find that producer prices for finished goods and services in fact exhibit roughly the same degree of flexibility as consumer prices, with a median frequency of price change that falls between that of consumer prices including, and excluding, sales. This pattern becomes clear once one weights large firms by their revenue in aggregating the data, as large firms change prices two to three times more frequently than do small firms, and by smaller amounts. We also find that longer price durations are associated with larger price changes for goods firms, but not for services firms, and that while long-term contracts are associated with somewhat greater price rigidity for both goods and services firms, the differences are not dramatic. Finally, the size of price decreases plays a key role in PPI inflation dynamics, a fact that is not accounted for by standard workhorse macroeconomic pricing models. helpful comments and discussions. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the BLS, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, or the Federal Reserve System.
A Hybrid Game Approach for Joint User Selection and Power Allocation over Unlicensed Spectrum Bands

This paper studies sharing of unlicensed spectrum bands between network operators by formulating it as a hybrid noncooperative game. A multi-user multi-channel downlink transmission is considered where the communication links are modeled as Gaussian parallel interference channels. Each transmitter, controlled by a competing operator, selects one user per channel from its registered users as well as the transmission power level on each channel. The operators are selfish and aim to maximize their sum-rate which is captured by a hybrid noncooperative game model. Nash equilbrium provides an incentivecompatible and suitable solution concept for this game. Sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of a (pure) Nash equilibrium are derived. Furthermore, an algorithm is proposed to compute all Nash equilibria. Additional insights into user selection in the high SNR and low SNR regimes are developed via a numerical example. Finally, a mechanism based on pricing is investigated to drive the Nash Equilibrium of the game to a pareto-optimal solution, for example, by an independent regulator.
The Linguistic Output of Psychopathic Offenders During a PCL-R Interview

We used text analysis software to examine the linguistic features of the speech of 21 psychopathic and 45 other offenders during the interview part of a Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) assessment. Regression analysis was run on the linguistic categories to determine which were the best predictors of psychopathy scores. Relative to the other offenders, psychopaths used more disfluencies (“you know”) and personal pronouns, made fewer references to other people (e.g., personal names, family), and were also less emotionally expressive. In particular, a low frequency of anxiety-related words and a more frequent use of personal pronouns were the most significant predictors of PCL-R scores and accounted for 25% of the variance. These findings for the first time afford a unique glimpse into the language produced during the PCL-R assessment interview. In addition to enhancing our understanding of psychopathic speech, these results may provide interviewers additional insights relevant to the assessment and therapeutic process.
Reduced Hardware Lock Elision

Hardware lock elision (HLE) concurrently executes lock critical sections as hardware transactions, but fallbacks to the original sequential lock fallback path when some hardware transaction fails. Recent software-assisted lock-removal based schemes provide a better concurrency by sacrificing safety (opacity). Hardware transactions can execute at the same time with the lock fallback path as long as they do not try to commit. This limited concurrency is beneficial, but enables hardware transactions to see inconsistent memory states, that may lead to illegal instructions, corrupted memory, and other unsafe behaviors. We propose a novel reduced hardware lock elision algorithm (RH-LE). It provides a safe (and opaque) concurrency between hardware transactions and the lock fallback path. The core idea behind the RH-LE approach is to execute the lock fallback path as a rollback-only hardware transaction, that tracks only the memory writes of the transaction. This special hardware transaction is already introduced in the IBM Power8 ISA specification with the intention to be used only for non-shared writes. We propose to use the rollback-only hardware transaction for all of the writes, shared or non-shared, and in this way to hide all of the write modifications of the lock fallback path till its successful commit. The hiding process preserves opacity of concurrent hardware transactions, and allows read-only hardware transactions to commit even when there is a concurrent fallback execution. Currently, IBM Power8 processors are unavailable for public use, and therefore we implement a software-based simulation of the RH-LE algorithm. It shows that the new lock elision scheme has the potential to be almost 2 times faster than other lock elision techniques.
Towards Restraining Cost in Healthcare Domain: A Multiagent Approach

The proliferating cost with-in the healthcare domain is forcing the researchers and practitioners alike to revisit healthcare logistics domain again and again in order to control the cost. However, controlling healthcare cost requires that limits be placed either on prices, quantities of services or both. As prices can be easily controlled by effectively focusing on the mechanism rather then involving and arguing about the services. The prototype developed has directed its attention towards coordination and intelligence in order to effectively manage the logistics while aiming for the improvement of mechanism. Coordination and user profiling has been demonstrated in multi agent environment. The idea here is to order medicines using human expertise in the form of fuzzy logics and effective coordination of different hospital pharmacies for an efficient use of medicines.
Crunching Big Data with Fingertips: How Typists Tune Their Performance Toward the Statistics of Natural Language

People have the extraordinary ability to control the order of their actions. How people accomplish sequencing and become skilled at it with practice is a long-standing problem (Lashley, 1951). Big Data techniques can shed new light on these questions. We used the online crowd-sourcing service, Amazon Mechanical Turk, to measure typing performance from hundreds of typists who naturally varied in skill level. The large data set allowed us to test competing predictions about the acquisition of serial-ordering ability that we derived from computational models of learning and memory. These models suggest that the time to execute actions in sequences will correlate with the statistical structure of actions in the sequence, and that the pattern of correlation changes in particular ways with practice. We used a second Big Data technique, n-gram analysis of large corpuses of English text, to estimate the statistical structure of letter sequences that our typists performed. We show the timing of keystrokes correlates with sequential structure (letter, bigram, and trigram frequencies) in English texts, and examine how this sensitivity changes as a function of expertise. The findings hold new insights for theories of serial-ordering processes, and how serial-ordering abilities emerge with practice.
unloading in rats attenuates soleus muscle atrophy induced by hindlimb Mechanical stimulation of the plantar foot surface

activity during 14 days of hindlimb unloading and recovery Physiologically adaptive changes of the L5 afferent neurogram and of the rat soleus EMG including high-resolution figures, can be found at: Updated information and services those papers emphasizing adaptive and integrative mechanisms. It is published 12 times a year (monthly) by the American publishes original papers that deal with diverse areas of research in applied physiology, especially
INETIC MODELS FOR SYNAPTIC INTERACTIONS

Modeling synaptic interactions in network models poses a particular challenge. Not only should such models capture the important physiological properties of synaptic interactions, but they must do so in a computationally efficient manner to facilitate simulations of large networks. In this paper, we review several types of models which address these goals. Synaptic currents are mediated by ion channels activated by neurotransmitter released from presynaptic terminals. Kinetic models are expressive enough to describe the behavior of ion channels underlying synaptic currents. Although full representation of the molecular details of the synapse generally requires highly complex kinetic models, we focus here on simpler kinetic models that are more computationally efficient. We show that these models can capture the time course and dynamics of several types of synaptic responses, allowing them to be useful tools for modeling synaptic interactions in large networks.
A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action: Illustrations of the Mediated Discourse Analysis Method

The paper provides an introduction into the innovative use of the methodological approach of Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA) and illustrates this with examples from an interventionist insider action research study. An overview of the method, including its foundation and association with the analysis of practice and how it can be situated within a reflexive ethnographic and critical realist stance is presented. It offers samples of findings and analysis for each of the different aspects of method, structured by a set of heuristic questions, as well an example showing the possibilities of theory development. The paper constructs and shows an analytical pathway for potential MDA researchers to use and concludes with a discussion about the advantages of utilising MDA, in terms of theory and practice, as well as the practical issues in conducting an MDA study. The implications for the Human Resource Development (HRD) research community is that MDA is a new, innovative and germane approach for analysing HRD practice within organisational settings.
Game theory for precoding in a multi-user system: Bargaining for overall benefits

A precoding strategy for multi-user spectrum sharing over an interference channel is proposed and analyzed from a game-theoretic perspective. The proposed strategy is based on finding the Nash bargaining solution for precoding matrices in a cooperative scenario over frequency selective channels under a spectrum mask constraint. An in-time update of the precoding matrices is enabled by using time slots to guarantee the effectiveness of the bargaining solution when the number of users varies. A dual decomposition approach is exploited to construct a distributed structure for solving the bargaining problem. The proposed distributed algorithm realizes the physical process of bargaining, which is not present in the Nash bargaining theory.