Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive Learning of Metric Correlations for Temperature-Aware Database Provisioning

This paper introduces a transparent self-configuring architecture for automatic scaling with temperature awareness in the database tier of a dynamic content Web server. We use a unified approach to achieving the joint objectives of performance, efficient resource usage and avoiding temperature hot-spots in a replicated database cluster. The key novelty in our approach is a lightweight on-line learning method for fast adaptations to bottleneck situations. Our approach is based on deriving a lightweight performance model of the replicated database cluster on the fly. The system trains its own model based on perceived correlations between various system and application metrics and the query latency for the application. The model adjusts itself dynamically to changes in the application workload mix. We use our performance model for query latency pre diction and determining the number of database replicas necessary to meet the incoming load. We adapt by adding the necessary replicas, pro-actively in anticipation of a bottleneck situation and we remove them automatically in underload. Finally, the system adjusts its query scheduling algorithm dynamically in order to avoid temperature hot- spots within the replicated database cluster. We investigate our transparent database provisioning mechanism in the database tier using the TPC-W industry- standard e-commerce benchmark. We demonstrate that our technique provides quality of service in terms of both performance and avoiding hot-spot machines under different load scenarios. We further show that our method is robust to dynamic changes in the workload mix of the application.
Three-Class Differential Diagnosis among Alzheimer Disease, Frontotemporal Dementia, and Controls

Biomarkers derived from brain magnetic resonance (MR) imaging have promise in being able to assist in the clinical diagnosis of brain pathologies. These have been used in many studies in which the goal has been to distinguish between pathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease and healthy aging. However, other dementias, in particular, frontotemporal dementia, also present overlapping pathological brain morphometry patterns. Hence, a classifier that can discriminate morphometric features from a brain MRI from the three classes of normal aging, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) would offer considerable utility in aiding in correct group identification. Compared to the conventional use of multiple pair-wise binary classifiers that learn to discriminate between two classes at each stage, we propose a single three-way classification system that can discriminate between three classes at the same time. We present a novel classifier that is able to perform a three-class discrimination test for discriminating among AD, FTD, and normal controls (NC) using volumes, shape invariants, and local displacements (three features) of hippocampi and lateral ventricles (two structures times two hemispheres individually) obtained from brain MR images. In order to quantify its utility in correct discrimination, we optimize the three-class classifier on a training set and evaluate its performance using a separate test set. This is a novel, first-of-its-kind comparative study of multiple individual biomarkers in a three-class setting. Our results demonstrate that local atrophy features in lateral ventricles offer the potential to be a biomarker in discriminating among AD, FTD, and NC in a three-class setting for individual patient classification.
Organized crime and group-based ideology: The association between masculine honor and collective opposition against criminal organizations

What is the role of culture in establishing young people’s pathways into gang membership? Italian criminal organizations (COs) exhibit adherence to codes of honor and masculinity, important values in the context where they originated. Here it is proposed that the embedding of these values at an individual level may lessen young people’s group-based opposition to such organizations, and indirectly, create a space in which such organizations can persist and recruit. In a study of young Southern Italians (N = 176; Mage = 16.17), we found that those who endorsed ideological beliefs related to the honorableness of male violence reported lower intentions to engage in antimafia activities. Consistent with the hypothesized mechanisms, this relationship was mediated by more positive attitudes toward COs, and lower reported vicarious shame in relation to the activities of COs. Directions for future research and implications for research on gangs are discussed.
Investigation of the fibre to chip coupler designed on SOI platform with subwavelength grating

In this paper, investigation of the fibre to chip coupler designed on SOI platform with subwavelength grating is reported. This fibre to chip coupler was designed on SOI platform with subwavelength grating, which is compatible with DUV lithography and single step etching fabrication process, for effective refractive index tuning and matching to silicon wire waveguide. The simulation and investigation of the fibre to chip coupler was performed by 3D FDTD tool and BPM tool. The effective refractive index was tuned over diffraction grating by adjusting the duty cycle of the silicon in subwavelength grating of the low refractive index part of the diffraction grating. We investigate by simulation how variation effective refractive index tuning along diffraction grating affect the power profile of the diffracted field from coupler and peak coupling wavelength.
Current methods for global proteome identification

In a time frame of a few decades, protein identification went from laborious single protein identification to automated identification of entire proteomes. This shift was enabled by the emergence of peptide-centric, gel-free analyses, in particular the so-called shotgun approaches, which not only rely on extensive experiments, but also on cutting-edge data processing methods. The present review therefore provides an overview of a shotgun proteomics identification workflow, listing the state-of-the-art methods involved and software that implement these. The authors focus on freely available tools where possible. Finally, data analysis in the context of emerging across-omics studies will also be discussed briefly, where proteomics goes beyond merely delivering a list of protein accession numbers.
Vocal Separation from Monaural Music Using Temporal/Spectral Continuity and Sparsity Constraints

In this letter, we describe a novel approach for separating a vocal signal from monaural music. We assume that the accompaniment in a music signal can be represented as the sum of the sustained harmonic and percussive sounds. Based on the observation that singing voices usually contain rapidly changing harmonic signals such as fast vibratos, slides, and/or glissandos, we propose a statistical model for the separation of harmonic/percussive and vocal sounds. To this end, we define an objective function that exploits the temporal/spectral continuities of harmonic/percussive sounds and the sparsity of vocal sounds in the spectrogram domain. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm successfully separates the vocal from the accompaniment, resulting in a performance significantly better than that of conventional algorithms or comparable to the state-of-the-art algorithms.
Nonequilibrium neutrino statistical mechanics in the expanding Universe.

We study neutrino decoupling in the early Universe ({ital t}{similar to}sec,{ital T}{similar to}MeV) by integrating the Boltzmann equations that govern the neutrino phase-space distribution functions. In particular, we compute the distortions in the {nu}{sub {ital e}} and {nu}{sub {mu}}/{nu}{sub {tau}} phase-space distributions that arise in the standard cosmology due to {ital e}{sup {plus minus}} annihilations. These distortions are nonthermal, with the effective neutrino temperature increasing with neutrino momentum, approaching a 0.7% increase for electron neutrinos and a 0.3% increase for {mu} and {tau} neutrinos at the highest neutrino momenta, and correspond to an increase in the energy density of {nu}{sub {ital e}}'s of about 1.2% and in the energy density of {nu}{sub {mu}}/{nu}{sub {tau}}'s of about 0.5% (roughly one additional relic neutrino per cm{sup {minus}3} per species). The distortion for electron neutrinos is larger than that for {mu} and {tau} neutrinos because electron neutrinos couple to {ital e}{sup {plus minus}}'s through both charged- and neutral-current interactions. Our results graphically illustrate that neutrino decoupling is a continuous process which is momentum dependent. Because of subtle cancellations, these distortions lead to only a tiny change in the predicted primordial {sup 4}He abundance, {Delta}{ital Y}{congruent}1--2{times}10{sup {minus}4}.
Clinical Experience on 3.0 T Systems in Niigata, 1996 to 2002

High-field human magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems developed over the recent years have contributed significantly to the field of functional MRI and multinuclear spectroscopy. As more experience is gained, it has become apparent that high-field systems, especially those at 3.0 T, possess significant advantages in the clinical setting over conventional MRI systems. High-field MRI is promising as an all-in-one system for both structural and functional assessments. This review summarizes the exciting features of clinical imaging based on our cumulative 6-year experience on various 3.0 T systems.
The Role Of Reflection In Simulating And Testing Agents: An Exploration Based On The Simulation System James

Simulation methods offer an experimental approach for analyzing the dynamic behavior of multi-agent systems. Multi-agent systems are able to access their own behavior. If agents are specified in the modeling language and become part of the simulation, the simulation system has to support reflection, i.e., models which access their own structure and behavior. The system theoretic formalism DynDEVS allows to specify reflective dynamic models and their behavior and forms a sound base to implement systems for simulating and testing agents. Within a simulation system, the behavior of agents can be analyzed, based on conceptual models, or by coupling software agents and simulation system. To support the latter, in JAMES, models are equipped with peripheral ports to enable them to communicate with externally running processes, e.g., agents. Thereby, models form an interface between simulation and agents and can easily be used to reflect "online" the state and activities of the externally running agent. To intertwine simulation and agent execution, method calls of the agents have to be redirected from the normal runtime environment to the simulation. In the opposite direction, events of the simulation have to be transformed into concrete method calls. Higher-order programming mechanisms, such as the reflection mechanisms in Java, are useful for implementing this type of interaction between simulation and agents. Thus, from theory to implementing, reflection in its many facets plays a crucial role in developing simulation systems for agents.
Do the Rich Flee from High State Taxes? Evidence from Federal Estate Tax Returns

This paper examines how changes in state tax policy affect the number of federal estate tax returns filed in each state, utilizing data on federal estate tax return filings by state and wealth class for 18 years between 1965 and 1998. Controlling for state- and wealth-class specific fixed effects, we find that high state inheritance and estate taxes and sales taxes have statistically significant, but modest, negative impacts on the number of federal estate tax returns filed in a state. High personal income tax and property tax burdens are also found to have negative effects, but these results are somewhat sensitive to alternative specifications. This evidence is consistent with the notion that wealthy elderly people change their real (or reported) state of residence to avoid high state taxes, although it could partly reflect other modes of tax avoidance as well. We discuss the implications for the debate over whether individual states should decouple' their estate taxes from federal law, which would retain the state tax even as the federal credit for such taxes is eliminated. Our results suggest that migration and other observationally equivalent avoidance activities in response to such a tax would cause revenue losses and deadweight losses, but that these would not be large relative to the revenue raised by the tax.
Finiteness marking in boys with fragile X syndrome.

PURPOSE The current study investigated finiteness marking (e.g., he walk s, he walk ed) in boys with fragile X syndrome (FXS); the boys were grouped based on receptive vocabulary (i.e., borderline, impaired). METHOD Twenty-one boys with the full mutation of fragile X, between the ages of 8 and 16 years participated. The boys completed probes from the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (TEGI; Rice & Wexler, 2001), a language sample, a nonverbal IQ test (Leiter-R; Roid & Miller, 1997), a receptive vocabulary test (the Pearson Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition [PPVT-IV]; Dunn & Dunn, 2007), and a measure of autistic symptoms (the Childhood Autism Rating Scale [CARS]; Schopler, Reichler, & Renner, 2002). RESULTS There were group differences for finiteness responses on the 3rd person singular probe; the group with impaired vocabulary omitted markers with greater frequency compared to the borderline vocabulary group. There were not significant differences on the past tense probe, with both groups performing lower than expectations based on receptive vocabulary ability. Nonverbal IQ was not correlated with the measures of finiteness marking. CONCLUSION Boys with FXS demonstrate delays in finiteness marking, in particular, on past tense verbs. Boys with FXS show a unique profile, unlike children with SLI, in which their use of tense markers may exceed expectations benchmarked to clause length.
Transition in Post-Communist States: Triple or Quadruple?

When the study of transitions moved from Latin America and southern Europe scholars initially assumed that transition in these two regions would be regime-based ‘double transitions’ of democratisation and marketisation. Gradually, it was accepted by scholars that many post-communist states inherited weak states and institutions, thereby adding a third factor to the transition process of stateness. This ‘triple transition’ has been largely accepted as sufficient to understand post-communist transitions and, in some cases, includes nationality questions. This article builds on the ‘triple transition’ by separating the national and stateness questions within its third aspect and argues that although both processes are interlinked they should be nevertheless separated into separate components (democratisation and marketisation are treated separately but are also closely related phenomena). This article argues two points. First, stateness and the nationality question were until recently ignored by scholars because these were not factors in earlier transitions. Secondly, they were ignored because the relationship of nationhood to the civic state is still under-theorised.
Differentiated melanocyte cell division occurs in vivo and is promoted by mutations in Mitf

Coordination of cell proliferation and differentiation is crucial for tissue formation, repair and regeneration. Some tissues, such as skin and blood, depend on differentiation of a pluripotent stem cell population, whereas others depend on the division of differentiated cells. In development and in the hair follicle, pigmented melanocytes are derived from undifferentiated precursor cells or stem cells. However, differentiated melanocytes may also have proliferative capacity in animals, and the potential for differentiated melanocyte cell division in development and regeneration remains largely unexplored. Here, we use time-lapse imaging of the developing zebrafish to show that while most melanocytes arise from undifferentiated precursor cells, an unexpected subpopulation of differentiated melanocytes arises by cell division. Depletion of the overall melanocyte population triggers a regeneration phase in which differentiated melanocyte division is significantly enhanced, particularly in young differentiated melanocytes. Additionally, we find reduced levels of Mitf activity using an mitfa temperature-sensitive line results in a dramatic increase in differentiated melanocyte cell division. This supports models that in addition to promoting differentiation, Mitf also promotes withdrawal from the cell cycle. We suggest differentiated cell division is relevant to melanoma progression because the human melanoma mutation MITF4TΔ2B promotes increased and serial differentiated melanocyte division in zebrafish. These results reveal a novel pathway of differentiated melanocyte division in vivo, and that Mitf activity is essential for maintaining cell cycle arrest in differentiated melanocytes.
Using structural context to recommend source code examples

When coding to a framework, developers often become stuck, unsure of which class to subclass, which objects to instantiate and which methods to call. Example code that demonstrates the use of the framework can help developers make progress on their task. In this paper, we describe an approach for locating relevant code in an example repository that is based on heuristically matching the structure of the code under development to the example code. Our tool improves on existing approaches in two ways. First, the structural context needed to query the repository is extracted automatically from the code, freeing the developer from learning a query language or from writing their code in a particular style. Second, the repository can be generated easily from existing applications. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by reporting on a case study involving two subjects completing four programming tasks within the Eclipse integrated development environment framework.
Learning with Partially Absorbing Random Walks

We propose a novel stochastic process that is with probability αi being absorbed at current state i, and with probability 1 – αi follows a random edge out of it. We analyze its properties and show its potential for exploring graph structures. We prove that under proper absorption rates, a random walk starting from a set S of low conductance will be mostly absorbed in S. Moreover, the absorption probabilities vary slowly inside S, while dropping sharply outside, thus implementing the desirable cluster assumption for graph-based learning. Remarkably, the partially absorbing process unifies many popular models arising in a variety of contexts, provides new insights into them, and makes it possible for transferring findings from one paradigm to another. Simulation results demonstrate its promising applications in retrieval and classification.
Exploring the effectiveness of related article search in PubMed

We describe two complementary studies that explore the effectiveness of related article search in PubMed. The first attempts to characterize the topological properties of document networks that are implicitly defined by this capability. The second focuses on analysis of PubMed query logs to gain an understanding of real user behavior. Combined evidence suggests that related article search is both a useful and often exploited feature in PubMed. Publication Date: July 13, 2007
A fast and slippery slope for file systems

There is a vast number and variety of file systems currently available, each optimizing for an ever growing number of storage devices and workloads. Users have an unprecedented, and somewhat overwhelming, number of data management options. At the same time, the fastest storage devices are only getting faster, and it is unclear on how well the existing file systems will adapt. Using emulation techniques, we evaluate five popular Linux file systems across a range of storage device latencies typical to low-end hard drives, latest high-performance persistent memory block devices, and in between. Our findings are often surprising. Depending on the workload, we find that some file systems can clearly scale with faster storage devices much better than others. Further, as storage device latency decreases, we find unexpected performance inversions across file systems. Finally, file system scalability in the higher device latency range is not representative of scalability in the lower, sub-millisecond, latency range. We then focus on Nilfs2 as an especially alarming example of an unexpectedly poor scalability and present detailed instructions for identifying bottlenecks in the I/O stack.
Small Vessels – Big Problems : Novel Insights into Microvascular Mechanisms of Diseases Effect of PDE 5 inhibition on the modulation of sympathetic-adrenergic vasoconstriction in contracting skeletal muscle of young and older recreationally active humans

Michael Nyberg, Peter Piil, Jon Egelund, Randy S. Sprague, Stefan P. Mortensen, and Ylva Hellsten Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Pharmacological and Physiological Science, St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri; Department of Cardiovascular and Renal Research, Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark; and The Centre of Inflammation and Metabolism and the Centre for Physical Activity Research, Department of Infectious Diseases, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Video Super-resolution using Classification ANN

In this study, a classification-based video super-resolution method using artificial neural network (ANN) is proposed to enhance low-resolution (LR) to high-resolution (HR) frames. The proposed method consists of four main steps: classification, motion-trace volume collection, temporal adjustment, and ANN prediction. A classifier is designed based on the edge properties of a pixel in the LR frame to identify the spatial information. To exploit the spatio-temporal information, a motion-trace volume is collected using motion estimation, which can eliminate unfathomable object motion in the LR frames. In addition, temporal lateral process is employed for volume adjustment to reduce unnecessary temporal features. Finally, ANN is applied to each class to learn the complicated spatio-temporal relationship between LR and HR frames. Simulation results show that the proposed method successfully improves both peak signal-to-noise ratio and perceptual quality. Keywords—Super-resolution, classification, spatio-temporal information, artificial neural network.
Design and fabrication of a soft-bodied gripper with integrated curvature sensors

This paper presents the design and fabrication process of a soft-bodied gripper with integrated curvature sensors for shape control. The soft gripper contains three identical fingers based on the principle of fluid elastomer actuator. Each of the finger is made of silicon rubber, named Dragon Skin, and is connected to a robotic arm by a snap-lock mechanism. Grasping ability of the soft-bodied gripper is explored by picking up cup containers filled with beans. The optimal working pressure is 20 kPa, with which a maximum weight of 90 g beans can be picked up with 100% success rate. Although the soft gripper can fulfil the requirement of picking up the soft and deformable object, finger shape needs to be controlled during the process of moving the object. It is found that the weight distribution of the cup container filled with beans changes when the cup is moved. Finger shape is sensitive to the changing of weight distribution, leading to a fail grasping. An integrated curvature sensor based on carbon nanotubes filled composite is developed to overcome this limitation. With the integrated curvature sensor, real-time monitoring and controlling of the finger shape can be realized to achieve more accuracy grasping for fragile and delicate objects.