Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ACM SIGACT news distributed computing column 11

The Distributed Computing Column covers the theory of systems that are composed of a number of interacting computing elements. These include problems of communication and networking, databases, distributed shared memory, multiprocessor architectures, operating systems, verification, internet, and the web.This issue consists of the paper "Reconstructing Paxos" by Romain Boichat, Partha Dutta, Svend Frølund, and Rachid Guerraoui. Many thanks to them for contributing to this issue.The celebrated Paxos algorithm of Lamport implements a fault-tolerant deterministic service by replicating it over a distributed message-passing system. In a companion paper [2], we presented a deconstruction of the algorithm by factoring out its fundamental algorithmic principles within two abstractions: an eventual leader election and an eventual register abstractions. Using those abstractions, we show in this paper how to reconstruct, in a modular manner, powerful variants of Paxos. In particular, we show how to (1) alleviate the need for stable storage access if some processes remain up for sufficiently long, (2) augment the resilience of the algorithm against unstable processes, (3) enable single process decision with shared commodity disks, and (4) reduce the number of communication steps during stable periods of the system.The Island of Paxos used to host a great civilisation which had developed a sophisticated parttime parliament protocol. Paxons codified various aspects of their parliament protocol which enabled them to easily adapt the protocol to specific functioning modes throughout the seasons. In particular, during winter, the parliament was heated and some legislators did never leave the chamber: their guaranteed presence helped alleviate the need for the writing of decrees on ledgers. This was easy to obtain precisely because the subprotocol used to "store and lock" decrees was precisely codified. In spring, and with the blooming days coming, some legislators could not stop leaving and entering the parliament. Their indiscipline prevented progress in the protocol. However, as the election subprotocol used to choose the parliament president was also precisely codified, the protocol could easily be adapted to cope with indisciplined legislators. During summer, very few legislators were in the parliament and it was hardly possible to pass any decree because of the lack of the necessary majority. Fortunately, it was easy to modify the subprotocol used to store and lock decrees and devise a powerful technique where a single legislator could pass decrees by directly accessing the ledgers of other legislators. Fall was a protest season and citizens wanted a faster procedure to pass decrees. Paxons noticed that, in most periods, messengers did not loose messages and legislators replied in time. They could devise a variant of the protocol that reduced the number of communication steps needed to pass decrees during those periods. Again, this optimisation was obtained through a simple refinement of the subprotocol used to propose new decrees.
HMM Word-to-Phrase Alignment with Dependency Constraints

In this paper, we extend the HMMwordto-phrase alignment model with syntactic dependency constraints. The syntactic dependencies between multiple words in one language are introduced into the model in a bid to produce coherent alignments. Our experimental results on a variety of Chinese–English data show that our syntactically constrained model can lead to as much as a 3.24% relative improvement in BLEU score over current HMM word-to-phrase alignment models on a Phrase-Based Statistical Machine Translation system when the training data is small, and a comparable performance compared to IBM model 4 on a Hiero-style system with larger training data. An intrinsic alignment quality evaluation shows that our alignment model with dependency constraints leads to improvements in both precision (by 1.74% relative) and recall (by 1.75% relative) over the model without dependency information.
Hierarchical interfaces for hardware software systems

Competent design of hierarchical interfaces for hardware/software systems needs the convergence of three concurrent research directions: the study of hierarchy types, the intelligent communication between different domains, the formalization of verification/test. We aim to extend the theory of hierarchy types, in order to integrate communication properties as well as correctness and testability, to suit the behavioral specification of today’s complex system design. The high level approach of these problems permits the intervention of an intelligent agent for adapting techniques, models or methods to the particular design: a designer, assisted by man-machine dialog interface, or an artificial intelligence system. Behavioral design-for-testability offers a good startup. Testability measures the difficulty of test; it is used in this paper to emphasize the high-level strategy. Design-for-testability techniques (full and partial scan, test point insertion or builtin self-test) increase the fault coverage and reduce the test generation time; as they aim to modify the system's specification to improve testability, performing them at higher levels of the design hierarchy reduces the complexity of their generation and application. An intelligent use of the acquired knowledge on design for communication, verification and testability is enabled.
Focusing of the electrostatic potential at EF‐hands of calbindin D9k: Titration of acidic residues

Biological functions for a large class of calmodulin‐related proteins, such as target protein activation and Ca2+ buffering, are based on fine‐tuned binding and release of Ca2+ ions by pairs of coupled EF‐hand metal binding sites. These are abundantly filled with acidic residues of so far unknown ionization characteristics, but assumed to be essential for protein function in their ionized forms. Here we describe the measurement and modeling of pKa values for all aspartic and glutamic acid residues in apo calbindin D9k, a representative of calmodulin‐related proteins. We point out that while all the acidic residues are ionized predominantly at neutral pH, the onset of proton uptake by Ca2+ ligands with high pKa under these conditions may have functional implications. We also show that the negative electrostatic potential is focused at the bidental Ca2+ ligand of each site, and that the potential is significantly more negative at the N‐terminal binding site. Proteins 2001;45:129–135. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Monitoring Noise Pollution Using the Urban Civics Middleware

Noise pollution is a significant problem in cities due to its various effects on health, but the modeling of noise data and the generation of accurate noise pollution maps suffer from the high cost and restricted scale of sensing performed using static municipal sensors. In this paper, we present our approach for augmenting municipally sensed data using participatory sensing-based information collected from smart phones. We make use of a data assimilation method to generate more accurate noise maps that combine simulated and measured noise levels. Our solution customizes the Urban Civics middleware for noise-specific application. Urban Civics combines middleware solutions for urban-scale sensing and crowd-sourcing, and data assimilation techniques, which are the main focus of this paper, to generate, collect, and process the big data involved in this process in a scalable manner. Our experiments demonstrate the improvements in quality enabled by this technique vis-à-vis the noise map usually generated with simulation along with observational data from municipal static sensing alone or mobile sensing alone.
Atp as an Excitatory Cotransmitter in the Autonomic Nervous System

Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Abstract The role of adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) as a major intracellular energy source is well-established. In addition, ATP and related nucleotides have widespread extracellular actions via the ionotropic P2X receptors (ligand-gated cation channels) and metabotropic P2Y receptors (G protein-coupled receptors). Numerous experimental techniques, including myography, electrophysiology and biochemical measurement of neurotransmitter release, have been used to show that ATP has two major roles as an excitatory cotransmitter from autonomic nerves; 1) It is costored with noradrenaline in synaptic vesicles in postganglionic sympathetic nerves innervating smooth muscle preparations, such as the vas deferens and most arteries. When coreleased with noradrenaline, ATP acts at postjunctional P2X1 receptors to evoke depolarisation, Ca 2+ influx, Ca 2+ sensitisation and contraction. 2) ATP is also coreleased with acetylcholine from postganglionic parasympathetic nerves innervating the urinary bladder and again acts at postjunctional P2X1 receptors, and possibly also a P2X1+4 heteromer, to elicit smooth muscle contraction. In both systems the neurotransmitter actions of ATP are terminated by dephosphorylation by extracellular, membrane-bound enzymes and soluble nucleotidases released from postganglionic nerves. There are indications of an increased contribution of ATP to control of blood pressure in hypertension, but further research is needed to clarify this possibility. More promising is the upregulation of P2X receptors in dysfunctional bladder, including interstitial cystitis, idiopathic detrusor instability and overactive bladder syndrome. Consequently, these roles of ATP are of great therapeutic interest and are increasingly being targeted by pharmaceutical companies. Highlights  ATP is an excitatory cotransmitter in sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves  ATP evokes depolarisation, Ca 2+ influx, Ca 2+ sensitisation and contraction  Postjunctional P2X1 receptors are its main site of action in smooth muscle tissues  ATP may also act at P2X1+4 heteromers in urinary bladder to elicit contraction  ATP's action is ended by ecto-nucleotidases …
DeepCity: A Feature Learning Framework for Mining Location Check-Ins

Online social networks being extended to geographical space has resulted in large amount of user check-in data. Understanding check-ins can help to build appealing applications, such as location recommendation. In this paper, we propose DeepCity, a feature learning framework based on deep learning, to profile users and locations, with respect to user demographics and location category prediction. Both of the predictions are essential for social network companies to increase user engagement. The key contribution of DeepCity is the proposal of task-specific random walk which uses the location and user properties to guide the feature learning to be specific to each prediction task. Experiments conducted on 42M check-ins in three cities collected from Instagram have shown that DeepCity achieves a superior performance and outperforms state-of-the-art models significantly.
DEFINED: Deterministic Execution for Interactive Control-Plane Debugging

Large-scale networks are among the most complex software infrastructures in existence. Unfortunately, the extreme complexity of their basis, the control-plane software, leads to a rich variety of nondeterministic failure modes and anomalies. Research on debugging modern control-plane software has focused on designing comprehensive record and replay systems, but the large volumes of recordings often hinder the scalability of these designs. Here, we argue for a different approach. Namely, we take the position that deterministic network execution would vastly simplify the control-plane debugging process. This paper presents the design and implementation of DEFINED, a user-space substrate for interactive debugging that provides deterministic execution of networks in highly distributed and dynamic environments. We demonstrate our system's advantages by reproducing discovery of known ordering and timing bugs in popular software routing platforms, XORP and Quagga. Using Rocketfuel topologies and routing data from a Tier-1 backbone, we show DEFINED is practical and scalable for interactive fault diagnosis in large networks.
Arbitrary order generalized state space average modeling of switching converters

Generalized State Space Average Modeling (GSSAM), of switching converters, offers an opportunity to improve fidelity of a model by inclusion of different harmonic components. Yet, the inclusion of each frequency component contributes to an increase in the number of the state variables and matrices describing the system. In this paper, automated arbitrary order generation of the GSSAM models for switched DC-DC converters is described, which uses State Space Average Model (SSAM) as starting data set. The buck, boost and buck-boost converters are used as examples and comparison between SSAM, GSSAM of different order and PLECS switched model has been carried out to demonstrate improvements in fidelity of models. Finally, closed loop control with arbitrary order GSSAM is shown using Buck converter as an example.
Performance analysis for multi-service networks with congestion-based pricing for QoS traffic

There has been recent interest in employing unified pricing schemes for supporting both QoS and best-effort traffic within multiservice networks. This paper presents an analytical approach for the design and analysis of this class of network pricing control. In particular, we propose an approximation method to estimate overall user value arising from all traffic types, given the routes for QoS traffic. Our approach considers admission control as both a resource allocation issue for QoS traffic, and a pricing control decision for best-effort and QoS traffic. We show how to convert the price-based admission control decision to a resource-based blocking problem. We also present the numerical results of performance analysis for multiservice networks using our proposed approximation method. Our approach can be used to predict the performance and parameter settings for a wide range of combined QoS and best-effort pricing schemes.
Hydrothermal Corrosion of Alumina Ceramics under Static and Quasi-Dynamic Conditions

Corrosion resistance of solid state (SSS) and liquid phase sintered (LPS) alumina under hydrothermal conditions (subcritical water and sodium chloride solution at temperatures up to 290 °C, and pressures up to 7 MPa) was evaluated. The influence of sintering additives as well as the conditions of the test (temperature, corrosion medium) on dissolution of ceramics was studied. For evaluation of the corrosion mechanisms special attention was paid to determination of the eluate chemistry combined with the chemical and phase analysis of corroded surfaces. Corrosion of LPS alumina in both media was controlled by dissolution of calcium aluminosilicate grain boundary glass. Corrosion rates of SSS ceramics were several times lower and were largely controlled by dissolution of highly resistant alumina matrix. Corrosion of the ceramics was moderately faster in sodium chloride solution. The data are supplemented by calculations of phase equilibria in the corrosion solutions.
Characterization and Process Optimization in the Extraction of Gold

Refractory gold ore understudied showed traces amount of gold from X-ray fluorescence analysis. Phases identified are quartz, muscovite and calcite. Statistical approach using response surface methodology - central composite design were performed at varying concentration of NaCN, Pb (NO3)2 and H2O2. Cyanidation experiments were conducted at room temperature at pH 11. Using the response surface methodology followed by path of steepest ascent, gold cyanidation was found to be at 467.3 ppm NaCN, 94.96 ppm Pb (NO3)2 and 0.01M H2O2, at the vicinity towards the optimum condition where 88.97% Au extracted from the ore, equivalent to 1.7231 g/t Au.
Risk-sensitive fixed-point smoothing estimation for linear output time-delay systems

The paper investigates the fixed-point smoothing problem with risk-sensitive criterion for linear discrete-time systems with multiple time-delay measurements. The problem considered can be converted into an optimization one. The risk-sensitive fixed-point smoother is designed by solving the optimization problem with the help of innovation analysis theory in Krein space. At the same time, a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the risk-sensitive smoother will also be given when the risk-sensitive parameter is negative.
Blood flow in the rabbit aortic arch and descending thoracic aorta

The distribution of atherosclerotic lesions within the rabbit vasculature, particularly within the descending thoracic aorta, has been mapped in numerous studies. The patchy nature of such lesions has been attributed to local variation in the pattern of blood flow. However, there have been few attempts to model and characterize the flow. In this study, a high-order continuous Galerkin finite-element method was used to simulate blood flow within a realistic representation of the rabbit aortic arch and descending thoracic aorta. The geometry, which was obtained from computed tomography of a resin corrosion cast, included all vessels originating from the aortic arch (followed to at least their second generation) and five pairs of intercostal arteries originating from the proximal descending thoracic aorta. The simulations showed that small geometrical undulations associated with the ductus arteriosus scar cause significant deviations in wall shear stress (WSS). This finding highlights the importance of geometrical accuracy when analysing WSS or related metrics. It was also observed that two Dean-type vortices form in the aortic arch and propagate down the descending thoracic aorta (along with an associated skewed axial velocity profile). This leads to the occurrence of axial streaks in WSS, similar in nature to the axial streaks of lipid deposition found in the descending aorta of cholesterol-fed rabbits. Finally, it was observed that WSS patterns within the vicinity of intercostal branch ostia depend not only on local flow features caused by the branches themselves, but also on larger-scale flow features within the descending aorta, which vary between branches at different locations. This result implies that disease and WSS patterns in the vicinity of intercostal ostia are best compared on a branch-by-branch basis.
Occurrence and stability of insertion sequences in Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex strains: evaluation of an insertion sequence-dependent DNA polymorphism as a tool in the epidemiology of tuberculosis

In this study we established the usefulness of DNA fingerprinting for the epidemiology of tuberculosis on the basis of the DNA polymorphism generated by the insertion sequence (IS) IS986. Although clinical isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis displayed a remarkably high degree of restriction fragment length polymorphism, we showed that transposition of this IS element is an extremely rare event in M. tuberculosis complex strains grown either in vitro or in vivo for long periods of time. The M. tuberculosis and Mycobacterium africanum strains tested in this study contained 6 to 17 IS copies. In the Mycobacterium bovis strains, the copy numbers ranged between 1 and 5, and all 27 M. bovis BCG strains investigated invariably contained a single IS copy. This copy was located at a unique chromosomal position, reinforcing the idea that the frequency of IS transposition is very low in M. tuberculosis complex strains. Various microepidemics are described in which each microepidemic corresponds to a particular fingerprint type. The extent of similarity between Dutch and African strains was quantitatively assessed by computer-assisted analysis of DNA fingerprints. The results indicate that M. tuberculosis strains from regions in central Africa, where tuberculosis is highly prevalent, are generally more related to each other than isolates from the Netherlands, where the transmission rate is low and where the majority of the tuberculosis cases are presumed to be the result of reactivation of previously contracted M. tuberculosis infections.
The 32 kDa subunit of replication protein A (RPA) participates in the DNA replication of Mung bean yellow mosaic India virus (MYMIV) by interacting with the viral Rep protein

Mung bean yellow mosaic India virus (MYMIV) is a member of genus begomoviridae and its genome comprises of bipartite (two components, namely DNA-A and DNA-B), single-stranded, circular DNA of about 2.7 kb. During rolling circle replication (RCR) of the DNA, the stability of the genome and maintenance of the stem–loop structure of the replication origin is crucial. Hence the role of host single-stranded DNA-binding protein, Replication protein A (RPA), in the RCR of MYMIV was examined. Two RPA subunits, namely the RPA70 kDa and RPA32 kDa, were isolated from pea and their roles were validated in a yeast system in which MYMIV DNA replication has been modelled. Here, we present evidences that only the RPA32 kDa subunit directly interacted with the carboxy terminus of MYMIV-Rep both in vitro as well as in yeast two-hybrid system. RPA32 modulated the functions of Rep by enhancing its ATPase and down regulating its nicking and closing activities. The possible role of these modulations in the context of viral DNA replication has been discussed. Finally, we showed the positive involvement of RPA32 in transient replication of the plasmid DNA bearing MYMIV replication origin using an in planta based assay.
Secured Ontology Mapping

Todays market evolution and high volatility of business requirements put an increasing emphasis on the ability for systems to accommodate the changes required by new organizational needs while maintaining security objectives satisfiability. This is all the more true in case of collaboration and interoperability between different organizations and thus between their information systems. Ontology mapping has been used for interoperability and several mapping systems have evolved to support the same. Usual solutions do not take care of security. That is almost all systems do a mapping of ontologies which are unsecured.We have developed a system for mapping secured ontologies using graph similarity concept. Here we give no importance to the strings that describe ontology concepts, properties etc. Because these strings may be encrypted in the secured ontology. Instead we use the pure graphical structure to determine mapping between various concepts of given two secured ontologies. The paper also gives the measure of accuracy of experiment in a tabular form in terms of precision, recall and F-measure.