Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Microeconomic Approach to Optimal Resource Allocation in Distributed Computer Systems

Decentralized algorithms are examined for optimally distributing a divisible resource in a distributed computer system. To study this problem in a specific context, the problem of optimal file allocation is considered. In this case, the optimization criteria include both the communication cost and average processing delay associated with a file access. The algorithms examined have their origins in the field of mathematical economics. They are shown to have several attractive properties, including their simplicity and distributed nature, the computation of feasible and increasingly better resource allocations as the result of each iteration, and, in the case of file allocation, rapid convergence. Conditions are formally derived under which the algorithms are guaranteed to coverage, and their convergence behavior is additionally examined through simulation. >
Tangible Acoustic Interfaces and their Applications for the Design of New Musical Instruments

Tangible Acoustic Interfaces (TAI) rely on various acoustic-sensing technologies, such as sound source location and acoustic imaging, to detect the position of contact of users interacting with the surface of solid materials. With their ability to transform almost any physical objects, flat or curved surfaces and walls into interactive interfaces, acoustic sensing technologies show a promising way to bring the sense of touch into the realm of computer interaction. Because music making has been closely related to this sense during centuries, an application of particular interest is the use of TAI's for the design of new musical instruments that matches the physicality and expressiveness of classical instruments. This paper gives an overview of the various acoustic-sensing technologies involved in the realisation of TAI's and develops on the motivation underlying their use for the design of new musical instruments.
Close linkage of a blast resistance gene, Pias(t), with a bacterial leaf blight resistance gene, Xa1-as(t), in a rice cultivar ‘Asominori’

It has long been known that a bacterial leaf blight-resistant line in rice obtained from a crossing using ‘Asominori’ as a resistant parent also has resistance to blast, but a blast resistance gene in ‘Asominori’ has not been investigated in detail. In the present study, a blast resistance gene in ‘Asominori’, tentatively named Pias(t), was revealed to be located within 162-kb region between DNA markers YX4-3 and NX4-1 on chromosome 4 and to be linked with an ‘Asominori’ allele of the bacterial leaf blight resistance gene Xa1, tentatively named Xa1-as(t). An ‘Asominori’ allele of Pias(t) was found to be dominant and difference of disease severity between lines having the ‘Asominori’ allele of Pias(t) and those without it was 1.2 in disease index from 0 to 10. Pias(t) was also closely linked with the Ph gene controlling phenol reaction, suggesting the possibility of successful selection of blast resistance using the phenol reaction. Since blast-resistant commercial cultivars have been developed using ‘Asominori’ as a parent, Pias(t) is considered to be a useful gene in rice breeding for blast resistance.
Patterns and Limitations of Urban Human Mobility Resilience under the Influence of Multiple Types of Natural Disaster

Natural disasters pose serious threats to large urban areas, therefore understanding and predicting human movements is critical for evaluating a population’s vulnerability and resilience and developing plans for disaster evacuation, response and relief. However, only limited research has been conducted into the effect of natural disasters on human mobility. This study examines how natural disasters influence human mobility patterns in urban populations using individuals’ movement data collected from Twitter. We selected fifteen destructive cases across five types of natural disaster and analyzed the human movement data before, during, and after each event, comparing the perturbed and steady state movement data. The results suggest that the power-law can describe human mobility in most cases and that human mobility patterns observed in steady states are often correlated with those in perturbed states, highlighting their inherent resilience. However, the quantitative analysis shows that this resilience has its limits and can fail in more powerful natural disasters. The findings from this study will deepen our understanding of the interaction between urban dwellers and civil infrastructure, improve our ability to predict human movement patterns during natural disasters, and facilitate contingency planning by policymakers.
Decreased Levels of Bisecting GlcNAc Glycoforms of IgG Are Associated with Human Longevity

Background Markers for longevity that reflect the health condition and predict healthy aging are extremely scarce. Such markers are, however, valuable in aging research. It has been shown previously that the N-glycosylation pattern of human immunoglobulin G (IgG) is age-dependent. Here we investigate whether N-linked glycans reflect early features of human longevity. Methodology/Principal Findings The Leiden Longevity Study (LLS) consists of nonagenarian sibling pairs, their offspring, and partners of the offspring serving as control. IgG subclass specific glycosylation patterns were obtained from 1967 participants in the LLS by MALDI-TOF-MS analysis of tryptic IgG Fc glycopeptides. Several regression strategies were applied to evaluate the association of IgG glycosylation with age, sex, and longevity. The degree of galactosylation of IgG decreased with increasing age. For the galactosylated glycoforms the incidence of bisecting GlcNAc increased as a function of age. Sex-related differences were observed at ages below 60 years. Compared to males, younger females had higher galactosylation, which decreased stronger with increasing age, resulting in similar galactosylation for both sexes from 60 onwards. In younger participants (<60 years of age), but not in the older age group (>60 years), decreased levels of non-galactosylated glycoforms containing a bisecting GlcNAc reflected early features of longevity. Conclusions/Significance We here describe IgG glycoforms associated with calendar age at all ages and the propensity for longevity before middle age. As modulation of IgG effector functions has been described for various IgG glycosylation features, a modulatory effect may be expected for the longevity marker described in this study.
Ritual and Family Solidarity

T HAS long been recognized that ritual plays a functional part in the integration of human groups. Durkheim made it an essential part of his theory of mechanical solidarity. Anthropologists have made many important studies of the role of ritual in tribal and kinship groups. ' There has also been some application of the idea to modern society, notably W. Lloyd Warner's study of Memorial Day rites2 and observations of the political role of ritual.3 In the modern as well as the traditional family, ritual is seen to have an important part; for example, Burgess and Locke say, "The closer the family, the longer its continuous existence, the richer the ceremonials"; they consider such events among eight factors in family unity.4 Bossard and Boll have made the most extensive study of this aspect of modern family life, using interviews and case documents.5 Despite these interesting observations and the obviously large amount of ritual in modern life, there has been little space devoted to it in sociological textbooks and, what is more to the point here, little effort to measure the amount of ritual or its association with other group variables. This article reports the results of an exploratory quantitative study of (1) the amount and kinds of ritual practiced in the families of college students, and (2) the relationship of such ritual to the solidarity of those families, the hypothesis being that if ritual is a factor increasing group solidarity then a correlation is to be expected between family ritual and family solidarity.
The Grateful Workplace: A Multilevel Model of Gratitude in Organizations

Gratitude is a valuable emotion with an array of functional outcomes. Nonetheless, research on gratitude in organizations is limited. In this article we develop a multilevel model of gratitude composed of episodic gratitude at the event level, persistent gratitude at the individual level, and collective gratitude at the organizational level. We then consider the types of human resource initiatives that organizations can develop to cultivate employee gratitude and the contingencies of gratitude’s emergence at the individual and organizational levels of analysis. Finally, we elucidate the benefits of gratitude for organizations and their employees. The result is a deeper understanding of how gratitude unfolds in organizations and the role that organizations themselves can play in influencing emotions at multiple levels in the workplace.
Homogenous Chaotic Network Serving as a Rate/Population Code to Temporal Code Converter

At present, it is obvious that different sections of nervous system utilize different methods for information coding. Primary afferent signals in most cases are represented in form of spike trains using a combination of rate coding and population coding while there are clear evidences that temporal coding is used in various regions of cortex. In the present paper, it is shown that conversion between these two coding schemes can be performed under certain conditions by a homogenous chaotic neural network. Interestingly, this effect can be achieved without network training and synaptic plasticity.
A prototype implementation of Map/Reduce Model on Message-Oriented Middleware

This work studies current implementations of Map/Reduce Model and proposes an implementation shift for Inter-Process Communication mechanisms from currently used Remote Procedure Call (RPC) to Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM) in order to support the massive system scales in today distributed systems. A prototype is preliminarily built up to demostrate MOM implementation.
Memory-Efficient 5D Packet Classification At 40 Gbps

Packet classification is one of the most important enabling technologies for next generation network services. Even though many multi-dimensional classification algorithms have been proposed, most of them are precluded from commercial equipments due to their high memory requirements. In this paper, we present an efficient packet classification scheme, called Bloom Based Packet Classification (B2PC). B2PC comprises of an innovative 5-field search algorithm that decomposes multifield classification rules into internal single field rules which are combined using multi-level Bloom filters. The design of B2PC is optimized for the common case based on analysis of real world classification databases. The hardware implementation of this scheme handles 4K rules by involving only 530KB of memory for its data structures, while it supports network streams at a rate of 15Gbps even in the worst case, and more than 40Gbps in the average case. This system covers 1.3 mm in a 0.18mum CMOS technology. We show that given a certain memory budget and silicon cost, the B2PC is the most efficient hardware-based approach to the classification problem.
Hypersensitivity to Insulin During Remissions in Cyclosporin-Treated IDDM Patients

OBJECTIVE— To test the sensitivity to insulin in recent-onset IDDM patients, its course according to treatment, and the advent of remissions. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS— The euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp was used in 54 recent-onset IDDM patients and 14 healthy control subjects. Patients were tested after 1,2, and 4 wk of treatment with either insulin or insulin plus cyclosporin A, during cyclosporin A-associated long-lasting remissions, and during relapses. RESULTS— Insulin sensitivity was markedly decreased in all patients at onset. It was rapidly restored by insulin therapy, whether immunosuppression was associated with it or not. Insulin sensitivity was even higher than normal in the remission patients, who also were characterized by the reappearance of some endogenous insulin secretion and the sustained normalization of blood glucose profiles. During relapses, the deterioration of the blood glucose profiles was associated with some loss of insulin sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS— Cyclosporin A-associated remissions represent an original situation that associates euglycemia with the persistence of low endogenous insulin secretion. Cyclosporin A by itself had no influence on sensitivity to insulin, but allowed the reappearance of some insulin secretory capacity that contributed, with the improvement of insulin sensitivity, to the development of the diabetes honeymoon. The secretion of endogenous insulin, although lower than normal, was sufficient to secure a high sensitivity to insulin and the maintenance of normal blood glucose profiles, presumably because of the fact that insulin was released directly into the portal vein in these conditions. This metabolic state was precarious: the optimal sensitivity to insulin disappeared in patients who relapsed. These results have important clinical consequences: the preservation of islet residual secretory capacity by the use of newer nontoxic immunosuppressive protocols, combined with a minimal supportive insulin therapy in remission patients, may prolong remissions and maintain an optimal insulin sensitivity.
The Impact of Normative Social Influence on Group Homogeneity in Media Preferences and Group Meeting Outcomes

This paper empirically investigates the impact of normative social influence on group homogeneity in media preferences and group meeting outcomes in a setting where 58 student groups voluntarily used various communication media over a three-month software development project period. Group homogeneity in media preferences was argued to mediate the impact of normative social influence on group meeting outcomes. The overall results suggest that conformity to group norms is positively associated with increased group homogeneity in media preferences, which in turn is positively associated with increased group meeting outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the importance and implications of understanding normative social influence on technology use and
A novel preamble-based robust coarse symbol timing estimators for OFDM systems

In this paper, we propose a preamble-based symbol timing estimator for wireless orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The preamble is designed with repeated structure. By using several candidate sequences generated by the preamble, the addressed estimator is robust to the degree of channel distortions. The generated sequences with the best correlation properties are selected based on correlation ranking. Compared with the existing representative schemes, our estimator has performance improvement in ETU channel with acceptable complexity.
Classroom Management The Effectiveness of Teacher's Roles

The current study aimed at investigating and exploring the effective roles of English teacher on the development of classroom management as well as the enhancement of learners achievement in Taibah University, Ula Branch. Teacher’s roles take account of teacher’s classroom language, teacher’s responsibilities, and the criticism and the evaluation of teacher’s performance. This research claims that the teacher who makes great activation of his roles in classroom, tends to be the top and the most first factor that improves classroom management and enriches learners knowledge. Quantitative method has been chosen because it provides statistical data from English teachers using questionnaire. Factual information was collected and arranged in graphs. The results were analyzed and compared with previous studies. The participants’ responses provided supportive evidence and were fully consistent with this study.
A Swept Volume Display System Using a Planetary Gear Structure Based on Parallel Moving

This paper presents the development of a sweptvolume display system using three screens. Experimentally, 3D image is refreshed 900 times when the motor runs at the speed of 300 rpm. The image volume is 480 mm * 360 mm * 360 mm and the image resolution is 1024 * 768 * 750. In addition, we also developed a parallel moving swept-volume mechanical system based on structure of planetary gear to increase regularity of three-dimensional (3D) images, reduce the noise of mechanical rotation and remove visual dead zones on central axis at any viewing angle. Through the simulation and measurement of the screen deformation, the sampled light slice is corrected and a 3D image acquiring method based on virtual light slice is proposed. Demonstrated in the experiments, a prototype of this system is able to display 3D image with the brightness up to 70 lum, also generate almost 590 million voxels and well-distributed 3D images. The motor speed of parallel moving swept-volume system is 1/3 the speed of rotating swept-volume system. The prototype only produces noise levels of 60 dB.
Les choix d'options comptables lors de la première application des normes IAS/IFRS : Observation et compréhension des choix effectués par les groupes français

Le projet de recherche vise a observer et comprendre les choix d'options comptables effectues par les groupes francais lors de la premiere application des normes IAS/IFRS. Afin d'acquerir une vision globale du phenomene, nous adoptons une demarche multi-methodes associant : constitution et analyse d'une base de donnees, etude econometrique, analyse lexicale, questionnaires et entretiens semi-directifs. Les donnees empiriques sont analysees au regard d'un cadre conceptuel multi-theorique conjuguant les theories politico-contractuelle, des conventions et neo-institutionnelle sociologique. Nous mettons en evidence l'homogeneite des choix d'options retenus, ainsi qu'une volonte marquee de minimiser les effets du changement de normes en maintenant, dans la mesure du possible, les pratiques anterieures. Nous identifions egalement les facteurs explicatifs des choix d'options comptables lors de la premiere application des normes IAS/IFRS. En periode d'incertitude radicale, les pressions exercees par les institutions comptables et la profession sont decisives pour le processus de choix. Par ailleurs, compte tenu de ses capacites cognitives limitees et de son souci de legitimer ses choix, le preparateur des comptes adopte un comportement mimetique
Computer support for participatory designing: a pilot study

The present study analyzed whether and how students working in the collaborative learning environment (Future Learning Environment, FLE2) were able to share their design process with the intended user of the product. Six teams of first-year university-level textile students (N=24) participated in design course, in which they solved an authentic design task -- designing bags of EuroCSCL conference. The methods of social network analysis were applied to study interaction between all participants. A qualitative content analysis was carried out by analyzing the interaction between statements posted to the FLE2 database by two of the design teams. The results indicated that in the case of more successful group, the expert user took a role of co-designer by participating in the design process through evaluating ideas produced by students.
Influences of transformer oil on performance of RTV silicone rubber

The performance of room temperature vulcanized (RTV) silicone rubber under various operation conditions is always a hot point in the study of external insulation. The influences of transformer oil on performance of RTV silicone rubber have been little investigated, which are crucial issues for the RTV silicone rubber covering transformer bushing because of the potential transformer oil leakage problems. In the present work, transformer oil immersion experiment is applied to explore the influences of transformer oil on the performance of RTV silicone rubber. Samples are immersed into transformer at 70 °C and 110 °C for 4, 8, 24, 72, 168 and 336hrs, respectively. They are analyzed by contact angle measurement and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and the transformer oil is studied using gas chromatography (GC). The results show that, contact angle increases when the immersing time is short and fluctuate with the immersing time increasing, and they show a good hydrophobicity for all of the samples. FTIR analysis indicates the absorptions due to O-H bonds, C-H in CH3, Si-CH3, Si-O-Si, and Si(CH3)2 decrease for the immersed ones, and temperature has an impact on the decrease, especially for the O-H bonds. GC analysis, which is used to verify the proposed hypothesis that low molecule weight is supposed to be suck into transformer oil during immersion, gives a result to be further validated due to the complexity of transformer oil composition. One can conclude that transformer oil have great impacts on the performance of RTV silicone rubber, but it cannot be examined simply by contact angle measurement. FTIR analysis is an effective method to investigate it. An indirect method by using GC is potential and further analysis is required in further study.
Improving Data Grids Performance by Using Popular File Replicate First Algorithm

In this paper, we propose an adaptive data replication algorithm, called the Popular File Replicate First algorithm (PFRF for short), which is developed on a star-topology data grid with limited storage space based on aggregated information on previous file accesses. The PFRF periodically calculates file access popularity to track the variation of users¡¦ access behaviour behaviors, and then replicates popular files to appropriate sites to adapt to the variation. We employ several types of file access behaviors, including Zipf-like, geometric, and uniform distributions, to evaluate PFRF. The simulation results show that PFRF can effectively improve average job turnaround time and data availability as compared with those of the tested algorithms.
A Multithreaded CGRA for Convolutional Neural Network Processing

Convolutional neural network (CNN) is an essential model to achieve high accuracy in various machine learning applications, such as image recognition and natural language processing. One of the important issues for CNN acceleration with high energy efficiency and processing performance is efficient data reuse by exploiting the inherent data locality. In this paper, we propose a novel CGRA (Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Array) architecture with time-domain multithreading for exploiting input data locality. The multithreading on each processing element enables the input data reusing through multiple computation periods. This paper presents the accelerator design performance analysis of the proposed architecture. We examine the structure of memory subsystems, as well as the architecture of the computing array, to supply required data with minimal performance overhead. We explore efficient architecture design alternatives based on the characteristics of modern CNN configurations. The evaluation results show that the available bandwidth of the external memory can be utilized efficiently when the output plane is wider (in earlier layers of many CNNs) while the input data locality can be utilized maximally when the number of output channel is larger (in later layers).
Natural Language Processing with Small Feed-Forward Networks

We show that small and shallow feed-forward neural networks can achieve near state-of-the-art results on a range of unstructured and structured language processing tasks while being considerably cheaper in memory and computational requirements than deep recurrent models. Motivated by resource-constrained environments like mobile phones, we showcase simple techniques for obtaining such small neural network models, and investigate different tradeoffs when deciding how to allocate a small memory budget.