Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fastest Mixing Markov Chain on a Graph

We consider a symmetric random walk on a connected graph, where each edge is labeled with the probability of transition between the two adjacent vertices. The associated Markov chain has a uniform equilibrium distribution; the rate of convergence to this distribution, i.e., the mixing rate of the Markov chain, is determined by the second largest eigenvalue modulus (SLEM) of the transition probability matrix. In this paper we address the problem of assigning probabilities to the edges of the graph in such a way as to minimize the SLEM, i.e., the problem of finding the fastest mixing Markov chain on the graph. We show that this problem can be formulated as a convex optimization problem, which can in turn be expressed as a semidefinite program (SDP). This allows us to easily compute the (globally) fastest mixing Markov chain for any graph with a modest number of edges (say, $1000$) using standard numerical methods for SDPs. Larger problems can be solved by exploiting various types of symmetry and structure in the problem, and far larger problems (say, 100,000 edges) can be solved using a subgradient method we describe. We compare the fastest mixing Markov chain to those obtained using two commonly used heuristics: the maximum-degree method, and the Metropolis--Hastings algorithm. For many of the examples considered, the fastest mixing Markov chain is substantially faster than those obtained using these heuristic methods. We derive the Lagrange dual of the fastest mixing Markov chain problem, which gives a sophisticated method for obtaining (arbitrarily good) bounds on the optimal mixing rate, as well as the optimality conditions. Finally, we describe various extensions of the method, including a solution of the problem of finding the fastest mixing reversible Markov chain, on a fixed graph, with a given equilibrium distribution.
An empirical analysis of the IEEE 802.11 MAC layer handoff process

IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks have seen rapid growth and deployment in the recent years. Critical to the 802.11 MAC operation, is the handoff function which occurs when a mobile node moves its association from one access point to another. In this paper, we present an empirical study of this handoff process at the link layer, with a detailed breakup of the latency into various components. In particular, we show that a MAC layer function - probe is the primary contributor to the overall handoff latency. In our study, we observe that the latency is significant enough to affect the quality of service for many applications (or network connections). Further we find variations in the latency from one hand-off to another as well as with APs and STAs used from different vendors. Finally, we discuss optimizations on the probe phase which can potentially reduce the probe latency by as much as 98% (and a minimum of 12% in our experiments). Based on the study, we draw some guidelines for future handoff schemes.
IEEE 802.15.6-based Prototype System for WBAN: Design and Implementation

Various current trends such as ever growing population and accelerated aging effects have effectively promoted the growth of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). Being the specialized standard of WBAN, the burgeoning IEEE 802.15. 6 is on its way to refinement and perfection. Since experiments are the foundation of research in WBAN that reproduce system operating patterns, yet existing platforms in WBAN are mainly simulations that could not highly conform to reality with strict requirements to some degree. Thus, a reliable and efficient system based on the IEEE 802.15. 6, named WBAN prototype system, is proposed and implemented in this paper. The prototype system is ascertained to be valid, authentic and efficient via analyses of scenario tests. Running in circumstances much closer to reality, the system obtains experimental results that meet rigid requirements preferably. Furthermore, based on the valid platform we created, optimizations of two parameters in the IEEE 802.15. 6 by actual measurements are derived. We obtain an optimum number of transmission retries and relationship of payload length within 30 with FER, making a trade-off between waste of resource and high packet loss rate.
A Potential Food-Grade Cloning Vector for Streptococcus thermophilus That Uses Cadmium Resistance as the Selectable Marker

ABSTRACT A potential food-grade cloning vector, pND919, was constructed and transformed into S. thermophilus ST3-1, a plasmid-free strain. The vector contains DNAs from two different food-approved organisms, Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactococcus lactis. The 5.0-kb pND919 is a derivative of the cloning vector pND918 (9.3 kb) and was constructed by deletion of the 4.3-kb region of pND918 which contained DNA from non-food-approved organisms. pND919 carries a heterologous native cadmium resistance selectable marker from L. lactis M71 and expresses the Cdr phenotype in S. thermophilus transformants. With the S. thermophilus replicon derived from the shuttle vector pND913, pND919 is able to replicate in the two S. thermophilus industrial strains tested, ST3-1 and ST4-1. Its relatively high retention rate in S. thermophilus further indicates its usefulness as a potential food-grade cloning vector. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a replicative potential food-grade vector for the industrially important organism S. thermophilus.
Enhanced SEA algorithm and fingerprint classification

This paper proposes the Enhanced Shrinking and Expanding Algorithm (ESEA) with a new categorisation method. The ESEA overcomes anomalies in the original Shrinking and Expanding Algorithm (SEA) which fails to locate Singular Points (SPs) in many cases. Experimental results show that the accuracy rate of the ESEA reaches 94.7%, a 32.5% increase from the SEA. In the proposed fingerprint categorisation method, each fingerprint will be assigned to a specific subclass. The search for a specific fingerprint can therefore be performed only on specific subclasses containing a small portion of a large fingerprint database, which will save enormous computational time.
Action-Based Sensor Space Segmentation for Soccer Robot Learning

Robot learning, such as reinforcement learning, generally needs a well-defined state space in order to converge. However, building such a state space is one of the main issues of robot learning because of the interdependence between state and action spaces, which resembles the well-known "chicken and egg" problem. This article proposes a method of action-based state space construction for vision-based mobile robots. Basic ideas to cope with the interdependence are that we define a state as a cluster of input vectors from which the robot can reach the goal state or the state already obtained by a sequence of one kind of action primitive regardless of its length, and that this sequence is defined as one action. To realize these ideas, we need many data (experiences) of the robot and we must cluster the input vectors as hyper ellipsoids so that the whole state space is segmented into a state transition map in terms of action from which the optimal action sequence is obtained. To show the validity of the meth.
Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and Infectious Diseases Society of America Joint Committee on the Prevention of Antimicrobial Resistance: Guidelines for the Prevention of Antimicrobial Resistance in Hospitals Shea Position Paper Infection Co

SUMMARY Antimicrobial resistance results in increased morbidity, mortality, and costs of health care. Prevention of the emergence of resistance and the dissemination of resistant microorganisms will reduce these adverse effects and their attendant costs. Appropriate antimicrobial stewardship that includes optimal selection, dose, and duration of treatment, as well as control of antibiotic use, will prevent or slow the emergence of resistance among microorganisms. A comprehensively applied infection control program will interdict the dissemination of resistant strains. It therefore is recommended that hospitals, large and small, with and without perceived problems of bacterial resistance to antimi-crobials, do the following: ● Establish a system for monitoring bacterial resistance and antibiotic usage; ● Establish practice guidelines and other institutional policies to control the use of antibiotics, and respond to data from the monitoring system; ● Adopt the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) " Guidelines for Isolation Precautions in Hospitals, " as concerns the isolation of patients colonized or infected with resistant microorganisms; ● Utilize hospital committees to develop local policies and to evaluate and adopt, as appropriate, guidelines from state advisory boards and national Antimicrobial resistance results in increased morbidity , mortality, and costs of health care. Prevention of the emergence of resistance and the dissemination of resistant microorganisms will reduce these adverse effects and their attendant costs. Appropriate antimicro-bial stewardship that includes optimal selection, dose, and duration of treatment, as well as control of antibiotic use, will prevent or slow the emergence of resistance among microorganisms. A comprehensively applied infection control program will interdict the dissemination of resis-societies; ● Recognize that the financial well-being of the institution and the health of its patients are at stake and therefore that the hospital administration should be accountable for the implementation and enforcement of policies adopted by hospital committees; ● By measuring outcomes, evaluate the effectiveness of the policies that are put in place. It is recommended that research to define the mechanism of transfer of bacteria and their resistance determinants among patient populations and to determine methods to prevent emergence and transfer of resistance, including control of antibiotic usage, be supported with increases in targeted research funding. Antimicrobial resistance is costly in both human and financial terms. Infection with a resistant microorganism increases the cost of health care, length of hospital stay, and mortality compared to infections with organisms susceptible to common, inexpensive antimicrobials. 1,2 The Society for Healthcare …
Constraint-based knowledge representation for individualized instruction

Traditional knowledge representations were developed to encode complete explicit and executable programs, a goal that makes them less than ideal for representing the incomplete and partial knowledge of a student. In this paper, we discuss state constraints, a type of knowledge unit originally invented to explain how people can detect and correct their own errors. Constraint-based student modeling has been implemented in several intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) so far, and the empirical data verifies that students learn while interacting with these systems. Furthermore, learning curves are smooth when plotted in terms of individual constraints, supporting the psychological appropriateness of the representation. We discuss the differences between constraints and other representational formats, the advantages of constraint-based models and the types of domains in which they are likely to be useful.
Extracts from plants used in Mexican traditional medicine activate Ca(2+)-dependent chloride channels in Xenopus laevis oocytes.

The two-electrode voltage-clamp technique was employed to investigate the effects of chloroform-methanol (1:1) extracts derived from five medicinal plants on Xenopus laevis oocytes. When evaluated at concentrations of 1 to 500 microg/ml, the extracts prepared from the aerial parts of Baccharis heterophylla H.B. K (Asteraceae), Chenopodium murale L. (Chenopodiaceae), Desmodium grahami Gray (Leguminosae) and Solanum rostratum Dun (Solanaceae) produced concentration-dependent oscillatory inward currents in the oocytes, while the extract of Gentiana spathacea did not induce any response. The reversal potential of the currents elicited by the active extracts was -17 +/- 2 mV and was similar to the chloride equilibrium potential in oocytes. These ionic responses were independent of extracellular calcium. However, they were eliminated by overnight incubation with BAPTA-AM (10 microM), suggesting that the currents were dependent on intracellular Ca2+ increase. Thus the plant extracts activate the typical oscillatory Ca(2+)-dependent Cl- currents generated in the Xenopus oocyte membrane more probably via a mechanism that involves release of Ca2+ from intracellular reservoirs. These observations suggest that Xenopus oocyte electrophysiological recording constitutes a suitable assay for the study of the mechanisms of action of herbal medicines.
Oblique Shock Wave-Boundary Layer Interactions Over Porous Plates

This report discusses an investigation into the effect of a porous plate covering a cavity, on an oblique shock wave-boundary layer interaction. Four porous plates with different hole sizes and porosities, as well as a solid, 'dummy', plate, have been tested in a Mach 2 wind tunnel whereby an oblique shock wave (produced by a wedge) impinged on its surface, for two different wedge angles. Particle Image Velocimetry measurements, and Schlieren images, were recorded and used to analyze the interaction. The effect of the porous-plate covered cavity on the interaction's downstream boundary layer thickness and turbulence, flow separation and interaction length were analyzed and explained. The results showed that first of all, concerning the effect on boundary layer thickness, an increase in boundary layer thickness is induced by from the presence of a porous plate-covered cavity, that the effect of plate hole size, porosity and shock strength on this increase are insignificant. The turbulent kinetic energy of the downstream boundary layer could be observed to increase for a low shock strength, and decrease for a higher shock strength. This leads to the presumption that under specific circumstances a porous plate-covered cavity could lead to a beneficial application as a turbulence decreasing flow control device, but further research will have to validate this. The results showed that flow separation is increased for all plates tested, especially for higher hole sizes and lower porosities. Finally, interaction length was shown to increase due to the presence of the porous plate in all cases measured, although this result is likely highly specific to the design tested in this investigation, as is discussed in the Conclusions chapter. Keeping this in mind, interaction length seemed to increase with decreasing hole size and with increasing porosity. In order to be able to prove the abovementioned correlations with more certainty, performing a future investigation with a larger parameter range is recommended.
When the Wikipedians Talk: Network and Tree Structure of Wikipedia Discussion Pages

Talk pages play a fundamental role in Wikipedia as the place for discussion and communication. In this work we use the comments on these pages to extract and study three networks, corresponding to different kinds of interactions. We find evidence of a specific assortativity profile which differentiates article discussions from personal conversations. An analysis of the tree structure of the article talk pages allows to capture patterns of interaction, and reveals structural differences among the discussions about articles from different semantic areas.
An Introduction to EEG Analysis Techniques and Brain-Computer Interfaces for Games User Researchers

Games User Research (GUR) can provide meaningful insights into the study of games. As a part of GUR, we focus on the area of cognitive psychology and discuss electroencephalography (EEG) as an evaluation technique for games. We want to introduce game researchers to EEG when studying the cognitive side of player experience and discuss how it can benefit game studies. In this paper, we review EEG techniques before providing researchers with information about general EEG setup and methodology, EEG data collection, preparation, and analysis. Techniques reviewed have been used in medical applications, research, brain-computer interaction (BCI) and human-computer interaction (HCI) applications. In addition, future ideas for applications of EEG techniques in game studies are discussed. We outline how to use different EEG analysis techniques for game research and it is our hope to make these techniques more understandable for the game studies community and to demonstrate their merit for games user research.
Providing disruption QoS in an OFDM system using Residual Idle Time Based opportunistic spectrum access

Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) is emerging as a promising technology to mitigate spectrum scarcity caused by static frequency allocation. Among the different models proposed for DSA, opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) is a promising class of solutions. In any DSA system, it is important to make sure that the performance of primary users (PUs) does not degrade significantly as a result of dynamic use of spectrum by secondary users (SUs). One of the main reasons for slow commercial adoption of OSA technology is the lack of system implementations which can demonstrate bounding interference to PUs below a given threshold. In this paper, we report a preliminary implementation of an OSA scheme which can ensure that the interference to the PU is bounded. We present our experience and challenges in building this system using the open source software toolkit GNU Radio on a software defined radio (SDR) implemented with a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP).
Frequency of cross-fertilization in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum

Summary Two clones of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, denoted 3D7 and HB3, were grown in vitro under conditions permitting the development of gametocytes. The two clones differ in their allelic forms of two antigen genes MSP1 and MSP2. The alleles can be distinguished as size differences of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplified fragments of repetitive regions of each gene. Mosquitoes (Anopheles stephensi) were fed on a mixture of these gametocytes. A total of 128 oocysts was isolated from the midguts of infected mosquitoes from 9 crossing experiments between the clones. DNA extracted from these oocysts was amplified by PCR. Oocysts which contained both alleles of each gene (MSP1 and MSP2) had developed from heterozygotes produced by cross-fertilization events between 3D7 and HB3 gametes. The remaining oocysts contained single alleles of each gene, in parent clone combinations, and these had developed from homozygotes formed by self-fertilizations. The results suggest that gametes in the original mixture fed to mosquitoes had undergone random mating.
Dependency-Directed Reconsideration Belief Base Optimization for Truth Maintenance Systems

We define reconsideration, a non-prioritized belief change operation on a finite set of base beliefs. Reconsideration is a hindsight belief change repair that eliminates negative effects caused by the order of previously executed belief change operations. Beliefs that had previously been removed are returned to the base if there no longer are valid reasons for their removal. This might result in less preferred beliefs being removed, and additional beliefs being returned. The end product is an optimization of the belief base, converting the results of a series of revisions to the very base that would have resulted from a batch revision performed after all base beliefs were entered/added. Reconsideration can be done by examining the entire set of all base beliefs (both currently believed and retracted) -- or, if the believed base is consistent, by examining all retracted beliefs for possible return. This, however, is computationally expensive. We present a more efficient, TMS-friendly algorithm, dependency-directed reconsideration (DDR), which can produce the same results by examining only a dynamically determined subset of base beliefs that are actually affected by changes made since the last base optimization process. DDR is an efficient, anytime, belief base optimizing algorithm that eliminates operation order effects.
Protein‐induced fit: the CRP activator protein changes sequence‐specific DNA recognition by the CytR repressor, a highly flexible LacI member

The CytR repressor and the cAMP receptor protein (CRP) bind cooperatively to several promoters in Escherichia coli to repress transcription initiation. The synergistic binding is mediated by protein–protein interactions between the two regulators. Here, in vitro selection experiments have been used to examine the DNA‐binding characteristics of CytR, by itself and when co‐binding with cAMP–CRP. We show that the optimal CytR‐binding site consists of two octamer repeats, in direct or inverted orientation, and separated by 2 bp. However, when co‐binding with cAMP–CRP, CytR instead recognizes inverted repeats separated by 10–13 bp, or direct repeats separated by 1 bp. The configurations of the latter set of operators correlate well with the configurations of natural CytR targets. Thus, cAMP–CRP induces conformational changes in CytR so that the repressor fits the natural targets. Most strikingly, CytR can adopt widely different conformations that are equally favored energetically for complex formation with cAMP–CRP. We propose that this structural adaptability is essential for CytR repression of promoters with diverse architectures. We discuss these novel concepts in the context of the CRP/CytR regulatory system, as well as the structural and functional implications for multiprotein–DNA complex formation in general.
Whole Grain Consumption and Breast Cancer: A Case-Control Study in Women

Objective: Whole grain consumption has long been associated with human health. However, its relationship with breast cancer remains not well understood and appreciated. The aim of this work was to evaluate the association between whole grain consumption and breast cancer in women. Methods: A case-control study was designed. Two hundred and fifty consecutive, newly diagnosed breast cancer female patients (56 ± 12 years) and 250 one-to-one age-matched controls were enrolled. A standardized, validated questionnaire assessing various sociodemographic, clinical, lifestyle, and dietary characteristics was applied through face-to-face interviews. Moreover, data on regular consumption of whole grains (i.e., never/rarely, 1–6 times/week, >7 times/week) were recorded. Overall dietary habits were assessed through the level of adherence to the Mediterranean diet using the MedDietScore (theoretical range 0–55). Results: Whole grain consumption of more than 7 times/week was associated with a 0.49-fold (odds ratio = 0.49; 95% confidence interval, 0.29, 0.82) lower likelihood of having breast cancer, after adjustments were made. Conclusions: This study suggested that whole grain consumption more than 7 times/week was consistently associated with reduced risk of breast cancer.