Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design Guidelines for High Performance RDMA Systems

Modern RDMA hardware offers the potential for exceptional performance, but design choices including which RDMA operations to use and how to use them significantly affect observed performance. This paper lays out guidelines that can be used by system designers to navigate the RDMA design space. Our guidelines emphasize paying attention to low-level details such as individual PCIe transactions and NIC architecture. We empirically demonstrate how these guidelines can be used to improve the performance of RDMA-based systems: we design a networked sequencer that outperforms an existing design by 50x, and improve the CPU efficiency of a prior high-performance key-value store by 83%. We also present and evaluate several new RDMA optimizations and pitfalls, and discuss how they affect the design of RDMA systems.
18F-FDG PET in characterizing adrenal lesions detected on CT or MRI.

UNLABELLED The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of (18)F-FDG PET to characterize adrenal lesions in patients with proven or suspected cancers. METHODS A retrospective analysis was performed on 50 adrenal lesions in 41 patients, whose PET scans were done to evaluate the primary or metastatic disease. CT had shown 50 adrenal lesions in 41 patients and MRI had revealed 13 lesions in 10 patients. There were 34 patients with proven malignancy (28 lung cancer, 3 thyroid cancer, 2 colorectal cancer, and 1 lymphoma) and 7 with lung nodules. Of the 50 lesions, 18 were eventually determined to be malignant either by histopathology (n = 7) or by follow-up (n = 11). The remaining 32 lesions were proven or assumed to be benign by histopathology (n = 4) or clinical follow-up (n = 28). Unlike previously published reports, PET was interpreted as positive if the uptake was equal to or greater than that of the liver. RESULTS No malignant lesion yielded a negative result on PET. Most lesions (13/18) showed significantly higher FDG uptake than that of the liver. In the remaining 5 lesions (2 metastases from neuroendocrine tumor, 2 early metastases, and 1 necrotic metastasis), FDG uptake was equal to or slightly higher than that of the liver. Of the 32 benign lesions, there were 2 lesions with uptake equal to or slightly higher than that of the liver, 3 with uptake less than the liver but more than the background, and 27 with uptake of the background. MRI identified 3 of the 13 lesions as false-positives but FDG PET correctly identified all 3 as benign. The other 10 adrenal lesions accurately diagnosed by MRI were also characterized by PET. FDG PET for characterization of adrenal lesions showed a sensitivity of 100%, a specificity of 94%, and an accuracy of 96%. CONCLUSION FDG PET showed excellent diagnostic performance in differentiating adrenal lesions detected on CT or MRI. Because FDG PET has the additional advantage of evaluating the primary lesions as well as metastases, it could be cost-effective and the modality of choice for the characterization of adrenal lesions, especially in patients with malignancy.
CRE-Mediated Transcription Is Increased in Huntington's Disease Transgenic Mice

Disruption of cAMP response element (CRE)-dependent transcription has been hypothesized to contribute to neuronal death and dysfunction in Huntington's disease (HD) and other polyglutamine repeat disorders. Whether dysregulation of CRE-dependent transcription actually occurs in vivo in response to expression of expanded polyglutamine repeats has not been tested. We directly tested whether CRE-dependent transcription is affected in vivo by cross breeding a transgenic mouse model of HD (line R6/2) with a transgenic mouse that expresses a CRE-regulated reporter gene. Instead of compromised CRE-dependent transcription in HD mice, we found a robust upregulation of CRE-dependent transcription in several brain regions (striatum, hippocampus, cortex). CRE-mediated transcription was also evoked by striatal forskolin infusion and by photic stimulation in HD animals. Increased cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) phosphorylation and elevated levels of the CREB-regulated gene product, CCAAT/enhancer binding protein β, were also found in HD mice. Significant alterations in CREB binding protein expression and localization were not observed in symptomatic R6/2 mice. Thus, rather than repressing CRE-mediated transcription, mutant huntingtin appears to facilitate transcription via a CRE-dependent mechanism in vivo.
Medical treatment of early breast cancer. I: adjuvant treatment

The main clinical aim of neoadjuvant (also called primary or preoperative) treatment for operable breast cancer before surgery is to downstage large cancers to reduce the need for mastectomy. A research aim is to use the primary tumour as an in vivo measure of responsiveness to treatment. Trials of adjuvant treatments are expensive and take years to complete, and the aim therefore is to use neoadjuvant treatment to find short term surrogate markers (clinical, pathological, or biological) in small trials that can predict long term outcome accurately. For example, in the IMPACT (immediate preoperative Arimidex compared with tamoxifen) trial involving 300 patients, and comparing Arimidex and tamoxifen with the combination, biological changes in tumour proliferation were shown to predict correctly the superiority of adjuvant anastrozole over the other two treatments in the ATAC (Arimidex or tamoxifen alone or in combination) trial, which was a similarly designed adjuvant trial involving 9000 patients. If this can be confirmed in other trials, it may help identify new therapies quickly, and identify optimal treatment for patients.
An analysis of the hypertext versioning domain

Hypertext captures the implicit and explicit relationships between intellectual works, storing them as data items within the computer, thus allowing them to be navigated, analyzed, and visualized. The evolution of information artifacts such as software development projects, large document collections, and collections of laws and regulations is characterized both by change to the works and their relationships, and the desire to record this change over time. Hypertext versioning is concerned with storing, retrieving, and navigating prior states of a hypertext, and with allowing groups of collaborating authors to develop new states over time. Several systems provide hypertext versioning services; this dissertation provides a domain model of these systems, comprised of domain terminology, a taxonomy, reference requirements, a data modeling model, and design spaces associated with the requirements. This work offers several significant contributions. It provides a systematic organization of the preponderance of information concerning hypertext versioning systems, including the first taxonomy of such systems, and a comprehensive collection of their requirements. A detailed model of containment is provided; its use highlights that containment is inherent in hypertext systems, and a full understanding of hypertext versioning system data models requires an understanding of their containment relationships. The containment model allows the similarities and differences in hypertext versioning systems to be examined in a consistent manner. The design space for persistently recording revision histories employs a three-layer model that separates of the abstract notion of revision history, shared by all state-based approaches, from the high-level overview of each versioning approach, which is in turn distinct from its specific concrete representation. The design space for link versioning is shown to be an application of the three-layer model for versioning works. Building on the containment model, and the design spaces for versioning works and links, the structure design space concisely describes a range of techniques for recording the history of hypertext structures. Parameters of the structure design space include the abstractions contained within the structure container, the versioning design space choice for each versioned abstraction, the containment choice for each container/containee pair, and the location of any revision selection rules.
FLEX-MONROE: A Unified Platform for Experiments under Controlled and Operational LTE Settings

This paper presents FLEX-MONROE, a unique platform that facilitates achieving a thorough understanding of LTE networks, one that captures the status of current operational MBB networks and that also enables LTE performance improvements by allowing experimentation in an environment with controllable LTE parameters. Using this platform, we propose to investigate how variations in the LTE network parameters influence the network characteristics, which, in turn, translate to application performance metrics that represent the end-user experience. We argue that the FLEX-MONROE platform is crucial to understand, validate and ultimately improve how current operational MBB networks perform, towards providing guidelines for designing future 5G architectures. Furthermore, understanding the effects of low-level tweaks in network parameters in the LTE infrastructure on the application performance is critical to provide guidelines on how to improve the application performance in the current but also future MBB networks.
Analysis of Functional Unit Power Gating in Embedded Processors

In this work we report leakage energy savings potentially achieveable by using power gating in embedded processors. We investigate idle time distribution in embedded processors and show that there is an opportunity to apply power gating in the embedded space. Moreover, we show that a previously suggested simple dynamic idle period detection technique can reduce leakage power considerably while maintaining performance. We also analyze how variations in design and circuit parameters impact performance and power savings. We evaluate power gating for a representative subset of MiBench benchmarks and for a processor using a configuration similar to Intel's XScale processor.
Persistent Oxytetracycline Exposure Induces an Inflammatory Process That Improves Regenerative Capacity in Zebrafish Larvae

Background The excessive use of antibiotics in aquaculture can adversely affect not only the environment, but also fish themselves. In this regard, there is evidence that some antibiotics can activate the immune system and reduce their effectiveness. None of those studies consider in detail the adverse inflammatory effect that the antibiotic remaining in the water may cause to the fish. In this work, we use the zebrafish to analyze quantitatively the effects of persistent exposure to oxytetracycline, the most common antibiotic used in fish farming. Methodology We developed a quantitative assay in which we exposed zebrafish larvae to oxytetracycline for a period of 24 to 96 hrs. In order to determinate if the exposure causes any inflammation reaction, we evaluated neutrophils infiltration and quantified their total number analyzing the Tg(mpx:GFP)i114 transgenic line by fluorescence stereoscope, microscope and flow cytometry respectively. On the other hand, we characterized the process at a molecular level by analyzing several immune markers (il-1β, il-10, lysC, mpx, cyp1a) at different time points by qPCR. Finally, we evaluated the influence of the inflammation triggered by oxytetracycline on the regeneration capacity in the lateral line. Conclusions Our results suggest that after 48 hours of exposure, the oxytetracycline triggered a widespread inflammation process that persisted until 96 hours of exposure. Interestingly, larvae that developed an inflammation process showed an improved regeneration capacity in the mechanosensory system lateral line.
New indexes from the Fetal Heart Rate analysis for the identification of severe intra uterine growth restricted fetuses

This study proposes new indexes extracted from fetal heart rate signal in order to identify intrauterine growth restricted (IUGR) fetuses and separate them from healthy small for gestational age ones (SGA). Unfortunately evidence-based guidelines for clinical surveillance are poor and lack of reliable indexes. Therefore we proposed new parameters: the Lempel Ziv complexity (LZC) and the multiscale entropy (MSE). The results show that the LZ complexity is able to significantly discriminate the severe IUGR (preterm delivered) from moderate IUGR (at term delivered) and healthy fetuses. Moreover the k-mean cluster analysis applied to these indexes was able to gather the severe IUGRs and to separate them from both not severe IUGRs and normal fetuses, which were included in the same cluster. The cluster analysis provides good values of sensitivity and accuracy
Biological mechanism analysis of acute renal allograft rejection: integrated of mRNA and microRNA expression profiles.

OBJECTIVES Renal transplantation is the preferred method for most patients with end-stage renal disease, however, acute renal allograft rejection is still a major risk factor for recipients leading to renal injury. To improve the early diagnosis and treatment of acute rejection, study on the molecular mechanism of it is urgent. METHODS MicroRNA (miRNA) expression profile and mRNA expression profile of acute renal allograft rejection and well-functioning allograft downloaded from ArrayExpress database were applied to identify differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs and DE mRNAs. DE miRNAs targets were predicted by combining five algorithm. By overlapping the DE mRNAs and DE miRNAs targets, common genes were obtained. Differentially co-expressed genes (DCGs) were identified by differential co-expression profile (DCp) and differential co-expression enrichment (DCe) methods in Differentially Co-expressed Genes and Links (DCGL) package. Then, co-expression network of DCGs and the cluster analysis were performed. Functional enrichment analysis for DCGs was undergone. RESULTS A total of 1270 miRNA targets were predicted and 698 DE mRNAs were obtained. While overlapping miRNA targets and DE mRNAs, 59 common genes were gained. We obtained 103 DCGs and 5 transcription factors (TFs) based on regulatory impact factors (RIF), then built the regulation network of miRNA targets and DE mRNAs. By clustering the co-expression network, 5 modules were obtained. Thereinto, module 1 had the highest degree and module 2 showed the most number of DCGs and common genes. TF CEBPB and several common genes, such as RXRA, BASP1 and AKAP10, were mapped on the co-expression network. C1R showed the highest degree in the network. These genes might be associated with human acute renal allograft rejection. CONCLUSIONS We conducted biological analysis on integration of DE mRNA and DE miRNA in acute renal allograft rejection, displayed gene expression patterns and screened out genes and TFs that may be related to acute renal allograft rejection.
Influenza M1 Virus-Like Particles Consisting of Toxoplasma gondii Rhoptry Protein 4

Toxoplasma gondii infections occur throughout the world, and efforts are needed to develop various vaccine candidates expressing recombinant protein antigens. In this study, influenza matrix protein (M1) virus-like particles (VLPs) consisting of T. gondii rhoptry antigen 4 (ROP4 protein) were generated using baculovirus (rBV) expression system. Recombinant ROP4 protein with influenza M1 were cloned and expressed in rBV. SF9 insect cells were coinfected with recombinant rBVs expressing T. gondii ROP4 and influenza M1. As the results, influenza M1 VLPs showed spherical shapes, and T. gondii ROP4 protein exhibited as spikes on VLP surface under transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The M1 VLPs resemble virions in morphology and size. We found that M1 VLPs reacted with antibody from T. gondii-infected mice by western blot and ELISA. This study demonstrated that T. gondii ROP4 protein can be expressed on the surface of influenza M1 VLPs and the M1 VLPs containing T. gondii ROP4 reacted with T. gondii-infected sera, indicating the possibility that M1 VLPs could be used as a coating antigen for diagnostic and/or vaccine candidate against T. gondii infection.
Immunoglobulin A1 protease types of Neisseria gonorrhoeae and their relationship to auxotype and serovar

Immunoglobulin A1 (IgA1) proteases are extracellular bacterial proteolytic enzymes which correlate with virulence in several species of human pathogens. We report that Neisseria gonorrhoeae produced two distinct types of IgA1 protease, each of which cleaved a different peptide bond in the hinge region of human IgA1. The type of IgA1 protease produced correlated with both nutritional auxotype and outer membrane protein I serovar in this organism. Gonococcal type 1 IgA1 protease was produced primarily by N. gonorrhoeae strains which require arginine, hypoxanthine, and uracil (AHU) and which belong to the protein IA-1 or IA-2 serovar. Most isolates of other auxotypes and serovars produced type 2 IgA1 protease. Although both the AHU auxotype and protein IA serogroup were found to be associated with disseminated gonococcal infection, there was no direct correlation of IgA1 protease type with disseminated or with uncomplicated gonorrhea.
Towards Efficient Algorithms for Compressed Sparse-Sparse Matrix Product

We study the sparse matrix product problem where the input matrices are sparse. Starting with an original DO- loop nest structured algorithm, different versions involving body kernels such as GAXPY, AXPY and DOT are generated by the loop interchange technique. We particularly focus on the GAXPY- Row body kernel where the matrices are acceded row-wise. Various versions corresponding to the most used sparse matrix compression formats are designed. We then derive other versions by applying improving techniques such as loop invariant motion and loop unrolling. A theoretical multi-fold performance study permits to establish accurate comparisons between the different versions. Our contribution is validated through experiments achieved on two input sets i.e. a set of randomly generated matrices and a set of benchmark matrices of different sizes and densities. This permitted to notice that the improvement procedure led to an efficient version dramatically reducing the run time up to 98%. Our algorithms were also compared with kernels from NIST Sparse Blas, CSparse and SPARSKIT2 libraries.
Self-Tuning the Parameter of Adaptive Non-linear Sampling Method for Flow Statistics

Flow statistics is a basic task of passive measurementand has been widely used to characterize the state of the network.Adaptive Non-Linear Sampling (ANLS)is one of the mostaccurate and memory-efficient flow statistics method proposedrecently. This paper studies the parameter setting problem forANLS. A parameter self-tuning algorithm is proposed in thispaper, which enlarges the parameter to a equilibrium tuningpoint and renormalizes the counter when counter overflows. It isdemonstrated that the estimation error of ANLS with parameterself-tuning algorithm is improved by about 89 times for real trace,70 times for Pareto traffic scenario and 370 times for exponentialtraffic, while giving the same memory size.
“A Taste of College”: Children and Preservice Teachers Discuss Books Together

Abstract Partnerships where preservice teachers work with children have been found to be effective in providing real world feld experiences for university students. However, little is known about what children gain from these collaborations. This research attempts to rectify this by analyzing a year-long literacy partnership in which 30 children and 55 preservice teachers participated in literature circles together, looking specifically at what factors influenced the children during this engagement. Through observations, free writes, interviews, and pen pal journals, the impact of the collaboration was examined. Results from this study suggest that the children had significant relationships and personal advocates, the children gained confidence in talking in literature circles and managing them, the children considered different perspectives and issues, and the children gained perspectives on college. Ultimately, the children's worldviews were enlarged.
Active polyphase filter analysis

This paper describes the analysis and design of active polyphase filters. Analysis for 1- and 2-stage filters are carried out in this paper with simplified transconductance models. Gain and stability, which differentiate the active and passive filters, are analyzed and presented as a function of the key design parameters of the transconductance element and of the filter. Additionally an analytical expression for the 2-stage stability is presented. A design example is given to demonstrate the use of the analysis results. The work presented provides tools for designing active polyphase filters in terms of gain, stability and image rejection ratio.
1D Camera Geometry and Its Application to the Self-Calibration of Circular Motion Sequences

This paper proposes a novel method for robustly recovering the camera geometry of an uncalibrated image sequence taken under circular motion. Under circular motion, all the camera centers lie on a circle and the mapping from the plane containing this circle to the horizon line observed in the image can be modelled as a 1D projection. A 2times2 homography is introduced in this paper to relate the projections of the camera centers in two 1D views. It is shown that the two imaged circular points of the motion plane and the rotation angle between the two views can be derived directly from such a homography. This way of recovering the imaged circular points and rotation angles is intrinsically a multiple view approach, as all the sequence geometry embedded in the epipoles is exploited in the estimation of the homography for each view pair. This results in a more robust method compared to those computing the rotation angles using adjacent views only. The proposed method has been applied to self-calibrate turntable sequences using either point features or silhouettes, and highly accurate results have been achieved.
When instrumentalists sing

This study was designed to investigate the impact that choral singing has on instrumental students’ development as musicians. Instrumental music students (N = 23) enrolled in a choral elective module at a tertiary music conservatory completed an eight-item questionnaire. Descriptive answers were collated and interpreted revealing six broad-based learning outcomes relating to physical awareness, ensemble skills, theoretical and aural skills, musicality and interpretation, aesthetic awareness, and communication and meaning. This article explores each learning outcome, as well as the experiential learning environment that is created when instrumentalists step outside of their major discipline into the choral experience. The self-reflective surveys ultimately revealed that participation in a choir can have immense impact upon instrumental students’ development as well-rounded musicians, fostering the development of musicianship and personal artistry.