Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Runtime Visualization of Application Progress and Monitoring of a GPU-enabled Parallel Environment

The paper presents design, implementation and real life uses of a visualization subsystem for a distributed framework for parallelization of workflow-based computations among clusters with nodes that feature both CPUs and GPUs. Firstly, the proposed system presents a graphical view of the infrastructure with clusters, nodes and compute devices along with parameters and runtime graphs of load, memory available, fan speeds etc. Secondly, it depicts execution progress of particular workflow nodes that correspond to parallel computations realized by OpenCL kernels. States of workflow nodes such as ready, running, executed are shown with colors. Thirdly, the system allows the programmer to provide code that visualizes physical representation of the application executed at runtime. The visualization code is intentionally separated from the computational kernels in OpenCL. The benefits of the proposed system are demonstrated for a parallel numerical integration code executed on both CPUs and GPUs. Key–Words: Visualization, Parallel computing, Heterogeneous environments, OpenCL
Miniature and low cost fiber Bragg grating interrogator for structural monitoring in nano-satellites

In this paper we present a newly developed Fiber Optic measurement system, consisting of Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors and an FBG interrogator. The development of the measuring system is part of the PiezoElectric Assisted Smart Satellite Structure (PEASSS) project, which was initiated at the beginning of 2013 and is financed by the Seventh Framework Program (FP7) of the European Commission. Within the PEASSS project, a Nano-Satellite is being designed and manufactured to be equipped with new technology that will help keep Europe on the cutting edge of space research, potentially reducing the cost and development time for more accurate future sensor platforms including synthetic aperture optics, moving target detection and identification, and compact radars. After on ground testing the satellite is planned to be launched at the end of 2015. Within the satellite, different technologies will be demonstrated on orbit to show their capabilities for different in-space applications. For our application the FBG interrogator monitors the structural and thermal behaviour of a so called “smart panel”. These panels will enable fine angle control and thermal and vibration compensation in order to improve all types of future Earth observations, such as environmental and planetary mapping, border and regional imaging. The Fiber Optic (FO) system in PEASSS includes four FBG strain sensors and two FBG temperature sensors. The 3 channel interrogator has to have a small footprint (110x50x40mm), is low cost, low in mass and has a low power consumption. In order to meet all these requirements, an interrogator has been designed based on a tunable Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) enabling a wavelength sweep of around 7 nm. To guarantee the absolute and relative performance, two reference methods are included internally in the interrogator. First, stabilized reference FBG sensors are used to obtain absolute wavelength calibrations. This method is used for the temperature sensors in the system, which will be measured with an accuracy of ±1°C. Second, the strain sensors will be used to monitor deformation of piezo actuators (bimorph plates) in a way that temperature compensation is not required. Using FBGs on top and on the bottom of the plates, relative wavelength differences are measured. In order to have a high accuracy, inside the interrogator a fiber interferometer is used to track the wavelength change. Using this reference technology we are able to measure the (relative) wavelength difference between two FBGs well below 0.1pm.
Newly Developed Soft Magnetic Composites for AC Applications with Reduced Iron Losses

A broad variety of AC applications may be considered from iron powders due to attractive possibility to utilize 3D magnetic flux path when a reliable insulating coating, being sustainable at elevated temperatures, can be applied towards each individual particle within soft magnetic composite (SMC). With this regard, recently developed SMC that utilizes novel inorganic insulating coating formulation is presented while its magnetic performance and some technological characteristics are discussed with relation to applied processing parameters such as compaction and annealing operational steps. Obtained results indicate that the novel SMC exhibits high electrical resistivity that resulted in low Iron losses at elevated temperatures.
Meet, discuss, and segregate!

We present a model of opinion dynamics in which agents adjust continuous opinions as a result of random binary encounters whenever their difference in opinion is below a given threshold. High thresholds yield convergence of opinions toward an average opinion, whereas low thresholds result in several opinion clusters. The model is further generalized to network interactions, threshold heterogeneity, adaptive thresholds, and binary strings of opinions. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Fully Symbolic TCTL Model Checking for Incomplete Timed Systems

In this paper we present a fully symbolic TCTL model checking algorithm for incomplete timed systems. Our algorithm is able to prove that a TCTL property is violated or satisfied regardless of the implementation of unknown timed components in the system. For that purpose the algorithm computes over- approximations of sets of states fulfilling a TCTL property φ for at least one implementation of the unknown components and under-approximations of sets of states fulfilling φ for all possible implementations of the unknown components. The algorithm works on a symbolic model for timed systems, called a finite state machine with time (FSMT), and makes use of fully symbolic state set representations containing both the clock values and the state variables. In order to handle incomplete timed systems our model checking algorithm deals with different communication methods between the system and its unknown components, e.g. shared integer variables and urgent and non-urgent synchronization. Our experimental results demonstrate that it is possible to prove interesting properties at early stages of the design when parts of the overall system may not yet be finished. Additionally, fading out components of a large system may dramatically reduce the complexity of the system and thus the effort for verification.
Blind Audio Source Separation Pipeline and Algorithm Evaluation

This report outlines the various methods and experiments employed by its authors in their search for algorithmic solutions for Blind Audio Source Separation. In the context of music, advancing BSS would lead to improvements in music information retrieval, computer music composition, spatial audio, and audio engineering. An understanding and evaluation on the advantage and disadvantage of different BSS algorithms will be beneficial for further usage of these BSS algorithm in different context. This report discusses three Blind Audio Source Separation Algorithms: GMM, NMF, and ICA, and evaluates their performance based on human perception of audio signals.
Title Egocentric direction and position perceptions are dissociablebased on only static lane edge information

Right © 2015 Nakashima, Iwai, Ueda and Kumada. This is an openaccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Type Journal Article
A fast weighted stochastic gradient descent algorithm for image reconstruction in 3 D computed tomography

We describe and evaluate an algorithm for image reconstruction in 3D x-ray computed tomography. The proposed algorithm is similar to the class of projected gradient methods. The gradient descent for reducing the measurement misfit term is carried out using a stochastic gradient iteration and the gradient directions are weighted using weights suggested by parallel coordinate descent. In addition, to further improve the speed of the algorithm, at each iteration we minimize the cost function on a small subspace spanned by the direction of the current projected gradient and several previous update directions. We apply the proposed algorithm on simulated and real cone-beam projections and compare it with Fast Iterative ShrinkageThresholding Algorithm (FISTA).
Theme V – Models and Techniques for Analyzing Seismicity Seismicity Models Based on Coulomb Stress Calculations

Our fundamental, physical, understanding of earthquake generation is that stress-build-up leads to earthquakes within the brittle crust rupturing mainly pre-existing crustal faults. While absolute stresses are difficult to estimate, the stress changes induced by earthquakes can be calculated, and these have been shown to effect the location and timing of subsequent events. Furthermore, constitutive laws derived from laboratory experiments can be used to model the earthquake nucleation on faults and their rupture propagation. Exploiting this physical knowledge quantitative seismicity models have been built. In this article, we discuss the spatiotemporal seismicity model based on the rate-and-state dependent frictional response of fault populations introduced by Dieterich (1994). This model has been shown to explain a variety of observations, e.g. the Omori-Utsu law for aftershocks. We focus on the following issues: (i) necessary input information; (ii) model implementation; (iii) data-driven parameter estimation and (iv) consideration of the involved epistemic and aleatoric uncertainties.
The Effect of Label Information on Farmers’ Pesticide Choice

The general objective of this study was to analyze the effect of labeling information on farmers’ herbicide choice. Herbicide choices made by farmers were used to estimate their willingness to pay for different herbicide attributes. Estimation results indicate that human health and environmental statements displayed on pesticide labels (which reflect higher level of risk) are important components in herbicide selection. For example, it is estimated that farmers are willing to pay, on average, $27 per acre to avoid using an herbicide with the word “Warning” and $38 per acre to avoid using an herbicide with the word “Danger. ”
Copper Acquisition Is Mediated by YcnJ and Regulated by YcnK and CsoR in Bacillus subtilis

ABSTRACT Copper is an essential cofactor for many enzymes, and at over a threshold level, it is toxic for all organisms. To understand the mechanisms underlying copper homeostasis of the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis, we have performed microarray studies under copper-limiting conditions. These studies revealed that the ycnJ gene encodes a protein that plays an important role in copper metabolism, as it shows a significant, eightfold upregulation under copper-limiting conditions and its disruption causes a growth-defective phenotype under copper deprivation as well as a reduced intracellular content of copper. Native gel shift experiments with the periplasmic N-terminal domain of the YcnJ membrane protein (135 residues) disclosed its strong affinity to Cu(II) ions in vitro. Inspection of the upstream sequence of ycnJ revealed that the ycnK gene encodes a putative transcriptional regulator, whose deletion caused an elevated expression of ycnJ, especially under conditions of copper excess. Further studies demonstrated that the recently identified copper efflux regulator CsoR also is involved in the regulation of ycnJ expression, leading to a new model for copper homeostasis in B. subtilis.
Strictly Lobar Microbleeds Are Associated With Executive Impairment in Patients With Ischemic Stroke or Transient Ischemic Attack

Background and Purpose— Cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) are a marker of small vessel diseases, including hypertensive arteriopathy and cerebral amyloid angiopathy, and may be associated with cognitive impairment. The relationship between CMBs and cognitive function in ischemic cerebrovascular disease remains uncertain. We, therefore, investigated the cognitive impact of CMBs in a cohort of patients with ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack. Methods— All patients underwent detailed and comprehensive neuropsychological testing and standardized MRI, including fluid attenuation inversion recovery, T1, T2, and gradient-recalled echo T2*-weighted sequences. CMBs, white matter changes, lacunes, and territorial cortical infarcts (defined by standardized criteria) were identified, and associations with cognition assessed. Results— Three hundred twenty patients with a diagnosis of ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack were included. Of these, 72 (22.5%) had at least 1 CMB. Of all the cognitive domains tested, only executive impairment was more prevalent in patients with CMBs than without (38% versus 25%; P=0.039). In univariate analysis, the presence of strictly lobar (but not deep) CMBs was associated with executive impairment (odds ratio, 2.49; 95% confidence interval, 1.16–5.36; P=0.019). In adjusted multivariate analyses, the presence (OR, 2.34; 95% confidence interval, 1.08–5.09; P=0.031) and number (OR, 1.33; 95% confidence interval, 1.04–1.69; P=0.022) of strictly lobar CMBs were significantly associated with executive impairment. CMBs were not associated with impairment in other cognitive domains. Conclusions— Strictly lobar CMBs are independently associated with executive dysfunction in patients with ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack. Our findings suggest that a microangiopathy related to strictly lobar CMBs (eg, cerebral amyloid angiopathy) contributes to cognitive impairment in this population.
NUROP –Augmenting Focused Crawling using Search Engine Queries

The pervasiveness of the Internet makes it an ideal medium for sharing scholarly information. Nowadays, many authors post their publications online so that others may easily access to them, increasing the author’s impact in his/her research area. In this project, we develop a focused crawling to find publication pages, web pages that link to online, freely available scholarly publications. In contrast to previous works which only traverse hyperlinks within web pages, our algorithm leverages search engine queries to locate suitable pages for crawling. This strategy allows our crawler to locate more relevant pages and lessens the reliance of the crawler on the quality of seed pages used to start the crawling processing. Our crawler is also able to locate relevant pages that are not accessible by standard crawling that work only by following hyperlinks. Our results show our system is able to avoid slow start, and find publication pages faster, outperform local crawling methods.
Formalizing typicality of objects and context-sensitivity in ontologies

In multiagent systems ontologies are essential because they facilitate tasks like communications and reasoning. In this paper, inspired by studies in cognitive psychology, we present a theoretical framework of ontologies that model concepts and properties in a way that typicality of objects can be reflected, and in which context plays a major role in determining the interpretation of the concepts. Typicality is a very common phenomenon observed in different cognitive tasks, while context has been proved to have significant influences on reasoning and categorization. This framework brings together these issues and gives a formal representation of context-sensitive ontologies.
Upper Limit to the Distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud

We remeasure the "light echo" times to the near and far side of the ring around SN 1987A using the method of Gould and the new reductions of the original UV spectra by Sonneborn et al. Under the assumption that the ring is circular, we obtain an upper limit to the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud μLMC < 18.37 ± 0.04. This result is very close to Gould's original value and contradicts claims that the new spectra measurements lead to a significant increase in the distance estimate and a substantial increase in the statistical errors. We present new evidence (partly provided by A. P. S. Crotts) that the ring is intrinsically elliptical with axis ratio b/a ~ 0.95. For an elliptical ring, μLMC < 18.44 ± 0.05. We elaborate on Gould's original argument that the upper limit is robust, i.e., that it is only weakly sensitive to unmodeled aspects of the ring such as its hydrodynamic properties and ionization history.
LC-MS/MS Analysis Unravels Deep Oxidation of Manganese Superoxide Dismutase in Kidney Cancer

Manganese superoxide dismutase (MNSOD) is one of the major scavengers of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in mitochondria with pivotal regulatory role in ischemic disorders, inflammation and cancer. Here we report oxidative modification of MNSOD in human renal cell carcinoma (RCC) by the shotgun method using data-dependent liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). While 5816 and 5571 proteins were identified in cancer and adjacent tissues, respectively, 208 proteins were found to be up- or down-regulated (p < 0.05). Ontological category, interaction network and Western blotting suggested a close correlation between RCC-mediated proteins and oxidoreductases such as MNSOD. Markedly, oxidative modifications of MNSOD were identified at histidine (H54 and H55), tyrosine (Y58), tryptophan (W147, W149, W205 and W210) and asparagine (N206 and N209) residues additional to methionine. These oxidative insults were located at three hotspots near the hydrophobic pocket of the manganese binding site, of which the oxidation of Y58, W147 and W149 was up-regulated around three folds and the oxidation of H54 and H55 was detected in the cancer tissues only (p < 0.05). When normalized to MNSOD expression levels, relative MNSOD enzymatic activity was decreased in cancer tissues, suggesting impairment of MNSOD enzymatic activity in kidney cancer due to modifications. Thus, LC-MS/MS analysis revealed multiple oxidative modifications of MNSOD at different amino acid residues that might mediate the regulation of the superoxide radicals, mitochondrial ROS scavenging and MNSOD activity in kidney cancer.
A novel RFID reader antenna with circular polarization operation

A novel antenna designed for the RFID reader with circular polarization (CP) operation is proposed in this paper. The antenna contains a 50-Ω microstrip feed line, two resonant paths on the top substrate, and a system ground on the bottom substrate. Experimental results show that good CP radiation performances of the proposed design are obtained, and both the impedance bandwidth and 3-dB axialratio bandwidth are also met the Japanese RFID requirement. The proposed antenna also has advantages of compact, simple structure, ease fabrication, and low cost.
Complete regression of human fibrosarcoma xenografts after local Newcastle disease virus therapy.

We have recently demonstrated that a single local injection of the avian pathogen Newcastle disease virus (NDV; strain 73-T) causes complete regression of human neuroblastoma xenografts in athymic mice (R. M. Lorence, K. W. Reichard, B. B. Katubig, H. M. Reyes, A. Phuangsab, B. R. Mitchell, C. J. Cascino, R. J. Walter, and M. E. Peeples. J. Natl. Cancer Inst., 86: 1228-1233, 1994). In this report, we tried to determine if this in vivo antineoplastic effect of NDV extends to human sarcomas. Athymic mice with s.c. HT1080 fibrosarcoma xenografts (7-14 mm) were randomly divided into two groups and treated i.t. with a single injection of either 10(7) plaque-forming units of NDV or phosphate-buffered saline. Complete tumor regression occurred in 8 of 10 mice treated with NDV while unabated tumor growth occurred in all 9 mice treated with phosphate-buffered saline (P < 0.001). To determine if complete tumor regression was long lasting, the 8 mice were monitored for 1 year, during which time no tumor recurred. To test the antitumor effects of NDV on tumors derived from a fresh human sarcoma, a similar experiment was performed in athymic mice using TH15145 synovial sarcoma xenografts at their first and second passages. Of 9 mice with TH15145 xenografts, a single i.t. injection of NDV (10(7) plaque-forming units) caused complete regression of 3 tumors and > 80% regression in 3 more tumors. In contrast, tumors in all 5 mice treated with phosphate-buffered saline exhibited unabated growth (P < 0.03 for > 80% tumor regression). Since HT1080 fibrosarcoma cells express the N-ras oncogene, we explored the effects that transfection of this oncogene has on the sensitivity to NDV. Cultured human fibroblasts that were made tumorigenic following N-ras-transfection were found to be 1000-fold more sensitive to NDV than normal fibroblasts in a cytotoxicity assay. Oncogene expression by the HT1080 fibrosarcoma may therefore contribute to the long-lasting complete regression of this sarcoma following a single local injection of NDV.
Tunable Plasmonic Colours by Atomic Layer Deposition of Alumina

We report the tuning of plasmonic colours on silver by controlling the thickness of alumina films deposited via atomic layer deposition. The colours are observed to shift with increasing alumina film thickness. Colour palettes produced with periodic topographical features are observed to recover their original vibrancy and Hue range after the deposition of a film thickness of ~ 60 nm while colours devoid of such topographical features are observed to gradually fade and their colour intensities are never recovered collapsing into a small visually unappealing region of the LCH color space. Analysis of the surfaces identifies the periodic topographical features as responsible for this behavior. Finite-difference time-domain simulations of flat and sine-modulated surfaces covered with nanoparticles and covered by a conformal alumina film were conducted to unravel the role played by the ALD thickness on the colour formation, where colour rotations and recovery were also observed. The coloured surfaces were evaluated for applications in colourimetric and radiometric sensing showing large sensitivities of up to 3.06/nm and 3.19 nm/nm, respectively. The colourimetric and radiometric sensitivities are ob-served to be colour dependent.
SPHERE non-common path aberrations measurement and pre-compensation with optimized phase diversity processe s

The SPHERE instrument is the 2nd generation instrument dedi cated to exoplanet direct imaging and characterization. The extremely high imaging performa nce required by these observation mode calls for a high performance AO system. Particularly, this system has t o provide a wavefront corrected from turbulent and internal defects. We present here the experimental results for the complete focal-plane calibration procedure of the SPHERE instrument internal defects. An optimized phase diversity method is applied allowing to deal with model uncertainties in the image formation (noise, residua l background, amplitude fluctuation, sampling factor, defocalisation distance, object size and SH-model for refe rence slope modifications) The full procedure includes both Non-Common Path Aberrations (NCPA) compensation at th e level of the coronagraphic mask using the eXtreme AO system itself (by the mean of modification of the fil t red SH WFS reference slopes during close loop operations), but also additional measurements of IRDIS di fferential optical path aberrations for post processing of dual-band images. We validate the algorithm and the pre-com pensation procedure using data obtained during the first eXtreme AO bench (SAXO) integration and tests. We also a pplied the Diversity tool on stand-alone IRDIS data obtained at LAM during its local integration. In both ca ses, we demonstrate the robustness and the ultimate performance (nanometric precision of the residual quasi-s tat c pattern) of the phase diversity approach which will allow us to obtain nanometric accuracy on the final SPHERE sys tem.