Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Large Scale Eigenvalue Calculations for Computing the Stability of Buoyancy Driven Flows

We present results for large scale linear stability analysis of buoyancy driven fluid flows using a parallel finite element CFD code (MPSalsa) along with a general purpose eigensolver (ARPACK). The goal of this paper is to examine both the capabilities and limitations of such an approach, with particular focus on solving large problems on massively parallel computers using iterative methods. We accomplish our goal by solving a large variety of two and three dimensional problems of varying difficulty, comparing our results (whenever possible) to semi-analytical results. We also carefully explain how we successfully combined Cayley transformations with an Arnoldi based eigensolver and preconditioned Krylov methods for the necessary linear solves. For problems where the advective terms are not significant, we achieve excellent convergence of the computed eigenvalues as we refine the finite element mesh. We also successfully solve advectively dominated problems, but the convergence is slower. We believe that the main difficulties arise not from problems with the eigensolver, but from the accuracy of the finite element discretization. Therefore, we believe that our results are as reliable as using transient integration but are more efficiently computed. The largest eigenvalue problem we solve has over 16 million unknowns on 2048 processors.
Comparison of stability measures for feature selection

The feature selection is inevitable part of machine learning techniques in biomedical engineering and bioinformatics. Feature selection methods are used to select the most discriminative features, e.g. for disease classification. Even if there are plenty of feature selection methods the stability of these algorithms is still open question. Another issue with assessing the stability of feature selection is that there are several stability measures providing different views on stability. Here, we compare well-known stability measures and evaluate their performance on artificial and real data.
Towards Measuring the Performance of Architectural Components of Autonomous Vehicular Systems

Abstract : For a vehicular system to act "intelligent", the system must be able to: (1) sense in a dynamic domain; (2) model the domain internally; (3) determine possible courses of action to accomplish a goal in the domain; and (4) be able to assess the various courses of actions to determine which is best. The actions that the system ultimately performs are a function of all of these components. Solely assigning performance metrics to the resultant action of the intelligent system does not evaluate any one of these components individually, and therefore leaves some doubt as to how to measure what each component contributes to the overall behavior of the system. Thus we are not looking at a single number, but a matrix of numbers that characterize the performance of the system. In this paper, we are exploring a mechanism to assign performance metrics to the part of the system that models the domain internally, the internal knowledge representation of intelligent vehicular systems. We do not consider that part of a system that translates the raw sensory input from a vehicle's sensors to other representations. Rather we simulate a predefined set of sensory inputs, and evaluate the resulting knowledge representation based.
Modeling Extent and Distribution of Zygotic Disequilibrium: Implications for a Multigenerational Canine Pedigree

Unlike gametic linkage disequilibrium defined for a random-mating population, zygotic disequilibrium describes the nonrandom association between different loci in a nonequilibrium population that deviates from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. Zygotic disequilibrium specifies five different types of disequilibria simultaneously that are (1) Hardy–Weinberg disequilibria at each locus, (2) gametic disequilibrium (including two alleles in the same gamete, each from a different locus), (3) nongametic disequilibrium (including two alleles in different gametes, each from a different locus), (4) trigenic disequilibrium (including a zygote at one locus and an allele at the other), and (5) quadrigenic disequilibrium (including two zygotes each from a different locus). However, because of the uncertainty on the phase of the double heterozygote, gametic and nongametic disequilibria need to be combined into a composite digenic disequilibrium and further define a composite quadrigenic disequilibrium together with the quadrigenic disequilibrium. To investigate the extent and distribution of zygotic disequilibrium across the canine genome, a total of 148 dogs were genotyped at 247 microsatellite markers located on 39 pairs of chromosomes for an outbred multigenerational pedigree, initiated with a limited number of unrelated founders. A major portion of zygotic disequilibrium was contributed by the composite digenic and quadrigenic disequilibrium whose values and numbers of significant marker pairs are both greater than those of trigenic disequilibrium. All types of disequilibrium are extensive in the canine genome, although their values tend to decrease with extended map distances, but with a greater slope for trigenic disequilibrium than for the other types of disequilibrium. Considerable variation in the pattern of disequilibrium reduction was observed among different chromosomes. The results from this study provide scientific guidance about the determination of the number of markers used for whole-genome association studies.
The Use of Interval-Valued Probability Measures in Fuzzy Linear Programming: a constraint set approach

This paper uses a constraint set approach to linear programming problems with equality constraints whose coefficients and/or right-hand side values could be uncertain. We consider three types of uncertainty: proba- bilistic, fuzzy/possibilistic, and interval. The constraint set generated by the linear constraints under uncertainty is ill- defined and difficult to generate. Our approach computes an inner constraint set and an outer constraint set. Optimization is then carried out using these two sets using interval-valued probability approaches. We discuss the requisite associated semantics.
Where Does Attention Go When Facilitation is Absent?

Attending a location in space facilitates responses to targets at that location when the time between cue and target is short. Certain types of exogenous cues – such as sudden peripheral onsets – have been described as reflexive and automatic. Recent studies however, have been showing many cases where exogenous cues are less automatic than previously believed and do not always result in facilitation. Given a lack of the behavioural facilitation, we propose to test whether this also suggests a lack of underlying attention to that location. We test exogenous cueing with saccadic responses at a range of cue-target onset asynchronies (CTOAs) , but also alternate measures linked to the allocation of attention such as saccadic curvature, microsaccades and pupil size. As expected, we find no early facilitation at short CTOAs, and likewise no impact of the cue on microsaccade direction or pupil size. We do observe a small dip in the frequency of microsaccades after the cue as well as a tendency for saccadic curvature away from the cued location at short CTOAs. We interpret these results as evidence of reduced attention at the cued location that is removed or inhibited too quickly to be measured as facilitation of saccadic responses
Transparently Exploiting Device-Reserved Memory for Application Performance in Mobile Systems

Most embedded systems require contiguous memory space to be reserved for devices, which may lead to memory under-utilization. Although several approaches have been proposed to address this issue, they have limitations of either inefficient memory usage or long latency for switching the reserved memory space between a device and general-purpose uses. Our scheme, on the other hand, utilizes reserved memory as an eviction-based file cache. It guarantees contiguous memory allocation to devices while providing idle device memory as an additional file cache called eCache for general-purpose usage. Because eCache stores only evicted data from the in-kernel page cache, the memory efficiency is preserved and the allocation time for devices is minimized. Cost-based region selection also minimizes additional read I/O operations by carefully discarding cached data from eCache. The additional indexing cost incurred by adding eCache is minimized by integrating its index structure with the kernel page cache. The prototype is implemented on the Nexus S smartphone and is evaluated using popular Android applications. The evaluation results show that our scheme outperforms previous approaches in terms of the application launch performance. The device memory reallocation time is also limited to a few milliseconds, which is sufficiently small to make our scheme transparent.
Enhanced Utility Accrual Scheduling Algorithms for Adaptive Real Time System

Problem statement: This study proposed two utility accrual real time scheduling algorithms named as Preemptive Utility Accrual Scheduling (PUAS) and Non-preemptive Utility Accrual Scheduling (NUAS) algorithms. These algorithms addressed the unnecessary abortion problem that was identified in the existing algorithm known as General Utility Scheduling (GUS). It is observed that GUS is inefficient for independent task model because it simply aborts any task that currently executing a resource with lower utility when a new task with higher utility requests the resource. The scheduling optimality criteria are based on maximizing accrued utility accumulated from execution of all tasks in the system. These criteria are named as Utility Accrual (UA). The UA scheduling algorithms are design for adaptive real time system environment where deadline misses are tolerable and do not have great consequences to the system. Approach: We eliminated the scheduling decision to abort a task in GUS and proposed to preempt a task instead of being aborted if the task is preemptive able. We compared the performances of these algorithms by using discrete event simulation. Results: The proposed PUAS algorithm achieved the highest accrued utility for the entire load range. This is followed by the NUAS and GUS algorithms. Conclusion: Simulation results revealed that the proposed algorithms were more efficient than the existing algorithm, producing with higher accrued utility ratio and less abortion ratio making it more suitable and efficient for real time application domain.
Effect of reproductive ageing on pregnant mouse uterus and cervix

Older pregnant women have a greater risk of operative delivery, still birth and post‐term induction. This suggests that maternal age can influence the timing of birth and processes of parturition. We have found that increasing maternal age in C57BL/6J mice is associated with prolongation of gestation and length of labour. Older pregnant mice also had delayed progesterone withdrawal and impaired myometrial function. Uterine ageing and labour dysfunction should be investigated further in older primigravid women.
ShadowGuides: visualizations for in-situ learning of multi-touch and whole-hand gestures

We present ShadowGuides, a system for in-situ learning of multi-touch and whole-hand gestures on interactive surfaces. ShadowGuides provides on-demand assistance to the user by combining visualizations of the user's current hand posture as interpreted by the system (feedback) and available postures and completion paths necessary to finish the gesture (feedforward). Our experiment compared participants learning gestures with ShadowGuides to those learning with video-based instruction. We found that participants learning with ShadowGuides remembered more gestures and expressed significantly higher preference for the help system.
Explicitly heterogeneous metaprogramming with MetaHaskell

Languages with support for metaprogramming, like MetaOCaml, offer a principled approach to code generation by guaranteeing that well-typed metaprograms produce well-typed programs. However, many problem domains where metaprogramming can fruitfully be applied require generating code in languages like C, CUDA, or assembly. Rather than resorting to add-hoc code generation techniques, these applications should be directly supported by explicitly heterogeneous metaprogramming languages. We present MetaHaskell, an extension of Haskell 98 that provides modular syntactic and type system support for type safe metaprogramming with multiple object languages. Adding a new object language to MetaHaskell requires only minor modifications to the host language to support type-level quantification over object language types and propagation of type equality constraints. We demonstrate the flexibility of our approach through three object languages: a core ML language, a linear variant of the core ML language, and a subset of C. All three languages support metaprogramming with open terms and guarantee that well-typed MetaHaskell programs will only produce closed object terms that are well-typed. The essence of MetaHaskell is captured in a type system for a simplified metalanguage. MetaHaskell, as well as all three object languages, are fully implemented in the mhc bytecode compiler.
Mechanisms of acid absorption in the rumen and impacts on subacute sumen acidosis

A distinguishing feature of ruminants is that they rely on anaerobic fermentation of feeds in the rumen and reticulum (collectively termed the reticulo-rumen) to supply metabolizable energy in the form of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) and metabolizable protein in the form of microbial protein. While the production of SCFA is a nutritionally desired effect, excessive rates of SCFA production and their subsequent dissociation in ruminal fluid can lead to a reduction in ruminal pH and the onset of ruminal acidosis. This is important as the production of SCFA can be substantial. For example, Sutton et al. (2003) measured total SCFA production for Holstein cows fed moderate (40%) or high concentrate (90%) diets reporting that production equated to 79 and 90 mol/d, respectively.
Adaptive Behavior Models for Asymmetric Adversaries

In order for simulation based training to help prepare warfighters for modern asymmetric tactics, opponent models of behavior must become more dynamic and challenge trainees with adaptive threats consistent with those increasingly encountered by the military. In this paper we describe an adaptive behavior modeling framework designed to represent asymmetric adversaries within a multi-player virtual environment. The framework aims to provide a means for adversary models to analyze the tactical situation during execution, and adapt their behaviors and tactics accordingly. Dynamic adaptations occur both within an exercise and across exercise runs, with an automated means to carry “lessons learned” forward from one exercise to the next and adapt tactics in subsequent training sessions. This paper provides details on two distinct areas of investigation. The first area is a survey of the space of asymmetric tactics and adaptations from real-world military operations, initially focusing on urban “presence patrols”. A number of training experiments were conducted in a virtual environment to solidify the behavior modeling requirements for this specific operational area, and provide a basis for generalizing to other domains. The second research area is the design and development of artificial intelligence techniques for creating adaptive adversaries. The approach makes use of an authoring tool for defining adaptive behavior models specified as partial plans that can be instantiated with choices partly driven by reward functions using data from previous events. Based on this initial behavior specification, new adaptive behaviors can be automatically generated with methods based on evolutionary algorithms. In both cases, the adversary model adapts over time in conjunction with training events.
Genomic Dissection and Expression Profiling Revealed Functional Divergence in Triticum aestivum Leucine Rich Repeat Receptor Like Kinases (TaLRRKs)

The leucine rich repeat receptor like kinases (LRRK) constitute the largest subfamily of receptor like kinases (RLK), which play critical roles in plant development and stress responses. Herein, we identified 531 TaLRRK genes in Triticum aestivum (bread wheat), which were distributed throughout the A, B, and D sub-genomes and chromosomes. These were clustered into 233 homologous groups, which were mostly located on either homeologous chromosomes from various sub-genomes or in proximity on the same chromosome. A total of 255 paralogous genes were predicted which depicted the role of duplication events in expansion of this gene family. Majority of TaLRRKs consisted of trans-membrane region and localized on plasma-membrane. The TaLRRKs were further categorized into eight phylogenetic groups with numerous subgroups on the basis of sequence homology. The gene and protein structure in terms of exon/intron ratio, domains, and motifs organization were found to be variably conserved across the different phylogenetic groups/subgroups, which indicated a potential divergence and neofunctionalization during evolution. High-throughput transcriptome data and quantitative real time PCR analyses in various developmental stages, and biotic and abiotic (heat, drought, and salt) stresses provided insight into modus operandi of TaLRRKs during these conditions. Distinct expression of majority of stress responsive TaLRRKs homologous genes suggested their specified role in a particular condition. These results provided a comprehensive analysis of various characteristic features including functional divergence, which may provide the way for future functional characterization of this important gene family in bread wheat.
Critical thinking and its importance in education: some reflections

Purpose: This article reviews some conceptions of critical thinking and highlights its importance for education. Description: First, it presents some philosophical and psychological approaches to critical thinking and their influence in international and national educational policies as a means of fostering active citizenship and in turn sustainable development. Second, it highlights the relation between critical thinking and Content and Language Integrated Learning. Third, the authors of this article insist on the vital role teachers have on developing critical thinking. Point of view: The concept of critical thinking has been approached by different academicians through history. However they may differ, they all have in common features such as intellectual discipline, integrity, freedom, citizenship, creativity and empathy. Therefore, critical thinking development must be inherent in education as societies need citizens who facilitate their progress. An example of how critical thinking can be developed in education is illustrated through the implementation of CLIL in language classes. Conclusion: Having in mind that students spend a lot of time in school, teachers are called to help family to develop our students’ critical thinking skills during their regular teaching practices.
Effect of adiposity on vitamin D status and the 25-hydroxycholecalciferol response to supplementation in healthy young and older Irish adults

There is increasing epidemiological evidence linking sub-optimal vitamin D status with overweight and obesity. Although increasing BMI and adiposity have also been negatively associated with the change in vitamin D status following supplementation, results have been equivocal. The aim of this randomised, placebo-controlled study was to investigate the associations between anthropometric measures of adiposity and the wintertime serum 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25(OH)D) response to 15 μg cholecalciferol per d in healthy young and older Irish adults. A total of 110 young adults (20–40 years) and 102 older adults ( ≥ 64 years) completed the 22-week intervention with >85 % compliance. The change in 25(OH)D from baseline was calculated. Anthropometric measures of adiposity taken at baseline included height, weight and waist circumference (WC), along with skinfold thickness measurements to estimate fat mass (FM). FM was subsequently expressed as FM (kg), FM (%), FM index (FMI (FM kg/height m2)) and as a percentage ratio to fat-free mass (FFM). In older adults, vitamin D status was inversely associated with BMI (kg/m2), WC (cm), FM (kg and %), FMI (kg/m2) and FM:FFM (%) at baseline (r − 0·33, − 0·36, − 0·33, − 0·30, − 0·33 and − 0·27, respectively, all P values < 0·01). BMI in older adults was also negatively associated with the change in 25(OH)D following supplementation (β − 1·27, CI − 2·37, − 0·16, P = 0·026); however, no such associations were apparent in younger adults. Results suggest that adiposity may need to be taken into account when determining an adequate wintertime dietary vitamin D intake for healthy older adults residing at higher latitudes.
On building distributed soft real-time systems

When building a distributed real-time system, one can either build the whole system from scratch, or from pre-existing standard components. Although the former allows better scheduling design, it may not be economical in terms of the cost and time of development. This paper studies the performance of distributed soft real-time systems that use standard components with various scheduling algorithms and suggests ways to improve them. <<ETX>>
Semantic vs term-based query modification analysis

htmlabstractPrevious research has studied query modifications on a syntactic level by focusing on the addition, elimination and substitution of terms between consecutive queries that have at least one term in common. In this paper, we determine semantic relations between queries by first mapping them onto concepts in linked data sources and then identifying the relations between the concepts. This enables us to find relations between queries that do not share any terms. Moreover, with this approach we can find more detailed and more meaningful query modification patterns than with a term-based analysis. Application of our method to search logs of two search engines shows the importance of studying query modifications on a semantic level. Our results indicate that users often search for entities that are related semantically, but not syntactically. Specifically, users often successively search for two entities sharing a common property, such as two actors starring in the same movie, or two entities with a specific relation, such as spouses. We discuss the implications of these findings for the design of search engines.
REAR: Real-Time Energy Aware Routing for Wireless Adhoc Micro Sensors Network

Putting constraint on temporal domain based system performance, sometimes turns right into wrong, update into outdate, current into past and lawful into illegal. Therefore perfection satisfaction not only at hardware level but also at software level design is indispensable to quench the thirst of such ideal real time communication. From software perspective, in the timeless sensitive communication context, RTOS’s kernel design must be sensitive enough to compensate different delays. Active contribution from each communication layer protocol as well as cross layer protocol makes the overall performance healthier and valiant. This active contribution becomes much important when the resources are in stringent constraint as in Wireless SensorNetwork (WSN). A WSN is a network of energy, memory and processing constraint nodes. In this paper, we have proposed a protocol: REAR, to achieve the real-time routing with energy awareness feature in the ad hoc micro sensors network. It follows the customized proactive routing with in-network processing and localized behavior. Simulation results have intuited that REAR presents a better solution in energy consumption with the effect of improving the network life as well as increasing the performance efficiency in end-to-end delay.