Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chip multiprocessors for server workloads

We stand on the cusp of the giga-scale era of chip integration. Technological advancements in semiconductor fabrication yield ever-smaller and faster devices, enabling billion-transistor chips with multi-gigahertz clock frequencies. To utilize the abundant transistors on chip, modern processors pack an exponentially increasing number of cores on chip, multi-megabyte caches, and large interconnects to facilitate infra-chip data transfers. However, the growing on-chip resources do not directly translate into a commensurate increase in performance. Rather, they come at the cost of increased on-chip data access latency, while thermal considerations and pin constraints limit the parallelism that a multicore chip can support. To mitigate the increasing on-chip data access latency, cache blocks on chip should be placed close to the cores that use them. We observe that cache access patterns can be classified at run time into distinct classes with different on-chip block placement requirements. Based on this observation, we propose Reactive NUCA (R-NUCA), a distributed cache design which reacts to the class of each access to place blocks close to the requesting cores. We then explore the design space of physically-constrained multicore processors, and find that future multicores should utilize low-operational-power transistors even for time-critical components (e.g., cores) to ease the power wall, employ novel on-chip block placement techniques to utilize efficiently large caches, while techniques like 3D-stacked memory can mitigate the off-chip bandwidth constraint even for peak-performance designs. Moving forward, we find that heterogeneous multicores hold great promise in improving designs even further.
On the merits of popularity prediction in multimedia content caching

In recent years, telecom operators have been moving away from traditional, broadcast-driven, television towards IP-based, interactive and on-demand services. Consequently, multicast is no longer a viable solution to limit the amount of traffic in the IP-TV network. In order to counter an explosion in generated traffic, caches can be strategically placed throughout the content delivery infrastructure. As the size of caches is usually limited to only a small fraction of the total size of all content items, it is important to accurately predict future content popularity. Classical caching strategies only take into account the past when deciding what content to cache. Recently, a trend towards novel strategies that actually try to predict future content popularity has arisen. In this paper, we ascertain the viability of using popularity prediction in realistic multimedia content caching scenarios. The use of popularity prediction is compared to classical strategies using trace files from an actual deployed Video on Demand service. Additionally, the synergy between several parameters, such as cache size and prediction window, is investigated.
The Investigation on Multimodal Biometric Recognition

Biometrics is used to identify individual in groups by their characteristics, such as fingerprint, face, iris, voice and behavioral characteristics like hand written signature and keystroke. Normally, a majority of biometrics recognition systems adopt methods by using unique feature to discriminate different individual from groups. But there is some forgery, subjective modifications like making up exiting as usual. A multimodal biometric recognition systemusing multiple biometrics to identify is proposed. In addition, it can support better Equal Error Rate (EER), False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR) by combining two or more physical or behavioral features. With lots of approached have been proposed, experts also pay much attention to the methods mentioned in recent years. The objective of this paper is to support a survey of multimodal biometric recognition system and approach using face, fingerprint recognition and enhanced iris characters that commonly used recently.
Combined Surgical and Interventional Radiologic Management Strategies in Patients with Arterial Pseudo-Aneurysms After Multivisceral Transplantation

Background Multivisceral transplantation has recently evolved to be a life-saving procedure for patients with intestinal failure and complex abdominal pathology. A composite aortic graft is always needed to restore the arterial flow to the transplanted organs. Accordingly, arterial complications can be life-threatening requiring prompt intervention. Herein, we describe innovative technical approaches in seven recipients who developed pseudo-aneurysm (PA) after transplantation. Methods With a total of 285 composite visceral transplants, 15 (5.2%) patients experienced vascular complications. Of these, 7 were life-threatening PAs that were diagnosed 61 to 2677 days after transplantation. Due to the anatomic and technical complexity of the allograft vasculature, endovascular techniques were introduced alone (n=2) or in conjunction with surgical intervention (n=5) in an attempt to rescue patients and salvage the transplanted organs. Results The endovascular and surgical technical approaches used for each of the 7 PA actively bleeding patients was successful in 5 (71%). Of these, 2 (40%) are alive 86 to 117 months after the intervention. The remaining 5 recipients died of recurrent hemorrhage (n=2), liver failure (n=1), and pneumonia (n=1). The cause of death was unknown in the remaining patient. Retransplantation and intra-abdominal infections were major risk factors. Candida was the most common isolated microorganism. Conclusions Recipients of composite visceral allografts are at risk of developing life-threatening PAs, particularly in those with early posttransplantation abdominal infections. Prompt multidisciplinary diagnosis and therapeutic approaches are crucial management strategies.
Automatic Classification of Lexical Stress in English and Arabic Languages Using Deep Learning

Prosodic features are important for the intelligibility and proficiency of stress-timed languages such as English and Arabic. Producing the appropriate lexical stress is challenging for second language (L2) learners, in particular, those whose first language (L1) is a syllable-timed language such as Spanish, French, etc. In this paper we introduce a method for automatic classification of lexical stress to be integrated into computer-aided pronunciation learning (CAPL) tools for L2 learning. We trained two different deep learning architectures, the deep feedforward neural network (DNN) and the deep convolutional neural network (CNN) using a set of temporal and spectral features related to the intensity, duration, pitch and energies in different frequency bands. The system was applied on both English (kids and adult) and Arabic (adult) speech corpora collected from native speakers. Our method results in error rates of 9%, 7% and 18% when tested on the English children corpus, English adult corpus and Arabic adult corpus respectively.
An Open Loop With Kalman Filter for Intermittent GNSS Signal Tracking

Intermittent tracking technique can be used in the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver to reduce its power consumption. To the pedestrian and vehicle navigation in the urban areas, an open loop with the Kalman filter for the GNSS signal intermittent tracking is proposed and its tracking accuracy relationship with the duty cycle is analyzed. Simulation and experiment results show that, compared with the conventional closed loop and open loop, the proposed algorithm can track the signal steady with a smaller duty cycle and achieve a better tracking accuracy performance.
Political Internet games: Engaging an audience

This article is concerned with Internet games that critically address political issues. Developers and players of six online games were interviewed about the expressive and engaging power of the games, in particular with respect to the performance of a ‘political self’. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in order to explore this issue in some detail. Interviews with the six game-developers revealed that building a game contributed to the enhancement of their everyday political engagement. Players were addressed by an online questionnaire which also included playing a political game (N = 80). The results showed an impact of playing a political game on their knowledge and opinion about the issue addressed in the game.The results also suggested that the construction and expression of a ‘political self’ through the act of playing a political game may have consequences in the real world.
In Vitro Effects of Preservatives in Nasal Sprays on Human Nasal Epithelial Cells

Background The preservatives benzalkonium chloride and potassium sorbate are widely used in nasal drops and sprays. Recently, side effects resulting from mucosal damage caused by benzalkonium chloride and potassium sorbate were reported. Methods We investigated the toxicity of benzalkonium chloride and potassium sorbate on human nasal epithelial cells in vitro. Using primary human nasal epithelial cells, different concentrations of benzalkonium chloride, potassium sorbate, or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS; control group) solutions were cocultured with nasal epithelial cells for 15 minutes. Then, the viability of the cells and the cell morphology were assessed. Results Nasal epithelial cells were more severely damaged with use of clinical preparations or higher concentrations of benzalkonium chloride than in the control group. In addition, nasal epithelial cell membrane lysis was seen on electronic microscopy in the benzalkonium chloride groups. In contrast, there was no significant cell damage seen in the potassium sorbate groups compared with the control group, even with higher concentrations than clinically used. Conclusion Potassium sorbate appears to be a relatively safer preservative than benzalkonium chloride for use in nasal sprays and drops in vitro study.
Hybrid Models for Lexical Acquisition of Correlated Styles

Automated lexicon acquisition from corpora represents one way that large datasets can be leveraged to provide resources for a variety of NLP tasks. Our work applies techniques popularized in sentiment lexicon acquisition and topic modeling to the broader task of creating a stylistic lexicon. A novel aspect of our approach is a focus on multiple related styles, first extracting initial independent estimates of style based on co-occurrence with seeds in a large corpus, and then refining those estimates based on the relationship between styles. We compare various promising implementation options, including vector space, Bayesian, and graph-based representations, and conclude that a hybrid approach is indeed warranted.
Are the Liberal Arts an Endangered Species

Much has been written during the past decade about the plight of the liberal arts in higher education. It is clear that student interest in the liberal arts and sciences has decreased since the end of the 1960s. And the National Center for Education Statistics [17, p. 131] projects that this trend will continue through the 1980s. Moreover, the projected decrease in the size of the eighteen to twentyone-year-old population through the 1990s [20] has caused concern about overall enrollments within institutions of higher education. Similarly, potential decreases in the availability of federal funds for student assistance programs is causing concern that predominantly independent liberal arts institutions, as defined by the Carnegie Council, will lose enrollments to less expensive public institutions. Studies of liberal arts schools and their enrollments during the last decade provide some indication as to the potential effects of these trends. An analysis of changes in the enrollments of liberal arts colleges between 1965 and 1977 by Leslie, Grant, and Brown [13], for example, revealed that enrollment growth in liberal arts colleges has not been as robust as in colleges and universities with other program emphases. They found that enrollments in the relatively selective Liberal Arts I colleges [6] remained fairly stable throughout this period while enroll-
The Cinderella of communication strategies: Reception strategies in interactive listening

Interactive listening plays an important role in language learning. Specifically, the effective use of reception strategies by listeners in interaction can both resolve immediate comprehension problems and facilitate long-term language learning. This study investigated the types of reception strategies and the frequency of their use by students of French at different levels of language proficiency, measured by an oral proficiency interview as designed by ACTFL/ETS (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service). A number of distinct strategies were identified. Students with novice-level proficiency made greater use of kinesics, global reprises, and hypothesis testing in English to clarify meaning or solicit further input. Students with intermediate-level proficiency also used these strategies, but less frequently and in qualitatively different ways. In addition, they more often used the strategy of uptaking. Results are discussed in light of cognitive and social constraints. The article presents pedagogical implications of the study's findings.
Squeezing Out the Cloud via Profit-Maximizing Resource Allocation Policies

We study the problem of maximizing the average hourly profit earned by a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider who runs a software service on behalf of a customer using servers rented from an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider. The SaaS provider earns a fee per successful transaction and incurs costs pro-portional to the number of server-hours it uses. A number of resource allocation policies for this or similar problems have been proposed in previous work. However, to the best of our knowledge, these policies have not been comparatively evaluated in a cloud environment. This paper reports on an empirical evaluation of three policies using a replica of Wikipedia deployed on the Amazon EC2 cloud. Experimental results show that a policy based on a solution to an optimization problem derived from the SaaS provider's utility function outperforms well-known heuristics that have been proposed for similar problems. It is also shown that all three policies outperform a "reactive" allocation approach based on Amazon's auto-scaling feature.
Customized Linear Discriminant Analysis for Brain-Computer Interfaces

This study presents a procedure to customize mental task discrimination for a specific human subject. Three male subjects, between 20 and 30 years old, were submitted to 4-5 sessions. Each session was composed of 4 blocks of 20 trials. Two block types were implemented. One required that the subject perform feet and tongue movements. The other block required the subject to perform left and right arm movements. Subjects were instructed to perform motor imagery as well as actual movements. In order to avoid previous assumptions on preferable channel locations and frequency ranges, 105 (21 electrodestimes5 frequency ranges) electroencephalogram (EEG) features were extracted from the sessions' data. A linear discriminant analysis (LDA) approach was applied to the feature set. The dimensionality of the multivariate data set was reduced through a discriminant stepwise procedure. Only the variables which best discriminated between groups, for a specific subject, were used. Those features predicted group membership during online feedback sessions with error lower than 12%, in each subject best performance. Classification errors for training data were very low and were neglected
Broadband precision wavelength meter based on a stepping Fabry–Pérot interferometer

We have constructed a broadband apparatus for wavelength metrology capable of absolute accuracy at a level of better than 2 parts in 109. An evacuated plane-parallel Fabry–Perot interferometer with continuously adjustable mirror separation is used to compare the wavelength of a single-frequency tunable laser with that of an iodine-stabilized HeNe laser used as a wavelength standard. This work details apparatus construction, a thorough investigation of systematic errors, and data analysis. The wavelengths of five Doppler-free 130Te2 transitions in the region from 475.6 to 490.8 nm have been measured and are found to be in excellent agreement with previous measurements. In addition, the wavelengths of five previously unmeasured 130Te2 transitions spanning the region from 424.9 to 462.3 nm have been determined for use as new reference wavelength standards.
Brain atrophy and lesion load in a large population of patients with multiple sclerosis

Objective: To measure white matter (WM) and gray matter (GM) atrophy and lesion load in a large population of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) using a fully automated, operator-independent, multiparametric segmentation method. Methods: The study population consisted of 597 patients with MS and 104 control subjects. The MRI parameters were abnormal WM fraction (AWM-f), global WM-f (gWM-f), and GM fraction (GM-f). Results: Significant differences between patients with MS and control subjects included higher AWM-f and reduced gWM-f and GM-f. MRI data showed significant differences between patients with relapsing-remitting and secondary progressive forms of MS. Significant correlations between MRI parameters and between MRI and clinical data were found. Conclusions: Patients with multiple sclerosis have significant atrophy of both white matter (WM) and gray matter (GM); secondary progressive patients have significantly more atrophy of both WM and GM than do relapsing-remitting patients and a significantly higher lesion load (abnormal WM fraction); lesion load is related to both WM and even more to GM atrophy; lesion load and WM and GM atrophy are significantly related to Expanded Disability Status Scale score and age at onset (suggesting that the younger the age at disease onset, the worse the lesion load and brain atrophy); and GM atrophy is the most significant MRI variable in determining the final disability.
Testing Schneider's ASA Theory

Dans une population de 344 cadres de Grande-Bretagne appartenant a 4 organisations, 5 fonctions et 3 niveaux de direction, il fut decouvert que les cadres de diverses organisations different par la personnalite. Il en est de meme des cadres de differentes fonctions. Il n'y a pas d'effets interactifs avec le niveau. Ces resultats furent saisis pour appuyer certains traits du modele d'attraction, de selection et d'attrition de Schneider (1987). In a sample of 344 UK managers from four organisations, carrying out five functions, and at three levels of management, it was found that managers from different organisations differed in personality. So, too, did managers carrying out different functions. There were no interactive effects with level. These results were taken to support certain features of Schneider's (1987) attraction, selection and attrition model.
Cell Polarity and Patterning by PIN Trafficking through Early Endosomal Compartments in Arabidopsis thaliana

PIN-FORMED (PIN) proteins localize asymmetrically at the plasma membrane and mediate intercellular polar transport of the plant hormone auxin that is crucial for a multitude of developmental processes in plants. PIN localization is under extensive control by environmental or developmental cues, but mechanisms regulating PIN localization are not fully understood. Here we show that early endosomal components ARF GEF BEN1 and newly identified Sec1/Munc18 family protein BEN2 are involved in distinct steps of early endosomal trafficking. BEN1 and BEN2 are collectively required for polar PIN localization, for their dynamic repolarization, and consequently for auxin activity gradient formation and auxin-related developmental processes including embryonic patterning, organogenesis, and vasculature venation patterning. These results show that early endosomal trafficking is crucial for cell polarity and auxin-dependent regulation of plant architecture.
Is Forgiveness an Outcome or Initiator of Sociocognitive Processes? Rumination, Empathy, and Cognitive Appraisals Following a Transgression

Forgiveness is often understood as the outcome of sociocognitive processes including appraisals of transgression severity and offender responsibility, rumination, and empathy for the offender. Alternatively, forgiveness may be understood as the initiator of such sociocognitive processes; a decision, intuition, or act that elicits reappraisals, reduces ruminative thought, and leads to a repositioning to the offender. The authors tested these two causal directions in a three-wave longitudinal study capturing participants' (N = 112) thoughts and feelings in the first 3 days immediately following an interpersonal transgression. Latent growth modeling showed that initial forgiveness significantly predicted an increase in empathy and a decrease in perceived severity over time. Conversely, initial rumination significantly predicted a change in forgiveness; interestingly, counter to conventional theoretical views, rumination facilitated an increase in forgiveness over time. The findings indicate that, in the dynamic period following a transgression, forgiveness plays an active role and initiates sociocognitive changes in victims.
Neighborhood Disadvantage, Alcohol Use, and Violent Victimization

This study examines the impact of neighborhood and individual level factors as predictors of violent victimization in a sample of high-school students in Toronto, Canada. Individual factors include school and family effects, alcohol use, and a variety of demographic measures. The neighborhood elements in this study include neighborhood disadvantage (Wilson, 1996) and collective efficacy (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997) concepts in the forefront of research on crime. The research not only examines the direct effect of these variables but also the interaction of the macro- and micro-level variables as correlates of victimization. The results indicate that the neighborhood disadvantage is critical in the explanation of violent victimization. Moreover, the relationship between alcohol use and victimization varies by neighborhood disadvantage.
The Prevalence of Autonomic and Peripheral Neuropathy in Insulin‐treated Diabetic Sbjects

The prevalence of autonomic and peripheral neuropathy was examined in 506 diabetic sbjects treated with insulin, mean age 43 years, diabetes duration 15 (range 1–54) years. Autonomic neuropathy was present if two or more (of four) cardiovascular autonomic function tests were abnormal using age‐related ranges derived from 310 normal control sbjects. Peripheral neuropathy was defined as a vibration threshold >95th centile for age combined with absent/impaired ankle reflexes. Eighty‐four (16.6%) of diabetic sbjects had abnormal autonomic function and 119 (23.5%) peripheral neuropathy, concordant in 44/506 (8.7%). Of the diabetic sbjects with autonomic neuropathy 40/84 (47.6%) did not have peripheral neuropathy and only 44/119 (37.0%) with peripheral neuropathy had abnormal autonomic function (p<0.001). The prevalence of both neuropathies increased in relation to diabetes duration (both p<0.001). Autonomic neuropathy was more common in sbjects diagnosed <20 years of age (18.2%) vs age >40 years (11.1%) (p<0.05). In contrast peripheral neuropathy was more common with older age at diagnosis (<20 years 13.5% vs 36.8% >40 years, p<0.001). The age‐related prevalence of autonomic neuropathy peaked at age 40–49 years while peripheral neuropathy increased progressively with age (p<0.001). The prevalence of peripheral exceeded autonomic neuropathy 20 years after diagnosis (40.2% vs 30.7%, p<0.001).