Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced uptake of water by oxidatively processed oleic acid

A quartz crystal microbalance apparatus has been used to measure the room temperature uptake of wa- ter vapour by thin films of oleic acid as a function of relative humidity, both before and following exposure of the films to various partial pressures of gas phase ozone. A rapid increase in the water-sorbing ability of the film is observed as its ex- posure to ozone is increased, followed by a plateau region in which additional water is taken up more gradually. In this fully-processed region the mass of water taken up by the film is about 4 times that of the unprocessed film. Infrared spec- tra of the films, measured after variable exposures to ozone, show dramatic increases in both the "free" and hydrogen- bonded O-H stretching regions, and a decrease in the inten- sity of olefinic features. These results are consistent with the formation of an oxygenated polymeric product or products, as well as the gas phase products previously identified.
Mammary Disease Mice Model Premalignant Polyoma Middle-T Transgenic Updated Version

Mice transgenic for the Polyomavirus middle T (PyV-mT) gene have been widely used to study mammary tumorigenesis and metastasis. Although numerous molecular insights were gained from the analysis of these transgenic malignant tumors, the early events leading to malignant transformation have not been systematically investigated nor has the biological potential of hyperplastic lesions been documented. This paper presents the first comprehensive histopathological characterization of transgenic PyV-mT hyperplasias together with classical transplantation experiments designed to test the growth potential of these lesions. Moreover, stable hyperplastic outgrowth lines were established as a tool to study premalignant PyV-mT-induced hyperplasias in detail. Each line has a different tumor latency, indicating that PyV-mT-induced hyperplasias, like early proliferative lesions seen in the human breast, are heterogeneous with respect to their malignant potential. Our results settle a controversy; they establish that PyV-mT gene expression alone is insufficient to induce tumors and that additional events are required for tumorigenesis and metastasis. These results support the use of PyV-mT transgenic mice as a model for investigating the multistep progression of malignant mammary tumorigenesis and metastasis.
Effects of Noise on Convergence and Generalization in Recurrent Networks

We introduce and study methods of inserting synaptic noise into dynamically-driven recurrent neural networks and show that applying a controlled amount of noise during training may improve convergence and generalization. In addition, we analyze the effects of each noise parameter (additive vs. multiplicative, cumulative vs. non-cumulative, per time step vs. per string) and predict that best overall performance can be achieved by injecting additive noise at each time step. Extensive simulations on learning the dual parity grammar from temporal strings substantiate these predictions.
Improving Bilingual Lexicon Construction from Chinese-English Comparable Corpora via Dependency Relationship Mapping

Currently context-based approach is a popular approach for constructing bilingual lexicons from comparable corpora. Following this line of research, this paper proposes a dependency relationship mapping model and investigates its effect on bilingual lexicon construction. The experiments show that, by mapping context words, dependency relationship types and directions simultaneously when calculating the similarity between two words in the source and target languages respectively, our approach significantly outperforms a state-of-the-art system in bilingual lexicon construction from either Chinese-English or English-Chinese. This justifies the effectiveness of our dependency relationship mapping model on bilingual lexicon construction.
Demonstrating Lustre over a 100Gbps wide area network of 3,500km

As part of the SCinet Research Sandbox at the Supercomputing 2011 conference, Indiana University (IU) demonstrated use of the Lustre high performance parallel file system over a dedicated 100 Gbps wide area network (WAN) spanning more than 3,500 km (2,175 mi). This demonstration functioned as a proof of concept and provided an opportunity to study Lustre's performance over a 100 Gbps WAN. To characterize the performance of the network and file system, low level iperf network tests, file system tests with the IOR benchmark, and a suite of real-world applications reading and writing to the file system were run over a latency of 50.5 ms. In this article we describe the configuration and constraints of the demonstration and outline key findings.
Visualization Search Strategies

Mehta, Reshma Girish. Visualization Search Strategies. (Under the direction of Dr. Christopher G. Healey) Innovations in high performance computing and high bandwidth networks have led to the onset of data explosion. Along with large size, the datasets are typically multivariate. The need for effective exploration of this data has led to the area of multidimensional visualization. Research in low level human visual system has resulted in the construction of perceptual guidelines that can produce effective visualizations. However, application of these guidelines to a dataset requires users to be experts in the visualization domain. ViA is a semi-automated visualization assistant that uses perceptual guidelines along with a heuristic search algorithm to generate perceptually salient visualizations. This thesis aims to study the behavior of the current hint-based search strategy and determine its efficiency. We compare hint-based search with two generic heuristic search algorithms, simulated annealing and reactive tabu search, by adapting them to ViA’s search domain. We use time efficiency, space efficiency, ability to find multiple optimal solutions and optimality as performance metrics. Further, in order to “see” the areas of the search space explored by each search algorithm, we have developed a focus + context visualization system using hyperbolic geometry. VISUALIZATION SEARCH STRATEGIES by Reshma G. Mehta A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science COMPUTER SCIENCE Raleigh, North Carolina 2004 APPROVED BY: Chair of Advisory Committee
Accelerators for FPGA Placement

In this paper, two distinct approaches for fast placement onto FPGAs are proposed. In our first approach, we design a constructive heuristic for initial placement of a given netlist of CLBs on a FPGA, in order to accelerate the iterative phase of the placement in the context of re-configurable computing. The experimental results of our method show significant improvement in cost compared to the initial placement of the most popular tool VPR. We observed that simulated annealing converges much faster starting from the initial placement configuration obtained by our proposed method. In comparison to VPR, the average gain in time is 51.6% whereas the quality of solution is on the average 0.03% better, thereby establishing the utility of the proposed heuristic in fast re-configuration of FPGA based co-processors. In our second approach, we devise a top-down placement method based on recursive bi-partitioning followed by application of space-filling curves, for island-style FPGAs. Experimental results of our method show 55% improvement in cost, when compared to random initial placement of the popular tool VPR. The solutions thus obtained require 44.5% fewer moves during final iterative refinement, whereas the quality of solution is on the average 0.1% better. This establishes the utility of the method for fast re-configuration of FPGA based co-processors.
Image Memorability in the Eye of the Beholder: Tracking the Decay of Visual Scene Representations

Some images stick in your mind for days or even years, while others seem to vanish quickly from memory. We tested whether differences in image memorability 1) are already evident immediately after encoding, 2) produce different rates of forgetting, and 3) whether the retrieval of images with different memorability scores affords differential degrees of cognitive load, mirrored by graded pupillary and blink rate responses. We monitored participants’ eye activity while they viewed a sequence of >1200 images in a repetition detection paradigm. 240 target images from 3 non-overlapping memorability classes were repeated at 4 different lags. Overall, performance decreased log-linearly with time. Differences in memorability were already visible at the shortest lag (~ 20 sec) and became more pronounced as time passed on. The rate of forgetting was steepest for low memorable images. We found that pupils dilated significantly more to correctly identified targets than correctly rejected distractors. Importantly, this “pupil old/new effect” increased with increasing number of lags and decreasing image memorability. A similar modulation of blink rates corroborated these findings. These results suggest that during memory retrieval of scenes, image inherent characteristics pose differential degrees of cognitive load on observers as seen in their eyes.
A New Method for Evaluating Automatically Learned Terminological Taxonomies

Abstract Evaluating a taxonomy learned automatically against an existing gold standard is a very complex problem, because differences stem from the number, label, depth and ordering of the taxonomy nodes. In this paper we propose casting the problem as one of comparing two hierarchical clusters. To this end we defined a variation of the Fowlkes and Mallows measure (Fowlkes and Mallows, 1983). Our method assigns a similarity value B^i_(l,r) to the learned (l) and reference (r) taxonomy for each cut i of the corresponding anonymised hierarchies, starting from the topmost nodes down to the leaf concepts. For each cut i, the two hierarchies can be seen as two clusterings C^i_l , C^i_r of the leaf concepts. We assign a prize to early similarity values, i.e. when concepts are clustered in a similar way down to the lowest taxonomy levels (close to the leaf nodes). We apply our method to the evaluation of the taxonomy learning methods put forward by Navigli et al. (2011) and Kozareva and Hovy (2010).
Large-Scale Survey of Cytosine Methylation of Retrotransposons and the Impact of Readout Transcription From Long Terminal Repeats on Expression of Adjacent Rice Genes

Transposable elements (TEs) represent ∼45% of the human genome and 50–90% of some grass genomes. While most elements contain inactivating mutations, others are reversibly inactivated (silenced) by epigenetic mechanisms, including cytosine methylation. Previous studies have shown that retrotransposons can influence the expression of adjacent host genes. In this study, the methylation patterns of TEs and their flanking sequences in different tissues were undertaken using a novel technique called transposon methylation display (TMD). TMD was successfully applied on a highly copied (∼1000 copies), newly amplified LTR retrotransposon family in rice called Dasheng. We determined that the methylation status of a subset of LTRs varies in leaves vs. roots. In addition, we determined that tissue-specific LTR methylation correlated with tissue-specific expression of the flanking rice gene. Genes showing tissue-specific expression were in opposite orientation relative to the LTR. Antisense transcripts were detected in the tissue where the sense transcripts from that gene were not detected. Comparative analysis of Dasheng LTR methylation in the two subspecies, japonica vs. indica revealed LTR-mediated differences in subspecies gene expression. Subspecies-specific expression was due either to polymorphic Dasheng insertion sites between the two subspecies or to subspecies-specific methylation of LTRs at the same locus accounted for observed differences in the expression of adjacent genes.
Processing group K closest pairs query in spatial databases

In this paper, a new form of distance-based query, group K closest pairs query, is proposed. This kind of query computes the aggregations of distances from objects of several data sets to objects of a central data set, and returns the K minimum group distances. In spatial databases, multiple-nearest-neighbor algorithm method and threshold algorithm are presented for the data sets stored in the R-tree family. A performance study based on extensive experiments shows that threshold algorithm outperforms multiple-nearest-neighbor algorithm.
1 GS/s, low power flash analog to digital converter in 90nm CMOS technology

The analog to digital converters is the key components in modern electronic systems. As the digital signal processing industry grows the ADC design becomes more and more challenging for researchers. In these days an ADC becomes a part of the system on chip instead of standalone circuit for data converters. This increases the requirements on ADC design concerning for example speed, power, area, resolution, noise etc. New techniques and methods are going to develop day by day to achieve high performance ADCs. Of all types of ADCs the flash ADC is not only famous for its data conversion rate but also it becomes the part of other types of ADC for example pipeline and multi bit Sigma Delta ADCs. The main problem with a flash ADC is its power consumption, which increases in number of bits. This work presents the flash ADCs in 1Gbps for 4 bits in a 90nm CMOS technology.
The Design of a Key Expansion Algorithm Based on Dynamic Dislocation Counts

With the development of the wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the security is becoming more and more serious. The key schedules in lightweight block ciphers are often highly simplified, which causes loopholes that could be exploited in many attacks. The research on key expansion has become one of the pivotal technologies which aimed at improving performances of the encryption algorithms to solve the issue on how to guarantee enough safety and diffusion of secret key with limited resources and operations. After lucubrating and analyzing the commonly methods, a new key expansion algorithm based on the dynamic dislocation counts is proposed. The data from the simulation and verification show that the method can achieve the expansion of the key effectively and it has a good randomness. It can also be extended to the plaintext to increase the random diversity.
Drum Transcription using Automatic Grouping of Events and Prior Subspace Analysis

While Prior Subspace Analysis (PSA) has proved an effective tool for transcribing mixtures of snare, kick drum and hi-hat both in the "drum-only" case and in the presence of pitched instruments attempts to extend it to deal with increased numbers of drum types have met with mixed results.To overcome this an automatic modeling and grouping procedure has been developed which groups drum events on the similarity of their frequency content. Combining this procedure with PSA allows the extension of PSA to robustly handle greater numbers of drum types. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated in a drum transcription algorithm.
Single-Channel Directly Detected Optical-OFDM Towards Higher Spectral Efficiency and Simplicity in 100 Gb/s Ethernet and Beyond

The recently proposed IEEE P802.3ba 100 Gb/s Ethernet (100 GbE) standard has adopted 100 Gb/s transmission over 10 and 40 km of single-mode fiber (SMF) using four-channel (4 × 25 Gb/s) wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) systems, which is neither cost-effective nor spectrally efficient compared with a single-channel system exploiting the combination of higher-order modulations and optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM). This paper demonstrates that a spectrally efficient (4 bits/s/Hz) single-channel 100 Gb/s system can be designed based on 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (64-QAM) and directly detected O-OFDM (DDO-OFDM) with an effective OFDM signal bandwidth of 24 GHz. Such a system can not only offer error-free (at bit error ratio of 10-3 without forward error correction) transmissions over the targeted maximum distance of 40 km of SMF but also achieves a power margin of 16 dB without any inline amplifier or dispersion compensation. This confirms that the proposed system has the potential to offer 100 Gb/s Ethernet for both point-to-point short communication links and 1:32 split passive optical networks (PONs). The bit rate of the system is then increased to 1 Tb/s employing WDM, and it is found to have equal potential for point-to-point short communication links and 1:16 split PON. Finally the reach limits of both of the proposed systems are quantified.
Relationship of histology of Wilms' tumor to growth characteristics of nude mouse heterotransplants.

Eighteen Wilms' tumors (WIT), including classical triphasic WIT (blastema, tubules, and mesenchyme) and WIT variants (blastema and tubules, monomorphous tubules, multiloculated cysts, rhabdomyomatous WIT, and clear cell sarcoma), were heterotransplanted in nude mice. Ten (56%) tumors grew and were serially passaged. With two exceptions, the histology of the surgically resected tumors and heterotransplants was found to be similar. Tumors showing a prominent blastema component grew rapidly, whereas those with tubular epithelial or mesenchymal differentiation grew more slowly. Tumors injected s.c. consisted almost entirely of blastema, while tumors injected i.p. consisted of blastema with large areas of tubular epithelium. These results demonstrate that nude mouse heterotransplants of WIT closely resemble the surgically resected tumors from which they derive, that growth rates of WIT heterotransplants depend on the identity of the tumor cells, and that differentiation of WIT heterotransplants can be modulated, depending on the route of administration of tumor cells.
Quality assurance for TTCN‐3 test specifications

Comprehensive testing of modern communication systems often requires large and complex test suites, which have to be maintained throughout the system life cycle. Industrial experience, with those written using the standardized Testing and Test Control Notation (TTCN‐3), has shown that this maintenance is a non‐trivial task and its burden can be reduced by means of appropriate concepts and tool support. To this aim, Motorola has collaborated with the University of Göttingen to develop TRex, an open‐source TTCN‐3 development environment, which notably provides suitable metrics and refactorings to enable the assessment and automatic restructuring of test suites. This article presents concepts like metrics and refactoring for the quality assurance of TTCN‐3 test suites and their implementation provided by the TRex tool. These means make it far easier to construct and maintain TTCN‐3 tests that are concise and optimally balanced with respect to maintainability quality characteristics. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Computational studies of the role of serotonin in the basal ganglia

It has been well established that serotonin (5-HT) plays an important role in the striatum. For example, during levodopa therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD), the serotonergic projections from the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) release dopamine as a false transmitter, and there are strong indications that this pulsatile release is connected to dyskinesias that reduce the effectiveness of the therapy. Here we present hypotheses about the functional role of 5-HT in the normal striatum and present computational studies showing the feasibility of these hypotheses. Dopaminergic projections to the striatum inhibit the medium spiny neurons (MSN) in the striatopalladal (indirect) pathway and excite MSNs in the striatonigral (direct) pathway. It has long been hypothesized that the effect of dopamine (DA) depletion caused by the loss of SNc cells in PD is to change the “balance” between the pathways to favor the indirect pathway. Originally, “balance” was understood to mean equal firing rates, but now it is understood that the level of DA affects the patterns of firing in the two pathways too. There are dense 5-HT projections to the striatum from the dorsal raphe nucleus and it is known that increased 5-HT in the striatum facilitates DA release from DA terminals. The direct pathway excites various cortical nuclei and some of these nuclei send inhibitory projections to the DRN. Our hypothesis is that this feedback circuit from the striatum to the cortex to the DRN to the striatum serves to stabilize the balance between the direct and indirect pathways, and this is confirmed by our model calculations. Our calculations also show that this circuit contributes to the stability of the dopamine concentration in the striatum as SNc cells die during Parkinson's disease progression (until late phase). There may be situations in which there are physiological reasons to “unbalance” the direct and indirect pathways, and we show that projections to the DRN from the cortex or other brain regions could accomplish this task.
Evaluating n-grams Models for the Bilingual Word Sense Disambiguation Task

The problem of Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) is about selecting the correct sense of an ambiguous word in a given context. However, even if the problem of WSD is difficult, when we consider its bilingual version, this problem becomes much more complex. In this case, it is necessary not only to find the correct translation, but such translation must consider the contextual senses of the original sentence (in the source language), in order to find the correct sense (in the target language) of the source word. In this paper we present a probabilistic model for bilingual WSD based on n-grams (2-grams, 3-grams, 5-grams and k- grams, for a sentence S of a length k). The aim is to analyze the behavior of the system with different representations of a given sentence containing an ambiguous word. We use a Naive Bayes classifier for determining the probability of the target sense (in the target language) given a sentence which contains an ambiguous word (in the source language). For this purpose, we use a bilingual statistical dictionary, which is calculated with Giza++ by using the EUROPARL parallel corpus. On the average, the representation model based on 5-grams with mutual information demonstrated the best performance.
Modeling, Detection, and Diagnosis of Faults in Multilevel Memristor Memories

Memristors are an attractive option for use in future memory architectures but are prone to high defect densities due to the nondeterministic nature of nanoscale fabrication. Several works discuss memristor fault models and testing. However, none of them considers the memristor as a multilevel cell (MLC). The ability of memristors to function as an MLC allows for extremely dense, low-power memories. Using a memristor as an MLC introduces fault mechanisms that cannot occur in typical two-level memory cells. In this paper, we develop fault models for memristor-based MLC crossbars. The typical approach to testing a memory subsystem entails testing one memory cell at a time. However, this testing strategy is time consuming and does not scale for dense, memristor memories. We propose an efficient testing technique that exploits sneak-paths inherent in crossbar memories to test several memory cells simultaneously. In this paper, we integrate solutions for detecting and locating faults in memristors. We develop a power aware built-in self-test solution to detect these faults. We also propose a hybrid diagnosis scheme that uses a combination of sneak-path and March testing to reduce diagnosis time. The proposed schemes enable and leverage sneak-paths during fault detection and diagnosis modes, while disabling sneak-paths during normal operation. The proposed hybrid scheme reduces fault detection and diagnosis time by 24.69% and 28%, respectively, compared to traditional March tests.