Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effective analytical delay model for transistor sizing

This paper describes an analytical delay model for transistor sizing. Two primitives are selected to be mapped for computing gate delay. These primitives model the short-channel effect and body effect in deep submicron CMOS circuits. A mapping algorithm for arbitrary serial-parallel structures is adopted. The delay of complex gates using such mappings to primitives is found to be within 10% of SPICE for most of the gates. The delay model is incorporated into a transistor sizing algorithm based on TILOS. Also presented are the experimental results for several circuits from LGSynth91 benchmark suite.
Energy efficient topology for wireless microsensor networks

We analyze the relationship between energy consumption and topology in wireless microsensor networks. Energy consumption is the total energy required for a message to be delivered to a destination microsensor from a source microsensor. We first consider the factors in energy consumption - radio propagation models, the topology of microsensors, the probability of connectivity between microsensors and etc. The radio propagation model tells us how much energy the environment of message propagation requires, and the topology is the logical configuration among microsensors. We analyze the energy consumption from two different aspects: the propagation model and the topology. A propagation model may consume more energy than that of another model at the same topology, or, different topologies may require different amounts of energy in the same propagation model. The result of analysis shows that the consumed energy is in proportion to the number of neighbors, i.e. when the topology has fewer neighboring microsensors, it consumes less energy even though it must experience more hops to the destination. We also prove that the same result can be applied to any of the radio propagation models - such as free space propagation, urban area, obstructed in building, and etc. From the two analyses in the propagation model and topology, we can conclude that when a message goes to the destination of multihop, the topology with fewer neighboring microsensors consumes less energy than that of more neighbors. We also perform a simple analysis on the connectivity among microsensors as one of the energy consumption factors. Microsensors are prone to be disconnected by microsensor failures, temporary broken links, going into sleep mode, and etc. The disconnection requires an alternative path to the destination and (or) retransmission of the same message to the next microssensor, which consumes additional energy.
Abing: Adjusted Binarized Normed Gradients for objectness measure

Objectness measure, which generates some candidate object proposals, has been shown to accelerate the traditional sliding window category-dependent object detection methods. Binarized Normed Gradients (BING) is one of the state-of-the-art detectors. It achieves high object detection rate (DR), but moderate object overlap rate (OR) because the candidate proposals produced by BING are fixed-sized. In this paper, we propose a novel objectness detector, named as ABING (Adjusted Binarized Normed Gradients). It adjusts the fixed-sized proposals produced by BING, which can be accelerated by heap sort NMS (HS-NMS), and yields variable-sized ones by effectively exploiting Top Border None Object Boundary (TBNOB) principle and superpixel line integral (LI) cue. In experiments on the challenging PASCAL VOC 2007 dataset, we show that our ABING detector can consistently outperform BING with any number of proposals. Moreover, with well-chosen parameters, ABING can markedly enhance the DR and OR of BING with a certain number of proposals (e.g. 1000 proposals).
Early response of neural stem/progenitor cells after X-ray irradiation in vitro

We investigated the effect of oxidative stress on cell cycle regulation of neural stem/progenitor cells in neurosphere culture. We exposed murine neural stem/progenitor cells to 2 Gy of X-ray irradiation at 48 h after first passage. We found that G2 and G1-arrested cells increased at 3 and 12 h after X-ray irradiation, respectively by using laser scanning cytometer. We revealed that such G2 and G1 arrests were correlated with phosphorylation of cdc2 and p53, respectively by Western blotting analysis. Furthermore, we found that the effects of X-ray irradiation of neural stem/progenitor cells involved inactivation of Notch signal. These results suggest that the drastic response of neural stem/progenitor cells after X-ray irradiation occurred even in the short period.
The role of the student support specialist: the possibilities and challenges of a long-term, proactive, and scaffolded relationship

ABSTRACT In the Urban Teacher Fellows (UTF) program, Student Support Specialists are responsible for recruiting, advising, and supporting students on the teacher pathway, beginning at the community college and continuing through the four-year university degree and credential programs. This is a program designed specifically to address serious concerns about the success of community college students in transferring to universities and completing teaching credential programs. The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (2013) reports that only 25.4% of the 2007–2008 statewide cohort transferred to a university after four years. This qualitative study, conducted by us as participant-observers of the UTF program, describes one of the strategies currently in use that may increase opportunities for community college students to successfully navigate this challenging transition. In particular, it presents findings on the role of the UTF Support Specialist based on interviews with the first two Support Specialists in the UTF program and a survey of the first cohort of students to work with them. Our study shows that this long-term scaffolded relationship evolved throughout the pathway program in response to students’ needs. Starting as a mostly technical role, it became a family-like role; and finally, it became a smaller role as students themselves took on those support activities for each other. Based on these findings, our recommendations are to identify and select Support Specialists who are reflective and caring and to carefully plan for the challenges of long-term, cross-institutional student support.
HTTP adaptive streaming with indoors-outdoors detection in mobile networks

In mobile networks, users may lose coverage when entering a building due to the high signal attenuation at windows and walls. Under such conditions, services with minimum bit-rate requirements, such as video streaming, often show poor Quality-of-Experience (QoE). We will approach this problem in two steps. First, we present a Bayesian detector that combines measurements from two Smartphone sensors to decide if a user is inside a building or not. Second, we extend a widely-used HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) algorithm to take coverage classification into account. Measurements in a typical office environment show high accuracy for the presented detector and superior QoE for the proposed HAS algorithm.
Self‐organized developmental patterning and differentiation in cerebral organoids

Cerebral organoids recapitulate human brain development at a considerable level of detail, even in the absence of externally added signaling factors. The patterning events driving this self‐organization are currently unknown. Here, we examine the developmental and differentiative capacity of cerebral organoids. Focusing on forebrain regions, we demonstrate the presence of a variety of discrete ventral and dorsal regions. Clearing and subsequent 3D reconstruction of entire organoids reveal that many of these regions are interconnected, suggesting that the entire range of dorso‐ventral identities can be generated within continuous neuroepithelia. Consistent with this, we demonstrate the presence of forebrain organizing centers that express secreted growth factors, which may be involved in dorso‐ventral patterning within organoids. Furthermore, we demonstrate the timed generation of neurons with mature morphologies, as well as the subsequent generation of astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Our work provides the methodology and quality criteria for phenotypic analysis of brain organoids and shows that the spatial and temporal patterning events governing human brain development can be recapitulated in vitro.
Trajectories and personality correlates of change in perceptions of physical and mental health across adulthood and old age

Subjective health is known to predict later outcomes, including survival. However, less is known about subjective health changes across adulthood, how personality moderates those changes, and whether such associations differ with age. We applied growth models to 10 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA, N = 7,172; median ages 20–93) to examine age-related differences in trajectories of subjective physical and mental health. On average, perceptions of physical health declined with increasing steepness in old age, whereas self-rated mental health remained relatively stable across all ages. Higher neuroticism and lower extraversion and conscientiousness were each related to less successful aging. The health implications of personality did not differ by age for physical health, but were weaker for mental health in old age. We discuss implications of our results for accelerated longitudinal designs and consider avenues for future more mechanism-oriented research.
Semantic subspace learning for mental search in satellite images

In this paper we introduced a new approach, for mental satellite image search and visualization. We addressed the difficulties when visualizing high dimensional data, and we proposed a semantic subspace learning approach for effective exploration of large scale satellite image data. Our formulation is based on a quadratic programming algorithm that easily extend to large scale data. By plugging the embedding solution of this algorithm into Spacious, users can specify objects of interest, as mixtures of predefined semantics in the learned subspace, and retrieve their targets. As a future work, we are currently investigating the use of other low level features as well as the combination of our semantic subspace learning method with relevance feedback.
Learning data-efficient hierarchical features for robotic graspable object recognition

Robotic graspable object recognition is a crucial ingredient in many exciting autonomous manipulation applications. However, identifying complex image features from limited data remains largely unsolved. In this paper, we leverage the advantages of two kinds of feature representation approaches, kernel descriptors and deep neural networks, to present a novel hierarchical feature learning framework for robotic graspable object recognition. This work enables the recovery of sparse and compressible features from limited data examples. Firstly, we design multiple kernel descriptors from the raw RGB-D images to adequately capture the discriminative structure of the object. Then, the extracted abstract representations are transferred to a four-layer deep neural network to generate more representative features for final graspable discrimination. Our network obtains impressive generalization capability with limited training data. Extensive experiments are carried out to validate the proposed method and the results show the state-of-the-art performance in discriminating graspable object task under limited-data.
Nickel phlorin intermediate formed by proton-coupled electron transfer in hydrogen evolution mechanism

Significance Global energy sustainability requires the development of effective energy conversion processes. In the hydrogen evolution reaction, electrons and protons are combined to generate molecular hydrogen, which stores energy in its chemical bond. Molecular electrocatalysts have been designed to facilitate this reaction by making it occur faster with lower energy input, often utilizing proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), which couples the motions of electrons and protons to avoid high-energy intermediates. Examination of a nickel porphyrin electrocatalyst indicates that the active intermediate stores electrons in the C–H bond of the modified porphyrin generated by PCET, rather than in the traditional metal-hydride bond. The ability to store electrons in the ligand rather than in the metal has significant implications for the design of electrocatalysts. The development of more effective energy conversion processes is critical for global energy sustainability. The design of molecular electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction is an important component of these efforts. Proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) reactions, in which electron transfer is coupled to proton transfer, play an important role in these processes and can be enhanced by incorporating proton relays into the molecular electrocatalysts. Herein nickel porphyrin electrocatalysts with and without an internal proton relay are investigated to elucidate the hydrogen evolution mechanisms and thereby enable the design of more effective catalysts. Density functional theory calculations indicate that electrochemical reduction leads to dearomatization of the porphyrin conjugated system, thereby favoring protonation at the meso carbon of the porphyrin ring to produce a phlorin intermediate. A key step in the proposed mechanisms is a thermodynamically favorable PCET reaction composed of intramolecular electron transfer from the nickel to the porphyrin and proton transfer from a carboxylic acid hanging group or an external acid to the meso carbon of the porphyrin. The C–H bond of the active phlorin acts similarly to the more traditional metal-hydride by reacting with acid to produce H2. Support for the theoretically predicted mechanism is provided by the agreement between simulated and experimental cyclic voltammograms in weak and strong acid and by the detection of a phlorin intermediate through spectroelectrochemical measurements. These results suggest that phlorin species have the potential to perform unique chemistry that could prove useful in designing more effective electrocatalysts.
Postdisaster Social Support in the United States and Mexico: Conceptual and Contextual Considerations

A measure of the social support received from family, friends, and outsiders was administered 6 months after Hurricanes Andrew (non-Hispanic n = 270, Hispanic n = 134) and Paulina (Mexican n = 200) and to a normative sample (n = 1,289) representative of urban Mexico. Pilot work with bilingual participants established that equivalent scores were yielded by Spanish and English versions of the instrument. Exemplars of helping showed similar rank-order frequency within samples to form a pattern that was equivalent across samples. A three-factor model that differentiated between emotional, informational, and tangible support described the help received from each source in each sample. Despite the apparent conceptual invariance of social support, levels of support differed strongly. The Paulina sample received more help of each type from each source than the normative sample but less help of each type from each source than the Andrew sample. Within the Andrew sample, Hispanic and non-Hispanic persons did not differ. Rules of relative need and relative advantage that have been found to influence resource distribution at the individual level appear to operate at community and societal levels as well.
Handling complexities in modern large-scale mixed-size placement

In this paper, we propose an effective algorithm flow to handle large-scale mixed-size placement. The basic idea is to use floorplanning to guide the placement of objects at the global level. The flow consists of four steps: (1) The objects in the original netlist are clustered into blocks; (2) Floorplanning is performed on the blocks; (3) The blocks are shifted within the chip region to further optimize the wirelength; (4) With big macro locations fixed, incremental placement is applied to place the remaining objects. There are several advantages of handling placement at the global level with a floorplanning technique. First, the problem size can be significantly reduced. Second, exact HPWL can be minimized. Third, precise object distribution can be achieved so that legalization only needs to handle minor overlaps among small objects in a block. Fourth, rotation and various placement constraints on macros can be handled. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this new flow, we implement a high-quality floorplan-guided placer called FLOP. We also construct the Modern Mixed-Size (MMS) placement benchmarks which can effectively represent the complexities of modern mixed-size designs and the challenges faced by modern mixed-size placers. Compared with state-of-the-art mixed-size placers and leading macro placers, experimental results show that FLOP achieves the best wirelength, and easily obtains legal solutions on all circuits.
Convergence analysis of Riemannian trust-region methods

This document is an expanded version of [ABG05], with a detailed convergence analysis. A general scheme for trust-region methods on Riemannian manifolds is proposed and analyzed. Among the various approaches available to (approximately) solve the trust-region subproblems, particular attention is paid to the truncated conjugate-gradient technique. The method is illustrated on problems from numerical linear algebra.
Epithelial Na+ Channels Are Fully Activated by Furin- and Prostasin-dependent Release of an Inhibitory Peptide from the γ-Subunit*

Epithelial sodium channels (ENaC) are expressed in the apical membrane of high resistance Na+ transporting epithelia and have a key role in regulating extracellular fluid volume and the volume of airway surface liquids. Maturation and activation of ENaC subunits involves furin-dependent cleavage of the ectodomain at two sites in the α subunit and at a single site within the γ subunit. We now report that the serine protease prostasin further activates ENaC by inducing cleavage of the γ subunit at a site distal to the furin cleavage site. Dual cleavage of the γ subunit is predicted to release a 43-amino acid peptide. Channels with a γ subunit lacking this 43-residue tract have increased activity due to a high open probability. A synthetic peptide corresponding to the fragment cleaved from the γ subunit is a reversible inhibitor of endogenous ENaCs in mouse cortical-collecting duct cells and in primary cultures of human airway epithelial cells. Our results suggest that multiple proteases cleave ENaC γ subunits to fully activate the channel.
Inositol‐1,4,5‐trisphosphate receptor‐mediated Ca2+ waves in pyramidal neuron dendrites propagate through hot spots and cold spots

We studied inositol‐1,4,5‐trisphosphate (IP3) receptor‐dependent intracellular Ca2+ waves in CA1 hippocampal and layer V medial prefrontal cortical pyramidal neurons using whole‐cell patch‐clamp recordings and Ca2+ fluorescence imaging. We observed that Ca2+ waves propagate in a saltatory manner through dendritic regions where increases in the intracellular concentration of Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) were large and fast (‘hot spots’) separated by regions where increases in [Ca2+]i were comparatively small and slow (‘cold spots’). We also observed that Ca2+ waves typically initiate in hot spots and terminate in cold spots, and that most hot spots, but few cold spots, are located at dendritic branch points. Using immunohistochemistry, we found that IP3 receptors (IP3Rs) are distributed in clusters along pyramidal neuron dendrites and that the distribution of inter‐cluster distances is nearly identical to the distribution of inter‐hot spot distances. These findings support the hypothesis that the dendritic locations of Ca2+ wave hot spots in general, and branch points in particular, are specially equipped for regenerative IP3R‐dependent internal Ca2+ release. Functionally, the observation that IP3R‐dependent [Ca2+]i rises are greater at branch points raises the possibility that this novel Ca2+ signal may be important for the regulation of Ca2+‐dependent processes in these locations. Futhermore, the observation that Ca2+ waves tend to fail between hot spots raises the possibility that influences on Ca2+ wave propagation may determine the degree of functional association between distinct Ca2+‐sensitive dendritic domains.
The promotion of career adjustment by means of an experientially based career development programme

According to the NIPR (1980) there appears to be a shortage of adequate services and professional assistances in the area of career information and vocational guidance. This state of affairs may partly be attributed to the time consuming nature of interviews and testing which traditionally are associated with the vocational guidance process. In this study an attempt was made to examine a "self-help" method of career development. No statistical significant differences on a number of appropriate criteria could be found between a control group and a group who participated in the career development programme. Although the study questions the validity of "selfhelp" programmes, some factors emerged which suggest that this conclusion be regarded as tentative. Opsomming Sover dit loopbaanvoorligting en loopbaaninligtingsdienste aangaan, blyk daar volgens die NIPN (1980) 'n tekort aan voldoende dienste en professionele hulp in Suid-Afrika te wees. Die toedrag van sake kan waarskynlik deels toegeskryf word aan die tydrowendheid van onderhoude en toetsing wat deel is van die tradisionele loopbaanvoorligtingsproses. In die studie is 'n poging aangewend om 'n "self-help" metode van loopbaanontwikkeling te ondersoek. Geen statisties beduidende verskille op 'n aantal toepaslike kriteria kon tussen 'n kontrolegroep en 'n groep wat aan die loopbaanont-wikkelingsprogram deelgeneem het, gevind word nie. Ofskoon die studie 'n vraagteken oor die doeltreffendheid van "self-help" programme plaas, het ‘n aantal faktore gekristalliseer wat toon dat die gevolgtrekking hoogstens tentatief kan wees.
Compiler-directed customization of ASIP cores

This paper presents an automatic method to customize embedded application-specific instruction processors (ASIPs) based on compiler analysis. ASIPs, also known as embedded soft cores, allow certain hardware parameters in the processor to be customized for a specific application domain. They offer low design cost as they use pre-designed and verified components. Our design goal is choosing parameter values for fastest runtime within a given silicon area budget for a particular application set. Present-day technologies for choosing parameter values rely on exhaustive simulation of the application set on all possible combinations of parameter values - a time-consuming and non-scalable procedure. We propose a compiler-based method that automatically derives the optimal values of parameters without simulating any configuration. Further we expand the space of parameters that can be changed from the limited set today, and evaluate the importance of each. Results show that for our benchmarks, the runtimes for different configurations are predicted with an average error of 2.5%. In the two area constrained customization problem we evaluate, our method is able to recommend the same configuration that is recommended by brute force exhaustive simulation.
Unknown Input Observers for a class of distributed parameter systems

The objective of this note is to extend the results of disturbance decoupling observers to a class of infinite dimensional systems. Using the fact that the operator describing the disturbance distribution is known, but with the disturbance being an unknown signal, an Unknown Input Observer is proposed for a class of infinite dimensional systems with bounded observation operators. The solvability of the problem hinges on the solution to a corresponding operator equation and which subsequently yields exponential convergence of the state observation error to zero. A numerical study of a 1-D parabolic system is included to provide insight into the implementation of UIO for infinite dimensional systems.