Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulating communication processes in energy-efficient cloud computing systems

Cloud computing data centers are becoming increasingly popular for the provisioning of computing resources. In this paper we present a simulation environment, named GreenCloud, for advanced energy-aware studies of cloud computing data centers. GreenCloud offers a detailed fine-grained modeling of the energy consumed by the elements of the data center, such as servers, switches, and links.
Desistance from Sex Offending: Alternatives to Throwing Away the Keys

If one set out to design an intervention program to encourage criminals to reoffend, what would it look like? It should include the converse of what helps offenders desist from crime. It should isolate offenders from prosocial influences and opportunities for good jobs or relationships. It should remind them that they are hopelessly flawed and will never succeed. In this way, it would encourage alienation and helplessness, the “condemnation script” that Maruna (2001) found among men who persist in crime.
Tarski on Logical Consequence

This paper examines from a historical perspective Tarski’s 1936 essay, “On the concept of logical consequence. ” I focus on two main aims. The primary aim is to show how Tarski’s definition of logical consequence satisfies two desiderata he himself sets forth for it: (1) it must declare logically correct certain formalizations of the ω-rule and (2) it must allow for variation of the individual domain in the test for logical consequence. My arguments provide a refutation of some interpreters of Tarski, and notably John Etchemendy, who have claimed that his definition does not satisfy those desiderata. A secondary aim of the paper is to offer some basic elements for an understanding of Tarski’s definition in the historical logico-philosophical context in which it was proposed. Such historical understanding provides useful insights on Tarski’s informal ideas on logical consequence and their internal cohesion.
Providing contact sensory feedback for upper limb robotic prosthesis

Lack of the sense of touch is the fundamental problem of today's robotic prostheses. Considering the fact that touch feedback plays a significant role on identifying contacted objects, our aim in this study is to use acceleration signals, occurring due to physical contact of a prosthetic hand with objects, as sensory feedback. We apply these signals on the clavicle bone using a tactor as a haptic interface. First, a library of the acceleration signals occurring as a result of tapping on different materials is collected. Effect of the impact velocity is studied and used as a scalar for real-time applications. In order to model the contact accelerations, a stochastic signal model is developed. Due to the distinct waveform characteristics of different materials, frequency and amplitude of the acceleration signals, together with the impact velocity, are used to identify stiffness of the objects. In a real-time experiment, performed using a robotic finger, the whole procedure of recording, identifying and replaying the signals by the tactor is studied. The preliminary results show that the tactor is able to provide distinguishable feelings of hard and soft objects to the user.
Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research Cse1l/cas, the Cellular Apoptosis Susceptibility Protein, Enhances Invasion and Metastasis but Not Proliferation of Cancer Cells

Background: The cellular apoptosis susceptibility (CAS) protein is regarded as a proliferation-associated protein that associates with tumour proliferation as it associates with microtubule and functions in the mitotic spindle checkpoint. However, there is no any actual experimental study showing CAS (or CSE1 and CSE1L) can increase the proliferation of cancer cells. Previous pathological study has reported that CAS was strongly positive stained in all of the metastasis melanoma that be examined. Thus, CAS may regulate the invasion and metastasis of cancers. CAS is highly expressed in cancers; if CAS is associated with cancer proliferation, then increased CAS expression should be able to increase the proliferation of cancer cells. We studied whether increased CAS expression can increase cancer cell proliferation and whether CAS regulates the invasion of cancer cells.
ImpactScale: Quantifying change impact to predict faults in large software systems

In software maintenance, both product metrics and process metrics are required to predict faults effectively. However, process metrics cannot be always collected in practical situations. To enable accurate fault prediction without process metrics, we define a new metric, ImpactScale. ImpactScale is the quantified value of change impact, and the change propagation model for ImpactScale is characterized by probabilistic propagation and relation-sensitive propagation. To evaluate ImpactScale, we predicted faults in two large enterprise systems using the effort-aware models and Poisson regression. The results showed that adding ImpactScale to existing product metrics increased the number of detected faults at 10% effort (LOC) by over 50%. ImpactScale also improved the predicting model using existing product metrics and dependency network measures.
E-TALEN: a web tool to design TALENs for genome engineering

Use of transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) is a promising new technique in the field of targeted genome engineering, editing and reverse genetics. Its applications span from introducing knockout mutations to endogenous tagging of proteins and targeted excision repair. Owing to this wide range of possible applications, there is a need for fast and user-friendly TALEN design tools. We developed E-TALEN (http://www.e-talen.org), a web-based tool to design TALENs for experiments of varying scale. E-TALEN enables the design of TALENs against a single target or a large number of target genes. We significantly extended previously published design concepts to consider genomic context and different applications. E-TALEN guides the user through an end-to-end design process of de novo TALEN pairs, which are specific to a certain sequence or genomic locus. Furthermore, E-TALEN offers a functionality to predict targeting and specificity for existing TALENs. Owing to the computational complexity of many of the steps in the design of TALENs, particular emphasis has been put on the implementation of fast yet accurate algorithms. We implemented a user-friendly interface, from the input parameters to the presentation of results. An additional feature of E-TALEN is the in-built sequence and annotation database available for many organisms, including human, mouse, zebrafish, Drosophila and Arabidopsis, which can be extended in the future.
Toward Reusing Code Changes

Existing techniques have succeeded to help developers implement new code. However, they are insufficient to help to change existing code. Previous studies have proposed techniques to support bug fixes but other kinds of code changes such as function enhancements and refactorings are not supported by them. In this paper, we propose a novel system that helps developers change existing code. Unlike existing techniques, our system can support any kinds of code changes if similar code changes occurred in the past. Our research is still on very early stage and we have not have any implementation or any prototype yet. This paper introduces our research purpose, an outline of our system, and how our system is different from existing techniques.
A Novel Ray Tracing Algorithm for Scenarios Comprising Pre-Ordered Multiple Planar Reflectors, Straight Wedges, and Vertexes

An algorithm is presented for calculating the positions of the scattering centers of a ray undergoing multiple reflections and multiple diffractions from edges and/or vertexes, in a scenario comprising a collection of reflecting plates illuminated by a point source. Through the application of the image theorem, the new ray tracing algorithm generalizes a previous solution, already present in the literature, which efficiently calculates the diffraction centers in the case of multiple edge diffraction. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is positively tested by some numerical examples.
Formal Analysis of ISO/IEC 9798-2 Authentication Standard Using AVISPA

Use of formal methods is considered as a useful and efficient technique for the validation of security properties of the protocols. In this paper, we analyze the protocols of ISO/IEC 9798-2 entity authentication standard using a state-of-the-art tool for automated analysis named AVISPA. Our analysis of the standard using AVISPA's OFMC and CL-AtSe back-ends shows that the two party protocols are secure against the specified security properties while the back-ends are able to find attacks against unilateral and mutual authentication protocols involving a trusted third party.
Spike-timing control by dendritic plateau potentials in the presence of synaptic barrages

Apical and tuft dendrites of pyramidal neurons support regenerative electrical potentials, giving rise to long-lasting (approximately hundreds of milliseconds) and strong (~50 mV from rest) depolarizations. Such plateau events rely on clustered glutamatergic input, can be mediated by calcium or by NMDA currents, and often generate somatic depolarizations that last for the time course of the dendritic plateau event. We address the computational significance of such single-neuron processing via reduced but biophysically realistic modeling. We introduce a model based on two discrete integration zones, a somatic and a dendritic one, that communicate from the dendritic to the somatic compartment via a long plateau-conductance. We show principled differences in the way dendritic vs. somatic inhibition controls spike timing, and demonstrate how this could implement spike time control in the face of barrages of synaptic inputs.
Accuracy and Power of Statistical Methods for Detecting Adaptive Evolution in Protein Coding Sequences and for Identifying Positively Selected Sites

The parsimony method of Suzuki and Gojobori (1999) and the maximum likelihood method developed from the work of Nielsen and Yang (1998) are two widely used methods for detecting positive selection in homologous protein coding sequences. Both methods consider an excess of nonsynonymous (replacement) substitutions as evidence for positive selection. Previously published simulation studies comparing the performance of the two methods show contradictory results. Here we conduct a more thorough simulation study to cover and extend the parameter space used in previous studies. We also reanalyzed an HLA data set that was previously proposed to cause problems when analyzed using the maximum likelihood method. Our new simulations and a reanalysis of the HLA data demonstrate that the maximum likelihood method has good power and accuracy in detecting positive selection over a wide range of parameter values. Previous studies reporting poor performance of the method appear to be due to numerical problems in the optimization algorithms and did not reflect the true performance of the method. The parsimony method has a very low rate of false positives but very little power for detecting positive selection or identifying positively selected sites.
Structured overlay for heterogeneous environments: Design and evaluation of oscar

Recent years have seen advances in building large Internet-scale index structures, generally known as structured overlays. Early structured overlays realized distributed hash tables (DHTs) which are ill suited for anything but exact queries. The need to support range queries necessitates systems that can handle uneven load distributions. However such systems suffer from practical problems—including poor latency, disproportionate bandwidth usage at participating peers, or unrealistic assumptions on peers' homogeneity, in terms of available storage or bandwidth resources. In this article we consider a system that is not only able to support uneven load distributions but also to operate in heterogeneous environments, where each peer can autonomously decide how much of its resources to contribute to the system. We provide the theoretical foundations of realizing such a network and present a newly proposed system Oscar based on these principles. Oscar can construct efficient overlays given arbitrary load distributions by employing a novel scalable network sampling technique. The simulations of our system validate the theory and evaluate Oscar's performance under typical challenges, encountered in real-life large-scale networked systems, including participant heterogeneity, faults, and skewed and dynamic load-distributions. Thus the Oscar distributed index fills in an important gap in the family of structured overlays, bringing into life a practical Internet-scale index, which can play a crucial role in enabling data-oriented applications distributed over wide-area networks.
Phenotypic and Functional Characterization of Vaginal Dendritic Cells in a Rat Model of Candida albicans Vaginitis

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the phenotype of vaginal dendritic cells (VDCs), their antigenic presentation and activation of T-cell cytokine secretion, and their protective role in a rat model of Candida vaginitis. Histological observation demonstrated a significant accumulation of OX62+ VDCs in the mucosal epithelium of Candida albicans-infected rats at the third round of infection. We identified two subsets of OX62+ VDCs differing in the expression of CD4 molecule in both noninfected and Candida-infected rats. The OX62+ CD4+ subset of VDCs displayed a lymphoid cell-like morphology and expressed the T-cell antigen CD5, whereas the OX62+ CD4− VDC subset exhibited a myeloid morphology and was CD5 negative. Candida infection resulted in VDC maturation with enhanced expression of CD80 and CD134L on both CD4+ and CD4− VDC subsets at 2 and 6 weeks after Candida infection. CD5− CD4− CD86− CD80− CD134L+ VDCs from infected, but not noninfected, rats spontaneously released large amounts of interleukin-12 (IL-12) and tumor necrosis factor alpha, whereas all VDC subsets released comparable levels of IL-10 and IL-2 cytokines. Furthermore, OX62+ VDCs from infected rats primed naïve CD4+ T-cell proliferation and release of cytokines, including gamma interferon, IL-2, IL-6, and IL-10, in response to staphylococcal enterotoxin B stimulation in vitro. Adoptive transfer of highly purified OX62+ VDCs from infected rats induced a significant acceleration of fungal clearance compared with that in rats receiving naive VDCs, suggesting a protective role of VDCs in the anti-Candida mucosal immunity. Finally, VDC-mediated protection was associated with their ability to rapidly migrate to the vaginal mucosa and lymph nodes, as assessed by adoptive transfer of OX62+ VDCs labeled with 5 (and 6-)-carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester.
A personalized exercise trainer for elderly

Physical activity provides many physiological benefits. On the one hand it reduces the risk of disease outcomes. On the other hand it is the basis for proper rehabilitation in case of or after a severe disease. Both aspects are especially important for the elderly population. Within this context, the present paper proposes a personalized, home-based exercise trainer for elderly people. The system is based on a wearable sensor network that enables capturing the user's motions. These are then evaluated by comparing them to a prescribed exercise, taking both exercise load and technique into account. Moreover, the results are translated into appropriate feedback to the user to assist the correct exercise execution. A novel part of the system is the generic personalization by means of a supervised teach-in phase.
Compressed Sensing Remote Sensing Image Reconstruction Based on Wavelet Tree and Nonlocal Total Variation

Compressed sensing reconstructs data using much less sampling data, generally as O(K+Klogn), compared to Nyquist theory. K is the sparsity of data and n is the length of data. Furthermore, according to the basic principle of structured sparsity theory, for a standard K-sparse data, the measurements need for reconstructing original data can be further reduced from O(K+Klogn) to O(K+logn). The wavelet coefficients have tree structure and can be used in compressed sensing. The nonlocal total variance (NLTV) is highly effective in sharping image edges and preserving fine details. It also performs well in getting rid of the block effects caused by total variance (TV). Consequently, a new model based on NLTV and wavelet tree is proposed in this paper for solving the compressed sensing remote sensing image reconstruction. Experiments show the well performance of our model in reconstruction accuracy compared to other methods.
Position-based tensegrity design

We propose a novel framework for the computational design of tensegrity structures, which are constructions made of struts and cables, held rigid by continuous tension between the elements. Tensegrities are known to be difficult to design---existing design methods are often restricted to using symmetric or templated configurations, limiting the design space to simple constructions. We introduce an algorithm to automatically create free-form stable tensegrity designs that satisfy both fabrication and geometric constraints, and faithfully approximate input geometric shapes. Our approach sidesteps the usual force-based approach in favor of a geometric optimization on the positions of the elements. Equipped with this formulation, we provide a design framework to explore the highly constrained space of tensegrity structures. We validate our method with simulations and real-world constructions.
An Approach for Detecting Inconsistencies between Behavioral Models of the Software Architecture and the Code

In practice, inconsistencies between architectural documentation and the code might arise due to improper implementation of the architecture or the separate, uncontrolled evolution of the code. Several approaches have been proposed to detect inconsistencies between the architecture and the code but these tend to be limited for capturing inconsistencies that might occur at runtime. We present a runtime verification approach for detecting inconsistencies between the dynamic behavior of the documented architecture and the actual runtime behavior of the system. The approach is supported by a set of tools that implement the architecture and the code patterns in Prolog, and automatically generate runtime monitors for detecting inconsistencies. We illustrate the approach and the toolset for a Crisis Management System case study.
Precision genome editing in plants via gene targeting and piggyBac-mediated marker excision

Precise genome engineering via homologous recombination (HR)-mediated gene targeting (GT) has become an essential tool in molecular breeding as well as in basic plant science. As HR-mediated GT is an extremely rare event, positive–negative selection has been used extensively in flowering plants to isolate cells in which GT has occurred. In order to utilize GT as a methodology for precision mutagenesis, the positive selectable marker gene should be completely eliminated from the GT locus. Here, we introduce targeted point mutations conferring resistance to herbicide into the rice acetolactate synthase (ALS) gene via GT with subsequent marker excision by piggyBac transposition. Almost all regenerated plants expressing piggyBac transposase contained exclusively targeted point mutations without concomitant re-integration of the transposon, resulting in these progeny showing a herbicide bispyribac sodium (BS)-tolerant phenotype. This approach was also applied successfully to the editing of a microRNA targeting site in the rice cleistogamy 1 gene. Therefore, our approach provides a general strategy for the targeted modification of endogenous genes in plants.
Eye Movement Behavior During Confusion

The purpose of the present study was to develop a methodology to identify when a user is confused while using a product. Eye movements were measured to determine whether they reflect confusion while users completed tasks with two simulated devices. First, two devices that differed in subjective ratings of confusion were identified. Then eye movements and task performance were measured while experienced and inexperienced users conducted nine tasks with the devices. The relationship between eye movement and confusion measures depended on the task and the user group. Results provide a foundation for developing methods to identify and predict user confusion on the basis of eye movements, and ultimately to design products to avoid confusion.
A sensor-centric EKF for inertial-aided visual odometry

When appropriate infrastructure is not available, localization of pedestrians becomes a difficult task. This is especially the case in urban or indoor scenarios, where satellite navigation is hindered due to occlusions or multipath effects. A promising alternative is to combine a small, low-cost inertial measurement unit (IMU) with a camera in order to exploit the complementary error characteristics of these devices by simultaneously estimating the positions of observed landmarks and the trajectory of the sensor system with a stochastic filter.
Kinematic and Chemical Constraints on the Formation of M31’s Inner and Outer Halo

The halo of M31 shows a wealth of substructures, some of which are consistent with assembly from satellite accretion. Here we report on kinematic and abundance results from Keck DEIMOS spectroscopy in the near-infrared calcium triplet region of over 3500 red giant star candidates along the minor axis and in off-axis spheroid fields of M31. These data reach out to large radial distances of about 160 kpc. The derived radial velocity distributions show an indication of a kinematically cold substructure around ~17 kpc, which has been reported before. We devise a new and improved method to measure spectroscopic metallicities from the calcium triplet in low signal-to-noise ratio spectra using a weighted co-addition of the individual lines. The resulting distribution (accurate to ~0.3 dex down to signal-to-noise ratios of 5) leads us to note an even stronger gradient in the abundance distribution along M31’s minor axis and in particular toward the outer halo fields than previously detected. The mean metallicity in the outer fields reaches below –2 dex, with individual values as low as ≲–2.6 dex. This is the first time such a metal-poor halo has been detected in M31. In the fields toward the inner spheroid, we find a sharp decline of ~0.5 dex in metallicity in a region at ~20 kpc, which roughly coincides with the edge of an extended disk, previously detected from star count maps. A large fraction of red giants that we detect in the most distant fields are likely members of M33’s overlapping halo. A comparison of our velocities with those predicted by new N-body simulations argues that the event responsible for the Giant Stream is most likely not responsible for the full population of the inner halo. We show further that the abundance distribution of the Stream is different from that of the inner halo, from which it becomes evident, in turn, that the merger event that formed the Stream and the outer halo cannot have contributed any significant material to the inner spheroid. All these severe structure changes in the halo suggest a high degree of infall and stochastic abundance accretion governing the buildup of M31’s inner and outer halo.