Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Formal Verification Of Content Addressable Memories Using Symbolic Trajectory Evaluation

In this paper we report on new techniques for verifying contentaddressable memories (CAMs), and demonstrate that these techniqueswork well for large industrial designs. It was shown in [Formal verification of PowerPC(TM) arrays using symbolic trajectory evaluation], that theformal verification technique of symbolic trajectory evaluation (STE)could be used successfully on memory arrays. We have extended thatwork to verify what are perhaps the most combinatorially difficultclass of memory arrays, CAMs. We use new Boolean encodings toverify CAMs, and show that these techniques scale well, in that spacerequirements increase linearly, or sub-linearly, with the various CAMsize parameters.In this paper, we describe the verification of two CAMs froma recentPowerPC¿ microprocessor design, a Block Address Translation unit(BAT), and a Branch Target Address Cache unit (BTAC). The BATis a complex CAM, with variable length bit masks. The BTAC is a64-entry, 64-bits per entry, fully associative CAM and is part of thespeculative instruction fetch mechanism of the microprocessor. Webelieve that ours is the first work on formally verifying CAMs, and webelieve our techniques make it feasible to efficiently verify the varietyof CAMs found on modern processors.
Acoustic Imaging of In-Duct Aeroengine Noise Sources Using Rotating Beamforming and Phased Arrays

An in-duct rotating beamforming technique, using a wall-mounted array of microphones placed within a long duct, was developed for locating broadband noise sources from an aeroengine fan. The technique was experimentally implemented at the recently constructed long-duct low-speed fan rig test facility at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. The test rig has a 16-bladed fan rotor and 14-vaned stator, with speed up to 4250 r/min and a maximum 0.1 Mach number mean axial flow speed. Here, we describe the beamforming details with an emphasis on the mandatory coordinate change to a rotating reference frame for a frequency domain virtual rotating microphone technique. Example sound source maps are presented revealing clear noise blade signatures together with simulated point spread function maps using modal steering vectors at six different frequencies that characterize the beamformer.
Comparison of a Commercial Multiplex Real-Time PCR to the Cell Cytotoxicity Neutralization Assay for Diagnosis of Clostridium difficile Infections

ABSTRACT A commercial multiplex real-time PCR assay (Cepheid Xpert C. difficile assay) for the diagnosis of Clostridium difficile infection was evaluated. The sensitivity and specificity of the Cepheid assay were 97.1% and 93.0% for fresh stools, using the cell cytotoxicity neutralization assay as the reference. Using PCR ribotyping as the reference for ribotype 027 strains, the corresponding figures were 100% and 98.1%, respectively.
Interactive media server with media synchronized RAID storage system

We propose an efficient placement algorithm and per-disk prefetching method to effectively support interactive operations in the media server. Our placement policy is incorporated with an encoder having a special bitcount control scheme that repeatedly tunes quantization parameters to adjust the bitcounts of video frames. This encoder can generate coded frames sub-stream video blocks whose sizes are synchronized with the RAID stripe size, so that when various fast-forward levels are accessed we can reduce the seek and rotational latency and enhance the disk throughput of each disk in the RAID system. In the experimental results, the proposed placement policy and bitrate control scheme can significantly improve the average service time, which can enlarge the capacity of the interactive media server.
Joint Power Allocation and Precoding for Network Coding-Based Cooperative Multicast Systems

In this letter, we propose two power allocation schemes based on the statistical channel state information (CSI) and instantaneous srarrr CSI at transmitters, respectively, for a 2-N-2 cooperative multicast system with nonregenerative network coding. Then the isolated precoder and the distributed precoder are, respectively, applied to the schemes to further improve the system performance by achieving the full diversity gain. Finally, we demonstrate that joint instantaneous srarrr CSI-based power allocation and distributed precoder design achieve the best performance.
Degradation and Ecotoxicity of C14 Linear Alpha Olefin Drill Cuttings in the Laboratory and the Field

Laboratory and field studies were conducted on C14 linear alpha olefin (LAO) mud drill cuttings. In the laboratory, LAO drill cuttings applied to a loam soil at a total extractable hydrocarbon (TEH) concentration of 4.8% (wt:wt) degraded by 92% to a TEH residual of 0.38% after 3 months. This residual was nontoxic to plants, earthworms, springtails and MicrotoxTM bacteria based on both acute and chronic toxicity bioassays. Earthworm growth and reproduction after 2 months exposure to soil with remediated LAO cuttings were greater than in the untreated soil. In the field, LAO cuttings were spread over a silty loam soil in southern Alberta at an inital concentration of 3.1% (wt:wt) during the fall. The following spring the field was tilled, fertilized and planted with barley. The LAO in the soil degraded by 68% to a 1% LAO level by harvest (11 months treatment), and was further reduced to 0.25% after 23 months of landfarming treatment. At 1% LAO, barley growth was not significantly reduced in the laboratory or the field. In contrast, 1% LAO significantly inhibited earthworm growth and reproduction, and killed the springtails. The MicrotoxTM bioassay revealed no toxicity in water extracts of the soil. Co-composting studies in northern British Columbia involved mixing LAO cuttings with wood fibre at a ratio of 1:3 and applying fertilizer. After 22 months treatment, the TEH at two separate sites had decreased by 95%, from initial concentrations of 8.1 and 15.2% to final concentrations of 0.4 and 0.6%, respectively. Results to date indicate that C14 LAO drill cuttings degrade readily under both laboratory and field conditions, and that both landfarming and co-composting are effective means for eliminating and detoxifying C14 LAOs. Although the biodegradation and ecotoxicity potential of C14 LAO fluid in soil has been studied, the degradation and toxicity of C14 LAO, when it forms a component of drill cuttings, has not been determined, either in the laboratory or the field. Therefore, research was conducted to evaluate the degradability and toxicity of C14 LAO drill cuttings in silty loam in the laboratory. Since laboratory observations may not accurately reflect response in the field, field studies were initiated also to evaluate landfarming and co-composting technologies for treating LAO drill cuttings. Objectives. Specific objectives of the research were: (1) to determine the potential degradability and ecotoxicity of C14 LAO drill cuttings when mixed into silty loam soil and bioremediated for 3 months in the laboratory; (2) to monitor the degradation and ecotoxicity of C14 LAO cuttings during landfarming treatment in a barley field in southern Alberta, and to compare the degradation/toxicity dynamics in the field with that observed in the laboratory (objective 1), and (3) to evaluate co-composting as a field technology for treating C14 LAO drilling wastes. Properties of C14 LAO Fluid and Drill Cuttings. C14 LAO (BP trade name: Amodrill® 1410) was the base fluid used in all of the drilling muds used to generate the drill
Multimodal similarity between musical streams for cover version detection

Expressing the similarity between musical streams is a challenging task as it involves the understanding of many factors which are most often blended into one information channel: the audio stream. Consequently, separating the musical audio stream into its main melody and its accompaniment may prove as being useful to root the similarity computation on a more robust and expressive representation. In this paper, we show that considering the mixture, an estimation of its main melody and its accompaniment as modalities allows us to propose new ways of defining the similarity between musical streams. In the context of the detection of cover version, we show that highest performance is achieved by jointly considering the mixture and the estimated accompaniment. As demonstrated by the experiments carried out using two different evaluation databases, this scheme allows the scoring system to focus more on the chord progression by considering the accompaniment while being robust to the potential separation errors by also considering the mixture.
Frequency control of wind penetrated hydro-dominated power system

The increasing penetration of variable speed wind turbines in the power system result in the reduction of total system inertia. This requires new methods to control the grid frequency. This paper deals with the primary frequency control of hydro power dominated power system integrated with wind power. The modeling of hydro power units and variable speed wind turbine are done in Matlab/Simulink. The behaviour of grid frequency for various wind speeds and wind penetration levels is analysed when there is a power imbalance. A fuzzy logic based pitch controller is proposed for high wind speed range. Inertia emulation frequency control is added to the wind turbine to improve frequency stability when there is a mismatch between load and generation.
Lithium therapy in the elderly.

The Editorial Board will be pleased to receive and consider for publication correspondence containing information of interest to physicians or commenting on issues of the day. Letters ordinarily should not exceed 600 words, and must be typewritten, double-spaced and submitted in duplicate (the original typescript and one copy). Authors will be given an opportunity to review any substantial editing or abridgment before publication.
Ordered Mesoporous Silica Materials for Protein Adsorption

Lysozyme and BSA were used, as model proteins of considerably different dimensions, in order to evaluate the influence of the distinct pore structural characteristics of three types of ordered mesoporous silica materials (MCF, SBA-15 and MCM-41) on protein adsorption. Characterisation by X ray diffraction and nitrogen adsorption at 77K revealed the typical pore structural features of each type of material. The maximum of the pore size distributions indicated that the width of the windows of MCF (2) (mesitylene/P123 of 2) was larger than the pore diameter of the unidirectional tubular pores of SBA-15. All the materials presented similar small external surface areas but high pore volumes, with that of MCF (2) being the highest. The adsorption of lysozyme at pH=8 increased in the order MCM-41<< SBA-15< MCF (2), and the uptakes were well above those of BSA at pH=5. Although BSA is not completely excluded from the mesopores of SBA-15 and MCF (2), as happens with MCM-41, the adsorption occurs to a very limited extent. The overall behaviour of these SBA-15 and MCF (2) samples was not significantly different and both revealed potential for the separation of these proteins.
Guidelines for 3D positioning techniques

In this paper, we present a set of guidelines for designing 3D positioning techniques. These guidelines are intended for developers of object interaction schemes in 3D games, modeling packages, computer aided design systems, and virtual environments. The guidelines promote intuitive object movement techniques in these types of environments. We then present a study comparing 3D positioning techniques based on these guidelines with 2D and 3D/6D devices across VR display technologies. Display technologies such as stereoscopic graphics and head-coupled perspective provide additional depth cues and could affect how a user perceives and thus interacts with a 3D scene -- regardless of the input device/technique used. Thus they are examined as well. The results suggest that 2D devices using "smart" movement algorithms can outperform 3D devices.
Design, technology, and application of integrated piezoresistive scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) microcantilever

In this article we describe a novel piezoresistive cantilever technology The described cantilever can be also applied in the investigations of the thermal surface properties in all Scanning Thermal Microscopy (SThM) techniques. Batch lithography/etch patterning process combined with focused ion beam (FIB) modification allows to manufacture thermally active, resistive tips with a nanometer radius of curvature. This design makes the proposed nanoprobes especially attractive for their application in the measurement of the thermal behavior of micro- and nanoelectronic devices. Developed microcantilever is equipped with piezoresistive deflection sensor. The proposed architecture of the cantilever probe enables easy its easy integration with micro- and nanomanipulators and scanning electron microscopes.In order to approach very precisely the microcantilever near to the location to be characterized, it is mounted on a compact nanomanipulator based on a novel mobile technology. This technology allows very stable positioning, with a nanometric resolution over several centimeters which is for example useful for large samples investigations. Moreover, thanks to the vacuum-compatibility, the experiments can be carried out inside scanning electron microscopes.
Demosaicing approach based on extended color total-variation regularization

Previously we presented a TV (total variation)-based sharpening-demosaicing method. Our previous method interpolates color signals effectively while preserving sharp color edges, without producing ringing artifacts along the edges. However, since our previous method applies the TV regularization separately to each primary color channel, it sometimes produces color artifacts along sharp color edges. To remedy the drawback, we introduce the TV regularization of color differences and color sums into our previous method. Unlike our previous method, our new method jointly interpolates the three primary color channels. We compare demosaicing performance of our new method with the state-of-the- art demosaicing methods. In the evaluations, we consider a noise- free case and a noisy case. For both cases our new method achieves the best performance, and for the noisy case our new method considerably outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.
Image Segmentation with Ratio Cut

This paper proposes a new cost function, cut ratio, for segmenting images using graph-based methods. The cut ratio is defined as the ratio of the corresponding sums of two different weights of edges along the cut boundary and models the mean affinity between the segments separated by the boundary per unit boundary length. This new cost function allows the image perimeter to be segmented, guarantees that the segments produced by bipartitioning are connected, and does not introduce a size, shape, smoothness, or boundary-length bias. The latter allows it to produce segmentations where boundaries are aligned with image edges. Furthermore, the cut-ratio cost function allows efficient iterated region-based segmentation as well as pixel-based segmentation. These properties may be useful for some image-segmentation applications. While the problem of finding a minimum ratio cut in an arbitrary graph is NP-hard, one can find a minimum ratio cut in the connected planar graphs that arise during image segmentation in polynomial time. While the cut ratio, alone, is not sufficient as a baseline method for image segmentation, it forms a good basis for an extended method of image segmentation when combined with a small number of standard techniques. We present an implemented algorithm for finding a minimum ratio cut, prove its correctness, discuss its application to image segmentation, and present the results of segmenting a number of medical and natural images using our techniques.
An Integrated 3D Face-Expression Recognition Approach

Face recognition has been a focus in research for the last couple of decades because of its wide potential applications and its importance to meet the security needs of today's world. With the development of 3D imaging technology, 3D face recognition emerges as an alternative to overcome the difficulties inherent to 2D face recognition, i.e. sensitivity to illumination conditions and positions of a subject. But 3D face recognition still needs to tackle the problem of deformation of facial geometry that results from the expression changes of a subject. To deal with this issue, a 3D face recognition framework is proposed in this paper. It is composed of three subsystems: expression recognition system, expressional face recognition system and neutral face recognition system. A system for the recognition of faces with one type of expression (smile) and neutral faces was implemented and tested on a database of 30 subjects. The results proved the feasibility of this framework
The comparison of particle filter and extended Kalman filter in predicting building envelope heat transfer coefficient

The building envelope heat transfer coefficient is an important measurement of building energy efficiency. The detection of the heat transfer coefficient is always impacted by surrounding environment and noises. Meanwhile it is impractical to accumulate rich enough data as input to calculate the heat transfer coefficient. The Particle Filter (PF) and Extended Kalman Filter(EKF) are employed in this paper in predicting the heat transfer coefficient based on the temperature control box-heat flow model. With the comparison of the two predicted values with the real measured one, the Particle Filter shows high efficiency and better accurate than Extended Kalman Filter. The simulation results show that the accuracy of PF is high. The budget result of PF is more close to the real values. Then the estimated calculation according to Particle Filter is used to calculate wall body heat transfer coefficient.
CRAFTED LOGIC Towards Hand-Crafting a Computer

This paper introduces the piece Crafted Logic, an interactive installation realized as part of a larger research into creating electronic components from scratch. The piece consists of fundamental logic gates that are created by various textile-crafting techniques. Each gate is composed of handcrafted relays that are controlled electromagnetically, and is capable of performing a different logical operation. In replicating the basis of digital electronics in novel forms and through unconventional materials, our intention is to imagine alternatives to existing realities of computational technologies. Crafted Logic is a speculative artifact and process as means to reflect on the creation of digital systems that surround us, as well as on how this shapes our interaction with them.
The Gammaherpesvirus m2 Protein Manipulates the Fyn/Vav Pathway through a Multidocking Mechanism of Assembly

To establish latent infections in B-cells, gammaherpesviruses express proteins in the infected B-cells of the host that spuriously activate signalling pathways located downstream of the B-cell receptor. One such protein is M2, a murine gammaherpesvirus 68-encoded molecule that activates the Vav1/Rac1 pathway via the formation of trimolecular complexes with Scr family members. Previous reports have shown that the formation of this heteromolecular complex involves interactions between a proline rich region of M2 and the Vav1 and Fyn SH3 domains. Here, we show that the optimal association of these proteins requires a second structural motif encompassing two tyrosine residues (Tyr120 and 129). These residues are inducibly phosphorylated by Fyn in non-hematopoietic cells and constitutively phosphorylated in B-cells. We also demonstrate that the phosphorylation of Tyr120 creates specific docking sites for the SH2 domains of both Vav1 and Fyn, a condition sine qua non for the optimal association of these two signalling proteins in vivo. Interestingly, signaling experiments indicate that the expression of M2 in B-cells promotes the tyrosine phosphorylation of Vav1 and additional signaling proteins, a biological process that requires the integrity of both the M2 phosphotyrosine and proline rich region motifs. By infecting mice with viruses mutated in the m2 locus, we show that the integrity of each of these two M2 docking motifs is essential for the early steps of murine gammaherpesvirus-68 latency. Taken together, these results indicate that the M2 phosphotyrosine motif and the previously described M2 proline rich region work in a concerted manner to manipulate the signaling machinery of the host B-cell.
High-rate Wastewater Treatment by a Shaft-type Activated Sludge Reactor

A shaft-type activated sludge reactor has been developed in order to study the feasibility of high-rate wastewater treatment. The reactor having volume of about 14.5 L was operated with the acclimated mixed activated sludge under batch and continuous mode using a synthetic wastewater as feed. The batch study was performed with varying chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentrations of 1000-3500 mg·L -1 for a batch period up to 9 h. The kinetic coefficients: Ks, k, Y and kd were obtained as 2040.2 mg·L -1 and 0.105 h -1 , 0.878 and 0.0025 h -1 respectively from Monod's approach. The continuous study showed a stable and steady state operation for a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 8 h and influent COD of about 1000 mg·L -1 . A maximum COD removal efficiency of about 80% was attained at a COD loading rate and food-to- microorganism (F/M) ratio (COD basis) of 3.42 kg·m -3 d -1 and 1.0 kg·kg -1 d -1 respectively under a HRT of 8 h. The reactor was also found to handle COD loading rate and F/M ratio of 10.8 kg·m -3 d -1 and 2.20 kg·kg -1 d -1 respectively showing a COD removal efficiency of about 46%.
The Analysis and Modeling for Nutation Drives with Double Circular-Arc Helical Bevel Gears

Based on the nutation movement of a rotating coin on a table, the formulae for calculating the transmission ratio between two nutation gears is developed. The tooth profile with a double circular arc for helical bevel gears in nutation drives is proposed and then the meshing equation during the nutation process and the universal equation of the crown gear tooth surface with helical double circular arc profiles are obtained based on the gear meshing theory. Further, the modeling for nutation drives with the proposed profile is carried out in a virtual working process.