Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compiler aided manual speculation for high performance concurrent data structures

Speculation is a well-known means of increasing parallelism among concurrent methods that are usually but not always independent. Traditional nonblocking data structures employ a particularly restrictive form of speculation. Software transactional memory (STM) systems employ a much more general---though typically blocking---form, and there is a wealth of options in between. Using several different concurrent data structures as examples, we show that manual addition of speculation to traditional lock-based code can lead to significant performance improvements. Successful speculation requires careful consideration of profitability, and of how and when to validate consistency. Unfortunately, it also requires substantial modifications to code structure and a deep understanding of the memory model. These latter requirements make it difficult to use in its purely manual form, even for expert programmers. To simplify the process, we present a compiler tool, CSpec, that automatically generates speculative code from baseline lock-based code with user annotations. Compiler-aided manual speculation keeps the original code structure for better readability and maintenance, while providing the flexibility to chose speculation and validation strategies. Experiments on UltraSPARC and x86 platforms demonstrate that with a small number annotations added to lock-based code, CSpec can generate speculative code that matches the performance of best-effort hand-written versions.
The XMM Cluster Survey: the interplay between the brightest cluster galaxy and the intracluster medium via AGN feedback

Using a sample of 123 X-ray clusters and groups drawn from the XMM Cluster Survey first data release, we investigate the interplay between the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG), its black hole and the intracluster/group medium (ICM). It appears that for groups and clusters with a BCG likely to host significant active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback, gas cooling dominates in those with T X > 2 keV while AGN feedback dominates below. This may be understood through the subunity exponent found in the scaling relation we derive between the BCG mass and cluster mass over the halo mass range 10 13 < M500 < 10 15 Mand the lack of correlation between radio luminosity and cluster mass, such that BCG AGN in groups can have relatively more energetic influence on the ICM. The LX-T X relation for systems with the most massive BCGs, or those with BCGs co-located with the peak of the ICM emission, is steeper than that for those with the least massive and most offset, which instead follows self-similarity. This is evidence that a combination of central gas cooling and powerful, well fuelled AGN causes the departure of the ICM from pure gravitational heating, with the steepened relation crossing self-similarity at T X = 2 keV. Importantly, regardless of their black hole mass, BCGs are more likely to host radio-loud AGN if they are in a massive cluster (T X 2 keV) and again co-located with an effective fuel supply of dense, cooling gas. This demonstrates that the most massive black holes appear to know more about their host cluster than they do about their host galaxy. The results lead us to propose a physically motivated, empirical definition of 'cluster' and 'group', delineated at 2 keV.
The Diversity-Multiplexing Tradeoff of Delay-Constrained Sequential Streaming

We study sequential encoding of a stream of messages over a block-fading MIMO channel. A new message arrives in each coherence block and the decoder is required to output each message after a delay of T coherence blocks. We establish the optimal DMT and show that it can be achieved using an interleaved coding scheme. The converse is based on a new outage amplification technique. We also discuss another coding scheme based on a sequential tree-code, which is delay-universal. This coding scheme only requires the knowledge of delay at the decoder and yet realizes the optimal DMT. We also discuss some extensions when multiple messages at fixed intervals, arrive within each coherence period.
IDEA1: A Validated System C-Based Simulator for Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents IDEA1, a validated SystemC-based simulator for WSNs. It allows the system-level performance evaluation (e.g., packet transmission and energy consumption) with elaborate models of sensor nodes. IDEA1 uses a clock-based synchronization mechanism to support simulations with cycle accurate communication and approximate time computation. Its accuracy has been validated by a testbed of 9 nodes. The average deviation between the IDEA1 simulations and experimental measurements is 5.9%. The performances of IDEA1 have also been compared with NS-2, one of the most widely used simulators in WSN research. To provide a similar result (deviation less than 5%) at the same abstraction level, the simulation of IDEA1 is 2 times faster than NS-2. Moreover, with the hardware and software co-simulation feature, IDEA1 provides more detailed modeling of sensor nodes than NS-2.
Improved constraints on transit time distributions from argon 39: A maximum entropy approach

+150 a. The importance of diffusion compared to advection as quantified by D/G has most probable values ranging from 0.2 to 3 but with large entropic uncertainty bounds ranging from 0.2 to 9. For the majority of locations analyzed, the effect of 39 Ar is to reduce f1 and to correspondingly increase G by about a century. The additional constraint provided by 39 Ar reduces the entropic uncertainties of f1 by roughly 50% on average.
The Contribution of Intermittent Hypoxemia to Late Neurological Handicap in Mice with Hyperoxia-Induced Lung Injury

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is considered by many to be an independent risk factor for poor neurodevelopment in premature infants. However, infants with BPD experience intermittent hypoxic episodes. This study was undertaken to determine whether intermittent hypoxic stress associated with BPD contributes to the development of neurological deficit. The model of BPD was produced in neonatal mice by exposure to hyperoxia (65% O2) for 4 weeks. Arterial blood gases, pulmonary mechanics, and histopathology were used to define the degree of lung injury. The mice were subjected to brief (10 min/day) and intermittent (10 days) hypoxic stress (8% O2) at different stages of the development of hyperoxia-induced lung injury. At 8 weeks of life, the neurofunction was assessed by water maze and rota-rod tests followed by cerebral morphological analysis using Nissl, bromodeoxyuridine, and caspase-3 immunostaining. Data were compared to naïve normoxic littermates and those mice that were exposed only to hyperoxia or intermittent hypoxia alone. Mice with BPD subjected to brief/intermittent hypoxia demonstrated a significantly poorer navigational memory performance as compared with normoxic mice and mice with BPD that were not subjected to intermittent hypoxia. The neurofunctional handicap in these mice was associated with significantly decreased brain weight and increased cerebral expression of caspase-3. Our results suggest that intermittent hypoxia associated with hyperoxia-induced lung injury, but not lung injury itself, results in significant neurological handicap in neonatal mice with BPD.
Matrix metalloproteinase inhibition modulates fibroblast-mediated matrix contraction and collagen production in vitro.

PURPOSE To investigate the effect of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibition on fibroblast-mediated matrix contraction and production. METHODS Free-floating fibroblast-populated type I collagen lattices were prepared with human Tenon's capsule fibroblasts. Lattice areas were photographed and digitally analyzed to indicate the degree of lattice contraction. Quantitative competitive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (QCRT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to quantify mRNA and protein respectively for MMP-1, -2, and -3 by fibroblasts during lattice contraction. Gelatin zymography demonstrated activity of MMPs released into the conditioned medium of contracting lattices. Concentrations of the broad-spectrum MMP inhibitors ilomastat, CellTech (Slough, UK), and BB-94 were added to the contracting fibroblast-populated collagen lattices. Secreted C-terminal propeptide of type I collagen was measured in conditioned medium of contracting lattices by ELISA. Fibroblast proliferation in the presence of concentrations of ilomastat was measured by using the reagent water-soluble tetrazolium-1 (WST-1). RESULTS During contraction of type I collagen lattices, Tenon's capsule fibroblasts expressed MMP-1, -2, and -3 mRNA and protein. Zymography demonstrated the release of four gelatinolytic species into the conditioned medium of contracting lattices (57, 72, 91, and 100 kDa). Inclusion of MMP inhibitors in the zymogram-developing buffer reduced the proteolytic activity of the detected bands. MMP inhibition (1-100 microM) significantly reduced fibroblast-mediated collagen lattice contraction (P < 0.05), and this effect was found to be reversible. Ilomastat also significantly inhibited production of collagen in a dose-dependent manner (P < 0.05). No effect on fibroblast proliferation was found in the presence of ilomastat. CONCLUSIONS MMPs are produced during Tenon's capsule fibroblast-mediated collagen lattice contraction. Broad-spectrum MMP inhibition significantly reduced matrix contraction and production without cell toxicity. Future clinical use of MMP inhibitors may be possible, because MMP inhibition significantly reduces fibroblast functions associated with contractile scarring.
A simple dynamic model for the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake

We investigate the dynamic rupture process of the 16 January 1995 Kobe earthquake (Mw 6.9) by spontaneous rupture modeling of a 3‐D dynamic shear crack that reproduces the slip distribution found from kinematic waveform inversion of strong motion data. We find that using the heterogeneous initial stress field obtained from the kinematic slip model and relatively uniform fracture energy distribution, successfully generates a dynamic model with slip and rupture time distributions that are consistent with the kinematic source inversion. Our results suggest that we may be able to produce realistic dynamic rupture models with simpler assumptions for dynamic source parameters, such as the fracture energy, than have been used in most dynamic rupture models to date.
Invariant object recognition in the visual system with error correction and temporal difference learning

It has been proposed that invariant pattern recognition might be implemented using a learning rule that utilizes a trace of previous neural activity which, given the spatio-temporal continuity of the statistics of sensory input, is likely to be about the same object though with differing transforms in the short time scale. Recently, it has been demonstrated that a modified Hebbian rule which incorporates a trace of previous activity but no contribution from the current activity can offer substantially improved performance. In this paper we show how this rule can be related to error correction rules, and explore a number of error correction rules that can be applied to and can produce good invariant pattern recognition. An explicit relationship to temporal difference learning is then demonstrated, and from this further learning rules related to temporal difference learning are developed. This relationship to temporal difference learning allows us to begin to exploit established analyses of temporal difference learning to provide a theoretical framework for better understanding the operation and convergence properties of these learning rules, and more generally, of rules useful for learning invariant representations. The efficacy of these different rules for invariant object recognition is compared using VisNet, a hierarchical competitive network model of the operation of the visual system.
Air-pasture transfer of PCBs.

A field experiment was conducted to study the air to pasture transfer of PCBs at a rural site in northwest England. Strong positive linear correlations were obtained between the log plant−air partition coefficients (m3 of air g-1 of plant dry weightdefined here as the scavenging coefficient) and log octanol−air (Koa) partition coefficients. Pasture typically retained amounts of PCB per g dry weight equivalent to that in ∼7 m3 of air for congener 18 and ranging up to ∼64 m3 for congener 170, regardless of whether the pasture growth (exposure) time had been 2, 6, or 12 weeks. This indicates that airborne PCBs partition onto freshly grown pasture and approach plant surface−air gas-phase equilibrium rather rapidly at this site, i.e., within 2 weeks of exposure. In late April−June, when grassland production is at a maximum, sequestering rates could approach 1.2 ng of PCB-18, 0.17 ng of PCB-170, and 12 ng of ∑PCB m-2 day-1. With 7 million ha of managed and rough grassland in the U.K., fresh pasture production i.
Multi agent routing to multi targets via ant colony

Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a cooperative, population-based technique for optimization. Ant algorithms were designed on the base of the behavior of real ant colonies. Real ants can always find the shortest way between the nest and food source, using the environment as the communication tool, named stigmergy. In this paper we focus precisely on the process of finding an optimal path by ant colony optimization algorithm in the multi agent environment. Rescue Simulation, one of the fields of RoboCup competitions, was chosen as the test bed. We have proposed this algorithm to find the best path between basis and destination. Calculating the ‘reachablitiy’ of a set of targets is the main problem which should be solved with constraints like uncertainty and time limits. Some characteristics of ACO which is utilized as a social algorithm encouraged us to implement it in such problems. Numerical result comparisons with A* algorithm demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of this algorithm in Rescue Simulation Environment. The bright background of our team in several world competitions is another support of this work.1
Comparison of hybrid-Pol with quad-Pol scheme based on polarimetric information content

Recently, there has been growing interest in dual-polarimetric (dual-Pol) systems, especially in hybrid-Pol mode. In comparison to quad-Pol systems, a dual-Pol system has the advantage of halved average transmitted power and doubled swath coverage. In this article, we present a comparison of information provided by hybrid-Pol and quad-Pol synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. To be compared, hybrid-Pol data are converted to pseudo-quad-Pol data using compact polarimetric scattering models. We have further compared both configurations based on the information extractable about the scattering process. The scattering contribution of each of the three basic scattering mechanisms, namely single bounce, double bounce and volume scattering, can be evaluated by Freeman and Durden decomposition techniques. Applying such a decomposition technique to quad-Pol and pseudo-quad-Pol data, we evaluate and compare the scattering contribution of each of the three basic scattering mechanisms for clusters of pixels in polarimetric SAR images.
A New Supervised Laplacian Eigenmap for Expression Recognition

In order to reduce interference of identity information on facial expression recognition, this paper proposes a new supervised Laplacian Eigenmap method. Before dimension reduction, make full use of category information to modify the neighborhood structure of the samples which is in the high dimension space, optimize neighborhood information of the test samples, and then modify the weight matrix, improve facial expression recognition rate. The experiments on JAFFE and Cohn-Kanade expression database show the method proposed is more effective to represent facial expression feature than the Laplacian Eigenmap or supervised laplacianfaces.
Coherent Pc 3 pulsations in the prenoon sector observed along the 210° magnetic meridian

We studied the coherence and phase structure of Pc 3 pulsations in the H and D components of the magnetic field observed at latitudinally distributed stations along the 210° magnetic meridian by using the H component at GUA (L = 1.01) as the reference. At GUA, which is located near the magnetic equator, field line resonance does not occur because of the small vertical component of the ambient magnetic field, so pulsations observed there are likely produced by fast mode waves propagating from sources external to the magnetosphere. We found that the D‐component Pc 3's in the prenoon sector 0900–1200 LT at L = 1.2–5.5 show a coherent, in‐phase (out‐of‐phase) oscillation in the northern (southern) hemisphere with respect to the H component Pc 3's at GUA. This result indicates that the D‐component Pc 3's in the prenoon sector at L = 1.2–5.5 are closely related to the upstream source waves.
Hardware implementation on PCB in tandem with FPGA and experimental validation of a novel true random binary generator

In this paper the experimental validation along with mixed system integration of a novel, modified double scroll chaotic attractor circuit, employed as a true random binary generator (TRBG) is presented. The double scroll attractor is modeled on Chua's circuit for nonlinear operation leading to double scroll chaotic behavior. The output from the chaotic circuit which is a correlated binary sequence is scrambled with a pseudo random binary sequence generator (PRBSG) topology to yield a true random binary source for key stream generation. The modified chaotic circuit has been implemented on Printed Circuit Board (PCB) along with a field programmable gate array (FPGA) for true random bits generation. The randomness attributes of the hardware generator construction, using the PRBSG de-correlator were successfully tested by the well known NIST Test Suite and Diehard Test set for statistical validation. Output binary streams from the proposed modified generator were examined for randomness using both Test Suites with all tests successfully passed for both experimental chaotic circuit and PSpice simulation model which was used as a yardstick for statistical attributes. The hardware implementation of proposed TRBG has been constructed as a combination of chaotic generator analog circuitry on PCB and PRBSG digital operation leading to binary digit generation in FPGA. This TRSG system could be easily implemented as a complete hardware integrated cryptographic module for usage in mobile communication platform applications. A physical TRBG has been constructed on the basis of the proposed PRBSG modification with all statistical tests successfully passed.
Role of Endothelin-1 in Exposure to High Altitude: Acute Mountain Sickness and Endothelin-1 (ACME-1) Study

Background— The degree of pulmonary hypertension in healthy subjects exposed to acute hypobaric hypoxia at high altitude was found to be related to increased plasma endothelin (ET)-1. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of ET-1 antagonism on pulmonary hypertension, renal water, and sodium balance under acute and prolonged exposure to high-altitude–associated hypoxia. Methods and Results— In a double-blind fashion, healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to receive bosentan (62.5 mg for 1 day and 125 mg for the following 2 days; n=10) or placebo (n=10) at sea level and after rapid ascent to high altitude (4559 m). At sea level, bosentan did not induce any significant changes in hemodynamic or renal parameters. At altitude, bosentan induced a significant reduction of systolic pulmonary artery pressure (21±7 versus 31±7 mm Hg, P<0.03) and a mild increase in arterial oxygen saturation versus placebo after just 1 day of treatment. However, both urinary volume and free water clearance (H2OCl/glomerular filtration rate) were significantly reduced versus placebo after 2 days of ET-1 antagonism (1100±200 versus 1610±590 mL; −6.7±3.5 versus −1.8±4.8 mL/min, P<0.05 versus placebo for both). Sodium clearance and segmental tubular function were not significantly affected by bosentan administration. Conclusions— The present results indicate that the early beneficial effect of ET-1 antagonism on pulmonary blood pressure is followed by an impairment in volume adaptation. These findings must be considered for the prevention and treatment of acute mountain sickness.
Roll‐to‐Roll Production of Transparent Silver‐Nanofiber‐Network Electrodes for Flexible Electrochromic Smart Windows

Electrochromic smart windows (ECSWs) are considered as the most promising alternative to traditional dimming devices. However, the electrode technology in ECSWs remains stagnant, wherein inflexible indium tin oxide and fluorine‐doped tin oxide are the main materials being used. Although various complicated production methods, such as high‐temperature calcination and sputtering, have been reported, the mass production of flexible and transparent electrodes remains challenging. Here, a nonheated roll‐to‐roll process is developed for the continuous production of flexible, extralarge, and transparent silver nanofiber (AgNF) network electrodes. The optical and mechanical properties, as well as the electrical conductivity of these products (i.e., 12 Ω sq−1 at 95% transmittance) are comparable with those AgNF networks produced via high‐temperature sintering. Moreover, the as‐prepared AgNF network is successfully assembled into an A4‐sized ECSW with short switching time, good coloration efficiency, and flexibility.
Zipfian corruptions for robust POS tagging

Inspired by robust generalization and adversarial learning we describe a novel approach to learning structured perceptrons for part-ofspeech (POS) tagging that is less sensitive to domain shifts. The objective of our method is to minimize average loss under random distribution shifts. We restrict the possible target distributions to mixtures of the source distribution and random Zipfian distributions. Our algorithm is used for POS tagging and evaluated on the English Web Treebank and the Danish Dependency Treebank with an average 4.4% error reduction in tagging accuracy.
A MLFQ SCHEDULING TECHNIQUE USING M/M/c QUEUES FOR GRID COMPUTING

We model the objective function, that the jobs entering the scheduler have a Poisson’s distribution and the jobs that are sent out from the multilevel feedback scheduler are also distributed as a Poisson’s distribution. We also assume that the number of CPU’s in a processing element is not restricted to one, but rather many CPUs integrated into one PE. Therefore, we assume the M/M/c queue model for our calculations. In Kendall's notation, we describes a system where arrivals form a single queue and are governed by a Poisson process, where there are c servers and job service times are exponentially distributed. Gridlets provided by the users are assigned to processing elements (PEs), and gridlets whose remaining service time is shifted between queues of the MLFQ scheduler to be completed. In MLFQ, the total architecture is divided into multiple prioritized queues. This approach provides gridlets which starve in the lower priority queue for long time to get resources. As a result, the response time of the starved gridlets decreases and overall turnaround time of the scheduling process decreases. This scheduling policy is simulated using Alea GridSim toolkit to test the performance. The proposed MLFQ scheduling algorithm works better in most of the scenarios when compared to FCFS and PBS_PRO algorithms.