Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scan Chain Hold-Time Violations: Can They be Tolerated?

Scan chain hold-time violations may occur due to manufacturing defects or to errors in timing closure process during the physical design stage. The latter type of violations prohibits the test of manufactured chips, leading to a zero yield, although these chips with scan hold-time violations may be perfectly functional. In this paper, we propose a suite of techniques which enable the diagnosis and the tolerance of scan hold-time violations. The proposed diagnosis technique can be utilized for any scan chain hold-time violation in order to pinpoint, in minimal diagnosis application time, the cause of the violation. The proposed tolerance technique is more targeted towards violations that lead to systematic failure of parts; it enables the generation of test patterns to screen out the defective parts in the presence of scan hold-time violations, perfectly restoring the yield in a cost-effective manner. The techniques that we propose are non-intrusive, as they utilize only basic scan capabilities, and thus impose no design changes. We also extend this discussion for fast-to-rise and fast-to-fall errors, intermittent scan hold-time violations, and functional hold-time violations.
Citrullus colocynthis Linn. Fruit extract ameliorates cisplatin-induced hepato-renal toxicity in rats

Abstract Background Cisplatin-induced acute liver and kidney injuries are serious problems in cancer patients during treatment of solid tumours. Objective This study sought to investigate possible protective effect of ethanolic fruit extract of Citrullus colocynthis (CC) against cisplatin-induced hepato-renal toxicity in rats. Methods Thirty male albino rats (150–200 g) were divided into five groups (n=6) and treated as follows: group 1: vehicle (10 mL/kg, p.o.; normal control); group 2: vehicle (10 mL/kg); groups 3–5: CC (100, 200 or 400 mg/kg, p.o.), respectively, for 10 days. Cisplatin (7.5 mg/kg; i.p.) was administered on the 7th day to animals in groups (2–5) 1 h after pretreatment. The animals were euthanized on day 10 for haematological, biochemical and histological analysis. Results Cisplatin induced a significant increase in the serum levels of ALT, ALP, creatinine and blood urea nitrogen indicative of hepato-renal injury. More so, cisplatin caused marked increase in granulocyte, lymphocyte and platelets counts which were ameliorated by CC (100–400 mg/kg) treatment. In addition, cisplatin induced marked increase in MDA and nitrite levels coupled with deficits in glutathione, catalase and superoxide dismutase activities which were attenuated by CC administration. In vitro assay showed that CC scavenged DPPH and nitrite radicals (69.50 and 64.50 µg/mL, respectively). Total antioxidant capacity, phenolic and flavonoid contents are 24.27±0.09 mg QUE/g, 17.14±0.12 mg GAE/g and 10.20±0.09 mg QUE/g, respectively. CC preserved the liver and kidney histoarchitecture. Conclusions This study showed that C. colocynthis possesses hepatoprotective and nephroprotective actions possibly through enhancement of antioxidant defence system. Thus, it could be a potential adjuvant in cisplatin-based chemotherapy.
New design of actuator using shear piezoelectricity of a chiral polymer, and prototype device

Chiral polymers have been known to exhibit small shear piezoelectricity for about fifty years. However, recently, we reported that poly(L-lactic acid) treated with supercritical carbon dioxide (sc-PLLA), which is a type of chiral polymer, exhibits much higher shear piezoelectricity than other chiral polymers. On the other hand, we found an important difference between motion due to shear piezoelectricity and that due to tensile piezoelectricity in piezoelectric materials through computer simulations. On the basis of these results, we fabricated a new type of electrically controlled tweezers constructed from a pair of sc-PLLA sheets with shear piezoelectricity. In general, when conventional tweezers open to the left and right, the trajectory of their motion becomes fanlike at the center of the connection (one end of the tweezers). In the new tweezers, the two small sheets making up the tweezers open parallel to each other, without the motion of parts near the connection. Moreover, a prototype ‘finger’ system using sc-PLLA sheets to realize complex motion in which the finger curled upon stretching of the sc-PLLA sheets was manufactured as a trial device. Using the prototype finger system, we demonstrated the firm grasping of a sample, but the sample could not be removed from a vessel. Thus, sc-PLLA increases the likelihood of realizing a device with highly operational pick-up in a very small region by using the shear piezoelectricity of a chiral polymer. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry
Dynamic Analysis of a 1T3R Parallel Stable Platform

Based on POC set theory and SOC unit, a 1T3R parallel stable platform is proposed. The Single cylinder force analysis is studied. Then uses Newton-Euler method, gives full consideration to these various factors: without neglecting the ball screw rotation, friction between the spherical joint, the mass and the moment of inertia of electric cylinders, based above the dynamic theoretical Analysis of the stable platform is researched. The paper makes the guide sense for the follow-up research and the application of the 1T3R mechanism.
Integrated Microwave Photonics for Wideband Signal Processing

We describe recent progress in integrated microwave photonics in wideband signal processing applications with a focus on the key signal processing building blocks, the realization of monolithic integration, and cascaded photonic signal processing for analog radio frequency (RF) photonic links. New developments in integration-based microwave photonic techniques, that have high potentialities to be used in a variety of sensing applications for enhanced resolution and speed are also presented.
Fooling End-To-End Speaker Verification With Adversarial Examples

Automatic speaker verification systems are increasingly used as the primary means to authenticate costumers. Recently, it has been proposed to train speaker verification systems using end-to-end deep neural models. In this paper, we show that such systems are vulnerable to adversarial example attacks. Adversarial examples are generated by adding a peculiar noise to original speaker examples, in such a way that they are almost indistinguishable, by a human listener. Yet, the generated waveforms, which sound as speaker A can be used to fool such a system by claiming as if the waveforms were uttered by speaker B. We present white-box attacks on a deep end-to-end network that was either trained on YOHO or NTIMIT. We also present two black-box attacks. In the first one, we generate adversarial examples with a system trained on NTIMIT and perform the attack on a system that trained on YOHO. In the second one, we generate the adversarial examples with a system trained using Mel-spectrum features and perform the attack on a system trained using MFCCs. Our results show that one can significantly decrease the accuracy of a target system even when the adversarial examples are generated with different system potentially using different features.
Structural Changes of Liquid Pb-Bi Eutectic Alloy

Liquid Pb–Bi eutectic (LBE) alloy has been selected as coolant and neutron spallation source for the development of MYRRHA, an accelerator driven system (ADS). The alloy has been characterized in liquid state from melting (125 °C) to 750 °C by mechanical spectroscopy, i.e. internal friction (IF) and dynamic modulus measurements. The experiments have been carried out using hollow reeds of austenitic stainless steel filled with Pb-Bi alloy and sealed at the extremities. Dynamic modulus showed a remarkable drop in the range 350-520 °C. In the same temperature range radial distribution functions (RDFs), determined from X-ray diffraction patterns, evidenced variations of the mean distance between the 1st nearest neighbour atoms. The phenomenon has been explained as a structural re-arrangement of atoms in the liquid metal.
Anton 2: Raising the Bar for Performance and Programmability in a Special-Purpose Molecular Dynamics Supercomputer

Anton 2 is a second-generation special-purpose supercomputer for molecular dynamics simulations that achieves significant gains in performance, programmability, and capacity compared to its predecessor, Anton 1. The architecture of Anton 2 is tailored for fine-grained event-driven operation, which improves performance by increasing the overlap of computation with communication, and also allows a wider range of algorithms to run efficiently, enabling many new software-based optimizations. A 512-node Anton 2 machine, currently in operation, is up to ten times faster than Anton 1 with the same number of nodes, greatly expanding the reach of all-atom bio molecular simulations. Anton 2 is the first platform to achieve simulation rates of multiple microseconds of physical time per day for systems with millions of atoms. Demonstrating strong scaling, the machine simulates a standard 23,558-atom benchmark system at a rate of 85 μs/day -- 180 times faster than any commodity hardware platform or general-purpose supercomputer.
A computational study of post-infarct mechanical effects of injected biomaterial into ischaemic myocardium

Cardiovascular diseases account for one third of all deaths worldwide, more than 33% of which are related to ischaemic heart disease, involving a myocardial infarction (MI). Emerging MI therapies involving biomaterial injections have shown some benefits; the underlying mechanisms of which remain unclear. Computational models offer considerable potential to study the biomechanics of a myocardial infarction and novel therapies. Geometrical data of a healthy human left ventricle (LV) obtained from magnetic resonance images (MRI) was used to create a finite element (FE) mesh of the LV at the end-systolic time point using Continuity® 6.3 (University of California in San Diego, US). A mesh of 96 hexahedral elements with high order basis functions was employed to adequately describe the geometry of the LV. Simulations of diastolic filling and systolic contraction were performed using a transversely isotropic exponential strain energy function and a model for active stress based on contraction at the cellular level. An anterior apical, transmural MI was modelled in the LV encompassing 16% of the LV wall volume. The infarct was modelled at acute and fibrotic stages of post-infarct LV remodelling by altering the constitutive and active stress models to best describe passive and active behaviour of the ischaemic myocardium at each time point. The geometry of the LV with the fibrotic infarct was adjusted to represent the wall thinning that occurs during LV post-MI remodelling. Hydrogel injection was modelled as layers with material properties differing from those of the surrounding myocardium while accounting for thickening of the LV wall at the injection site. The study design comprised a healthy case and two infarcted cases with and without hydrogel injection. The end-diastolic volume (EDV) increased in the acute infarct model compared to the healthy case due to the reduced stiffness in the infarct wall. An EDV increase was not observed in the fibrotic infarct model compared to the healthy case. This was partially attributed to the increase in infarct stiffness and partially due to the fact that remodelling-related dilation of the LV was not implemented in the model. Inclusion of hydrogel lowered EDV in both the acute and fibrotic models. The predicted ejection fraction (EF) decreased from 41.2% for the healthy case to 28.5% and 33.0% for the acute and fibrotic infarct models, respectively. Inclusion of hydrogel layers caused an improvement in EF in the acute model only. Elevated myofibre stress in the remote and border zone (BZ) regions in a post-MI LV undergoing remodelling leads to hypertrophy and eventual heart failure. Therefore, myofibre stresses were compared at both end-diastolic (ED) and end-systolic (ES)
Maintenance of highly interfacial shear strength by diblock copolymer between carbon fiber and epoxy resin in hostile environment

The environmental resistance properties of carbon fiber (CF), with various surface modifications, reinforcing epoxy resin composites have been studied by a microbond test. The results of cooling–heating cycling between −40 and 95 °C indicate that the introduction of the flexible poly(n-butyl acrylate) (PnBA) blocks into the interface can effectively decrease the interfacial degradation rate, induced by interfacial thermal stress. After 50 cooling–heating cycles, the interfacial shear strength between CF and epoxy resin was still as high as 32.69 ± 2.13 MPa. The results of hygrothermal treatment by immersing the composites in hot water show that assembly morphology of the diblock copolymer hydroxyl-terminated poly(n-butyl acrylate-b-glycidyl methacrylate) (OH-PnBA-b-GMA) at the interface can decrease the interfacial water absorption and thus increase the hygrothermal resistance of the composite. Besides, the length of PnBA block in the diblock copolymer influenced the interfacial properties of the composite in a hygrothermal environment.
Effective multiple feature fusion using topic model for social image visualization

This paper presents a multiple feature fusion method using topic model for social image visualization. Images in social media are represented from several aspects such as their visual information and tags. The proposed method extracts low-level features from social images and their tags and calculates their integrated high-level features. Specifically, the proposed method applies multilayer multimodal probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (mm-pLSA) to the low-level visual and tag features to obtain the high-level features. Then, by applying dimensionality reduction techniques to the obtained features, successful visualization becomes feasible.
Dynamically simulated characters in virtual environments

Animated characters can play the role of teachers or guides, team mates or competitors, or just provide a source of interesting motion in virtual environments. Characters in a compelling virtual environment must have a variety of complex and interesting behaviors, and be responsive to the user's actions. The difficulty of constructing such synthetic characters currently hinders the development of these environments, particularly when realism is required. The authors present one approach to populating virtual environments-using dynamic simulation to generate the motion of characters. They explore this approach's effectiveness with two virtual environments: the border collie environment, in which the user acts as a border collie to herd robots into a corral, and the Olympic bicycle race environment, in which the user participates in a bicycle race with synthetic competitors.
Local Patch Vectors Encoded by Fisher Vectors for Image Classification

The objective of this work is image classification, whose purpose is to group images into corresponding semantic categories. Four contributions are made as follows: (i) For computational simplicity and efficiency, we directly adopt raw image patch vectors as local descriptors encoded by Fisher vector (FV) subsequently; (ii) For obtaining representative local features within the FV encoding framework, we compare and analyze three typical sampling strategies: random sampling, saliency-based sampling and dense sampling; (iii) In order to embed both global and local spatial information into local features, we construct an improved spatial geometry structure which shows good performance; (iv) For reducing the storage and CPU costs of high dimensional vectors, we adopt a new feature selection method based on supervised mutual information (MI), which chooses features by an importance sorting algorithm. We report experimental results on dataset STL-10. It shows very promising performance with this simple and efficient framework compared to conventional methods.
Reversible locoregional lymph node enlargement after radiofrequency ablation of lung tumors.

OBJECTIVE The objective of our study was to assess the characteristics of locoregional lymph node enlargement after successful radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in the treatment of malignant lung tumors. MATERIALS AND METHODS Follow-up CT examinations of 14 patients (seven men, seven women; age range, 30-90 years) who underwent 16 RFA sessions for the treatment of primary (n = 9) or metastatic (n = 5) lung tumors with a mean follow-up of 35 +/- 15 (SD) months (range, 7-60 months) were retrospectively reviewed by two thoracic radiologists. The site and size of hilar and mediastinal lymph nodes were recorded at baseline and at follow-up 1, 3, and 6 months after RFA sessions. In addition, the size, type, and location of the ablated lesion or lesions were recorded. All complications from RFA were recorded. Data were analyzed using the Fisher's exact test. RESULTS An increase in lymph node size was detected after 10 of 16 (62.5%) RFA sessions at 1-month follow-up. In four of 10 patients, only one node had enlarged, and in the remaining six patients, more than one nodal region had enlarged. The average increase in nodal size was 3 mm in the short-axis diameter and 4 mm in the long-axis diameter. Twenty-eight percent of RFA sessions were associated with enlargement of at least one lymph node to greater than 10 mm in short-axis diameter at 1-month follow-up. CT showed that nodes had decreased in size at 3- and 6-month follow-ups. Lesion size, location, and complications were not shown to be significantly associated with mediastinal lymph node enlargement (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION Recognition of reversible locoregional lymph node enlargement after RFA is important to prevent misdiagnosis of nodal metastatic disease.
Filtering Based Illumination Normalization Techniques for Face Recognition

The main challenge experienced by the present face recognition techniques and smooth filters are the difficulty in managing illumination. The differences in face images that are created by illumination are normally bigger compared to the differences in inter-person that is utilized to differentiate identities. However, face recognition over illumination has more uses in a lot of applications that deal with subjects that are not cooperative where the highest potential of the face recognition as a non-intrusive biometric feature can be executed and utilized. This study aims to offer a crucial review of researches involving illumination techniques, and image-based face recognition over illumination. Information was collected from journals, books and electronic sources published in the period of 1971 to 2013. In depth explanation is provided on the advantages and drawbacks, strategies and performance levels of the current techniques. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v13i2. 7001
Raman and Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering for Biofilm Characterization

Biofilms are a communal way of living for microorganisms in which microorganism cells are surrounded by extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Most microorganisms can live in biofilm form. Since microorganisms are everywhere, understanding biofilm structure and composition is crucial for making the world a better place to live, not only for humans but also for other living creatures. Raman spectroscopy is a nondestructive technique and provides fingerprint information about an analyte of interest. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy is a form of this technique and provides enhanced scattering of the analyte that is in close vicinity of a nanostructured noble metal surface such as silver or gold. In this review, the applications of both techniques and their combination with other biofilm analysis techniques for characterization of composition and structure of biofilms are discussed.
Neuroplasticity and the logic of cognitive neuropsychology

ABSTRACT More than thirty years ago, Alfonso Caramazza laid out assumptions for drawing inferences about the undamaged cognitive system from individuals with brain damage. Since then, these assumptions have been challenged including the transparency or subtractivity assumption, that the cognitive system does not reorganize following brain damage. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that brains are highly plastic. However, there is no clear connection between brain plasticity and cognitive reorganization. Brain plasticity research does not require a rethinking of the core logic of cognitive neuropsychology. Differences in task-based activation between damaged and undamaged brains provide little insight into the cognitive architectures of brain-damaged patients. Theory and methods are needed to understand cognitive neuroplasticity, or how neural reorganization that follows brain damage relates to reorganization of functions. We discuss alternative types of cognitive neuroplasticity that may occur in damaged brains and consider how they impact the basic logic of cognitive neuropsychology.
Robust Scale Adaptive Tracking by Combining Correlation Filters with Sequential Monte Carlo

A robust and efficient object tracking algorithm is required in a variety of computer vision applications. Although various modern trackers have impressive performance, some challenges such as occlusion and target scale variation are still intractable, especially in the complex scenarios. This paper proposes a robust scale adaptive tracking algorithm to predict target scale by a sequential Monte Carlo method and determine the target location by the correlation filter simultaneously. By analyzing the response map of the target region, the completeness of the target can be measured by the peak-to-sidelobe rate (PSR), i.e., the lower the PSR, the more likely the target is being occluded. A strict template update strategy is designed to accommodate the appearance change and avoid template corruption. If the occlusion occurs, a retained scheme is allowed and the tracker refrains from drifting away. Additionally, the feature integration is incorporated to guarantee the robustness of the proposed approach. The experimental results show that our method outperforms other state-of-the-art trackers in terms of both the distance precision and overlap precision on the publicly available TB-50 dataset.
Effects of Hand Representations for Typing in Virtual Reality

Alphanumeric text entry is a challenge for Virtual Reality (VR) applications. VR enables new capabilities, impossible in the real world, such as an unobstructed view of the keyboard, without occlusion by the user's physical hands. Several hand representations have been proposed for typing in VR on standard physical keyboards. However, to date, these hand representations have not been compared regarding their performance and effects on presence for VR text entry. Our work addresses this gap by comparing existing hand representations with minimalistic fingertip visualization. We study the effects of four hand representations (no hand representation, inverse kinematic model, fingertip visualization using spheres and video inlay) on typing in VR using a standard physical keyboard with 24 participants. We found that the fingertip visualization and video inlay both resulted in statistically significant lower text entry error rates compared to no hand or inverse kinematic model representations. We found no statistical differences in text entry speed.