Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transactional Virtual Memory with Fine-grained Range Lock Support

Lightweighted Recoverable Virtual Memory (RVM) [5] is a software mechanism to support persistent virtual memory regions in the face of system crashes. Regions maintained by RVM are accessed in transactions. RVM can undo all the memory changes in aborted transactions, while committed transactions have their changes written to secondary storages. Therefore transactional atomicity and durability are guaranteed. RVM is implemented as a programming library that can be linked to application programs. Using RVM, applications which must maintain persistent data structures and survive system crashes can be easily implemented with less efforts. However, RVM requires that programmers use thread locks themselves to synchronize among concurrent transactions. That is, RVM does not support serialization, which is the ’I’ or Isolation property in ACID [3]. To reduce programers’ burdens of implementing their own serialization mechanisms, we add serialization support to RVM, thus providing the full ACID semantics of transactions to virtual memory. Our transactional virtual memory (TVM) aims at ease of use by programmers, efficiency, and portability. It allows high concurrency among transactions with low overhead. We use strict two phase locking protocol for serialization. As RVM, TVM is also implemented as a programming library. TVM keeps RVM’s interface and adds three new library calls so that existing RVM applications can be linked to TVM without any change. The three new calls are to request a read, write, or intension range lock on a memory range in RVM maintained regions. A lot of popular synchronization programming styles are easily realized by these range lock calls. We support fine-grained byte range locks. All the range lock information of transactions is recorded by TVM. A thread is blocked when it requests a range lock conflicting with other transactions and is woken up after those transactions end. Two range lock algorithms are put forward. The basic algorithm is easy to implement and efficient when small number of locks are used concurrently. The advanced algorithm uses two tree structures to help locate the conflicting range locks directly and therefore offers better performance when the number of locks is large. Both approaches ensure forward progress by avoiding live locks and by providing a deadlock detection mechanism. Furthermore, range locks are implemented using common synchronization primitives supported by most thread packages. This is preferred to an implemetation within a specific thread package for portability reasons. The remaining of the paper is organized as follows. We begin with a clear description of the existing RVM mechanism. Then we discuss our major design decisions aiming at ease of use, efficiency, and portability. Section 3 elaborates detailed design and implementation of the two range lock algorithms. Then section 4 decribes our deadlock detection mechanism. An evaluation of TVM is presented in Section 5. In Section 6, we describe the course material covered in our project. And finally, section 7 concludes our discussion.
Probabilistic inference for phrase-based machine translation : a sampling approach

Recent advances in statistical machine translation (SMT) have used dynamic programming (DP) based beam search methods for approximate inference within probabilistic translation models. Despite their success, these methods compromise the probabilistic interpretation of the underlying model thus limiting the application of probabilistically defined decision rules during training and decoding. As an alternative, in this thesis, we propose a novel Monte Carlo sampling approach for theoretically sound approximate probabilistic inference within these models. The distribution we are interested in is the conditional distribution of a log-linear translation model; however, often, there is no tractable way of computing the normalisation term of the model. Instead, a Gibbs sampling approach for phrase-based machine translation models is developed which obviates the need of computing this term yet produces samples from the required distribution. We establish that the sampler effectively explores the distribution defined by a phrase-based models by showing that it converges in a reasonable amount of time to the desired distribution, irrespective of initialisation. Empirical evidence is provided to confirm that the sampler can provide accurate estimates of expectations of functions of interest. The mix of high probability and low probability derivations obtained through sampling is shown to provide a more accurate estimate of expectations than merely using the n-most highly probable derivations. Subsequently, we show that the sampler provides a tractable solution for finding the maximum probability translation in the model. We also present a unified approach to approximating two additional intractable problems: minimum risk training and minimum Bayes risk decoding. Key to our approach is the use of the sampler which allows us to explore the entire probability distribution and maintain a strict probabilistic formulation through the translation pipeline. For these tasks, sampling allies the simplicity of n-best list approaches with the extended view of the distribution that lattice-based approaches benefit from, while avoiding the biases associated with beam search. Our approach is theoretically well-motivated and can give better and more stable results than current state of the art methods.
Global Nitrogen: Cycling out of Control

Like the Earth’s water, nitrogen compounds cycle through the air, aquatic systems, and soil. But unlike water, these compounds are being injected into the environment in ever increasing quantities. In doing so, we are altering the global nitrogen cycle, causing possible grave impacts on biodiversity, global warming, water quality, human health, and even the rate of population growth in developing nations. In a world surrounded by nitrogen, you would think there’s always been plenty to go around and that perhaps a little more wouldn’t matter. But having enough of the right kind of nitrogen—reactive nitrogen that has been “fixed,” or converted from the nonreactive N2 form—determines such fundamentals of life as the extent of plant growth, which in turn determines to a large extent the dynamics of the world’s food supply. During the twentieth century, mankind has produced increasingly more reactive nitrogen, intentionally as fertilizer and unintentionally as a by-product of combusting fossil fuels. Although carbon dioxide may get more press, “the nitrogen cycle has been altered more than any other basic element cycle,” says John Aber, vice president for research and public service at the University of New Hampshire. And now, he says, humans are adding more reactive nitrogen to the global nitrogen cycle than all other sources combined. Yet, reactive nitrogen is hardly all bad. The use of nitrogen fertilizer is critical to feeding the world’s hungry, say researchers including University of Virginia environmental sciences professor James Galloway. The question, then, is how do we manage nitrogen responsibly?
The Multicultural Evaluation of Some Second and Third Grade Textbook Readers--A Survey Analysis.

Concern over the limited and biased portrayal of minorities in textbooks was documented as early as 1935 by the Conference on Education and Race Relations. Members of this Conference believed that these portrayals of minorities in textbooks were contributing to racial antagonism in the United States. ' Over the years other individuals and organizations took up the banner of protest. However, it was not until the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s that publishers seriously heeded requests to improve the portrayal of minorities in textbooks. By the mid-sixties, minorities began to appear more frequently in textbooks; however, the books were still biased and minority group members were still stereotyped. We can best understand these biased and stereotyped portrayals by examining the areas in which they occur. Three such areas are the diversity (i.e., ethnic group representation) of characters, the settings (i.e., time, location, socioeconomic class) in which characters appear, and their involvement (i.e., roles and the extent of their roles) in the stories.
3-D Spot Modeling for Automatic Segmentation of cDNA Microarray Images

Spot segmentation-the second essential stage of cDNA microarray image analysis-constitutes a challenging process. At present, several up-to-date spot-segmentation techniques or software programs-proposed in the literature-are often characterized as “automatic. ” On the contrary, they are in effect not fully automatic since they require human intervention in order to specify mandatory input parameters or to correct their results. Human intervention, however, can inevitably modify the actual results of the cDNA microarray experiment and lead to erroneous biological conclusions. Therefore, the development of an automated spot-segmentation process becomes of exceptional interest. In this paper, an original and fully automatic approach to accurately segmenting the spots in a cDNA microarray image is presented. In order for the segmentation to be accomplished, each real spot of the cDNA microarray image is represented in a three-dimensional (3-D) space by a 3-D spot model. Each 3-D spot model is determined via an optimization problem, which is solved by using a genetic algorithm. The segmentation of real spots is conducted by drawing the contours of their 3-D spot models. The proposed method has been compared with various published and established techniques, using several synthetic and real cDNA microarray images that contain thousands of spots. The outcome has shown that the proposed method outperforms prevalent existing techniques. It is also noise resistant and yields excellent results even under adverse conditions such as the appearance of spots of various sizes and shapes.
Fast Parallel Kernels for Selected Problems in Control

Lyapunov and Stein matrix equations arise in many important analysis and synthesis applications in control theory. The traditional approach to solving these equations relies on the QR algorithm which is notoriously diicult to parallelize. We investigate iterative solvers based on the matrix sign function and the Smith iteration which are highly eecient on parallel distributed computers. We also show that by coding using the Parallel Linear Algebra Package (PLAPACK) it is possible to exploit structure in the matrices and reduce the cost of these solvers. The experimental results on a Cray T3E report the high eeciency of these parallel solvers.
Comparison of PR3-ANCA specific assay performance for the diagnosis of granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener’s)

Abstract Background: PR3-ANCA, the serological marker of granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA), is usually detected by immunometric assays, with purified PR3 directly coated onto the solid-phase. Novel methods for PR3-ANCA detection have been developed to improve the performance of traditional PR3-ANCA specific assays, but little is known about their diagnostic performance in real-life clinical settings. This study aimed to compare the performance of nine different commercial PR3-ANCA specific assays, including traditional and newer ones, for the diagnosis of GPA. Methods: The evaluated assays for PR3-ANCA detection were representative of the first, second, and third generation tests (direct, capture and anchor assays, respectively). A third-generation assay employing both human and recombinant PR3 was also evaluated. The study population consisted of 55 GPA patients, 175 disease controls (representing most diseases in differential diagnosis with primary small-vessel vasculitis) including 52 with microscopic polyangiitis, and 20 healthy subjects. We performed the primary evaluation of test sensitivity using cut-off points which provided adequate and identical specificity for each test. Results: Although specificity and area under the ROC curve did not differ significantly between the different assays, substantial differences in sensitivity at 98%-specificity were found in some instances (p<0.001). Compared to first generation direct PR3-ANCA specific assays, some of the second and third generation tests increased the positive predictive value (PPV) for GPA diagnosis. Conclusions: Some of the newer PR3-ANCA specific assays have better PPV than traditional ones.
Greenhouse gas emission of diets in the Netherlands and associations with food, energy and macronutrient intakes

Abstract Objective To evaluate the greenhouse gas emission (GHGE) of diets in Dutch girls, boys, women and men and to explore associations with diet composition. Design Descriptive analyses for the total population as well as stratified for gender, age and dietary environmental load. Setting The Netherlands. Subjects Dutch children and adults aged 7–69 years (n 3818). Results The GHGE of daily diets was on average 3·2 kg CO2-equivalents (CO2e) for girls, 3·6 kg CO2e for boys, 3·7 kg CO2e for women and 4·8 kg CO2e for men. Meat and cheese contributed about 40 % and drinks (including milk and alcoholic drinks) 20 % to daily GHGE. Considerable differences in environmental loads of diets existed within age and gender groups. Persons with higher-GHGE diets consumed more (in quantity of foods and especially drinks) than their counterparts of a similar sex and age with low-GHGE diets. Major differences between high- and low-GHGE diets were in meat, cheese and dairy consumption as well as in soft drinks (girls, boys and women) and alcoholic drinks (men). Of those, differences in meat consumption determined the differences in GHGE most. Diets with higher GHGE were associated with higher saturated fat intake and lower fibre intake Conclusions GHGE of daily diets in the Netherlands is between 3 and 5 kg CO2e, with considerable differences between individuals. Meat, dairy and drinks contribute most to GHGE. The insights of the study may be used in developing (age- and gender-specific) food-based dietary guidelines that take into account both health and sustainability aspects.
On the relationship between emotional state and abnormal unfairness sensitivity in alcohol dependence

Recent empirical findings suggest that alcohol dependence is characterized by heightened sensitivity to unfairness during social transactions. The present study went a step further and aimed to ascertain whether this abnormal level of sensitivity to unfairness is underlined by an increased emotional reactivity. Twenty-six recently abstinent alcohol-dependent (AD) individuals and 32 controls performed an ultimatum game (UG), in which participants had to respond to take-it-or-leave-it offers, ranging from fair to unfair and made by a fictive proposer. Emotional state was recorded during UG offers presentation and was indexed by the amplitude of skin conductance response (SCR). Results showed that AD decided to reject unfair offers more frequently than their controls, confirming previous data. The proportion of rejected unfair UG offers was correlated with SCR, in the AD but not in the control group. This finding suggests that deciding to accept or reject unfair UG offers is influenced by arousal-affective activity in AD, but not in controls. Heightened emotional reactivity may have driven AD to punish the proposer rather than acting as a rational economic agent. An implication of present findings is that AD might have difficult to cope with unfair situations triggered by social interactions. Future studies are needed in order to examine whether—emotional and behavioral—reactivity to unfairness during the UG could impact alcohol consumption and relapse in AD.
Dating Violence Victimization Among Asian American and Pacific Islander Youth in Hawai‘i

ABSTRACT Recent studies reported high levels of adolescent dating violence, which led federal agencies to define this area as a public health issue. Most studies fail to include Asian American or Pacific Islander youth in ways that provide for accurate analysis. The present study examined verbal and psychological dating violence victimization prevalences among 2 Asian American (Filipino, Japanese) and 2 Pacific Islander (Native Hawaiian, Samoan) adolescent groups. The results showed 58.3% reported experiencing emotional dating violence, with 43.7% affirming that they experienced insulting/verbal abuse and 43.3% reporting that they were victims of controlling behaviors. No significant differences were found for victimization rates and severity by gender. This study highlights the need for research to examine dating violence among this population.
Effects of Parental Divorce During Early Childhood on Ego Development and Identity Formation of College Students

Level of ego development, locus of control, and identity achievement were assessed in 294 college students who came from intact, divorced, and divorced-remarriage family backgrounds. Contrary to popular assumptions. divorce backgrounds were not predictive of lower scores on the three measures. In fact, males from divorce families held higher ego-identity achievement scores than males from intact families or females from intact or divorce families. Further, no evidence was found for the argument that remarriage (step-parenting) may attenuate negative consequences of divorce on college students' development.
The Nervous System Orchestrates and Integrates Craniofacial Development: A Review

Development of a head is a dazzlingly complex process: a number of distinct cellular sources including cranial ecto- and endoderm, mesoderm and neural crest contribute to facial and other structures. In the head, an extremely fine-tuned developmental coordination of CNS, peripheral neural components, sensory organs and a musculo-skeletal apparatus occurs, which provides protection and functional integration. The face can to a large extent be considered as an assembly of sensory systems encased and functionally fused with appendages represented by jaws. Here we review how the developing brain, neurogenic placodes and peripheral nerves influence the morphogenesis of surrounding tissues as a part of various general integrative processes in the head. The mechanisms of this impact, as we understand it now, span from the targeted release of the morphogens necessary for shaping to providing a niche for cellular sources required in later development. In this review we also discuss the most recent findings and ideas related to how peripheral nerves and nerve-associated cells contribute to craniofacial development, including teeth, during the post- neural crest period and potentially in regeneration.
IMPACT OF INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES ON WATER QUALITY OF OMOKU CREEK Ewa,

The impact of industrial effluent on water quality of Omoku Creek, Rivers State of Nigeria was investigated. Physico-chemical and organic parameters of water samples of the Creek were examined to determine the quality and extent of pollution. Results indicated that TSS (Total Suspended Solid) ranged between 19.8 and 24.9mg/l; while THC (Total Hydrocarbon Concentration) was between 24.2 and 40.4. DO (Dissolved Oxygen) and BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) varied between 38.2 and 41.5mg/l, and 38 and 59 mg/l respectively. The major sources of pollution were observed to be effluents from the industries and dump sites within and around the Creek catchment. These effluents were observed to impact seriously on the Creek ecosystem. In order to maintain the ecological status of the Creek, waste management practice of effluent treatment through the use of retention pond was suggested.
Object Manipulation through Explicit Force Control Using Cooperative Mobile Multi-Robot Systems

of objects by groups of mobile robots can be advantageous when an object is too large or heavy to be effectively manipulated by a single robot on its own. This article proposes combining the cluster space control methodology with explicit force control to effectively and safely move such an object with mobile robots. Cluster space control is used to maintain the formation of the mobile robots and their position relative to the object. The explicit force control allows the safe application of desired forces and torques on the object to be moved and treats the robots as separate actuators, as opposed to combining them with the object into a single plant. In this paper the proposed control architecture and initial experimental results from a hardware testbed are presented.
Psychometric Properties of the Race-Related Events Scale

This article describes the development and preliminary validation of the Race-Related Events Scale (RES). The RES is a brief screening measure used to assess exposure to stressful and potentially traumatizing experiences of race-related stress and was designed to be both consistent with standard diagnostic definitions of traumatic events and applicable to diverse ethnic groups. Its psychometric properties were assessed in an ethnically diverse sample of undergraduate students (N! 408). The measure showed good internal consistency ( "! .86) and adequate 1-month test‐retest reliability (r s ! .66). Its validity was supported by findings that Whites reported significantly less race-related stress than other ethnic groups and African Americans reported significantly more race-related stress than Asian Americans. A subset of participants who reported ongoing distress following a race-related stressor (n! 91) also completed posttraumatic stress disorder measures. Close to one-third of these participants reported a race-related stressor involving exposure to threat of injury or death to self or others and almost half reported fear, helplessness, or horror during a race-related stressor. Participants who met these DSM‐IV‐TRcriteria for trauma exposure reported significantly more race-related stressors and more severe posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Greater exposure to race-related stressors was associated with more severe posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms among ethnic minority but not White respondents. These findings suggest that the RES is a useful screening measure of potentially traumatizing race-related experiences across diverse ethnic groups.