Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fair bandwidth sharing among virtual machines in a multi-criticality scope

System virtualization's consolidation in separated virtual machines provides a reasonable way to integrate formerly distinct systems into a single mixed-criticality multi-core system. We propose an adaptive resource management scheme for virtualization-based systems that have to be certified. Periodic servers and the elastic task model combine analyzability at design time with adaptability at runtime. A mode change or the enabling/disabling of tasks trigger a resource redistribution, which guarantees that a specified minimum is always allocated and obtains a fair distribution of spare capacity among the virtual machines. The partitioned scheduling and the assignment of static priorities ease certification. The scheme has the potential to improve the resource utilization and support adaptive and self-optimizing applications with strongly varying execution times.
Q-Learning based Market-Driven Multi-Agent Collaboration in Robot Soccer

This work proposes a novel approach for introducing market-driven multi-agent collaboration strategy with Q-Learning based behavior assignment mechanism to the robot soccer domain in order to solve issues related to multiagent coordination. Robot soccer differs from many other multi-agent problems with its highly dynamic and complex nature. Market-driven approach applies the basic properties of free market economy to a team of robots, to increase the profit of the team as much as possible. For the benefit of the team, robots should work collaboratively, whenever possible. Through Q-learning, a more successful behavior assignment policy have been achieved after a set of training games and the team with learned strategy is shown to be better than the original purely market-driven team.
Itanium: a system implementor's tale

Itanium is a fairly new and rather unusual architecture. Its defining feature is explicitly-parallel instruction-set computing (EPIC), which moves the onus for exploiting instruction-level parallelism (ILP) from the hardware to the code generator. Itanium theoretically supports high degrees of ILP, but in practice these are hard to achieve, as present compilers are often not up to the task. This is much more a problem for systems than for application code, as compiler writers' efforts tend to be focused on SPEC benchmarks, which are not representative of operating systems code. As a result, good OS performance on Itanium is a serious challenge, but the potential rewards are high. EPIC is not the only interesting and novel feature of Itanium. Others include an unusual MMU, a huge register set, and tricky virtualisation issues. We present a number of the challenges posed by the architecture, and show how they can be overcome by clever design and implementation.
Recover Writing Trajectory from Multiple Stroked Image Using Bidirectional Dynamic Search

The recovery of writing trajectory from offline handwritten image is generally regarded as a difficult problem (Plamondon and Srihari, 2000). This paper introduced a method to recover the writing trajectory from multiple stroked images by searching the best matching writing paths of template strokes. The searching procedure is guided by a matching cost function which is defined as the summation of positional distortion cost and directional difference cost between the template stroke and its matching path. We develop a bidirectional search algorithm based on dynamic programming to find the best matching path. The algorithm can efficiently reduce the searching space, while hold the start/end vertex constraint. Experiments on the handwritten English words and Chinese characters demonstrated the effectiveness of our method
QoS Routing in MANETS with Imprecise Information Using Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning

This paper proposes a path discovery scheme which supports delay-constrained least cost routing in MANETs. The aim of the scheme is to maximise the probability of success in finding feasible paths while maintaining communication overhead under control in presence of information uncertainty. The problem is viewed as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) and is solved using an actor-critic reinforcement learning (RL) method. The scheme relies on approximate belief states of the environment which captures the network state uncertainty. Numerical results carried out under various scenarios of state uncertainty and stringent QoS requirements show that the proposed RL framework can lead to more efficient control of search messages, i.e., a reduction of up to 63% of average number of search messages with marginal reduction of up to 3 % in success ratio in comparison with a flooding scheme.
Semantic segmentation of settlement patterns in gray-scale map images using RF and CRF within an HPC environment

The segmentation of complex and compound geographical objects such as settlement areas in images is a challenging task. This is particularly true if the images are scanned historical maps, which are only available as gray-scale images. On the other hand, their vast availability and spatio-temporal coverage make these maps a valuable source of information for historical land use and land cover (LULC) research and urban geography. To facilitate the laborious information extraction from these maps, we present a two-stage machine learning-based approach for segmenting settlement and non-settlement areas in the map scans. We employ a Conditional Random Field (CRF) which obtains its unary potentials from a Random Forest (RF). The method is tested using two inference algorithms. To evaluate the performance and the scalability of the approach over large amounts of data sets, we conduct parallel computing experiments within a High Performance Computing (HPC) environment at the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing at TU Dresden. Experimental results indicate the suitability of both the methodological approach as well as its parallel implementation.
The N-terminal Domain of the Drosophila Mitochondrial Replicative DNA Helicase Contains an Iron-Sulfur Cluster and Binds DNA*

Background: Despite high evolutionary conservation, the function of the N-terminal domain (NTD) of mtDNA helicase remains elusive. Results: Drosophila NTD contains an iron-sulfur cluster and binds DNA. Conclusion: The iron-sulfur cluster in mtDNA helicase enhances protein stability, and may regulate its biological functions. Significance: Discovery of an Fe-S cluster in insect mtDNA helicase presents a novel opportunity to explore species-specific relationships in the replisome. The metazoan mitochondrial DNA helicase is an integral part of the minimal mitochondrial replisome. It exhibits strong sequence homology with the bacteriophage T7 gene 4 protein primase-helicase (T7 gp4). Both proteins contain distinct N- and C-terminal domains separated by a flexible linker. The C-terminal domain catalyzes its characteristic DNA-dependent NTPase activity, and can unwind duplex DNA substrates independently of the N-terminal domain. Whereas the N-terminal domain in T7 gp4 contains a DNA primase activity, this function is lost in metazoan mtDNA helicase. Thus, although the functions of the C-terminal domain and the linker are partially understood, the role of the N-terminal region in the metazoan replicative mtDNA helicase remains elusive. Here, we show that the N-terminal domain of Drosophila melanogaster mtDNA helicase coordinates iron in a 2Fe-2S cluster that enhances protein stability in vitro. The N-terminal domain binds the cluster through conserved cysteine residues (Cys68, Cys71, Cys102, and Cys105) that are responsible for coordinating zinc in T7 gp4. Moreover, we show that the N-terminal domain binds both single- and double-stranded DNA oligomers, with an apparent Kd of ∼120 nm. These findings suggest a possible role for the N-terminal domain of metazoan mtDNA helicase in recruiting and binding DNA at the replication fork.
Finding Optimal Strategies for Imperfect Information Games

We examine three heuristic algorithms for games with imperfect information: Monte-carlo sampling, and two new algorithms we call vector minimaxing and payoff-reduction minimaxing. We compare these algorithms theoretically and experimentally, using both simple game trees and a large database of problems from the game of Bridge. Our experiments show that the new algorithms both out-perform Monte-carlo sampling, with the superiority of payoff-reduction minimaxing being especially marked. On the Bridge problem set, for example, Monte-carlo sampling only solves 66% of the problems, whereas payoff-reduction minimaxing solves over 95%. This level of performance was even good enough to allow us to discover five errors in the expert text used to generate the test database.
The Influence of Cooling Rate on the Fracture Properties of a Thermoplastic-Based Fibre-Metal Laminate

This paper investigates the effect of varying cooling rate on the mechanical properties of a novel fibre metal laminate based on glass-fibre polypropylene. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarised light microscopy have been used to identify differences in the matrix morphology resulting from varying the processing conditions. Additionally, the residual stresses in simple bi-material samples manufactured under different cooling conditions were quantified in order to understand the effect of the cooling rate on the mechanical properties of these multilayered materials. The results indicate that the residual stresses were greater in the fast cooled samples, whereas the degree of crystallinity was higher in slow cooled samples. The results highlight a strong link between processing conditions and mechanical properties under both fibre and matrix-dominated modes of loading. The flexural properties of the plain composites and the fibre-metal laminates were greater at the low cooling rates. Conversely, the tensile strength and interlaminar toughness for both types of material were greater for specimens manufactured using high cooling rates. Finally, faster cooling was shown to yield laminates with a superior impact resistance. It is believed that the rapid cooling of the laminates enhanced their resistance to interlaminar fracture, which in turn resulted in smaller damage areas after impact.
Elevation cable modeling for interactive simulation of cranes

In this paper, the way to simulate hoisting cables in real time is addressed. We overcome instability in such simulation by considering a two-layered model: a model for the dynamics of a cable passing through a set of pulleys and an oscillation model based on the classical one-dimensional wave equation. The first layer considers the interaction between the cable and pulleys with the elevation equipment, while the second layer simulates cable oscillation. Numerical instability is avoided by suspending the oscillation layer when required. Due to the system properties, this can be carried out in such a way that does not cause significant loss in the system quality. It considers the oscillation of the cable between every pair of pulleys, collision detection and the variation of the cable length very efficiently. Rendering issues are discussed, with remarks on how to prevent aliasing artifacts in the cable. Efficiency is analyzed, including performance tests which show that the model can be run very efficiently. The paper also covers how to integrate the model in a complex multibody simulation with a high degree of interactivity.
Optimization of Spoken Term Detection System

Generally speaking, spoken term detection system will degrade significantly because of mismatch between acoustic model and spontaneous speech. This paper presents an improved spoken term detection strategy, which integrated with a novel phoneme confusion matrix and an improved word-level minimum classification error (MCE) training method. The first technique is presented to improve spoken term detection rate while the second one is adopted to reject false accepts. On mandarin conversational telephone speech (CTS), the proposed methods reduce the equal error rate (EER) by 8.4% in relative.
Non-toxic retention of nanoceria in murine eyes

Purpose We have shown that cerium oxide nanoparticles (nanoceria), with unique characteristics and catalytic activities, are retained in the retina for more than 1 year after a single intravitreal injection and can be potentially used for the treatment of a variety of eye diseases. The objective of this study is to determine whether the retention of nanoceria in the eye causes inflammation or adverse side effects. Methods Wild-type (C57BL/6J) mice at P30 were intravitreally injected with several concentrations of nanoceria. The health of the photoreceptors was assessed by analyzing the expression of photoreceptor-specific genes, and the retinal structure and function. The effect of nanoceria was investigated by analyzing of the vascular system, the expression of inflammatory cytokines, and cellular infiltration into the eye. Results Our data showed that there were no changes in the retinal structure or function, or cytokine gene expression following a single intravitreal injection of nanoceria. Conclusions Nanoceria, at doses ranging from 17.2 ng to 1720 ng per eye, do not cause any damage to the retinal structure and function by 30 days post injection. No cellular infiltration and no increases in inflammatory responses were found in the eyes. Our data indicate that nanoceria are safe to use for treatment of a variety of eye diseases.
Adaptive Simulated Annealing: A Near-optimal Connection between Sampling and Counting

We present a near-optimal reduction from approximately counting the cardinality of a discrete set to approximately sampling elements of the set. An important application of our work is to approximating the partition function Z of a discrete system, such as the Ising model, matchings or colorings of a graph. The standard approach to estimating the partition function Z(beta*) at some desired inverse temperature beta* is to define a sequence, which we call a cooling schedule, beta0 = 0 < beta1 < ldrldrldr < betal = beta* where Z(0) is trivial to compute and the ratios Z(betai+1)/Z(betai) are easy to estimate by sampling from the distribution corresponding to Z(betai). Previous approaches required a cooling schedule of length O*(ln A) where A = Z(0), thereby ensuring that each ratio Z(betai+1)/Z(betai) is bounded. We present a cooling schedule of length l = O*(radicln A). For well-studied problems such as estimating the partition function of the Ising model, or approximating the number of colorings or matchings of a graph, our cooling schedule is of length O* (radicln) and the total number of samples required is O*(n). This implies an overall savings of a factor of roughly n in the running time of the approximate counting algorithm compared to the previous best approach. A similar improvement in the length of the cooling schedule was recently obtained by Lovtisz and Vempala in the context of estimating the volume of convex bodies. While our reduction is inspired by theirs, the discrete analogue of their result turns out to be significantly more difficult. Whereas a fixed schedule suffices in their setting, we prove that in the discrete setting we need an adaptive schedule, i. e. , the schedule depends on Z. More precisely, we prove any non-adaptive cooling schedule has length at least O*(ln A), and we present an algorithm to find an adaptive schedule of length O* (radicln A) and a nearly matching lower bound.
Reinforcement in tailor-made concrete structures

In tailor-made concrete structures of complex geometries, the formability of concrete is an asset. To use this formability in load-bearing structures, the concrete needs to be reinforced. During the past century steel bars were used; however, in recent decades, alternative reinforcement methods have been introduced. To survey the applicability of several reinforcement methods, a literature review was made; the key findings are discussed. Despite the advantages of many of the alternative reinforcement materials, it was realised that conventional reinforcement is, in most application, the best alternative in terms of the structural integrity provided. Moreover, a major advantage of conventional reinforcement is that it is regulated in standards and design codes worldwide, which facilitates the application. The inclusion of steel fibres can provide additional structural integrity or, in some applications, replace the conventional reinforcement. As fibres do not require any concrete cover, this can be a solution for thinner sections. The geometry of tailor-made concrete structures can deviate considerably from the standard structural idealisations, e.g. beams and slabs. Hence, two methods for the design of conventional reinforcement, based on linear finite element analyses using shell elements, were investigated in order to enable a rational design procedure. Both methods, which rely on a sandwich analogy, make it possible to calculate in a rational way the amount of reinforcement needed in unique structures. To enable the use of steel fibre reinforcement in tailor-made concrete structures, the modelling techniques, including the non-linear behaviour of steel fibre concrete, need to be developed further. This topic was addressed in a study of fibre reinforced concrete beams, which compared experiments, FE analysis, and design according to fib Model Code 2010. Good agreement was shown when load-deection curves from experiments were compared with FE analysis; however, the design method presented in fib Model Code 2010 underestimated the capacity of these beams. The underestimation increased with increasing fibre contents. In addition to the investigation, future research is proposed; a rational design method is needed that should include several features not covered in the two methods discussed, e.g., the effect of inclined shear cracking, the choice of optimal reinforcement direction, optimization for production, and the inclusion of design with steel fibre reinforcement.
Transitive Particle Verbs in English: The Neutral Order Evidence from Speech Production

With regard to the splitting of the verb-particle complex, the behaviour of English PV's differs from that of their German, Dutch, and Scandinavian counterparts. It is assumed in generative circles that the complex verb is base-generated in the VP-fmal position in the V2-1anguages German and Dutch. In V2 contexts such as main clauses the verb obligatorily moves syntactically into the highest functional head position of the sentence, leaving the particle stranded in the base position:
Computer implementation of Rosen Algorithm: application to control engineering (cid:3)

In some control engineering applications it is necessary to solve optimization problems with constraints: identi(cid:12)cation, predictive control, adaptive control, etc. In general, this problems have to be solved by numerical methods, since they does not have an analytic solution. So, it is very important to have a numerical method which can solve the most optimization problems. In this paper, the authors propose the use of the Gradient Projection Method of Rosen.
Semi-Dense Visual Odometry for Monocular Navigation in Clutt ered Environment

Recently, there have been numerous advances in the development of biologically inspired lightweight Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). Due to payload and power constraints it is necessary for such systems to have autonomous navigation and flight capabilites in highly dense and cluttered environments using only passive sensors such as cameras. This is a challenging problem, given they have to operate in highly variable illumination conditions and be responsive to large environmental variations. In this paper we describe a scale-aware monocular vision based semi-dense direct depth perception system that enables robust autonomous navigation of small agile MAVs at low altitude through natural forest environments. We also show qualitative results in an outdoor dense forest area.
Algorithm for the computation of region-based image edge profile acutance

We propose an algorithm for the computation of a region-based measure of image edge profile (IEP) acutance based on graylevel variations across the boundary of an object. A procedure to calculate the acutance based on region growing and a root-mean-squared gradient measure across region boundaries has been designed and implemented. After testing the algorithm on various images, it is shown that this measure of acutance can accurately reflect changes in the appearance of objects due to blurring and sharpening operations. Using this technique, it should be possible to quantify the level of enhancement in a digital image by calculating the acutance before and after the enhancement operation. The measure should also be useful in comparing specific features or regions of interest in images produced by different imaging systems.
A Novel Substrate Used for Simultaneous SERS and RAIR

A novel substrate, whose silver particles were deposited on both sides of a slide, was made by silver mirror reaction. Its two sides had different thinness and reflectivity and they were suited for the test of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIR) technique respectively.
Investigation of surface damages during sheet metal forming using acoustic emission

In this article, the acoustic emission technique has been used to study a well-known surface damage mechanism, known as galling, during experimental simulation of sheet metal forming process. Results illustrated that the galling starts with relatively low-amplitude acoustic emission waves, corresponding to the elastic–plastic deformation of surface asperities (stage I), followed by a continually graduate rise in the acoustic emission activities related to the sheet material transfer to the slider tool along with lump growth (stage II), and ended to some waves with the highest amplitude and energy corresponding to the severe plowing and rupture of the friction junctions (stage III).
Differential Cytokine Responses following Marek's Disease Virus Infection of Chickens Differing in Resistance to Marek's Disease

ABSTRACT The production of cytokine mRNAs, in addition to viral DNA, was quantified by real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) (cytokines) or PCR (virus) in splenocytes during the course of Marek's disease virus (MDV) infection in four inbred chicken lines: two resistant (lines 61 and N) and two susceptible (lines 72 and P). Virus loads were only different after 10 days postinfection (dpi), increasing in susceptible lines and decreasing in resistant lines. Gamma interferon (IFN-γ) mRNA was expressed by splenocytes from all infected birds between 3 and 10 dpi, associated with increasing MDV loads. For other cytokines, differences between lines were only seen for interleukin-6 (IL-6) and IL-18, with splenocytes from susceptible birds expressing high levels of both transcripts during the cytolytic phase of infection, whereas splenocytes from resistant birds expressed neither transcript. These results indicate that these two cytokines could play a crucial role in driving immune responses, which in resistant lines maintain MDV latency but in susceptible lines result in lymphomas.