Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parallel Computation of Skyline and Reverse Skyline Queries Using MapReduce

The skyline operator and its variants such as dynamic skyline and reverse skyline operators have attracted considerable attention recently due to their broad applications. However, computations of such operators are challenging today since there is an increasing trend of applications to deal with big data. For such data-intensive applications, the MapReduce framework has been widely used recently. In this paper, we propose efficient parallel algorithms for processing the skyline and its variants using MapReduce. We first build histograms to effectively prune out nonskyline (non-reverse skyline) points in advance. We next partition data based on the regions divided by the histograms and compute candidate (reverse) skyline points for each region independently using MapReduce. Finally, we check whether each candidate point is actually a (reverse) skyline point in every region independently. Our performance study confirms the effectiveness and scalability of the proposed algorithms.
The Impact of Participation in Extracurricular Activities on School Achievement of French Middle School Students: Human Capital and Cultural Capital Revisited

Abstract:The impact of participation in extracurricular activities on academic success has long been studied in the social sciences. This article aims at improving the measurement and understanding of this impact. Based on panel data regression models applied to a panel of French middle school students, it first provides a robust estimation of the impact of extracurricular activities on school outcomes (marks in French and Mathematics) and on a set of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. It finds a positive and significant impact on marks in French and Mathematics and scores on non-cognitive skills tests. No impact is found on cognitive skills. The article then investigates the underlying mechanisms of this impact. Its findings do not reinforce the transfer paradigm, according to which extracurricular activities provide students who participate in them with skills that they can reinvest in school life. Neither does it support the notion that such an impact may primarily be the result of students' greater connivance with the cultural standards of teachers. Instead, it seems likely that what is mainly at stake in participation in extracurricular activities is families' unequal capacity for extending the time of school supervision in their children's free time. Therefore, insofar as the varying participation in these activities is strongly correlated to differences in students' social and cultural background, participation in extracurricular activities would in itself contribute to reinforcing social inequalities in school achievement.
Microbial Lifestyle and Genome Signatures

Microbes are known for their unique ability to adapt to varying lifestyle and environment, even to the extreme or adverse ones. The genomic architecture of a microbe may bear the signatures not only of its phylogenetic position, but also of the kind of lifestyle to which it is adapted. The present review aims to provide an account of the specific genome signatures observed in microbes acclimatized to distinct lifestyles or ecological niches. Niche-specific signatures identified at different levels of microbial genome organization like base composition, GC-skew, purine-pyrimidine ratio, dinucleotide abundance, codon bias, oligonucleotide composition etc. have been discussed. Among the specific cases highlighted in the review are the phenomena of genome shrinkage in obligatory host-restricted microbes, genome expansion in strictly intra-amoebal pathogens, strand-specific codon usage in intracellular species, acquisition of genome islands in pathogenic or symbiotic organisms, discriminatory genomic traits of marine microbes with distinct trophic strategies, and conspicuous sequence features of certain extremophiles like those adapted to high temperature or high salinity.
The genetic heterogeneity and mutational burden of engineered melanomas in zebrafish models

Jennifer Yen (jy3@sanger.ac.uk) Richard M White (whiter@mskcc.org) David C Wedge (dw9@sanger.ac.uk) Peter Van Loo (pvl@sanger.ac.uk) Jeroen de Ridder (j.deridder@tudelft.nl) Amy Capper (amy.capper@hgu.mrc.ac.uk) Jennifer Richardson (jennifer.richardson@hgu.mrc.ac.uk) David Jones (drj@sanger.ac.uk) Keiran Raine (kr2@sanger.ac.uk) Ian R Watson (irwatson@mdanderson.org) Chang-Jiun Wu (cwu7@mdanderson.org) Jiqiu Cheng (jiqiu.cheng@esat.kuleuven.be) Iñigo Martincorena (im3@sanger.ac.uk) Serena Nik-Zainal (snz@sanger.ac.uk) Laura Mudie (lm5@sanger.ac.uk) Yves Moreau (yves.moreau@esat.kuleuven.be) John Marshall (jm18@sanger.ac.uk) Manasa Ramakrishna (mr9@sanger.ac.uk) Patrick Tarpey (pst@sanger.ac.uk) Adam Shlien (as16@sanger.ac.uk) Ian Whitmore (iw2@sanger.ac.uk) Steve Gamble (sg8@sanger.ac.uk) Calli Latimer (cdt@sanger.ac.uk) Erin Langdon (langdone@mskcc.org) Charles Kaufman (charles.kaufman@childrens.harvard.edu) Mike Dovey (mike.dovey@gmail.com) Alison Taylor (alison_taylor@dfci.harvard.edu) Andy Menzies (am3@sanger.ac.uk) Stuart McLaren (sm2@sanger.ac.uk) Sarah O¿Meara (som@sanger.ac.uk) Adam Butler (apb@sanger.ac.uk) Jon Teague (jwt@sanger.ac.uk) James Lister (jalister@vcu.edu) Lynda Chin (lchin@mdanderson.org) Peter Campbell (pc8@sanger.ac.uk) David J Adams (da1@sanger.ac.uk) Leonard I Zon (zon@enders.tch.harvard.edu) E Elizabeth Patton (elizabeth.patton@hgu.mrc.ac.uk) Derek L Stemple (ds4@sanger.ac.uk) Genome Biology
EventCJ: a context-oriented programming language with declarative event-based context transition

This paper proposes EventCJ, a context-oriented programming (COP) language that can modularly control layer activation based on user-defined events. In addition to defining context-specific behaviors by using existing COP constructs, the EventCJ programmer declares events to specify when and on which instance layer switching should happen, and layer transition rules to specify which layers should be activated/deactivated upon events. These constructs enable controlling layer activation on a per-instance basis, separately from a base program. We also demonstrate an approach to verify safety properties of layer transitions by using a model checker. With these advantages, EventCJ enables more modular descriptions of context-aware programs, especially when layer switching is triggered in many places of a program, or by activities external to the base program. We implemented a prototype EventCJ compiler with Eclipse IDE support.
Wildlife Crime Melanie Wellsmith DRAFT PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE OR CIRCULATE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

Environmental and wildlife crime appear recently to be benefitting from an increasing profile amongst those agencies tasked with their control, as well as receiving growing criminological attention. Despite this, those with responsibilities in this area report that it remains marginalised, receiving limited resources and suffering from a lack of political impetus to push such problems higher up the agenda. This is particularly so for those agencies, such as the police, that may be seen to have many more pressing objectives. This discussion paper considers the problems of relying on an enforcement approach to controlling such offences, taking, as an example, those activities that may be termed ‘wildlife crime’, focusing on the situation in England and Wales. Firstly, the legislative framework that criminalises harm or exploitation of wildlife is presented, alongside the main enforcement methods used. Next, the problems facing an enforcement approach are critically considered, the key issues being: underresourcing and marginalisation, the large ‘dark figure’ of wildlife crime, the possibility of corruption, the lack of seriousness with which such crimes are viewed, and the lack of deterrent effect. Finally, responses to the problems of enforcement are presented, categorised as either methods to improve enforcement or, as the author advocates, methods which are alternatives to enforcement (such as adopting a crime prevention approach). The paper concludes with suggestions for future research in this field.
Large-Scale Network Analysis to Improve Retrieval in the Biomedical Domain

1. Problem MEDLINE is the authoritative repository of abstracts from the primary literature in the biomedical domain, maintained by the National Library of Medicine. It currently contains over 17 million records. PubMed [1] is a publicly accessible Web gateway to the system. It is considered one of the most important resources available to researchers in biology, medicine, biochemistry, etc. Currently, PubMed implements a Boolean search algorithm that sorts results in reverse chronological order.
Impact of the Dexteria™ application use on visual–motor integration in elementary-age children

ABSTRACT Use of iPad technology in the classroom may facilitate learning, engagement, motivation, and interest (Crescenzi, Jewitt, & Price, 2014). The Dexteria™ iPad application was implemented into first grade curriculum using a nonequivalent control group design to explore impact on visual–motor integration (VMI) skills using the Beery–Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual–Motor Integration (Beery VMI) as an assessment tool. The experimental group (n = 23) participated in traditional curriculum combined with the Dexteria™ app whereas the control group (n = 20) received only the traditional curriculum for 4 weeks. Pretest and posttest Beery VMI administration yielded raw scores which were compared for significance. The results of the comparison between groups were deemed inconclusive due to the minute difference in mean scores of the experimental group (M = .087) and control group (M = 0). Although the study did not yield statistically significant results, findings of the study may have clinical relevance and contribute to the broad literature supporting the addition of interactive technological interventions in the classroom.
On the Performance of Clock Synchronization Algorithms for a Distributed Commodity Audio System

In this paper we investigate clock synchronization algorithms for a distributed audio system built with commercial off-the-shelf IT components. Ethernet technology and standard PC hardware offer high performance at a low price but lack important timeliness properties. To allow accurate reproduction of multichannel audio, the interfaces have to be synchronized within a few microseconds. We have implemented three different types of clock synchronization algorithms on a Linux based system and have analyzed the achieved accuracy. All algorithms can achieve the target accuracy of 10μs, but differ in their communication requirements. The results show that Ethernet can be used for a distributed audio system under professional synchronization requirements. AES 114 CONVENTION, AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS, 2003 MARCH 22–25
Localization of Core Spindle Pole Body (SPB) Components during SPB Duplication in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

We have examined the process of spindle pole body (SPB) duplication in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by electron microscopy and found several stages. These include the assembly, probably from the satellite, of a large plaque-like structure, the duplication plaque, on the cytoplasmic face of the half-bridge and its insertion into the nuclear envelope. We analyzed the role of the main SPB components in the formation of these structures by identifying them from an SPB core fraction by mass spectrometry. Temperature-sensitive mutants for two of the components, Spc29p and Nud1p, were prepared to partly define their function. The composition of two of the intermediates in SPB duplication, the satellite and the duplication plaque, was examined by immunoelectron microscopy. Both contain cytoplasmic SPB components showing that duplication has already been partly achieved by the end of the preceding cell cycle when the satellite is formed. We show that by overexpression of SPB components the structure of the satellite can be changed and SPB duplication inhibited by disrupting the attachment of the plaque-like intermediate to the half-bridge. We present a model for SPB duplication where binding of SPB components to either end of the bridge structure ensures two separate SPBs.
Ab initio study of hot electrons in GaAs

Significance How does an excited electron lose its energy? This problem is central in fields ranging from condensed matter physics to electrical engineering and chemistry. The cooling of hot electrons in gallium arsenide (GaAs) is the critical process underlying the operation of exciting electronic and optoelectronic devices, but the nature of this cooling is controversial. Here, we present calculations showing that hot electrons in GaAs lose energy chiefly by emitting lattice vibrations. We find a dominant role of acoustic vibrations, challenging the common notion that optical vibrations dominate excited electron energy loss. Our computational approach shines light on microscopic processes that are hard to capture with both experiments and semi-empirical calculations and opens new avenues to compute excited electron dynamics. Hot carrier dynamics critically impacts the performance of electronic, optoelectronic, photovoltaic, and plasmonic devices. Hot carriers lose energy over nanometer lengths and picosecond timescales and thus are challenging to study experimentally, whereas calculations of hot carrier dynamics are cumbersome and dominated by empirical approaches. In this work, we present ab initio calculations of hot electrons in gallium arsenide (GaAs) using density functional theory and many-body perturbation theory. Our computed electron–phonon relaxation times at the onset of the Γ, L, and X valleys are in excellent agreement with ultrafast optical experiments and show that the ultrafast (tens of femtoseconds) hot electron decay times observed experimentally arise from electron–phonon scattering. This result is an important advance to resolve a controversy on hot electron cooling in GaAs. We further find that, contrary to common notions, all optical and acoustic modes contribute substantially to electron–phonon scattering, with a dominant contribution from transverse acoustic modes. This work provides definitive microscopic insight into hot electrons in GaAs and enables accurate ab initio computation of hot carriers in advanced materials.
Liver Deformation in Ahr-Null Mice: Evidence for Aberrant Hepatic Perfusion In Early Development

Mice harboring mutations in the Ahr locus display a patent ductus venosus and smaller livers throughout life. We tested the hypothesis that these hepatic aberrations are secondary to a developmental defect in hepatovascular blood flow by performing a detailed analysis of hepatic development in wild-type and Ahr-/- mice. This study revealed necrotic lesions in the peripheries of Ahr-/- fetal livers as early as embryonic day 15.5, with an increasing incidence up to postnatal day 1 and resolution by 2 weeks post partum. To visualize perfusion of fetal livers, we injected fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled dextran into the cranial artery and monitored hepatic fluorescence by microscopy. The peripheries of the median and left lobes displayed decreased perfusion in regions corresponding to those regions that displayed necrosis at later developmental times. An examination of adult Ahr-/- animals revealed that smaller livers are predominantly due to decreased sizes of the left and right lobes, corresponding to regions of decreased perfusion and hepatic necrosis observed in fetal livers. Histological aberrations in the portal vein also support a model in which perfusion is compromised in the Ahr-/- liver. Taken in sum, these results indicate that the Ahr locus is required for normal perfusion of the developing liver and that disruption of the AHR signaling pathway gives rise to fetal hepatic necrosis and consequent liver deformation which persists through adult-hood.
From text question-answering to multimedia QA on web-scale media resources

With the proliferation of text and multimedia information, users are now able to find answers to almost any questions on the Web. Meanwhile, they are also bewildered by the huge amount of information routinely presented to them. Question-answering (QA) is a natural direction to address this information over-loading problem. The aim of QA is to return precise answers to users' questions. Text-based QA research has been carried out for the past 15 years with good success especially for answering fact-based questions. The aim of this paper is to extend the text-based QA research to multimedia QA to tackle a range of factoid, definition and "how-to" QA in a common framework. The system will be designed to find multimedia answers from Web-scale media resources such as Flicker and YouTube. This paper describes the architecture and our recent research on various types of multimedia QA for a range of applications. The paper also discusses directions for future research.
Development of Path Integral Monte Carlo Simulations with Localized Nodal Surfaces for Second-Row Elements.

We extend the applicability range of fermionic path integral Monte Carlo simulations to heavier elements and lower temperatures by introducing various localized nodal surfaces. Hartree-Fock nodes yield the most accurate prediction for pressure and internal energy, which we combine with the results from density functional molecular dynamics simulations to obtain a consistent equation of state for hot, dense silicon under plasma conditions and in the regime of warm dense matter (2.3-18.6 g cm(-3), 5.0×10(5)-1.3×10(8) K). The shock Hugoniot curve is derived and the structure of the fluid is characterized with various pair correlation functions.
Unbiased Estimator for Genetic Drift and Effective Population Size

Amounts of genetic drift and the effective size of populations can be estimated from observed temporal shifts in sample allele frequencies. Bias in this so-called temporal method has been noted in cases of small sample sizes and when allele frequencies are highly skewed. We characterize bias in commonly applied estimators under different sampling plans and propose an alternative estimator for genetic drift and effective size that weights alleles differently. Numerical evaluations of exact probability distributions and computer simulations verify that this new estimator yields unbiased estimates also when based on a modest number of alleles and loci. At the cost of a larger standard deviation, it thus eliminates the bias associated with earlier estimators. The new estimator should be particularly useful for microsatellite loci and panels of SNPs, representing a large number of alleles, many of which will occur at low frequencies.
Insights into the Experience of Brand Betrayal: From What People Say and What the Brain Reveals

Brand betrayal is a state evoked when a brand with which one has previously established a strong self–brand connection fractures a relationship by engaging in a moral violation. We know little about whether brand betrayal is merely an extreme form of brand dissatisfaction or is a distinct state experienced differently from dissatisfaction. Herein, two studies shed new light into the experience of brand betrayal. A large-scale psychometric study shows that brand betrayal (vs. dissatisfaction) is associated with feelings of psychological loss, self-castigation over one’s prior relationship with the brand, indignation-focused versus frustration-focused anger, and rumination. A functional neuroimaging experiment further demonstrates that brand betrayal and brand dissatisfaction can be differentiated neurophysiologically, holding all else equal. These effects suggest that compared with brand dissatisfaction, brand betrayal is likely to be more harmful to both the brand and the brand relationship, and more difficult for marketers to deflect, with longer lasting consequences.
Recursive estimation in hidden Markov models

We consider a hidden Markov model (HMM) with multidimensional observations, and where the coefficients (transition probability matrix, and observation conditional densities) depend on some unknown parameter. We study the asymptotic behaviour of two recursive estimators, the recursive maximum likelihood estimator (RMLE), and the recursive conditional least squares estimator (RCLSE), as the number of observations increases to infinity. Firstly, we exhibit the contrast functions associated with the two non-recursive estimators, and we prove that the recursive estimators converge a.s. to the set of stationary points of the corresponding contrast function. Secondly, we prove that the two recursive estimators are asymptotically normal.
Minimum latency server selection for heterogeneous cloud services

Server selection is an important problem of cloud computing in which cloud service providers direct user demands to servers in one of the multiple data centers located in different geographical locations. The existing solutions usually assume homogeneity of cloud services (i.e., all users request the same type of service) and handle user demands in an individual basis which incurs high computational overhead. In this study, we propose a new and effective server selection scheme in which diversities of cloud services are taken into account. We focus on a specific cloud service, i.e., online video service, and assume that different videos have different bandwidth requirements. We group users into clusters and handle user demands on a cluster basis for faster and more efficient process. Given user demands and bandwidth capacities of servers in the data centers, our problem is to assign the user demands to the servers under the bandwidth constraint, such that the overall latency (measured by the network distance) between the user clusters and the selected servers is minimized. We design a server selection system and formulate this problem as a linear programming formulation which can be solved by existing techniques. The system periodically executes our scheme and computes an optimal solution for server selection. User demands are assigned to the servers according to the optimal solution and the minimum overall latency can be achieved. The simulation results show that our scheme is significantly better than the random algorithm and the YouTube server selection strategy.