Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A genetic algorithm based resources optimization methodology for implementing artificial neural networks on FPGAs

Most of the artificial neural networks (ANN) based applications are implemented on FPGAs using fixed-point arithmetic. The problem is to achieve a balance between the need for numeric precision, which is important for network accuracy, and the cost of logic areas, i.e. FPGA resources. In this paper we propose a genetic algorithm based methodology permitting the optimization of the FPGA resources needed for the implementation of a Pipelined Recurrent Neural Network(PRNN) while respecting the precision constraints. The quality of our methodology will be evaluated through experiment on a PRNN based Wideband cdma receiver. Our methodology is not restricted to this class of ANNs and can be used for any complex with variable dimensions system.
Survey on Prediction Algorithms in Smart Homes

The world has entered into a “smart” era. One area becoming smart is the place where we live—homes. Smart homes are expected to be equipped with numerous sensors to continually monitor, sense, and actuate the space. The data from these sensors can be used to provide various types of services by automating common tasks while causing minimal disruption to daily life. In order to provide these services, a system must have sufficient intelligence to predict future events based on its observations. This paper first examines the requirements for smart home predictions. It then comprehensively reviews prediction algorithms and variations that have been proposed and investigated in smart environments, such as smart homes. It is these prediction algorithms that provide the intelligence required by a smart home. Comparisons are also made upon these prediction algorithms on their features and models.
Dynamic converter reconfiguration for near-threshold non-volatile processors using in-door energy harvesting

Energy harvesting is becoming a preferred choice for future wearable embedded systems compared to batteries because of size, longevity, and maintenance convenience. However, harvested energy is intrinsically unstable. In order to overcome this drawback, non-volatile processors (NVPs) have been proposed to bridge intermittent program execution. However, the harvested power is limited even with multiple energy harvesters when they are in-door. Therefore, a near-threshold processor is ideal to maintain low power consumption. One of the biggest challenges in realizing near-threshold non-volatile processor is to provide a required high write voltage to non-volatile memories when there is a power failure and checkpoint is needed. In order to address this challenge, in this paper, we propose a dynamic converter reconfiguration for ambient energy harvesting-based NVPs to support near-threshold computing. We further investigate thorough optimization techniques to achieve high robustness in reconfiguration and checkpointing, high conversion efficiency, and low ripple magnitude. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed techniques can significantly reduce the power consumption and improve the performance of energy harvesters and NVPs.
Cumulative Timed Intent: A New Predictive Tool for Technology Adoption

Despite multiple calls for the integration of time into behavioral intent measurement, surprisingly little academic research has examined timed intent measures directly. In two empirical studies, the authors estimate individual-level cumulative adoption likelihood curves—curves calibrated on self-reported adoption likelihoods for cumulative time intervals across a fixed horizon—of 478 managerial decision makers, self-predicting whether and when they will adopt a relevant technology. A hierarchical Bayes formulation allows for a heterogeneous account of the individual-level adoption likelihood curves as a function of time and common antecedents of technology adoption. A third study generalizes these results among 354 consumer decision makers and, using behavioral data collected during a two-year longitudinal study involving a subsample of 143 consumer decision makers, provides empirical evidence for the accuracy of cumulative adoption likelihood curves for predicting whether and when a technology is adopted. Cumulative adoption likelihood curves outperform two single-intent measures as well as two widely validated intent models in predicting individual-level adoption for a fixed period of two years. The results hold great promise for further research on using and optimizing cumulative timed intent measures across a variety of application domains.
Alphabet Soup

We appreciate Dr. Braun and colleagues’ professional assessment of our recent peripheral quantitative computerized tomography (pQCT) work that reflects their long experience with pQCT technology. Most of their comments concern important issues that pertain to terminology and standardization, and also choices and compromises necessitated by practice. Needless to say, all these issues have been (and will be) subject to debate and varying opinions. We therefore welcome this opportunity to participate in this discussion and respond to the points raised by our German colleagues. First, the bone strength index (BSI) we applied in our study was exactly the manufacturer-derived strengthstrain index (SSI) value (i.e., voxel-by-voxel basis densityweighted polar section modulus). However, instead of using “proprietary” terminology, we naturally used the appropriate bone strength index (here SSI) but preferred to abbreviate it generically as BSI, however at the price of apparent confusion. It is true that our BSI and the specifically defined BSI (which estimates flexural rigidity [EI] of a bone section) by Ferretti et al. may well become confused. Further, it is certain that novel or refined BSIs will be developed and published in the literature. Therefore, to avoid confusion, it is necessary to define the particular index unambiguously and to bring up appropriate references whenever available. Taken together, we feel that BSI is a good generic abbreviation for any reasonably defined bone strength index.
A Spitzer Space Telescope Study of SN 2003gd: Still No Direct Evidence that Core-Collapse Supernovae are Major Dust Factories

We present a new, detailed analysis of late-time mid-infrared observations of the Type II-P supernova (SN) 2003gd. At about 16 months after the explosion, the mid-IR flux is consistent with emission from 4 × 10-5 M☉ of newly condensed dust in the ejecta. At 22 months emission from pointlike sources close to the SN position was detected at 8 and 24 μm. By 42 months the 24 μm flux had faded. Considerations of luminosity and source size rule out the ejecta of SN 2003gd as the main origin of the emission at 22 months. A possible alternative explanation for the emission at this later epoch is an IR echo from preexisting circumstellar or interstellar dust. We conclude that, contrary to the claim of Sugerman and coworkers, the mid-IR emission from SN 2003gd does not support the presence of 0.02 M☉ of newly formed dust in the ejecta. There is, as yet, no direct evidence that core-collapse supernovae are major dust factories.
No injuries, but plenty of pain? On the methodology for recording overuse symptoms in sports

Overuse injuries may represent as much of a problem as do acute injuries in many sports. This paper reviews key concepts related to the methodology for recording overuse symptoms. Results from the FIVB Volleyball Injury Study were used to compare two different recording methods. The aim of this paper was to provide recommendations on how standardised methodology can be developed to quantify overuse injuries in surveillance studies. Using beach volleyball data, a “traditional” cohort study approach using a time-loss injury definition suggested that injury risk was very low. In contrast, the data from a survey of past and present pain problems in the shoulder, knees and low back demonstrated that these were prevalent. The following recommendations are made: (1) studies should be prospective, with continuous or serial measurements of symptoms; (2) valid and sensitive scoring instruments need to be developed to measure pain and other relevant symptoms; (3) prevalence and not incidence should be used to report injury risk; (4) severity should be measured based on functional level and not time loss from sports. In conclusion, new approaches are needed to develop more appropriate methodology to quantify overuse injuries in studies.
Can two-way immersion education support the EU aims of multilingualism, social cohesion and student/worker mobility?

For decades, the EU has promoted multilingualism and geographic mobility. This concentrated on official EU languages, and later also on regional and less-used languages, but migrant languageshave largely been kept off the EU agenda. There has been a change in the last few years, and the EU has widened its language agenda, in some instances explicitly including migrant languages. Furthermore, the plight of migrant communities and social cohesion issues have also attracted attention in the EU. In practice, schools largely adhere to the monolingual habitus, expecting all children to speak the same language. This practice has shown to disadvantage children who speak a language other than the language of instruction at school entry. This paper discusses two-way immersion education that uses two languages to teach majority- and migrant-language speakers together in one class, where they can develop both languages to high levels of proficiency by learning with and from each other. Based on evidence from North America and Germany, this paper evaluates this school model in terms of its capacity to meet three aims formulated by the EU: personal and societal multilingualism; geographic mobility; and social integration. It concludes that two-way immersion education may be an appropriate European model to support relevant EU policy developments.
Linear stratified approach for 3D modelling and calibration using full geometric constraints

There have been many approaches to obtain 3D modeling and camera calibration simultaneously from uncalibrated images using parallelism, orthogonality and self-calibration constraints. These approaches can give more stable results with fewer images and allow us to gain the results with only linear operations in most cases. It has been proved that the estimation results are accurate enough to be used as the initial values for nonlinear optimization to refine the results. In this paper, it is shown that all the linear constraints used in the previous works performed independently up to now can be implemented easily in the proposed linear method. The proposed method uses a stratified approach, in which affine reconstruction is performed first and then metric reconstruction. In this procedure, the additional constraints newly extracted in this paper have an important role for affine reconstruction in practical situations. The study on the situations that can not be dealt with by the previous approaches is presented and it is shown that the proposed method being able to handle the cases is more flexible in use.
Prior Subspace Analysis for Drum Transcription

This paper introduces the technique of Prior Subspace Analysis (PSA) as an alternative to Independent Subspace Analysis (ISA) in cases where prior knowledge about the sources to be separated is available. The use of prior knowledge overcomes some of the problems associated with ISA, in particular the problem of estimating the amount of information required for separation. This results in improved robustness for drum transcription purposes. Prior knowledge is incorporated by use of a set of prior frequency subspaces that characterise features of the sources to be extracted. The effectiveness and robustness of PSA is demonstrated by its use in a simple drum transcription algorithm.
Effect of imatinib as add-on therapy on echocardiographic measures of right ventricular function in patients with significant pulmonary arterial hypertension.

AIMS Imatinib mesylate, as add-on therapy in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) who remain inadequately treated despite receiving at least two PAH-specific drugs, improves exercise capacity and haemodynamics. We evaluated whether 24 weeks of add-on therapy with imatinib compared with placebo also improves right ventricular (RV) function assessed by echocardiography. METHODS AND RESULTS Echocardiograms were obtained at baseline, 12 weeks, and 24 weeks in 74 patients randomized to imatinib or placebo in the Imatinib in Pulmonary arterial hypertension, a Randomized Efficacy Study (IMPRES) trial. Right ventricular function was assessed by tissue Doppler tricuspid annular peak systolic velocity (TA S'), tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE), RV Tei index, and RV fractional area change. Between-treatment-group differences in the changes from baseline to week-24 were assessed using an ANCOVA with the last observation carried forward. At week-24 patients randomized to imatinib demonstrated greater improvements in TA S' (1.6 ± 2.3 imatinib vs. 0.5 ± 2.4 cm/s placebo, P = 0.007) and RV Tei index (-0.11 ± 0.18 imatinib vs. 0.05 ± 0.18 placebo, P = 0.005) compared with placebo, but not in TAPSE (0.07 ± 0.44 imatinib vs. 0.03 ± 0.32 cm placebo, P = 0.08). Imatinib therapy was also associated with significant reduction in peak tricuspid regurgitation velocity, increase in LV size, and improvement in LV early diastolic relaxation velocity. CONCLUSIONS Among patients with advanced PAH who remain symptomatic on at least two PAH-specific drugs, treatment with imatinib compared with placebo is associated with significant improvements in echocardiographic measures of RV function, in addition to LV size and LV early diastolic relaxation. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION NCT00902174 (Clinicaltrials.gov).
Transitional Experiences of First-Year College Students Who Were Homeschooled

This study examined transitional experiences of first-year college students who were homeschooled in high school. It sought to determine if experiences of such students corresponded with Tinto's (1988, 1993) theory of student departure. The qualitative study found that there was little distinction between the transitional experiences of homeschooled students and traditionally educated students. During their first year of college, students experienced transitional issues such as loneliness, meeting others with different values, and dealing with greater independence. Academic and student support services, such as orientation, resident assistants, and campus programming, were influential institutional interventions in their transition to college.
[The measurement of "coping". French translation and validation of the Vitaliano's scale (Vitaliano et al. 1985)].

Coping is currently defined as "the various cognitive or behavioral efforts intended to master or tolerate the internal or external demands which threaten or go beyond the resources of a subject "(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The general objective of this work was to present the french version of a coping scale (Vitaliano et al., 1985) for the assessment of the different types of coping strategies which one can use when confronting an adversive event. Our population is composed of 501 adults (329 female and 172 males) of the age of 20 to 35 years. A Principal Component Analysis gave us a general factor of coping (12% V.T.) which gathers emotional focused strategies and problem focused strategies. The factorial analysis with varimax rotation confirmed the existence of 5 specific types of coping strategies. These are "solving problem" factor (9.4% V.T.), "avoidance with wishful thinking" factor (7.5% V.T.), "seeks social support" factor (6.5% V.T.), "positive reevaluation" factor (5.9% V.T.) and "self-blamed" (5.7% V.T.). These results allowed us to construct a valid questionnaire of 29 items measuring 5 types of coping strategies.
Location Privacy-Preserving Task Allocation for Mobile Crowdsensing with Differential Geo-Obfuscation

In traditional mobile crowdsensing applications, organizers need participants' precise locations for optimal task allocation, e.g., minimizing selected workers' travel distance to task locations. However, the exposure of their locations raises privacy concerns. Especially for those who are not eventually selected for any task, their location privacy is sacrificed in vain. Hence, in this paper, we propose a location privacy-preserving task allocation framework with geo-obfuscation to protect users' locations during task assignments. Specifically, we make participants obfuscate their reported locations under the guarantee of differential privacy, which can provide privacy protection regardless of adversaries' prior knowledge and without the involvement of any third-part entity. In order to achieve optimal task allocation with such differential geo-obfuscation, we formulate a mixed-integer non-linear programming problem to minimize the expected travel distance of the selected workers under the constraint of differential privacy. Evaluation results on both simulation and real-world user mobility traces show the effectiveness of our proposed framework. Particularly, our framework outperforms Laplace obfuscation, a state-of-the-art differential geo-obfuscation mechanism, by achieving 45% less average travel distance on the real-world data.
Hippocampal cGMP-Dependent Protein Kinase I Supports an Age- and Protein Synthesis-Dependent Component of Long-Term Potentiation But Is Not Essential for Spatial Reference and Contextual Memory

cGMP-dependent protein kinase I (cGKI) is expressed in the hippocampus, but its role in hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) is controversial. In addition, whether cGKI is involved in spatial learning has not been investigated. To address these issues, we generated mice with a hippocampus-specific deletion of cGKI (cGKIhko mice). Unlike conventional cGKI knock-out mice, cGKIhko mice lack gastrointestinal and cardiovascular phenotypes and have a normal life expectancy, which enables us to analyze hippocampal synaptic plasticity and learning in young and adult animals. Hippocampal LTP after repetitive episodes of theta burst stimulation was impaired in adult (12–14 weeks of age) but not in juvenile (3–4 weeks of age) cGKIhko mice. The difference in LTP between adult control and cGKIhko mice was abolished by the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin, suggesting that the impairment of LTP in adult cGKIhko mice reflects a defect in late-phase LTP. Despite their deficit in LTP, adult cGKIhko mutants showed normal performance in a discriminatory water maze and had intact contextual fear conditioning. These results suggest that hippocampal cGKI supports an age- and protein synthesis-dependent form of hippocampal LTP, whereas it is dispensable for hippocampus-dependent spatial reference and contextual memory.
Anti-Toxoplasma effects of dapsone alone and combined with pyrimethamine

The efficacy of dapsone alone or combined with pyrimethamine against Toxoplasma gondii was investigated experimentally. For in vitro studies, a sensitive immunoassay was used for assessment of Toxoplasma growth in tissue cultures; dapsone was found to have a significant inhibitory effect at a concentration of 0.5 micrograms/ml in the cultures, and the 50% inhibitory concentration was estimated to be 0.55 micrograms/ml. When pyrimethamine and dapsone were combined, an important synergistic effect which was associated with morphological alterations of the parasites was observed. In vivo studies were performed in a murine model of acute toxoplasmosis in which a tissue culture method was used to estimate the parasite burden in the blood, lungs, and brains of infected mice. Dapsone alone, which was administered at 100 mg/kg/day for 10 days from day 1 after infection, was unable to prevent parasite dissemination and only delayed the time to death of treated mice compared with the time of death of untreated controls. When dapsone and pyrimethamine (18.5 mg/kg/day) were administered in combination from day 4 after infection, parasites were cleared from blood and organs within 6 days, but relapses were observed 15 days after the cessation of therapy. When treatment was started at day 1 after infection, 100% of mice survived and relapses were not observed, suggesting a good efficacy of this combination for preventive therapy.
Molecular Insights into the Dynamics of Pharmacogenetically Important N-Terminal Variants of the Human β2-Adrenergic Receptor

The human β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR), a member of the G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) family, is expressed in bronchial smooth muscle cells. Upon activation by agonists, β2AR causes bronchodilation and relief in asthma patients. The N-terminal polymorphism of β2AR at the 16th position, Arg16Gly, has warranted a lot of attention since it is linked to variations in response to albuterol (agonist) treatment. Although the β2AR is one of the well-studied GPCRs, the N-terminus which harbors this mutation, is absent in all available experimental structures. The goal of this work was to study the molecular level differences between the N-terminal variants using structural modeling and atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Our simulations reveal that the N-terminal region of the Arg variant shows greater dynamics than the Gly variant, leading to differential placement. Further, the position and dynamics of the N-terminal region, further, affects the ligand binding-site accessibility. Interestingly, long-range effects are also seen at the ligand binding site, which is marginally larger in the Gly as compared to the Arg variant resulting in the preferential docking of albuterol to the Gly variant. This study thus reveals key differences between the variants providing a molecular framework towards understanding the variable drug response in asthma patients.
Model-Based Radio and Channel Assignment in IEEE 802.11 Wireless Mesh Networks

Local area wireless networks based on IEEE 802.11 have a cellular topology: Stations associate to one of several access points, which are connected using a wired backbone. As connectivity is only possible close to the access points, a dense infrastructure is needed, resulting in high costs. A Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) replaces the wired backbone by radio: Only few access points are installed; mesh points extend their coverage by forwarding data over wireless hops. Hence, deployment costs are reduced. Since the wireless medium has to be shared by the nodes, multi-hop traffic requires a high capacity. Hence, mechanisms which increase the system capacity in wireless mesh networks are needed. With more than 10 orthogonal channels, IEEE 802.11a pro- vides an excellent foundation for a multi-channel network; furthermore, standardized hardware allows to equip nodes in the WMN with more than one radio. Thus, the problem arises how to plan the channel and radio assignment in a IEEE 802.11- based Multi-Channel Multi-Radio (MRMC) WMN. In this paper, we first establish and evaluate a model to compute the saturation throughput in a given WMN config- uration, taking into account the characteristics of the service area and the MAC and PHY capabilities of IEEE 802.11. With the help of the model, it becomes possible to identify the network bottleneck; This allows the application of a local search optimization algorithm which maximizes the saturation throughput under the constrains of limited channels and radios. The evaluation shows that the developed algorithm together with the load model does not only increase the saturation throughput, but also the system spectral efficiency, which in- dicates a more effective usage of the radio resources.