Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Effective and Efficient Framework for Clock Latency Range Aware Clock Network Synthesis

In this paper, we present an effective and efficient framework to minimize clock latency range (CLR), which is a crucial objective measuring the process variability of the high-performance clock network. An enhanced deferred-merge embedding algorithm is proposed to handle the skew and slew constraints simultaneously. Besides, instead of using traditional buffering methods that consider only capacitance loading, we adopt slew-constrained buffering for more accurate results. To explore the variation effect with different combinations of buffers and wires in terms of CLR, we design an experiment to examine it and propose an effective buffer and wire sizing scheme. In addition, obstacle avoidance handling is included in our framework. Experimental results show that our framework achieves the best results in terms of CLR compared with any other team in the 2009 ACM ISPD clock network synthesis contest and four state-of-the-art works.
Power-Aware Traffic Cover Mode to Prevent Traffic Analysis in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Traffic analysis poses a serious threat to communication security, especially in wireless networks. Encryption may be used to hide message contents, whereas traffic padding may be used to hide the traffic pattern. This paper deals with the issue of preventing traffic analysis by inserting dummy (or padding) traffic to hide the real traffic pattern. The observable traffic pattern, after dummy traffic has been inserted, is referred to as a cover mode. Since the dummy traffic incurs an overhead, it is important to minimize dummy traffic while achieving the desired security objective. In this paper, we attempt to develop a suitable cover mode with the objective of minimizing energy of preventing traffic analysis by inserting dummy (or padding) traffic to hide the real traffic pattern. The observable traffic pattern, after dummy traffic has been inserted, is referred to as a cover mode. Since the dummy traffic incurs an overhead, it is important to minimize dummy traffic while achieving the desired security objective. In this paper, we attempt to develop a suitable cover mode with the objective of minimizing energy consumption -- the nodes in wireless ad hoc networks typically have limited battery supply, therefore, it is important to minimize the energy consumption. We propose different methods for implementing the cover mode, and evaluate the impact of these techniques on system lifetime and on energy consumption per unit of real traffic transmitted in the network.
A New Feedback Technique for Synchronizing Chaotic Chua ’ s Circuits with x | x | Nonlinearity DONATO CAFAGNA

− This paper presents a new output feedback technique for synchronizing chaotic circuits. In particular, it is shown that synchronization can be systematically achieved via a scalar signal for a large class of chaotic systems. The approach is successfully applied to the recently proposed Chua’s circuit with x|x| nonlinearity. Key-words: – Chaotic circuits, Synchronization, Feedback techniques, Nonlinear dynamics.
Optimal chain rule placement for instruction selection based on SSA graphs

Instruction selection is a compiler optimisation that translates the intermediate representation of a program into a lower intermediate representation or an assembler program. We use the SSA form as an intermediate representation for instruction selection. Patterns are used for translation and are expressed as production rules in a graph grammar. The instruction selector seeks for a syntax derivation with minimal costs optimising execution time, code size, or a combination of both. Production rules are either base rules which match nodes in the SSA graph or chain rules which convert results of operations. We present a new algorithm for placing chain rules in a control flow graph. This new algorithm places chain rules optimally for an arbitrary cost metric. Experiments with the MiBench and SPEC2000 benchmark suites show that our proposed algorithm is feasible and always yields better results than simple strategies currently in use. We reduce the costs for placing chain rules by 25% for the MiBench suite and by 11% for the SPEC2000 suite.
Constitutive PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 synthesis promotes the development and survival of early mammalian embryos

Mammalian preimplantation embryos develop in the oviduct as individual entities, and can develop and survive in vitro, in defined culture media lacking exogenous growth factors or serum. Therefore, early embryos must generate intrinsic signals that promote their development and survival. In other cells, activation of class I phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) is a universal mechanism to promote cell proliferation and survival. Here, we examined whether PI3K is intrinsically activated during preimplantation development. Using GFP-tagged pleckstrin homology domains to monitor PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 synthesis, we show that PI3K is constitutively activated in mouse preimplantation embryos. E-cadherin ligation promotes PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 synthesis at sites of blastomere adhesion at all cleavage stages. In addition, in culture conditions that promote autocrine signalling, a second pool of PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 is generated in the apical membrane of early stage blastomeres. We show that constitutive PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 synthesis is necessary for optimal development to blastocyst and to prevent large-scale apoptosis at the time of cavitation.
On Singular Boundary Value Problems for Functional Differential Equations of Higher Order

Abstract Sufficient conditions are established for the solvability of the boundary value problem 𝑥(𝑛) (𝑡) = 𝑓(𝑥)(𝑡), ℎ𝑖(𝑥) = 0 (𝑖 = 1, . . . , 𝑛), where 𝑓 is an operator (ℎ𝑖 (𝑖 = 1, . . . , 𝑛) are operators) acting from some subspace of the space of (𝑛 – 1)-times differentiable on the interval ]𝑎, 𝑏[ 𝑚-dimensional vector functions into the space of locally integrable on ]𝑎, 𝑏[ 𝑚-dimensional vector functions (into the space ).
Neuromuscular fatigue after maximal stretch-shortening cycle exercise.

To examine some possible sites of fatigue during short-lasting maximally intensive stretch-shortening cycle exercise, drop jumps on an inclined sledge apparatus were analyzed. Twelve healthy volunteers performed jumps until they were unable to maintain jumping height > 90% of their maximum. After the workout, the increases in the blood lactate concentration and serum creatine kinase activation were statistically significant (P < 0.001 and P < 0.05, respectively) but rather small in physiological terms. The major changes after the workout were as follows: the single twitch was characterized by smaller peak torque (P < 0.05) and shorter time to peak (P < 0.05) and half-relaxation time (P < 0.01). The double-twitch torque remained at the same level (P > 0.05), but with a steeper maximal slope of torque rise (P < 0.05); during 20- and 100-Hz stimulation the torque declined (both P < 0.01) and the maximal voluntary torque changed nonsignificantly but with a smaller maximal slope of torque rise (P < 0.01) and a higher activation level (P < 0.05), accompanied by an increased electromyogram amplitude. These findings indicate that the muscle response after the short-lasting consecutive maximum jumps on the sledge apparatus may involve two distinct mechanisms acting in opposite directions: 1) The contractile mechanism seems to be potentiated through a shorter Ca2+ transient and faster cross-bridge cycling, as implied by twitch changes. 2) High-frequency action potential propagation shows an impairment, which is suggested as the possible dominant reason for fatigue in exercise of this type.
NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF ADOLESCENTS ( 10-12 YEARS ) FROM NON GOVERNMENT FUNDED SCHOOLS ( PRIVATE ) OF AN URBAN INDIAN CITY & KAP OF PARENTS / TEACHERS REGARDING HEALTHY DIETARY AND LIFESTYLE BEHAVIORS FOR ADOLESCENTS

To assess nutritional status of adolescents (10-12 years) from non government funded schools (private) of Gujarat, India. Teachers & parents of adolescent children were assessed regarding their knowledge, attitude and practices of healthy dietary & lifestyle behaviours. School canteen services were also critically evaluated. Parent’s willingness, to start a nutrition program in the school was also assessed. A cross sectional study was conducted on adolescents (10-12 years) from two selected private schools. Anthropometric, biophysical and hemoglobin estimations were done on all children. Lipid and glucose profile was conducted only on over weight (including obese) children. Results reveal that canteen offered unhealthy food. Teachers and parents had insufficient knowledge about healthy behaviors. Most (53.5%) of the parents agreed to the changes proposed for canteen menus. About 3/4 of the subjects were malnourished (78.9%), with more (53.7%) being under weight than over weight and obese (25.2%). Similarly, more than half (55.1%) of the subjects were anemic. Central obesity as indicated by WHtR & WC was 21.6% and 9.0% respectively. The burden of sub optimal blood pressure was very high (26.3%) among adolescents (Pre hypertension 13.7% and hypertension 12.6%). Hence, malnutrition along with anemia and high blood pressure were significant problems in private schools. Schools being the best setting to approach adolescents and parents, multi disciplinary programs should be part of school policies to prevent and manage triple burden of malnutrition and its adverse consequences among the adolescents from private schools.
Determinants of Information Systems Adoption and Deployment in SMEs: A Case Study of Micro Finance Institutions in TransNzoia County, Kenya

Information Technology has become a vital and integral part of every business in the World. IT is one of the strongest drivers for competitive, innovation and change in modern business environment. The SME sector in Kenya employs 80 percent of the total population and contributes over 40 percent to GDP. Majority of people employed in this sector is the youthful population. However, adoption and deployment of Information Technology in this sector has not been satisfactory compared to large corporations. This paper examined the Determinants to Adoption and Deployment of Information Systems in this sector. A quantitative Descriptive Survey Design was used in this Study. Data was collected from 3 SMEs in TransNzoia County using interviews and Questionnaire. Results obtained from this study shows that CEOs characteristics, IS characteristics, Organization's characteristics and Environmental Characteristics play a significant role in determining whether IS will be adopted and deployed in the SMEs. It is hoped that the findings from this study will enable policy makers in the ICT sector formulate proper legislative framework that informs how well ICT can be harnessed for the growth of the SME sector in Kenya. General Terms Determinants of IS Adoption by SMEs
A hybrid neural network and Minimax algorithm for zero-sum games

This paper describes a hybrid approach to creating computer players for zero-sum games. This novel approach consists of a modified Minimax algorithm and a neural network. The standard Minimax algorithm requires too much processing time to be useful in all but the simplest games. Utilizing a neural network to limit the size of the game tree searched by Minimax greatly reduces the processing time required. A case study of Tic-Tac-Toe on larger boards was implemented to validate the new approach. Experimental evidence is presented that indicates that the suggested algorithm yields an effective player even though the search space is substantial.
Improving Human-Robot Interaction for Remote Robot Operation

Our system design is a result of our HRI studies in USAR (see, for example, [Yanco and Drury 2004; Scholtz et al. 2004; Yanco et al. 2004]). A major influence on our design philosophy comes from the observation that users of USAR interfaces become so absorbed in the video display that they ignore all other information on the interface. We exploit this behavior in our design by placing important information on and around the main video display to make it difficult for users to overlook. A full description of the work can be found in [Baker et al. 2004].
Human trabecular meshwork cell survival is dependent on perfusion rate.

PURPOSE To determine whether suppression of flow may be detrimental to trabecular cell survival and to the morphologic characteristics of the trabecular meshwork. METHODS The anterior segments of normal human eye bank eyes were placed in perfusion organ culture. The effect of various perfusion rates of culture medium, and of the constant flow and constant pressure methods of delivery of culture medium, were studied. Trabecular cell survival was determined by quantitation of cell nuclei in histologic sections and by morphologic observation. RESULTS Trabecular meshworks with perfusion rates of 1 microliter/minute and higher had significantly more trabecular cells than meshworks with lower perfusion rates. A significant loss of trabecular cells was found in meshworks cultured with the constant pressure technique when compared with fellow eyes cultured with the constant flow of medium. Those constant pressure cultured meshworks with surviving cells had higher flow rates than those with necrotic cells. CONCLUSIONS A minimum perfusion rate of 1 microliter/minute is required for trabecular cell survival in perfusion organ culture. Constant pressure perfusion of medium is unsuccessful in maintaining trabecular cells in long-term culture if low perfusion rates occur. Constant flow appears to mimic the in vivo situation more closely.
Maternal Obesity and Developmental Programming of Metabolic Disorders in Offspring: Evidence from Animal Models

The incidence of obesity and overweight has reached epidemic proportions in the developed world as well as in those countries transitioning to first world economies, and this represents a major global health problem. Concern is rising over the rapid increases in childhood obesity and metabolic disease that will translate into later adult obesity. Although an obesogenic nutritional environment and increasingly sedentary lifestyle contribute to our risk of developing obesity, a growing body of evidence links early life nutritional adversity to the development of long-term metabolic disorders. In particular, the increasing prevalence of maternal obesity and excess maternal weight gain has been associated with a heightened risk of obesity development in offspring in addition to an increased risk of pregnancy-related complications. The mechanisms that link maternal obesity to obesity in offspring and the level of gene-environment interactions are not well understood, but the early life environment may represent a critical window for which intervention strategies could be developed to curb the current obesity epidemic. This paper will discuss the various animal models of maternal overnutrition and their importance in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying altered obesity risk in offspring.
The Caudal Medial Entorhinal Cortex: a Selective Role in Recollection-Based Recognition Memory

Recent studies have suggested that the caudal medial entorhinal cortex (cMEC) is specialized for path integration and spatial navigation. However, cMEC is part of a brain system that supports episodic memory for both spatial and nonspatial events, and so may play a role in memory function that goes beyond navigation. Here, we used receiver operating characteristic analysis to investigate the role of the cMEC in familiarity and recollection processes that underlie nonspatial recognition memory in rats. The results indicate that cMEC plays a critical and selective role in recollection-based performance, supporting the view that cMEC supports memory for the spatial and temporal context in which events occur.
Narratives of the Development of Urban Teacher Leaders

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the development of urban elementary teacher leaders as captured in narrative data and analyzed through the theoretical lenses of role identity, distributed leadership, teacher leadership and urban teacher leadership. The narratives of five teacher leaders provided rich descriptions that made it possible to: (a) examine possible mechanisms for encouraging leadership assertion choices; (b) identify support practices for encouraging leadership within future teachers in the urban context; and (c) provide insight for building leadership roles in the school environment for those who coordinate professional development activities. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and post-interview reflections over the course of three months. All of the participants in the study worked in urban settings for the duration of the study and were employed by the same school system in the southeastern United States. Narrative analysis, analysis of narratives and a cross-case analysis strategies were used to reveal participants‘ perceptions of individual roles, their journeys of leadership development, and the influences of their experiences in urban contexts on their leadership choices. Recommendations were made to enhance preparation, mentoring, and professional development of potential and current urban teacher leaders.
The BNC Parsed with RASP4UIMA

We have integrated the RASP system with the UIMA framework (RASP4UIMA) and used this to parse the XML-encoded version of the British National Corpus (BNC). All original annotation is preserved, and parsing information, mainly in the form of grammatical relations, is added in an XML format. A few specific adaptations of the system to give better results with the BNC are discussed briefly. The RASP4UIMA system is publicly available and can be used to parse other corpora or document collections, and the final parsed version of the BNC will be deposited with the Oxford Text Archive.
A longitudinal study of exploratory and keyword search

Digital libraries are concerned with improving the access to collections to make their service more effective and valuable to users. In this paper, we present the results of a four-week longitudinal study investigating the use of both exploratory and keyword forms of search within an online video archive, where both forms of search were available concurrently in a single user interface. While we expected early use to be more exploratory and subsequent use to be directed, over the whole period there was a balance of exploratory and keyword searches and they were often used together. Further, to support the notion that facets support exploration, there were more than five times as many facet clicks than more complex forms of keyword search (boolean and advanced). From these results, we can conclude that there is real value in investing in exploratory search support, which was shown to be both popular and useful for extended use of the system.
Face Recognition Based on Shearlets Transform and Principle Component Analysis

Multi-resolution analysis has been known to be effective for face recognition, however, most approaches only utilize scale and position information of different scales of decomposed image, only a few approaches utilize directional information. To investigate the potential of shear lets direction, this paper presents a new method for face description and recognition using shear lets transform and principle component analysis. Motivated by multi-resolution analysis, face images are performed by shear lets transform, and then directional information is exploited along with conventional scaling and translation parameters. Finally, face feature is extracted by principle component analysis. Experimental results on ORL and FERET face database show that the proposed method can get high face recognition rates.
Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States

Protected areas including national/state parks and recreational waters are excellent natural resources that promote physical activity and interaction with Nature, which can relieve stress and reduce disease risk. Despite their importance, however, their contribution to human health has not been properly quantified. This paper seeks to evaluate quantitatively how national/state parks and recreational waters are associated with human health and well-being, taking into account of the spatial dependence of environmental variables for the contiguous U.S., at the county level. First, we describe available natural resources for outdoor activities (ANROA), using national databases that include features from the Protected Areas Database, NAVSTREETS, and ATTAINSGEO 305(b) Waters. We then use spatial regression techniques to explore the association of ANROA and socioeconomic status factors on physical inactivity rates. Finally, we use variance analysis to analyze ANROA’s influence on income-related health inequality. We found a significantly negative association between ANROA and the rate of physical inactivity: ANROA and the spatial effect explained 69%, nationwide, of the variation in physical inactivity. Physical inactivity rate showed a strong spatial dependence—influenced not only by its own in-county ANROA, but also by that of its neighbors ANROA. Furthermore, community groups at the same income level and with the highest ANROA, always had the lowest physical inactivity rate. This finding may help to guide future land use planning and community development that will benefit human health and well-being.
Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition: a Journal on Normal and Dysfunctional Development a Positivity Effect in Autobiographical Memory, but Not Phonemic Fluency, in Older Adults

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Lossy identification schemes from decisional RSA

Lossy identification schemes derive tightly secure signature schemes via the Fiat-Shamir transformation. There exist several instantiations of lossy identification schemes by using several cryptographic assumptions. In this paper, we propose a new construction of lossy identification scheme from the decisional RSA assumption which are introduced by Groth. Our lossy identification scheme has efficient response algorithm because it requires no modular exponentiation.