Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Worst-case utilization bound for EDF scheduling on real-time multiprocessor systems

Presents the utilization bound for earliest deadline first (EDF) scheduling on homogeneous multiprocessor systems with partitioning strategies. Assuming that tasks are pre-emptively scheduled on each processor according to the EDF algorithm, and allocated according to the first-fit (FF) heuristic, we prove that the worst-case achievable utilization is 0.5(n+1), where n is the number of processors. This bound is valid for arbitrary utilization factors. Moreover, if all the tasks have utilization factors under a value /spl alpha/, the previous bound is raised, and the new utilization bound considering /spl alpha/ is calculated. In addition, we prove that no uniprocessor scheduling algorithm/allocation algorithm pair can provide a higher worst-case achievable utilization than that of EDF-FF. Finally, simulation provides the average-case achievable utilization for EDF-FF.
Sailfish: a framework for large scale data processing

In this paper, we present Sailfish, a new Map-Reduce framework for large scale data processing. The Sailfish design is centered around aggregating intermediate data, specifically data produced by map tasks and consumed later by reduce tasks, to improve performance by batching disk I/O. We introduce an abstraction called I-files for supporting data aggregation, and describe how we implemented it as an extension of the distributed filesystem, to efficiently batch data written by multiple writers and read by multiple readers. Sailfish adapts the Map-Reduce layer in Hadoop to use I-files for transporting data from map tasks to reduce tasks. We present experimental results demonstrating that Sailfish improves performance of standard Hadoop; in particular, we show 20% to 5 times faster performance on a representative mix of real jobs and datasets at Yahoo! We also demonstrate that the Sailfish design enables auto-tuning functionality that handles changes in data volume and skewed distributions effectively, thereby addressing an important practical drawback of Hadoop, which in contrast relies on programmers to configure system parameters appropriately for each job, for each input dataset. Our Sailfish implementation and the other software components developed as part of this paper has been released as open source.
The OGLE-II event sc5_2859: an example of disc–disc microlensing

We present a new long-duration parallax event from the OGLE-II data base, sc5_2859, which has the second longest time-scale ever identified (tE = 547.6 + 2 2 . 6 - 7.8 d). We argue that both the lens and source reside in the Galactic disc, making event sc5_2859 one of the first confirmed examples of so-called disc-disc microlensing. We find that the source star is most probably located at a distance of D s ∼ 2 kpc, and from this we conclude that the lens is unlikely to be a main-sequence star due to the strict limits that can be placed on the lens brightness. A simple likelihood analysis is carried out on the lens mass which indicates that the lens could be another candidate stellar mass black hole. We recommend that spectroscopic observations of the source be carried out in order to constrain the source distance, as this is the main source of uncertainty in our analysis. In addition, we discuss briefly whether there appears to be an excess of long-duration microlensing events in the OGLE-II catalogue.
Early-Stage Psychotherapy Produces Elevated Frontal White Matter Integrity in Adult Major Depressive Disorder

Background Psychotherapy has demonstrated comparable efficacy to antidepressant medication in the treatment of major depressive disorder. Metabolic alterations in the MDD state and in response to treatment have been detected by functional imaging methods, but the underlying white matter microstructural changes remain unknown. The goal of this study is to apply diffusion tensor imaging techniques to investigate psychotherapy-specific responses in the white matter. Methods Twenty-one of forty-five outpatients diagnosed with major depression underwent diffusion tensor imaging before and after a four-week course of guided imagery psychotherapy. We compared fractional anisotropy in depressed patients (n = 21) with healthy controls (n = 22), and before-after treatment, using whole brain voxel-wise analysis. Results Post-treatment, depressed subjects showed a significant reduction in the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. As compared to healthy controls, depressed subjects demonstrated significantly increased fractional anisotropy in the right thalamus. Psychopathological changes did not recover post-treatment, but a novel region of increased fractional anisotropy was discovered in the frontal lobe. Conclusions At an early stage of psychotherapy, higher fractional anisotropy was detected in the frontal emotional regulation-associated region. This finding reveals that psychotherapy may induce white matter changes in the frontal lobe. This remodeling of frontal connections within mood regulation networks positively contributes to the “top-down” mechanism of psychotherapy.
Tractive Performance of LGP-30 Wheeled Vehicle During Straight Motion on Sepang Peat Terrain in Malaysia

The tractive performance justification of an off-road vehicle is so important that it ensures the vehicle mobility over the unprepared peat terrain. Tractive performance of Low Ground Pressure (LGP-30) wheeled vehicle is investigated on the low bearing capacity moderate peat terrain in Malaysia. The simulation results showed that the vehicle sinkage is more than the critical sinkage value of 100 mm, ground contact pressure is more than 17 kN/m 2 , and rolling motion resis- tance due to terrain compaction is very often more than the tractive effort of the vehicle. The vehicle was tested on the un- prepared moderate peat terrain after increasing the tyre-terrain interface by decreasing the tyre inflation pressure of 5%, 10% and 15% respectively. The vehicle was found to traverse on the terrain smoothly when the tyre inflation pressure was decreased by 15%.
Valuing the benefit of varicella vaccination: comparison of willingness to pay and quality-adjusted life-years

Vaccination is different from most health interventions because it is preventative, it protects against infectious disease (leading to knock-on effects), the diseases it prevents are usually acute and self-limiting, and most vaccines are given to children from whom it is very difficult to elicit preferences. Because of its unique characteristics, vaccination may possess its own specific attributes. In this paper, we estimate the average Willingness to Pay (WTP) for varicella vaccination and the Quality-Adjusted Life-Years (QALY) lost due to chickenpox using Contingent Valuation (CV), Standard Gamble and Health Utility Index Mark II (HUI2). Furthermore, we identify what attributes of vaccination are important to vaccinees and what elicitation technique can capture these components. To do this, we administered computerised interviews to a sample of parents attending primary Health Centres. Using CV we demonstrate that individuals are willing to pay more for vaccination than treatment. Furthermore, we show that prevention of work loss is an important intervention attribute for parents. On the other hand, consistent with economic theory, the elicitation techniques used to estimate QALYs (Standard Gamble and HUI2) did not capture non-health benefits. Finally, results elicited using the CV were correlated with QALYs measured through the HUI2 questionnaire.
Developing Psychological Well-Being Scale for Preschool Children.

The aim of this research was to develop a scale in order to measure psychological well-being in preschool children. Three hundred and seventy five to six year old children participated in the research from 5 regions of Tehran, using accidental sampling method. The participants were individually interviewed with the Well-Being in Preschool Children Scale, and their teachers completed Rutter's Child Behavior Questionnaire about each of them. Data was analyzed with both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis methods using WLSMV and GEOMIN oblique rotation, to examine factorial structure. Samejima's graded response model was used to access psychometric features of the items. Test-retest reliability was measured and Pearson's correlation was also used to assess divergent and convergent validity. Findings revealed that this scale has 3 main factors: self-concept, life satisfaction and resilience. The validity and reliability of the scale is also satisfactory. The well-being indicators in this scale are consistent with previous research on components of well-being in children. In addition there is a negative correlation between psychological well-being and behavioral problems, which is also illustrated in previous research.
Incidence of Venous Thromboembolism and Benefits and Risks of Thromboprophylaxis After Cardiac Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

Background Optimal thromboprophylaxis after cardiac surgery is uncertain. This systematic review aimed to define the incidence and risk factors for deep vein thrombosis (DVT), fatal and nonfatal pulmonary embolism (PE), and assess whether venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis was effective in reducing VTE without complications after cardiac surgery. Methods and Results Two reviewers independently searched and assessed the quality and outcomes of randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies on VTE after cardiac surgery in the MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane controlled trial register (1966 to December 2014). Sixty‐eight studies provided data on VTE outcomes or complications related to thromboprophylaxis after cardiac surgery. The majority of the studies were observational studies (n=49), 16 studies were RCTs, and 3 were meta‐analyses. VTE prophylaxis was associated with a reduced risk of PE (relative risk [RR], 0.45; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.28–0.72; P=0.0008) or symptomatic VTE (RR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.28–0.71; P=0.0006) compared to the control without significant heterogeneity. Median incidence (interquartile range) of symptomatic DVT, PE, and fatal PE were 3.2% (0.6–8.1), 0.6% (0.3–2.9), and 0.3% (0.08–1.7), respectively. Previous history of VTE, obesity, left or right ventricular failure, and prolonged bed rest, mechanical ventilation, or use of a central venous catheter were common risk factors for VTE. Bleeding or cardiac tamponade requiring reoperation owing to pharmacological VTE prophylaxis alone, without systemic anticoagulation, was not observed. Conclusions Unless proven otherwise by adequately powered RCTs, initiating pharmacological VTE prophylaxis as soon as possible after cardiac surgery for patients who have no active bleeding is highly recommended.
When David helps Goliath: the case for 3G onloading

Access link can often be the bottleneck for application performance. In this paper, we propose to augment wired connections using cellular ones, that we term "3G onloading (3GOL)". 3GOL utilizes available mobile devices and already-paid-for data volumes to augment and improve performance of applications on wired network. We motivate 3GOL by understanding bottlenecks present in the wired and the cellular networks. In order to understand the potential benefits of 3GOL, we conduct active experiments using mobile devices. We show that capacity gains can scale linearly with the number of devices on the downlink while also seeing improvements on the uplink. Using real traces we show how video on demand can benefit with 3GOL, even when volume caps are in place. We design 3GOL as an over the top service, and highlight research challenges.
On video source format of screen content compression

This work attempts to quantitatively study the impacts of the different input video source format on the coding efficiency and complexity of the recent High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) based screen content compression. Besides the native RGB color space, YUV color space with 4:4:4 and 4:2:0 chroma sampling are investigated. Decoded videos are all converted to the RGB space to calculate the structural similarity as the subjective distortion estimation, and perform the subjective rating to have the Mean Opinion Score (MOS). Performance is evaluated using the bit rate versus structural similarity (SSIM), and bit rate versus MOS. Experiments have demonstrated approximately 1.3% SSIM loss with 30% bit rate reduction, and 3.4% SSIM loss with 33% bit rate reduction, respectively, when using YUV 4:4:4 and YUV 4:2:0 as input sources versus native RGB input. Similar performance is recorded for MOS versus bit rate. We have also observed 18% and 31% encoding time reduction by using YUV 4:4:4 and YUV 4:2:0 rather than RGB content for popular low-delay scenario.
A Calibration-Free Head Gesture Recognition System with Online Capability

In this paper, we present a calibration-free head gesture recognition system using a motion-sensor-based approach. For data acquisition we conducted a comprehensive study with 10 subjects. We analyzed the resulting head movement data with regard to separability and transferability to new subjects. Ordered means models (OMMs) were used for classification, since they provide an easy-to-use, fast, and stable approach to machine learning of time series. In result, we achieved classification rates of 85-95% for nodding, head shaking and tilting head gestures and good transferability. Finally, we show first promising attempts towards online recognition.
Optimal Superpeer Selection Based on Load Balance for P2P File-sharing System

The peer-to-peer (P2P) systems have many applications due to their virtues: high scalability and low cost. The systems using super-peers (SPs), which deal with all queries¿ instead of ordinary-peers (OPs), run more efficiently. So how to choose SPs from all peers is a key, but also a difficult problem because of the systems' heterogeneity and dynamic. In this paper a novel mechanism for the selection of SP is proposed. The selection strategy is based on the dynamic distribution of peers and files in all clusters, and the capacity of the peer is taken into consideration. Through the simulation, the result shows the selection efficiency is improved and the load unbalance among SPs is relieved.
Developmental Expression Pattern of Phototransduction Components in Mammalian Pineal Implies a Light-Sensing Function

Whereas the pineal organs of lower vertebrates have been shown to be photosensitive, photic regulation of pineal function in adult mammals is thought be mediated entirely by retinal photoreceptors. Extraretinal regulation of pineal function has been reported in neonatal rodents, although both the site and molecular basis of extraretinal photoreception have remained obscure. In this study we examine the developmental expression pattern of all of the principal components of retinal phototransduction in rat pineal via cRNAin situ hybridization. All of the components needed to reconstitute a functional phototransduction pathway are expressed in the majority of neonatal pinealocytes, although the expression levels of many of these genes decline dramatically during development. These findings strongly support the theory that the neonatal rat pineal itself is photosensitive. In addition, we observe in neonatal pinealocytes the expression of both rod-specific and cone-specific phototransduction components, implying the existence of functionally different subtypes of pinealocytes that express varying combinations of phototransduction enzymes.
A low power sigma-delta modulator using charge-steering Opamp for Bluetooth application

The conventional current-steering Opamp is the building block of sigma-delta modulator circuits. It is also the major power consuming part of the circuit. The charge-steering concept can be applied to Opamps to obtain minimum power consumption. The two-stage charge-steering Opamp has been designed using 0.18um TSMC CMOS technology that consumes 0.23 mW power at a 48 MHz sampling frequency. A 2nd order, 1-bit, SC sigma-delta modulator is used to prove the applicability of the charge steering concept in sigma-delta modulators. The system achieves a SNR of 46 dB and a DR of 60 dB over a 1 MHz BW. The total power consumption of the circuit is 1.3 mW at 1.2v power supply.
Learning Term Weights for Ad-hoc Retrieval

Most Information Retrieval models compute the relevance score of a document for a given query by summing term weights specific to a document or a query. Heuristic approaches, like TF-IDF, or probabilistic models, like BM25, are used to specify how a term weight is computed. In this paper, we propose to leverage learning-to-rank principles to learn how to compute a term weight for a given document based on the term occurrence pattern.
Cascade dictionary learning for action recognition

In this paper, we propose a cascade dictionary learning algorithm for action recognition. In the first stage, a dictionary for basic sparse coding is learned based on local descriptors. And then spatial pyramid features are extracted to represent all the images in the same dimensions. Instead of performing dimension reduction, all the features are regrouped and then fed into second dictionary learning. In the second stage, a supervised dictionary for block and group sparse coding is learned to get discriminative representations based on the regrouped features. Without lowering classification performance, the size of the second dictionary is much smaller than other dictionary based on spatial pyramid features. We evaluate our algorithm on two publicly available databases about action recognition: Willows and People Playing Music Instrument. The numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Constraints graph based approach for the control of time critical systems

Petri nets are a powerful formalism for the specification and verification of concurrent systems including sequential systems and manufacturing systems. To deal with systems whose time issues become fundamental, different time Petri nets extensions have been developed in the literature, each one being dependent on the application considered. For the time critical systems their correctness depends not only on the logic correctness but also on the time constraints. In this paper, a new enumerative and control technique for P-time Petri nets is proposed. It is based on the firing instant notion and a graph constraints theoretic approach.
Three Separable Domains Regulate GTP-Dependent Association of H-ras with the Plasma Membrane

ABSTRACT The microlocalization of Ras proteins to different microdomains of the plasma membrane is critical for signaling specificity. Here we examine the complex membrane interactions of H-ras with a combination of FRAP on live cells to measure membrane affinity and electron microscopy of intact plasma membrane sheets to spatially map microdomains. We show that three separable forces operate on H-ras at the plasma membrane. The lipid anchor, comprising a processed CAAX motif and two palmitic acid residues, generates one attractive force that provides a high-affinity interaction with lipid rafts. The adjacent hypervariable linker domain provides a second attractive force but for nonraft plasma membrane microdomains. Operating against the attractive interaction of the lipid anchor for lipid rafts is a repulsive force generated by the N-terminal catalytic domain that increases when H-ras is GTP loaded. These observations lead directly to a novel mechanism that explains how H-ras lateral segregation is regulated by activation state: GTP loading decreases H-ras affinity for lipid rafts and allows the hypervariable linker domain to target to nonraft microdomains, the primary site of H-ras signaling.
On Approximate Dynamic Programming with Multivariate Splines for Adaptive Control

We define a SDP framework based on the RLSTD algorithm and multivariate simplex B-splines. We introduce a local forget factor capable of preserving the continuity of the simplex splines. This local forget factor is integrated with the RLSTD algorithm, resulting in a modified RLSTD algorithm that is capable of tracking time-varying systems. We present the results of two numerical experiments, one validating SDP and comparing it with NDP and another to show the advantages of the modified RLSTD algorithm over the original. While SDP requires more computations per time-step, the experiment shows that for the same amount of function approximator parameters, there is an increase in performance in terms of stability and learning rate compared to NDP. The second experiment shows that SDP in combination with the modified RLSTD algorithm allows for faster recovery compared to the original RLSTD algorithm when system parameters are altered, paving the way for an adaptive high-performance non-linear control method.
Four Applications of Graphical Models in Machine Learning

Conditional random fields for multi-agent reinforcement learning Conditional random fields (CRFs, [1]) are graphical models for modeling the probability of labels given the observations. They have traditionally been trained with using a set of observation and label pairs. Underlying all CRFs is the assumption that, conditioned on the training data, the labels are independent and identically distributed (iid). We extended the use of CRFs to a class of temporal learning algorithms, namely policy gradient reinforcement learning (RL, [2]). Now the labels are no longer iid. They are actions that update the environment and affect the next observation. From an RL point of view, CRFs provide a natural way to model joint actions in a decentralized Markov decision process. They define how agents can communicate with each other to choose the optimal joint action. We tested our framework on a synthetic network alignment problem, a distributed sensor network, and a road traffic control system. Using tree sampling [3] for inference, the RL methods employing CRFs clearly outperform those which do not model the proper joint policy.
Textual co-reference annotation: a study on definite descriptions

In the linguistic literature many different uses of definite descriptions are acknowledged and explained (Fraurud 1990, Hawkins 1978, Löbner 1985, Prince 1992). These authors give us taxonomies of the different uses of the definite article. Based on these previous works we ran two experiments in annotating definite description uses whose goals were: 1. to observe the distribution of the different uses; 2. to estimate the degree of diff iculty involved in the processing of definite descriptions, by learning the relative importance of anaphoric descriptions that are resolved with same head antecedents, and what else is necessary to process definite descriptions in texts; 3. to produce annotated texts to be used in our computational experiments (Vieira and Poesio, 2000).
An asymptotic discrete second order sliding mode control law for highly non stationary systems

In this work, an asymptotic numerical second order sliding mode control (2-DSMC) is developed in order to reduce the chattering phenomenon that characterize the discrete first order sliding mode control. A comparative study with Bartolinipsilas numerical second order sliding mode control approach is realized. The obtained results in the case of the proposed approach denote the notable improvement of the closed loop performances in regulation and in tracking, essentially, in presence of the highly non stationary system.