Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Approach in Quantum Gravity and its Cosmological Implications

This work concerns a new reformulation of quantum geometrodynamics, which allows to overcome a fundamental ambiguity contained in the canonical approach to quantum gravity: the possibility of performing a (3+1)-slicing of space-time, when the metric tensor is in a quantum regime. Our formulation provides also a procedure to solve the problems connected to the so called "frozen formalism". In particular we fix the reference frame (i.e. the lapse function and the shift vector) by introducing the so called "kinematical action"; as a consequence, the new hamiltonian constraints become parabolic, so arriving to evolutive (Schroedinger-like) equations for the quantum dynamics. The kinematical action can be interpreted as the action of a pressureless, but, in general, non geodesic perfect fluid, so in the semi classical limit our theory leads to the dynamics of the gravitational field coupled to a dust which represents the material reference frame we have introduced fixing the slicing. We also investigate the cosmological implications of the presence of the dust, which, in the WKB limit of a cosmological problem, makes account for a "dark matter" component and could play, at present time, a dynamical role.
BER analysis of MLC NAND Flash memories based on an asymmetric PAM model

The reliability of multilevel NAND Flash memories, which are used extensively on solid-state drives, is strongly affected by their aging, ie. the number of applied program/erase cycles (P/E). A multilevel memory uses discrete voltage levels to represent the various bit patterns and, at the beginning of the life-time of such a device, these voltage levels demonstrate distributions with very small variances, resulting to very low symbol and bit-error-ratio (BER). As the number of applied P/E cycles increases, the variance of the voltage levels also increases and that results to increased BER. In this paper, we present a general model for four-level NAND Flash memories that can be used to estimate the memories' BER as a function of the used NAND technology and the aging process. For that purpose, we use asymmetric Pulse Amplitude Modulation with data-dependent channel noise and we provide analytic expressions for the behavior of such memories, and we associate their aging with noise conditions and used technology.
Continued Decline of Malaria in The Gambia with Implications for Elimination

Background A substantial decline in malaria was reported to have occurred over several years until 2007 in the western part of The Gambia, encouraging consideration of future elimination in this previously highly endemic region. Scale up of interventions has since increased with support from the Global Fund and other donors. Methodology/Principal Findings We continued to examine laboratory records at four health facilities previously studied and investigated six additional facilities for a 7 year period, adding data from 243,707 slide examinations, to determine trends throughout the country until the end of 2009. We actively detected infections in a community cohort of 800 children living in rural villages throughout the 2008 malaria season, and assayed serological changes in another rural population between 2006 and 2009. Proportions of malaria positive slides declined significantly at all of the 10 health facilities between 2003 (annual mean across all sites, 38.7%) and 2009 (annual mean, 7.9%). Statistical modelling of trends confirmed significant seasonality and decline over time at each facility. Slide positivity was lowest in 2009 at all sites, except two where lowest levels were observed in 2006. Mapping households of cases presenting at the latter sites in 2007–2009 indicated that these were not restricted to a few residual foci. Only 2.8% (22/800) of a rural cohort of children had a malaria episode in the 2008 season, and there was substantial serological decline between 2006 and 2009 in a separate rural area. Conclusions Malaria has continued to decline in The Gambia, as indicated by a downward trend in slide positivity at health facilities, and unprecedented low incidence and seroprevalence in community surveys. We recommend intensification of control interventions for several years to further reduce incidence, prior to considering an elimination programme.
Coinfection with Borrelia turicatae serotype 2 prevents the severe vestibular dysfunction and earlier mortality caused by serotype 1.

BACKGROUND Relapsing fever (RF) is a multisystemic spirochetal infection caused by different Borrelia species. Studies in our laboratory have shown that disease severity varies depending on the infecting serotype. However, the relative contribution of each serotype to pathogenesis during mixed infections is not known. To investigate this, we compared the outcome of infection with isogenic serotypes 1 (Bt1) or 2 (Bt2) of the RF agent B. turicatae alone or in combination. METHODS B cell-deficient mice were used for these experiments, to avoid serotype clearance by the host's variable membrane protein-specific antibodies. Observers masked to infection status examined infected and uninfected control mice for clinical disease and functional impairment for up to 65 days. RESULTS All mice developed persistent infection with the serotypes with which they were originally inoculated. Severe vestibular dysfunction developed in mice infected with Bt1 alone and was associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, coinfection with Bt2 significantly reduced the severity of vestibular dysfunction and prevented earlier mortality. In contrast, coinfection with Bt1 had little effect on the severe arthritis caused by Bt2 infection. CONCLUSIONS The manifestations of infection with B. turicatae are significantly influenced by the combination of serotypes present during mixed infection.
Managing Large-Scale Genomic Datasets and Translation into Clinical Practice

Summary Objective:To summarize excellent current research in the field of Bioinformatics and Translational Informatics with application in the health domain. Method: We provide a synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2014, from which we attempt to derive a synthetic overview of current and future activities in the field. A first step of selection was performed by querying MEDLINE with a list of MeSH descriptors completed by a list of terms adapted to the section. Each section editor evaluated independently the set of 1,851 articles and 15 articles were retained for peer-review. Results: The selection and evaluation process of this Yearbook’s section on Bioinformatics and Translational Informatics yielded three excellent articles regarding data management and genome medicine. In the first article, the authors present VEST (Variant Effect Scoring Tool) which is a supervised machine learning tool for prioritizing variants found in exome sequencing projects that are more likely involved in human Mendelian diseases. In the second article, the authors show how to infer surnames of male individuals by crossing anonymous publicly available genomic data from the Y chromosome and public genealogy data banks. The third article presents a statistical framework called iCluster+ that can perform pattern discovery in integrated cancer genomic data. This framework was able to determine different tumor subtypes in colon cancer. Conclusions: The current research activities still attest the continuous convergence of Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics, with a focus this year on large-scale biological, genomic, and Electronic Health Records data. Indeed, there is a need for powerful tools for managing and interpreting complex data, but also a need for user-friendly tools developed for the clinicians in their daily practice. All the recent research and development efforts are contributing to the challenge of impacting clinically the results and even going towards a personalized medicine in the near future.
Developers Motivation in Agile Teams

A motivated individual is one of the cornerstones of agile software development. Although motivation has been recognized and studied in the software development field, little research has examined motivation in agile teams. Our study aims to provide a better understanding of what motivates software developers in agile environments. We conducted a systematic review of motivators in the agile context, classifying the results using the MOCC model of software engineers' motivation. Additionally, we performed three case studies in agile companies to both confirm our findings and gather new motivators. Our results suggest that motivation in the agile context is slightly different from the overall view of motivation in software development in general.
IMPACT OF MICROFINANCE ON HOUSEHOLD WELFARE: ASSESSING THE CASE OF SAMURDHI PROGRAM IN SRI LANKA

Household Income & Expenditure Survey (2006/07) data were used to estimate the impacts of ‘Samurdhi’ – the largest state-sponsored microfinance program in Sri Lanka – on the status of household income, health, education, and food and non-food consumption. Propensity Score Matching was used to minimize selection bias. Propensity scores were estimated using a Probit Model to match “treated” households with “control” group to identify the impacts. The results show that Samurdhi possesses a significant impact on household welfare on income, consumption and education, despite the inefficiencies and political interferences associated with distribution of intended services.
Human endothelial actin-binding protein (ABP-280, nonmuscle filamin): a molecular leaf spring

Actin-binding protein (ABP-280, nonmuscle filamin) is a ubiquitous dimeric actin cross-linking phosphoprotein of peripheral cytoplasm, where it promotes orthogonal branching of actin filaments and links actin filaments to membrane glycoproteins. The complete nucleotide sequence of human endothelial cell ABP cDNA predicts a polypeptide subunit chain of 2,647 amino acids, corresponding to 280 kD, also the mass derived from physical measurements of the native protein. The actin-binding domain is near the amino-terminus of the subunit where the amino acid sequence is similar to other actin filament binding proteins, including alpha-actinin, beta-spectrin, dystrophin, and Dictyostelium abp-120. The remaining 90% of the sequence comprises 24 repeats, each approximately 96 residues long, predicted to have stretches of beta-sheet secondary structure interspersed with turns. The first 15 repeats may have substantial intrachain hydrophobic interactions and overlap in a staggered fashion to yield a backbone with mechanical resilience. Sequence insertions immediately before repeats 16 and 24 predict two hinges in the molecule near points where rotary-shadowed molecules appear to swivel in electron micrographs. Both putative hinge regions are susceptible to cleavage by proteases and the second also contains the site that binds the platelet glycoprotein Ib/IX complex. Phosphorylation consensus sequences are also located in the hinges or near them. Degeneracy within every even- numbered repeat between 16 and 24 and the insertion before repeat 24 may convert interactions within chains to interactions between chains to account for dimer formation within a domain of 7 kD at the carboxy- terminus. The structure of ABP dimers resembles a leaf spring. Interchain interactions hold the leaves firmly together at one end, whereas intrachain hydrophobic bonds reinforce the arms of the spring where the leaves diverge, making it sufficiently stiff to promote high- angle branching of actin filaments. The large size of the leaves, their interruption by two hinges and flexible actin-binding site, facilitate cross-linking of widely dispersed actin filaments.
SHMEMPMI -- Shared Memory Based PMI for Improved Performance and Scalability

Dense systems with large number of cores per node are becoming increasingly popular. Existing designs of the Process Management Interface (PMI) show poor scalability in terms of performance and memory consumption on such systems with large number of processes concurrently accessing the PMI interface. Our analysis shows the local socket-based communication scheme used by PMI to be a major bottleneck. While using a shared memory based channel can avoid this bottleneck and thus reduce memory consumption and improve performance, there are several challenges associated with such a design. We investigate several such alternatives and propose a novel design that is based on a hybrid socket+shared memory based communication protocol and uses multiple shared memory regions. This design can reduce the memory usage per node by a factor of Processes per Node. Our evaluations show that memory consumption per node can be reduced by an estimated 1GB with 1 million MPI processes and 16 processes per node. Additionally, performance of PMI Get is improved by 1,000 times compared to the existing design. The proposed design is backward compatible, secure, and imposes negligible overhead.
Positive Long Run Capital Taxation: Chamley-Judd Revisited

According to the Chamley-Judd result, capital should not be taxed in the long run. In this paper, we overturn this conclusion, showing that it does not follow from the very models used to derive it. For the main model in Judd (1985), we prove that the long-run tax on capital is positive and significant, whenever the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is below one. For higher elasticities, the tax converges to zero but may do so at a slow rate, after centuries of high tax rates. The main model in Chamley (1986) imposes an upper bound on capital taxes. We provide conditions under which these constraints bind forever, implying positive long-run taxes. When this is not the case, the long-run tax may be zero. However, if preferences are recursive and discounting is locally nonconstant (e.g., not additively separable over time), a zero long-run capital tax limit must be accompanied by zero private wealth (zero tax base) or by zero labor taxes (first-best). Finally, we explain why the equivalence of a positive capital tax with ever-increasing consumption taxes does not provide a firm rationale against capital taxation. (JEL H21, H25)
Prevalence and Associated Factors of Hypertension: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study in Municipalities of Kathmandu, Nepal

Objective. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors of hypertension in newly declared municipalities of Kathmandu, Nepal. Design, Settings, and Participants. This was a community-based cross-sectional study conducted in the municipalities of Kathmandu District, Nepal, between January and July 2015. Study participants were aged 18 to 70 years, residing permanently in the study sites. Municipalities, Wards, households, and respondents were selected randomly. Results. Of the 587 participants, 58.8% were females, mean (SD) age was 42.3 (13.5) years, 29.3% had no formal education, 35.1% were Brahmins, and 41.2% were homemakers. Prevalence of hypertension was 32.5% (95% CI: 28.7–36.3). Age, gender, education, ethnicity, occupation, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, diabetes, menopausal history, and family history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and hypertension were significantly associated with hypertension. In multivariable analysis, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, body mass index, and diabetes were identified as significant explanatory variables for hypertension. Conclusion. This study demonstrated that the people living in newly established municipalities of Kathmandu, Nepal, have a high burden of hypertension as well as its associated factors. Therefore, community-based preventive approaches like lifestyle modification and early detection and treatment of hypertension might bring a substantial change in tackling the burden effectively.
IDM: An Indirect Dissemination Mechanism for Spatial Voice Interaction in Networked Virtual Environments

One type of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) live streaming has not yet been significantly investigated, namely topologies that provide many-to-many, interactive connectivity. Exemplar applications of such P2P systems include spatial audio services for networked virtual environments (NVEs) and distributed online games. Numerous challenging problems have to be overcome-among them providing low delay, resilience to churn, effective load balancing, and rapid convergence-in such dynamic environments. We propose a novel P2P overlay dissemination mechanism, termed IDM, that can satisfy such demanding real-time requirements. Our target application is to provide spatialized voice support in multiplayer NVEs, where each bandwidth constrained peer potentially communicates with all other peers within its area-of-interest (AoI). With IDM each peer maintains a set of partners, termed helpers, which may act as stream forwarders. We prove analytically that the system reachability is maximized when the loads of helpers are balanced proportionally to their network capacities. We then propose a game-theoretic algorithm that balances the loads of the peers in a fully distributed manner. Of practical importance in dynamic systems, we prove that our algorithm converges to an approximately balanced state from any prior state in rapid O(\log \log n) time, where n is the number of users. We further evaluate our technique with simulations and show that it can achieve near optimal system reachability and satisfy the tight latency constraints of interactive audio under conditions of churn, avatar mobility, and heterogeneous user access network bandwidth.
Service Boost: Towards on-demand QoS enhancements for OTT apps in LTE

This paper introduces the concept of dynamic Service Boost and proposes deployment solutions in mobile networks focusing on the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) architecture. The main idea is to introduce a time bound preferential service to subscribers based on predefined service contracts. By applying a light-weight, dynamic Quality of Service (QoS) control, operators achieve both, efficient network utilization and adequate QoS for users and content/application providers. This helps operators to use resources more efficiently, for example to enable a more efficient capacity sharing in the presence of increasing mobile traffic. We initially investigate the impact of Service Boost on Over-The-Top (OTT) traffic transmitted without any specific QoS guarantees over the so-called default bearer in LTE. Then we consider the design and analysis of a Service Boost architecture and framework for managing and prioritizing service requirements for certain applications within LTE. Finally, we elaborate the realization of Service Boost through congestion accountability.
Dicer in Schwann Cells Is Required for Myelination and Axonal Integrity

Dicer is responsible for the generation of mature micro-RNAs (miRNAs) and loading them into RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). RISC functions as a probe that targets mRNAs leading to translational suppression and mRNA degradation. Schwann cells (SCs) in the peripheral nervous system undergo remarkable differentiation both in morphology and gene expression patterns throughout lineage progression to myelinating and nonmyelinating phenotypes. Gene expression in SCs is particularly tightly regulated and critical for the organism, as highlighted by the fact that a 50% decrease or an increase to 150% of normal gene expression of some myelin proteins, like PMP22, results in peripheral neuropathies. Here, we selectively deleted Dicer and consequently gene expression regulation by mature miRNAs from Mus musculus SCs. Our results show that in the absence of Dicer, most SCs arrest at the promyelinating stage and fail to start forming myelin. At the molecular level, the promyelinating transcription factor Krox20 and several myelin proteins [including myelin associated glycoprotein (MAG) and PMP22] were strongly reduced in mutant sciatic nerves. In contrast, the myelination inhibitors SOX2, Notch1, and Hes1 were increased, providing an additional potential basis for impaired myelination. A minor fraction of SCs, with some peculiar differences between sensory and motor fibers, overcame the myelination block and formed unusually thin myelin, in line with observed impaired neuregulin and AKT signaling. Surprisingly, we also found signs of axonal degeneration in Dicer mutant mice. Thus, our data indicate that miRNAs critically regulate Schwann cell gene expression that is required for myelination and to maintain axons via axon–glia interactions.
Analysis of the ReSuMe Learning Process For Spiking Neural Networks

Analysis of the ReSuMe Learning Process For Spiking Neural Networks In this paper we perform an analysis of the learning process with the ReSuMe method and spiking neural networks (Ponulak, 2005; Ponulak, 2006b). We investigate how the particular parameters of the learning algorithm affect the process of learning. We consider the issue of speeding up the adaptation process, while maintaining the stability of the optimal solution. This is an important issue in many real-life tasks where the neural networks are applied and where the fast learning convergence is highly desirable.
An Analysis of Bloggers and Topics for a Blog Recommender System

Over the past few years the web has experienced an exponential growth in the use of weblogs or blogs, web sites containing journalstyle entries presented in reverse chronological order. In this paper we provide an analysis of the type of recommendation strategy suitable for this domain. We introduce measures to characterise the blogosphere in terms of blogger and topic drift and we demonstrate how these measures can be used to construct a plausible explanation for blogger behaviour. We show that the blog domain is characterised by bloggers moving frequently from topic to topic and that blogger activity closely tracks events in the real world. We suggest that a blog recommendation strategy must be able to quickly detect and model topics and determine the potential relevance of each topic to each blogger. Finally, we demonstrate how we can use blog tags as topic meta-labels.
Enhanced FBLMS algorithm for ECG and noise removal from semg signals

In this paper, we proposed a Dual-adapted Fast Block Least Mean Squares algorithm (DA-FBLMS) to remove electrocardiogram (ECG) and noise contaminations from surface electromyography signals (sEMG). Based on an adaptive noise cancelation (ANC) structure and artificial input signals, the ANC integrated proposed algorithm distinguishes itself by the use of an iterative method characterized by a varying number of updates for every different input block, combined with an adaptive step size guided by a QRS detector and the average error of the corresponding input block. The simulations demonstrate that the proposed DA-FBLMS algorithm presents better performances during the contaminations cancellation compared to a recursive least squares algorithm (RLS) and classic FBLMS algorithm, especially in noisy and high distortion environments.
Dynamic control of a manipulator with passive joints in operational space

A method for controlling a manipulator with passive joints, which have no actuators, in operational space is presented. The equation of motion is described in terms of operational coordinates. The coordinates are separated into active and passive components. The acceleration of the active components can be arbitrarily adjusted by using the coupling characteristics of manipulator dynamics. This method is also extended to path tracking control of a manipulator with passive joints. A desired path is geometrically specified in operational space. The position of the manipulator is controlled to follow the path. In this method, a path coordinate system based on the path is defined in operational space. The path coordinates consist of a component parallel to the path and components normal to the path. The acceleration of the components normal to the path is controlled according to feedback based on tracking error by using the dynamic coupling among the components. This in turn keeps the manipulator on the path. The effectiveness of the method is verified by experiments using a two-degree-of-freedom manipulator with a passive joint. >