Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rubato DB: A Highly Scalable Staged Grid Database System for OLTP and Big Data Applications

This paper proposes a new formula protocol for distributed concurrency control, and specifies a staged grid architecture for highly scalable database management systems. The paper also describes novel implementation techniques of Rubato DB based on the proposed protocol and architecture. We have conducted extensive experiments which clearly show that Rubato DB is highly scalable with efficient performance under both TPC-C and YCSB benchmarks. Our paper verifies that the formula protocol and the staged grid architecture provide a satisfactory solution to one of the important challenges in the database systems: to develop a highly scalable database management system that supports various consistency levels from ACID to BASE.
2D-h trees: an index scheme for content-based retrieval of images in multimedia systems

An important feature to be considered in the design of a multimedia database system (MMDBS) is content based retrieval of images. Spatial features represent the spatial relationships among objects in an image. The salient objects (interesting objects) can be organized in an object hierarchy, based on object oriented concepts. The paper proposes an indexing scheme, called 2D-h trees, for content based retrieval of images. This scheme organizes the representations of the spatial relationships among objects in images and the hierarchical relationships among objects efficiently for query optimization. Our performance analysis indicates that the 2D-h-tree is an efficient index scheme for content based retrieval of images.
Design of 3 D NOC for Efficient Multicast Communication Based on Hamiltonian Path Routing

In the NOC technology three dimensional integrated circuits offer greater device integration. In the network on chip technology the communication can be done by node routers. As well as the number of hops should be very less inorder to reduce the signal delay and power. They also provide greater design flexibility by allowing heterogeneous integration. In order to exploit the intrinsic capability of reducing the wire length in 3D ICs, 3D NoCBus Hybrid mesh architecture was proposed. This architecture provides a seemingly significant platform to implement e f f i c ien t multicast routings for 3D networks-on-chip. In this paper, we propose hybrid architecture using hamitonian path based algorithm it f inds shortest path between source node to the destination node . As well as implementing the DMA controller to improve the speed of the transaction. This is suitable for multicast communication in the networks.
Copurification and characterization of deacetoxycephalosporin C synthetase/hydroxylase from Cephalosporium acremonium

Deacetoxycephalosporin C synthetase (expandase), which catalyzes ring expansion of penicillin N to deacetoxycephalosporin C (DAOC), has been stabilized in vitro and purified to near homogeneity from the industrially important fungus Cephalosporium acremonium. Throughout the purification, the expandase activity remained physically associated with and in a constant ratio of 7:1 to DAOC hydroxylase activity. The latter activity mediates hydroxylation of DAOC to deacetylcephalosporin C (DAC). The copurified expandase/hydroxylase appeared to be monomeric, with a molecular weight of 41,000 +/- 2,000 and an isoelectric point of 6.3 +/- 0.3. Both catalytic activities required alpha-ketoglutarate, Fe2+, and O2 and were stimulated by ascorbate, dithiothreitol, and ATP. The Fe2+ requirement was specific, and sulfhydryl groups in the purified protein were apparently essential for both ring expansion and hydroxylation. The kinetics and stoichiometry of DAOC/DAC formation from the expandase/hydroxylase-catalyzed reactions suggested that ring expansion of penicillin N preceded hydroxylation of DAOC.
Stent Assisted Coil Embolization: The Treatment of Wide-Necked, Dissecting, and Fusiform Aneurysms

Stent assisted coil embolization is a useful therapeutic modality for wide-necked and geometrically difficult aneurysms, as the stent provide a buttress that allows for coil deposition while preventing coil haerniation into the parent vessel lumen, and placement of an endovascular stent within the parent artery across the aneurysm neck may divert the blood from the aneurysm inflow tract and promote intra-aneurysm stasis and thrombosis. We report herein a 3 patients treated with endovascular stent-assisted coil embolization for symptomatic or enlarging wide-necked, dissecting, and fusiform aneurysms of the carotid and vertebrobasilar arteries. One patient had intracranial mass effect, the second had subarachnoid haemorrhage, and the third had angiographic evidence of enlarging aneurysm. The aneurysm was located in the petrous segment of internal carotid artery in one patient and in the intracranial vertebral artery in the other two patients. For all patients, we used balloon expandable stent (such as GFX, S-670) in this technique. Complete obliteration of the aneurysms could be achieved in all cases, with preservation of distal circulation.
Decision-Making under Risk of Loss in Children

In human adults, judgment errors are known to often lead to irrational decision-making in risky contexts. While these errors can affect the accuracy of profit evaluation, they may have once enhanced survival in dangerous contexts following a “better be safe than sorry” rule of thumb. Such a rule can be critical for children, and it could develop early on. Here, we investigated the rationality of choices and the possible occurrence of judgment errors in children aged 3 to 9 years when exposed to a risky trade. Children were allocated with a piece of cookie that they could either keep or risk in exchange of the content of one cup among 6, visible in front of them. In the cups, cookies could be of larger, equal or smaller sizes than the initial allocation. Chances of losing or winning were manipulated by presenting different combinations of cookie sizes in the cups (for example 3 large, 2 equal and 1 small cookie). We investigated the rationality of children's response using the theoretical models of Expected Utility Theory (EUT) and Cumulative Prospect Theory. Children aged 3 to 4 years old were unable to discriminate the profitability of exchanging in the different combinations. From 5 years, children were better at maximizing their benefit in each combination, their decisions were negatively induced by the probability of losing, and they exhibited a framing effect, a judgment error found in adults. Confronting data to the EUT indicated that children aged over 5 were risk-seekers but also revealed inconsistencies in their choices. According to a complementary model, the Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT), they exhibited loss aversion, a pattern also found in adults. These findings confirm that adult-like judgment errors occur in children, which suggests that they possess a survival value.
The most painful site of maxillary anterior infiltrations

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the most painful site of infiltration injection in the anterior part of maxilla. Materials and Methods: This single-blinded clinical trial was conducted on thirty healthy volunteers. The participants received three maxillary infiltrations injected at the region of central and lateral incisors as well as canines at three separated appointments with a 2-week interval. The outcome variable was pain that measured immediately after needle insertion (time = 0) and during injection of anesthetic solution in 5, 30, and 55 s by a visual analog scale. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 16 using Friedman test. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in terms of needle insertion pain and during injection (time = 0, 5, 30, and 55 s) (P = 0.319, P = 0.849, P = 0.627, and P = 0.939, respectively) in the three injection sites. Conclusion: The pain intensity of infiltration was not associated with injection sites in the anterior maxilla.
Super‐resolution fluorescence imaging of directly labelled DNA: from microscopy standards to living cells

Super‐resolution fluorescence microscopy is ideally suited to study the complex organization of cell DNA in the 10–100 nm range. Novel methods to image directly labelled DNA, instead of DNA‐associated proteins, are being developed and refined. This minireview provides an update of recent progress in super‐resolution fluorescence imaging methods for DNA. These developments should allow a deeper understanding of chromatin structure and widen the scope of biological processes that may be investigated with super‐resolution fluorescence microscopy.
Elastic Blocks: Hydrogel-Embedded Granules as Bone Grafting Substitutes

NanoBone® Block is the alternative to autogenous bone blocks and offers doctors a rapid, simple operating procedure in combination with a low risk of complications. Aim of this work was to develop a bone grafting block with elastic properties for dental and orthopedic surgery which is ready to use. An easy handling has to be connected with quick regeneration. Therefore, NB granules have been combined with an elastic hydrogel carrier based on Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and silica sol. Mechanical properties were optimized for an enhanced handling by cross linking and simultaneous sterilization of the PVP with gamma radiation. Cross linked PVP has the capability of swelling in water without being solved. To approve biocompatibility of adjusted material an in vivo study was analyzed using a standardized bone defect model in rat tibiae. Defect was filled with elastic bone grafting material. After 21 and 63 days rats were sacrificed and tibias analyzed. Histomorphological analysis showed an increased bone formation but even a decelerated resorption of elastic biomaterial. Quantitative compositional analysis showed a decrease in silicon content of granules as a process of matrix change.
Spatial Reuse and Fairness of Ad Hoc Networks With Channel-Aware CSMA Protocols

We investigate the benefits of channel-aware (opportunistic) scheduling of transmissions in ad hoc networks. The key challenge in optimizing the performance of such systems is finding a good compromise among three interdependent quantities: 1) the density of scheduled transmitters; 2) the quality of transmissions; and 3) the long term fairness among nodes. We propose two new channel-aware slotted CSMA protocols opportunistic CSMA and quantile-based CSMA (QT-CSMA) and develop new stochastic geometric models to quantify their performance in terms of spatial reuse and spatial fairness. When properly optimized, these protocols offer substantial improvements in performance relative to CSMA - particularly, when the density of nodes is moderate to high. In addition, we show that a simple version of QT-CSMA can achieve robust performance gains without requiring careful parameter optimization. The quantitative results in this paper suggest that channel-aware scheduling in ad hoc networks can provide substantial benefits which might far outweigh the associated implementation overheads.
Bond breaking and bond making in tetraoxygen: analysis of the O2(X3Sigma(g)-) + O2(X3Sigma(g)-) <==> O4 reaction using the electron pair localization function.

We study the nature of the electron pairing at the most important critical points of the singlet potential energy surface of the 2O2 <==> O4 reaction and its evolution along the reaction coordinate using the electron pair localization function (EPLF) [Scemama, A. ; Chaquin, P.; Caffarel, M. J. Chem. Phys. 2004, 121, 1725]. To do that, the 3D topology of the EPLF calculated with quantum Monte Carlo (at both variational and fixed-node-diffusion Monte Carlo levels) using Hartree-Fock, multiconfigurational CASSCF, and explicitly correlated trial wave functions is analyzed. At the O4 equilibrium geometry the EPLF analysis reveals four equivalent covalent bonds and two lone pairs on each oxygen atom. Along the reaction path toward dissociation it is found that the two oxygen-oxygen bonds are not broken simultaneously but sequentially, and then the lone pairs are rearranged. In a more general perspective, the usefulness of the EPLF as a unique tool to analyze the topology of electron pairing in nontrivial chemical bonding situations as well as to visualize the major steps involved in chemical reactivity is emphasized. In contrast with most standard schemes to reveal electron localization (atoms in molecules, electron localization function, natural bond orbital, etc.), the newly introduced EPLF function gives a direct access to electron pairings in molecules.
Optomechanical, vibrational and thermal properties of suspended graphene membranes

The aim of the Graphene Nano- Opto- Mechanics and Electronics is to use suspended graphene membranes as building blocks to address the coupling of optics, mechanics and electronics in this novel material. With a Young modulus similar to that of diamond (1 TPa), graphene is an extremely stiff, light and atomically thin membrane that can withstand its own weight without collapsing or breaking when suspended. Such membranes, integrated as mechanical devices, can be actuated from DC up to very high mechanical vibration frequencies (GHz). Moreover, graphene is an exposed 2D electron gas for which an electrostatic gate dramatically tunes the charge carrier density and its optical properties. Last but not least, it provides a unique architecture to perform physico-chemical functionalization and obtain hybrid materials combining the peculiar properties of adsorbed and chemisorbed species with the graphene ones.
Episodic Memory and Appetite Regulation in Humans

Psychological and neurobiological evidence implicates hippocampal-dependent memory processes in the control of hunger and food intake. In humans, these have been revealed in the hyperphagia that is associated with amnesia. However, it remains unclear whether ‘memory for recent eating’ plays a significant role in neurologically intact humans. In this study we isolated the extent to which memory for a recently consumed meal influences hunger and fullness over a three-hour period. Before lunch, half of our volunteers were shown 300 ml of soup and half were shown 500 ml. Orthogonal to this, half consumed 300 ml and half consumed 500 ml. This process yielded four separate groups (25 volunteers in each). Independent manipulation of the ‘actual’ and ‘perceived’ soup portion was achieved using a computer-controlled peristaltic pump. This was designed to either refill or draw soup from a soup bowl in a covert manner. Immediately after lunch, self-reported hunger was influenced by the actual and not the perceived amount of soup consumed. However, two and three hours after meal termination this pattern was reversed - hunger was predicted by the perceived amount and not the actual amount. Participants who thought they had consumed the larger 500-ml portion reported significantly less hunger. This was also associated with an increase in the ‘expected satiation’ of the soup 24-hours later. For the first time, this manipulation exposes the independent and important contribution of memory processes to satiety. Opportunities exist to capitalise on this finding to reduce energy intake in humans.
Extending sized type with collection analysis

Many program optimizations and analyses, such as array-bounds checking, termination analysis, depend on knowing the size of a function's input and output. However, size information can be difficult to compute. Firstly, accurate size computation requires detecting a size relation between different inputs of a function. Secondly, size information may also be contained inside a collection (data structure with multiple elements). In this paper, we introduce some techniques to derive universal and existential size properties over collections of elements of recursive data structures. We shall show how a mixed constraint system could support the enhanced size type, and highlight examples where collection analysis are useful.
Influence of Geometrical Factors on Cavity Pressure During the Injection Molding Process

The influence of the geometrical factors of plastic parts (shape factor, thickness, length/thickness ratio, and section changes) on the behavior of the cavity pressure during the injection process was studied. The instrumentation of injection molds was proposed, placing pressure transducers in the more critical zones of the parts. The evaluation of the molds was made using solid modelator and simulator software of the injection process with different polymers. The geometric factors determine the processing conditions to be used, the behavior of the cavity pressure during filling and postfilling phases, the cooling, and the dimensional stability of the part.
An embedding approach for context-aware collaborative recommendation and visualization

Recommender system has been widely used in e-commerce systems nowadays. Current methodologies focus on predicting users' preferences from their previous ratings. Although the prediction is largely helpful, it gives limited insight to managers of e-commerce systems on how to utilize the interactions between users and items for designing new business and marketing strategies. Besides, big data collected by e-commerce systems raise another challenge in recommendation — how to incorporate large amount of additional information such as the contexts where the rating or buying event takes place. In this paper, we propose a novel method to simultaneously tackle the two challenges above based on the concept of embedding, by deriving a general distance-dependent rating model that characterizes the relationship between user and item with respective to the embedding space. The generalized model allows us to incorporate contextual information into the recommender system for rating prediction and item recommendation. We show that our embedding model is comparable to state-of-the-art context-aware recommendation algorithms in terms of accuracy, while allowing visualization as an analytics tool which gives intuitive insights to the recommendation in an understandable way. In addition, our algorithm also allows efficient recommendation by leveraging the neighborhood structure of the embedding space. We demonstrate the advantages of our method with experiments and results show that context-aware embedding is a promising approach for context-aware recommender systems.
An LMI approach to positive real control for discrete time-delay systems

This paper focuses on the problem of positive real control for discrete time-delay systems. The problem we address is the design of a dynamic output feedback controller, which guarantees the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system and achieves the extended strictly positive realness of a certain closed-loop transfer function. Then, a condition for extended strictly positive realness for discrete-delay systems is developed. Based on this, a sufficient condition for the existence of the desired controllers is proposed in terms of three linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). When these LMIs are feasible, an explicit parametrization of the desired output feedback controller is presented. An illustrative example is given to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.
Simultaneous Team Assignment and Behavior Recognition from Spatio-Temporal Agent Traces

This paper addresses the problem of activity recognition for physically-embodied agent teams. We define team activity recognition as the process of identifying team behaviors from traces of agent positions over time; for many physical domains, military or athletic, coordinated team behaviors create distinctive spatio-temporal patterns that can be used to identify low-level action sequences. This paper focuses on the novel problem of recovering agent-to-team assignments for complex team tasks where team composition, the mapping of agents into teams, changes over time. Without a priori knowledge of current team assignments, the behavior recognition problem is challenging since behaviors are characterized by the aggregate motion of the entire team and cannot generally be determined by observing the movements of a single agent in isolation. To handle this problem, we introduce a new algorithm, Simultaneous Team Assignment and Behavior Recognition (STABR), that generates behavior annotations from spatio-temporal agent traces. The proposed approach is able to perform accurate team behavior recognition without an exhaustive search over the combinatorial space of potential team assignments, as demonstrated on several scenarios of simulated military maneuvers.
Parallel shear flows of two superimposed viscoelastic fluids

In this thesis we investigate the shear flow of two 'superimposed viscoelastic fluids under steady state conditions. Several important applications of such flows include lubricated transport of crude oil through pipelines, co-extrusion of polymeric liquids in foaming composite materials, and coating of liquid layers to a substrate. We consider the general case for which each layer has a different density, viscosity and relaxation time. The layer thickness is an additional parameter. Both geometries of parallel plates and cylindrical pipe are considered. The closed form solutions for the case of Newtonian fluids are derived for completeness. The Upper Convected Maxwell fluid and The Oldroyd -Bmodel are used to describe the viscoelastic behavior of dilute solutions of polymeric molecules. Closed form solutions for these fluids are also derived. Concentrated solutions of polymers which exhibit second normal stress differences and shear thinning can be described by a more complex viscoelastic model known as the Giesekus model. Solutions for the Couette flow of two superimposed fluids described by the Giesekus model are obtained numerically and the effect of the variation of some of the parameters on the flow is investigated. As expected, the second normal stress difference increases for increasing values of the mobility parameter Q. In addition, increased Weissenberg numbers produce higher second normal stress differences. In the cases where one of the layers is much thinner than the other, we conclude that the nondimensional velocity gradient in the thick layer remains very
Induction of proteins in response to low temperature in Escherichia coli

When the growth temperature of an exponential culture of Escherichia coli is abruptly decreased from 37 to 10 degrees C, growth stops for several hours before a new rate of growth is established. During this growth lag the number of proteins synthesized is dramatically reduced, and at one point only about two dozen proteins are made; 13 of these are made at differential rates that are 3 to 300 times increased over the rates at 37 degrees C. The protein with the highest rate of synthesis during the lag is not detectably made at 37 degrees C. The identities of several of these cold shock proteins correlate with previous observations that indicate a block in translation initiation at low temperatures.
Universal access: speech recognition for talkers with spastic dysarthria

This paper describes the results of our experiments in small and medium vocabulary dysarthric speech recognition, using the database being recorded by our group under the Universal Access initiative. We develop and test speaker-dependent, word-and phone-level speech recognizers utilizing the hidden Markov Model architecture; the models are trained exclusively on dysarthric speech produced by individuals diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The experiments indicate that (a) different sys-tem conﬁgurations (being word vs. phone based, number of states per HMM, number of Gaussian components per state spe-ciﬁc observation probability density etc.) give useful performance (in terms of recognition accuracy) for different speakers and different task-vocabularies, and (b) for very low intelligibility subjects, speech recognition outperforms human listeners on recognizing dysarthric speech.