Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automated Generation of Processor Architectures in Embedded Systems Design

Automated design of processor architectures has traditionally been focused on the clocked pipeline organisation consisting of a fairly standard datapath and control logic. Control logic has been normally generated from the architectural description of a processor using the conventional techniques based on Finite State Machines (FSMs). As the area of processor design automation is becoming increasingly inclusive of system paradigms that are heterogeneous in terms of timing, such as multiclock and asynchronous circuits, there is a need for appropriate models and associated synthesis algorithms. This paper approaches the problem of designing control logic for a processor using Conditional Partial Order Graphs (CPOGs). The new method allows composing a large set of microarchitectural algorithms (instructions) into a compact relational form, which opens way for various transformation and optimisation procedures leading to an e cient implementation of control logic. The paper presents a CPOG-based design methodology and demonstrates how it can be applied to it on synthesis of control logic for Intel 8051 microcontroller.
Expression of programmed death-1 ligand (PD-L) 1, PD-L2, B7-H3, and inducible costimulator ligand on human respiratory tract epithelial cells and regulation by respiratory syncytial virus and type 1 and 2 cytokines.

BACKGROUND Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is associated with wheezing illness, and infections can occur repeatedly throughout life. We hypothesized that RSV infection of respiratory tract epithelial cells up-regulates B7 molecules that regulate memory immune responses and that type 1 and 2 cytokines differentially modulate this induction. METHODS We used flow-cytometric analysis to investigate programmed death-1 ligand (PD-L) 1, PD-L2, B7-H3, and inducible costimulatory ligand (ICOS-L) expression on tracheal (NCI-H292), bronchial (BEAS-2B), and alveolar (A549) epithelial cells; regulation of this expression by RSV, interferon (IFN)- gamma , and interleukin (IL)-4; and the effects of IFN-gamma and IL-4 on RSV-induced expression of these molecules. RESULTS B7-H3 was strongly expressed, PD-L1 and ICOS-L were moderately expressed, and PD-L2 was weakly expressed on unstimulated tracheal, bronchial, and alveolar epithelial cells. RSV infection up-regulated PD-L1, PD-L2, and B7-H3 expression on all cells and ICOS-L expression on bronchial and alveolar epithelial cells. IL-4 treatment alone had no effect, whereas IFN-gamma treatment alone increased PD-L1 and PD-L2 expression on all cells and decreased B7-H3 expression on bronchial and alveolar epithelial cells. On RSV-infected alevolar epithelial cells, IFN-gamma treatment increased PD-L1 and PD-L2 expression and decreased B7-H3 and ICOS-L expression, and IL-4 treatment increased PD-L2 and B7-H3 expression and decreased ICOS-L expression. CONCLUSIONS Respiratory tract epithelial cells express a wide range of B7 molecules. RSV infection increases their expression, and this expression is differentially regulated by IFN-gamma and IL-4. These processes may be involved in decreasing T cell antiviral immune responses to RSV and in RSV-associated wheezing.
The dynamics of image denoising viewed as damped elastic deformation

Diffusion-type algorithms have been integrated successfully into the toolbox of image processing. We introduce a new more flexible and powerful family of parabolic-hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs) that somewhat resembles the structure of the parabolic diffusion equation, but incorporates the second order derivative in time. It is instructive intuitively to consider in this context the dynamics of image processing as the deformation of an ‘elastic sheet’. Indeed, our parabolic-hyperbolic PDE models elastic deformation. This analogy between a well-known physical system and process on one hand, and the dynamics of an image processing scheme on the other hand, contributes interesting and important insight about images and their processing. We explore and demonstrate the capabilities and advantages afforded by the application of the proposed family of equations in image enhancement, and highlight the importance of incorporating the second derivative in time. The problem of computational complexity is addressed, and efficient numeric schemes are also presented.
Combining photometric normals and multi-view stereo for 3D reconstruction

In this paper a novel approach for 3D reconstruction of mid-sized objects is proposed that combines the advantages of multi-view stereo and photometric normal estimation. Images of an inspected object are taken in parallel with multiple synchronized cameras while the object is placed in an illumination setup that produces time-varying spherical gradient illumination for normal estimation. In contrast to existing approaches, the normal information is not only used to refine the preliminary stereo reconstruction. Instead, it is shown that the normal information allows to significantly increase the window size for stereo matching, which strongly improves robustness compared to classical window matching in the image domain. As a consequence, smoothness constraints, which are typical for stereo reconstructions, are no longer required. Our proposed method is comparably simple to implement and has a computation time of a few minutes. The evaluation on real and synthetic data demonstrates that detailed reconstructions with high accuracy are obtained.
[Lasers as an alternative to the endoscopic surgery in BPH].

Neodymium laser (Nd:YAG) has been used for prostatic coagulation. New contact tips have been developed in order to cause vaporization of the prostate. With the objective to examine the effectiveness and safety of 2 new laser procedures. ITT (interstitial thermotherapy) and Sidefocus Technique, in patients with BPH, we have participated in a prospective, international, multicenter study comparing these technique with TURP and prostatic incision. A total of 80 patients suffering from symptomatic BPH in our center were randomized for the four procedures as follow: ITT (18): sidefocus technique (21), incision (20) and TURP (21). Inclusion criteria were at least 50 years old, prostate between 20 and 60 g, maximum peak-flow < or = 12 ml/s, and I-PSS > or = 15. The patient's pretreatment evaluation consisted in World Health Organization symptom score and quality of life, digital rectal examination, transrectal, ultrasound, PSA, urine culture, prostatic biopsy if malignity suspected, uroflowmetric parameters and residual volume. Follow-up was performed using the same pretreatment parameters at one month, three months and six months. Statistical analysis was performed using ANOVA test and Student-Newman-Keul test. Symptom score decreased significantly in all groups. Peak flow rate increase was observed in the four groups but without statistical significance in both laser techniques. Results at the sixth month control comparing peak-flow rates are significantly more favourable for endoscopic surgical techniques (TURP and incision). Other flowmetric parameters, days of hospital stay, duration of catheter drainage, symptom scores and morbidity are analyzed.
Exploring the knowledge diffusion trajectories for the VoIP research

Many businesses nowadays are migrating from traditional enterprise telephone PSTN to VoIP because it combines voice, data, and video into a single, easy to manage service such that users are able to strongly secure their data. Research related to VoIP studies focuses on different issues from time to time. This study applies an integrated approach of main path analysis to explore the development and knowledge diffusion trajectories of the VoIP literature. We investigate thousands of papers in VoIP and visualize the knowledge diffusion trajectory of VoIP research via a social network analysis tool.
A study of embryonic stem cell‐related proteins in human astrocytomas: Identification of Nanog as a predictor of survival

Recent studies suggest that the regulatory networks controlling the functions of stem cells during development may be abnormally active in human cancers. An embryonic stem cell (ESC) gene signature was found to correlate with a more undifferentiated phenotype of several human cancer types including gliomas, and associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer. In the present study, we used tissue microarrays of 80 low‐grade (WHO Grade II) and 98 high‐grade human gliomas (WHO Grades III and IV) to investigate the presence of the ESC‐related proteins Nanog, Klf4, Oct4, Sox2 and c‐Myc by immunohistochemistry. While similar patterns of co‐expressed proteins between low‐ and high‐grade gliomas were present, we found up‐regulated protein levels of Nanog, Klf4, Oct4 and Sox2 in high‐grade gliomas. Survival analysis by Kaplan‐Meier analysis revealed a significant shorter survival in the subgroups of low‐grade astrocytomas (n = 42) with high levels of Nanog protein (p = 0.0067) and of Klf4 protein (p = 0.0368), in high‐grade astrocytomas (n = 85) with high levels of Nanog (p = 0.0042), Klf4 (p = 0.0447), and c‐Myc (p = 0.0078) and in glioblastomas only (n = 71) with high levels of Nanog (p = 0.0422) and of c‐Myc (p = 0.0256). In the multivariate model, Nanog was identified as an independent prognostic factor in the subgroups of low‐grade astrocytomas (p = 0.0039), high‐grade astrocytomas (p = 0.0124) and glioblastomas only (p = 0.0544), together with established clinical variables in these tumors. These findings provide further evidence for the joint regulatory pathways of ESC‐related proteins in gliomas and identify Nanog as one of the key players in determining clinical outcome of human astrocytomas.
Usability: A Critical Analysis and a Taxonomy

A major obstacle to the implantation of User-Centered Design in the real world is the fact that no precise definition of the concept of usability exists that is widely accepted and applied in practice. Generally speaking, the literature tends to define usability in overly brief and ambiguous terms and to describe its application in informal terms. This is one of the main reasons why ad hoc techniques predominate in usability study methodologies. The aims of this article are to investigate the concept of usability and to describe it by means of a detailed taxonomy that is organized hierarchically and that contains exhaustive descriptions of usability attributes. This taxonomy can be used to support different stages in the development of usable systems.
A battery powered 80 kVA capacitor charger

The design of a battery powered, rapid capacitor charger is discussed. The charger design is capable of an average output power of 80 kVA, for a burst time of roughly 5 seconds. Cool down time is required between bursts. A Lithium Ion Polymer (LiPo) battery pack with a nominal voltage of 355 V and fully charged open circuit DC voltage of 385 V will be used to power the rapid capacitor charger. The general topology of the charger is as follows. An IGBT H-bridge inverter uses pulse width modulation to create an AC waveform that is stepped up to a maximum of 58kV by a 1:170 ratio transformer. This high voltage output of the transformer is rectified and used to charge the capacitor bank.
Uplink Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access With Finite-Alphabet Inputs

This paper focuses on the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) design for a classical two-user multiple access channel (MAC) with finite-alphabet inputs. In contrast to most of the existing NOMA designs using continuous Gaussian input distributions, we consider practical quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellations at both transmitters, the sizes of which are assumed to be not necessarily identical. We propose maximizing the minimum Euclidean distance of the received sum constellation with a maximum likelihood (ML) detector by adjusting the scaling factors (i.e., instantaneous transmitted powers and phases) of both users. The formulated problem is a mixed continuous–discrete optimization problem, which is nontrivial to resolve in general. By carefully observing the structure of the objective function, we define a new type of Farey sequence, termed punched Farey sequence to tackle the formulated problem. Based on this, we manage to achieve a closed-form optimal solution to the original problem by first dividing the entire feasible region into a finite number of Farey intervals and then taking the maximum over all possible intervals. The resulting sum constellation is proved to be a regular QAM constellation of a larger size, and hence, a simple quantization receiver can be implemented as the ML detector for the demodulation. Moreover, the superiority of NOMA over time-division multiple access in terms of minimum Euclidean distance is rigorously proved. We subsequently address how to extend our design framework intended for the two-user MAC to systems with multiple users and multiple antennas. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify our theoretical analysis and demonstrate the merits of the proposed NOMA over existing orthogonal and non-orthogonal designs.
Virtual-topology adaptation for WDM mesh networks under dynamic traffic

We present a new approach to the virtual-topology reconfiguration problem for wavelength-routed, optical wide-area networks under dynamic traffic demand. By utilizing the measured Internet backbone traffic characteristics, an adaptation mechanism is proposed to follow the changes in traffic without assuming that the future traffic pattern is known. In that sense, our work differs from previous studies which redesign the virtual-topology according to an expected (or known) traffic pattern, and then modify the connectivity to reach the target topology. The key idea of our approach is to adapt the underlying optical connectivity by measuring the actual traffic load on lightpaths continuously (periodically based on a measurement period) and reacting promptly to the imbalances caused by fluctuations in the traffic by adding or deleting one lightpath at a time. We aim to correct the encountered load imbalance directly, either by tearing down a lightpath that is lightly loaded or by setting up a new lightpath when congestion occurs. We introduce high and low watermark parameters on lightpath loads to detect any over/underutilized lightpath, and to trigger an adaptation step. The adaptation method is evaluated through simulations and the effect of system parameters (high and low watermarks, length of the measurement period) are investigated.
Reliability of a Higher‐Taxon Approach to Richness, Rarity, and Composition Assessments at the Local Scale

Abstract: A promising shortcut for quantifying species patterns is to use genera and families as surrogates of species. At large spatial scales, concurrence between patterns of richness, rarity, and composition of species and higher taxa is generally high. Only a few researchers, however, have examined this relationship at the local scale, which is frequently the relevant scale in land‐use conflicts. We investigated the reliability of the higher‐taxon approach in assessing patterns of species richness, rarity, and composition at the local scale. We studied diversity patterns of three commonly used surrogate taxa: vascular plants, ground‐dwelling beetles, and moths. We conducted year‐round field surveys for these taxa in the Jerusalem Mountains and the Judean foothills, Israel. Richness and composition of species were highly correlated with richness and composition of genera for all taxa. At the family level, correlations with richness and composition of species were much lower. Excluding monotypic genera and families did not affect these relations. Rarity representation based on higher taxa varied considerably depending on the taxon, and rarity scale and was weaker compared with richness and composition representation. Cumulative richness curves of species and genera showed similar patterns, leveling off at equivalent sampling efforts. Genus‐level assessments were a reliable surrogate for local patterns of species richness, rarity, and composition, but family‐level assessments performed poorly. The advantage of using coarse taxonomic scales in local diversity surveys is that it may decrease identification time and the need for experts, but it will not reduce sampling effort.
Maximizing Supermodular Functions on Product Lattices, with Application to Maximum Constraint Satisfaction

Recently, a strong link has been discovered between supermodularity on lattices and tractability of optimization problems known as maximum constraint satisfaction problems. This paper strengthens this link. We study the problem of maximizing a supermodular function which is defined on a product of $n$ copies of a fixed finite lattice and given by an oracle. We exhibit a large class of finite lattices for which this problem can be solved in oracle-polynomial time in $n$. We also obtain new large classes of tractable maximum constraint satisfaction problems.
BEC Collapse, Particle Production and Squeezing of the Vacuum

Phenomena associated with the controlled collapse of a Bose-Einstein condensate described in the experiment of Donley et al [1] are explained here as a consequence of the squeezing and amplification of quantum fluctuations above the condensate by the condensate dynamics. In analyzing the changing amplitude and particle contents of these excitations, our simple physical picture provides excellent quantitative fits with experimental data on the scaling behavior of the collapse time and the amount of particles emitted in the jets. In the experiment described by Donley et al. [1], a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a cold (3nK) gas of Rubidium atoms is rendered unstable by a sudden inversion of the sign of the interaction between atoms. This is done by altering the binding energy at Feshbach resonance with an external magnetic field. After a waiting time tcollapse, the condensate implodes (called Bose-Nova), and a fraction of the condensate atoms are seen to oscillate within the magnetic trap which contains the gas. These atoms are said to belong to a ‘burst’. After a time τevolve the interaction is suddenly turned off. For a certain range of values of τevolve, new emissions of atoms from the condensate are observed. They are called ‘jets’. Jets are distinct from bursts: they are colder, weaker, and have a characteristic disk-like shape. 1
Protein Secretion Is Required for Pregnancy-Associated Plasma Protein-A to Promote Lung Cancer Growth In Vivo

Pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPPA) has been reported to regulate the activity of insulin-like growth factor (IGF) signal pathway through proteolytic degradation of IGF binding proteins (IGFBPs) thereby increasing the local concentration of free IGFs available to receptors. In this study we found that PAPPA is secreted from two out of seven lung cancer cell lines examined. None of immortalized normal bronchial epithelial cells (HBE) tested secrets PAPPA. There is no correlation between expression level and secretion of PAPPA in these cells. A cell line over-expressing PAPPA accompanied with secretion shows no notable changes in proliferation under cell culture conditions in vitro, but displays significantly augmentation of tumor growth in vivo in a xenograft model. In contrast, a cell line over-expressing PAPPA without secretion exhibits reduction of tumor growth both in vitro and in vivo. Down-regulation of PAPPA expression and secretion by RNAi knockdown decreases tumor growth after implanted in vivo. The tumor promoting activity of PAPPA appears to be mediated mainly through augmentation of the IGF signaling pathway as indicated by notable increases in downstream Akt kinase phosphorylation in tumor samples. Our results indicate that PAPPA secretion may play an important role in lung cancer growth and progression.
The Paragon Algorithm, a Next Generation Search Engine That Uses Sequence Temperature Values and Feature Probabilities to Identify Peptides from Tandem Mass Spectra*S

The Paragon™ Algorithm, a novel database search engine for the identification of peptides from tandem mass spectrometry data, is presented. Sequence Temperature Values are computed using a sequence tag algorithm, allowing the degree of implication by an MS/MS spectrum of each region of a database to be determined on a continuum. Counter to conventional approaches, features such as modifications, substitutions, and cleavage events are modeled with probabilities rather than by discrete user-controlled settings to consider or not consider a feature. The use of feature probabilities in conjunction with Sequence Temperature Values allows for a very large increase in the effective search space with only a very small increase in the actual number of hypotheses that must be scored. The algorithm has a new kind of user interface that removes the user expertise requirement, presenting control settings in the language of the laboratory that are translated to optimal algorithmic settings. To validate this new algorithm, a comparison with Mascot is presented for a series of analogous searches to explore the relative impact of increasing search space probed with Mascot by relaxing the tryptic digestion conformance requirements from trypsin to semitrypsin to no enzyme and with the Paragon Algorithm using its Rapid mode and Thorough mode with and without tryptic specificity. Although they performed similarly for small search space, dramatic differences were observed in large search space. With the Paragon Algorithm, hundreds of biological and artifact modifications, all possible substitutions, and all levels of conformance to the expected digestion pattern can be searched in a single search step, yet the typical cost in search time is only 2–5 times that of conventional small search space. Despite this large increase in effective search space, there is no drastic loss of discrimination that typically accompanies the exploration of large search space.
Scalable real‐time animation of rivers

Many recent games and applications target the interactive exploration of realistic large scale worlds. These worlds consist mostly of static terrain models, as the simulation of animated fluids in these virtual worlds is computationally expensive. Adding flowing fluids, such as rivers, to these virtual worlds would greatly enhance their realism, but causes specific issues: as the user is usually observing the world at close range, small scale details such as waves and ripples are important. However, the large scale of the world makes classical methods impractical for simulating these effects. In this paper, we present an algorithm for the interactive simulation of realistic flowing fluids in large virtual worlds. Our method relies on two key contributions: the local computation of the velocity field of a steady flow given boundary conditions, and the advection of small scale details on a fluid, following the velocity field, and uniformly sampled in screen space.
Fuzzy integral for moving object detection

Detection of moving objects is the first step in many applications using video sequences like video-surveillance, optical motion capture and multimedia application. The process mainly used is the background subtraction which one key step is the foreground detection. The goal is to classify pixels of the current image as foreground or background. Some critical situations as shadows, illumination variations can occur in the scene and generate a false classification of image pixels. To deal with the uncertainty in the classification issue, we propose to use the Choquet integral as aggregation operator. Experiments on different data sets in video surveillance have shown a robustness of the proposed method against some critical situations when fusing color and texture features. Different color spaces have been tested to improve the insensitivity of the detection to the illumination changes. Then, the algorithm has been compared with another fuzzy approach based on the Sugeno integral and has proved its robustness.