Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Request Bridging and Interleaving: Improving the Performance of Small Synchronous Updates under Seek-Optimizing Disk Subsystems

Write-through caching in modern disk drives enables the protection of data in the event of power failures as well as from certain disk errors when the write-back cache does not. Host system can achieve these benefits at the price of significant performance degradation, especially for small disk writes. We present new block-level techniques to address the performance problem of write-through caching disks. Our techniques are strongly motivated by some interesting results when the disk-level caching is turned off. By extending the conventional request merging, request bridging increases the request size and amortizes the inherent delays in the disk drive across more bytes of data. Like sector interleaving, request interleaving rearranges requests to prevent the disk head from missing the target sector position in close proximity, and thus reduces disk latency. We have evaluated our block-level approach using a variety of I/O workloads and shown that it increases disk I/O throughput by up to about 50%. For some real-world workloads, the disk performance is comparable or even superior to that of using the write-back disk cache. In practice, our simple yet effective solutions achieve better tradeoffs between data reliability and disk performance when applied to write-through caching disks.
Two-dimensional Packing utilising Evolutionary Algorithms and other Meta-Heuristic Methods

DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any other degree. This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopy and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to other organisations. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all of the people who contributed their time and support to me during my studies in Cardiff: The staff of the Circuits and Systems Group, especially my supervisor Dr. B. Turton, for giving me the opportunity, arranging my grant and his invaluable support and guidance throughout my work, the Head of Department, Professor Tasker and the former Head of Department Dr. Horrocks for their support and guidance, and the secretarial staff Louise and Sheila for their organisational support. The financial support from EPSRC and the WDA for providing the CASE studentship as well as Cardiff University for the A. A. Read scholarship. J. Turton for her very useful comments on my thesis. My fellow PhD students for their inspiration to my studies, in particular Michael, who was always willing to help out with any software and hardware problems and also maintained, updated and continuously extended the computing equipment to provide sufficient computing power for simulations and calculations. To my family, especially my parents and my brother Peter, for their immense and never ending help during my stay abroad. A very special thanks to my boyfriend Wolfgang, who encouraged, helped and advised me so much during this work. I could not mention everybody who helped, to all the people I have left out: Thank You. SUMMARY 2D packing problems are a variety of combinatorial problems with a very large solution space that cannot normally be exhaustively searched. A series of hybrid approaches have been developed in this work to solve 2D rectangular and irregular strip packing and 2D bin packing problems. As the recent literature encourages the use of genetic algorithms in particular, along with other meta-heuristic methods for their solution, the main focus of this investigation has been on the application of evolutionary algorithms. The meta-heuristic search methods have been implemented as hybrid algorithms, which use simple packing algorithms in the decoding …
Student perceptions of web-based homework software: A longitudinal examination

Web-enhanced instruction is increasingly pervasive in higher education. Homework assignments and exams are increasingly completed online. Instructors evaluate the effectiveness of educational tools, such as web-based homework (WBH), in part through student performance that can be affected by students’ motivation. Thus, changes in students’ motivations and perceptions during an academic term can affect our assessment of the efficacy of the educational tool depending on when our assessment is conducted. No current studies identify variations in student perceptions of educational technology over time. Better understanding the changes in student perceptions of educational technology as they complete a course of study may help educators develop more effective instructional and pedagogical strategies. Our study explores how students’ attitudes toward WBH change with use.
Complete sequence of a 93.4-kb contig from chromosome 3 of Trypanosoma cruzi containing a strand-switch region.

We have initiated large-scale sequencing of the third smallest chromosome of the CL Brener strain of Trypanosoma cruzi and we report here the complete sequence of a contig consisting of three cosmids. This contig covers 93.4 kb and has been found to contain 20-30 novel genes and several repeat elements, including a novel chromosome 3-specific 400-bp repeat sequence. The intergenic sequences were found to be rich in di- and trinucleotide repeats of varying lengths and also contained several known T. cruzi repeat elements. The sequence contains 29 open reading frames (ORFs) longer than 700 bp, the longest being 5157 bp, and a large number of shorter ORFs. Of the long ORFs, seven show homology to known genes in parasites and other organisms, whereas four ORFs were confirmed by sequencing of cDNA clones. Two shorter ORFs were confirmed by a database homology and a cDNA clone, respectively, and one RNA gene was identified. The identified genes include two copies of the gene for alanine-aminotransferase as well as genes for glucose-6-phosphate isomerase, protein kinases and phosphatases, and an ATP synthase subunit. An interesting feature of the sequence was that the genes appear to be organized in two long clusters containing multiple genes on the same strand. The two clusters are transcribed in opposite directions and they are separated by an approximately 20-kb long, relatively GC-rich sequence, that contains two large repetitive elements as well as a pseudogene for cruzipain and a gene for U2snRNA. It is likely that this strand switch region contains one or more regulatory and promoter regions. The reported sequence provides the first insight into the genome organization of T. cruzi and shows the potential of this approach for rapid identification of novel genes. [The sequence data described in this paper have been submitted to the GenBank data library under accession nos. AF052831-AF052833. ]
Model-theory and implementation of property grammars with features

Property Grammar (PG) is a formalism introduced by Blache (Blache, 2000), which aims at describing syntax in terms of local constraints that can be independently violated. A promising feature of this formalism lies in its ability to account for ungrammatical utterances, thus departing from classical formalisms of generative-enumerative syntax. In this article, we present a model-theoretic description of PG that improves on previous work by providing support for properties augmented with feature constraints. (e.g., the requirement and agreement properties). While providing a formal definition of the semantics of feature-based PG, we illustrate various uses of features within this formalism and give a general framework to interpret them. In a second part, we show how this formalization of PG can be turned into a Constraint Optimization Problem to implement a PG parser that supports the computation of both syntactic trees (for grammatical sentences) and quasi-syntactic trees (i.e., linguistically motivated syntactic structure for ungrammatical utterances). Finally we briefly report on the implementation of such a parser using the Gecode library for Constraint Programming.
Protein translation occurs in platelet concentrates despite riboflavin/UV light pathogen inactivation treatment

Pathogen inactivation technologies (PITs) were introduced into blood banking to further improve the safety of blood products. However, the UV light used in PITs to terminate pathogen growth might alter the functionality of the cells in the blood product as well as the protein profile of the blood components. This study employed proteomic approaches to assess changes in the platelet proteome and translatome.
Speech Motor Sequence Learning in Parkinson Disease and Normal Aging: Acquisition, Consolidation, and Automatization

Alexander M. Goberman, Advisor Motor learning relies on the integrity of sensorimotor circuits in the brain, which are largely affected in individuals with Parkinson disease (PD). Additionally, data suggest normal aging can affect various stages of motor learning. Though data are available on the nature of non-speech motor learning, fewer studies have examined how adults with and without motor speech disorders learn speech articulatory sequences. The aim of the current investigation is to examine speech motor sequence learning in normal aging and PD. A speech motor sequence learning task was developed and implemented to examine acquisition, consolidation, and automatization over two days. On Day 1, participants learned a sequence of six monosyllabic nonwords to examine acquisition. This speech motor sequence was re-tested on Day 2 in singleand dual-task conditions to evaluate consolidation and automatization, respectively. Learning was inferred from gains in speed and accuracy of the speech motor sequence. There were no observed effects of aging or PD on speech motor sequence acquisition, as all groups exhibited comparable gains in speed and accuracy on Day 1. However, aging and PD were observed to affect speech motor consolidation following night-time sleep. Specifically, at the Day 2 re-test, young adults exhibited offline gains in speed and accuracy, older adults maintained speed and accuracy (without offline gains), and individuals with PD exhibited offline losses in speed. Only younger adults demonstrated automatization, exhibiting negligible dualtask effects when concurrently performing the speech motor sequence with a visuo-motor task. Conversely, both older adults and individuals with PD exhibited significantly poorer
Dispositional emotion coping styles and physiological responses to expressive writing.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of these two studies was to assess how repressors and defensive, high-anxious individuals exhibit their psychological and health characteristics subjectively through self-reports and objectively through physiological markers and ratings of emotional expression. DESIGN Cross-sectional descriptive design (study one) and randomized controlled design (study two). METHODS In the first descriptive study, repressors, defensive, high-anxious individuals and low-anxious individuals were identified from a pool of 748 undergraduates. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires assessing psychological and health characteristics. In the second experimental study, the three groups were randomized into either emotional or non-emotional writing conditions. Participants were asked to write three essays on either an emotional or a non-emotional topic in a single day. RESULTS In the first study, defensive, high-anxious individuals reported significantly more distress, symptoms, sickness behaviours and difficulty expressing anger relative to repressors. In the second study, there was a significant difference in salivary cortisol concentrations between the two writing conditions regardless of the emotional coping grouping. Analysis of the writing showed no significant differences among repressors, defensive, high-anxious and low-anxious individuals in their cognitive and affective expression. CONCLUSIONS Whereas self-reports of health outcomes and psychological traits clearly distinguish repressors and defensive, high-anxious individuals, more objective indices of emotional expressiveness and physiology do not appear to do so. The results also indicate that expressive writing may be helpful to reduce physiological arousal towards emotionally charged memories.
Output Feedback Fuzzy Controller Design With Local Nonlinear Feedback Laws for Discrete-Time Nonlinear Systems

This paper considers the output feedback control problem for nonlinear discrete-time systems, which are represented by a type of fuzzy systems with local nonlinear models. By using the estimations of the states and nonlinear functions in local models, sufficient conditions for designing observer-based controllers are given for discrete-time nonlinear systems. First, a separation property, i.e., the controller and the observer can be independently designed, is proved for the class of fuzzy systems. Second, a two-step procedure with cone complementarity linearization algorithms is also developed for solving the H∞ dynamic output feedback (DOF) control problem. Moreover, for the case where the nonlinear functions in local submodels are measurable, a convex condition for designing H∞ controllers is given by a new DOF control scheme. In contrast to the existing methods, the new methods can design output feedback controllers with fewer fuzzy rules as well as less computational burden, which is helpful for controller designs and implementations. Lastly, numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Increasing acceptance and efficacy of zinc phosphide rodenticide baits via modification of the carbohydrate profile

Toxicant coated grain-based baits are widely used to control rodent pests throughout the world, but where alternative food sources are available, bait acceptance and efficacy are often less than optimal. In an attempt to develop baiting strategies to increase bait acceptance and efficacy of zinc phosphide-coated baits, a sugar-enhanced rolled oat based zinc phosphide bait was evaluated. With pre-baiting, 100 and 60% mortality was achieved for California and Belding’s ground squirrels, respectively. A series of twochoice tests with a variety of potential bait matrices indicated that rolled oats was a desirable base matrix for both species but the lecithin sticker negatively impacted bait acceptance by Belding’s ground squirrels. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Relationships among Pathological Internet Use,Time Perspective,and Life Events in Adolescents

Objective: To investigate the key variables which affect the pathological internet use in adolescents with internet addiction.Methods: It was a cross-sectional study.Through lectures on the pathological internet use and the surveys executed in schools and communities,324 students were surveyed with the Young's internet addiction test.According to the survey results,60 adolescents from the 6th graders of primary school to the 3th graders of senior high school who were addicted to surfing internet were selected,and they were aged 12～19.The self-made questionnaire,Pathological Internet Use Scale,Time Perspective and Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Checklist were used in the present study.Results:The scores of the adolescents with acting motive on pathological internet use were significantly higher than those without acting motive [(55.3±2.5)vs.(48.1±1.4),P=0.012]. The present time perspective was correlated significantly with pathological internet use(r=0.38,P﹤0.01). The interpersonal relationship,one of the life events,was also correlated significantly with pathological internet use(r=0.42,P0.01) and could predict pathological internet use directly(R2=17.5,P0.001). Conclusion: It is suggested that acting motive,human relations and present specific time can directly affect the pathological internet use in the addicted adolescents.
Gossip-based topology inference for efficient overlay mapping on data centers

We present a distributed algorithm for identifying the location of data centers and their relative sizes. This topology information can be used in P2P systems to improve the routing performance, replica placement, or job scheduling. The algorithm uses gossiping with local agglomerative clustering. It is robust to failures and it correctly identifies outliers that are caused, e.g., by temporarily overloaded nodes or network failures. We present empirical results on the Grid 5000 testbed.
An adaptive CBIR system for remote sensed data

Nowadays, content-based image-retrieval techniques constitute powerful tools for archiving and mining of large remote sensing image databases. However, the gap between low-level unsupervised extracted features in content-based retrieval and the high-level semantic concepts of user queries limits their performances. For that reason, we propose an adaptive content based image retrieval (CBIR) approach based on 3D-LBP (Local Binary Pattern) and HOG (Histogram of Orientated Gradients) features. The aim is to increase the performance by optimizing image features selection according to image nature (more or less textured and structured) while at the same time maintaining a small sized feature to attain better matching and lower complexity. The feature adaptation is based on two measures: a statistical measure on HOG distribution to quantify shape information and the mean range of local variances for texture measuring. Experiments demonstrate the adaptive scheme permits to reach more accuracy and better performances regarding to retrieval results and time computation.
Theileria: intracellular protozoan parasites of wild and domestic ruminants transmitted by ixodid ticks

Theileria are economically important, intra-cellular protozoa, transmitted by ixodid ticks, which infect wild and domestic ruminants. In the mammalian host, parasites infect leukocytes and erythrocytes. In the arthropod vector they develop in gut epithelial cells and salivary glands. All four intra-cellular stages of Theileria survive free in the cytoplasm. The schizont stages of certain Theileria species induce a unique, cancer-like, phenotype in infected host leukocytes. Theileria undergoes an obligate sexual cycle, involving fusion of gametes in the tick gut, to produce a transiently diploid zygote. The existence of sexual recombination in T. parva has been confirmed in the laboratory, and is presumed to contribute to the extensive polymorphism observed in field isolates. Key parameters in T. parva population dynamics are the relative importance of asymptomatic carrier cattle and animals undergoing severe disease, in transmission of the parasite to ticks, and the extent of transmission by nymphs as compared to adult ticks. Tick populations differ in vector competence for specific T. parva stocks. Recombinant forms of T. parva and T. annulata sporozoite surface antigens induce protection against parasite challenge in cattle. In future, vaccines might be improved by inclusion of tick peptides in multivalent vaccines.
Saturnalia: A Latin-Catalan Parallel Corpus for Statistical MT

Currently, a great effort is being carried out in the digitalisation of large historical document collections for preservation purposes. The documents in these collections are usually written in ancient languages, such as Latin or Greek, which limits the access of the general public to their content due to the language barrier. Therefore, digital libraries aim not only at storing raw images of digitalised documents, but also to annotate them with their corresponding text transcriptions and translations into modern languages. Unfortunately, ancient languages have at their disposal scarce electronic resources to be exploited by natural language processing techniques. This paper describes the compilation process of a novel Latin-Catalan parallel corpus as a new task for statistical machine translation (SMT). Preliminary experimental results are also reported using a state-of-the-art phrase-based SMT system. The results presented in this work reveal the complexity of the task and its challenging, but interesting nature for future development.
Towards automating the analysis of integrity constraints in multi-level models

Multi-level modelling is a technology that promotes an incremental refinement of meta-models in successive meta-levels. This enables a flexible way of modelling, which results in simpler and more intensional models in some scenarios. In this context, integrity constraints can be placed at any meta-level, and need to indicate at which meta-level below they should hold. This requires a very careful design of constraints, as constraints defined at different meta-levels may interact in unexpected ways. Unfortunately, current techniques for the analysis of the satisfiability of constraints only work in two meta-levels. In this paper, we give the first steps towards the automation of mechanisms to check the satisfiability of integrity constraints in a multi-level setting, leveraging on “off-the-shelf” model finders.
A Virus-Encoded Cell–Cell Fusion Machine Dependent on Surrogate Adhesins

The reovirus fusion-associated small transmembrane (FAST) proteins function as virus-encoded cellular fusogens, mediating efficient cell–cell rather than virus–cell membrane fusion. With ectodomains of only ∼20–40 residues, it is unclear how such diminutive viral fusion proteins mediate the initial stages (i.e. membrane contact and close membrane apposition) of the fusion reaction that precede actual membrane merger. We now show that the FAST proteins lack specific receptor-binding activity, and in their natural biological context of promoting cell–cell fusion, rely on cadherins to promote close membrane apposition. The FAST proteins, however, are not specifically reliant on cadherin engagement to mediate membrane apposition as indicated by their ability to efficiently utilize other adhesins in the fusion reaction. Results further indicate that surrogate adhesion proteins that bridge membranes as close as 13 nm apart enhance FAST protein-induced cell–cell fusion, but active actin remodelling is required for maximal fusion activity. The FAST proteins are the first example of membrane fusion proteins that have specifically evolved to function as opportunistic fusogens, designed to exploit and convert naturally occurring adhesion sites into fusion sites. The capacity of surrogate, non-cognate adhesins and active actin remodelling to enhance the cell–cell fusion activity of the FAST proteins are features perfectly suited to the structural and functional evolution of these fusogens as the minimal fusion component of a virus-encoded cellular fusion machine. These results also provide a basis for reconciling the rudimentary structure of the FAST proteins with their capacity to fuse cellular membranes.
Comparing Different Variants of the ic3 Algorithm for Hardware Model Checking

IC3 is one of the most successful algorithms for hardware model checking. Since its invention in 2010, several variants of the original algorithm have been published, proposing optimizations and/or alternative procedures for many different steps of the algorithm. In this paper, we present a thorough empirical comparison of a large set of optimizations and procedures for the steps of IC3, considering “high-level” variants/extensions to the basic algorithm, as well as “low-level” optimizations/configuration settings. We implemented each of them in the same tool, optimizing the implementations to the best of our knowledge. This enabled for a flexible experimentation in a controlled environment, and to gain new insights about their most important differences and commonalities, as well as about their performance characteristics. We conducted the experiments using as benchmarks the problems used in the last four editions of the hardware model checking competition. The analysis helped us to identify several settings leading to significant improvements with respect to a basic implementation of IC3.