Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring Energy Scalability in Coprocessor-Dominated Architectures for Dark Silicon

As chip designers face the prospect of increasingly dark silicon, there is increased interest in incorporating energy-efficient specialized coprocessors into general-purpose designs. For specialization to be a viable means of leveraging dark silicon, it must provide energy savings over the majority of execution for large, diverse workloads, and this will require deploying coprocessors in large numbers. Recent work has shown that automatically generated application-specific coprocessors can greatly improve energy efficiency, but it is not clear that current techniques will scale to Coprocessor-Dominated Architectures (CoDAs) with hundreds or thousands of coprocessors. We show that scaling CoDAs to include very large numbers of coprocessors is challenging because of the energy cost of interconnects, the memory system, and leakage. These overheads grow with the number of coprocessors and, left unchecked, will squander the energy gains that coprocessors can provide. The article presents a detailed study of energy costs across a wide range of tiled CoDA designs and shows that careful choice of cache configuration, tile size, coarse-grain power management and transistor implementation can limit the growth of these overheads. For multithreaded workloads, designer must also take care to avoid excessive contention for coprocessors, which can significantly increase energy consumption. The results suggest that, for CoDAs that target larger workloads, amortizing shared overheads via multithreading can provide up to 3.8× reductions in energy per instruction, retaining much of the 5.3× potential of smaller designs.
Tree based ensemble models regularization by convex optimization

Tree based ensemble methods can be seen as a way to learn a kernel from a sample of input-output pairs. This paper proposes a regularization framework to incorporate non-standard information not used in the kernel learning algorithm, so as to take advantage of incomplete information about output values and/or of some prior information about the problem at hand. To this end a generic convex optimization problem is formulated which is first customized into a manifold regularization approach for semi-supervised learning, then as a way to exploit censored output values, and finally as a generic way to exploit prior information about the problem.
Greenhouse gas emissions from public consumption in Gothenburg

The purpose of this thesis is to explore and estimate greenhouse gas emissions from the public consumption in Gothenburg. By doing so it should be possible to see where the emissions are originating from and how large they are. Potentials for lowering emissions from public food consumption and the public transportation system in the year of 2030 are also investigated. This thesis is part of a Mistra Urban Futures project which is done in collaboration between Chalmers University of Technology, the Environment department of the municipality of Gothenburg and Vastra Gotalandsregionen (VGR). The entire project’s goal is to estimate greenhouse gas emissions for typical citizens in Gothenburg according to a consumption perspective. The consumption perspective differs from the (usually reported) production perspective where the latter only includes emissions emitted within a geographical area whereas the consumption perspective includes all the up-stream emissions the consumption of a product or service is responsible for. A top-down method using greenhouse gas emission intensities for different activities, per million SEK, from Swedish Input-Output data was used to estimate the total greenhouse gas emissions from public consumption. A bottom-up method (combining LCA data with consumption quantities) was also used to estimate emissions from public food consumption and from the public transportation system, this to get another perspective and to be able to estimate potentials for lowering emissions from these two activities. The definition of the public consumption was set to involve expenditures from all public activities, even those partly paid from private funds e.g. hospital costs including patient fee. The emissions carried out by the municipality of Gothenburg, VGR and the state were estimated to about 1,8 ton CO2-eq per citizen in Gothenburg and year. Large contributors were the four categories (based on SNI); Authorities, The educational system, Construction, Healthcare and care. State subsidies to the agricultural sector are also generating large amount of emissions. By using the bottom-up perspective the public food consumption in the municipality of Gothenburg was estimated to 0,053 ton CO2-eq per person and year with a potential of decreasing emissions between 31 % and 88 % per person. This was estimated by changing type of food, increasing energy efficiency and use non fossil fuels in the food production. The public transportation consumption was estimated to 0,072 ton CO2-eq per person and year of which half was allocated to public consumption. By changing technologies and fuels the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions was estimated up to 87 % per person and year. The goal, set by the municipality of Gothenburg, is to reach below a total (including public and private consumption) of 1,9 tons CO2-eq per person in 2050. It is thus of high relevance to also treat emissions from public consumption to a larger extent than what is done today. This since emissions from public consumption itself is close to the limit.
Automated 3D Segmentation of Vertebral Bodies and Intervertebral Discs from MRI

Recent developments in high resolution MRI scanning of the human spine are providing increasing opportunities for the development of accurate automated approaches for pathoanatomical assessment of intervertebral discs and vertebrae. We are developing a fully automated 3D segmentation approach for MRI scans of the human spine based on statistical shape analysis and template matching of grey level intensity profiles. The algorithm reported in the present study was validated on a dataset of high resolution volumetric scans of lower thoracic and lumbar spine obtained on a 3T scanner using the relatively new 3D SPACE (T2-weighted) pulse sequence, and on a dataset of axial T1-weighted scans of lumbar spine obtained on a 1.5T system. A 3D spine curve is initially extracted and used to position the statistical shape models for final segmentation. Initial validating experiments show promising results on both MRI datasets.
The FEM Analysis of PZT5H Piezoelectric Square Sheet Thickness Mode Vibration

Based on the FEM (Finite Element Method) application software ANSYS 15.0, the analysis of PZT-5H piezoelectric square sheet with specific dimensions was performed. Using multi-physics fields coupling, the geometric entity was modeled and the solid 226 coupling field element was selected for meshing to get the FEM model. The modal analysis was carried out to get the simulation results, including the modal frequencies and the first ten vibration modes, and harmonic analysis was also performed to simulate the electric impedance and resonance properties. The analysis results would be valuable for high frequency piezoelectric ultrasound transducer design and fabrication.
USING A CLEARING FUNCTION APPROACH WITH DECOMPOSITION FOR PRODUCTION PLANNING PROBLEMS

The idea of using Clearing Functions (CF) to represent the nonlinear dependence between workload and lead time in deterministic Linear Programming (LP) models for production planning, results in an increase in the size of the models to be ssolved. In this paper we address this problem by means of a decomposition approach similar to that of Sampaio et alli (2009), wich has proven to be quite efficient for classical LP models for production planning, wich we extend to take into account the piecewise linear approximation of the CF function.
Investigation of the eTS Evolving Fuzzy Systems Applied to Real Estate Appraisal

The evolving Takagi-Sugeno algorithm (eTS) was employed to built models assisting with property valuation on the basis of real-world data drawn from a cadastral system, registry of sales transactions, and cadastral map. The eTS performance was compared with evolutionary fuzzy systems implemented in KEEL. Statistical analysis of the results was performed using nonparametric tests followed by post hoc procedures designed for multiple comparisons. The results confirmed the advantages of the eTS algorithm.
Reduced Mortality of Cytomegalovirus Pneumonia After Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Due to Antiviral Therapy and Changes in Transplantation Practices.

BACKGROUND Despite major advances in the prevention of cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease, the treatment of CMV pneumonia in recipients of hematopoietic cell transplant remains a significant challenge. METHODS We examined recipient, donor, transplant, viral, and treatment factors associated with overall and attributable mortality using Cox regression models. RESULTS Four hundred twenty-one cases were identified between 1986 and 2011. Overall survival at 6 months was 30% (95% confidence interval [CI], 25%-34%). Outcome improved after the year 2000 (all-cause mortality: adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.7 [95% CI, .5-1.0]; P = .06; attributable mortality: aHR, 0.6 [95% CI, .4-.9]; P = .01). Factors independently associated with an increased risk of all-cause and attributable mortality included female sex, elevated bilirubin, lymphopenia, and mechanical ventilation; grade 3/4 acute graft-vs-host disease was associated with all-cause mortality only. An analysis of patients who received transplants in the current preemptive therapy era (n = 233) showed only lymphopenia and mechanical ventilation as significant risk factors for overall and attributable mortality. Antiviral treatment with ganciclovir or foscarnet was associated with improved outcome compared with no antiviral treatment. However, the addition of intravenous pooled or CMV-specific immunoglobulin to antiviral treatment did not seem to improve overall or attributable mortality. CONCLUSIONS Outcome of CMV pneumonia showed a modest improvement over the past 25 years. However, advances seem to be due to antiviral treatment and changes in transplant practices rather than immunoglobulin-based treatments. Novel treatment strategies for CMV pneumonia are needed.
Deposition of PZT thin films by hybrid process comprising sol-gel method and laser ablation for microscanners

Lead zirconate titanate (Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3: PZT) thin films were prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO/sub 2//Si substrates by hybrid processing: sol-gel method and laser ablation. The preferred orientation of the PZT films obtained by the hybrid process can be controlled using the seed layer obtained by the sol-gel method. The remnant polarization and the coercive field of this film were 28.6 /spl mu/C/cm/sup 2/ and 58.0 kV/cm, while the dielectric constant and loss values measured at 1 kHz were approximately 1050 and 0.045, respectively. The devices of micro mirrors were successfully fabricated through the PZT film deposition, lithography cyclotron resonance (ECR), reactive ion etching (RIE) and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) releasing processes. The scanning angle was about 6/spl plusmn/2 degrees by resonating two beams with AC 5 Vp-p at the resonance frequency of 1975 Hz. The results indicated that the piezoelectric PZT films deposited by the hybrid process have sufficient actuation capability for MEMS application.
Towards safe, smooth, and stable path planning for on-road autonomous driving under uncertainty

For on-road autonomous driving, path planner needs to generate a target path which is not only safe and smooth, but also stable under uncertainty propagated from sensing such as localization error and perception error. In this paper, we propose a path planning method which generates a target path in two steps: reference path planning and local path planning. The reference path planner keeps stability of lateral positing in a lane and also narrows down solution space efficiently. The local path planner ensures safety and smoothness of the target path by generating thousands of Bezier curves that follows the reference path with various shape and evaluating them comprehensively in highly parallelized processing. The proposed path planner has been integrated into our autonomous driving system and tested extensively on surface roads and freeways in real-world, showing capability to handle complex scenarios and stability under uncertain environment sensing.
Topography of saccadic eye movements evoked by microstimulation in rabbit cerebellar vermis.

1. We investigated saccadic eye movements elicited by microstimulation in the vermis of the rabbit. Scleral search coils were implanted under the conjunctiva of both eyes and a recording chamber was placed over the cerebellar vermis. 2. Conjugate saccadic eye movements were evoked in lobules VIa, b and c and VII of the vermis by currents ranging from 4 to 60 microA. All movements were horizontal with no apparent vertical component. 3. The cortex on both sides of the vermal mid‐line could be divided in two zones, dependent on the direction of elicited saccades. In the medial zone saccades were directed ipsilaterally, in the lateral zone contralaterally. 4. We conclude that the topography of saccadic eye movements in the rabbit cerebellar vermis is, unlike in monkey and cat, organized in parasagittal zones.
Simulating the arm movements of a stepper motor controlled pick - and - place robot using the stepper motor model

This paper describes the simulation of arm movements of a stepper motor controlled pick-and-place robot using the mathematical model of a stepper motor. The model includes: a) a model of the stepper model driver board, b) a model of the hybrid stepper motor and load combination, and c) the interconnection of the two models which is used to simulate the motions of the base, shoulder, elbow, and wrist (pitch) motions of the pick-and-place robot. The model is simulated using Simulink and the results of angular displacement from the simulation and actual measurements show good uniformity.
Control of input/output delayed and disturbed unstable plants

In this survey paper, different approaches to deal with input/output time delayed disturbed plants are considered. First, the classical Smith predictor and some of its modifications to deal with unstable and non-minimum phase plants are reviewed, being applied to single-input-single-output (SISO) plants. Then, combining the internal and external representation, a generalized dead-time compensator (DTC) is introduced. This new predictor provides a general solution for SISO plants, but fails when considering multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) plants, with different delays in each input/output channel. A detailed control design procedure is reviewed for these complex plants and some examples illustrate the controller design. Some suggestions for further improvements are also outlined.
CHARACTERIZING THE ROLE OF THE NELL1 GENE IN CARDIOVASCULAR DEVELOPMENT

Nell1{sup 6R} is a chemically-induced point mutation in a novel cell-signaling gene, Nell1, which results in truncation of the protein and degradation of the Nell16R transcript. Earlier studies revealed that loss of Nell1 function reduces expression of numerous extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins required for differentiation of bone and cartilage precursor cells, thereby causing severe skull and spinal defects. Since skeletal and cardiovascular development are closely linked biological processes, this research focused on: a) examining Nell16R mutant mice for cardiovascular defects, b) determining Nell1 expression in fetal and adult hearts, and c) establishing how ECM genes affected by Nell1 infl uence heart development. Structural heart defects in Nell16R mutant fetuses were analyzed by heart length and width measurements and standard histological methods (haematoxylin and eosin staining). Nell1 expression was assayed in fetal and adult hearts using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). A comprehensive bioinformatics analysis using public databases (Stanford SOURCE Search, Integrated Cartilage Gene Database, Mouse Genome Informatics, and NCBI UniGene) was undertaken to investigate the relationship between cardiovascular development and each of twentyeight genes affected by Nell1. Nell1-defi cient mice have signifi cantly enlarged hearts (particularly the heart width), dramatically reduced blood fl ow out of the heart and unexpanded lungs. Isolation of total RNAs from hearts of adult (control and heterozygote) and fetal (control and homozygous mutant) mice have been completed and RT-PCR assays are in progress. The bioinformatics analysis showed that the majority of genes with reduced expression in Nell1-defi cient mice are normally expressed in the heart (79%; 22/28), blood vessels (71%; 20/28) and bone marrow (61%; 17/28). Moreover, mouse mutations in seven of these genes (Col15a1, Osf-2, Bmpr1a, Pkd1, Mfge8, Ptger4, Col5a1) manifest abnormalities in cardiovascular development. These data demonstrate for the fi rst time that Nell1 has a role in early mammalian cardiovascular development, mediated by its regulation of ECM proteins necessary for normal cell growth and differentiation. In addition, understanding the mechanisms by which Nell1 and its associated ECM genes affect the cardiovascular system can provide future strategies for the treatment of heart and blood vessel defects.
Distributed Call Admission Control for VoIP over 802.11 WLANs Based on Channel Load Estimation

Call Admission Control (CAC) is recognized as one of the key strategies to achieve satisfactory QoS support for VoIP over IEEE 802.11 WLANs. However, most of the prior CAC solutions for VoIP over WLAN are centralized, and the few distributed CAC schemes proposed so far do not account for issues such as the loss of channel time due to medium contention and the coexistence of VoIP traffic with background traffic such as TCP data flows. In this paper, we describe a distributed CAC scheme which aims at addressing these issues by leveraging on channel monitoring techniques, thus being readily implementable in today's consumer devices. The proposed scheme is thoroughly evaluated by means of testbed experiments as well as network simulations in different scenarios, and it is shown to yield a better CAC performance with respect to prior solutions.
HPG: the Hera Presentation Generator

This paper presents a model-based design and development environment for Web Information Systems (WISs) using Semantic Web technologies. This environment called the Hera Presentation Generator (HPG) integrates a number of software tools created for the presentation generation phase of the Hera methodology. These tools are the HPG model builders that help constructing the WIS input specications and the HPG engine that implements the data transformations involved in a WIS. There are two versions of the HPG engine: HPG-XSLT and HPG-Java. HPG-XSLT is characterized by the use of XSLT stylesheets for the data transformations and by the full generation of a Web presentation. HPG-Java uses Java code for the data transformations and thus exploits more than HPG-XSLT the RDF(S) semantics captured in the Hera models and builds one-page-at-a-time. Generating one-page-at-a-time is motivated by recent extensions to the Hera methodology in order to better sustain the building of WISs with richer user interaction support (e.g., form-based). Nevertheless, HPG-Java lost the declarativity, simplicity, and reuse capabilities of the XSLT transformation templates. HPG thus lls the existing gap for tool support for the design of WIS using Semantic Web technologies.
Universal autonomous robot navigation using quasi optimal path generation

Autonomous robot navigation is an important research field because these robots can solve problems where the human presence is impossible, dangerous, expensive, or uncomfortable. In this paper, a new hybrid autonomous navigation method is introduced. The algorithm is composed of visibility graph based global navigation and simple potential field based local navigation parts. It applies a new automated graph generation method which may become necessary if, because of the observed new obstacles, a new path should be generated. The quasi optimal route is found by applying the well known A* algorithm on the graph. The presented technique offers a quasi optimal universal navigation technique which can successfully be used in all, known, unknown, and dynamically changing environments.
Prophylactically Decontaminating Human Islet Product for Safe Clinical Application: Effective and Potent Method

Background Transplanting pancreatic islets into recipients must be safe and effective to treat type 1 diabetes. Islet quality and quantity are important; however, the final product must also be free from microbial contamination and low endotoxin levels. Methods This study explored a method to eliminate contamination in manufacturing islets for transplantation. A simple (single antibiotic n = 164) and refined (triple antimicrobial agents, n = 279) pancreas decontaminating methods were used to test their effects on reducing the contamination rates in the islet final product. A total of 443 pancreata were processed for islet isolations. Three samples for microbial tests (Gram stain, aerobic, and anaerobic culture) were taken at preprocess (pancreas preservation), postisolation, and postculture. Endotoxin levels were measured only for islets considered for transplantation. Results Of 443 pancreata used for islet isolation, 79 (17.8%) showed signs of contamination in preprocess samples; 10 (2.3%) were contaminated in both preprocess and in the final product (postisolation and postculture) samples. Contamination rates in which preprocess and final product samples were positive for contamination was significantly lower using the refined method (refined vs simple method: 5% vs 20.5%, P = 0.045). Identical microbial species were present in both preprocess and in the final product. Conclusions This study demonstrated that the refined method reduces the rate of contamination of the islet final product and is safe for clinical application. Moreover, it may be used as a standard method during human islet manufacturing facilitating the application of a biological license agreement from United States Food and Drug Administration.
The optimization of the range-count queries in differential privacy

Privacy-preserving data publishing has been widely explored in academia recently. The state-of-the-art goal for data privacy-preserving is differential privacy, which offers a strong degree of privacy protection against adversaries with arbitrary background knowledge. However, along with a wide query scope in the non-interactive model like DiffGen, the accumulation of noise in the query answers can affect the usability of the released data. In this paper, we present Consistent DiffGen(CDiffGen), a non-interactive differentially-private algorithm. It aims at range-count queries and optimises the DiffGen module with the consistency constraints among data attributes. We experimentally evaluate CDiffGen on real dataset and the result performs the effectiveness and the improvement of our solution in range-count query tasks.