Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Content-Based De-anonymisation of Tweets

Various types of personal information are accessible through the Web, and they can be accessed in number of ways. Linking of the personal information obtained with other personal information can lead to a serious violation of privacy. To address this problem, we developed a method that matches the information individuals place in a profile to the information they post on social media sites. It uses an algorithm we developed for quantifying the correlation between a word and a document even if the word itself does not appear in document.
On the Efficiency of Durable State Machine Replication

State Machine Replication (SMR) is a fundamental technique for ensuring the dependability of critical services in modern internet-scale infrastructures. SMR alone does not protect from full crashes, and thus in practice it is employed together with secondary storage to ensure the durability of the data managed by these services. In this work we show that the classical durability enforcing mechanisms - logging, checkpointing, state transfer - can have a high impact on the performance of SMR-based services even if SSDs are used instead of disks. To alleviate this impact, we propose three techniques that can be used in a transparent manner, i.e., without modifying the SMR programming model or requiring extra resources: parallel logging, sequential checkpointing, and collaborative state transfer. We show the benefits of these techniques experimentally by implementing them in an open-source replication library, and evaluating them in the context of a consistent key-value store and a coordination service.
Synthesis of Walking Sounds for Alleviating Gait Disturbances in Parkinson's Disease

Managing gait disturbances in people with Parkinson's disease is a pressing challenge, as symptoms can contribute to injury and morbidity through an increased risk of falls. While drug-based interventions have limited efficacy in alleviating gait impairments, certain nonpharmacological methods, such as cueing, can also induce transient improvements to gait. The approach adopted here is to use computationally-generated sounds to help guide and improve walking actions. The first method described uses recordings of force data taken from the steps of a healthy adult which in turn were used to synthesize realistic gravel-footstep sounds that represented different spatio-temporal parameters of gait, such as step duration and step length. The second method described involves a novel method of sonifying, in real time, the swing phase of gait using real-time motion-capture data to control a sound synthesis engine. Both approaches explore how simple but rich auditory representations of action based events can be used by people with Parkinson's to guide and improve the quality of their walking, reducing the risk of falls and injury. Studies with Parkinson's disease patients are reported which show positive results for both techniques in reducing step length variability. Potential future directions for how these sound approaches can be used to manage gait disturbances in Parkinson's are also discussed.
Prediction of leucine-rich nuclear export signal containing proteins with NESsential

The classical nuclear export signal (NES), also known as the leucine-rich NES, is a protein localization signal often involved in important processes such as signal transduction and cell cycle regulation. Although 15 years has passed since its discovery, limited structural information and high sequence diversity have hampered understanding of the NES. Several consensus sequences have been proposed to describe it, but they suffer from poor predictive power. On the other hand, the NetNES server provides the only computational method currently available. Although these two methods have been widely used to attempt to find the correct NES position within potential NES-containing proteins, their performance has not yet been evaluated on the basic task of identifying NES-containing proteins. We propose a new predictor, NESsential, which uses sequence derived meta-features, such as predicted disorder and solvent accessibility, in addition to primary sequence. We demonstrate that it can identify promising NES-containing candidate proteins (albeit at low coverage), but other methods cannot. We also quantitatively demonstrate that predicted disorder is a useful feature for prediction and investigate the different features of (predicted) ordered versus disordered NES’s. Finally, we list 70 recently discovered NES-containing proteins, doubling the number available to the community.
Wideband electronic reconnaissance and localization in jamming environment

Time Difference Of Arrival (TDOA) method is very often used inside electronic intelligence systems. TDOA method requires the high signal to noise ratio at the output of the intermediate frequency amplifier for target localization, usually around 12 dB or more. At low signal-to-noise ratio TDOA is inaccurate and especially in case of the active jamming it is nearly impossible. The multilateral TDOA electronic inteligence system concept and design, which enables to locate and to pursue the targets in case of low signal to noise ratio, is proposed in the paper. The proposed system offers good performance especially in the presence of an active noise jamming.
Soft, thin skin-mounted power management systems and their use in wireless thermography

Significance Existing options for electrical power generation and storage in wearable electronics are incompatible with thin geometries, soft, stretchable mechanics, and lightweight construction needed for long‐lived, intimate interfaces with the skin. Here we demonstrate concepts that allow the integration of collections of thin, millimeter-scale solid-state batteries and multijunction solar cells into electrically interconnected arrays that simultaneously provide high-performance operation and soft, biocompatible mechanics at the system level. Examples in photovoltaic energy harvesting, storage, and overall power management illustrate some of the functional options with such platforms. Thin, wearable wireless sensors for skin thermography with capabilities in data logging demonstrate the combined use of components for energy storage, power management, digital memory, physiological monitoring, and wireless, near-field communications in an integrated, stretchable device architecture with the ability to establish robust, nonirritating measurement interfaces directly to the skin. Power supply represents a critical challenge in the development of body-integrated electronic technologies. Although recent research establishes an impressive variety of options in energy storage (batteries and supercapacitors) and generation (triboelectric, piezoelectric, thermoelectric, and photovoltaic devices), the modest electrical performance and/or the absence of soft, biocompatible mechanical properties limit their practical use. The results presented here form the basis of soft, skin-compatible means for efficient photovoltaic generation and high-capacity storage of electrical power using dual-junction, compound semiconductor solar cells and chip-scale, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, respectively. Miniaturized components, deformable interconnects, optimized array layouts, and dual-composition elastomer substrates, superstrates, and encapsulation layers represent key features. Systematic studies of the materials and mechanics identify optimized designs, including unusual configurations that exploit a folded, multilayer construct to improve the functional density without adversely affecting the soft, stretchable characteristics. System-level examples exploit such technologies in fully wireless sensors for precision skin thermography, with capabilities in continuous data logging and local processing, validated through demonstrations on volunteer subjects in various realistic scenarios.
Runtime empirical selection of loop schedulers on hyperthreaded SMPs

Hyperthreaded (HT) and simultaneous multithreaded (SMT) processors are now available in commodity workstations and servers. This technology is designed to increase throughput by executing multiple concurrent threads on a single physical processor. These multiple threads share the processor's functional units and on-chip memory hierarchy in an attempt to make better use of idle resources. Most OpenMP applications have been written assuming an symmetric multiprocessor (SMP), not an SMT, model. Threads executing on the same physical processor have interactions on data locality and resource sharing that do not occur on traditional SMPs. This work focuses on tuning the behavior of OpenMP applications executing on SMPs with SMT processors. We propose two adaptive loop schedulers that determine effective hierarchical schedulers for individual parallel loops. We compare the performance of our two proposed schedulers against several standard schedulers and the per-region adaptive scheduler proposed by Zhang et al. using the SPEC and NAS OpenMP benchmark suites. We show that both of our proposed schedulers outperform all other schedulers on average, and increase speedup on average by over 25% when all thread contexts are used.
Whole Genome Sequencing Shows a Low Proportion of Tuberculosis Disease Is Attributable to Known Close Contacts in Rural Malawi

Background The proportion of tuberculosis attributable to transmission from close contacts is not well known. Comparison of the genome of strains from index patients and prior contacts allows transmission to be confirmed or excluded. Methods In Karonga District, Malawi, all tuberculosis patients are asked about prior contact with others with tuberculosis. All available strains from culture-positive patients were sequenced. Up to 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms between index patients and their prior contacts were allowed for confirmation, and ≥ 100 for exclusion. The population attributable fraction was estimated from the proportion of confirmed transmissions and the proportion of patients with contacts. Results From 1997–2010 there were 1907 new culture-confirmed tuberculosis patients, of whom 32% reported at least one family contact and an additional 11% had at least one other contact; 60% of contacts had smear-positive disease. Among case-contact pairs with sequences available, transmission was confirmed from 38% (62/163) smear-positive prior contacts and 0/17 smear-negative prior contacts. Confirmed transmission was more common in those related to the prior contact (42.4%, 56/132) than in non-relatives (19.4%, 6/31, p = 0.02), and in those with more intense contact, to younger index cases, and in more recent years. The proportion of tuberculosis attributable to known contacts was estimated to be 9.4% overall. Conclusions In this population known contacts only explained a small proportion of tuberculosis cases. Even those with a prior family contact with smear positive tuberculosis were more likely to have acquired their infection elsewhere.
Evolutionary perspectives of telomerase RNA structure and function

ABSTRACT Telomerase is the eukaryotic solution to the ‘end-replication problem’ of linear chromosomes by synthesising the highly repetitive DNA constituent of telomeres, the nucleoprotein cap that protects chromosome termini. Functioning as a ribonucleoprotein (RNP) enzyme, telomerase is minimally composed of the highly conserved catalytic telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) and essential telomerase RNA (TR) component. Beyond merely providing the template for telomeric DNA synthesis, TR is an innate telomerase component and directly facilitates enzymatic function. TR accomplishes this by having evolved structural elements for stable assembly with the TERT protein and the regulation of the telomerase catalytic cycle. Despite its prominence and prevalence, TR has profoundly diverged in length, sequence, and biogenesis pathway among distinct evolutionary lineages. This diversity has generated numerous structural and mechanistic solutions for ensuring proper RNP formation and high fidelity telomeric DNA synthesis. Telomerase provides unique insights into RNA and protein coevolution within RNP enzymes.
Real-time simulation of dynamic systems on systolic arrays

Systolic arrays have emerged as a powerful means for solving several computational problems of practical importance. This paper discusses the applicability of systolic arrays in the real-time simulation of dynamic systems. Systolic arrays are proposed for the simulation of dynamic systems which can be represented by a set of linear or nonlinear ordinary differential equations. Efficient techniques for solving the differential equations have been chosen in these systolic implementations, so that the real-time constraints can be satisfied, while maintaining both the stability and accuracy of the simulation. The complexity issues of the systolic implementations are also discussed. Conclusions are drawn regarding the efficiency and ease of using the systolic arrays, after comparison with the earlier solutions for this problem.
Manufacturing of waveguide components for SatCom through selective laser melting

This paper presents the developments at CNR-IEIIT and IIT concerning microwave waveguide components manufactured through selective laser melting (SLM). The latter is an additive manufacturing process based on the selective melting of a metal powder bed through a laser. Application of this technology to the development of antenna-feed chains aimed at satellite communication (SatCom) is discussed. Description of the process and experimental activities for the assessment of the electromagnetic properties of parts are reported. Measured performance of Ku/K-band filters and Ku-band feed-horns manufactured through SLM will be presented. The results achieved prove that SLM can be a valuable technology both to develop novel components and to increase system integration.
Mapping the fiber orientation in articular cartilage at rest and under pressure studied by 2H double quantum filtered MRI

The one‐dimensional 2H double quantum filtered (DQF) spectroscopic imaging technique was used to study the orientation of collagen fibers in articular cartilage. The method detects only water molecules in anisotropic environments, which in cartilage is caused by their interaction with the collagen fibers. A large quadrupolar splitting was observed in the calcified zone and a smaller splitting in the radial zone. In the transitional zone the splitting was not resolved and a small splitting was again detected in the superficial zone. From measurements performed at two orientations of the plug relative to the magnetic field it was deduced that in the calcified and radial zones the fibers are oriented perpendicular to the bone, bending at the transitional zone and flattening at the superficial zone. The effect of load applied to the cartilage–bone plug was monitored by the same technique. At low loads there is a small decrease in the quadrupolar splitting in the calcified zone, a marked decrease in the radial zone, and an increase of the splitting accompanied by a thickening of the superficial zone. Under high loads, while the thickening and the splitting of the superficial zone further increase, the splitting in the radial and calcified zones completely collapse. Pressure‐induced changes in the thickness of the surface zone indicate flattening of the collagen fibers near the surface. The marked collapse of the splitting near the bone at high pressures may result from crimping of the collagen fibers. Magn Reson Med 48:322–330, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Recent Development on Silicon Raman Lasers and Amplifiers

Silicon photonics has made rapid progress in recent years achieving several key breakthroughs. Chip-scale silicon lasers and amplifiers based on stimulated Raman scattering have been successfully demonstrated. Recent development of Raman silicon lasers and amplifiers based on ring resonator architecture enables dimension scalability and monolithic integration with other photonics components
A combined computational-experimental analyses of selected metabolic enzymes in Pseudomonas species

Comparative genomic analysis has revolutionized our ability to predict the metabolic subsystems that occur in newly sequenced genomes, and to explore the functional roles of the set of genes within each subsystem. These computational predictions can considerably reduce the volume of experimental studies required to assess basic metabolic properties of multiple bacterial species. However, experimental validations are still required to resolve the apparent inconsistencies in the predictions by multiple resources. Here, we present combined computational-experimental analyses on eight completely sequenced Pseudomonas species. Comparative pathway analyses reveal that several pathways within the Pseudomonas species show high plasticity and versatility. Potential bypasses in 11 metabolic pathways were identified. We further confirmed the presence of the enzyme O-acetyl homoserine (thiol) lyase (EC: 2.5.1.49) in P. syringae pv. tomato that revealed inconsistent annotations in KEGG and in the recently published SYSTOMONAS database. These analyses connect and integrate systematic data generation, computational data interpretation, and experimental validation and represent a synergistic and powerful means for conducting biological research.
Measuring and compensating for process mismatch-induced, reference spurs in phase-locked loops using a sub-sampled DSP

A DSP method based on sub-sampling followed by M-point FFT of the sub-sampled signal is used to reduce the phase-locked loop's reference spur. To validate the system's effectiveness a digital calibration loop in SIMULINK is designed. The results show that the reference spur can be improved by 22dBc with a 1% residual current mismatch and a 1nA net value of leakage current.
p53 Suppresses the Nrf2-dependent Transcription of Antioxidant Response Genes*

Cells respond to the shift of intracellular environment toward pro-oxidant conditions by activating the transcription of numerous “antioxidant” genes. This response is based on the activation of the Nrf2 transcription factor, which transactivates the genes containing in their promoters the antioxidant response cis-elements (AREs). If the oxidative stress provokes DNA damage, a second response of the cell takes place, based on the activation of p53, which induces cell cycle arrest and/or apoptosis. Here we have explored the cross-talk between these two regulatory mechanisms. The results show that p53 counteracts the Nrf2-induced transcription of three ARE-containing promoters of the x-CT, NQO1, and GST-α1 genes. Endogenous transcripts of these antioxidant genes accumulate as a consequence of Nrf2 overexpression or exposure to electrophile diethylmaleate, but these effects are again blocked by p53 overexpression or endogenous p53 activation. Chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments support the hypothesis that this p53-dependent trans-repression is due to the direct interaction of p53 with the ARE-containing promoters. Considering that p53-induced apoptosis requires an accumulation of reactive oxygen species, this negative control on the Nrf2 transactivation appears to be aimed to prevent the generation of a strong anti-oxidant intracellular environment that could hinder the induction of apoptosis.
RIFO: Restoring images with fence occlusions

Many scenes, e.g., zoos, parks, and gardens, are guarded by fences, and people can only take pictures through the fences. It is desirable to remove visually-annoying fence occlusions from images. This paper proposes a novel approach to restore images from fence occlusions (RIFO). The proposed method consists of two steps: fence detection, and disocclusion restoration. In fence detection, the image is first clustered into superpixels, which are fitted into rectangles. We collect fence pixels from superpixels by determining the elongation of their fitted rectangles. A primary shape of the fence is obtained by a color-based classifier learned from sampled pixels. Then, multi-RANSAC and moving least squares (MLS) are used for sketching the fence structure. Complete fence is detected by expanding the fence structure. Disoccluded regions are restorated by a patch-based approach using matrix completion. Experimental results show that our method detects complete fences from images, and the disoccluded regions are faithfully recovered, yielding clean and complete images.
City Research Online

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are seen as a means to provide last mile connections in Next Generation Networks (NGNs). Because of their auto conﬁguration capabilities and the low deployment cost WMNs are considered to be an efﬁcient solution for the support of multiple voice, video and data services in NGNs. This paper looks at the optimal provision of resources in WMNs for Voice over IP (VoIP) trafﬁc, which has strict performance require ments in terms of delay, jitter and packet loss. In WMNs, because of the challenges intro duced by wireless multi hop transmissions and limited resources, providing performance quality for VoIP comparable to the voice quality in the traditional circuit switched net works is a major challenge. This paper analyses different scheduling mechanisms for TDMA based access control in mesh networks as speciﬁed in the IEEE 802.16 2004 WiMAX standard. The performance of the VoIP applications when different scheduling mechanisms are deployed is analysed on a variety of topologies using ns 2 simulation and mathematical analysis. The paper con cludes that on demand scheduling of VoIP trafﬁc typically deployed in 802.11 based WMNs is not able to provide the required VoIP quality in realistic mesh WiMAX network scenarios and is therefore not optimal from a network operator’s point of view. Instead, it is shown, that continuous scheduling is much better suited to serve VoIP trafﬁc. The paper then proposes a new VoIP aware resource coordination scheme and shows, through simu lation, that the new scheme is scalable and provides good quality for VoIP service in a wide range of network scenarios. The results shown in the paper prove that the new scheme is resilient to increasing hop count, increasing number of simultaneous VoIP sessions and the background trafﬁc load in the network. Compared to other resource coordination schemes the VoIP aware scheduler signiﬁcantly increases the number of supported calls.