Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Formation of porous PLGA scaffolds by a combining method of thermally induced phase separation and porogen leaching

A novel method for the fabrication of porous poly(L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) scaffolds by combining thermally induced phase separation and porogen leaching is presented in this article. Big pores with about 75–400 μm diameters in the obtained scaffolds were generated by the porogen, sucrose particles, while small pores with diameters less than 20 μm induced via phase separation. Extraction of the solvent, chloroform by ethanol at cool temperatures could reduce the scaffold toxicity. Effects of PLGA concentration, freezing temperature, volume fraction of porogen, and introduction of β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) on morphology, porosity, and compressive properties of the scaffolds were systematically discussed. Results showed that the size of small pores decreased by decreasing the polymer concentration and reducing the freezing temperature, whereas the interconnectivity of the scaffolds was improved by increasing the porogen fraction. The compressive modulus and strength were significantly lowered by increasing the scaffold porosity, that is, by increasing porogen fraction, or decreasing the polymer concentration, or reducing the freezing temperature. Addition of β-TCP into the scaffolds did not influence the compressive modulus significantly but tended to decrease the compressive strength. The obtained scaffolds with diverse pore sizes would be potentially used in bone tissue engineering. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008
A cognitive system for detecting emotions in literary texts and transposing them into drawings

Emotions are key factors in the cognitive and social development of human beings. Robot artists are emotional robots that express themselves using various forms of art. Their goal must be to evoke an aesthetic experience in the audience. Emotion recognition from text is an active field of research which produced several detection methods during the last years. This paper presents the development of a cognitive system that extracts the dominant emotion from a literary text and transposes it into a graphical form using a drawing robot. This comes in the general context of a project aiming at developing robot artists capable of expressing artistic emotions.
Deep and Wide: Multiple Layers in Automatic Speech Recognition

This paper reviews a line of research carried out over the last decade in speech recognition assisted by discriminatively trained, feedforward networks. The particular focus is on the use of multiple layers of processing preceding the hidden Markov model based decoding of word sequences. Emphasis is placed on the use of multiple streams of highly dimensioned layers, which have proven useful for this purpose. This paper ultimately concludes that while the deep processing structures can provide improvements for this genre, choice of features and the structure with which they are incorporated, including layer width, can also be significant factors.
An alternating magnetic field system for tracking multiple speech articulatory movements in the midsagittal plane

This report describes the design, construction, evaluation and operation of a system that utilizes alternating magnetic fields for transducing articulatory movements during speech production. The system simultaneously tracks the movements of a number of points on vocal tract structures in the midsagittal plane, inside and outside the vocal tract. It has been under development for several years, and it now exists as a finished laboratory apparatus which can be used to collect large amounts of data.
DTC of an IPM-BLAC motor with a bus-clamping bang-bang controlled VSI in the armature

This paper investigates the performance of a novel direct torque control (DTC) strategy dedicated to interior permanent magnet (IPM) brushless AC (BLAC) motor drives. The proposed strategy is based on a dual control approaches, consisting in: (i) a conventional DTC strategy where the control laws are inspired from the earlier Takahashi DTC strategy implemented in induction motor drives, and (ii) the bus-clamping (BC) strategy recently-introduced for the control of voltage source inverters, yielding the so-called “bus-clamping DTC” (BC-DTC). It consists in the synthesis of two vector selection tables depending on the rotation direction, in such a way to clamp each motor phase during 60°-interval in every half cycle of the reference stator flux vector. A simulationbased comparative study between the performance of the introduced BC-DTC and the conventional one, considering appropriate criteria, has highlighted the superiority of the proposed strategy which exhibits lower inverter switching losses, reduced harmonic distortion of the motor phase currents and damped torque ripple in a wide speed range.
Virtual-Machine-based Intrusion Detection on File-aware Block Level Storage

In this paper we present a storage-based intrusion detection system (IDS) that makes use of advantages of virtual machine (VM) and smart disk technologies. The virtual machine monitor (VMM) can prevent the IDS itself from potential attacks while the smart disk technology provides IDS with a whole view of the file system of the monitored VM. We show how to use a tool and some file system knowledge to enable the virtual disk to maintain a sector-to-file mapping table (called file-aware block level storage) as well as how to detect the changes to file content on-line. Based on these features, normal file-level intrusion detection (ID) rules can be converted to sector-level ones in order to integrate ID functions to the virtual storage. We implement such a prototype based on QEMU VMM and the OS of VM is Windows XP. Moreover the time overhead introduced by this solution is tested
High Refractive Organic–Inorganic Hybrid Films Prepared by Low Water Sol-Gel and UV-Irradiation Processes

Organic-inorganic hybrid sols (Ti–O–Si precursor) were first synthesized by the sol-gel method at low addition of water, and were then employed to prepare a highly refractive hybrid optical film. This film was obtained by blending the Ti–O–Si precursor with 2-phenylphenoxyethyl acrylate (OPPEA) to perform photo-polymerization by ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. Results show that the film transparency of poly(Ti–O–Si precursor-co-OPPEA) film is higher than that of a pure poly(Ti–O–Si precursor) film, and that this poly(Ti–O–Si precursor-co-OPPEA) hybrid film exhibits a high transparency of ~93.7% coupled with a high refractive index (n) of 1.83 corresponding to a thickness of 2.59 μm.
Multiple Scan Chains for Power Minimization during Test Application in Sequential Circuits

The paper presents a novel technique for power minimization during test application in sequential circuits using multiple scan chains. The technique is based on a new design for test architecture and a novel test application strategy which reduces spurious transitions in the circuit under test. To facilitate the reduction of spurious transitions, the proposed design for test architecture is based on classifying scan latches into compatible, incompatible and independent scan latches. Based on their classification, the scan latches are partitioned into multiple scan chains and a single extra test vector associated with each scan chain is computed. A new test application strategy which applies the extra test vector to primary inputs while shifting out test responses for each scan chain, minimizes power dissipation by eliminating the spurious transitions which occur in the combinational part of the circuit. The newly introduced multiple scan chain-based technique does not introduce performance degradation and minimizes clock tree power dissipation with minimal impact on both test area and test data overhead. Unlike previous approaches which are test set dependent, and hence are not able to handle large circuits due to the complexity of the design space, the paper shows that with low test area and test data overhead substantial savings in power dissipation during test application are achieved in very low computational time for both small and large test sets. For example, in the case of the benchmark circuit s15850, it takes <6009 in computational time and <1 percent in test area and test data overhead to achieve over 80 percent savings in power dissipation.
Improving Reordering with Linguistically Informed Bilingual n-grams

We present a new reordering model estimated as a standard n-gram language model with units built from morpho-syntactic information of the source and target languages. It can be seen as a model that translates the morpho-syntactic structure of the input sentence, in contrast to standard translation models which take care of the surface word forms. We take advantage from the fact that such units are less sparse than standard translation units to increase the size of bilingual context that is considered during the translation process, thus effectively accounting for mid-range reorderings. Empirical results on French-English and German-English translation tasks show that our model achieves higher translation accuracy levels than those obtained with the widely used lexicalized reordering model.
Random oracles are practical: a paradigm for designing efficient protocols

We argue that the random oracle model—where all parties have access to a public random oracle—provides a bridge between cryptographic theory and cryptographic practice. In the paradigm we suggest, a practical protocol <italic>P</italic> is produced by first devising and proving correct a protocol <italic>P<supscrpt>R</supscrpt></italic> for the random oracle model, and then replacing oracle accesses by the computation of an “appropriately chosen” function <italic>h</italic>. This paradigm yields protocols much more efficient than standard ones while retaining many of the advantages of provable security. We illustrate these gains for problems including encryption, signatures, and zero-knowledge proofs.
Learning Representations for Weakly Supervised Natural Language Processing Tasks

Finding the right representations for words is critical for building accurate NLP systems when domain-specific labeled data for the task is scarce. This article investigates novel techniques for extracting features from n-gram models, Hidden Markov Models, and other statistical language models, including a novel Partial Lattice Markov Random Field model. Experiments on part-of-speech tagging and information extraction, among other tasks, indicate that features taken from statistical language models, in combination with more traditional features, outperform traditional representations alone, and that graphical model representations outperform n-gram models, especially on sparse and polysemous words.
CCDR-PAID: more efficient cache-conscious PAID algorithm by data reconstruction

In this paper, we propose the CCDR-PAID algorithm which is a technique to improve CPU cache utilization of sequential pattern mining more efficiently as an extension of existing CC-PAID which is our previous work. Compared to PAID, CC-PAID improves temporal locality by changing the access pattern to data structures and processing multiple sequential patterns with a common prefix at a time to reduce the memory access latency by suppressing CPU cache misses. In this paper, we extend CC-PAID and dynamically reconstruct data structures, so that unnecessary data access to them can be avoided. The experimental results showed that CCDR-PAID executes up to 25% faster than CC-PAID because it sufficiently reduces cache misses and, therefore, provides better CPU cache utilization due to compaction of the data structure.
Dual-DLL-based CMOS all-digital temperature sensor for microprocessor thermal monitoring

Today's microprocessors increasingly need on-chip temperature sensors for thermal and power management [1]. Since these sensors do not take part in the main computing activity but rather play the auxiliary, albeit important, role of temperature monitoring, their presence in terms of area, power, and design effort should be minimal, thus, all-digital sensors are desired. Temperature sensing based on temperature-dependent delays of inverters [2] could be suited for microprocessor applications, as it lends itself to digital implementation: by using a time-to-digital converter (TDC), an inverter delay can be compared to an absolute delay reference and converted to a digital temperature output [2] (Fig. 3.7.1). We report on an all-digital CMOS temperature sensor for microprocessor application, which also exploits temperature-dependent inverter delays within the TDC-based framework of Fig. 3.7. 1. It, however, has two improvements over prior art of [2]. First, it removes the effect of process variation on inverter delays via calibration at one temperature point (instead of 2-point calibration of [2]), thus, reducing high volume production cost. Second, we use two fine-precision DLLs, one to synthesize a set of temperature-independent delay references in a closed loop, the other as a TDC to compare temperature-dependent inverter delays to the references. The use of DLLs simplifies sensor operation and yields a high measurement bandwidth (5kS/s) at 7b resolution, which could enable fast temperature tracking. This is in contrast to [2], where a counter-based cyclic TDC with an open-loop single delay-reference has a longer measurement time for a similar resolution.
Combining Structure and Content Similarities for XML Document Clustering

This paper proposes a clustering approach that explores both the content and the structure of XML documents for determining similarity among them. Assuming that the content and the structure of XML documents play different roles and importance depending on the use and purpose of a dataset, the content and structure information of the documents are handled using two different similarity measuring methods. The similarity values produced from these two methods are then combined with weightings to measure the overall document similarity. The effect of structure similarity and content similarity on the clustering solution is thoroughly analysed. The experiments prove that clustering of the text-centric XML documents based on the content-only information produces a better solution in a homogeneous environment, documents that derived from one structural definition; however, in a heterogeneous environment, documents that derived from two or more structural definitions, clustering of the text-centric XML documents produces a better result when the structure and the content similarities of the documents are combined with different strengths.
Prospective assessment of lymphedema incidence and lymphedema-associated symptoms following lymph node surgery for melanoma

We aimed to prospectively assess limb volume change (LVC) and associated symptoms in patients with melanoma undergoing sentinel lymph node biopsy and/or therapeutic lymph node dissection. Limb volume was measured preoperatively and postoperatively at 6 and 12 months using a perometer (1000 mol/l). LVC was calculated and used to define three groups: less than 5%, 5–10%, and greater than 10%. A 19-item lymphedema symptom questionnaire was administered at baseline, 6, and 12 months. One hundred and eighty-two patients were enrolled. Twelve months after axillary surgery, 9% had LVC 5–10% and 13% had LVC greater than 10%. Twelve months after inguinofemoral surgery, 10% had LVC 5–10% and 13% had LVC greater than 10%. There was a significant seven- to nine-fold increase in symptoms for patients with LVC greater than 10% compared with those with LVC less than 5% (P<0.05). On multivariate analysis, therapeutic lymph node dissection versus sentinel lymph node biopsy (odds ratio=3.18; P<0.01) and borderline significance for lower-extremity versus upper-extremity procedures (odds ratio=1.72; P=0.07) were associated with LVC greater than 5%. LVC greater than 5% is common at 12 months following nodal surgery for melanoma and is associated with symptoms. Informed consent for melanoma patients undergoing lymph node surgery should include a discussion of the risks of postoperative lymphedema.
Frequency Resolved Phonon Transport in Si/Ge Nanocomposites

In this paper, we analyze cross plane phonon transport and thermal conductivity in two-dimensional Si/Ge nanocomposites. A non-gray BTE model that includes full details of phonon dispersion, the spread in phonon mean free paths and the frequency dependent transmissivity is used to simulate thermal transport. The general conclusions inferred from gray BTE simulations that the thermal conductivity of the nanocomposite is much lower than its constituent materials and interfacial density as the parameter determining thermal conductivity remain the same. However, it is found that the gray BTE significantly overpredicts thermal conductivity in the length scales of interest and quantitatively reliable results are obtained only upon inclusion of the details of phonon dispersion. The transition of phonon transport from ballistic regime to near diffusive regime is observed by looking at a large range of length scales. Non-equilibrium energy exchange between optical and acoustic phonons and the granularity in phonon mean free paths are found to significantly affect thermal conductivity leading to departures from the frequently employed gray approximation. It is also found that the frequency content of thermal conductivity in the nanocomposite extends out to a much larger frequency range unlike bulk Si and Ge. Scattering against heterogeneous interfaces is very effective in suppressing thermal conductivity contribution from the low frequency acoustic phonons but less so for high frequency phonons, which have much smaller mean free paths. © 2011 ASME
Real-time interfaces for interface-based design of real-time systems with fixed priority scheduling

The central idea behind interface-based design is to describe components by a component interface. In contrast to a component description that describes what a component does, a component interface describes how a component can be used. A well designed component interface provides enough information to decide whether two or more components can work together properly in a system. In this work, we expand the idea of interface-based design to the area of real-time system design. Here, the term of 'working together properly' refers to questions like: Does the composed system satisfy all requested real-time properties such as delay and throughput constraints? For this, we introduce Real-Time Interfaces, that connect the principles of Real-Time Calculus with Interface-based Design. In contrast to traditional real-time system design, in interface-based real-time system design the compliance to real-time constraints is checked at composition time. This leads to faster design processes and partly removes the need for the classical binary search approach to find an economically dimensioned system. Further, interface-based real-time system design also benefits from the properties of incremental design and independent implementability.
Attitude determination methods using pseudolite signal phase measurements

: In this paper, new attitude determination algorithms using pseudolite signal phase measurements are developed and presented with realistic simulations. Pseudolite signals are used to replace GPS signals which are often not available due to blocking by nearby large structures, for example, a crew return vehicle under the International Space Station. A new observation model needs to be applied because spherical wavefronts are present for pseudolite signals, which are much closer to the antennas than GPS signals. Both static and filtering methods are developed. An iterative algorithm using the Levenberg-Marquardt method and a nonlinear Predictive filter provide a deterministic solution; however, they are not suitable for moving cases. Instead, the nonlinear Predictive filter, the extended Kalman filter and the Unscented filter using angular velocity measurements as well as pseudolite signal phase measurements are developed. In the convergence comparison, the Unscented filter and the Predictive filter show more robust behavior than that of the extended Kalman filter.
Keratin 12-deficient mice have fragile corneal epithelia.

PURPOSE Expression of the K3-K12 keratin pair characterizes the corneal epithelial differentiation. To elucidate the role of keratin 12 in the maintenance of corneal epithelium integrity, the authors bred mice deficient in keratin 12 by gene-targeting techniques. METHODS One allele of murine Krt1.12 gene was ablated in the embryonic stem cell line, E14.1, by homologous recombination with a DNA construct in which the DNA element between intron 2 and exon 8 of the keratin 12 gene was replaced by a neo-gene. The homologous recombinant embryonic stem cells were injected to mouse blastocysts, and germ lines of chimeras were obtained. The corneas of heterozygous and homozygous mice were characterized by clinical observations using stereomicroscopy, histology with light and electron microscopy, Western immunoblot analysis, immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, and Northern hybridization. RESULTS The heterozygous mice (+/-) one allele of the Krt1.12 gene appear normal and do not develop any clinical manifestations (e.g., corneal epithelial defects). Homozygous mice (-/-) develop normally and suffer mild corneal epithelial erosion. Their corneal epithelia are fragile and can be removed by gentle rubbing of the eyes or brushing with a Microsponge. The corneal epithelium of the homozygote (-/-) does not express keratin 12 as judged by immunohistochemistry, Western immunoblot analysis with epitope-specific anti-keratin 12 antibodies, Northern hybridization with 32P-labeled keratin 12 cDNA, and in situ hybridization with an anti-sense keratin 12 riboprobe. Light and electron microscopy revealed subtle abnormalities in the corneal epithelia of -/- mice (i.e., a decrease in number of cell layers) and cytolysis of superficial cells, but the number of hemidesmosomes and desmosomes are normal in basal and suprabasal cells. The number of keratin intermediate filaments in basal and suprabasal corneal epithelial cells in -/- mice decreases, and they appear as dense bundles. This morphology is similar to that of keratin intermediate filaments in epidermal epithelial, cells but differs from that of normal corneal epithelial cells in which the keratins form fine filamentous networks. The superficial epithelial cells are devoid of keratin intermediate filaments and often detach from the corneal surface of -/- mice. CONCLUSIONS The presence of cornea-specific K3-K12 keratin pairs is essential for the maintenance of corneal epithelium integrity.
An Ultra-Low-Power and Portable Digitally Controlled Oscillator for SoC Applications

In this paper, a novel ultra-low-power digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) with cell-based design for system-on-chip (SoC) applications is presented. Based on the proposed segmental delay line (SDL) and hysteresis delay cell (HDC), the power consumption can be saved by 70% and 86.2% in coarse-tuning and fine-tuning stages, respectively, as compared with conventional approaches. Besides, the proposed DCO employs a cascade-stage structure to achieve high resolution and wide range at the same time. Measurement results show that power consumption of the proposed DCO can be improved to 140 muW (@200 MHz) with 1.47-ps resolution. In addition, the proposed DCO can be implemented with standard cells, making it easily portable to different processes and very suitable for SoC applications.
Keeping Our Eye on the Ball: The American Society of Preventive Oncology in 2009

A common adage among those who play games that involve balls-baseball, for example-is that one must keep one's eye on the ball. The baseball player attempting to catch a grounder or fly ball must watch the ball-where it has been, where it is-into his or her glove; the player who diverts his or her