Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving SMT performance: an application of genetic algorithms to configure resizable caches

Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) is a technology aimed at improving the throughput of the processor core by applying Instruction Level Parallelism (ILP) and Thread Level Parallelism (TLP). Nevertheless a good control strategy is required when resources are shared among different threads, so that throughput is optimized. We study the application of evolutionary algorithms to improve the allocation of configurations on the cache hierarchy over a Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) processor. In this way, resizable caches have demonstrated their efficiency by adapting their configuration according to workload settings, at runtime. More-over, some methodologies and a number of techniques, such as dynamic resource allocation, have previously been developed to optimize the cache hit behavior, trying to improve global SMT performance. In this paper we propose the use of a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimize dynamically reconfigurable cache designs. Given that different workloads feature different characteristics and needs, we apply a Genetic Algorithm (GA) for cache designing, in order to obtain a better dynamic configuration that increases the number of instructions per cycle (IPC). The obtained results show the feasibility of the approach and the potential of GAs for SMT optimization.
DT-Diaphorase expression and tumor cell sensitivity to 17-allylamino, 17-demethoxygeldanamycin, an inhibitor of heat shock protein 90.

BACKGROUND To our knowledge, 17-allylamino,17-demethoxygeldanamycin (17AAG) is the first inhibitor of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) to enter a phase I clinical trial in cancer. Inhibition of Hsp90, a chaperone protein (a protein that helps other proteins avoid misfolding pathways that produce inactive or aggregated states), leads to depletion of important oncogenic proteins, including Raf-1 and mutant p53 (also known as TP53). Given its ansamycin benzoquinone structure, we questioned whether the antitumor activity of 17AAG was affected by expression of the NQO1 gene, which encodes the quinone-metabolizing enzyme DT-diaphorase. METHODS The antitumor activity of 17AAG and other Hsp90 inhibitors was determined by use of a sulforhodamine B-based cell growth inhibition assay in culture and by the arrest of xenograft tumor growth in nude mice. DT-diaphorase activity was determined by use of a spectrophotometric assay, and protein expression was determined by means of western immunoblotting. RESULTS In two independent in vitro human tumor cell panels, we observed a positive relationship between DT-diaphorase expression level and growth inhibition by 17AAG. Stable, high-level expression of the active NQO1 gene transfected into the DT-diaphorase-deficient (by NQO1 mutation) BE human colon carcinoma cell line resulted in a 32-fold increase in 17AAG growth-inhibition activity. Increased sensitivity to 17AAG in the transfected cell line was also confirmed in xenografts. The extent of depletion of Raf-1 and mutant p53 protein confirmed that the Hsp90 inhibition mechanism was maintained in cells with high and low levels of DT-diaphorase. 17AAG was shown to be a substrate for purified human DT-diaphorase. CONCLUSION These results suggest that the antitumor activity and possibly the toxicologic properties of 17AAG in humans may be influenced by the expression of DT-diaphorase. Careful monitoring for NQO1 polymorphism and the level of tumor DT-diaphorase activity is therefore recommended in clinical trials with 17AAG.
Updating Camera Location and Heading using a Sparse Displacement Field

This report describes the principles of an algorithm developed within the WITAS project. The goal of the WITAS project is to build an autonomous helicopter that can navigate autonomously, using differential GPS, GIS-data of the underlying terrain (elevation models and digital orthophotographs) and a video camera. Using differential GPS and other non-visual sensory equipment, the system is able to obtain crude estimates of its position and heading direction. These estimates can be refined by matching of camera-images and the on-board GIS-data. This refinement process, however is rather time consuming, and will thus only be made every once in a while. For real-time refinement of camera position and heading, the system will iteratively update the estimates using frame to frame correspondence only. In each frame a sparse set of image displacement estimates is calculated, and from these the perspective in the current image can be found. Using the calculated perspective and knowledge of the camera parameters, new values of camera position and heading can be obtained. The resultant camera position and heading can exhibit a slow drift if the original alignment was not perfect, and thus a corrective alignment with GIS-data should be performed once every minute or so.
Learning environment for teaching robotics and sensorial system: application to the robots guidance

In this paper, we described our experience in teaching robotics and sensorial systems in computer science degrees at the University of Alicante. The work presented in this paper has been done during the last three academic courses, with about 150 students being registered annually. VISUAL and ROBOLAB tools are jointly used for teaching this subject because they allow students to evaluate their developed algorithms and use them in practical experiences in robotics environments. The system does an automatic evaluation of the students' results, verifying whether the trajectories chosen are optimal for the problems solved
A Simulated Anatomically Accurate Investigation Into the Effects of Biodiversity on Electrogastrography

Chronic gastrointestinal motility disorders present a significant problem in current clinical practice with new methods needed to perform routine screening and accurate diagnosis. Electrogastrography (EGG) is a non-invasive method that provides insight into the underlying gastric electrical activity. However, widespread adoption of this technique has been limited due to an incomplete sensitivity and specificity. Recent simulation studies have tried to address these issues by providing a theoretical framework for reliably distinguishing between gastric slow wave dysrhythmias. However, these studies have been limited to a singular dipole, torso, and the stomach representative model. In this paper, we aim to address those shortcomings by developing multiple stomach and torso models with multiple moving dipoles to investigate the influence of biodiversity on EGG. Four anatomically accurate models were developed based on a range of human CT scans. This allowed investigations into the influence of normal and dysrhythmic (gastric re-entry and ectopic pacemaker) gastric electrical activity on the resulting EGG. These investigations identified areas of significant morphological difference in EGG traces for all cases, but the accuracy of these methods were based on a well-defined normal baseline. The results also suggested that the areas identified varied significantly as a result of biodiversity. These findings indicate that high-resolution multichannel EGG methodologies are required to reliably account for anatomical biodiversity.
Spectral Clustering of fMRI Data within Regions of Interest: Clarification of L-dopa effects in Parkinson's Disease

Identifying active regions of the brain that are task-related is important in fMRI study. Current methods of determining functional regions of interest (ROIs) are unsatisfactory because they either reduce the effect size or bias the statistical results. We propose a spectral clustering method for assessing those voxels within an ROI that are suitable for further task-activation analysis. Different similarity functions are studied and the correlation index is chosen based on the simulation study. In real fMRI study, further group analysis employing regression is investigated to identify different brain activation patterns between groups in order to reveal the effects of disease and medicine. A real fMRI case study in Parkinson's disease suggests that the technique is promising, warranting further study.
Coverage Efficient Clustering with a Minimum Number of Active Sensors for Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy efficient operations are essential to increase the lifetime of wireless sensor network. A clustering-based protocol is an approach that reduces energy during a data aggregation. In addition, allowing redundant nodes to be in a sleep mode at each round also reduces the energy consumption of the network. A redundant node is a sensor that its sensing area is covered by its nearby sensor nodes. In this paper, redundant nodes are determined by the minimum disc cover set concept at first. Then, cluster heads are selected among active nodes. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the number of active nodes which is helpful to reduce system energy consumption and prolong network lifespan.
Risk and Business-Owning Families ( First draft )

This paper analyses investment behaviour of family business owners in order to disentangle risk taking patterns in the Spanish context. In particular, this study tries to show whether family business owners are more risk tolerant than no owners, and which features are conditioning risk taking perceptions and behaviour. For that, we use data from the 2002 and 2005 Spanish Survey of Household Finance (EFF). With these data it is possible to conduct longitudinal and cross-sectional Studies to obtain more robust conclusions. Although there are similar Studies for the US economy (Xiao et al, 2000 among others), this is the first study for Continental European family firms, as far as the authors are concerned and the first to present panel data analysis. Results will help to increase the understanding of risk tolerance and may help to design political recommendations with respect to this important part of the economy.
Western of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health Methemoglobinemia and Sulfhemoglobinemia in Two Pediatric Patients after Ingestion of Hydroxylamine Sulfate

This case report describes two pediatric cases of immediate oxygen desaturation from methemoglobinemia and sulfhemoglobinemia after one sip from a plastic water bottle containing hydroxylamine sulfate used by a relative to clean shoes. Supplemental oxygen and two separate doses of methylene blue given to one of the patients had no effect on clinical symptoms or pulse oximetry. The patients were admitted to the pediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with subsequent improvement after exchange transfusion. Endoscopy showed ulcer formation in one case and sucralafate was initiated; both patients were discharged after a one-week hospital stay. [ West JEM. 2009;10:197-201. ]
Survival Analysis of Glaucoma Patients Until Blindness: The Case of University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Gondar, Ethiopia

Objective: The objective of the study was to identify the best-fitted survival regression model and to find factors that accelerate the time of blindness of glaucoma patients in University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. Material and Methods: Secondary data was taken from the patient’s card, collected from January 2014-April 2018 in the hospital. In this study 401 glacoma patients’ record was considered. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, Semiparametric and Parametric AFT model were applied to identify factors that lead blindness of glaucoma patients. Results: From the total 401 glaucoma patients 23.69% was blind. From the total sample 38.41% and 61.59% were female and male glaucoma patients, respectively. The median time of blindness for the two eyes or one eye was 16 months after confirmation of glaucoma disease. In the multivariable Weibull accelerated failure-time model it has found that age group (18-43) (TR =1.29233, CI: 1.039576 to 1.606536), advanced stage of glaucoma (TR =1.281674, CI: 1.096103 to 1.498662), duration of diagnosis 1-5 years (TR = 1.944649, CI: 1.332738 to 2.83751) and duration of diagnosis >= 6 years (TR = 2.683586, CI: 1.367533 to 5.26615) were significantly associated with the time to blindness. Conclusion: The multivariable Weibull model revealed that age, duration of diagnosis and stage of glaucoma were major factors that affect the survival probability of glaucoma patients. Finally, based on the results of the study we can conclude that the Weibull regression model was the best fitted parametric accelerated failure-time model for identifying the major factors related to glaucoma patients.
A communication-optimizing middleware for efficient wireless communication in rural environments

The realization of wireless communication in rural environments suffers from long distances, unknown node mobility and discontinuous communication paths. Combination of delay-tolerant mobile ad-hoc networks and infrastructure-based mobile communications results in an increased number of communication opportunities in many usage scenarios. However, efficient exploitation of communication opportunities remains a challenging task. This article introduces a novel middleware approach specialized for consistent and efficient wireless communication in rural environments. An important part of communication optimization is realized by processing on-hand information of the current application scenario. The middleware autonomously links scenario information to network states and applies machine-learning-based analyses to derive meaningful communication predictions. Cooperation of infrastructure-based and ad-hoc communication is implemented by a gateway component. The gateway collects connectivity information of mobile nodes, enhances communication predictions and distributes predictions across the network. Evaluation of local communication layer and application layer information as well as sharing of communication predictions using an application level API ensure efficient use of communication opportunities.
Vcode: a data-parallel intermediate language

A description is given of Vcode, a data-parallel intermediate language. Vcode is designed to allow easy porting of data-parallel languages to a wide class of parallel machines, and for experimenting with compiling such languages. The design goal was to define a simple language whose primitives can be implemented efficiently but that is still powerful enough to express the features of existing data-parallel languages. Vcode contains about 50 instructions, most of which manipulate arbitrarily long vectors of atomic values, and includes a set of segmented instructions that are crucial for implementing data-parallel languages that permit nested parallelism. The design decisions are discussed, and it is shown how three data-parallel languages-C*, Fortran 8*, and Paralation Lisp-can be mapped onto Vcode. The issues encountered in implementing Vcode on different kinds of parallel machines, as well as specific techniques for implementing it on the Connection Machine, are examined. <<ETX>>
Research and development of a gesture-controlled robot manipulator system

In this paper we present the results of research and development of a gesture-controlled robot manipulator system. The accelerometer and gyroscope inertia measurement unit helped estimate human arm's joint angles in stress test conditions. Four inertia measurement units were mounted on the following human arm parts: humerus, ulna, hand and finger. The estimation of human arm unfolding was done on a plane perpendicular to the earth by using free fall decomposition based on quaternions model. In dynamic environment accelerometer axis signals contain noise usually higher than base signal in addition to gravitational component. Coming from the approach of Maximum relative Entropy we construct posterior distribution based on Bayes Theorem. The likelihood distribution includes both observed values and nonlinear model relationships. In comparison, the prediction stage of Kalman Filter contains the model translation. Whereas the main difference is that we use multiple most recent observed samples instead of recursive approach. This allowed to stably decompose gravitational acceleration vector from measurement data. High speed data filtering performs Bayesian updating and finds the mean of posterior probability density function derived from maximization of relative entropy. This enables the control of remote robotic arm in harsh environments where shocks and vibrations exist. We experimented with this robotic system and demonstrated expected behavior of the manipulator when artificial shocks and vibrations were applied.
Iterative Deterministic Equivalents for the Performance Analysis of Communication Systems

In this article, we introduce iterative deterministic equivalents as a novel technique for the performance analysis of communication systems whose channels are modeled by complex combinations of independent random matrices. This technique extends the deterministic equivalent approach for the study of functionals of large random matrices to a broader class of random matrix models which naturally arise as channel models in wireless communications. We present two specific applications: First, we consider a multi-hop amplify-and-forward (AF) MIMO relay channel with noise at each stage and derive deterministic approximations of the mutual information after the Kth hop. Second, we study a MIMO multiple access channel (MAC) where the channel between each transmitter and the receiver is represented by the double-scattering channel model. We provide deterministic approximations of the mutual information, the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and sum-rate with minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) detection and derive the asymptotically optimal precoding matrices. In both scenarios, the approximations can be computed by simple and provably converging fixed-point algorithms and are shown to be almost surely tight in the limit when the number of antennas at each node grows infinitely large. Simulations suggest that the approximations are accurate for realistic system dimensions. The technique of iterative deterministic equivalents can be easily extended to other channel models of interest and is, therefore, also a new contribution to the field of random matrix theory.
Developing Autonomy Through Student-Centered English Language Learning Process for Engineering Students

This article focuses on how the incorporation of autonomy into university students’ learning process improves their English language performance. The participants of this study were 25 students of engineering programs in a public university. Data collection was done through observation, a survey, and a group interview. Two categories that emerged after the data analysis supported the main finding that technology-based activities can be conceived as a starting point for the incorporation of autonomous learning in the English language education at the university.
Distributed applications management platform based on Service Component Architecture

The increasing complexity in current distributed embedded systems (DES) makes its design a hard task that involves several aspects like distribution middleware selection, QoS support, implementation language selection, application dynamic reconfiguration or application deployment and maintenance. These design considerations must provide a solution to non functional requirements that distributed applications nowadays demand (e.g. Hardware heterogeneity, real time requirements, energy constraints, security, safety or fault tolerance). This paper proposes a management platform for distributed component based applications that follow the SCA (Service Component Architecture) standard. This platform provides several functionalities that range from application deployment and life cycle control to QoS and fault tolerance support.
Combining color and ViBe foreground mask for better tracking in video Sequences

Color histogram is an important visual cue for tracking targets of interest in video sequences. However, tracking using color is prone to errors due to: (i) background clutter (neighborhood regions having similar appearance with the target) and/or (ii) the target enters a shadowy areas. To overcome these two limitations; a tracker combining color and foreground mask is presented in this paper. The tracker is based on particle filter, where a joint 16×16×16-bins histogram built in the RGB color space is used as the color cue, while the foreground mask is generated by a foreground/background (FG/BG) subtraction algorithm chosen after an experimental evaluation of three recently developed algorithms. First, experiments have been done using the color cue alone, where the tracker drifts away and loses the target in this case. After that, the color is combined with the foreground mask by adopting a likelihood based on a product strategy. In this case, better and improved tracking results are reported.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports Information Acquisition and Financial Intermediation Staff

paper presents preliminary fi ndings and is being distributed to economists and other interested readers solely to stimulate discussion and elicit comments. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and are not necessarily refl ective of views at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author. author thanks participants at the Deutsche Bank Symposium on Risk Management and Financial Intermediation, especially Valentin Haddad, for comments on a previous version of this paper. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily refl ect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Abstract This paper considers the problem of information acquisition in an intermediated market , where the specialists have access to superior technology for acquiring information. These informational advantages of specialists relative to households lead to disagreement between the two groups, changing the shape of the intermediation-constrained region of the economy and increasing the frequency of periods when the intermediation constraint binds. Acquiring the additional information is, however, costly to the specialists, making them less likely to decrease their risky asset holdings when the intermediation constraint binds. I show that this behavior leads the equity capital constraint to bind more frequently , making asset prices in the economy more volatile. I fi nd empirical evidence consistent with these predictions.