Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stateless Datacenter Load-balancing with Beamer

Datacenter load balancers (or muxes) steer traffic destined to a given service across a dynamic set of backend machines. To ensure consistent load balancing decisions when backends come or leave, existing solutions make a load balancing decision per connection and then store it as per-connection state to be used for future packets. While simple to implement, per-connection state is brittle: SYNflood attacks easily fill state memory, preventing muxes from keeping state for good connections. We present Beamer, a datacenter load-balancer that is designed to ensure stateless mux operation. The key idea is to leverage the connection state already stored in backend servers to ensure that connections are never dropped under churn: when a server receives a mid-connection packet for which it doesn’t have state, it forwards it to another server that should have state for the packet. Stateless load balancing brings many benefits: our software implementation of Beamer is twice faster than Google’s Maglev, the state of the art software load balancer, and can process 40Gbps of HTTP uplink traffic on 7 cores. Beamer is simple to deploy both in software and in hardware as our P4 implementation shows. Finally, Beamer allows arbitrary scale-out and scale-in events without dropping any connections.
Flowtable-Free Routing for Data Center Networks: A Software-Defined Approach

The paradigm shift toward SDN has exhibited the following trends: (1) relying on a centralized and more powerful controller to make intelligent decisions, and (2) allowing a set of relatively dumb switches to route packets. Therefore, efficiently looking up the flowtables in forwarding switches to guarantee low latency becomes a critical issue. In this paper, following the similar paradigm, we propose a new routing scheme called KeySet which is flowtable-free and enables constant-time switching at the forwarding switches. Instead of looking up long flowtables, KeySet relies on a residual system to quickly calculate routing paths. A switch only needs to do simple modular arithmetics to obtain a packet's forwarding output port. Moreover, KeySet has a nice fault- tolerant capability because in many cases the controller does not need to update flowtables at switches when a failure occurs. We validate KeySet through extensive simulations by using general as well as Facebook fat-tree topologies. The results show that the KeySet outperforms the KeyFlow scheme [1] by at least 25% in terms of the length of the forwarding label. Moreover, we show that KeySet is very efficient when applied to fat-trees.
Using citizen-reported data to predict distributions of two non-native insect species in Sweden

Information on exotic species' current and potential distribution is vital for decisions on management. Species distribution models can predict where colorizations are likely; however, the collection of species' distribution data over large areas in order to parameterize the models is costly. Therefore, modelling methods that are able to use low-cost information such as citizen-reported data are potentially very useful. In this study, we used the species habitat modelling program Maxent to predict the potential geographical distribution of two non-native insect species in Sweden, the butterfly Araschnia levana and the shield bug Graphosoma lineatum. For this we used citizen-reported presence-only open-access data in combination with climate and land cover data from national databases. Our models showed that presence of A. levana was best predicted by winter temperature and habitats related to open grasslands. For G. lineatum, summer temperature and open green areas, in both urban and rural areas were the best predictors for species presence. These models show that large areas of non-colonized potential habitats exist within Sweden. For A. levana these yet-to-be-colonized habitats are mainly in the south, while for G. lineatum these habitats occur in the south and along the Baltic Sea coast. Comparisons of temporal patterns in species reporting for A. levana and G. lineatum to similar insects with known stable populations revealed large 'willingness to report' effects that could potentially bias range expansion rates. Once corrected for, current distribution expansion rates were estimated as 1.9 km/yr and 1.07 km/yr respectively. The study shows the use of public reports in conservation science as a way of gathering species information over large areas. This increases the data sources available for researchers to predict the distribution of species and have the additional value of the involvement of the public in conservation efforts.
Expanding Role of Type II Secretion in Bacterial Pathogenesis and Beyond

ABSTRACT Type II secretion (T2S) is one means by which Gram-negative pathogens secrete proteins into the extracellular milieu and/or host organisms. Based upon recent genome sequencing, it is clear that T2S is largely restricted to the Proteobacteria, occurring in many, but not all, genera in the Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, and Deltaproteobacteria classes. Prominent human and/or animal pathogens that express a T2S system(s) include Acinetobacter baumannii, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Chlamydia trachomatis, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Legionella pneumophila, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Vibrio cholerae, and Yersinia enterocolitica. T2S-expressing plant pathogens include Dickeya dadantii, Erwinia amylovora, Pectobacterium carotovorum, Ralstonia solanacearum, Xanthomonas campestris, Xanthomonas oryzae, and Xylella fastidiosa. T2S also occurs in nonpathogenic bacteria, facilitating symbioses, among other things. The output of a T2S system can range from only one to dozens of secreted proteins, encompassing a diverse array of toxins, degradative enzymes, and other effectors, including novel proteins. Pathogenic processes mediated by T2S include the death of host cells, degradation of tissue, suppression of innate immunity, adherence to host surfaces, biofilm formation, invasion into and growth within host cells, nutrient assimilation, and alterations in host ion flux. The reach of T2S is perhaps best illustrated by those bacteria that clearly use it for both environmental survival and virulence; e.g., L. pneumophila employs T2S for infection of amoebae, growth within lung cells, dampening of cytokines, and tissue destruction. This minireview provides an update on the types of bacteria that have T2S, the kinds of proteins that are secreted via T2S, and how T2S substrates promote infection.
Effects of Electrolyte Formulation on Graphite Anode for Wide Temperature Application

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS . iii LIST OF FIGURES . v LIST OF TABLES . vii LIST OF SYMBOLS . viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . xii CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Fundamentals of Battery Operation . 3 1.3 Start of Lithium-ion Technology . 7 1.4 Lithium-ion Electrolytes . 10 1.4.1 Salts . 11 1.4. 2 Solvents . 13 1.5 Mechanism of SEI Formation . 17 1.6 Thermodynamics of Electrolytes . 19 1.7 Electrolyte Additives . 22 1.8 Remarks on Current State of Lithium-ion Electrolytes . 28 CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY . 30 2.1 Sample Preparation . 30 2.1.1 Coin Cell Fabrication . 30 2.1.2 XPS Specimens . 33 2.1.3 XRD Specimens . 33 2.2 Characterization Techniques . 34 2.2.1 Electrical performance testing . 34 2.2.2 X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) . 39 2.2. 3 X-ray Diffraction (XRD) . 41 CHAPTER 3 – RESULTS AND DISCUSSION . 43 3.1 Electrical performance tests . 43 3.2 X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) . 54 3.3 Electrochemical Impedance . 59 3.4 X-ray Diffraction (XRD) . 66 CHAPTER 4 – ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION . 71 4.1 Conclusions . 71
Brassinosteroid Regulates Cell Elongation by Modulating Gibberellin Metabolism in Rice[C][W][OPEN]

Physiological BR promotes cell elongation by inducing GA accumulation through activation of GA3ox-2 expression, whereas exogenously applied high concentrations of BR inhibit cell elongation by repressing GA level. As a feedback mechanism, GA extensively inhibits BR biosynthesis and signaling. Brassinosteroid (BR) and gibberellin (GA) are two predominant hormones regulating plant cell elongation. A defect in either of these leads to reduced plant growth and dwarfism. However, their relationship remains unknown in rice (Oryza sativa). Here, we demonstrated that BR regulates cell elongation by modulating GA metabolism in rice. Under physiological conditions, BR promotes GA accumulation by regulating the expression of GA metabolic genes to stimulate cell elongation. BR greatly induces the expression of D18/GA3ox-2, one of the GA biosynthetic genes, leading to increased GA1 levels, the bioactive GA in rice seedlings. Consequently, both d18 and loss-of-function GA-signaling mutants have decreased BR sensitivity. When excessive active BR is applied, the hormone mostly induces GA inactivation through upregulation of the GA inactivation gene GA2ox-3 and also represses BR biosynthesis, resulting in decreased hormone levels and growth inhibition. As a feedback mechanism, GA extensively inhibits BR biosynthesis and the BR response. GA treatment decreases the enlarged leaf angles in plants with enhanced BR biosynthesis or signaling. Our results revealed a previously unknown mechanism underlying BR and GA crosstalk depending on tissues and hormone levels, which greatly advances our understanding of hormone actions in crop plants and appears much different from that in Arabidopsis thaliana.
The 2D:4D Ratio as a Predictor of the Risk of Recidivism after Court‐mandated Intervention Program for Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators

Differences in aggressive behavior could be partially explained by differential prenatal exposure to testosterone (T). A peripheral marker of prenatal T exposure is the 2D:4D ratio, which has shown a negative correlation with self‐reported aggression in violent men. This study tested the direct association of the 2D:4D ratio with anger expression and the risk of recidivism in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators after psychotherapeutic intervention program. The sample consisted of IPV perpetrators, whose 2D:4D ratio was measured before the intervention. Moreover, after the intervention, anger expression and risk of recidivism in IPV were assessed. Smaller 2D:4D ratio, especially of the right hand, was related to higher anger expression and risk of recidivism in IPV perpetrators. The contribution of this prenatal marker together with other psychobiological variables could play a key role in the propensity to react aggressively when coping with environmental demands.
Fast‐forward genetics by radiation hybrids to saturate the locus regulating nuclear–cytoplasmic compatibility in Triticum

Summary The nuclear‐encoded species cytoplasm specific (scs) genes control nuclear–cytoplasmic compatibility in wheat (genus Triticum). Alloplasmic cells, which have nucleus and cytoplasm derived from different species, produce vigorous and vital organisms only when the correct version of scs is present in their nucleus. In this study, bulks of in vivo radiation hybrids segregating for the scs phenotype have been genotyped by sequencing with over 1.9 million markers. The high marker saturation obtained for a critical region of chromosome 1D allowed identification of 3318 reads that mapped in close proximity of the scs. A novel in silico approach was deployed to extend these short reads to sequences of up to 70 Kb in length and identify candidate open reading frames (ORFs). Markers were developed to anchor the short contigs containing ORFs to a radiation hybrid map of 650 individuals with resolution of 288 Kb. The region containing the scs locus was narrowed to a single Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC) contig of Aegilops tauschii. Its sequencing and assembly by nano‐mapping allowed rapid identification of a rhomboid gene as the only ORF existing within the refined scs locus. Resequencing of this gene from multiple germplasm sources identified a single nucleotide mutation, which gives rise to a functional amino acid change. Gene expression characterization revealed that an active copy of this rhomboid exists on all homoeologous chromosomes of wheat, and depending on the specific cytoplasm each copy is preferentially expressed. Therefore, a new methodology was applied to unique genetic stocks to rapidly identify a strong candidate gene for the control of nuclear–cytoplasmic compatibility in wheat.
THE EFFECT OF INTRASPECIFIC SAMPLE SIZE ON TYPE I AND TYPE II ERROR RATES IN COMPARATIVE STUDIES

Abstract Comparative studies have increased greatly in number in recent years due to advances in statistical and phylogenetic methodologies. For these studies, a trade-off often exists between the number of species that can be included in any given study and the number of individuals examined per species. Here, we describe a simple simulation study examining the effect of intraspecific sample size on statistical error in comparative studies. We find that ignoring measurement error has no effect on type I error of nonphylogenetic analyses, but can lead to increased type I error under some circumstances when using independent contrasts. We suggest using ANOVA to evaluate the relative amounts of within- and between-species variation when considering a phylogenetic comparative study. If within-species variance is particularly large and intraspecific sample sizes small, then either larger sample sizes or comparative methods that account for measurement error are necessary.
Risk Factors for Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Infection: A Meta-Analysis

Aims: Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) infection has been rapidly emerging as a life-threatening nosocomial disease in many countries. However, studies on the corresponding risk factors of CRKP infection showed inconsistent results. To resolve these inconsistencies, we conducted a meta-analysis of previous studies on the potential risk factors of CRKP infection. The results of this study could be used to develop CRKP infection prevention strategies. Methods: Relevant works were systematically searched from five electronic databases up to September 2016. Z-test was used to determine the significance of the pooled odds ratios (ORs). ORs and 95% confidence intervals were utilized to compare the risk factors of CRKP infection. Results: Sixteen studies that involved 3,627 participants were included in the meta-analysis. We identified the following risk factors that were associated with CRKP infection: (1) longer length of hospital stay (LOS) (OR = 12.92), (2) admission to intensive care unit (ICU) (OR = 2.48), (3) prior hospitalization (OR = 1.85), (4) longer days of ICU stay (OR = 4.58), (5) transplant recipient (OR = 2.01), (6) steroid use (OR = 1.43), (7) central venous catheter use (OR = 2.30), (8) mechanical ventilation (OR = 2.54), (9) presence of tracheostomy (OR = 3.63), (10) parenteral nutrition (OR = 2.38), (11) previous antibiotic use (OR = 3.31), and (12) exposure to carbapenems (OR = 4.01), (13) aminoglycosides (OR = 2.05), (14) glycopeptides (OR = 2.40), (15) quinolones (OR = 2.28), and (16) anti-pseudomonal penicillins (OR = 2.67). Conclusions: Sixteen risk factors including longer LOS, admission to ICU, previous antibiotic use, and exposure to carbapenems were associated with the development of CRKP infection. Identification of modifiable risk factors could play an important role in the prevention of CRKP infection.
Family Instability and Exposure to Violence in the Early Life Course

Family instability has been linked with a host of outcomes across the early life course. This study extends this literature by connecting instability with violence in the community by examining the associations among family structure, family structure change, and secondary exposure to violence during adolescence across diverse segments of the population. Using longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods study, we found that living with a single parent and experiencing family structure changes were associated with secondary exposure to violence. Multiple group models suggest that partner change translated into more exposure for boys than girls. Findings also suggest that family instability may lead to more secondary exposure to violence for African American youth.
Assembly by Intelligent Scaffolding ; CU-CS-1080-11

—We propose a novel class of algorithms for autonomously assembling structures from inert building blocks guided by intelligent scaffolding components. Intelligent scaffold units are equipped with sensing, actuation, computation and communication abilities and facilitate the attachment of inert building blocks to the structure. After attaching an inert building block, the scaffold structure reconﬁgures to attach the next block until the structure is completed. The proposed algorithms are scale-free and independent of the implementation of the locomotion of building blocks and intelligent scaffolding blocks. For example, movement of building and scaffold blocks can be achieved using manipulating robots or self-assembly in a well-stirred liquid. In a robotic assembly context, the intelligent scaffolds take the role of markers on the structure and allow for reducing the perception and coordination requirements on the robotic team. In this paper, we describe algorithms for converting any desired structure that can be represented as 3D lattice into a ﬁnite state machine that is executed by intelligent scaffolding blocks; we prove that all ﬁnite structures can be assembled using intelligent scaffolds; and we provide examples of simulations that assemble a square, a fractal structure, and a model of a space station, each using only three intelligent scaffold components.
Distributed Real-Time Energy Scheduling in Smart Grid: Stochastic Model and Fast Optimization

We develop a stochastic energy scheduling model for a local-area smart-grid system with a single energy source and multiple energy consumers. The tasks of the energy consumers are classified into two categories, namely, the stochastic background tasks and the deterministic dynamic tasks. The objective is to schedule the energy consumptions of the dynamic tasks to maximize the expected system utility under the given energy consumption and energy generation constraints. To make this problem tractable, using rolling horizon optimization and Gaussian approximation we transform the original stochastic optimization problem into a convex optimization problem with linear constraints. We then derive a distributed Newton's method to solve this problem, and design a message-passing mechanism for a distributed implementation of the algorithm with limited information exchange between the energy consumers and the energy source. In simulations, the proposed distributed Newton's method converges for the system under consideration, while the traditional dual decomposition method does not converge to a primary feasible solution; and thus it is a powerful practical tool for real-time control of smart-grid systems.
Breastfeeding and Infant Hospitalisation for Infections: Large Cohort- and Sibling Analysis.

BACKGROUND Breastfeeding may protect against infections, but its optimal duration remains controversial. We aimed to study the association of the duration of full and any breastfeeding with infections the first 18 months of life. METHODS The Norwegian Mother and Child study (MoBa) is a prospective birth cohort which recruited expecting mothers giving birth from 2000-2009. We analyzed data from the full cohort (n = 70 511) and sibling sets (n = 21 220) with parental report of breastfeeding and infections. The main outcome measures were the relative risks for hospitalisation for infections from 0-18 months by age at introduction of complementary foods and duration of any breastfeeding. RESULTS While we found some evidence for an overall association between longer duration of full breastfeeding and lower risk of hospitalisations for infections, 7.3% of breastfed children who received complementary foods at 4-6 months of age compared to 7.7% of those receiving complementary foods after 6 months were hospitalised (adjusted relative risk [RR] 0.95, 95% CI 0.88-1.03). Higher risk of hospitalisation was observed in those breastfed six months or less (10.0%) compared to ≥12 months (7.6%, adjusted RR 1.22, 95% CI 1.14-1.31), but with similar risks for 6-11 months versus ≥12 months. Matched sibling analyses, minimising the confounding from shared maternal factors, showed non-significant associations and were generally weaker compared with the cohort analyses. CONCLUSIONS Our results support the recommendation to fully breastfeed for 4 months and to continue breastfeeding beyond 6 months, and suggest that protection against infections is limited to the first 12 months.
The effects of partial observability in SLAM

In this article, we show that partial observability hinders full reconstructibility of the state space in SLAM, making the final map estimate dependent on the initial observations, and not guaranteeing convergence to a positive semi-definite covariance matrix. By characterizing the form of the total Fisher information we are able to determine the unobservable state space directions. To overcome this problem, we formulate new fully observable measurement models that make SLAM stable.
MUSAI- ${L}_{{1/2}}$ : MUltiple Sub-Wavelet-Dictionaries-Based Adaptively-Weighted Iterative Half Thresholding Algorithm for Compressive Imaging

Compressive sensing (CS) is an effective approach for compressive recovery, such as the imaging problems. It aims at recovering sparse signal or image from a small number of under-sampled data by taking advantage of the sparse signal structure. <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L_{1/2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm regularization in CS framework has been considered as a typical nonconvex relaxation approach to approximate the optimal sparse solution, and can obtain stronger sparse solution than <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L_{1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm regularization. However, it is very difficult to solve the nonconvex optimization problem efficiently resulted by <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L_{1/2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm. In order to improve the performance of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L_{1/2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm regularization and extend the application, we propose a multiple sub-wavelet dictionaries-based adaptively-weighted iterative half thresholding algorithm (MUSAI-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L_{1/2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) for sparse signal recovery. In particular, we propose an adaptive-weighting scheme for the regularization parameter to control the tradeoff between the fidelity term and the multiple sub-regularization terms. Numerical experiments are conducted on some typical compressive imaging problems to demonstrate that the proposed MUSAI-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L_{1/2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> algorithm can yield significantly improved the recovery performance compared with the prior work.