Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Author's Personal Copy Future Generation Computer Systems a Coordinator for Scaling Elastic Applications across Multiple Clouds

Keywords: Cloud computing Infrastructure as a service Elastic applications InterCloud a b s t r a c t Cloud computing allows customers to dynamically scale their applications, software platforms, and hardware infrastructures according to negotiated Service Level Agreements (SLAs). However, resources available in a single Cloud data center are limited, thus if a large demand for an elastic application is observed in a given time, a Cloud provider will not be able to deliver uniform Quality of Service (QoS) to handle such a demand and SLAs may be violated. One approach that can be taken to avoid such a scenario is enabling further growing of the application by scaling it across multiple, independent Cloud data centers, following market-based trading and negotiation of resources. This approach, as envisioned in the InterCloud project, is realized by agents called Cloud Coordinators and allows for an increase in performance, reliability, and scalability of elastic applications. In this paper, we propose both an architecture for such Cloud Coordinator and an extensible design that allows its adoption in different public and private Clouds. An evaluation of the Cloud Coordinator prototype running in a small-scale scenario shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach and its impact on elastic applications.
Dark matter in elliptical galaxies — II. Estimating the mass within the virial radius

Elliptical galaxies are modelled with a a 4-component model: Sersic stars, �CDM dark matter (DM), a β-model for the hot gas and a central black hole, with the aim of establishing how accurately can one measure the total mass within their virial radii. DM is negligible in the inner regions, which are dominated by stars and the central black hole. This prevents any kinematical estimate (using a Jeans analysis) of the inner slope of the DM density profile. The gas fraction rises, but the baryon fra ction decreases with radius, at least out to 10 effective radii (Re). Even with line-of-sight velocity dispersion (VD) measure- ments at 4 or 5 Re with 20kms 1 accuracy and perfectly known velocity anisotropy, the total mass within the virial radius (rvr200) is uncertain by a factor over 3. The DM distributions found inCDM simulations appear inconsistent with the low VDs measured by Romanowsky et al. (2003) of planetary nebulae between 2 and 5 Re, which typically (but not always) imply very low M/Ls, and a baryon fraction within rv that is greater than the universal value. Re- placing the NFW DM model by the new model of Navarro et al. (2004) decreases slightly the VD at a given radius. So, given the observed VD measured at 5 Re, the inferred M/L within rv is 40% larger than predicted with the NFW model. Folding in the slight (strong) radial anisotropy found inCDM (merger) simulations, which is well modelled (much better than with the Osipkov-Merritt formula) with β(r) = 1/2 r/(r + a), the inferred M/L within rv is 1.6 (2.4) times higher than for the isotropic NFW model. Thus, the DM model and radial anisotropy can partly explain the low PN VDs, but not in full. The logarithmic slope of the VD at radii of 1 to 5 Re, which is insensitive to radius, is another measure of the DM mass within the virial radius, but it is similarly affected by the a priori unknown DM mass profile and stellar velocity anisotropy. Some of the orbital solutions produced by Romanowsky et al. (2003) indicate that NGC 3379 has a dark matter content at least as large as cosmologically predicted, and the lower M/Ls of most of their solutions lead to a baryonic fraction withi n rv that is larger than the universal value. In an appendix, single integral expres sions are derived for the VDs in terms of general radial profiles for the tracer density and to tal mass, for various anisotropic models (general constant anisotropy, radial, Osipkov-Merritt, and the model above).
Stepwise Reconstitution of Interphase Microtubule Dynamics in Permeabilized Cells and Comparison to Dynamic Mechanisms in Intact Cells

Microtubules in permeabilized cells are devoid of dynamic activity and are insensitive to depolymerizing drugs such as nocodazole. Using this model system we have established conditions for stepwise reconstitution of microtubule dynamics in permeabilized interphase cells when supplemented with various cell extracts. When permeabilized cells are supplemented with mammalian cell extracts in the presence of protein phosphatase inhibitors, microtubules become sensitive to nocodazole. Depolymerization induced by nocodazole proceeds from microtubule plus ends, whereas microtubule minus ends remain inactive. Such nocodazole-sensitive microtubules do not exhibit subunit turnover. By contrast, when permeabilized cells are supplemented with Xenopus egg extracts, microtubules actively turn over. This involves continuous creation of free microtubule minus ends through microtubule fragmentation. Newly created minus ends apparently serve as sites of microtubule depolymerization, while net microtubule polymerization occurs at microtubule plus ends. We provide evidence that similar microtubule fragmentation and minus end–directed disassembly occur at the whole-cell level in intact cells. These data suggest that microtubule dynamics resembling dynamics observed in vivo can be reconstituted in permeabilized cells. This model system should provide means for in vitro assays to identify molecules important in regulating microtubule dynamics. Furthermore, our data support recent work suggesting that microtubule treadmilling is an important mechanism of microtubule turnover.
A low-phase-noise wide-tuning-range quadrature oscillator in 65nm CMOS

In this paper, we present a low-phase-noise wide-tuning-range quadrature oscillator using an LC-ring resonator. It achieves low phase noise by employing passive coupling between multiple stages and at the same time it covers a wide tuning range by switching between two resonant modes. Furthermore, the problem of oscillation frequency uncertainty which is a common issue in oscillators with multiple oscillation modes is addressed by the novel mode switching method. The proposed design is verified by a four-stage LC-ring prototype in a 65nm CMOS process, which covers 2.78GHz-5.00GHz with phase noise FoM of 186dB at 3.66GHz and >;180dB across the entire tuning range. This demonstrates the best performance among wide-tuning-range quadrature VCO's at this frequency range.
GPU-Based Shooting and Bouncing Ray Method for Fast RCS Prediction

The shooting and bouncing ray (SBR) method is highly effective in the radar cross section (RCS) prediction. For electrically large and complex targets, computing scattered fields is still time-consuming in many applications like range profile and ISAR simulation. In this paper, we propose a GPU-based SBR that is fully implemented on the graphics processing unit (GPU). Based on the stackless kd-tree traversal algorithm, the ray tube tracing can rapidly evaluate the exit position in a single pass on the GPU. We also present a technique for fast electromagnetic computing that allows the geometric optics (GO) and Physical optics (PO) integral to be carried out on the GPU efficiently during the ray tube tracing. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the GPU-based SBR can significantly improve the computational efficiency of the RCS prediction, about 30 times faster, while providing the same accuracy as the CPU-based SBR.
THE PERSPECTIVES OF STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE POEM “BEREFT” BY ROBERT FROST

This Research paper aims to analyze Robert Frost’s poem “Bereft” from the perspective of stylistic analysis. The analysis is made under the aspects of Graphlogical, Grammatical, Syntactical, and Phonological patterns. We have also found tropes and schemes that are present in the poem. This research is helpful to analyze the structure and style of Robert Frost’s poetry, and his themes, views, and treatment of nature.
Traffic engineering label switched paths

The Internet is evolving into a commercial platform requiring enhanced protocols and an expanded physical infrastructure allowing a better delivery from IP. Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a technology enabling traffic engineering and virtual private network (VPN) provisioning. MPLS achieves traffic engineering by carrying the traffic over virtual connections called Label Switched Paths (LSPs) which are engineered based on QoS requirements such as delay, jitter and packet loss minimization or throughput maximization. This thesis proposes path finding and traffic distribution methods to be deployed in MPLS networks for traffic engineering LSPs. A flow optimization model based on a pre-planned routing approach separating path finding and traffic distribution is presented. This model is augmented by a threshold routing approach which routes the traffic based on thresholds expressing the maximum load level reached by network links. This routing approach moves the traffic away from thresholdmarked links to achieve low-utilized links/paths. The performance and routing capabilities of these methods are evaluated through designed software. A routing architecture implementing a two-layer signalling model for MPLS network is proposed and evaluated through simulation. v Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za
Processing Techniques and Applications of Silk Hydrogels in Bioengineering

Hydrogels are an attractive class of tunable material platforms that, combined with their structural and functional likeness to biological environments, have a diversity of applications in bioengineering. Several polymers, natural and synthetic, can be used, the material selection being based on the required functional characteristics of the prepared hydrogels. Silk fibroin (SF) is an attractive natural polymer for its excellent processability, biocompatibility, controlled degradation, mechanical properties and tunable formats and a good candidate for the fabrication of hydrogels. Tremendous effort has been made to control the structural and functional characteristic of silk hydrogels, integrating novel biological features with advanced processing techniques, to develop the next generation of functional SF hydrogels. Here, we review the several processing methods developed to prepare advanced SF hydrogel formats, emphasizing a bottom-up approach beginning with critical structural characteristics of silk proteins and their behavior under specific gelation environments. Additionally, the preparation of SF hydrogel blends and other advanced formats will also be discussed. We conclude with a brief description of the attractive utility of SF hydrogels in relevant bioengineering applications.
XML based Metadata Repository for Information Systems

Today's information systems include many components and computational processes such as data warehouses, data marts, ETL processes, data analysis tools, etc. An appropriate integration of these components requires the extensive use of metadata. However the representation, consolidation, management, and access to this metadata information can cause a major overhead in the system. This paper presents an XML based metadata repository that consists of a centralized repository built upon standard XML technologies such as XML Schema, XSL, XQuery and XLink, coupled with an appropriate storage that proved to be a flexible, and yet inexpensive, metadata solution. Moreover it provides the means for the metamodel extensibility and easy integration into any information system. The feasibility of this solution is documented by the description and discussion of a prototype implementation currently deployed and running in operational state as part of a complex information system
A new method to extract Uighur text region in images

In view of Uighur text characteristics being stable and its background being changeable and complex in Video Frames, the thought of target attention is used to solve the problem of detecting Uighur text region in image. First, a method of color reduction is adopted to remove color gradient of text region. Based on this, suspected Uighur character regions are selected out of images with complex background by features of Uighur character region(focused goal 1), in the primaries, which are many small connected regions and are served as suspected samples. Second, a group of characters reflecting the relations (focused goal 2) between adjacent regions are extracted and one of characters is leading. Then every character' information is combined into the leading character and a progressive cluster algorithm based on leading character is proposed. Finally, Uighur text regions in images are obtained with the aid of layer features (focused goal 3) of Uighur text region. Experiments show that the region of Uighur's scene text and caption text on complex background can be segmented successfully. The accuracy rate is 98% and false alarm rate is lower than 14%.
AGE, GENDER, AND ALCOHOL ABUSE AS FACTORS IN COPING BEHAVIOUR

Stress is ubiquitous in contemporary society, especially in Africa where uncertainty seems to be the most constant paradigm. In order to cope with the challenges, people adopt various behaviours whether adaptive or maladaptive. This study examined age, gender and alcohol abuse as factors in coping behaviour of Nigerian adults. 384 volunteer respondents (209 men and 175 women), age range 18-72 were drawn from three cities in three zones of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The CAGE Questionnaire was used to measure alcohol abuse, while the coping behaviour scale-Short was used to measure coping behaviour. Analysis of variance was used to test the hypotheses that age, gender, and alcohol abuse will be significant factors in coping behaviour. The result indicated that only alcohol abuse was a significant factor in coping behaviour of respondents f(1,376) = 19.88, p<. 001). Age and gender interacted significantly with alcohol in coping behaviour. Discussion highlighted alcohol abuse as a harmful behaviour most especially to older persons, and women.
Spring–damper equivalents of the fractional, poroelastic, and poroviscoelastic models for elastography

In MR elastography, it is common to use an elastic model for the tissue's response in order to interpret the results properly. More complex models, such as viscoelastic, fractional viscoelastic, poroelastic, or poroviscoelastic ones, are also used. These models appear at first sight to be very different, but here it is shown that they may all be expressed in terms of elementary viscoelastic models.
Eye Movements Disclose Decisions in Set

During the past several decades, much research has been done in the field of visual attention and cognitive processing, i.e., how does the human brain process visual stimuli. We show that the card game SET is a good candidate for investigating the relation between top-down versus bottom-up visual information processing. Further, we show that Machine Learning techniques can be effectively used to study this relation. We use these techniques to predict if (a) the player thinks he/she found a set (a particular threecard pattern), and (b) he/she correctly identifies a set, both based on eye movements of the player. Our results indicate the following. First, pop-out plays a role in SET-playing performance. Second, the more we move towards predicting correctness (the player found a correct set), the less important eye movements are and the more important player experience is. Third, the more we move towards predicting the claiming of a set (the behavior), the more important eye movements are and the less important player experience is. This indicates that eye movements disclose whether a player thinks he/she found a set or not, but not whether that player correctly identified a set.
Skin effects models for transmission line structures using generic SPICE circuit simulators

A recipe has been developed to model the skin effect for various transmission line structures. The final circuit structure to model this effect can be used with a generic SPICE circuit simulator. The ladder-like network (Yen et al, 1982) element is fairly easy to compute, and requires a minimal increase in CPU time. The model has been verified experimentally.
Xanthusbase: adapting wikipedia principles to a model organism database

xanthusBase () is the official model organism database (MOD) for the social bacterium Myxococcus xanthus. In many respects, M.xanthus represents the pioneer model organism (MO) for studying the genetic, biochemical, and mechanistic basis of prokaryotic multicellularity, a topic that has garnered considerable attention due to the significance of biofilms in both basic and applied microbiology research. To facilitate its utility, the design of xanthusBase incorporates open-source software, leveraging the cumulative experience made available through the Generic Model Organism Database (GMOD) project, MediaWiki (), and dictyBase (), to create a MOD that is both highly useful and easily navigable. In addition, we have incorporated a unique Wikipedia-style curation model which exploits the internet's inherent interactivity, thus enabling M.xanthus and other myxobacterial researchers to contribute directly toward the ongoing genome annotation.
A Probabilistic View of Neighborhood-Based Recommendation Methods

Probabilistic graphic model is an elegant framework to compactly present complex real-world observations by modeling uncertainty and logical flow (conditionally independent factors). In this paper, we present a probabilistic framework of neighborhood-based recommendation methods (PNBM) in which similarity is regarded as an unobserved factor. Thus, PNBM leads the estimation of user preference to maximizing a posterior over similarity. We further introduce a novel multi-layer similarity descriptor which models and learns the joint influence of various features under PNBM, and name the new framework MPNBM. Empirical results on real-world datasets show that MPNBM allows very accurate estimation of user preferences.
Dynamic Ambiguities in Frictional Rigid-body Systems with Application to Climbing via Bracing

Constructing climbing behaviors for hyper-redundant robots that account for the system dynamics requires a model of robot dynamics under contact and friction. One common model, rigid-body dynamics with coulomb friction, unfortunately is both an ambiguous and inconsistent set of dynamic axioms. This paper addresses the ambiguity problem by developing an algorithm which computes the set of joint torques such that all solutions are guaranteed to produce the desired system behavior. This algorithm is applied to a type of robot climbing which we denote climbing via bracing where a hyper-redundant robot stabilizes itself against gravity by pressing outward to induce friction. By bracing with a fraction of the robot, which we term a brace the remainder of the robot remains free to move upward and brace at a higher location. A sequence of braces thus moves the robot upward.
Axl receptor tyrosine kinase is up-regulated in metformin resistant prostate cancer cells

Recent epidemiological studies showed that metformin, a widely used anti-diabetic drug might prevent certain cancers. Metformin also has an anti-proliferative effect in preclinical studies of both hematologic malignancies as well as solid cancers and clinical studies testing metformin as an anti-cancer drug are in progress. However, all cancer types do not respond to metformin with the same effectiveness or acquire resistance. To understand the mechanism of acquired resistance and possibly its mechanism of action as an anti-proliferative agent, we developed metformin resistant LNCaP prostate cancer cells. Metformin resistant LNCaP cells had an increased proliferation rate, increased migration and invasion ability as compared to the parental cells, and expressed markers of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). A detailed gene expression microarray comparing the resistant cells to the wild type cells revealed that Edil2, Ereg, Axl, Anax2, CD44 and Anax3 were the top up-regulated genes and calbindin 2 and TPTE (transmembrane phosphatase with tensin homology) and IGF1R were down regulated. We focused on Axl, a receptor tyrosine kinase that has been shown to be up regulated in several drug resistance cancers. Here, we show that the metformin resistant cell line as well as castrate resistant cell lines that over express Axl were more resistant to metformin, as well as to taxotere compared to androgen sensitive LNCaP and CWR22 cells that do not overexpress Axl. Forced overexpression of Axl in LNCaP cells decreased metformin and taxotere sensitivity and knockdown of Axl in resistant cells increased sensitivity to these drugs. Inhibition of Axl activity by R428, a small molecule Axl kinase inhibitor, sensitized metformin resistant cells that overexpressed Axl to metformin. Inhibitors of Axl may enhance tumor responses to metformin and other chemotherapy in cancers that over express Axl.
Self-Control within a Muslim Ideological Surround: Empirical Translation Schemes and the Adjustment of Muslim Seminarians in Iran

Associated with the Ideological Surround Model of the relationship between religion and the social sciences, empirical translation schemes are a procedure for converting psychological measures into functionally equivalent religious constructs. In a sample of Muslim seminarians in Iran, this procedure transformed the Brief Self-Control Scale as a measure relevant to a non-religious Darwinian perspective into a language more reflective of a Muslim ideological surround. Brief and Muslim Self-Control scales correlated positively. Each also predicted the religious adjustment of a stronger Intrinsic and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientation and the psychological adjustment of greater Self-Esteem and Satisfaction with Life and of lower Perceived Stress, Depression, and Anxiety. Correlation, multiple regression, and mediation analyses identified Darwinian and Muslim perspectives on self-control as largely compatible. This investigation most broadly illustrated the need for a post-postmodern sensitivity to immanent social scientific, transcendent religious, and dialogical ideological surrounds.
Characteristics of attempted suicides seen in emergency-care settings of general hospitals in eight low- and middle-income countries

Background. The objective was to describe patients presenting themselves at emergency-care settings following a suicide attempt in eight culturally different sites [Campinas (Brazil), Chennai (India), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Durban (South Africa), Hanoi (Viet Nam), Karaj (Iran), Tallinn (Estonia), and Yuncheng, (China)]. Method. Subjects seen for suicide attempts, as identified by the medical staff in the emergency units of 18 collaborating hospitals were asked to participate in a 45-minute structured interview administered by trained health personnel after the patient was medically stable. Results. Self-poisoning was the main method of attempting suicide in all eight sites. Self-poisoning by pesticides played a particularly important role in Yuncheng (71·6% females, 61·5% males), in Colombo (43·2% males, 19·6% females), and in Chennai (33·8% males, 23·8% females). The suicide attempt resulted in danger to life in the majority of patients in Yuncheng and in Chennai (over 65%). In four of the eight sites less than one-third of subjects received any type of referral for follow-up evaluation or care. Conclusions. Action for the prevention of suicide attempts can be started immediately in the sites investigated by addressing the one most important method of attempted suicide, namely self-poisoning. Regulations for the access to drugs, medicaments, pesticides, and other toxic substances need to be improved and revised regulations must be implemented by integrating the efforts of different sectors, such as health, agriculture, education, and justice. The care of patients who attempt suicide needs to include routine psychiatric and psychosocial assessment and systematic referral to professional services after discharge.