Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Energy-Efficient Data Center Networks Planning with Virtual Machine Placement and Traffic Configuration

Data Center (DC), the underlying infrastructure of cloud computing, becomes startling large with more powerful computing and communication capability to satisfy the wide spectrum of composite applications. In a large scale DC, a great number of switches connect servers into one complex network. The energy consumption of this communication network has skyrocketed and become the same league as the computing servers' costs. More than one-third of the total energy in DCs is consumed by communication links, switching and aggregation elements. Saving Data Center Network (DCN) energy to improve data center efficiency (power usage effectiveness or PUE) become the key technique in green computing. In this paper, we present VPTCA as an energy-efficient data center network planning solution that collectively deals with virtual machine placement and communication traffic configuration. VPTCA aims to reduce the DCN's energy consumption. In particular, interrelated VMs are assigned into the same server or pod, which effectively helps to reduce the amount of transmission load. In the layer of traffic message, VPTCA optimally uses switch ports and link bandwidth to balance the load and avoid congestions, enabling DCN to increase its transmission capacity, and saving a significant amount of network energy. In our evaluation via NS-2 simulations, the performance of VPTCA is measured and compared with two well-known DCN management algorithms, Global First Fit and Elastic Tree. Based on our experimental results, VPTCA outperforms existing algorithms in providing DCN more transmission capacity with less energy consumption.
Sailing the Information Ocean with Awareness of Currents: Discovery and Application of Source Dependence

The Web has enabled the availability of a huge amount of useful information, but has also eased the ability to spread false information and rumors across multiple sources, making it hard to distinguish between what is true and what is not. Recent examples include the premature Steve Jobs obituary, the second bankruptcy of United airlines, the creation of Black Holes by the operation of the Large Hadron Collider, etc. Since it is important to permit the expression of dissenting and conflicting opinions, it would be a fallacy to try to ensure that the Web provides only consistent information. However, to help in separating the wheat from the chaff, it is essential to be able to determine dependence between sources. Given the huge number of data sources and the vast volume of conflicting data available on the Web, doing so in a scalable manner is extremely challenging and has not been addressed by existing work yet. In this paper, we present a set of research problems and propose some preliminary solutions on the issues involved in discovering dependence between sources. We also discuss how this knowledge can benefit a variety of technologies, such as data integration and Web 2.0, that help users manage and access the totality of the available information from various sources.
Iterative Local Model Selection for tracking and mapping

The past decade has seen great progress in research on large scale mapping and perception in static environments. Real world perception requires handling uncertain situations with multiple possible interpretations: e.g. changing appearances, dynamic objects, and varying motion models. These aspects of perception have been largely avoided through the use of heuristics and preprocessing. This thesis is motivated by the challenge of including discrete reasoning directly into the estimation process. We approach the problem by using Conditional Linear Gaussian Networks (CLGNs) as a generalization of least-squares estimation which allows the inclusion of discrete model selection variables. CLGNs are a powerful framework for modeling sparse multi-modal inference problems, but are difficult to solve efficiently. We propose the Iterative Local Model Selection (ILMS) algorithm as a general approximation strategy specifically geared towards the large scale problems encountered in tracking and mapping. Chapter 4 introduces the ILMS algorithm and compares its performance to traditional approximate inference techniques for Switching Linear Dynamical Systems (SLDSs). These evaluations validate the characteristics of the algorithm which make it particularly attractive for applications in robot perception. Chief among these is reliability of convergence, consistent performance, and a reasonable trade off between accuracy and efficiency. In Chapter 5, we show how the data association problem in multi-target tracking can be formulated as an SLDS and effectively solved using ILMS. The SLDS formulation allows the addition of additional discrete variables which model outliers and clutter in the scene. Evaluations on standard pedestrian tracking sequences demonstrates performance competitive with the state of the art. Chapter 6 applies the ILMS algorithm to robust pose graph estimation. A non-linear CLGN is constructed by introducing outlier indicator variables for all loop closures. The standard Gauss-Newton optimization algorithm is modified to use ILMS as an inference algorithm in between linearizations. Experiments demonstrate a large improvement over state-of-the-art robust techniques. The ILMS strategy presented in this thesis is simple and general, but still works surprisingly well. We argue that these properties are encouraging for wider applicability to problems in robot perception.
Cryogenic Performance and Reliability of GaAs CHFETs

GaAs CHFETs (complementary heterostructure field effect transistors) were characterized before and after stress testing at both room temperature and in cryogenic conditions. Various values of drain and gate voltages were used for stress conditions, and the effects of temperature on both performance and reliability were examined. A decrease in drain saturation current is observed below 150 K as well as an exponential decrease of gate leakage with decreasing temperature. Parametric degradation that follows a log-log relationship was observed under all stress conditions. For high electrical stress, the degradation was found to be worse at cryogenic temperatures
A time interval based consistency control algorithm for interactive groupware applications

Traditional concurrency control methods such as locking and serialization are not suitable for distributed interactive applications that demand fast local response. Operational transformation (OT) is the standard solution to concurrency control and consistency maintenance in group editors, an important class of interactive groupware applications. It generally trades consistency for local responsiveness, because human users can often tolerate temporary inconsistencies but do not like their interactions be lost or nondeterministically blocked. This paper presents a time interval based operational transformation algorithm (TIBOT) that overcomes the various limitations of previous related work. Our approach guarantees content convergence and is significantly more simple and efficient than existing approaches. This is achieved in a pure replicated architecture by using a linear clock and by posing some constraints on communication that are reasonable for the application domain.
Evolutionary robotics techniques used to model information and control of visually guided braking

This paper utilizes evolutionary robotics techniques as a hypothesis generator to explore optical variables and control strategies that could be used to solve a driving-like braking task. Given such a task, humans exhibit two different braking behaviors: continuously regulated braking and impulsive braking. Based on an oft-used experimental task in human perception/action research, a series of evolutionary robotics simulations were developed to explore the space of possible braking strategies by examining how braking strategies change as the optical information is manipulated. Our results can be summarized as follows: (1) behaviors similar to human behavior were observed only when the constraints were selected correctly; (2) the optical variables τ and proportional rate yielded significantly better braking performance; (3) two different classes of impulsive braking behaviors were observed, including one not reported in previous studies: discrete impulsive braking and oscillatory impulsive braking; (4) the optical variable τ is used to initiate and terminate braking; (5) the evolved model agents use a proportional rate control strategy to regulate braking continuously. We argue that combining psychological experiments and evolutionary robotics simulations is a promising research methodology that is useful for testing existing hypotheses and generating new ones.
What can social psychologists learn from architecture? The asylum as example

In this paper I argue for a stronger consideration of the possible relationship between social psychology and architecture and architectural history. After a brief review of some of the ways in which other social psychologists have sought to develop links between social psychology and history, I consider the utility of architecture in more depth, especially to the social psychologist interested in the development of knowledge and understanding. I argue that, especially when knowledge is institutionalised, the design and use of buildings might have a particular contribution to make to the way we can understand how phenomena have been understood and approached in the past. Although many examples are relevant, I consider the case of the psychiatric hospital (or “asylum”) in more detail.
THE IMPACT OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION ON THE DISPLAYED AFFECT OF WHITE INDIVIDUALS ENGAGING IN INTERRACIAL INTERACTIONS

Evidence from empirical studies using static race cues suggests that alcohol consumption may increase expressions of prejudice. However, these data may not reliably predict the behavior of Whites during interracial interactions since both expressions of stigma and the effects of alcohol intoxication have been shown to vary widely from non-social to social paradigms. The current study aimed to capture in real time the dynamic and evolving processes involved in interracial interactions and examined how these processes are modified by alcohol consumption. I used Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to conduct a micro-analysis of the emotional experience of Whites engaging in a 36-minute interaction with either two other Whites (racially homogeneous groups), or one White and one Black participants (interracial groups). Alcohol moderated the impact of group racial composition on expressions associated with self-awareness but did not moderate other positive or negative affective displays. Results highlight the role of presentational concerns in modern interracial interactions.
Infants adapt their stepping to repeated trip-inducing stimuli.

This study examined whether human infants under the age of 12 mo learn to modify their stepping pattern after repeated trip-inducing stimuli. Thirty three infants aged from 5 to 11 mo were studied. The infants were held over a moving treadmill belt to induce stepping. Occasionally, a mechanical tap was applied to the dorsum of the left foot during the early swing phase to elicit a high step. In some trials, the stimulus was applied for only one step. In other trials, the foot was stimulated for a few consecutive steps. We determined whether the infants continued to show high stepping immediately after the removal of the stimuli. The results showed that after the foot was touched for two or more consecutive steps, some infants continued to demonstrate high stepping for a few steps after the removal of the stimuli (i.e., aftereffect). Such adaptation was achieved by an increase in hip and knee flexor muscle torque, which led to greater hip and knee flexion during the early swing phase. Aftereffects were more commonly seen in older infants (9 mo or older). The results indicated that before the onset of independent walking, the locomotor circuitry in human infants is capable of adaptive locomotor plasticity. The increased incidence of aftereffect in older infants also suggests that the ability to adapt to repeated trip-inducing stimuli may be related to other factors such as experience in stepping and maturation of the nervous system.
Genome Sequencing Analysis of Atypical Shigella flexneri Isolated in Korea

Objectives An atypical Shigella flexneri strain with a plural agglutination pattern [i.e., reacting not only with serum samples containing type antigen II but also with serum samples containing group antigens (3)4 and 7(8)] was selected for genome sequencing, with the aim of obtaining additional comparative information about such strains. Methods The genomic DNA of atypical S. flexneri strain NCCP 15744 was sequenced using an Ion Torrent PGM sequencing machine (Life Technologies, USA). The raw sequence data were preprocessed and reference-assembled in the CLC Assembly Cell software (version 4.0.6; CLC bio, USA). Results Ion Torrent sequencing produced 1,450,025 single reads with an average length of 144 bp, totaling ~209 Mbp. The NCCP 15744 genome is composed of one chromosome and four plasmids and contains a gtrX gene. Among the published genome sequences of S. flexneri strains, including 2457T, Sf301, and 2002017, strain NCCP 15744 showed high similarity with strain 2002017. The differences between NCCP 15744 and 2002017 are as follows: i) NCCP 15744 carries four plasmids whereas 2002017 carries five; ii) 19 genes (including CI, CII, and cro) were lost in the SHI-O genomic island of NCCP 15744 and six genes were gained as compared with strain 2002017. Conclusion Strain NCCP 15744 is genetically similar to 2002017, but these two strains have different multilocus sequence types and serotypes. The exact reason is unclear, but the 19 lost genes may be responsible for the atypical seroconversion of strain NCCP 15744.
PARDIS: A programmable memory controller for the DDRx interfacing standards

Modern memory controllers employ sophisticated address mapping, command scheduling, and power management optimizations to alleviate the adverse effects of DRAM timing and resource constraints on system performance. A promising way of improving the versatility and efficiency of these controllers is to make them programmable - a proven technique that has seen wide use in other control tasks ranging from DMA scheduling to NAND Flash and directory control. Unfortunately, the stringent latency and throughput requirements of modern DDRx devices have rendered such programmability largely impractical, confining DDRx controllers to fixed-function hardware. This paper presents the instruction set architecture (ISA) and hardware implementation of PARDIS, a programmable memory controller that can meet the performance requirements of a high-speed DDRx interface. The proposed controller is evaluated by mapping previously proposed DRAM scheduling, address mapping, refresh scheduling, and power management algorithms onto PARDIS. Simulation results show that the average performance of PARDIS comes within 8% of fixed-function hardware for each of these techniques; moreover, by enabling application-specific optimizations, PARDIS improves system performance by 6-17% and reduces DRAM energy by 9-22% over four existing memory controllers.
Poly(γ‐glutamic acid) nanoparticles as an efficient antigen delivery and adjuvant system: Potential for an AIDS vaccine

Antigen delivery systems using polymeric nanoparticles are of special interest as stable protein‐based antigen carriers. In the present study, novel biodegradable poly(γ‐glutamic acid) (γ‐PGA) nanoparticles were examined for their antigen delivery and immunostimulatory activities in vitro and in vivo. The uptake of ovalbumin by dendritic cells was markedly enhanced by γ‐PGA nanoparticles, and the ovalbumin was gradually released from γ‐PGA nanoparticles into the cells. In addition, γ‐PGA nanoparticles appeared to have great potential as an adjuvant, because they could induce the maturation of dendritic cells. Although not only ovalbumin‐encapsulating nanoparticles (OVA‐NPs) but also a simple mixture of ovalbumin and nanoparticles induced dendritic cell maturation, the only dendritic cells exposed to OVA‐NPs could strongly activate antigen‐specific interferon (IFN)‐γ‐producing T cells. Subcutaneous immunization of mice with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV‐1) p24‐encapsulating nanoparticles activated antigen‐specific IFN‐γ‐producing T cells in spleen cells and induced p24‐specific serum antibodies, as compared to immunization with p24 alone. Like ovalbumin, a mixture of p24 and nanoparticles also induced antigen‐specific serum antibodies but did not activate IFN‐γ‐producing T cells in spleen cells, suggesting that nanoparticles play a critical role in inducing cellular immune responses. Furthermore, γ‐PGA nanoparticles had a capacity comparable to that of the complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) in inducing p24‐specific serum antibody. However, unlike CFA, they predominantly activated p24‐specific IFN‐γ‐producing T cells. Thus, γ‐PGA nanoparticles encapsulating various antigens may have great potential as novel and efficient protein‐based vaccines against infectious diseases, including HIV‐1 infection. J. Med. Virol. 80:11–19, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Yoo-Hoo!: building a presence service with XQuery and WSDL

XML is at the heart of Web services: It is used as the format for the messages exchanged between services and applications (using SOAP [7]), to describe the structure of those messages (using XML Schema [6, 8]), and to describe Web services interfaces (using WSDL [12]). Current approaches [5] to development of Web services hide the XML layer behind Java or C# APIs, preventing the application direct access to the original data and interface. The goal of the XButler project is to support fast and reliable development of Web services by enabling direct access to the XML data and Web-service interfaces. The main technical contribution of XButler is a binding between WSDL [12], the Web Services Description Language, and XQuery [14], the W3C XML query language. In particular, we extend XQuery with an import service statement, which provides transparent access to Web services from within an XQuery program. Conversely, XButler provides tool (called xquery2soap) which takes an XQuery module and deploys it as a SOAP service. The XButler toolset and the corresponding XQuery extensions are implemented on top of the Galax [2] XQuery processor. In our demonstration, we use XButler to deploy a userpresence service, called Yoo-Hoo! Yoo-Hoo! integrates user-presence information from multiple service providers and can provide Yoo-Hoo! clients with information such as “the requested subscriber is on-line at Jabber” or “the subscriber’s cell phone is busy”. XButler dramatically simplifies the implementation and deployment of the Yoo-Hoo! service – the client and server can manipulate XML messages directly in XQuery and all low-level handling of SOAP messages is entirely transparent.
An autonomous navigation algorithm for underwater vehicles based on inertial measurement units and sonar

The underwater vehicles technology has been developed rapidly in recent years. In the past years, the method of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) has prevailed and provided a feasible way of autonomous navigation. This paper introduces an algorithm based on Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) and sonar for autonomous navigation of underwater vehicles, which is called Inertial-SLAM algorithm. The algorithm uses a hybrid Rao-Blackwellised SLAM algorithm to estimate the velocity, position, attitude of the underwater vehicle, the bias errors of the Inertial Measurement Units as well as the features map around the underwater vehicle. Inertial-SLAM algorithm is a combination of Inertial Navigation System (INS) and particle filter-based SLAM algorithm. Both the time complexity and the estimation error of this algorithm are small. The simulation results of the Inertial-SLAM algorithm are given in the paper.
Dementia, stigma and intentions to help-seek: a pilot study of Australian adults 40 to 65 years

Stigma (prejudice or negative stereotypes associated with personal attributes such the presence of ill health or disease) is an important concept as it has the potential to adversely impact on social exclusion, help seeking behaviours and the utilisation of health and social services. Whilst limited international research suggests that there may be stigma associated with dementia, this paper presents results from the first comprehensive study to explore stigma towards dementia in Australia. Results from an online survey of Australian adults (45-60 years) outline the nature and presence of negative attitudes or stereotypes towards dementia and people living with dementia, and examine which information sources may have informed these perceptions. Implications are discussed in relation to the need for action or interventions that may be necessary to shift changes in public perceptions and attitudes in relation to dementia.
Detailed gene copy number and RNA expression analysis of the 17q12–23 region in primary breast cancers

Chromosome region 17q12–23 commonly shows an increase in DNA copy number in breast cancers, suggesting that several oncogenes are located at this site. We performed a high‐resolution expression array and comparative genomic hybridization analysis of genes mapped to the entire 17q12–23 region, to identify novel candidate oncogenes. We identified 24 genes that showed significant overexpression in breast cancers with gain of 17q12–23, compared to cancers without gain. These genes included previously identified oncogenes, together with several novel candidate oncogenes. FISH analysis using specific gene probes hybridized to tissue arrays confirmed the underlying amplification of overexpressed genes. This high‐resolution analysis of the 17q12–23 region indicates that several established and novel candidate oncogenes, including a Wnt‐signaling pathway member, are amplified and overexpressed within individual primary breast cancer samples. We were also able to confirm the presence of two apparently separate and reciprocally amplified groups of genes within this region. Investigation of these genes and their functional interactions will facilitate our understanding of breast oncogenesis and optimal management of this disease. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Nonadditive effects of group membership can lead to additive group phenotypes for anti‐predator behaviour of guppies, Poecilia reticulata

Nonadditive effects of group membership are generated when individuals respond differently to the same social environment and may alter predictions about how behavioural evolution will occur. Despite this importance, the relationship between an individual's behaviour in two different social contexts and how reciprocal interactions among individuals within groups influence group behaviour are poorly understood. Guppy anti‐predator behaviour can be used to explore how individuals behaviourally respond to changes in social context. Individuals from two strains were tested for response to a model predator alone and in groups to evaluate how individuals alter their behaviour in response to social context and how group phenotype relates to individual behaviour. Nonadditive effects of group membership were detected for a number of behaviours, revealing that the effect of being in a group differed among individuals. These nonadditive effects, however, yielded an additive group phenotype. That is, the average behaviour of the group was equal to the average of its parts, for all behaviours in both strains. Such an additive group phenotype may have resulted because all individuals within a group respond to the specific social environment provided by the other members of their group.