Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Formal methods in computer-aided design

The VLSI CAD flow encompasses an abundance of critical NP-complete and PSPACE-complete problems. Instead of developing a dedicated algorithm for each, the trend during the last decade has been to encode them in formal languages, such as Boolean satisfiability (SAT) and quantified Boolean formulas (QBFs), and focus academic resources on improving SAT and QBF solvers. The significant progress of these solvers has validated this strategy. This dissertation contributes to the further advancement of formal techniques in CAD. Today, the verification and debugging of increasingly complex RTL designs can consume up to 70% of the VLSI design cycle. In particular, RTL debug is a manual, resource-intensive task in the industry. The first contribution of this thesis is an in-depth examination of the factors affecting the theoretical computational complexity of debugging. It is established that most variations of the debugging problem are NP-complete. Automated debugging tools return all potential error sources in the RTL, called solutions, that can explain a given failing error trace. Finding each solution requires a separate call to a formal engine, which is computationally expensive. The second contribution of this dissertation comprises techniques for reducing the number of such iterations, by leveraging dominance relationships between RTL blocks to imply solutions. Extensive experiments on industrial designs show a three-fold reduction in the number of formal engine calls due to solution implications, resulting in a 1.64x overall speed-up. The third contribution aims to advance the state-of-the-art of QBF solvers, whose progress has not been as impressive as that of SAT solvers. We present a framework for using complete dominators to preprocess and reduce QBFs with an inherent circuit structure, which is common in encodings of PSPACE-complete CAD problems. Experiments show that three modern QBF solvers together solve 55% of preprocessed QBF instances, compared to none without preprocessing. The final contribution consists of a series of QBF encodings for evaluating the reconfigurability of partially programmable circuits (PPCs). The metrics of fault tolerance, design error tolerance and engineering change coverage are defined for PPCs and encoded using QBFs. These formulations along with experimental results demonstrate the theoretical and practical appropriateness of QBFs for dealing with reconfigurability.
Melatonin in Patients with Chronic Tinnitus

Melatonin is a natural hormone, secreted by the pineal gland. It is connected with cyclic activities, including sleep, and has been proposed as a treatment for tinnitus (3). Sleep disorders have been widely described in chronic tinnitus, but a correlation between sleep mechanisms and tinnitus has not yet been well identified. In a previous paper (1) we showed that in a third of aged patients affected with dizziness and cognitive disorders, circadian melatonin rhythm (CMR) was inverted. Pathological attention to tinnitus and a negative cognitive affective reaction to tinnitus have been described as factors that lead to a major impact on daily life, inhibiting coping with tinnitus (7). On the basis of these considerations, a role of circadian rhythm alteration may be suspected in severe chronic tinnitus. Thus, CMR was studied and found to be correlated with a negative cognitive involvement in tinnitus. Forty-eight severe tinnitus chronic patients (21 males and 27 females, mean age 56.6+8 years) out of 376 consecutive patients investigated in two audiological centres, were selected on the basis of the following criteria:
The Brontes: A Life in Letters

In this carefully chosen selection of their letters, diaries and autobiographical fragments, we hear the authentic voices of the three novelists, as well as their brother Bramwell and father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte. The collection follows their progress from exuberant childhood to years of hardship, followed by immense literary success and then tragic later years.
Procedural Graph-store Processing

Graph-store Processing (GSP) is a novel programming paradigmfor managing, sharing, and computing on arbitrarily structured and possibly distributed collections of digital information. As an informal introduction to basic GSP concepts, I present pGrasp, an experimental language for specifying computations as procedures within the context of a graphstore—a directed property graph over variable contexts. In this report, I outline the need for a paradigm like GSP. I introduce basic GSP concepts and relate them to pGrasp constructs. I produce a series of pGrasp programs which culminates in a simple distributed task queue with interesting properties. I provide a formal specification for pGrasp, along with an overview of a prototype implementation. Finally, I discuss in detail the relationship between pGrasp and GSP, and describe the next steps toward a practical GSP platform.
Telomere length homeostasis in the yeast "Saccharomyces cerevisiae"

La telomerase compense la perte d'ADN telomerique causee par le probleme de replication des extremites. Nous avons developpe un systeme pour analyser l'elongation d'un telomere dans "Saccharomyces Cerevisae" et nous avons montre que la telomerase permet l'homeostasie de la taille des telomeres en allongeant de maniere preferentielle les telomeres courts. Cette regulation implique differentes proteines dont Rap1-Rif1-Rif2 qui controlent de maniere negative la longueur des telomeres ou les kinases Tel1 et Mec1 qui sont des regulateurs positifs. Nous avons montre que dans les cellules "tel1[delta]", sur les extremites des chromosomes sauvages, la frequence d'elongation decroit considerablement, ce qui explique leur phenotype de telomeres courts. Nous avons aussi montre que les regions subtelomeriques sont impliquees dans la regulation de l'elongation des telomeres tres courts. Finalement, nous avons confirme que la telomerase n'est pas processive en terme d'addition de repetitions telomeriques, sauf pour les telomeres tres courts par un processus dependant de Tel1.
Self-Conception and Ward Behavior in Two Psychiatric Hospitals

This paper reports the results of two separate studies which test the usefulness of certain social psychological notions in describing, explaining and predicting the behavior of psychiatric patients in the ward setting. The first study was done on the wards of a small (72 beds) municipally supported hospital which emphasizes active and intensive treatment of acute disorders; 1 the second study, a replication of the design and procedures of the first, was done in a State Mental Hospital with 1,420 beds.2 Both researches were done with newly admitted patients. The two studies are reported together because they used the same design and practically the same procedures, because they are based on and therefore test the same underlying assumptions, and because their results support and illuminate each other. We set out in both studies to examine the usefulness of a direct approach to the self-conception in explaining the variations in behavior observed among recently admitted psychiatric patients. We used patients' responses to the question, "Who am I? " to derive descriptions of patients' conceptions of self (1, 2, 3), and the reports of ward personnel to make determinations about the characteristic behavior of patients. We found that certain formal differences in self-identification are reliably related to differences in the ward behavior of patients. We further found that the observed relationships between attitudes toward the self and behavior were consonant with inferences made from social psychological propositions about the dynamics of human social behavior.
Scene Text Detection a Language Translation Using SWT and EBMT

In recent years, the popularity of portable devices for capturing images, video, text extraction, etc. become key problems to detect and recognize the text in images. Extraction of text information from images or scene involves binary, text detection, text localization, word segmentation, and enhancement and character recognition. But there are variations involved in text such as font style, font size, orientation, alignment, reflections and illumination effect, hybrid background and low contrast image make text extraction process too difficult and more challenging. A large number of approaches and methods have been proposed to address this problem but still none of them are perfect. This paper presents an effective approach where we come up with hybrid approach that combines SWT with OCR for text detection and recognition in an image and EBMT to translate detected text into Hindi language. General challenges for performing scene text detection are also discussed.
In Their Own Voices: Study Habits of Distance Education Students

ABSTRACT Distance learners must balance many challenges when studying away from their home institution, including balancing work, family and study times. How, where, and when a student organizes and interacts with his or her study environment is a significant factor in student persistence and retention. Support services provided by the home institution, including the library, that can help students succeed are an essential resource but capturing how, if, and why distance students interact with these services presents a unique challenge. Distance from the home institution means that the distance learner's voice is often lost. This research study uses an ethnographic method (photo-elicitation) to gain a better understanding of how distance learners engage with their study environment and offers some suggestions on what libraries can do to close the gap.
The design and implementation of a region-based parallel language

Professional Experience Senior Software Developer QuickSilver Technology September 2001 – present QuickSilver Technology is a startup company that is developing novel hardware for adaptable embedded computing. I am a member of QST's tools group, which develops assemblers, compilers, and debugging capabilities for programming such architectures. My responsibilities have included the design, prototyping, and simulation of a special-purpose language for our custom hardware nodes. I have also participated in the compiler's design and implementation. My duties also include the creation of documents and presentations for internal demos and discussion. The bulk of my code development with QST was done in C++ and Java in an Extreme Programming environment.
Wireless sensor networks for clinical applications in smart environments

Biomedical wireless sensor networks are a key technology to support the development of new applications and services targeting the domain of healthcare, in particular, regarding data collection for continuous health monitoring of patients or to help physicians on their diagnosis and further treatment assessment. Therefore, due to the critical nature of both medical data and medical applications, such networks have to satisfy demanding quality of service requirements. Such goals are, nevertheless, negatively influenced by several factors. Those factors can be either internal (e.g., the network topology and the limited network throughput) or external (e.g., the characteristics and the use of the network deployment area) to the biomedical wireless sensor network. Indeed, when designing biomedical wireless sensor network, it should be taken into consideration numerous aspects of a very different nature. Despite the efforts made in the last few years to develop quality of service mechanisms targeting wireless sensor networks and its wide range of applications, the network deployment scenario can severely restrict the networks ability to provide the required performance. In particular, harsh environments, such as hospital facilities, can compromise the radio frequency communications and, consequently, the network’s ability to provide the quality of service required by medical applications. Furthermore, the impact of such environments on the network performance is hard to predict and manage due to its random nature. Consequently, network planning and management, in general or step-down hospital units, is a very hard task. In such context, this thesis presents a quality of service based network management method to help engineers, network administrators, and healthcare professionals managing and supervising biomedical wireless sensor networks. The proposed quality of service network management method comprises two modules, namely: the quality of service monitoring module, and the quality of service based admission control module. The quality of service monitoring module is in charge of continuously monitoring the relevant metrics used to quantify the performance of each data flow carried by the network, and, using a mathematical framework, detecting and classifying performance degradation events. By detecting and classifying quality of service degradation events, the proposed method can be used to prevent the incorrect operation of the network. Moreover, the information about each performance degradation event can be used to advise the network administrator to take the necessary corrective and preventive measures. On its turn, the quality of service based admission control module can be used to find the best location to add new patients into the network, and
Mixed Method Social Network Analysis

This article outlines a mixed method approach to social network analysis combining techniques of organizational history development, inductive data structuring, and content analysis to offer a novel approach for network data construction and analysis. This approach provides researchers with a number of benefits over traditional sociometric or other interpersonal methodologies including the ability to investigate networks of greater scope, broader access to diverse social actors, reduced informant bias, and increased capability for longitudinal designs. After detailing this approach, we apply the method on a sample of 143 new ventures and suggest opportunities for general application in entrepreneurship, strategic management, and organizational behavior research.
Combined Ezrin overexpression and E-cadherin downregulation as predictors of invasiveness, higher incidence of metastases, progression and poor prognosis in patients with cervical cancer

Background Cervical cancer ranks the fourth in order among cancers in women worldwide. Management of patients with advanced and metastatic cervical cancer is not promising as such cancer could metastasize to lymph node early, which is considered a worse prognostic sign. With discovery and advancement in the field of molecular biology, the new era of research is focusing on discovering novel effective targets for therapy. Cancer spread or metastasis, which is responsible for the most serious and fatal outcome of most patients with cancer, is a multistep process and needs many interactions between malignant cells and nearby nonneoplastic areas. Ezrin, which is found at chromosome 6q25.2–q26 and is encoded by EZR gene, is an Ezrin/Radixin/Moesin family member. Ezrin is a linking protein of the cell membrane and the cytoskeleton that mediates the connection between both of them. So, Ezrin has essential role in cell division, motility, movement and other cellular functions. E-cadherin is a calcium-dependent glycoprotein that is found in normal epithelial cells. It could mediate cell adhesion, and also it maintains epithelial cells polarity and the cell structure integrity. Downregulation of E-cadherin-mediated normal cell adhesion is implicated in the process of cancer invasion and metastasis. However, the relation between the expressions of Ezrin and E-cad and relation between their expression and other clinical and pathological features in patients with cervical cancer have not been sufficiently clarified. Aim The aim of this research was to evaluate Ezrin and E-cadherin expressions in patients with cervical cancers, to correlate such expressions with pathological and clinical data of the patients and to explore their values in cancer invasiveness, metastases, progression, and prognosis of patients with cervical cancer. Patients and methods We have assessed Ezrin and E-cadherin expressions in sections from paraffin blocks of tissue obtained from 55 patients with cervical cancer, who were followed up for 3 years. Thereafter, we correlated the expressions of both markers with pathological criteria, clinical data, patients’ response to therapeutic modalities, cancer progression, relapse, and survival rates. Results High Ezrin expression and low E-cadherin expression were associated with cancer higher grade, presence of lymph node metastases, presence of lymphovascular invasion, advanced FIGO stage, (P<0.001), presence of distant metastases (P=0.003), more liability to malignant progression, poor therapy response, higher relapse rate (P<0.001) and poor disease-free survival and overall survival rates (P<0.001). Conclusion Ezrin overexpression is associated with downregulation of E-cadherin, and their corresponding expressions were related to more invasiveness liability, higher incidence of metastases, relapse after successive therapy, and poor prognosis in patients with cervical cancer.
Abundance anomalies in globular clusters in light of models of rotaring stars

L'objet de cette these est de determiner l'origine des importantes variations d'abondances en elements legers observees d'etoile a etoile dans les globulaires galactiques qui sont des amas stellaires denses gravitationnellement lies comptant parmi les plus vieux objets de l'Univers. Ce travail presente l'etude des effets de la rotation dans les modeles theoriques d'etoiles en vue de mieux comprendre ces anomalies. Dans un premier temps, nous avons montre que les etoiles de masse intermediaire en rotation ne peuvent etre a l'origine de ces anomalies. Nous avons ensuite etudie les effets de la rotation rapide sur des etoiles massives ; ceci nous a conduits a elaborer le scenario du vent des etoiles massives en rotation rapide pour expliquer les observations par une pollution du milieu intra-amas ou sont nees les etoiles chimiquement anormales. Enfin, des contraintes sur la formation des amas globulaires ont ete degagees.
Cooperating knowledge-based systems

This final report covers work performed under Contract NCC2-220 between NASA Ames Research Center and the Knowledge Systems Laboratory, Stanford University. The period of research was from March 1, 1987 to February 29, 1988. Topics covered were as follows: (1) concurrent architectures for knowledge-based systems; (2) methods for the solution of geometric constraint satisfaction problems, and (3) reasoning under uncertainty. The research in concurrent architectures was co-funded by DARPA, as part of that agency's Strategic Computing Program. The research has been in progress since 1985, under DARPA and NASA sponsorship. The research in geometric constraint satisfaction has been done in the context of a particular application, that of determining the 3-D structure of complex protein molecules, using the constraints inferred from NMR measurements.
Heuristic Algorithm Based Traffic Classified Routing Algorithm in Distributed Satellite Cluster Network

The architecture of distributed satellite cluster network (DSCN) is presented and the characteristics of DSCN topology change are illustrated. On the basis of analyzing the acquisition method of network status and route calculation, we proposed a heuristic algorithm Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) based traffic classified routing (ATCR) algorithm for DSCN. Simulation results shows that, ATCR algorithm can balance network traffic effectively, and the end-to-end delay of every traffic class is less than TCD algorithm. The end-to-end delay of traffic class A and class B is less than ACO algorithm which does not use traffic classification. ATCR has a better performance on packet delivery ratio than ACO and TCD because ATCR reduces the number of heavy load link as well as packet loss caused by congestion.
Treating Obesity in Chronic Kidney Disease

Obesity and chronic kidney disease are increasing at alarming rates in the United States. Obesity is identified as an independent risk factor for chronic kidney disease. It places metabolic demands on the kidney, causing progressive kidney damage. Weight loss may delay or even prevent kidney damage. This article will review the causes, etiology, and treatment of obesity, including bariatric surgery, in patients with chronic kidney disease
Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease

This 11th edition of the book Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, featuring the work of more than 190 expert authors and divided into five parts, fully explains and encapsulates the fundamentals of nutrition and its role in contemporary society, from mastering the basic science of nutrient metabolism and function to applying nutritional concepts to combat human disease. Part I comprehensively covers specific dietary components, including major dietary constituents, minerals, vitamins and other Other CABI sites 
Application of Bayesian network inference in security risk assessment of information systems

A security risk assessment on Bayesian network was presented.Firstly,Bayesian network model of information system was built based on practice,and according to the aprioritied information given by experts and evidence information obtained,the assessment was finished with Pearl method.Then,the calculation on specific condition model-linear inference algorithms was proposed.Finally,an instance of the risk assessment approach on the model was analyzed,which demonstrates that the method is rational and feasible.
Design and evaluation of virtual network migration mechanisms on shared substrate

To my maternal grandmother, who shows me that women can do anything men can do, my mom, who has been a rock of stability throughout my life, and my dad, whose loving spirit sustains me still iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisors Prof. Mostafa Ammar and Prof. Ellen Zegura for their guidance and support. They have always been patient with me. When I had thoughts about my work being fruitless or unimportant, they always encouraged me. They gave me the freedom to work on the topics I am interested in and taught me to grow into an independent researcher. I could not survive this PhD journey without them. Besides my advisors, Prof. Ehab Al-Shaer and Prof. Marwan Fayed have been fantastic mentors. Ehab introduced me to network security. Through our collaboration , I learned a lot about not only security, but also how to look at my work in a broader perspective. Marwan gave lots of insightful suggestions for my work and writing. Through our discussions, he has been a useful sounding board. His passion working with students makes him a fun person to work with. from INRIA has been a great resource to me. Although I never meet her in person, she is still willing to put up with my continual questions about Vsys and PlanetLab. She always responses quickly, and I am thankful to her generosity. The work in this dissertation would not be possible without PlanetLab and GENI. I would like to express my gratitude to the support team of PlanetLab and GENI Project Office including Dr. Niky Riga, and the rest of the teams for their hard work on building and maintaining PlanetLab and GENI. Their dedication facilitates innovations and educations in computer networks.