Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
AsymNVM: An Efficient Framework for Implementing Persistent Data Structures on Asymmetric NVM Architecture

The byte-addressable non-volatile memory (NVM) is a promising technology since it simultaneously provides DRAM-like performance, disk-like capacity, and persistency. The current NVM deployment with byte-addressability is \em symmetric, where NVM devices are directly attached to servers. Due to the higher density, NVM provides much larger capacity and should be shared among servers. Unfortunately, in the symmetric setting, the availability of NVM devices is affected by the specific machine it is attached to. High availability can be achieved by replicating data to NVM on a remote machine. However, it requires full replication of data structure in local memory --- limiting the size of the working set. This paper rethinks NVM deployment and makes a case for the \em asymmetric byte-addressable non-volatile memory architecture, which decouples servers from persistent data storage. In the proposed \em \anvm architecture, NVM devices (i.e., back-end nodes) can be shared by multiple servers (i.e., front-end nodes) and provide recoverable persistent data structures. The asymmetric architecture, which follows the industry trend of \em resource disaggregation, is made possible due to the high-performance network (e.g., RDMA). At the same time, \anvm leads to a number of key problems such as, still relatively long network latency, persistency bottleneck, and simple interface of the back-end NVM nodes. We build \em \anvm framework based on \anvm architecture that implements: 1) high performance persistent data structure update; 2) NVM data management; 3) concurrency control; and 4) crash-consistency and replication. The key idea to remove persistency bottleneck is the use of \em operation log that reduces stall time due to RDMA writes and enables efficient batching and caching in front-end nodes. To evaluate performance, we construct eight widely used data structures and two transaction applications based on \anvm framework. In a 10-node cluster equipped with real NVM devices, results show that \anvm achieves similar or better performance compared to the best possible symmetric architecture while enjoying the benefits of disaggregation. We found the speedup brought by the proposed optimizations is drastic, --- 5$\sim$12× among all benchmarks.
FUNCTIONAL AND STRUCTURAL PLASTICITY OF SYNAPTIC NETWORKS

When Ramon y Cajal described the morphological complexity of cortical neurones with their numerous dendritic spines, small protrusions that are the site of communication between neuronal cells, he proposed several ideas about their function that are still the subject of intense investigations. He proposed for example that these small biological connections could be reinforced by exercise, thus contributing to learning and that new connections could be established through an increased ramification and growth of dendritic arborisations (Ramon y Cajal, 1911). This was purely speculative at the time, but he established in this way the first conceptual bases for the notion of synaptic plasticity. This still holds true nowadays and synaptic plasticity is still considered as one of the fundamental properties of brain networks accounting for many aspects of higher brain functions, including memory and cognition. Despite this importance the molecular mechanisms underlying these properties are still far from being understood. Major progress has been realized within the last 5–10 years, essentially through the development and refinement of imaging and transfection technologies that now allow us to visualize and investigate the function of identified synaptic boutons while altering the expression of specific molecular constituent. It has become possible in this way to start understand at the molecular level the mechanisms that contribute to the various aspects of synaptic plasticity.
257-262 Tay ST.pmd

Rickettsioses are a common health problem in many geographical areas, including rural areas in Southeast Asia. Co-infection of rickettsioses and malaria has been reported in Africa, where common reservoir and vectors are available. In this study, blood samples of Malaysian patients microscopically positive (n=148) and negative (n=88) for malaria parasites (Plasmodium knowlesi, Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium falciparum, and Plasmodium vivax) were screened for the presence of rickettsial DNA, using PCR assays targeting specific genes. A partial fragment of rickettsial ompB gene was successfully amplified and sequenced from a patient microscopically positive for Plasmodium spp. and PCR-positive for P. vivax. BLAST analysis of the ompB sequence demonstrated the highest sequence similarity (99.7% similarity, 408/409nt) with Rickettsia sp. RF2125 (Genbank accession no. JX183538) and 91.4% (374/409 nt) similarity with Rickettsia felis URRWXCal2 (Genbank accession no. CP000053). This study reports rickettsial infection in a malaria patient for the first time in the Southeast Asia region.
Role of Stem-like Cells in Carbon Nanotube-Induced Pulmonary Fibrosis

Among the pool of engineered nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have generated great interest commercially with their unique physicochemical properties and diverse applications; however, the risk of their adverse health effects is not well understood. Recent studies have shown that CNTs can induce pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable lung disease, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. Since fibrosis is associated with aberrant tissue repair and extracellular matrix (ECM) accumulation, identifying the cells that are responsible for the repair and ECM production is fundamental to the understanding of fibrosis mechanism. We hypothesized that CNTs induce fibroblast stem-like cells (FSCs) and that such induction is essential to the development of fibrosis. Fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) was used to isolate FSCs from CNT-treated normal human lung fibroblasts. The expression of stem cell markers and fibrogenic markers was performed using Western blotting, immunofluorescence staining and confocal microscopy. Our results demonstrated for the first time that CNTs can induce FSCs from lung fibroblasts as evidenced by their side population (SP) property, aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity, and the expression of stem cell markers ABCG2 and ALDH1A1. Furthermore, these cells, isolated from SP-positive FSCs, showed a high expression of type I collagen and alpha-smooth muscle actin, which are key biomarkers of fibrosis, as compared to non-SP cells. We showed that CNTs induced fibroblastic nodule formation in primary human lung fibroblast cultures resembling the fibroblastic foci in clinical fibrosis and promoted FSCs that are highly fibrogenic and a potential driving force of fibrogenesis. The
Using relevé-based metrics to explain invasion patternsof alien trees in temperate forests

Central European temperate forests are – with the exception of floodplain forests – relatively little invaded by alien plants. However, despite substantial recent progress, there is still a lack of using vegetation plot data for analyzing spatio-temporal patterns of alien tree species invasions. We calculated relevé-based metrics of tree species’ ecological preferences using 19,413 phytosociological forest relevés of the Austrian vegetation database. We focused on the five most widely distributed alien trees, i.e. two archaeophytes (Castanea sativa, Juglans regia) and three neophytes (Acer negundo, Ailanthus altissima, Robinia pseudoacacia). For each of these species we analyzed the mean cover in the tree layer and the occurrence in the herb and shrub layers in relevés colonized by adult trees as a measure for persistence. Further, we evaluated the inter-generational ecological plasticity (= the ability of young trees to grow under different site conditions than adults) for the tree species, and the mean relevé indicator values for light, nutrients, moisture and hemeroby. We then compared these alien and native tree species metrics. We found that A. altissima and R. pseudoacacia build up high mean cover values in invaded forests, but this was not the case for the other alien trees. Thus, both species strongly affected forest communities of invaded sites. Similarly, the two species were common in the lower vegetation layers indicating recruitment under the canopy of adult conspecifics; this was facilitated by their ability to produce root suckers. Highest values of inter-generational ecological plasticity occurred in native pioneer trees and species of softwood floodplain forests, while alien trees had moderately high (A. negundo, A. altissima, J. regia) to low values (C. sativa, R. pseudoacacia). With the exception of C. sativa, all alien species showed high mean Ellenberg indicator values for light and nutrients, and were more common in sites with high hemeroby and high mean Ellenberg indicator values for temperature. Distinct from the ecological preferences of alien trees, and thus rarely invaded, were montane beech forests, coniferous mountain forests and forests at extremely dry sites, as well as swamp and bog forests dominated by willows and ash. We conclude that relevé-based metrics of the behavior of alien tree species allow new insights into the spatio-temporal dynamics of invasion of woody species in forests. Future work should expand this approach, e.g., by considering the role of life history traits and actual site conditions.
Cord C-reactive protein as a marker for early onset neonatal sepsis children

Background: Of the 2.8 million neonatal deaths, worldwide, 0.43 million is contributed by sepsis alone. The objective of this study was to determine the levels of umbilical cord C-reactive protein and assess the suitability of this test in diagnosing early onset sepsis in newborns born to mothers with no risk factors for intrapartum infection. To determine the influence of other factors such as parity, birth weight and mode of delivery on the levels of cord CRP. Methods: CRP levels in cord blood were estimated for 103 consecutive newborns delivered at a tertiary care teaching hospital. These babies were monitored for signs of sepsis for 72 hours and were later followed up with serum CRP and blood cultures . Results: A prospective cohort study of 103 consecutive newborns were taken of which 53.4% were male babies. Comparison of cord CRP levels of baseline characteristics revealed significant elevation in babies born to multipara mothers (p = 0.0028) and in low birth weight babies (p = 0.05), while there were no significant changes in different modes of delivery. The mean cord CRP of the study group was 0.694±0.2979. Out of 104 babies, 16 had elevated cord CRP (above 1.1mg/l) of these, 12 babies were later confirmed to have sepsis. The mean cord CRP level in babies with EOS was 1.3±0.255 (p = 0.001). A sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 90.9%, positive predictive value of 75% and negative predictive value of 100% was determined. Conclusions: This study confirms that cord CRP is an effective marker to predict EONS. An optimal concentration of cord CRP > 1.1 mg/L has maximal sensitivity and specificity to predict EONS.
Writing Wisdom, Reviewing Identity: Positive Outcomes of Participating in a Memoir Course for Older Adults

Constructing a personal narrative and consolidating identity is an ongoing process that becomes pressing in the face of mortality. The current pilot study examined the process of life review in a sample of older people, specifically examining the effects of participation in a memoir course on wisdom, identity, and well-being. We hypothesized that wisdom, identity fidelity and coherence, and subjective well-being would increase for those in the memoir group compared to a control. Eighteen elderly individuals from two senior retirement communities were randomly assigned to participate in weekly classes, for four weeks, either to work on a memoir or discuss films (control group). After engaging in the process of organizing their life story and writing about important memories, the nine individuals in the memoir group scored significantly higher on self-report measures of wise reminiscence, identity fidelity, and subjective well-being compared to those in the control group. Furthermore, exploratory analyses found that wise reminiscence statistically mediated relationships between the memoir condition and the outcome measures of identity fidelity, identity coherence, and subjective well-being. These findings point to the benefits of memoir writing for positive aging as well as potential mechanisms underlying its effectiveness.
Alternative performance and metrics target values for the CID2013 database

An established way of validating and testing new image quality assessment (IQA) algorithms have been to compare how well they correlate with subjective data on various image databases. One of the most common measures is to calculate linear correlation coefficient (LCC) and Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficient (SROCC) against the subjective mean opinion score (MOS). Recently, databases with multiply distorted images have emerged [1], [2]. However with multidimensional stimuli, there is more disagreement between observers as the task is more preferential than that of distortion detection. This reduces the statistical differences between image pairs. If the subjects cannot distinguish a difference between some of the image pairs, should we demand any better performance with IQA algorithms? This paper proposes alternative performance measures for the evaluation of IQA’s for the CID2013 database. One proposed alternative performance measure is root-mean-square-error (RMSE) value for the subjective data as a function of the number of observers. The other alternative performance measure is the number of statistical differences between image pairs. This study shows that after 12 subjects the RMSE value saturates around the level of three, meaning that a target RMSE value for an IQA algorithm for CID2013 database should be three. In addition, this study shows that the state-of-the-art IQA algorithms found the better image from the image pairs with a probability of 0.85 when the image pairs with statistically significant differences were taken into account.
GraphVisual: Design and Evaluation of a Web-Based Visualization Tool for Teaching and Learning Graph Visualization

Graphs are ubiquitous in representing data from various ﬁelds, such as biological interactions, geographic knowledge, and engineering problems. They allow users to acquire a quick overview of how the data entities are spread and connected in order to gain insights from the data. Many software tools exist to depict and explore graphs. However, there is a lack of tools dedicated to assisting students in learning graph visualization and related concepts. We present GraphVisual, an educational software tool that provides an accessible web interface for students to interact with and explore graph visualizations of real-world data sets of different sizes and characteristics. GraphVisual integrates several popular graph layout algorithms to enable users to discover patterns, outliers, and other features of these data sets. GraphVisual allows users to compare and evaluate different graph visualization techniques from two side-by-side graph display panels, which are supported by a set of interaction functions. To demonstrate the utility of GraphVisual and assess its effectiveness, we conducted a formal user study with two groups: students who were enrolled in a college-level data visualization course and doctoral computer science students who did not take the course. The study includes an introduction, a training session, a survey, and an in-class quiz that is integrated into GraphVisual. and graduate students from various ﬁelds of study. The 10 students in the second group, PhD group , did not take the Data Visualization course and are doctoral computer science and engineering students. The study consisted of two parts, an online survey and a quiz using GraphVisual. The survey was designed to receive detailed feedback about whether GraphVisual improved the students’ learning of graph visualization. The quiz consisted of 22 questions querying the students’ knowledge about graph visualization and examining their ability to understand different graph layouts and extract information from different data sets. The tool automatically recorded student answers and auto-grades everything except for the open text questions. As these open text questions need to be graded manually, we did not provide immediate feedback to the students.
Investigation of the correlation between stated and revealed driving behaviour using data collected from on-board diagnostics (OBD) devices

The objective of this research is the examination of the correlation between stated and revealed driving behaviour using vehicle on-board diagnostics (OBD) data. To this end, a large data set derived from a driving behaviour experiment is exploited, during which, the driving behaviour of 17 drivers is monitored for a period of three months. These data concerned the number of harsh acceleration and braking events occurred, the average driving speed and the mileage travelled and were recorded at a 1Hz frequency. Drivers' stated behaviour is investigated using the results of a survey administered to all users participated in the experiment. A linear regression model is developed to perform data analysis and study the factors influencing a number of different driving behaviour indicators that were recorded in real time. The results demonstrated a strong correlation between the number of harsh braking and acceleration events on one hand and the number of accidents, the annual income and the declared frequency of harsh braking on the other. This research contributes towards the improvement of driving behaviour by performing behavioral analysis of driving characteristics and resulting to models that could potentially serve as a platform that provides feedback to drivers on how to improve their behaviour and become less risky. © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of WORLD CONFERENCE ON TRANSPORT RESEARCH SOCIETY.
Road Safety Management in Greece

In this paper, the road safety management system in Greece is analysed, on the basis of methodologies developed and data collected within the DaCoTA research project of the European Commission. More specifically, the DaCoTA project aimed to investigate the road safety management framework in European countries in order to help promote “good practice” and optimize management processes. For that purpose, road safety management systems have been thoroughly investigated in 14 European countries in 2010, by means of interviews with governmental representatives and independent experts in each country who filled in an extensive questionnaire on the degree to which the various road safety management systems meet the “good practice” criteria. The questions related to five main areas of Road Safety Management: (i) Institutional organisation, (ii) Policy formulation and adoption, (iii) Policy implementation and funding, (iv) Monitoring and evaluation, and 94 (v) Scientific support and capacity building. The data was then analyzed by means of qualitative analysis i.e . a thorough analysis and cross-checking of the questionnaire responses and related comments of the experts, in order to draw a reliab le and accurate picture or “profile” for each country. The country profile of Greece was examined against a ‘reference’ country profile, which was assumed to meet all the goof practice criteria. The results reveal that in Greece, as in other European countries, there are road safety management stru ctures and processes foreseen, which are often not active, and road safety strategies and programmes, which are implemented scarcely. As a consequence, there is no dedicated budget for road safety, and no regular monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of road safety policies. Several recommendations for the improvement of road safety management in Greece are outlined.
PMU Visibility Graphs

In this paper, we map the PMU data to a graph via the visibility algorithm to generate the PMU visibility graph. Applying complex network analysis to this graph unravels several hidden features in the PMU data. The applications of the PMU visibility graphs in the real power grid include anomaly detection, topology identification, and state estimation. We show that the PMU visibility graph is not random and could not be modeled by the classical Erdős-Rényi model. On the contrary, the graph represents a scale-free network with a heavy-tailed degree distribution. So, we fit its degree distribution to a power-law distribution to find the best model and we perform goodness-of-fit analysis on the estimated distribution. Lastly, it is argued that power-law degree distribution of the PMU visibility graph reveals the nonstationarity and fractality in the PMU data.
Addressing Constraints to Small and Growing Businesses 24 October 2018

Salaried wage jobs are the distinguishing feature separating the middle class from the poor in developing countries (Banerjee and Duflo 2008). Where do salaried wage jobs come from, and how can small and medium-sized firms create more of them? We review the evidence on constraints to growth of small and medium enterprises. We first examine evidence on constraints to capital and skilled labor, firms’ primary inputs to production. We then consider factors that affect the efficiency with which firms are able to transform inputs into outputs, focusing on managerial talent. Finally, we look at the importance of linking firms to markets and the role of demand in generating firm growth. We conclude with a proposal for a research agenda built around important but unanswered questions. 1 Department of International Development, University of Oxford and the International Growth Centre, christopher.woodruff@qeh.ox. ac.uk. This paper is a collaborative effort of the International Growth Centre (IGC) and the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and was supported by a grant from the Argidius Foundation. Thanks to Harry Devonshire, Nicholas Colloff, Abigayle Davidson and Genevieve Edens for comments and guidance, to the membership of ANDE for valuable feedback on issues and framing, and to Ruby Mittal and Nicolas Pazos Navarro for excellent research assistance. Any errors and omissions are the responsibility of the author.
Extraspinal findings on routine lumbar spinal MR imaging: Prevalence and etiologies in 4012 patients

Aim: To investigate the prevalence and reporting rates of incidental findings (IF) in the routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the lumbar spine, and to emphasize their clinical importance. Methods: A total of 4012 lumbar MRI taken between January 2014 and December 2016 were reevaluated. The low back pain and sciatalgia those suspected for lumbar spinal pathology were chosen for this study. Extra-spinal abnormalities were classified according to a modified CT Colonography Reporting and Data System (C-RADS) and analyzed. Results The mean age of patients was 49, 83 (range 17-87) years. Of the cases, 2472 were women and 1540 were men. In 3834 cases, disk pathology was observed. In 1282 cases extraspinal pathology was detected. The largest group in the study consisted of C-RADS E2 with 1048 patients (82.5%). There were 195 patients (28.3%) in the C-RADS E3 group and 23 (1.8%) patients in the C-RADS E4 group, potentially important. Conclusion: Our results show that random extra-spinal abnormalities in the lumbar spine MRI, are very common and systematic evaluation and proper reporting of MRI are crucial.