Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Opening polyhedral compiler's black box

While compilers offer a fair trade-off between productivity and executable performance in single-threaded execution, their optimizations remain fragile when addressing compute-intensive code for parallel architectures with deep memory hierarchies. Moreover, these optimizations operate as black boxes, impenetrable for the user, leaving them with no alternative to time-consuming and error-prone manual optimization in cases where an imprecise cost model or a weak analysis resulted in a bad optimization decision. To address this issue, we propose a technique allowing to automatically translate an arbitrary polyhedral optimization, used internally by loop-level optimization frameworks of several modern compilers, into a sequence of comprehensible syntactic transformations as long as this optimization focuses on scheduling loop iterations. This approach opens the black box of the polyhedral frameworks, enabling users to examine, refine, replay and even design complex optimizations semi-automatically in partnership with the compiler.
Quality in Distance Education: A Preliminary Review of the Literature.

With the increase use of the Internet, distance education will continue to provide a vehicle for instruction and/or training. Traditional methods for measuring quality instruction and training may need to be reviewed for their applicability and use with current technological methods of instructional delivery. This paper reviews literature on the current evaluation of quality in distance education and the implications for further research.
Histamine Upregulates Gene Expression of Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase in Human Vascular Endothelial Cells

Background—Histamine has a short-term, transient, stimulating effect on endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) activity; however, long-term effects on eNOS have not been described yet. In addition, the vascular effect of histamine seems to depend critically on eNOS functionality. Therefore, we studied the effects of histamine on eNOS gene expression and function. Methods and Results—In human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and HUVEC-derived EA.hy 926 cells, histamine upregulated eNOS mRNA (RNase protection assay) and protein (electron microscopic immunocytochemistry) expression. The upregulation of eNOS could be prevented by mepyramine, a selective antagonist at the H1 receptor, but not by H2 and H3 receptor antagonists. Incubation of EA.hy 926 cells with histamine led to the activation of calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMK II; in vitro phosphorylation assay). The histamine-induced eNOS expression was completely prevented by KN-93, an inhibitor of CaMK II. Histamine increased the activity of a 1.6-kb human eNOS promoter fragment (luciferase reporter gene assay), an effect that was also blocked by mepyramine. Under normal conditions, eNOS upregulation by histamine resulted in increased nitric oxide production (measured by nitric oxide chemiluminescence and RFL-6 reporter cell assay). Under conditions of oxidative stress, however, the eNOS upregulated by histamine produced reactive oxygen species (CM-H2DCFDA oxidation-based fluorescence assay). Conclusions—Stimulation of the H1 receptor increases eNOS transcription in endothelial cells by a signaling pathway involving CaMK II. This eNOS upregulation may be protective under normal conditions, but it may become harmful under conditions of oxidative stress when eNOS produces reactive oxygen species at the expense of nitric oxide.
Fisheries-Induced Selection Pressures in the Context of Sustainable Fisheries

Man has a major impact on marine environments through exploitation of fish resources. Fisheries can induce different selective pressures, either directly, i.e., through elevated mortality (which is often highly selective) or through ecosystem-level responses, as exploitation affects food availability and predation risk in both target and nontarget species. Responses to selection can be observed at two levels. First, at the community level, some species may suffer more from effects of harvesting than others; some may even increase in abundance. Responses by species to exploitation are associated with their life histories. In particular, species with late maturation at large size and with low pbpulation growth rate tend to undergo more pronounced declines than early-maturing species with rapid growth. Second, the phenotypic composition within species may also change. If phenotypic variability has a genetic basis, then fisheries-induced selection can result in evolutionary change in life-history traits influencing sustainable yields, behavioral traits (e.g., gear-avoidance behavior), and morphological traits. We discuss the possible implications of fisheries-induced adaptive changes for sustainable fisheries management.
Choline Kinase Activation Is a Critical Requirement for the Proliferation of Primary Human Mammary Epithelial Cells and Breast Tumor Progression

Breast cancer is still one of the most important tumors among women in industrialized countries. Improvement in both understanding the molecular events associated with the disease and the development of new additional treatments is still an important goal to be achieved. Choline kinase (ChoK) is increased in human mammary tumors with high incidence, and this activation is associated with clinical variable indicators of greater malignancy. Here, we have investigated the role of ChoK in the development of breast cancer and found that ChoK is both necessary and sufficient for growth factor-induced proliferation in primary human mammary epithelial cells and an absolute requirement for the specific mitogenic response to heregulin in breast tumor-derived cells. These results demonstrate that ChoK plays an essential role in both normal human mammary epithelial cell proliferation and breast tumor progression. Furthermore, inhibition of ChoK shows a strong in vivo antitumor activity against human breast cancer xenografts. Thus, ChoK constitutes a novel bona fide molecular target for the treatment of breast cancer patients.
Immunogenicity of a Monovalent 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) Vaccine Among Pregnant Women: Lowered Antibody Response by Prior Seasonal Vaccination

Background. Pregnant women are a high-risk group for influenza-associated complications and hospitalizations. Methods. To examine the immunogenicity of a monovalent 2009 influenza A (H1N1) vaccine among pregnant women, a prospective cohort study was performed at 2 medical institutes of obstetrics in Japan. One hundred fifty subjects received 2 subcutaneous doses of vaccine 3 weeks apart. The hemagglutination inhibition antibody titer was measured in serum samples collected at 3 time points: before vaccination, 3 weeks after the first dose, and 4 weeks after the second dose. Results. The first dose of vaccine induced a ≥10-fold rise in the average level of antibody. The seroresponse rate (≥4-fold rise) was 91%, and the seroprotection rate (postvaccination titer ≥1:40) was 89%. The second dose of vaccine conferred little additional induction of antibodies. Similar immune responses were observed irrespective of body mass index before pregnancy, trimester, or age at vaccination. However, lesser immune response was shown in subjects who had received the 2009–2010 seasonal influenza vaccine before the H1N1 vaccination. Conclusions. A single dose of vaccine induced an adequately protective level of immunity in pregnant women. The potential interference with seasonal vaccination requires a more thorough investigation to prepare for future influenza pandemics.
RNA localization in yeast: moving towards a mechanism

RNA localization is a widely utilized strategy employed by cells to spatially restrict protein function. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae asymmetric sorting of mRNA to the bud has been reported for at least 24 mRNAs. The mechanism by which the mRNAs are trafficked to the bud, illustrated by ASH1 mRNA, involves recognition of cis‐acting localization elements present in the mRNA by the RNA‐binding protein, She2p. The She2p/mRNA complex subsequently associates with the myosin motor protein, Myo4p, through an adapter, She3p. This ribonucleoprotein complex is transported to the distal tip of the bud along polarized actin cables. While the mechanism by which ASH1 mRNA is anchored at the bud tip is unknown, current data point to a role for translation in this process, and the rate of translation of Ash1p during the transport phase is regulated by the cis‐acting localization elements. Subcellular sorting of mRNA in yeast is not limited to the bud; certain mRNAs corresponding to nuclear‐encoded mitochondrial proteins are specifically sorted to the proximity of mitochondria. Analogous to ASH1 mRNA localization, mitochondrial sorting requires cis‐acting elements present in the mRNA, though trans‐acting factors involved with this process remain to be identified. This review aims to discuss mechanistic details of mRNA localization in S. cerevisiae.
Variation in Continuous Reaction Norms: Quantifying Directions of Biological Interest

Thermal performance curves are an example of continuous reaction norm curves of common shape. Three modes of variation in these curves—vertical shift, horizontal shift, and generalist‐specialist trade‐offs—are of special interest to evolutionary biologists. Since two of these modes are nonlinear, traditional methods such as principal components analysis fail to decompose the variation into biological modes and to quantify the variation associated with each mode. Here we present the results of a new method, template mode of variation (TMV), that decomposes the variation into predetermined modes of variation for a particular set of thermal performance curves. We illustrate the method using data on thermal sensitivity of growth rate in Pieris rapae caterpillars. The TMV model explains 67% of the variation in thermal performance curves among families; generalist‐specialist trade‐offs account for 38% of the total between‐family variation. The TMV method implemented here is applicable to both differences in mean and patterns of variation, and it can be used with either phenotypic or quantitative genetic data for thermal performance curves or other continuous reaction norms that have a template shape with a single maximum. The TMV approach may also apply to growth trajectories, age‐specific life‐history traits, and other function‐valued traits.
Profile-based web document delivery

This work originated by considering the needs of visually impaired users but may have wider application. A profile captures some key descriptors or preferences of a user and their browsing device. Individual users may maintain any number of profiles which they can edit for use in different situations, for different tasks or with different devices. A profile is described in terms of essentiality and proficiency. Essentiality is used to control the quantity of information that is transmitted and proficiency is used to control the format. Various levels of essentiality are introduced into a document by the technique known as microformatting. Proficiency (for the visually impaired) includes a description of minimum acceptable font size, preferred font face and preferred text and background colours. A key feature of the proficiency profile is the accessibility component which captures the user's tolerance of accessibility issues in a document, for example the presence of images or the markup of tables. The document delivery tool works as a kind of filter to reduce the content to the level of essentiality requested, to make the various presentation changes and to warn of accessibility issues as specified in the user's profile. Encouraging preliminary results have been obtained from testing the prototype with subjects from the local RNIB college.
An Analysis of the Security Patterns Landscape

Architectural and design patterns represent effective techniques to package expert knowledge in a reusable way. Over time, they have proven to be very successful in software engineering. Moreover, in the security discipline, a well-known principle calls for the use of standard, time- tested solutions rather than inventing ad-hoc solutions from scratch. Clearly, security patterns provide a way to adhere to this principle. However, their adoption does not live up to their potential. To understand the reasons, this paper analyzes an extensive set of published security patterns according to several dimensions and outlines the directions for improvement.
Towards the Quality Improvement of Cross-Platform Mobile Applications

During last ten years, the number of smartphonesand mobile applications has been constantly growing. Android, iOS and Windows Mobile are three mobile platforms that coveralmost all smartphones in the world in 2017. Developing a mobileapp involves first to choose the platforms the app will run, andthen to develop specific solutions (i.e., native apps) for eachchosen platform using platform-related toolkits such as AndroidSDK. A cross-platform mobile application is an app that runs ontwo or more mobile platforms. Several frameworks have beenproposed to simplify the development of cross-platform mobileapplications and to reduce development and maintenance costs. They are called cross-platform mobile app development frameworks. However, to our knowledge, the life-cycle and the quality of cross-platformsmobile applications built using those frameworks havenot been studied in depth. Our main goal is to first study theprocesses of development and maintenance of mobile applicationsbuilt using cross-platform mobile app development frameworks, focusing particularly on the bug-fixing activity. Then, we aim atdefining tools for automated repairing bugs from cross-platformmobile applications.
The Role of Economics in Energy and Environmental Decision Making: An STS Perspective

Contemporary energy and environmental problems continue to pose fundamental challenges to Western models of a successful pattern of life. From the perspective of an integrated study of science, technology, and society, energy and environmental problems can be seen more specifically to raise significant questions about economic decision rules as expressions of those models –i.e.,. as mechanisms for rationalizing traditional energy and environmental patterns of behavior.
Sample size determination method for credibility evaluation based on statistical power analysis

In this manuscript, we investigate the problem of sample size determination (SSD) method for rational prior credibility evaluation. First, in allusion to several existing credibility evaluation methods, risk of prior credibility measurement with data distribution difference is analyzed in small sample size conditions. Then, the relationships between and among significance level, effect size, sample size and statistical power are confirmed for data consistency test, which leads to the proposed power analysis based SSD method in credibility evaluation. After that, common used power analysis methods in hit accuracy test of weapon system, as those of t test for consistency of mean and F test for homogeneity of variance, are studied for corresponding SSD method. Finally, power analysis procedure and SSD method in credibility evaluation are illustrated with application examples, comparative analysis for superior rate of credibility weighted Bayesian assessment under small sample size condition and required statistical power condition is made, which proves the rationality of power analysis based SSD method in prior credibility evaluation.
Long range transport of mercury to the Arctic and across Canada

Abstract. This study is the most extensive study to date on the transport of mercury to the Arctic. Moreover, it is the first such study to use a fully-coupled, online chemical transport model, Environment Canada's Global/Regional Atmospheric Heavy Metals model (GRAHM), where the meteorology and mercury processes are fully integrated. It is also the only study to date on the transport of mercury across Canada. We estimated source attribution from Asia, North America, Russia and Europe at six arctic verification stations, as well as three subarctic and eight midlatitude Canadian stations. We have found that Asia, despite having transport efficiencies that were almost always lower than those of North America and often lower than those of Russia, was the dominant source of gaseous atmospheric mercury at all verification stations: it contributed the most mercury (29–37% at all stations, seasons and levels considered), its concentrations frequently explained nearly 100% of the variability in the concentrations produced by the simulation performed with full global emissions, particularly in the absence of local sources, and it generated the most long range transport (LRT) events, causing 43%, 67% and 75% of the events at the arctic, subarctic and midlatitude stations, respectively. For the Arctic, Russian transport efficiencies tended to be the strongest, as expected, while European and Asian efficiencies were lower and higher, respectively, than those found in the literature. This disagreement is likely produced by mercury's long lifetime relative to that of other pollutants. The accepted springtime preference for the trans-Pacific transport of Asian pollution was evident only in the midlatitude group of stations, being masked in the arctic and subarctic groups by the occurrence of atmospheric mercury depletion events. Some neighbouring arctic stations recorded dissimilar numbers of LRT events; despite their proximity, the behaviour of mercury at these stations was governed by different dynamics and transport pathways. The column burden of GEM in the lowest 5 km of the Northern Hemisphere was largest in summer from Asia, North America and Russia, but in winter from Europe. In the vertical, transport of mercury from all source regions occurred principally in the mid-troposphere.
Stable Ensemble Performance with Single-Neuron Variability during Reaching Movements in Primates

Significant variability in firing properties of individual neurons was observed while two monkeys, chronically implanted with multielectrode arrays in frontal and parietal cortical areas, performed a continuous arm movement task. Although the degree of correlation between the firing of single neurons and movement parameters was nonstationary, stable predictions of arm movements could be obtained from the activity of neuronal ensembles. This result adds support to the idea that movement parameters are redundantly encoded in the motor cortex, such that brain networks can achieve the same behavioral goals through different patterns and relative contribution of individual neuron activity. This has important implications for neural prosthetics, suggesting that accurate operation of a brain-machine interface requires recording from large neuronal ensembles to minimize the effect of variability and ensuring stable performance over long periods of time.
Analysts’ Incentive- and Cognitive-Based Processing Biases: Evidence from Recommendation Revisions

This paper examines how incentive-based and behavior-based variables affect analyst recommendation revisions. Specifically, we use duration analysis to test analysts' underreaction to new information by isolating effects of incentives and cognitive processing biases (i.e., cognitive dissonance and conservatism) on the timing of their recommendation revisions. In an unconditioned circumstance, the results show that analysts are not biased against conveying negative signals. However, when we control for favorable preceding recommendations, we find that analysts delay conveying bad news, which is consistent with the incentives and cognitive dissonance hypotheses. When we control for unfavorable preceding recommendations, the results show that analysts delay conveying good news, which is only consistent with the cognitive dissonance hypothesis. We also find that analysts delay their responses to new favorable information for outperformers from which they have received low representative information relative to high representative information. Our results provide direct evidence that analysts' underreaction to new information is compounded by the effect of conservatism, which suggests that individuals do not update their beliefs adequately in the face of new evidence.
The study of improved Fisher ratio for default diagnosis of power transformer

Improved Fisher ratio method is presented in default diagnosis of power transformer based on dissolved gas analysis. Owing to the disadvantages of Fisher ratio method in RBF network structure optimization, authors put forward using improved Fisher ratio method to select the RBF centers, optimize the network structure. The results show that the neural structure is simplified strongly, the converged precision and class separability is improved, and this method is satisfied to diagnosis the default of power transformer.
Dynamic file allocation in disk arrays

Large arrays of small disks are being considered as a promising approach to high performance 1/0 architectures. In this paper we deal with the problem of data placement in such a disk array. The prevalent approach is to decluster large files across a number of disks so as to minimize the access time to a file and balance the 1/0 load across the disks. The data placement problem entails determining the number of disks and the set of disks across which a file is declustered. Unlike previous work, this paper does not assume that all files are allocated at the same time but rather considers dynamic file creations, This makes the placement problem considerably harder because each placement decision has to take into account the current allocation state and the access frequencies of the disks and the existing files. As a result, file creation may involve partial reorganization on one or more disks. The paper proposes heuristic algorithms for the placement of dynamically created files. The algorithms provide a good compromise between maximizing 1/0 performance of the disk array and minimizing the work invested in partial reorganizations. The paper presents preliminary performance results of various alternative algorithms under a synthetic workload.
Channel Function Is Dissociated from the Intrinsic Kinase Activity and Autophosphorylation of TRPM7/ChaK1*

TRPM7/ChaK1 is a unique channel/kinase that contains a TRPM channel domain with 6 transmembrane segments fused to a novel serine-threonine kinase domain at its C terminus. The goal of this study was to investigate a possible role of kinase activity and autophosphorylation in regulation of channel activity of TRPM7/ChaK1. Residues essential for kinase activity were identified by site-directed mutagenesis. Two major sites of autophosphorylation were identified in vitro by mass spectrometry at Ser1511 and Ser1567, and these sites were found to be phosphorylated in intact cells. TRPM7/ChaK1 is a cation-selective channel that exhibits strong outward rectification and inhibition by millimolar levels of internal [Mg2+]. Mutation of the two autophosphorylation sites or of a key catalytic site that abolished kinase activity did not alter channel activity measured by whole-cell recording or Ca2+ influx. Inhibition by internal Mg2+ was also unaffected in the autophosphorylation site or “kinase-dead” mutants. Moreover, kinase activity was enhanced by Mg2+, was decreased by Zn2+, and was unaffected by Ca2+. In contrast, channel activity was inhibited by all three of these divalent cations. However, deletion of much of C-terminal kinase domain resulted in expression of an apparently inactive channel. We conclude that neither current activity nor regulation by internal Mg2+ is affected by kinase activity or autophosphorylation but that the kinase domain may play a structural role in channel assembly or subcellular localization.