Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Science and Engineering Beyond Moore's Law

In this paper, the historical effects and benefits of Moore's law for semiconductor technologies are reviewed, and it is offered that the rapid learning curve obtained to the benefit of society by feature size scaling might be continued in several different ways. The problem is that as features approach the range of a few nanometers, electron-based devices depart radically from the ideal switch and, in fact, become very leaky in the off state. It is argued that there are some short-term solutions involving more highly parallel manufacturing, increased design efficiency, and lower cost packaging technologies that could continue the steep learning curve for cost reductions that have historically been achieved via Moore's Law scaling. Another alternative might be to increase chip functionality by integrating devices that offer broadened chip functionality including, e.g., sensors, energy sources, oscillators, etc. A third alternative would be to invent an entirely new information processing state variable based on different physics, using electron spin, magnetic dipoles, photons, etc., to improve the performance and reduce switching energy for devices whose smallest features are on the order of a few nanometers. Each of these alternatives is being actively explored and an overview of each strategy and progress to date is given in the paper. A final alternative offered in the paper is to learn from information processing examples in nature, specifically in living systems. An E.coli cell of about one cubic micrometer volume is shown to be an incredibly powerful and energy-efficient information processor relative to the performance of an end-of-scaling silicon processor of the same volume. The paper concludes by pointing out some of the crucial differences between E.coli information processing and conventional approaches with the hope technologies can be invented using the hints offered by biosystems.
To Hive or to Hold? Producing Professional Authority through Scut Work

This paper examines how professionals working in bureaucratic organizations, despite having formal authority, struggle to enact authority over the clients they advise, transforming their right to command into deference to commands. Drawing on a comparative ethnographic study of two professional groups overseeing compliance in university laboratories, I identify how choices about their task jurisdiction influence each profession’s ability to enact authority over and gain voluntary compliance from the same group of clients. One group constructs its work domain to include not only high-skilled tasks that emphasize members’ expertise but also scut work—menial work with contaminated materials—through which they gain regular entry into clients’ workspaces, developing knowledge about and relationships with clients. Using these resources to accommodate, discipline, and understand clients, they produce relational authority—the capacity to elicit voluntary compliance with commands. The other group outsources everyday scut work and interacts with lab researchers mostly during annual inspections and training, which leads to complaints by researchers to management and eventual loss of jurisdiction. The findings show the importance of producing relational authority in contemporary professional–client interactions in bureaucratic settings and challenge the relevance of expertise and professional identity in generating relational authority. I show how holding on to, not hiving off, scut work allows professionals to enact authority over clients.
Untapped Endophytic Colonization and Plant Growth-Promoting Potential of the Genus Novosphingobium to Optimize Rice Cultivation

With the aim of searching for potent diazotrophic bacteria that are free of public health concerns and optimize rice cultivation, the endophytic colonization and plant growth-promoting activities of some endophytic diazotrophic bacteria isolated from rice were evaluated. Among these bacteria, the emerging diazotrophic strains of the genus Novosphingobium effectively associated with rice plant interiors and consequently promoted the growth of rice, even with the lack of a nitrogen source. These results suggest that diazotrophic Novosphingobium is an alternative microbial resource for further development as a safe biological enhancer in the optimization of organic rice cultivation.
The control of flexible-link robots manipulating large payloads: Theory and experiments

The control problem for flexible-multilink robots carrying large payloads is revisited. A set of nonlinear approximate equations describing the payload-dominated dynamics of the flexible plant is used in conjunction with the passivity property satisfied by a suitably defined modified input]output pair for the system, to derive a globally asymptotically stable controller together with its adaptive counterpart. Experimental results involving a specially designed 3-degree-of-freedom planar arm with two flexible links, demonstrate their ability to combine end-point tracking with simultaneous active suppression of the vibrations. Q 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Porscha: policy oriented secure content handling in Android

The penetration of cellular networks worldwide and emergence of smart phones has led to a revolution in mobile content. Users consume diverse content when, for example, exchanging photos, playing games, browsing websites, and viewing multimedia. Current phone platforms provide protections for user privacy, the cellular radio, and the integrity of the OS itself. However, few offer protections to protect the content once it enters the phone. For example, MP3-based MMS or photo content placed on Android smart phones can be extracted and shared with impunity. In this paper, we explore the requirements and enforcement of digital rights management (DRM) policy on smart phones. An analysis of the Android market shows that DRM services should ensure: a) protected content is accessible only by authorized phones b) content is only accessible by provider-endorsed applications, and c) access is regulated by contextual constraints, e.g., used for a limited time, a maximum number of viewings, etc. The Porscha system developed in this work places content proxies and reference monitors within the Android middleware to enforce DRM policies embedded in received content. A pilot study controlling content obtained over SMS, MMS, and email illustrates the expressibility and enforcement of Porscha policies. Our experiments demonstrate that Porscha is expressive enough to articulate needed DRM policies and that their enforcement has limited impact on performance.
A novel pitch extraction based on jointly trained deep BLSTM Recurrent Neural Networks with bottleneck features

Pitch is an important characteristic of speech and is useful for many applications. However, it is still challenging to estimate pitch in strong noise. In this paper, we propose a joint training approach to determinate pitch. First, a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks (BLSTMRNN) is trained to map the noisy to clean speech features. Second, the pitch estimation is also a BLSTM-RNN model. The feature mapping neural network serves as a noise normalization module aiming at explicitly generating the clean features which are easier to estimate pitch by the following neural network. BLSTM-RNN is trained on sequential frame-level features and capable of learning temporal dynamics. We also propose to take into account bottleneck features for pitch estimation. The experimental results show that the proposed method can obtain accurate pitch estimation and they show good generalization ability to new speakers and noisy conditions. The proposed approach also significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art pitch estimation algorithms.
Detecting, validating and characterizing computer infections in the wild

Although network intrusion detection systems (IDSs) have been studied for several years, their operators are still overwhelmed by a large number of false-positive alerts. In this work we study the following problem: from a large archive of intrusion alerts collected in a production network, we want to detect with a small number of false positives hosts within the network that have been infected by malware. Solving this problem is essential not only for reducing the false-positive rate of IDSs, but also for labeling traces collected in the wild with information about validated security incidents. We use a 9-month long dataset of IDS alerts and we first build a novel heuristic to detect infected hosts from the on average 3 million alerts we observe per day. Our heuristic uses a statistical measure to find hosts that exhibit a repeated multi-stage malicious footprint involving specific classes of alerts. A significant part of our work is devoted to the validation of our heuristic. We conduct a complex experiment to assess the security of suspected infected systems in a production environment using data from several independent sources, including intrusion alerts, blacklists, host scanning logs, vulnerability reports, and search engine queries. We find that the false positive rate of our heuristic is 15% and analyze in-depth the root causes of the false positives. Having validated our heuristic, we apply it to our entire trace, and characterize various important properties of 9 thousand infected hosts in total. For example, we find that among the infected hosts, a small number of heavy hitters originate most outbound attacks and that future infections are more likely to occur close to already infected hosts.
Morphology and Pathomorphology Structural Changes in the Myocardium and Serum Lipid Spectrum in Experimental Hypercholesterolemia and Hypothyroidism

We studied the peculiarities of lipid spectrum of the blood and structural reorganization of the myocardium in experimental hypercholesterolemia with and without hypothyroidism. It was found that alimentary hypercholesterolemia accompanied by elevated total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglyceride concentrations led to a decrease in body weight, heart weight, number of cardiomyocytes in the heart and induced pronounced lytic changes in cardiomyocytes, circulation disorders (sludge syndrome, echinocytosis of erythrocytes, lymphostasis), diffuse fi brosis of the stroma, and appearance of foam cells among diffuse mononuclear infi ltrate cells. The combination of hypercholesterolemia with hypothyroid status caused more pronounced changes in the lipid spectrum and atherogenic index and more pronounced lytic and necrobiotic changes in cardiomyocytes. These fi ndings suggest that elevated cholesterol concentrations in the blood, especially against the background of suppressed thyroid function, can directly induce considerable damage to cardiomyocytes, intramural vessels, and erythrocytes without the development of myocardial ischemia and in the absence of atherosclerotic plaques. Lipid metabolism disorders (dyslipidemia) characterized by increased cholesterol and triglyceride content in the blood are the major risk factors of atheroscle-rosis development and related cardiovascular diseases [5,7]. In most studies of atherosclerosis, especially in recent works, the attention is primarily paid to evaluation of changes and elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of intima damage, formation of athero-sclerotic plaques, their progress, possible stabilization or rupture. According to current views, atherosclerotic plaque formation depends on endogenous and exog-enous atherogenic factors promoting accumulation and modifi cation of apoB-lipoprotein in the vascular wall, activation of endothelial cells, migration and activation of infl ammatory cells, especially macrophages, proliferation of smooth muscle cells, modulation of collagen biosynthesis and degradation, and activation of blood clotting factors and platelets [12,14]. The focus on structural and functional changes in the vascular wall in atherosclerosis and hypercholes
Inhibition of Virulence Gene Expression in Staphylococcus aureus by Novel Depsipeptides from a Marine Photobacterium

During a global research expedition, more than five hundred marine bacterial strains capable of inhibiting the growth of pathogenic bacteria were collected. The purpose of the present study was to determine if these marine bacteria are also a source of compounds that interfere with the agr quorum sensing system that controls virulence gene expression in Staphylococcus aureus. Using a gene reporter fusion bioassay, we recorded agr interference as enhanced expression of spa, encoding Protein A, concomitantly with reduced expression of hla, encoding α-hemolysin, and rnaIII encoding RNAIII, the effector molecule of agr. A marine Photobacterium produced compounds interfering with agr in S. aureus strain 8325-4, and bioassay-guided fractionation of crude extracts led to the isolation of two novel cyclodepsipeptides, designated solonamide A and B. Northern blot analysis confirmed the agr interfering activity of pure solonamides in both S. aureus strain 8325-4 and the highly virulent, community-acquired strain USA300 (CA-MRSA). To our knowledge, this is the first report of inhibitors of the agr system by a marine bacterium.
Platelet function test-guided strategy: lost in translation?

In this issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions , Wang et al1 publish on the real-world impact of platelet function testing where clinicians have direct access to point-of-care platelet function testing without protocol-mandated treatment strategies. Their hypothesis was that no-cost access to platelet function testing would increase treatment adjustment with P2Y12 receptor inhibitors and subsequently improve clinical outcomes of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients. Their conclusion is that access to no-cost platelet function testing had a modest impact on ADP receptor inhibitor selection and dosing and no impact on clinical outcome. Strikingly, switching from clopidogrel to more potent P2Y12 receptor inhibitor seemed to be independent of platelet function test results. The Treatment With Adenosine Diphosphate Receptor Inhibitors: Longitudinal Assessment of Treatment Patterns and Events After Acute Coronary Syndrome Prospective Open Label Antiplatelet Therapy (TRANSLATE-POPS) is a relevant study as it brings into light how evidence-based medicine is translated into the real-life setting.1 See Article by Wang et al This study first outlines the disproportionate relationship between knowledge and implementation into clinical practice. TRANSLATE-POPS was a prospective, cluster-randomized trial where participating centers were assigned access to no-cost platelet function testing versus usual care for ACS patients treated with PCI. Platelet function testing was performed only in two-third of patients treated in intervention sites. More importantly, treatment adjustments occurred in <20% of patients despite prior evidence that in such context at least one-third of patients would have deserved intensification of P2Y12 inhibition …
Direct High Frequency Soft Switching Inverter Type AC-DC Power Converter with Boost Function for Consumer Magnetron Drive

The oscillation voltage (Ebm) is an important parameter of the characteristic constant of a high power microwave generator. When Ebm could be made high, it serves so as to improve the power conversion efficiency of a magnetron. Thus, the newly developed magnetron with 7% higher oscillation cut-off voltage than the present conventional one is manufactured by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.Ltd, In addition to this, the utility AC power line current reduced harmonic type direct inverter AC-DC power converter suitable and acceptable for driving this magnetron is proposed in this paper. This direct high frequency inverter type soft switching PWM AC-DC converter has the voltage-boost function based on active clamp scheme with soft switching pulse modulation strategy topology. This paper describes a novel type active clamp AC-DC power converter circuit defined as direct high frequency inverter and the switching operation of this power converter is described and discussed on the basis of simulation and experimental results. The operating characteristics of this soft switching direct high frequency inverter type AC-DC power converter using IGBTs that incorporates the harmonic current improvement as well as power factor correction are evaluated and discussed from a practical point of view as compared with the conventional AC-DC power converter.
The Linda Problem Revisited from the Perspective of Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory

Results from four experiments (N = 548) support the hypothesis from cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) that the resistance of the notorious Linda conjunction problem to solution can be attributed primarily to its simultaneously concrete and unnatural context. The experiments demonstrated that the influence of other variables, such as problem order, event likelihood, within-versus between-protagonist context, and statistical sophistication, although important, cannot account for the robust influence of the combination of the concrete-abstract and natural-unnatural dimensions. The implications of the demonstration that virtually everyone has intuitive knowledge of the conjunction rule are discussed, in addition to cuing effects, narrative processing, and methodological issues that have produced serious distortions in the interpretation of previous research.
The meanings older people give to their rehabilitation experience

Promoting older people's ability to manage at home is important both for themselves and for society, but few studies have explored whether geriatric rehabilitation actually meets the needs of this heterogeneous group. The purpose of this study was to investigate the meanings that older adults attribute to their geriatric rehabilitation experiences. A group of 27 older adults in inpatient rehabilitation were interviewed during the programme and after returning home. Semi-structured interviews were analysed using a qualitative method, which identified three categories of meaning. In the category ‘sense of confidence with everyday life’, rehabilitation was perceived as facilitating everyday living at home; in the category ‘sense of vacation’, rehabilitation was seen as a means of getting away from normal life and enjoying oneself; and in the category ‘sense of disappointment in the rehabilitation programme’, the participants expressed frustration with the limited opportunities to participate in the planning of their rehabilitation, and with the mismatch between the offered programme and what was needed. To promote older people's autonomy and to enhance their ability to live at home, professionals must involve their clients to a greater extent in the planning of the rehabilitation than is currently the case, and also individualise the rehabilitation regimen.
The bicultural life experience of career‐oriented black women

Summary This study explores the bicultural life experience of black career-oriented women. Seventy-one women participated in a larger study on the life experiences of black women. Of this sample, 21 (29 per cent) of the women were identified as being career-oriented. Findings reveal that the women perceive themselves as living in two distinct cultural contexts, one black the other one white. The women compartmentalize the various components of their lives in order to manage the bicultural dimensions. In addition, they tend to have highly complex life structures to embrace both cultural contexts.
A study of the relationship between communicative performance and conversation participants’ thoughts

This study directly examines the assumed relationship between a communicator's thoughts and his/her communicative actions. Individuals’ communicative performance (i.e., effectiveness and appropriateness) on an information acquisition task was assessed and assigned to high, moderate and low communication competence groupings. Their thought protocols, as gathered through a stimulated recall procedure, were then compared. As predicted, high competent communicators had more goal‐relevant thoughts than their less competent counterparts. Moreover, communicators’ thoughts corresponded with the type of performance strategies evidenced in their interactions. Other results indicated that low competent communicators had significantly more self assessment thoughts than their more competent counterparts. However, no support was found for a predicted interaction between competence level and goal complexity. The results were discussed in terms of implications for further study of cognitive processing and communicative p.
Might Governments Clean-Up Malware?

End-user computers that have become infected with malware are a danger to their owners and to the Internet as a whole. Effective action to clean-up these computers would be extremely desirable, yet the incentives conspire to dissuade ISPs (and others) from acting. This paper proposes a role for government in subsidising the cost of clean-up. The organisations that tender for the government contract will factor in not only the costs of the clean-up, but also the profits they can make from their new consumer relationships. A model is proposed for what the tender price should be – and, by plugging in plausible values, it is shown that the cost to the tax payer of a government scheme could be less than a dollar per person per year; well in line with other public health initiatives.
Stress Transiently Affects Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer

Stress has a strong impact in the brain, impairing decision-making processes as a result of changes in circuits involving the prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices and the striatum. Given that these same circuits are key for action control and outcome encoding, we hypothesized that adaptive responses to which these are essential functions, could also be targeted by stress. To test this hypothesis we herein assessed the impact of chronic stress in a Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) paradigm, a model of an adaptive response in which a previously conditioned cue biases an instrumental goal-directed action. Data reveals that rats submitted to chronic unpredictable stress did not display deficits in pavlovian conditioning nor on the learning of the instrumental task, but were impaired in PIT; importantly, after a stress-free period the PIT deficits were no longer observed. These results are relevant to understand how stress biases multiple incentive processes that contribute to instrumental performance.
An Efficient Visual Analysis Method for Cluster Tendency Evaluation, Data Partitioning and Internal Cluster Validation

Visual methods have been extensively studied and performed in cluster data analysis. Given a pairwise dissimilarity matrix D of a set of n objects, visual methods such as Enhanced-Visual Assessment Tendency (E-VAT) algorithm generally represent D as an n times n image I( overlineD) where the objects are reordered to expose the hidden cluster structure as dark blocks along the diagonal of the image. A major constraint of such methods is their lack of ability to highlight cluster structure when D contains composite shaped datasets. This paper addresses this limitation by proposing an enhanced visual analysis method for cluster tendency assessment, where D is mapped to D' by graph based analysis and then reordered to overlineD' using E-VAT resulting graph based Enhanced Visual Assessment Tendency (GE-VAT). An Enhanced Dark Block Extraction (E-DBE) for automatic determination of the number of clusters in I( overlineD') is then proposed as well as a visual data partitioning method for cluster formation from I( overlineD') based on the disparity between diagonal and off-diagonal blocks using permuted indices of GE-VAT. Cluster validation measures are also performed to evaluate the cluster formation. Extensive experimental results on several complex synthetic, UCI and large real-world data sets are analyzed to validate our algorithm.