Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Opportunistic Mobile Sensor Data Collection with SCAR

Sensors are now embedded in all sorts of devices (such as phones and PDAs) and attached to many moving things such as robots, vehicles and animals. The collection of data from these mobile sensors presents challenges related to the variability of the topology of the sensor network and the need to limit communication (for energy or bandwidth saving). Fortunately, the data collected, despite considerable, is often delay tolerant and its delivery to the sinks is, in most cases, not time critical. We have devised SCAR, a context aware opportunistic routing protocol which allows efficient routing of sensor data to sinks, through selection of best paths by prediction over movement patterns and current battery level of nodes. In this paper we present the implementation of the protocol in Contiki and validate the approach through the use of the COOJA simulator with mobility traces provided by the ZebraNet Project. We compare the performance with respect to random choice based dissemination.
Proximate Time-Optimal Digital Control for DC-DC Converters

This paper introduces an approach to near time- optimal control in DC-DC converters using a simple digital controller realization. The proposed proximate time-optimal digital (PTOD) controller is a combination of a linear PID controller operating near a reference point and a nonlinear switching surface (NSS) controller away from the reference, together with a smooth transition between the two. A capacitor current estimator enables effective switching surface evaluation and eliminates the need for current sensing. The NSS controller, which is implemented as a small Verilog HDL module, can be easily added to an existing digital PWM controller to construct the PTOD controller. In steady state, the converter operates at constant switching frequency. Simulation and experimental results are shown for a 6.5 V-to-1.3 V, 10 A synchronous buck converter.
Tropical birds have a slow pace of life

Tropical birds are relatively long-lived and produce few offspring, which develop slowly and mature relatively late in life, the slow end of the life-history axis, whereas temperate birds lie at the opposite end of this continuum. We tested the hypothesis that tropical birds have evolved a reduced basal metabolic rate (BMR). We measured BMR of 69 species of tropical birds, the largest data set amassed on metabolic rates of tropical birds, and compared these measurements with 59 estimates of BMR for temperate birds. Our analyses included conventional least squares regression, regressions based on phylogenetic independent contrasts, and a comparison of BMR of 13 phylogenetically matched pairs, one species from the tropics and one from northerly temperate areas. Our triptych showed that tropical birds had a reduced BMR, compelling evidence for a connection between the life history of tropical birds and a slow pace of life. Further, tropical migrants breeding in temperate habitats had a lower BMR than did temperate residents, suggesting that these migrants have physiological traits consistent with a slow pace of life. In addition, we determined that tropical birds had a lower cold-induced peak metabolic rate and thermogenic metabolic scope than temperate species, a finding that is consistent with the hypothesis that their environment has not selected for high levels of thermogenesis, or alternatively, that a slow pace of life may be incompatible with high thermogenic capacity. We conclude that physiological function correlates with the suite of life-history traits.
Common Fragile Site Tumor Suppressor Genes and Corresponding Mouse Models of Cancer

Chromosomal common fragile sites (CFSs) are specific mammalian genomic regions that show an increased frequency of gaps and breaks when cells are exposed to replication stress in vitro. CFSs are also consistently involved in chromosomal abnormalities in vivo related to cancer. Interestingly, several CFSs contain one or more tumor suppressor genes whose structure and function are often affected by chromosomal fragility. The two most active fragile sites in the human genome are FRA3B and FRA16D where the tumor suppressor genes FHIT and WWOX are located, respectively. The best approach to study tumorigenic effects of altered tumor suppressors located at CFSs in vivo is to generate mouse models in which these genes are inactivated. This paper summarizes our present knowledge on mouse models of cancer generated by knocking out tumor suppressors of CFS.
Control strategies of DC-bus voltage in islanded operation of microgrid

This paper focuses on the energy management system and stability of DC bus in both grid-connected and islanded operations in microgrid system. The microgrid system consists of wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, batteries and super-capacitors, also includes both AC and DC zones. Voltage of DC bus must be kept stable especially in islanded operation. In grid-connected operation voltage of DC bus is controlled by inverter. Real power from renewable energy generations and storage system can be transferred to AC zone through DC bus. In islanded operation, inverter must be controlled to keep magnitude and frequency of AC bus stable, so storage system is used to regulate voltage of DC bus. Simulation results in the paper show that voltage of DC bus can be kept steady and power can be kept balance with the strategy in microgrid system.
Reducing the Cost of Eye Tracking Systems

Tracking the user’s eye-gaze information has been technologically possible for several decades. However, systems that track eye-gaze are still very expensive. The exorbitant price tag on commercial systems has resulted in limited use of eye-tracking technology. In this paper we examine the factors which contribute to the high costs of eye-tracking systems. We then propose several techniques and strategies which can be used to reduce the cost of these systems, ultimately resulting in more widespread use of the technology. ACM Classification: H5.2 [Information interfaces and presentation]: User Interfaces. General terms: Measurement, Performance, Design, Economics
A single band beam scanning active phased array antenna

A fixed frequency phased rectangular microstrip antenna array is proposed. It consists of two patch antennas places side by side and one element is fed with a meandered phase delay. Additionally varactor diodes have been used to vary the overall phase delay for beam scanning. The design avoids any additional bias paths and only on external bias-tee is required for biasing. A prototype that can scan its main lobe between 7° and 32° and with the resonance frequency tunable between 2027 MHz and 2210 MHz, under different bias conditions, has been fabricated as a proof of concept. The fabricated antenna also has an additional tunable resonance between 2356 MHz and 2450 MHz.
Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems

Temperature-aware techniques have established themselves as crucial steps during the design and operation of new complex ICs (e.g. dual-core microprocessors) in order to protect the ICs against high temperatures that may drastically reduce their lifetime or even render them inoperable. These tech- niques have been developed after it became clear that power-aware techniques and low-power design are insufficient since they still allowed hotspots to develop in the chip with temperatures considerably higher than the average temperature. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art of temperature-aware computing. After a brief introduction, we present the current approaches to measuring the temperature of a circuit during its operation and to estimating, during the design phase, the maximum temperature that the circuit will experience. We then survey the known techniques for designing a chip with lower maximum temperature. This is followed by reviewing the currently employed run-time temperature management techniques.
Ml.lib: robust, cross-platform, open-source machine learning for max and pure data

This paper documents the development of ml.lib: a set of open-source tools designed for employing a wide range of machine learning techniques within two popular real-time programming environments, namely Max and Pure Data. ml.lib is a cross-platform, lightweight wrapper around Nick Gillian's Gesture Recognition Toolkit, a C++ library that includes a wide range of data processing and machine learning techniques. ml.lib adapts these techniques for real-time use within popular data-flow IDEs, allowing instrument designers and performers to integrate robust learning, classification and mapping approaches within their existing workflows. ml.lib has been carefully de-signed to allow users to experiment with and incorporate ma-chine learning techniques within an interactive arts context with minimal prior knowledge. A simple, logical and consistent, scalable interface has been provided across over sixteen exter-nals in order to maximize learnability and discoverability. A focus on portability and maintainability has enabled ml.lib to support a range of computing architectures - including ARM - and operating systems such as Mac OS, GNU/Linux and Win-dows, making it the most comprehensive machine learning implementation available for Max and Pure Data.
Mechanisms of Mineralocorticoid Action

Sodium transport in epithelial tissues is regulated by the physiological mineralocorticoid aldosterone. The response to aldosterone is mediated by the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), for which the crystal structure of the ligand-binding domain has recently been established. The classical mode of action for this receptor involves the regulation of gene transcription. Several genes have now been shown to be regulated by aldosterone in epithelial tissues. Of these, the best characterized is serum- and glucocorticoid-regulated kinase, which increases sodium influx through the epithelial sodium channel. Turnover of these channels in the cell membrane is mediated by Nedd4–2, a ubiquitin protein ligase; serum- and glucocorticoid-regulated kinase interacts with and phosphorylates Nedd4–2, thereby rendering it unable to bind the sodium channels. In nonepithelial tissues, particularly the cardiovascular system, aldosterone also has direct effects, activating an inflammatory cascade, leading to cardiac fibrosis. A critical role for the MR in cardiovascular disease has now been demonstrated by the beneficial response to MR blockade in 2 large clinical trials in patients with cardiac failure. It is these nonepithelial actions of MR activation that need to be exploited for the development of antagonists that target the cardiovascular system while avoiding the undesirable side effects of renal MR blockade.
Why Does the Yield Curve Predict Output and Inflation?

The slope of the yield curve has been shown empirically to be a significant predictor of inflation and real economic activity but there is no standard theory as to why the relationship exists. This article constructs an analytical rational expectations model to investigate the reasons for the empirical results. The model suggests that the relationships are not structural but are instead influenced by the monetary policy regime. However, the yield curve should have predictive power for output and inflation in most circumstances. Various implications of the theoretical model are tested and confirmed empirically.
Semi-supervised feature selection based on label propagation and subset selection

In practice, the data to be handled are often high dimensional, and labeled data are often very limited while a large numbers of unlabeled data can be easily collected. Feature selection is an important method to deal with high dimensional data. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-supervised feature selection algorithm to select relevant features using both labeled and unlabeled data. Specifically, the algorithm explores the distribution of the labeled and unlabeled data with a special label propagation method to obtain the soft labels of unlabeled data, then an efficient algorithm to optimize the trace ratio criterion is used to directly select the optimal feature subset. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, and show significant improvement over traditional supervised feature selection algorithms.
Localization of actin and myosin for the study of ameboid movement in Dictyostelium using improved immunofluorescence

The distribution of actin and myosin in Dictyostelium amebae at different developmental stages was studied by improved immunofluorescence ("agar-overlay" technique). Both were localized at the cortical region of amebae in all early developmental stages. In amebae with polarized morphology, bright fluorescence with antiactin was seen in the anterior pseudopode. The cortex in the posterior end was also stained with antiactin. On the other hand, very specific crescent-shaped staining with antimyosin was seen at the posterior cortex. In cells in contact with each other, actin was concentrated at the contact region, whereas myosin was localized specifically in the cortex on the other side of the contact region. At the aggregation stage, when monopodial amebae migrate forming streams, actin staining was seen all around the cell periphery, with intense fluorescence in the anterior pseudopode. On the other hand, specific staining of myosin was seen only at the posterior cortex. The cleavage furrow of cells performing cytokinesis displayed distinct myosin staining, and this staining represented the filamentous structure aligned in parallel to the axis of constriction. These findings indicate that myosin staining reflects the portion of the cell cortex where contraction occurs and the motive force of ameboid movement is generated at the posterior cortex of a migrating cell.
Effectiveness of Dynamic Resource Allocation for Handling Internet Flash Crowds

Internet data centers host multiple Web applications on shared hardware resources. These data centers are typically provisioned to meet the expected peak demands of the hosted applications based on normal time-of-day effects. Such an over-provisioning approach is not robust to flash crowd scenarios, where the load increase of some hosted applications is much higher than their expected peak loads. In such scenarios, data centers can utilize their resources better by employing dynamic resource allocation. In this paper, we present a prototype data center implementation that we use to study the effectiveness of dynamic resource allocation for handling flash crowds with different characteristics. This prototype implements a multi-tiered server architecture along with mechanisms for monitoring, load detection, load balancing and dynamic allocation. Our experiments with this prototype show that a carefully designed dynamic allocation scheme can be effective for handling flash crowds. We show that in order to handle very sharp growth in loads, a dynamic allocation scheme must be either extremely responsive or employ low overhead mechanisms such as using hot spare servers. On the other hand, gradually increasing flash crowds can be handled equally well with larger overheads and slower reaction times. We also show that even in the presence of large allocation overhead, it is possible to achieve the same application performance by either allocating multiple servers simultaneously or allocating a few servers often. Using our results, we conclude that even without large-scale over-provisioning, it is possible to effectively handle flash crowd conditions using a dynamic allocation scheme that responds quickly to workload changes, and that can mask large allocation overheads either by deploying a few ready servers or by allocating multiple servers simultaneously.
Gamma-ray binaries : pulsars in disguise?

Context. LS 5039 and LS I+61°303 are unique amongst high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXB) for their spatially-resolved radio emission and their counterpart at >GeV gamma-ray energies, canonically attributed to non-thermal particles in an accretion-powered relativistic jet. The only other HMXB known to emit very high-energy (VHE) gamma-rays, PSR B1259-63, harbours a non-accreting millisecond pulsar. Aims. The purpose is to investigate whether the interaction of the relativistic wind from a young pulsar with the wind from its stellar companion, as in PSR B1259-63, constitutes a viable scenario for explaining the observations of LS 5039 and LS I+61°303. Emission arises from the shocked pulsar wind material, which then flows away to large distances in a comet-shape tail, reproducing on a smaller scale what is observed in isolated, high motion pulsars interacting with the interstellar medium. Methods. The timescales for acceleration and radiation of particles at the shock between the pulsar wind and stellar wind are calculated. Simple expectations for the spectral energy distribution (SED) are derived and are shown to depend on very few input parameters. Detailed modelling of the particle evolution is attempted and compared to the observations from radio to TeV energies. Results. Acceleration at the shock provides high-energy electrons that steadily emit synchrotron in X-rays and inverse Compton scatter stellar light to γ -rays. Electrons streaming out of the system emit at IR frequencies and below. The overall aspect of the SEDs is adequately reproduced for standard values of the parameters. The morphology of the radio tail can mimic a microquasar jet. Good agreement is found with the published VLBI map of LS 5039 and predictions are made on the expected change in appearance with orbital phase. Conclusions. The pulsar wind scenario provides a common, viable framework for interpreting the emission from all three γ -ray binaries.
Compression of acoustic features - are perceptual quality and recognition performance incompatible goals?

The client-server model is being advocated for speech recognition over networks, where the acoustic features are calculated by the client, compressed and transmitted to the server. This has provoked a number of papers claiming that as recognition accuracy and perceptual quality are different goals, a new compression approach is needed. This is verified by experiments in which codecs such as CELP are shown to produce degraded recognition performance, but that direct quantization of acoustic features at data rates as low as 4kbps gives little or no degradation. In this paper we show that the goals are not incompatible, and that a very low bit-rate codec can be used to perform the compression. We also show that if the ability to reproduce the speech is really not needed, a bit rate as low as 625 bit/sec can be achieved by computing and compressing posterior phone probabilities.
[Analysis of improper pattern of Mandarin monosyllable recognition test among the patients with auditory neuropathy].

OBJECTIVE To analyze the improper pattern in mandarin monosyllable recognition test among the patients with Auditory Neuropathy (AN) in order to work out the common characteristics in speech recognition which might be suitable for diagnosis of AN. METHODS Sixteen AN patients (32 ears) were studied and 22 patients (32 ears) with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) were set for control. In accordance with audiogram pattern, all subjects were then divided into the up-type hearing (15 ears) and non up-type hearing (17 ears) groups. All 64 ears were tested in high intensity by mandarin monosyllable test material which we have developed before. Monosyllable performance scores from testing ears and improper patterns were recorded respectively. Eight improper patterns were then defined as follows: consonant only, vowel only, tone only, consonant and vowel, consonant and tone, vowel and tone, all phonemes and no response. RESULTS The score of patients with AN was lower than those patients with SNHL in monosyllable recognition test (P < 0.001). No significant difference was found between subgroup of up-type hearing loss and SNHL group in percentage correct scores of monosyllables, consonants, vowels, and tones statistically (P > 0.05), but significant lower score was found in subgroup of non up-type hearing loss compared with SNHL group in these 4 percentage scores concerned (P < 0.001). Chi square test presented a significant difference in improper pattern proportion between AN and SNHL groups (P < 0.001), which could be related to more proportional tone recognition in the former's incorrect items. Improper pattern proportions between two AN subgroups presented a significant difference statistically (P < 0.001), which could be related to a larger proportional recognition of tones and vowels in subgroup of up-type hearing loss compared with subgroup of non up-type hearing loss. CONCLUSIONS A poor performance might be a major clinical feature identified AN from SNHL in mandarin tone recognition. There are significant differences between AN patients with up-type hearing loss and patients with non up-type hearing loss in performance of monosyllable recognition and improper pattern proportion of tones and vowels. A psychophysical testing may be a key potential in diagnosis of AN in further clinical application.
Stateful implication logic with memristors

In this paper computation with memristors is studied in terms of how many memristors are needed to perform a given logic operation. It has been shown that memristors are naturally suited for performing implication logic (combination of implication and false operation) instead of Boolean logic. Also, it should be noted that a memristor can be used as both a logic gate and a latch (stateful logic). Being functionally complete, implication logic can be used to compute any Boolean function. However, by performing implication logic with stateful devices, storage of intermediate results requires additional memristors to keep data yet to be used from being written over. This paper describes an effective way to compute any Boolean function with a small number of memristors. Also, the length of the corresponding computing sequence is considered.
Author's Personal Copy Theoretical Computer Science Choosing Selection Pressure for Wide-gap Problems

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t To exploit an evolutionary algorithm's performance to the full extent, the selection scheme should be chosen carefully. Empirically, it is commonly acknowledged that low selection pressure can prevent an evolutionary algorithm from premature convergence, and is thereby more suitable for wide-gap problems. However, there are few theoretical time complexity studies that actually give the conditions under which a high or a low selection pressure is better. In this paper, we provide a rigorous time complexity analysis showing that low selection pressure is better for the wide-gap problems with two optima.