Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TURNUS: An open-source design space exploration framework for dynamic stream programs

Although the research on the design of heterogeneous concurrent systems has a long and rich history, a unified design methodology and tool support have not emerged so far. Therefore, the creation of such systems remains a difficult, time-consuming and error-prone process. The absence of principled support for system evaluation and optimization at high level of abstraction makes the quality of the resulting implementation strongly dependent on the experience or individual preferences of the designer. In this work we are presenting TURNUS, a unified dataflow design space exploration framework for heterogeneous parallel systems. This open source framework represents a decade of research on high-level modelling and simulation methods and tools for system level performance estimation and optimization. Last year we presented heuristic algorithms that were focused on the results of exploration in terms of algorithmic optimization, rapid performance estimation, application throughput, buffer size dimensioning and power optimization. This year we are presenting the novelties that have been introduced in TURNUS such as clock gating, pipelining optimization, kernel splitting algorithms, advanced partitioning algorithms and scheduling optimization based on model predictive control techniques.
Second‐order sliding mode control of underactuated mechanical systems II: Orbital stabilization of an inverted pendulum with application to swing up/balancing control

Orbital stabilization of an underactuated cart–pendulum system is under study. The quasihomogeneous control synthesis is utilized to design a second‐order sliding mode controller that drives the actuated cart to a periodic reference orbit in finite time, while the non‐actuated pendulum produces bounded oscillations. A modified Van der Pol oscillator is introduced into the synthesis as an asymptotic generator of the periodic motion. The resulting closed‐loop system is capable of moving from one orbit to another by simply changing the parameters of the Van der Pol modification. Performance issues of the proposed synthesis are illustrated in numerical and experimental studies of the swing up/balancing control problem of moving a pendulum, located on an actuated cart, from its stable downward position to the unstable inverted position and stabilizing it about the vertical. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Energy-efficient power control for MIMO time-varying channels

Fast rising data traffic in mobile communication entails an increase in its energy consumption, which may result in climate effects and high operation costs, unless measures are taken to enhance its energy efficiency (EE). As part of the endeavour towards higher EE, we present a power control policy that adapts to a time-varying channel for multiple antenna communication. We provide a power budget model that reflects the power expenditure of a base station, that even accounts for the power used for training which enables channel information at the transmitter. We apply the results to Rayleigh fading channels and compare them with a suboptimal power policy where a constant power allocation is applied at all times. The relationship between the EE and the antenna configuration is discussed.
An approach to distributed sensing in a virtual fishtank

The simulation of many simple creatures whose interactions lead to complex global phenomena is of great interest to many people. Because simulations of this type are often computationally intensive, it is often useful to distribute the simulation across several computers connected by a network. A distributed octree data structure achieves both rapid computation of the creatures' actions as well as distribution of these computations among several computers. This approach exploits many of the constraints on creatures with limited visual ranges in a three dimensional space in order to allow simulation of many creatures in real time. This work will eventually lead to the construction of a Virtual Fishtank that will allow users to experiment with the phenomena that arise from the behaviors of many simple, interacting creatures. Thesis Supervisor: Bruce Blumberg Title: Assistant Professor of Media Arts & Sciences An Approach to Distributed Sensing in a Virtual Fishtank
An Introduction to MT Evaluation

This section of the workbook describes the principles and mechanism of an integrative effort in machine translation (MT) evaluation. Building upon previous standardization initiatives, above all ISO/IEC 9126, 14598 and EAGLES, we attempt to classify into a coherent taxonomy most of the characteristics, attributes and metrics that have been proposed for MT evaluation. The main articulation of this flexible framework is the link between a taxonomy that helps evaluators define a context of use for the evaluated software, and a taxonomy of the quality characteristics and associated metrics. The document overviews these elements and provides a perspective on ongoing work in MT evaluation.
SWORS: A System for the Efficient Retrieval of Relevant Spatial Web Objects

Spatial web objects that possess both a geographical location and a textual description are gaining in prevalence. This gives prominence to spatial keyword queries that exploit both location and textual arguments. Such queries are used in many web services such as yellow pages and maps services. We present SWORS, the Spatial Web Object Retrieval System, that is capable of efficiently retrieving spatial web objects that satisfy spatial keyword queries. Specifically, SWORS supports two types of queries: a) the location-aware top-k text retrieval (LkT) query that retrieves k individual spatial web objects taking into account query location proximity and text relevancy; b) the spatial keyword group (SKG) query that retrieves a group of objects that cover the query keywords and are nearest to the query location and have the shortest inter-object distances. SWORS provides browser-based interfaces for desktop and laptop computers and provides a client application for mobile devices. The interfaces and the client enable users to formulate queries and view the query results on a map. The server side stores the data and processes the queries. We use three real-life data sets to demonstrate the functionality and performance of SWORS.
Sociocultural Dissonance among Ethnic Minority Populations

INTEREST IN GROUP THERAPY with ethnic minority populations has encouraged the development of culturally compatible skills and approaches for group work practice. ’ Although this interest is consistent with social work’s emphasis on designing practice according to client populations and group goals, there is little professional consensus or conceptual clarity regarding the locus of concern for group work with ethnic minorities. Questions have been posed regarding the direction and focus group work with ethnic minorities should take. The purpose of the present article is to present a conceptual formulation of group work practice with ethnic minority populations, based on the concept of sociocultural dissonance. An ethnic group is a group of people who share a common cultural heritage and minority status within a larger cultural or political entity, such as Afro-Americans, AsianAmericans, and Hispanics. Ethnic differences often involve differences in customs, languages, beliefs, world views, and other cultural factors. The reason behind delineating a conceptual framework is to provide understanding of the special conditions of ethnic minorities so that group work practice can more adequately meet the challenges presented by their concerns, problems, and needs. As will become apparent in the following discussion, the formulation expands the boundary of group work and encourages a cognitive restructuring of its practice foci and strategies.
Activation of NR2A-Containing NMDA Receptors Is Not Obligatory for NMDA Receptor-Dependent Long-Term Potentiation

Activation of NMDA receptors (NMDARs) within the CNS represents a major signal for persistent alterations in glutamatergic signaling, such as long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression. NMDARs are composed of a combination of NR1 and NR2 subunits, with distinct NR2 subunits imparting distinct characteristics on the receptor. One particular NR2 subunit, NR2A (NRϵ1), has been proposed to play an integral role in LTP induction in the hippocampus and cortex. Here, we report studies investigating the role of NR2A in LTP induction in the dorsolateral bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (dlBNST). The putative NR2A-specific inhibitor NVP-AAM077 (AAM077) has been used previously to demonstrate the dependence of cortical and hippocampal LTP on NMDARs containing NR2A subunits. We report here the same sensitivity of LTP to pretreatment with AAM077 (0.4 μm) in the dlBNST. However, inconsistent with the conclusion that LTP in the dlBNST is NR2A dependent, we see intact LTP in the dlBNST of NR2A knock-out mice. Because we also see blockade of this dlBNST LTP in NR2A knock-out mice after pretreatment with AAM077, we conclude that the antagonist is targeting non-NR2A subunit-containing receptors. Using a variety of cultured cell types, we find that AAM077 (0.4 μm) can attenuate transmission of NR2B subunit-containing NMDARs when preapplied rather than coapplied with an agonist. Therefore, we conclude that NR2A is not obligatory for the induction of LTP in the dlBNST. Furthermore, our data demonstrate that care must be exercised in the interpretation of data generated with AAM077 when the compound is applied before an agonist.
User-aware rate adaptive control for IEEE 802.11-based ad hoc networks

The existing rate adaptive control schemes for ad hoc networks just adapt to the time variation of the fading channels but not to the variation of the network congestion level. In this paper, we propose a user-aware rate adaptive control (UARAC) scheme for IEEE 802.11-based ad hoc networks, which exploits not only time diversity but also multi-user diversity. The UARAC is RTS/CTS based, where a receiver measures the SNR of a RTS frame, and then selectively returns the CTS frame with a piggyback information showing the maximum feasible rate. The key feature of the UARAC lies in that the probability that the receiver returns the CTS frame depends on the SNR of the RTS frame and the number of active stations in the network, so that the throughput can be further improved by multi-user diversity besides time-diversity. Furthermore, to optimize the throughput on-line, the UARAC tunes the probability that the receiver returns the CTS frame in heuristic mode. Extensive numerical results and simulation results show that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms the existing adaptive schemes
Three-Phase-to-Three-Phase AC/AC DC-Link Five-Leg Converters Based on Three- and Two-Level Legs

The five-leg back-to-back converter shares a leg between the grid and load sides. In the conventional five-leg converter, all legs are of same type, i.e., either two- or three-level legs. This paper presents topologies of five-leg converters based on the combination of two- and three-level legs. The proposed configurations permit one to obtain intermediary characteristics between the five-leg converter with all three-level legs and that with all two-level legs. The choice of the number of two- and three-level legs and how combine them are shown in order to obtain some characteristics of the grid- and load-side converter voltages. The modeling of the system and the pulsewidth-modulation strategy based on carrier-based and space-vector approaches is presented. Analysis of the total harmonic distortion and power switches losses are also addressed to characterize the configurations. Experimental and simulated results show the system feasibility.
Efficient Community Formation for Web Services

Web services are loosely-coupled business applications willing to cooperate in distributed settings within different groups called communities. Communities aim to provide web services with better visibility, efficiency, market share and total payoff. A number of mechanisms and models have been recently proposed to aggregate web services and make them cooperate within their communities. However, forming optimal and stable communities as coalitions to maximize individual and group efficiency and income is yet to be addressed. In this paper, we propose an efficient community formation mechanism using cooperative game-theoretic techniques, particularly Shapley value, core, ε-core and convex games. We propose a mechanism for community membership requests and selections of web services under two scenarios: (1) there is only one community and many web services aim to join it; and (2) web services can join different established communities. The ultimate objective is to develop a mechanism for web services to form stable groups allowing them to maximize their efficiency and generate near-optimal (welfare-maximizing) communities where a taxation-based solution is being proposed. The theoretical and extensive experimental results show that our algorithms provide web services and community owners, in real-world-like environments, with applicable and near-optimal decision making mechanisms.
Limits on Cooperation with Anonymity and Noise

We show that social equilibria in the prisoner’s dilemma, with anonymous random matching, are not robust to finite probability trembles with large populations. In particular, for reasonable parameter values, defection in every period is the unique social equilibrium; in fact, any other strategy is strictly dominated in the infinitely repeated matching game and thus noncooperation is the only outcome of a rationalizable strategy. We also provide estimates and specific bounds on the parameters under which these results hold.
Open Source Software Development : A Systems Dynamics Model

Evidence suggests that only a small percentage of open source development (OSSD) projects are active, have significant participation, or have delivered operational software. We develop a system dynamics based simulation model to analyze the dynamics of open source project participation process and software development process. We show that the complex interaction between participation and development processes affects crucially success or failure.
Differential contributions of Ng-CAM and N-CAM to cell adhesion in different neural regions

Individual neurons can express both the neural cell adhesion molecule (N-CAM) and the neuron-glia cell adhesion molecule (Ng-CAM) at their cell surfaces. To determine how the functions of the two molecules may be differentially controlled, we have used specific antibodies to each cell adhesion molecule (CAM) to perturb its function, first in brain membrane vesicle aggregation and then in tissue culture assays testing the fasciculation of neurite outgrowths from cultured dorsal root ganglia, the migration of granule cells in cerebellar explants, and the formation of histological layers in the developing retina. Our strategy was initially to delineate further the binding mechanisms for each CAM. Antibodies to Ng-CAM and N-CAM each inhibited brain membrane vesicle aggregation but the binding mechanisms of the two CAMs differed. As expected from the known homophilic binding mechanism of N-CAM, anti-N- CAM-coated vesicles did not co-aggregate with uncoated vesicles. Anti- Ng-CAM-coated vesicles readily co-aggregated with uncoated vesicles in accord with a postulated heterophilic binding mechanism. It was also shown that N-CAM was not a ligand for Ng-CAM. In contrast to assays with brain membrane vesicles, cellular systems can reveal functional differences for each CAM reflecting its relative amount (prevalence modulation) and location (polarity modulation). Consistent with this, each of the three cellular processes examined in vitro was preferentially inhibited only by anti-N-CAM or by anti-Ng-CAM antibodies. Both neurite fasciculation and the migration of cerebellar granule cells were preferentially inhibited by anti-Ng-CAM antibodies. Anti-N-CAM antibodies inhibited the formation of histological layers in the retina. The data on perturbation by antibodies were correlated with the relative levels of expression of Ng-CAM and N-CAM in each of these different neural regions. Quantitative immunoblotting experiments indicated that the relative Ng-CAM/N-CAM ratios in comparable extracts of brain, dorsal root ganglia, and retina were respectively 0.32, 0.81, and 0.04. During culture of dorsal root ganglia in the presence of nerve growth factor, the Ng-CAM/N-CAM ratio rose to 4.95 in neurite outgrowths and 1.99 in the ganglion proper, reflecting both polarity and prevalence modulation. These results suggest that the relative ability of anti-Ng-CAM and anti-N-CAM antibodies to inhibit cell-cell interactions in different neural tissues is strongly correlated with the local Ng-CAM/N-CAM ratio. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Ground-truth transcriptions of real music from force-aligned MIDI syntheses

Many modern polyphonic music transcription algorithms are presented in a statistical pattern recognition framework. But without a large corpus of real-world music transcribed at the note level, these algorithms are unable to take advantage of supervised learning methods and also have difficulty reporting a quantitative metric of their performance, such as a Note Error Rate. We attempt to remedy this situation by taking advantage of publicly-available MIDI transcriptions. By force-aligning synthesized audio generated from a MIDI transcription with the raw audio of the song it represents we can correlate note events within the MIDI data with the precise time in the raw audio where that note is likely to be expressed. Having these alignments will support the creation of a polyphonic transcription system based on labeled segments of produced music. But because the MIDI transcriptions we find are of variable quality, an integral step in the process is automatically evaluating the integrity of the alignment before using the transcription as part of any training set of labeled examples. Comparing a library of 40 published songs to freely available MIDI files, we were able to align 31 (78%). We are building a collection of over 500 MIDI transcriptions matching songs in our commercial music collection, for a potential total of 35 hours of note-level transcriptions, or some 1.5 million note events.
Streptococcus pneumoniae-Induced Oxidative Stress in Lung Epithelial Cells Depends on Pneumococcal Autolysis and Is Reversible by Resveratrol.

BACKGROUND Streptococcus pneumoniae is the most common cause of community-acquired pneumonia worldwide. During pneumococcal pneumonia, the human airway epithelium is exposed to large amounts of H2O2 as a product of host and pathogen oxidative metabolism. Airway cells are known to be highly vulnerable to oxidant damage, but the pathophysiology of oxidative stress induced by S. pneumoniae and the role of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)-mediated antioxidant systems of the host are not well characterized. METHODS For gluthation/gluthathion disulfide analysis BEAS-2B cells, primary broncho-epithelial cells (pBEC), explanted human lung tissue and mouse lungs were infected with different S. pneumoniae strains (D39, A66, R6x, H2O2/pneumolysin/LytA- deficient mutants of R6x). Cell death was proven by LDH assay and cell viability by IL-8 ELISA. The translocation of Nrf2 and the expression of catalase were shown via Western blot. The binding of Nrf2 at the catalase promoter was analyzed by ChIP. RESULTS We observed a significant induction of oxidative stress induced by S. pneumoniae in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro. Upon stimulation, the oxidant-responsive transcription factor Nrf2 was activated, and catalase was upregulated via Nrf2. The pneumococci-induced oxidative stress was independent of S. pneumoniae-derived H2O2 and pneumolysin but depended on the pneumococcal autolysin LytA. The Nrf2 inducer resveratrol, as opposed to catalase, reversed oxidative stress in lung epithelial cells. CONCLUSIONS These observations indicate a H2O2-independent induction of oxidative stress in lung epithelial cells via the release of bacterial factors of S. pneumoniae. Resveratrol might be an option for prevention of acute lung injury and inflammatory responses observed in pneumococcal pneumonia.
Cellular Uptake and Efflux of the Tea Flavonoid (-)Epicatechin-3-gallate in the Human Intestinal Cell Line Caco-2

(-)-Epicatechin gallate (ECG) is one of the flavonoids in green tea, which has been demonstrated to have cancer-preventive properties in many model systems. However, the extent and mechanisms of accumulation of these flavonoids in cells is unknown. The objectives of this study were to determine the accumulation of ECG by the intestinal epithelial cell Caco-2 and to characterize the transport mechanism involved. The cells were exposed to ECG ± various transport inhibitors and incubated at 37°C. Absorbed flavonoids were extracted and quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography. The uptake of ECG included a nonsaturable initial rapid process as well as a much slower saturable process. The saturable ECG uptake by the Caco-2 cells was sodium-independent but clearly dependent on a pH gradient. Phloretin and benzoic acid, inhibitors of the monocarboxylate transporter (MCT), significantly reduced ECG uptake. The uptake of ECG in the Caco-2 cells increased 2-fold in the presence of 50 μM 3-[{3-[2-(7-chloroquinolin-2-yl)vinyl]phenyl}-(2-dimethylcarbamoylethylsulfanyl)methylsulfanyl] propionic acid (MK-571), suggesting the involvement of multidrug-associated protein (MRP)2 in efflux of ECG. This was confirmed using Madin-Darby canine kidney cells transfected with MRP2. Also P-glycoprotein was responsible for some ECG efflux. MK-571 also caused a dramatic increase in ECG accumulation in Chinese hamster ovary cells, suggesting that ECG was also a substrate for MRP1. Together, these observations demonstrate important roles of membrane transporters, i.e., MCT, MRP2, P-glycoprotein, and MRP1, in the cellular accumulation and potential effects of ECG.
Walking control in water considering reaction forces from water for humanoid robots with a waterproof suit

In this paper, we develop a waterproof suit for humanoid robots and propose an underwater walking control method. Although very few life-sized humanoid robots are completely waterproof, we can easily make these humanoid robots watertight by putting a waterproof suit on them. In water, humanoid robots are influenced by the two forces due to the water: buoyancy and drag force. We take buoyancy into account when generating a walking pattern because the force is large and easy to estimate before walking. However, drag force is small and difficult to precisely predict and therefore, we treat the force as an unknown disturbance. In our method, we modify footsteps based on the Capture Point in order to deal with large disturbances. We verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods through an experiment in which a life-sized humanoid robot walks on a floor, stairs and debris in water.
Modeling Community Behavior through Semantic Analysis of Social Data: The Italian Hate Map Experience

This paper presents the results of The Italian Hate Map, a research project aiming to monitor the level of intolerance of the Italian country by mining the content posted on social networks. Within the project, a pipeline of algorithms for data extraction, semantic processing, sentiment analysis and content classification has been defined to process huge amounts of Tweets and to build a map of the most at-risk areas, thus identifying the Italian communities tending to have a more intolerant behavior. The outcomes resulting from the analysis of the maps confirmed the insight that the adoption of semantic content analysis techniques can be very useful to create value from the rough content available on the Web, and to go one step further in understanding very complex phenomena by modeling offline behavior of the communities on the ground of their online behavior on social networks.