Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CU-NEES-0804 Performance Evaluation of Reinforced Concrete Masonry Infill Walls A Concentration on the Evaluation of Masonry Infill Properties

1 Abstract In the seismic evaluation of reinforced concrete (RC) framed, masonry infill walls-a common cell in many buildings – a thorough understanding of the elemental interactions becomes imperative. These elements include the concrete and reinforcement steel which comprise the frame, as well as the brick and mortar infill which comprise the span of the wall. The nature of the testing which the subject of this report will supplement includes six, cyclic, static tests of 2/3 scale RC infill walls being performed at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This project is to be carried out in conjunction with 1/5 scale static testing at Stanford University, as well as 2/3 scale dynamic testing at the University of California San Diego. Together these tests comprise one NEESR small group project. The subject of this discussion is to include cylindrical mortar specimens, as well as three stack brick-mortar prisms, all to be tested in compression. While it is known that the mortar has high ductility and relatively low yield strength compared to the brick, these properties must be more quantitatively defined in order to add usefulness in understanding the behavior of the overall RC framed infill wall. Furthermore, the interactions between these two elements in the form of a brick-mortar prism are imperative to a fill understanding of the wall itself. These interactions, and more importantly, the interface between the brick and mortar will be closely evaluated As a secondary objective during these proceedings, validation will be carried out to determine the accuracy of testing methods at the University of Colorado. This discussion allows an ideal venue for determining the usefulness of a relatively untested method of strain calculation at the university, the Vic-2D image correlation system. 2 Introduction 2.1 Mortar Mortar is used in masonry practice as a means of joining the main blocks, in the case of this study clay brick has been used. Mortar is comprised of a mixture of cement, water, aggregate, and sometimes lime. The mortar in the following tests uses Portland Type I-II cement and contains an aggregate composed of all purpose sand. Lime has been used in all mixtures and a standard construction practice of using a 1:1:5 volumetric ratios of cement lime and sand, with water added until desired workability is achieved has been assumed. The goal this study is to determine the materials properties for mortar mixtures, of volumetric ratios, varying off of this …
Multiple Kernel Learning for Brain-Computer Interfacing

Combining information from different sources is a common way to improve classification accuracy in Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI). For instance, in small sample settings it is useful to integrate data from other subjects or sessions in order to improve the estimation quality of the spatial filters or the classifier. Since data from different subjects may show large variability, it is crucial to weight the contributions according to importance. Many multi-subject learning algorithms determine the optimal weighting in a separate step by using heuristics, however, without ensuring that the selected weights are optimal with respect to classification. In this work we apply Multiple Kernel Learning (MKL) to this problem. MKL has been widely used for feature fusion in computer vision and allows to simultaneously learn the classifier and the optimal weighting. We compare the MKL method to two baseline approaches and investigate the reasons for performance improvement.
Large positive and negative lateral optical beam displacements due to surface plasmon resonance

We report abnormally large positive and negative lateral optical beam shifts at a metal–air interface when the surface plasmon resonance of the metal is excited. The optimal thickness for minimal resonant reflection is identified as the critical thickness above which a negative beam displacement is observed. Experimental results show good agreement with theoretical predictions and the large observed bidirectional beam displacements also indicate the existence of forward and backward surface propagating waves at the surface plasmon resonance of the metal.
The Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) Regulatory Factor SLUG (SNAI2) Is a Downstream Target of SPARC and AKT in Promoting Melanoma Cell Invasion

During progression of melanoma, malignant melanocytes can be reprogrammed into mesenchymal-like cells through a process similar to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is associated with downregulation of the junctional protein E-cadherin and acquisition of a migratory phenotype. Recent evidence supports a role for SLUG, a transcriptional repressor of E-cadherin, as a melanocyte lineage transcription factor that predisposes to melanoma metastasis. However, the signals responsible for SLUG expression in melanoma are unclear and its role in the invasive phenotype is not fully elucidated. Here, we report that SLUG expression and activation is driven by SPARC (also known as osteonectin), a secreted extracellular matrix-associated factor that promotes EMT-like changes. Ectopic expression or knockdown of SPARC resulted in increased or reduced expression of SLUG, respectively. SLUG increase occurred concomitantly with SPARC-mediated downregulation of E-cadherin and P-cadherin, and induction of mesenchymal traits in human melanocytes and melanoma cells. Pharmacological blockade of PI3 kinase/AKT signaling impeded SPARC-induced SLUG levels and cell migration, whereas adenoviral introduction of constitutively active AKT allowed rescue of SLUG and migratory capabilities of SPARC knockdown cells. We also observed that pharmacological inhibition of oncogenic BRAFV600E using PLX4720 did not influence SLUG expression in melanoma cells harboring BRAFV600E. Furthermore, SLUG is a bona fide transcriptional repressor of E-cadherin as well as a regulator of P-cadherin in melanoma cells and its knockdown attenuated invasive behavior and blocked SPARC-enhanced cell migration. Notably, inhibition of cell migration in SPARC-depleted cells was rescued by expression of a SLUG transgene. In freshly isolated metastatic melanoma cells, a positive association between SPARC and SLUG mRNA levels was also found. These findings reveal that autocrine SPARC maintains heightened SLUG expression in melanoma cells and indicate that SPARC may promote EMT-associated tumor invasion by supporting AKT-dependent upregulation of SLUG.
A Service-Oriented Approach to Facilitate Real-Time WSAN Application Development

Due to the complex nature of developing Wireless Sensor and Actor Network (WSAN) applications it is obvious that new frameworks, tools, middleware and higher level abstractions are needed to make the task of the developers easier. Depending on the WSAN system we want to develop, different characteristics must be taken into account but, perhaps, some of the most important are the capacity to add real time constraints, the QoS and, of course energy saving. Our proposal USEME is a service-oriented and component-based framework which allows the easy combination of macroprogramming and node-centric programming to develop real-time and efficient applications over WSANs. USEME allows the specification of real time constraints between services, permits the use of groups to structure the network and is platform independent.
Voltage Transfer Characteristic Analysis of Matrix Converter

An over modulation strategy for matrix converter (MC) is put forward on the basis of conventional AC/DC/AC MC control theory. At first, fictitious AC/DC rectifier is over modulated to get the greatest dummy DC voltage, then fictitious DC/AC inverter is modulated from linear region to six-step modes seamlessly, which effectively improve the voltage utilization. Voltage transfer ratio under different conditions is emphatically analyzed with Fourier transform. Finally, different modulation method is simulated with MATLAB. Both math analyses and simulation results verify that the over modulation strategy is very useful to improve voltage utilization, which provide a theoretical basis for further research.
ILP-BASED OPTIMAL CHECKPOINT PLACEMENT IN MULTICORE PROCESSORS

Nowadays multicore processors are increasingly being deployed in high performance computing systems. As the complexity of systems increases, the probability of failure increases substantially. Therefore, the system requires techniques for supporting fault tolerance. Checkpointing is one of the prevalent fault tolerant techniques reducing the execution time of long-running programs in presence of failures. Optimizing the number of checkpoints in a parallel application running on a multicore processor is a complicated and challenging task. Infrequent checkpointing results in long reprocessing time, while too short checkpointing intervals lead to high checkpointing overhead. Since this is a multi-objective optimization problem, trapping in local optimums is very plausible. This paper presents a novel 0-1 integer linear programming (ILP) formulation for solving optimal checkpoint placement problem for parallel applications running on a multicore machine. Our experimental results demonstrate that our solution leads to a better execution time saving over existing methods.
Contrast and Perceptual Distinctiveness

Most ‘phonetically-driven’ or functionalist theories of phonology propose that two of the fundamental forces shaping phonology are the need to minimize effort on the part of the speaker and the need to minimize the likelihood of confusion on the part of the listener. The goal of this paper is to explore the perceptual side of this story, investigating the general character of the constraints imposed on phonology by the need to minimize confusion. The need to avoid confusion is hypothesized to derive from the communicative function of language. Successful communication depends on listeners being able to recover what a speaker is saying. Therefore it is important to avoid perceptually confusable realizations of distinct categories; in particular distinct words should not be perceptually confusable. The phonology of a language regulates the differences that can minimally distinguish words, so one of the desiderata for a phonology is that it should not allow these minimal differences, or contrasts, to be too subtle perceptually. In Optimality Theoretic terms, this means that there are constraints favoring less confusable contrasts over more confusable contrasts. There is nothing new about the broad outlines of this theory (cf. Lindblom 1986, 1990, Martinet 1955, Zipf 1949, among others), but it has important implications for the nature of phonology. First, it gives a central role to the auditory-perceptual properties of speech sounds since distinctiveness of contrasts is dependent on perceptual representation of speech sounds. This runs counter to the articulatory bias in phonological feature theory observed in Chomsky and Halle (1968) and its successors. Substantial evidence for the importance of perceptual considerations in phonology has already been accumulated (e.g. Boersma 1998, Flemming 1995, Jun this volume, Steriade 1995, 1997, Wright this volume; see also Hume and Johnson (2001) pp.1-2 and references cited there). This paper provides further evidence for this position, but the focus is on a second implication of the theory: the existence of constraints on contrasts. Constraints favoring distinct contrasts are constraints on the differences between forms rather than on the individual forms themselves. We will see that paradigmatic constraints of this kind have considerable implications for the architecture of phonology. The next section discusses why we should expect perceptual markedness to be a property of contrasts rather than individual sounds and previews evidence that this is in fact the case. Then constraints on contrast will be formalized within the context of a theory of phonological contrast. The remainder of the paper provides evidence for the key prediction of the theory: the markedness of a sound depends on the sounds that it contrasts with.
Sensor Localization and Obstacle Boundary Detection Algorithm in WSN

Existence of obstacles in sensor deployment region distorts the communication among sensor nodes and also disrupts sensor localization process. This paper represents a novel approach for localizing obstacles and sensors nodes using four GPS enabled anchor nodes. Based on four high energy anchor nodes, sensor localization is done, and an approximate rectangular boundary of each obstacle is detected. Next, accurate measure of the obstacle circumference is performed based on the communication between the neighbor sensor nodes of every obstacle in a time efficient manner, chosen by an elegant heuristic. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and correctness of our proposed scheme, and improvement of our results in many cases.
The MOORA method and its application to privatization in a transition economy

Abstract: A new method is proposed for multi-objective optimization with discrete alternatives: MOORA (Multi-Objective Optimization on the basis of Ratio Analysis). This method refers to a matrix of responses of alternatives to objectives, to which ratios are applied. A well established other method for multi-objective optimization is used for comparison, namely the reference point method. Later on, it is demonstrated that this is the best choice among the different competing methods. In MOORA the set of ratios has the square roots of the sum of squared responses as denominators. These ratios, as dimensionless, seem to be the best choice among different ratios. These dimensionless ratios, situated between zero and one, are added in the case of maximization or subtracted in case of minimization. Finally, all alternatives are ranked, according to the obtained ratios. Eventually, to give more importance to an objective, an objective can be replaced by different sub-objectives or a coefficient of importance can be specified. An example on privatization in a transition economy illustrates the application of the method. If application is situated originally in a “welfare” economy, centered on production, MOORA becomes even more significant in a “wellbeing economy”, where consumer sovereignty is assumed.
Putting the Human back in Voting

Cryptographic voting schemes strive to provide high assurance of accuracy and secrecy with minimal trust assumptions, in particular, avoiding the need to trust software, hardware, suppliers, officials etc. Ideally we would like to make a voting process as transparent as possible and so base out assurance purely on the vigilance of the electorate at large, via suitable cryptographic algorithms and protocols. However, it is important to recognize that election systems are above all socio-technical systems: they must be usable by the electorate at large. As a result, it may be necessary to trade-off technical perfection against simplicity and usability. We illustrate this tension via design decisions in the Pr\^{e}t \`{a} Voter scheme. © 2006 University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Printed and published by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Computing Science, Claremont Tower, Claremont Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, England. Bibliographical details RYAN, P. Y. A. , PEACOCK, T. Putting the Human back in Voting [By] P. Y. A. Ryan and T. Peacock Newcastle upon Tyne: University of Newcastle upon Tyne: Computing Science, 2006. (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Computing Science, Technical Report Series, No. CS-TR-972)
The Relationship Between Slices And Module Cohesion

High module cohesion is often suggested as a desirable property of program modularity. The subjective nature of the definition of cohesion, however, can make it difficult to use in practice. In this paper, we examine the relationship between the data flow in a module and its level of cohesion using aprocessing element flow graph (PFG). Based on these PFG's, we regroup the original seven levels of cohesion into four classifications, Slice profiles are then defined by generating slices for all output variables of a module. A relationship is then shown between these slice profiles and the, PFG used to indicate levels of cohesion. It is suggested that these slice profiles can be used to determine more easily the cohesiveness of a module.
A cue line based method for building modeling from LiDAR and satellite imagery

Building modeling in an urban environment is a challenging task yet has many applications such as urban planning, simulation of disaster scenarios, cartography, wireless network planning, line-of-sight analysis, virtual tours, and many others. This paper presents a cue line based method for residential building modeling in urban areas using airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data and satellite imagery. The main contribution is the automatic isolation of building roofs and roof reconstruction based on the fusion of LiDAR data and satellite imagery. By using cue lines which are generated from satellite imagery to separate buildings from other objects (including other buildings), we are able to automatically identify individual buildings from residential clutter and re-create a virtual representation with improved accuracy and reasonable computation time. We applied the method to urban sites in the city of New Orleans and demonstrated that it identified building measurements successfully and rendered 3D models effectively. Our experiments show that our method can successfully reconstruct small buildings with relatively sparse LiDAR sampling and in the presence of noise.
Levosimendan: current data, clinical use and future development

Levosimendan is an inodilator indicated for the short-term treatment of acutely decompensated severe chronic heart failure, and in situations where conventional therapy is not considered adequate. The principal pharmacological effects of levosimendan are (a) increased cardiac contractility by calcium sensitisation of troponin C, (b) vasodilation, and (c) cardioprotection. These last two effects are related to the opening of sarcolemmal and mitochondrial potassium-ATP channels, respectively. Data from clinical trials indicate that levosimendan improves haemodynamics with no attendant significant increase in cardiac oxygen consumption and relieves symptoms of acute heart failure; these effects are not impaired or attenuated by the concomitant use of beta-blockers. Levosimendan also has favourable effects on neurohormone levels in heart failure patients. Levosimendan is generally well tolerated in acute heart failure patients: the most common adverse events encountered in this setting are hypotension, headache, atrial fibrillation, hypokalaemia and tachycardia. Levosimendan has also been studied in other therapeutic applications, particularly cardiac surgery - in which it has shown a range of beneficial haemodynamic and cardioprotective effects, and a favourable influence on clinical outcomes - and has been evaluated in repetitive dosing protocols in patients with advanced chronic heart failure. Levosimendan has shown preliminary positive effects in a range of conditions requiring inotropic support, including right ventricular failure, cardiogenic shock, septic shock, and Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.
The effect of interviewer persuasion strategies on refusal rates in household surveys

Our analysis focuses on the extent to which there is scope for reducing rates of refusal on large-scale household surveys below current standard levels. Our data consisted of over 300 tape-recorded doorstep interactions, drawn from substantive surveys at two different organisations. Tape-recorded interactions were classified in terms of the degree of reluctance expressed by the respondent und the consequent scope for the interviewer to deploy interpersonal skills und persuasion. Interactions where there was both reluctance und scope for persuasion were classified according to whether they resulted in cooperation or refusal und the interviewer tactics associated with the iwo iypes of outcome were compared. Conclusions are drawn about the prevalence of different rypes of interaction und the scope for reducing refusal rates through training interviewers to use techniques likely to minimise refusals on the doorstep.
THE REPRESENTATION OF RESPIRATORY MOVEMENTS IN THE CEREBRAL CORTEX

MOST previous studies on the control of respiration by the central nervous system have centered mainly around the myelencephalic “respiratory center. ” In contrast to the exact knowledge which we possess concerning the manner in which breathing is regulated by the “respiratory center,” little is known concerning the rijle of the higher parts of the brain in the phenomenon of respiration. The fact that man can voluntarily alter the rate and duration of either one or both of the respiratory phases, that he can change the respiratory rhythm and can even voluntarily arrest respiration for a certain length of time indicates that the cerebral cortex exerts an influence on respiratory movements. In addition, it is an observable fact that mammals in general, in the waking state, modify their respirations in various ways and it seems possible that these modifications are influenced by impulses from the cerebral cortex. If one assumes that the cortex is not equipotential in ita ability to alter breathing, then certain areas ought to be found that are able to produce reasonably constant alterations of the respiratory movements when electrically stimulated under uniform experimental conditions, but the reports of previous investigators have been so at variance with one another that one is unable to determine from them precisely what areas of the cortex are concerned.
Randomized Algorithms 2014 / 5 A Lecture 2 – Maximal Independent Set , Analysis of Randomized Quicksort , Universal Hashing and Dictionaries , Concentration bounds-Chernoff ∗

We considered a distributed model of computing where nodes in a graph contain processors and they can talk to their immediate neighbors. The goal now is to collectively compute something. In particular for the maximal independent set problem the goal is to a pick a set of nodes S such that S is a maximal independent set of the underlying graph and each node determines whether or not it is in S. In this model we may need randomness simply to break symmetry (think of a cycle), but even if processors have unique id’s (so the greedy algorithm can be executed) no local deterministic algorithm is known (one that take polylog in n time, regardless of the graph). The algorithm we say in a variant of a 1986 algorithm by Mike Luby [5], see lecture notes by Wattenhaffer [6]. The expected number of edges removed in each phase is at least 1/3 and the expected number of rounds until all nodes know wether there are in the MIS or not is O(log n).