Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Query Fresh: Log Shipping on Steroids

Hot standby systems often have to trade safety (i.e., not losing committed work) and freshness (i.e., having access to recent updates) for performance. Guaranteeing safety requires synchronous log shipping that blocks the primary until the log records are durably replicated in one or multiple backups; maintaining freshness necessitates fast log replay on backups, but is often defeated by the dual-copy architecture and serial replay: a backup must generate the "real" data from the log to make recent updates accessible to read-only queries. This paper proposes Query Fresh, a hot standby system that provides both safety and freshness while maintaining high performance on the primary. The crux is an append-only storage architecture used in conjunction with fast networks (e.g., InfiniBand) and byte-addressable, non-volatile memory (NVRAM). Query Fresh avoids the dual-copy design and treats the log as the database, enabling lightweight, parallel log replay that does not block the primary. Experimental results using the TPC-C benchmark show that under Query Fresh, backup servers can replay log records faster than they are generated by the primary server, using one quarter of the available compute resources. With a 56Gbps network, Query Fresh can support up to 4--5 synchronous replicas, each of which receives and replays ∼1.4GB of log records per second, with up to 4--6% overhead on the primary compared to a standalone server that achieves 620kTPS without replication.
Linearization and Field Detectivity in Magnetic Tunnel Junction Sensors Connected in Series Incorporating 16 nm-Thick NiFe Free Layers

In this work, arrays of MgO-based magnetic tunnel junction elements (5×20 μm2) connected in series are studied for sensor applications. Linearization is obtained by combining shape anisotropy with a longitudinal hard bias field set by CoCrPt permanent magnets integrated on the sides of the array. We show that this architecture has the drawback of a large footprint in the chip, but is largely compensated by the weak bias voltage dependence and huge electric robustness, when comparing with individual magnetic tunnel junctions.
HIV Incidence and Spatial Clustering in a Rural Area of Southern Mozambique

Background Monitoring the HIV epidemic in a defined population is critical for planning treatment and preventive strategies. This is especially important in sub-Saharan Africa, which harbours the highest burden of the disease. Objective To estimate HIV incidence in adults aged 18-47 years old and to investigate spatial variations of HIV prevalence in Manhiça, a semi-rural area of southern Mozambique. Methods Two cross-sectional community-based surveys were conducted in 2010 and 2012 to determine HIV prevalence. Individual participants were randomly selected from the demographic surveillance system in place in the area and voluntary HIV counselling and testing was offered at the household level. HIV incidence was calculated using prevalence estimates from the two sero-surveys. Each participant’s household was geocoded using a global information system. The Spatial Scan Statistics programme was used to identify areas with disproportionate excess in HIV prevalence. Results A total of 1511 adults were tested. The estimated HIV prevalence in the community was 39.9% in 2010 and 39.7% in 2012. The overall HIV incidence was 3.6 new infections per 100 person-years at risk (PYAR) [95CI 1.56; 7.88], assuming stable epidemic conditions, and tended to be higher in women (4.9/100 PYAR [95CI 1.74; 11.85]) than in men (3.2/PYAR [95CI 1.36; 9.92]). One cluster with significant excess HIV prevalence was identified at the same geographic location in both surveys. This cluster had an HIV prevalence of 79.0% in 2010 and 52.3% in 2012. Conclusions The findings of these first individually-randomised community-HIV sero-surveys conducted in Mozambique reinforce the need to combine HIV incidence estimates and research on micro geographical infection patterns to guide and consolidate effective prevention strategies.
The Influence of Depth Segmentation on Colour Constancy

In real scenes, surfaces in different depth planes often differ in the luminance and chromatic content of their illumination. Scene segmentation is therefore an important issue when considering the compensation of illumination changes in our visual perception (lightness and colour constancy). Chromatic adaptation is an important sensory component of colour constancy and has been shown to be linked to the two-dimensional spatial structure of a scene (Werner, 2003 Vision Research 43 1611 – 1623). Here, the question is posed whether this cooperation also extends to the organisation of a scene in depth. The influence of depth on colour constancy was tested by introducing stereo disparity, whereby the test patch and background were perceived in either the same or one of five different depth planes (1.9 – 57 min of arc). There were no additional cues to depth such as shadows or specular highlights. For consistent illumination changes, colour constancy was reduced when the test patch and background were separated in depth, indicating a reduction of contextual influences. An interaction was found between the influences of stereo depth and spatial frequency on colour constancy. In the case of an inconsistent illumination change, colour constancy was reduced if the test patch and background were in the same depth plane (2-D condition), but not if they were separated in depth (3-D condition). Furthermore, colour constancy was slightly better in the 3-D inconsistent condition than in the 2-D inconsistent condition. It is concluded that depth segmentation supports colour constancy in scenes with inconsistent illumination changes. Processes of depth segmentation are implemented at an early sensory stage of colour constancy, and they define visual regions within which the effects of illuminant changes are discounted for separately. The results support recent models that posit such implementation of scene segmentation in colour constancy.
Power and Memory Bandwidth Reduction of an H.264/AVC HDTV Decoder LSI with Elastic Pipeline Architecture

We propose an elastic pipeline that can apply dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) to hardwired logic circuits. The proposed pipeline can also reduce a required local bus bandwidth. In order to demonstrate its feasibility, a hardwired H.264/AVC HDTV decoder is designed as a real-time application. The proposed architecture reduces a power to 56% in a 90-nm process technology, compared to the conventional clock-gating scheme or a local bus bandwidth to 37.2%.
The Geographical Distribution of Teacher Absenteeism in Large Urban School District Settings: Implications for School Reform Efforts Aimed at Promoting Equity and Excellence in Education.

School reform efforts aimed at promoting equity and excellence at urban school settings are heavily dependent upon the quality of teaching personnel that are used to deliver the instructional program. Social Justice and other public policy issues related to equity and excellence at urban schools have begun to examine the impact that teacher absenteeism, and by extension the reliance on substitute teachers to deliver instructional might have on educational attainment. This study
On Relations Defined by Generalized Finite Automata

A transduction, in the sense of this paper, is a n-ary word relation (which may be a function) describable by a finite directed labeled graph. The notion of n-ary transduction is co-extensive with the Kleenean closure of finite n-ary relations. The 1-ary transductions are exactly the sets recognizable by finite automata. However, for n > 1 the relations recognizable by automata constitute a proper subclass of the n-ary transductions. The 2-ary length-preserving transductions constitute the equilibrium (potential) behavior of 1-dimensional, bilateral iterative networks. The immediate consequencer elation of various primitive deductive (respectively computational) systems, such as Post normal systems (respectively Turing machines) are examples of transductions. Other riches deductive systems have immediate consequence relations which are not transductions. The closure properties of the class of transductions are studied. The decomposition of transductions into simpler ones is also studied.
Regulation of viral oncogenesis by microRNAs

Viral infection may play a causative role in human cancers, for example hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) in liver cancer, human papilloma virus (HPV) in cervical cancer, and Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Virally infected cells express viral-encoded genes that are critical for oncogenesis. Some viruses also encode microRNA (miRNA) species. miRNAs are small noncoding RNA molecules that play an important role in cancer development and progression. Recent studies indicate an important interplay among viral oncoproteins, virus-encoded miRNAs, cellular miRNAs, and cellular genes. This review focuses on modulation of HBV-, HCV-, HPV-, and EBV-associated cancers by cellular and/or viral miRNA. An understanding of the mechanisms underlying the regulation of viral carcinogenesis by miRNAs may provide new targets for the development of specific viral therapies.
Using Gaussian Processes for Variance Reduction in Policy Gradient Algorithms

Gradient based policy optimization algorithms suffer from high gradient variance, this is usually the result of using Monte Carlo estimates of the Qvalue function in the gradient calculation. By replacing this estimate with a function approximator on state-action space, the gradien t variance can be reduced significantly. In this paper we present a method for the training of a Gaussian Process to approximate the action-value functio n which can be used to replace the Monte Carlo estimation in the policy gradient evaluation. An iterative formulation of the algorithm will be given for better suitability with online learning.
Design and performance of a six-electrode conductance probe for measuring the water fraction in oil-in-water pipe flow

The performance of ring-shape electrodes for measuring the conductance of oil-in-water mixtures in pipes was studied theoretically and experimentally. In particular the work is aimed at optimizing the probe geometry in order to decrease the axial current leakage and improve the measuring precision of water fraction under oil-well logging application. Starting from the basic four-electrode probe including two exciting and two measuring rings, a new six-electrode probe characterized by adding two guarding rings to be found, the distance and width of guarding electrodes were optimized theoretically. The experiment was performed with reference to annular, stratified and bubble phase distributions and the results were compared with available theoretical models. The analysis demonstrates the response of new six-electrode probe is accurate and reliability, the measuring precision is enhanced.
GSTP1 Ile105Val Polymorphism and Prostate Cancer Risk: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

Background Glutathione S-transferase P1 (GSTP1) is thought to be involved in the detoxification of reactive carcinogen metabolites. Numerous epidemiological studies have evaluated the association of GSTP1 Ile105Val polymorphism with the risk of prostate cancer. However, the results remain inconclusive. To derive a more precise estimation, a meta-analysis was performed. Methodology/Principal Findings A comprehensive search was conducted to identify the eligible studies. We used odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to assess the strength of the relationship. The overall association was not significant (Val/Val vs. Ile/Ile OR = 1.06, 95% CI = 0.90–1.25, P = 0.50; Val/Val vs. Val/Ile+Ile/Ile: OR = 1.07, 95% CI = 0.91–1.25, P = 0.44). In subgroup analyses by ethnicity and prostate cancer grade, the similar results were observed. However, in stratified analysis by clinical stage, we found a significant association with low-stage prostate cancer (Val/Val vs. Ile/Ile: OR = 2.70, 95% CI = 1.73–4.22, P<0.001; Val/Val vs. Val/Ile+Ile/Ile: OR = 2.14, 95% CI = 1.38–3.33, P = 0.001). Moreover, there was no statistically significant evidence of multiplicative interactions neither between the GSTP1 Ile105Val polymorphism and GSTM1, nor between smoking status and GSTP1 on prostate cancer risk. Conclusions This meta-analysis showed that GSTP1 Ile105Val polymorphism might not be significantly associated with overall prostate cancer risk. Further stratified analyses showed a significant association with low-stage prostate cancer.
Robust embedding and detection for multimedia fingerprinting

For the fingerprinting system, both collusion attacks and geometrical distortions are very harmful to its performance on tracing traitors. In this paper, we propose a novel multimedia fingerprinting scheme for images and videos with high robustness to geometrical distortions as well as collusion attacks. First of all, the full inverse DCT (IDCT) transform is applied on the fingerprint, and then the result is embedded into the space domain of the multimedia. This process is equivalent to embedding the fingerprint in the full DCT domain directly. Furthermore, the computing cost decreases significantly. In the detection, we propose the image correction method based on the scale invariant features transform (SIFT) feature for recovering suspicious multimedia suffering from geometrical distortions. With the proposed fingerprint embedding and robust detection, the experimental results show that the system not only resists a variety of geometrical distortions, but also can resist collusion attacks.
Linear upper bounds for random walk on small density random 3-CNFs

We analyze the efficiency of the random walk algorithm on random 3-CNF instances, and prove linear upper bounds on the running time of this algorithm for small clause density, less than 1.63. Our upper bound matches the observed running time to within a multiplicative factor. This is the first sub-exponential upper bound on the running time of a local improvement algorithm on random instances. Our proof introduces a simple, yet powerful tool for analyzing such algorithms, which may be of further use. This object, called a terminator, is a weighted satisfying assignment. We show that any CNF having a good (small weight) terminator is assured to be solved quickly by the random walk algorithm. This raises the natural question of the terminator threshold which is the maximal clause density for which such assignments exist (with high probability). We use the analysis of the pure literal heuristic presented by Broder, Frieze and Upfal and show that for small clause densities good terminators exist. Thus we show that the pure literal threshold (/spl ap/ 1.63) is a lower bound on the terminator threshold. One nice property of terminators is that they can be found efficiently, via linear programming. This makes tractable the future investigation of the terminator threshold, and also provides an efficiently computable certificate for short running time of the simple random-walk heuristic.
Web Log Data analysis using User session and Identification Algorithms

Today explosive growth of information sources available on the World Wide Web and the rapidly increasing pace of adoption to Internet ECommerce. Web usage mining is usually an automated process whereby Web servers collect and report user access patterns in server access logsThrough the world wide web development, the web utility mining, which can be viewed as a mixed term of web mining & utility mining, becomes much more meaningful with the introduction of the emerging concepts of twophase algorithm & on-shelf utility, already proved to be very effective under their respective fields of data mining. In tangible applications, however, utility mining could have a bias if items are not guaranteed to be on-shelf. On-shelf utility mining is proposed, which considers simply not only individual profit and amount every item within the transaction but in addition common on-shelf time periods of causing product combination. In the rapid increase of the www, the www log data have grown to be significant data source for machine learning and data mining. During preprocessing phase, raw Web logs ought to be cleaned, analyzed and converted before further utility mining. In this paper to improve the efficiency of on shelf utility mining we apply the 2-phase algorithm on preprocessed web
From the SelectedWorks of Ruth Striegel Weissman 2003 Child and adolescent predictors for eating disorders in a community population of young adult women

Objective: This study investigated early predictors for developing eating disorders by young adulthood in a community sample of women participating in a 22-year longitudinal study. Method: Twenty-one women were identified at age 27 with lifetime full or partial eating disorders. These women were compared with 47 women with no history of eating disorders on predictive factors from three broad domains. Results: The women with eating disorders had more serious health problems before age 5 and mother-reported anxiety-depression at age 9. At 15, mothers described them as having more behavior problems. Before age 15, families of the eating disorder group had more histories of depression, eating problems and changes in family financial circumstances. Discussion: This study identifies early predictors distinguishing girls who develop eating disorders. Findings point to the need for continued research in the area of early health to comprehensively examine the biologic, behavioral, and environmental risks for eating disorders. 2002 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 33: 1 9, 2003.
Predicting Popularity of Online Videos Using Support Vector Regression

In this work, we propose a regression method to predict the popularity of an online video measured by its number of views. Our method uses Support Vector Regression with Gaussian radial basis functions. We show that predicting popularity patterns with this approach provides more precise and more stable prediction results, mainly thanks to the nonlinear character of the proposed method as well as its robustness. We prove the superiority of our method against the state of the art using datasets containing almost 24 000 videos from YouTube and Facebook. We also show that using visual features, such as the outputs of deep neural networks or scene dynamics’ metrics, can be useful for popularity prediction before content publication. Furthermore, we show that popularity prediction accuracy can be improved by combining early distribution patterns with social and visual features and that social features represent a much stronger signal in terms of video popularity prediction than the visual ones.
Choreographing obsolescence - ecodesign: the pleasure/dissatisfaction cycle

The paper is an exploration of the concepts of pleasure and dissatisfaction over time, with regard to the design of products. The case is made for a greater understanding of their interrelationships on the part of designers and producers and for analysts and theorists to develop more informed and affective research models and design methods. Shortcomings in the way that products are time-proofed are identified and it is proposed that 'pleasure-over-time' should be extended to parallel and assist in extending the life of products, which should result in more affective design. The primary purpose being to reduce the environmentally destructive effect brought about by the short pleasure/dissatisfaction cycles associated with contemporary, unsustainable patterns of consumption.
First International Workshop on Quantitative Stochastic Models in the Verification and Design of Software Systems (QUOVADIS 2010)

Nowadays requirements related to quality attributes such as performance, reliability, safety and security are often considered the most important requirements for software development projects. To reason about these quality attributes different stochastic models can be used. These models enable probabilistic verification as well as quantitative prediction at design time. On the other hand, these models could be also used to perform runtime adaptation in order to achieve certain quality goals. This workshop aims to provide a forum for researchers in these areas that should help with the adoption of quantitative stochastic models into general software development processes.
Age and the thyrotropin response to hypothyroxinemia.

CONTEXT Some studies suggest altered pituitary functioning and TSH production with aging. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to test the hypothesis that less TSH production occurs despite comparable hypothyroxinemia with advancing age. DESIGN We retrospectively studied adult outpatients of all ages with confirmed hypothyroidism and documented their TSH and free T4 concentrations. PARTICIPANTS Two populations of 112 patients were subdivided into four age groups: 1) patients newly diagnosed with primary hypothyroidism and 2) thyroid cancer patients undergoing l-T4 withdrawal in preparation for diagnostic or therapeutic radioiodine. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE The relationship between paired free T-4 and TSH concentrations and patient age was studied. RESULTS With spontaneous hypothyroidism, the mean TSH concentration decreased nonsignificantly in each ascending age group with comparable free T4 (FT4) concentrations (<35 yr, 69 mIU/liter; 35-49 yr, 49 mIU/liter; 50-64 yr, 43 mIU/liter; >64 yr, 29 mIU/liter). With iatrogenic hypothyroidism, the mean TSH concentration decreased significantly in each ascending age group (<35 yr, 156 mIU/liter; 35-49 yr, 115 mIU/liter; 50-64 yr, 74 mIU/liter; >64 yr, 46 mIU/liter; P<0.001) despite similar FT4 concentrations. The relationship between the log-transformed TSH and FT4 was significantly and inversely affected by age in multivariate analyses in both spontaneous hypothyroidism (P=0.0005) and in iatrogenic hypothyroidism (P<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Age modifies the pituitary set point or response to comparably reduced free T4 concentrations, resulting in lesser serum TSH elevation in older individuals. This phenomenon occurs with both spontaneous and iatrogenic hypothyroidism. This may be an adaptive response in normal aging or a pathological alteration of pituitary function with age.
University of Colorado Dialogue Systems for Travel and Navigation

This paper presents recent improvements in the development of the University of Colorado "CU Communicator" and "CU-Move" spoken dialog systems. First, we describe the CU Communicator system that integrates speech recognition, synthesis and natural language understanding technologies using the DARPA Hub Architecture. Users are able to converse with an automated travel agent over the phone to retrieve up-to-date travel information such as flight schedules, pricing, along with hotel and rental car availability. The CU Communicator has been under development since April of 1999 and represents our test-bed system for developing robust human-computer interactions where reusability and dialogue system portability serve as two main goals of our work. Next, we describe our more recent work on the CU Move dialog system for in-vehicle route planning and guidance. This work is in joint collaboration with HRL and is sponsored as part of the DARPA Communicator program. Specifically, we will provide an overview of the task, describe the data collection environment for in-vehicle systems development, and describe our initial dialog system constructed for route planning.