Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DESIGN AND ROBUSTNESS ANALYSIS ON NON-VOLATILE STORAGE AND LOGIC CIRCUIT

By combining the flexibility of MOS logic and the non-volatility of spintronic devices, spin-MOS logic and storage circuitry offer a promising approach to implement highly integrated, power-efficient, and nonvolatile computing and storage systems. Besides the persistent errors due to process variations, however, the functional correctness of Spin-MOS circuitry suffers from additional non-persistent errors that are incurred by the randomness of spintronic device operations, i.e., thermal fluctuations. This work quantitatively investigates the impact of thermal fluctuations on the operations of two typical Spin-MOS circuitry: one transistor and one magnetic tunnel junction (1T1J) spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM) cell and a nonvolatile latch design. A new nonvolatile latch design is proposed based on magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) devices. In the standby mode, the latched data can be retained in the MTJs without consuming any power. Two types of operation errors can occur, namely, persistent and non-persistent errors. These are quantitatively analyzed by including models for process variations and thermal fluctuations during the read and write operations. A mixture importance sampling methodology is applied to enable yield-driven design and extend its application beyond memories to peripheral circuits and logic blocks. Several possible design techniques to reduce thermal induced non-persistent error rate are also discussed.
Relación entre audición y cognición durante el envejecimiento: la escucha dicótica como instrumento de evaluación

The aim of this research was to examine the relationship between hearing and cognition in ageing by assessing the incorporation of the dichotic listening technique into the usual clinical protocol for the elderly. 80 subjects (40 men and 40 women) were selected, with ages ranging from 65 to 85 years, and organized in 4 groups depending on the presence or absence of Hearing Loss –HL- and Mild Cognitive Impairment –MCI-. After administering a dichotic listening test based on verbal stimuli (syllables with C-W structure), a statistically significant Right Ear Advantage –REA- was found in all groups. However, there were no significant differences among the different groups despite results showing a lower lateralization index in the group of individuals with HL and MCI. In addition, dichotic listening tests shows as a simple and very suggestive technique for exploration of the state of the auditory pathway and also for possible cognitive impairment. But we must be very cautious when we provide information on its usefulness as a diagnostic tool.
Neuro-Anatomical Evidence Indicating Indirect Modulation of Macrophages by Vagal Efferents in the Intestine but Not in the Spleen

Background Electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve suppresses intestinal inflammation and normalizes gut motility in a mouse model of postoperative ileus. The exact anatomical interaction between the vagus nerve and the intestinal immune system remains however a matter of debate. In the present study, we provide additional evidence on the direct and indirect vagal innervation of the spleen and analyzed the anatomical evidence for neuroimmune modulation of macrophages by vagal preganglionic and enteric postganglionic nerve fibers within the intestine. Methods Dextran conjugates were used to label vagal preganglionic (motor) fibers projecting to the small intestine and spleen. Moreover, identification of the neurochemical phenotype of the vagal efferent fibers and enteric neurons was performed by immunofluorescent labeling. F4/80 antibody was used to label resident macrophages. Results Our anterograde tracing experiments did not reveal dextran-labeled vagal fibers or terminals in the mesenteric ganglion or spleen. Vagal efferent fibers were confined within the myenteric plexus region of the small intestine and mainly endings around nNOS, VIP and ChAT positive enteric neurons. nNOS, VIP and ChAT positive fibers were found in close proximity of intestinal resident macrophages carrying α7 nicotinic receptors. Of note, VIP receptors were found on resident macrophages located in close proximity of VIP positive nerve fibers. Conclusion In the present study, we show that the vagus nerve does not directly interact with resident macrophages in the gut or spleen. Instead, the vagus nerve preferentially interacts with nNOS, VIP and ChAT enteric neurons located within the gut muscularis with nerve endings in close proximity of the resident macrophages.
Overlapped speech detection for improved speaker diarization in multiparty meetings

State-of-the-art speaker diarization systems for meetings are now at a point where overlapped speech contributes significantly to the errors made by the system. However, little if no work has yet been done on detecting overlapped speech. We present our initial work toward developing an overlap detection system for improved meeting diarization. We investigate various features, with a focus on high-precision performance for use in the detector, and examine performance results on a subset of the AMI Meeting Corpus. For the high-quality signal case of a single mixed-headset channel signal, we demonstrate a relative improvement of about 7.4% DER over the baseline diarization system, while for the more challenging case of the single far-field channel signal relative improvement is 3.6%. We also outline steps towards improvement and moving beyond this initial phase.
Epidemiological Clinical Features and Evolution of Gastroduodenal Ulcer Bleeding in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Spain, during the Last Seven Years

Background. Gastroduodenal ulcer bleeding is a common medical emergency. The aim of this study was to analyze the characteristics of bleeding episodes and to identify changes in the clinical trends over seven years. Methods. Retrospective observational clinical study on a cohort of 272 consecutive adult patients with peptic ulcer bleeding, during the 2006–2012 period. Results. Mean annual admission rate was 12.8 per 100.000 inhabitants. Men were predominant (71%), with a mean age of 66.6 years. Comorbidities were present in 131 cases (48.2%) and 156 patients (57.4%) had received ulcerogenic drugs. Duodenal ulcer was the commonest location (61%). Endoscopic therapy was necessary in 183 cases (67.3%) and rebleeding occurred in 30 patients (11%). Overall mortality rate was 5.5%, with a significant association with the presence of comorbidities (P < 0.01). There were no differences in trends of annual hospitalization, clinical features at presentation, and outcomes during this 7-years period. Conclusions. Annual hospitalization rates and prognosis of peptic ulcer bleeding have remained unchanged in the study period. This may be due to the fact that the effect of improved approach on this condition is probably counteracted by risk factors such as older age, severe comorbidities, and ulcerogenic drugs consumption, which have also remained stable over recent years.
Relative-Order Abstractions for the Pancake Problem

The pancake problem is a famous search problem where the objective is to sort a sequence of objects (pancakes) through a minimal number of prefix reversals (flips). The best approaches for the problem are based on heuristic search with abstraction (pattern database) heuristics. We present a new class of abstractions for the pancake problem called relative-order abstractions. Relative-order abstractions have three advantages over the object-location abstractions considered in previous work. First, they are size-independent, i.e., do not need to be tailored to a particular instance size of the pancake problem. Second, they are more compact in that they can represent a larger number of pancakes within abstractions of bounded size. Finally, they can exploit symmetries in the problem specification to allow multiple heuristic lookups, significantly improving search performance over a single lookup. Our experiments show that compared to object-location abstractions, our new techniques lead to an improvement of one order of magnitude in runtime and up to three orders of magnitude in the number of generated states.
Approximate Counting via Correlation Decay on Planar Graphs

We show for a broad class of counting problems, correlation decay (strong spatial mixing) implies FPTAS on planar graphs. The framework for the counting problems considered by us is the Holant problems with arbitrary constant-size domain and symmetric constraint functions. We define a notion of regularity on the constraint functions, which covers a wide range of natural and important counting problems, including all multi-state spin systems, counting graph homomorphisms, counting weighted matchings or perfect matchings, and all counting CSPs and Holant problems with symmetric constraint functions of constant arity. The core of our algorithm is a fixed-parameter tractable algorithm which computes the exact values of the Holant problems with regular constraint functions on graphs of bounded treewidth. By utilizing the locally tree-like property of apex-minor-free families of graphs, the parameterized exact algorithm implies an FPTAS for the Holant problem on these graph families whenever the Gibbs measure defined by the problem exhibits strong spatial mixing. We further extend the recursive coupling technique to establish the strong spatial mixing on Holant problems. As consequences, we have new deterministic approximation algorithms on planar graphs for several counting problems.
Stereo Video Broadcasting Simulation for DVB-H

This paper presents modelling and analysis of a mobile 3DTV broadcast system for handheld devices. The underlying technology behind our system is the DVB-H specification which brings ordinary TV broadcast services to batterypowered handheld receivers. In our system, we simulated the broadcast of stereo video content over DVB-H to mobile handheld devices with autostereoscopic displays. In this way, mobile users can watch 3D content without need for eye-glasses or any special equipment.
A Weighted Discrete KNN Method for Mandarin Speech and Emotion Recognition

Speech signal is a rich source of information and convey more than spoken words, and can be divided into two main groups: linguistic and nonlinguistic. The linguistic aspects of speech include the properties of the speech signal and word sequence and deal with what is being said. The nonlinguistic properties of speech have more to do with talker attributes such as age, gender, dialect, and emotion and deal with how it is said. Cues to nonlinguistic properties can also be provided in non-speech vocalizations, such as laught or cry. The main investigated linguistic and nonlinguistic attributes in this article were those of audio-visual speech and emotion speech. In a conversation, the true meaning of the communication is transmitted not only by the linguistic content but also by how something is said, how words are emphasized and by the speaker’s emotion and attitude toward what is said. The perception of emotion in the vocal expressions of others is vital for an accurate understanding of emotional messages (Banse & Scherer, 1996). In the following, we will introduce the audio-visual speech recognition and speech emotion recognition, which are the applications of our proposed weighted discrete K-nearest-neighbor (WD-KNN) method for linguistic and nonlinguistic speech, respectively. The speech recognition consists of two main steps, the feature extraction and the recognition. In this chapter, we will introduce the methods for feature extraction in the recognition system. In the post-processing, the different classifiers and weighting schemes on KNN-based recognitions are discussed for the speech recognition. The overall structure of the proposed system for audio-visual and speech emotion recognition is depicted in Fig. 1. In the following, we will briefly introduce the previous researches on audio-visual and speech emotion recognition.
The Impact of Diabetes Type 2 in the Pathogenesis of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia: A Review

Introduction. Clinical observation of larger prostate glands in men with diabetes mellitus type 2 led some investigators to hypothesize that an association between these two conditions exists. In fact, both diseases are very common in men as they age and seem to be sharing similar epidemiologic features. Several studies examining the above hypothesis were yielded. Aim. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the existing literature focusing on the coexistence of BPH and diabetes mellitus type 2 and to elucidate whether or not an association among these conditions exists. Methods. We identified studies published from 1990 onwards by searching the MEDLINE database of the National Library of Medicine. Initial search terms were benign prostatic hyperplasia, epidemiology, and risk factor, combined with diet hyperinsulinemia, and diabetes mellitus type 2. Results. Diabetes mellitus type 2 and hyperinsulinemia are quite common conditions and often coexist with BPH. There are several studies (observational, epidemiological, and experimental) examining the association between them in literature. Conclusion. Evidence suggests that an association between BPH and diabetes through a common pathogenic mechanism is possible. The specific pathway interfering in the development of both conditions is still poorly investigated; thus, the exact relationship of BPH to diabetes remains unclear.
Design of Inset Microstrip Patch Antenna for Wireless Power Transmission at 2.45 GHz

In communication systems, there are various types of microstrip antenna that can be used for many applications. This paper mainly focuses on the simple design of an inset rectangular microstrip patch antenna to operate at a frequency of 2.45 GHz for rectenna design. The study involves using an high frequency structure simulator to design the antenna dimensions and to determine its performance. This antenna is based on a thickness of 1.6 mm flame retardant 4 (FR-4) substrate having a dielectric constant of approximately 4.7, an inset feed, and a ground plane. After simulation, the antenna performance characteristics such as its return loss, voltage standing wave ratio, gain, and radiation pattern were obtained and compared with the fabricated measured antenna.
Router buffer sizing revisited: the role of the output/input capacity ratio

The issue of router buffer sizing is still open and significant. Previous work either considers open-loop traffic or only analyzes persistent TCP flows. This paper differs in two ways. First, it considers the more realistic case of non-persistent TCP flows with heavy-tailed size distribution. Second, instead of only looking at link metrics, we focus on the impact of buffer sizing on TCP performance. Specifically, our goal is to find the buffer size that maximizes the average per-flow TCP throughput. Through a combination of testbed experiments, simulation, and analysis, we reach the following conclusions. The output/input capacity ratio at a network link largely determines the required buffer size. If that ratio is larger than one, the loss rate drops exponentially with the buffer size and the optimal buffer size is close to zero. Otherwise, if the output/input capacity ratio is lower than one, the loss rate follows a power-law reduction with the buffer size and significant buffering is needed, especially with flows that are mostly in congestion-avoidance. Smaller transfers, which are mostly in slow-start, require significantly smaller buffers. We conclude by revisiting the ongoing debate on "small versus large" buffers from a new perspective.
Studies on Influenza Virus Transmission between Ferrets: the Public Health Risks Revisited

Lipsitch and Inglesby recently estimated the potential public health risks associated with research on influenza virus transmission via respiratory droplets or aerosols between ferrets, leading them to conclude that such research is too risky to be conducted (1). The authors of that and other publications (2‐4) estimatedtheprobabilityoflaboratory-acquiredinfections(LAIs) and onward transmission of the viruses under investigation, as well as the potential consequence to public health if such events were to occur. Given the weight assigned to these risk estimates, it is important that potential pitfalls in the underlying assumptions in these analyses be rigorously scrutinized. Importantly, the publishedestimateswerebasedonhistoricaldataanddidnottakeinto accountthenumerousriskreductionmeasuresthatareinplacein thelaboratorieswheretheresearchisconducted.Here,Iprovidea critical appraisal of the published work, discussing, challenging, and modifying the estimates based on the specific conditions under which the work is performed and the properties of the viruses under investigation. By doing so, the outcome of the risk assessmentchangesfromseriousriskstonegligiblerisksforhumansand the environment. As a consequence, a more balanced debate about the research on influenza virus transmission via respiratory droplets or aerosols between ferrets is warranted, in particular giventhesubstantialpublichealthbenefitsassignedtothistypeof research (5, 6). PROBABILITY OF LABORATORY-ACQUIRED INFECTIONS
Wilson Loops for a quark anti-quark pair in D3-brane space

We calculate static Wilson loops for a heavy quark anti-quark pair in different positions in the space generated by a large number of coincident D3-branes. Simple results are obtained from limiting cases of the geodesic shape. In particular, quark anti-quark static potentials for flat and AdS spaces are reproduced.
The Relationship between Repeated Sprint Performance and Velocity Values during Loaded-Squat Jump Exercise.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between repeated sprint performance and velocity values during loaded-squat jump exercise. In accordance with this purpose, 23 kickboxing athletes (age: 21,1 ± 2,10 years; height: 178,7±5,01 cm; weight: 70,8±7,85 kg) participated voluntarily in this study. Participants were performed to repeated sprint test and loaded-squat jump exercise by using an external load corresponding to 40 % of their body weight and velocity parameters were obtained as mean velocity (MV), mean propulsive velocity (MPV) and peak velocity (PV). Descriptive statistics were used in analysis of data. In addition, Spearman Correlation Analysis was used to determine the relationship between repeated sprint performance and velocity values during loaded-squat jump exercise. According to the analysis results; while total running times and fatigue index values in repeated sprint test of subjects were obtained as 52.4 (±1.96 sec) and 4.98 (±2.36%) respectively; velocity values during loaded-squat jump exercise were obtained as 1.38 (±,07 m/s -1 ) for MP, 1.54 (±,10 m/s -1 ) for MPV, and 2.58 (±,15 m/s -1 ) for PV. In addition, it was determined that there was no any statistically significant difference between MP (r= - ,148; r= - ,072, p>0.05, respectively), MPV (r= - ,335; r= - ,150, p>0.05, respectively), PV (r= ,010; r= - ,034, p>0.05 respectively) and total running time and fatigue index values in repeated sprint test. As a result, it can be suggested that velocity values during loaded squat jump exercise have no statistically significant effect on repeated sprint performance.
Diagnosis and assessment of pulmonary vascular disease by Doppler echocardiography

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a relatively misunderstood disease, partly related to the fact that many perceive PH to be a singular diagnosis. An unintended consequence of this is the misapplication of the role of the Doppler-Echocardiographic (DE) examination, as well as an underappreciation for its ability to help discern PH pathophysiology prior to right heart catheterization. Since DE often serves as the “gatekeeper” to invasive right heart catheterization, misinterpretation of the DE can lead to missed or delayed diagnosis with devastating consequences. Too often, the primary or nearly exclusive focus of the DE examination is placed on the pulmonary artery pressure estimation. Two main issues with this approach are that Doppler pressure estimations can be inaccurate and even when accurate, without integration of additional 2-D and Doppler information, the clinician will often still not appreciate the pathophysiology of the PH nor its clinical significance. This review will focus on the 2-D and Doppler features necessary to assess pulmonary vascular disease (PVD), discern the salient differences between PVD and pulmonary venous hypertension (PVH), and how to integrate these key DE parameters such that PH pathophysiology can be determined noninvasively and early in the patient workup. Overreliance on any single DE metric, and especially PA pressure estimation, detracts from the overall diagnostic potential of the DE examination. Integrating the relative balance of right and left heart findings, along with proper Doppler interpretation provides a wealth of clinical and pathophysiologic insight prior to invasive hemodynamic assessment. The end results are heightened awareness and improved identification of which patients should be referred for further invasive testing, as well the use of the DE information to compliment the findings from invasive testing.
Human Clostridium difficile infection caused by a livestock-associated PCR ribotype 237 strain in Western Australia

Introduction: Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a significant gastrointestinal disease in the developed world and increasingly recognised as a zoonotic infection. In North America and Europe, the PCR ribotype (RT) 078 strain of C. difficile is commonly found in production animals and as a cause of disease in humans although proof of transmission from animals is lacking. This strain is absent in Australian livestock. We report a case of human CDI caused by a strain of C. difficile belonging to known Australian livestock-associated RT 237. Case presentation: A young male was admitted for multiple trauma following a motor vehicle accident and placed on piperacillin/tazobactam for pneumonia. After 4 days of treatment, he developed symptoms of CDI, which was confirmed in the laboratory. His symptoms resolved after 6 days of intravenous metronidazole. The strain of C. difficile isolated was identified as RT 237, an unusual RT previously found in with several Western Australia piggeries. Conclusion: This case of CDI caused by an unusual livestock-associated C. difficile RT 237 supports the hypothesis of zoonotic transmission. The case highlights the potential of livestock to act as reservoir for C. difficile and the need for continued surveillance of CDI in both human and animal populations.
A new operator for detecting edges in images based on modified Tsallis entropy

In both human and machine vision systems, edges in images are of crucial significance in understanding the contents of images. Edge detection has therefore become an important task in image processing. In this paper, we propose a new operator for detecting edges in images. This operator is based on the principle of evaluating the local fluctuation of the pixel values. We first normalize the pixel values within a mask so that they can be treated as probabilities. Then, a modified Tsallis entropy of the probabilities is calculated. Edges are detected where the value of this entropy is below a properly chosen threshold. The obtained edges are further refined by using a morphological operation. The proposed method is also generalized to the case of color images. In the simulation, the proposed operator exhibits promising performance compared with some well-known existing operators.