Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Locating Objects in Mobile Computing

In current distributed systems, the notion of mobility is emerging in many forms and applications. Mobility arises naturally in wireless computing since the location of users changes as they move. Besides mobility in wireless computing, software mobile agents are another popular form of moving objects. Locating objects, i.e., identifying their current location, is central to mobile computing. We present a comprehensive survey of the various approaches to the problem of storing, querying, and updating the location of objects in mobile computing. The fundamental techniques underlying the proposed approaches are identified, analyzed, and classified along various dimensions.
Mathematical Modeling of Atherosclerotic Plaque Formation Coupled with a Non-Newtonian Model of Blood Flow

We deal with a mathematical model of atherosclerosis plaque formation, which describes the early formation of atherosclerotic lesions. The model assumes that the inflammatory process starts with the penetration of low-density lipoproteins cholesterol in the intima, and that penetration will occur in the area of lower shear stress. Using a system of reaction-diffusion equations, we first provide a one-dimensional model of lesion growth. Then we perform numerical simulations on an idealized two-dimensional geometry of the carotid artery bifurcation before and after the formation of the atherosclerotic plaque. For that purpose, we consider the blood as an incompressible non-Newtonian fluid with shear-thinning viscosity. We also present a study of the wall shear stress and blood velocity behavior in a geometry with one plaque and also with two plaques in different positions.
Cesarean delivery rates in Down syndrome pregnancies.

OBJECTIVES Data on rates of cesarean delivery among pregnancies diagnosed with genetic syndromes remains limited. We examined the cesarean delivery rates for Down syndrome pregnancies over a 10-year period in the US. METHODS We used data from the 1995-2004 US delivery data files to examine cesarean delivery rates in singleton pregnancies (at ≥20 weeks' gestation) with and without Down syndrome. We further examined if the rates of cesarean deliveries in primary and repeat cesarean deliveries among Down syndrome pregnancies differed based on the presence or absence of major structural abnormalities or stillbirth or gestational age at delivery. RESULTS There were 35 million singleton deliveries of which 19186 were diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome (1 in 2000 births after 20 weeks gestation). The primary cesarean delivery rates were higher among Down syndrome pregnancies (17.5% in 1995 and 21.5% in 2004) compared to non-Down syndrome pregnancies (12.3% in 1995 and 16.6% in 2004). Temporal trends for cesarean deliveries were steeper among Down syndrome pregnancies with gastrointestinal and heart abnormalities than in Down syndrome cases without abnormalities. Higher cesarean delivery rates were also noted among Down syndrome pregnancies ending in third trimester live born than in control. CONCLUSION In the US, cesarean deliveries in Down syndrome pregnancies increases over time and is greater when Down syndrome is associated with structural abnormalities and delivered during the third trimester of pregnancy.
Triangulated Categories: Algebraic versus topological triangulated categories

The most commonly known triangulated categories arise from chain complexes in an abelian category by passing to chain homotopy classes or inverting quasi-isomorphisms. Such examples are called `algebraic' because they originate from abelian (or at least additive) categories. Stable homotopy theory produces examples of triangulated categories by quite different means, and in this context the source categories are usually very `non-additive' before passing to homotopy classes of morphisms. Because of their origin I refer to these examples as `topological triangulated categories'. In these extended talk notes I explain some systematic differences between these two kinds of triangulated categories. There are certain properties -- defined entirely in terms of the triangulated structure -- which hold in all algebraic examples, but which fail in some topological ones. These differences are all torsion phenomena, and rationally there is no difference between algebraic and topological triangulated categories.
Dynamic Wage and Employment Effects of Elder Parent Care

This article formulates and estimates a dynamic discrete choice model of elder parent care and work to analyze how caregiving affects a woman's current and future labor force participation and wages. The model incorporates parental health changes, human capital accumulation, and job offer availability. The estimates indicate that women face low probabilities of returning to work or increasing work hours after a caregiving spell. I use the estimated model to simulate the caregiving, employment, and welfare effects of a longer unpaid work leave than currently available under the Family and Medical Leave Act, a paid leave, and a caregiver allowance.
Stigma in Practice: Barriers to Health for Fat Women

In this paper, we explore barriers to health for fat people. By shifting the focus from what fat people do or do not do, neoliberal principles are replaced by a focus instead on structural and institutional policies, attitudes, and practices. This includes the impact of stigma on the health treatment and health-seeking behavior of fat people. For example, we consider the role that provider anti-fat attitudes and confirmation bias play in the failure to provide evidenced-based healthcare to fat patients. This is an autoethnographic paper, which provides the opportunity to read research from the perspective of fat scholars, framed by questions such as: can fat people have health? Is health itself a state of being, a set of behaviors, a commodity, a performance; perhaps the new social contract? As a co-written autoethnographic paper, one aspect of the evidence provided is the recorded experiences of the two fat authors. This includes writing from notes, journals, compiled and repeated experiences with medical professionals, family, and the community. Framed by feminist standpoint and supported by literature drawn from Fat Studies, Public Health, Obesity Research, and other interdisciplinary fields, this is a valuable opportunity to present an extended account of fat discrimination and the impact of the stigma fat people face through the medical profession and other sectors of the community, written by fat individuals. The paper concludes by considering the health pathways available to fat people. Special attention is paid to whether Bacon and Aphramor's Health at Every Size paradigm provides a path to health for fat individuals.
For Personal Use. Only Reproduce with Permission from the Lancet Publishing Group. Vaccination and Autoimmune Disease: What Is the Evidence?

REVIEW Autoimmune diseases affect about 5% of individuals in developed countries. 1 Although the prevalence of most autoimmune diseases is quite low, their individual incidence has greatly increased over the past few years, as documented for type 1 diabetes 2,3 and multiple sclerosis. 4 Several autoimmune disorders arise in individuals in age-groups that are often selected as targets for vaccination programmes. Therefore, in the context of an increasing number of vaccination episodes, coincidence of events should be expected. The potential interactions between vaccines and autoimmune diseases have become a common topic of claims and counter claims, and questions are often raised with respect to the potential risk of autoimmune diseases after vaccination. Some of these questions have been selected by the WHO Vaccine Safety Advisory Committee for further research (panels 1, 2, and 3). 5 Our aim is to provide a rational approach to answer these frequent queries. Autoimmunity is generally assumed to result from complex interactions between genetic traits and environmental factors. 6 Most often, autoimmune responses are not followed by any clinical manifestations unless additional events favour disease expression—eg, a localised inflammatory process at tissue level. An understanding of the mechanisms by which autoimmune responses are generated and of how they might or might not lead to autoimmune diseases is of paramount importance in defining the real risk of vaccine-associated autoimmunity. Infections are usually considered as key elements in the control of immune responses, and there is evidence that they might either precipitate or prevent autoimmune disorders. 7 Here we analyse our understanding of how infections can lead to autoimmune disease and thus assess the relative risk of autoimmune disease arising as a consequence of vaccination. Autoimmune disease and infection Human beings have a highly complex immune system that evolved from the fairly simple system found in invertebrates. The so-called innate invertebrate immune system responds non-specifically to infection, does not involve lymphocytes, and hence does not display memory. The adaptive immune system, shared by vertebrates, displays both specificity and memory, and is designed to provide protection against almost all infections. Furthermore, polymorphisms in genes that control the immune system ensure that the species as a whole can generate sufficient immunological diversity to survive any new infectious onslaught. The drawback to such a broadly responsive defence mechanism is the possibility that, in responding to infection, the immune system of a few individuals will turn against their own tissues, thus …
Limited Insurance within the Household: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya

This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment to test for the importance of limited commitment (due to incomplete contract enforceability) in explaining intra-household risk sharing arrangements in Kenya. The experiment followed 142 daily income earners and their spouses for 8 weeks. Every week, each individual had a 50% chance of receiving a 150 Kenyan shilling (US $2) income shock (equivalent to about 1.5 days' income for men and 1 week's income for women). This paper has 2 main results. First, since the experimental payments are random, they allow for a direct test of allocative Pareto efficiency. I reject efficiency, as male private goods expenditures are sensitive to the receipt of the payment. Second, the experiment varied the level of intra-household correlation in the experimental payments between couples. I find that women send bigger transfers to their husbands when shocks are independent or negatively correlated, a result consistent with the presence of limited commitment. I find no difference in transfers for men, likely because the shocks were too small to cause the limited commitment constraint to bind for them.
THE BIOTA OF LONG‐DISTANCE DISPERSAL. IV. GENETIC SYSTEMS IN THE FLORAS OF OCEANIC ISLANDS

Distinctive and characteristic modes of speciation, hybridization, floral biology, pollination relationships, and allied phenomena on oceanic islands have received scattered and limited comment from various authors. Indeed, the lack of studies in these fields on insular areas is noteworthy. These areas are particularly deserving of intensive study, and this paper may be considered more an invitation to further investigations than a summary of what is known. The data and commentary below have been presented as a means of suggesting the significance of such phenomena as the high degree of dioecism on islands, polymorphism of insular species, etc. These suggestions have been so organized as to place them into the context of what may be called the "insular syndrome" of interrelated evolutionary phenomena. Analysis of a single phenomenon on islands has not always led to sound or thoroughgoing interpretations. The floral morphology, breeding systems, ecological preferences, growth forms, dispersal mechanisms, and other features of insular species are closely linked together. When considered together, each feature is more comprehensible. The observations offered below are presented
Early Kidney Damage in a Population Exposed to Cadmium and Other Heavy Metals

Background Exposure to heavy metals may cause kidney damage. The population living near the Avonmouth zinc smelter has been exposed to cadmium and other heavy metals for many decades. Objectives We aimed to assess Cd body burden and early signs of kidney damage in the Avonmouth population. Methods We used dispersion modeling to assess exposure to Cd. We analyzed urine samples from the local population (n = 180) for Cd (U-Cd) to assess dose (body burden) and for three biomarkers of early kidney damage [N-acetyl-β-d-glucosaminidase (U-NAG), retinol-binding protein, and α-1-microglobulin]. We collected information on occupation, intake of homegrown vegetables, smoking, and medical history by questionnaire. Results Median U-Cd concentrations were 0.22 nmol/mmol creatinine (nonsmoking 0.18/smoking 0.40) and 0.34 nmol/mmol creatinine (nonsmoking 0.31/smoking 0.46) in non-occupationally exposed men and women, respectively. There was a significant dose–response relationship between U-Cd and the prevalence of early renal damage—defined as U-NAG > 0.22 IU/mmol—with odds ratios of 2.64 [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.70–9.97] and 3.64 (95% CI, 0.98–13.5) for U-Cd levels of 0.3 to < 0.5 and levels ≥ 0.5 nmol/mmol creatinine, respectively (p for trend = 0.045). Conclusion U-Cd concentrations were close to levels where kidney and bone effects have been found in other populations. The dose–response relationship between U-Cd levels and prevalence of U-NAG above the reference value support the need for measures to reduce environmental Cd exposure.
Serial analysis of biomarkers of acute pancreas allograft rejection

Cashion AK, Sabek O, Driscoll C, Gaber L, Tolley E, Gaber AO. Serial analysis of biomarkers of acute pancreas allograft rejection. Clin Transplant 2010: 24: E214–E222. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Non-renormalization theorems from extension to local coupling

The extension of coupling constants to space-time dependent fields, the local couplings, makes possible to derive the non-renormalization theorems of supersymmetry by an algebraic characterization of Lagrangian N=1 supermultiplets. For super-Yang-Mills theories the construction implies non-renormalization of the coupling beyond one-loop order. However, renormalization in presence of the local gauge coupling is peculiar due to a new anomaly in one-loop order, which appears as an anomaly of supersymmetry in the Wess-Zumino gauge. As an application we derive the closed all-order expression for the gauge $\beta$ function and prove the non-renormalization of general N=2 supersymmetric theories from a cancellation of the susy anomaly.
[The relationship between serum C-reactive protein levels and coronary artery disease in patients with stable angina pectoris and positive exercise stress test].

OBJECTIVE In this study we aimed to investigate whether serum C- reactive protein (CRP) levels are related with the incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) and selection of management approaches in stable angina pectoris (SAP). METHODS Overall 134 patients (pts) with SAP and positive exercise stress test were investigated. All pts were divided into two groups according to the baseline levels of CRP. In group 1 (mean age 57.8+/-10.3 years) there were 41 pts with the level of CRP >0.50mg/dl (high levels of CRP) and group 2 consisted of 93 pts (mean age 56.0+/-11.7 years) with the CRP levels <0.50mg/dl (normal levels of CRP). We investigated the relationship between CRP levels with coronary artery disease and treatment strategies. RESULTS There were no significant differences in age, sex, hypertension and hyperlipidemia between groups. In group 1 (n=41) 36 pts, and in group 2 (n=93) 58 pts had CAD (p= 0.004). We found statistically significant relationship between high levels of CRP and smoking and diabetes mellitus. After adjustment of these risk factors by multivariate regression analyses the CRP association with CAD become attenuated but was still statistically significant (p=0.03). CONCLUSION In this study we found that high level CRP is an independent strong marker of CAD in middle-aged patients with stable angina and positive treadmill exercise test. There was no correlation between CRP levels and interventional procedures.
A Computer-Assisted Translation and Writing System

We introduce a method for learning to predict text and grammatical construction in a computer-assisted translation and writing framework. In our approach, predictions are offered on the fly to help the user make appropriate lexical and grammar choices during the translation of a source text, thus improving translation quality and productivity. The method involves automatically generating general-to-specific word usage summaries (i.e., writing suggestion module), and automatically learning high-confidence word- or phrase-level translation equivalents (i.e., translation suggestion module). At runtime, the source text and its translation prefix entered by the user are broken down into n-grams to generate grammar and translation predictions, which are further combined and ranked via translation and language models. These ranked prediction candidates are iteratively and interactively displayed to the user in a pop-up menu as translation or writing hints. We present a prototype writing assistant, TransAhead, that applies the method to a human-computer collaborative environment. Automatic and human evaluations show that novice translators or language learners substantially benefit from our system in terms of translation performance (i.e., translation accuracy and productivity) and language learning (i.e., collocation usage and grammar). In general, our methodology of inline grammar and text predictions or suggestions has great potential in the field of computer-assisted translation, writing, or even language learning.
An effective scoring method for speaking skill evaluation system

The Speaking Skill Evaluation (SSE) technologies are derived from speech recognition technologies and are used for language learning and instructing. In this paper, an effective automatic pronunciation scoring method for SSE systems is proposed. The Center-Distance Continuous Probability Model (CDCPM) is incorporated to model the speech. The Merging-Based Syllable Detection Automaton (MBSDA) and the Non-Linear Partition (NLP) method are used to perform the time alignment. And the Critical Area Percentage (CAP) based scoring method is used to score the learner’s pronunciations or reject invalid utterances. Subjective assessments show that this method is concise, fast, and effective. The SSE system based on it has achieved a satisfying performance.
The use of the key driver technique in the design of copiers

In the design of many of the complex products we encounter today it is important to remain focused on the essential customer objectives, which can be captured in terms of customer key drivers. In order to obtain a successful product these key drivers need to be related to the system requirements. A structured overview of the relationships between key drivers and system requirements is an effective means to support the design. This paper proposes the key driver technique and its use to create such an overview that is also highly convenient in requirements tracing. A stepwise approach is presented together with guidelines on how to obtain a key driver model. An industrial case study for a high-volume copier demonstrates the application and serves as a proof-of-concept for the key driver technique. The benefits, limitations and lessons learned are presented.
Multicut and integral multiflow in rings

We show how to solve in polynomial time the multicut and the maximum integral multiow problems in rings. For the latter problem we generalize an approach proposed by Sai Anand and Er- lebach for special cases of the call control problem in ring networks. Moreover, we give linear-time procedures to solve both problems in rings with uniform capacities.
Be Fast, Cheap and in Control with SwitchKV

SwitchKV is a new key-value store system design that combines high-performance cache nodes with resource-constrained backend nodes to provide load balancing in the face of unpredictable workload skew. The cache nodes absorb the hottest queries so that no individual backend node is over-burdened. Compared with previous designs, SwitchKV exploits SDN techniques and deeply optimized switch hardware to enable efficient content-based routing. Programmable network switches keep track of cached keys and route requests to the appropriate nodes at line speed, based on keys encoded in packet headers. A new hybrid caching strategy keeps cache and switch forwarding rules updated with low overhead and ensures that system load is always well-balanced under rapidly changing workloads. Our evaluation results demonstrate that SwitchKV can achieve up to 5× throughput and 3× latency improvements over traditional system designs.
Device Driver Safety Through a Reference Validation Mechanism

Device drivers typically execute in supervisor mode and thus must be fully trusted. This paper describes how to move them out of the trusted computing base, by running them without supervisor privileges and constraining their interactions with hardware devices. An implementation of this approach in the Nexus operating system executes drivers in user space, leveraging hardware isolation and checking their behavior against a safety specification. These Nexus drivers have performance comparable to inkernel, trusted drivers, with a level of CPU overhead acceptable for most applications. For example, the monitored driver for an Intel e1000 Ethernet card has throughput comparable to a trusted driver for the same hardware under Linux. And a monitored driver for the Intel i810 sound card provides continuous playback. Drivers for a disk and a USB mouse have also been moved successfully to operate in user space with safety specifications.
Towards scalable flow and context sensitive pointer analysis

Pointer analysis, a classic problem in software program analysis, has emerged as an important problem to solve in design automation, at a time when complex designs, specified in the form of C code, need to be synthesized or verified. However, precise pointer analysis algorithms that are both context and flow sensitive (FSCS), have not been shown to scale. In this paper, we report a new solution for FSCS analysis, which can evaluate the program states of all program points under billions of different calling paths. Our solution extends the recently proposed symbolic pointer analysis (SPA) technology, which exploits the efficiency of binary decision diagrams (BDDs). With our new strategy of problem solving, called superposed symbolic computation, and its application on our generic pointer analysis framework, we are able to report the first result on all SPEC2000 benchmarks that completes context sensitive, flow insensitive analysis in seconds, and context sensitive, flow sensitive analysis in minutes.
Surface Modification by EDM with Nickel Powder Mixed Fluid

Surface modification of aluminum bronze used for shell mold core metal was experimentally investigated by EDM with nickel powder mixed fluid, in order to form nickel layer on EDMed surface for higher wear resistance to shell sand abrasion. Experimental analyses made it clear that the resolidified layer contained nickel richly and the thickness of the layer became larger and uniform with an increase of nickel powder concentration in the machining fluid. The EDMed surface with nickel powder mixed fluid was harder and smoother than that with kerosine type fluid. Moreover, it showed higher wear resistance in sand abrasion test.