Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An SDN-Based Network Architecture for Extremely Dense Wireless Networks

Telecommunications networks are undergoing major changes so as to meet the requirements of the next generation of users and services, which create a need for a general revised architectural approach rather than a series of local and incremental technology updates. This is especially manifest in mobile broadband wireless access, where a major traffic increase is expected, mostly because of video transmission and cloud-based applications. The installation of a high number of very small cells is foreseen as the only practical way to achieve the demands. However, this would create a struggle on the mobile network operators because of the limited backhaul capacity, the increased energy consumption, and the explosion of signalling. In the FP7 project CROWD, Software Defined Networking (SDN) has been identified as a solution to tame extreme density of wireless networks. Following this paradigm, a novel network architecture accounting for MAC control and Mobility Management has been proposed, being the subject of this paper.
On-Resistance Degradations for Different Stress Conditions in High-Voltage pLEDMOS Transistor With Thick Gate Oxide

The different on-resistance degradations of the p-type lateral extended drain MOS (pLEDMOS) transistor with thick gate oxide for different hot carrier stress conditions have been experimentally investigated for the first time. The difference results from the interface trap generation and the hot electron injection and trapping into the thick gate oxide and field oxide of the pLEDMOS transistor, which has been analyzed in detail using the MEDICI simulator.
Faster Polynomial Multiplication over Finite Fields

Polynomials over finite fields play a central role in algorithms for cryptography, error correcting codes, and computer algebra. The complexity of multiplying such polynomials is still a major open problem. Let p be a prime, and let Mp(n) denote the bit complexity of multiplying two polynomials in Fp[X] of degree less than n. For n large compared to p, we establish the bound Mp(n) = O(n log n 8log* n log p), where log* n = min{k ϵ N: log …k×… log n ≤ 1} stands for the iterated logarithm. This improves on the previously best known bound Mp(n) = O(n log n log log n log p), which essentially goes back to the 1970s.
The metabolism of carbohydrates and lipid peroxidation in lead-exposed workers

The present study was undertaken to estimate the effect of occupational exposure to lead on the blood concentration of glucose and several enzymes involved in glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, and the pentose phosphate pathway. To estimate the degree of lipid peroxidation, the concentrations of conjugated dienes were determined. The examined group included 145 healthy male employees of lead–zinc works. Taking into account the mean blood lead levels, the examined group was divided into two subgroups. The control group was composed of 36 healthy male administrative workers. The markers of lead exposure were significantly elevated in both subgroups when compared with the controls. There were no significant changes in fasting glucose concentration and fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase activity in the study population. The concentration of conjugated dienes was significantly higher in both subgroups, whereas the activity of malate dehydrogenase was significantly higher only in the group with higher exposure. The activities of lactate dehydrogenase and sorbitol dehydrogenase were significantly decreased in the examined subgroups. The activity of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase decreased significantly in the group with higher exposure and could be the cause of the elevated concentrations of conjugated dienes. It is possible to conclude that lead interferes with carbohydrate metabolism, but compensatory mechanisms seem to be efficient, as glucose homeostasis in lead-exposed workers was not disturbed.
From the work-place to the golf-course? The adaptive value of life regret on activity and emotional well-being in recent retirees

This study was designed to investigate the impact of life regret on activity engagement and emotional well-being in the early stages of retirement. We asked a total of 463 recent retirees to report their most severe life regret and their perception of opportunity and motivation to undo the negative consequences of the regret. We also asked the participants to report their current level of activity engagement and emotional well-being at both post-retirement (Mean years since retirement = 1.39, SD = .86) and one-year follow-up. In addition, the participants also retrospectively reported their pre-retirement level of activity engagement. We expected that regret may play an adaptive role in the activities and emotional well-being of recent retirees. In particular, we reasoned that regret could be adaptive if the individual is motivated to undo the regret and opportunities are favorable. We found that engagement in optional activities (e.g., volunteering, socializing, traveling) was higher at post-retirement and follow-up than at pre-retirement, whereas there were no differences found when examining engagement in obligatory maintenance activities (e.g., household chores, finances). In support of our hypothesis, we found that regret was predictive of both high levels of optional activities and high levels of positive affect post-retirement when retirees are engaged to undo the negative consequences of the regret and opportunities are favorable. Furthermore, the study's results suggest that engagement in optional activities partially mediated the relationship between regret and positive affect. These findings imply that regret can play an adaptive role in later life such as influencing engagement in activities of personal interest and investment. The implications for pathways to active and happier lives in old age are discussed.
Embedding academic support within an academic discipline : a teaching model

This article reports on an innovative teaching intervention model involving the integration of geographical content into academic literacy programmes and vice versa at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). This model involved the 'movement' of academic literacy support as an independent and isolated function of the Academic Development and Support (ADS) Unit to one fully integrated into an academic discipline. The process of collaboration was driven by the lecturer, who engaged actively with the ADS facilitators on a continuous basis. This sustained the intervention by directing the nature of the academic support required. In the end, the sharing of ADS and discipline specific duties, as staff 'boundary hopped' between disciplines, allowed both for the co-creation of curricula and for a true teaching partnership to evolve. Both ADS and the academic discipline were enriched, to the benefit of staff and students.
Mitogenomic Phylogeny, Diversification, and Biogeography of South American Spiny Rats

Echimyidae is one of the most speciose and ecologically diverse rodent families in the world, occupying a wide range of habitats in the Neotropics. However, a resolved phylogeny at the genus-level is still lacking for these 22 genera of South American spiny rats, including the coypu (Myocastorinae), and 5 genera of West Indian hutias (Capromyidae) relatives. Here, we used Illumina shotgun sequencing to assemble 38 new complete mitogenomes, establishing Echimyidae, and Capromyidae as the first major rodent families to be completely sequenced at the genus-level for their mitochondrial DNA. Combining mitogenomes and nuclear exons, we inferred a robust phylogenetic framework that reveals several newly supported nodes as well as the tempo of the higher level diversification of these rodents. Incorporating the full generic diversity of extant echimyids leads us to propose a new higher level classification of two subfamilies: Euryzygomatomyinae and Echimyinae. Of note, the enigmatic Carterodon displays fast-evolving mitochondrial and nuclear sequences, with a long branch that destabilizes the deepest divergences of the echimyid tree, thereby challenging the sister-group relationship between Capromyidae and Euryzygomatomyinae. Biogeographical analyses involving higher level taxa show that several vicariant and dispersal events impacted the evolutionary history of echimyids. The diversification history of Echimyidae seems to have been influenced by two major historical factors, namely (1) recurrent connections between Atlantic and Amazonian Forests and (2) the Northern uplift of the Andes.
Actigraphically recorded motor activity and immobility across sleep cycles and stages in healthy male subjects

SUMMARY The aim of this study was to compare the extent to which activity and immobility measures are related to sleep stages and sleep cycles in order to improve the informative value of actigraphic assessment of sleep. We therefore performed simultaneous ambulatory polysomnography and wrist‐activity monitoring (AM) in 14 healthy male subjects without sleep complaints. In this context, a simple method for transforming raw motor activity data into a time‐series reflecting onset and duration of activity and immobility clusters is introduced.
Output feedback nonlinear H∞ control of wheeled mobile robots formation

This paper presents a procedure to design robust controllers for a group of wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) in formation. Wheeled mobile robots exchange informations according to a pre-specified communication digraph. Stable motions are generated by a decentralized control law based on the robots coordinates. In addition, the nonlinear dynamic equations of the robots are described in state-space form where the parameters matrices depend on the angular velocities of the wheels. Output feedback controllers based on nonlinear Hinfin approaches are designed in order to guarantee the stability formation. Results obtained from simulation illustrate the effectiveness of this procedure.
Effects of contraction and lactic acid on the discharge of group III muscle afferents in cats.

1. In barbiturate-anesthetized cats we examined the interaction of lactic acid and static contraction on the discharge of group III muscle afferents. Only afferents whose receptive fields were located in the triceps surae muscles were studied. 2. Twelve of 20 afferents were stimulated by a 60-s static contraction. The majority of firing occurred within the first few seconds of contraction. Thirteen of 20 afferents were stimulated by femoral arterial injections of 24 mM lactic acid (1-4 ml) with the muscle at rest. Repeated injections of lactic acid with the muscle at rest led to tachyphylaxis. Lactic acid was then injected (24 mM; 4 ml) during the last 15 s of static contraction. In eight of nine afferents that were tachyphylactic to lactic acid with the muscle at rest, we noted a restored sensitivity to lactic acid during contraction. 3. In separate experiments we examined the effects of dichloroacetate (DCA) on the responses of group III muscle afferents to static contraction. DCA reduces the production of lactic acid by increasing levels of the active form of the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase. 4. DCA lowered arterial and venous lactate concentrations at rest and during contraction. DCA significantly decreased (31%; P < 0.05) the responses of the afferents to contraction. This effect was most prominent within the first 10 s of contraction and was not due to a reduced level of mechanical stimulation after DCA, because peak tension levels were the same during the two bouts of contraction. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Effects of MSHR and Prefetch Mechanisms on an On-Chip Cache of the Vector Architecture

Vector supercomputers have been encountering the memory wall problem and their memory bandwidth per flop/s rate has decreased. To cover the insufficient memory bandwidth per flop/s rate, an on-chip vector cache has been proposed for the vector processors. Although vector caching is effective to increase the sustained performance to a certain degree, it still needs software and hardware supporting mechanisms to extract its potential. To this end, we propose miss status handling registers (MSHR) and a prefetch mechanism. This paper evaluates the performance of the vector cache with the MSHR and the prefetch mechanism on the vector supercomputer across three leading scientific applications. The MSHR is an effective mechanism for handling subsequent vector loads of the same data, which frequently appear in different schemes. The experimental results indicate that the MSHR can improve the computational performance of scientific applications by 1.45×. Moreover, we examine the performance of the prefetch mechanism on the vector cache. The prefetch mechanism increases the computational performance by 1.6×. Accordingly, the MSHR and the prefetching mechanism are very effective optimization options for vector caching of future vector supercomputers even if the vector supercomputers cannot maintain the current memory bandwidth per flop/s rate.
Association of CYP1A1 and microsomal epoxide hydrolase polymorphisms with lung squamous cell carcinoma

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death among cancers in Taiwan. Although the etiology of lung cancer has yet to be defined, genetic variability in activities of metabolic enzymes has been correlated with lung cancer. In the present study, the possibility of association of CYP1A1 and microsomal epoxide hydrolase (HYL1) genetic polymorphisms with lung cancer was examined among 132 lung cancer patients and 259 controls in Taiwan. No significant association was observed for either CYP1A1 or HYL1 polymorphism alone and the overall incidence of lung cancer after adjusting for age, gender and smoking status. When cases were stratified according to histological type, there was significant association between CYP1A1*2A homozygote and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (odds ratio (OR) 2.86; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.33–6.12). Similarly, the proportion of HYL1 genotypes corresponding to high or normal enzyme activities was higher in SCC than in controls (OR 1.96; 95% CI 1.04–3.70). A combination of susceptible CYP1A1 and HYL1 genotypes was found to be highly associated with lung cancer, especially with SCC (OR 6.76; 95% CI 2.29–19.10). Our results suggest that the combination of CYP1A1 and HYL1 polymorphisms is an important risk factor for lung SCC. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign
Endocrine Changes in Critical Illness

The homeostatic corrections that have emerged in the course of human evolution to cope with catastrophic events involve a complex multisystem endeavor, of which the endocrine contribution is an integral component. Although the repertoire of endocrine changes has been probed in some detail, discerning the vulnerabilities and failure of this system is far more challenging. The ensuing endocrine topics illustrate some of the current issues reflecting attempts to gain an improved insight and clinical outcome for critical illness.
Duality symmetries in string theory

We review the status of duality symmetries in superstring theories. These discrete symmetries mark the striking differences between theories of pointlike objects and theories of extended objects. They prove to be very helpful in understanding non-perturbative effects in string theories. We will also briefly discuss the strange role played by open strings and their solitons in the emerging scenario.
Coût et financement de l'éducation primaire en Afrique Subsaharienne

L'auteur aborde la question du cout et du financement de l'education en s'inscrivant dans le cadre global des approches preconisees par la communaute internationale, notamment par la Banque mondiale, qui tendent de plus en plus a s'imposer. L'analyse, dans la logique de l'Education pour Tous (EPT), se place dans l'objectif d'une scolarisation de base universelle. Ainsi, la question du cout et du financement de l'education est abordee a travers un triple questionnement : Les ecarts sur le financement de l'education sont-ils le reflet des inegalites d'acces ? Ces inegalites d'acces ne proviennent-elles pas d'une allocation contestable du financement educatifs ; quelles peuvent etre alors les inflexions envisageables dans les structures de financement ? Pour les pays les moins avances, l'aide internationale a-t-elle mis comme condition, pour suppleer l'insuffisance locale de ressources, des changements structuraux lies a la question d'une ecole efficace ?
Path Dependence in Corporate Contracting: Increasing Returns, Herd Behavior and Cognitive Biases

In prior articles, we have argued that corporate contract terms may frequently involve learning and network externalities. These externalities result in "increasing returns," which can lead to path dependence and social suboptimality in contract terms. In this article, we expand our prior analysis by investigating two additional forces that may lead to the standardization of suboptimal terms: agency costs and related herd behavior among lawyers, and cognitive biases. Agency costs associated with lawyers serving as draftsman stem from a divergence that can exist between the value of a contract term to a client firm and its impact on the draftsman's reputation. Among other things, this divergence can lead to herd behavior in the use of standard terms, as lawyers seek to protect their reputation by employing the same standard terms that other lawyers have used. Cognitive biases -- in particular status quo bias, anchoring bias, and conformity bias -- can also lead parties to employ standard contract terms that are suboptimal both socially and for the parties to the contract.
Executive Dysfunction and Presbycusis in Older Persons With and Without Memory Loss and Dementia

ObjectiveTo determine the relation of age-related auditory processing dysfunction and executive functioning. BackgroundCentral auditory dysfunction is common in Alzheimer dementia, but the mechanism is not established. MethodA total of 313 volunteers from the Adult Changes in Thought surveillance cohort with adequate peripheral hearing were included in the study. Outcome measures such as (1) peripheral audition; (2) auditory-evoked potentials; (3) central auditory tests (Synthetic Sentence Identification with Ipsilateral Competing Message, Dichotic Sentence Identification, Dichotic Digits); (4) Executive Functioning: Trail Making; Clock Drawing, Stroop Color and Word, and subtests from the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument were used to measuring the mental concentration. A composite executive functioning score was created using item response theory. ResultsThe composite executive functioning score was significantly associated with each central auditory measure, explaining 8% to 21% of the variance. Trails B test was most strongly associated with the auditory outcomes, explaining 8% to 14% of the variance. The relation between executive functioning and central auditory function was still significant when participants diagnosed with memory impairment or dementia were excluded. ConclusionsIn elderly persons, reduced executive functioning is associated with central auditory processing, but not with primary auditory function. This suggests that central presbycusis and executive dysfunction may result from similar neurodegenerative processes.
Discrimination of near‐native protein structures from misfolded models by empirical free energy functions

Free energy potentials, combining molecular mechanics with empirical solvation and entropic terms, are used to discriminate native and near‐native protein conformations from slightly misfolded decoys. Since the functional forms of these potentials vary within the field, it is of interest to determine the contributions of individual free energy terms and their combinations to the discriminative power of the potential. This is achieved in terms of quantitative measures of discrimination that include the correlation coefficient between RMSD and free energy, and a new measure labeled the minimum discriminatory slope (MDS). In terms of these criteria, the internal energy is shown to be a good discriminator on its own, which implies that even well‐constructed decoys are substantially more strained than the native protein structure. The discrimination improves if, in addition to the internal energy, the free energy expression includes the electrostatic energy, calculated by assuming non‐ionized side chains, and an empirical solvation term, with the classical atomic solvation parameter model providing slightly better discrimination than a structure‐based atomic contact potential. Finally, the inclusion of a term representing the side chain entropy change, and calculated by an established empirical scale, is so inaccurate that it makes the discrimination worse. It is shown that both the correlation coefficient and the MDS value (or its dimensionless form) are needed for an objective assessment of a potential, and that together they provide much more information on the origins of discrimination than simple inspection of the RMSD‐free energy plots. Proteins 2000;41:518–534. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Video resolution enhancement by using complex wavelet transform

In this paper, we propose a multi-frame video resolution enhancement technique based on dual tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT). Here, before registration step, the respective frames have been passed through an illumination compensation procedure which is based on singular value decomposition (SVD) and discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The frame subject to the resolution enhancement is decomposed into its different frequency subbands by using DT-CWT. The high frequency subbands have been interpolated by using bicubic interpolation. Furthermore, the compensated frames are registered by using Vandewalle registration with structure adaptive normalized convolution reconstruction. Afterwards, the interpolated subbands and the output of the registration technique have been combined by using inverse DT-CWT (IDT-CWT) in order to reconstruct the super resolved frame. For Akiyo video sequence there is 5.04 dB, 4.86 dB, 5.22 dB, and 5.05 dB improvements in the average PSNR values compared to Vandewalle, Marcel, Lucchese, and Keren registration techniques, respectively.
Inductor-less, 10Gb/s limiter with 10mV sensitivity and offset/temperature compensation in baseline CMOS18

The paper presents an inductor-less 10Gb/s limiting amplifier with offset and temperature compensation for high-speed data communications realized in a baseline CMOS process. For achieving the sensitivity required in long-haul applications (SONET/SDH) a new technique described as slew-boosting is introduced. A balanced integrator circuit amplifies the offset from the output and feeds back a correct signal at the input for the offset compensation. The limiter has been implemented in the standard CMOS18 process. The measured sensitivity of the circuit is 10mV@10GB/s. The circuit can work up to 12Gb/s with reduced performance. At 10Gb/s and 10 mV input, the output amplitude is 300mV with 2.5ps jitter-rms and rise/fall times of 17 ps. The active area of the circuit without bonding pads is 0.8/spl times/0.5mm/sup 2/ and the power consumption is 144mW from a 1.8V supply voltage at room temperature.