Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Utilization of Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS) in Broiler Diets Using a Standardized Nutrient Matrix

An experiment was conducted to evaluate different levels of "new generation" distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) in broiler diets throughout a 49 d growing period, based a standardized nutrient matrix derived from a composite of literature values. Diets were formulated based on digestible amino acid content to typical U.S. poultry industry standards to contain 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25% DDGS. Each dietary treatment was assigned to four replicate pens of 25 male chicks of a commercial broiler strain. Starter diets (0 to 14 d) were fed as crumbles; grower (14 to 35 d) and finisher (35 to 49 d) diets were fed as pellets. Bulk density (mass/volume) was determined on the crumbled or pelleted feeds. Body weights and feed consumption were determined at 14, 35 and 49 d of age. At the end of the study five representative birds per pen were processed to determine dressing percentage and parts yield. Increasing the DDGS in the diet generally reduced the weight per volume of feed. There were no significant effects of DDGS level on body weight; however chicks fed diets with 25% DDGS consumed significantly more feed and had poorer feed conversion compared to chicks fed the control diet with no DDGS. Birds fed 15 and 25% DDGS had significantly lower dressing percentage than did birds fed the control diet with no DDGS. Birds fed diets with 25% DDGS had significantly lower breast weight when expressed as percentage of live weight but not when expressed as a percentage of the carcass weight, compared to birds fed the control diet with no DDGS. Wing weight as percent of live weight and carcass weight was significantly greater for birds fed diets with 15% DDGS as compared to the control, while wing weight as percent of the carcass was significantly increased for birds fed the diet with 25% DDGS as compared to those fed the control diet with no DDGS. These results indicate that good quality DDGS could be used in broiler diets at levels of 15 to 20% with little adverse effect on live performance but might result in some loss of dressing percentage or breast meat yield.
Multilevel Cloth Simulation using GPU Surface Sampling

Today most cloth simulation systems use triangular mesh models. However, regular grids allow many optimizations as connectivity is implicit, warp and weft directions of the cloth are aligned to grid edges and distances between particles are equal. In this paper we introduce a cloth simulation that combines both model types. All operations that are performed on the CPU use a low-resolution triangle mesh while GPU-based methods are performed efficiently on a high-resolution grid representation. Both models are coupled by a sampling operation which renders triangle vertex data into a texture and by a corresponding projection of texel data onto a mesh. The presented scheme is very flexible and allows individual components to be performed on different architectures, data representations and detail levels. The results are combined using shader programs which causes a negligible overhead. We have implemented CPU-based collision handling and a GPU-based hierarchical constraint solver to simulate systems with more than 230k particles in real-time.
Explore K-Anycast information dissemination in mobile opportunistic networks

In Mobile Opportunistic Networks, there are special cases of multicast in which destinations (except the total number) are not predetermined. E.g., a person tries to find another three players to play poker without knowing them. Achieving efficient data routing in this scenario (target any k destinations among m of them) can be very challenge due to (1) no predetermined destinations, (2) extra delay cost by the destinations collision, and (3) difficulty of the receiver quantity control. We define this as a K-Anycast problem, the goal is to route copies of the message to any k destinations with the shortest average delay. In this paper, we first propose a matching method to solve the problem in a centralized way. We then bring forward a layered hierarchical structure where nodes are organized according to their degree of activities. Based on the structure, two routing algorithms are proposed where K-Cast initializes exactly k copies of the message without replication in the middle, K-Epidemic performs epidemic routing only in a controlled range. Both algorithms will first forward copies upwards along the structure and then downwards to the destinations. Experiments on real data trace show that the proposed algorithms achieve much better delay, delivery ratio and lower forwarding numbers.
[After the ALLHAT trial, what do we know about treatment for hypertension that we did not know before?].

(cardiovascular disease), fatal CHD, non-fatal infarction, stroke, fatal CHD and non-fatal myocardial infarction); combined CHD, fatal CHD, coronary revascularization procedures, hospitalization or treatment for angina, hospitalization or treatment for heart failure, peripheral vascular disease; TRD, terminal renal dysfunction; GI, gastrointestinal; RR, relative risk; CI, confidence interval.
Assessing the efficacy of visual prostheses by decoding ms-LFPs: application to retinal implants

Visual prostheses are brain–computer interfaces that are implanted in early processing stages of the visual system of blind patients. In an effort to induce light sensations, visual prostheses inject, via arrays of stimulating electrodes, spatiotemporal trains of current pulses which excite the adjacent neural tissue. Human experiments with current state-of-the art retinal prostheses have revealed that, although visual percepts can be elicited by electrical stimulation, these percepts are not closely related to the spatial patterns of stimulation. One of the main reasons for this failure is that present methods of prosthetic stimulation result in non-specific activation of multiple retinal pathways. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the specificity of neural activation can be increased by manipulations of the spatiotemporal parameters of stimulation. Before these notions are evaluated in human experiments, which are subjective and prone to patient fatigue and frustration, it is imperative that they are assessed in animal models using cortical recordings. Toward this end, we have developed a computational method for analyzing the cortical multi-site local field potential (ms-LFP) evoked in response to electrical stimulation of a site presynaptic to where LFPs are recorded. This method applies a nonlinear decoding technique on the recorded ms-LFP signal to quantify the information transmitted downstream from the stimulation site. Validation of this method using an implant attached to the epiretinal surface of cats and ms-LFP recordings from layer 4 of cat primary visual cortex, demonstrates that the spatial origin, the duration and the amplitude of injected current pulses can all be decoded simultaneously from single-trial ms-LFP responses. Our findings indicate that the developed method is a highly sensitive probe for characterizing the efficacy of visual prosthetic stimulation.
ParMiBench - An Open-Source Benchmark for Embedded Multiprocessor Systems

Multicore processors are the main computing platform in laptops, desktop, and servers today, and are making their way into the embedded systems market also. Using benchmarks is a common approach to evaluate the performance of a system. However, benchmarks for embedded systems have so far been either targeted for a uni-processor environment, e.g., MiBench,or have been commercial, e.g., MultiBench by EEMBC. In this paper, we propose and implement an open source benchmark,ParMiBench, targeted for multiprocessor-based embedded systems. ParMiBench consists of parallel implementations of seven compute intensive algorithms from the uni-processor benchmark suite MiBench. The applications are selected from four domains:Automation and Industry Control, Network, Office, and Security.
A feedback based scheme for improving TCP performance in ad-hoc wireless networks

Ad-hoc networks are completely wireless networks of mobile hosts, in which the topology rapidly changes due to the movement of mobile hosts. This frequent topology may lead to sudden packet losses and delays. Transport protocols like TCP have been built mainly for reliable, fixed networks. Hence, when used in ad-hoc networks, TCP misinterprets this loss as congestion and invokes congestion control. This leads to unnecessary retransmissions and loss of throughput. To overcome this problem, a feedback scheme is proposed, so that the source can distinguish between route failure and network congestion. When a route is disrupted, the source is sent a route failure notification (RFN) packet, allowing it to freeze its timers and stop sending packets. When the route is re-established, the source is informed through a route re-establishment notification (RRN) packet, upon which it resumes by unfreezing timers and continuing packet transmissions. The simulated performance of TCP on ad-hoc networks with and without feedback is compared and reported. It is observed that in the event of route failures, as the route re-establishment time increases, the use of feedback provides significant gains in throughput as well as savings in unnecessary packet transmissions. Several further enhancements and directions for future work are also sketched.
Effects of Training Exercises for the Development of Strength and Endurance in Soccer

A training program designed to increase strength and aerobic endurance in 1 season was tested on 16 professional soccer players from Spain with a mean age of 28 ± 3.37 years. The schedule comprised 4 macrocycles of 12 weeks of aerobic endurance and strength training. As much for the strength training as for the aerobic endurance, the program used a sequence of general, special, and specific exercises. Assessments were made with routine tests (i.e., squat jumps [SJs], countermovement jumps [CMJs], and countermovement jumps with arm swing [CMJas]) at the end of each macrocycle, and the Probst test was used to assess aerobic endurance as a function of running speed and distance, at the start and end of the training schedule and at the start of the third macrocycle. Jumps were performed on an infrared platform fitted to the MuscleLab system. The Probst test showed differences between the first evaluation and the second and third evaluations: 3,550 ± 411.59 m vs. 2,006 ± 207.20 m (P < 0.01). For 2 of the 3 jumps analyzed, the results were better in the last 2 than in the first 2 evaluations (SJ, 43.13 ± 3.77 vs. 39.47 ± 3.4 [P < 0.05]; CMJ, 49.80 ± 3.77 vs. 46.67 ± 3.76 [P < 0.05]; CMJas, 56.24 ± 5.2 vs. 52.98 ± 4.54 [P > 0.05]). Improvement of aerobic endurance was produced on the first phase of the season as a consequence of the training. To increase strength, it is necessary to augment the number of training sessions of this type. It is convenient to separate aerobic endurance and strength training to create more ample blocks during the last 2 macrocycles.
Multimodal MR imaging of acute and subacute experimental traumatic brain injury: Time course and correlation with cerebral energy metabolites

Background Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of death and permanent disability world-wide. The predominant cause of death after TBI is brain edema which can be quantified by non-invasive diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI). Purpose To provide a better understanding of the early onset, time course, spatial development, and type of brain edema after TBI and to correlate MRI data and the cerebral energy state reflected by the metabolite adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Material and Methods The spontaneous development of lateral fluid percussion-induced TBI was investigated in the acute (6 h), subacute (48 h), and chronic (7 days) phase in rats by MRI of quantitative T2 and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) mapping as well as perfusion was combined with ATP-specific bioluminescence imaging and histology. Results An induced TBI led to moderate to mild brain damages, reflected by transient, pronounced development of vasogenic edema and perfusion reduction. Heterogeneous ADC patterns indicated a parallel, but mixed expression of vasogenic and cytotoxic edema. Cortical ATP levels were reduced in the acute and subacute phase by 13% and 27%, respectively, but were completely normalized at 7 days after injury. Conclusion The partial ATP reduction was interpreted to be partially caused by a loss of neurons in parallel with transient dilution of the regional ATP concentration by pronounced vasogenic edema. The normalization of energy metabolism after 7 days was likely due to infiltrating glia and not to recovery. The MRI combined with metabolite measurement further improves the understanding and evaluation of brain damages after TBI.
The Return of Constructions

Review essay on: Goldberg, A. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. University of Chicago Press (1995). Pp. xi+265. The cornerstone of traditional descriptive grammars is the construction: a recurrent pattern of linguistic elements that serves some well-defined communicative function. Prototypical constructions are sentence-level patterns such as, in English: the imperative, the ditransitive, the passive, the resultative, the yes–no question, and the cleft (each of which may have some subtypes). Also included in some theorists' definition of construction are components of sentences such as the prepositional phrase, the noun phrase, or the genitive noun phrase. Traditional constructions may have some specific words or morphemes associated with them (e.g. by in the full passive, 's in the genitive), but these are generally closed-class morphemes. Almost by definition, traditional constructions are relatively abstract patterns that apply across whole classes of open-class morphemes. One of the defining features of modern-day generative grammar is the absence of constructions. Chomsky (1981) hypothesized that grammatical structure comprises two primary levels: the level of principles and parameters, which is much more abstract than constructions and includes everything from the subjacency constraint to the empty category principle, and the level of the lexicon, which includes all of the concrete morphemes and words of a particular language. In this view, constructions represent a ‘middle level’ of analysis that is, in effect, an epiphenomenon resulting from the interaction of the two primary levels. One outcome of this theoretical move has been that generative linguists concerned with construction-level phenomena have had to fill the generative lexicon with ever richer types of linguistic information, especially for verbs (e.g. Bresnan, 1982; Jackendoff, 1990; Levin, 1995; Pinker, 1989).
Nonparametric Risk and Stability Analysis for Multi-Task Learning Problems

Multi-task learning attempts to simultaneously leverage data from multiple domains in order to estimate related functions on each domain. For example, a special case of multi-task learning, transfer learning, is often employed when one has a good estimate of a function on a source domain, but is unable to estimate a related function well on a target domain using only target data. Multitask/ transfer learning problems are usually solved by imposing some kind of "smooth" relationship among/between tasks. In this paper, we study how different smoothness assumptions on task relations affect the upper bounds of algorithms proposed for these problems under different settings. For general multi-task learning, we study a family of algorithms which utilize a reweighting matrix on task weights to capture the smooth relationship among tasks, which has many instantiations in existing literature. Furthermore, for multi-task learning in a transfer learning framework, we study the recently proposed algorithms for the "model shift", where the conditional distribution P(Y|X) is allowed to change across tasks but the change is assumed to be smooth. In addition, we illustrate our results with experiments on both simulated and real data.
Benefits of Group Living Include Increased Feeding Efficiency and Lower Mass Loss during Desiccation in the Social and Inbreeding Spider Stegodyphus dumicola

Group living carries a price: it inherently entails increased competition for resources and reproduction, and may also be associated with mating among relatives, which carries costs of inbreeding. Nonetheless, group living and sociality is found in many animals, and understanding the direct and indirect benefits of cooperation that override the inherent costs remains a challenge in evolutionary ecology. Individuals in groups may benefit from more efficient management of energy or water reserves, for example in the form of reduced water or heat loss from groups of animals huddling, or through reduced energy demands afforded by shared participation in tasks. We investigated the putative benefits of group living in the permanently social spider Stegodyphus dumicola by comparing the effect of group size on standard metabolic rate, lipid/protein content as a body condition measure, feeding efficiency, per capita web investment, and weight/water loss and survival during desiccation. Because energetic expenditure is temperature sensitive, some assays were performed under varying temperature conditions. We found that feeding efficiency increased with group size, and the rate of weight loss was higher in solitary individuals than in animals in groups of various sizes during desiccation. Interestingly, this was not translated into differences in survival or in standard metabolic rate. We did not detect any group size effects for other parameters, and group size effects did not co-vary with experimental temperature in a predictive manner. Both feeding efficiency and mass loss during desiccation are relevant ecological factors as the former results in lowered predator exposure time, and the latter benefits social spiders which occupy arid, hot environments.
CAPILLARY BREAKUP OF A VISCOUS THREAD SURROUNDED BY ANOTHER VISCOUS FLUID

Previous long-wavelength analyses of capillary breakup of a viscous fluid thread in a perfectly inviscid environment show that the asymptotic self-similar regime immediately prior to breakup is given by a balance between surface tension, inertia, and extensional viscous stresses in the thread. In contrast, it is shown here that if viscosity in the external fluid, however small, is included then the asymptotic balance is between surface tension and viscous stresses in the two fluids while inertia is negligible. Scaling estimates for this new balance suggest that both axial and radial scales decrease linearly with time to breakup, so that the aspect ratio remains O(1) with time but scales with viscosity ratio like (μint/μext)1/2 for μint≫μext, where μint and μext are the internal and external viscosities. Numerical solutions to the full Stokes equations for μint=μext confirm the scalings with time and give self-similar behavior near pinching. However, the self-similar pinching region is embedded in a logari.
A cluster architecture for parallel data warehousing

Describes the parallel, cluster-based implementation of an algorithm for the computation of a database operator known as the datacube. Though a number of efficient sequential algorithms have recently been proposed for this problem, very little research effort has been expended upon cost-effective parallelization techniques. Our approach builds directly upon the existing sequential proposals and is designed to be both load-balanced and communication-efficient. We also provide experimental results that demonstrate the viability of our technique under a variety of test conditions. Ultimately, we show that parallel performance relative to the underlying sequential algorithm (speedup) is near-optimal.
User Interface Evaluation When User Errors May Have Safety-Critical Effects

Interactive safety-critical applications have specific requirements that cannot be completely captured by traditional evaluation techniques. In this paper we discuss how to perform a systematic inspection-based analysis to improve both usability and safety aspects of an application. The analysis considers a system prototype and the related task model and aims to evaluate what could happen when interactions and behaviours occur differently from what the system design assumes. We discuss an application of this method to a case study in the air traffic control domain.
The Effect of Forced Mediation Upon Short-Term Memory of Children with Learning Disabilities

This study focused upon the effect of instructions (forced rehearsal, voluntary rehearsal, and attention) upon the learning of 15 words presented either visually by slides or aurally by tape to learning disabled and normal children. Results were that the performance of learning disabled children was significantly poorer under the auditory and visual presentations irrespective of instructions. The auditory presentation was more difficult for both groups than the visual presentation. An unobtrusive measure of self-esteem did not discriminate the two groups of children. Results are discussed in terms of the development of learning strategies and the problem of measurement of self-esteem in learning disabled children.
Rapid Genetic Adaptation during the First Four Months of Survival under Resource Exhaustion

Abstract Many bacteria, including the model bacterium Escherichia coli can survive for years within spent media, following resource exhaustion. We carried out evolutionary experiments, followed by whole genome sequencing of hundreds of evolved clones to study the dynamics by which E. coli adapts during the first 4 months of survival under resource exhaustion. Our results reveal that bacteria evolving under resource exhaustion are subject to intense selection, manifesting in rapid mutation accumulation, enrichment in functional mutation categories and extremely convergent adaptation. In the most striking example of convergent adaptation, we found that across five independent populations adaptation to conditions of resource exhaustion occurs through mutations to the three same specific positions of the RNA polymerase core enzyme. Mutations to these three sites are strongly antagonistically pleiotropic, in that they sharply reduce exponential growth rates in fresh media. Such antagonistically pleiotropic mutations, combined with the accumulation of additional mutations, severely reduce the ability of bacteria surviving under resource exhaustion to grow exponentially in fresh media. We further demonstrate that the three positions at which these resource exhaustion mutations occur are conserved for the ancestral E. coli allele, across bacterial phyla, with the exception of nonculturable bacteria that carry the resource exhaustion allele at one of these positions, at very high frequencies. Finally, our results demonstrate that adaptation to resource exhaustion is not limited by mutational input and that bacteria are able to rapidly adapt under resource exhaustion in a temporally precise manner through allele frequency fluctuations.