Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mobility management for NGN WiMAX: Specification and implementation

The anticipated deployment of IEEE 802.16-based wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs) will usher a new era in broadband wireless communications. The adoption of the WiMAX technology for remote areas, for example, can address challenging scenarios in a cost-effective manner. While WiMAX Forum documents describe an architecture that inherently supports Quality of Service and mobility, several areas are left uncovered. We present an architecture which integrates WiMAX, Quality of Service and mobility management frameworks over heterogeneous networks, developing mechanisms for seamless handovers. Our approach takes into consideration the expected deployment of, on the one hand, the IEEE 802.21 (Media Independent Handover) proposed standard and, on the other, the IETFstandardized Next Steps in Signalling framework. The first contributions of this paper comprise a specification of the mechanisms for make-before-break vertical handovers taking Quality of Service signalling into account and the integration in a heterogeneous environment. The latter contribution is an empirical evaluation of the proposed architecture using a testbed demonstrator. We quantify the processing delays of the main components in our prototype implementation when a terminal hands over between different access technologies, demonstrating the potential of the proposed architecture.
Interaction Between the Atmospheric Boundary Layer and Wind Energy: from Continental-Scale to Turbine-Scale

Wind turbines and groups of wind turbines, or “wind plants”, interact with the complex and heterogeneous boundary layer of the atmosphere. We define the boundary layer as the portion of the atmosphere directly influenced by the surface, and this layer exhibits variability on a range of temporal and spatial scales. While early developments in wind energy could ignore some of this variability, recent work demonstrates that improved understanding of atmosphere-turbine interactions leads to the discovery of new ways to approach turbine technology development as well as processes such as performance validation and turbine operations. This interaction with the atmosphere occurs at several spatial and temporal scales from continental-scale to turbine-scale. Understanding atmospheric variability over continental-scales and across plants can facilitate reliance on wind energy as a baseload energy source on the electrical grid. On turbine scales, understanding the atmosphere’s contribution to the variability in power production can improve the accuracy of power production estimates as we continue to implement more wind energy onto the grid. Wind speed and directional variability within a plant will affect wind turbine wakes within the plants and among neighboring plants, and a deeper knowledge of these variations can help mitigate effects of wakes and possibly even allow the manipulation of these wakes for increased production. Herein, I present the extent of my PhD work, in which I studied outstanding questions at these scales at the intersections of wind energy and atmospheric science. My work consists of four distinct projects. At the coarsest scales, I analyze the separation between wind plant sites needed for statistical independence in order to reduce variability for grid-integration of wind. Site data from three datasets spanning continents, durations and time resolution include 45 years of hourly wind speed data from over 100 sites in Canada, 4 years of five-minute wind speed data from 14 sites in the US Pacific Northwest, and one year of five-minute wind power generation data from 29 wind farms in southeastern Australia. I find similarities between these datasets in which correlations that fall to zero with increasing station separation distance, and the higher the high-pass cut-off frequency, the smaller the station separation required to achieve de-correlation. Shifting to atmospheric interaction on turbine-scales, I use 2.5 months of upwind tower and turbine data to understand how power production varies with different atmospheric stability and turbulence regimes. At lower wind speeds, periods of unstable and more turbulent conditions produce more power than periods of stable and less turbulent conditions, while at wind speeds closer to rated wind speed, periods of unstable and more turbulent conditions produce less power than periods of stable and less turbulent conditions. Using these new, stability- and turbulence-specific power curves to calculate annual energy production (AEP) estimates results in…
Seamless I/O Driver for Ubiquitous Environment

In the ubiquitous environment, users can choose one of the devices according to their necessity and situation. Because it is very cumbersome to switch I/O device manually, middleware is made to do this work. However, seamless switching is not possible for environments in which middleware is not installed or application programs which do not run on middleware. We could resolve this problem by simply adding a light weighted virtual device driver into kernel and installing a seamless manager daemon. Therefore, widely used application programs, which are not middleware-based, need not to be modified for seamless switching. With this method, user’s effort to switch device is not nearly necessary. And switching delay time is reduced remarkably. Moreover, proposed method demands little processing power and memory space for added virtual device driver and daemon. In addition, our approach provides functions of device failure detection and automatic switching with low delay.
Preparation of gelatin microbeads with a narrow size distribution using microchannel emulsification

The purpose of this study was to prepare monodisperse gelatin microcapsules containing an active agent using microchannel (MC) emulsification, a novel technique for preparing water-in-oil (W/O) and oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions. As the first step in applying MC emulsification to the preparation of monodisperse gelatin microcapsules, simple gelatin microbeads were prepared using this technique. A W/O emulsion with a narrow size distribution containing gelatin in the aqueous phase was created as follows. First, the aqueous disperse phase was fed into the continuous phase through the MCs at 40°C (operating pressure: 3.9 kPa). The emulsion droplets had an average particle diameter of 40.7 μm and a relative standard deviation of 5.1%. The temperature of the collected emulsion was reduced and maintained at 25°C overnight. The gelatin microbeads had a smooth surface after overnight gelation; the average particle diameter was calculated to be 31.6 μm, and the relative standard deviation, 7.3%. The temperature was then lowered to 5°C by rapid air cooling and finally dried. The gelatin beads were dried and could be resuspended well in iso-octane. The had an average particle diameter of 15.6 μm, and a relative standard deviation of 5.9%. Using MC emulsification, we were able to prepare gelatin microbeads with a narrow size distribution. Since this emulsification technique requires only a low-energy input, it may create desirable experimental conditions for microencapsulation of unstable substances such as peptides and proteins. This method is promising for making monodisperse microbeads.
Neurochemical Mechanism of Electroacupuncture: Anti-injury Effect on Cerebral Function after Focal Cerebral Ischemia in Rats

We explored the neurochemical mechanism of electroacupuncture's (EA) protective effect on brain function in focal cerebral ischemia rats, using cerebral ischemia/reperfusion rats established by the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) method. Adult male Sprague–Dawley rats were randomly divided into four groups: Sham, Sham+EA, MCAO and MCAO+EA. The rats in Sham+EA and MCAO+EA were accepted EA treatment at ‘GV26’ and ‘GV20’ acupoints for 30 min. Electric stimulation was produced by a G-6805 generator and neurological deficit scores were recorded. Mitochondria respiratory function and the activities of respiratory enzymes were measured by a computer-aided Clark oxygen electrode system. Results showed that EA treatment might reduce the neurological deficit score, and significantly improve respiratory control ratio (RCR), the index of mitochondrial respiratory function, and increase the activities of succinic dehydrogenase, NADH dehydrogenase and cytochrome C oxidase in the MCAO rats. Results suggest that EA might markedly decrease the neurological deficit score, promote the activities of respiratory enzymes and reduce the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), resulting in improvement of respiratory chain function and anti-oxidative capability of brain tissues in the infarct penumbra zone. This be a mechanism of EA's anti-injury effect on brain function in MCAO rats.
Neuro-Fuzzy Systems for Intelligent Scientific Computation

Ab3tract Intelligence has been envisioned as a. key component of future problem solving environments for scientific compuling. This paper describes a computationally intelligent approach to address a major problem in scientific computation i.e., the efficient solution of partial differential equations (PDEs). This approach is implemented in PYTHIA-a system that supports smart parallel PDE solvers. PYTHIA provides advice on what method and parameters to usc for the solution of a specific PDE problem. It achieves this by comparing the characteristics of the given PDE with those of previously observed classes or PDEs. An important step in the reasoning mechanism or PYTHIA is the categorization of pnE problems into classes based on their characteristics. Exemplar based reasoning systems and backpropagation style neural networks have been earlier used to this end. In this paper, we describe the use of fuzzy min-max neural networks to realize the same objective. This method converges faster, is more accurate, generalizes very well and provides on-line adaptation. This technique makes certain assumptions about the paltern classes underlying the domain. In applying the fuzzy min-max uetwork to our domain, we improve the method by relaxing these assumptious. This scheme will rorm a. major component of future problem solving environments for scientific computing that are being developed by our group.
On Inconsistencies in Quantifying Strength of Community Structures

Complex network analysis involves the study of the properties of various real world networks. In this broad field, research on community structures forms an important sub area. The strength of community structure is typically quantified by the modularity measure. The measure is based on summing the differences in actual and expected fraction of edges per community (across all communities in the network), whereby the latter is computed based on randomizing the edges subjected to certain constrains. In this paper, we investigate the differences between two commonly used definitions of modularity and highlight one of them as inadequate for quantifying the strength of community structures. We first show this by mathematical proving. We then investigate the empirical differences by developing and testing two variants of a community detection algorithm whereby the variants differ based on their modularity definitions. We observe varying differences in detection accuracy when applying the variants on artificially generated networks. For networks with strong community structures, we show that sensible results are still obtainable with the inadequate measure, which explains why this issue did not come to light previously.
Induction of Tumor-Reactive Cytotoxic T-Lymphocytes Using a Peptide from NY-ESO-1 Modified at the Carboxy-terminus to Enhance HLA-A2.1 Binding Affinity and Stability in Solution

NY-ESO-1 is an attractive candidate tumor antigen for the development of immunotherapies for a wide variety of cancers. It is expressed in multiple types of tumors, but its normal tissue distribution is predominantly limited to the testes and ovaries; furthermore, both humoral and cellular immune responses can be mounted against this protein. Three overlapping HLA-A2.1–restricted T-cell epitopes have been identified within NY-ESO-1. In this investigation, the authors evaluated the in vitro immunogenicity of these peptides. From 2 of 12 HLA-A2.1+ patients with metastatic melanoma, peptide-reactive cytotoxic T-lymphocytes were generated using either NY-ESO-1:157–167 or NY-ESO-1:157–165 but not NY-ESO-1:155–163. Because NY-ESO-1:157–165 is a 9 amino acid peptide completely contained within NY-ESO-1:157–167, it seemed likely that this peptide was the minimal determinant, and thus it was selected for continued study. An amino acid substitution of C to V was introduced into NY-ESO-1:157–165 at P9 to attempt to improve its immunogenicity by enhancing its binding affinity to HLA-A2.1 and increasing its stability in solution, because the C residue is readily oxidized, leading to dimerization of the peptide. From 5 of 20 HLA-A2.1+ patients with metastatic melanoma, NY-ESO-1:157–165(165V) stimulated cytotoxic T-lymphocytes in vitro, which recognized peptide-pulsed target cells and HLA-A2.1+ NY-ESO-1+ tumor cells, suggesting that this peptide may be clinically valuable for the treatment of patients with NY-ESO-1+ tumors.
Changes in plasma testosterone, thyroxine and triiodothyronine in relation to sperm production and remex moult in domestic ganders.

Changes in plasma testosterone (T), thyroxine (T4), triiodothyronine (T3), semen output and remex moult were studied in domestic ganders. A bimodal pattern in both plasma T and sperm concentration was observed during the annual cycle. Ganders started to produce semen at the end of January; maximum semen volume (0.32 +/- 0.04 ml) and sperm concentration (148 +/- 38 x 10(3)/mm3) were reached in March and a marked decrease was observed after mid-April, when the moult of the remiges began. Plasma T3 levels peaked in February (9.7 +/- 0.6 nmol.l-1) and this peak coincided with maximum T concentrations (9.8-10.4 nmol.l-1). Elevated levels of T4 were found from late February until mid-April (31.0-33.6 nmol.l-1). Plasma T concentration was low at all stages of remex moult and regrowth. Decreased T4 levels were found in ganders during remex regrowth from the "brush" to half of the full primary growth stage. Higher plasma T4 levels were found before and after this stage of the moult. A reverse pattern was observed for T3 concentrations.
The Information Value of Some Hesitation Phenomena: Filled Pauses, Lengthenings, and Entropy Reduction

Such hesitation phenomena as filled pauses (e.g., uh , um ) have been argued to serve a pragmatic role as markers of impending hesitation on the part of the speaker (Smith and Clark, 1993; Clark and F ox Tree, 2002). Lengthenings (e.g., a:nd , we:ll )—also hesitation phenomena—are arguably similar. In short, these hesitation markers constitute information fro m which listeners make inferences. The present rese arch reports on an effort to use entropy reduction (Shan non, 1948) in a corpus analysis to investigate the relationship between hesitation markers and subsequ ent delay in spontaneous speech. Results show fill ed pauses and lengthenings are similar in the way that they mark impending delay.
The Open-Ocean Side of the Malvinas Current in Argo Floats and 24 Years of Mercator Ocean High-Resolution (1/12) Physical Reanalysis

Downstream of Drake Passage, the northern branches of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the Polar Front and the Subantarctic Front, veer northward and the latter forms the Malvinas Current (MC). The MC flows along the continental slope up to 38°S where it loops southward as the Malvinas Return Flow. Using 24 years of Mercator Ocean physical reanalysis outputs and Argo float data, we explore the open‐ocean side of the MC. We observe the occurrence of blocking events at 49°S, a region where the MC is exposed to the warm and salty anticyclonic anomalies propagating westward along the steep slope of the Malvinas Escarpment. During these events, the MC is cut off from its source, and the MC transport is considerably reduced at 49°S. The open‐ocean side of the MC is regularly supplied with cold polar waters from the Polar front.The polar waters accumulate and recirculate between the MC and the Malvinas Return Flow. The water characteristics of the recirculation region change over time. The recirculation region hosts significantly lighter and fresher waters during the period 1997–2003 compared with prior and later years. The 1997–2003 salinity minimum in the recirculation region corresponds to a period with reduced feeding events at 49°S.
Plant control over QoS-enabled packet networks

Performance and stability in networked control systems are strongly affected by transmission delays and packet dropouts. We propose a control architecture based on the Differentiated Services technique to guarantee quality of service on the network. The crucial observation is that not all signals traveling on the network have the same importance. An adaptive packet-marking strategy has been developed to choose at run-time the transmission priority according to the importance of the data and the current network condition. System/network co-simulation applied to a bottleneck scenario validates the proposed approach and shows that better performance can be reached without increasing the bandwidth if network resources are used in a smarter way.
SPIS 5: New Modeling Capabilities and Methods for Scientific Missions

Since the last version, the numerical core and the user interface of Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS) have been significantly improved to achieve two objectives: 1) to make SPIS more user friendly and robust for industrial use and 2) to extend the multiscale capabilities and the precision of the solvers in order to model a large range of scientific missions. The new numerical algorithm and modeling capabilities are presented in detail. This new version permits modeling of time variations of the plasma environment, spinning spacecraft, semitransparent grids, secondary emission from 1-D thin elements (e.g., wires or booms), 2-D thin elements (for example, solar arrays), the effect of v × B electric field, particle detectors, and Langmuir probes onboard spacecraft.
Looking Back in Time Beyond the Big Bang

String theory can (in principle) describe gravity at all curvature scales, and can be applied to cosmology to look back in time beyond the Planck epoch. The duality symmetries of string theory suggest a cosmological picture in which the imprint of a primordial, pre-big bang phase could still be accessible to present observations. The predictive power of such a scenario relies, however, on our ability to connect in a smooth way the pre-big bang to the present cosmological regime. Classical radiation back reaction seems to play a key role to this purpose, by isotropizing and turning into a final expansion any state of anisotropic contraction possibly emerging from the pre-big bang at the string scale.
Subsidies, hierarchy and peers: the awkward economics of higher education

H igher education is a business: it produces and sells educational services to customers for a price and it buys inputs with which to make that product. Production is subject to technological constraints. Costs and revenues discipline decisions and determine the long-run viability of a college or university. ‘‘But higher education is not just a business. ’’ While that statement is often meant to imply that higher education is nobler than business—more decent and humane in the purposes it serves—it can also mean that even in economic terms higher education is, in important ways, simply different from a business. This paper asks how well our extensive experience with commercial businesses—and the microeconomic theory of firms and markets that has evolved to describe them—helps in understanding the economics of higher education. That experience and those insights will be used by trustees, politicians, administrators, lawyers, reporters and the public, as well as by economists, to understand and evaluate the behavior of colleges and universities. So it is useful to ask how safe it is to use ‘‘the economic analogy’’ in the context of higher education, drawing parallels between universities and firms, students and customers, faculty and labor markets, and so on. The discussion here seeks to identify the key economic features of higher education that make it different from familiar for-profit industries and to ask what difference those differences make. This is a stick that can be picked up from either end. One approach is to start with meticulous economic theory and see how far it can be made to encompass the economic realities of higher education. An excellent recent paper by Rothschild and White (1995) does that. In their matching model, students and colleges meet
S-Store: Streaming Meets Transaction Processing

Stream processing addresses the needs of real-time applications. Transaction processing addresses the coordination and safety of short atomic computations. Heretofore, these two modes of operation existed in separate, stove-piped systems. In this work, we attempt to fuse the two computational paradigms in a single system called S-Store. In this way, S-Store can simultaneously accommodate OLTP and streaming applications. We present a simple transaction model for streams that integrates seamlessly with a traditional OLTP system, and provides both ACID and stream-oriented guarantees. We chose to build S-Store as an extension of H-Store - an open-source, in-memory, distributed OLTP database system. By implementing S-Store in this way, we can make use of the transaction processing facilities that H-Store already provides, and we can concentrate on the additional features that are needed to support streaming. Similar implementations could be done using other main-memory OLTP platforms. We show that we can actually achieve higher throughput for streaming workloads in S-Store than an equivalent deployment in H-Store alone. We also show how this can be achieved within H-Store with the addition of a modest amount of new functionality. Furthermore, we compare S-Store to two state-of-the-art streaming systems, Esper and Apache Storm, and show how S-Store can sometimes exceed their performance while at the same time providing stronger correctness guarantees.
Approximate Packet Classification Caching

Most network devices such as routers and firewalls employ caches to take advantage of temporal locality of packet headers in order to speed up packet processing decisions. Traditionally, cache designs trade off time and space with the goal of balancing the overall cost and performance of the device. In this paper, we examine another axis of the design space that has not been previously considered: accuracy. In particular, we quantify the benefits that relaxing the accuracy of the cache has on the cost and performance of packet classification caches. Our cache design is based on the popular Bloom filter data structure. This paper provides a model for optimizing Bloom filters for this purpose, as well as extensions to the data structure to support graceful aging, bounded misclassification rates, and multiple binary predicates. Given this, we show that such caches can provide nearly an order of magnitude cost savings at the expense of misclassifying one billionth of packets for IPv6-based caches.