Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Collocation Games And Their Application to Distributed Resource Management

We introduce Collocation Games as the basis of a general framework for modeling, analyzing, and facilitating the interactions between the various stakeholders in distributed systems in general, and in cloud computing environments in particular. Cloud computing enables ﬁxed-capacity (processing, communication, and storage) resources to be oﬀered by infrastructure providers as commodities for sale at a ﬁxed cost in an open marketplace to independent, rational parties (players) interested in setting up their own applications over the Internet. Virtualization technologies enable the partitioning of such ﬁxed-capacity resources so as to allow each player to dynamically acquire appropriate fractions of the resources for unencumbered use. In such a paradigm, the resource management problem reduces to that of partitioning the entire set of applications (players) into subsets, each of which is assigned to ﬁxed-capacity cloud resources. If the infrastructure and the various applications are under a single administrative domain, this partitioning reduces to an optimization problem whose objective is to minimize the overall deployment cost. In a marketplace, in which the infrastructure provider is interested in maximizing its own proﬁt, and in which each player is interested in minimizing its own cost, it should be evident that a global optimization is precisely the wrong framework. Rather, in this paper we use a game-theoretic framework in which the assignment of players to ﬁxed-capacity resources is the outcome of a strategic ”Collocation Game”. Although we show that determining the existence of an equilibrium for collocation games in general is NP-hard, we present a number of simpliﬁed, practically-motivated variants of the collocation game for which we establish convergence to a Nash Equilibrium, and for which we derive convergence and price of anarchy bounds. In addition to these analytical results, we present an experimental evaluation of implementations of some of these variants for cloud infrastructures consisting of a collection of multidimensional resources of homogeneous or heterogeneous capacities.
Stochastic Regulation of Cell Migration from the Efferent Lymph to Oxazolone-Stimulated Skin1

The systemic immune response is a dynamic process involving the trafficking of lymphocytes from the Ag-stimulated lymph node to the peripheral tissue. Studies in sheep have demonstrated several phases of cell output in the efferent lymph after Ag stimulation. When skin contact sensitizers are used as Ag, the efferent lymph cell output peaks ∼96 h after Ag stimulation and is temporally associated with the recruitment of cells into the skin. To investigate the relative contribution of this high-output phase of efferent lymphocytes to lymphocytic inflammation in the skin, we used a common contact sensitizer 2-phenyl-4-ethoxymethylene-5-oxazolone (oxazolone) to stimulate the skin and draining prescapular lymph node of adult sheep. The efferent lymph ducts draining the Ag-stimulated and contralateral control lymph nodes were cannulated throughout the experimental period. The lymphocytes leaving the lymph nodes during the 72-h period before maximum infiltration were differentially labeled with fluorescent tracers, reinjected into the arterial circulation, and tracked to the site of Ag stimulation. Quantitative tissue cytometry of the skin at the conclusion of the injection period (96 h after Ag stimulation) demonstrated more migratory cells derived from the Ag-stimulated lymph node than the contralateral control (median 18.5 vs 15.5 per field; p < 0.05). However, when corrected for total cell output of the lymph node, the Ag-stimulated migratory cells were 3.8-fold more prevalent in the skin than the contralateral control cells. These results suggest that the in situ immune response generally mirrors the frequency of recruitable lymphocytes in the peripheral blood.
Comparative Efficacy and Safety of New Oral Anticoagulants in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation

Background— Dabigatran, an oral thrombin inhibitor, and rivaroxaban and apixaban, oral factor Xa inhibitors, have been found to be safe and effective in reducing stroke risk in patients with atrial fibrillation. We sought to compare the efficacy and safety of the 3 new agents based on data from their published warfarin-controlled randomized trials, using the method of adjusted indirect comparisons. Methods and Results— We included findings from 44 535 patients enrolled in 3 trials of the efficacy of dabigatran (Randomized Evaluation of Long-Term Anticoagulation Therapy [RELY]), apixaban (Apixaban for Reduction in Stroke and Other Thromboembolic Events in Atrial Fibrillation [ARISTOTLE]), and rivaroxaban (Rivaroxaban Once Daily Oral Direct Factor Xa Inhibition Compared With Vitamin K Antagonism for Prevention of Stroke and Embolism Trial in Atrial Fibrillation [ROCKET-AF]), each compared with warfarin. The primary efficacy end point was stroke or systemic embolism; the safety end point we studied was major hemorrhage. To address a lack of comparability between trial populations caused by the restriction of ROCKET-AF to high-risk patients, we conducted a subgroup analysis in patients with a CHADS2 score ≥3. We found no statistically significant efficacy differences among the 3 drugs, although apixaban and dabigatran were numerically superior to rivaroxaban. Apixaban produced significantly fewer major hemorrhages than dabigatran and rivaroxaban. Conclusions— An indirect comparison of new anticoagulants based on existing trial data indicates that in patients with a CHADS2 score ≥3 dabigatran 150 mg, apixaban 5 mg, and rivaroxaban 20 mg resulted in statistically similar rates of stroke and systemic embolism, but apixaban had a lower risk of major hemorrhage compared with dabigatran and rivaroxaban. Until head-to-head trials or large-scale observational studies that reflect routine use of these agents are available, such adjusted indirect comparisons based on trial data are one tool to guide initial therapeutic choices.
Isolation and characterization of antibiotic X-14931A, the naturally occurring 19-deoxyaglycone of dianemycin.

Sir: A number of polyether antibiotics containing two spiroketal functions in their molecular structure are known. They include dianemycin1, lenoremycin2 (A-I30A)3', and leuseramycin (TM-531A)'). In the most recent classification scheme proposed for the polyether antibiotics5), these antibiotics constitute the lb(2) type which, in addition to containing two spiroketals, are also 3-glycosides due to the presence of the sugarlike moiety, trideoxy-4-O-methyl-D-erythrohexapyranose (4-O-methylamicetose). In this report is described the first example of a polyether antibiotic containing two spiroketals but lacking the 4-O-methylamicetose or any other sugar moiety. This novel antibiotic, X-14931A (1), is formally the 19-deoxyaglycone of dianemycin (2). Analysis of the sodium salt revealed the presence of two con formationally distinct molecules and preliminary efforts to obtain a structure from the data of this sodium salt failed. The structure of antibiotic X-14931A was subsequently determined by X-ray analysis of the silver salt hydrate (Fig. 1). The silver-oxygen and the hydrogen bond distances in the silver salt of antibiotic X-14931A are given in Table 1. Antibiotic X-14931A was isolated as part of a screen for novel ionophores by EtOAc extraction of whole fermentation broth (227 liters) from a culture of Streptomyces sp. X-14931. The crude extract was concentrated under reduced pressure to an oil which was dissolved in n-hexane and the solution extracted twice with equal volumes of CH,CN, followed by three extractions with CH ,,OH. The pooled CH,CN and CHOH extracts were evaporated under reduced pressure. The residue was dissolved in EtOAc and washed sequentially with I N HCI, saturated Na,CO, solution, then dried (Na.,SO,) and concentrated under reduced pressure. The 55 g residue was chromatographed on 600 g silica gel. Gradient elution beTable
Influenza Research Database: An integrated bioinformatics resource for influenza virus research

The Influenza Research Database (IRD) is a U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)-sponsored Bioinformatics Resource Center dedicated to providing bioinformatics support for influenza virus research. IRD facilitates the research and development of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics against influenza virus by providing a comprehensive collection of influenza-related data integrated from various sources, a growing suite of analysis and visualization tools for data mining and hypothesis generation, personal workbench spaces for data storage and sharing, and active user community support. Here, we describe the recent improvements in IRD including the use of cloud and high performance computing resources, analysis and visualization of user-provided sequence data with associated metadata, predictions of novel variant proteins, annotations of phenotype-associated sequence markers and their predicted phenotypic effects, hemagglutinin (HA) clade classifications, an automated tool for HA subtype numbering conversion, linkouts to disease event data and the addition of host factor and antiviral drug components. All data and tools are freely available without restriction from the IRD website at https://www.fludb. org.
Temperature stress and redox homeostasis in agricultural crops

Plants are exposed to a wide range of environmental conditions and one of the major forces that shape the structure and function of plants are temperature stresses, which include low and high temperature stresses and considered as major abiotic stresses for crop plants. Due to global climate change, temperature stress is becoming the major area of concern for the researchers worldwide. The reactions of plants to these stresses are complex and have devastating effects on plant metabolism, disrupting cellular homeostasis and uncoupling major physiological and biochemical processes. Temperature stresses disrupt photosynthesis and increase photorespiration altering the normal homeostasis of plant cells. The constancy of temperature, among different metabolic equilibria present in plant cells, depends to a certain extent on a homeostatically regulated ratio of redox components, which are present virtually in all plant cells. Several pathways, which are present in plant cells, enable correct equilibrium of the plant cellular redox state and balance fluctuations in plant cells caused by changes in environment due to stressful conditions. In temperature stresses, high temperature stress is considered to be one of the major abiotic stresses for restricting crop production. The responses of plants to heat stress vary with extent of temperature increase, its duration and the type of plant. On other hand, low temperature as major environmental factor often affects plant growth and crop productivity and leads to substantial crop loses. The present review discusses how oxidative damage as a result of temperature stress is detrimental for various crops. Various strategies adapted by the plants to main redox homeostasis are described along with use of exogenous application of some stress protectants.
The Invariance of Characteristic Current Densities in Nanoscale MOSFETs and Its Impact on Algorithmic Design Methodologies and Design Porting of Si(Ge) (Bi)CMOS High-Speed Building Blocks

This paper provides evidence that, as a result of constant-field scaling, the peak fT (approx. 0.3 mA/mum), peak fMAX (approx. 0.2 mA/mum), and optimum noise figure NFMIN (approx. 0.15 mA/mum) current densities of Si and SOI n-channel MOSFETs are largely unchanged over technology nodes and foundries. It is demonstrated that the characteristic current densities also remain invariant for the most common circuit topologies such as MOSFET cascodes, MOS-SiGe HBT cascodes, current-mode logic (CML) gates, and nMOS transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs) with active pMOSFET loads. As a consequence, it is proposed that constant current-density biasing schemes be applied to MOSFET analog/mixed-signal/RF and high-speed digital circuit design. This will alleviate the problem of ever-diminishing effective gate voltages as CMOS is scaled below 90 nm, and will reduce the impact of statistical process variation, temperature and bias current variation on circuit performance. The second half of the paper illustrates that constant current-density biasing allows for the porting of SiGe BiCMOS cascode operational amplifiers, low-noise CMOS TIAs, and MOS-CML and BiCMOS-CML logic gates and output drivers between technology nodes and foundries, and even from bulk CMOS to SOI processes, with little or no redesign. Examples are provided of several record-setting circuits such as: 1) SiGe BiCMOS operational amplifiers with up to 37-GHz unity gain bandwidth; 2) a 2.5-V SiGe BiCMOS high-speed logic chip set consisting of 49-GHz retimer, 40-GHz TIAs, 80-GHz output driver with pre-emphasis and output swing control; and 3) 1-V 90-nm bulk and SOI CMOS TIAs with over 26-GHz bandwidth, less than 8-dB noise figure and operating at data rates up to 38.8 Gb/s. Such building blocks are required for the next generation of low-power 40-80 Gb/s wireline transceivers
Multicolor imaging of lymphatic function with two nanomaterials: quantum dot-labeled cancer cells and dendrimer-based optical agents.

AIM The lymphatics, critical conduits of metastases, are difficult to study because of their size and location. Two approaches to lymphatic imaging have been employed; cancer cell labeling provides information on cell migration and metastasis and macromolecular contrast agents enable visualization of the lymphatic drainage and identification of sentinel lymph node. Only one of these approaches is typically employed during an imaging examination. Here, we demonstrate the combined use of both approaches. METHOD In this study, we simultaneously visualize migration of quantum dot-labeled melanoma cells and the lymphatics using optically labeled dendrimers in vivo. RESULTS The appropriate use of two nanomaterials, quantum dots and dendrimers, enabled the simultaneous tracking of cancer cells within draining lymphatics. CONCLUSION This technique could enable better understanding of lymph node metastasis.
Using Learning in a Control Agent

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has undertaken an R&D project whose near-term objective is to achieve a higher level of autonomy in ground-based system operations. The multi-agent system, named LOGOS, is designed to replace human operators in the satellite ground control centers. This paper focuses on the on-going development of the control agent for LOGOS and the use of learning technologies to ensure the longterm success of LOGOS.
Unaltered aerobic power and endurance following glucocorticoid-induced muscle atrophy.

The present study was undertaken to evaluate whether the muscle atrophy associated with glucocorticoid excess results in a reduction in maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and endurance during exercise. Female rats were administered single subcutaneous injections of cortisone acetate (CA) (100 mg X kg-1 b.w.) or the vehicle (1% carboxymethyl cellulose) for 14 consecutive days. The weights of plantaris muscles (which were used as a marker of the atrophy) of CA-treated rats were 27% less than those of plantaris muscles in the vehicle-treated rats. This condition also produced a 12-fold increase in free serum glucocorticoid concentrations (cortisol) but did not alter serum androgen (testosterone) levels. Peak VO2 (ml X kg-1 X min-1) and endurance were greater in CA-treated vs vehicle-treated animals; however, these effects were shown to be a function of body weight loss. Homogenate oxygen uptakes in the presence of pyruvate or palmitate were also similar in slow-twitch soleus, fast-twitch red vastus, and fast-twitch white vastus lateralis muscles between CA- and vehicle-treated groups. These data provide no evidence to demonstrate that the catabolic actions of glucocorticoids in skeletal muscle result in a decrement in work capacity through at least 14 d of treatment.
Suitable MIMO-OFDM Decoders to Compensate IQ Imbalance

Imperfections in analog circuits are a serious obstacle to the realization of high data rate transmission for MIMO-OFDM systems. IQ imbalance is one such imperfection. The paper proposed a compensation scheme using a cascaded connection of MMSE and MLD, which applies MIMO decoding and compensation of IQ imbalance simultaneously. Computer simulations show that the proposed scheme can achieve almost the same performance as the conventional compensation scheme even though the computational complexity is reduced to about 1/3 of that of the conventional compensation scheme.
A Direct Performance Test for Assessing Activities of Daily Living in Patients with Mild Degenerative Dementia: The Development of the ETAM and Preliminary Results

Background: There are currently only a few performance tests that assess the capacity to perform activities of daily living. These measures frequently require a long time to administer, are strongly cognition oriented, or have not been adequately validated. Methods: The Erlangen Test of Activities of Daily Living in Mild Dementia (ETAM) was developed in a 4-phase process that was based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF). A pilot study was conducted on 30 subjects with mild dementia with a mean age of 80 years. The subjects' mean score on the MMSE was 21.5. Twenty-one of the 30 subjects were women. Results: Ten items were developed and tested in the pilot study. The mean time required to complete the test was 26 min. The item analysis showed difficulties that ranged primarily from r = 0.28 to r = 0.79. The ETAM had a moderate correlation with the MMSE (rMMSE = 0.310) and a low correlation with the Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15; rGDS-15 = 0.149). Conclusion: The preliminary version of the ETAM is quick and easy to use and has predominantly satisfactory item characteristics. There still is the need to revise the items ‘giving directions' and ‘making tea' with regard to standardisation.
Coagulation and thrombomodulin in response to exercise of different type and duration.

PURPOSE The present study was conducted to evaluate the role of the duration of exercise and the impact of the exercise type for exercise-induced activation of coagulation. METHODS Eleven male triathletes were subjected to stepwise maximal (17 min) and 1-h maximal exercise in swimming, cycling, and running. Changes of hemostatic variable sand of plasma thrombomodulin, a marker of endothelial cell activation, were monitored. RESULTS Irrespective of the type of exercise, alterations in markers of thrombin (prothrombin fragment 1 + 2, thrombin-antithrombin III complexes) and fibrin formation (fibrinopeptide A) were more pronounced after 1-h exercise than after stepwise maximal exercise. Hemostatic parameters rose to the highest levels after running resulting in substantial fibrin formation as indicated by fibrinopeptide A increasing from 1.33 ng.mL-1 to 2.25 ng.mL (P < 0.05) after 1-h exercise testing. Significant changes of plasma thrombomodulin were detected exclusively after running with increases from 38.2 ng.mL-1 to 44.2 ng.mL-1 (1 h, P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS The data demonstrated that prolonged exercise is necessary for exercise-induced activation of coagulation resulting in thrombin and fibrin formation and suggested that endothelial cell activation possibly due to mechanical factors associated with running might play a role.
Modeling and simulation of integrated voice/data cellular communication with generally distributed delay for end voice calls

Cellular networks are gradually shifting from voice only to voice and data due to increased demand for WWW, FTP and multi-media messaging. This has substantially increased the volume of cellular data traffic. Schemes have been proposed for co-existence and fair sharing of the available bandwidth between circuit switched voice and packetized data traffic. One popular scheme is based on delaying the last incoming acceptable voice call for a random amount of time and utilizing this time to service the accumulated data traffic to prevent excessive queuing delay in delivering the data traffic. However, this delay time has been usually modeled as being exponentially distributed. In this paper, this delay is modeled as a uniformly distributed random variable instead. This scheme is extended by delaying more than one call. Performance measures like voice and data blocking probability is plotted as function of last call delay
Millimeter Wave Ultra Wide Band Short Range Radar Localization Accuracy

In the coming years, it is expected that long and short range road vehicle radars (LRR, SRR) will all operate at millimeter wave. In several regions of the world, a one GHz bandwidth was selected between 76 and 77 GHz for LRR. To obtain a very high distance resolution for applications like brakeassist and pre-crash, SRR need an even larger bandwidth. Hence, a 4 GHz bandwidth was allocated to provide precise radial range information of objects with a range separation of approximately 5 cm to 10 cm. Directions of the targets are obtained using two or more separate sensors associated to localization techniques. The purpose of this paper concerns a simulation and experimental evaluation of an impulse radio, ultra wide band (IR-UWB) vehicle localization system. In this context, different localization techniques (TDOA, TOA, DOA) will be evaluated in terms of position error for scenarios using three distant, separate sensors. Our objective is to evaluate an optimum technique as a function of the localization range. Simulation results will be compared to experimental results obtained in laboratory. These results will show the interest of coupling two of the following TOA, TDOA and DOA techniques, at different ranges. Keywords-Radar; Ultra Wide Band; Pulse; Ranging; Localization; Vehicle
Analytical Modeling of Active Queue Management under Dynamic Channel Conditions

This paper presents an original analytical model for a finite buffer queueing system with Active Queue Management (AQM) where the dynamic channel conditions are captured by Markov-Modulated Poisson Processes. The model derives the close-form expressions of performance metrics including the mean number of packets in the system and in the queue, throughput, response time, delay, packet loss probability as well as system utilization. The credibility of the model is demonstrated by comparing the analytic results with those obtained through extensive simulation experiments. The proposed model is used to investigate the impacts of varying thresholds and burstiness in the channel capacity on the system performance.
Identification of IEEE 802.11g and IEEE 802.15.4 signals using energy and cyclostationarity detection approach

The industrial, scientific and medical band is widely used by different wireless systems. The identification of other wireless technologies in the common environment is one of the keys for correct system coexistence. In this work, a sensing platform for the detection of IEEE 802.11g and IEEE 802.15. 4 primary signals in the 2.4 GHz band is proposed. The sensing platform makes use of a combined scheme between energy detection and cyclostationarity-based methods for better accuracy. A universal software radio peripheral equipment is used for the acquisition of RF signals. Meanwhile, the signal processing and detection methods are performed in software domain by means of LabVIEW. Experimental testes are developed for evaluating the proposed platform and algorithms. The reliability rate and correct classification of the signals are the chosen parameters for evaluation of the proposal. The results show the optimal threshold for achieving an adequate reliability rate.