Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Database Architecture Jigsaw Puzzle

Each DBMS represents a solution in a design space covering hundreds of parameters. The sheer size of this space leaves large parts unexplored, but also requires courage. The open-source MonetDB system is used to exemplify the pitfalls and opportunities of such an exploration into the realm of column-stores. We illustrate the vistas of high-risk projects based on radical changes in the design parameters, e.g., database cracking for self-organization, informative query summaries and database storage rings where the database is on the move. The missing jigsaw pieces identified are important for real innovations and provide an inspiration for changing the legacy architecture embodied in (relational) database products.
How right-wing versus cosmopolitan political actors mobilize and translate images of immigrants in transnational contexts

This article examines visual posters and symbols constructed and circulated transnationally by various political actors to mobilize contentious politics on the issues of immigration and citizenship. Following right-wing mobilizations focusing on the Syrian refugee crisis, immigration has become one of the most contentious political issues in Western Europe. Right-wing populist political parties have used provocative visual posters depicting immigrants or refugees as ‘criminal foreigners’ or a ‘threat to the nation’, in some countries and contexts conflating the image of the immigrant with that of the Islamist terrorist. This article explores the transnational dynamics of visual mobilization by comparing the translation of right-wing nationalist with left-wing, cosmopolitan visual campaigns on the issue of immigration in Western Europe. The author first traces the crosscultural translation and sharing of an anti-immigrant poster created by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), a right-wing political party, inspiring different extremist as well as populist right-wing parties and grassroots activists in several other European countries. She then explores how left-libertarian social movements try to break racist stereotypes of immigrants. While right-wing political activists create a shared stereotypical image of immigrants as foes of an imaginary ethnonationalist citizenship, left-wing counter-images construct a more complex and nuanced imagery of citizenship and cultural diversity in Europe. The findings show the challenges of progressive activists’ attempts to translate cosmopolitan images of citizenship across different national and linguistic contexts in contrast to the right wing’s rapid and effective instrumentalizing and translating of denigrating images of minorities in different contexts.
Epigenetic Cancer Prevention Mechanisms in Skin Cancer

Epigenetics is an important emerging area for study of mechanisms of cancer prevention. In recent years, it has been realized that cancer prevention agents, derived from natural dietary sources, impact cancer cell survival by modulating epigenetic processes. In the present manuscript, we review key epigenetic regulatory mechanisms and examine the impact of sulforaphane and green tea polyphenols on these processes. We also discuss available information on the epigenetics in the context of skin cancer. These studies indicate that diet-derived chemopreventive agents modulate DNA methylation status and histone modification via multiple processes and point to additional areas for study of epigenetic mechanisms in skin cancer.
Republished: Pro-arrhythmic and pro-ischaemic effects of inhaled anticholinergic medications

The majority of deaths in COPD are from cardiovascular causes. Several large randomized controlled trials demonstrate that inhaled anticholinergic agents ipratropium and tiotropium increase the risk of serious cardiovascular events, including cardiovascular mortality. Tiotropium Respimat is associated with a statistically significant increased risk of mortality (RR 1.52; 95% CI 1.06 to 2.16) and cardiovascular death (RR 2.05; 95% CI 1.06 to 3.99) compared with placebo in a meta-analysis of clinical trials. In the largest study, the subgroup of patients with COPD in the Respimat group with known rhythm and cardiac disorders at baseline had an especially high risk for cardiac death (RR 8.6; 95% CI 1.1 to 67.2). Although there was no significantly increased risk of mortality (HR 0.89; 95% CI 0.79 to 1.02) or myocardial infarction (MI) (RR 0.73; 95% CI 0.53 to 1.00) with tiotropium handihaler in the Understanding Potential Long-Term Impacts on Function with Tiotropium (UPLIFT) trial, the reported excess of angina (RR 1.44; 95% CI 0.91 to 2.26), imbalance in strokes related to ischaemia and rates of supraventricular tachyarrhythmias are consistent with the pro-ischemic and pro-arrhythmic effects. The subjects at greatest risk of cardiovascular death, such as those with a recent history of MI, unstable or life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias or hospitalisation with heart failure, were excluded from the UPLIFT trial. The Prevention of Exacerbations with Tiotropium in COPD trial showed an excess of serious coronary ischaemic events of angina, myocardial ischaemia and MI with the tiotropium Handihaler compared with salmeterol. The authors urge caution in prescribing inhaled anticholinergics for patients with pre-existing arrhythmias or cardiac disorders.
An Integrated 19-GHz Low-Phase-Noise Frequency Synthesizer in SiGe BiCMOS Technology

We present a fully integrated phase-locked loop tunable from 17.5 GHz to 19.2 GHz fabricated in a 0.25 mum SiGe BiCMOS technology. The measured phase noise is below -110 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset over the whole tuning range. Based on an integer-N architecture, the synthesizer consumes 248 mW and occupies a chip area of 2.1 mm including pads. Quadrature outputs at quarter of the oscillator frequency are produced, which are required in a sliding-IF 24 GHz transceiver. Possible applications include wireless LAN as well as satellite communication. The measured phase noise is the lowest among previously published Si-based integrated synthesizers above 12 GHz.
A pilot validation of multi‐echo based echo‐planar correlated spectroscopic imaging in human calf muscles

A current limitation of MR spectroscopic imaging of multiple skeletal muscles is prolonged scan duration. A significant reduction in the total scan duration using the echo‐planar correlated spectroscopic imaging (EP‐COSI) sequence was accomplished using two bipolar readout trains with different phase‐encoded echoes for one of two spatial dimensions within a single repetition time (TR). The second bipolar readout was used for spatially encoding the outer k‐space, whereas the first readout was used for the central k‐space only. The performance of this novel sequence, called multi‐echo based echo‐planar correlated spectroscopic imaging (ME‐EPCOSI), was demonstrated by localizing specific key features in calf muscles and bone marrow of 11 healthy volunteers and five subjects with type 2 diabetes (T2D). A 3 T MRI–MRS scanner equipped with a transmit–receive extremity coil was used. Localization of the ME‐EPCOSI sequence was in good agreement with the earlier single‐readout based EP‐COSI sequence and the required scan time was reduced by a factor of two. In agreement with an earlier report using single‐voxel based 2D MRS, significantly increased unsaturated pools of intramyocellular lipid (IMCL) and extramyocellular lipid (EMCL) and decreased IMCL and EMCL unsaturation indices (UIs) were observed in the soleus and tibialis anterior muscle regions of subjects with T2D compared with healthy controls. In addition, significantly decreased choline content was observed in the soleus of T2D subjects compared with healthy controls. Multi‐voxel characterization of IMCL and EMCL ratios and UI in the calf muscle may be useful for the non‐invasive assessment of altered lipid metabolism in the pathophysiology of T2D. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Lightweight Software Bus : A Message Broker for Prototyping Problem Solving Environments

This report describes the Lightweight Software Bus (LSB) developed at NC State to support prototyping of Problem Solving Environments (PSEs). LSB is a portable IP-based wide-area message broker that currently operates on a variety of Unix based platforms and will soon be available on Windows 95. LSB architecture and design are presented alongside its performance profile. Two performance metrics are used: message throughput and message latency. Both the latency and the throughput of LSB were measured in a high performance ATM-based testbed. LSB performance was compared with that of plain Berkeley sockets and with the IBM SOMobjects. The results show that LSB overhead is low and that, for the functionality examined, both its throughput and its latency are significantly better than that of the SOMobjects. Simple interface, together with a low latency and high throughput, make LSB a good choice for building PSE prototypes.
The Anterior Insula Tracks Behavioral Entropy during an Interpersonal Competitive Game

In competitive situations, individuals need to adjust their behavioral strategy dynamically in response to their opponent’s behavior. In the present study, we investigated the neural basis of how individuals adjust their strategy during a simple, competitive game of matching pennies. We used entropy as a behavioral index of randomness in decision-making, because maximizing randomness is thought to be an optimal strategy in the game, according to game theory. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), subjects played matching pennies with either a human or computer opponent in each block, although in reality they played the game with the same computer algorithm under both conditions. The winning rate of each block was also manipulated. Both the opponent (human or computer), and the winning rate, independently affected subjects’ block-wise entropy during the game. The fMRI results revealed that activity in the bilateral anterior insula was positively correlated with subjects’ (not opponent’s) behavioral entropy during the game, which indicates that during an interpersonal competitive game, the anterior insula tracked how uncertain subjects’ behavior was, rather than how uncertain subjects felt their opponent's behavior was. Our results suggest that intuitive or automatic processes based on somatic markers may be a key to optimally adjusting behavioral strategies in competitive situations.
Hardware Support for Cost-Effective System-Level Protection in Multi-core SoCs

The increasing adoption of multi-core Systems-on-Chip (SoC) in critical systems has turned security into an important design requirement. In addition to making a SoC tamper-resistant by embedding cryptographic solutions, in order to make a system robust, we need to control the level of access to the critical functions and capabilities. We propose a hardware protection architecture to enhance a traditional SoC platform in terms of protection. These hardware enhancements focus on isolating physical memory compartments by applying access rules, thus we allow dynamic security policies to be enforced at the hardware for protection against untrustworthy hardware or software components. We present and analyze an implementation of a prototype that allows sixteen concurrently active protection domains at a system cost of less that three percent and negligible operational overhead.
Network Protocols and its Implication on Connectivity and Configuration

Protocols play a role in network connectivity and performance. The techniques for routing packets across a network vary among protocols. In this paper, a brief review of six protocols which are employed by Cisco systems were made and they are Open Shortest Path First(OSPF), Enhanced version of Interior Gateway Protoco(EIGRP)l, Routing Information Protocol(RIP), Open System Interconnection(OSI), Spanning Tree Protocol and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) Spanning Tree Protocol is employed on switches to create broadcast domains while the others are employed in routers for routing functions. A brief comparison was made between the OSPF, RIP and EIGRP and it was discovered that EIGRP has better convergent capabilities and consumes less bandwidth. KeywordsEnhanced interior gateway protocol, open shortest path first, routing information protocol, static routing, internet protocol
Selective object stabilization for home video consumers

This paper describes a unified approach for video stabilization. The essential goal is to stabilize image sequences that consist of moving foreground objects, which appear frequently in today's home videos captured by hand-held consumer cameras. Our proposed techniques mainly rely on the analysis of motion content. Three major components are: initialization, segmentation and stabilization. In motion initialization, we propose a novel algorithm to efficiently search for the best possible frame in a sequence to start segmentation. Our segmentation algorithm is based on expectation-maximization (EM) framework which provides the mechanism for simultaneous estimation of motion models and their layers of support. Based on the framework of Kalman filter and EM motion estimation, our proposed algorithm has the flexibility of allowing selective stabilization with respect to background or/and foreground objects, subject to the preferences of customers.
Sexually dimorphic nuclei in the spinal cord control male sexual functions

Lower spinal cord injuries frequently cause sexual dysfunction in men, including erectile dysfunction and an ejaculation disorder. This indicates that the important neural centers for male sexual function are located within the lower spinal cord. It is interesting that the lumbar spinal segments contain several neural circuits, showing a clear sexually dimorphism that, in association with neural circuits of the thoracic and sacral spinal cord, are critical in expressing penile reflexes during sexual behavior. To date, many sex differences in the spinal cord have been discovered. Interestingly, most of these are male dominant. Substantial evidence of sexually dimorphic neural circuits in the spinal cord have been reported in many animal models, but major issues remain unknown. For example, it is not known how the different circuits cooperatively function during male sexual behavior. In this review, therefore, the anatomical and functional significance of the sexually dimorphic nuclei in the spinal cord corresponding to the expression of male sexual behavior is discussed.
Ecosystem-scale compensation points of formic and acetic acid in the central Amazon

Abstract. Organic acids, central to terrestrial carbon metabolism and atmospheric photochemistry, are ubiquitous in the troposphere in the gas, particle, and aqueous phases. As the dominant organic acids in the atmosphere, formic acid (FA, HCOOH) and acetic acid (AA, CH3COOH) control precipitation acidity in remote regions and may represent a critical link between the terrestrial carbon and water cycles by acting as key intermediates in plant carbon and energy metabolism and aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions. However, our understanding of the exchange of these acids between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere is limited by a lack of field observations, the existence of biogenic and anthropogenic primary and secondary sources whose relative importance is unclear, and the fact that vegetation can act as both a source and a sink. Here, we first present data obtained from the tropical rainforest mesocosm at Biosphere 2 which isolates primary vegetation sources. Strong light and temperature dependent emissions enriched in FA relative to AA were simultaneously observed from individual branches (FA/AA = 3.0 ± 0.7) and mesocosm ambient air (FA/AA = 1.4 ± 0.3). We also present long-term observations of vertical concentration gradients of FA and AA within and above a primary rainforest canopy in the central Amazon during the 2010 dry and 2011 wet seasons. We observed a seasonal switch from net ecosystem-scale deposition during the dry season to net emissions during the wet season. This switch was associated with reduced ambient concentrations in the wet season (FA 1.0). Our observations provide the first ecosystem-scale evidence of bidirectional FA and AA exchange between a forest canopy and the atmosphere controlled by ambient concentrations and ecosystem scale compensation points (estimated to be 1.3 ± 0.3 nmol mol−1: FA, and 2.1 ± 0.4 nmol mol−1: AA). These results suggest the need for a fundamental change in how future biosphere-atmosphere exchange models should treat FA and AA with a focus on factors that influence net exchange rates (ambient concentrations and ecosystem compensation points) rather than treating emissions and deposition separately.
A Comparative Study of Training Algorithms for Supervised Machine Learning

Classification in data mining has gained a lot of importance in literature and it has a great deal of application areas from medicine to astronomy, from banking to text classification. It can be described as supervised learning algorithm as it assigns class labels to data objects based on the relationship between the data items with a pre-defined class label. The classification techniques are help to learn a model from a set of training data and to classify a test data well into one of the classes. This research is related to the study of the existing classification algorithm and their comparative in terms of speed, accuracy, scalability and other issues which in turn would help other researchers in studying the existing algorithms as well as developing innovative algorithms for applications or requirements which are not available.
Combining First-Person Video and Gaze-Tracking in Medical Simulation: A Technical Feasibility Study

Crisis decision-making is an important responsibility of the resuscitation team leader but a difficult process to study. The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the potential of gaze-tracking technology to study decision-making and leadership behaviours in simulated medical emergencies. We studied five physicians with a broad range of experience in a simulated medical emergency using gaze-tracking glasses. Subjects were interviewed immediately after the scenario while viewing a first-person recording of their performance with a superimposed gaze indicator. The recordings were then studied independently by two reviewers, and rated for quality and their observations collated. Portable gaze-tracking devices were found to be useful and effective tools for studying information gathering and decision-making behaviours in simulated medical emergencies. The data obtained in this study provided information about the discrepancy between what each participant looked at compared to what each participant consciously noted. Analysis of the data also identified a number of recurrent gaze patterns performed by team leaders that could be used as end-points in future research. Gaze-tracking in resuscitation medicine is a new and promising field of study. The potential to study crisis decision-making behaviours, and cognitive load, as well as differences between novice and expert team leaders is substantial.
Database Migration from Structured Database to non-Structured Database

Database are growing very fast and becoming more complex in the volume (terabyte to petabyte), variety (structured, unstructured and hybrid), and velocity (high speed in growth). Management of database (BigData, so nomenclature) has become the global challenge. The data collection is currently managed and exploited mostly by using conventional data management tools such as classic relational database management systems (RDBMS) or conventional search engines. These systems and tools have been observed to be inefficient and incapable to handle the data in most of the cases e.g.: social networking sites. Efforts are being made to come up with some utility support in order to overcome the observed limitations. The research study was conducted to develop a Cloud-based Utility. It was aimed to convert structural database, SQL to un-structural database, NoSQL [11] systematically and sufficiently. The outcome of the study revealed that the database management becomes considerably scalable, flexible and efficient when traditional RDBMS are complimented by specifically designed rich set of alternative DBMS such as NoSQL, NewSQL based systems. The database conversion shall help in Database analysis and migration from traditional database to today’s BigData.
HSP90 affects the expression of genetic variation and developmental stability in quantitative traits

Modulation of the activity of the molecular chaperone HSP90 has been extensively discussed as a means to alter phenotype in many traits and organisms. Such changes can be due to the exposure of cryptic genetic variation, which in some instances may also be accomplished by mild environmental alteration. Should such polymorphisms be widespread, natural selection may be more effective at producing phenotypic change in suboptimal environments. However, the frequency and identity of buffered polymorphisms in natural populations are unknown. Here, we employ quantitative genetic dissection of an Arabidopsis thaliana developmental response, hypocotyl elongation in the dark, to detail the underpinnings of genetic variation responsive to HSP90 modulation. We demonstrate that HSP90-dependent alleles occur in continuously distributed, environmentally responsive traits and are amenable to quantitative genetic mapping techniques. Furthermore, such alleles are frequent in natural populations and can have significant effects on natural phenotypic variation. We also find that HSP90 modulation has both general and allele-specific effects on developmental stability; that is, developmental stability is a phenotypic trait that can be affected by natural variation. However, effects of revealed variation on trait means outweigh effects of decreased developmental stability, and the HSP90-dependent trait alterations could be acted on by natural selection. Thus, HSP90 may centrally influence canalization, assimilation, and the rapid evolutionary alteration of phenotype through the concealment and exposure of cryptic genetic variation.
Instruction and data cache peak temperature reduction using cache access balancing in embedded processors

In this work we study cache peak temperature variation under different cache access patterns. In particular we show that unbalanced cache access results in higher cache peak temperature. This is the result of frequent accesses made to overused cache sets. Moreover we study cache peak temperature under cache access balancing techniques and show that exploiting such techniques not only reduces cache miss rate but also results in lower peak temperature. Our study shows that balancing cache access reduces peak temperature by up to 20% and 12% for instruction and data caches respectively. This temperature reduction reduces peak temperature in neighbor components by up to 7%.
MIN and MAX operators for trapezoidal fuzzy intervals Part I: Formalization and application

This two part paper proposes a methodology for determining an extension of the MIN and MAX general analytical expression, initially developed for triangular fuzzy intervals (R. Boukezzoula et al., 2007) to trapezoidal ones when Zadehpsilas extension principle is considered. In order to determine the MIN and MAX analytical expressions, the first part exhibits the conventional interval relations and their extension in fuzzy case where trapezoidal fuzzy intervals are assumed. The formalization and justification of the so-built analytical expressions are detailed in part II of this paper. The potential use of these operators in the framework of uncertain aggregation operators and ranking fuzzy intervals is illustrated with an illustrative example.