Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pathology of serrated colorectal lesions

The concept of serrated colorectal neoplasia has become recognised as a key process in the development of colorectal cancer (CRC) and an important alternative pathway to malignancy compared with the long-established ‘adenoma-carcinoma’ sequence. Increasing recognition of the morphological spectrum of serrated lesions has occurred in parallel with elucidation of the distinct molecular genetic characteristics of progression from normal mucosa, via the ‘serrated pathway’, to CRC. Some of these lesions can be difficult to identify at colonoscopy. Challenges for pathologists include the requirement for accurate recognition of the forms of serrated lesions that are associated with a significant risk of malignant progression and therefore the need for widely disseminated reproducible criteria for their diagnosis. Alongside this process, pathologists and endoscopists need to formulate clear guidelines for the management of patients with these lesions, particularly with respect to the optimal follow-up intervals. This review provides practical guidance for the recognition of these lesions by pathologists, a discussion of ‘serrated adenocarcinoma’ and an insight into the distinct molecular genetic alterations that are seen in this spectrum of lesions in comparison to those that characterise the classic ‘adenoma-carcinoma’ sequence.
Physically addressed queueing (PAQ): Improving parallelism in solid state disks

NAND flash storage has proven to be a competitive alternative to traditional disk for its properties of high random-access speeds, low-power and its presumed efficacy for random-reads. Ironically, we demonstrate that when packaged in SSD format, there arise many barriers to reaching full parallelism in reads, resulting in random writes outperforming them. Motivated by this, we propose Physically Addressed Queuing (PAQ), a request scheduler that avoids resource contention resultant from shared SSD resources. PAQ makes the following major contributions: First, it exposes the physical addresses of requests to the scheduler. Second, I/O clumping is utilized to select groups of operations that can be simultaneously executed without major resource conflict. Third, inter-request NAND transaction packing empowers multi-plane-mode operations. We implement PAQ in a cycle-accurate simulator and demonstrate bandwidth and IOPS improvements greater than 62% and latency decreases as much as 41.6% for random reads, without degrading performance of other access types.
Alternatives to cloud computing for building a unified-data computing system

In the recent years, the cloud approach to computing has become increasingly popular, in part because it provides location- and device-independent access to applications and data. This feature, in turn, allows to implement a computing system with unified data, in which one's data can be accessed and modified from any device one uses. However, pure cloud computing architectures may be a relatively poor implementation of such a system, with potential issues including non-availability, merge issues and trust issues. In this paper, a three-component model of human-machine interaction is introduced, and various approaches to implementing a unified-data computing system are described using this model, including offline detachable storage and classic cloud infrastructures such as Software-as-a-Service and Cloud Storage-as-a-Service. Their strengths and weaknesses are then analyzed. An alternative approach to building a unified-data computing system is suggested, which combines most of the strengths of both cloud-based and offline approaches.
Regulation of Calcium Current by Intracellular Calcium in Smooth Muscle Cells of Rabbit Portal Vein

Effects of concentrations of intracellular calcium, [Ca2+]1, on the voltage-dependent Ca2+ current (ICa) recorded from dispersed single smooth muscle cells of the rabbit portal vein were studied, using a whole cell voltage clamp method combined with an intracellular perfusion technique. Outward currents were minimized by replacement of Cs+-rich solution in the pipette and 20 mM tetraethylammoninm in the bath. The ICa was evoked by command pulses of above - 30 mV, and the maximum amplitude was obtained at about 0 mV. This ICa was dose dependently inhibited by Increases in the [Ca2+]1 above 30 nM. The Kd value of the [Ca2+]1 required to inhibit the ICa was about 100 nM. The Ba2+ current was also inhibited by increases in the [Ca2+]1. Conversely, perfusion of Ba2+ into the cell up to 100 μM did not suppress the ICa. Changes in the [Ca2+]1 did not modify the steady-state inactivation curve. The Inhibition of the ICa evoked by the test pulse is most prominent when the preceding influx of Ca2+ during the conditioning pulse was large, as estimated using a double pulse protocol. This inhibition was proportionally reduced by increases in the concentration of the Ca2+ chelator, ethylene glycol bis(β-amlnoethyl ether)-N,N,N',N'-tetraacetic acid (EGTA). Therefore, the Ca2+-dependent inactivation of the Ca2+ channel may contribute toward regulating [Ca2+], in smooth muscle cells of the rabbit portal vein.
Rethinking the Spatiality of Spatial Planning: Methodological Territorialism and Metageographies

This paper argues for increased attention to the role of territory and territoriality in framing sociospatial discourses in the context of spatial plan making. In particular, it is suggested that the engagement of political actors with processes of spatial planning tends to be framed within particular spatial imaginaries which reflect established political-administrative and territorial boundaries. It is contended that a critical analysis of the territorial framing of processes of spatial planning is necessary in order to understand the capacity for spatial strategies to effectively challenge and reconfigure established sociospatial imaginaries in functional or relational terms. It is suggested that spatially explicit public policy statements, such as planning strategies, may be characterized by specific assumptions of territorial space, in a similar manner to which mainstream social science has contained implicit assumptions of state-centrism. The salience of territorial spatial imaginaries is demonstrated in the case of European spatial planning and through a local case study of city-regional spatial planning and politics in the Greater Dublin Area.
GIS Based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis for Renewable Energy Sites Selection:Comparative Study

There are a number of decision making problems in which Geographical Information System (GIS) had been applied to facilitate the procedure of analyzing the problem and to capture, store, query, analyze, display and output geographic information. The integration between Geographic information systems (GIS) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), had significantly developed over the last 25 years. GIS plays an essential role in decision problem analysis. At the same time, Multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) also provide a varity of procedures to structure the decision problems, along with this the alternative decisions will be designed and evaluated. Indeed, most of the fundamental level GIS-MCDA is processed as the transformation and combination of geographical data and criteria judgement, in order to achieve successful decision making. However, the variety and complexity of MCDA methods means that this valuable set of tools is not easily accessible. This paper presents various MCDA methods which exists in literature. In this work, an analysis of MCDA methods was conducted. The objective is to define the most appropriate MCDA methods in terms of: results consistency, ease of facilities and decision adaptation.
Reducing Overheads in Software-based Fault Tolerant Systems using Approximate Computing

Software-Implemented Hardware Fault Tolerance (SIHFT) techniques can be applied in processor-based systems, avoiding the modification of hardware components when designing dependable systems. These techniques allow the use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) processors, but result in high overheads in terms of programs’ code and performance. This paper presents a novel approach for designing reduced-overheads software-based fault-tolerant systems by using approximate computing at the software level. The approximate computing paradigm consists of improving energy and performance efficiency at the expense of accuracy in the results. Although the use of approximate computing has been previously proposed to reduce overheads of fault-tolerant systems, most of these works are focused on the hardware level, so the physical modification of the system is still mandatory, and thus, unfeasible in COTS components. Our proposal is validated by means of a case study using the Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller and several test programs, which are approximated and hardened using well-known techniques at the software level: loop perforation and SWIFT-R, respectively. Results show that it is possible to design dependable processor-based systems, with a significant reduction in overheads, in exchange for minor errors of accuracy.
Provenance Collection Platform for the Weather Research and Forecasting Model

Loss of life and property, disruptions to transportation and trading operations, etc. caused by meteorological events increasingly highlight the importance of fast and accurate weather forecasting. For this reason, there are various Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models worldwide that are run on either a local or a global scale. NWP models typically take hours to finish a complete run, however, depending on the input parameters and the size of the forecast domain. Provenance information is of central importance for detecting unexpected events that may develop during the course of model execution, and also for taking necessary action as early as possible. In addition, the need to share scientific data and results between researchers or scientists also highlights the importance of data quality and reliability. This can only be achieved through provenance information collected during the entire lifecycle of the data of interest. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model is a Numerical Weather Prediction model developed as open source. In this study, we develop a framework for tracking the WRF model and for generating, storing and analyzing provenance data. The proposed system enables easy management and understanding of numerical weather forecast workflows by providing provenance graphs. By analyzing these graphs, potential faulty situations that may occur during the execution of WRF can be traced to their root causes. Our proposed system has been evaluated and has been shown to perform well even in a high-frequency provenance information flow.
Integrating Statistical Response Time Models in Architectural Performance Models

Performance predictions enable software architects to optimize the performance of a software system early in the development cycle. Architectural performance models and statistical response time models are commonly used to derive these performance predictions. However, both methods have significant downsides: Statistical response time models can only predict scenarios for which training data is available, making the prediction of previously unseen system configurations infeasible. In contrast, the time required to simulate an architectural performance model increases exponentially with both system size and level of modeling detail, making the analysis of large, detailed models challenging. Existing approaches use statistical response time models in architectural performance models to avoid modeling subsystems that are difficult or time-consuming to model, yet they do not consider simulation time. In this paper, we propose to model software systems using classical queuing theory and statistical response time models in parallel. This approach allows users to tailor the model for each analysis run, based on the performed adaptations and the requested performance metrics. Our approach enables faster model solution compared to traditional performance models while retaining their ability to predict previously unseen scenarios. In our experiments we observed speedups of up to 94.8%, making the analysis of much larger and more detailed systems feasible.
Design and construction of a self-levelling tricopter using gain scheduling and PID controllers

This paper proposes a control system for a tilt-rotor tricopter. This vehicle has 3 sets of propellers with one mounted on a servo to control the yaw movement. This results in asymmetry which requires a more complex control system to achieve stability. This paper proposes a gain scheduling PID control system designed for and implemented in such a tricopter. Flight stability was achieved by using decoupled control systems for positive and negative offsets of pitch and roll, and a separate controller for yaw. We present the step response of these controllers and show that the proposed system is able to stabilise the tricopter in flight
Passive Geolocation with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles using TDOA-AOA Measurement Processing

Actual trends in current passive geolocation system development includes cooperation of flying segment based on receiver stations aboard Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with terrestrial segment including stationary ground receiver stations. Existing accuracy results achieves the order of tens and hundreds of meters in optimistic Line of Sight (LOS) conditions, however the problem of radio emission sources positioning with UAVs is especially relevant for search and rescue operations in heterogeneous terrain, when separate primary measurements obtained, for example, after reflections, could lead to a significant error. One possible way to improve the accuracy of positioning in such conditions is to use aerial passive geolocation based on UAVs with joint processing of Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Angle of Arrival (AOA) primary measurements. The contribution of the current investigation is the development of mathematical model for positioning of radio emission sources with UAVs using TDOA-AOA measurement processing and performance evaluation of hybrid measurement processing with handling AOA noise.
Support for ethnic discrimination in the Netherlands 1979-1993: Effects of period, cohort, and individual characteristics

In the Netherlands, support for ethnic discrimination, that is, support for a disadvantageous treatment of ethnic minorities in the housing and labour market, had decreased in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but has increased since the mid-1980s up to the early 1990s. In this article, the authors examine the effects of contextual characteristics (period and cohort characteristics) and individual characteristics on support for ethnic discrimination. Hypotheses, derived from Ethnic Conflict Theory, are tested by means of logistic regression analysis, using individual-level pooled data over the period 1979-1993 (N = 20,156) as well as national-level time-series data, presumably indicative of period and cohort characteristics. Regarding period characteristics, the results show that support for ethnic discrimination is more widespread in times of high and increasing levels of ethnic immigration, as well as in times of growing unemployment. However, the level of unemployment as such has a negative effect on support for ethnic discrimination. Regarding cohort characteristics, the results show that the higher the level of ethnic immigration and unemployment during the formative years, the more widespread support for ethnic discrimination is. In addition, the authors found a positive effect of age. Regarding other individual characteristics, support for ethnic discrimination is particularly more widespread among less educated people.
The Effect of Foot Arch on Plantar Distribution During Running

This paper presents the investigation on the types of foot arch affecting plantar pressure distribution during running. In this study, 20 participants of different arch types volunteered. The participants were required to run on the treadmill at three different speed with the FSR sensors placed under the sole of the shoes. Two sensors used, one at forefoot and one at rear foot. Only left foot was examined through this study. The data were analysed to compare the foot pressure of individuals during running and to analyze the effect of speed on the voltage measured with different arch types. The rear foot showed higher pressure value compared to the fore foot.
Optimization of Energy Consumption and Bandwidth used in Elastic Optical Network

This paper introduces a novel strategy to improve elastic optical network performance through ECOAM algorithm. When a demand arrives, K-shortest paths are selected and the quality of transmission requirement is investigated. Whether it is accomplished, the appropriate modulation format is adaptively allocated to every lightpath according to the target OSNR. The required bandwidth varies according to the lightpath length differently from the literature where the bandwidth is fixed or predefined in a range. Energy consumption of the K-shortest is computed and the lowest is selected. Numerical results have been compared with SP and MH algorithm. Analytical comparison demonstrated that energy consumption is saved up to 17% while the bandwidth used is reduced up to 33%.
A Spectral Clustering Algorithm for Outlier Detection

Recently, spectral clustering has become one of the most popular modern clustering algorithms which are mainly applied to image segmentation. In this paper, we propose a new spectral clustering algorithm and attempt to use it for outlier detection in dataset. Our algorithm takes the number of neighborhoods shared by the objects as the similarity measure to construct a spectral graph. It can help to isolate outliers as well as construct a sparse matrix. We compare the performance of our algorithm with the k-means based clustering algorithm while using them to detect outliers. Experiment results show that the algorithm can obtain stable clusters and is efficient for identifying outliers.
On the Spectral-Energy Efficiency and Rate Fairness Tradeoff in Relay-Aided Cooperative OFDMA Systems

In resource constrained wireless systems, achieving higher spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE), and greater rate fairness are conflicting objectives. Here, a general framework is presented to analyze the tradeoff among these three performance metrics in cooperative OFDMA systems with decode-and-forward relaying, where subcarrier pairing and allocation, relay selection, choice of transmission strategy, and power allocation are jointly considered. In our analytical framework, rate fairness is represented utilizing the α-fairness model, and the resource allocation problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem. We then propose a cross-layer resource allocation algorithm across application and physical layers, and further devise a heuristic algorithm to tackle the computational complexity issue. The SE-EE tradeoff is characterized as a Pareto optimal set, and the efficiency and fairness tradeoff is investigated through the price of fairness. Simulations indicate that higher fairness results in a worse SE-EE tradeoff. It is also shown imposing fairness helps to reduce the outage probability. For a fixed number of relays, by increasing circuit power, the performance of SE-EE tradeoff is degraded. Interestingly, by increasing the number of relays, although the total circuit power is increased, the SE-EE tradeoff is not necessarily degraded. This is thanks to the extra degree of freedom provided in relay selection.
A Fully Fledged TDC Implemented in Field-Programmable Gate Arrays

The motivation of this paper is to implement a fully fledged time-to-digital converter (TDC) in a field-programmable gate array from Xilinx Virtex 4 family with self-test and temperature variation compensation features. The TDC resolution is temperature and supply voltage dependent which, to a large part, is compensated. A self-test procedure, which covers a temperature range of 30 °C to 60 °C is used to determine the compensation constants. After compensation and integral nonlinearity (INL) calibration, the TDC presents a timing resolution of 25 ps RMS or 50 ps per LSB. A total of 9 channels TDCs are implemented in a single FPGA.
BLE Neighbor Discovery Parameter Configuration for IoT Applications

Since the Internet of Things (IoT) applications today employ many different sensors to provide information, a large number of the Bluetooth low energy (BLE) devices will be developed as part of the IoT systems. The low-power and low-cost requirements of all BLE nodes are among the most challenging issues when supporting the neighbor discovery process (NDP) for such a large number of devices. Since the parameter settings are essential to achieve the required performance for the NDP, a parameter configuration method for neighbor discovery in BLE can be beneficial for determining some critical parameter metrics, such as the AdvInterval, ScanInterval, and ScanWindow. In this paper, we propose a parameter configuration scheme to balance the tradeoff between discovery latency and energy consumption. In the proposed scheme, the neighbor discovery latency and average energy consumption are expressed based on the Chinese Remainder Theory (CRT). With the expected primary performance, the parameters are configured accordingly using the parameter configuration algorithm. The experimental results show that the performance of the neighbor discovery varies with the parameter settings. Furthermore, two typical IoT applications are assessed in this paper. Compared with the simulation results, the proposed parameter configuration scheme can achieve high accuracy.
The role of employee communication in achieving commitment and quality in higher education

High quality of provision in higher education is seen as an institutional imperative in the 1990s. This coincides with the need to reduce unit costs and increase productivity. The delivery of these three outputs results in considerable demands being made on staff and places great stress on the need to ensure employee commitment. Organizations are explicitly or implicitly seeking employee commitment through a number of human resource and quality initiatives. One of these means is through employee communication. Briefly examines the theory of employee commitment. Proceeds to examine the role of employee communication in helping to promote and manage employee commitment. Uses survey data related to the attitudes of staff at a British higher education institution to discuss the linkage between communication, commitment and quality. Discusses key issues for those who manage communication in order to attempt to achieve commitment for quality.
Typed-based Relaxed Noninterference for Free

Despite the clear need for specifying and enforcing information flow policies, existing tools and theories either fall short of practical languages, fail to encompass the declassification needed for practical requirements, or fail to provide provable guarantees. In this paper we make progress on provable guarantees encompassing declassification by leveraging type abstraction. We translate information flow policies, with declassification, into an interface for which an unmodified standard typechecker can be applied to a source program - if it typechecks, the program provably satisfies the policy. Our proof reduces security to the mathematical foundation of data abstraction, Reynolds' abstraction theorem. By proving this result for a large fragment of pure ML, we give evidence for the potential to build sound security tools using off the shelf language tools and their theories.