Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study on the Thermomechanical Reliability Risks of Through-Silicon-Vias in Sensor Applications

Reliability risks for two different types of through-silicon-vias (TSVs) are discussed in this paper. The first is a partially-filled copper TSV, if which the copper layer covers the side walls and bottom. A polymer is used to fill the rest of the cavity. Stresses in risk sites are studied and ranked for this TSV structure by FEA modeling. Parametric studies for material properties (modulus and thermal expansion) of TSV polymer are performed. The second type is a high aspect ratio TSV filled by polycrystalline silicon (poly Si). Potential risks of the voids in the poly Si due to filling defects are studied. Fracture mechanics methods are utilized to evaluate the risk for two different assembly conditions: package assembled to printed circuit board (PCB) and package assembled to flexible substrate. The effect of board/substrate/die thickness and the size and location of the void are discussed.
Psychosocial Predictors of HIV-Associated Sexual Behaviors and the Efficacy of Prevention Interventions in Adolescents at-Risk for HIV Infection: What Works and What Doesn’t Work?

The HIV epidemic among adolescents in the United States is inherently tied to individual, psychosocial, and cultural phenomena. Expanding intervention development and implementation to incorporate a broader spectrum of determinants of adolescents’ sexual risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs)/HIV acquisition may provide an opportunity to prevent disease transmission more effectively. To address the STI/HIV prevention needs of adolescents, we highlight research assessing adolescents’ sexual risk behavior and place the findings in the context of the diverse array of psychosocial factors influencing adolescents. This synthesis provides an opportunity to examine why adolescents engage in risky sexual behavior and to review the effectiveness of theory-based prevention programs. Subsequently, we offer recommendations for improving future programs aimed at reducing the incidence of STI/HIV infection among adolescents. STIs = sexually transmitted infections; AIDS = acquired immunodeficiency disease syndrome; SiHLE = Sistas Informing, Healing, Living and Empowering.
Roles of the Tn21 merT, merP, and merC gene products in mercury resistance and mercury binding

The mercury resistance (mer) operon of the gram-negative transposon Tn21 encodes not only a mercuric reductase and regulatory genes but also two inner membrane proteins (MerT and MerC) and a periplasmic protein (MerP). Although the merT, merP, and merC genes have been implicated in Hg(II) transport, the individual roles of these genes have not been established. We created in vitro precise deletion and frameshift mutations that eliminated each of the genes singly and in combination. Our results show that both merT and merP are required for Hg(II) binding but that merC is not. Both merT and merP are required for full expression of Hg(II) resistance, but loss of merP is less deleterious than loss of merT. Furthermore, mutations eliminating both merT and merP decrease resistance more than the single mutations do. In contrast, mutating merC had no effect on Hg(II) resistance. Both the merT and merP mutations increase the threshold Hg(II) concentration for induction of merA-lacZ transcriptional fusions and cause an increase in the maximal expression level. In contrast, the merC mutation had little effect on the threshold inducing concentration of Hg(II) but decreased the level of expression. Our results show that merT and merP alone are sufficient to specify a mercury transport system. The role of merC remains obscure.
CrashAutomata: an approach for the detection of duplicate crash reports based on generalizable automata

Crash reporting systems are useful tools that allow users to report system failures, subsequently contacting the appropriate support group for resolution. As a software system grows and becomes more versatile, the number of crashes increases. A large software company receives typically thousands of crashes a day, which make it difficult for software engineers to address these reports in a timely manner. Fortunately, not all reports are new; many of them are duplicates of previously reported crashes. Research has shown that early detection of duplicate reports can reduce the effort and time it takes to handle crash reports. In this paper, we propose a new approach for detecting duplicate crash reports, called CrashAutomata. CrashAutomata builds a model from historical crash reports (more precisely their stack traces) that is used to classify an incoming report. The model is based on varied-length n-grams and automata. Unlike existing techniques, CrashAutomata takes advantage of the generalization aspect of automata, making it possible to build a representative model of crash reports, reducing the number of false positives. When applied to crash reports of the Firefox system, CrashAutomata results in very high precision and recall. It also outperforms CrashGraph, a leading technique in the detection of duplicate crash reports.
Supporting dictation speech recognition error correction: the impact of external information

Although speech recognition technology has made remarkable progress, its wide adoption is still restricted by notable effort made and frustration experienced by users while correcting speech recognition errors. One of the promising ways to improve error correction is by providing user support. Although support mechanisms have been proposed for inline speech recognition error correction, how to develop user support for third-party error correction has been under studied. To address the unique challenges associated with third-party error correction, external information that is obtained outside of an erroneous sentence was employed in this research. Specifically, three types of external information were selected, including word alternative hypotheses, noisy context and accurate context, and their impacts on dictation speech recognition error correction were assessed empirically. As expected, results revealed the importance of context information to improving both the performance and perception of error correction. Additionally, the results also provided insights into possible effects of word error rate and sentence length on error correction. These findings have significant implications to interface design for transcript proofreading systems.
Distributed Recursive Gaussian Processes for RSS Map Applied to Target Tracking

We propose a distributed recursive Gaussian process (drGP) regression framework for building received-signal-strength (RSS) map. The proposed framework adopts independent mobile devices in prescribed local areas to construct local RSS maps through recursive computation of the posterior distribution of the RSS on a fixed set of grids as training data gradually become available. The training input positions can be either precise or subject to errors of known distribution. All the local RSS maps are then fused to give a global map in the second step. The proposed framework is of significantly reduced computational complexity and scalable to big data generated from large-scale sensor networks. We further demonstrate its use in both static fingerprinting and mobile target tracking. The experimental results show that with our distributed framework satisfactory positioning accuracy can be achieved with much less complexity and storage than the standard framework.
Cost of general anesthesia during radical gastrectomy using different specifications of propofol: cost-minimization analyses.

BACKGROUND Recently, the economic cost of anesthesiahas attracted attention. To compare the costs of three methods of general anesthesia (GA), a retrospective 1-year study was designed for patients undergoing radical resection for gastric carcinoma. METHODS A total of 398 patients were originally included in the study. Subjects were divided into three groups according to the mode of anesthesia: balanced anesthesia (BAL; n=258), total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA; n=36), and inhalational anesthesia (INH; n=104). RESULTS When patients were undergoing elective radical resection for gastric carcinoma, the duration of anesthesia, age, duration of surgery, and postoperative analgesia were positively correlated with the total cost of anesthesia (including wastage of propofol 200 mg:20 mL). Duration of anesthesia and postoperative analgesia were positively correlated with the total cost of anesthesia (including wastage of propofol 500 mg:50 mL). However, the anesthesia group was negatively correlated with the total cost of anesthesia (including drug wastage). When propofol 500 mg:50 mL was used, the total cost of anesthesia and total cost of anesthesia per hour in the BAL group was higher than in the INH group. However, when excluding drug wastage (propofol 200 mg:20 mL), the BAL group was more expensive than the other two groups. CONCLUSION Use of propofol 200 mg:20 mL as a GA would save money.
Outcome of Central Nervous System Germinoma Treatment by Chemoradiation

Central nervous system germinoma historically has been treated with radiotherapy alone. Although this regimen provides good tumor control, there are risks of long-term complications; this study used a combination of chemotherapy and low-dose radiotherapy to reduce these risks. Between January 2002 and June 2009, 16 patients (14 male, 2 female) with a median age of 14.7 years (9.2 to 19.6 y), were treated. Thirteen of the tumors had a single focus and 3 were multifocal: 8 were located in the pineal, 8 were suprasellar, and 3 were in the basal ganglion or other periventricular areas. All patients had negative spinal magnetic resonance imaging findings. Treatment consisted of cisplatin-based and etoposide-based chemotherapy, and 2340 cGy of radiotherapy delivered to the whole brain/ventricle. The median time of follow-up was 45 months. None of the patients suffered from treatment failure. Tumors larger than 2.5 cm regressed less completely after upfront chemotherapy than smaller tumors, but overall treatment outcome was not affected by tumor size. One patient developed a new complication (hypopituitarism) 8 months after treatment, and 1 patient developed a second malignancy 3 years after diagnosis. The results confirm that short courses of chemotherapy combined with low-dose whole-brain or whole-ventricular radiotherapy have favorable outcomes.
Floating Car Data from Smartphones : What Google and Waze Know About You and How Hackers Can Control Traffic

In recent years, a trend of using real-time traffic data for navigation has developed. Google Navigation and Waze, for instance, generate traffic data from movement profiles of smartphones. In this paper we tackle the question to which extent it is possible for Google and Waze to track the smartphone and its owner. Furthermore, we show how wireless access points and smartphones acting like wireless access points can be located around the world. In addition to the privacy issue, we examine whether the authenticity of traffic data can be guaranteed. We demonstrate in practice how hackers can take control of navigation systems and, in the case of a wide distribution of floating car data, can actively control the traffic flow. At the end we present a practical protocol preventing such attacks and at the same time preserving the user’s privacy. The protocol has been implemented on different hardware platforms and benchmark results are given.
The site of origin and route and rate of migration of neurons to the hippocampal region of the rhesus monkey

The site of origin and route and rate of migration of neurons in the developing hippocampal region of the rhesus monkey were studied with tritiated thymidine (3H‐TdR) autoratiography. Analysis of specimens sacrificed approximately 1 hour after exposure to 3H‐TdR shows that the neurons destined for the hippocampus and subiculum are generated exclusively in the ventricular zone lining the medial wall of the lateral cerebral ventricle. In contrast, neurons of the parahippocampal formation are generated in two proliferative zones: The majority of neurons destined for the lamina principalis interna arise from the ventricular zone, whereas most of those destined for the lamina principalis externa originate from the subventricular zone. The neurons of the dentate gyrus are also generated in two locations: in the ventricular zone (between E38 and E85) and within the prospective hilus of the dentate gyrus (from E58 up to approximately 3 months after birth).
Empathizing with sensory and movement differences: moving toward sensitive understanding of autism

The autism diagnosis requires deficits in social interaction and communication, yet neither occurs in isolation. This brief literature-based analysis provides evidence that other factors are involved in autistic people's atypical social communication. The brain is a complicated system where regions serve multiple, general, and overlapping roles. Sensorimotor and broad cognitive processes underlie both neurotypicals' and autistics' social cognition and behavior. Sensory strengths sometimes underlie autistic people's difficulties, especially in dynamic contexts that require multimodal integration. Social abilities and behaviors occur between people in social contexts, and autistic and neurotypical people share mutual difficulties in understanding one another. This paper challenges attempts to reduce autism to social deficits, and suggests the need for better interpersonal and societal understanding of and support for autistic people.
ROS and RNS Signaling in Heart Disorders: Could Antioxidant Treatment Be Successful?

There is not too much success in the antioxidant treatment of heart deceases in humans. However a new approach is now developed that suggests that depending on their structures and concentrations antioxidants can exhibit much more complicated functions in many pathological disorders. It is now well established that physiological free radicals superoxide and nitric oxide together with their derivatives hydrogen peroxide and peroxynitrite (all are named reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS)) play a more important role in heart diseases through their signaling functions. Correspondingly this work is dedicated to the consideration of damaging signaling by ROS and RNS in various heart and vascular disorders: heart failure (congestive heart failure or CHF), left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), coronary heart disease, cardiac arrhythmias, and so forth. It will be demonstrated that ROS overproduction (oxidative stress) is a main origin of the transformation of normal physiological signaling processes into the damaging ones. Furthermore the favorable effects of low/moderate oxidative stress through preconditioning mechanisms in ischemia/reperfusion will be considered. And in the last part we will discuss the possibility of efficient application of antioxidants and enzyme/gene inhibitors for the regulation of damaging ROS signaling in heart disorders.
Contexts for Dopamine Specification by Calcium Spike Activity in the CNS

Calcium-dependent electrical activity plays a significant role in neurotransmitter specification at early stages of development. To test the hypothesis that activity-dependent differentiation depends on molecular context, we investigated the development of dopaminergic neurons in the CNS of larval Xenopus laevis. We find that different dopaminergic nuclei respond to manipulation of this early electrical activity by ion channel misexpression with different increases and decreases in numbers of dopaminergic neurons. Focusing on the ventral suprachiasmatic nucleus and the spinal cord to gain insight into these differences, we identify distinct subpopulations of neurons that express characteristic combinations of GABA and neuropeptide Y as cotransmitters and Lim1,2 and Nurr1 transcription factors. We demonstrate that the developmental state of neurons identified by their spatial location and expression of these molecular markers is correlated with characteristic spontaneous calcium spike activity. Different subpopulations of dopaminergic neurons respond differently to manipulation of this early electrical activity. Moreover, retinohypothalamic circuit activation of the ventral suprachiasmatic nucleus recruits expression of dopamine selectively in reserve pool neurons that already express GABA and neuropeptide Y. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that spontaneously active neurons expressing GABA are most susceptible to activity-dependent expression of dopamine in both the spinal cord and brain. Because loss of dopaminergic neurons plays a role in neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, understanding how subpopulations of neurons become dopaminergic may lead to protocols for differentiation of neurons in vitro to replace those that have been lost in vivo.
A multi-method investigation of the effectiveness and utility of delayed corrective feedback in second-language oral production

A major challenge in second-language pedagogy and research is that of determining linguistic competence. Spontaneous oral production gives some indication of the state of a learner’s interlanguage, but the presence of non-target-like forms in such production confounds the analysis since the teacher or researcher cannot be certain whether such forms are random or systematic. Corrective feedback (CF) in oral production, usually in the form of recasts or elicitation, can thus appear arbitrary and inconsistent. This thesis investigates the effectiveness of delayed CF, in which representative samples of learners’ non-target-like production are systematically collected and tracked. The investigation employed three methods: first, accuracy and fluency in production were measured by means of a test in which learners reformulated their own non-target-like production and that of peers; second, accuracy and reaction time were measured as learners judged the well-formedness of those same reformulations; third, the developing complexity of learner production is monitored by means of an ‘error corpus’. Results indicate that delayed CF of this kind is effective in pushing learners towards greater complexity and accuracy in both production and recognition, and constitutes an approach to the problem of determining what the individual learner knows that has theoretical validity and pedagogical relevance.
Biocompatible reverse thermal gel sustains the release of intravitreal bevacizumab in vivo.

PURPOSE We assessed the in vivo release profile of bevacizumab from and biocompatibility of poly(ethylene glycol)-poly-(serinol hexamethylene urethane), or ESHU, a thermoresponsive hydrogel administered intravitreally for drug delivery. METHODS The technical feasibility of injection was assessed quantitatively via mechanical testing. For in vivo studies, New Zealand White rabbit eyes were injected intravitreally with 0.05 mL of either: ESHU dissolved in 25 mg/mL bevacizumab, ESHU dissolved in PBS, or 25 mg/mL bevacizumab. Clinical examination included IOP measurements and examination with indirect ophthalmoscopy for signs of inflammation. Additionally, eyes were examined histologically following euthanasia. To quantify bevacizumab release, aqueous humor samples were obtained via anterior chamber paracentesis and ELISA was used to determine the concentration of drug weekly. In vitro cytotoxicity testing also was performed using bovine corneal endothelial cells. RESULTS The ESHU was injected easily through a 31-gauge needle, was well tolerated in vivo, and caused minimal cell death in vitro when compared to other common materials, such as silicone oil. The long-term presence of the gel did not affect IOP, and there was no evidence of inflammation histologically or through indirect observation. The ESHU sustained the release of bevacizumab for over 9 weeks and maintained a drug concentration that averaged 4.7 times higher than eyes receiving bolus bevacizumab injections. CONCLUSIONS To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating sustained bevacizumab release in vivo from an intravitreally injected hydrogel formulation, suggesting that this delivery system may be a promising candidate for ocular drug delivery.
Behavioral and neural correlates of auditory encoding and memory functions in Rhesus Macaques

Auditory recognition memory in non-human primates is not well understood. Monkeys have difficulty acquiring auditory memory tasks, and limited capability maintaining auditory information over memory delays, relative to studies of visual memory. Neural substrates of auditory discrimination and recognition memory depend on superior temporal gyrus (STG), instead of rhinal cortex necessary for visual memory (Fritz et al., 2005). The current project assessed behavioral and neural correlates of auditory processing and memory function in monkeys, particularly focusing on the dorsal temporal pole (dTP), the rostral portion of STG. Chapter 2 examined recognition memory of monkeys under influences of various sound types. In a delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) task, rhesus monkeys were trained to determine if two sounds, separated by a 5second delay, were same (match trials) or different (nonmatch trials). Results demonstrated monkey vocalizations served as better cues than other sound types for auditory memory performance. Memory improvements may be due to familiarity and biological significance of con-specific sounds, analogous to using facial stimuli during visual tasks. Chapter 3 examined neuronal activity of dTP, when two monkeys performed an auditory DTMS task and listened to sound stimuli. Population encoding of sample stimuli in dTP was closely associated with memory accuracy. Moreover, a suppression effect on identical sounds was present, similar to processing in the ventral visual processing stream, inferior temporal cortex (ITC) and ventral temporal pole (vTP). Delay-related activity of dTP was weak, limited and short-lived, in contrast to visual studies reporting sustained activity over memory delays in ITC, vTP and prefrontal cortex. The findings provide preliminary evidence on why monkeys show limited
Check Reliability Based Bit-Flipping Decoding Algorithms for LDPC Codes

We introduce new reliability definitions for bit and check nodes. Maximizing global reliability, which is the sum reliability of all bit nodes, is shown to be equivalent to minimizing a decoding metric which is closely related to the maximum likelihood decoding metric. We then propose novel bit-flipping (BF) decoding algorithms that take into account the check node reliability. Both hard-decision (HD) and soft-decision (SD) versions are considered. The former performs better than the conventional BF algorithm and, in most cases, suffers less than 1 dB performance loss when compared with some well known SD BF decoders. For one particular code it even outperforms those SD BF decoders. The performance of the SD version is superior to that of SD BF decoders and is comparable to or even better than that of the sum-product algorithm (SPA). The latter is achieved with a complexity much less than that required by the SPA.
Design of a novel broadband power divider based on oversized-coaxial and radial waveguide

This paper proposes an improved 1 to 4 power divider based on oversized-coaxial and radial waveguide. To widen the bandwidth of the divider/combiner, an axially symmetric oversized coaxial waveguide is used to transform input to the radial waveguide, and at the bottom of the radial waveguide, stepped-impedance technology is used to realize the impedance match. According to EM simulations, the simulated −20dB return loss bandwidth is approximately 44.25% (ranging from 22 to 34.5GHz), and good amplitude imbalance and phase imbalance are observed in the band. This structure has properties of not only a wide band, low insertion loss and high output power, but also a small size, a high power combining efficiency and efficient heat sinking, and has potential for broadband high power combination.