Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regular mapping for coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures

Similar to programmable devices such as processors or micro controllers, reconfigurable logic devices can also be built as software, by programming the configuration of the device. In this paper, we present an overview of constraints which have to be considered when mapping applications to coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures. The application areas of most of these architectures address computational-intensive algorithms like video and audio processing or wireless communication. Therefore, reconfigurable arrays are in direct competition with DSP processors which are traditionally used for digital signal processing. Hence, existing mapping methodologies are closely related to approaches from the DSP world. They try to employ pipelining and temporal partitioning but they do not exploit the full parallelism of a given algorithm and the computational potential of typically 2D arrays. We present a first case study for mapping regular algorithms onto reconfigurable arrays by using our design methodology which is characterized by loop parallelization in the polytope model. The case study shows that our regular mapping methodology may lead to highly efficient implementations taking the constraints of the architecture into account.
Coordinated Targeting of the EGFR Signaling Axis by MicroRNA-27a*

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has been characterized as a critical factor in the development and progression of multiple solid tumors, including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). However, monotherapy with EGFR-specific agents has not been as dramatic as preclinical studies have suggested. Since complex regulation of the EGFR signaling axis might confound current attempts to inhibit EGFR directly, we searched for microRNAs (miRNAs) that may target the EGFR signaling axis. We identified miR-27a (miR-27a-3p) and its complementary or star (*) strand, miR-27a* (miR-27a-5p), as novel miRNAs targeting EGFR, which were significantly downregulated in multiple HNSCC cell lines. Analysis of human specimens demonstrated that miR-27a* is significantly underexpressed in HNSCC as compared to normal mucosa. Increased expression of miR-27a* in HNSCC produced a profound cytotoxic effect not seen with miR-27a. Analysis for potential targets of miR-27a* led to the identification of AKT1 (protein kinase B) and mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) within the EGFR signaling axis. Treatment with miR-27a* led to coordinated downregulation of EGFR, AKT1 and mTOR. Overexpression of EGFR signaling pathway components decreased the overall effect of miR-27a* on HNSCC cell viability. Constitutive and inducible expression of miR-27a* in a murine orthotopic xenograft model of oral cavity cancer led to decreased tumor growth. Direct intratumoral injection of miR-27a* inhibited tumor growth in vivo. These findings identify miR-27a* as a functional star sequence that exhibits novel coordinated regulation of the EGFR pathway in solid tumors and potentially represents a novel therapeutic option.
Court Congestion as an Explanation for Rising Attorney Fees

A judge facing exogenous constraints on his pecuniary income has an incentive to reduce his workload to increase his private welfare. In the face of a large caseload, this incentive will induce judges to attempt to terminate some cases as quickly as possible. In class action cases, failing to grant an attorney’s fee request will delay termination. This conflict is likely to lead judges to authorize higher fees as court congestion increases. Increasing congestion in the federal courts then might play a role in explaining the upward trend that exists in class action attorney fees. Using Eisenberg and Miller’s class action settlement data, we show that attorney fees are significantly and positively related to the congestion level of the court hearing the case. This effect explains some, but not all, of the significantly positive trend observed in the data.
WP 014-07 Dietmar Maringer Risk Preferences and Loss Aversion in Portfolio Optimization November 2007

Traditionally, portfolio optimization is associated with finding the ideal trade-off between return and risk by maximizing the expected utility. Investor’s preferences are commonly assumed to follow a quadratic or power utility function, and asset returns are often assumed to follow a Gaussian distribution. Investment analysis has therefore long been focusing on the first two moments of the distribution, mean and variance. However, empirical asset returns are not normally distributed, and neither utility function captures investors’ true attitudes towards losses. This contribution investigates the impact of these specification errors under realistic assumptions. As traditional optimization techniques cannot deal reliably with the extended problem, we suggest the use of a heuristic approach. We find that loss aversion has a substantial impact on what investors consider to be an efficient portfolio and that mean-variance analysis alone can be utterly misguiding.
Whole Body UVA Irradiation Lowers Systemic Blood Pressure by Release of Nitric Oxide From Intracutaneous Photolabile Nitric Oxide Derivates

Rationale: Human skin contains photolabile nitric oxide derivates like nitrite and S-nitroso thiols, which after UVA irradiation, decompose and lead to the formation of vasoactive NO. Objective: Here, we investigated whether whole body UVA irradiation influences the blood pressure of healthy volunteers because of cutaneous nonenzymatic NO formation. Methods and Results: As detected by chemoluminescence detection or by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy in vitro with human skin specimens, UVA illumination (25 J/cm2) significantly increased the intradermal levels of free NO. In addition, UVA enhanced dermal S-nitrosothiols 2.3-fold, and the subfraction of dermal S-nitrosoalbumin 2.9-fold. In vivo, in healthy volunteers creamed with a skin cream containing isotopically labeled 15N-nitrite, whole body UVA irradiation (20 J/cm2) induced significant levels of 15N-labeled S-nitrosothiols in the blood plasma of light exposed subjects, as detected by cavity leak out spectroscopy. Furthermore, whole body UVA irradiation caused a rapid, significant decrease, lasting up to 60 minutes, in systolic and diastolic blood pressure of healthy volunteers by 11±2% at 30 minutes after UVA exposure. The decrease in blood pressure strongly correlated (R2=0.74) with enhanced plasma concentration of nitrosated species, as detected by a chemiluminescence assay, with increased forearm blood flow (+26±7%), with increased flow mediated vasodilation of the brachial artery (+68±22%), and with decreased forearm vascular resistance (−28±7%). Conclusions: UVA irradiation of human skin caused a significant drop in blood pressure even at moderate UVA doses. The effects were attributed to UVA induced release of NO from cutaneous photolabile NO derivates.
Democracy Rules : The Prevalence of Political Approach in Determining the Quality of Private Property Rights Institutions

Why do some countries have better institutions than others? Such is the question we try to answer in this article. To do so, we empirically assess four different theories related to the determinants of private property rights institutions: (a) The Economic Approach maintains that private property rights institutions are created when the benefits of their creation exceed their costs. (b) The Cultural Approach stipulates that countries have different institutions because of differences in the beliefs of their leaders about what would be good for the society. (c) The Historical Approach contends that cross country differences in private property rights institutions are the by-product of historical accidents. (d) The Political Approach defends the premise that institutions are voluntarily chosen by the individuals who control political power. These individuals choose institutions aimed at maximizing their personal payoffs and not necessarily for the benefit of the whole society. The results of cross-sectional analysis over the period 1970-2005, with a sample of 142 countries (116 developing and 26 developed countries) show that the political approach is the most relevant. Indeed, the political approach is the most robust and it better fits private property rights institutions index. The results of nonnested hypothesis test à la Davidson and MacKinon (1981) also confirm that the political approach is the most relevant. Independently of econometric specification and country sample, democracy is positively and significantly related to private property rights institutions. Additionally, the data reveal that legal origin does not significantly affect private property rights institutions in developed countries, while it does in developing countries. Lastly, our results show that contrary to the total sample, an increase in GDP per capita does not significantly contribute to the improvement in the quality of private property rights institutions in Africa.
Brain Plasticity Mechanims Underlying Stroke Recovery

Spontaneous recovery represents the only hope of regaining autonomy, for the majority of stoke victims especially in developing countries like Morocco. This recovery is mainly based on the brain’s reorganization capacities, referred to as “adaptive plasticity”. Rehabilitation is one of the most powerful modulators of brain plasticity that, if well administered, can improve post-injury recovery.
A certified reduced basis method for parametrized elliptic optimal control problems

In this paper, we employ the reduced basis method as a surrogate model for the solu- tion of linear-quadratic optimal control problems governed by parametrized elliptic partial dierential equations. We present a posteriori error estimation and dual procedures that provide rigorous bounds for the error in several quantities of interest: the optimal control, the cost functional, and general linear output functionals of the control, state, and adjoint variables. We show that, based on the as- sumption of ane parameter dependence, the reduced order optimal control problem and the proposed bounds can be eciently evaluated in an oine-online computational procedure. Numerical results are presented to conrm the validity of our approach.
MelodicTap: fingering hotkey for touch tablets

Whereas hotkeys are an important user interface for PCs, they are not usually available for touchscreen tablets. We present MelodicTap, a novel hotkey technique utilizing fingering gestures for touchscreen tablets. Users can access a hierarchical menu by performing consecutive sequential taps on the touchscreen. MelodicTap has the following advantages. 1) The use of finger tap sequences allows users to access a large number of menu items. 2) The use of finger-mapped buttons enables eyes-free operation. 3) The sequential traversal of the hierarchical menu helps users develop an expert skill. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of MelodicTap and our findings gained from the user study.
Breaking self-tolerance in nonobese diabetic mice

Unresponsiveness to self is maintained through two mechanisms of immune regulation: thymic-negative selection and peripheral tolerance. Although thymic-negative selection is a major mechanism to eliminate self-reactive T cells, normal mice have readily detectable populations of T cells reactive to self-proteins but do not exhibit autoimmune responses. It has been postulated that autoimmune disease results from breakdown or loss of peripheral tolerance. We present data that demonstrate that peripheral tolerance or unresponsiveness to self can be broken in nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice. Immunization of NOD mice (but not of conventional mice) with self-peptides caused an immune response to self-peptide with resultant autoproliferation of peripheral lymphocytes. Autoproliferation of self-reactive T cells in NOD mice resulted from the recognition and proliferation of the activated T cells to endogenously processed and presented self-antigens. This loss of self-tolerance demonstrated in vitro may well be the basis of NOD autoimmune disease in vivo.
Financial Frictions, Bank Efficiency and Risk: Evidence from the Eurozone

This paper employs a simultaneous equations approach to investigate the dynamics between financial frictions, efficiency and risk for eurozones commercial banks. We consider two related channels through which financial frictions may arise: informational and market structure imperfections, and allow for a possible reverse causation from efficiency to banks asset quality. The findings validate the presence of both channels of financial frictions and are consistent with the efficiency-lending quality hypothesis that low efficiency signals poor asset quality loans. Finally, our findings suggest that policies aimed at constraining banks degree of openness may ultimately direct management choices towards riskier investments.
Introducing Electronic Child Records: Balancing Personal Interests, System Perfomance, and Social Values

Improving quality of child healthcare, optimization ofchild development, anticipation of child neglect or abuse, and other social-values-based childcare activities usually motivate the adoption of electronic child records (ECRs). Having an ECR system in place, many stakeholders concerned with the welfare of children are supposed to use the personal information stored in ECRs in order to do their work effectively and efficiently. Personal data however can only be provided to a limited extent to prevent conflict with privacy laws and ethical values of parents and child. These observations underpin the need for a careful design of introducing ECRs. This paper takes up this challenge. After introducing the problem, we identify a set of potential conflicts between different childcare parties. Based on a case study, we also analyze prototypical childcare processes and related dilemmas. These analyses ield a set of requirements based on which we design a step-by-step process of gradual introducing ECRs. The process takes both technical issues and institutional arrangements into account. Finally, we reflect on the way our integrated approach helps to create the right balance between personal interests, system performance and social values, and draw our conclusions.
Phylogeography of Phytophagous Weevils and Plant Species in Broadleaved Evergreen Forests: A Congruent Genetic Gap between Western and Eastern Parts of Japan

The Quaternary climate cycles played an important role in shaping the distribution of biodiversity among current populations, even in warm-temperate zones, where land was not covered by ice sheets. We focused on the Castanopsis-type broadleaved evergreen forest community in Japan, which characterizes the biodiversity and endemism of the warm-temperate zone. A comparison of the phylogeographic patterns of three types of phytophagous weevils associated with Castanopsis (a host-specific seed predator, a generalist seed predator, and a host-specific leaf miner) and several other plant species inhabiting the forests revealed largely congruent patterns of genetic differentiation between western and eastern parts of the main islands of Japan. A genetic gap was detected in the Kii Peninsula to Chugoku-Shikoku region, around the Seto Inland Sea. The patterns of western-eastern differentiation suggest past fragmentation of broadleaved evergreen forests into at least two separate refugia consisting of the southern parts of Kyushu to Shikoku and of Kii to Boso Peninsula. Moreover, the congruent phylogeographic patterns observed in Castanopsis and the phytophagous insect species imply that the plant-herbivore relationship has been largely maintained since the last glacial periods. These results reinforce the robustness of the deduced glacial and postglacial histories of Castanopsis-associated organisms.
Improving Large-Scale Network Traffic Simulation with Multi-Resolution Models

Improving Large-Scale Network Traffic Simulation with Multi-Resolution Models Dartmouth Computer Science Technical Report TR2005-558 by Guanhua Yan Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH September 2005 Simulating a large-scale network like the Internet is a challenging undertaking because of the sheer volume of its traffic. Packet-oriented representation provides high-fidelity details but is computationally expensive; fluid-oriented representation offers high simulation efficiency at the price of losing packet-level details. Multi-resolution modeling techniques exploit the advantages of both representations by integrating them in the same simulation framework. This dissertation presents solutions to the problems regarding the efficiency, accuracy, and scalability of the traffic simulation models in this framework. The “ripple effect” is a well-known problem inherent in eventdriven fluid-oriented traffic simulation, causing explosion of fluid rate changes. Integrating multiresolution traffic representations requires estimating arrival rates of packet-oriented traffic, calculating the queueing delay upon a packet arrival, and computing packet loss rate under buffer overflow. Real time simulation of a large or ultra-large network demands efficient background traffic simulation. The dissertation includes a rate smoothing technique that provably mitigates the “ripple effect”, an accurate and efficient approach that integrates traffic models at multiple abstraction levels, a sequential algorithm that achieves real time simulation of the coarse-grained traffic in a network with 3 tier-1 ISP (Internet Service Provider) backbones using an ordinary PC, and a highly scalable parallel algorithm that simulates network traffic at coarse time scales.
The Great In fl ation and the Greenbook ∗

We assess whether recent empirical evidence that Federal Reserve learning caused the Great Inflation is consistent with forecasts published in the Greenbook. If the rise and fall in inflation really was caused by the Federal Reserve learning the Phillips curve then that should be fully reflected in Greenbook forecasts. It is not. The difficulty is that empirical evidence is predicated on the Federal Reserve making forecasts that are much more volatile than those in the Greenbooks. If consistency with Greenbook forecasts is required then evidence that Federal Reserve learning caused the Great Inflation is much weaker. Our results suggest a larger role for other causes than previously thought. ∗We greatly appreciate Tao Zha making available his C++ routines for Bayesian MCMC estimation. We also thank Knut Anton Mork, Antti Ripatti, and seminar participants at Bank of England, Birkbeck, Cardiff, Durham, Glasgow, Humboldt, Oslo (2nd Workshop on Monetary Policy), Queen’s Belfast, Warwick and York for helpful comments and suggestions. Martin Ellison acknowledges support from an ESRC Research Fellowship, “Improving Monetary Policy for the 21st Century” (RES-000-27-0126). The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB.
MetaMLST: multi-locus strain-level bacterial typing from metagenomic samples

Metagenomic characterization of microbial communities has the potential to become a tool to identify pathogens in human samples. However, software tools able to extract strain-level typing information from metagenomic data are needed. Low-throughput molecular typing schema such as Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) are still widely used and provide a wealth of strain-level information that is currently not exploited by metagenomic methods. We introduce MetaMLST, a software tool that reconstructs the MLST loci of microorganisms present in microbial communities from metagenomic data. Tested on synthetic and spiked-in real metagenomes, the pipeline was able to reconstruct the MLST sequences with >98.5% accuracy at coverages as low as 1×. On real samples, the pipeline showed higher sensitivity than assembly-based approaches and it proved successful in identifying strains in epidemic outbreaks as well as in intestinal, skin and gastrointestinal microbiome samples.
Classifying interprocess communication in process network representation of nested-loop programs

New embedded signal-processing architectures are emerging that are composed of loosely coupled heterogeneous components like CPUs or DSPs, specialized IP cores, reconfigurable units, or memories. We believe that these architectures should be programmed using the process network model of computation. To ease the mapping of applications, we are developing the Compaan compiler that automatically derives a process network (PN) description from an application written in Matlab or C. In this paper, we investigate a particular problem in nested loop programs, which is about classifying the interprocess communication in the PN representation of the nested loop program. The global memory arrays present in the code have to be replaced by a distributed communication structure used for communicating data between the network processes. We show that four types of communication exist, each exhibiting different requirements when realizing them in hardware or software. We first present two compile time tests that are based on integer linear programming to decide the type of the communication. In the second part of this paper, we present alternative classification techniques that have polynomial complexity. However, in some cases, those techniques do not give a definitive answer and the ILP tests have to be applied. All present tests are combined in a hybrid classification scheme that correctly classifies the interprocess communication. In only 5% of the cases to classify, we have to rely on integer linear programming while, in the remaining 95%, the alternative techniques presented in this paper are able to correctly classify each case. The hybrid classification scheme has become an important part of our Compaan compiler.
Entanglement entropy of two disjoint intervals in conformal field theory

We study the entanglement of two disjoint intervals in the conformal field theory of the Luttinger liquid (free compactified boson). Tr ρAn for any integer n is calculated as the four-point function of twist fields of a particular type and the final result is expressed in a compact form in terms of the Riemann–Siegel theta functions. In the decompactification limit we provide the analytic continuation valid for all model parameters and from this we extract the entanglement entropy. These predictions are checked against existing numerical data.
HUMAN NATURE: BETWEEN PERSUASION AND MANIPULATION

Each word is an attempt to influence other persons, as Alex Mucchielli said. Communication, by using words, is a characteristic of human beings, and it plays an important role in everyday life. Communication can be seen as an attempt to share information through a process of symbolic interaction between human beings. It is an essential life process through which humans create, transmit and utilize information by words. Putting words in act, we can express feelings, we can share opinions and we can obtain whatever we want, finally. It is essential to take into account certain ethical rules whenever we start a communication process. As the main purpose of communication is to convince people, this goal can be achieved only by using persuasion and/or manipulation. The last century is a sort of witness as regards the use of words in order to persuade people to adhere to certain ideological precepts and to determine them to act in a certain desirable way by the initiators of the communication process. Practically, there is a fine line between persuasion and manipulation; and in this situation, it is hard for ordinary people to distinguish between them. Manipulation appears like a persuasive process and it hides its true aims. This is the only way by which it can operate and for that it is considered immoral and invasive in the mind and soul of people. Human beings are now in the position to look for a way to protect themselves against such an invasive act and to find a way to distinguish between correct and false information. What can we do? In this study we analyze persuasion and manipulation from an ethical point of view and we search for paths to protect ourselves from the manipulative techniques.