Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determining the Principles Underlying Performance Variation in CSP Heuristics

This paper develops the idea that variable ordering heuristics for CSPs can be characterised in terms of a small number of distinguishable actions or strategies, and that while specific heuristics may be classified differently depending on the problem type, the basic actions that determine their classification are the same. These strategies can be described as building up contention and propagating effects to future, uninstantiated variables. The propagation-of-effects type of action is related to the "simplification hypothesis" of Hooker and Vinay, but since this is only one of two independent actions, this work gives a more complete account of the basis of heuristic performance. The basic technique uses factor analysis to simplify the set of correlations between performance scores for a particular set of problems. The present work shows that the results of this analysis are robust, and that amenability of a problem to one or the other kind of heuristic action is also a robust effect. This approach also elucidates the effectiveness of modern adaptive heuristics by showing that they balance the two kinds of heuristic action, which is known to enhance performance. The two heuristic actions are distinguished by descriptive measures such as depth of failure and depth at which a problem becomes tractable, that reflect differences in rapidity of effects with respect to search depth. Other experiments indicate that the effectiveness of propagation-of-effects depends on the degree to which nonadjacent assignments can interact in the future part of the problem. Extensions to structured problems suggest that the theoretical analysis can be generalised, although the factor analysis of performance becomes more complicated due to the interaction of the basic actions with specific parts of the problem. This work contributes to the goals of explaining heuristic performance and putting heuristic selection on a rational basis.
Turning nondeterminism into parallelism

Nondeterminism is a useful and prevalent concept in the design and implementation of software systems. An important property of nondeterminism is its latent parallelism: A nondeterministic action can evaluate to multiple behaviors. If at least one of these behaviors does not conflict with concurrent tasks, then there is an admissible execution of the action in parallel with these tasks. Unfortunately, existing implementations of the atomic paradigm - optimistic as well as pessimistic - are unable to fully exhaust the parallelism potential of nondeterministic actions, lacking the means to guide concurrent tasks toward nondeterministic choices that minimize interference. This paper investigates the problem of utilizing parallelism due to nondeterminism. We observe that nondeterminism occurs in many real-world codes. We motivate the need for devising coordination mechanisms that can utilize available nondeterminism. We have developed a system featuring such mechanisms, which leverages nondeterminism in a wide class of query operations, allowing a task to look into the future of concurrent tasks that mutate the shared state during query evaluation and reduce conflict accordingly. We evaluate our system on a suite of 12 algorithmic benchmarks of wide applicability, as well as an industrial application. The results are encouraging.
Reassessment of the structural basis of the ascending arousal system

The “ascending reticular activating system” theory proposed that neurons in the upper brainstem reticular formation projected to forebrain targets that promoted wakefulness. More recent formulations have emphasized that most neurons at the pontomesencephalic junction that participate in these pathways are actually in monoaminergic and cholinergic cell groups. However, cell‐specific lesions of these cell groups have never been able to reproduce the deep coma seen after acute paramedian midbrain lesions that transect ascending axons at the caudal midbrain level. To determine whether the cortical afferents from the thalamus or the basal forebrain were more important in maintaining arousal, we first placed large cell‐body‐specific lesions in these targets. Surprisingly, extensive thalamic lesions had little effect on electroencephalographic (EEG) or behavioral measures of wakefulness or on c‐Fos expression by cortical neurons during wakefulness. In contrast, animals with large basal forebrain lesions were behaviorally unresponsive and had a monotonous sub‐1‐Hz EEG, and little cortical c‐Fos expression during continuous gentle handling. We then retrogradely labeled inputs to the basal forebrain from the upper brainstem, and found a substantial input from glutamatergic neurons in the parabrachial nucleus and adjacent precoeruleus area. Cell‐specific lesions of the parabrachial‐precoeruleus complex produced behavioral unresponsiveness, a monotonous sub‐1‐Hz cortical EEG, and loss of cortical c‐Fos expression during gentle handling. These experiments indicate that in rats the reticulo‐thalamo‐cortical pathway may play a very limited role in behavioral or electrocortical arousal, whereas the projection from the parabrachial nucleus and precoeruleus region, relayed by the basal forebrain to the cerebral cortex, may be critical for this process. J. Comp. Neurol. 519:933–956, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Towards Automatic Extracted Semantic Annotation (ESA) for Web Documents

The Web contains huge amounts of data intended for clients. This information is mainly stored in hypertext form. This will lead to make the information semantically annotated to be accessible by the clients. Annotating provides a great help for the machine to realize the data put on the web. Annotating web pages could be achieved by using various tools which are available most of them are semi-automatic. In this paper some current Semantic Web Annotation platforms are examined. The lack of these annotations is avoided by creating and developing an Automatic web Annotation platform based on Ontology for a normal user. This offers easy, flexible and user-friendly interfaces by integrating the web page with an Ontology file for sharing a semantic metadata with other resources by providing APIs for improving storage structures for this annotation while separating the content of a page from the Annotation.
An empirical study of analog channel feedback

Exchanging the channel state information (CSI) in a multiuser WLAN is considered an extremely expensive overhead. A possible solution to reduce the overhead is to notify the analog value of the CSI, which is also known as analog channel feedback. It however only allows nodes to overhear an imperfect channel information. While some previous studies have theoretically analyzed the performance of analog channel feedback, this work aims at addressing issues of realizing it in practice and empirically demonstrating its effectiveness. Our prototype implementation using USRP-N200 shows that analog channel feedback produces a small error comparable to that of estimating CSI using reciprocity, but however can be applied to more general scenarios.
Phase Transitions in Random Graphs-Outbreak of Epidemics to Network Robustness and fragility

Inspired by empirical studies researchers have tried to model various systems like human populations, the World Wide Web or electric power grids by random graphs. Here we first examine different properties of random graphs(both undirected and directed) having arbitrary degree distributions using the generating functon formalism. We present some empirical data about the structure of random graphs in real life especially the WWW. Then we modify our results to include site and bond percolation to address questions about the onset of large scale connectivity and the formation of a giant component in random graphs. This point corresponds to a phase transition. We use this information to examine questions about the onset of epidemic or the robustness or fragility of a network to random or targeted deletion of nodes.
Perceptual-Load-Induced Selection as a Result of Local Competitive Interactions in Visual Cortex

A growing literature suggests that the degree to which distracting information can be ignored depends on the perceptual load of the task, or the extent to which the task exhausts perceptual capacity. However, there is currently no a priori definition of what constitutes high or low perceptual load. We propose that interactions among cells in visual cortex that represent nearby stimuli determine the perceptual load of a task, and that manipulations designed to modulate these competitive spatial interactions should modulate distractor processing. We found that either spatially separating the task-relevant items in a display or placing the target and nontargets in different visual fields increased interference from a distractor that was to be ignored. These data are consistent with the idea that the ability to ignore such distracting information results in part from the need to actively resolve competitive interactions in visual cortex, and is not the consequence of an exhausted capacity per se.
A Study of Holistic and Subskill Instructional Approaches to Reading Comprehension.

Vacca, who teaches courses in reading and language at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, is interested in application of reading comprehension theory to classroom instruction. ■ Recent positions established by Goodman (1972), Goodman and Burke (1973), and Smith (1978) maintain that reading is a language processa holistic activityand not merely the sum of various decoding and comprehension skills. Typically, however, instructional emphasis in reading programs has centered around the development of separate reading skills as prescribed in a manual or by the experience of a qualified teacher. Guided by the assumption that children develop reading ability through emphatic subskill instruction, reading authorities such as Otto (1976) have advocated that the most straightforward way to get at growth in reading comprehension is through the development of subskills. Recent critics of subskill instruc-
Latent structured models for human pose estimation

We present an approach for automatic 3D human pose reconstruction from monocular images, based on a discriminative formulation with latent segmentation inputs. We advanced the field of structured prediction and human pose reconstruction on several fronts. First, by working with a pool of figure-ground segment hypotheses, the prediction problem is formulated in terms of combined learning and inference over segment hypotheses and 3D human articular configurations. Beside constructing tractable formulations for the combined segment selection and pose estimation problem, we propose new augmented kernels that can better encode complex dependencies between output variables. Furthermore, we provide primal linear re-formulations based on Fourier kernel approximations, in order to scale-up the non-linear latent structured prediction methodology. The proposed models are shown to be competitive in the HumanEva benchmark and are also illustrated in a clip collected from a Hollywood movie, where the model can infer human poses from monocular images captured in complex environments.
Progress in clinical virology--1960 to 1980: a recollection of twenty years.

The field of clinical virology has changed dramatically over the past two to three decades. The breakthrough achieved in the early 1950s by Enders et al. [1], namely that poliovirus can be propagated in cultured cells, proved to be of enormous significance not only in the impact made on the control of poliomyelitis, but even more importantly upon the entire field of virology. The use of tissue culture techniques has provided the foundation upon which virologists have been and are still dependent for most basic and diagnostic studies. The laboratory, which had been founded several years earlier, had as its major function the diagnosis of diseases of patients suspected of suffering from virus infections. At that time, I was pursuing basic studies of enterovirus replication, while the research interests of laboratory staff members were in poliomyelitis [2]. As a result, most of the techniques and facilities available for diagnostic purposes were oriented toward the isolation and identification of poliovi-ruses and other enteroviruses. Fortunately, I started my duties during the summer months, the enterovirus season in New Haven, and most of the viruses isolated were familiar to all of us. But as summer ended and fall and winter began, influenza, parainfluenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and many others appeared on the scene. Thus, the task of learning and devising additional techniques capable of increasing the rate of virus isolation became more pressing, if only to fulfill the daily demands of the clinical laboratory. It soon became apparent that knowledge of, and experience with, methods for the recognition and characterization of the individual virus groups were confined primarily to research laboratories. Consequently, the idea of a post-doctorate course in "Diagnostic Virology" was conceived and the first session was offered in 1962 at the Yale Medical School. A manual was needed for students in the course, and the first edition of Diagnostic Virology, a laboratory guide, was published in 1964 [3]. In the meantime, the course was being offered on a regular basis, annually at first, then biennially. It consisted of lectures on the clinical and laboratory aspects of the common viral diseases, combined with an in-depth laboratory workshop that incorporated a series of newly developed techniques for the diagnosis of virus infections and for basic studies of viral replication.
Exploratory Study on the Linux OS Jitter

The operating system (OS) Jitter phenomenon has been considered an import and critical factor in high-performance distributed computing. In this paper, we present the results of an experimental study that quantifies the effects of different sources of OS Jitter in the Linux operating system. We use the design of experiments (DOE) method to conduct controlled experiments statistically planned. Different than previous studies, we found that the processor topology, especially regarding the shared processor cache, has the most significant influence in terms of OS Jitter. Also, we found that in order to reduce the impact of OS Jitter on a given application, the number of computational phases in the algorithm is significantly more important than the number of distributed processes or compute nodes.
Paper title: Biases in the Measurement of Labour Market Dynamics

This paper analyses worker transitions on the German labour market derived from different data sources. These include the two German micro data sets which provide high-frequency observations on workers’ employment and unemployment histories: the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP), a representative household survey containing retrospective results on monthly labour market histories, and the Employment Sample of the IAB (IABS), a process-induced administrative data set covering 2% of workers employed in social security employment. We first compute the stocks of and the flows between labour market states from the two data sources. This yields a comprehensive overview of German labour market dynamics. We then analyze the differences between the results obtained from the SOEP and the IABS. This highlights the importance of differences in data collection and sample selection methods. Our analysis also shows which groups of the labour market are particularly affected by measurement error, and which role measurement issues play when establishing the stylised facts about the cyclicality of labour market dynamics. Finally, we apply several external validation procedures to the computed stocks and flows. In particular, we compare the results derived from the two micro data sets to official figures published by the German Employment Office and the German Statistical Office. We are thus able to make a statement about which data set fits the aggregate evidence best. We argue that our results are crucial for any study related to labour market transitions, job tenure, and unemployment duration.
SOME REMARKS ON AFRICAN DISTURBANCES AND THEIR PROGRESS OVER THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC

Abstract A daily analysis of the 2,000- and 10,000-ft streamlines over West Africa was made for a 3½-mo period beginning in July 1968. With the aid of satellite photographs and auxiliary sea-level pressure data, a total of 33 synoptic scale wave perturbations were observed to move across West Africa and the tropical Atlantic Ocean during this period. Some general features of these disturbances are summarized, including facts on their origin, speed, intensity, distribution of sea-level pressure, appearance on the satellite photographs, and movement over the Atlantic Ocean. The effects of the large-scale circulation and the influence of sea-surface temperatures on the movement and intensity of disturbances are also discussed.
Cloaking an Arbitrary Object via Anomalous Localized Resonance: The Cloak is Independent of the Object

In this paper, we present various schemes of cloaking an arbitrary object via anomalous localized resonance and provide their analysis in two and three dimensions. This is a way to cloak an object using negative index materials in which the cloaking device is independent of the object. As a result, we show that in the two dimensional quasi-static regime an annular plasmonic structure of coefficient $-1$ cloaks small but finite size objects nearby. We also discuss its connections with superlensing and cloaking using complementary media. In particular, we confirm the possibility that a lens can act like a cloak and conversely. This possibility was raised about a decade ago in the literature.
The Institutions of Archaic Post-Modernity and Their Organizational and Managerial Consequences: The Case of Portugal

The long march of modernization of the Western societies tends to be presented as following a regular sequence: societies and institutions were pre-modern, and then they were modernized, eventually becoming post-modern. Such teleology may provide an incomplete or distorted narrative of societal evolution in many parts of the world, even in the ‘post-modern heartland’ of Western Europe, with Portugal being a case in point. The concept of archaic post-modernity has been developed by a philosopher, Jose Gil, to show how Portuguese institutions and organizations combine elements of premodernity and post-modernity. The notion of an archaic post-modernity is advanced in order to provide an alternative account of the modernization process, which enriches discussion of the varieties of capitalism. Differences in historical experiences create singularities that may be considered in the analysis of culture, management and organization.
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): mass–size relations of z < 0.1 galaxies subdivided by Sérsic index, colour and morphology

We use data from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey in the redshift range 0.01 < z < 0.1 (8399 galaxies in g to Ks bands) to derive the stellar mass–half-light radius relations for various divisions of ‘early’- and ‘late’-type samples. We find that the choice of division between early and late (i.e. colour, shape, morphology) is not particularly critical; however, the adopted mass limits and sample selections (i.e. the careful rejection of outliers and use of robust fitting methods) are important. In particular, we note that for samples extending to low stellar mass limits (<1010M⊙) the Sersic index bimodality, evident for high-mass systems, becomes less distinct and no-longer acts as a reliable separator of early- and late-type systems. The final set of stellar mass–half-light radius relations are reported for a variety of galaxy population subsets in 10 bands (ugrizZY JHKs) and are intended to provide a comprehensive low-z benchmark for the many ongoing high-z studies. Exploring the variation of the stellar mass–half-light radius relations with wavelength, we confirm earlier findings that galaxies appear more compact at longer wavelengths albeit at a smaller level than previously noted: at 1010M⊙ both spiral systems and ellipticals show a decrease in size of 13 per cent from g to Ks (which is near linear in log wavelength). Finally, we note that the sizes used in this work are derived from 2D Sersic light profile fitting (using GALFIT3), i.e. elliptical semimajor half-light radii, improving on earlier low-z benchmarks based on circular apertures.
Epithelia suspended in collagen gels can lose polarity and express characteristics of migrating mesenchymal cells

This study of epithelial-mesenchymal transformation and epithelial cell polarity in vitro reveals that environmental conditions can have a profound effect on the epithelial phenotype, cell shape, and polarity as expressed by the presence of apical and basal surfaces. A number of different adult and embryonic epithelia were suspended within native collagen gels. Under these conditions, cells elongate, detach from the explants, and migrate as individual cells within the three-dimensional lattice, a previously unknown property of well-differentiated epithelia. Epithelial cells from adult and embryonic anterior lens were studied in detail. Elongated cells derived from the apical surface develop pseudopodia and filopodia characteristic of migratory cells and acquire a morphology and ultrastructure virtually indistinguishable from that of mesenchymal cells in vivo. It is concluded from these experiments that the three-dimensional collagen gel can promote dissociation, migration, and acquisition of secretory organelles by differentiated epithelial cells, and can abolish the apical-basal cell polarity characteristic of the original epithelium.
Widely-linear filtering and non-cooperative transceiver optimization in wireless data networks

The issue of non-cooperative transceiver optimization in the uplink of a multiuser wireless data network with widely linear detection at the receiver is considered in this paper. While previous work in this area has focused on a simple real signal model, in this paper a baseband complex representation of the data is used, so as to properly take into account the I and Q components of the received signal. For the case in which the received signal is improper, a widely-linear reception structure, processing separately the data and their complex conjugates, is considered. The convergence of the well-known minimum mean square error (MMSE) iteration for spreading code adaptation is studied for the case in which widely-linear detection is used at the receiver. Interestingly, it is also found that spreading code optimization coupled with widely-linear filtering permits supporting, with no multiuser interference, a number of users that is twice the processing gain. Numerical results corroborate the validity of the theoretical analysis, and show that exploiting the improper nature of the data in non-cooperative resource allocation brings remarkable performance improvements in multiuser wireless systems.
Does Commercialized Political Coverage Undermine Political Trust?: Evidence Across European Countries

Media commercialization has long been suspected of exerting a negative influence upon political culture. The news media's interest in intrigues, personal details, and scandals rather than political issues in order to capture audience attention is regarded by many as a prime source of political cynicism. This article scrutinizes this claim by examining whether a commercialized media environment correlates with lower levels of citizen political trust across countries. Integrating cross-national survey data with country-level measures of commercialized political coverage, the findings indicate that, across 33 European countries, a negative link exists between media commercialization and political trust. Replication of the analysis with a separate cross-national survey across 28 countries demonstrated the robustness of the findings. These support the claim that media commercialization undermines political trust.