Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protective buttressing of the hominin face

When humans fight hand‐to‐hand the face is usually the primary target and the bones that suffer the highest rates of fracture are the parts of the skull that exhibit the greatest increase in robusticity during the evolution of basal hominins. These bones are also the most sexually dimorphic parts of the skull in both australopiths and humans. In this review, we suggest that many of the facial features that characterize early hominins evolved to protect the face from injury during fighting with fists. Specifically, the trend towards a more orthognathic face; the bunodont form and expansion of the postcanine teeth; the increased robusticity of the orbit; the increased robusticity of the masticatory system, including the mandibular corpus and condyle, zygoma, and anterior pillars of the maxilla; and the enlarged jaw adductor musculature are traits that may represent protective buttressing of the face. If the protective buttressing hypothesis is correct, the primary differences in the face of robust versus gracile australopiths may be more a function of differences in mating system than differences in diet as is generally assumed. In this scenario, the evolution of reduced facial robusticity in Homo is associated with the evolution of reduced strength of the upper body and, therefore, with reduced striking power. The protective buttressing hypothesis provides a functional explanation for the puzzling observation that although humans do not fight by biting our species exhibits pronounced sexual dimorphism in the strength and power of the jaw and neck musculature. The protective buttressing hypothesis is also consistent with observations that modern humans can accurately assess a male's strength and fighting ability from facial shape and voice quality.
Symmetry-Breaking Predicates for Search Problems

Many reasoning and optimization problems exhibit symmetries. Previous work has shown how special purpose algorithms can make use of these symmetries to simplify reasoning. We present a general scheme whereby symmetries are exploited by adding \symmetry-breaking" predicates to the theory. Our approach can be used on any propo-sitional satissability problem, and can be used as a pre-processor to any (systematic or non-systematic) reasoning method. In the general case adding symmetry-breaking axioms appears to be intractable. We discuss methods for generating partial symmetry-breaking predicates, and show that in several speciic cases symmetries can be broken either fully are partially using a polynomial number of predicates. These ideas have been implemented and we include experimental results on two classes of constraint-satisfaction problems.
Auxotonic Loading of the Cardiac Muscle: Experiments and Model Simulations

For centuries, the heart has interested scientists. Its function has been studied in experimental setups and by different kinds of validation models. The doctoral study presented in this thesis has been devoted to the development of a mathematical model of the cardiac muscle function based on new experiments on isolated papillary muscles. The goal was to develop a model with minimal complexity in which the model parameters were observable from measured variables. The cardiac muscle works under auxotonic loading conditions, i.e. simultaneous changes in stress and length, while most experiments have been performed under isotonic or isometric conditions or as quick load and length clamps. In order to study the isolated muscle under controlled auxotonic conditions and to perform experiments over a wide range of loading conditions on each individual muscle within a limited time span, we wanted to develop a new measurement and control system for the isolated papillary muscle. We used digital technology to obtain maximal flexibility of the new control system. In addition to including the auxotonic control, i.e. proportional changes in length and stress, the new system made it possible to perform series of predefined contractionrelaxation sequences (twitches) with individual experimental settings including loading conditions, stimulation parameters, and acquisition parameters. The auxotonic twitches at different auxotonic load demonstrated load-independent timing of contraction, i.e. the shape of the normalized developed stress was similar at different auxotonic load. This is different from conventional twitches with isometricisotonic contraction sequence. In the relaxation phase, however, the timing was load dependent; time to half relaxation was highly correlated with peak stress. The differences in load dependence between the contraction phase and the relaxation phase were further demonstrated with the use of two dimensionless expressions for mechanical dynamics, defined as the sum of normalized stress and normalized shortening. These expressions also allowed comparison of mechanical dynamics, i.e. changes in length or stress, in auxotonic twitches versus conventional twitch types. The properties of the auxotonic twitches, which were demonstrated with the experiments, yielded a special attention towards the activation dynamics in the definition of a structure for the mathematical model. To obtain realistic auxotonic twitches, we defined one activity variable, representing the integrative effect of the length and velocity-dependent calcium-troponin C kinetics, activation of the thin filament, and cross-bridge kinetics. The activity was modeled as one model of activation and one model of inactivation. Three different approaches to separate activation and inactivation in time demonstrated realistic auxotonic behavior. A moderate increase in the model complexity was, however, needed to include specific features that are seen in isometric and afterloaded twitches.
A Broadcasting Scheme with Low Buffer Requirement for Users with Limited Bandwidth

The broadcast method is the most efficient approach to deliver a popular video for utilizing bandwidth. By combining the Fibonacci and staircase methods, this paper presents a hybrid broadcasting method with low buffer requirement to deliver a constant bitrate compressed video. The proposed method allows users with bandwidth of double of the consumption rate to download and watch the video without break. The buffer requirement of the proposed method is 26.4% of the size of whole video. Compared with the Fibonacci method, the proposed method reduces the buffer requirement by about 30% while provides relatively acceptable wait time.
Preclinical antitumour activity of F 11782, a novel dual catalytic inhibitor of topoisomerases

F 11782 is a novel inhibitor of topoisomerases I and II, with an original mechanism of action (Perrin et al, 2000). This study, aimed to define its anticancer efficacy against a series of murine and human tumour models, has provided evidence of major antitumour activity for F 11782. This was demonstrated as a high level of activity against the P388 leukaemia, as reflected by increased survival of 143–457%, when administered i.p., p.o. or i.v. as single or multiple doses, and proved consistently superior to etoposide or camptothecin tested concurrently. Single or multiple i.p. doses of F 11782 also proved highly active against the s.c. grafted B16 melanoma, significantly increasing survival (P < 0.001) and inhibiting tumour growth (T/C of 0.3%), again superior to etoposide tested concurrently. Furthermore, F 11782 inhibited the number of pulmonary metastatic foci of the B16F10 melanoma by 99%. In human tumour xenograft studies, multiple i.p. doses of F 11782 resulted in major inhibitory activity against MX-1 (breast) tumours (T/C of 0.1%), as well as causing definite tumour regressions, whereas none resulted from similar experimental treatments with etoposide. Significant activity was also recorded with F 11782 against the relatively refractory LX-1 (lung) xenografts, with an optimal T/C value of 19%. It was notable that the antitumour activity of F 11782 was consistently demonstrated over a wide range of 2–6 dose levels, providing evidence of its good overall tolerance. In conclusion, these results emphasize the preclinical interest of this novel molecule and support its further preclinical development. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer. com
The lack of controllability of EVA ® explains its decline a field study

This paper investigates the properties of EVA® compensation schemes, which were considered as a major managerial innovation of the 90's. The analysis is carried on in the framework of contract theory and based on a six year longitudinal case study. Such schemes induce highly volatile bonuses compared to more traditional ones. This is interpreted as a loss of controllability, where controllability is defined as the controllability of their performance measured by managers. The role of the target setting, based on external standards, and the absence of renegotiation are of particular significance in explaining this loss. This analysis explains the difficulties encountered in the implementation of these schemes and their relative decline.
On reducing interprocess communication overhead in concurrent programs

We present several different ideas for increasing the performance of highly concurrent programs in general and Erlang programs in particular. These ideas range from simple implementation tricks that reduce communication latency to more thorough code rewrites guided by inlining across process boundaries. We also briefly discuss the impact of different heap architectures on interprocess communication in general and on our proposed optimizations in particular.
Risk Aversion Behaviors of Consumers with Different Impulse Buying Tendency

In order to know more about the rational factors in consumer irrational behavior, this paper analyzed 370 consumers' actual online shopping data with nonparametric test, trying to find out whether there are any risk aversion behavior discrepancies among consumers with different impulse buying tendency. Customers were automatically clustered into three categories, and the results show that high impulsiveness consumers are really no different in SI-RAB (strong initiative risk aversion behavior) and MI-RAB (medium initiative risk aversion behavior) than those other consumers, while tending to overlook the risk factors in the act of weak initiative risk aversion (WI-RAB).
Influence of a salinity gradient on the vessel characters of the mangrove species Rhizophora mucronata.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Although mangroves have been extensively studied, little is known about their ecological wood anatomy. This investigation examined the potential use of vessel density as a proxy for soil water salinity in the mangrove species Rhizophora mucronata (Rhizophoraceae) from Kenya. METHODS In a time-standardized approach, 50 wood discs from trees growing in six salinity categories were investigated. Vessel densities, and tangential and radial diameters of rainy and dry season wood of one distinct year, at three positions on the stem discs, were measured. A repeated-measures ANOVA with the prevailing salinity was performed. KEY RESULTS Vessel density showed a significant increase with salinity, supporting its use as a prospective measure of salinity. Interestingly, the negative salinity response of the radial diameter of vessels was less striking, and tangential diameter was constant under the varying environmental conditions. An effect of age or growth rate or the presence of vessel dimorphism could be excluded as the cause of the absence of any ecological trend. CONCLUSIONS The clear trend in vessel density with salinity, together with the absence of a growth rate and age effect, validates the potential of vessel density as an environmental proxy. However, it can only be used as a relative measure of salinity given that other environmental variables such as inundation frequency have an additional influence on vessel density. With view to a reliable, absolute proxy, future research should focus on finding wood anatomical features correlated exclusively with soil water salinity or inundation frequency. The plasticity in vessel density with differing salinity suggests a role in the establishment of a safe water transport system. To confirm this hypothesis, the role of inter-vessel pits, their relationship to the rather constant vessel diameter and the underlying physiology and cell biology needs to be examined.
Model Clone Detector Evaluation Using Mutation Analysis

Model Clone Detection is a growing area within the field of software model maintenance. New model clone detection techniques and tools for different types of models are being created, however, there is no clear way of objectively and quantitatively evaluating and comparing them. In this paper, we provide a synopsis of our work in devising and validating an evaluation framework that uses Mutation Analysis to provide such a facility. In order to demonstrate the framework's feasibility and also walk through its steps, we implement a framework implementation for evaluating Simulink model clone detectors. This includes a taxonomy of Simulink mutations, Simulink clone report transformations, and more. We outline how the framework calculates precision and recall, and do so on multiple Simulink model clone detectors. In addition, we also discuss areas of future work, including semantic clone mutations, and developing framework implementations for other model types, like UML. Lastly, we address some lessons we learned during the Ph.D. Process, such as partitioning the work into logical, self-contained, milestones, and being open and willing to engage in other research. We hope that our framework will help cultivate further research gains in Model Clone Detection.
Intrinsic image evaluation on synthetic complex scenes

Scene decomposition into its illuminant, shading, and reflectance intrinsic images is an essential step for scene understanding. Collecting intrinsic image groundtruth data is a laborious task. The assumptions on which the ground-truth procedures are based limit their application to simple scenes with a single object taken in the absence of indirect lighting and interreflections. We investigate synthetic data for intrinsic image research since the extraction of ground truth is straightforward, and it allows for scenes in more realistic situations (e.g, multiple illuminants and interreflections). With this dataset we aim to motivate researchers to further explore intrinsic image decomposition in complex scenes.
SVM based methods for arrhythmia classification in ECG

In this study, Support Vector Machine (SVM) based methods have been used to classify the electrocardiogram (ECG) arrhythmias. Among various existing SVM methods, three well-known and widely used algorithms one-against-one, one-against-all, and fuzzy decision function are used here to distinguish between the presence and absence of cardiac arrhythmia and classifying them into one of the arrhythmia groups. The various types of arrhythmias in the Cardiac Arrhythmias ECG database chosen from University of California at Irvine (UCI) to train SVM, include ischémie changes (coronary artery disease), old inferior myocardial infarction, sinus bradycardy, right bundle branch block, and others. The results obtained through implementation of all three methods are thus compared as per their accuracy rate in percentages and the performance of the SVM classifier using one-against-all (OAA) method was found to be better than other techniques. ECG arrhythmia data sets are of generally complex nature and SVM based one-against-all method is found to be of vital importance for classification based diagnosing diseases pertaining to abnormal heart beats.
A novel net weighting algorithm for timing-driven placement

Net weighting for timing-driven placement has been very popular in industry and academia. It has various advantages such as low complexity, high flexibility and ease of implementation. Existing net weighting algorithms, however, are often ad-hoc. There is generally no known good net weighting algorithms. In this paper, we present a novel net weighting algorithm based on the concept of path-counting, and apply it in a timing-driven FPGA placement application. Theoretically this is the first ever known accurate, all-path counting algorithm. Experimental data shows that compared with the weighting algorithm used in state-of-the-art FPGA placement package VPR (A. Marquardt et al, ACM Symp. on FPGAs, pp. 203-213, 2000), this new algorithm can achieve the longest path delay reduction of up to 38.8%, 15.6% on average with no runtime overhead and only a 4.1% increase in total wirelength.
CONTROLO 2006

This paper describes a tool for interactive learning that can be used to improve control systems design. The developed system is ready to use and allows testing different control methods. It can be used by students for problem solving and individual learning. The virtual control laboratory was implemented as a teaching aid during lectures on control systems. As there is no need to do any special programming or debugging, the students can focus on the control items. Classical control methods such as PID and State-Space approaches are available and gains can be tuned. A friendly appearance based on openGL 3D shows a simulation of the real word: A cart with an inverted pendulum is ”bumped” with a force. The dynamic equations of motion for the control system are linearized assuming that the pendulum does not move more than a few degrees away from the vertical allowing to apply linear control methods. Although, the simulated system is realistic and based on a Dynamics Engine.
Vest Chest Physiotherapy Airway Clearance is Associated with Nitric Oxide Metabolism

Background. Vest chest physiotherapy (VCPT) enhances airway clearance in cystic fibrosis (CF) by an unknown mechanism. Because cilia are sensitive to nitric oxide (NO), we hypothesized that VCPT enhances clearance by changing NO metabolism. Methods. Both normal subjects and stable CF subjects had pre- and post-VCPT airway clearance assessed using nasal saccharin transit time (NSTT) followed by a collection of exhaled breath condensate (EBC) analyzed for NO metabolites (NOx). Results. VCPT shorted NSTT by 35% in normal and stable CF subjects with no difference observed between the groups. EBC NOx concentrations decreased 68% in control subjects after VCPT (before = 115 ± 32 μM versus after = 37 ± 17 μM; P < 0.002). CF subjects had a trend toward lower EBC NOx. Conclusion. We found an association between VCPT-stimulated clearance and exhaled NOx levels in human subjects. We speculate that VCPT stimulates clearance via increased NO metabolism.
An Efficient Parallel Scheduling Scheme on Multi-partition PCM Architecture

Phase Change Memory (PCM) is an emerging non-volatile memory with the salient features of large-scale, high-speed, low-power and radiation resistance. It hence becomes an ideal candidate for the next-generation storage media of main memory. However, PCM suffers from inefficient I/O performance due to long write latency. Recent studies propose a multi-partition (or multi-subarray) architecture within each bank to enhance internal parallelism. However, conventional scheduling schemes fail to exploit the advantage of multiple partitions and incur inefficient bank utilization. In this paper, we propose a Write Priority overlap Read (WPoR) scheduling scheme which preferentially serves for a write request in one partition and allows other partitions to perform as many read requests as possible within this partition's program duration. Experimental results demonstrate that WPoR reduces the write latency by 24.7% (on average) compared with state-of-the-art scheduling algorithms. Meanwhile, the IPC indicator of WPoR scheduling increases respectively 6%, 7% and 26% (on average) compared with Read Priority, Write Pausing and Write Cancellation schemes.
An adaptive hybrid VNS/SA approach to the one-commodity pickup and delivery problem

The One-Commodity Pickup and Delivery Problem (1-PDP) is an NP-hard problem, in which one type of commodity is collected from a set of pickup customers to be delivered to a set of delivery customers, and the origins and destinations of the goods are not paired. We introduce a new adaptive hybrid VNS/SA (Variable Neighborhood Search/Simulated Annealing) approach for solving the 1-PDP. We perform multiple VNS runs, where neighborhood sizes, within which the search is performed at each run, are adaptable and depend on the search progress. Experimental results on a large number of benchmark instances indicate that the algorithm outperforms previous heuristics in 90% of the large size benchmark instances. Nevertheless, this comes at the expense of an increased processing time.
Intra-rater and inter-rater reliability at the item level of the Action Research Arm Test for patients with stroke.

OBJECTIVE To examine the intra- and inter-rater reliability of the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) at the item level after stroke. DESIGN An intra-rater and inter-rater reliability study. SUBJECTS Thirty-five participants (median age 62 years, median time post-stroke 22 months) with impaired upper extremity function after stroke were included in the study. METHODS Two physiotherapists simultaneously, but independently, assessed the participants' performance in all 19 items of the ARAT twice in 1 day. A rank-based statistical method for paired ordinal data, including calculation of percentage agreement (PA), systematic disagreements (relative position (RP), relative concentration (RC)) and individual variability (relative rank variance (RV)) was used. RESULTS Satisfactory intra-rater and inter-rater agreement was noted for all items except item 19, which was just below satisfactory level. Within and between raters, small but non-negligible systematic disagreements were found for items 11, 14 and 19 and for items 1, 4, 17 and 19, respectively. There was no disagreement due to random variance within or between raters. CONCLUSION The ARAT is a highly reliable observational rating scale at the item level after stroke. Awareness regarding the small systematic disagreements demonstrated in some items is, however, recommended when using ARAT.
Pipesworld : Planning Pipeline Transportation of Petroleum Derivatives ∗

This paper describes the Pipesworld planning domain, inspired by the pipeline transportation of petroleum derivatives. Most transportation problems consist of moving carriers of stationary cargos. Pipelines are unique in the sense that they are stationary carriers of moving cargos. As a consequence, the planning problem of these systems has singularities that make them very challenging. We present a PDDL model of the domain. Next, we comment on valid plans for some illustrative instances. We focus on the domain’s particularities, and suggest how the model may be enhanced to take into account real world restrictions.