Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Uncoordinated Checkpointing Without Domino Effect for Send-Deterministic MPI Applications

As reported by many recent studies, the mean time between failures of future post-petascale supercomputers is likely to reduce, compared to the current situation. The most popular fault tolerance approach for MPI applications on HPC Platforms relies on coordinated check pointing which raises two major issues: a) global restart wastes energy since all processes are forced to rollback even in the case of a single failure, b) checkpoint coordination may slow down the application execution because of congestions on I/O resources. Alternative approaches based on uncoordinated check pointing and message logging require logging all messages, imposing a high memory/storage occupation and a significant overhead on communications. It has recently been observed that many MPI HPC applications are \emph{send-deterministic}, allowing to design new fault tolerance protocols. In this paper, we propose an uncoordinated check pointing protocol for send-deterministic MPI HPC applications that (i) logs only a subset of the application messages and (ii) does not require to restart systematically all processes when a failure occurs. We first describe our protocol and prove its correctness. Through experimental evaluations, we show that its implementation in MPICH2 has a negligible overhead on application performance. Then we perform a quantitative evaluation of the properties of our protocol using the NAS Benchmarks. Using a clustering approach, we demonstrate that this protocol actually succeeds to combine the two expected properties: a) it logs only a small fraction of the messages and b) it reduces by a factor approaching 2 the average number of processes to rollback compared to coordinated check pointing.
Relation Between Middle Cerebral Artery Blood Flow Velocity and Stump Pressure During Carotid Endarterectomy

Background and Purpose: Many patient monitoring techniques have been used for detecting cerebral hypoperfusion during carotid endarterectomy. We compared middle cerebral artery blood flow velocities with carotid artery stump pressures to evaluate the indications for common carotid artery cross‐clamp shunting and the probable hemodynamic causes of cerebrovascular complications. Methods: Blood flow velocities were monitored with transcranial Doppler ultrasound and carotid stump pressures were measured at the time of common carotid artery cross‐clamping during 97 carotid endarterectomy procedures. Stump pressures measured with the gauge zero reference at the common carotid artery level were correlated with the percentage change of velocities. Results: Middle cerebral artery blood flow velocities usually decreased upon common carotid artery cross‐clamping, depending on collateral availability and the autoregulation response. The best fit of the data was to an exponential function concave to the pressure axis, with velocity as a percentage of the pre‐cross‐clamp value reaching zero at 15 mm Hg stump pressure (r=0.85 and p<0.001). Conclusions: There is a less critical margin of error with percentage middle cerebral artery blood flow velocity decreases than with stump pressure measurements. This relation establishes changes in middle cerebral artery blood flow velocities as a reliable parameter for judging the effects of carotid cross‐clamping on cerebral blood flow and providing an excellent indicator as to the necessity for shunting. (Stroke 1992;23:1439‐1445)
Dynamic Range Adaptation to Sound Level Statistics in the Auditory Nerve

The auditory system operates over a vast range of sound pressure levels (100–120 dB) with nearly constant discrimination ability across most of the range, well exceeding the dynamic range of most auditory neurons (20–40 dB). Dean et al. (2005) have reported that the dynamic range of midbrain auditory neurons adapts to the distribution of sound levels in a continuous, dynamic stimulus by shifting toward the most frequently occurring level. Here, we show that dynamic range adaptation, distinct from classic firing rate adaptation, also occurs in primary auditory neurons in anesthetized cats for tone and noise stimuli. Specifically, the range of sound levels over which firing rates of auditory nerve (AN) fibers grows rapidly with level shifts nearly linearly with the most probable levels in a dynamic sound stimulus. This dynamic range adaptation was observed for fibers with all characteristic frequencies and spontaneous discharge rates. As in the midbrain, dynamic range adaptation improved the precision of level coding by the AN fiber population for the prevailing sound levels in the stimulus. However, dynamic range adaptation in the AN was weaker than in the midbrain and not sufficient (0.25 dB/dB, on average, for broadband noise) to prevent a significant degradation of the precision of level coding by the AN population above 60 dB SPL. These findings suggest that adaptive processing of sound levels first occurs in the auditory periphery and is enhanced along the auditory pathway.
Minimizing expected energy consumption through optimal integration of DVS and DPM

While Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) and Dynamic Power Management (DPM) techniques are widely used in real-time embedded applications, their complex interaction is not fully understood. In this research effort, we consider the problem of minimizing the expected energy consumption on settings where the workload is known only probabilistically. By adopting a system-level power model, we formally show how the optimal processing frequency can be computed efficiently for a real-time embedded application that can use multiple devices during its execution, while still meeting the timing constraints. Our evaluations indicate that the new technique provides clear (up to 35%) energy gains over the existing solutions that are proposed for deterministic workloads. Moreover, in a non-negligible part of the parameter spectrum, the algorithm's performance is shown to be close to that of a clairvoyant algorithm that can minimize the energy consumption with the advance knowledge about the exact workload. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4. 1 [Operating Systems]: Process Management-Scheduling; D.4. 7 [Operating Systems]: Organization and Design-Real-time systems and embedded systems General Terms Algorithms, Performance
Fluctuation Analysis of Parasitic Resistance in FinFETs With Scaled Fin Thickness

Measurement-based analysis of the parasitic resistance (<i>R</i> <sub>para</sub>) of FinFETs was extended to investigation of <i>R</i> <sub>para</sub> fluctuation, which could cause severe on-current variation. <i>R</i> <sub>para</sub> was obtained from the intercept in the linear relationship between measured on-resistance and gate length for FinFETs of various dimensions. A significant increase in <i>R</i> <sub>para</sub> is observed for fin thickness below 25 nm due to dopant loss from the ultrathin extension during processing. <i>R</i> <sub>para</sub> variation was evaluated for 45 FinFETs with an average fin thickness of 16 nm. Significant <i>R</i> <sub>para</sub> variation is observed and correlates with the variation of fin thickness.
Chest sound pick-up using a multisensor array

This paper proposes a method of evaluating and improving the ability of a multisensor array to pick up specific sounds from the chest. The focus index (FI) is a performance metric created to evaluate the focus achieved by a near-field beamformer and it can be applied to optimize sensor arrays for a number of applications. The FI can guide the user, for instance, in selecting an appropriate number of sensors, or determining if a subbanding or other beamforming algorithm is necessary. A related performance metric, the adjusted focus index (AFI), is proposed. The AFI describes the degree of focus relative to the point where the power is maximal regardless of whether it corresponds to the intended focus location. The validity and usefulness of the FI and AFI are shown through empirical trials and simulations as well as through experimental measurements. The FI and AFI have been shown to be useful in the optimization of many multisensor arrangements, including linear, circular, rectangular, and three-dimensional arrays
Neural variability, or lack thereof

We do not claim that the brain is completely deterministic, and we agree that noise may be beneficial in some cases. But we suggest that neuronal variability may be often overestimated, due to uncontrolled internal variables, and/or the use of inappropriate reference times. These ideas are not new, but should be re-examined in the light of recent experimental findings: trial-to-trial variability is often correlated across neurons, across trials, greater for higher-order neurons, and reduced by attention, suggesting that “intrinsic” sources of noise can only account for a minimal part of it. While it is obviously difficult to control for all internal variables, the problem of reference time can be largely avoided by recording multiple neurons at the same time, and looking at statistical structures in relative latencies. These relative latencies have another major advantage: they are insensitive to the variability that is shared across neurons, which is often a significant part of the total variability. Thus, we suggest that signal-to-noise ratios in the brain may be much higher than usually thought, leading to reactive systems, economic in terms of number of neurons, and energy efficient.
Breaking Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems Using Reconfigurable Hardware

This paper reports a new speed record for FPGAs in cracking Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems. We conduct a detailed analysis of different $\textbf{F}_{2^m}$ multiplication approaches in this application. A novel architecture using optimized normal basis multipliers is proposed to solve the Certicom challenge ECC2K-130. We compare the FPGA performance against CPUs, GPUs, and the Sony PlayStation 3. Our implementations show low-cost FPGAs outperform even multicore desktop processors and graphics cards by a factor of 2.
Role of dendritic cells in consistency between upper and lower airway inflammatory responses : animal experimental studies

In recent years, studies on the consistency between upper and lower airway inflammation have been receiving more attention; however, the function and mechanism of dendritic cells (DCs) in this context are still not clear. In the present research, we studied the function and mechanism of DCs in the consistency between the upper and lower airway inflammatory responses. CD80, CD86, interferon gamma (IFN-γ), and interleukin 4 (IL-4) expression levels in nasal mucosa and lung tissues in a rat model of allergic rhinitis (AR) and asthma (AS) were detected to analyze the relationship between CD80 and CD86 expression levels and upper and lower airway inflammation and IL-4 and IFN-γ expression. The numbers of CD80, CD86, and IL-4-positive cells in the nasal mucosa and lung tissues in the AR and AS experimental groups were significantly higher; however, the number of IFN-γ-positive cells was significantly lower. CD80 and CD86 expression levels in the nasal mucosa positively correlated with their expression in lung tissues. CD80 and CD86 in the nasal mucosa and lung tissues positively correlated with IL-4 and negatively correlated with IFN-γ. DCs participated in the development of upper and lower airway inflammation. Then, DCs and the upper and lower airway inflammatory responses were consistent. The mechanism underlying of DCs in the consistency between the upper and lower airway inflammatory responses might be associated with its induction of the helper T (Th)2 cytokine-dominant expression, thus breaking the original expression balance between Th1 and Th2 cytokines.
Changes in haematocrit and some serum biochemical profile of sahiwal and Jersey × Sahiwal cows in tropical environments.

1College of Veterinary Science, Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India 2College of Veterinary Science, Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University, Proddatur, Andhra Pradesh, India 3All India Coordinated Research Project on pigs, Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India 4Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India 5 College of Dairy Technology, Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India
Perceptual illusion and the real-time control of action.

Participants were cued by an auditory tone to grasp a target object from within a size-contrast display. The peak grip aperture was unaffected by the perceptual size illusion when the target array was visible between the response cue and movement onset (vision trials). The grasp was sensitive to the illusion, however, when the target array was occluded from view when the response was cued (occlusion trials). This was true when the occlusion occurred 2.5 s before the response cue (delay), but also when the occlusion coincided with the response cue (no-delay). Unlike previous experiments, vision and occlusion trials were presented in random sequence. The results suggest that dedicated, real-time visuomotor mechanisms are engaged for the control of action only after the response is cued, and only if the target is visible. These visuomotor mechanisms compute the absolute metrics of the target object and therefore resist size-contrast illusions. In other situations (e.g. prior to the response cue, or if the target is no longer visible), a perceptual representation of the target object can be used for action planning. Unlike the real-time visuomotor mechanisms, perception-based movement planning makes use of relational metrics, and is therefore sensitive to size-contrast illusions.
Exploiting Out-of-Domain Data Sources for Dialectal Arabic Statistical Machine Translation

Statistical machine translation for dialectal Arabic is characterized by a lack of data since data acquisition involves the transcription and translation of spoken language. In this study we develop techniques for extracting parallel data for one particular dialect of Arabic (Iraqi Arabic) from out-of-domain corpora in different dialects of Arabic or in Modern Standard Arabic. We compare two different data selection strategies (cross-entropy based and submodular selection) and demonstrate that a very small but highly targeted amount of found data can improve the performance of a baseline machine translation system. We furthermore report on preliminary experiments on using automatically translated speech data as additional training data.
Face recognition based on discriminant waveletfaces

Principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) have been widely applied in the face detection and recognition, yet still they have some limitations such as poor discriminative power and large computational load. This paper presents a method for face recognition using discriminant waveletfaces. Firstly wavelet transform is used to decompose the face image into different frequency subbands for extracting feature - waveletfaces, and then the discriminant analysis of PCA plus LDA is performed on the chosen subband. Finally the nearest neighbor classifier is adopted to make decision. In comparison with the traditional discriminant analysis, the experiments show that the proposed approach has better recognition rate and can reduce the computational load.
Personal and Ambient Air Pollution Exposures and Lung Function Decrements in Children with Asthma

Background Epidemiologic studies have shown associations between asthma outcomes and outdoor air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter mass < 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5). Independent effects of specific pollutants have been difficult to detect because most studies have relied on highly correlated central-site measurements. Objectives This study was designed to evaluate the relationship of daily changes in percent-predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1) with personal and ambient air pollutant exposures. Methods For 10 days each, we followed 53 subjects with asthma who were 9–18 years of age and living in the Los Angeles, California, air basin. Subjects self-administered home spirometry in themorning, afternoon, and evening. We measured personal hourly PM2.5 mass, 24-hr PM2.5 elemental and organic carbon (EC–OC), and 24-hr NO2, and the same 24-hr average outdoor central-site(ambient) exposures. We analyzed data with transitional mixed models controlling for personal temperature and humidity, and as-needed β2-agonist inhaler use. Results FEV1 decrements were significantly associated with increasing hourly peak and daily average personal PM2.5, but not ambient PM2.5. Personal NO2 was also inversely associated with FEV1. Ambient NO2 was more weakly associated. We found stronger associations among 37 subjects not taking controller bronchodilators as follows: Personal EC–OC was inversely associated with morning FEV1; for an interquartile increase of 71 μg/m3 1-hr maximum personal PM2.5, overall percent-predicted FEV1 decreased by 1.32% [95% confidence interval (CI), −2.00 to −0.65%]; and for an interquartile increase of 16.8 ppb 2-day average personal NO2, overall percent-predicted FEV1 decreased by 2.45% (95% CI, −3.57 to −1.33%). Associations of both personal PM2.5 and NO2 with FEV1 remained when co-regressed, and both confounded ambient NO2. Conclusions Independent pollutant associations with lung function might be missed using ambient data alone. Different sets of causal components are suggested by independence of FEV1 associations with personal PM2.5 mass from associations with personal NO2.
Differentiation of Glioma and Radiation Injury in Rats Using In Vitro Produce Magnetically Labeled Cytotoxic T-Cells and MRI

Background A limitation with current imaging strategies of recurrent glioma undergoing radiotherapy is that tumor and radiation injury cannot be differentiated with post contrast CT or MRI, or with PET or other more complex parametric analyses of MRI data. We propose to address the imaging limitation building on emerging evidence indicating that effective therapy for recurrent glioma can be attained by sensitized T-cells following vaccination of primed dendritic cells (DCs). The purpose of this study was to determine whether cord blood T-cells can be sensitized against glioma cells (U-251) and if these sensitized cytotoxic T-cells (CTLs) can be used as cellular magnetic resonance imaging probes to identify and differentiate glioma from radiation necrosis in rodent models. Methodology/Principal Findings Cord blood T and CD14+ cells were collected. Isolated CD14+ cells were then converted to dendritic cells (DCs), primed with glioma cell lysate and used to sensitize T-cells. Phenotypical expression of the generated DCs were analyzed to determine the expression level of CD14, CD86, CD83 and HLA-DR. Cells positive for CD25, CD4, CD8 were determined in generated CTLs. Specificity of cytotoxicity of the generated CTLs was also determined by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release assay. Secondary proliferation capacity of magnetically labeled and unlabeled CTLs was also determined. Generated CTLs were magnetically labeled and intravenously injected into glioma bearing animals that underwent MRI on days 3 and 7 post- injection. CTLs were also administered to animals with focal radiation injury to determine whether these CTLs accumulated non-specifically to the injury sites. Multi-echo T2- and T2*-weighted images were acquired and R2 and R2* maps created. Our method produced functional, sensitized CTLs that specifically induced U251 cell death in vitro. Both labeled and unlabeled CTLs proliferated equally after the secondary stimulation. There were significantly higher CD25 positive cells (p = <0.006) in CTLs. In addition, T2- and T2*-weighted MR images showed increased low signal intensity areas in animals that received labeled CTLs as compared to the images from animals that received control cells. Histological analysis confirmed the presence of iron positive cells in sites corresponding to MRI low signal intensity regions. Significant differences (p = <0.001) in tumor R2 and R2* values were observed among the groups of animals. Animals with radiation injury exhibited neither MRI hypointense areas nor presence of iron positive cells. Conclusion Our results indicate that T-cells can be effectively sensitized by in vitro methods and used as cellular probes to identify and differentiate glioma from radiation necrosis.
Learning to Use a Learned Model: A Two-Stage Approach to Classification

Association rule-based classifiers have recently emerged as competitive classification systems. However, there are still deficiencies that hinder their performance. One deficiency is the use of rules in the classification stage. Current systems assign classes to new objects based on the best rule applied or on some predefined scoring of multiple rules. In this paper we propose a new technique where the system automatically learns how to use the rules. We achieve this by developing a two-stage classification model. First, we use association rule mining to discover classification rules. Second, we employ another learning algorithm to learn how to use these rules in the prediction process. Our two-stage approach outperforms C4.5 and RIPPER on the UCI datasets in our study, and outperforms other rule- learning methods on more than half the datasets. The versatility of our method is also demonstrated by applying it to text classification, where it equals the performance of the best known systems for this task, SVMs.
Sexual selection maintains whole-body chiral dimorphism in snails

Although the vast majority of higher animals are fixed for one chiral morph or another, the cause for this directionality is known in only a few cases. In snails, for example, rare individuals of the opposite coil are unable to mate with individuals of normal coil, so directionality is maintained by frequency‐dependent selection. The snail subgenus Amphidromus presents an unexplained exception, because dextral (D) and sinistral (S) individuals occur sympatrically in roughly equal proportions (so‐called ‘antisymmetry’) in most species. Here we show that in Amphidromus there is sexual selection for dimorphism, rather than selection for monomorphism. We found that matings between D and S individuals occur more frequently than expected by chance. Anatomical investigations showed that the chirality of the spermatophore and the female reproductive tract probably allow a greater fecundity in such inter‐chiral matings. Computer simulation confirms that under these circumstances, sustained dimorphism is the expected outcome.