Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DART : A Framework for Distributed Audio Analysis and Music Information Retrieval

Over the past five years, there has been significant advancements made in the field of distributed systems technologies with applications being deployed on an Internet scale. On the one hand, Grid computing has evolved from core toolkits, such as Globus (http://www.globus.org/) providing the underlying mechanisms for executing and managing Jobs and data, to using service oriented architectures (SOAs) in the form of Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) (Foster, Kesselman, Nick, Tuecke, 2002) that capitalises on Web Services standards set out by W3C (2000, 2003) for exposing the low level functionality on a network. The recent advancement to WS-RF (http://www.globus.org/wsrf/) provides decoupled mechanisms for representing stateful resource capabilities through stateless Web Services interfaces, which allows a system to manage lifetime without using a tightly coupled approach like previous distributed object systems, such as Corba (http://www.corba.org/) or Jini (http://www.jini.org/). Grid computing is built on standardised technologies and extended through other standardisation efforts often initiated through the various research and working groups hosted within the Global Grid Forum (GGF) conference (http://www.ggf.org/).
Serving Ads from localhost for Performance, Privacy, and Profit

Online advertising is a major economic force in the Internet today. Today’s deployments, however, erode privacy and degrade performance as browsers wait for ad networks to deliver ads. In this paper we pose the question: is it possible to build a practical private online advertising system? To this end we present an initial design where ads are served from the endhost. It is attractive from three standpoints — privacy, profit, and performance: tracking the user’s profile on their computer and not at a third-party improves privacy; better targeting and potentially lower operating costs can improve profits; and relying more on the local endhost rather than a distant central third-party can improve performance. In this paper we explore whether such a system is practical with an eye towards scalability, costs, and deployability. Based on a feasibility study conducted over traces from over 31K users and 130K ads, we believe our approach holds much promise.
Impact of operational conditions on drinking water biofilm dynamics and coliform invasion potential

Biofilms within drinking water distribution systems serve as a habitat for drinking water microorganisms. However, biofilms can negatively impact drinking water quality by causing water discoloration and deterioration and can be a reservoir for unwanted microorganisms. In this study, we investigated whether indicator organisms for drinking water quality, such as coliforms, can settle in mature drinking water biofilms. Therefore, a biofilm monitor consisting of glass rings was used to grow and sample drinking water biofilms. Two mature drinking water biofilms were characterized by flow cytometry, ATP measurements, confocal laser scanning microscopy and 16S rRNA sequencing. Biofilms developed under treated chlorinated surface water supply exhibited lower cell densities in comparison with biofilms resulting from treated groundwater. Overall, the phenotypic as well as the genotypic characteristics were significantly different between both biofilms. In addition, the response of the biofilm microbiome and possible biofilm detachment after minor water quality changes were investigated. Limited changes in pH and free chlorine addition, to simulate operational changes that are relevant for practice, were evaluated. It was shown that both biofilms remained resilient. Finally, mature biofilms were prone to invasion of the coliform, Serratia fonticola. After spiking low concentrations (i.e. ± 100 cells/100 mL) of the coliform to the corresponding bulk water samples, the coliforms were able to attach and get established within the mature biofilms. These outcomes are emphasizing the need for continued research on biofilm detachment and its implications for water contamination in distribution networks. Importance The revelation that even low concentrations of coliforms can infiltrate into mature drinking water biofilms highlights a potential public health concern. Nowadays, the measurement of coliform bacteria is used as an indicator for fecal contamination and to control the effectiveness of disinfection processes and the cleanliness and integrity of distribution systems. In Flanders (Belgium), 533 out of 18840 measurements exceeded the established norm for the coliform indicator parameter in 2021, however, the source of microbial contamination is mostly unknown. Here, we showed that mature biofilms, are susceptible to invasion of Serratia fonticola. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding and managing biofilms in drinking water distribution systems, not only for their potential to influence water quality, but also for their role in harboring and potentially disseminating pathogens. Further research into biofilm detachment, long-term responses to operational changes, and pathogen persistence within biofilms is crucial to inform strategies for safeguarding drinking water quality.
PubNavigator as an undergraduate teaching tool

The ability to use data and evidence as the basis for scientific reasoning is a critical skill that undergraduate students must learn to successfully transition into science careers. There is a need for pedagogical tools that promote the development of science process skills and reduce barriers to implementation in the classroom. PubNavigator (www.pubnavigator.com) is a science communication platform that shares the findings of primary literature using accessible language and features biographical information about the authors. This research assesses the utility of PubNavigator as an undergraduate teaching resource. We analyzed responses to an assignment prompting discussion of PubNavigator articles in an asynchronous online discussion forum in an introductory biology course. We conducted thematic analysis guided by the evidence-based reasoning framework to identify evidence of science reasoning and interactive enagement. We found evidence that the PubNavigator assignment elicited engagement in scientific reasoning. Students who demonstrated higher levels of engagement with the assignment also demonstrated higher levels of science reasoning in their discussion of the articles. Our findings support PubNavigator as an undergraduate teaching tool that can be used to promote science reasoning and engagement in introductory biology. We provide recommendations for implementation to instructors interested in integrating PubNavigator activities into their courses.
Resting state aperiodic slope predicts Research Domain Criteria Social Processes in young typically developing adults

Background The aperiodic exponent has been utilised to demonstrate differences in brain excitation-inhibition (E/I) in ageing, cognition, and neuro- and psycho-pathology. Furthermore, E/I imbalance has been associated with social communication difficulties in clinical and non-clinical cohorts. No work to date, however, has explored the association between aperiodic activity and social communication difficulties. Methods A total of 40 typically developing young adults aged 18-24 (24 female; age mean=21.6, SD=1.9) each underwent 5 minutes each of eyes open and eyes closed resting state EEG using a 64-channel HydroCel Geodesic Sensor Net. Participants also completed Research Domain Criteria Social Processes measures: Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), Reading the Mind in the Eyes task (RME), and Penn Emotional Recognition Task (ER-40). Results Sex differences in aperiodic exponent and offset were observed, with steeper exponent and greater offset observed in males, suggestive of greater inhibitory tone (ps<.05). Whole-brain aperiodic activity was not associated with SRS, RME, or ER-40. There was some support for increased SRS scores and steeper exponent in right social brain (suggestive of greater excitatory tone), however, this was not significant (p=.068). Conclusions These preliminary data show promise for supporting the notion that brain E/I is associated with social communication and processing difficulties, however, larger samples are needed to validate these findings.
A spread spectrum clock generator for SATA-II

In this paper, we proposed a spread spectrum clock generator (SSCG) for the Serial AT Attachment Generation 2 (SATA-II). We use a fractional-N PLL to accomplish the spread spectrum function. The SSCG integrates a conventional PLL, a digital 3/sup rd/ order MASH 1-1-1 delta-sigma modulator and an address generator. The SSCG generates clocks at 1.5 GHz, a 5000 ppm down spread with a triangular waveform frequency modulation of 33 kHz. The circuit has been simulated in 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. The non spread spectrum clocking has a jitter of 80 ps and the peak amplitude reduction is 23.44 dBm in spread spectrum mode. The power dissipation from a 1.8 V supply is 55 mW.
AKG: automatic kernel generation for neural processing units using polyhedral transformations

Existing tensor compilers have proven their effectiveness in deploying deep neural networks on general-purpose hardware like CPU and GPU, but optimizing for neural processing units (NPUs) is still challenging due to the heterogeneous compute units and complicated memory hierarchy. In this paper, we present AKG, a tensor compiler for NPUs. AKG first lowers the tensor expression language to a polyhedral representation, which is used to automate the memory management of NPUs. Unlike existing approaches that resort to manually written schedules, AKG leverages polyhedral schedulers to perform a much wider class of transformations, and extends the semantics of the polyhedral representation to combine complex tiling techniques and hierarchical fusion strategies. We also implement the domain-specific optimization of convolution in AKG. Moreover, to achieve the optimal performance, we introduce complementary optimizations in code generation, which is followed by an auto-tuner. We conduct extensive experiments on benchmarks ranging from single operators to end-to-end networks. The experimental results show that AKG can obtain superior performance to both manual scheduling approaches and vendor provided libraries. We believe AKG will cast a light on the follow-up compiler works on NPUs.
Effects of Modularization on Developers' Cognitive Effort in Code Comprehension Tasks: A Controlled Experiment

Developers invest the cognitive effort to comprehend instructions in source code. Cognitive effort refers to the cognitive processing of a human being’s brain required to complete a cognitive task. The cognitive effort invested by developers can vary depending on the complexity of how instructions in source code are structured. To implement features, developers can write all instructions in a single method (non-modular) or even modularize it into several methods (modular). However, little is known about the effects of modularizing instructions in source code on the developers’ cognitive effort. Hence, adopting modularization practices ends up being a cognitive effort-insensitive task. This paper, therefore, reports on a controlled experiment that investigates the effects of modularization on the cognitive effort of developers while comprehending instructions in (non-)modular code. We evaluated the modularization of instructions with the participation of 35 developers who performed 10 comprehension tasks using a wearable EEG device. The main results suggest that developers tend to invest less cognitive effort to understand instructions in modular code rather than in non-modular code. However, developers spend more temporal effort to understand instructions in modular code, and this extra time is not converted into a higher rate of correct code comprehension. Our findings shed light on improving the state of the art of modularization practices by making them sensitive to the developers’cognitive effort.
Cytestion: Automated GUI Testing for Web Applications

Automated testing in web applications is becoming increasingly popular due to its cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and repeatability. Ensuring the quality of such software is vital, especially in scenarios where business requirements are uncertain and volatile. In this paper, we propose Cytestion, a tool that automatically explores a web application’s Graphical User Interface (GUI) to detect faults that cause visible failures, such as crashes, errors, and unexpected behaviors. For that, it applies a scriptless and progressive approach. To work as an oracle, Cytestion evaluates the output of each test case execution by considering the HTTP status of server requests, default and customized failure GUI messages, and console failure messages. We evaluated the effectiveness and cost of our approach in two empirical studies. The first study works with injected faults in open-source projects, while the second is a case study on eight industrial projects. Cytestion detected several faults in both studies and outperformed a state-of-the-art GUI testing tool.
Selectivity to acoustic features of human speech in the auditory cortex of the mouse

A better understanding of the neural mechanisms of speech processing can have a major impact in the development of strategies for language learning and in addressing disorders that affect speech comprehension. Technical limitations in research with human subjects hinder a comprehensive ex-ploration of these processes, making animal models essential for advancing the characterization of how neural circuits make speech perception possible. Here, we investigated the mouse as a model organism for studying speech processing and explored whether distinct regions of the mouse auditory cortex are sensitive to specific acoustic features of speech. We found that mice can learn to categorize frequency-shifted human speech sounds based on differences in formant transitions (FT) and voice onset time (VOT). Moreover, neurons across various auditory cortical regions were selective to these speech features, with a higher proportion of speech-selective neurons in the dorso-posterior region. Last, many of these neurons displayed mixed-selectivity for both features, an attribute that was most common in dorsal regions of the auditory cortex. Our results demonstrate that the mouse serves as a valuable model for studying the detailed mechanisms of speech feature encoding and neural plasticity during speech-sound learning.
Deep Metric Learning Beyond Binary Supervision

Metric Learning for visual similarity has mostly adopted binary supervision indicating whether a pair of images are of the same class or not. Such a binary indicator covers only a limited subset of image relations, and is not sufficient to represent semantic similarity between images described by continuous and/or structured labels such as object poses, image captions, and scene graphs. Motivated by this, we present a novel method for deep metric learning using continuous labels. First, we propose a new triplet loss that allows distance ratios in the label space to be preserved in the learned metric space. The proposed loss thus enables our model to learn the degree of similarity rather than just the order. Furthermore, we design a triplet mining strategy adapted to metric learning with continuous labels. We address three different image retrieval tasks with continuous labels in terms of human poses, room layouts and image captions, and demonstrate the superior performance of our approach compared to previous methods.
Rupture de structures composites stratifiées sous chargements statique et de fatigue

L’utilisation des materiaux composites est en plein essor depuis quelques annees, notamment dans le secteur aeronautique. C’est dans le cadre d’un partenariat avec Eurocopter que s’inscrivent ces travaux de these visant a analyser experimentalement et a modeliser le comportement jusqu’a rupture de structures composites stratifiees sous chargements statique et de fatigue. Pour decrire le comportement mecanique des materiaux composites, plusieurs mecanismes de degradation sont a considerer. Un modele, base sur la Mecanique de l’Endommagement, a recemment ete developpe au LMA. Il traduit les effets des endommagements transverse et de cisaillement, se caracterisant par la formation de petites fissures evoluant le long des fibres. Ce modele a ete integre dans le code de calcul Abaqus/Standard afin d’etudier le comportement de structures stratifiees soumises a un chargement statique ou de fatigue. Les comparaisons essais / simulation ayant mis en evidence le fait que les criteres de rupture classiques ne fonctionnent pas si le champ de deformation n’est pas homogene, une approche non locale a ete developpe. Basee sur un Volume Caracteristique de Rupture, elle permet de prendre en compte l’effet des concentrations de contraintes pour decrire la rupture de structures stratifiees. Une confrontation experimentale a permis de valider le modele de comportement associe a l’approche non locale pour divers materiaux, stratifies et geometries pour des cas de chargements statiques. L’application aux cas de chargements de fatigue est encore a l’etude. Toutefois, les premieres comparaisons entre les resultats de simulations et les essais sont encourageants.
Debt Sustainability in East Asia after the Financial Crisis

For the East Asian countries, the total amount of government debt has risen sharply over the following several years in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the current levels of government debt are sustainable for those severely attacked countries, namely, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Under the intertemporal budget constraint model, we test for fiscal sustainability and examine whether there was any discernible change in the behaviour of government debt following the Asian crisis. Empirical analysis indicates that the levels of government debt are not sustainable in all counties under study. It also shows that the crisis contributes significantly to push the government debt in excess of its sustainable level. This urges policy attention for fiscal consolidation.
Global Diffusion of the Internet XV: Web 2.0 Technologies, Principles, and Applications: A Conceptual Framework from Technology Push and Demand Pull Perspective

Web 2.0, the current Internet evolution, can be described by several key features of an expanded Web that is more interactive; allows easy social interactions through participation and collaboration from a variety of human sectors; responds more immediately to users' queries and needs; is easier to search; and provides a faster, smoother, realistic and engaging user search capability, often with automatic updates to users. The purpose of this study is three-fold. First, the primary goal is to propose a conceptual Web 2.0 framework that provides better understanding of the Web 2.0 concept by classifying current key components in a holistic manner. Second, using several selective key components from the conceptual framework, this study conducts case analyses of Web 2.0 applications to discuss how they have adopted the selective key features (i.e., participation, collaboration, rich user experience, social networking, semantics, and interactivity responsiveness) of the conceptual Web 2.0 framework. Finally, the study provides insightful discussion of some challenges and opportunities provided by Web 2.0 to education, business, and social life.
Informalidad Laboral en las Áreas Urbanas de Colombia (Labor Informality in Colombian Urban Areas)

El presente documento tiene por objetivo llevar a cabo una caracterizacion de la informalidad en Colombia. Se discuten las diferentes alternativas que se han considerado para definir y medir la informalidad y, basado en criterios tecnicos, se emplea la definicion asociada a la no afiliacion a seguridad social (salud y pension) y la del DANE para medir el nivel de informalidad en las veintitres principales ciudades del pais. Los resultados muestran que, definiendo la informalidad por la falta de aportes a seguridad social, cerca de seis de cada diez empleados se ubicaria en el sector informal. Asimismo, el perfil de los informales en Colombia se caracteriza por presentar bajos niveles educativos, menores niveles de ingreso y se desempenan en establecimientos de menor tamano que los trabajadores formales. A nivel regional, los niveles mas altos en el grado de informalidad lo presentan ciudades que estan por fuera del centro de actividad economica del pais, especialmente las ciudades que no se encuentran en el trapecio formado por Bogota, Cali, Medellin y Bucaramanga.This paper aims to carry out a depiction of labor informality in Colombia. We discuss the different alternatives that have been considered when defining and measuring labor informality and, based on technical criteria, employ the definitions related to the lack of affiliation to social security schemes (healthcare and pensions) and that of DANE for measuring the intensity of informality in the twenty-three major Colombian cities. The results show that when defining informality as the lack of affiliation to social security, nearly six out of ten employees belong to the informal sector. Additionally, informal workers in Colombia are characterized by low educational and income levels, besides from working in smaller establishments, when compared to the formal workers. From a regional perspective, the cities outward to the trapezoid conformed by Bogota, Cali, Medellin and Bucaramanga, the country’s main economic location, have the highest informality rates.
King Crater and its environs, part M

Superb photographs of King Crater were returned by the Apollo 16 crew. The metric and panoramic cameras provided stereoscopic coverage with which high quality topographic maps may be made. King crater, approximately 75 km in diameter and, on the average, 3.8 km deep, is among the most significant features photographed and visually studied from lunar orbit on the Apollo 16 mission. It is the freshest crater on the far side in its size range and has several unique characteristics. (1) Although its ejecta blanket displays very sharp features, the crater does not appear to have extensive ray systems and secondary crater chains. (2) As depicted for the first time by Apollo 16 photographs, the ejecta blanket is strewn with numerous flow fronts and scarps. (3) A flat and smooth, dark, lavalike deposit 15 km across is on the northern rim of the crater. (4) The central peak of the crater is a Y-shaped structure that begins at the southern rim. (5) Bright units that are aligned with the central peak on the northern wall and rim suggest that a preexisting tabular body was excavated by the cratering process.
Design of bending multi-layer electroactive polymer actuators

The effects of layer thickness and stiffness on multilayer bending actuator performance were investigated with an analytical mechanical model. Performance was evaluated in terms of curvature, blocked force, and work. Multilayer device designs corresponding to dielectric elastomer actuator, ionic polymer metal composite, and conjugated polymer structures were examined. Normalized plots of the performance metrics as functions of relative layer thickness and stiffness are presented that should allow initial, starting-point estimates for designs for particular applications. The results show that to achieve high curvature, layer thickness and stiffness may need to be set above or below particular bounds, or varied together, depending on the device configuration; often there is a broad plateau of combinations that work equally well. There is a conflict between achieving high bending and high force: the former requires the device to behave as much as possible like a simple bilayer with optimal ratios of thickness and modulus, while the latter requires thicker layers and shows little dependence on their moduli. Finally, to maximize work there are areas in the thickness-modulus plane that should be avoided, these areas varying with the configuration in sometimes surprising ways.