Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pricing Resources on Demand

Traditional contracts for network and computing resources are of "static" type where the customer is buying the right to use for a given price a fixed amount of resources for a long period of time. Typical examples are the case of contracting bandwidth in access networks and VPNs and the case of computing infrastructure that a customer leases (or buys) for fulfilling its IT needs. Current technology in access networks and grid computing allows suppliers to offer more flexible contracts to their customers allowing them to choose dynamically the amount of resources they are allowed to use at a given time. This flexibility may benefit the customers with bursty demand since it allows them to obtain resources only when they need them and pay only when they use them. We define contracts where time is discrete and a customer is allowed to buy a fixed amount of resources ahead of time for a price a, the "static" part of the contract, and complement this at each new time period by purchasing an extra amount at price b, the "dynamic" part of the contract. We investigate the properties of such contracts and compare them with contracts of purely static or dynamic type. Our results suggest that in general suppliers and customers are both better off when using such mixed contracts, and that purely dynamic contracts may not always be preferable compared to purely static ones. We also show that under price competition of suppliers using static contracts against suppliers using dynamic contracts, at the equilibrium both suppliers may secure some profit by segmenting the market.
Filtering Decomposable Global Cost Functions

As (Lee et al., 2012) have shown, weighted constraint satisfaction problems can benefit from the introduction of global cost functions, leading to a new Cost Function Programming paradigm. In this paper, we explore the possibility of decomposing global cost functions in such a way that enforcing soft local consistencies on the decomposition offers guarantees on the level of consistency enforced on the original global cost function. We show that directional arc consistency and virtual arc consistency offer such guarantees. We conclude by experiments on decomposable cost functions showing that decompositions may be very useful to easily integrate efficient global cost functions in solvers.
Interpretation of the temperature dependence of the electromagnetic penetration depth in YBa2Cu3O7- delta.

The low-temperature behavior of the a-b plane penetration depth, ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathit{a}\mathit{b}}$, is a probe of the pairing state in ${\mathrm{YBa}}_{2}$${\mathrm{Cu}}_{3}$${\mathrm{O}}_{7\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\delta}}}$. A group-theoretic analysis shows that in orthorhombic or tetragonal crystals all singlet pairing states other than ``s wave'' would lead to \ensuremath{\Delta}${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathit{a}\mathit{b}}$(T)==${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathit{a}\mathit{b}}$(T)-${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathit{a}\mathit{b}}$(0)\ensuremath{\sim}T. In contrast, for an isotropic system, there are combinations of singlet pairing states and field directions that would give rise to \ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\lambda}(T)\ensuremath{\sim}${\mathit{T}}^{3}$. We reanalyze the surface impedance data of Fiory et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 1419 (1988)], and show that these data exhibit neither a BCS temperature dependence nor a linear temperature dependence at low temperature, but instead follow \ensuremath{\Delta}${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathit{a}\mathit{b}}$(T)\ensuremath{\sim}${\mathit{T}}^{2}$. This behavior is probably not intrinsic, and possible explanations are discussed.
The stability of mouth movements for multiple talkers over multiple sessions

To examine the stability of visible speech articulation (a potentially useful biometric) we examined the degree of similarity of a speaker’s mouth movements when uttering the same sentence on six different occasions. We tested four speakers of differing language background and compared withinand across speaker variability. We obtained mouth motion data using an inexpensive 3D close range sensor and commercial face motion capture software. These data were exported as c3d files and the analysis was based on guided principal components derived from custom Matlab scripts. We showed that within-speaker repetitions were more similar than between speaker ones; that language background did not affect the stability of the utterances and that the patterns of articulation from different speakers were relatively distinctive.
Multi-agent gesture interpretation for robotic cable harnessing

Gesture-based programming is our paradigm to ease the burden of programming robots. It is an extension of the human demonstration approach that includes encapsulated expertise to guide subtask segmentation and robust real-time execution. A variety of human gestures must be recognized to provide a useful and intuitive interface for the human demonstrator. While the full gesture-based programming environment has not yet been realized, this paper describes a multi-modal gesture recognition system that embodies many of the necessary elements to achieve true gesture-based programming. It begins with recognition of the gestures of a human demonstrating a trajectory. The execution agents then try to repeat the trajectory while observing corrective gestures from the teacher. Similar multi-agent networks are used for both training and execution.
Carbon-Isotope, Diatom, and Pollen Evidence for Late Holocene Salinity Change in a Brackish Marsh in the San Francisco Estuary

Abstract Analysis of diatoms, pollen, and the carbon-isotopic composition of a sediment core from a brackish marsh in the northern part of the San Francisco Estuary has provided a paleosalinity record that covers the past 3000 yr. Changes in marsh composition and diatom frequencies are assumed to represent variations in freshwater inflow to the estuary. Three periods of relatively high salinity (low freshwater inflow) are indicated, 3000 to 2500 cal yr B.P., 1700 to 730 cal yr B.P., and ca. A.D. 1930 to the present. The most recent period of high salinity is primarily due to upstream storage and water diversion within the Sacramento–San Joaquin watershed, although drought may also have been a factor. The two earlier high-salinity periods are likely the result of reduced precipitation. Low salinity (high freshwater flow) is indicated for the period 750 cal yr B.P. to A.D. 1930.
Drowning and Near-Drowning in Children and Adolescents: A Succinct Review for Emergency Physicians and Nurses

TARGET AUDIENCE This Continuing Medical Education (CME) activity is intended for anyone who treats pediatric drowning and near-drowning victims or who provides injury prevention counseling. Although targeted at emergency physicians and nurses in particular, we believe other healthcare providers— including critical care doctors and nurses, pediatricians, family practitioners, respiratory therapists, and paramedics—will find it informative.
Racial-Ethnic Differences in Health Service Use in a Large Sample of Homeless Adults With Mental Illness From Five Canadian Cities.

OBJECTIVE This study examined factors associated with health care use in an ethnically diverse Canadian sample of homeless adults with mental illness, a particularly disadvantaged group. METHODS Baseline survey data were available from five sites across Canada for 2,195 At Home/Chez Soi demonstration project participants. Negative binomial regression models examined the relationship between racial-ethnic or cultural group membership (white, N=1,085; Aboriginal, N=476; black, N=244; and other ethnoracial minority groups, N=390) and self-reported emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations in the past six months and past-month visits to a medical, other clinical, or social service provider. Adjusted models included other predisposing, enabling, and need factors, based on Andersen's behavioral model for vulnerable populations. RESULTS Compared with white participants, black participants had a lower rate of ED visits (adjusted rate ratio [ARR]=.54, 95% confidence interval [CI]=.43-.69) and Aboriginal participants had a lower rate of medical visits (ARR=.84, CI=.71-.99) and a higher rate of visits to social service providers (ARR=1.54, CI=1.18-2.01). Participants in other ethnoracial minority groups had a higher rate of social service provider visits than white participants (ARR=1.44, CI=1.10-1.89). Access to a family physician, having at least high school education, and high needs for mental health services were associated with greater use of ED and medical visits and hospitalizations. Rates of ED and medical visits were lower with increased age and better physical health. CONCLUSIONS In a system of universal health insurance that prioritizes access to and quality of care, the presence of racial-ethnic disparities experienced by this vulnerable population merits further attention.
Single-Database Private Information Retrieval from Fully Homomorphic Encryption

Private Information Retrieval (PIR) allows a user to retrieve the ith bit of an n-bit database without revealing to the database server the value of i. In this paper, we present a PIR protocol with the communication complexity of O(γ logn) bits, where -y is the ciphertext size. Furthermore, we extend the PIR protocol to a private block retrieval (PBR) protocol, a natural and more practical extension of PIR in which the user retrieves a block of bits, instead of retrieving single bit. Our protocols are built on the state-of-the-art fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) techniques and provide privacy for the user if the underlying FHE scheme is semantically secure. The total communication complexity of our PBR is O(γ logm + γn/m) bits, where m is the number of blocks. The total computation complexity of our PBR is O(m logm) modular multiplications plus O(n=2) modular additions. In terms of total protocol execution time, our PBR protocol is more efficient than existing PBR protocols which usually require to compute O(n=2) modular multiplications when the size of a block in the database is large and a high-speed network is available.
Interaction between AP-5 and the hereditary spastic paraplegia proteins SPG11 and SPG15

The adaptor protein complex AP-5 is stably associated with the hereditary spastic paraplegia proteins SPG11 and SPG15 in an apparently equimolar ratio to form a new type of coat. Results suggest that SPG15 facilitates the docking of the coat onto late endosomal/lysosomal membranes and that SPG11 (possibly together with SPG15) acts as a scaffold.
Impact Craters on Mars and Earth: Implications by Analogy

Introduction: This paper reports on recent investigations on terrestrial impact structures, which may have relevance for understanding Martian impact craters and the role of volatiles during their formation. It focuses on the properties of the ejecta blankets of the Chicxulub and Ries crater. Implications by analogy between Earth and Mars craters support the view that the formation of fluidized ejecta blankets can be linked to the presence of subsurface volatile reservoirs (water or ice) [1, 2]. The role of atmospheric effects [3] for the deposition of ejecta blankets on Earth is currently not clear.
Demonstration of Impedance Matching Using a mu-Negative (MNG) Metamaterial

A mu-negative (MNG) metamaterial hemisphere was used to demonstrate impedance matching for a magnetic loop. The metamaterial was comprised of copper spirals deposited on an alumina substrate. The spirals, hemisphere, and magnetic loop were designed to operate at ~450 MHz. The effect of the metamaterial hemisphere was to improve the match of the electrically small loop antenna to the power source impedance increasing the overall radiated power. Results show a 17-dB increase in total radiated power relative to the bare loop. This was lower than anticipated due to losses in the MNG hemisphere.
Printed Binomial-Curved Slot Antennas for Various Wideband Applications

This paper presents a new design of wide slot antenna for various wideband applications. The proposed printed antenna consists of a slot and a turning stub, both formed by a binomial curve function; thus, various bandwidths (BWs) can be obtained based on the structure with different binomial curves. Some key parameters affecting the antenna performance have been analyzed and discussed in detail as an antenna design guideline. To validate the theoretical design, six prototypes of various binomial-curved slot antennas were designed, fabricated, and measured. Good agreement between the simulated results and the measured ones is observed. The results demonstrate that the proposed type of antenna can obtain a BW range from 9.8% to 99.7% for VSWR ≤ 2 by selecting various binomial-curved slots, which may provide a convenience for various wideband antenna designs. Moreover, the proposed type of antenna owns a simple structure and a stable gain of about 3-5.5 dBi, which is very suitable for wideband wireless system applications.
A method for pricing VAR providers in the electricity markets considering voltage security

This paper presents a novel approach for procuring VAR service in a competitive market-based environment, in which the transmission operator (TO) is supposed to run the market and enter into long-term contracts with the successful candidates for providing the required VAR whenever called upon. The proposed method is new in that the VAR procurement problem and control problem, including load shedding, are uniformly formulated so that N-1 security is guaranteed. Voltage stability is newly introduced into the VAR market problem in an explicit manner for normal and emergency states. The objective function is the total cost for TO, which includes the payment to VAR providers, power loss cost for normal states, and control costs for emergency states. The explicit inclusion of voltage security margin enables the TO to easily identify the critical VAR providers who should be contracted to maintain the required security level. This implies that the VAR providers in this market will be fairly remunerated on the basis of their contributions to the system security that measures the relative worth of each VAR provider. The proposed method has been applied to the IEEE 57 bus-system to demonstrate its usefulness.  2006 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Synergistic inhibition of leukemia WEHI-3 cell growth by arsenic trioxide and Hedyotis diffusa Willd extract in vitro and in vivo

Arsenic trioxide (ATO) is clinically used to treat acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL); however, the therapeutic dose of ATO may prompt critical cardiac side effects. Combination therapy may be used to improve the therapeutic efficiency. To evaluate this possibility, the present study determined the combined effects of Hedyotis diffusa Willd (HDW) extract and ATO in leukemic WEHI-3 cells. The results demonstrated that co-treatment of HDW with ATO resulted in a synergistic augmentation of cytotoxicity in cells at the concentration tested. In order to investigate the potential therapeutic application for leukemia, the combined effects of HDW and ATO were analyzed on the WEHI-3 cell-induced orthotopic leukemia animal model in vivo. The WEHI-3 cells in mice with leukemia were established by injecting murine WEHI-3 cells into BALB/c mice, and treating them with HDW and/or combined with ATO. The results indicated that HDW alone or HDW combined with ATO promoted the total survival rate of mice with leukemia, and these effects are dose-dependent. HDW alone or HDW combined with ATO did not affect the body weight, decreased the spleen weight and did not affect the liver weight. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that HDW alone or HDW combined with ATO resulted in a synergistic augmentation of apoptosis in WEHI-3 cells at the concentration tested. In order to further reveal the detailed mechanism of this synergistic effect on apoptosis, apoptosis-related proteins were also evaluated. The data revealed that HDW alone or HDW combined with ATO induced the expression of death receptor 4 (DR4) and DR5 and the activation of poly adenosine diphosphate ribose polymerase, caspase-3, −8 and −9. Furthermore, HDW alone or HDW combined with ATO decreased the expression levels of B-cell lymphoma 2, B-cell lymphoma-extra large and survivin, and increased the expression levels of Bak and t-Bid. Altogether, the results indicate that the combination of HDW with ATO may be a promising strategy used to increase the clinical efficacy of ATO in the treatment of APL.
Hydrographic structure and transport of the Oyashio south of Hokkaido and the formation of North Pacific Intermediate Water

Hydrographic structure and transport of the Oyashio south of Hokkaido were described with conductivity-temperature-depth and lowered acoustic Doppler current profiler (LADCP) survey performed in June 1998. The southwestward Oyashio transport just off the Hokkaido coast was 10.1 Sv in the density of 26.6–27. 5σθ, in which 2.5 Sv was from the Okhotsk Sea and 7.6 Sv was from the Western Subarctic Gyre (WSAG). The Oyashio northeastward countercurrent was 4.9 Sv. The cross-gyre Oyashio transport in the area from the east coast of Hokkaido to the Subarctic Front was estimated to be 5.2 Sv; 2.4 Sv in 26.6–27.0σθ was mainly composed of low potential vorticity Okhotsk Sea water and 2.8 Sv in 27.0–27. 5σθ mostly from WSAG, suggesting that the Okhotsk Sea water (WSAG water) would contribute to the formation of the upper (lower) part of the North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW). The Oyashio water was lower in oxygen than in the subtropical areas south of the Subarctic Front in the density of 26.9–27.6σθ, possibly because of the absence of the Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) influence with the relatively high oxygen water that might be transported along the western boundary of the North Pacific Ocean and along the Kuroshio Extension, increasing the oxygen in the areas south of the Subarctic Front. Just south of the Subarctic Front, a cold- and fresh-core anticyclonic eddy was observed with a salinity minimum in the core, suggesting one possible formation process of NPIW. The density of the potential vorticity minimum in the southwestward Oyashio near Hokkaido was at around 26.65σθ, which was lower than 26.8–26.9σθ observed in the early 1990s. This is possibly because the potential vorticity vertical profiles in the Okhotsk Sea and WSAG significantly changed corresponding to the water mass regime shift occurred in the Subarctic Pacific in the mid-1990s [Kawasaki, 1999].
Suspended Sediment Concentrations Associated with a Beach Nourishment Project on the Northern Coast of New Jersey

Abstract The potential biological effects of elevated suspended sediment concentrations caused by beach nourishment activities are a commonly cited environmental concern; however, the spatial scope and magnitude of increases in total suspended sediment (TSS) levels are infrequently monitored. In this study, suspended sediment conditions were monitored for two nourishment events on the northern coast of New Jersey in 1997 and 1998. Samples were taken in the swash, surf, and nearshore zones near the discharge pipe and at reference areas both north and south of the fill sites. Sampling was also conducted after two major storms passed through the area in September 1999 (the remnants of Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd). For both nourishment events, swash zone suspended sediment concentrations were significantly higher at sites of active discharge and recently nourished stations than at unnourished stations; however, no differences in TSS concentrations were detected between nourished and unnourished stations in the surf zone and nearshore habitats during either nourishment event. Maximum bottom surf zone and nearshore TSS concentrations related to nourishment activities were 64 mg/L and 34 mg/L, respectively, compared with respective maximum bottom concentrations of 81 mg/L and 425 mg/L after storms. Background maximum bottom TSS concentrations in the surf and nearshore zones on unnourished portions of the beach were less than 20 mg/L. Elevated TSS concentrations associated with the active beach nourishment site were limited to within 400 m of the discharge pipe in the swash zone. More direct monitoring of TSS concentrations is needed to better understand the potential biological effects of beach nourishment activities.
Alzheimer's Disease and Anesthesia

Cognitive disorders such as postoperative cognitive dysfunction, confusion, and delirium, are common following anesthesia in the elderly, with symptoms persisting for months or years in some patients. Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients appear to be particularly at risk of cognitive deterioration following anesthesia, and some studies suggest that exposure to anesthetics may increase the risk of AD. Here, we review the literature linking anesthesia to AD, with a focus on the biochemical consequences of anesthetic exposure on AD pathogenic pathways.
Exploiting discriminant and SVM constraints in NMF

A novel method is introduced for exploiting the support vector machine and additional discriminant constraints in nonnegative matrix factorization. The notion of the proposed method is to find the projection matrix that projects the data to a low-dimensional space so that the data projections have minimum within-class variance, maximum between-class variance and the data projections between the two classes are separated by a hyperplane with maximum margin. Experiments were performed on several two-class UCI data sets, as well as on the Cohn-Kanade database for facial expression recognition. Experimental results showed that the proposed method achieves better classification performance than the state of the art nonnegative matrix factorization and discriminant nonnegative matrix factorization followed by support vector machines classification.
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN NORTHWESTERN ALPS: WINTER SPORTS IMPACT ON PASTURE LANDS

Tourism has many potential benefits for rural areas, being an important source of jobs for nonmetro communities, especially for those that are economically underdeveloped. The traditional use of lands in mountain regions is combined nowadays with surfaces devoted to recreational activities because of increasing tourist demand for winter sports. Winter-based ski tourism is a major human use of many mountain regions, with large-scale ski resorts in Europe, Asia, North and South America, New Zealand and Australia. The Alps have become increasingly developed to cater to tourist activities beginning in the ‘50s. This was partly an outcome of traditional practices (livestock, agriculture, forestry), which were unable to generate enough income to maintain farms and the social structure. As with many human activities, the development of winter sport resorts may impact mountain landscapes and environments. In general, ski run construction and management have a great impact on the soil properties and other environmental factors, sometimes influencing traditional rural activities such as the management of pasture lands. Therefore, it could be recommended that environmental goals in ski resort management should be established and respected. In particular, we recommend carefully recording the vegetation and soil characteristics in a specific area before any intensification of use as ski slope, and complete avoidance of areas with soil and vegetation of particularly high conservation value.