Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel wirelength-driven packing algorithm for FPGAs with adaptive logic modules

Adaptive logic module (ALM) in modern field programmable gate array can serve as one 6-input lookup table (LUT) or two smaller lookup tables under certain constraints. In a typical design flow, a netlist of LUTs formed after technology mapping has to be merged into ALMs and then packed into coarse-grained logic blocks (CLBs) before placement and routing. How the LUTs are merged and the ALMs are packed has a significant impact on the quality of the placement. We propose a novel wirelength-driven algorithm to merge the LUTs and pack the ALMs to ensure that it will not adversely affect the final wire-length. Experimental results show that substituting AAPack [8] by our algorithm yields about 14.54% reduction in number of tracks required for routing and 17.97% wirelength improvement for ALM-based FPGA. Applying our algorithm to traditional FPGA, the minimum channel width and wirelength are reduced by 16.59% and 17.57%, respectively, compared to T-VPack.
Market Consolidation and Pricing Developments in Grocery Retailing: A Case Study

When large retailers merge, there is a concern that a sudden and marked increase in concentration will alter the intensity and nature of price competition to the detriment of consumers. This chapter considers just such a situation in regard to UK grocery retailing, which has witnessed steadily increasing concentration over recent years, advanced by a series of mergers. Specifically, we examine the nature of price competition amongst the major i°one-stop-shopi± retail chains before, during, and after the Safeway/Morrison merger in March 2004.We find the merger offered consumers an immediate windfall benefit ia with average prices falling straight after the merger ia and more intriguingly appears to have led to (or at least is associated with) a marked change in the character of price competition in the market.
Insights into the Initiation of JC Virus DNA Replication Derived from the Crystal Structure of the T-Antigen Origin Binding Domain

JC virus is a member of the Polyomavirus family of DNA tumor viruses and the causative agent of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). PML is a disease that occurs primarily in people who are immunocompromised and is usually fatal. As with other Polyomavirus family members, the replication of JC virus (JCV) DNA is dependent upon the virally encoded protein T-antigen. To further our understanding of JCV replication, we have determined the crystal structure of the origin-binding domain (OBD) of JCV T-antigen. This structure provides the first molecular understanding of JCV T-ag replication functions; for example, it suggests how the JCV T-ag OBD site-specifically binds to the major groove of GAGGC sequences in the origin. Furthermore, these studies suggest how the JCV OBDs interact during subsequent oligomerization events. We also report that the OBD contains a novel “pocket”; which sequesters the A1 & B2 loops of neighboring molecules. Mutagenesis of a residue in the pocket associated with the JCV T-ag OBD interfered with viral replication. Finally, we report that relative to the SV40 OBD, the surface of the JCV OBD contains one hemisphere that is highly conserved and one that is highly variable.
MicroRNA-Based Promotion of Human Neuronal Differentiation and Subtype Specification

MicroRNAs are key regulators of neural cell proliferation, differentiation and fate choice. Due to the limited access to human primary neural tissue, the role of microRNAs in human neuronal differentiation remains largely unknown. Here, we use a population of long-term self-renewing neuroepithelial-like stem cells (lt-NES cells) derived from human embryonic stem cells to study the expression and function of microRNAs at early stages of human neural stem cell differentiation and neuronal lineage decision. Based on microRNA expression profiling followed by gain- and loss-of-function analyses in lt-NES cells and their neuronal progeny, we demonstrate that miR-153, miR-324-5p/3p and miR-181a/a* contribute to the shift of lt-NES cells from self-renewal to neuronal differentiation. We further show that miR-125b and miR-181a specifically promote the generation of neurons of dopaminergic fate, whereas miR-181a* inhibits the development of this neurotransmitter subtype. Our data demonstrate that time-controlled modulation of specific microRNA activities not only regulates human neural stem cell self-renewal and differentiation but also contributes to the development of defined neuronal subtypes.
A genomic survey on the immune differences among Sinocyclocheilus fishes

ABSTRACT In our previous work, we reported comparative genomics studies on 3 Sinocyclocheilus fishes, including the surface-dwelling S. graham (Sg), the semi-cave-dewlling S. rhinocerous (Sr) and the cave-restricted S. anshuiensis (Sa). Here, we performed a genomic survey on the immunity differences among the 3 fishes by combination of the genome and transcriptome data. Our results demonstrate that immune-related genetic pathways in Sa and Sr present more similarities than Sg. The innate immune activity in Sa seems to be higher than Sg and Sr, while Sr owns more copy numbers of MHC-related genes (related with the acquired immune system) than Sg and Sa. These differential immune activities in the 3 Sinocyclocheilus species may be due to their differential habitats. Generally speaking, most immunity genes transcribe the lowest levels in Sa when compared with Sg and Sr, which may be associate with a less various microbial environment in the cave-restricted habitat. However, Sr has more members of MHC-related genes than those in Sg and Sa, suggesting a great contribution from the semi-cave-dwelling condition.
A New Approach to Select Significant Patterns in Logical Analysis of Data

Logical Analysis of Data (LAD) is a supervised learning algorithm which integrates principles of combinatorics, optimization and the theory of Boolean functions. Current implementations of LAD use greedy-type heuristics to select patterns to form an LAD model. In this paper we present a new approach based on integer programming and network flows to identify significant patterns to generate an LAD model. Our approach allows the user-specified significance requirements such as statistical significance, Hamming distance, homogeneity, coverage, and/or prevalence of patterns. We present experiments on benchmark datasets to demonstrate the utility of our integer programming and network flow based pattern selection method. Acknowledgements: The authors thank Gabriela Alexe and Anupama Reddy for valuable discussions.
Equal Opportunities and Ethnic Inequality in European Labour Markets : Discrimination, Gender and Policies of Diversity

Karen Kraal, Judith Roosblad & John WRENCH (eds.) The need to analyse labour market mechanisms in post-industrial Western societies is urgent. Despite laws and policy measures being developed at the European, national and local levels, job-seeking immigrants and ethnic minorities still suffer unequal access and ethnic discrimination. This volume endeavours to understand why. Four chapters dealing with discrimination, gender, equity policies and diversity management present a lively discussion of the current scientific debate. Besides providing empirical evidence, the authors recommend methods for conducting further research in the field and evaluate the actual effects of discrimination-combating policies. One conclusion is that systematic analysis of the labour market and its subsequent equity policies must be supported by hard data, such as statistics. With its state-of-the-art scope and unique thematic exploration, this volume transfers knowledge from social science studies to a more operational realm. From here, both scholars and practitioners can help make equal opportunities more accessible than ever.
Adaptive Arrays for Broadband Communications in the Presence of Unknown Co-Channel Interference

The capacity of broadband wireless communication is severely limited by intersymbol interference (ISI) and co-channel interference (CCI). Although the maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) can be used to combat ISI efficiently when implemented with the Viterbi algorithm, CCI is still the bottleneck of the radio link performance. We herein propose an adaptive detection (AD) that can suppress the ISI and CCI simultaneously. By carefully choosing the length of a beamformer, our AD can actually be much simpler than the conventional MLSE. In the case of imperfect channel estimation, a robust AD (RAD) is proposed to maintain the good performance. We also show that both AD and RAD can be further improved by using an iterative scheme, referred to as iterative AD (IAD) and iterative RAD (IRAD), respectively. Numerical examples show that all the proposed methods outperform the conventional MLSE significantly in the presence of CCI, and that they are also computationally more efficient.
Antioxidant Activities and Phytochemical Study of Leaf Extracts from 18 Indigenous Tree Species in Taiwan

The objective of this study is to assess antioxidant activities of methanolic extracts from the leaves of 18 indigenous tree species in Taiwan. Results revealed that, among 18 species, Acer oliverianum exhibited the best free radical scavenging activities. The IC50 values were 5.8 and 11.8 μg/mL on DPPH radical and superoxide radical scavenging activities, respectively. In addition, A. oliverianum also exhibited the strongest ferrous ion chelating activity. Based on a bioactivity-guided isolation principle, the resulting methanolic crude extracts of A. oliverianum leaves were fractionated to yield soluble fractions of hexane, EtOAc, BuOH, and water. Of these, the EtOAc fraction had the best antioxidant activity. Furthermore, 8 specific phytochemicals were isolated and identified from the EtOAc fraction. Among them, 1,2,3,4,6-O-penta-galloyl-β-D-glucopyranose had the best free radical scavenging activity. These results demonstrate that methanolic extracts and their derived phytochemicals of A. oliverianum leaves have excellent antioxidant activities and thus they have great potential as sources for natural health products.
Mathematical Finance: Deterministic and Stochastic Models

Preface xvii Part I. Deterministic Models 1 Chapter 1. Introductory Elements to Financial Mathematics 3 Chapter 2. Theory of Financial Laws 13 Chapter 3. Uniform Regimes in Financial Practice 41 Chapter 4. Financial Operations and their Evaluation: Decisional Criteria 91 Chapter 5. Annuities-Certain and their Value at Fixed Rate 147 Chapter 6. Loan Amortization and Funding Methods 211 Chapter 7. Exchanges and Prices on the Financial Market 289 Chapter 8. Annuities, Amortizations and Funding in the Case of Term Structures 331 Chapter 9. Time and Variability Indicators, Classical Immunization 363 Part II. Stochastic Models 409 Chapter 10. Basic Probabilistic Tools for Finance 411 Chapter 11. Markov Chains 457 Chapter 12. Semi-Markov Processes 481 Chapter 13. Stochastic or Ito Calculus 517 Chapter 14. Option Theory 553 Chapter 15. Markov and Semi-Markov Option Models 607 Chapter 16. Interest Rate Stochastic Models -- Application to the Bond Pricing Problem 641 Chapter 17. Portfolio Theory 687 Chapter 18. Value at Risk (VaR) Methods and Simulation 703 Chapter 19. Credit Risk or Default Risk 743 Chapter 20. Markov and Semi-Markov Reward Processes and Stochastic Annuities 791 References 831 Index 839
Sequential test generation with advanced illegal state search

TPG for synchronous sequential circuits has received wide attention over the last two decades, yet unlike for (full-scan) combinational circuits, for many sequential benchmark circuits 100% fault efficiency still cannot be reached. This illustrates the complexity of sequential circuit ATPG. The huge search space, which exists during sequential circuit TPG, is the main reason for this complexity. Powerful techniques and heuristics are required to cope with this search space. One way to reduce the search space is the detection of illegal states. These states cannot be justified with an initialization sequence. In this paper, we propose new techniques to find illegal states and to remove the over-specification of these states by searching common fractions in the list of illegal states. Experimental results demonstrate the importance of an as complete as possible illegal state list: Higher fault efficiencies are reached for the sequential ISCAS'89 circuits (1989) and industrial circuits, together with a large reduction of CPU time.
Joint optimal power allocation, relay selection and subchannel pairing in OFDM based regenerative relay networks

Power allocation, relay selection and subchannel pairing are three important issues in OFDM based relay wireless systems to improve the system performance and reliability. In this paper, we will propose a joint power allocation, relay selection and subchannel pairing algorithm. The goal of the algorithm is to maximize the system capacity under the constraint of overall power at both source and relay nodes. We prove that the algorithm is the optimal solution to the problem, however, its' complexity is too high to be employed in the practical applications. Therefore, we also proposed a sub-optimal algorithm with low computational complexity. Through numerical simulations, the performances of both optimal and suboptimal algorithms are evaluated.
A Uniication Algorithm for the Group Diie-hellman Protocol

Equational uniication can be an eeective tool for the analysis of cryptographic protocols. This, for example, is the technique used by the NRL Protocol Analyzer, which uses narrowing to reason about cryptographic operations which can be described in terms of rewrite rules. However, the eeectiveness of equational uniication in cryptographic protocol analysis has been hampered by the lack of uniication algorithms that can be used to reason about some of the more equationally rich algorithms used by many cryptographic systems, such as Diie-Hellman, group Diie-Hellman, and blinded signatures. In this paper we attempt to close this gap by providing an algorithm that can be used to reason about protocols that use the Diie-Hellman and group Diie-Hellman algorithms.
Security as a Service (SasS): Securing user data by coprocessor and distributing the data

In the world of computing, security and privacy issues are a major concern and cloud computing is no exception to these issues. In this paper we outline a security protocol called as Security as a Service (SasS). We provide a mechanism for achieving maximum security by leveraging the capabilities of a processor called a cryptographic coprocessor. Further we enhance the security of the encrypted data by distributing the data within the cloud, i.e. we divide the user data into pieces called as chunks. SasS protocol gives the user a chance to define the security of their data, by leaving the option of dividing the data into chunks in the user's hand. Based on the user requirement data will be made into chunks. Each chunk after encryption will be stored in a separate database. In this way we provide the maximum security to a user data. To our best knowledge, for the first time security is offered as a service to the user.
Performance enhancement by using switch-beam smart antenna in 802.11a WLAN system

An IEEE 802.11a WLAN system physical layer use coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (COFDM) to combat frequency selective fading channel. The WLAN system with omni antenna suffers excess delay spread and inter-symbol interference in indoor radio propagation channel. The impact of frequency selective fading channel on WLAN performance is evaluated. Wireless communication usually utilizes smart antenna to enhance performance. This paper presents Monte Carlo simulation based on the IEEE 802.11a physical layer specification and utilizes switch-beam smart antenna operation at the access point (AP) to enhance WLAN performance. The paper analyzes the performance of using omni and switch-beam antenna in a real office indoor environment. Compared with using omni antenna, the simulation results show that utilizing switch-beam antenna in AP the BER performance improve about 2 dB in light-of-sight (LOS) case, and 6 dB in non-light-of-sight (NLOS) case.
Antibodies to the Golgi complex and the rough endoplasmic reticulum

Rabbits were immunized with membrane fractions from either the Golgi complex or the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) by injection into the popliteal lymph nodes. The antisera were then tested by indirect immunofluorescence on tissue culture cells or frozen, thin sections of tissue. There were may unwanted antibodies to cell components other than the RER or the Golgi complex, and these were removed by suitable absorption steps. These steps were carried out until the pattern of fluorescent labeling was that expected for the Golgi complex or RER. Electron microscopic studies, using immunoperoxidase labeling of normal rat kidney (NRK) cells, showed that the anti-Golgi antibodies labeled the stacks of flattened cisternae that comprise the central feature of the Golgi complex, many of the smooth vesicles around the stacks, and a few coated vesicles. These antibodies were directed, almost entirely, against a single polypeptide with an apparent molecular weight of 135,000. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in NRK cells is an extensive, reticular network that pervades the entire cell cytoplasm and includes the nuclear membrane. The anit-RER antibodies labeled this structure alone at the light and electron microscopic levels. They were largely directed against four polypeptides with apparent molecular weights of 29,000, 58,000, 66,000, and 91,000. Some examples are presented, using immunofluorescence microscopy, where these antibodies have been used to study the Golgi complex and RER under a variety of physiological and experimental condition . For biochemical studies, these antibodies should prove useful in identifying the origin of isolated membranes, particularly those from organelles such as the Golgi complex, which tend to lose their characteristic morphology during isolation.
Knowledge Visualization and Business Analysis: Meaning as Media

This paper is the third in a series of papers designed to explore how "metaphorical meaning" can be used to support knowledge visualization. Within the present discussion the following is assumed: To understand the process of mind and organizational performance a view on meaningful expression is needed. In order to approach this collaborative task, knowledge visualization is seen as "business analysis" and the concepts of metaphor and media are seen as a carrier of meaning. This is meant to provide a better understanding of the visualization of knowledge for necessary alignment in business analysis.
Statistical evaluation of fractal coding schemes

This paper reports on investigations concerning the convergence of the reconstruction process in fractal coding schemes from a statistical point of view. For a rather general family of “fractal operators” a necessary and sufficient condition for the convergence based on the spectral radius of the fractal operator is provided. Emerging from this condition the probability density function (pdf) of the magnitude of the eigenvalues is formulated which enables to determine a probabilistic measure for the convergence of the reconstruction process. Since the pdf considerably depends on the structure of the operators, various coding schemes can be analyzed with respect to their convergence properties in a statistical sense. The presented results indicate that certain types of operators are less suited for applications in the field of fractal coding compared to others.
The Status of DC Micro-Grid Protection

AC microgrids are a convenient approach to integrating distributed energy systems with utility power systems. On the other hand, DC micro-grids can lead to more efficient integration of distributed generation. They are the preferred topology for present shipboard, aircraft and automotive power systems and hold promise for future environmentally friendly office buildings, homes, rural areas and industrial power parks. However, standards, guidelines, practical experience and cost effective implementations for DC system protection are well behind practices in AC system protection. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the body of research on protection of DC micro-grids, presented with a goal of identifying and advancing the field. The paper presents a discussion of the current status of dc micro-grid protection, including the use of electro-mechanical circuit breakers, solid state circuit breakers, protective system design, ground fault location and fault isolation.
Measuring the Value Contribution of Corporate Foresight

Managing uncertainty coming from environmental change is one of the challenges in innovation management. Companies are increasingly facing this challenge with means of corporate foresight. Integrating the gained insights into decision-making processes is believed to contribute to the success of an organization. A big barrier for the integration of foresight results though is how these results are valued – a matter of corporate culture, but also of cost-value ratio. Foresight activities can be costly and their budget has to be justified by creating a higher benefit. Only few approaches in how to measure the contribution of corporate foresight are discussed in today’s literature. Such approaches are needed though for both, guaranteeing an adequate budget for corporate foresight as well as ensuring the usage of foresight results. This paper gives an introduction to corporate foresight and discusses possible approaches of value measurement on the example of technology foresight at telecommunication provider Deutsche Telekom.
Genetic Distances in Three Ascidian Species determined by PCR Technique

ABSTRACT Seven oligonucleotides primers were shown to generate the shared loci, specific loci, unique shared loci to each species and shared loci by the three species which could be obviously scored. In the present study, 7 oligonucleotides primers produced 401 total loci in the Styela clava (SC) species, 390 in the Halocynthia roretzi (HR) and 434 in the Styela plicata (SP), respectively. Seven oligonucleotides primers generated 275 specific loci in the SC, 341 in the HR and 364 in the SP species, respectively. The oligonucleotides primer BION-23 generated 28 unique loci to each species in the SP species. Especially, the oligonucleotides primer BION-25 produced 7 unique loci to each species, which were identifying each species in the SP species. BION-17 distinguished 21 shared loci by the three ascidian species, major and/or minor fragments of sizes, which were identical in almost all of the samples. Based on the average bandsharing values of all samples, the similarity matrix ranged from 0.519 to 0.774 in the SC species, from 0.261 to 0.683 in the HR species and from 0.346 to 0.730 in the SP species. As regards average bandsharing value (BS) results, individuals from SC species (0.661±0.081) exhibited higher bandsharing values than did individuals from HR species (0.555±0.074) (P<0.05). The dendrogram obtained by the seven oligonucleotides primers indicates three genetic groups. In three ascidian species, the shortest genetic distance (0.071) exhibiting significant molecular difference was also between individual no. 20 and no. 21 within the SP species.
Power electronics applications in wind energy conversion system: A review

This paper gives a review on the power electronic applications for wind energy conversion systems. Different types of wind energy conversion system (WECS) with different generators and power electronic converters are described, and different technical features are compared. The electrical topologies of WECS with different wind turbines are summarized and the possible uses of power electronic converters with wind farms are given. In conclusion, the possible methods of using the power electronic technology for improving wind turbine performance in power systems to meet the main grid connection requirements are discussed.