Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Operating System Support for Multi-User, Remote, Graphical Interaction

The emergence of thin client computing and multi-user, remote, graphical interaction revives a range of operating system research issues long dormant, and introduces new directions as well. This paper investigates the effect of operating system design and implementation on the performance of thin client service and interactive applications. We contend that the key performance metric for this type of system and its applications is user-perceived latency and we give a structured approach for investigating operating system design with this criterion in mind. In particular, we apply our approach to a quantitative comparison and analysis of Windows NT, Terminal Server Edition (TSE), and Linux with the X Windows System, two popular implementations of thin client service. We find that the processor and memory scheduling algorithms in both operating systems are not tuned for thin client service. Under heavy CPU and memory load, we observed user-perceived latencies up to 100 times beyond the threshold of human perception. Even in the idle state, these systems induce unnecessary latency. TSE performs particularly poorly despite scheduler modifications to improve interactive responsiveness. We also show that TSE's network protocol outperforms X by up to six times, and also makes use of a bitmap cache which is essential for handling dynamic elements of modern user interfaces and can reduce network load in these cases by up to 2000%.
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Purpose – This paper seeks to highlight the current confusion in the terminology for group research, identify the geographic, historical and scientific sources of this confusion and suggest a reduction in the number of terms used to two, thereby offering a definition on which researchers from different cultural backgrounds and scientific traditions may be able to agree. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the academic and practitioner literature on qualitative group research in academic, social and market research indicates that various terms for groups are used interchangeably and are often assumed to have the same meaning. These terms include; Focus Group, Group Discussion, Group Interview, Group, Focus Group Interview, Focus Group Discussion, Qualitative Group Discussion and Nominal Group Interview. Findings – Resolves this issue and so allows researchers from across geographic borders, different scientific traditions and from both academic and practitioner backgrounds to talk to one another in a
Escitalopram: Superior to Citalopram or a Chiral Chimera?

Background: Escitalopram is the active isomer of the antidepressant citalopram. In theory single-isomer drugs may be superior but few have been found to have clinically significant advantages. The manufacturer claims that escitalopram has more efficacy and a faster onset of effect than citalopram. The purpose of this study was to assess how far these claims are justified. Methods: Relevant trial reports were requested from H. Lundbeck A/S and the Swedish drug regulatory authority. The trials consisted of a pooled analysis of 1,321 patients from one unpublished, one partly published and one published eight-week trial, as well as a 24-week trial with 357 patients published as a poster. The studies compared escitalopram with placebo and/or citalopram in outpatients aged ≧18 years who met specified criteria for depression. The trials’ quality was assessed with Moncrieff et al.’s quality assessment instrument and the results compared with the claims from the advertisements. Results: The advertising claims are not justified because they are based on secondary outcomes, non-intention-to-treat analyses and arbitrarily defined subgroups. The subgroup results are inconsistent. Methodological flaws in the trials could account for the differences found. Even if the differences claimed were real they appear too small to justify higher prices. Conclusions: On the evidence available to us the manufacturer’s claims of superiority for escitalopram over citalopram are unwarranted. The Swedish and Danish drug regulatory authorities reached similar conclusions. This highlights the need for wider dissemination of national authorities’ statements to other countries affected by the European Union’s mutual recognition procedure.
Vector Reachability Problem in SL(2, Z)

The decision problems on matrices were intensively studied for many decades as matrix products play an essential role in the representation of various computational processes. However, many computational problems for matrix semigroups are inherently difficult to solve even for problems in low dimensions and most matrix semigroup problems become undecidable in general starting from dimension three or four. This paper solves two open problems about the decidability of the vector reachability problem over a finitely generated semigroup of matrices from SL(2, Z) and the point to point reachability (over rational numbers) for fractional linear transformations, where associated matrices are from SL(2, Z). The approach to solving reachability problems is based on the characterization of reachability paths between points which is followed by the translation of numerical problems on matrices into computational and combinatorial problems on words and formal languages. We also give a geometric interpretation of reachability paths and extend the decidability results to matrix products represented by arbitrary labelled directed graphs. Finally, we will use this technique to prove that a special case of the scalar reachability problem is decidable.
Effects of Induced Astigmatism on Foot Placement Strategies when Stepping onto a Raised Surface

Purpose Large changes in spectacle prescription can increase falls risk in older people. We investigated the effect of induced astigmatism (a common cause of distorted or blurred vision in older people) on locomotor stepping patterns to determine whether the orientation of astigmatic changes could have differential effects on gait safety when negotiating steps and stairs. Methods 10 older adults (mean age 76.0±6.4 years) walked up to and stepped onto a raised block whilst wearing their spectacle prescription and when blurred with ±3.00D cylinders at axes 45°, 90°, 135° and 180°. Gait measurements included foot placement before the block, toe clearance over the block edge and foot placement on the block. Results Induced astigmatism with axes at 90°, providing magnification in the horizontal meridian only, caused no change in stepping pattern. Induced astigmatism with axes at 180° caused foot placement changes in the anterior or posterior direction according to whether magnification was positive or negative in the vertical meridian (block perceived higher or lower respectively). Induced astigmatism with axes oblique at 45° and 135° (causing the block to be perceived as a parallelogram sloping downwards either to the right or left) caused gait changes in the anterior and posterior, vertical and lateral directions. Changes in lateral foot placement appeared to be an attempt to maintain constant foot clearance levels over the block edge by stepping over the perceived ‘lower’ side of the ‘sloping’ block. Conclusions Astigmatic changes with oblique axes had the greatest effect on gait. Clinicians, including optometrists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and nurses should counsel older patients about the effects of astigmatism on gait safety. Furthermore, partial prescribing of astigmatic corrections should be considered to reduce the risk of falling.
Characterizing Protein Shape by a Volume Distribution Asymmetry Index

A fully quantitative shape index relying upon the asymmetry of mass distribution of protein molecules along the three space dimensions is proposed. Multidimensional statistical analysis, based on principal component extraction and subsequent linear discriminant analysis, showed the presence of three major 'attractor forms' roughly correspondent to rod-like, discoidal and spherical shapes. This classification of protein shapes was in turn demonstrated to be strictly connected with topological features of proteins, as emerging from complex network invariants of their contact maps.
Photoacoustic viscoelasticity detection of biological tissues with phase-resolved method

A method for noninvasive viscoelasticity detection of biological tissues using phase-resolved photoacoustic measurement is presented. We deduced the process of photoacoustic effect on the basis of thermal viscoelasticity theory, and established the relationship between the photoacoustic phase delay and the viscosity-elasticity ratio for soft solids. Agar phantoms with different densities and different absorption coefficients were used to verify the dependence of photoacoustic phase-resolved viscoelasticity measurement. Moreover, viscoelasticity detection of tissues was obtained with a photoacoustic point scanning system. The photoacoustic phase-resolved method provides a basis for viscoelasticity detection, which can potentially be used for detection of viscoelastic properties and lesions of biological tissues.
The Gusset Plate Effect in Steel Plate Shear Wall Systems

A steel plate shear wall dual system consists of a moment resisting frame plus thin infill shear panels. In the literature, it is stated that the ultimate lateral load bearing capacity of such a dual system can be evaluated by a simple addition of the discrete frame, brought about by the formation of plastic hinges and that of detached infill panel evaluated when yield patterns form along their diagonal tension folds. However, more recent studies show that there is an interaction effect between the wall and the frame and that the combined system can resist additional loads. In other words, the principle of superposition does not apply to this dual lateral load resisting system. This super added value may arise from two factors: (a) the influence of beam and column rigidities on the buckling and ultimate load bearing capacity of panel, and (b) the influence of the panel on the frame. This article studies the latter effect, otherwise known as the gusset plate effect in shear-walled frames.
Adherence to self-care in patients with heart failure in the HeartCycle study

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate a novel online education and coaching program to promote self-care among patients with heart failure. In this program, education and coaching content is automatically tailored to the knowledge and behavior of the patient. Patients and methods The evaluation of the program took place within the scope of the HeartCycle study. This multi-center, observational study examined the ability of a third generation telehealth system to enhance the management of patients recently (<60 days) admitted to the hospital for worsening heart failure or outpatients with persistent New York Heart Association (NYHA) Functional Classification III/IV symptoms. Self-reported self-care behavior was assessed at baseline and study-end by means of the 9-item European Heart Failure Self-care Behavior scale. Adherence to daily weighing, blood pressure monitoring, and reporting of symptoms was determined by analyzing the system’s database. Results Of 123 patients enrolled, the mean age was 66±12 years, 66% were in NYHA III and 79% were men. Self-reported self-care behavior scores (n=101) improved during the study for daily weighing, low-salt diet, physical activity (P<0.001), and fluid restriction (P<0.05). Average adherence (n=120) to measuring weight was 90%±16%, to measuring blood pressure was 89%±17% and to symptom reporting was 66%±32%. Conclusion Self-reported self-care behavior scores improved significantly during the period of observation, and the objective evidence of adherence to daily weight and blood pressure measurements was high and remained stable over time. However, adherence to daily reporting of symptoms was lower and declined in the long-term.
Inattention and hyperactivity in children at risk of obesity: a community cross-sectional study

Objective There is a link between the symptoms of hyperactivity/inattention and overweight in children. Less is known about the factors which might influence this relationship, such as physical and sedentary activity levels or exercise self-efficacy. The aim of this study is to examine the associations between the symptoms of hyperactivity/inattention and risk factors for adult obesity in a sample of children with barriers to exercise. Design Children aged 9–11 years were recruited from 24 primary schools that participated in the Steps to Active Kids (STAK) physical activity intervention study. Study inclusion criteria were low exercise self-efficacy, teacher-rated overweight or asthma. Children with high levels of physical activity were excluded. Measures included parent and teacher-rated behavioural and emotional well-being using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, physical and sedentary activity levels, BMI (body mass index) and exercise self-efficacy. Results Of 424 participating children, 62% were girls and 39% were classified as overweight or obese. As compared with population norms, boys in this at-risk sample were more likely to receive an abnormal teacher-rated hyperactivity/inattention score (OR 1.48, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.17). Children with teacher-rated abnormal hyperactivity/inattention scores reported higher levels of sedentary activity (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.17), but not physically active activity. The pattern of findings was similar for children with hyperactivity/inattention problems as rated by both parent and teacher (pervasive hyperactivity and impairment). Conclusions Although BMI was not directly related to hyperactivity/inattention, children with risk factors for adult obesity have more hyperactivity/inattention problems. In particular, hyperactivity/inattention is associated with higher levels of sedentary activity. Higher rates of pervasive hyperactivity and impairment were apparent in this at-risk group.
Estimation of the sample covariance matrix from compressive measurements

This paper focuses on the estimation of the sample covariance matrix from low-dimensional random projections of data known as compressive measurements. In particular, we present an unbiased estimator to extract the covariance structure from compressive measurements obtained by a general class of random projection matrices consisting of i.i. d. zero-mean entries and finite first four moments. In contrast to previous works, we make no structural assumptions about the underlying covariance matrix such as being low-rank. In fact, our analysis is based on a non-Bayesian data setting which requires no distributional assumptions on the set of data samples. Furthermore, inspired by the generality of the projection matrices, we propose an approach to covariance estimation that utilizes sparse Rademacher matrices. Therefore, our algorithm can be used to estimate the covariance matrix in applications with limited memory and computation power at the acquisition devices. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach allows for accurate estimation of the sample covariance matrix on several real-world data sets, including video data.
Exemplar-Driven Top-Down Saliency Detection via Deep Association

Top-down saliency detection is a knowledge-driven search task. While some previous methods aim to learn this "knowledge" from category-specific data, others transfer existing annotations in a large dataset through appearance matching. In contrast, we propose in this paper a locateby-exemplar strategy. This approach is challenging, as we only use a few exemplars (up to 4) and the appearances among the query object and the exemplars can be very different. To address it, we design a two-stage deep model to learn the intra-class association between the exemplars and query objects. The first stage is for learning object-to-object association, and the second stage is to learn background discrimination. Extensive experimental evaluations show that the proposed method outperforms different baselines and the category-specific models. In addition, we explore the influence of exemplar properties, in terms of exemplar number and quality. Furthermore, we show that the learned model is a universal model and offers great generalization to unseen objects.
Improved Approximation Algorithms for Geometric Set Cover

Given a collection S of subsets of some set ${\Bbb U},$ and ${\Bbb M}\subset{\Bbb U},$ the set cover problem is to find the smallest subcollection $C\subset S$ that covers ${\Bbb M},$ that is, ${\Bbb M} \subseteq \bigcup (C),$ where $\bigcup(C)$ denotes $\bigcup_{Y \in C} Y. $ We assume of course that S covers ${\Bbb M}. $ While the general problem is NP-hard to solve, even approximately, here we consider some geometric special cases, where usually ${\Bbb U} = {\Bbb R}^d. $ Combining previously known techniques [4], [5], we show that polynomial-time approximation algorithms with provable performance exist, under a certain general condition: that for a random subset $R\subset S$ and nondecreasing function f(·), there is a decomposition of the complement ${\Bbb U}\backslash\bigcup (R)$ into an expected at most f(|R|) regions, each region of a particular simple form. Under this condition, a cover of size O(f(|C|)) can be found in polynomial time. Using this result, and combinatorial geometry results implying bounding functions f(c) that are nearly linear, we obtain o(log c) approximation algorithms for covering by fat triangles, by pseudo-disks, by a family of fat objects, and others. Similarly, constant-factor approximations follow for similar-sized fat triangles and fat objects, and for fat wedges. With more work, we obtain constant-factor approximation algorithms for covering by unit cubes in ${\Bbb R}^3,$ and for guarding an x-monotone polygonal chain.
Phosducin Regulates Transmission at thePhotoreceptor-to-ON-Bipolar Cell Synapse

The rate of synaptic transmission between photoreceptors and bipolar cells has been long known to depend on conditions of ambient illumination. However, the molecular mechanisms that mediate and regulate transmission at this ribbon synapse are poorly understood. We conducted electroretinographic recordings from dark- and light-adapted mice lacking the abundant photoreceptor-specific protein phosducin and found that the ON-bipolar cell responses in these animals have a reduced light sensitivity in the dark-adapted state. Additional desensitization of their responses, normally caused by steady background illumination, was also diminished compared with wild-type animals. This effect was observed in both rod- and cone-driven pathways, with the latter affected to a larger degree. The underlying mechanism is likely to be photoreceptor specific because phosducin is not expressed in other retina neurons and transgenic expression of phosducin in rods of phosducin knock-out mice rescued the rod-specific phenotype. The underlying mechanism functions downstream from the phototransduction cascade, as evident from the sensitivity of phototransduction in phosducin knock-out rods being affected to a much lesser degree than b-wave responses. These data indicate that a major regulatory component responsible for setting the sensitivity of signal transmission between photoreceptors and ON-bipolar cells is confined to photoreceptors and that phosducin participates in the underlying molecular mechanism.
Improving Alignment for SMT by Reordering and Augmenting the Training Corpus

We describe the LIU systems for English-German and German-English translation in the WMT09 shared task. We focus on two methods to improve the word alignment: (i) by applying Giza++ in a second phase to a reordered training corpus, where reordering is based on the alignments from the first phase, and (ii) by adding lexical data obtained as high-precision alignments from a different word aligner. These methods were studied in the context of a system that uses compound processing, a morphological sequence model for German, and a part-of-speech sequence model for English. Both methods gave some improvements to translation quality as measured by Bleu and Meteor scores, though not consistently. All systems used both out-of-domain and in-domain data as the mixed corpus had better scores in the baseline configuration.
Hybrid Energy Storage System With Active Power-Mix Control in a Dual-Chemistry Battery Pack for Light Electric Vehicles

This paper demonstrates a hybrid energy storage system (HESS), comprised of lithium-ion (LI) and lead-acid (PbA) batteries, for a utility light electric vehicle. While LI batteries have superior energy density, lower internal resistance, and longer lifetime than PbA batteries, the module cost is typically three times higher. The objective of this paper is to design an HESS that: 1) is cost competitive with a PbA single energy storage system (SESS) and 2) maintains most of the performance benefits of a conventional LI SESS. This is done by minimizing the Peukert effect and thus increasing the usable energy of the PbA battery. The proposed modular multiphase dc-dc converter achieves stable interleaving operation, and the traditional noninverting buck-boost converter is modified to allow intermodule balancing. A simple power-mix algorithm with active intramodule state-of-charge balancing is proposed, and the modular hybrid battery system is demonstrated experimentally with low-cost embedded hardware. The cost and the performance of the HESS are assessed side by side with PbA and LI SESS configurations. The HESS has a total projected cost midway between the SESS PbA cost and the SESS Li cost, while providing 23% efficiency (range/kWh) increases over the SESS PbA vehicle.
A Novel Noninvasive Failure-Detection System for High-Power Converters Based on SCRs

In modern high-power industrial processes, multipulse cycloconverters are fundamental to feed synchronous motors. Given the importance of these critical processes, particularly for mining industry, the reliability of the high-power drive is critical. Having a noninvasive system capable of detecting and isolating faults in the thyristors is quite valuable, and it will reduce the economic losses caused by the long repair times of the converter. Currently, it is difficult and, in some cases, almost impossible to determine which of the SCRs experience an overcurrent or those which do not trigger properly, causing a malfunction. In this paper, we present a new method of online detection which is capable of delivering information about the SCR involved in a failure and the nature of it. This new method takes only a few input and output measurements (noninvasive feature) already available in the most of industrial cycloconverters and performs a timing analysis of these measurements. The algorithms of the method estimate and analyze the switching states of all thyristors, providing an impressive way of detecting the cause and consequences of the failure in the cycloconverter.
Consumer behavior on the Russian electricity market

The article presents the main trends in the Russian energy management. Demand management program based on the principles of energy conservation and the direct and indirect load control. Existing in Russia, wholesale and retail electricity markets and power are aimed at improving energy efficiency and sustainable energy consumption. The paper shows that under certain conditions for the consumer benefit (if technically possible) to reduce consumption at times of maximum loads the results in leveling of the profile load curve EPS and the presence of a positive system-wide effect.