Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fault-tolerant clock synchronization in ring-networks

Fault-tolerant clock synchronization is an important task in many safety-relevant distributed real-time systems built by a bridge-connected network, where the bridges are connected via point-to-point links (like Time-Sensitive Network). This paper proposes a new protocol for fault-tolerant clock synchronization for not fully connected networks, in particular ring topologies with only two disjoint paths between any pair of bridges. This reduction in topological redundancy allows for much cheaper networks. The new protocol - named "ring forward and answer", RFA for short - tolerates arbitrary behavior except complementary compensation (called ABC-failure, which comes close to Byzantine behavior) of any single bridge.
Development of a miniature self-stabilization jumping robot

We present the design and implementation of a new jumping robot for mobile sensor network. Unlike other jumping robots, the robot is based on a simple two-mass-spring model. After we throw it on ground, it can stabilize itself and then jump once. The detailed mechanism design including the load holding and self-stabilization are presented. Jumping heights and distances with different robot weights are measured and compared with calculated values from the two-mass-spring model.
Season and weather patterns at time of birth in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Abstract Studies in the northern hemisphere suggest that the numbers of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) births vary depending on the season of the year. We wished to determine if a southern hemisphere study would show the same seasonal changes, and whether particular weather conditions were associated with the numbers of ALS births. Birth data from a case-control study of Australian residents were used to relate monthly birth rates of ALS to the seasons and weather conditions. The results were compared with previous studies in Japan, Sweden and Switzerland. Four hundred and ninety-one Australian sporadic ALS patients and 629 controls (partners, friends, and community volunteers) completed a self-reported questionnaire that included dates of birth. Australian ALS birth rates increased between late summer and early winter, and decreased between mid-winter and early summer. Similar patterns were seen in Japan and Sweden. Monthly average humidity correlated positively with the numbers of ALS births in Australia, Sweden, and Japan. In conclusion, seasonal differences in ALS birth rates in the southern hemisphere are similar to those in two out of three northern hemisphere countries. Early life factors related to weather conditions, such as increased humidity leading to more infectious diseases and allergens, need to be further investigated in ALS.
The incidence of post operative venous thromboembolism in patients undergoing varicose vein surgery recorded in Hospital Episode Statistics

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to establish the incidence of post-operative venous thromboembolism (VTE) following varicose vein treatment. METHODS Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data were obtained for all patients undergoing varicose vein treatment between April 2006 and April 2007 to identify those reattending with either deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism within 12 months. RESULTS The incidence of VTE was 0.51%, which was comparable with the incidence for those undergoing open surgery (0.54%), sclerotherapy (0.19%) and endovenous laser therapy (EVLT) (0.47%). The incidence of VTE in those undergoing combined EVLT and phlebectomy was 1.26% (p=0.01). In contrast to unilateral treatment (all modalities), where bilateral treatment was performed an increase in the incidence of VTE was seen in those undergoing redo (1.62%) and short saphenous system (1.16%) treatments.Overall, 1.02% of cases were performed under local anaesthesia with zero incidence of VTE in this cohort. CONCLUSIONS The overall incidence of VTE recorded in HES was 0.51% and appears to be highest in those undergoing bilateral redo or short saphenous system surgery as well as those undergoing a combination of EVLT and phlebectomy. The use of VTE prophylaxis, particularly in these groups, is recommended.
Arbitrary Shape Cluster Summarization with Gaussian Mixture Model

One of the main concerns in the area of arbitrary shape clustering is how to summarize clusters. An accurate representation of clusters with arbitrary shapes is to characterize a cluster with all its members. However, this approach is neither practical nor efficient. In many applications such as stream data mining, preserving all samples for a long period of time in presence of thousands of incoming samples is not practical. Moreover, in the absence of labelled data, clusters are representative of each class, and in case of arbitrary shape clusters, finding the closest cluster to a new incoming sample using all objects of clusters is not accurate and efficient. In this paper, we present a new algorithm to summarize arbitrary shape clusters. Our proposed method, called SGMM, summarizes a cluster using a set of objects as core objects, then represents each cluster with corresponding Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). Using GMM, the closest cluster to the new test sample is identified with low computational cost. We compared the proposed method with ABACUS, a well-known algorithm, in terms of time, space and accuracy for both categorization and summarization purposes. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method outperforms ABACUS on various datasets including syntactic and real datasets.
A query language and runtime tool for evaluating behavior of multi-tier servers

As modern multi-tier systems are becoming increasingly large and complex, it becomes more difficult for system analysts to understand the overall behavior of the system, and diagnose performance problems. To assist analysts inspect performance behavior, we introduce SelfTalk, a novel declarative language that allows analysts to query and understand the status of a large scale system. SelfTalk is sufficiently expressive to encode an analyst's high-level hypotheses about system invariants, normal correlations between system metrics, or other a priori derived performance models, such as, "I expect that the throughputs of interconnected system components are linearly correlated". Given a hypothesis, Dena, our runtime support system, instantiates and validates it using actual monitoring data within specific system configurations. We evaluate SelfTalk/Dena by posing several hypotheses about system behavior and querying Dena to validate system behavior in a multi-tier dynamic content server. We find that Dena automatically validates the system performance based on the pre-existing hypotheses and helps to diagnose system misbehavior.
Gamers as usability evaluators: a study in the domain of virtual worlds

Virtual Worlds (VW) are interactive systems which aim to provide an immersive environment where users can interact with each other and with virtual objects. Hence, a set of quality criteria to be used for the usability evaluation of Virtual Worlds must consider these particular characteristics. Moreover, considering the complexity of the interactive environment of Virtual Worlds and its resemblance to digital games, the previous experience of evaluators may influence the evaluation outcome. In this paper we present an experimental evaluation which compares the results of a heuristic evaluation of a VW environment performed by usability experts and skilled digital game users (gamers) with initial training in the evaluation technique. The results show that while usability experts tend to focus on issues related to the Virtual World configuration interface, gamers identify more problems related to the interaction with the Virtual World itself.
Error analysis of tau-leap simulation methods

We perform an error analysis for numerical approximation methods of continuous time Markov chain models commonly found in the chemistry and biochemistry literature. The motivation for the analysis is to be able to compare the accuracy of different approximation methods and, specifically, Euler tau-leaping and midpoint tau-leaping. We perform our analysis under a scaling in which the size of the time discretization is inversely proportional to some (bounded) power of the norm of the state of the system. We argue that this is a more appropriate scaling than that found in previous error analyses in which the size of the time discretization goes to zero independent of the rest of the model. Under the present scaling we show that midpoint tau-leaping achieves a higher order of accuracy, in both a weak and a strong sense, than Euler tau-leaping; a result that is in contrast to previous analyses. We present examples that demonstrate our findings. 1. Introduction. This paper provides an error analysis for numerical approximation methods for continuous time Markov chain models that are becoming increasingly common in the chemistry and biochemistry literature. Our goals of the paper are two-fold. First, we want to demonstrate the importance of considering appropriate scalings in which to carry out error analyses for the methods of interest. Second, we wish to provide such an error analysis in order to compare the accuracy of two different approximation methods. We perform our analysis on the Euler tau-leaping method first presented in [11] and a midpoint tau-leaping method developed below, which is only a slight variant of one presented in [11]. The midpoint tau-leaping method will be demonstrated to be more accurate than Euler tau-leaping in both a strong and a weak sense, a result that is in contrast to previous error analyses. We will discuss why previous error analyses made differing predictions than does ours and argue that the scaling provided here, or variants thereof, is a more natural and appropriate choice for error analyses of such methods. We also provide examples that demonstrate our findings. 1.1. The basic model. The motivation for the class of mathematical models under consideration comes from chemistry and biochemistry, and more generally from population processes (though we choose the language of chemistry throughout the paper). We assume the existence of a chemical reaction system consisting of (i) d chemical speciesfS1;S2;:::;Sdg and (ii) a finite set of possible reactions, which we index by k. Each reaction requires some number of the species as inputs and provides some number of the species as outputs. For example, the reaction S1 ! 2S2 would require one molecule of S1 for the input and provide two molecules of S2 for the output. If reaction k occurs at time t, then the state of the system X(t)2 Z d 0 is updated via addition of the reaction vector k 2 Z d , which represents the net change in the abundances of the underlying species: X(t) = X(t ) + k:
Age of Diagnosis of Squamous Cell Cervical Carcinoma and Early Sexual Experience

Background: Given the established links among young age at first intercourse (AFI), number of sex partners, high-risk human papillomavirus infection, and squamous cell cervical cancer (SCC), we hypothesized that women diagnosed with SCC at younger ages would be more likely to report young AFI than women diagnosed later in life. Methods: We performed a population-based investigation among invasive SCC cases who were diagnosed between 1986 and 2004, were ages 22 to 53 years, and lived in the metropolitan Seattle-Puget Sound region (n = 333). Using multivariate linear regression, we estimated coefficients and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) to assess the association between age at SCC diagnosis and AFI (<15, 15-18, ≥19 years) and number of sex partners at age <20 years (0, 1, 2-4, 5-14, ≥15), accounting for birth year and other factors. Interactions were assessed using the likelihood ratio test. Results: The interval between AFI and SCC diagnosis ranged from 4 to 35 years. In a multivariate model, compared with SCC cases reporting AFI ≥19, the mean age of diagnosis was 3.1 years younger for SCC cases reporting AFI <15 (95% CI, -5.8 to -0.5) and 2.6 years younger for SCC cases reporting AFI 15 to 18 (95% CI, -4.6 to -0.6). Although number of sex partners at age <20 years was associated with age at SCC diagnosis in a crude analysis, the association was not independent of AFI. However, in the AFI ≥19 and <15 groups, differences in effect were seen by number of sex partners at age <20 years (Pinteraction = 0.08), with the association remaining strong and significant only in the AFI <15 group that had ≥2 partners at age <20 years (coefficient, -4.2; 95% CI, -6.3 to -2.1). Conclusion: Among younger and middle-aged women with SCC, early age of diagnosis was associated with early AFI, although the effect appeared to be modified by number of sex partners at age <20 years. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(4):1070–6)
Lateralización cerebral en chimpancés: una aproximación filogenética al estudio del cerebro humano

Resumen El estudio de la lateralización cerebral de los primates no humanos resulta esencial para comprender nuestra hominización cerebral y cognitiva, así como la filogenia del lenguaje humano. En relación a nuestros parientes más cercanos, hoy día no existe un consenso en determinar si los chimpancés muestran asimetrías funcionales homologas a las del ser humano. Uno de los comportamientos que más controversia ha generado en las últimas décadas es el de la dominancia manual. A través de esta consideración se hace una amplia revisión sobre los principales modelos teóricos continuistas, rupturistas y de integración, además de exponer las implicaciones evolutivas y cognitivas que la lateralización ha tenido en el cerebro humano. El estudio comparado del comportamiento animal desde una perspectiva etológico-psicológica resulta fundamental para poder entender el proceso de hominización conductual y cerebral, aportando un punto de vista causal, funcional, ontogenético y evolutivo sobre el cerebro.
Parallel programming with SystemC for loosely timed models: A non-intrusive approach

The SystemC/TLM technologies are widely accepted in the industry for fast system-level simulation. An important limitation of SystemC regarding performance is that the reference implementation is sequential, and the official semantics makes parallel executions difficult. As the number of cores in computers increase quickly, the ability to take advantage of the host parallelism during a simulation is becoming a major concern. Most existing work on parallelization of SystemC targets cycle-accurate simulation, and would be inefficient on loosely timed systems since they cannot run in parallel processes that do not execute simultaneously. We propose an approach that explicitly targets loosely timed systems, and offers the user a set of primitives to express tasks with duration, as opposed to the notion of time in SystemC which allows only instantaneous computations and time elapses without computation. Our tool exploits this notion of duration to run the simulation in parallel. It runs on top of any (unmodified) SystemC implementation, which lets legacy SystemC code continue running as-it-is. This allows the user to focus on the performance-critical parts of the program that need to be parallelized.
Set stability and coordination of nonlinear multi-agent systems with switching structure

In this paper, we discuss the aggregation of a group of autonomous agents related to a convex target set. The convergence of the whole agent group, consisting of leaders (informed agents) and followers, to a desired region is investigated with switching interconnection topologies described by the connectivity on [t,¿) for any time t. Set stability analysis is given with help of graph theory and non-smooth analysis, and moreover, sufficient conditions to achieve the coordination are proposed for some important cases. The results show that simple local rules can make the networked agents with first-order nonlinear individual dynamics converge to the target set.
Exchange Rate and Stock Price Interaction in Major Asian Markets: Evidence for Individual Countries and Panels Allowing for Structural Breaks

This article examines the relationship between exchange rates and stock prices in eight Asian countries. We test for cointegration and Granger causality for both individual countries using the Gregory and Hansen cointegration test that accommodates a structural break in the cointegrating vector, and for a panel using the Westerlund panel Lagrange multiplier (LM) cointegration test that allows for multiple structural breaks in the level of the individual cointegrating equations. Our results for individual countries suggest that the only country for which exchange rates and stock prices are cointegrated over the entire period is Korea where there is a weak long-run unidirectional Granger causality running from exchange rates to stock prices. Employing the panel LM cointegration test with multiple structural breaks, we find that exchange rates and stock prices are not cointegrated. We conclude that for the eight Asian countries, exchange rates and stock prices primarily have only a contemporaneous effect on each other that is reflected in the short-run intertemporal comovements between these financial variables.
Regional gastrointestinal permeability of rifampicin and isoniazid (alone and their combination) in the rat.

OBJECTIVE To determine if rifampicin (RMP) and isoniazid (INH) are absorbed from different gastrointestinal tract (GIT) sites, and to ascertain the feasibility of producing new fixed-dose combination (FDC) products containing RMP and INH by segregating drug delivery at different sites along the GIT. DESIGN Permeability of RMP and INH (alone and in combination) was determined in various segments of rat GIT (stomach, duodenum, jejunum and ileum) at concentrations of respectively 2.4 and 1.2 mg/ml, using a ligated loop technique. Drug analysis was performed by HPLC. Extent of absorption was considered as the total drug disappearing from the loop. Permeability was correlated with solubility and decomposition data at pH corresponding to different GIT sites. RESULTS RMP was well absorbed from the stomach due to its solubility, which was maximum between pH 1-2. INH was poorly absorbed from the stomach, but was well absorbed from all three segments of the intestine. In combination, RMP disappearance was enhanced in the presence of INH in the stomach and jejunum, but INH disappearance was not influenced by RMP. CONCLUSION The study shows higher in situ RMP disappearance in the presence of INH, attributable to drug degradation due to catalysis by INH. As the two drugs show regional specific permeability, FDCs without reduced RMP bioavailability resulting from its decomposition in the presence of INH can be designed by segregating delivery of the two drugs by around 3-4 h. RMP should be released in the stomach and INH in the intestine.
The parasite-specific trypanothione redox metabolism

Background Trypanosomes and leishmania are the causative agents of African sleeping sickness (Trypanosoma brucei), South American Chagas' disease (T. cruzi) and other tropical diseases. All these parasitic protozoa lack glutathione reductase (GR) and thioredoxin reductases. The main non-protein thiol is the bis(glutathionyl)spermidine-conjugate trypanothione T(SH)2 which is involved in a wide variety of metabolic pathways (Fig. 1; Krauth-Siegel and Comini 2008).
Approximating the k-multicut problem

We study the <i>k</i>-multicut problem: Given an edge-weighted undirected graph, a set of <i>l</i> pairs of vertices, and a target <i>k</i> ≤ <i>l</i>, find the minimum cost set of edges whose removal disconnects <i>at least k</i> pairs. This generalizes the well known multicut problem, where <i>k = l. </i> We show that the <i>k</i>-multicut problem on trees can be approximated within a factor of 8/3 + ε, for any fixed ε > 0, and within <i>O</i>(log<sup>2</sup> <i>n</i> log log <i>n</i>) on general graphs, where <i>n</i> is the number of vertices in the graph.For any fixed ε > 0, we also obtain a polynomial time algorithm for <i>k</i>-multicut on trees which returns a solution of cost at most (2 + ε) · <i>OPT</i>, that separates at least (1 - ε) · <i>k</i> pairs, where <i>OPT</i> is the cost of the optimal solution separating <i>k</i> pairs.Our techniques also give a simple 2-approximation algorithm for the multicut problem on trees using total unimodularity, matching the best known algorithm [8].
A General Methodology for Mathematical Analysis of Multi-Agent Systems

We propose a general mathematical methodology for studying the dynamics of multiagent systems in which complex collective behavior arises out of local interactions between many simple agents. The mathematical model is composed of a system of coupled differential equations describing the macroscopic, or collective, dynamics of an agent-based system. We illustrate our approach by applying it to analyze several agent-based systems, including coalition formation in an electronic marketplace, and foraging and collaboration in a group of robots.
Production, Manufacturing and Logistics Bayesian demand updating in the lost sales newsvendor problem: A two-moment approximation q

We consider Bayesian updating of demand in a lost sales newsvendor model with censored observations. In a lost sales environment, where the arrival process is not recorded, the exact demand is not observed if it exceeds the beginning stock level, resulting in censored observations. Adopting a Bayesian approach for updating the demand distribution, we develop expressions for the exact posteriors starting with conjugate priors, for negative binomial, gamma, Poisson and normal distributions. Having shown that non-informative priors result in degenerate predictive densities except for negative binomial demand, we propose an approximation within the conjugate family by matching the first two moments of the posterior distribution. The conjugacy property of the priors also ensure analytical tractability and ease of computation in successive updates. In our numerical study, we show that the posteriors and the predictive demand distributions obtained exactly and with the approximation are very close to each other, and that the approximation works very well from both probabilistic and operational perspectives in a sequential updating setting as well. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Using Domain Knowledge about Medications to Correct Recognition Errors in Medical Report Creation

We present an approach to analysing automatic speech recognition (ASR) hypotheses for dictated medical reports based on background knowledge. Our application area is prescriptions of medications, which are a frequent source of misrecognitions: In a sample report corpus, we found that about 40% of the active substances or trade names and dosages were recognized incorrectly. In about 25% of these errors, the correct string of words was contained in the word graph. We have built a knowledge base of medications based on information contained in the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), consisting of trade names, active substances, strengths and dosages. From this, we generate a variety of linguistic realizations for prescriptions. Whenever an inconsistency in a prescription is encountered on the best path of the word graph, the system searches for alternative paths which contain valid linguistic realizations of prescriptions consistent with the knowledge base. If such a path exists, a new concept edge with a better score is added to the word graph, resulting in a higher plausibility for this reading. The concept edge can be used for rescoring the word graph to obtain a new best path. A preliminary evaluation led to encouraging results: in nearly half of the cases where the word graph contained the correct variant, the correction was successful.