Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Migrating-Home Protocol for Software Distributed Shared Memory

The efficiency of Software Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) is often limited by the excessive amount of network communication in maintaining the memory consistency of the system. Two of the most popular software solutions to reduce redundant data traffic are the proper use of relaxed memory consistency models and coherence protocols. In this paper, we propose the migrating-home protocol for a relaxed memory consistency model, scope consistency. The protocol allows the processor storing the most up-to-date copy of a page to change among processors, so as to adapt better to the memory access patterns of DSM applications. Our proposals have been implemented in a DSM system running on a 16-node Pentium III 450MHz PC cluster. We analyzed not only the execution time of the benchmark programs, but we also adopted a new approach to analyze the communication and page fault patterns. It is shown that our DSM system reduces the amount of network communication and handles page faults more efficiently. They provide concrete evidence in explaining the substantial performance improvement obtained by our system.
Effects of S-Nitrosation and Cross-Linking of Hemoglobin on Hypoxic Pulmonary Vasoconstriction in Isolated Rat Lungs

Abstract— Free hemoglobin (Hb) and red blood cells augment hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) by scavenging nitric oxide (NO). S-nitrosation of Hb (SNO-Hb) may confer vasodilatory properties by allowing release of NO during deoxygenation and/or by interaction with small-molecular weight thiols. Likewise, cross-linking of free Hb may limit its vasoconstrictive effect by preventing abluminal movement of the molecule. We compared the effects of free SNO-Hb and Hb intramolecularly cross-linked at the &bgr;-cysteine 93 residue [Bis(maleidophenyl)-polyethylene glycol2000HbA (Bis-Mal-PEGHb)] to those of free oxyHb on pulmonary artery pressure (PAP), HPV, and exhaled NO (eNO) in isolated, perfused rat lungs. Ventilation of lungs with anoxic gas for 5 minutes reduced perfusate Po2 to 11±1.0 Torr. Addition of SNO-Hb or Bis-Mal-PEGHb (100 &mgr;mol/L) to buffer perfusate increased normoxic PAP and augmented HPV in similar magnitude as free oxyHb, but had no effect on eNO. Addition of the allosteric modulator inositol hexaphosphate to increase Hb P50 and the thiol glutathione (GSH) to allow removal of NO from Hb via transnitrosation to the perfusate did not reduce augmentation of HPV by SNO-Hb or increase eNO. GSH resulted in an ≈50% reduction in perfusate [S-nitrosothiol], in association with an increase in perfusate [metHb]. Free SNO-Hb is a net NO scavenger and pulmonary vasoconstrictor in this model, although thiol-mediated release of NO from SNO-Hb does occur. However, release of NO from SNO-Hb was not influenced by deoxygenation-mediated allosteric changes in Hb across a broad range of oxyHb saturation. Cross-linking of Hb does not limit its pulmonary vasoconstrictor effects.
“Life was never meant to be easy”: A commentary on Rojek's “Leisure and emotional intelligence”

According to Malcolm Fraser, a former Prime Minister of Australia, "life was never meant to be easy. " The Buddha agreed, famously stating that "All life is pain. " The daily experiences of most of us might confirm this: effort, work, "forcing it," "pushing on," and the anxiety induced by our constant performative tip-toeing through the world, all connote a drain on our reserves physical, emotional, cognitive that modern life appears to impose.
Using Renewable Energy as a Tool to Achieve Tourism Sustainability in Mediterranean Islands

This paper addresses the challenge of transforming Mediterranean islands into sustainable tourism areas, through the direct (or indirect) use of renewable energy projects and technologies. Through demonstration and a discussion of cases studies from studied islands, which takes into account island-specific characteristics and particularities, we assess the compatibility of renewable energy technologies (RETs) with sustainable tourism development. Conclusions emerge from this analysis which highlight prerequisites for RET-tourism compatibility; this has potential transferability to other insular territories. Developing an appreciation of the factors that can lead to sustainable tourism in islands through the use of renewable energy is a priority issue for two main reasons. Firstly, because until now scientific literature has only discussed the question of photovoltaics’ integration into tourism buildings, and secondly, because of the relatively high vulnerability to climate change impacts of islands compared to many mainland areas, according to predictions made by the United Nations and the European Union. Whilst international politics deal with the mass reduction of gaseous emissions into the atmosphere, reducing the adverse effects of climate change in the islands has become a significant component of national priorities.
Arts Integration and the Success of Disadvantaged Students: A Research Evaluation

Does arts integration contribute to student success for disadvantaged student populations? The introduction to this article compares students’ academic performance and arts education in countries outperforming the United States on the recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and makes the argument for using arts integration as a way to teach the Common Core standards and align instruction to the Universal Design for Learning principles. This evaluation of research helps to support the evidence base by examining the quality of studies published between 1995 and 2011 investigating the use of arts integration with disadvantaged student populations, including economically disadvantaged students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. Four hundred fifty-three studies were explored, resulting in the inclusion of forty-four studies in this analysis. Studies were categorized as the following: single art integration, multi-arts integration, effects of arts integration on students with disabilities, or effects of arts integration on school climate. Studies were evaluated for their research design, implementation, and effects, and results depicted positive effects and potentially positive effects. Policy implications and suggestions for future research using the author's proposed theoretical framework are also discussed.
T1 Gadolinium Enhancement of Intracranial Atherosclerotic Plaques Associated with Symptomatic Ischemic Presentations

The degree of contrast enhancement was assessed in 22 high-grade intracranial stenoses that were either symptomatic or asymptomatic. Seventy percent of symptomatic plaques showed contrast enhancement whereas this was seen in only 8% of those that were asymptomatic. This study suggests that intracranial stenoses can be evaluated with conventional MRI protocols and that there is a strong association between plaque contrast enhancement and ischemic symptoms. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Contrast enhancement of intracranial atherosclerotic plaques has recently been investigated using high field and high resolution MR imaging as a risk factor in the development of ischemic stroke. We studied the reliability of conventional MR imaging at 1.5T in evaluating intraplaque enhancement and its relationship with acute cerebrovascular ischemic presentations in patients with severe intracranial atherosclerotic disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively identified and analyzed 19 patients with 22 high-grade intracranial atherosclerotic disease plaques (>70% stenosis) in vessels cross-sectionally visualized by neuroanatomic MR imaging. Atherosclerotic plaques were classified as asymptomatic or symptomatic. Two blinded neuroradiologists independently ranked each lesion for the presence of intraplaque enhancement by use of a 5-point scale (1–5). Furthermore, plaque enhancement was quantified as the relative change in T1WI spin-echo signal intensity (postcontrast/precontrast) in the vessel wall at the site of each intracranial atherosclerotic disease lesion. RESULTS: Intraplaque enhancement was observed in 7 of 10 (70%) symptomatic plaques, in contrast to 1 of 12 (8%) asymptomatic plaques. Interobserver reliability correlated well for intraplaque enhancement (κ = 0.82). The degree of relative plaque enhancement in symptomatic versus asymptomatic lesions (63% versus 23%) was statistically significant (P = .001, t test). CONCLUSIONS: In this pilot study, we determined that intraplaque enhancement could be reliably evaluated with the use of cross-sectional imaging and analysis of vessels/plaques by use of conventional neuroanatomic MR imaging protocols. In addition, we observed a strong association between intraplaque enhancement in severe intracranial atherosclerotic disease lesions and ischemic events with the use of conventional MR imaging. Our preliminary study suggests that T1 gadolinium-enhancing plaques may be an indicator of progressing or symptomatic intracranial atherosclerotic disease.
Membrane hydrophone measurement and numerical simulation of HIFU fields up to developed shock regimes

For the characterization of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) fields, hydrophone measurements should be performed in water in the whole range of the radiated power; however, cavitation occurs at high output, leading to the destruction of the hydrophone. To avoid this problem, a new hydrophone with additional protective layers covering the electrodes was developed and tested in the experiments. A single-element 1-MHz focusing ultrasound source was used for detailed measurements of the acoustic field in the axial and lateral planes. Measurements were performed with a new membrane hydrophone up to the focal peak compressional and rarefactional pressures of 55.6 and of 12.8 MPa, respectively, when the shock front had already formed in the waveform. Numerical modeling for the beams of periodic waves with an initially uniform amplitude distribution was performed, based on the Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov equation. Numerical solutions were compared with the experimental data and found to be in good agreement (within 10%). The influences of the limited bandwidth and the spatial averaging effect of the hydrophone on the accurate measurements of the acoustic field parameters were also investigated.
Coverage extension and power optimization for closed group femto cells in BWA network

In today's world 70-90% wireless communication occurs inside the building area. However, due to high wallpenetration loss the signal quality falls below the desired level. Therefore, low power femto base stations are deployed inside the buildings to enhance the indoor coverage and signal strength. In this paper, we have considered a building area located at the cell edge. In the first part of the paper, we have observed the variation of signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), packet loss rate and throughput for varied user density and number of channels. However, a huge number of femto cells may create significant amount of interference. Hence, the effect of the interference scenario is discussed and a power optimization algorithm to reduce the cross layer interference is proposed in the rest of the paper. After deploying power optimized femto cells, it is observed that the signal quality within the building has improved significantly.
Simulation of Circadian Rhythms Using Grid Computing

The Drosophila circadian oscillator shows a robust property to environmental changes, internal variations, and fluctuations, where two interlocked negative feedback loops play a major role for oscillation [1, 2]. The PER-TIM loop is activated by dCLK-CYC and repressed by PER-TIM, whereas the dCLK loop is repressed by dCLK-CYC and activated by PER-TIM. Not only the molecular architecture, but also the parameters provide a robust property to the oscillator. To routinely construct the dynamic model of a biological system, we propose a novel and powerful strategy that consists of forward and reverse engineering. Forward engineering produces a mathematical model with kinetics-related parameters directly from biochemical networks. However, since it is hard to obtain all the real kinetic values in vivo experimentally, the use of reverse engineering explores the kinetic parameters of the dynamic model. In order to estimate the values of the kinetic parameters that reproduce the dynamic features of the oscillator, we employed a random search (RS) and genetic algorithms (GAs). However, since there are many candidates of the kinetic parameter vectors that reproduce the similar dynamic behaviors, it is hard to obtain a unique solution. In order to select a unique solution out of many candidates, we carried out the sensitivity analysis by calculating the changes in the period or in the amplitudes with respect to the variations in each parameter. Since we needed extensive calculations for performing RS and GA, we used grid computing.
Invisible Politics: Black Political Behavior

issues are different from economic issues in that they are characterized by "radical" rather than "mainstream" politics. In radical politics those who want social actions regulated want the actions totally eliminated, while in mainstream politics they desire only that the regulated party reduce or channel its actions. Examples of actions to be eliminated would be abortion, discrimination, and pornography while actions to be reduced or channeled would include car speeds, pollution, and utility rates. Although this is a useful distinction, it fails to meet its own criterion of mutual exclusivity. Most abortion control policy suggestions do not eliminate all abortions. Neither the courts nor the legislatures have been able to determine what constitutes pornography or its access to adults. At the same time, many environmentalists want zero discharge of pollutants. The obvious distinction between social issues (radical politics) and economic issues (mainstream politics) is the moral dimension. But the moral dimension is more continuous in nature than dichotomous. When dealing with regulating prescription drugs, rate increases, or pollution discharges, there is an obvious moral component and the extent of this component varies enormously.
Determinantal Clustering Processes - A Nonparametric Bayesian Approach to Kernel Based Semi-Supervised Clustering

Semi-supervised clustering is the task of clustering data points into clusters where only a fraction of the points are labelled. The true number of clusters in the data is often unknown and most models require this parameter as an input. Dirichlet process mixture models are appealing as they can infer the number of clusters from the data. However, these models do not deal with high dimensional data well and can encounter difficulties in inference. We present a novel nonparameteric Bayesian kernel based method to cluster data points without the need to prespecify the number of clusters or to model complicated densities from which data points are assumed to be generated from. The key insight is to use determinants of submatrices of a kernel matrix as a measure of how close together a set of points are. We explore some theoretical properties of the model and derive a natural Gibbs based algorithm with MCMC hyperparameter learning. The model is implemented on a variety of synthetic and real world data sets.
Preseason Body Composition of High School Wrestlers According to Age and Body Weight

The purpose of this study was to profile the preseason body composition of high school wrestlers as a function of age and body weight. The preseason body composition characteristics of 121 high school wrestlers were analyzed according to age (15, 16 and 17 years old) and body weight (43.36 to 86.71 kg). Each age group was further divided into lightweights (Lwt: 43.36 to 63.56 kg) and heavyweights (Hwt: 64.01 to 86.71 kg). The 15-year-old Lwts demonstrated less fat-free weight (FFW) than 16- and 17-year-old Lwts, while Hwts demonstrated similar body composition characteristics across all ages. These results indicate subtle differences in body composition characteristic across narrow age ranges in the Lwt categories of high school wrestlers. The less FFW of the younger and lighter wrestlers could lead to erroneous decisions in the selection of a safe minimal wrestling weight for this age group.
Neanderthal Acculturation in Western Europe? A Critical Review of the Evidence and Its Interpretation1

The presence of bone tools, personal ornaments, and apparently “modern” stone tools in European late Middle Paleolithic or pre‐Aurignacian Paleolithic contexts is generally interpreted as the result of the acculturation of final Neanderthal populations by anatomically modern humans. Analysis of the stratigraphic, chronological, and archaeological data from the key site of Grotte du Renne (Arcy‐sur‐Cure, France) shows that the notion of acculturation, as commonly understood, is inconsistent with the evidence. It is argued here that this site is not an exceptional case and is best explained by models of independent development that are supported by a reevaluation of Chãtelperronian technology and by the patterns of chronological and geographical distribution of Aurignacian, Chãtelperronian, Uluzzian, and late Mousterian settlements.
Cryofixation of monolayer cell cultures for freeze‐fracturing without chemical pre‐treatments

A cryofixation method is presented which gives excellent ultrastructural preservation of monolayer cell cultures without any chemical pretreatments. Rat hepatocytes in primary culture were used in this study. The equipment needed is inexpensive and easy to manufacture. Cells are grown on a usual tissue culture support material (Thermanox plastic sheets). For cryofixation, samples are prepared essentially by a combined sandwich‐cryogen‐jet technique. 3 mm large discs are punched out and sandwiched with Cu‐ or Au‐object holders of little mass; a 15 μm spacer is put in between. The viability of the cells is not impaired by the manipulations before freezing. The sandwich sample is quickly frozen by shooting a propane jet from a simple pressure chamber on to the metal object holder. The relevant parameters were optimized by parallel freeze‐fracture analyses of 5% glycerol as a model system and by thermocouple measurements. Sandwich samples are then mounted in an appropriate double replication specimen table for further analysis by freeze‐fracturing. It is possible to obtain a certain selectivity of the fracture plane with regard to apical, lateral or basal aspects of the cell layer. Alternatively, disc samples can be processed by chemical fixation methods (including freeze substitution to determine the freeze‐fracture plane), since the support material Thermanox is insensitive to organic solvents and easy to cut. In each case the cells remain attached to their substratum throughout the whole procedure. Thus, the ultrastructural data can be directly correlated with parallel functional analyses obtained from the same cell cultures.
How Preschoolers Use Cues of Dominance to Make Sense of Their Social Environment

A series of four experiments investigated preschoolers’ abilities to make sense of dominance relations. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that as early as 3 years old, preschoolers are able to infer dominance not only from physical supremacy but also from decision power, age, and resources. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that preschoolers have expectations regarding the ways in which a dominant and a subordinate individual are likely to differ. In particular, they expect that an individual who imposes his choice on another will exhibit higher competence in games and will have more resources.
A Nanowatt Successive Approximation ADC with Offset Correction for Implantable Sensor Applications

An 8-bit successive approximation analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with offset correction circuitry is presented for implantable sensor applications. The ADC is designed in a 0.13mum CMOS process technology and operates with voltage supplies down to 0.35 V using MOSFETs operating in their sub-threshold region of operation. Sample rates of 60kS/s are achieved with an INL and DNL of approximately 0.26LSB and 0.35LSB respectively. The SAR ADC achieves 10.7pJ/cycle operating at 20 kS/s with a 0.4 V supply. An offset correction circuit is included to dynamically minimize the offset voltage on the comparator.
Use of Nilpotent weights in Logarithmic Conformal Field Theories

We show that logarithmic conformal field theories may be derived using nilpotent scale transformation. Using such nilpotent weights we derive properties of LCFT's, such as two and three point correlation functions solely from symmetry arguments. Singular vectors and the Kac determinant may also be obtained using these nilpotent variables, hence the structure of the four point functions can also be derived. This leads to non homogeneous hypergeometric functions. Also we consider LCFT's near a boundary. Constructing "superfields" using a nilpotent variable, we show that the superfield of conformal weight zero, composed of the identity and the pseudo identity is related to a superfield of conformal dimension two, which comprises of energy momentum tensor and its logarithmic partner. This device also allows us to derive the operator product expansion for logarithmic operators. Finally we discuss the AdS/LCFT correspondence and derive some correlation functions and a BRST symmetry.
OntologyWinnowing: A Case Study on the AKT Reference Ontology

Many ontologies are built for the main purpose of representing a domain, rather than to meet the requirements of a specific application. When applications and services are deployed over an ontology, it is sometimes the case that only few parts of the ontology are queried and used. Identifying which parts of an ontology are being used could be useful for realising the necessary fragments of the ontology to run the applications. Such information could be used to winnow an ontology, i.e., simplifying or shrinking the ontology to smaller, more fit for purpose sizes. This paper presents a study on the use of the AKT reference ontology by a number of applications and services, and investigate the possibility of using this information to winnow that ontology
Human identification with electroencephalogram (EEG) signal processing

Human identification becomes huge demand in particular for the security related areas. Biometric systems can employ different kinds of features, e.g., features of fingerprint, face, iris or posture. EEG signals are the signature of neural activities. It is confidential and hard to imitate, since EEG signals are a reflection of individual-dependent inner mental tasks. It has several advantages, such as (i) it is confidential as it corresponds to a mental task, (ii) it is very difficult to mimic and (iii) it is almost impossible to steal as the brain activity is sensitive to the stress and the mood of the person, an aggressor cannot force the person to reproduce his/her mental pass-phrase. In this paper we first proposed a novel algorithm to create a spatial pattern of EEG signals obtained from the open public database. In our EEG signal processing, we have analyzed 64-electrode EEG samples for two databases, one is for 45 people and calculate the equivalent root mean square (rms) values for each electrode signal over 1 second period, by which created a 64-value input for each subject. With neural network (NN) model, our analysis showed that our designed classifier is able to identify all the 45 people correctly (successful rate of 100%) with a mean square error of 2.0334×10-7 and the same algorithm applying to the 2nd database with 116 out of 122 people can be fully identified (successful rate of 95.1%) with a mean square error value of 0.00186. We deeply believe that a low complexity, high resolution, effective and efficient is very attractive for the real life applications become true in the foreseeable future.