Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Range-Based Test for the Parametric Form of the Volatility in Diffusion Models

We propose a new test for the parametric form of the volatility function in continuous time diffusion models of the type dXt = a(t,Xt)dt + s(t,Xt)dWt. Our approach involves a range-based estimation of the integrated volatility and the integrated quarticity, which are used to construct the test statistic. Under rather weak assumptions on the drift and volatility we prove weak convergence of the test statistic to a centered mixed Gaussian distribution. As a consequence we obtain a test, which is consistent for any fixed alternative. Moreover, we present a parametric bootstrap procedure which provides a better approximation of the distribution of the test statistic. Finally, it is demonstrated by means of Monte Carlo study that the range-based test is more powerful than the return-based test when comparing at the same sampling frequency.
Volume of Carotid Artery Ulceration as a Predictor of Cardiovascular Events

Background and Purpose— Previous studies have shown the presence of ulceration in atherosclerotic plaque either by categorizing the plaque as complex (irregular morphology with ulcers) or smooth or by quantifying the number of ulcers observed in a specific region of interest. The aim of this study was to quantify carotid total ulcer volume by 3-dimensional ultrasound to investigate the relationship of total ulcer volume to vascular events (strokes, transient ischemic attack, myocardial infarction, revascularization, or death because of cardiovascular reasons). Methods— In total, 349 at-risk subjects provided written informed consent to carotid 3-dimensional ultrasound and were analyzed for ulcerations. Ulcer volume was defined as a distinct discontinuity in an atherosclerotic plaque, with a volume ≥1.00 mm3 as measured using manual segmentation. The sum of the volumes of all ulcers seen in both carotids was the total ulcer volume. Participants were monitored for ⩽5 years for outcomes, including cardiovascular events and death. Results— Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that subjects with total ulcer volume ≥5 mm3 experienced a significantly higher risk of developing stroke, transient ischemic attack, or death (P=0.009) and of developing stroke/transient ischemic attack/death/myocardial infarction/revascularization (P=0.017). Lower ulcer volumes did not predict events nor did ulcer depth. Conclusions— Volume of carotid ulceration on 3-dimensional ultrasound predicts cardiovascular events. In addition to improving risk stratification, ulceration is a potential therapeutic target.
Dynamic power control and delay-aware forwarder selection in mostly-off WSNs

During the past decade, lifetime maximizing in wireless sensor networks was the major concern in this research area. Thus, “mostly-off” sensor nodes alternate between active and sleep states in many solutions nowadays. Unfortunately, these cycles involve strong sleep latencies which are the major limitation leading the solutions to suffer severe end-to-end delay degradation. Our objective in this paper is to investigate the delay issue in low duty-cycled WSN. We propose a delay-aware mechanism where each node having packets to send must choose a forwarder whose next active slot is the closest. Besides, we combine power controlled unicast transmissions with dynamic forwarder selection to better bound the communication delay and save energy. Through extensive simulations, we examine the performance of our design under different configurations and show how it outperforms the traditional routing schemes such as shortest-path algorithm.
Sparse Representation for Gaussian Process Models

We develop an approach for a sparse representation for Gaussian Process (GP) models in order to overcome the limitations of GPs caused by large data sets. The method is based on a combination of a Bayesian online algorithm together with a sequential construction of a relevant subsample of the data which fully specifies the prediction of the model. Experimental results on toy examples and large real-world data sets indicate the efficiency of the approach.
Stiction of parylene C to silicon surface measured using blister tests

Micro-fabricated biocompatible check valves are integral parts of many implantable micro-fluidic devices. The cracking pressure of check valves is usually controlled by stiction between polymeric films and the underlying substrate. The following paper presents the first comprehensive study of stiction between parylene and silicon surfaces. The valves are fabricated using surface micromachining with parylene C as the structural material. Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) is used to create through holes in the wafer for the passage of fluids. Blister test is employed to calculate stiction. From experimental results, stiction between parylene C and silicon surfaces is found to be 2.59 J/m2, which is comparable to the stiction between silicon and other polymeric thin films.
DEVELOPMENT OF NON-CONTACT CAPACITIVE COUPLED ELECTRODES FOR BIO-POTENTIAL SIGNAL ACQUISITION

Patient monitoring is one of the challenging and significant tasks in healthcare sector. Generally bio-potential electrodes are used to extract low amplitude physiological signals from the human body and for continuous healthcare monitoring of patients in hospital. The conventional wet electrodes provide an optimal signal, but it needs skin preparation and the application of electrolytic gel before attaching electrodes to the skin surface. The gel becomes dry after some time and is uncomfortable for wearable applications. The limitations faced in wet electrodes can be set aside by a new class of electrodes which can be coupled to the skin without any contact using capacitive coupling effect. The proposed type of electrodes can be easily mounted on to a patient clothing to create a nonintrusive wearable bio-potential recording apparatus. An impedance matching circuit with bootstrap technique is used for developing non-contact electrodes based data acquisition system. Hence the aim of the project is to design a non-contact capacitive coupled electrode with suitable amplifying circuit and signal conditioning for wearable or ambulatory based bio-potential acquisition system.
Adhesion and friction in gecko toe attachment and detachment

Geckos can run rapidly on walls and ceilings, requiring high friction forces (on walls) and adhesion forces (on ceilings), with typical step intervals of ≈20 ms. The rapid switching between gecko foot attachment and detachment is analyzed theoretically based on a tape model that incorporates the adhesion and friction forces originating from the van der Waals forces between the submicron-sized spatulae and the substrate, which are controlled by the (macroscopic) actions of the gecko toes. The pulling force of a spatula along its shaft with an angle θ between 0 and 90° to the substrate, has a “normal adhesion force” contribution, produced at the spatula-substrate bifurcation zone, and a “lateral friction force” contribution from the part of spatula still in contact with the substrate. High net friction and adhesion forces on the whole gecko are obtained by rolling down and gripping the toes inward to realize small pulling angles θ between the large number of spatulae in contact with the substrate. To detach, the high adhesion/friction is rapidly reduced to a very low value by rolling the toes upward and backward, which, mediated by the lever function of the setal shaft, peels the spatulae off perpendicularly from the substrates. By these mechanisms, both the adhesion and friction forces of geckos can be changed over three orders of magnitude, allowing for the swift attachment and detachment during gecko motion. The results have obvious implications for the fabrication of dry adhesives and robotic systems inspired by the gecko's locomotion mechanism.
A-SCORE: Automatic software component recommendation using coding context

Reusing software components (e.g. classes or modules) improves software quality and developer's productivity. Unfortunately, developers may miss many reusing opportunities since current keyword based component search systems cannot provide reusable components if the developers do not use them. This paper proposes a new automatic component recommendation system which supports various usage scenarios and procedures for component reuse.
Towards Annotating Media Contents through Social Diffusion Analysis

Recently, the boom of media contents on the Internet raises challenges in managing them effectively and thus requires automatic media annotation techniques. Motivated by the observation that media contents are usually shared frequently in online communities and thus have a lot of social diffusion records, we propose a novel media annotating approach depending on these social diffusion records instead of metadata. The basic assumption is that the social diffusion records reflect the common interests (CI) between users, which can be analyzed for generating annotations. With this assumption, we present a novel CI-based social diffusion model and translate the automatic annotating task into the CI-based diffusion maximization (CIDM) problem. Moreover, we propose to solve the CIDM problem through two optimization tasks, corresponding to the training and test stages in supervised learning. Extensive experiments on real-world data sets show that our approach can effectively generate high quality annotations, and thus demonstrate the capability of social diffusion analysis in annotating media.
MicroRNA Profiling Can Classify Acute Leukemias of Ambiguous Lineage as Either Acute Myeloid Leukemia or Acute Lymphoid Leukemia

Purpose: Classification of acute leukemia is based on the commitment of leukemic cells to the myeloid or the lymphoid lineage. However, a small percentage of acute leukemia cases lack straightforward immunophenotypical lineage commitment. These leukemias of ambiguous lineage represent a heterogeneous category of acute leukemia that cannot be classified as either acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL). The lack of clear classification of acute leukemias of ambiguous lineage as either AML or ALL is a hurdle in treatment choice for these patients. Experimental Design: Here, we compared the microRNA (miRNA) expression profiles of 17 cases with acute leukemia of ambiguous lineage and 16 cases of AML, B-cell acute lymphoid leukemia (B-ALL), and T-cell acute lymphoid leukemia (T-ALL). Results: We show that leukemias of ambiguous lineage do not segregate as a separate entity but exhibit miRNA expression profiles similar to AML, B-ALL, or T-ALL. We show that by using only 5 of the most lineage-discriminative miRNAs, we are able to define acute leukemia of ambiguous lineage as either AML or ALL. Conclusion: Our results indicate the presence of a myeloid or lymphoid lineage-specific genotype, as reflected by miRNA expression, in these acute leukemias despite their ambiguous immunophenotype. miRNA-based classification of acute leukemia of ambiguous lineage might be of additional value in therapeutic decision making. Clin Cancer Res; 19(8); 2187–96. ©2013 AACR.
Speech and multimodal interaction in mobile search

This tutorial highlights the characteristics of mobile search comparing with its desktop counterpart, reviews the state of art technologies of speech-based mobile search, and presents opportunities for exploiting multimodal interaction to optimize the efficiency of mobile search. It is suitable for students, researchers and practitioners working in the areas of spoken language processing, multimodal and search with an emphasis on a synergistic integration of these technologies for applications on mobile devices. We will provide detailed bibliography and sufficient literature for everyone interested to jumpstart work on this topic
Automatic structures

We study definability and complexity issues for automatic and /spl omega/-automatic structures. These are, in general, infinite structures but they can be finitely presented by a collection of automata. Moreover they admit effective (in fact automatic) evaluation of all first-order queries. Therefore, automatic structures provide an interesting framework for extending many algorithmic and logical methods from finite structures to infinite ones. We explain the notion of (/spl omega/-)automatic structures, give examples, and discuss the relationship to automatic groups. We determine the complexity of model checking and query evaluation on automatic structures for fragments of first-order logic. Further we study closure properties and definability issues on automatic structures and present a technique for proving that a structure is not automatic. We give model-theoretic characterisations for automatic structures via interpretations. Finally we discuss the composition theory of automatic structures and prove that they are closed under finitary Feferman-Vaught-like products.
Ascorbate Restores Endothelium-Dependent Vasodilation Impaired by Acute Hyperglycemia in Humans

BackgroundEndothelium-dependent vasodilation is impaired in patients with insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and restored by vitamin C administration, implicating a causative role for oxidant stress. Hyperglycemia per se attenuates endothelium-dependent vasodilation in healthy subjects. Accordingly, this study investigated whether impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilation caused by hyperglycemia in nondiabetic humans is restored by administration of the antioxidant vitamin C. Methods and ResultsEndothelium-dependent vasodilation was measured by incremental brachial artery administration of methacholine chloride (0.3 to 10 &mgr;g/min) during euglycemia, after 6 hours of hyperglycemia (300 mg/dL) created by dextrose (50%) intra-arterial infusion, and with coadministration of vitamin C (24 mg/min) during hyperglycemia. Endothelium-dependent vasodilation was significantly diminished by hyperglycemia (P =0.02 by ANOVA) and restored by vitamin C (P =0.04). In contrast, endothelium-dependent vasodilation was not affected by equimolar infusions of mannitol, with and without vitamin C coinfusion (P =NS). Endothelium-independent vasodilation was measured by incremental infusion of verapamil chloride (10 to 300 &mgr;g/min) without and with coadministration of NG-monomethyl-l-arginine (L-NMMA). In the absence of L-NMMA, endothelium-independent vasodilation was not significantly altered during hyperglycemia (P =NS) but was augmented by vitamin C (P =0.04). The coadministration of L-NMMA eliminated the vitamin C-related augmentation in verapamil-mediated vasodilation. ConclusionsVitamin C administration restores endothelium-dependent vasodilation impaired by acute hyperglycemia in healthy humans in vivo. These findings suggest that hyperglycemia may contribute in part to impaired vascular function through production of superoxide anion.
A New Wavelet Based Multi-focus Image Fusion Scheme and Its Application on Optical Microscopy

Multi-focus image fusion is a process of combining two or more partially defocused images into a new image with all interested objects sharply imaged. In this paper, after reviewing the multi-focus image fusion techniques, a wavelet based fusion scheme with new image activity level measurement is presented. The proposed multi-resolution image fusion technique includes three steps: first, multi-resolution discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is applied to obtain the wavelet coefficients of the source images. Then, applying proposed coefficients fusion scheme to the obtained coefficients, the wavelet coefficients of the fusion image are reconstructed. Finally, the final fusion image is generated by applying inversed wavelet transform. In experiments, artificial defocused images (by applying low-pass filter to the specified regions) are utilized to investigate the performance of proposed scheme and to select suitable wavelet family and wavelet decomposition scales. Then we apply the proposed image fusion scheme to optical microscopy domain to solve the short depth of focus characteristic of optical microscope. The experiments results verify the validity of the proposed multi-focus image fusion scheme.
Restorative Effect of Vitamin E on some Immunological Parameters of Sub-Lethal γ-Irradiated BALB/c Mice

Elevated amount of the free radicals due to ionizing radiation causes deterio rating damage on immune system. Therefore, we made attempts to investigate the protective effect of vitamin E (vit -E), a biological antioxidant in BALB/c mice, so as to find an affordable prophylactic supplementation for individuals who are at risk. Several groups of mice were selected and exposed to sub -lethal γ-irradiation with or without vit-E supplementation. At the end of exposure, mice were immunized by either live attenuated Brucella melitensis vaccine or sheep red blood cell (SRBC). Consequently, the following parameters were assayed: specific antibody response, delayed type hypersensitivity and lymphocyte proliferation. We showed that vit-E supplementation restored the immune response in γ-irradiated mice. These findings might have implications for individuals who are at risk of exposure to ionizing radiation. Iran. Biomed. J. 4: 51-55, 2000
Virtual Community Detection Through the Association between Prime Nodes in Online Social Networks and Its Application to Ranking Algorithms

Existing studies have contributed immensely to link prediction by identifying different types of network communities. In this paper, a new type of network community in online social networks (OSNs) is identified using the association between network nodes. This new network community is called “virtual community. ” Virtual communities are based on either the real/ physical relationships of users that are connected to their constituency, social, and professional activities or their virtual interactions associated with their cognitive levels, choice selection, and ideology. Users belonging to the same virtual community exhibit similar behavior in linking to nodes of common interest. These nodes, which reflect the common interest of a community, are called “prime nodes. ” Prime nodes are linked to the prediction problem in OSN completion and are generally recommended for OSN growth. Recent studies on ranking algorithms have shown that the incompleteness of OSNs contributes to the low accuracy of ranking algorithms in identifying top spreaders. Thus, in this paper, we propose an OSN completion method based on link prediction through association between prime nodes. An experiment on predicting new links in two real big data sets of two global OSNs, namely, Facebook and Twitter, is conducted. The effectiveness of the proposed method is also validated by applying prominent ranking algorithms to the newly predicted and original networks. Results show that the accuracy rates of the ranking algorithms are improved, thereby validating the importance of the proposed method in predicting vital links.
Implementing Hardware Multithreading in a VLIW Architecture

Hardware multithreading is a well-known technique to increase the utilization of processor resources. However, most studies have focused on superscalar processor organizations. This paper analyzes which type of hardware multithreading is most suitable for a VLIW architecture and proposes two buffers to increase the efficiency of hardware multithreading. An important goal of our work is that no software changes should be necessary so that legacy code can be executed without change. In order to achieve this we show that there must be a maximum amount of time a hardware thread may be active. The experimental results show that the implemented technique attains a maximum speedup of 27% compared to the single-threaded VLIW processor.
Effectiveness of the Power Dry-Land Training Programmes in Youth Swimmers

Effectiveness of the Power Dry-Land Training Programmes in Youth Swimmers The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of the dry-land power training on swimming force, swimming performance and strength in youth swimmers. Twenty six male swimmers, free from injuries and training regularly at least 6 times a week, were enrolled in the study and randomly assigned to one of two groups: experimental (n=14, mean age 14.0 ± 0.5 yrs, mean height 1.67±0.08 m and mean body mass 55.71 ±9.55 kg) and control (n=12, mean age 14.1 ± 0.5 yrs, mean height 1.61±0.11 m and mean body mass 49.07 ±8.25 kg). The experimental group took part in a combined swimming and dry-land power training. The control group took part in swimming training only. The training programmes in water included a dominant aerobic work in front crawl. In this research the experimental group tended to present slightly greater improvements in sprint performance. However, the stroke frequency insignificantly decreased (-4.30%, p>0.05) in the experimental group and increased (6.28%, p>0.05) in the control group. The distance per stroke insignificantly increased in the experimental group (5.98%, p>0.05) and insignificantly decreased in the control group (-5.36%, p>0.05). A significant improvement of tethered swimming force for the experimental group (9.64%, p<0.02) was found, whereas the increase was not statistically significant in the control group (2.86%, p>0.05). The main data cannot clearly state that power training allowed an enhancement in swimming performance, although a tendency to improve swimming performance in tethered swimming was noticed.
Distributed beamforming in OFDM-based systems over frequency-selective channels

Earlier publications on distributed beamforming have discussed only single carrier systems. Because orthogonal frequency division multiplexing has several advantages over single-carrier modulation in wideband systems, a logical direction of research is to investigate how such algorithm performs with OFDM. In this paper, we present a modified and further optimized version of a recently proposed distributed beamforming algorithm and incorporate it to a system using OFDM. The functionality of the algorithm is verified in simulations using realistic, frequency-selective channels. Based on extensive simulation studies, we recommend specific parameter values for the beamforming algorithm with the aims of maximizing the speed of convergence and asymptotic received power, and minimizing the amount of feedback required.
Phylogenetic Analysis of the Endoribonuclease Dicer Family

Dicers are proteins of the ribonuclease III family with the ability to process dsRNA, involved in regulation of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Dicers are conserved from basal metazoans to higher metazoans and contain a number of functional domains that interact with dsRNA. The completed genome sequences of over 34 invertebrate species allowed us to systematically investigate Dicer genes over a diverse range of phyla. The majority of invertebrate Dicers clearly fell into the Dicer1 or Dicer2 subfamilies. Most nematodes possessed only one Dicer gene, a member of the Dicer1 subfamily, whereas two Dicer genes (Dicer1 and Dicer2) were present in all platyhelminths surveyed. Analysis of the key domains showed that a 5′ pocket was conserved across members of the Dicer1 subfamily, with the exception of the nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus. Interestingly, Nematostella vectensis DicerB grouped into Dicer2 subfamily harbored a 5′ pocket, which is commonly present in Dicer1. Similarly, the 3′ pocket was also found to be conserved in all Dicer proteins with the exceptions of Schmidtea mediterranea Dicer2 and Trichoplax adherens Dicer A. The loss of catalytic residues in the RNase III domain was noted in platyhelminths and cnidarians, and the ‘ball’ and ‘socket’ junction between two RNase III domains in platyhelminth Dicers was different from the canonical junction, suggesting the possibility of different conformations. The present data suggest that Dicers might have duplicated and diversified independently, and have evolved for various functions in invertebrates.