Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IP lookups using multiway and multicolumn search

IP address lookup is becoming critical because of increasing routing table size, speed, and traffic in the Internet. Our paper shows how binary search can be adapted for best matching prefix using two entries per prefix and by doing precomputation. Next we show how to improve the performance of any best matching prefix scheme using an initial array indexed by the first X bits of the address. We then describe how to take advantage of cache line size to do a multiway search with 6-way branching. Finally, we show how to extend the binary search solution and the multiway search solution for IPv6. For a database of N prefixes with address length W, naive binary search scheme would take O(W*logN); we show how to reduce this to O(W+logN) using multiple column binary search. Measurements using a practical (Mae-East) database of 30000 entries yield a worst case lookup time of 490 nanoseconds, five times faster than the Patricia trie scheme used in BSD UNIX. Our scheme is attractive for IPv6 because of small storage requirement (2N nodes) and speed (estimated worst case of 7 cache line reads).
Can single cIMT measurement during echocardiography affect further investigation decision for coronary artery disease?

OBJECTIVE This study was aimed to evaluate whether there is any potential role of the measurement of the carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) during the echocardiography session on decision-making to refer patients for further diagnostic evaluation such as gated myocardial perfusion imaging (gMPI). METHODS cIMT of 199 consecutive patients was measured during the echocardiography session and all patients underwent gMPI. According to gMPI results, patients were divided into two groups as CAD and normal groups and according to cIMT measurements patients were divided into four subgroups. RESULTS Although, there was a good correlation between the age and cIMT values of the patients (r=0.546, p<0.001), the correlation between the summed stress scores and the age of the patients was very weak (r=0.142, p=0.045) and the correlation between the summed stress scores and the cIMT values was very weak (r=0.107, p=0.131). The cIMT measurements of the CAD group (0.74±0.17 mm) were significantly higher than those of the normal group (0.67±0.16 mm) (p=0.012), but after the age correction, the significance between the cIMT measurements of the CAD and the normal groups was not found (p=0.131). Besides, the relationship between the categorical cIMT values of both the CAD and the normal groups was insignificant (p=0.059) and the correlation between the increasing cIMT values and the presence of detectable CAD was also very weak (r=0.187, p=0.08). CONCLUSION cIMT can predict occurrence of cardiovascular events in subjects, but single cIMT measurement during echocardiographic examination does not seem to have potential role on decision making for further investigation in patients with suspected CAD.
Motion-Dependent Filling-In of Spatiotemporal Information at the Blind Spot

We usually do not notice the blind spot, a receptor-free region on the retina. Stimuli extending through the blind spot appear filled in. However, if an object does not reach through but ends in the blind spot, it is perceived as “cut off” at the boundary. Here we show that even when there is no corresponding stimulation at opposing edges of the blind spot, well known motion-induced position shifts also extend into the blind spot and elicit a dynamic filling-in process that allows spatial structure to be extrapolated into the blind spot. We presented observers with sinusoidal gratings that drifted into or out of the blind spot, or flickered in counterphase. Gratings moving into the blind spot were perceived to be longer than those moving out of the blind spot or flickering, revealing motion-dependent filling-in. Further, observers could perceive more of a grating’s spatial structure inside the blind spot than would be predicted from simple filling-in of luminance information from the blind spot edge. This is evidence for a dynamic filling-in process that uses spatiotemporal information from the motion system to extrapolate visual percepts into the scotoma of the blind spot. Our findings also provide further support for the notion that an explicit spatial shift of topographic representations contributes to motion-induced position illusions.
Namib Desert dune/interdune transects exhibit habitat-specific edaphic bacterial communities

The sand dunes and inter-dune zones of the hyper-arid central Namib Desert represent heterogeneous soil habitats. As little is known about their indigenous edaphic bacterial communities, we aimed to evaluate their diversity and factors of assembly and hypothesized that soil physicochemistry gradients would strongly shape dune/interdune communities. We sampled a total of 125 samples from 5 parallel dune/interdune transects and characterized 21 physico-chemical edaphic parameters coupled with 16S rRNA gene bacterial community fingerprinting using T-RFLP and 454 pyrosequencing. Multivariate analyses of T-RFLP data showed significantly different bacterial communities, related to physico-chemical gradients, in four distinct dune habitats: the dune top, slope, base and interdune zones. Pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicon sets showed that each dune zone presented a unique phylogenetic profile, suggesting a high degree of environmental selection. The combined results strongly infer that habitat filtering is an important factor shaping Namib Desert dune bacterial communities, with habitat stability, soil texture and mineral and nutrient contents being the main environmental drivers of bacterial community structures.
Circular Cylindrical Shell Made of Neo-Hookean-Fung Hyperelastic Material Under Static and Dynamic Pressure

The present study is devoted to the investigation of static and dynamic behavior of the three-layered composite shell made of hyperelastic material. Such a shell can be considered as a model of human aorta. Since soft biological materials are essentially nonlinear even in the elasticity zone, not only geometrical, but also physical nonlinearity should be taken into account. The physical nonlinearity of soft biological tissues is usually modeled by certain hyperelastic law. The law chosen for this study is the combination of the NeoHookean law, which describes the isotropic response at small strains, and Fung exponential law, that models the stiff anisotropic response of the collagen fibers at larger strains. Each of three shell layers has its own hyperelastic constants set. These constants are determined basing on experiential data [1]. The straindeflection relations are modeled with higher-order shear deformation theory [2]. Initially, the shell is preloaded with static pressure. Since the defection in our study is large we use the expression for pressure as a follower load [3]. The static problem is solved with the help of the local models method [4]. Afterwards, the free and forced dynamical response of the preloaded shell is studied both in vacuo and with still fluid inside. The modes of interest are the first axisymmetric mode and mode with two half-waves in circumferential direction (so-called collapse mode). It is found that static pressure decreases the dynamic nonlinearity and it is quite weak. At the same time, the presence of fluid makes the softening nonlinearity stronger as in case of shells of conventional material [5].
Text detection: effect of size and eccentricity

The issue of reading on electronic devices is getting important as the popularity of mobile devices, such as cell phones or PDAs, increases. In this study, we used the spatial summation paradigm to measure the spatial constraints for text detection. Four types of stimuli (real characters, non-characters, Jiagu and scrambled lines) were used in the experiments. All characters we used had two components in a left-right configuration. A non-character was constructed by swapping the left and right components of a real character in position to render it unpronounceable. The Jiagu characters were ancient texts and have the same left-right configuration as the modern Chinese characters, but contain no familiar components. Thus, the non-characters keep the components while destroy the spatial configuration between them and the Jaigu characters have no familiar component while keep the spatial configuration intact. The detection thresholds for the same stimulus size and the same eccentricity were the same for all types of stimuli. When the text-size is small, the detection threshold of a character decreased with the increase in its size, with a slope of -1/2 on log-log coordinates, up to a critical size at all eccentricities and for all stimulus types. The sensitivity for all types of stimuli was increased from peripheral to central vision. In conclusion, the detectability is based on local feature analysis regardless of character types. The cortical magnification, E2, is 0.82 degree visual angle. With this information, we can estimate the detectability of a character by its size and eccentricity.
Schottky barriers : An effective work function model

The experimental observations of metallurgical interactions between compound semiconductor substrates and metallic or oxide overlayers have stimulated a new model of Fermi level "pinning" at these interfaces. This model assumes the standard Schottky picture of interface band alignment, but that the interface phases involved are not the pure metal or oxide normally assumed by other models. For both III-V and II-VI compounds, the barrier height to gold is found to correlate well with the anion work function, suggesting the interface phases are often anion rich. This correlation holds even for cases in which the "common anion rule" fails, and explains both successes and failures of this earlier modeL
Comparative Study of Refactoring Haskell and Erlang Programs

Refactoring is about changing the design of existing code without changing its behaviour, but with the aim of making code easier to understand, modify, or reuse. Taking Haskell and Erlang as examples, we investigate the application of refactoring techniques to functional programs, and building tools for supporting interactive refactoring. Although both Haskell and Erlang are general-purpose functional programming languages, they have many differences in their language design and programming idioms. As a result, program refactoring in the two languages has much in common, but also considerable differences. This paper makes this comparison, and in particular looks in more detail at the refactorings applicable in each language, the program analysis required by typical refactorings, and at tool support for refactoring Haskell and Erlang programs.
Identifying Judicial Empathy: Does Having Daughters Cause Judges to Rule for Women's Issues?

In this article, we consider whether personal relationships can affect the way that judges decide cases. To do so, we leverage the natural experiment of a child's gender to identify the effect of having daughters on the votes of judges. Using new data on the family lives of U.S. Courts of Appeals judges, we find that, conditional on the number of children a judge has, judges with daughters consistently vote in a more feminist fashion on gender issues than judges who have only sons. This result survives a number of robustness tests and appears to be driven primarily by Republican judges. More broadly, this result demonstrates that personal experiences influence how judges make decisions, and this is the first article to show that empathy may indeed be a component in how judges decide cases.
Drug treatment of epilepsy

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder. As many as 1 in 20 of the general population have a fit1 at some time in their lives, and at any one time around 200 000 people in the UK are taking antiepileptic drugs.2 On treatment at least two-thirds of patients are likely to be free of attacks1 and eventually almost two-thirds are likely to be fit-free on no medication.3 In this article we review the drugs used to control epilepsy and consider how and when they can be withdrawn.
Development of Polymer-based Gels for Multimodal Medical Imaging Phantoms

In the field of medical imaging, there have been numerous efforts to combine multiple imaging modalities such as ultrasound (US), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), x-rays and Computed Tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), ultrasound (US), and single photon emission CT. Multimodal imaging allows the fusion and analysis of various image data to provide morphological and functional information. With the progress in medical imaging technology and increased importance of quality assurance, the research in medical imaging phantom is necessary. Phantom is an anthropomorphic object that mimics the properties of human tissue for calibration, training and surgical planning purposes. This research thesis examines four different types of polymer-based materials for constructing medical phantoms: carrageenan-based polymer gel, polymer cross-linked aerogels, UVcurable silicone and self-healing polymer materials. In the first study, water-based carrageenan gel found to have a good correlation with the imaging properties of human tissue, but its long-term stability issue restricts its applicability as commercial phantoms. Since samples contained high water content, mechanical and
Predicting evolution from the shape of genealogical trees

Given a sample of genome sequences from an asexual population, can one predict its evolutionary future? Here we demonstrate that the branching patterns of reconstructed genealogical trees contains information about the relative fitness of the sampled sequences and that this information can be used to predict successful strains. Our approach is based on the assumption that evolution proceeds by accumulation of small effect mutations, does not require species specific input and can be applied to any asexual population under persistent selection pressure. We demonstrate its performance using historical data on seasonal influenza A/H3N2 virus. We predict the progenitor lineage of the upcoming influenza season with near optimal performance in 30% of cases and make informative predictions in 16 out of 19 years. Beyond providing a tool for prediction, our ability to make informative predictions implies persistent fitness variation among circulating influenza A/H3N2 viruses. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.03568. 001
Where Have all the Cycles Gone? - Investigating Runtime Overheads of OSAssisted Replication

In order to allow user-level applications tolerate transient hardware faults, we developed Romain, an operating system service that transparently replicates unmodified binary applications. While replication increases overall system reliability, it also requires additional resources and runtime. In this paper we evaluate Romain’s runtime overhead using the SPEC INT 2006 benchmark suite. With most of the benchmarks being compute-bound they lend themselves to low overhead replication and the geometric mean of their runtime overhead for triple-modular redundant execution is only 1.8%. More surprisingly, during our measurements we also encountered issues not directly related to replication. We show that improper placement of replicas to CPU cores as well as unoptimized use of memory management mechanisms can make a significant contribution to runtime overhead and discuss how Romain avoids these pitfalls. We finally use our measurement results to model how protecting the Reliable Computing Base using compiler-based fault tolerance mechanisms impacts replication overhead.
QCD-Instantons and Conformal Space-Time Inversion Symmetry

In this paper, we explore the appealing possibility that the strong suppression of large-size QCD instantons — as evident from lattice data — is due to a surviving conformal space-time inversion symmetry. This symmetry is both suggested from the striking invariance of high-quality lattice data for the instanton size distribution under inversion of the instanton size ρ → ρ2/ρ and from the known validity of space-time inversion symmetry in the classical instanton sector. We project the instanton calculus onto the four-dimensional surface of a five-dimensional sphere via conformal stereographic mapping, before investigating conformal inversion. This projection to a compact, curved geometry is both to avoid the occurence of divergences and to introduce the average instanton size ρ→ρ2/ρ from the lattice data as a new length scale. The average instanton size is identified with the radius b of this 5d-sphere and acts as the conformal inversion radius. For b = ρ, our corresponding results are almost perfectly symmetric under space-time inversion and in good qualitative agreement with the lattice data. For ρ/b → 0 we recover the familiar results of instanton perturbation theory in flat 4d-space. Moreover, we illustrate that a (weakly broken) conformal inversion symmetry would have significant consequences for QCD beyond instantons. As a further successful test for inversion symmetry, we present striking implications for another instanton dominated lattice observable, the chirality-flip ratio in the QCD vacuum.
Acute Effects of Online Mind–Body Skills Training on Resilience, Mindfulness, and Empathy

Background. Some studies have begun to show benefits of brief in-person mind–body skills training. We evaluated the effects of 1-hour online elective mind–body skills training for health professionals on mindfulness, resilience, and empathy. Methods. Between May and November, 2014, we described enrollees for the most popular 1-hour modules in a new online mind–body skills training program; compared enrollees’ baseline stress and burnout to normative samples; and assessed acute changes in mindfulness, resilience, and empathy. Results. The 513 enrollees included dietitians, nurses, physicians, social workers, clinical trainees, and health researchers; about 1/4 were trainees. The most popular modules were the following: Introduction to Stress, Resilience, and the Relaxation Response (n = 261); Autogenic Training (n = 250); Guided Imagery and Hypnosis for Pain, Insomnia, and Changing Habits (n = 112); Introduction to Mindfulness (n = 112); and Mindfulness in Daily Life (n = 102). Initially, most enrollees met threshold criteria for burnout and reported moderate to high stress levels. Completing 1-hour modules was associated with significant acute improvements in stress (P < .001), mindfulness (P < .001), empathy (P = .01), and resilience (P < .01). Conclusion. Online mind–body skills training reaches diverse, stressed health professionals and is associated with acute improvements in stress, mindfulness, empathy, and resilience. Additional research is warranted to compare the long-term cost-effectiveness of different doses of online and in-person mind–body skills training for health professionals.
Flat Feet, Happy Feet? Comparison of the Dynamic Plantar Pressure Distribution and Static Medial Foot Geometry between Malawian and Dutch Adults

In contrast to western countries, foot complaints are rare in Africa. This is remarkable, as many African adults walk many hours each day, often barefoot or with worn-out shoes. The reason why Africans can withstand such loading without developing foot complaints might be related to the way the foot is loaded. Therefore, static foot geometry and dynamic plantar pressure distribution of 77 adults from Malawi were compared to 77 adults from the Netherlands. None of the subjects had a history of foot complaints. The plantar pressure pattern as well as the Arch Index (AI) and the trajectory of the center of pressure during the stance phase were calculated and compared between both groups. Standardized pictures were taken from the feet to assess the height of the Medial Longitudinal Arch (MLA). We found that Malawian adults: (1) loaded the midfoot for a longer and the forefoot for a shorter period during roll off, (2) had significantly lower plantar pressures under the heel and a part of the forefoot, and (3) had a larger AI and a lower MLA compared to the Dutch. These findings demonstrate that differences in static foot geometry, foot loading, and roll off technique exist between the two groups. The advantage of the foot loading pattern as shown by the Malawian group is that the plantar pressure is distributed more equally over the foot. This might prevent foot complaints.
The Relevance of International Spillovers and Asymmetric Effects in the Taylor Rule

Deviations of policy interest rates from the levels implied by the Taylor rule have been persistent before the financial crisis and increased especially after the turn of the century. Compared to the Taylor benchmark, policy rates were often too low. This paper provides evidence that both international spillovers, for instance international dependencies in the interest rate-setting of central banks, and nonlinear reaction patterns can offer a more realistic specification of the Taylor rule in the main industrial countries. The inclusion of international spillovers and, even more, nonlinear dynamics improves the explanatory power of standard Taylor reaction functions. Deviations from Taylor rates tend to be smaller and their negative trend can be eliminated.
How Infants View Natural Scenes Gathered From a Head-Mounted Camera

The role of early visual experience in human infant development has been inferred primarily by studies of visual deprivation (e.g., cataracts). Another approach, described here, is to provide a detailed description of the visual input gathered by normal infants in their natural environment. Recently, several labs have begun the laborious process of obtaining video images from a head-mounted camera to provide an infant’s eye-view of their visual world. Preliminary findings from one such study are reviewed and discussed in the context of the power and limitations of this approach for revealing important insights about the role of early visual experience, as well as the broader implications for studies of cognitive, language, and social development.
Asynchronous Distributed ADMM for Large-Scale Optimization—Part I: Algorithm and Convergence Analysis

Aiming at solving large-scale optimization problems, this paper studies distributed optimization methods based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). By formulating the optimization problem as a consensus problem, the ADMM can be used to solve the consensus problem in a fully parallel fashion over a computer network with a star topology. However, traditional synchronized computation does not scale well with the problem size, as the speed of the algorithm is limited by the slowest workers. This is particularly true in a heterogeneous network where the computing nodes experience different computation and communication delays. In this paper, we propose an asynchronous distributed ADMM (AD-ADMM), which can effectively improve the time efficiency of distributed optimization. Our main interest lies in analyzing the convergence conditions of the AD-ADMM, under the popular partially asynchronous model, which is defined based on a maximum tolerable delay of the network. Specifically, by considering general and possibly non-convex cost functions, we show that the AD-ADMM is guaranteed to converge to the set of Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) points as long as the algorithm parameters are chosen appropriately according to the network delay. We further illustrate that the asynchrony of the ADMM has to be handled with care, as slightly modifying the implementation of the AD-ADMM can jeopardize the algorithm convergence, even under the standard convex setting.