Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reconfigurable Cache Implemented on an FPGA

Cache memory is a common structure in computer system and has an important role in microprocessor performance. A relationship between the performance of particular algorithm and main cache parameters such as associativity, number of words per block and cache size has been demonstrated. In this paper, we propose a reconfigurable cache with several working modes. The cache was physically implemented on an FPGA, connected to an embedded processor and tested for different algorithms, profiting the configuration facilities of these devices. A test platform was also developed. We report some performance parameters of interest.
Diabetes and Retinal Vascular Dysfunction

Diabetes predominantly affects the microvascular circulation of the retina resulting in a range of structural changes unique to this tissue. These changes ultimately lead to altered permeability, hyperproliferation of endothelial cells and edema, and abnormal vascularization of the retina with resulting loss of vision. Enhanced production of inflammatory mediators and oxidative stress are primary insults with significant contribution to the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy (DR). We have determined the identity of the retinal vascular cells affected by hyperglycemia, and have delineated the cell autonomous impact of high glucose on function of these cells. We discuss some of the high glucose specific changes in retinal vascular cells and their contribution to retinal vascular dysfunction. This knowledge provides novel insight into the molecular and cellular defects contributing to the development and progression of diabetic retinopathy, and will aid in the development of innovative, as well as target specific therapeutic approaches for prevention and treatment of DR.
Using Simulated Annealing for k-anonymity

In this note, we describe a method of simulated annealing for producing k-anonymity. For analytic purposes, there is no reason to expect that the method will be superior or worse than the method of applying genetic algorithms used by Iyengar (2002). The main appeal of simulated annealing is the amount of control it allows of the microaggregation process. The k-anonymity problem is known to be NP complete.
Signal Acquisition from Measurements via Non-Linear Models

We consider the problem of reconstruction of a non-linear finite-parametric model $M=M_p(x),$ with $p=(p_1,.,p_r)$ a set of parameters, from a set of measurements $\mu_j(M)$. In this paper $\mu_j(M)$ are always the moments $m_j(M)=\int x^jM_p(x)dx$. This problem is a central one in Signal Processing, Statistics, and in many other applications. We concentrate on a direct (and somewhat "naive") approach to the above problem: we simply substitute the model function $M_p(x)$ into the measurements $\mu_j$ and compute explicitly the resulting "symbolic" expressions of $\mu_j(M_p)$ in terms of the parameters $p$. Equating these "symbolic" expressions to the actual measurement results, we produce a system of nonlinear equations on the parameters $p$, which we consequently try to solve. The aim of this paper is to review some recent results (mostly of \cite{Vet5,Mil1,Mil2,Put1,Vet4,Vet3,Mil3,Mil4,Vet2}) in this direction, stressing the algebraic structure of the arising systems and mathematical tools required for their solutions. In particular, we discuss the relation of the reconstruction problem above with the recent results of \cite{bfy,bry,chr,pak1,pak2,pak3,pry,ry} on the vanishing problem of generalized polynomial moments and on the Cauchy-type integrals of algebraic functions. The accompanying paper \cite{Kis1} (this volume) provides a solution method for a wide class of reconstruction problems as above, based on the study of linear differential equations with rational coefficient, which are satisfied by the moment generating function of the problem.
Assessment of Image Quality Technics: A Comparative Study

Now days images are used in many other fields. Image processing is a method to convert an image into digital form and perform some operations on it, and get an enhanced image or to extract some useful information from image. Quality of an image plays fundamental role to take important decision and therefore, its assessment is essential prior to application. The objective approaches of image quality assessment play an important role for the development of compression standards and various multimedia applications. The Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix method represents a highly efficient technique of extracting second order statistical texture features and to extract the textural features of an image. GLCM method is proposed to extract the textural features of an image. SSIM method has nice performance in optical image quality assessment. SSIM combines the image gray intensity with textural features to measure the image structural information. These methods are used to predict the visual quality by comparing a distorted image against a reference image. In this paper we are study the different approaches of image quality assessment.
An assessment of the cord blood:maternal blood methylmercury ratio: implications for risk assessment.

In the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reference dose (RfD) for methylmercury, the one-compartment pharmacokinetic model is used to convert fetal cord blood mercury (Hg) concentration to a maternal intake dose. This requires a ratio relating cord blood Hg concentration to maternal blood Hg concentration. No formal analysis of either the central tendency or variability of this ratio has been done. This variability contributes to the overall variability in the dose estimate. A ratio of 1.0 is implicitly used in the model, but an uncertainty factor adjustment is applied to the central tendency estimate of dose to address variability in that estimate. Thus, incorporation of the cord:maternal ratio and its variability into the estimate of intake dose could result in a significant change in the value of the RfD. We analyzed studies providing data on the cord:maternal blood Hg ratio and conducted a Monte Carlo-based meta-analysis of 10 studies meeting all inclusion criteria to generate a comprehensive estimate of the central tendency and variability of the ratio. This analysis results in a recommended central tendency estimate of 1.7, a coefficient of variation of 0.56, and a 95th percentile of 3.4. By analogy to the impact of the similar hair:blood Hg ratio on the overall variability in the dose estimate, incorporation of the cord:maternal ratio may support a 3-fold uncertainty factor adjustment to the central tendency estimate of dose to account for pharmacokinetic variability. Whether the information generated in this analysis is sufficient to warrant a revision to the RfD will depend on the outcome of a comprehensive reanalysis of the entire one-compartment model. We are currently engaged in such an analysis.
A Domain Specific Language for the Development of Collaborative Systems

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are high level languages defined for combining expressivity and simplicity by means of constructs which are close to the problem domain and distant from the intricacies of underlying software implementation constraints. This paper presents a language to graphically document the analysis and design decisions embodied in collaborative system development. The language was designed as a conservative extension of the UML and it enables the application of the MDD approach to the development of such systems.
Effects of Adolescent Caffeine Consumption on Addictive Behaviors in Adulthood

Caffeine is found in a variety of beverages such as soda, coffee, and tea, which are consumed by many people on a daily basis. Because of how commonly caffeine is consumed, it is important to discover the effects adolescent caffeine consumption may have on adult addiction behaviors. A rat model was used to explore the potential effects of adolescent caffeine consumption. Rats consumed caffeine during their adolescent period and underwent behavioral tests in adulthood to assess whether they displayed behaviors associated with enhanced vulnerability to drug addiction. Behavioral tests used to assess addictive behaviors in adulthood included drug self-administration (SA) and a Pavlovian Conditioned Approach (PCA) task. Our findings show that rats that consume caffeine during adolescence self-administer cocaine in adulthood at a higher rate than controls. Rats consuming caffeine during adolescence also have a higher breakpoint for cocaine self-administration in adulthood than controls, indicating that adolescent caffeine consumption increases motivation for drug taking. We also found that a greater percentage of rats consuming caffeine during early adolescence displayed “sign-tracking” behaviors during the PCA task that has been associated with altered dopamine signaling and correlated with increased drug self-administration. While the results were not as clear, a similar trend was also seen in rats that consumed caffeine during their late adolescent period. Overall, these findings illustrate that adolescent caffeine consumption enhances addictive behaviors in adulthood.
An efficient power-saving protocol for internet traffic in wireless LANs

The main factor of wireless systems, such as Wire- less LAN, is battery-powered terminal, so energy-efficient MAC protocol should be used. The IEEE 802.11 standard adopts Power-saving mechanism in MAC protocol and two kinds of power-conserving mechanism that conform to the standard can be implemented, each of which has advantages and disad- vantages. We analyze the two schemes and propose a hybrid mechanism that is suitable for the current Internet environment. The proposed mechanism reflects the strong points of both schemes. Simulations are done in the heavy and light traffic environments.
Dimethoate Induced Behavioural Changes in Juveniles of Cyprinus carpio var. communis under Temperate Conditions of Kashmir, India

The present study was designed to investigate acute toxicity of dimethoate on juvenile Cyprinus carpio var. communis. Fishes weighing 10 ± 2 gms were selected and mortality data was statistically evaluated by Finney's Probit Method. The 96-hour LC50 value for Cyprinus carpio was found as 1.1 ppm in static bioassay system. Mean values of physicochemical parameters of aquarium waters determined during bioassay depicted slight variation indicating that the mortality in aquarium fishes occurred due to pesticide exposure and not suffocation. Lab. temperature ranged from 12 to 13°C; water temperature ranged from 11 to 12°C; dissolved oxygen ranged from 3.90 to 4.56 mg/L; pH ranged from 6.90 to 7.05; total dissolved solids ranged from 2.66 to 3.0 × 103 mg/L, while CO2 remained at a constant value of 2.0 mg/L. The fishes elicited various behavioural responses such as uncoordinated movements, convulsions, excessive mucus secretion, and imbalanced swimming which ended in a collapse to the bottom of the aquarium. Prior to death, the clinical signs like scale erosion, pale body colour, and hemorrhagic patches over the body were noticed which became more vivid up to the termination of experiments. Results of the study indicate potential toxicity of dimethoate in fingerlings of common carp for which the natural waterbodies must be continuously monitored to reduce its impact across food chains.
Hydration state of the Martian surface as seen by Mars Express OMEGA: 2. H2O content of the surface

[1] Visible-near infrared reflectance spectra acquired by the Mars Express Observatoire pour la Mineralogie, l'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activite (OMEGA) spectrometer are used to estimate the absolute water content within the uppermost fraction of the Martian regolith. This upper surface layer represents the boundary between the regolith and atmosphere; thus the amount of water stored in these two reservoirs and at this boundary is expected to vary spatially and temporally with changing equilibrium conditions. We have applied models derived from laboratory experiments relating the strength of the 3 μm hydration feature to absolute water content to OMEGA spectra acquired during the first ∼1200 orbits of the Mars Express mission to estimate the H2O content of the Martian surface. Three methods were used to examine the strength of the 3 μm absorption: integrated band depth, apparent absorbance, and the effective single-particle absorption-thickness (ESPAT) parameter. Integrated band depth and apparent absorbance values are correlated to albedo when derived from reflectance spectra, implying that bright regions are more hydrated than dark regions. The ESPAT parameter, however, relies on single scattering albedo instead of reflectance and is capable of estimating absolute water content within ±1 wt. % H2O for a wide range of albedo values, compositions, and particle sizes. Applying this model to the OMEGA data reveals that bright and dark regions commonly have similar water contents in equatorial regions and the largest spatial variations in H2O occur as a function of latitude. Equatorial regions exhibit water contents in the range of ∼2–5 wt. %, whereas latitudes higher than ∼45°N are characterized by a continuous increase in H2O with latitude from ∼5–15 wt. %. Phyllosilicate and sulfate bearing terrains are more hydrated than average bright and dark regions and their locations are in widely separated areas of Noachian-aged material, suggesting chemical alteration by water-rock interaction may have been spatially extensive in the early history of Mars.
Automatic testing tool for Java ADTS

ABSTRACT The inherent properties of Abstract Data types are a good basis for systematic testing and for decoupling design and development of software. We propose checking the implementation of Java Classes for Abstract Data Types using the Java Class Interface Definition and an Oracle of Test Cases that specify expected results. This task is performed by a software tool proving for automatic Unit Testing. KEYWORDS object-oriented software testing, unit testing, abstract data types 1. INTRODUCTION It has been known for several decades that Testing software is a critical and very costly activity in the software development process. It is a tedious task that people feel reluctant to perform, specially under time pressure. It is, therefore, important to automate the process of testing to encourage its practice. Particularly, regression testing can be achieved using automatic tools that will keep track of all tests cases and will launch all of them whenever a new test should take place following software modifications. We support the usage of Abstract Data Types (ADTs) as building modules for constructing software systems. This is the basis for supporting the principle of “information hiding” [8], effective software maintenance and the participation of different teams for the design and development activities. For similar reasons, in our approach, testing does not exist by itself and it is not based on code internals because we believe it limits tests reutilization as code changes thus making testing an even more stressing task. Testing should be therefore, tightly related to the design methodology: ADTs, and whenever possible, test should check an implementation against its specifications. There are some important efforts to process formal axiomatic specifications of ADTs and check its implementation during execution, i.e. using term rewriting techniques [3]. The benefit of these kind of approaches is that the specification itself acts as an “Oracle” for the tests, without needing test cases design. But it also requires a very knowledgeable team of software engineers to make it, and a quite exceptional environment of use. Our approach requires human design of test cases and it may be more tolerant and flexible in the axiomatics required for the specification of the ADTs, so we believe it is potentially usable for people who should have a level of expertise we could expect to find in industrial or commercial sectors. The ideas around this testing tool and some previous implementations come from the authors experience in the 80's [11] and 90's while developing software in industrial environments. The current ongoing implementation targets for Java classes, as this language is becoming very popular and it has some special features that can be advantageous for the methodology the tool is based upon.
Parenting Skills and Emotional Availability: An RCT

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether a responsive stimulation intervention delivered to caregivers of young children either alone or integrated with nutrition interventions would benefit parenting skills and emotional availability to promote children’s development and growth compared with either a nutrition intervention alone or the usual standard of care. METHODS: A cluster randomized factorial effectiveness trial was implemented in an impoverished community in Pakistan. The 4 trial arms were control (usual standard of care), responsive stimulation (responsive care and stimulation), enhanced nutrition (education and multiple micronutrients), and a combination of both enriched interventions. The 4 intervention packages were delivered by community health workers to 1489 mother–infant dyads in the first 2 years of life. Parenting skills and emotional availability indexed by mother–child interaction, caregiving environment, knowledge and practices pertaining to early childhood care and feeding, and maternal depressive symptoms were assessed at multiple intervals. An intention-to-treat factorial analysis was conducted. RESULTS: Intervention groups were comparable at baseline. Responsive stimulation significantly benefitted parenting skills with large effect sizes on mother–child interaction (Cohen’s d 0.8), caregiving environment (Cohen’s d 0.9–1.0), and knowledge and practices (Cohen’s d 0.7–1.1) compared with small-modest significant effects as a result of nutrition intervention on mother–child interaction and caregiving environment only (Cohen’s d 0.4 and 0.2, respectively). The combined intervention had a small significant effect on decreasing maternal depressive symptoms over time (Cohen’s d 0–0.2). CONCLUSIONS: A responsive stimulation intervention can promote positive caregiving behaviors among impoverished families. Additional research is needed on interventions to reduce maternal depressive symptoms.
Dynamic Aspects of Public Goods: A Further Analysis of the Telephone System

This paper reconsiders a dynamic model of the telephone system developed by Artle and Averous, which for the first time introduces public goods in a dynamic framework. With a more restrictive set of assumptions, their proposition showing self-sustaining growth in the demand for telephones is restated and discussed in detail. Comparative statics of the model are discussed to illuminate further properties which are due to the public good characteristics of the telephone system. Alternative interpretations of the dynamics of the model are given. Finally, a paradigm of urban growth is given to suggest applications of this type of model to other areas of economic analysis.
Enhance Polarity Classification on Social Media through Sentiment-based Feature Expansion

Online social networking communities usually exhibit complex collective behaviors. Since emotions play a relevant role in human decision making, understanding how online networks drive human mood states become a task of considerable interest. One of the most relevant task in Sentiment Analysis is Polarity Classification, aimed at classifying the sentiment behind texts. We formulated different assumptions regarding which patterns within a message can be relevant sentiment indicators. Differently from well-formed texts, messages on social networks contain emoticons which could be strong sentiment indicators. For this, the first assumption states that the occurrences of emoticons representing a certain polarity could strongly agree with the overall message polarity. We then expanded the feature space including initialisms for emphatic and onomatopoeic expressions (e.g. bleh, wow, etc.) and “stretched words” (words with a letter repeated several times to emphasize a mood), extensively used in social media messages, because they could be useful information to help in determining the sentiment. Detailed analyses have been performed in order to support our assumptions. Four Machine Learning (supervised) classifiers are applied upon the expanded feature space model. Several experiments show that the considered features lead to increments of accuracy up to 5%.
Representing Attitudes as Sets of Frames

A general framework for representing continuous sets of frames with the unit quaternion representation is presented. The determination and control of the attitude of a rigid body is important in a wide range of applications and has been given much attention in the control community. Not always, however, must the desired attitude be restricted to one given orientation, but can be given as a discrete or continuous set of orientations subject to some restriction. An attitude can be represented by the four-parameter unit quaternion without the presence of singularities. It is shown how continuous sets of frames can be described by the unit quaternion representation. It is also shown how this set can be reorientated into an arbitrary coordinate system by the quaternion product. Some work is done on finding the attitude that is closest to the desired orientation when the desired orientation is out of reach due to some restriction on the allowed orientations or rotations.
Loss Aversion and Welfare Economics

A volume of recent experimental evidence suggests that individual preferences may not be independent of the consumer's vantage point. In particular agents may suffer from loss aversion (also known as the endowment effect and status quo bias). Allocations which appear desirable ex ante may therefore not be so ex post which poses considerable problems for the traditional propositions of welfare economics.
Forecasting stock prices using sentiment information in annual reports - A neural network and support vector regression approach

Predikce cen akcii je větsinou realizovana s využitim kvantitativni informace. Nedavne studie vsak demonstruji, že informace o sentimentu skryta ve výrocnich zpravach podniků může být uspěsně využita při predikci kratkodobých akciových výnosů. Metody soft computingu, jako jsou neuronove sitě a podpůrna vektorova regrese, ukazaly slibne výsledky v predikci cen akcii, neboť jsou schopny modelovat komplexni nelinearni systemy. V tomto clanku je aplikovano několik modelů neuronových siti a podpůrných vektorových regresi s cilem predikce rocnich změn cen akci amerických firem. Ukazujeme, že tyto modely pracuji s vyssi přesnosti než linearni regresni modely, obzvlastě při využiti informace o sentimentu. Změna v sentimentu výrocnich zprav se zda být důležitý determinant dlouhodobe změny ceny akcie. Konkretně jsou to kategorie slov negativni a neurcitosti, ktere byly pro predikci klicove. Rentabilita a technicka analýza vykazala take významný dlouhodobý efekt.
Still image compression using Curvelets and logarithmic scalar quantization technique

The remarkable development in the field of information technology and the diversity of multimedia applications in recent years imply the development of more efficient image compression techniques to improve the data transmission and storage capacity. The recent researches showed that classical wavelets are not able to exploit optimally the geometric regularities along the contours and edges of objects. We propose in this work, a new compression method based on geometric wavelets called Curvelets, associated with a logarithmic scalar quantization technique, to improve the compression performances compared to that of classical wavelets, in terms of image quality and compression rate (PSNR and CR). This method gave encouraging results with interesting perspectives.