Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pre-virtualization: Slashing the cost of virtualization

Despite its current popularity, para-virtualization has an enormous cost. Its diversion from the platform architecture abandons many of the benefits that come with pure virtualization (the faithful emulation of the platform API): stable and well-defined platform interfaces, single binaries for kernel and device drivers (and thus lower testing, maintenance, and support cost), and vendor independence. These limitations are accepted as inevitable for significantly better performance and the ability to provide virtualization-like behavior on non-virtualizable hardware, such as x86. We argue that the above limitations are not inevitable, and present pre-virtualization, which preserves the benefits of full virtualization without sacrificing the performance benefits of para-virtualization. In a semi-automatic step an OS is prepared for virtualization. The required modifications are orders of magnitudes smaller than for paravirtualization. A virtualization module, that is collocated with the guest OS, transforms the standard platform API into the respective hypervisor API. The guest OS is still programmed against a common architecture, and the binary remains fully functional on bare hardware. The support of a new hypervisor or updated interface only requires the implementation of a single interface mapping. We validated our approach for a variety of hypervisors, on two very different hardware platforms (x86 and Itanium), with multiple generations of Linux as guests. We found that previrtualization achieves essentially the same performance as para-virtualization, at a fraction of the engineering cost.
Non-linear pre-coding for MIMO multi-user downlink transmissions with different QoS requirements

An efficient non-linear pre-filtering technique based on Tomlinson-Harashima pre-coding (THP) has recently been proposed by Liu and Krzymien for multiple antenna multi-user systems. The algorithm is based on the Zero-Forcing (ZF) criterion and assumes a number of transmit antennas equals to the number of active users. In contrast to other methods, it ensures a fair treatment of the active users providing them the same signal-to-noise ratio. In multimedia applications, however, several types of information with different quality-of-service (QoS) must be supported. Motivated by the above problem, in the present work we design a ZF THP-based pre-filtering algorithm for multiple antenna multi-user networks in which the base station allocates the transmit power according to the QoS requirement of each active user. In doing so, we consider a system in which the number of active users may be less than the number of transmit antennas. As we will see, in such a case there exists an infinite number of solutions satisfying the ZF criterion. We address the problem of finding the best using as optimality criterion the maximization of the signal-to-noise ratios at all mobile terminals.
Patterns of Recovery and Change in Verbal and Nonverbal Functions in a Case of Crossed Aphasia: Implications for Models of Functional Brain Lateralization and Localization

We present a 2-year verbal and nonverbal follow-up of a crossed aphasic patient. The patient had suffered from widespread ischemic damage in the area of right middle cerebral artery, with a parieto-temporal lesion. Three months postonset he showed classical Wernicke's aphasia associated with oral, limb and constructional apraxia and left hemineglect. However, follow-up findings showed a complex, dynamic pattern entirely consistent with cognitive models of language and nonlanguage abilities. Current models of functional brain lateralizations could not satisfactorily account for such longitudinal, fine-grain observations.
Novel Approach for Multimodal Biometric Recognition

The proposed paper deals on novel approach for multimodal biometric recognition system by using face, iris and fingerprints. In recent years almost all organizations like, educational institutes, offices, banks and industry are using biometric recognition system for confirmation of employers. This biometric identification system makes use of biometric templates or characteristics of employer and based on comparison of this template with stored data of an employee for identification. The confirmation of result is made by the combination of matching level of database templates, by using face, iris and finger prints are created independently. This multimodal biometric system is planned for collecting the database contains a face, iris and finger frints of each individuals for identification and security purpose.
Menopausal Symptoms and Sleep Quality During Menopausal Transition and Postmenopause

Background:Menopausal symptoms and sleep difficulty were physiological processes that were affected by genetic and other factors. This study was to investigate the prevalence of menopausal symptoms and sleep quality in menopausal transition (MT) and postmenopause (PM) women in Taiyuan, Shanxi. Methods:A community-based survey of women's menopausal symptoms and sleep quality was conducted between July 2012 and May 2013 at six municipal districts of Taiyuan, Shanxi. A sample of 2429 women aged 40–59 years was divided into four groups: early MT, late MT, early PM, and late PM. Sleep quality in the past 2 weeks before the interview was recorded. The data were analyzed using SPSS 16.0. Results:The prevalence of menopausal symptoms was 49.8%. Mild, moderate, and severe symptoms were observed in 28.9%, 18.5%, and 2.5% of participants, respectively. The highest prevalence of menopausal symptoms occurred in the early postmenopausal stage; the subsequences were the late postmenopausal stage and the early MT stage. Interestingly, among the 13 items of modified Kupperman index, the five most common symptoms were fatigue, arthralgia and myalgia, decreased libido, insomnia, and nervousness. Meanwhile, 55% perimenopausal women had poor sleep. Conclusions:Menopausal symptoms are common but mild among women in Taiyuan, Shanxi during MT and PM. In these stages, the prevalence of poor sleep is high.
A Highly Integrated 8mW H.264/AVC Main Profile Real-time CIF Video Decoder on a 16MHz SoC Platform

We present a hardwired decoder prototype for H.264/AVC main profile video. Our design takes as its input compressed H.264/AVC bit-stream and produces as its output video frames ready for display. We wrap the decoder core with an AMBA-AHB bus interface and integrate it into a multimedia SoC platform. Several architectural innovations at both IP and system levels are proposed to achieve very high performance at very low operating frequency. Running at 16MHz, our FPGA demo system is able to real-time decode CIF (352 times 288) video at 30 frames per second. Moreover, we take system cost into consideration such that only a single external SDRAM is needed and memory traffic minimized.
Monophasic action potential recordings: which is the recording electrode?

Abstract The aim of this article is to provide an overview of current debate on the monophasic action potential (MAP) recording technique, specifically whether the depolarizing or the reference electrode is responsible for recording the MAP waveform. A literature search was made using key words including monophasic action potential, MAP, electrophysiological basis, recording electrode, depolarizing electrode, contact electrode, indifferent electrode, and reference electrode. References from articles were screened for additional relevant papers. Articles published by the different experimental groups claim that depolarizing electrode, but not reference electrode, records MAPs from the myocardium. This can be more accurately described when considering biophysical theory, which states that MAP is a bipolar signal with contributions from not only the depolarizing electrode but also remote activation at the reference electrode. It is not meaningful to claim that one is the recording electrode because potential differences must be measured between two points in space. Nevertheless, the MAP technique is useful for assessing the local electrical activity of the myocardium in contact with the depolarizing electrode. It is important to have the recording electrode in close proximity with the reference electrode to minimize contamination from far-field signals.
Diffusion in molybdenum disilicide

Abstract The diffusion behaviour of the high-temperature material molybdenum disilicide (MoSi2) was completely unknown until recently. In this paper we present studies of Mo self-diffusion and compare our present results with our already published studies of Si and Ge diffusion in MoSi2. Self-diffusion of molybdenum in monocrystalline MoSi2 was studied by the radiotracer technique using the radioisotope 99Mo. Deposition of the radiotracer and serial sectioning after the diffusion anneals to determine the concentration-depth profiles was performed using a sputtering device. Diffusion of Mo is a very slow process. In the entire temperature region investigated (1437 to 2173 K), the 99Mo diffusivities in both principal directions of the tetragonal MoSi2 crystals obey Arrhenius laws, where the diffusion perpendicular to the tetragonal axis is faster by two to three orders of magnitude than parallel to it. The activation enthalpies for diffusion perpendicular and parallel to the tetragonal axis are Q⊥ = 468 kJ mol–1 (4.85 eV) and Q∥ = 586 kJ mol–1 (6.07 eV), respectively. Diffusion of Si and its homologous element Ge is fast and is mediated by thermal vacancies of the Si sublattice of MoSi2. The diffusion of Mo is by several orders of magnitude slower than the diffusion of Si and Ge. This large difference suggests that Si and Mo diffusion are decoupled and that the diffusion of Mo likely takes place via vacancies on the Mo sublattice.
Magnetic resonance imaging differences between dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer's disease: a pilot study

Background. Temporal lobe atrophy on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been suggested as a specific diagnostic marker for Alzheimer's disease (AD). No previous comparison with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) has been reported. Method. T1-weighted MRI scans were performed on 11 subjects with AD (nine with NINCDS/ADRDA probable AD and two with neuropathologically proven AD) and nine subjects with DLB (four with probable DLB diagnosed by clinical criteria and five with neuropathologically proven DLB). Groups were matched for age, duration of illness and cognitive test score. Two raters, blind to diagnosis and neuropathological findings, measured the volumes of the frontal lobes, temporal lobes, hippocampi, parahippocampal gyri, amygdalae, and caudate nuclei using a computerized volumetric analysis system. Scans were also rated for medial temporal atrophy on a four-point scale by an experienced rater. Results. AD subjects had significantly smaller left temporal lobes and parahippocampal gyri than those with DLB. Medial temporal atrophy was present in 9/11 AD cases (82%) and absent in 6/9 (67%) of DLB cases. Two neuropathologically confirmed cases of DLB had severe medial temporal atrophy; both had concurrent AD-type pathology in the temporal lobe (Braak stage 4). Conclusions. This pilot study supports the hypothesis that a greater burden of pathology centres on the temporal lobes in AD compared with DLB, except in DLB cases with concurrent Alzheimer pathology. A larger study is needed to confirm these findings and to determine whether MRI has a role in assisting with the clinical differentiation between DLB and AD.
Bioinformatics Original Paper a Bi-dimensional Regression Tree Approach to the Modeling of Gene Expression Regulation

Motivation: The transcriptional regulation of a gene depends on the binding of cis-regulatory elements on its promoter to some transcription factors and the expression levels of the transcription factors. Most existing approaches to studying transcriptional regulation model these dependencies separately, i.e. either from promoters to gene expression or from the expression levels of transcription factors to the expression levels of genes. Little effort has been devoted to a single model for integrating both dependencies. Results: We propose a novel method to model gene expression using both promoter sequences and the expression levels of putative regulators. The proposed method, called bi-dimensional regression tree (BDTree), extends a multivariate regression tree approach by applying it simultaneously to both genes and conditions of an expression matrix. The method produces hypotheses about the condition-specific binding motifs and regulators for each gene. As a side-product, the method also partitions the expression matrix into small submatrices in a way similar to bi-clustering. We propose and compare several splitting functions for building the tree. When applied to two microarray datasets of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, BDTree successfully identifies most motifs and regulators that are known to regulate the biological processes underlying the datasets. Comparing with an existing algorithm, BDTree provides a higher prediction accuracy in cross-validations. Availability: The software is available upon request from the authors.
Impact of fibrin glue and urinary bladder cell spraying on the in-vivo acellular matrix cellularization: a porcine pilot study.

PURPOSE Urinary bladder tissue engineering utilizing autologous cell-seeded scaffolds requires enough bladder cells to populate a large surface area which may be difficult to obtain from abnormal bladders. We evaluated whether a fibrin glue spray technique enhances cell seeded acellular matrix (ACM) repopulation in a porcine bladder model. MATERIALS AND METHODS Porcine urothelial and smooth muscle cells cultured from open bladder biopsy were sprayed with or without fibrin glue onto porcine bladder ACM. After 10 days in vitro, constructs were implanted onto porcine bladders (4/group) and harvested after 1 or 6 weeks for H&E and immunohistochemical staining. RESULTS In vitro, fibrin glue was associated with more continuous cell growth and enhanced cellular organization, maintained particularly in the periphery in vivo, where both groups demonstrated central fibrosis. CONCLUSIONS While fibrin glue enhanced cellular organization on ACM in vitro, central fibrosis in vivo suggests that factors supporting seeded cell survival are lacking.
Estimating Compliance with Diuretic Therapy: Urinary Hydrochlorothiazide‐Creatinine Ratios in Normal Subjects

SUMMARY We gave 21 healthy young men 100 mg of hydrochlorothiazide daily to determine whether or not urinary detection of the drug was feasible as a measure of compliance on a standard antihypertensive regimen. All subjects took the drug daily for 6 days, after which they were divided into four groups with differing patterns of medication administration. Urine hydrochlorothiazide and creatinine measurements were obtained to validate the urinary hydrochlorothiazide-creatinine ratio (UHCR) as an accurate quantitative index of compliance. The subjects achieved a constant level of UHCR of 13 ± 3.0" within 48 hours of hydrochlorothiazide administration. The UHCR levels decreased to 5.0 ± 0.8 48 hours after discontinuation of the drug (p < 0.001). UHCR values in the range of 13 ± 6 indicate that the subject has ingested hydrochlorothiazide 24 hours previously. The UHCR is a potentially useful means of assessing compliance in hypertensive patients taking hydrochlorothiazide.
Activation of macrophages and interference with CD4+ T‐cell stimulation by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis and Mycobacterium avium subspecies avium

Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (M. ptb) and M. avium subspecies avium (M. avium) are closely related but exhibit significant differences in their interaction with the host immune system. The macrophage line, J774, was infected with M. ptb and M. avium and analysed for cytokine production and stimulatory capacity towards antigen‐specific CD4+ T cells. Under all conditions J774 cells were activated to produce proinflammatory cytokines. No influence on the expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II, intracellular adhesion molecule‐1 (ICAM‐1), B7.1, B7.2 or CD40 was found. However, the antigen‐specific stimulatory capacity of J774 cells for a CD4+ T‐cell line was significantly inhibited after infection with M. ptb, but not with M. avium. When a T‐cell hybridoma expressing a T‐cell receptor identical to that of the T‐cell line was used, this inhibition was not observed, suggesting that costimulation which is essential for the CD4+ T‐cell line is influenced by the pathogenic bacterium M. ptb.
Robust Portfolio Selection Problems

In this paper we show how to formulate and solve robust portfolio selection problems. The objective of these robust formulations is to systematically combat the sensitivity of the optimal portfolio to statistical and modeling errors in the estimates of the relevant market parameters. We introduce "uncertainty structures" for the market parameters and show that the robust portfolio selection problems corresponding to these uncertainty structures can be reformulated as second-order cone programs and, therefore, the computational effort required to solve them is comparable to that required for solving convex quadratic programs. Moreover, we show that these uncertainty structures correspond to confidence regions associated with the statistical procedures employed to estimate the market parameters. Finally, we demonstrate a simple recipe for efficiently computing robust portfolios given raw market data and a desired level of confidence.
An Arts, Sciences and Engineering Education and Research Initiative for Experiential Media

This paper presents a novel interdisciplinary approach for the training of media scientists and engineers. The approach is being implemented at the Arts, Media and Engineering program at Arizona State University. Our graduates will produce new paradigms for the integration of computation and media in the physical human experience. Their work will result in hybrid physical-digital environments that address significant challenges in key areas of the human condition. The training model has the following characteristics: it is driven by research problems rather than by disciplines; it is based on an extensive interdisciplinary network; it is organized under the dimensions of research and application and promotes work at their intersection; it provides multiple paths for combining different types of disciplinary training with interdisciplinary training; it also provides a transdisciplinary training path. This paper presents the reasoning and implementation structures of these key facets, discusses our evaluation approach and presents preliminary results
Spacecraft Navigation in Cluttered , Dynamic Environments Using 3 D Lidar

Many new classes of deep-space and on-orbit missions require efficient navigation of environments having untracked dynamic obstacles. Space probes will need to autonomously identify and classify these objects for purposes of localization, collision avoidance, and identification of targets having high value (scientific or otherwise). In addition, lidar is becoming a key sensing tool for close proximity space operations. We implement a lidar simulation for cluttered space environments and explore (i) a k-d tree-based algorithm for clustering and identifying obstacles in 3D lidar point clouds and (ii) Naive Bayes and SVM algorithms for classifying lidar point clusters into obstacle types. The SVM classifier was found to perform better with an overall accuracy of 22-73%, depending on the obstacle type, compared to Naive Bayes which had an accuracy of 15-62%.
The Long-Run Evolution of Energy Prices

In this paper I examine the long-run behavior of oil, coal, and natural gas prices, using up to 127 years of data, and address the following questions: Mat does over a century of data tell us about the stochastic dynamics of price evolution, and how it should be modelled? Can models of reversion to stochastically fluctuating trend lines help us forecast prices over horizons of 20 years or more? And what do the answers to these questions tell us about investment decisions that are dependent on prices and their stochastic evolution ?
Cooperative update: a new model for dependable live update

Many real-world systems require continuous operation. Downtime is ill-affordable and scheduling maintenance for regular software updates is a tremendous challenge for system administrators. For this reason, live update is a potential solution as it allows running software to be replaced by a newer version without stopping the system. The vast majority of live update approaches proposed as a solution to this problem aims to support existing software systems, while striving to maintain a good level of safety and flexibility. In this paper, we consider the opposite direction. Our work aims to build dependable and trustworthy live updatable systems that do not attempt to be backward compatible but look forward to solving the update problem in future systems. To this end, we highlight possible issues and limitations in existing approaches and propose a new cooperative model for live update to provide better safety and flexibility guarantees.
Incorporation of purine nucleosides in cultured fibroblasts from a patient with purine nucleoside phosphorylase deficiency and associated T‐cell immunodeficiency

Cultured skin fibroblasts from a patient with T‐cell immune deficiency and an absence of purine nucleoside phosphorylase activity in red cells were assayed for their capacity to metabolize inosine and guanosine. The cultured fibroblasts were lacking activity of nucleoside phosphorylase and, compared to normal fibroblasts, could incorporate only 2% and 4% of 14C‐inosine and 3H‐guanosine, respectively, into acid precipitable material. Autoradiography visually confirmed the failure of the NP deficient cell line to incorporate the nucleosides into nuclear material. The physiological mechanism by which the deficiency of purine nucleoside phosphorylase causes T‐cell dysfunction remains unclear.
A multiple access collision avoidance protocol for multicast services in mobile ad hoc networks

In order to improve cross-layer optimization, we propose a multiple access collision avoidance protocol that combines RTS/CTS with scheduling algorithms to support the multicast routing protocol. We avoid collision by including additional information in the RTS. The proposed scheme, together with extra benefits, such as power saving, reliable data transmission and higher channel utilization compared with CSMA or multiple unicast, enables the support of multicast services in mobile ad hoc networks.
Rudimentary Sympathy in Preverbal Infants: Preference for Others in Distress

Despite its essential role in human coexistence, the developmental origins and progression of sympathy in infancy are not yet fully understood. We show that preverbal 10-month-olds manifest sympathetic responses, evinced in their preference for attacked others according to their evaluations of the respective roles of victim, aggressor, and neutral party. In Experiment 1, infants viewing an aggressive social interaction between a victim and an aggressor exhibited preference for the victim. In Experiment 2, when comparing the victim and the aggressor to a neutral object, infants preferred the victim and avoided the aggressor. These findings indicate that 10-month-olds not only evaluate the roles of victims and aggressors in interactions but also show rudimentary sympathy toward others in distress based on that evaluation. This simple preference may function as a foundation for full-fledged sympathetic behavior later on.