Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient resolution of sparse indirections in data-parallel compilers

This paper describes new compiler and run-time techniques to handle array accesses involving several levels of indirection such as those arising in sparse and irregular problems. The lack of information at compile-time in such problems has typically required the insertion of expensive runtime support. We propose new data distributions which can be used with standard sparse matrix representations to achieve much more efficient resolution of indirection at runtime. Unlike previous methods, our techniques require only a single communication phase to access non-local data, even in the presence of multiple levels of indirection. Likewise, the methods presented here are novel in that they allow the compiler to use the semantic relations of the array elements involved in the indirect accesses to perform a number of optimization.
COMPUTATIONAL FEATURES OF AGENT-BASED MODELS

Agent-based modeling allows the description of very complex systems. To run large scale simulations of agent-based models in a reasonable time, it is crucial to carefully design data structures and algorithms. We describe the main computational features of agent-based models and report about the solutions we adopted in two applications: The simulation of the immune system response and the simulation of the stock market dynamics.
Leptin improves pulmonary bacterial clearance and survival in ob/ob mice during pneumococcal pneumonia

The adipocyte‐derived hormone leptin is an important regulator of appetite and energy expenditure and is now appreciated for its ability to control innate and adaptive immune responses. We have reported previously that the leptin‐deficient ob/ob mouse exhibited increased susceptibility to the Gram‐negative bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae. In this report we assessed the impact of chronic leptin deficiency, using ob/ob mice, on pneumococcal pneumonia and examined whether restoring circulating leptin to physiological levels in vivo could improve host defences against this pathogen. We observed that ob/ob mice, compared with wild‐type (WT) animals, exhibited enhanced lethality and reduced pulmonary bacterial clearance following Streptococcus pneumoniae challenge. These impairments in host defence in ob/ob mice were associated with elevated levels of lung tumour necrosis factor (TNF)‐α, macrophage inflammatory peptide (MIP)‐2 [correction added after online publication 28 September 2007: definition of MIP corrected], prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), lung neutrophil polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) counts, defective alveolar macrophage (AM) phagocytosis and PMN killing of S. pneumoniae in vitro. Exogenous leptin administration to ob/ob mice in vivo improved survival and greatly improved pulmonary bacterial clearance, reduced bacteraemia, reconstituted AM phagocytosis and PMN H2O2 production and killing of S. pneumoniae in vitro. Our results demonstrate, for the first time, that leptin improves pulmonary bacterial clearance and survival in ob/ob mice during pneumococcal pneumonia. Further investigations are warranted to determine whether there is a potential therapeutic role for this adipokine in immunocompromised patients.
Coding of Stroke and Stroke Risk Factors Using International Classification of Diseases, Revisions 9 and 10

Background and Purpose— Surveillance is necessary to understand and meet the future demands stroke will place on health care. Administrative data are the most accessible data source for stroke surveillance in Canada. The International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10) coding system has potential improvements over ICD-9 for stroke classification. Our purpose was to compare hospital discharge abstract coding using ICD-9 and ICD-10 for stroke and its risk factors. Methods— We took advantage of a switch in coding systems from ICD-9 to ICD-10 to independently review stroke patient charts. From time periods April 2000 to March 2001, 717 charts, and from April 2002 to March 2003, 249 charts were randomly selected for review. Using a before-and-after time period design, the accuracy of hospital coding of stroke (part I) and stroke risk factors (part II) using ICD-9 and ICD-10 was compared. We used careful definitions of stroke and its types based on ICD-9 using the fourth and fifth digit modifier codes. Results— Stroke coding was equally good with ICD-9 (90% [CI95 86 to 93] correct) and ICD-10 [92% (CI95 88 to 95 correct) with ICD-10. There were some differences in coding by stroke type, notably with transient ischemic attack, but these differences were not statistically significant. Atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease/ischemic heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension were coded with high sensitivity (81% to 91%) and specificity (83% to 100%). ICD-10 was as good as ICD-9 for stroke risk factor coding. Conclusions— Passive surveillance using administrative data are a useful tool for identifying stroke and its risk factors using both ICD-9 and ICD-10.
One step at a time: Multimodal interfaces and children's executive functioning

The following study outlines a new computerized executive function task (Slippy's Adventure) inspired by the Towers of Hanoi task. The main focus was to determine if the task was developmentally sensitive. A further consideration was how physical embodiment would affect performance. This line of enquiry arose from recent developments in HCI (human-computer interaction), in particular, multimodal interfaces. To investigate the role of embodiment children completed Slippy's Adventure using an electronic floor mat and a computer keyboard. The results supported our hypothesis that 7 year olds would outperform 5 year olds. However, physical action did not have an ameliorative effect on performance as predicted. The implications of these findings are discussed with future considerations suggested.
T-Cell Immune Responses Against Env from CRF12_BF and Subtype B HIV-1 Show High Clade-Specificity that Can Be Overridden by Multiclade Immunizations

Background The extreme genetic diversity of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) poses a daunting challenge to the generation of an effective AIDS vaccine. In Argentina, the epidemic is characterized by the high prevalence of infections caused by subtype B and BF variants. The aim of this study was to characterize in mice the immunogenic and antigenic properties of the Env protein from CRF12_BF in comparison with clade B, employing prime-boost schemes with the combination of recombinant DNA and vaccinia virus (VV) vectors. Methodology/Principal Findings As determined by ELISPOT from splenocytes of animals immunized with either EnvBF or EnvB antigens, the majority of the cellular responses to Env were found to be clade-specific. A detailed peptide mapping of the responses reveal that when there is cross-reactivity, there are no amino acid changes in the peptide sequence or were minimal and located at the peptide ends. In those cases, analysis of T cell polifunctionality and affinity indicated no differences with respect to the cellular responses found against the original homologous sequence. Significantly, application of a mixed immunization combining both clades (B and BF) induced a broader cellular response, in which the majority of the peptides targeted after the single clade vaccinations generated a positive response. In this group we could also find significant cellular and humoral responses against the whole gp120 protein from subtype B. Conclusions/Significance This work has characterized for the first time the immunogenic peptides of certain EnvBF regions, involved in T cell responses. It provides evidence that to improve immune responses to HIV there is a need to combine Env antigens from different clades, highlighting the convenience of the inclusion of BF antigens in future vaccines for geographic regions where these HIV variants circulate.
Uncertainty sampling methods for one-class classifiers

Selective sampling, a part of the active learning method, reduces the cost of labeling supplementary training data by asking for the labels only of the most informative, unlabeled examples. This additional information added to an initial, randomly chosen training set is expected to improve the generalization performance of a learning machine. We investigate some methods for a selection of the most informative examples in the context of one-class classification problems (OCC) i.e. problems where only (or nearly only) the examples of the so-called target class are available. We applied selective sampling algorithms to a variety of domains, including realworld problems: mine detection and texture segmentation. The goal of this paper is to show why the best or most often used selective sampling methods for two- or multi-class problems are not necessarily the best ones for the one-class classification problem. By modifying the sampling methods, we present a way of selecting a small subset from the unlabeled data to be presented to an expert for labeling such that the performance of the retrained one-class classifier is significantly improved.
Neuron and Sensory Epithelial Cell Fate Is Sequentially Determined by Notch Signaling in Zebrafish Lateral Line Development

Sensory systems are specialized to recognize environmental changes. Sensory organs are complex structures composed of different cell types, including neurons and sensory receptor cells, and how these organs are generated is an important question in developmental neurobiology. The posterior lateral line (pLL) is a simple sensory system in fish and amphibians that detects changes in water motion. It consists of neurons and sensory receptor hair cells, both of which are derived from the cranial ectoderm preplacodal region. However, it is not clearly understood how neurons and the sensory epithelium develop separately from the same preplacodal progenitors. We found that the numbers of posterior lateral line ganglion (pLLG) neurons, which are marked by neurod expression, increased in embryos with reduced Notch activity, but the forced activation of Notch reduced their number, suggesting that Notch-mediated lateral inhibition regulates the pLLG cell fate in zebrafish. By fate-mapping analysis, we found that cells adjacent to the pLLG neurons in the pre-pLL placodal region gave rise to the anterior part of the pLL primordium (i.e., sensory epithelial progenitor cells), and that the choice of cell fate between pLLG neuron or pLL primordium was regulated by Notch signaling. Since Notch signaling also affects hair cell fate determination at a later stage, our study suggests that Notch signaling has dual, time-dependent roles in specifying multiple cell types during pLL development.
SIGACT news complexity theory column 51

Warmest thanks to guest columnist Oded Goldreich for this issue's article. Also, I'd like to commend to all readers the web directory, www.wisdom. weizmann.ac. il/~oded/cc-texts.html, that appears as reference [15] of Oded's column. This directory is a real treasure trove.
A Molecular Signature of Proteinuria in Glomerulonephritis

Proteinuria is the most important predictor of outcome in glomerulonephritis and experimental data suggest that the tubular cell response to proteinuria is an important determinant of progressive fibrosis in the kidney. However, it is unclear whether proteinuria is a marker of disease severity or has a direct effect on tubular cells in the kidneys of patients with glomerulonephritis. Accordingly we studied an in vitro model of proteinuria, and identified 231 “albumin-regulated genes” differentially expressed by primary human kidney tubular epithelial cells exposed to albumin. We translated these findings to human disease by studying mRNA levels of these genes in the tubulo-interstitial compartment of kidney biopsies from patients with IgA nephropathy using microarrays. Biopsies from patients with IgAN (n = 25) could be distinguished from those of control subjects (n = 6) based solely upon the expression of these 231 “albumin-regulated genes. ” The expression of an 11-transcript subset related to the degree of proteinuria, and this 11-mRNA subset was also sufficient to distinguish biopsies of subjects with IgAN from control biopsies. We tested if these findings could be extrapolated to other proteinuric diseases beyond IgAN and found that all forms of primary glomerulonephritis (n = 33) can be distinguished from controls (n = 21) based solely on the expression levels of these 11 genes derived from our in vitro proteinuria model. Pathway analysis suggests common regulatory elements shared by these 11 transcripts. In conclusion, we have identified an albumin-regulated 11-gene signature shared between all forms of primary glomerulonephritis. Our findings support the hypothesis that albuminuria may directly promote injury in the tubulo-interstitial compartment of the kidney in patients with glomerulonephritis.
An Overview of Computational Aeroacoustic Modeling at NASA Langley

The use of computational techniques in the area of acoustics is known as computational aeroacoustics and has shown great promise in recent years. Although an ultimate goal is to use computational simulations as a virtual wind tunnel, the problem is so complex that blind applications of traditional algorithms are typically unable to produce acceptable results. The phenomena of interest are inherently unsteady and cover a wide range of frequencies and amplitudes. Nonetheless, with appropriate simplifications and special care to resolve specific phenomena, currently available methods can be used to solve important acoustic problems. These simulations can be used to complement experiments, and often give much more detailed information than can be obtained in a wind tunnel. The use of acoustic analogy methods to inexpensively determine far-field acoustics from near-field unsteadiness has greatly reduced the computational requirements. A few examples of current applications of computational aeroacoustics at NASA Langley are given. There remains a large class of problems that require more accurate and efficient methods. Research to develop more advanced methods that are able to handle the geometric complexity of realistic problems using block-structured and unstructured grids are highlighted.
Deployment of Cloud Computing into VANET to Create Ad Hoc Cloud Network Architecture

Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) has been drawing interest among the researchers for the past couple of years. Though ad hoc network or mobile ad hoc network is very common in military environment, the real world practice of ad hoc network is still very low. On the other hand, cloud computing is supposed to be the next big thing because of its scalability, PaaS, IaaS, SaaS and other important characteristics. In this paper we have tried to propose a model of ad hoc cloud network architecture. We have specially focused on vehicular ad hoc network architecture or VANET which will enable us to create a "cloud on the run" model. The major parts of this proposed model are wireless devices mounted on vehicles which will act as a mobile multihop network and a public or private cloud created by the vehicles called vehicular cloud.
Poland and the common foreign and security policy of the European Union : from adaptation to Europeanisation?

Practitioners and academics clearly established that participation in the EU system of foreign policy-making transforms national foreign policies. Whilst there have been detailed studies of the impact of participation in EU foreign policy on the original fifteen member states there are, as yet, few academic studies that have thoroughly investigated the impact of progressive integration in the area of EU foreign and security policy on the new (i.e. those who joined since 2004) member states. This thesis aims to address this deficit by focusing on the impact of Poland's participation in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It examines the processes of 'downloading', as it is argued here that involvement in CFSP has had a direct effect on both the procedures of foreign policy-making in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and, on the substance of Polish foreign policy as well as the impact of 'uploading' from member states to the EU level and 'crossloading' between EU member states. The thesis addresses the relevant conceptual issues and provides an outline of the academic debate regarding Europeanisation and foreign policy. It identifies three mechanisms that are responsible for change: conditionality, socialisation and learning. It suggests that a member state first adapts its national foreign policy to bring it in line with the EU's acquis politique and introduces basic changes in its institutional procedures in order to effectively participate in the EU's CFSP. Only later, does socialisation and learning result in changes to how national foreign policy is made, which then facilitates both changes to the substance of national policy and the uploading of national preferences to the EU level. A two-phase model of change is introduced which identifies April 2003, when Poland first became an active observer within the EU, as the date when Europeanisation began. The thesis provides a brief explanation of the transformation of Polish foreign policy after 1989, in order to provide contextual background for the four substantive chapters which follow: one procedural on the changes in the Polish MFA and three related to policy substance. The latter three chapters examine the Europeanisation of policy towards Poland's East European neighbours in general and policies towards Ukraine and Belarus in particular. The thesis concludes with a set of methodological and conceptual observations followed by analysis of the empirical findings.
Verifying Security : Where We Are and Where We Should Go

Verification techniques are increasingly being applied to the area of computer security. However, they vary greatly in the tpyes of approaches and areas of security they investigate. In this paper, we attempt to systematize the current state of verification in security and provide guidance to where research effort could be most effectively be spent in the future.
Collaborative Structuring of Knowledge by Experts and the Public

There is much debate on how public participation and expertise can be brought together in collaborative knowledge environments. One of the experiments addressing the issue directly is Citizendium. In seeking to harvest the strengths (and avoiding the major pitfalls) of both user-generated wiki projects and traditional expert-approved reference works, it is a wiki to which anybody can contribute using their real names, while those with specific expertise are given a special role in assessing the quality of content. Upon fulfillment of a set of criteria like factual and linguistic accuracy, lack of bias, and readability by non-specialists, these entries are forked into two versions: a stable (and thus citable) approved "cluster" (an article with subpages providing supplementary information) and a draft version, the latter to allow for further development and updates. We provide an overview of how Citizendium is structured and what it offers to the open knowledge communities, particularly to those engaged in education and research. Special attention will be paid to the structures and processes put in place to provide for transparent governance, to encourage collaboration, to resolve disputes in a civil manner and by taking into account expert opinions, and to facilitate navigation of the site and contextualization of its contents.
On Institutions and Endogenous Technological Change

This study investigates the effects of lobbying and institutions on the direction of technological change in a two-sector overlapping generations model. Simulation results suggest that in an environment with unbiased institutions producers' rent-seeking activities direct the economy towards a labor-augmenting path, contradicting with the capital-augmenting optimal path. On the contrary, rent-seeking activities within a capital-favoring institutional structure lead to a path along which capital is augmented the most. This result suggests that governmental inefficiencies can, partially, be corrected by appropriate institutional arrangements.
Clinical Practice in Education: Performance Assessment in the Third Space

Berglund 113 2043 College Way Forest Grove, OR 97116 Field placements in education should be a byproduct of strong partnerships between the university and K-12 school districts. Effective teacher preparation cannot exist without relationships being built between educator preparations programs (EPPs) and K-12 schools to provide purposeful settings for teacher candidates to learn through observation and practice of theory in action (DarlingHammond, 2010). Time must be put into these relationships, as successful partnerships require careful preparation, outstanding implementation, and thorough follow through (Bullough, Draper, Smith, & Birrell, 2004; Powers, 2004). There should be a mutually agreed upon shared vision based on a passion for the issues at hand, a variety of roles based on the resources of each partner, a system for measuring outcomes, and consistently be looking to improve upon those outcomes (Catelli, Costello, & Padovano, 2000; Guillen & Zeichner, 2018; Lee, 2018; Tomanek, 2005).
Interest Rates and Currency Prices in a Two-Country Strategic Market Game Model

We present a general equilibrium strategic market game model of an two-country, two-period economy with no uncertainty. In this model, the uncovered interest rate parity, the absolute and the relative purchasing power parity and the Fischer e¤ect may fail at equilibrium, because agents behave strategically and manipulate prices. This result is exclusively due to the nite number of traders in the economy and not from any type of market friction. An international investor may generate free but bounded pro t by arbitraging interest rates without equalizing returns across countries. PRELIMINARY AND INCOMPLETE DRAFT Tel. : +30-2310-997120, fax +30-2310-996426 E-mail: kpap@econ.auth. gr (K.Papadopoulos).
On Two Dimensional Orthogonal Knapsack Problem

In this paper, we study the following knapsack problem: Given a list of squares with profits, we are requested to pack a sublist of them into a rectangular bin (not a unit square bin) to make profits in the bin as large as possible. We first observe there is a Polynomial Time Approximation Scheme (PTAS) for the problem of packing weighted squares into rectangular bins with large resources, then apply the PTAS to the problem of packing squares with profits into a rectangular bin and get a $\frac65+\epsilon$ approximation algorithm.