Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Survey of Cache/Proxy for Transparent Data Replication

Web caching is an important technology for reduc- ing Internet access latency, alleviating network traf- fic, and spreading server load. An important issue that affects the performance of web caching is caching architecture, in which several caches are usually fed- erated for making caches cooperate on a large scale and effectively increase the cache population. Trans- parent data replication is such a caching architec- ture, which has shown to be easy to manage and have good system scalability. In this paper, we present an survey of state-of-the-art techniques of cache/proxy placement for transparent data replication.
Fast unstructured road detection and tracking from monocular video

In this paper, a fast particle filer based unstructured road detection and tracking algorithm is presented. We take the parameters of the road model and the relative pose of the vehicle with respect to the road as the state vector. The pixels of the test image are classified by learned boosted classifier based on rich pixel features to get a probabilistic output. For each particle, the virtual road image in the perspective view is generated according to the state vector. The particles are then weighted by the consistency of the virtual road image with the probability map. Then we can can estimate the optimal state with the particle weights. We further propose a scheme to accelerate the algorithm substantially with little degeneracy in performance by measuring the consistency with only several rows instead of the whole image. Extensive experiments show that the proposed method can detect and track the road robustly in various unstructured environments within real time.
Cardiorespiratory Fitness as a Predictor of Fatal and Nonfatal Stroke in Asymptomatic Women and Men

Background and Purpose— Prospective data on the association between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and stroke are largely limited to studies in men or do not separately examine risks for fatal and nonfatal stroke. This study examined the association between CRF and fatal and nonfatal stroke in a large cohort of asymptomatic women and men. Methods— A total of 46 405 men and 15 282 women without known myocardial infarction or stroke at baseline completed a maximal treadmill exercise test between 1970 and 2001. CRF was grouped as quartiles of the sex-specific distribution of maximal metabolic equivalents achieved. Mortality follow-up was through December 31, 2003, using the National Death Index. Nonfatal stroke, defined as physician-diagnosed stroke, was ascertained from surveys during 1982 to 2004. Cox regression models quantified the pattern and magnitude of association between CRF and stroke. Results— There were 692 strokes during 813 944 man-years of exposure and 171 strokes during 248 902 woman-years of exposure. Significant inverse associations between CRF and age-adjusted fatal, nonfatal, and total stroke rates were observed for women and men (Ptrend≤0.05 each). After adjusting for several cardiovascular disease risk factors, the inverse association between CRF and each stroke outcome remained significant (Ptrend<0.05 each) in men. In women, the multivariable-adjusted relationship between CRF and nonfatal and total stroke remained significant (Ptrend≤0.01 each), but not between CRF and fatal stroke (Ptrend=0.18). A CRF threshold of 7 to 8 maximal metabolic equivalents was associated with a substantially reduced rate of total stroke in both men and women. Conclusions— These findings suggest that CRF is an independent determinant of stroke incidence in initially asymptomatic and cardiovascular disease-free adults, and the strength and pattern of the association is similar for men and women.
Anemia and Related Factors in Preschool Children in the Southern Rural Lao People’s Democratic Republic

Anemia is a severe public health problem in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). Consequently, a new control strategy to reduce the burden of anemia has been introduced for preschool children (aged 6–52 months). The objective of this study was to assess the current prevalence of anemia and related factors in preschool children in southern rural Lao PDR. A population-based cross-sectional study was carried out in six communities in Songkhone district, Savannakheth province, in February 2009. As a result, the prevalence of anemia was found to be 48.9% (95% confidence interval (CI), 43.5–54.3), although most cases were mild. A multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that there was no protective effect of breastfeeding against anemia. The anemia prevalence was higher in 1) children aged 6–23 months (Odds Ratio (OR) = 1.73, 95% CI, 1.02–2.90) than in older children, 2) children in large families (6 or more members) (OR = 1.96, 95% CI, 1.17–3.29), and 3) children in three remote villages with relatively difficult access to markets (OR = 3.01, 95% CI, 1.25–7.47). In Lao PDR, improvement of food practices and home-fortified food supplementation interventions are essential. High-risk groups should be targeted and a long-term health education program that aims to modify food habits implemented. Furthermore, in settings where iron deficiency is not the only cause of anemia, combining an iron supplement with other measures is necessary.
Interactive voice response system and method

The invention discloses an interactive voice response system and an interactive voice response method. The system comprises a target information-receiving module, an interactive mode setting and voice processing module, an interactive information-updating module, a decision-making module, and a response-outputting module. The target information-receiving module receives target information and sets corresponding target textual information. The interactive mode setting and voice processing module receives a voice signal from a user and sets an interacting mode and target textual information which determines the voice, and outputs phonic assessment results of the target textual information. In the set interactive mode, the interactive information-updating module updates the information of aninteractive information record according to the voice assessment results and a time value. The decision-making module determines the output mode of the target textual information based on the interaction mode and information of the interactive information record. The response-outputting module outputs response information according to the output mode and the information of the interactive information record.
Microbial metabolism: optimal control of uptake versus synthesis

Microbes require several complex organic molecules for growth. A species may obtain a required factor by taking up molecules released by other species or by synthesizing the molecule. The patterns of uptake and synthesis set a flow of resources through the multiple species that create a microbial community. This article analyzes a simple mathematical model of the tradeoff between uptake and synthesis. Key factors include the influx rate from external sources relative to the outflux rate, the rate of internal decay within cells, and the cost of synthesis. Aspects of demography also matter, such as cellular birth and death rates, the expected time course of a local resource flow, and the associated lifespan of the local population. Spatial patterns of genetic variability and differentiation between populations may also strongly influence the evolution of metabolic regulatory controls of individual species and thus the structuring of microbial communities. The widespread use of optimality approaches in recent work on microbial metabolism has ignored demography and genetic structure.
Validation of presentation and 3 h high-sensitivity troponin to rule-in and rule-out acute myocardial infarction

Objective International guidelines to rule-in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in patients presenting with chest pain to the emergency department (ED) recommend an algorithm using high-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn) sampling on presentation and 3 h following presentation. We tested the diagnostic accuracy of this algorithm by pooling data from five distinct cohorts from three countries of prospectively recruited patients with independently adjudicated outcomes. Method We measured high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (hs-cTnI) and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) on presentation (0 h) and 3 h post-presentation samples in adult patients attending an ED with possible AMI to validate the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Working Group on Acute Cardiac Care rule-in algorithm (ESC-rule-in). Specifically, (i) in patients with a 0 h hs-cTn concentration ≤99th percentile and a 3 h hs-cTn >99th percentile, positive patients are those with an absolute change in troponin ≥50% of the 99th percentile, and (ii) in patients with a 0 and 3 h hs-cTn >99th percentile, positive patients are those with a relative change in troponin of ≥20%. We concurrently assessed the efficacy of the 0 and 3 h hs-cTn <99th percentile to rule-out AMI. Results 1061 patients with hs-cTnI and 985 with hs-cTnT were included. The ESC-rule-in positive predictive value (PPV) was 83.5% (95% CI 74.9% to 90.1%) for hs-cTnI and 72.0% (95% CI 62.1% to 80.5%) for hs-cTnT. Forty-six AMIs (34.9%) were not ruled in using hs-cTnI and 62 (46.2%) using hs-cTnT. The sensitivity of the 99th percentile to rule-out AMI was 93.2% (95% CI 87.5% to 96.8%) for hs-cTnI and 94.8% (95% CI 89.5% to 97.9%) for hs-cTnT. Conclusions The ESC-rule-in algorithm has good PPV with hs-cTnI and reasonable with hs-cTnT and can rule-in over 50% of AMIs. However, the sensitivity of the 99th percentile to rule-out AMI is too low for clinical use.
Mutilating Procedures, Management Practices, and Housing Conditions That May Affect the Welfare of Farm Animals: Implications for Welfare Research

Simple summary Intensive farming systems are confronted with a number of animal welfare issues such as injuries from horns in cattle and feather pecking in poultry. To solve these problems, mutilating procedures, such as dehorning in cattle and goats and beak trimming in laying hens, are applied routinely. These and other procedures such as early maternal separation, overcrowding, and barren housing conditions impair animal welfare. Scientific underpinning of the efficacy of these interventions and management practices is poor. We advocate that all stakeholders, in particular animal scientists and veterinarians, take the lead in evaluating common, putative mutilating and welfare reducing procedures and management practices to develop better, scientifically supported alternatives, focused on adaptation of the environment to the animals, to ensure uncompromised animal welfare. Abstract A number of mutilating procedures, such as dehorning in cattle and goats and beak trimming in laying hens, are common in farm animal husbandry systems in an attempt to prevent or solve problems, such as injuries from horns or feather pecking. These procedures and other practices, such as early maternal separation, overcrowding, and barren housing conditions, raise concerns about animal welfare. Efforts to ensure or improve animal welfare involve adapting the animal to its environment, i.e., by selective breeding (e.g., by selecting “robust” animals) adapting the environment to the animal (e.g., by developing social housing systems in which aggressive encounters are reduced to a minimum), or both. We propose adapting the environment to the animals by improving management practices and housing conditions, and by abandoning mutilating procedures. This approach requires the active involvement of all stakeholders: veterinarians and animal scientists, the industrial farming sector, the food processing and supply chain, and consumers of animal-derived products. Although scientific evidence about the welfare effects of current practices in farming such as mutilating procedures, management practices, and housing conditions is steadily growing, the gain in knowledge needs a boost through more scientific research. Considering the huge number of animals whose welfare is affected, all possible effort must be made to improve their welfare as quickly as possible in order to ban welfare-compromising procedures and practices as soon as possible.
Reply to “Rigor, reproducibility and in vitro CSF assays: The devil in the details”

We thank Moody et al for their reply on in vitro cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) assay from hypersomnolent patients for a type A gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA-A) potentiating activity, in response to our article. We agree partially with their letter in saying that “divergent results and misinterpretation of nonsignificant findings remain problematic in science,” and would add, not only in science, but also in clinical medicine. The authors, however, strongly criticized our experimental approaches and results. We thus would like to respond to their comments, clarify some points that seem necessary, and ultimately disagree with their criticisms.
Dispersive Propagation of Ultraslow Pulses in an Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensate

One-dimensional propagation of ultraslow optical pulses in an atomic Bose‐Einstein condensate taking into account the dispersion and the spatial inhomogeneity is investigated. Analytical and semi-analytical solutions of the dispersive inhomogeneous wave equation modeling the ultraslow pulse propagation are developed and compared against the standard wave equation solvers based upon Cranck‐Nicholson and pseudo-spectral methods. The role of curvature of the trapping potential of the condensate on the amount of dispersion of the ultraslow pulse is pointed out.
Choosing to Stop: Responses Evoked by Externally Triggered and Internally Generated Inhibition Identify a Neural Mechanism of Will

Inhibiting inappropriate action is key to human behavioral control. Studies of action inhibition largely investigated external stop signals, yet these are rare in everyday life. Instead healthy adults exert “self-control,” implying an ability to decide internally to stop actions. We added “choose for yourself” stimuli to a conventional go/no-go task to compare reactive versus intentional action and inhibition. No-go reactions showed the N2 EEG potential characteristic of inhibiting prepotent motor responses, whereas go reactions did not. Interestingly, the N2 component was present for intentional choices both to act and also to inhibit. Thus, free choices involved a first step of intentionally inhibiting prepotent responses before generating or withholding an action. Intentional inhibition has a crucial role breaking the flow of stimulus-driven responding, allowing expression of volitional decisions. Even decisions to initiate self-generated actions require this prior negative form of volition, ensuring the “freedom from immediacy” characteristic of human behavior.
Reconstruction of 3D Structures From Protein Contact Maps

The prediction of the protein tertiary structure from solely its residue sequence (the so called Protein Folding Problem) is one of the most challenging problems in Structural Bioinformatics. We focus on the protein residue contact map. When this map is assigned it is possible to reconstruct the 3D structure of the protein backbone. The general problem of recovering a set of 3D coordinates consistent with some given contact map is known as a unit-disk-graph realization problem and it has been recently proven to be NP-Hard. In this paper we describe a heuristic method (COMAR) that is able to reconstruct with an unprecedented rate (3-15 seconds) a 3D model that exactly matches the target contact map of a protein. Working with a non-redundant set of 1760 proteins, we find that the scoring efficiency of finding a 3D model very close to the protein native structure depends on the threshold value adopted to compute the protein residue contact map. Contact maps whose threshold values range from 10 to 18 Aringngstroms allow reconstructing 3D models that are very similar to the proteins native structure.
A New Carrier-Based PWM Providing Common-Mode-Current Reduction and DC-Bus Balancing for Three-Level Inverters

Adjustable-speed drives involve common-mode voltages, which generate common-mode currents flowing to the ground through stray capacitances of electric machines. These currents are known to provoke premature motor-bearing failures, as well as electromagnetic interferences disturbing neighbor electronic devices. Furthermore, high-voltage applications involve high levels of these conducted emissions, which must be lowered by using bulky and expensive filters. This paper aims at elaborating a new pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) strategy in order to reduce the common-mode currents generated by three-level neutral-point-clamped inverters. The proposed strategy also provides the ability to balance the neutral point of the dc-bus capacitors. Experimental results both in time and frequency domains confirm that the new PWM improves the electromagnetic-compatibility behavior of the drive compared with conventional strategies.
On the hitting set of bundles problem

Le probleme de l’ensemble minimal de paquets (minimal hitting set of bundles problem ou HSB) est defini comme suit. On dispose d’un ensemble E = {e1, e2, . , en} de n elements. Chaque element ei (i = 1, . . . , n) a un cout positif ou nul ci. Un paquet b est un sous ensemble de E . On dispose aussi d’une collection S = {S1, S2, . , Sm} de m ensembles de paquets. De maniere plus precise, chaque ensemble Sj (j = 1, . . . ,m) est compose de g(j) paquets distincts notes bj , b 2 j , . , b g(j) j . Une solution du probleme HSB est un sous ensemble E ′ ⊆ E tel que pour tout Sj ∈ S , au moins un paquet est couvert, i.e. bj ⊆ E ′. Le cout total de la solution, note C(E ′), est
What makes a dynamical system computationally powerful ?

We review methods for estimating the computational capability of a complex dynamical system. The main examples that we discuss are models for cortical neural microcircuits with varying degrees of biological accuracy, in the context of online computations on complex input streams. We address in particular the question to what extent earlier results about the relationship between the edge of chaos and the computational power of dynamical systems in discrete time for off-line computing also apply to this case.
A robust sinr balancing technique for a multiuser MIMO cognitive radio network

We propose a robust signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) balancing beamforming technique for a multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) based cognitive radio (CR) network. The aim is to design transmitter and receiver beamformers for multiple secondary users (SUs) while ensuring interference leakage to multiple primary users (PUs) is below a prescribed threshold. We use an iterative approach to design the receiver beamformers and transmitter beamformers so that SINRs achieved by all SUs are balanced and maximized. Due to the limited cooperation between secondary basestation (SBS) and PUs, we assume the channel state information (CSI) between the SBS and PUs is imperfect. Hence a robust beamformer design has been used to ensure the interference leakage to PU is below the specific threshold for all possible errors in the CSI.
A Class of Expected Value Bilevel Programming Problems with Random Coefficients Based on Rough Approximation and Its Application to a Production-Inventory System

This paper focuses on the development of a bilevel optimization model with random coefficients for a production-inventory system. The expected value operator technique is used to deal with the objective function, and rough approximation is applied to convert the stochastic constraint into a crisp constraint. Then an interactive programming method and genetic algorithm are utilized to solve the crisp model. Finally, an application is given to show the efficiency of the proposed model and approaches in solving the problem.
Devalued, Misunderstood, and Marginalized: Why Nontraditional Students’ Experiences Should be Included in the Diversity Discourse

Objective: This paper presents a rationale for discussing the marginalization of nontraditional students in the diversity discourse. Background: There is tremendous growth in adult college student enrollment, however marginalization of the nontraditional population is perpetuated through institutional policies and practices. Although there has been improvement in educational access for these students, they are still neglected programmatically and in service provision, similar to underrepresented student populations. This neglect is apparent in the omission of their experiences in scholarly diversity literature. Method: A content analysis of 706 sources was conducted to determine how often and in what ways nontraditional adult student experiences are explored as diversity issues. Results: A huge gap in the diversity literature regarding nontraditional adult students’ experiences exists. Conclusion: This oversight silences adult students’ voices and impedes their academic and economic progress. Application: Increasing diversity publications about adult students’ experiences as a marginalized population will provide resources to educate diversity scholars, practitioners, and college personnel.
Progressive Renal Failure

Blood pressure control is important and lower target values are required in those with proteinuria. ACEI are suitable agents provided the doctor is aware of the risks of renovascular disease in the elderly. Renal function should be checked after two weeks treatment; deterioration calls for cessation of ACEI treatment and investigation for renal arterial disease. Low protein diet should not be used routinely but high protein diet should be avoided. If a highly motivated patient wishes to try protein reduction in case it is beneficial, no less than 0.6 g protein/day should be prescribed. The patient must be reviewed regularly by a specialist dietitian who can check nutritional state. Regular medical follow-up is essential; it has been shown to slow progression of renal failure probably because patients become more compliant with therapy, particularly antihypertensives. When should this follow-up be transferred to the renal unit? Studies from many countries have shown that late referral and/or emergency first dialysis are associated with substantially increased mortality and morbidity. Patients in whom the primary diagnosis is in doubt should be seen early; those in whom the cause is known, conservative treatment in place and without uraemic symptom should be transferred by the time the serum creatinine reaches 300 mumol/l.
The burden of road traffic crashes, injuries and deaths in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Objective To estimate the burden of road traffic injuries and deaths for all road users and among different road user groups in Africa. Methods We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health, Google Scholar, websites of African road safety agencies and organizations for registry- and population-based studies and reports on road traffic injury and death estimates in Africa, published between 1980 and 2015. Available data for all road users and by road user group were extracted and analysed. We conducted a random-effects meta-analysis and estimated pooled rates of road traffic injuries and deaths. Findings We identified 39 studies from 15 African countries. The estimated pooled rate for road traffic injury was 65.2 per 100 000 population (95% confidence interval, CI: 60.8–69.5) and the death rate was 16.6 per 100 000 population (95% CI: 15.2–18.0). Road traffic injury rates increased from 40.7 per 100 000 population in the 1990s to 92.9 per 100 000 population between 2010 and 2015, while death rates decreased from 19.9 per 100 000 population in the 1990s to 9.3 per 100 000 population between 2010 and 2015. The highest road traffic death rate was among motorized four-wheeler occupants at 5.9 per 100 000 population (95% CI: 4.4–7.4), closely followed by pedestrians at 3.4 per 100 000 population (95% CI: 2.5–4.2). Conclusion The burden of road traffic injury and death is high in Africa. Since registry-based reports underestimate the burden, a systematic collation of road traffic injury and death data is needed to determine the true burden.