Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scheduling in Unpredictable Environments

The benefits of scheduling are well known; however, even in a partially unpredictable execution environment, failure to deal with these variations can cause serious deterioration of these benefits. It has been suggested that such circumstances may benefit from the combination of a global scheduler responsible for establishing overall execution requirements with a local dispatcher responsible for supervising execution subject to the environment and the requirements of the global scheduler which is notified when execution is no longer possible. This paper focuses on the implementation of such a framework for a system with a small number of basic operations and constraints but with a significant amount of uncertainty in the actual availability of objects and resources: the scheduling of load and discharge operations for container shipping are considered with the ultimate goal being the efficient automation of port facilities.
Lit: A high performance massive data computing framework based on CPU/GPU cluster

Big data processing is receiving significant amount of interest as an important technology to reveal the information behind the data, such as trends, characteristics, etc. MapReduce is considered as the most efficient distributed parallel data processing framework. However, some high-end applications, especially some scientific analyses have both data-intensive and computation-intensive features. Current big data processing techniques like Hadoop are not designed for computation-intensive applications, thus have insufficient computation power. In this paper, we presented Lit, a high performance massive data computing framework based on CPU/GPU cluster. Lit integrated GPU with Hadoop to improve the computational power of each node in the cluster. Since the architecture and programming model of GPU is different from CPU, Lit provided an annotation based approach to automatically generate CUDA codes from Hadoop codes. Lit hided the complexity of programming on CPU/GPU cluster by providing extended compiler and optimizer. To utilize the simplified programming, scalability and fault tolerance benefits of Hadoop and combine them with the high performance computation power of GPU, Lit extended the Hadoop by applying a GPUClassloader to detect the GPU, generate and compile CUDA codes, and invoke the shared library. Our experimental results show that Lit can achieve an average speedup of 1x to 3x on three typical applications over Hadoop.
Mutation Testing for Aspect-Oriented Programs

Mutation testing has been shown to be one of the strongest testing criteria for the evaluation of both programs and test suites. Comprehensive sets of mutants require strong test sets to achieve acceptable testing coverage. Moreover, mutation operators are valuable for the evaluation of other testing approaches. Although its importance has been highlighted for aspect-oriented (AO) programs, there is still a need for a suitable set of mutation operators for AO languages. The quality of the mutation testing itself relies on the quality of such operators. This paper presents the design of a set of mutation operators for AspectJ-based programs. These operators model instances of fault types identified in an extensive survey. The fault types and respective operators are grouped according to the related language features. We also discuss the generalisation of the fault types to AO approaches other than AspectJ and the coverage that may be achieved with the application of the proposed operators. In addition, a cost analysis based on two case studies involving real-world applications has provided us feedback on the most expensive operators, which will support the definition of further testing strategies.
Basal ganglia modulation of thalamocortical relay in Parkinson's disease and dystonia

Basal ganglia dysfunction has being implied in both Parkinson's disease and dystonia. While these disorders probably involve different cellular and circuit pathologies within and beyond basal ganglia, there may be some shared neurophysiological pathways. For example, pallidotomy and pallidal Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) are used in symptomatic treatment of both disorders. Both conditions are marked by alterations of rhythmicity of neural activity throughout basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits. Increased synchronized oscillatory activity in beta band is characteristic of Parkinson's disease, while different frequency bands, theta and alpha, are involved in dystonia. We compare the effect of the activity of GPi, the output nuclei of the basal ganglia, on information processing in the downstream neural circuits of thalamus in Parkinson's disease and dystonia. We use a data-driven computational approach, a computational model of the thalamocortical (TC) cell modulated by experimentally recorded data, to study the differences and similarities of thalamic dynamics in dystonia and Parkinson's disease. Our analysis shows no substantial differences in TC relay between the two conditions. Our results suggest that, similar to Parkinson's disease, a disruption of thalamic processing could also be involved in dystonia. Moreover, the degree to which TC relay fidelity is impaired is approximately the same in both conditions. While Parkinson's disease and dystonia may have different pathologies and differ in the oscillatory content of neural discharge, our results suggest that the effect of patterning of pallidal discharge is similar in both conditions. Furthermore, these results suggest that the mechanisms of GPi DBS in dystonia may involve improvement of TC relay fidelity.
Freeze-Drying of Mononuclear Cells Derived from Umbilical Cord Blood Followed by Colony Formation

Background We recently showed that freeze-dried cells stored for 3 years at room temperature can direct embryonic development following cloning. However, viability, as evaluated by membrane integrity of the cells after freeze-drying, was very low; and it was mainly the DNA integrity that was preserved. In the present study, we improved the cells' viability and functionality after freeze-drying. Methodology/Principal Findings We optimized the conditions of directional freezing, i.e. interface velocity and cell concentration, and we added the antioxidant EGCG to the freezing solution. The study was performed on mononuclear cells (MNCs) derived from human umbilical cord blood. After freeze-drying, we tested the viability, number of CD34+-presenting cells and ability of the rehydrated hematopoietic stem cells to differentiate into different blood cells in culture. The viability of the MNCs after freeze-drying and rehydration with pure water was 88%–91%. The total number of CD34+-presenting cells and the number of colonies did not change significantly when evaluated before freezing, after freeze-thawing, and after freeze-drying (5.4×104±4.7, 3.49×104±6 and 6.31×104±12.27 cells, respectively, and 31±25.15, 47±45.8 and 23.44±13.3 colonies, respectively). Conclusions This is the first report of nucleated cells which have been dried and then rehydrated with double-distilled water remaining viable, and of hematopoietic stem cells retaining their ability to differentiate into different blood cells.
Between ethnic options and ethnic boundaries – Recent Polish and Turkish migrants' identification with Germany*

We describe migrants' early patterns of identification with the receiving society and explain why these differ by migrants' origins. Using longitudinal data from a novel survey among recent immigrants from Poland and Turkey in Germany enables us to analyse the nexus between social assimilation, ethnic boundaries and identification more directly than previous studies. Theoretically, we start out from assimilation theory and its assumption that migrants' identification with the receiving country is a consequence of their preceding social and cognitive assimilation and from the literature on ethnic boundaries. Results suggest that Turkish new migrants start out with higher levels of identification with Germany than Poles. Over time, however, their national identification decreases while it increases for Poles. This is partly explained by the fact that Turkish migrants' social assimilation stagnates; more importantly, only Turks perceive more rather than less discrimination and value incompatibility over time. While both groups' identificational integration with the receiving country thus starts out from different conditions, they do not show a fundamentally dissimilar pattern with respect to the consequences of assimilation and discrimination for their national identification. Yet, the negative impact of the latter is stronger for Turks than for Poles, reflecting the greater salience of ethnic boundaries for this group.
The natural history of early hepatitis C virus evolution; lessons from a global outbreak in human immunodeficiency virus-1-infected individuals

New insights into the early viral evolution and cellular immune response during acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are being gained following a global outbreak in human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV)-positive men who have sex with men. Cross-sectional and longitudinal sequence analysis at both the population and individual level have facilitated tracking of the HCV epidemic across the world and enabled the development of tests of viral diversity in individual patients in order to predict spontaneous clearance of HCV and response to treatment. Immunological studies in HIV-positive cohorts have highlighted the role of the CD4+ T-cell response in the control of early HCV infection and will increase the opportunity for the identification of protective epitopes that could be used in future vaccine development.
Communications and networking over satellites: SatNEx experimental activities and testbeds

One of the aims of the SatNEx (Satellite Network of Excellence, http://www.satnex.de) European project is to provide the scientific community that operates on satellite communications with measurement campaign results and evaluation tools, in order to support research activities that investigate problems in satellite communications at different levels of the OSI stack. In fact, the research activities developed in SatNEx address the most relevant aspects of satellite communications, such as channel modulation and coding schemes, access strategies, advanced networking, end‐to‐end quality of service, transport performance, delay tolerant networks, and new applications. Even if SatNEx is mainly devoted to satellite communications, integration of satellite and terrestrial wireless segments has also been taken into account. This paper presents the results obtained in the specific research activity devoted to trials and testbeds developed during the SatNEx project. The high number of authors of this paper is an indication of the strong collaborative work sustained, the numerous measurement campaigns, and the complexity in developing integrated testbeds. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
MML and the Metamodel Architecture

The Meta-Modelling Language is a static object-oriented modelling language whose focus is the declarative definition of languages. It aims to enable the UML metamodel to be precisely defined, and to enable UML to evolve into a family of languages. This paper argues that although MML takes a metamodelling approach to language definition, it cannot be described as strict metamodelling. This has significant implications on the nature of the metamodel architecture it supports, yet without contravening the OMG’s requirements for the UML 2.0 infrastructure. In particular it supports a rich generic nested architecture as opposed to the linear architecture that strict metamodelling imposes. In this nested architecture, the transformation between the representation of any model at one metalevel and its representation in the metalevel below can be described by an information preserving one-to-one mapping. This mapping provides the basis for a powerful area of functionality that any potential metamodelling tool should look to exploit.
Identification of microRNA-221/222 and microRNA-323-3p association with rheumatoid arthritis via predictions using the human tumour necrosis factor transgenic mouse model

Objective To identify novel microRNA (miR) associations in synovial fibroblasts (SF), by performing miR expression profiling on cells isolated from the human tumour necrosis factor (TNF) transgenic mouse model (TghuTNF, Tg197) and patients biopsies. Methods miR expression in SF from TghuTNF and wild-type (WT) control mice were determined by miR deep sequencing (miR-seq) and the arthritic profile was established by pairwise comparisons. Quantitative PCR analysis was utilised for profile validation, miR and gene quantitation in patient SF. Dysregulated miR target genes and pathways were predicted via bioinformatic algorithms and validated using gain-of-function coupled with reporter assay experiments. Results miR-seq demonstrated that TghuTNF-SF exhibit a distinct pathogenic profile with 22 significantly upregulated and 30 significantly downregulated miR. Validation assays confirmed the dysregulation of miR-223, miR-146a and miR-155 previously associated with human rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pathology, as well as that of miR-221/222 and miR-323-3p. Notably, the latter were also found significantly upregulated in patient RA SF, suggesting for the first time their association with RA pathology. Bioinformatic analysis suggested Wnt/cadherin signalling as a putative pathway target. miR-323-3p overexpression was shown to enhance Wnt pathway activation and decrease the levels of its predicted target β-transducin repeat containing, an inhibitor of β-catenin. Conclusions Using miR-seq-based profiling in SF from the TghuTNF mouse model and validations in RA patient biopsies, the authors identified miR-221/222 and miR-323-3p as novel dysregulated miR in RA SF. Furthermore, the authors show that miR-323-3p is a positive regulator of WNT/cadherin signalling in RA SF suggesting its potential pathogenic involvement and future use as a therapeutic target in RA.
DCT coefficient statistics in images corrupted by spatially correlated noise

The analysis task of image discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients in case of spatially correlated noise is considered. Several estimators of shape parameter of generalized Gaussian distribution based on the forth central moment as well as percentile coefficient of kurtosis are applied in the research. It is shown that spatially correlated type of noise considerably influences statistics of DCT coefficients both in each particular image block and for a given spatial frequency for all image blocks. Histogram analysis of shape parameter estimates shows that noise type can be distinguished based on the mode position and its value.
Knowledge-Based Spatiotemporal Abstraction

We present a case study of reusing the same problemsolving method for the related tasks of temporal abstraction and linear-space abstraction. The method, known as knowledge-based temporal abstraction, abstracts high-level concepts from time-stamped raw data, and was evaluated primarily in clinical domains. We applied this method to the domain of traffic control, in which the monitoring task requires linear reasoning along both space and time. First, we reused the method for creation of spatial abstractions over highways, given sensor measurements along each highway. Second, we reused the method to create temporal abstractions of traffic behavior at the same space segmentsions of traffic behavior at the same space segments over time. Thus, we demonstrated the reusabilty of the knowledge-based temporal abstraction method. Our results also show that the knowledge-based temporal-abstraction method can be generalized into a knowledge-based linear abstraction method. This method solves tasks requiringion method. This method solves tasks requiring abstraction of data along a linear distance measure. Bothion of data along a linear distance measure. Both the spatialand the temporal-abstraction methods are instances of that generalized method mapped to different dimensions. We show how a spatiotemporal-abstraction method can be assembled from these methods. The spatiotemporal-abstraction method can be applied to tasks requiring abstraction of time-oriented data over a linear, decomposable space, such as traffic over a set of highways.
A design and implementation of dual-stack aware authentication system for enterprise captive portal

In the IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack environment, enterprises critically need a captive portal based authentication system that can bind a user account to both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, on the machine the user log-in, and release the binding when the user log-out. Aggravating users by requiring them to do multiple log-in, one per address, is out of the question. In this paper, we present a design and implementation of a dual-stack aware captive portal system for a large-scale network. We propose a mechanism for dual address (IPv4/IPv6) discovery and service bundle authentication of both addresses. The proposed system offers a total solution for dual-stack authentication in enterprise network to support widespread adoption of IPv6.
Leishmania major Elongation Factor 1B Complex Has Trypanothione S-Transferase and Peroxidase Activity*

In the Trypanosomatidae, trypanothione has subsumed many of the roles of glutathione in defense against chemical and oxidant stress. Crithidia fasciculata lacks glutathione S-transferase, but contains an unusual trypanothione S-transferase activity that is associated with eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1B (eEF1B). Here we describe the cloning, expression, and reconstitution of the purified α, β, and γ subunits of eEF1B from Leishmania major. Individual subunits lacked trypanothione S-transferase activity. Only eEF1B, formed by reconstitution or co-expression of the three subunits, was able to conjugate a variety of electrophilic substrates to trypanothione or glutathionylspermidine, but not glutathione. In contrast to the C. fasciculata eEF1B, the L. major enzyme also displayed peroxidase activity against a variety of organic hydroperoxides. The enzyme showed no activity with hydrogen peroxide and greatest activity with linoleic acid hydroperoxide (1 unit mg–1). Kinetic studies suggest a ternary complex mechanism, with Km values of 140 μm for trypanothione and 7.4 mm for cumene hydroperoxide and kcat = 25 s–1. Immunofluorescence studies indicate that the enzyme may be localized to the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum. These results suggest that, in addition to its role in protein synthesis, the Leishmania eEF1B may help protect the parasite from lipid peroxidation.
Unsupervised Outlier Detection and Semi-Supervised Learning ; CU-CS-976-04

A familiar problem in machine learning is to determine which data points are outliers when the underlying distribution is unknown. In this paper, we adapt a simple algorithm from Zhou et al[3], designed for semisupervised learning, and show that it not only can automatically detect outliers by using local and global consistency of data points, but also automatically select optimal learning parameters, as well as predict class outliers for points introduced after training.
Divergent neural substrates of inhibitory control in binge eating disorder relative to other manifestations of obesity

An important endeavor involves increasing our understanding of biobehavioral processes underlying different types of obesity. The current study investigated the neural correlates of cognitive control (involving conflict monitoring and response inhibition) in obese individuals with binge eating disorder (BED) as compared to BMI‐matched non‐BED obese (OB) individuals and lean comparison (LC) participants. Alterations in cognitive control may contribute to differences in behavioral control over eating behaviors in BED and obesity.
Haploid chromosomes in molecular ecology: lessons from the human Y

We review the potential use of haploid chromosomes in molecular ecology, using recent work on the human Y chromosome as a paradigm. Chromosomal sex‐determination systems, and hence constitutively haploid chromosomes, which escape from recombination over much of their length, have evolved multiple times in the animal kingdom. In mammals, where males are the heterogametic sex, the patrilineal Y chromosome represents a paternal counterpart to mitochondrial DNA. Work on the human Y chromosome has shown it to contain the same range of polymorphic markers as the rest of the nuclear genome and these have rendered it the most informative haplotypic system in the human genome. Examples from research on the human Y chromosome are used to illustrate the common interests of anthropologists and ecologists in investigating the genetic impact of sex‐specific behaviours and dispersals, as well as patterns of global diversity. We present some methodologies for extracting information from these uniquely informative yet under‐utilized loci.
Family history of alcohol dependence and gray matter abnormalities in non-alcoholic adults

Abstract Objectives. Alcohol-use disorders in adolescents are associated with gray matter (GM) abnormalities suggesting neurotoxicity by alcohol. However, recently similar GM abnormalities were found in non-drinking children with a family history (FH) of alcohol dependence (AD). The question thus rises whether these abnormalities represent a transient delay in brain maturation or a persistent risk factor for developing neuropsychiatric disorders, rather than a (neurotoxic) consequence of AD. This study investigated whether a FH of AD in non-drinking adults is associated with abnormal GM-volumes similar to those observed in drinking and non-drinking adolescents with a FH of AD. Methods. GM-images were analyzed using Voxel-Based Morphometry in non-alcoholics with (FH+; N = 36) and without (FH–; N = 107) familial AD. Additionally we controlled for possible confounders: diagnosis of depression/anxiety, childhood trauma and familial depression/anxiety. Results. Smaller GM-volumes were shown in the right parahippocampal gyrus in FH+ compared with FH–. Results were unaffected by confounders. Conclusions. We demonstrated an effect of familial AD in non-alcoholic adults on GM volume in the parahippocampal gyrus, similar to drinking and non-drinking FH+ adolescents. These findings suggest that GM abnormalities in the parahippocampal gyrus represent a persistent biological susceptibility for AD or related psychopathology and not neurotoxicity of alcohol or delayed brain maturation.
A Review of English Immersion Experiments in Chinese Elementary Schools

English immersion experiments in Chinese elementary schools started in 1998. It went through two phases: early half immersion subject curriculum model; early partial immersion integrative curriculum model. The teaching principles developed as: confluent; natural learning; listening and speaking first; without using mother tongue as a bridge; participation; "high consistence . The tests in sound consciousness, cognitive ability, English and Chinese language abilities, academic achievement of immersion and non - immersion subjects, have showed significant difference between experiment and control classes. This English immersion program has acquired delectable effects and achievements, but it also faces the challenge of teachers' preparation and curriculum development.
A novel frequency reversal transmission for cooperative networks with frequency offsets

In this paper, we dedicate to fighting against the multiple carrier frequency offsets (MCFOs) in two-relay decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative networks. A full-rate code named frequency reversal Alamouti code (FRAC) is designed for two-relay cooperative orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) networks. Reversal makes the equivalent channel matrix between the relays and the destination complex orthogonalized. The transmission is capable of achieving full diversity through using a zero-forcing (ZF) decoder. Benefiting from FRAC, operations during equalization at the destination are of low complexity. Theoretical analysis and simulation results both demonstrate that the proposed scheme can completely eliminate the effect of MCFOs.