Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ensuring e-Transaction with Asynchronous and Uncoordinated Application Server Replicas

A recently proposed abstraction, called e-transaction (exactly-once transaction), specifies a set of properties capturing end-to-end reliability aspects for three-tier Web-based systems. In this paper we propose a distributed protocol ensuring the e-transaction properties for the general case of multiple, autonomous back-end databases. The key idea underlying our proposal consists in distributing, across the back-end tier, some recovery information reflecting the transaction processing state. This information is manipulated at low cost via local operations at the database side, with no need for any form of coordination among asynchronous replicas of the application server within the middle-tier. Compared to existing solutions, our protocol has therefore the distinguishing features of being both very light and highly scalable. The latter aspect makes our proposal particularly attractive for the case of very high degree of replication of the application access point, with distribution of the replicas within infrastructures geographically spread on public networks over the Internet (e.g., application delivery networks), namely, a configuration that also provides the advantages of reduced user perceived latency and increased system availability
Políticas e práticas de gestão de pessoas nas organizações: cenário da produção nacional de primeira linha e agenda de pesquisa

Resumo As pessoas assumiram papel estratégico e relevante nas organizações, constituindo fonte de competência organizacional essencial, devendo, portanto, ser valorizadas e desenvolvidas por meio de políticas e práticas de gestão de pessoas (GP). Assim, este estudo, de cunho qualiquantitativo, enseja desenhar um panorama dos estudos nacionais sobre esse tema, apresentando os resultados de uma revisão sistemática e bibliométrica dos trabalhos publicados nos principais periódicos de primeira linha em Administração e Psicologia, no período de 2010 a 2016, bem como a institucionalização da pesquisa no Brasil e a proposta de uma agenda de pesquisa, atualizando a revisão de Demo, Fogaça, Nunes et al. (2011), que contemplou estudos entre 2000 e 2010. Para tanto, foram pesquisados 18 periódicos com classificação Qualis da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes) igual ou superior a B1. Foram encontrados 59 artigos. Quanto aos resultados, o aumento dos indicadores de produção científica no período analisado aponta o vigor acadêmico da área e a relevância estratégica para as organizações dos estudos relacionados às políticas e às práticas de GP. Foram identificadas lacunas desvelando a premência de realizar mais estudos relacionados às políticas de recrutamento e seleção e envolvimento, ainda pouco investigadas no cenário nacional. Ademais, estudos relacionando as políticas de GP a outras variáveis do comportamento organizacional, bem como o esforço de construir e validar medidas sobre o tema também se mostram necessários.
Normal vascular development in mice deficient in endothelial NO synthase: possible role of neuronal NO synthase.

PURPOSE Nitric oxide formation by nitric oxide synthase (NOS) has been implicated in vascular injury and retinal neovascularization during oxygen-induced retinopathy. However, the role of NOS in normal retinal vascular development and growth has not been studied. The purpose of these experiments was to characterize the expression of NOS in relation to vascular development and to determine the effect of deleting endothelial NOS (eNOS) on this process. METHODS Retinal vascular development was analyzed in 150 eNOS+/+ and eNOS-/- mice ranging from 1 day to 6 months old by using a combination of morphometric and biochemical approaches. The pattern of vascular development was analyzed in retinal tissue sections and whole-mount preparations labeled with fluorescein-conjugated Griffonia simplicifolia lectin. Analysis of vascular density and arterial diameter were performed with the lectin-labeled whole-mounts using computer-assisted morphometry. NO production was quantified by measuring retinal levels of nitrate/nitrite accumulation using the Greiss reaction. Western blotting techniques with isoform-specific NOS antibodies were used to evaluate differences in levels of NOS protein expression. Retinal distribution of nNOS was characterized using nNOS immunocytochemistry and NADPH diaphorase histochemistry. RESULTS These analyses showed that the rate and pattern of retinal vascular development in eNOS-/- mice were comparable with those in wild-type control mice. Measurement of vascular density showed no significant differences between the two strains. The amount of NO production in the eNOS-/- retina was also equivalent to that in the eNOS+/+ retina. Analysis of nNOS expression within the eNOS+/+ and eNOS-/- mice showed similar levels of total nNOS protein in the two strains. Inducible NOS was not detected in either strain. Studies of nNOS distribution showed intense labeling of the deep capillary plexus in the eNOS-/- retina. This was not seen in the wild-type retinas. The number of neuronal cells showing NADPH-diaphorase activity was also significantly increased in the eNOS-/- mice. CONCLUSIONS Development of the retinal vasculature occurs normally without eNOS. The observations of similar levels of NO production, perivascular redistribution of nNOS and increased numbers of NADPH-diaphorase reactive neurons in the eNOS-/- retinas suggest that increases in vascular-associated nNOS activity compensate for the eNOS deficiency in the developing mutant retina.
Preliminary results on multi-pocket pneumatic elastomer actuators for human-robot interface in hand rehabilitation

Soft fluidic actuators have been used recently for developing wearable soft robotics for hand rehabilitation and power-assist. However, these actuators have mostly been made as single-pocket structures that are controlled by a single input for each digit. The next natural step would be to develop multi-pocket structures that could be controlled by multiple inputs to gain better control over the coupled digits' response. The purpose of this study is to explore the fabrication of this kind of soft multi-pocketed pneumatic elastomer actuators. For this paper, a comparison was made between two 2-pocket prototypes, one with internal and the other with external pressure input tubing. Otherwise they were fabricated in the same manner. The goal was to see whether an embedded pressure input tubing would affect the actuator's force output or motion trajectory. The fabrication process, and the force and trajectory measurements are described in detail. The prototypes had similar responses, which seemed not to be affected by the tubing. This showed that the described method could be used for making practical soft actuators with embedded input tubing that does not interfere with their response. However, further tests need to be done to confirm that the results apply to structures with three or more pockets.
Enzyme Biosensors for Biomedical Applications: Strategies for Safeguarding Analytical Performances in Biological Fluids

Enzyme-based chemical biosensors are based on biological recognition. In order to operate, the enzymes must be available to catalyze a specific biochemical reaction and be stable under the normal operating conditions of the biosensor. Design of biosensors is based on knowledge about the target analyte, as well as the complexity of the matrix in which the analyte has to be quantified. This article reviews the problems resulting from the interaction of enzyme-based amperometric biosensors with complex biological matrices containing the target analyte(s). One of the most challenging disadvantages of amperometric enzyme-based biosensor detection is signal reduction from fouling agents and interference from chemicals present in the sample matrix. This article, therefore, investigates the principles of functioning of enzymatic biosensors, their analytical performance over time and the strategies used to optimize their performance. Moreover, the composition of biological fluids as a function of their interaction with biosensing will be presented.
Robust Disturbance Rejection Control for Attitude Tracking of an Aircraft

This brief proposes a disturbance rejection control strategy for attitude tracking of an aircraft with both internal uncertainties and external disturbances. The proposed control strategy consists of a robust disturbance observer (DOB) and a nonlinear feedback controller. Specifically, a robust DOB is proposed to compensate the uncertain rotational dynamics into a nominal plant, based on which a nonlinear feedback controller is implemented for desired tracking performance. We first divide the practical rotational dynamics into the nominal part, external disturbances, and equivalent internal disturbances. Then, property of equivalent internal disturbances is explored for stability analysis. A robust DOB is optimized based on H∞ theory to guarantee disturbance rejection performance and robustness against system uncertainties. A practical nonlinear feedback controller is hence applied to stabilize the compensated system based on backstepping approach. Experiments on a quadrotor testbed show that the proposed robust DOB can suppress the external disturbances and measurement noise, with the robustness against system uncertainties.
Stoichiometry: Linking elements to biochemicals

Ecological stoichiometry is a useful tool for studying how the elemental composition of organisms and their food affects production, nutrient cycling, and food- web dynamics. Two analyses are presented here that show that the use of simple element ratios in stoichiometric calculations may in certain circumstances prove inadequate because of the influence in animal nutrition of biochemical aspects of diet. In the first, a stoichio- metric analysis of herbivores consuming food with varying carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratios is undertaken, in which the intake of C is segregated into easily assimilated compounds and fiber. Two herbivore strategies emerge from the analysis, both as a means of minimizing limitation by C, not N: fiber eaters that consume high C:N food and have efficient fiber digestion, and selective feeders that consume low C:N food but that do not possess fiber- digesting enzymes. In the second example, the stoichiometric axiom that a single substrate, the one in least supply relative to demand, limits growth is used to identify potentially limiting essential amino acids in the diets of a range of animals. Large consumer-prey imbalances in amino acids were found in several cases, indicating that, at least in theory, growth should be strongly limited by individual amino acids rather than bulk N. In practice such limitation may be offset in consumers by physiological and other factors such as symbiotic relationships. The two analyses emphasize the simplicity of element stoichi- ometry, highlighting the need to consider biochemical and physiological arguments when undertaking stoichiometric studies of carbon and nutrient transfers in ecosystems.
Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy with Occasionally Binding Zero Bound Constraints

This paper studies optimal fiscal and monetary policy when the nominal interest rate is subject to the zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint in a stochastic New Keynesian economy. In the baseline model calibrated to match key features of the U.S. economy, it is optimal for the government to increase its spending when at the ZLB in the stochastic environment by about 60 percent more than it would in the deterministic environment. The presence of uncertainty creates a unique time-consistency problem if the steady state is inefficient. Although access to government spending policy increases welfare in the face of a large deflationary shock, it decreases welfare during normal times as the government reduces the nominal interest rate less aggressively before reaching the ZLB.
Crush dynamics of square honeycomb sandwich cores

Square honeycombs are effective as cores for all‐metal sandwich plates in that they combine excellent crushing strength and energy absorption with good stiffness and strength in out‐of‐plane shear and in‐plane stretch. In applications where sandwich plates must absorb significant energy in crushing under intense impulsive loads, dynamic effects play a significant role in the behaviour of the core. Three distinct dynamic effects can be identified: (i) inertial resistance, (ii) inertial stabilization of webs against buckling, and (iii) material strain‐rate dependence. Each contributes to dynamic strengthening of the core. These effects are illustrated and quantified with the aid of detailed numerical calculations for rates of deformation characteristic of shock loads in air and water. A continuum model for high rate deformation of square honeycomb cores is introduced that can be used to simulate core behaviour in large structural calculations when it is not feasible to mesh the detailed core geometry. The performance of the continuum model is demonstrated for crushing deformations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
QoS-aware resource allocation algorithm for OFDMA-WLAN integrated system

In this paper, a resource allocation algorithm is proposed for different quality of service (QoS) guarantee, fair transmission and high data rate in orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and wireless local area network (WLAN) integrated system. First, different QoS requirements are converted into different rate requests for simplifying the optimization problem. Second, the sub-channels are assigned to reach certain QoS satisfaction level (QSL) before water-filling based power allocation. The channel resource is not allocated according to highest data rate; users will be assigned channels that best suit the needs. The proposed algorithm is compared with three other algorithms and the simulation results show that it can provide different QoS guarantees for different users while maintaining the system data rate and fair transmission.
Deep Haar Scattering Networks

An orthogonal Haar scattering transform is a deep network computed with a hierarchy of additions, subtractions and absolute values over pairs of coefficients. Unsupervised learning optimizes Haar pairs to obtain sparse representations of training data with an algorithm of polynomial complexity. For signals defined on a graph, a Haar scattering is computed by cascading orthogonal Haar wavelet transforms on the graph, with Haar wavelets having connected supports. It defines a representation which is invariant to local displacements of signal values on the graph. When the graph connectivity is unknown, unsupervised Haar learning can provide a consistent estimation of connected wavelet supports. Classification results are given on image data bases, defined on regular grids or graphs, with a connectivity which may be known or unknown.
Phenology, seasonal timing and circannual rhythms: towards a unified framework

Phenology refers to the periodic appearance of life-cycle events and currently receives abundant attention as the effects of global change on phenology are so apparent. Phenology as a discipline observes these events and relates their annual variation to variation in climate. But phenology is also studied in other disciplines, each with their own perspective. Evolutionary ecologists study variation in seasonal timing and its fitness consequences, whereas chronobiologists emphasize the periodic nature of life-cycle stages and their underlying timing programmes (e.g. circannual rhythms). The (neuro-) endocrine processes underlying these life-cycle events are studied by physiologists and need to be linked to genes that are explored by molecular geneticists. In order to fully understand variation in phenology, we need to integrate these different perspectives, in particular by combining evolutionary and mechanistic approaches. We use avian research to characterize different perspectives and to highlight integration that has already been achieved. Building on this work, we outline a route towards uniting the different disciplines in a single framework, which may be used to better understand and, more importantly, to forecast climate change impacts on phenology.
Characterization and analysis of gate-all-around Si nanowire transistors for extreme scaling

The gate-all-around (GAA) silicon nanowire transistor (SNWT) is considered as one of the best candidates for ultimately scaled CMOS devices at the end of the technology roadmap. This paper reviews our recent work on the characterization and analysis of this unique one-dimensional nanowire-channel device with three-dimensional surrounding-gate from experiments and simulation, including carrier transport behavior, parasitic effects, noise characteristics, self-heating effect, variability and reliability, which can provide useful information for the GAA device hierarchical modeling and device/circuit co-design.
The Influence of Developer Quality on Software Fault-Proneness Prediction

Previous studies have shown that process metrics are useful for building fault-proneness prediction models. In particular, it has been found that those process metrics incorporating developer experience (defined as the percentage of the code a developer contributes) exhibit a good ability to predict fault-proneness. However, developer quality, which we strongly believe should have a great influence on software quality, is surprisingly ignored. In this paper, we first quantify the quality of a developer via the percentage of history bug-introduce commits over all his/her commits during the development process. Then, we leverage developer quality information to develop eight file quality metrics. Finally, we empirically study the usefulness of these eight file quality metrics for fault-proneness prediction. Based on eight open source software systems, our experiment results show that: 1) these proposed file quality metrics capture additional information compared with existing process metrics, 2) almost all the proposed file quality metrics have a significant association with fault-proneness in an expected direction, and 3) the proposed file quality metrics can in general improve the effectiveness of fault-proneness prediction models when together used with existing process metrics. These results suggest that developer quality has a strong influence on software quality and should be taken into account when predicting software fault-proneness.
Significant reduction of surface solar irradiance induced by aerosols in a suburban region in northeastern China

[1] In the spring of 2005, a Sun photometer and a set of broadband pyranometers were installed in Liaozhong, a suburban region in northeastern China. Aerosol properties derived from Sun photometer measurements and aerosol-induced changes in downwelling shortwave surface irradiances are analyzed in this paper. It is shown that the mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 500 nm is 0.63. The day-to-day variation of aerosol optical depth is dramatic, with a maximum daily AOD close to 2.0 and a minimum value close to the background level. Dust activities generally produce heavy aerosol loading characterized by larger particle sizes and less absorption than those observed under normal conditions. The reduction of instantaneous direct shortwave surface irradiance per unit of AOD is 404.5 W m−2. About 63.8% of this reduction is offset by an increase in diffuse irradiance; consequently, one unit increase in AOD leads to a decrease in global surface irradiance of 146.3 W m−2. The diurnal aerosol direct radiative forcing efficiency is about −47.4 W m−2. Overall, aerosols reduce about 30 W m−2 per day of surface net shortwave irradiance in this suburban region.
Screw loosening and Migration after Dynesys Implantation

Due to the problems associated with rigid fixation, the concept of dynamic stabilization was introduced. Dynesys is one of the pedicle screw-based dynamic stabilization systems. In spite of the dynamic nature of Dynesys, there are concerns about the rigidity of the Dynesys system. We present a case of vertebral body split fracture after Dynesys implantation in a 74-year-old woman. She had undergone L2-L5 laminectomy and Dynesys implantation for spinal stenosis 15 months ago. She was discharged with improvement in lower back pain and claudication. Follow-up X-ray images were taken at 1, 3 and 6 months and there was no evidence of screw migration. During the follow-up period, she received selective root block due to persistent leg pain. Eight months after the operation, she visited our hospital due to severe lower back pain. Magnetic resonance imaging showed the features of lumbar spondylitis from L2 to L5. Plain X-ray and computed tomography images showed the presence of a superiorly migrated screw at L5. The screws migrated superiorly into the intervertebral disc space creating a bony defect resembling a sagittal migrated fracture. The Dynesys system was removed and lumbar spondylitis was treated with antibiotics. The aim of the present case was to demonstrate the problems caused due to rigidity of the Dynesys system, when postoperative infection occurs after Dynesys implantation.
Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Links Oxidative Stress to Impaired Pancreatic Beta-Cell Function Caused by Human Oxidized LDL

Elevated plasma concentration of the pro-atherogenic oxidized low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) triggers adverse effects in pancreatic beta-cells and is associated with type 2 diabetes. Here, we investigated whether the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is a key player coupling oxidative stress to beta-cell dysfunction and death elicited by human oxidized LDL. We found that human oxidized LDL activates ER stress as evidenced by the activation of the inositol requiring 1α, and the elevated expression of both DDIT3 (also called CHOP) and DNAJC3 (also called P58IPK) ER stress markers in isolated human islets and the mouse insulin secreting MIN6 cells. Silencing of Chop and inhibition of ER stress markers by the chemical chaperone phenyl butyric acid (PBA) prevented cell death caused by oxidized LDL. Finally, we found that oxidative stress accounts for activation of ER stress markers induced by oxidized LDL. Induction of Chop/CHOP and p58IPK/P58IPK by oxidized LDL was mimicked by hydrogen peroxide and was blocked by co-treatment with the N-acetylcystein antioxidant. As a conclusion, the harmful effects of oxidized LDL in beta-cells requires ER stress activation in a manner that involves oxidative stress. This mechanism may account for impaired beta-cell function in diabetes and can be reversed by antioxidant treatment.