Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CloudRAMSort: fast and efficient large-scale distributed RAM sort on shared-nothing cluster

Sorting is a fundamental kernel used in many database operations. The total memory available across cloud computers is now sufficient to store even hundreds of terabytes of data in-memory. Applications requiring high-speed data analysis typically use in-memory sorting. The two most important factors in designing a high-speed in-memory sorting system are the single-node sorting performance and inter-node communication. In this paper, we present CloudRAMSort, a fast and efficient system for large-scale distributed sorting on shared-nothing clusters. CloudRAMSort performs multi-node optimizations by carefully overlapping computation with inter-node communication. The system uses a dynamic multi-stage random sampling approach for improved load-balancing between nodes. CloudRAMSort maximizes per-node efficiency by exploiting modern architectural features such as multiple cores and SIMD (Single-Instruction Multiple Data) units. This holistic combination results in the highest performing sorting performance on distributed shared-nothing platforms. CloudRAMSort sorts 1 Terabyte (TB) of data in 4.6 seconds on a 256-node Xeon X5680 cluster called the Intel Endeavor system. CloudRAMSort also performs well on heavily skewed input distributions, sorting 1 TB of data generated using Zipf distribution in less than 5 seconds. We also provide a detailed analytical model that accurately projects (within avg. 7%) the performance of CloudRAMSort with varying tuple sizes and interconnect bandwidths. Our analytical model serves as a useful tool to analyze performance bottlenecks on current systems and project performance with future architectural advances. With architectural trends of increasing number of cores, bandwidth, SIMD width, cache-sizes, and interconnect bandwidth, we believe CloudRAMSort would be the system of choice for distributed sorting of large-scale in-memory data of current and future systems
CONSORT 2010 Statement: updated guidelines for reporting parallel group randomized trials

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), when appropriately designed, conducted, and reported, represent the gold standard in evaluating health care interventions. That lofty position in the medical research hierarchy does not mean, however, that readers should uncritically accept the results of all RCTs. Indeed, randomized trials can yield biased results if they lack methodological rigor. (1) To assess a trial accurately, readers of a published report need complete, clear, and transparent information on its methodology and findings. Unfortunately, attempted assessments frequently fail because authors of many trial reports neglect to provide lucid and complete descriptions of that critical information. (2-4) That lack of adequate reporting fueled the development of the original CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) Statement in 1996 (5) and its revision five years later. (6-8) While those Statements positively impacted reporting quality for some RCTs, (9) (10) many trial reports still remain inadequate. (2) Furthermore, new methodological evidence and additional experience has accumulated since the last revision in 2001. Consequently, we organized a CONSORT Group meeting to update the 2001 Statement. (6-8) We introduce here the result of that process, CONSORT 2010.
Resource Slicing in Virtual Wireless Networks: A Survey

New architectural and design approaches for radio access networks have appeared with the introduction of network virtualization in the wireless domain. One of these approaches splits the wireless network infrastructure into isolated virtual slices under their own management, requirements, and characteristics. Despite the advances in wireless virtualization, there are still many open issues regarding the resource allocation and isolation of wireless slices. Because of the dynamics and shared nature of the wireless medium, guaranteeing that the traffic on one slice will not affect the traffic on the others has proven to be difficult. In this paper, we focus on the detailed definition of the problem, discussing its challenges. We also provide a review of existing works that deal with the problem, analyzing how new trends such as software defined networking and network function virtualization can assist in the slicing. We will finally describe some research challenges on this topic.
Online Rapid Prototyping of 3D Objects Using GPU-Based 3D Cloud Computing: Application to 3D Face Modelling

An on-line web application that interacts with an Internet user’s 3D webcam (e.g. Minoru stereo webcamera) is described. The application instantly captures and processes stereo images to retrieve 3D object coordinates for further 3D modelling tasks. It offers on-demand semi-automatic camera calibration and automatic image pair rectification for further stereo matching operations. The reconstructed 3D objects are displayed on a Java3D panel with free observational navigation. The extracted 3D coordinates are saved for further use in a professional 3D graphical tool such as Blender. Real objects geometry was extracted from stereo images processed by a custom matching algorithm using either server-side (CUDA on high-end server) or client-side (Java Applet on user computer) processing. Specific applications in 3D face animation are described. Depth map and associated face texture were parsed into our animated 3D face system to rapidly generate specific facial expressions. The described application is portable, easy to set up and operate. Its current version is available at: http: // www. ivs. auckland. ac. nz .
Low-Density Lipoprotein Receptor-Related Protein 1 (LRP1) Regulates the Stability and Function of GluA1 α-Amino-3-Hydroxy-5-Methyl-4-Isoxazole Propionic Acid (AMPA) Receptor in Neurons

The low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) is a multifunctional endocytic receptor abundantly expressed in neurons. Increasing evidence demonstrates that LRP1 regulates synaptic integrity and function at the post synapses, at least partially by regulating glutamate receptors. The α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid receptors (AMPARs) are critical ionotropic glutamate receptors consisting of homotetramer or heterotetramer of GluA1-4 subunits and play an essential role in synaptic transmission and synaptic plasticity. Our previous work has shown that neuronal deletion of the Lrp1 gene in mice leads to decreased level of GluA1 and reduced long-term potentiation. To understand the underlying mechanism, we investigated the cellular and functional consequences of LRP1 deletion in primary neurons. Here, we show that LRP1 interacts with and regulates the cellular distribution and turnover of GluA1. LRP1 knockdown in mouse primary neurons led to accelerated turnover and decreased cell surface distribution of GluA1, which correspond to decreased phosphorylation of GluA1 at S845 and S831 sites. Decreased LRP1 expression also attenuated AMPA-evoked calcium influx and reduced GluA1-regulated neurite outgrowth and filopodia density. Our results reveal a novel mechanism by which LRP1 controls synaptic integrity and function, specifically by regulating GluA1 trafficking, phosphorylation and turnover. They further demonstrate that LRP1-GluA1 pathway may hold promises as a therapeutic target for restoring synaptic functions in neurodegenerative diseases.
Perceptual Similarity in Visual Metaphor Processing

In visual metaphor processing, one object, the target, is compared to and understood in terms of another object, the source. Several studies suggest that perceptual similarity between two objects enhances a conceptual link between the two. However, little is known about how perceptual features contribute to the establishment of this link. In the present experiment we investigated the processing of the four possible combinations of conceptually and perceptually similar picture pairs using a same-different task. In order to determine whether particular processes are bound to a particular time range, we manipulated the delay between the two successively presented pictures. We expected perceptual processing effects at a short delay and conceptual processing effects at a longer delay. We did not find evidence for this expectation. However, the results did show that (i) it took participants longer to give a ‘different’ response if two objects shared perceptual features than when they did not; (ii) this presence of perceptual similarity also resulted in more response errors; and (iii) if objects shared only perceptual features, participants in the long delay condition produced more erroneous responses than the participants in the short delay condition did. These results are discussed in light of metaphor processing models.
Spatial Memoization: Concurrent Instruction Reuse to Correct Timing Errors in SIMD Architectures

This brief proposes a novel technique to alleviate the cost of timing error recovery, building upon the lockstep execution of single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) architectures. To support spatial memoization at the instruction level, we propose a single-strong-lane-multiple-weak-lane (SSMW) architecture. Spatial memoization exploits the value locality inside parallel programs, memoizes the result of an error-free execution of an instruction on the SS lane, and concurrently reuses the result to spatially correct errant instructions across MW lanes. Experiment results on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company 45-nm technology confirm that this technique avoids the recovery for 62% of the errant instructions on average, for both error-tolerant and error-intolerant general-purpose applications.
Book review and educational resources: Dementia: Walking not Wandering, by M. Marshall and K. Allen (Eds.). London: Hawker Publications, 2006, pp. 115. ISBN 1—874790—68

ing inter-agency working, within an unfamiliar health care setting. However, despite these criticisms, the book relates real accounts, which highlight both positive practical care issues and the lived experience of people with a dementia. The chapters regarding practical care and communication received in the emergency room were particularly interesting. The model of care discussed in Chapter 10, a dementia unit within the acute hospital setting to treat acutely ill people who have dementia was intriguing. Sadly no evaluation data was gathered to determine the efficacy of this model but again this challenged the norms of care. In conclusion a useful and thought-provoking book, which provides direct practical advice and stimulates thinking about alternative approaches to enhancing the hospital care experience of people who have a dementia.
Automatic summarization and visualisation of healthcare tweets

With social media encompassing people in all aspects of life, the relevance of information shared over these media is becoming highly relevant. The marketing and retail industry have been using social media like Twitter and Facebook extensively to collect information and promote their products. Now, it is the healthcare industry's turn to find hidden insights from the vast data available on the web. Analysing healthcare related tweets is one such arena which is proving to be useful in finding a lot of information about healthcare facilities like symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and recovery related to specific chronic diseases. As the data generated is huge, a summarized representation of the same is an important and non-trivial requirement which needs to be explored. In this work, we concentrate on analysing tweets related to cancer. We propose a simple clustering based method to summarize the Twitter generated data and extract more relevant tweets. In addition to this, two feature selection methods have been explored and the results compared which reiterates the importance of proper feature selection techniques in the process of Data analysis. The automatically generated summaries are evaluated using Cosine similarity measure. We also visualize the most frequent words using a Word cloud visualisation technique. Our work gives positive results and emphasises the fact that summarization of tweets provides a better understanding of the underlying data which can benefit healthcare industry which is aiming to provide personalised medicine for individuals.
Effect of optical transmitter on EMP plane wave distribution

When electric field is measured, one kind of optical fiber measurement system is often used. And we are often concerned with the effect of the device on electromagnetic wave distribution. in this paper, the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is used to model the effect of optical transmitter on EMP (electromagnetic pulse) plane wave distribution. From the numerical result, we find the law of the effect of optical transmitter on EMP plane wave distribution.
Cathepsin L proteinases as vaccines against infection with Fasciola hepatica (liver fluke) in ruminants.

Fasciolosis, caused by trematodes of the genus Fasciola, is one of the most important diseases of farmed ruminants in temperate and tropical zones. The appearance of Fasciola hepatica populations that are resistant to common flukicidal drugs means that new methods of treatment will soon be required. The future prospect for the development of anti-liver fluke vaccines is optimistic and given their consumer acceptability and environmental friendliness, offer the best way forward. Cathepsin L proteases (Fhe CL 1 and Fhe CL 2), secreted by liver flukes at all stages of their development in the mammalian host, are believed to play important roles in facilitating parasite migration (tissue degradation), feeding and immuno-evasion. The authors consider them prime targets for which new vaccines can be developed. Vaccine studies in cattle and sheep have shown that protection levels of up to 72 and 79 per cent, respectively, can be obtained with immunisations of cathepsin Ls in Freunds' adjuvant. The vaccine also exhibited high anti-embryonation/anti-fecundity effects on parasites that survived in vaccinated animals and thus could have a major impact on the transmission of disease to the intermediate host. While natural infections in sheep and cattle appear to elicit non-protective Th2 immune responses, the authors' studies indicate that the protection induced by vaccination involves elements of a Th1 response.
Mercury accumulations in brains from populations exposed to high and low dietary levels of methyl mercury. Concentration, chemical form and distribution of mercury in brain samples from autopsies.

Autopsy samples from 17 Greenlanders and 12 Danes were analysed for total and organic mercury by atomic absorption spectrophotometry, and for cellular localisation by autometallography. The concentration of total mercury in the Greenlanders (median: 174 micrograms Hg/kg wet weight brain tissue, range 59-4782, highest in cerebellum: 492) was found to be significantly higher than in the Danish group (3.7 micrograms Hg/kg w.w., range 1.2-11.8). Furthermore, the total concentration of mercury was positively correlated to age (rho = 0.56, p < 0.05), and the fraction of methyl mercury was negatively correlated to age (rho = -0.66, p < 0.01) among the Greenlanders. This suggests an age dependent accumulation of total mercury and a slow transformation of methyl mercury to inorganic mercury in the brain. The autometallographically demonstrable mercury was primarily located in glia cells.
Hardiness: An Operationalization of Existential Courage

Existential psychologists emphasize the ongoing search for meaning in life that involves us in the ubiquitous decision-making process. Regardless of content, each decision involves choosing a future, unfamiliar path, or repeating a past, familiar path. Although choosing the future is most consistent with continuing to elaborate life’s meaning, it also brings ontological anxiety, as expressed in fear of uncertainty and possible failure. Consequently, existentialists believe that to choose the future regularly requires courage. Without courage, one may choose the past regularly, which stagnates the quest for meaning. Hardiness, comprised of the attitudes of commitment (vs. alienation), control (vs. powerlessness), and challenge (vs. security) is offered as an operationalization of existential courage. Hardiness has been shown in research to enhance performance and health, despite stressful changes, and to increase perceptions and actions consistent with choosing the future. Hardiness can now be assessed and trained to increase existential courage.
In ovo validation model to assess the efficacy of commercial prebiotics on broiler performance and oxidative stability of meat

&NA; The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of in ovo injection of 2 different prebiotics, DiNovo (DN; Laminaria spp., extract containing laminarin and fucoidan) and Bi2tos (BI; non‐digestive trans‐galactooligosaccharides from milk lactose digested with Bifidobacterium bifidum NCIMB 41171), on growth, slaughter traits, intramuscular fat percentage (IF) and muscle fiber diameter, and lipid oxidation of meat in chickens reared under commercial conditions, following an in ovo trial protocol. On d 12 of embryonic incubation, 350,560 Ross 308 eggs were randomly divided into 3 experimental groups and automatically injected in ovo with: physiological saline (control group), BI at dose of 3.5 mg/embryo and DN at dose of 0.88 mg/embryo. Hatched chicks (males and females) were allocated dependent on treatment group into 3 poultry houses on each farm (3 farms in total) with a stocking density of 21.2 to 21.5 chicks/m2. At 42 d of age, 14 randomly chosen birds (7 males and 7 females), per each treatment from each farm, were individually weighed and slaughtered. The results showed no significant differences of final number of chickens/chicken house, mortality, BW per treatment, stocking density (kg/m2), feed intake, feed conversion rate (FCR), and European Broiler Index among 3 experimental groups. Treatments with BI and DN were associated with slight increases (P > 0.05) in average BW and a minor improvement (P > 0.05) of FCR in BI group. Slaughtered chickens from DN and BI treated groups had significantly increase of BW, carcass weight, carcass yield, and breast muscle weight compared with the control group. IF and muscle fiber diameter were similar among groups. Males had significantly higher slaughter traits compared to females, except for breast muscle yield. The prebiotic treatments led to a higher lipid oxidation in meat, even if the detected TBA reactive substances were below the critical value recognized for meat acceptability. In conclusion, in ovo administration of prebiotics was associated with improvements in a number of parameters of relevance to commercial poultry production.
Computational Modeling of Two Partly Coupled Coils Supplied by a Double Half-Bridge Resonant Inverter for Induction Heating Appliances

In this paper, an induction heating system composed of two partly coupled coils connected to a double half-bridge resonant inverter is deeply analyzed. Induction coils are electrically characterized by their electrical equivalents, usually a series RL circuit, where the inductance is determined by the magnetic energy stored in the system and the resistance is associated with the power dissipated in the load, generally, a metallic workpiece. The aim of this work is to obtain the electrical equivalent of an inductor system with two concentric coils used in domestic cookers by means of computational methods, in order to be included into the models used in computational aided electronic tools to simulate the time-domain behavior of the associated electronics. The multiple-coil system is characterized with a frequency-dependent impedance matrix, where the diagonal terms are the impedance of each isolated coil, and the nondiagonal terms are coupling impedance components describing the mutual coupling between coils. The impedance matrix is calculated with finite-element analysis tools, and equivalent passive networks are proposed to perform time-domain simulation with a good accuracy in the frequency range of interest. The proposed system has been experimentally verified, obtaining accurate time-domain waveforms and output power calculation.
A balanced k-means algorithm for weighted point sets

The classical k-means algorithm for paritioning n points in R d into k sub- sets is one of the most popular and widely spread clustering methods in scientific and business applications. The present paper gives a generalization that is capable of handling weighted point sets and prescribed lower and upper bounds on the cluster sizes. The new algorithm replaces the assignment step of k-means by the computation of a weight-balanced least-squares assignment. This is modelled as a linear program over a weight-balanced partition polytope whose optimal vertices correspond to clus- terings that allow strongly feasible power diagrams. We use this correspondence to derive a worst-case upper bound n O(dk) for the number of operations. This is similar to the known upper bound for k-means, polynomial for fixed k and d, and in view of the known complexity results for k-means, essentially the best one can expect. Further, we show the kernelizability of our approach.
Methodology and Application of Adaptive and Sequential Approaches

The clinical trial, a prospective study to evaluate the effect of interventions in humans under prespecified conditions, is a standard and integral part of modern medicine. Many adaptive and sequential approaches have been proposed for use in clinical trials to allow adaptations or modifications to aspects of a trial after its initiation without undermining the validity and integrity of the trial. The application of adaptive and sequential methods in clinical trials has significantly improved the flexibility, efficiency, therapeutic effect, and validity of trials. To further advance the performance of clinical trials and convey the progress of research on adaptive and sequential methods in clinical trial design, we review significant research that has explored novel adaptive and sequential approaches and their applications in Phase I, II, and III clinical trials and discuss future directions in this field of research.
Membrane protein insertion and assembly by the bacterial holo-translocon SecYEG–SecDF–YajC–YidC

Protein secretion and membrane insertion occur through the ubiquitous Sec machinery. In this system, insertion involves the targeting of translating ribosomes via the signal recognition particle and its cognate receptor to the SecY (bacteria and archaea)/Sec61 (eukaryotes) translocon. A common mechanism then guides nascent transmembrane helices (TMHs) through the Sec complex, mediated by associated membrane insertion factors. In bacteria, the membrane protein ‘insertase’ YidC ushers TMHs through a lateral gate of SecY to the bilayer. YidC is also thought to incorporate proteins into the membrane independently of SecYEG. Here, we show the bacterial holo-translocon (HTL) — a supercomplex of SecYEG–SecDF–YajC–YidC — is a bona fide resident of the Escherichia coli inner membrane. Moreover, when compared with SecYEG and YidC alone, the HTL is more effective at the insertion and assembly of a wide range of membrane protein substrates, including those hitherto thought to require only YidC.
Factors Associated with Workers' Inclination to Participate in an Employee Involvement Program

Understanding factors associated with workers' inclination to participate in employee involvement programs can contribute to program success. The results of this study support hypotheses that predict that employees who are interested in participation will be younger, more interested in job advancement, more optimistic about program benefits, and more active in their union than those who are uninterested. These findings are consistent with viewing workers' interests in participation as a search for increased responsibility, self-expression, and personal need fulfillment.