Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study of Response Time in Cloud Computing

Performance of a cloud is a critical issue and dependent on various factors that include load balancing used to distribute the load at data center. Proliferation of the cloud paradigm is profoundly dependent on the performance of the cloud. Therefore, to examine the cloud performance, it is significant to identify the factors that govern cloud performance. This work is focused to identify the factors that may have significant impact on the cloud performance. To identify the performance factors, we have reviewed the major publications of the last five years as well as the major real time cloud performance tools offered. Study revealed that response time is the major factor that has the significant impact on cloud computing performance. Finally, we have conducted an experiment to establish the dependency of response time on various load balancing techniques and number of data center. Experiment revealed that the round robin is directly proportional to the number of data center
PEACPocket: a technological demonstrator for future multimedia smart card

This presented work has been conducted in a framework of a project with the objective to associate power microsources into smart cards in order to create novel functionalities. To demonstrate the feasibility of such a new powered microsystem, a demonstrator named PEA Card is under development.It is powered by two rechargeable batteries:• A microbattery on chip for security applications. • A Thin Film Power Battery inside the card packaging to recharge the microbattery and to supply user interfaces.An ASIC, used as substrate for the microbattery, manages the energy of the two power sources. It is designed to have a very low consumption. A processor and a display, powered by the embedded Power Battery, allow the user to access data without external source of energy. An RFID antenna permits a contactless charge of the two batteries.
Bio-inspired balanced tree structure dynamic network

Bio-networks have the natural advantages of autonomy, scalability, and adaptability which are challenges for computer networks, especially P2P networks. We present a bio-inspired dynamic balanced tree structure network (called bio-block) based dynamic network. Every bio-block is a unique bio-entities collection with emergent service. This network has two parts, non-Service part (bio-entity is unit node) and in-Service part (bio-block is unit node). Useful bio-entities are dynamically transferring between these two part to keep the balance, and improve resources usage. This network inherits the balanced structure and O(nlogN) search steps with total N resources and n resources service request. It also eliminates redundancies by taking advantage of strong adaptability of bio-network which are composed of bio-entities. Any node in this balanced tree structured network can join and leave dynamically. Intensive experimental results show that the state of this network is converged when service distribution is stable. Moreover, theoretical results support an efficient search operation.
Mental representations of large and small spatial layouts are orientation dependent.

Previous research on spatial memory indicated that memories of small layouts were orientation dependent (orientation specific) but that memories of large layouts were orientation independent (orientation free). Two experiments investigated the relation between layout size and orientation dependency. Participants learned a small or a large 4-point path (Experiment 1) or a large display of objects (Experiment 2) and then made judgments of relative direction from imagined headings that were either the same as or different from the single studied orientation. Judgments were faster and more accurate when the imagined heading was the same as the studied orientation (i.e., aligned) than when the imagined heading differed from the studied orientation (i.e., misaligned). This alignment effect was present for both small and large layouts. These results indicate that location is encoded in an orientation-dependent manner regardless of layout size.
Evaluation of Relation between Anthropometric Indices and Vitamin D Concentrations in Women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

Objective: To determine the association between serum 25 – hydroxy vitamin D concentration and anthropometric indices in patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). Materials and methods: This is a descriptive cross – sectional study which was carried out on women with PCOS aged 19-39 years old referred to an infertility clinic of Alzahra Hospital, Rasht, Iran during September2011- March2012. The study was conducted based on the Rotterdam criteria. Exclusion criteria were hyperandrogeniema and thyroid dysfunction. The data were gathered through an interview with focus on demographic characteristics and history of infertility. The height, weight and waist and hip circumferences were measured and BMI had been calculated. Also, blood sample had been checked to indicate the level of hydroxy vitamin D. While all statistical analyses were carried out using software package used for statistical analysis (SPSS) version 16 (SPCC Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Results: Over 68% of patients had vitamin D deficiency (Vit D<15). Level of vitamin D had a significant correlation with waist circumference (p<0.02), height (p<0.001) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) (p<0.007). Conclusion: Based on the anthropometric indices, it seems that we can predict the level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in women with PCOS.
2-D wavelet transforms in the form of matrices and application in compressed sensing

As a signal analysis and processing method, wavelet transform (WT) plays an important role in almost all the areas in engineering today. However, compared to other traditional orthogonal transforms, such as DFT and DCT, The usually used fast wavelet transform (FWT) has its inconvenience in application. One frequently met problem is that FWT is rarely realized in the form of linear transformation by matrix and vector multiplication, which is the form that almost all the other existing orthogonal transforms take. That is because FWT dose not usually have an explicit transform matrix. As a result, FWT cannot be used in some cases where an explicit transform matrix is required. In this paper, we explore the matrix forms of 2-D discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and apply one of them in compressed sensing (CS). Our contribution is in two aspects: we give the equivalent 2-D DWT matrix that can be used to perform the 2-D DWT in the matrix form of 1-D DWT; meanwhile, we propose a separable 2-D DWT that is different from the traditional one and has some good properties.
Improving Energy Efficiency of Web Servers by Using a Load Distribution Algorithm and Shutting Down Idle Nodes

These years energy consumption has become the main constraint for the further improvement of computing ability of data centers. In this work, the energy efficient resource management strategies for web servers (one typical class of data centers) are discussed. We firstly introduce the daily pattern of requests sent to web servers which indicates that a simple off-line resource provisioning method would-be effective for web servers. Then, the energy efficiency of two load distribution algorithms are compared by replaying subset of a real-world Wikipedia trace in our local web service environment. The results show that, compared with the relative load distribution (RLB) algorithm, the adaptive load distribution (ALD) algorithm proposed in our previous work is more energy efficient. Finally, we demonstrate a potential that much energy can be saved by shutting down the idle nodes.
Targeted Stimuli-Responsive Dextran Conjugates for Doxorubicin Delivery to Hepatocytes

A targeted, stimuli-responsive, polymeric drug delivery vehicle has been developed to help alleviate the severe side-effects caused by narrow therapeutic window drugs. Doxorubicin, a commonly used chemotherapeutic agent has been conjugated to dextran by two different techniques. In the first method, doxorubicin and hepatocyte-targeting galactosamine were attached to dextran through amine bonds. Conjugation efficiency based on the amount loaded of each reactant varied from 1% to 50% for doxorubicin and from 2% to 20% for galactosamine, depending on various synthesis parameters. For the second conjugate, doxorubicin was attached to dextran through an acid-labile hydrazide bond. Fluorescence quenching indicated that all our conjugates can bind to DNA. The degree of binding was improved with increasing polymer molecular weight and substitution of doxorubicin, and also with hydrazide-bonded conjugate. In cell culture experiments, we have found that the uptake of conjugates was much lower than that of free doxorubicin. Lower uptake of conjugates decreased the toxicity of doxorubicin. Also, the uptake of non-galactosylated conjugate was lower than that of the galactosylated conjugate. Microscopy studies indicated that doxorubicin was localized almost exclusively at the nucleus, whereas the amine-bonded conjugates were present throughout the cell. Targeted aminelinked conjugates and hydrazide-bonded conjugates achieved greatly improved cytotoxicity. Following uptake, the doxorubicin was dissociated from the hydrazide conjugate in an endosomal compartment and diffused to the nucleus. The LC50 values of non-targeted amine-linked, targeted aminelinked, and hydrazide-linked doxorubicin were 19.81 μg/mL, 7.33 μg/mL and 4.39 μg/mL, respectively. The amine-linked conjugates were also tested on a multidrug-resistant cell line; the LC50 values of doxorubicin and the non-targeted aminelinked conjugate were 8.60 μg/mL and 36.02 μg/mL, respectively. Index Terms – Dextran conjugates, doxorubicin, drug delivery, galactose-targeting, hepatocytes *To whom correspondence should be addressed. Manuscript received on November 21, 2005. This work was supported by the Singapore-MIT Alliance (MEBCS Program). The authors thank the W. M. Keck Foundation Biological Imaging Facility at the Whitehead Institute for the use of the confocal microscope. They are grateful to Pharmacia and Upjohn for donating the doxorubicin. N. T. Zaman is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA (e-mail: ntzaman@mit.edu). J. Y. Ying is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA (phone: +1-617-253-2899; e-mail: jyying@mit.edu) and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore 138669 (phone: +65-6824-7100; e-mail: jyying@ibn.astar.edu.sg).
Plasma MicroRNA-21 Predicts Postoperative Pulmonary Complications in Patients Undergoing Pneumoresection

Postoperative pulmonary complication (PPC) remains the most common postoperative complication in patients undergoing noncardiac thoracic surgery. We conducted the clinical study to determine the diagnostic role of miRNA-21 in noncardiac thoracic surgery. 368 patients undergoing noncardiac thoracic surgery were recruited. Blood samples were collected before anesthesia and 2 hours after incision during surgery for RT-PCR measurement of miRNA-21. PPC occurrence, extrapulmonary complications, duration of ICU stay, and death within 1 year were evaluated. The overall rate of PPCs following surgery was 10.32%. A high relative miRNA-21 level was an independent risk factor for PPCs within 7 days (OR, 2.69; 95% CI, 1.25–5.66; and P < 0.001). High miRNA-21 was also associated with an increased risk of extrapulmonary complications (OR, 3.62; 95% CI, 2.26–5.81; and P < 0.001), prolonged ICU stay (OR, 6.54; 95% CI, 2.26–18.19; and P < 0.001), increased death within 30 days (OR, 6.17; 95% CI, 2.11–18.08; and P < 0.001), and death within 1 year (OR, 7.30; 95% CI, 2.76–19.28; and P < 0.001). In summary, plasma miRNA-21 may serve as a novel biomarker of PPCs for patients undergoing noncardiac thoracic surgery.
Whither the Face? Impact of Menopause on Facial Attractiveness.

Objective: Accumulating evidence suggests an association between levels of reproductive hormones and a woman's attractiveness. For example, women with high estradiol levels are perceived as being more attractive than women with relatively low levels of estradiol. Moreover, women appear slightly more attractive around ovulation (when estradiol levels are high). A dramatic change in endogenous hormone levels occurs during menopause when production of estradiol and progesterone falls to a very low level. Given the association between reproductive hormones and attractiveness, we assessed whether menopause affects women's facial appearance. Methods: We created pre- and post-menopausal prototypes by respectively averaging 8 standardised photographs of pre-menopausal and post-menopausal women. Each woman provided saliva samples from which we assessed estradiol, progesterone and testosterone levels. Twenty new faces were then shape transformed towards each prototype. The pre- and post-menopausal versions of the same identity were paired and 20 men (M=51.5 years) were asked to choose the more attractive face of each pair. Results: Overall, the pre-menopausal version was chosen more often (p = .034, one-sided). Interestingly, we found a significant preference for pre-menopausal faces particularly for men who have partners who already went through menopause (p = .004, two-sided). Men with pre-menopausal partners showed no preference for either face (p = .971). Conclusions: We provide preliminary evidence that women may indeed become slightly less attractive after going through menopause, possibly due to reduced estradiol and progesterone production. However, this decrease in attractiveness is subtle and can only be detected by men who have experienced menopause in their own partners.
The Usefulness of Interferon-gamma Release Assay for Diagnosis of Tuberculosis-related Uveitis in Korea

Purpose To evaluate the usefulness of the interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) for diagnosing tuberculosis (TB)-related uveitis (TRU). Methods Records from 181 patients with ocular signs and symptoms suggestive of TRU and intraocular inflammation of unknown etiology were reviewed. All subjects underwent clinical and laboratory testing, including IGRA, to rule out presence of underlying disease. A diagnosis of presumed TRU was made based on an internist's TB diagnosis and a patient's response to anti-TB therapy. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive values of IGRA for TRU diagnosis were calculated. Clinical characteristics were compared between patients with positive and negative IGRA results. Results The sensitivity and specificity of IGRA for TRU were 100% and 72.0%, respectively. Mean age, percentage of patients with retinal vasculitis, and the anatomic type of uveitis were significantly different between patients with positive and negative IGRA results (all p ≤ 0.001). Positive IGRA rates and false-positive rates were significantly different between age and anatomic type groups (both p = 0.001). The positive predictive value of the IGRA among patients with intraocular inflammation was high (70%) when all of younger age (≤40 years), posterior uveitis, and retinal vasculitis were present. Conclusions The IGRA is useful for diagnosing TRU in the Korean population, especially when it is used as a screening test. Clinical characteristics, including younger age (≤40 years), posterior uveitis, and retinal vasculitis in IGRA-positive patients, increase the likelihood of the patient having TRU.
Stimulation of aggrecan synthesis in cartilage explants by cyclic loading is localized to regions of high interstitial fluid flow.

Chondrogenesis in cartilage development and repair and cartilage degeneration in arthritis can be regulated by mechanical-load-induced physical factors such as tissue deformation, interstitial fluid flow and pressure, and electrical fields or streaming potentials. Previous animal and tissue explant studies have shown that time-varying dynamic tissue loading can increase the synthesis and deposition of matrix molecules in an amplitude-, frequency-, and spatially dependent manner. To provide information on the cell-level physical factors which may stimulate chondrocytes to increase production and export of aggrecan, the main proteoglycan component of the cartilage matrix, we characterized local changes in aggrecan synthesis within cyclically loaded tissue explant disks and compared those changes to values of predicted local physical factors. Aggrecan synthesis following a 23-h compression/radiolabel protocol was measured with a spatial resolution of approximately 0.1 mm across the 1.5-mm radius of explanted disks using a quantitative autoradiography method. A uniform stimulation of aggrecan synthesis was observed at an intermediate frequency of 0.01 Hz, while, at a higher frequency of 0.1 Hz, stimulation was only seen at peripheral radial positions. Profiles of radial solid matrix deformation and interstitial fluid pressure and velocity predicted to be occurring across the radius of the disk during sinusoidal loading were estimated using a composite poroelastic model. Tissue regions experiencing high interstitial fluid velocities corresponded to those displaying increased aggrecan synthesis. These results reinforce the role of load-induced flow of interstitial fluid in the stimulation of aggrecan production during dynamic loading of cartilage.
Gravitational Lensing of Distant Supernovae in Cold Dark Matter Universes

Ongoing searches for supernovae (SNe) at cosmological distances have recently started to provide large numbers of events with measured redshifts and apparent brightnesses. Compared to quasars or galaxies, Type Ia SNe represent a population of sources with well-known intrinsic properties and could be used to detect gravitational lensing even in the absence of multiple or highly distorted images. We investigate the lensing effect of background SNe due to mass condensations in three popular cold dark matter cosmologies (ΛCDM, OCDM, and SCDM) and compute lensing frequencies, rates of SN explosions, and distributions of arrival-time differences and image separations. If dark halos approximate singular isothermal spheres on galaxy scales and Navarro-Frenk-White profiles on group/cluster scales, and are distributed in mass according to the Press-Schechter theory, then about one of every 12 SNe at z ~ 1 will be magnified by Δm ≥ 0.1 mag (SCDM). The detection rate of SNe Ia with magnification Δm ≥ 0.3 is estimated to be of the order of a few events yr-1 deg-2 at maximum B light and IAB ≤ 25, 100 times smaller than the total rate expected at these magnitude levels. In the field, events magnified by more than 0.75 mag are 7 times less frequent; about one-fifth of them give rise to observable multiple images. While the time delay between the images is shorter than 3 days in ~25% of the cases (shorter than 30 days in 50%) (SCDM), a serious bias against the detection of small-separation events in ground-based surveys is caused by the luminosity of the foreground lensing galaxy. Because of the flat K-correction and wide luminosity function, Type II SNe dominate the number counts at IAB > 25 and have the largest fraction of lensed objects. The optimal survey sensitivity for Type Ia SNe magnified by Δm ≥ 0.75 mag is IAB ≈ 23. Magnification bias increases their incidence by a factor of 50 in samples with IAB ≤ 22, dropping to a factor of 3.5 at 24 mag. At faint magnitudes, the enhancement is larger for SNe II.
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health Parents' Assessment of Parent-child Interaction Interventions – a Longitudinal Study in 101 Families

Background: The aim of the study was to describe families with small children who participated in parent-child interaction interventions at four centres in Sweden, and to examine long term and short term changes regarding the parents' experience of parental stress, parental attachment patterns, the parents' mental health and life satisfaction, the parents' social support and the children's problems.
Polyhedral clinching auctions and the adwords polytope

A central issue in applying auction theory in practice is the problem of dealing with budget-constrained agents. A desirable goal in practice is to design incentive compatible, individually rational, and Pareto optimal auctions while respecting the budget constraints. Achieving this goal is particularly challenging in the presence of nontrivial combinatorial constraints over the set of feasible allocations. Toward this goal and motivated by AdWords auctions, we present an auction for polymatroidal environments satisfying the above properties. Our auction employs a novel clinching technique with a clean geometric description and only needs an oracle access to the submodular function defining the polymatroid. As a result, this auction not only simplifies and generalizes all previous results, it applies to several new applications including AdWords Auctions, bandwidth markets, and video on demand. In particular, our characterization of the AdWords auction as polymatroidal constraints might be of independent interest. This allows us to design the first mechanism for Ad Auctions taking into account simultaneously budgets, multiple keywords and multiple slots. We show that it is impossible to extend this result to generic polyhedral constraints. This also implies an impossibility result for multi-unit auctions with decreasing marginal utilities in the presence of budget constraints.
Dynamic neighborhoods in active surfaces for 3D segmentation

Active contours and surfaces are deformable models used for 2D and 3D image segmentation. In this paper, we propose two methods developed in order to accelerate 3D image segmentation process. They are adaptations on active surfaces of two methods developed for 2D active contour. We use them on a discrete 3D surface model (mesh) evolving with the greedy algorithm. Those methods will be compared to the classical greedy algorithm and to a recent fast adaptation of the level set method.
Structure-Guided Mutations in the Terminal Organelle Protein MG491 Cause Major Motility and Morphologic Alterations on Mycoplasma genitalium

The emergent human pathogen Mycoplasma genitalium, with one of the smallest genomes among cells capable of growing in axenic cultures, presents a flask-shaped morphology due to a protrusion of the cell membrane, known as the terminal organelle, that is involved in cell adhesion and motility and is an important virulence factor of this microorganism. The terminal organelle is supported by a cytoskeleton complex of about 300 nm in length that includes three substructures: the terminal button, the rod and the wheel complex. The crystal structure of the MG491 protein, a proposed component of the wheel complex, has been determined at ~3 Å resolution. MG491 subunits are composed of a 60-residue N-terminus, a central three-helix-bundle spanning about 150 residues and a C-terminal region that appears to be quite flexible and contains the region that interacts with MG200, another key protein of the terminal organelle. The MG491 molecule is a tetramer presenting a unique organization as a dimer of asymmetric pairs of subunits. The asymmetric arrangement results in two very different intersubunit interfaces between the central three-helix-bundle domains, which correlates with the formation of only ~50% of the intersubunit disulfide bridges of the single cysteine residue found in MG491 (Cys87). Moreover, M. genitalium cells with a point mutation in the MG491 gene causing the change of Cys87 to Ser present a drastic reduction in motility (as determined by microcinematography) and important alterations in morphology (as determined by electron microscopy), while preserving normal levels of the terminal organelle proteins. Other variants of MG491, designed also according to the structural information, altered significantly the motility and/or the cell morphology. Together, these results indicate that MG491 plays a key role in the functioning, organization and stabilization of the terminal organelle.