Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The FLASH Multiprocessor: Designing a Flexible and Scalable System

The choice of a communication paradigm, or protocol, is central to the design of a large-scale multiprocessor system. Unlike traditional multiprocessors, the FLASH machine uses a programmable node controller, called MAGIC, to implement all protocol processing. The architecture of the MAGIC chip allows FLASH to support multiple communication paradigms - in particular, cache-coherent shared memory and high-performance message passing - while minimizing both hardware and software overhead. Each node in FLASH contains a microprocessor, a portion of the machine''s global memory, a port to the interconnection network, an I/O interface, and MAGIC, the custom node controller. The MAGIC chip handles all communication both within the node and among nodes, using hardwired data paths for efficient data movement and a programmable processor optimized for executing protocol operations. The result is a system that is flexible and scalable, yet competitive in performance with a traditional multiprocessor that implements a single communication paradigm completely in hardware. The focus of this dissertation is the architecture, design, and performance of FLASH. Much of the motivation behind the FLASH system and the MAGIC node controller design stems from an examination of the characteristics of protocol code and the architecture of the DASH system, the predecessor to FLASH. This examination led to two major design goals: development of a node controller architecture that can attain high protocol processing performance while still maintaining flexibility and a need to reduce the logic and memory overheads associated with cache coherence. The MAGIC design achieves these goals by implementing on a single chip a programmable protocol engine with an instruction set optimized for the characteristics of protocol code, along with dedicated support logic to alleviate the most serious protocol processing performance bottlenecks - data movement, message dispatch, and lack of close coupling to the node board components. The design of the FLASH node complements the MAGIC design, matching the close coupling and high bandwidth support in MAGIC to provide a balanced node architecture. Next, the dissertation investigates the performance of cache-coherence on FLASH. Performance results are presented from microbenchmarks run on the Verilog RTL of the MAGIC chip and from complete applications run on FlashLite, the FLASH system-level simulator. The microbenchmarks demonstrate that the architectural extensions added to the MAGIC design - particularly the instruction set optimizations to the programmable protocol processor - yield significantly lower latencies and protocol processor occupancies to service the most common types of memory operations. The application results are used to evaluate the performance costs of flexibility by comparing the performance of FLASH to that of a hardwired machine on representative parallel applications and multiprogramming workloads. These results show t
9 3 D-μ CT Cephalometric Measurements in Mice

F. de Carlos1,2, A. Alvarez-Suárez2,3, S. Costilla4, I. Noval5, J. A. Vega6 and J. Cobo1,2 1Departamentos de Cirugía y Especialidades Médico-Quirúrgicas (Section of Odontology) 2Instituto Asturiano de Odontología, Oviedo 3Construcción e Ingeniería de la Fabricación (Section of Mechanic Engineering) 4Medicina (Section of Radiology) 5Servicio de Radiología, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias, Oviedo 6Morfología y Biología Celular (Section of Anatomy and Human Embryology) Universidad de Oviedo Spain
The BigFoot Initiative: An Investigation of Digital Footprint Awareness in Social Media

Social media has become an important part of modern-day communication. Advantages span from instant communication via direct messages to sharing and consuming content and experiences. Lately, social media applications have been criticized for assisting the spreading of harmful or fake news and distorting reality by enabling unauthentic self-representation. It is often argued, that social media platforms are solely responsible for these challenges and for offering solutions. This research uses the notion of a digital footprint, a codified representation of a user's social media engagement, to facilitate user reflection. This footprint, however, is mostly a product of the user's deliberate and conscious engagement. This paper argues that users also have a responsibility in addressing the above-mentioned challenges by increasing their awareness of their social media usage. This paper presents a study with close to 300 participants investigating if they are aware of their digital footprint in social media. The paper presents the overall challenges, as well as experimental design and results, with the goal of motivating further debate regarding user awareness of their social media usage.
Research on Managerial Entrenchment and Company Capital Structure

Under the modern enterprise system, it is an inevitable problem for the management to act according to their own interests when making decisions. Therefore, the attitude of management in making decisions will inevitably affect the proportional relationship in the capital structure of the company. In this paper, the characteristics of the manager and the incentive received by the manager two aspects, Based on the relevant data of the main board listed companies from 2014 to 2016, this paper studies the influence of managerial entrenchment on the capital structure of listed companies. Studies have shown that, assuming there is no external threat, the degree of regulatory defense affects the company's capital structure. That is, the higher the level of managerial entrenchment, the more likely the company is to have a low level of debt.
Childhood Financial Socialization and Young Adults' Financial Management

The current study investigates the association between childhood financial socialization and financial practices and asset choices of young adults, using a nationally representative dataset. Results revealed that childhood financial socialization experiences were positively associated with the beneficial financial practices and financial asset ownership of respondents in young adulthood. Financial outcomes were found to vary by types of parental socialization. Respondents who owned bank accounts and had their spending monitored by parents in childhood were more likely to own financial assets and had more positive attitudes toward personal finance as young adults.
Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Sleep and Performance in Daytime Versus Nighttime Sleep in Extended-Hours Shift-Workers at an Underground Mine

Extended hours of shift work has the potential for adverse consequences for workers, particularly during the nightshift, such as poorer sleep quality during the day, increased worker fatigue, and fatigue-related accidents and decreased work performance. This study examined subjective and objective measurements of sleep and performance in a group of underground miners before and after the change from a backward-rotating 8-hour to a forward-rotating 10-hour shift schedule. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the short- and long-term impact of a shift schedule change on sleep and performance. The results demonstrated improved subjective and objective measures of sleep and performance on the new 10-hour nightshift schedule. The 10-hour nightshift workers subjectively reported more refreshing sleep, fewer performance impairments and driving difficulties than 8-hour nightshift workers. The results of the objective measures of sleep and performance on the 10-hour nightshifts were overall similar or possibly better than those measured on the 10-hour dayshifts. These are some of the first data to suggest that a nightshift that does not encompass the entire night period could have significant benefits to shift-workers. We suggest that these benefits are mostly the result of the timing of the new nightshift start and end times rather than other shift-schedule factors.
A CAL Tool to Aid the Understanding of Logic Synthesis

Even if nowadays the logic synthesis process is well defined in an industrial IC Automated Design Flow, it is important that students understand how the logic synthesis works. This paper describes CAL (Computer Aided Learning) tool to help the understanding a logic synthesis flow based on a data structure called ORBDDs. This synthesis flow allows to work over an input logic description and to observe the consequent transformations that occur in each step of the synthesis. The student can change some input parameters to experiment different synthesis solutions.
Agricultural Origins: Centers and Noncenters; A Near Eastern Reappraisal

Understanding the evolutionary history of crop plants is fundamental to our understanding of their respective adaptation profiles, which in turn, is a key element in securing future yield and quality improvement. Central topics in this field concern the mono- or polyphyletic origin of crop plants, and our ability to identify the geographic location where certain crop plants have originated. Understanding the geographical pattern of domestication may also assist in reconstructing the cultural processes underlying the Neolithic (agricultural) Revolution. Here we review prevailing views on the geographic pattern of Near Eastern plant domestication, and highlight the distinction between genetic domestication events and independent cultural events. A critical evaluation of the wealth of newly published geobotanical, genetic, and archaeological data provides strong support in favor of a specific core area in southeastern Turkey where most, if not all, founder Near Eastern crops were likely domesticated.
In vitro activities of a streptogramin (RP59500), three macrolides, and an azalide against four respiratory tract pathogens

Broth microdilution tests were carried out with 2,671 respiratory tract isolates from 19 medical centers throughout the continental United States. The tests compared a streptogramin (RP59500) to erythromycin, dirithromycin, clarithromycin, and azithromycin against Streptococcus pneumoniae, S. pyogenes, Haemophilus influenzae, and Moraxella catarrhalis. Against macrolide-susceptible strains, the potency of RP59500 was similar to that of the macrolides: the azalide, azithromycin, was two to four times more potent against H. influenzae. The azalide and three macrolides showed nearly complete cross-resistance. At 2.0 micrograms/ml or less, the streptogramin, RP59500, was active against both macrolide-resistant and -susceptible strains of S. pneumoniae (MIC for 50% of the strains tested, 0.25 microgram/ml; MIC for 90% of the strains tested, 0.5 microgram/ml).
Impact of China's Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance on Health Care Expenditure and Health Outcomes

At the end of 1998, China launched a government-run mandatory insurance program, the Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI), to replace the previous medical insurance system. Using the UEBMI reform in China as a natural experiment, this study identify variations in patient cost sharing that were imposed by the UEBMI reform and examine their effects on the demand for health-care services. Using data from the 1991-2006 waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that the increased cost sharing is associated with decreased outpatient medical care utilization and expenditures but not with decreased inpatient care utilization and expenditures. Patients from low- and middle-income households, or in less-serious medical situations are found to be more sensitive to prices. We observe little impact on patient health, as measured by self-reported poor health status.
An Evaluation of Network Competitiveness and the Effects of LCCs on South Korea’s Network Connectivity: Using Aviation Market Data

: LCCs (low cost carriers) are expanding their routes, which is affecting airport network connectivity. The subsequent increases in market competition and the number of airlines operating in air network routes have made the centrality analysis more significant because it can be used to identify airport network connectivity competitiveness. This study analyzes the network connectivity competitiveness of South Korea among Asian airports using the MIDT (marketing information data transfer) dataset provided by OAG Traffic Analyser, which provides data collected from regional Asian airports since 2011. The network centrality of individual airports is estimated to compare network connectivity competitiveness in Asia. Measures for overall network centrality include degree, closeness and betweenness centrality. This network centrality analysis may be helpful for South Korean airports in identifying their network performance and competitive position in Asia and confirming the effects that LCCs have on airport network connectivity. The results indicate that South Korea’s aviation market needs to expand its network via a strategy that prioritizes the strengthening of airport connectivity and the pursuit of liberalization. In addition, LCC operations will support Korea’s network growth via the various strategies that they employ. Consequently, this in turn will bolster the overall market competitiveness of South Korean airports.
The method for improving TCP performance in bandwidth-guaranteed network

This paper discusses the efficiency of TCP transmission over a bandwidth-guaranteed network, where the bandwidth for each flow is guaranteed by traffic policing at edge nodes. In particular, it explores a method for improving TCP performance focusing on the size of the buffer to absorb jitter and promote a faster increase in the congestion window size. We propose a rate control method at an edge node based on controlling the advertised window for improving TCP performance in a bandwidth-guaranteed network. We also evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method using a prototype.
Comparison of Community Detection Methods for Facebook Ego Network

People tend to build and maintain their friendship relying on SNS nowadays. Thus, the problem of how to organize the social network accurately and automatically has become important to be considered. As this problem draws a lot of attention from both users and companies, there already existed many SNS providing such functions, such as Twitter list, Facebook lists, etc. However, the functions are laborious, means it requires users to manually organize and update their friends’ circles or lists every time they add new friends. Instead of using the functions, we may adopt community clustering methods for SNS. In this research, we applied three different common clustering methods to SNAP Facebook dataset and compared the accuracy of these three methods to confirm the adoptability for organizing social network accurately and automatically. Our result shows that LDA performs the best because both of its complexity compared to k-means and of free from setting the number of communities compared to HDP. Keyword: Facebook, Data Clustering, Data Mining
The Impact of Board Composition on Corporate Strategy in the Arab Region Context

The board of directors plays an essential role in ensuring good corporate governance in any companies or institutes regardless of the size or nature of work. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the impact of board composition on corporate strategy and its contribution to strategic decisions and management monitoring and control of the corporate strategy in Arab organization by examining a case from Jordan. The study adopted analytical descriptive (quantitative) approach; a questionnaire was used for data gathering, and SPSS software was used for data analysis. The questionnaires were distributed randomly to workers in selected companies and banks that are registered in Amman Stock Market, and around 100 responses of members of board of directors (BOD) and other workers were collected and analyzed. The results confirmed the impact of the board on its contribution to the decision process, on the monitoring and controlling strategy, and on its contribution to advising management in Amman Stock Market. The study revealed that the board is primarily responsible for overseeing board performance and achieving a proper return for shareholders, while preventing conflicts of interest and balancing competing demands on the company. The study recommended the need for implementation plans and instructions in order to identify deviations.
Avoidable Complication and Patient Care during Orthodontic Treatment

Aim: Orthodontic treatment helps in improving facial and dental aesthetics. Orthodontic treatment involves the usage brackets,bands,wires inside the oral cavity. During the course of treatment, proper care of the appliances by the patient and the Orthodontist is essential. Objective: Helps in better treatment and to avoid any complication during the course of the treatment. Background: The brackets and bands provide for a rough surface which leads to increased plaque and calculus accumulation. Arch wires, brackets and bands can also lead to ulcerations in the oral mucosa. The Orthodontic tooth movement also leads to certain complications like root resorption, gingival enlargement, loss of tooth vitality etc. This is further complicated by the allergic tendencies of the patient to certain materials used in Orthodontic therapy. Reason for the study: Hence it is imperative that the patient as well as the dentist is made aware of the various complications that can occur with Orthodontic treatment and how to deal with them. This review would serve to do the same. INTRODUCTION Every treatment in the dental specialty has its own set of complications orthodontic therapy being no exception. Dental aesthetics are a key factor in overall physical attractiveness, which also contributes to self-esteem.This is one of the main reasons for patients to undergo Orthodontic treatment. Although Orthodontic treatment has many recognized benefits, including improvement in dental health, function, appearance, and self-esteem, nevertheless Orthodontic appliances can cause unwanted complications if adequate care is not taken during the treatment. It is important that the patients are aware of these potential risks, so that they can know their responsibilities and the expectations placed on them during the treatment. This ensures in achieving successful results without any adverse effects during and after completion of orthodontic treatment.
The Cost of Being Common: Evidence from Natural Daphnia Populations

The Red Queen coevolutionary hypothesis predicts that parasites drive oscillations in host genotype frequencies due to frequencydependent selection where common hosts are at disadvantage. However, examples of this phenomenon in natural populations are scarce. To examine if the Red Queen theory operates in the wild, we studied the genetic structure of populations of the crustacean waterflea (Daphnia), in relation to their infection levels, for which we collected multiple samples from a variety of lakes. The most common clone in a given population was often underinfected. This advantage, however, did not remain stable over time. Instead, the most common clone decreased in frequency over subsequent generations, indicating that parasites can track common clones. Such decreases were not observed in uninfected populations. Moreover, host clonal evenness was higher across the set of infected lakes compared to uninfected lakes; suggesting that any common clone is selected against when parasites are present. These results strongly suggest that Red Queen dynamics do operate in the wild.
Phytochemical and Pharmacological Evaluation of Methanolic Extracts of the Leaves of Nepenthes bicalcarata Hook

Pitcher plants (Nepenthes spp.) have a variety of medicinal uses, from simple management of infections to treatment of diabetes. The present study was conducted to evaluate the phytochemical and pharmacological properties of methanolic extracts of the leaves of Nepenthes bicalcarata. The screening for various phytochemicals was conducted using a standard procedure. Pharmacological investigation involved the determination of the antioxidant, antimicrobial, toxicity and antidiabetic activities of the extracts. Antioxidant activity determination was carried out using ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazil (DPPH) and 2,2′-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) free radical scavenging assays, and the total phenolic and flavonoid contents were determined using colorimetric methods. Antimicrobial activity was evaluated by the disk-diffusion method and the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined by a two-fold agar dilution method. Toxicity was assessed using a brine-shrimp lethality test (BSLT). Antidiabetic activity was evaluated using alloxan (120 mg/kg body weight) induced diabetic Wistar male rats orally treated on alternate days for 8 weeks at an extract dose of 300 mg/kg body weight. The phytochemical screening led to the detection of tannins, alkaloids, flavonoids, anthraquinones, terpenoids, steroids and phlobatannins. The FRAP, DPPH and ABTS antioxidant assays indicated the extracts had a moderate activity of 87.1 ± 2.50 mg Trolox Equivalent/g dry-weight, and IC50 values of 12.52 ± 0.49 μg/mL and 16.13 ± 0.33 μg/mL, respectively. The total phenolic and total flavonoid contents were 50.5 ± 0.7 mg Gallic Acid Equivalent/g and 6.63 ± 0.17 mg Quercetin Equivalent (QE)/g, respectively. Antimicrobial tests revealed that the leaf extract was active against selected gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis and B. spizizenii) and a few fungi (Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae), with MIC values ranging from 256 to 1024 μg/mL. An LC50 value of 73.3 μg/mL was obtained from the Brine Shrimp Lethality Test. These findings indicate that methanolic extracts of N. bicalcarata leaves have various phytopharmacological activities and thus it would be useful to isolate the compounds responsible for these bioactivities in the future.
Ketoconazole Renders Poor CYP3A Phenotype Status With Midazolam as Probe Drug

Drugs metabolized by cytochrome CYP3A isoenzymes have wide interindividual variability and normally distributed plasma clearance distributions. This makes precise dosing difficult to achieve clinically, which may compromise safe therapy. We hypothesized that with potent inhibition of CYP3A, we could clinically render patients “poor metabolizer” phenotype status, and thus reduce interindividual pharmacokinetic variability of midazolam, a well-known CYP3A substrate. Intravenous bolus midazolam at doses of 2.5 mg and 1 mg were administered to 28 and 29 patients with cancer with and without co-administration of 200 mg of oral ketoconazole twice per day respectively for 3 days, starting 1 day before midazolam. Pharmacokinetic analyses of midazolam on both groups were derived using noncompartmental methods and compared. The mean clearance (CL) of midazolam was reduced 6 times by ketoconazole. Midazolam CL were normally distributed in both groups, and ranged from 1.7 to 51.9 and 1.4 to 8.2 L/hour in the control and ketoconazole groups, respectively, corresponding to a 7-fold reduction in dispersion between the 2 groups. Area-under-the-curve variability was reduced by >100%. A limited sampling model consisting of time points at 15 and 300 minutes was validated as a phenotype for CYP3A activity to facilitate the use of midazolam as a probe drug for CYP3A activity. Potent inhibition of CYP3A by ketoconazole reduced midazolam CL and area-under-the-curve variability, allowing for more precise achievement of therapeutic target drug exposure. Prospective evaluation of this approach, together with dose adjustment based on limited sampling, seems warranted.