Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Kube-Knots: Resource Harvesting through Dynamic Container Orchestration in GPU-based Datacenters

Compute heterogeneity is increasingly gaining prominence in modern datacenters due to the addition of accelerators like GPUs and FPGAs. We observe that datacenter schedulers are agnostic of these emerging accelerators, especially their resource utilization footprints, and thus, not well equipped to dynamically provision them based on the application needs. We observe that the state-of-the-art datacenter schedulers fail to provide fine-grained resource guarantees for latency-sensitive tasks that are GPU-bound. Specifically for GPUs, this results in resource fragmentation and interference leading to poor utilization of allocated GPU resources. Furthermore, GPUs exhibit highly linear energy efficiency with respect to utilization and hence proactive management of these resources is essential to keep the operational costs low while ensuring the end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) in case of user-facing queries.Towards addressing the GPU orchestration problem, we build Knots, a GPU-aware resource orchestration layer and integrate it with the Kubernetes container orchestrator to build Kube- Knots. Kube-Knots can dynamically harvest spare compute cycles through dynamic container orchestration enabling co-location of latency-critical and batch workloads together while improving the overall resource utilization. We design and evaluate two GPU-based scheduling techniques to schedule datacenter-scale workloads through Kube-Knots on a ten node GPU cluster. Our proposed Correlation Based Prediction (CBP) and Peak Prediction (PP) schemes together improves both average and 99th percentile cluster-wide GPU utilization by up to 80% in case of HPC workloads. In addition, CBP+PP improves the average job completion times (JCT) of deep learning workloads by up to 36% when compared to state-of-the-art schedulers. This leads to 33% cluster-wide energy savings on an average for three different workloads compared to state-of-the-art GPU-agnostic schedulers. Further, the proposed PP scheduler guarantees the end-to-end QoS for latency-critical queries by reducing QoS violations by up to 53% when compared to state-of-the-art GPU schedulers.
Real Time Load Monitoring Technology of Wing Structure Based on Fiber Bragg Grating

A fiber Bragg grating strain transducer network was designed to implement the realtime load monitoring of the aircraft wing structure. A fiber grating sensor network was reasonably applied on spar of wing structure to achieve load monitor. The experimental investigation was performed on spar of wing structure with fiber grating monitoring structural strain. Four loading modes were designed to investigate the relationship model between strain and loading of I-beam spar. According to the superposition principle of structural mechanics, the relationship matrix between the strain and the loading on the wing structure spar were established.
Exogenous niacin treatment increases NADPH oxidase in kiwifruit

Kiwifruit are a popular fruit worldwide; however, plant growth is threatened by abiotic stresses such as drought and high temperatures. Niacin treatment in plants has been shown to increase NADPH levels, thus enhancing abiotic stresses tolerance. Here, we evaluate the effect of niacin solution spray treatment on NADPH levels in the kiwifruit cultivars Hayward and Xuxiang. We found that spray treatment with niacin solution promoted NADPH and NADP+ levels and decreased both O2 ·production and H2O2 contents in leaves during a short period. In fruit, NADPH contents increased during early development, but decreased later. However, no effect on NADP+ levels has been observed throughout fruit development. In summary, this report suggests that niacin may be used to increase NADPH oxidases, thus increasing stress-tolerance in kiwifruit during encounter of short-term stressful conditions.
The dynamics accumulation of biochemical components in sweet potato tubers depending on the variety in the conditions sandy soils of southern Oltenia

Alongside production, the nutritional quality of sweet potato highlights the importance of this crop in human nutrition, still little known to consumers in Romania. In order to determine the various biochemical components content in tubers of sweet potato in sandy soil the conditions the Dăbuleni were studied different varieties cultivated in culture with transparent mulch and the mulch smoky. Sweet potato varieties studied behaved differently from the point of view of quality and production tubers, in function of the vegetation period of the variety, as well and depending on the method of culture. The greatest amount of total dry matter was determined in tubers obtained from the culture with mulch transparent, 39.41%, the average varieties, and depending on the variety, Hayanmi presented the highest content (45.43%). The maximum starch content was determined at 120 days after planting, regardless of the mulch used, with an average of varieties of, 14.75% in the culture smoky mulch and 14.14% in the culture of the transparent mulch. The higher starch content was determined to the varieties Juhwangmi (15.35%) and Yulmi (15.94%). The data obtained are similar to those in specialty literature, the differences being due to genotypes studied and climatic conditions from area of culture. As for the content of vitamin C, it presented the highest values in all varieties, to 100 days after planting after which begins to diminish. Regardless of the color mulch used to planting and harvesting epoch, from the point of view of production, sweet potato varieties experimented were statistically differentiated. The varieties Juhwangmi and Yulmi have passed production control variety (KSC 1), but the largest difference ( 15067.5 to 37502.5 kg / ha), as a very significant statistically, there have been variety Juhwangmi.
End-to-End Optimization of Source Models for Speech and Audio Coding Using a Machine Learning Framework

Speech coding is the most commonly used application of speech processing. Accumulated layers of improvements have however made codecs so complex that optimization of individual modules becomes increasingly difﬁcult. This work introduces machine learning methodology to speech and audio coding, such that we can optimize quality in terms of overall entropy. We can then use conventional quantization, coding and perceptual models without modiﬁcation such that the codec adheres to conventional requirements on algorithmic complexity, latency and robustness to packet loss. Experiments demonstrate that end-to-end optimization of quantization accuracy of the spectral envelope can be used for a lossless reduction in bitrate of 0.4kbits/s.
Time durations of phonemes in the Polish language

Statistical phonetic data for Polish were collected. Phonemes are of different lengths, varying from 30 ms to 200 ms. Average phoneme durations are presented. A corpus of spoken Polish was used to collect such statistics from real language to apply it in an automatic speech recognition system. This natural phenomena could be used in speech parametrisation and modelling as an additional source of information for a case of speech segments analysis. The collected data are published in the paper, along with comments on the corpus and the method used. The obtained data were compared with the expected values according to phonetic literature.
Shock-wave study of the metallization of alkali halides up to 400 GPa

Alkali halide materials under high pressure are of fundamental interest, due to the number of phase transformations they exhibit under compression. For example, the phase transition from wide band gap insulator into electrical conductor, observed in many insulators under shock and static compression, has been poorly explored for many alkali halides. Results of early shock experiments pose a number of unresolved questions such as the possibility of non-equilibrium behavior at high shock pressures. In this study we investigate the optical properties of alkali halides NaCl, KBr, CsBr and CsI, under shock loading up to 400 GPa, by measuring shock wave speed and reﬂectivity using line VISAR in decaying-shock experiments. Signiﬁcant increases in the optical reﬂectivity with shock pressure in all four cases indicate conditions of metallization at high pressures. The results are analyzed with respect to previous shock and static measurements on the alkali halides.
Beyond Fairness : Flexible and Enforceable Sender Bandwidth Allocation with Justice

We propose a new bandwidth allocation paradigm, “Justice” as an alternative to the prevailing perflow max-min fairness. Per-flow max-min fairness assigns bandwidth to flows, which implicitly handles the fact that some users, such as popular web servers, deserve more bandwidth than others. However, this design also creates an unavoidable vulnerability to the concurrent flows attack: by establishing several concurrent flows, a greedy or malicious user can consume an amount of bandwidth limited only by link capacity. For this reason, Justice abandons per-flow allocation, relying instead on per-source bandwidth allocation. To make per-source allocation tractable, we hierarchically decompose the problem of determining the allocation of each source on each link. With Justice, each router divides its available link capacity between its immediate neighbors. These, in turn, divide their allocations between their immediate neighbors, and so on. Justice can be implemented in today’s networks through the use of a source-weight field attached to each packet, and weighted fair queuing on each participating router. This provides each source with strong performance guarantees: at each router, a source is guaranteed to receive at least an allocation proportional to its allocation at the previous router, and up to the entire capacity of the outgoing link, depending on the number, and weight, of concurrent users. We demonstrate through analysis and simulation that Justice is flexible with respect to the bandwidth allocation desires of network administrators, and provides robust bandwidth allocation, independent of user behavior. 1
Acoustic-phonetic decoding for speech intelligibility evaluation in the context of Head and Neck Cancers

In addition to health problems, Head and Neck Cancers (HNC) can cause serious speech disorders that can lead to partial or complete loss of speech intel-ligibility in some patients. The clinician's evaluation of the intelligibility level before or after surgical treatment and / or during the rehabilitation phase is an important part of the clinical assessment. Perceptive assessment is the most widely used method in clinical practice to assess the level of intelligibility of a patient despite the limitations associated with it such as subjectivity and moderate reproducibility. In this paper, we propose to overcome these limitations by associating a specific task of speech production based on pseudo-words with an automatic speech processing system, both oriented towards acoustic-phonetic decoding. Compared to human perception, the automatic system reaches very high correlation rates and promising results when applied to a French speech corpus including 41 healthy speakers and 85 patients suffering from HNC.
Roles of Plant-Derived Secondary Metabolites during Interactions with Pathogenic and Beneficial Microbes under Conditions of Environmental Stress

Under natural conditions, plants generate a vast array of secondary metabolites. Several of these accumulate at widely varying levels in the same plant species and are reportedly critical for plant adaptation to abiotic and/or biotic stresses. Some secondary metabolite pathways are required for beneficial interactions with bacterial and fungal microbes and are also regulated by host nutrient availability so that beneficial interactions are enforced. These observations suggest an interplay between host nutrient pathways and the regulation of secondary metabolites that establish beneficial interactions with microbes. In this review, I introduce the roles of tryptophan-derived and phenylpropanoid secondary-metabolite pathways during plant interactions with pathogenic and beneficial microbes and describe how these pathways are regulated by nutrient availability.
Enteral Nutrition in Adult Crohn’s Disease: Toward a Paradigm Shift

Medical and surgical treatments for Crohn’s disease are associated with toxic effects. Medical therapy aims for mucosal healing and is achievable with biologics, immunosuppressive therapy, and specialised enteral nutrition, but not with corticosteroids. Sustained remission remains a therapeutic challenge. Enteral nutrition, containing macro- and micro-nutrients, is nutritionally complete, and is provided in powder or liquid form. Enteral nutrition is a low-risk and minimally invasive therapy. It is well-established and recommended as first line induction therapy in paediatric Crohn’s disease with remission rates of up to 80%. Other than in Japan, enteral nutrition is not routinely used in the adult population among Western countries, mainly due to unpalatable formulations which lead to poor compliance. This study aims to offer a comprehensive review of available enteral nutrition formulations and the literature supporting the use and mechanisms of action of enteral nutrition in adult Crohn’s disease patients, in order to support clinicians in real world decision-making when offering/accepting treatment. The mechanisms of actions of enteral feed, including their impact on the gut microbiome, were explored. Barriers to the use of enteral nutrition, such as compliance and the route of administration, were considered. All available enteral preparations have been comprehensively described as a practical guide for clinical use. Likewise, guidelines are reported and discussed.
Characterization of DNA cleavage produced by seminal plasma using leukocytes as a cell target

ABSTRACT Numerous studies have shown the presence of DNA lesions in human spermatozoa affecting sperm quality. However, the nature of this anomaly and its relationship with patient etiology are poorly understood since different mechanisms can be involved in the formation of these novel DNA configurations including the action of a seminal plasma nuclease activity. The objective of this study was to assess the capacity of seminal plasma for producing endogenous DNA cleavage using nuclei of peripheral blood leukocytes as external targets. For this purpose, we used seminal plasma from fertile males with normal semen parameters to produce DNA cleavage in a sample of leukocytes. Three different tests were performed to visualize DNA cleavage: (a) DNase activity detection, (b) DNA Breakage Detection-Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (DBD-FISH), and (c) Two-dimensional comet assay (Two-tail comet assay). Our results demonstrate that: (i) the seminal plasma is able to cleave DNA compacted with histones in the leukocytes; (ii) this DNA cleavage can be associated with DNase activity and (iii) DNA damage mainly corresponds to single-strand DNA breaks. In conclusion, capacity of seminal plasma for producing DNA cleavage represents a solid contribution to expand the analysis of the standard seminal profile and could constitute a putative diagnostic tool for evaluating male infertility. Abbreviations: ALS: alkali labile sites; ART: Assisted Reproduction Technologies; DBD-FISH: DNA Breakage Detection-Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization; DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid; DSBs-DNA: double-strand DNA; FITC: Fluorescein IsoThioCyanate; GEDA: Gravity Enforced Diffusion Assays; PBS: phosphate-buffered saline; ROS: Reactive Oxigen Species; SSBs-DNA: single-strand DNA; SSC: saline-sodium citrate.
Graphene−Perfluoroalkoxy Nanocomposite with High Through-Plane Thermal Conductivity Fabricated by Hot-Pressing

With the rapid development of electronics and portable devices, polymer nanocomposites with high through-plane thermal conductivity (TC) are urgently needed. In this work, we fabricated graphene nanosheets−perfluoroalkoxy (GNs−PFA) composite sheets with high through-plane TCs via hot-pressing followed by mechanical machining. When the GNs content exceeded 10 wt%, GNs were vertically aligned in the PFA matrix, and the through-plane TCs of nanocomposites were 10–15 times higher than their in-plane TCs. In particular, the composite with 30 wt% GNs exhibited a through-plane TC of 25.57 W/(m·K), which was 9700% higher than that of pure PFA. The composite with 30 wt% GNs was attached to the surface of a high-power light-emitting diode (LED) to assess its heat-dissipation capability. The composite with vertically aligned GNs lowered the LED surface temperature by approximately 16 °C compared with pure PFA. Our facile, low-cost method allows for the large-scale production of GNs–PFA nanocomposites with high through-plane TCs, which can be used in various thermal-management applications.
Postural Instability in Parkinson’s Disease: A Review

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a heterogeneous progressive neurodegenerative disorder, which typically affects older adults; it is predicted that by 2030 about 3% of the world population above 65 years of age is likely to be affected. At present, the diagnosis of PD is clinical, subjective, nonspecific, and often inadequate. There is a need to quantify the PD factors for an objective disease assessment. Among the various factors, postural instability (PI) is unresponsive to the existing treatment strategies resulting in morbidity. In this work, we review the physiology and pathophysiology of postural balance that is essential to treat PI among PD patients. Specifically, we discuss some of the reported factors for an early PI diagnosis, including age, nervous system lesions, genetic mutations, abnormal proprioception, impaired reflexes, and altered biomechanics. Though the contributing factors to PI have been identified, how their quantification to grade PI severity in a patient can help in treatment is not fully understood. By contextualizing the contributing factors, we aim to assist the future research efforts that underpin posturographical and histopathological studies to measure PI in PD. Once the pathology of PI is established, effective diagnostic tools and treatment strategies could be developed to curtail patient falls.
Study Design and Protocol to Assess Fruit and Vegetable Waste at School Lunches

This paper has two main aims: (1) to describe the design, implementation, and testing of a protocol to assess longitudinal changes in F&V plate waste conducted as part of a quasi-experimental study, (2) to provide baseline descriptive data on school demographics and study participants. This paper describes the protocol development and implementation, and presents baseline data of a longitudinal fruit and vegetable (F&V) plate waste study. The protocol was developed to determine the preliminary impact of Brighter Bites, a 16-week school-based nutrition intervention, on F&V wasted and nutrients wasted from school lunches. We measured plate waste using a quasi-experimental design (n = 2 intervention schools receiving Brighter Bites, n=1 comparison school; n = 115 4th and 5th grade children). We measured plate waste for five days at each of four time points over the 2017–2018 academic year (baseline prior to intervention, three additional time points). Data collectors measured lunch F&V waste using digital scales and recorded weights on a data collection app. This study was conducted in three central Texas public elementary schools serving predominantly low-income families (>89% of children on free/reduced lunch program). On average, at baseline, 59.1% of all F&V were wasted and children tried <1 F&V at meals. Foods most wasted were legumes and foods least wasted were par-fried baked potatoes. Final retention rate across the four time points was 75.70%. Measurement inter-rater reliability was 100% (r = 0.99). Our study presents a protocol for detailed, individual-level, longitudinal plate waste assessment in elementary schools.
Characterization of Klebsiella pneumoniae Coproducing KPC and NDM-1 Carbapenemases from Turkey.

Aims: The emergence of multidrug-resistant and carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae has became a major public health threat. In this study, we describe the characteristics of isolates coproducing KPC and NDM-1 carbapenemases from patients hospitalized at an emergency unit in Ankara, Turkey, between January and August 2018. The isolates were characterized by antibiogram susceptibility, carbapenemase and extended-spectrum beta-lactamase production, plasmid-mediated colistin (COL) resistance, and high-level aminoglycoside resistance. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), sequencing, wzi typing, multilocus sequence typing, and plasmid analysis were used to investigate the epidemiological relationship between the isolates. Results: All isolates were found to be resistant to amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, piperacillin-tazobactam, cefotaxime, cefoxitin, cefuroxime, ceftazidime, cefepime, imipenem, meropenem, ertapenem, amikacin, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. The minimum inhibitory concentration values for imipenem, meropenem, and ertapenem were >32 μg/mL, and >256 μg/mL for amikacin and gentamicin, and two isolates were found to be susceptible to both tigecycline and COL. All strains were positive for SHV, CTX-M, and rmtC, and negative for mcr-1 genes. A/C and FIIAS plasmids were found in all isolates. All isolates had the same PFGE pattern: wzi type 93 and ST15. Conclusion: Here, we have documented the characteristics of KPC- and NDM-1-coproducing isolates that harbored SHV, CTX-M, and rmtC and were typed as wzi 93 and ST15. We conclude that continuous monitoring of carbapenemases for unusual carbapenemase production is crucial to prevent the spread of these powerful isolates.
An Extensible Positioning System for Locating Mobile Robots in Unfamiliar Environments

In this paper, an extensible positioning system for mobile robots is proposed. The system includes a stereo camera module, inertial measurement unit (IMU) and an ultra-wideband (UWB) network which includes five anchors, one of which is with the unknown position. The anchors in the positioning system are without requirements of communication between UWB anchors and without requirements of clock synchronization of the anchors. By locating the mobile robot using the original system, and then estimating the position of a new anchor using the ranging between the mobile robot and the new anchor, the system can be extended after adding the new anchor into the original system. In an unfamiliar environment (such as fire and other rescue sites), it is able to locate the mobile robot after extending itself. To add the new anchor into the positioning system, a recursive least squares (RLS) approach is used to estimate the position of the new anchor. A maximum correntropy Kalman filter (MCKF) which is based on the maximum correntropy criterion (MCC) is used to fuse data from the UWB network and IMU. The initial attitude of the mobile robot relative to the navigation frame is calculated though comparing position vectors given by a visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system and the UWB system respectively. As shown in the experiment section, the root mean square error (RMSE) of the positioning result given by the proposed positioning system with all anchors is 0.130 m. In the unfamiliar environment, the RMSE is 0.131 m which is close to the RMSE (0.137 m) given by the original system with a difference of 0.006 m. Besides, the RMSE based on Euler distance of the new anchor is 0.061 m.