Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards a Flexible, High-Performance Operating System for Mobile/Cloud Applications

Towards a Flexible, High-Performance Operating System for Mobile/Cloud Applications Irene Y. Zhang Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Director Henry M. Levy Computer Science & Engineering ¿e convergence of ubiquitousmobile devices, large-scale cloud platforms and pervasive network connectivity have changed the face of modern user applications. Unlike a traditional desktop application, which runs on a single machine and supports a single user, the typical user-facing application today spans numerous mobile devices and cloud servers while supporting large numbers of users. ¿is shi signi cantly increased the di culty of building new user applications. Programmers must now confront challenges introduced by distributed deployment (e.g., partial failures), new mobile/cloud application features (e.g., reactivity), and new mobile/cloud requirements (e.g., scalability). ¿is thesis proposes a new type of mobile/cloud operating system designed to meet the evolving needs of modern applications. Mobile/cloud applications are the standard applications of the future; thus, they deserve a rst-class operating system that simpli es their development and run-time management. Our key contribution is the design, implementation and evaluation of three systems that together form the basis for a new mobile/cloud operating system: (1) Sapphire, a new distributed run-time and process management system, (2) Diamond, a new distributed memory management system, and (3) TAPIR, a new distributed storage system. Each system introduces new operating systems abstractions and mechanisms designed to eliminate the challenges and simplify the development of mobile/cloud applications. We demonstrate that, like operating systems of the past, these systems make it easier for programmers to build bigger and more complex applications.
A Novel Method for Aortic Valve Opening Phase Detection Using SCG Signal

A framework to detect aortic valve opening (AO) phase with the help of seismocardiogram (SCG) signal is proposed. A small electronic circuit board is designed, which consists of 3-D MEMS based accelerometer, pre-amplifier, and filter. It is interfaced with standard data acquisition system to record SCG signals. The signal is decomposed using a proposed modified variational mode decomposition technique. In the first stage of decomposition, baseline drift is suppressed. Whereas, in the second stage, signal information related to AO instants are extracted. Gaussian derivative filtering is performed on each of the decomposed modes to enhance the systolic profiles. These filtered modes are named as Gaussian derivative filtered modes (GDFMs). The GDFMs with probable AO peaks are selected based on proposed relative GDFM energy (RGE). The signal is reconstructed from the selected GDFMs and it is emphasized using the weights derived from squared RGE. The iteratively extracted maximum slope information is incorporated for systole envelope construction. Finally, peaks are detected using Hilbert transform and cardiac cycle envelope. The robustness of the proposed framework is evaluated using clean and noisy SCG signals from two different databases. For publicly available database (CEBS, Physionet), mean detection error rate 5.2%, sensitivity 97.3%, positive predictivity 97.4%, and detection accuracy 95.1% are found. For our real-time SCG database, the values of these metrics are 6.9%, 96.7%, 96.4%, and 93.4%, respectively. The developed system shows good detection rates even on less number of analyzed beats.
Application of Immune Response Feedback Principle to Hydraulic Turbine System

The immune response feedback principle is an important method to maintain the immune balance inside organism. The function of T cells is both active and inhibitive, which provides immune system with fast response and adequate stabilization. Because of the nonlinear, time-varying and nominimum—phase characteristics of hydraulic turbine system. By comparing the control system and the immune system, an immune PID controller based on the immune system regulating law was used to control the hydraulic turbine system. Simulation analysis of the system was offered. The results show that the immune PID controller can improve the dynamic performance and strengthen the adaptive ability with fast response and strong robustness, especially, in the circumstance of foreign disturbance variation.
Developing a Personalized, Educational Gaming Experience for Young Chinese DLI Learners: A Design-Based Approach

In this chapter, a design-based approach was used to investigate the effectiveness of a story-driven game designed to improve elementary Chinese dual language immersion (DLI) learners reading strategies by fostering self-regulated learning. To facilitate reading comprehension and increase vocabulary development, learners are empowered with an in-game notebook which allows them look up and review new vocabulary words. The authors argue that game design features such as the in-game notebook and meaningful in-game choices have the potential to not only motivate learners to persist in reading a second language, but also provide them with the tools needed to regulate and promote their own vocabulary learning. Data were collected from Chinese DLI elementary students who played this game individually with a researcher. These data include log data, screen capture video of gameplay, and post-gameplay interviews. In the findings, successes and failures of the current game design are presented and suggestions for future designs aimed at supporting young Chinese DLI learners are provided.
A new formalism for perceptual classification with normative inference of internal criteria

Perceptual classification, one canonical form of decision-making, entails assigning stimuli to discrete classes according to internal criteria. Accordingly, the standard formalisms of perceptual decision-making have incorporated both stimulus and criterion as necessary components, but granted them unequal representational status, stimulus a random variable and criterion a scalar variable. This representational inconsistency obscures identifying the origins of behavioral or neural variability in perceptual classification. Here, we redress this problem by presenting an alternative formalism in which criterion, as a latent random variable, plays causal roles in forming decision variable on equal footings with stimulus. By implementing this formalism into a Bayes-optimal algorithm, we could predict, simulate, and explain the key human classification behaviors with high fidelity and coherency. Further, by acquiring concurrent fMRI measurements from humans engaged in classification, we demonstrated an ensemble of brain activities that embodies the causal interactions between stimulus, criterion, and decision variable as the algorithm prescribes.
Diversidade de bactérias, genes de resistência a Quinolonas e abundância do gene intl1 em uma estação de tratamento de esgoto revelada por abordagens de cultivo e metagenômica

As quinolonas sao antimicrobianos de grande relevância clinica humana e veterinaria. Dentre os mecanismos de resistencia as quinolonas, a aquisicao de genes de resistencia (qnr, aac(6)Ib-cr, qepA e OqxAB) transferidos via elementos geneticos moveis destaca-se devido ao seu potencial de disseminacao interespecies. Uma grande diversidade de bacterias de origem humana, animal e ambiental sao encontradas em estacoes de tratamento de esgotos (ETEs), onde as transferencias horizontais de genes sao favorecidas. Neste estudo foi investigada a presenca de integron classe 1 e a diversidade bacteriana e dos genes qnrA, qnrB, qnrS e aac(6)Ib em amostras de esgoto bruto (EB) e lodos ativados (LA) coletadas na ETE Arrudas, Belo Horizonte-MG, utilizando abordagens baseadas em cultivo e metagenomica. Proteobacteria foi o filo dominante das comunidades de EB e LA. Alem disso, houve uma reducao de Firmicutes e um enriquecimento de Bacteroidetes em LA. Unidades operacionais taxonomicas (OTUs) relacionadas aos generos Neisseria, Acinetobacter e Streptococcus, foram detectadas, no entanto, foi observada uma reducao de reads em LA. Celulas bacterianas abrigando integrons classe 1 foram encontradas, porem em menor proporcao em LA. A abordagem baseada em cultivo tambem revelou o dominio do filo Proteobacteria em ambos os ambientes, predominando membros da familia Enterobacteriaceae. As especies mais abundantes foram Escherichia coli, Morganella morganii e Proteus mirabilis. Deve ser destacada a deteccao de E. coli afiliadas aos grupos B2 e D. As Enterobacterias recuperadas de EB foram mais resistentes as quinolonas e aminoglicosideos do que as de LA. Bacterias abrigando aac(6)Ib e seu variante cr predominaram em EB, enquanto qnrS foi encontrado apenas em LA. Destaca-se a primeira deteccao dos genes qnrS em M. morganii, Providencia rettgeri e Pseudomonas guangdongensis e aac(6)Ib-cr em Alcaligenes faecalis e P. rettgeri de origem ambiental. Observou-se que esses genes exibiram baixa diversidade em ambos os ambientes, mas qnrS parece ser mais diverso que aac(6)Ib. Analises das sequencias de QnrS e Aac(6)Ib revelaram diversas alteracoes na sequencia de aminoacidos nao relatadas previamente, a maioria sem uma implicacao obvia na estrutura da proteina. Os dados deste estudo alertam para a presenca de bacterias resistentes as quinolonas e aminoglicosideos em EB e LA e dos genes qnrS, aac(6)Ib e seu variante cr circulando nestes ambientes, os quais tem potencial de disseminacao interespecies e podera comprometer o uso terapeutico destes antimicrobianos.
Shadow enhancers suppress input transcription factor noise through distinct regulatory logic

Shadow enhancers, groups of seemingly redundant enhancers, are found in a wide range of organisms and are critical for robust developmental patterning. However, their mechanism of action is unknown. We hypothesized that shadow enhancers drive consistent expression levels by buffering upstream noise through a separation of transcription factor (TF) inputs at the individual enhancers. By measuring transcriptional dynamics of several Kruppel shadow enhancer configurations in live Drosophila embryos, we showed individual member enhancers act largely independently. We found that TF fluctuations are an appreciable source of noise that the shadow enhancer pair can better buffer than duplicated enhancers. The shadow enhancer pair is uniquely able to maintain low levels of expression noise across a wide range of temperatures. A stochastic model demonstrated the separation of TF inputs is sufficient to explain these findings. Our results suggest the widespread use of shadow enhancers is partially due to their noise suppressing ability.
The burden of deleterious variants in a non-human primate biomedical model

Genome sequencing studies of nonhuman primate (NHP) pedigree and population samples are discovering variants on a large and rapidly growing scale. These studies are increasing the utility of several NHP species as model systems for human disease. In particular, by identifying homozygous protein truncating variants (hPTVs) in genes hypothesized to play a role in causing human diseases, it may be possible to elucidate mechanisms for the phenotypic impact of such variants through investigations that are infeasible in humans. The Caribbean vervet (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus) is uniquely valuable for this purpose, as the dramatic expansion of its population following severe bottlenecks has enabled PTVs that passed through the bottleneck to attain a relatively high frequency. Using whole genome sequence (WGS) data from 719 monkeys of the Vervet Research Colony (VRC) extended pedigree, we found 2,802 protein-truncating alleles in 1,747 protein-coding genes present in homozygous state in at least one monkey. Polymorphic sites for 923 SNV hPTVs were also observed in natural Caribbean populations from which the VRC descends. The vervet genome browser (VGB) includes information on these PTVs, together with a catalog of phenotypes and biological samples available for monkeys who carry them. We describe initial explorations of the possible impact of vervet PTVs on early infant mortality.
An open source microfluidic sorter for Caenorhabditis nematodes

Rapid and accurate sorting of biological samples is extremely useful in a wide variety of applications. The model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans lends itself to automated fluid-flow based sorting because of its ability to live in aqueous solutions. Here, we build upon previous developments to construct a microfluidic device capable of sorting individuals based on a variety of characteristics, with a specific application toward differentiating fluorescently marked individuals. We find that our new design generates highly repeatable pools of sorted individuals. In general, there tends to be a tradeoff between precision and speed that can be optimized based on several different factors. Importantly, sorting does not decrease offspring production, and individuals can be sorted multiple times for increased precision. We provide detailed parts lists, schematics and software to allow implementation of these methods in other laboratories. Our results demonstrate that custom-made sorter chips can be a flexible and versatile addition to the nematode experimental toolbox.
DESENVOLVIMENTO DE UMA MEMBRANA BIODEGRADÁVEL CONTENDO ÓLEO DE COPAÍBA (copaifera spp) OBTIDA POR ELETROFIAÇÃO

(1) Universidade Estadual de Campinas – UNICAMP, Departamento de Engenharia de Manufatura e de Materiais. (2) Instituto Federal do Amazonas – IFAM, Departamento Acadêmico de Processos Industriais. (3) Universidade Federal do Amazonas – UFAM, Departamento de Química. (4) Faculdade de Tecnologia Mecânica de Mauá Departamento de Fabricação Mecânica. (5) Faculdade de Tecnologia Mogi Mirim "Arthur de Azevedo" Departamento Projetos Mecânicos.
Synthesis of Ethanolamine and Its Regulation in Lemna paucicostata

The metabolism of ethanolamine and its derivatives in Lemna paucicostata has been investigated, with emphasis on the path-way for synthesis of phosphoethanolamine, a precursor of phosphatidylcholine in higher plants. In experiments involving labeling of intact plants with radioactive serine, ambiguities of interpretation due to entry of radioactivity into methyl groups of methylated ethanolamine derivatives were mitigated by pregrowth of plants with methionine. Difficulties due to labeling of diacylglyceryl moieties of phospholipids were avoided by acid hydrolysis of crucial samples and determination of radioactivity in isolated serine or ethanolamine moieties. The results obtained from such experiments are most readily reconciled with the biosynthetic sequence: serine → ethanolamine → phosphoethanolamine → phosphatidylethanolamine. A possible alternative is: serine → phosphatidylserine → phosphatidylethanolamine → ethanolamine → phosphoethanolamine. Cell-free extracts of L. paucicostata were shown to produce CO2 from the carbon originating as C-1 of serine at a rate sufficient to satisfy the demand for ethanolamine moieties. A number of experiments produced no support for a hypothetical role for phosphoserine in phosphoethanolamine formation. Uptake of exogenous ethanolamine commensurately down-regulates the synthesis of ethanolamine moieties (considered as a whole, and regardless of their state of derivatization at the time of their formation). In agreement with previous observations, uptake of exogenous choline down-regulates the methylation of phosphoethanolamine, without being accompanied by secondary accumulation of a marked excess of ethanolamine derivatives.
Homogeneous Densities Clustering Algorithm

Clustering based-density is very attractive research area in data clustering. DBSCAN (DensityBased Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) algorithm is the pioneer in this area. It can handle varied shaped and sized clusters. Also, it copes with noise and outliers efficiently, however it fails to handle clusters with varied densities due to the global parameter Eps. In this paper, we propose a method overcomes this problem, this method does not allow large variation in density within a cluster and use only two input parameters that will be called minpts and maxpts. They govern the minimum and maximum density of core objects within a cluster. The maxpts parameter will be used to control the value of Eps (neighborhood radius) in original DBSCAN. By allowing Eps to be varied from one cluster to another based on density of region this make DBSCAN able to handle varied density clusters and discover homogeneous clusters. The experimental results reflect the efficiency of the proposed method despite its simplicity.
A Variational Approach to Registration with Local Exponential Coordinates

We identify a novel parameterization for the group of finite rotations (SO3), consisting of an atlas of exponential maps defined over local tangent planes, for the purpose of computing isometric transformations in registration problems that arise in machine vision applications. Together with a simple representation for translations, the resulting system of coordinates for rigid body motions is proper, free from singularities, is unrestricted in the magnitude of motions that can be represented and poses no difficulties in computer implementations despite their multi‐chart nature. Crucially, such a parameterization helps to admit varied types of data sets, to adopt data‐dependent error functionals for registration, seamlessly bridges correspondence and pose calculations, and inspires systematic variational procedures for computing optimal solutions. As a representative problem, we consider that of registering point clouds onto implicit surfaces without introducing any discretization of the latter. We derive coordinate‐free stationarity conditions, compute consistent linearizations, provide algorithms to compute optimal solutions and examine their performance with detailed examples. The algorithm generalizes naturally to registering curves and surfaces onto implicit manifolds, is directly adaptable to handle the familiar problem of pairwise registration of point clouds and allows for incorporating scale factors during registration.
Combining graph mining and deep learning in molecular activity prediction

During drug discovery an important activity is the prediction of molecular activity. We want to discover if combining the graph mining method gSpan with the deep learning classiﬁer Deep Belief Networks (DBN) provides accurate prediction. gSpan will be used to identify frequent substructures. By representing molecules as a set of these substructures we translate a molecular data set into numerical data sets which can be used for classiﬁcation (prediction). We extend gSpan with two search methods, multiple sequential coverage and tree search, because we want to know what set of substructures provides the best representation of molecules for classiﬁcation with DBNs. Our experiments will show that the substructures provided by tree search lead to the best classiﬁcation results with DBNs. To determine whether a DBN is better at classifying such a data set than other classiﬁers, we compare uniform DBNs with several WEKA classiﬁers. Experiments will show that uniform DBNs, which are pre-trained, predict with less accuracy than multi-layer perceptrons, but classify with similar and sometimes better accuracy than some tree, boosting and SVM based classiﬁers in WEKA.
New broadband, low cost and compact mimo radar frontends

In this industrial dissertation, a variety of new and creative ideas has been adressed. In Chapter 2, a brief introduction to an existing MIMO radar theory as well as to the neccessary basic concepts of FMCW, TDM and angle estimation has been given. After that, in Chapter 3 a complete and fully functional MIMO radar has been presented. The sandwich approach enabled to stack PCBs to make up a modular bi-dimensional array of very wideband TSA antennas. My contributions to this radar have been presented in detail as well as the final imaging results, in which the increment of the resolution due to the MIMO technique has succesfully been tested. A next iteration of the portotype has been introduced in Chapter 4. This radar replaces the multiple stacked PCBs by a single one, which is populated with air-cavity-based RSPAs. This PCB has been designed with two independent switch chains, in such a manner that the two different waveforms can be sent simultaneously. Therefore, a real time radar, as for instance OFMD can be tested with this hardware. The characteristic inoccupied space at the center of a bidimentional MIMO array is filled with a second funtionality. Firstly, spiral antennas for communication have been designed, integrated and tested. Secondly, the spiral antennas have been cut off. In the remaining hole, a camara, which improves the detection, clasification and tracking of targets, has been placed. Chapter 5 presents new, very broadband (4-40 GHz) and integrable-with-PCBs RF components as a Wilkinson divider and a 3D printed TEM horn antenna. These components have succesfuly been designed, fabricated and tested. The targeted wide frequency range allows the usage of these components for multiple functions. In Chapter 6 new low losses key components as the Moreno cross-guide coupler and slotted waveguide antenna are presented in a new very promising technology. ESIW reduces the loss of the integrated waveguides (SIW) by removing the inner dielectric, following a very interesting fabrication process. These two components have been, designed, fabricated and measured. On one hand, the produced prototypes are the first step towards further Airbus refinement before introducing a product to the market. On the other hand, some disruptive technologies and components have been explored in order to keep track of the following advances in terms of innovation.
Amphibian chytrid fungus in Africa – realigning hypotheses and the research paradigm

The amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), responsible for numerous amphibian declines and extinctions, was previously thought to originate from the African continent. This was based on infected museum specimens from early 20th century South Africa, Cameroon and Uganda. Further research on archived specimens from other continents eventually revealed early 20th century records also in Brazil and Japan. Recent robust analysis of genomic diversity and phylogeny of Bd has shown origin from Asia to be more plausible. This raises the issue that the threat of Bd for African amphibians as a novel pathogen has been underestimated. There are now cases where dramatic amphibian declines in disparate mountains on the continent could be attributed to Bd, and this necessitates an urgent realigning of hypotheses and the research agenda for amphibian conservation on the continent. Notably, hotspots of amphibian host naivety include West Africa where this pathogen has so far not been detected. We discuss research gaps that amphibian conservationists might focus on, notably more genomic sequencing of the BdCAPE (the less virulent) lineage to determine its date of emergence, and assessing the susceptibility of different amphibian species to infection, disease and decline to better prioritize conservation actions.