A method dealing with a large number of correlated traits in a linkage genome scan

We propose a method to perform linkage genome scans for many correlated traits in the Genetic Analysis Workshop 15 (GAW15) data. The proposed method has two steps: first, we use a clustering method to find the tight clusters of the traits and use the first principal component (PC) of the traits in each cluster to represent the cluster; second, we perform a linkage scan for each cluster by using the representative trait of the cluster. The results of applying the method to the GAW15 Problem 1 data indicate that most of the traits in the same cluster have the same regulators, and the representative trait measure, the first PC, can explain a large part of the total variation of all the traits in each cluster. Furthermore, considering one cluster of traits at a time may yield more linkage signals than considering traits individually

Promises of music in education?

Learning in school is intended to help students master academic skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics, as well as to acquire knowledge about different subjects such as history, geography, biology, and so on. However, in the future, successful learning will be largely manifested by students’ global and transferable skills, such as analytical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and social skills. Here we explore the promises of using music to support learning in the future. We review empirical evidence on the effects ofmusic learning on neurocognitive development in children in formal and informal settings, in music interventions, and also in community settings. With this review, we wish to stimulate discussion about the roles that music could play in promoting learning in schools and elsewhere.Peer reviewe

Fault injection testing of software implemented fault tolerance mechanisms of distributed systems

PhD ThesisOne way of gaining confidence in the adequacy of fault tolerance mechanisms of a system is to test the system by injecting faults and see how the system performs under faulty conditions. This thesis investigates the issues of testing software-implemented fault tolerance mechanisms of distributed systems through fault injection. A fault injection method has been developed. The method requires that the target software system be structured as a collection of objects interacting via messages. This enables easy insertion of fault injection objects into the target system to emulate incorrect behaviour of faulty processors by manipulating messages. This approach allows one to inject specific classes of faults while not requiring any significant changes to the target system. The method differs from the previous work in that it exploits an object oriented approach of software implementation to support the injection of specific classes of faults at the system level. The proposed fault injection method has been applied to test software-implemented reliable node systems: a TMR (triple modular redundant) node and a fail-silent node. The nodes have integrated fault tolerance mechanisms and are expected to exhibit certain behaviour in the presence of a failure. The thesis describes how various such mechanisms (for example, clock synchronisation protocol, and atomic broadcast protocol) were tested. The testing revealed flaws in implementation that had not been discovered before, thereby demonstrating the usefulness of the method. Application of the approach to other distributed systems is also described in the thesis.CEC ESPRIT programme, UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

Musical experience may help the brain respond to second language reading

A person's native language background exerts constraints on the brain's automatic responses while learning a second language. It remains unclear, however, whether and how musical experience may help the brain overcome such constraints and meet the requirements of a second language. This study compared native Chinese English learners who were musicians, non-musicians and native English readers on their automatic brain automatic integration of English letter-sounds with an ERP cross-modal audiovisual mismatch negativity paradigm. The results showed that native Chinese-speaking musicians successfully integrated English letters and sounds, but their non-musician peers did not, despite of their comparable English learning experience and proficiency level. However, native Chinese-speaking musicians demonstrated enhanced cross-modal MMN for both synchronized and delayed letter-sound integration, while native English readers only showed enhanced cross-modal MMN for synchronized integration. Moreover, native Chinese-speaking musicians showed stronger theta oscillations when integrating English letters and sounds, suggesting that they had better top-down modulation. In contrast, native English readers showed stronger delta oscillations for synchronized integration, and their cross-modal delta oscillations significantly correlated with English reading performance. These findings suggest that long-term professional musical experience may enhance the top-down modulation, then help the brain efficiently integrating letter-sounds required by the second language. Such benefits from musical experience may be different from those from specific language experience in shaping the brain's automatic responses to reading.Peer reviewe

Physical Unclonable Functions based on Temperature Compensated Ring Oscillators

Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) are promising hardware security primitives suitable for low-cost cryptographic applications.Ring oscillator (RO) PUF is a well-received silicon PUF solution due to its ease of implementation and entropy evaluation. However, the responses of RO-PUFs are susceptible to environmental changes, in particular, to temperature variations. Additionally, a conventional RO-PUF implementation is usually more power-hungry than other PUF alternatives. This paper explores circuit-level techniques to design low-power RO-PUFs with enhanced thermal stability. We introduce a power-efficient approach based on a phase/frequency detector (PFD) to perform pairwise comparisons of ROs. We also propose a temperature compensated bulk-controlled oscillator and investigate its feasibility and usage in PFD-based RO-PUFs. Evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed techniques can effectively reduce the thermally induced errors in PUF responses while imposing a very low power overhead