Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The radio–mid‐infrared correlation and the contribution of 15‐μm galaxies to the 1.4‐GHz source counts

The radio counterparts to the 15-µm sources in the European Large Area ISO Survey southern fields are identified in 1.4-GHz maps down to ∼80 µJy. The radio‐mid-infrared correlation is investigated and derived for the first time at these flux densities for a sample of this size. Our results show that radio and mid-infrared (MIR) luminosities correlate almost as well as radio and far-infrared (FIR), at least up to z � 0.6. Using the derived relation and its spread together with the observed 15-µm counts, we have estimated the expected contribution of the 15-µm extragalactic populations to the radio source counts and the role of MIR starburst galaxies in the well-known 1.4-GHz source excess observed at sub-mJy levels. Our analysis demonstrates that IR emitting starburst galaxies do not contribute significantly to the 1.4-GHz counts for strong sources, but start to become a significant fraction of the radio source population at flux densities 0.5‐0.8 mJy. They are expected to be responsible for more than 60 per cent of the observed radio counts at 0.05 mJy. These results are in agreement with the existing results on optical identifications of faint radio
Generalised permutation branes

We propose a new class of non-factorising D-branes in the product group G × G where the fluxes and metrics on the two factors do not necessarily coincide. They generalise the maximally symmetric permutation branes which are known to exist when the fluxes agree, but break the symmetry down to the diagonal current algebra in the generic case. Evidence for the existence of these branes comes from a lagrangian description for the open string world-sheet and from effective Dirac-Born-Infeld theory. We state the geometry, gauge fields and, in the case of SU(2) × SU(2), tensions and partial results on the open string spectrum. In the latter case the generalised permutation branes provide a natural and complete explanation for the charges predicted by K-theory including their torsion.
BotDigger: A Fuzzy Inference System for Botnet Detection

This paper proposes BotDigger, a fuzzy logic-based botnet detection system. In this system, we derive a set of logical rules based on a well known botnet characteristics. Utilizing these rules, an adaptive logic algorithm will be applied on network traffic traces searching for botnet footprints and associating a trust level for each host present in the sampled data. Future work will focus on evaluating the proposed approach using real traffic traces.
The Timewheel Asynchronous Group Communication

We propose a membership and a reliable broadcast protocol that support several diierent semantics simultaneously and provide good overall performance. The broadcast protocol supports three atomicity semantics|weak, strong, and strict atomicity|and three ordering semantics| unordered, total order, and time order. These result in nine group communicationsemantics and an application can dynamically choose the desired atomicity and order semantics when broadcasting an update. These protocols provide fast delivery and stability times, use a small number of messages to accomplish a broadcast or a membership change, distribute evenly the processing load among group members, and use eecient ow control techniques. The good overall performance is maintained in the absence of any failures and normal update arrival rates, in the presence of communication or process failures, and when updates arrive at a very fast or very slow rate.
Resilience in Plant-Herbivore Networks during Secondary Succession

Extensive land-use change in the tropics has produced a mosaic of successional forests within an agricultural and cattle-pasture matrix. Post-disturbance biodiversity assessments have found that regeneration speed depends upon propagule availability and the intensity and duration of disturbance. However, reestablishment of species interactions is still poorly understood and this limits our understanding of the anthropogenic impacts upon ecosystem resilience. This is the first investigation that evaluates plant-herbivore interaction networks during secondary succession. In particular we investigated succession in a Mexican tropical dry forest using data of caterpillar associations with plants during 2007–2010. Plant-herbivore networks showed high resilience. We found no differences in most network descriptors between secondary and mature forest and only recently abandoned fields were found to be different. No significant nestedness or modularity network structure was found. Plant-herbivore network properties appear to quickly reestablish after perturbation, despite differences in species richness and composition. This study provides some valuable guidelines for the implement of restoration efforts that can enhance ecological processes such as the interaction between plants and their herbivores.
Protein Array Profiling of Tic Patient Sera Reveals a Broad Range and Enhanced Immune Response against Group A Streptococcus Antigens

The human pathogen Group A Streptococcus (Streptococcus pyogenes, GAS) is widely recognized as a major cause of common pharyngitis as well as of severe invasive diseases and non-suppurative sequelae associated with the existence of GAS antigens eliciting host autoantibodies. It has been proposed that a subset of paediatric disorders characterized by tics and obsessive-compulsive symptoms would exacerbate in association with relapses of GAS-associated pharyngitis. This hypothesis is however still controversial. In the attempt to shed light on the contribution of GAS infections to the onset of neuropsychiatric or behavioral disorders affecting as many as 3% of children and adolescents, we tested the antibody response of tic patient sera to a representative panel of GAS antigens. In particular, 102 recombinant proteins were spotted on nitrocellulose-coated glass slides and probed against 61 sera collected from young patients with typical tic neuropsychiatric symptoms but with no overt GAS infection. Sera from 35 children with neither tic disorder nor overt GAS infection were also analyzed. The protein recognition patterns of these two sera groups were compared with those obtained using 239 sera from children with GAS-associated pharyngitis. This comparative analysis identified 25 antigens recognized by sera of the three patient groups and 21 antigens recognized by tic and pharyngitis sera, but poorly or not recognized by sera from children without tic. Interestingly, these antigens appeared to be, in quantitative terms, more immunogenic in tic than in pharyngitis patients. Additionally, a third group of antigens appeared to be preferentially and specifically recognized by tic sera. These findings provide the first evidence that tic patient sera exhibit immunological profiles typical of individuals who elicited a broad, specific and strong immune response against GAS. This may be relevant in the context of one of the hypothesis proposing that GAS antigen-dependent induction of autoantibodies in susceptible individuals may be involved the occurrence of tic disorders.
Design space exploration using arithmetic-level hardware--software cosimulation for configurable multiprocessor platforms

Configurable multiprocessor platforms consist of multiple soft processors configured on FPGA devices. They have become an attractive choice for implementing many computing applications. In addition to the various ways of distributing software execution among the multiple soft processors, the application designer can customize soft processors and the connections between them in order to improve the performance of the applications running on the multiprocessor platform. State-of-the-art design tools rely on low-level simulation to explore the various design trade-offs offered by configurable multiprocessor platforms. These low-level simulation based exploration techniques are too time-consuming and can be a major bottleneck to efficient design space exploration on these platforms. We propose a design space exploration technique for configurable multiprocessor platforms using arithmetic-level cycle-accurate hardware--software cosimulation. Arithmetic-level abstractions of the hardware and software execution platforms are created within the proposed cosimulation environment. The configurable multiprocessor platforms are described using these arithmetic-level abstractions. Hardware and software simulators are tightly integrated to concurrently simulate the arithmetic behavior of the multiprocessor platform. The simulation within the integrated simulators are synchronized to provide cycle-accurate simulation results for the complete multiprocessor platform. By doing so, we significantly speed up the cosimulation process for configurable multiprocessor platforms. Exploration of the various hardware-software design trade-offs provided by configurable multiprocessor platforms can be performed within the proposed cycle-accurate cosimulation environment. After the final designs are identified, the corresponding low-level implementations with the desired cycle-accurate arithmetic behavior are generated automatically. For illustrative purposes, we provide an implementation of our approach based on MATLAB/Simulink. We show the cosimulation of two numerical computation applications and one image-processing application on a popular configurable multiprocessor platform within the MATLAB/Simulink-based cosimulation environment. For these three applications, our arithmetic-level cosimulation approach leads to speed-ups in simulation time of up to more than 800x compared with the low-level simulation approaches. The designs of these applications identified using our arithmetic-level cosimulation approach achieve execution time speed-ups up to 5.6x, compared with other designs considered in our experiments.
Reasonable doubt : uncertainty in education, science and law

The use of evidence to resolve uncertainties is key to many endeavours, most conspicuously science and law. Despite this, the logic of uncertainty is seldom taught explicitly, and often seems misunderstood. Traditional educational practice even fails to encourage students to identify uncertainty when they express knowledge, though mark schemes that reward the identification of reliable and uncertain responses have long been shown to encourage more insightful understanding. In our information-rich society the ability to identify uncertainty is often more important than the possession of knowledge itself. In both science and law there are fundamentally different kinds of uncertainty at issue. There is uncertainty whether a particular hypothesis is correct, and there is uncertainty about observable data that may be generated if a particular hypothesis is correct. Both are expressed in terms of probabilities. Each has its own domain of application and its own logic, but the inter-relationship is complex and sometimes misunderstood. Hypothesis probabilities are always open to error through possible failure to take account of realistic alternatives, while the proper inferences that can be drawn from data probabilities (often in the context of significance testing) are quite limited and easily over-interpreted. When considering these two kinds of probability in a court of law it is possible to interpret the phrase 'reasonable doubt' in different ways. It can be seen as addressing data uncertainty: whether such incriminating evidence might with reasonable probability arise to confront an innocent person. Or (the more conventional view) it can be seen as some sort of threshold level on the probability that the defendant is guilty (a hypothesis probability). Each typically involves elements of subjective judgement, but fewer issues and uncertainties arise when considering the data probability and it is argued that this is often the more critical and proper issue for a jury to address. This has particular repercussions for cases involving identification of a suspect through trawl of a DNA or other database.
Explaining socio-demographic differences in disengagement from sports in adolescence.

PURPOSE The purpose of this longitudinal study is to identify risk groups for disengagement from sports during adolescence. In addition, it will be explored whether cognitive and environmental factors can explain socio-demographic differences in disengagement from sports. METHODS Data were obtained from the Environmental Determinants of Obesity in Rotterdam Schoolchildren study, and 357 adolescents were eligible for analysis. Socio-demographics (gender, ethnicity, education), individual cognitions and neighbourhood perceptions were assessed at baseline (2005/2006), and sports participation at baseline and at follow-up (2007/2008). Two dichotomous outcome variables were constructed: (i) disengagement from sports (yes/no) and (ii) ceased compliance with the fitnorm (i.e. cease engaging in sports ≥3 times/wk) (yes/no). In logistic regression and mediation analyses, we identified socio-demographic differences in the two outcomes. Subsequently, we applied mediation analyses to identify the contribution of cognitive and environmental explanatory factors of the socio-demographic differences. RESULTS Girls [odds ratio (OR): 2.5, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.5-4.5] were more likely than boys to disengage from sports. Girls (OR: 2.5, 95% CI: 1.4-4.2), adolescents of non-Western background (OR: 1.8, 95% CI: 1.0-3.0) and those in lower educational levels (OR: 1.7, 95% CI: 1.0-2.9) were more likely to cease compliance with the fitnorm. Perceived neighbourhood safety partly explained gender differences in disengagement from sports (8%). Intention partly explained ethnical (32%) and educational differences (37%) in ceasing compliance with the fitnorm. CONCLUSIONS Girls, lower-educated adolescents and those with a non-Western background showed more pronounced reductions in sports participation and compliance with the fitnorm. Intention and perceived neighbourhood safety could partially explain these differences.
Chronic Immunodeficiency in Mice Lacking RasGRP1 Results in CD4 T Cell Immune Activation and Exhaustion1

The Ras-guanyl nucleotide exchange factor RasGRP1 is an important link between TCR-mediated signaling and the activation of Ras and its downstream effectors. RasGRP1 is especially critical for the survival and differentiation of developing thymocytes whereas negative selection of thymocytes bearing an autoreactive TCR appears to be RasGRP1 independent. Despite apparently normal central tolerance, RasGRP1−/− mice spontaneously acquire an acutely activated and proliferating CD4 T cell population that exhibits characteristics of T cell exhaustion, including strong expression of programmed cell death-1. To elucidate the basis for RasGRP1−/− CD4 T cell immune activation, we initiated a series of adoptive transfer experiments. Remarkably, the copious amounts of cytokines and self-Ags present in hosts made lymphopenic through irradiation failed to induce the majority of RasGRP1−/− CD4 T cells to enter cell cycle. However, their infusion into either congenitally T cell- or T/B cell-deficient recipients resulted in robust proliferation and L-selectin down-regulation. These findings imply that the activation and proliferation of RasGRP1−/− CD4 T cells may be dependent on their residence in a chronically immunocompromised environment. Accordingly, bacterial and viral challenge experiments revealed that RasGRP1−/− mice possess a weakened immune system, exhibiting a T cell-autonomous defect in generating pathogen-specific T cells and delayed pathogen clearance. Collectively, our study suggests that chronic T cell immunodeficiency in RasGRP1−/− mice may be responsible for CD4 T cell activation, proliferation, and exhaustion.
The Metallicity Distribution of F/G Dwarfs Derived from BATC Survey Data

Based on synthetic flux spectra calculated from theoretical atmospheric models, a calibration of temperature and metallicity for the dwarfs observed in the Beijing-Arizona-Taiwan-Connecticut multicolor photometric system is presented in this paper. According to this calibration, stellar effective temperatures can be obtained from some temperature-sensitive color indexes. The sample stars have colors and magnitudes in the ranges 0.1 < d - i < 0.9 and 14.0 < i < 20.5. The photometric metallicities for these sample stars can be derived by fitting SEDs. We determine the average stellar metallicity as a function of distance from the Galactic plane. The metallicity gradient is found to be d[Fe/H]/dz = -0.37 ± 0.1 dex kpc-1 for z < 4 kpc and d[Fe/H]/dz = -0.06 ± 0.09 dex kpc-1 between 5 and 15 kpc. These results can be explained in terms of different contributions in density distribution for Galactic model "thin disk," "thick disk," and "halo" components. However, for the gradient in z > 5 kpc, it could not be interpreted according to the different contributions from the three components because of the large uncertainty. So it is possible that there is little or no gradient for z > 5 kpc. The overall distribution shows a metallicity gradient d[Fe/H]/dz = -0.17 ± 0.04 dex kpc-1 for z < 15 kpc.
Stent thrombosis: who's guilty?

Stent thrombosis is a devastating complication of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) which remains unsolved as it is poorly predicted and prevented. Its frequency appears to be low (0.8–2%) but most evaluations come from registries that are likely to underestimate the real prevalence. The mortality associated with stent thrombosis is high, within a range of 25–40%, comparable with that of many cancers. Because of its low incidence, stent thrombosis has been neglected for too long by the interventional community. Recent understanding of the underlying mechanisms has reactivated our consciousness and opened up new avenues for dedicated preventive approaches. Some of the explanations for stent thrombosis will be found in relation to the patient. A number of simple clinical traits have been identified as risk factors for stent thrombosis including diabetes, active smoking, prior or ongoing myocardial infarction, heart failure, recent cancer, or renal insufficiency.1 Angiographic characteristics have also been associated with stent thrombosis including small arteries, long lesions, bifurcations, thrombotic or ulcerated lesions, or low TIMI flow. Among biological factors, the markers of necrosis, inflammation, and high platelet reactivity on double antiplatelet therapy, have frequently been associated with stent thrombosis. However, evidence has accumulated to suggest that the strongest factor associated with stent thrombosis is the discontinuation of clopidogrel treatment. This is again highlighted in the study of Schulz and colleagues who report the powerful preventive effect of clopidogrel within the first 6 months of drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation.2 The causal relationship between clopidogrel discontinuation and stent thrombosis during this period cannot be demonstrated but is suggested by the average 9-day delay between interruption and stent thrombosis, an estimated time frame for platelet functional recovery. The average time to stent thrombosis of 104 days if discontinuation occurs >6 months after DES placement and the much lower frequency of stent … *Corresponding author. Tel: +33 1 42 16 30 06, Fax: +33 1 42 16 29 31, Email: gilles.montalescot{at}psl.aphp. fr
Plant regeneration from seeds responds to phylogenetic relatedness and local adaptation in Mediterranean Romulea (Iridaceae) species

Abstract Seed germination is the most important transitional event between early stages in the life cycle of spermatophytes and understanding it is crucial to understand plant adaptation and evolution. However, so far seed germination of phylogenetically closely related species has been poorly investigated. To test the hypothises that phylogenetically related plant species have similar seed ecophysiological traits thereby reflecting certain habitat conditions as a result of local adaptation, we studied seed dormancy and germination in seven Mediterranean species in the genus Romulea (Iridaceae). Both the across‐species model and the model accounting for shared evolutionary history showed that cool temperatures (≤ 15°C) were the main factor that promoted seed germination. The absence of embryo growth before radicle emergence is consistent with a prompt germination response at cool temperatures. The range of temperature conditions for germination became wider after a period of warm stratification, denoting a weak primary dormancy. Altogether these results indicate that the studied species exhibit a Mediterranean germination syndrome, but with species‐specific germination requirements clustered in a way that follows the phylogenetic relatedness among those species. In addition, species with heavier seeds from humid habitats showed a wider range of conditions for germination at dispersal time than species from dry habitats possessing lighter seeds. We conclude that while phylogenetically related species showed very similar germination requirements, there are subtle ecologically meaningful differences, confirming the onset of adaptation to local ecological factors mediated by species relatedness.
ICSE 2008 Tutorial on Pragmatic Design Quality Assessment

Quality control is paramount in every engineering discipline. Software engineering, however, is not considered a classical engineering activity for several reasons, such as intrinsic complexity and lack of rigor. In general, if a software system is delivering the expected functionality, only in few cases people see the need to analyze the internals. In this tutorial we offer a pragmatic approach to analyzing the quality of software systems. On the one hand, we offer the theoretical background to detect quality problems by using and combining metrics, by analyzing the past through evolution analysis, and by providing visual evidence of the state of affairs in the system. On the other hand, as analyzing real systems requires adequate tool support, we offer an overview of the problems that occur in using such tools and provide a hands-on session with state-of-the-art tools used on a real case study. 1. PRESENTERS TudorGirba obtained his Ph.D. (summa cum laude) in November 2005 and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Software Composition Group, University of Berne, Switzerland. His interests lie in the area of software evolution, reverse engineering, reengineering, information visualization, quality assurance and meta-modeling. During his Ph.D. he developed the Hismo meta-model for evolution analysis. He is one of the key developers of the Moose reengineering environment and participated in the development of several other reverse engineering tools. He offers consulting services in the area of reengineering and quality assurance.
Muscle Power: The Interaction of Cycle Frequency and Shortening Velocity

Force-velocity, force-time, and force-length relations of muscle are typically evaluated with reductionist techniques in which force is measured while the variable of interest is manipulated. However, force produced during voluntary movement arises from complex interaction of these contractile characteristics. Nonetheless, neuromuscular performance for cyclical, work-producing movements can be predicted from the interaction of average muscle shortening velocity and movement frequency.