Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Data networks as cascades: investigating the multifractal nature of Internet WAN traffic

In apparent contrast to the well-documented self-similar (i.e., monofractal) scaling behavior of measured LAN traffic, recent studies have suggested that measured TCP/IP and ATM WAN traffic exhibits more complex scaling behavior, consistent with multifractals. To bring multifractals into the realm of networking, this paper provides a simple construction based on cascades (also known as multiplicative processes) that is motivated by the protocol hierarchy of IP data networks. The cascade framework allows for a plausible physical explanation of the observed multifractal scaling behavior of data traffic and suggests that the underlying multiplicative structure is a traffic invariant for WAN traffic that co-exists with self-similarity. In particular, cascades allow us to refine the previously observed self-similar nature of data traffic to account for local irregularities in WAN traffic that are typically associated with networking mechanisms operating on small time scales, such as TCP flow control.To validate our approach, we show that recent measurements of Internet WAN traffic from both an ISP and a corporate environment are consistent with the proposed cascade paradigm and hence with multifractality. We rely on wavelet-based time-scale analysis techniques to visualize and to infer the scaling behavior of the traces, both globally and locally. We also discuss and illustrate with some examples how this cascade-based approach to describing data network traffic suggests novel ways for dealing with networking problems and helps in building intuition and physical understanding about the possible implications of multifractality on issues related to network performance analysis.
Influence of adhesive and thermal cycling on the bond strength of ceramic brackets to dental ceramic

Aim: This in vitro study investigated the effect of the application of an adhesive, silane and thermal cycling (TC) on the shear bond strength (SBS) of ceramic brackets to feldspathic ceramic. Methods: 16 cylinders of feldspathic ceramic were etched with hydrofluoric acid and divided into four groups (n=4): G1 - silane, without TC; G2 – silane, with TC; G3 - adhesive, without TC; G4 - adhesive, with TC. One layer of silane was applied on the surface of cylinders in G1 and G2 e one layer of photo-activated adhesive Single Bond Universal was used in G3 and G4. Ceramic brackets were bonded using Transbond XT. The SBS data were subjected to two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s post hoc test (α=0.05). The Adhesive Remnant Index (ARI) was evaluated at 40× magnification. Results: Silane was more effective than adhesive on the SBS of the brackets to ceramic (p<0.05). TC decreased significantly the SBS values compared with the groups without TC (p<0.05). The ARI results showed predominance of score 0. Conclusions: Groups with silane showed higher SBS than groups with adhesive. TC influence significantly on the bond strength. Regarding ARI, score 0 predominated in all groups.
Two Methods for Engaging with the Community in Setting Priorities for Child Health Research: Who Engages?

Objective The aims of this study were to assess participatory methods for obtaining community views on child health research. Background Community participation in research is recognised as an important part of the research process; however, there has been inconsistency in its implementation and application in Australia. The Western Australian Telethon Kids Institute Participation Program employs a range of methods for fostering active involvement of community members in its research. These include public discussion forums, called Community Conversations. While participation levels are good, the attendees represent only a sub-section of the Western Australian population. Therefore, we conducted a telephone survey of randomly selected households to evaluate its effectiveness in eliciting views from a broader cross-section of the community about our research agenda and community participation in research, and whether the participants would be representative of the general population. We also conducted two Conversations, comparing the survey as a recruitment tool and normal methods using the Participation Program. Results While the telephone survey was a good method for eliciting community views about research, there were marked differences in the profile of study participants compared to the general population (e.g. 78% vs 50% females). With a 26% response rate, the telephone survey was also more expensive than a Community Conversation. The cold calling approach proved an unsuccessful recruitment method, with only two out of a possible 816 telephone respondents attending a Conversation. Conclusion While the results showed that both of the methods produced useful input for our research program, we could not conclude that either method gained input that was representative of the entire community. The Conversations were relatively low-cost and provided more in-depth information about one subject, whereas the telephone survey provided information across a greater range of subjects, and allowed more quantitative analysis.
Neural Machine Translation with Latent Semantic of Image and Text

Although attention-based Neural Machine Translation have achieved great success, attention-mechanism cannot capture the entire meaning of the source sentence because the attention mechanism generates a target word depending heavily on the relevant parts of the source sentence. The report of earlier studies has introduced a latent variable to capture the entire meaning of sentence and achieved improvement on attention-based Neural Machine Translation. We follow this approach and we believe that the capturing meaning of sentence benefits from image information because human beings understand the meaning of language not only from textual information but also from perceptual information such as that gained from vision. As described herein, we propose a neural machine translation model that introduces a continuous latent variable containing an underlying semantic extracted from texts and images. Our model, which can be trained end-to-end, requires image information only when training. Experiments conducted with an English–German translation task show that our model outperforms over the baseline.
Genetic Diversity and Dynamics of Sinorhizobium meliloti Populations Nodulating Different Alfalfa Cultivars in Italian Soils

ABSTRACT We analyzed the genetic diversity of 531 Sinorhizobium meliloti strains isolated from nodules of Medicago sativa cultivars in two different Italian soils during 4 years of plant growth. The isolates were analyzed for DNA polymorphism with the random amplified polymorphic DNA method. The populations showed a high level of genetic polymorphism distributed throughout all the isolates, with 440 different haplotypes. Analysis of molecular variance allowed us to relate the genetic structure of the symbiotic population to various factors, including soil type, alfalfa cultivar, individual plants within a cultivar, and time. Some of these factors significantly affected the genetic structure of the population, and their relative influence changed with time. At the beginning of the experiment, the soil of origin and, even more, the cultivar significantly influenced the distribution of genetic variability of S. meliloti. After 3 years, the rhizobium population was altered; it showed a genetic structure based mainly on differences among plants, while the effects of soil and cultivar were not significant.
An Integrated Management Approach to Atrial Fibrillation

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia resulting in mortality and morbidity. Gaps in oral anticoagulation and education of patients regarding AF have been identified as areas that require improvement. Methods and Results A before‐and‐after study of 433 patients with newly diagnosed AF in the 3 emergency departments in Nova Scotia from January 1, 2011 until January 31, 2014 was performed. The “before” phase underwent the usual‐care pathway for AF management; the “after” phase was enrolled in a nurse‐run, physician‐supervised AF clinic. The primary outcome was a composite of death, cardiovascular hospitalization, and AF‐related emergency department visits. A propensity analysis was performed to account for differences in baseline characteristics. Results A total of 185 patients were enrolled into the usual‐care group, and 228 patients were enrolled in the AF clinic group. The mean age was 64±15 years and 44% were women. In a propensity‐matched analysis, the primary outcome occurred in 44 (26.2%) patients in the usual‐care group and 29 (17.3%) patients in the AF clinic group (odds ratio 0.71; 95% CI [0.59, 1]; P=0.049) at 12 months. Prescription of oral anticoagulation was increased in the CHADS 2 ≥2 group (88.4% in the AF clinic versus 58.5% in the usual‐care group, P<0.01). Conclusions Adoption of this integrated management approach for the burgeoning population of AF may provide an overall benefit to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.
DNA Microarray Profiling to Identify Angiotensin-Responsive Genes in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells: Potential Mediators of Vascular Disease

Abstract— Angiotensin II (Ang II) induces changes in vessel structure by its capacity to activate genes that are coupled to signaling pathways such as extracellular signal–regulated kinase (ERK), p38, and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K). Using a DNA microarray containing 5088 genes and expressed sequence tags, we initially established a database of replicated experiments (n=4) to define the variances in mRNA expression in response to Ang II versus vehicle treatment. We observed a wide range of values for the coefficients of variation in a gene-specific manner. Guided by power calculations, we used statistical inference on a sufficient number of experimental replicates to minimize the number of false-negatives and define a subset of Ang II–responsive genes (P <0.05). To further characterize the molecular circuitry that couples Ang II stimulation with mRNA expression, we assessed expression profiles in the presence and absence of inhibitors of ERK, p38, and PI3K. Using two different methods of computational cluster analysis, we identified a subset of six matricellular proteins (eg, osteopontin and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1) that are coordinately upregulated by Ang II via an ERK/p38-dependent pathway. In addition, these cluster analyses identified calpactins I and II as novel Ang II–responsive genes. Given that Ang II promotes vascular lesion formation, we examined whether this matricellular gene cluster was also coordinately regulated in vivo. Indeed, we demonstrate that both calpactin I and osteopontin are upregulated in response to vascular injury. Taken together, the combined use of DNA microarrays, statistical inference, and cluster analysis identified novel, coordinately regulated Ang II–responsive genes that may mediate vascular lesion formation.
The Role of Immersion and Narrative in Mediated Presence: The Virtual Hospital Experience

The "mediated sense of presence" is a technology-induced illusion of being present in one (simulated) place when one is actually present in another (physical) place. Typically experienced in virtual worlds, mediated presence is generated by different technological, cognitive, and emotional factors. The aim of this study was to test how to optimise the virtual experience by manipulating some of these factors. Specifically, we tested if an immersive technology and/or a meaningful narrative context influence the users' sense of presence, providing a more compelling experience than a non-immersive and non-contextualized virtual space. Eighty-four students, randomly divided into four groups, were asked to find a blood container inside a virtual hospital in an immersive or non-immersive condition and with or without an emotionally related narrative. Two presence questionnaires and heart-rate variations were used to measure the effects of the four conditions on the users' sense of presence. Results showed a significant effect of narrative, F(8, 73) = 30.346, p < 0.001, and level of immersion, F (8, 73) = 10.913, p < 0.001, and a significant interaction between narrative and immersion, F(8, 73) = 2.062, p = 0.05, both on the presence questionnaires and on the heart-rate variations. Moreover, considering the factors immersion (I) and narrative (N) together, we found that the I-N condition generated the highest level of presence. We argue that both immersion and narrative are important in creating an effective virtual reality experience because they contribute differently to increasing the sense of presence. Immersion increases the place illusion, while the narrative contributes to generating an emotional response and strengthening the subjects' sense of inner presence.
Endothelial cell cytosolic free calcium regulates neutrophil migration across monolayers of endothelial cells

Polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) traverse an endothelial cell (EC) barrier by crawling between neighboring EC. Whether EC regulate the integrity of their intercellular adhesive and junctional contacts in response to chemotaxing PMN is unresolved. EC respond to the binding of soluble mediators such as histamine by increasing their cytosolic free calcium concentration ([Ca++]i) (Rotrosen, D., and J.I. Gallin. 1986. J. Cell Biol. 103:2379-2387) and undergoing shape changes (Majno, G., S. M. Shea, and M. Leventhal. 1969. J. Cell Biol. 42:617-672). Substances such as leukotriene C4 (LTC4) and thrombin, which increased the permeability of EC monolayers to ions, as measured by the electrical resistance of the monolayers, transiently increased EC [Ca++]i. To determine whether chemotaxing PMN cause similar changes in EC [Ca++]i, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) maintained as monolayers were loaded with fura-2. [Ca++]i was measured in single EC during PMN adhesion to and migration across these monolayers. PMN-EC adhesion and transendothelial PMN migration in response to formyl- methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP) as well as to interleukin 1 (IL- 1) treated EC induced a transient increase in EC [Ca++]i which temporally corresponded with the time course of PMN-EC interactions. When EC [Ca++]i was clamped at resting levels with a cell permeant calcium buffer, PMN migration across EC monolayers and PMN induced changes in EC monolayer permeability were inhibited. However, clamping of EC [Ca++]i did not inhibit PMN-EC adhesion. These studies provide evidence that EC respond to stimulated PMN by increasing their [Ca++]i and that this increase in [Ca++]i causes an increase in EC monolayer permeability. Such [Ca++]i increases are required for PMN transit across an EC barrier. We suggest EC [Ca++]i regulates transendothelial migration of PMN by participating in a signal cascade which stimulates EC to open their intercellular junctions to allow transendothelial passage of leukocytes.
Joint routing and scheduling for centralised wireless sensor networks

We consider a centralised wireless sensor network, where nodes have to send data to a final sink, managing both routing and radio resources assignment. We propose two novel algorithms to jointly assign time slots to links and to define paths connecting nodes to the sink. In contrast with previous works, the proposed algorithms account for a realistic capture effect, where the signal-to-interference-ratio considering the sum of interfering powers is applied. The proposed algorithms, taking inspiration from Dijkstra and graph coloring techniques, are compared to two benchmarks considering a simulated and a real network. It is shown that the proposed algorithms can assign a smaller amount of radio resources with respect to benchmarks, or ensure error-less transmissions in the network.
A study of the determination of grain boundary diffusivity and energy through the thermally grown oxide ridges on a Fe-22Cr alloy surface

Abstract The grain boundaries (GBs) present in polycrystalline materials are important with respect to materials behaviour and properties. During the transient stage of oxidation, the higher GB diffusivity results in heterogeneous oxidation structures in the form of oxide ridges that emerge along the alloy GBs. In an attempt to delve into the more fundamental aspects of the GBs, such as GB energy, the size of the oxide ridges was quantitatively measured by atomic force microscopy on the post oxidation surface of a Fe-22 wt % Cr alloy after an oxidation exposure at 800 °C in dry air. The GB diffusivity was calculated utilising the ridge size data and the relationship between the GB diffusivity and the GB characteristics was determined. Furthermore, the GB energy was calculated from the GB diffusivity data, also to make comparison with the data available in the literature. The absolute value of the calculated GB energy was quite close to the values reported in the literature. However, compared to the extremely low temperature (0 K) data-set from the literature, the data-set obtained from this study showed much less spread. The smaller variation range may be attributed to the higher temperature condition (1073 K) in this study.
Control and Prevention of Ice Formation on the Surface of an Aluminum Alloy

Aluminium alloys are some of the predominant metals in industrial applications such as production of heat exchangers, heat pumps. They have high heat conductivity coupled with a low specific weight. In cold working conditions, there is a risk of frost formation on the surface of aluminium in the presence of water vapour, which can lead to the deterioration of equipment performance. This work addresses the methods of surface modification of aluminium and their effect of the underlying surface morphology and wettability, which are the important parameters for frost formation. Three groups of real-life aluminium surfaces of different morphology: unpolished aluminium, polished aluminium, and aluminium foil, were subjected to surface modification procedures which involved the formation of a layer of hydrophilic luminium surface oughness n situ polymerization olecular vapour deposition hyperbranched polyethyleneglycol via in situ polymerization, molecular vapour deposition of a monolayer of fluorinated silane, and a combination of those. The effect of these surface modification techniques on roughness and wettability of the aluminium surfaces was elucidated by ellipsometry, contact angle measurements and atomic force microscopy. We demonstrated that by employing different types of surface modifications the contact angle of water droplets on aluminium samples can be varied from 12◦ to more than 120◦. A crossover from Cassie–Baxter to Wenzel regime upon changing the surface roughness was also observed.
Quantitative analysis of chaperone network throughput in budding yeast

The network of molecular chaperones mediates the folding and translocation of the many proteins encoded in the genome of eukaryotic organisms, as well as a response to stress. It has been particularly well characterised in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where 63 known chaperones have been annotated and recent affinity purification and MS/MS experiments have helped characterise the attendant network of chaperone targets to a high degree. In this study, we apply our QconCAT methodology to directly quantify the set of yeast chaperones in absolute terms (copies per cell) via SRM MS. Firstly, we compare these to existing quantitative estimates of these yeast proteins, highlighting differences between approaches. Secondly, we cast the results into the context of the chaperone target network and show a distinct relationship between abundance of individual chaperones and their targets. This allows us to characterise the ‘throughput’ of protein molecules passing through individual chaperones and their groups on a proteome‐wide scale in an unstressed model eukaryote for the first time. The results demonstrate specialisations of the chaperone classes, which display different overall workloads, efficiencies and preference for the sub‐cellular localisation of their targets. The novel integration of the interactome data with quantification supports re‐estimates of the level of protein throughout going through molecular chaperones. Additionally, although chaperones target fewer than 40% of annotated proteins we show that they mediate the folding of the majority of protein molecules (∼62% of the total protein flux in the cell), highlighting their importance.
Can Interferon-Gamma or Interferon-Gamma-Induced-Protein-10 Differentiate Tuberculosis Infection and Disease in Children of High Endemic Areas?

Background Diagnosis of childhood tuberculosis (TB) is difficult in high TB burden settings. Interferon-gamma-induced protein 10 (IP10) has been suggested as a marker of TB infection and disease, but its ability to differentiate the two conditions remains uncertain. Objectives To describe Interferon-gamma (INFγ) and IP10 expression in children with TB infection and disease and controls to assess their potential to differentiate latent and active TB. Methods This was a cross sectional study of 322 1–15 years old children with symptoms of TB (28 confirmed, 136 probable and 131 unlikely TB), 335 children in contact with adults with pulmonary TB and 156 community controls in Southern Ethiopia. The Tuberculin Skin Test (TST) and Quantiferon-In-Tube (QFT-IT) were performed. INFγ and IP10 were measured in plasma supernatants. Results and Interpretation Children with confirmed and probable TB and contacts were more likely to have TST+ (78.6%, 59.3% and 54.1%, respectively) than children with unlikely TB (28.7%) and controls (12.8%) (p<0.001). Children with confirmed TB (59.3%) and contacts (44.7%) were more likely to have INFγ+ than children with probable (37.6%) or unlikely TB (28.1%) and controls (13.1%) (p<0.001). IP10 concentrations were higher in INFγ+ children independently of TST (p<0.001). There was no difference between IP10 concentrations of children with confirmed TB and contacts (p = 0.8) and children with and without HIV (p>0.1). INFγ and IP10 can identify children with TB infection and disease, but cannot differentiate between the two conditions. HIV status did not affect the expression of IP10.
On the asymptotic spectrum of the error probability of composite networks

This paper investigates composite multiterminal networks which consist of a set of multiterminal channels indexed or parametrized by a vector of channel parameters θ. The channel in operation is drawn from the sample set with probability Pθ. Instead of finding the maximum achievable rate subject to a -asymptotically- small error probability (EP), we look at the behavior of the error probability for a fixed coding rate. The asymptotic spectrum of error probability (ASEP) is then introduced as a novel and more general performance measure for composite networks. Indeed, the ASEP is defined as the smallest probability that the EP exceeds a desirable error ε for a coding rate r. It is shown that the ASEP is directly related to the ε-capacity of the network and assuming memoryless channels the ASEP can be bounded by a new region referred to as the full error region. Moreover, every code with a rate belonging to this region yields asymptotic EP equal to one.