Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The stable paths problem and interdomain routing

Dynamic routing protocols such as RIP and OSPF essentially implement distributed algorithms for solving the shortest paths problem. The border gateway protocol (BGP) is currently the only interdomain routing protocol deployed in the Internet. BGP does not solve a shortest paths problem since any interdomain protocol is required to allow policy-based metrics to override distance-based metrics and enable autonomous systems to independently define their routing policies with little or no global coordination. It is then natural to ask if BGP can be viewed as a distributed algorithm for solving some fundamental problem. We introduce the stable paths problem and show that BGP can be viewed as a distributed algorithm for solving this problem. Unlike a shortest path tree, such a solution does not represent a global optimum, but rather an equilibrium point in which each node is assigned its local optimum.We study the stable paths problem using a derived structure called a dispute wheel, representing conflicting routing policies at various nodes. We show that if no dispute wheel can be constructed, then there exists a unique solution for the stable paths problem. We define the simple path-vector protocol (SPVP), a distributed algorithm for solving the stable paths problem. SPVP is intended to capture the dynamic behavior of BGP at an abstract level. If SPVP converges, then the resulting state corresponds to a stable paths solution. If there is no solution, then SPVP always diverges. In fact, SPVP can even diverge when a solution exists. We show that SPVP will converge to the unique solution of an instance of the stable paths problem if no dispute wheel exists.
The moderating role of meaning in life in the relationship between perceived stress and diurnal cortisol

Abstract Previous studies have suggested that meaning in life may buffer the negative effects of stress. This study is the first to investigate the moderating role of meaning in life in the relationship between the perception of stress and diurnal cortisol in two independent samples of healthy adults. In study 1 (n = 172, men = 82, women = 90, age range = 21–55 years, mean age = 37.58 years), the results of moderated regression analyses revealed that there was a significant positive relationship between overall perceived stress in the past month and both diurnal cortisol levels (area-under-the-curve with respect to the ground; AUCg) and the diurnal cortisol slope (DCS) only in individuals with low levels of meaning in life conceptualized as the degree to which one engages in activities that are personally valued and important. In study 2 (n = 259, men = 125, women = 134, age range = 18–54 years, mean age = 29.06 years), we found a non-significant interaction term between meaning in life conceptualized as having goals and a sense of excitement regarding one’s future and perception of stress in a model of both adjusted AUCg and DCS. The results were independent of age, sex, body mass index, education, and race. The results shed light on the importance and the complexity of the construct of meaning in life and offer a possible explanation for why some people who face stressors may be more vulnerable than others to developing stress-related health problems.
PICTURE OF THE MONTH An Unusual Aerial Photograph of an Eddy Circulation in Marine Stratocumulus Clouds

An aerial photograph of a cyclonic, von Karman‐like vortex in the marine stratocumulus clouds off the Californiacoast,takenbyacommercialpilotnearGroverBeach,ispresented.Itisbelievedthatthisisthefirst photograph of such an eddy, taken from an airplane, to appear in publication. The eddy occurred with a strong inversion above a shallow marine boundary layer, in the lee of high, inversion-penetrating terrain. Tower and surface wind measurements plotted on satellite imagery demonstrate that the Grover Beach eddy was not just a cloud-level feature, but extended through the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) to the surface. Evolution of the flow during the formation of the eddy appears similar to idealized numerical simulations of blocked MABL flow from the literature. The tower measurements sampled the northern part of the eddy circulation during its formation just offshore. The 28‐ 38C temperature increases and then decreases during and after the eddy passage may be indicative of warmer air, from sheltered locations to the southeast, and/or downslopeflow, being advected by and included into the eddy circulation. Satellite data compared with sequences of wind reversals at two different levels of the meteorological tower suggest that the eddy is tilted with height, at least during its formation stage. Formation mechanisms are discussed, but the subsynoptic observations are inadequate to resolve basic questions about the flow; ultimately a high-resolution model simulation is needed.
Respiratory insufficiency with preserved diaphragmatic function in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE We performed a longitudinal study to elucidate the correlation between respiratory insufficiency and respiratory biomarkers, including diaphragmatic compound muscle action potential (DCMAP), at the initiation of noninvasive ventilation (NIV) in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). METHODS The patients were assessed at least every six months. Additional assessments were performed at the start of respiratory therapy when the patients met the criteria for the initiation of NIV. Each assessment consisted of a full neurological examination, a phrenic nerve conduction study, respiratory function tests, and nocturnal pulsed oximetry. PATIENTS We enrolled 43 patients with either definite or probable ALS as defined by the revised El Escorial criteria. RESULTS The patients were divided into two groups according to the timing of the initiation of respiratory therapy. Seventeen patients (group A) met the criteria for NIV initiation when their DCMAP remained normal. Twenty-six patients (group B) met the criteria when their DCMAP decreased below normal limits. Although respiratory function parameters were significantly worse in group B compared with group A at NIV initiation, more than 80% of the patients in both groups developed nocturnal desaturation during sleep. CONCLUSION DCMAP is not always a reliable indicator for determining the optimal timing for NIV initiation during the progression of respiratory insufficiency in ALS. Physicians should be aware of the risk of respiratory insufficiency during sleep in patients with ALS.
Efficacy and safety of once-daily glycopyrronium in predominantly Chinese patients with moderate-to-severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease : the GLOW 7 study

License. The full terms of the License are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. Permissions beyond the scope of the License are administered by Dove Medical Press Limited. Information on how to request permission may be found at: http://www.dovepress. com/permissions.php International Journal of COPD 2015:10 57–68 International Journal of COPD Dovepress
Mobile Banking Utilizations , Satisfaction and Loyalty : A Case Study of Malaysian Consumers

The rapid proliferation of mobile phones and other electronic gadgets has created a new channel for banking known as mobile banking. The literature unveiled that very few have attempted to study the impact of mobile banking utilizations. Drawing on the research gap, this study proposes the following research questions: (i) Does mobile banking utilization predict user satisfaction? and (ii) Does satisfaction in mobile banking predicts loyalty? Adopting a survey research methodology involving 312 respondents, the findings of this study showed that that mobile banking utilization is positively related to satisfaction but not loyalty. Also it is found that satisfaction significantly predicts loyalty.
Tight Junction Protein Occludin Is a Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Entry Factor

ABSTRACT Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), the causative agent of porcine epidemic diarrhea, has caused huge economic losses in pig-producing countries. Although PEDV was long believed to replicate in the intestinal epithelium by using aminopeptidase N as a receptor, the mechanisms of PEDV infection are not fully characterized. In this study, we found that PEDV infection of epithelial cells results in disruption of the tight junctional distribution of occludin to its intracellular location. Overexpression of occludin in target cells makes them more susceptible to PEDV infection, whereas ablation of occludin expression by use of small interfering RNA (siRNA) in target cells significantly reduces their susceptibility to virus infection. However, the results observed with occludin siRNA indicate that occludin is not required for virus attachment. We conclude that occludin plays an essential role in PEDV infection at the postbinding stages. Furthermore, we observed that macropinocytosis inhibitors blocked occludin internalization and virus entry, indicating that virus entry and occludin internalization are closely coupled. However, the macropinocytosis inhibitors could not impede virus replication once the virus had entered host cells. This suggests that occludin internalization by macropinocytosis or a macropinocytosis-like process is involved in the virus entry events. Immunofluorescence confocal microscopy showed that PEDV was trapped at cellular junctional regions upon macropinocytosis inhibitor treatment, indicating that occludin may serve as a scaffold in the vicinity of virus entry. Collectively, these data show that occludin plays an essential role in PEDV infection during late entry events. Our observation may provide novel insights into PEDV infection and related pathogenesis. IMPORTANCE Tight junctions are highly specialized membrane domains whose main function is to attach adjacent cells to each other, thereby forming intercellular seals. Here we investigate, for the first time, the role of the tight junction protein occludin in PEDV infection. We observed that PEDV infection induced the internalization of occludin. By using genetic modification methods, we demonstrate that occludin plays an essential role in PEDV infection. Moreover, PEDV entry and occludin internalization seem to be closely coupled. Our findings reveal a new mechanism of PEDV infection.
Phenomenology of a top quark seesaw model

The top quark seesaw mechanism offers a method for constructing a composite Higgs field without the usual difficulties that accompany traditional technicolor or topcolor theories. The focus of this article is to study the phenomenology of the new physics required by this mechanism. After establishing a set of criteria for a plausible top quark seesaw theory, we develop two models, the first of which has a heavy weak singlet fermion with hypercharge 4/3 while the second has, in addition, a heavy weak singlet hypercharge -2/3 fermion. At low energies, these theories contain one or two Higgs doublets respectively. We then derive the low energy effective Higgs potential in detail for the two-doublet theory as well as study the likely experimental signatures for both theories. A strong constraint on the one-doublet model is the measured value of the rho parameter which permits the new heavy fermion to have a mass of about 5-7 TeV, when the Higgs has a mass greater than 300 GeV. In the two-doublet model, mixing of the new heavy Y=-2/3 fermion and the b quark affects the prediction for R_b. In order to agree with the current limits on R_b, the mass of this fermion should be at least 12 TeV. The mass of the heavy Y=4/3 fermion in the two-doublet model is not as sharply constrained by experiments and can be as light as 2.5 TeV.
Differing roles of autophagy in HIV-associated neurocognitive impairment and encephalitis with implications for morphine co-exposure

We investigated the role of autophagy in HIV-infected subjects with neurocognitive impairment (NCI) ± HIV encephalitis (HIVE), many of which had a history of polysubstance abuse/dependence, using post-mortem brain tissues to determine whether differences in autophagy related factors may be more associated with NCI or NCI-encephalitis. Using qRT-PCR, we detected significant differences in gene expression levels with SQSTM1, LAMP1 higher in HIV-infected subjects without NCI while ATG5, SQSTM1 were then lower in HIV infection/NCI and ATG7, SQSTM1 being higher in NCI-HIVE. Immunohistochemical labeling of these autophagy associated proteins (also including Beclin 1 and LC3B) in Iba1-positive microglial cells showed generally higher immunoreactivity in the NCI and NCI-HIVE groups with more focal vs. diffuse patterns of expression in the NCI-HIVE group. Furthermore, analysis of microarray data from these same subjects found significantly higher levels of LAMP1 in NCI-HIVE compared to uninfected subjects in the basal ganglia. Finally, we tested the effect of supernatant from HIV-1-infected microglia and HIV-1 Tat protein in combination with morphine on neurons in vitro and found opposing events with both significant inhibition of autophagic flux and reduced dendrite length for morphine and supernatant treatment while Tat and morphine exposure resulted in lower autophagic activity at an earlier time point and higher levels in the later. These results suggest autophagy genes and their corresponding proteins may be differentially regulated at the transcriptional, translational, and post-translational levels in the brain during various stages of the HIV disease and that infected individuals exposed to morphine can experience mixed signaling of autophagic activity which could lead to more severe NCI than those without opioid use.
Is There an Association Between Pain and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Parameters in Patients With Lumbar Spinal Stenosis?

Study Design. A prospective multicenter cohort study. Objective. The aim of this study was to identify an association between pain and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) parameters in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS). Summary of Background Data. At present, the relationship between abnormal MRI findings and pain in patients with LSS is still unclear. Methods. First, we conducted a systematic literature search. We identified relationships of relevant MRI parameters and pain in patients with LSS. Second, we addressed the study question with a thorough descriptive and graphical analysis to establish a relationship between MRI parameters and pain using data of the LSS outcome study (LSOS). Results. In the systematic review including four papers about the associations between radiological findings in the MRI and pain, the authors of two articles reported no association and two of them did. Of the latters, only one study found a moderate correlation between leg pain measured by Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and the degree of stenosis assessed by spine surgeons. In the data of the LSOS study, we could not identify a relevant association between any of the MRI parameters and buttock, leg, and back pain, quantified by the Spinal Stenosis Measure (SSM) and the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS). Even by restricting the analysis to the level of the lumbar spine with the most prominent radiological “stenosis,” no relevant association could be shown. Conclusion. Despite a thorough analysis of the data, we were not able to prove any correlation between radiological findings (MRI) and the severity of pain. There is a need for innovative “methods/techniques” to learn more about the causal relationship between radiological findings and the patients’ pain-related complaints. Level of Evidence: 2
Quantitative molecular assays for evaluating changes in broiler gut microbiota linked with diet and performance

Changes in the levels of specific gut bacteria have been linked to improved broiler feed efficiency. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays were developed to five potential performance-related bacteria (Lactobacillus salivarius, L. crispatus, L. aviarius, Gallibacterium anatis and Escherichia coli) and generic eubacteria. These were used to screen broiler gut samples from four geographically diverse Australian feeding trials showing significant treatment-related differences in feed efficiency. It was our aim to validate the association of particular bacteria with broiler feed efficiency across a broad range of environmental and dietary conditions, and hence to evaluate their predictive potential for monitoring broiler performance. Across trials L. salivarius, L. crispatus, L. aviarius, E. coli and total eubacterial numbers were significantly altered by diet, environment (litter), and/or sex of birds. Furthermore, changes in the numbers of these gut bacteria were significantly linked to broiler performance. Lactobacilli and total eubacteria were significantly decreased in birds that were more feed efficient. E. coli was not consistently linked with either improved or decreased performance and these discrepancies may be due to differences at the strain level which were not detectable using our assays. G. anatis was detected only in two of the four trials and found not to be significantly linked with broiler performance. These qPCR assays have been useful in either validating or disproving previous reported findings for the association of specific gut bacteria with broiler feed efficiency. This qPCR format can be easily expanded to include other organisms and used as a quantitative screening tool in evaluating dietary additives for improved broiler production.
Sagittal Plane Correction Using the Lateral Transpsoas Approach: A Biomechanical Study on the Effect of Cage Angle and Surgical Technique on Segmental Lordosis

Study Design. Cadaveric biomechanical study. Objective. To determine the degree of segmental correction that can be achieved through lateral transpsoas approach by varying cage angle and adding anterior longitudinal ligament (ALL) release and posterior element resection. Summary of Background Data. Lordotic cage insertion through the lateral transpsoas approach is being used increasingly for restoration of sagittal alignment. However, the degree of correction achieved by varying cage angle and ALL release and posterior element resection is not well defined. Methods. Thirteen lumbar motion segments between L1 and L5 were dissected into single motion segments. Segmental angles and disk heights were measured under both 50 N and 500 N compressive loads under the following conditions: intact specimen, discectomy (collapsed disk simulation), insertion of parallel cage, 10° cage, 30° cage with ALL release, 30° cage with ALL release and spinous process (SP) resection, 30° cage with ALL release, SP resection, facetectomy, and compression with pedicle screws. Results. Segmental lordosis was not increased by either parallel or 10° cages as compared with intact disks, and contributed small amounts of lordosis when compared with the collapsed disk condition. Placement of 30° cages with ALL release increased segmental lordosis by 10.5°. Adding SP resection increased lordosis to 12.4°. Facetectomy and compression with pedicle screws further increased lordosis to approximately 26°. No interventions resulted in a decrease in either anterior or posterior disk height. Conclusion. Insertion of a parallel or 10° cage has little effect on lordosis. A 30° cage insertion with ALL release resulted in a modest increase in lordosis (10.5°). The addition of SP resection and facetectomy was needed to obtain a larger amount of correction (26°). None of the cages, including the 30° lordotic cage, caused a decrease in posterior disk height suggesting hyperlordotic cages do not cause foraminal stenosis. Level of Evidence: N/A
Illness trajectories in patients suffering from leg ulcers: A qualitative study

The aim of this study was to identify illness trajectories in leg ulcers by analysing personal, social and relational dimensions related to leg ulcer onset and to the care process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 patients, one physician and four nurses. Patients’ medical records were also examined. Data were analysed using the grounded theory approach. Four illness trajectories were identified: possibility, denial, focus on illness and tragedy. The findings highlighted that leg ulcers can be experienced in different ways depending on the personal characteristics of the people suffering from them and the kind of relationship that exists between patients and healthcare professionals.
Investigating the Longitudinal Effects of Surface Acting on Managers’ Functioning Through Psychological Needs

This study is based on the premise that managers are expected to regulate their emotions in the form of surface acting. More specifically, drawing on self-determination theory, we explored the role of psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in explaining the influence of surface acting on supervisors’ job satisfaction and work engagement over time. Data were collected at 2 time points, over a 3-month period, from a sample of 435 French managers working in the health care industry. Results revealed that surface acting negatively predicted managers’ job satisfaction and work engagement over time, through the satisfaction of their psychological needs. However, managers’ need thwarting did not explain these positive outcomes. Overall, these findings provide insight into the longitudinal adverse effects of managers’ surface acting on their functioning and corroborate the distinct role of psychological need satisfaction and thwarting. Theoretical contributions and perspectives, as well as implications for practice are discussed.
Transformation Reaction of SiO2 in Coke Ash under Operating Conditions in Blast Furnace

Chisato YAMAGATA, Yoshimasa KAJIWARA and Shinichi SUYAMA Synopsis : In order to clarify the mechanism of the transformation reaction of SiO2 in coke ash under operating conditions in blast furnace, fundamental experiments were performed with single coke particle as sample under gas flowing condition by the use of a pressurized high frequency furnace. Based on the experimental results, an unsteady state mathematical simulation model with consideration of the radial distribution was developed and applied to the quantitative evaluation of the transformation reaction of SiO2 in coke ash. The following knowledge was obtained. 1) Reaction rate constants for both SiO gas generation reaction (k1) and SiC formation reaction (k2) were obtained in the temperature range of 1 350-1 650•Ž. 2) The influences of total pressure, CO gas partial pressure and coke size on the transformation reaction can be quantitatively evaluated by the use of the simulation model. 3) In the actual operation, both the decrease of coke temperature, in other words, flame temperature, and the increase of coke size in the lower part of blast furnace are effective for the restraint of SiO gas generation reaction. 4) The behavior of SiO2 in coke ash in the lower part of blast furnace was estimated.
A rigidity-based decentralized bearing formation controller for groups of quadrotor UAVs

This paper considers the problem of controlling a formation of quadrotor UAVs equipped with onboard cameras able to measure relative bearings in their local body frames w.r. t. neighboring UAVs. The control goal is twofold: (i) steering the agent group towards a formation defined in terms of desired bearings, and (ii) actuating the group motions in the `null-space' of the current bearing formation. The proposed control strategy relies on an extension of the rigidity theory to the case of directed bearing frameworks in ℝ3×S1. This extension allows to devise a decentralized bearing controller which, unlike most of the present literature, does not need presence of a common reference frame or of reciprocal bearing measurements for the agents. Simulation and experimental results are then presented for illustrating and validating the approach.