Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimised Design and Analysis of All-Optical Networks

This PhD thesis presents a suite of methods for optimising design and for analysing blocking probabilities of all-optical networks. It thus contributes methodical knowledge to the field of computer assisted planning of optical networks. A two-stage greenfield optical network design optimiser is developed, based on shortest-path algorithms and a comparatively new metaheuristic called simulated allocation. It is able to handle design of all-optical mesh networks with optical cross-connects, considers duct as well as fibre and node costs, and can also design protected networks. The method is assessed through various experiments and is shown to produce good results and to be able to scale up to networks of realistic sizes. A novel method, subpath wavelength grouping, for routing connections in a multigranular all-optical network where several wavelengths can be grouped and switched at band and fibre level is presented. The method uses an unorthodox routing strategy focusing on common subpaths rather than individual connections, and strives to minimise switch port count as well as fibre usage. It is shown to produce cheaper network designs than previous methods when fibre costs are comparatively high. A new optical network concept, the synchronous optical hierarchy, is proposed, in which wavelengths are subdivided into timeslots to match the traffic granularity. Various theoretical properties of this concept are investigated and compared in simulation studies. An integer linear programming model for optical ring network design is presented. Manually designed real world ring networks are studied and it is found that the model can lead to cheaper network design. Moreover, ring and mesh network architectures are compared using real world costs, and it is found that optical cross-connects should be drastically cheaper if they are to compete on the cost with ring networks. An MPλS (multi-protocol wavelength switching) simulator is constructed, focusing especially on the timing in the setup phase to asess the blocking probability effect of node and link delays as well as wavelength reservation strategies. Initial results suggest that node delays have a greater effect than link delays, and that only few wavelengths should be reserved during path setup. Finally, a novel way of calculating blocking probabilities in all-optical WDM (wavelength division multiplex) networks by re-using existing blocking probability calculation tools is presented. The WDM network problem is transformed into a graph colouring problem whereupon information required by existing tools is extracted.
Service process modularization and modular strategies

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the role of service modularity in developing and deploying efficient services, while at the same time meeting diverse customer needs. The analysis distinguishes between different service types and sets forth key issues for service modularization, identifying supporting resources (both internal and customer) and associated modular strategies for the different types. Design/methodology/approach – The study design used an exploratory case study approach, focusing on three Swedish manufacturing firms that are moving toward an increased service focus (service infusion). Data were collected through interviews and focus groups, and the collected data were analyzed independently, before being merged and synthesized in a cross-case analysis. Themes and patterns were extracted and linked to the theoretical framework following a systematic combining process. Findings – This study contributes insights to the emerging field of service modularity by investigating process modular.
Complement C4 Is Protective for Lupus Disease Independent of C31

The role of complement C3 in mediating systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was examined using a double-knockout C3nullC4null Fas (CD95)-deficient mouse model. Results from this study reveal significant lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, elevated titers of anti-nuclear Abs and anti-dsDNA Abs, an increased number of anti-dsDNA-producing cells in ELISPOT assay, as well as severe glomerulonephritis in the double-deficient mice. Based on these clinical, serological, and histological parameters, we find that autoimmune disease in the double-knockout group is similar in severity to that in C4null lpr mice, but not to that in C3null lpr mice. The development of severe SLE in the absence of both classical and alternative complement pathways suggests that it is the absence of C4, and not the presence of C3, that is critical in SLE pathogenesis. Thus, complement C4 provides an important protective role against the development of SLE.
Using Rate Balancing to Improve Throughput in a Wireless Multi-hop Chain Topology

A well-known problem in wireless multi-hop communication is the significant degradation of throughput when the number of hops increases. Previous research shows that in a chain topology, nodes using IEEE 802.11 can at best achieve 1/4, but in practice only 1/7, much smaller than the ideal 1/3 of the throughput of single-hop transmission. In order to improve performance in multi-hop cases, we introduce a rate balance scheme and tune the sensing range at physical layer and contention window at MAC layer. Our simulation results show that the throughput ratio close to 1/4 is achievable when the number of hops is as high as 12; better ratios of 1/3.4 and 1/3.6 are achieved when number of hops is 5 and 8, respectively.
Specific Antinociceptive Activity of Cholest-4-en-3-one, Oxime (TRO19622) in Experimental Models of Painful Diabetic and Chemotherapy-Induced Neuropathy

Diabetes and cancer chemotherapies are often associated with painful neuropathy. The mechanisms underlying neuropathic pain remain poorly understood, and the current therapies have limited efficacy and are associated with dose-limiting side effects. We recently described the pharmacological characterization of cholest-4-en-3-one, oxime (TRO19622), a cholesterol-like compound, that significantly reduced axonal degeneration and accelerated recovery of motor nerve conduction in a model of peripheral neuropathy induced by crushing the sciatic nerve. These results triggered investigation of efficacy in other preclinical models of peripheral neuropathy. Here, we report evidence that daily oral administration of TRO19622, while similarly improving motor nerve conduction impaired in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats, also reversed neuropathic pain behavior as early as the first administration. Further exploration of these acute antinociceptive effects demonstrated that TRO19622 was also able to reverse tactile allodynia in vincristine-treated rats, a model of chemotherapy-induced neuropathic pain. It is interesting to note that TRO19622 did not have analgesic activity in animal models of pain produced by formalin injection, noxious thermal or mechanical stimulation, or chronic constriction injury of the sciatic nerve, indicating that painful diabetic or chemotherapy-induced neuropathies share a common mechanism that is distinct from acute, inflammationdriven, or lesion-induced neuropathic pain. These results support the potential use of TRO19622 to treat painful diabetic and chemotherapy-induced neuropathies.
Regional β‐amyloid burden does not correlate with cognitive or language deficits in Alzheimer's disease presenting as aphasia

A subset of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) present with early and prominent language impairment (aphasic AD). Our previous study demonstrated an association between global β‐amyloid burden measured on [11C] Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) positron emission tomography and general cognitive impairment, but not with aphasia, in such subjects. As a follow‐up, whether there is any association between regional β‐amyloid burden, atrophy on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and global cognitive impairment, aphasia or other cognitive and functional impairment in aphasic AD is assessed.
Hypoglycemic and hypotensive effects of Psidium guajava Linn. (Myrtaceae) leaf aqueous extract.

The leaf of Psidium guajava Linn. (family, Myrtaceae) is used traditionally in African folk medicine to manage, control, and/or treat a plethora of human ailments, including diabetes mellitus and hypertension. In order to scientifically appraise some of the anecdotal, folkloric, ethnomedical uses of P. guajava Linn. , the present study was undertaken to investigate the hypoglycemic and hypotensive effects of P. guajava leaf aqueous extract (PGE, 50-800 mg/kg) in rat experimental paradigms. The hypoglycemic effect of the plant's extract was examined in normal and diabetic rats, using streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes mellitus model. Hypertensive Dahl salt-sensitive rats were used to investigate the hypotensive (antihypertensive) effect of the plant's extract. Chlorpropamide (CPP; 250 mg/kg, p.o.) was used as the reference hypoglycemic agent for comparison. Acute oral administrations of the plant's extract (PGE; 50-800 mg/kg, p.o.) caused dose-related, significant (p < 0.05-0.001) hypoglycemia in normal (normoglycemic) and STZ-treated, diabetic rats. Moreover, acute intravenous administrations of the plant's extract (PGE, 50-800 mg/kg i.v.) produced dose-dependent, significant reductions (p < 0.05-0.001) in systemic arterial blood pressures and heart rates of hypertensive, Dahl salt-sensitive rats. Although the exact mechanisms of action of the plant's extract still remain speculative at present, it is unlikely that the extract causes hypotension in the mammalian experimental animal model used via cholinergic mechanisms, since its cardiodepressant effects are resistant to atropine pretreatment. The numerous tannins, polyphenolic compounds, flavonoids, pentacyclic triterpenoids, guiajaverin, quercetin, and other chemical compounds present in the plant are speculated to account for the observed hypoglycemic and hypotensive effects of the plant's leaf extract. However, the results of this experimental animal study indicate that the leaf aqueous extract of P. guajava possesses hypoglycemic and hypotensive properties, and thus lend pharmacological credence to the suggested folkloric, ethnomedical uses of the plant in the management or control of adult-onset, type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension in some rural African communities.
An exploratory enquiry into the challenges of modern retailing on Muslim consumers in Northern Nigeria

This exploratory study seeks to articulate those store attributes that may be unique to modern retailing, and which Muslim consumers may use in gauging either an acceptance of (or unease with) modern retail stores/products. The study is based on the proposition that religiosity can and does significantly affect shopping behavior. In our critical enquiry we relied upon 600 structured questionnaires administered randomly at supermarkets in three Muslim-dominant cities in Northern Nigeria - notably Kano, Katsina and Zaria. While our respondents seemed quite comfortable with shopping alongside the opposite sex in the same supermarket in a non-segregated manner, their concerns laid elsewhere. Although most respondents seemed quite happy with the marketers' pricing strategies; store ambience and product range; they expressed reservations over the perceived deceptive and/or dishonest promotional strategies adopted by marketers. We suggest that there may not be much difference, after all, in attitudes towards retailing along religious lines. Hence we posit that rather than marketers trying to create these perceived differences, they should spend more quality time improving upon the similar concerns over more honest promotional efforts.
Teaching Point ( Section Editor : Alain Meyrier ) A 16-year-old nephrotic patient with chest pain

A 10-year-old boy who had been born in Pakistan, but had lived in England since the age of 9, initially presented to a paediatric hospital with nephrotic syndrome. He responded promptly to corticosteroids and was followed in outpatients. For 4 years he had several relapses of his nephrotic syndrome, which were successfully treated with courses of corticosteroids. After he had been abroad without medical review for 1 year, he returned aged 15 with nephrotic range proteinuria that persisted despite taking corticosteroids and levamisole. At the age of 16 his care was transferred to an adult nephrology unit where he was assessed in the outpatient clinic. He appeared cushingoid and the blood pressure was 120/70mmHg. The serum creatinine was 68mmol/l, the serum cholesterol 15.7mmol/l, the serum albumin 28 g/l and the urinary protein excretion 5.8 g/day. Only a few days after his first assessment at the adult nephrology unit he was admitted to hospital with gripping central chest pain. There was no history of smoking, diabetes mellitus or premature cardiac disease in his family. Physical examination was unremarkable. Figure 1 shows his electrocardiogram. The admitting doctor suspected pericarditis as a cause of his chest pain. Later review of his laboratory results (creatine kinase 1067 IU/l, aspartate aminotransferase 105 IU/l) accompanied by continued chest pain prompted urgent coronary angiography (Figure 2). This showed partial thrombotic occlusion of the left main stem and complete occlusion of the left anterior descending artery (LAD). He was treated with aspirin, thrombolysis and heparin. One day later, repeat coronary angiography showed persistent occlusion of the LAD. Thrombectomy and stent insertion were performed (Figure 3). The patient made a good recovery and was discharged taking aspirin, clopidogrel, atorvastatin, metoprolol and warfarin. A kidney biopsy several months later confirmed minimal change nephropathy (Figure 4). He received a 12 week course of cyclophosphamide and has remained in remission since (3 years). His serum cholesterol normalized following remission of the nephrotic syndrome. A familial cause for hypercholesterolaemia was ruled out after testing his parents and two siblings.
Network Ingress Filtering: Defeating Denial of Service Attacks which employ IP Source Address Spoofing

Recent occurrences of various Denial of Service (DoS) attacks which have employed forged source addresses have proven to be a troublesome issue for Internet Service Providers and the Internet community overall. This paper discusses a simple, effective, and straightforward method for using ingress traffic filtering to prohibit DoS attacks which use forged IP addresses to be propagated from 'behind' an Internet Service Provider's (ISP) aggregation point.
Managers' Green Investment and Related Disclosure Decisions

We use experimental markets to examine whether preferences for societal benefits lead managers to invest in unprofitable green projects, what information they disclose regarding such investments, and how investors react to those disclosures. We find that managers who are also shareholders in their company make green investments even when they know this reduces shareholder value, thereby decreasing their own and other current shareholders’ payoffs. Moreover, managers voluntarily disclose to potential investors that they have made such unprofitable green investments and tend to focus their disclosures on the societal benefits of their green investment rather than on the cost to the company. Finally, the cost of making a green investment that is borne by the managers and the other current investors is lower when the managers disclose their green investment because potential investors’ standardized bids for the company are higher when managers disclose their green investments than when they do not. Moreover, this result is stronger when managers’ disclosures focus on the societal benefits of their investment rather than on the cost to the company. Overall, these results are consistent with both managers and potential investors trading off personal wealth for societal benefits and help explain why, given the current voluntary reporting environment, company managers often focus their disclosures of green investments on the benefits to society and to the company rather than on the cost to the company. In addition to these specific findings, our study demonstrates the benefits of using experiments to study important corporate social responsibility issues that are difficult to address using archival data.
Scrutinizing Factors Impeding Research-Farmer Relationship in the Context of the Agriculture Innovation System

The objective of this research was to scrutinize factors that impeded research-farmer relationship in the context of agricultural innovation system from researchers’ perspective in Ethiopia. The research design used for this study was qualitative research approach. Respondents were interviewed using a snowball sampling technique. Data were collected primarily using in-depth interview, documents and analysed descriptively using the principle of grounded theory. The study revealed that research-farmer relationship was affected by resource scarcity and inefficient use; feebleness of the extension system; narrow vision among researchers and farmers; inadequate preparedness to share knowledge; weak coordination among the various actors; poor attention for research; inefficient use of research results; lack of attractive rewarding system and farmers’ attitude for research and researchers. The conclusion is that the number of researchers to conduct demand-driven research was insufficient. Moreover, the scarce resources were inefficiently used by the various stakeholders conducting research that is less relevant to farmers need. The extension system of the country did not encourage researchers to work with farmers. The recommendations from the research is that the government of the country can take actions that can improve the relationship of researchers with farmers by employing knowledgeable, skilful, dedicated, concerned and committed people in knowledge institutes; allocating sufficient budget for research and changing the linear extension system to agricultural innovation system.
Information-Theoretic Optimality Of Variable Selection With Concave Penalty

We prove the optimality of the MC+ [16] in the sense that the amount information it requires for consistent variable selection in the linear regression model is of the same order as the minimum possible under mild conditions on deterministic or random design matrices. A similar result has been proved for the LASSO when the design matrix has iid normal entries [13], but due to the estimation bias, the LASSO does not enjoy this optimality property in general without two restrictive assumptions. Similar but less explicit optimality results can be obtained for the SCAD and other methods with “unbiased” concave penalty on the squared loss, with a more complicated version of our proof. Some simulation results are reported to support our claims.
Performance of High-Rate Kinematic GPS During Strong Shaking: Observations from Shake Table Tests and the 2010 Chile Earthquake

Performance of High-Rate Kinematic GPS During Strong Shaking: Observations from Shake Table Tests and the 2010 Chile Earthquake Over the last decade, the 1-sample-per-second kinematic Global Positioning System (GPS) has been used as a displacement sensor in earthquake observations and for structural health monitoring. Many researchers in both seismology and engineering have expressed the desire for higher-sample-rate (10-sample-per-second or higher) GPS data to acquire high-frequency displacement information. We performed several shake table tests of GPS observation on 29 April, 2009 for the purpose of evaluating the performance of high-rate kinematic GPS. We found that the accuracy of high-rate kinematic GPS depended on antenna movement, but was independent of receiver sampling rate. The errors in kinematic GPS measurements during the periods of strong shaking were systematically larger than those during the static periods. Furthermore, we found that these large errors were coincident with large accelerations and jerks in the motions experienced by the GPS receivers and antennas. Observations from the 2010 earthquake in Maule, Chile (M 8.8) indicated that strong ground motions can degrade the accuracy of high-rate kinematic GPS measurements. Significant jerks and/or accelerations can cause GPS units to temporarily lose tracking on satellite signals and lead to gaps in GPS-recorded seismograms.
Open Tübingen Titanium Prostheses for Ossiculoplasty: A Prospective Clinical Trial

Objective The overall purpose of the study was the evaluation of the efficacy of Tübingen titanium prostheses (TTPs) for ossiculoplasty. Study Design A two-part clinical study of 216 patients undergoing ossiculoplasty was performed. The first part was a prospective study using TTPs (n = 114). The second part involved study of historical control patients (n = 102) with gold and ceramic prostheses. Interventions All patients underwent ossiculoplasty. Main Outcome Measures Measures included median air conduction thresholds and air-bone gaps. Results All patients were per-protocol patients. When the air-bone gap “gold standard” (i.e., ≤10 dB) was investigated in the main speech spectrum, partial TTPs reached this level at 2 kHz in 44% (n = 22) and at 3 kHz in 38% (n = 19). Gold and ceramics revealed significantly lower values. Similar results were obtained for total prostheses. Differences for TTPs and ceramics were statistically significant (Mann-Whitney U test, &agr; = 5%). Conclusion The use of TTPs for ossiculoplasty is an efficient treatment method.
The Adenovirus E1B 55-Kilodalton and E4 Open Reading Frame 6 Proteins Limit Phosphorylation of eIF2α during the Late Phase of Infection

ABSTRACT During a productive infection, species C adenovirus reprograms the host cell to promote viral translation at the expense of cellular translation. The E1B 55-kilodalton (E1B-55K) and E4 open reading frame 6 (E4orf6) proteins are important in this control of gene expression. As part of a ubiquitin-protein ligase, these viral proteins stimulate viral mRNA export, inhibit cellular mRNA export, promote viral gene expression, and direct the degradation of certain host proteins. We report here that the E1B-55K and E4orf6 proteins limited phosphorylation of eIF2α and the activation of the eIF2α kinase PKR. Phospho-eIF2α levels were observed to rise and fall at least twice during infection. The E1B-55K and E4orf6 proteins prevented a third increase at late times of infection. PKR appeared to phosphorylate eIF2α only in the absence of E1B-55K/E4orf6 function. PKR activation and eIF2α phosphorylation was unrelated to the cytoplasmic levels of the adenovirus inhibitor of PKR, VA-I RNA. Nonetheless, expression of a PKR inhibitor, the reovirus double-stranded RNA-binding protein sigma 3, prevented PKR activation and eIF2α phosphorylation. The sigma 3 protein largely corrected the defect in viral late protein synthesis associated with the E1B-55K and E4orf6 mutant viruses without affecting cytoplasmic levels of the late viral mRNA. The ubiquitin-protein ligase activity associated with the E1B-55K/E4orf6 complex was necessary to prevent activation of PKR and phosphorylation of eIF2α. These findings reveal a new contribution of the E1B-55K/E4orf6 complex to viral late protein synthesis and the existence of multiple layers of regulation imposed on eIF2α phosphorylation and PKR activation in adenovirus-infected cells.
Intrahepatic perforation of the gall bladder presenting as liver abscess: case report, review of literature and Niemeier's classification

Liver abscess formation is a rare complication of gall bladder perforation with cholecystohepatic communication. We describe a patient who presented with right upper quadrant pain and progressive confusion, and was found to have an intrahepatic perforation of the gall bladder. We discuss the diagnostic work-up and the management of this rare entity. In particular, we look at the increasing role of interventional radiology and the limits of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the management of such cases. The discrepancies and the modifications in the classification of gall bladder perforation (Niemeier's classification) are also discussed.