Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Procedures for Avoiding Heat-Treat Cracking in Nickel-Base Superalloy Weldments.

Abstract : The objective of the program was to develop procedures for minimizing (or avoiding) the problem of post-weld heat-treat cracking in nickel-base superalloy weldments using the Rene' 41 alloy as the primary study material. The selection of technical approaches took into consideration the experimental techniques and the metallurgical and processing parameters used in previous efforts. The overall experimental program was divided into three general tasks: Develop a standard crack-susceptibility test capable of discriminating and characterizing post-weld heat-treat cracking in Rene' 41; Evaluate the effects of welding-process and base-metal variables on cracking tendencies; and Determine the applicability of promising 'desensitizing' procedures developed for Rene' 41 as possible approaches to avoiding post-weld heat-treat cracking in another more crack-sensitive superalloy (Astroloy). (Author)
Scheduling Model for Cognitive Radio

The priority queue model divides CR (cognitive radio) system users into primary user and secondary user. The primary user has preemptive priority over secondary user, while the same priority level users are FIFO served. This paper models the CR system based on scheduling technology. The secondary users are further divided into different priority levels. A hybrid priority dynamic policy, which indicates primary user's preemptive priority and secondary user's nonpreemptive priority, is developed to reduce spectrum switch overhead during spectrum leasing process. Theoretical analyzing shows that hybrid priority reduces the spectrum switch overhead and the hybrid priority improvement is a non-negative mono-increasing function of priority level. Based on the proposed policy, CR scheduling model is built and CR scheduling rule is provided and proved. Experimental comparison between CR scheduling and priority queue shows that CR scheduling gets a smaller weighted staying time sum than priority queue and the improvement increases as system becomes more congested.
The bi-mode branch predictor

Dynamic branch predictors are popular because they can deliver accurate branch prediction without changes to the instruction set architecture or pre existing binaries. However, to achieve the desired prediction accuracy, existing dynamic branch predictors require considerable amounts of hardware to minimize the interference effects due to aliasing in the prediction tables. We propose a new dynamic predictor, the bi mode predictor, which divides the prediction tables into two halves and by dynamically determining the current "mode" of the program, selects the appropriate half of the table for prediction. This approach is shown to preserve the merits of global history based prediction while reducing destructive aliasing and, as a result, improving prediction accuracy. Moreover, it is simple enough that it does not impact a processor's cycle time. We conclude by conducting a comprehensive study into the mechanism underlying two level dynamic predictors and investigate the criteria for their optimal designs. The analysis presented provides a general framework for studying branch predictors.
Molecular Characterization of Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Virus Type 1 Full and Partial Genomes by Illumina Massively Parallel Sequencing Technology

Background Here, we report on the partial and full-length genomic (FLG) variability of HTLV-1 sequences from 90 well-characterized subjects, including 48 HTLV-1 asymptomatic carriers (ACs), 35 HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) and 7 adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL) patients, using an Illumina paired-end protocol. Methods Blood samples were collected from 90 individuals, and DNA was extracted from the PBMCs to measure the proviral load and to amplify the HTLV-1 FLG from two overlapping fragments. The amplified PCR products were subjected to deep sequencing. The sequencing data were assembled, aligned, and mapped against the HTLV-1 genome with sufficient genetic resemblance and utilized for further phylogenetic analysis. Results A high-throughput sequencing-by-synthesis instrument was used to obtain an average of 3210- and 5200-fold coverage of the partial (n = 14) and FLG (n = 76) data from the HTLV-1 strains, respectively. The results based on the phylogenetic trees of consensus sequences from partial and FLGs revealed that 86 (95.5%) individuals were infected with the transcontinental sub-subtypes of the cosmopolitan subtype (aA) and that 4 individuals (4.5%) were infected with the Japanese sub-subtypes (aB). A comparison of the nucleotide and amino acids of the FLG between the three clinical settings yielded no correlation between the sequenced genotype and clinical outcomes. The evolutionary relationships among the HTLV sequences were inferred from nucleotide sequence, and the results are consistent with the hypothesis that there were multiple introductions of the transcontinental subtype in Brazil. Conclusions This study has increased the number of subtype aA full-length genomes from 8 to 81 and HTLV-1 aB from 2 to 5 sequences. The overall data confirmed that the cosmopolitan transcontinental sub-subtypes were the most prevalent in the Brazilian population. It is hoped that this valuable genomic data will add to our current understanding of the evolutionary history of this medically important virus.
Situation Awareness Based on Channel Measurements

We study the feasibility of utilising the RF transceiver of a mobile device to establish some kind of situation awareness. Our results show that the analysis of channel characteristics can provide additional and sufﬁciently accurate context information. This situation awareness is cheap in the sense that it can be obtained from already ongoing communication in a network of nodes. In this paper we present results from a case study with several USRP software radios. We show how the presence, position and activity of persons in a room can be obtained exclusively from channel measurements.
Demography and conservation of an isolated Spur-thighed tortoise Testudo graeca population in Dobrogea ( Romania )

Spur-thighed tortoise is a vulnerable species. The local declines of populations led to an imperative need for conservation. Testudo graeca reaches its northern range limit in Dobrogea region, Romania. We studied a population from this region, which occupies an enclosed area of 32 ha within Histria Archaeological Complex. Based on a capture-mark-recapture study we estimated the population size of 221 ± 12.2 individuals. The observed density was 5.1 individuals/ha. The predicted population size suggests a relatively high density in relation to the area thus raising attention for a future conservation strategy. The population structure shows reduced sexual dimorphism and an unbiased sex ratio, implying a young population structure. We suggest correlating the future archaeological studies with conservation requirements of tortoises.
Automatic abstracting of magazine articles: the creation of 'Highlight' abstracts

Our research contributes to the design and development of text grammars in a text-abstracting task. We developed a system that parses texts based upon the text grammar of a specific text type and that extracts sentences and statements that are relevant to include in the abstracts. The system is applied to create ‘highlight’ abstracts of magazine articles. It employs the knowledge of discourse patterns that are typical for news stories. Browsing a database of article abstracts is one way to select and buy relevant magazine
Microbial characterization of bee pollen from the Vesuvius area collected by using three different traps

Flower pollen is collected by honeybee foragers, adhered on their rear legs and transported into the hives in the form of pellets. Once in the hives, bee pollen is moisturised with nectar and bee mouth secretions and due to enzymatically modifications it becomes the so-called bee-bread, the protein reservoir of young bees. Bee pollen can be artificially removed from bee legs and collected by using specific systems, the bee pollen traps. Bee pollen is commercialized for human consumption as fresh product and after freezing or drying. Although bee pollen is nowadays largely consumed in developed countries, as food or food supplement according to local legislation, little is known on its safety related to microbiological hazards. In this work, we aimed to characterize for the first time the microbiological profile of Italian bee pollen in fresh, frozen and dried form collected along an entire harvesting season. Moreover, monthly microbiological analyses were performed on frozen (storage at -18°C) and dried (storage at room temperature) bee pollen over a 4 months period. Further aim of this work was the evaluation of the possible impact on production level of three different traps used for pollen collection. Our results on microbial contamination of fresh and frozen bee pollen show that a more comprehensive microbiological risk assessment of bee pollen is required. On the other side, dried pollen showed very low microbial contamination and no pathogen survived after the drying process and during storage.
Distributed cooperative manipulation under timed temporal specifications

This paper addresses the problem of cooperative manipulation of a single object by N robotic agents under local goal specifications given as Metric Interval Temporal Logic (MITL) formulas. In particular, we propose a distributed model-free control protocol for the trajectory tracking of the cooperatively manipulated object without necessitating feedback of the contact forces/torques or inter-agent communication. This allows us to abstract the motion of the coupled object-agents system as a finite transition system and, by employing standard automata-based methodologies, we derive a hybrid control algorithm for the satisfaction of a given MITL formula. In addition, we use load sharing coefficients to represent potential differences in power capabilities among the agents. Finally, simulation studies verify the validity of the proposed scheme.
View-invariant alignment and matching of video sequences

In this paper, we propose a novel method to establish temporal correspondence between the frames of two videos. 3D epipolar geometry is used to eliminate the distortion generated by the projection from 3D to 2D. Although the fundamental matrix contains the extrinsic property of the projective geometry between views, it is sensitive to noise. Therefore, we propose the use of a rank constraint of corresponding points in two views to measure the similarity between trajectories. This rank constraint shows more robustness and avoids computation of the fundamental matrix. A dynamic programming approach using the similarity measurement is proposed to find the nonlinear time-warping function for videos containing human activities. In this way, videos of different individuals taken at different times and from distinct viewpoints can be synchronized. A temporal pyramid of trajectories is applied to improve the accuracy of the view-invariant dynamic time-warping approach. We show various applications of this approach such as video synthesis, human action recognition, and computer aider training. Compared to state-of-the-art techniques, our method shows a great improvement.
The Use of Colour in Reference Production: A Comparison between Dutch and Greek

The important role of referring expressions in human communication has inspired much research in the fields of computational linguistics and psycholinguistics. Building on the research done by Viethen, Goudbeek and Krahmer (CogSci, 2012) the present study takes a cross-linguistic perspective on examining the use of the colour attribute in distinguishing a target referent. It aims at answering the following research question: Does the availability of adequate basic colour terms in a language affect the use of colour in reference production? We conducted a language production experiment with native speakers of Dutch and Greek. Our results confirm that the use of the colour attribute in reference production depends on the colour term resources of a particular language. In addition, we have recorded a large cross-linguistic difference in the proportion of the colour use, which we relate to the particular colour nuances used.
Sphingomyelinase Induces Aggregation and Fusion of Small Very Low–Density Lipoprotein and Intermediate-Density Lipoprotein Particles and Increases Their Retention to Human Arterial Proteoglycans

Objectives—Infiltration of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) into subendothelial space is an early step in atherosclerosis. In addition to LDL particles, small very low–density lipoprotein (sVLDL) and intermediate-density lipoprotein (IDL) particles are also able to enter the arterial intima and be retained within the subendothelial extracellular matrix. Here we compared how proteolysis with α-chymotrypsin and phospholipid hydrolysis with phospholipase A2 or sphingomyelinase (SMase) of sVLDL, IDL, and LDL particles can influence their aggregation, fusion, and binding to human arterial proteoglycans in vitro. Methods and Results—In each of the 3 lipoprotein classes, the particles became only slightly aggregated with α-chymotrypsin or phospholipase A2. However, the particles strongly aggregated when treated with SMase. The aggregated/fused particles were found to bind to proteoglycans in proteoglycan affinity chromatography more tightly than the native-sized counterparts. In addition, in a microtiter well assay, the binding of SMase-treated lipoproteins was enhanced: the amounts of proteoglycan-bound SMase-treated LDL, IDL, and sVLDL were 4-, 5-, and 20-fold higher, respectively, than the amounts of proteoglycan-bound native lipoproteins. Conclusion—These results imply a specific role for SMase as an sVLDL- and IDL-modifying enzyme and also suggest a novel mechanism of lipid accumulation in atherogenesis, namely enhanced retention of atherogenic triglyceride-rich lipoprotein particles in intimal areas expressing extracellular SMase activity.
Alignment of the amino acid sequences of distantly related proteins using variable gap penalties.

An essential step in assessing and analysing the relationship between two or more proteins is the establishment of an alignment of their amino acid sequences. The prediction of an unknown protein structure by model building from the known structure of a homologue also requires the correct correspondence between the residues. Using sequence information alone, the optimal alignment determined by the procedure of Needleman and Wunsch (1 970) or equivalent modifications, with scoring parameters expressed in the mutation data matrix MD (Orcutt et al., 1984), gives correct results for closely related sequences. For distantly related proteins, however, this procedure gives results inconsistent with the alignments derived from superpositions of the 3-D structures; this has been observed in the globins (Lesk and Chothia, 1980), the cytochromes c (Dickerson, 1980), the serine proteases (Delbaere et al., 1979; Greer, 1981; Read et al., 1984) and plastocyanin and azurin (Chothia and Lesk, 1982). Consider the alignment of the a-strand of human haemoglobin A with lupin leghaemoglobin. Figure 1 compares the optimal alignment produced by the implementation of the Needleman Wunsch Sellars algorithm in the PIR program ALIGN, using a matrix bias of 2, a& recommended by Orcutt et ul. ( 1984), and a gap penalty of 10, with the alignment based on the 3-D structures of these molecules produced by superpositions to determine which residues had similar relative spatial dispositions in the two structures (Lesk and Chothia, 1980). Figure 1 also indicates the positions of the helices in the a-strand of human haemoglobin A. It is clear that the algorithm has not hesitated to put insertions within helical regions. Because of the importance of the stability of the structures of the packing of helix helix interfaces, insertions and deletions are not observed to occur in the interiors of helical regions of proteins. They would entirely change the pattern of residueresidue packing, and destroy the complementarity of the occluding surfaces. (Insertions and deletions can occur at the ends of helical regions.) It is possible to apply this insight into the mechanism of protein evolution to the alignment of distantly related sequences by a modification of the Needleman Wunsch procedure. This method depends on knowing the 3-D structure of one member of a protein family. Instead of applying a gap penalty uniform throughout the sequence, we increase the gap penalty withm helical regions. Because regions of secondary structure in related proteins do not always retain the same boundaries, we adopt the following relative gap penalties:
FPDetective: dusting the web for fingerprinters

In the modern web, the browser has emerged as the vehicle of choice, which users are to trust, customize, and use, to access a wealth of information and online services. However, recent studies show that the browser can also be used to invisibly fingerprint the user: a practice that may have serious privacy and security implications. In this paper, we report on the design, implementation and deployment of FPDetective, a framework for the detection and analysis of web-based fingerprinters. Instead of relying on information about known fingerprinters or third-party-tracking blacklists, FPDetective focuses on the detection of the fingerprinting itself. By applying our framework with a focus on font detection practices, we were able to conduct a large scale analysis of the million most popular websites of the Internet, and discovered that the adoption of fingerprinting is much higher than previous studies had estimated. Moreover, we analyze two countermeasures that have been proposed to defend against fingerprinting and find weaknesses in them that might be exploited to bypass their protection. Finally, based on our findings, we discuss the current understanding of fingerprinting and how it is related to Personally Identifiable Information, showing that there needs to be a change in the way users, companies and legislators engage with fingerprinting.
Induction of virus-neutralizing antibodies by bacteria expressing the C3 poliovirus epitope in the periplasm. The route of immunization influences the isotypic distribution and the biologic activity of the antipoliovirus antibodies.

Two viral epitopes (C3 neutralization epitope from poliovirus type 1 and the 132-145 peptide from the PreS2 region from hepatitis B virus) have been expressed in the Escherichia coli periplasm as protein fusion with the maltose binding protein (MalE protein). Immunization of mice with live bacteria expressing the foreign viral epitopes in their periplasm elicited high antibody titers against the viral peptide as well as against the corresponding virus. This demonstrates for the first time in the case of defined epitopes that, when live bacteria are used as immunogens, presentation at the cell surface is not a prerequisite to obtain an antibody response. On the other hand, the induction of antiviral antibody responses by these recombinant bacteria depended dramatically on the route of immunization: a response was induced by live bacteria through the i.v. route but not through the s.c. route. However, when bacteria were heat killed or when the MalE hybrid protein was released under a soluble form from the cell, a response was induced even upon s.c. immunization. From these results, we suggest that in order to induce high levels of antibodies by the s.c. route, a major parameter for bacterial Ag would be their capacity to be released into a soluble form before the interaction of the bacteria with the APC. This would permit the presentation by B cells rather than by phagocytic cells. Finally, we demonstrate that the route of immunization influences the isotypic distribution and the neutralizing activity of the antipoliovirus antibodies. Such results may have major implications for the development of bacterial vaccines based on fusion proteins.
MIS @ Retrieving Diverse Social Images Task 2015

In this paper, we describe our approach for the MediaEval 2015 Retrieving Diverse Social Images Task. The proposed approach exploits available user-generated textual descriptions and the visual content of the images in a combination with common, unsupervised clustering techniques in order to increase the diversication of retrieval results. Preliminary experiments indicate that the approach generalizes well for dierent datasets and achieves comparable results for singleand multi-topic queries.
Loss of the Intermembrane Space Protein Mgm1/OPA1 Induces Swelling and Localized Constrictions along the Lengths of Mitochondria*

Mgm1 is a member of the dynamin family of GTP-binding proteins. Mgm1 was first identified in yeast, where it affects mitochondrial morphology. The human homologue of Mgm1 is called OPA1. Mutations in the OPA1 gene are the prevailing cause of dominant optic atrophy, a hereditary disease in which progressive degeneration of the optic nerve can lead to blindness. Here we investigate the properties of the Mgm1/OPA1 protein in mammalian cells. We find that Mgm1/OPA1 is localized to the mitochondrial intermembrane space, where it is tightly bound to the outer surface of the inner membrane. Overexpression of wild type or mutant forms of the Mgm1/OPA1 protein cause mitochondria to fragment and, in some cases, cluster near the nucleus, whereas the loss of protein caused by small interfering RNA (siRNA) leads to dispersal of mitochondrial fragments throughout the cytosol. The cristae of these fragmented mitochondria are disorganized. At early time points after transfection with Mgm1/OPA1 siRNA, the mitochondria are not yet fragmented. Instead, the mitochondria swell and stretch, after which they form localized constrictions similar to the mitochondrial abnormalities observed during the early stages of apoptosis. These abnormalities might be the earliest effects of losing Mgm1/OPA1 protein.
Practical dynamic software updating for C

Software updates typically require stopping and restarting an application, but many systems cannot afford to halt service, or would prefer not to. Dynamic software updating (DSU) addresses this difficulty by permitting programs to be updated while they run. DSU is appealing compared to other approaches for on-line upgrades because it is quite general and requires no redundant hardware. The challenge is in making DSU practical: it should be flexible, and yet safe, efficient, and easy to use.In this paper, we present Ginseng, a DSU implementation for C that aims to meet this challenge. We compile programs specially so that they can be dynamically patched, and generate most of a dynamic patch automatically. Ginseng performs a series of analyses that when combined with some simple runtime support ensure that an update will not violate type-safety while guaranteeing that data is kept up-to-date. We have used Ginseng to construct and dynamically apply patches to three substantial open-source server programs---Very Secure FTP daemon, OpenSSH sshd daemon, and GNU Zebra. In total, we dynamically patched each program with three years' worth of releases. Though the programs changed substantially, the majority of updates were easy to generate. Performance experiments show that all patches could be applied in less than 5 ms, and that the overhead on application throughput due to updating support ranged from 0 to at most 32%.