Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Securing the U.S. Transportation Command

You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics. History is rich with examples that showcase the power of military logistics and its influence in the outcome of wars. Hannibal crossing the Alps with foot soldiers, horsemen, and elephants to gain a string of victories in central Italy between 218 and 204 BCE relied on logis-tical planning, cutting supply lines for Roman forces and seizing Roman supply depots [1]. The six years of the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II were a struggle to get a million tons of imported material to Britain every week, fighting German efforts to sink as many of the cargo ships as possible [2]. As the battle raged in the Atlantic Ocean, Allied bombers were destroying German access to oil refineries and synthetic fuel factories. By 1944, the Germans did not have enough fuel for aircraft to protect the oil facilities that remained or for the fleet of submarines that had caused so much damage in the Atlantic [3]. These are just two examples that demonstrate the effectiveness of a military strategy to disable an enemy's supply lines. The United States' extraordinary and unique ability to rapidly project national power and influence are a direct result of its transportation command—the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM). relief operations. To help ensure that this critical supply chain is functioning efficiently, Lincoln Laboratory is working with the command to develop a software architecture that will provide the command with an enterprise network with ample computational power, strong cyber security, and resiliency to attacks and disruptions.
Surface reconstruction from disparate shading: an integration of shape-from-shading and stereopsis

A cooperative integration of stereopsis and shape-from-shading is presented. The integration makes the process of D surface reconstruction better constrained and more reliable. It also obviates the need for surface boundary conditions, and explicit information about the surface albedo and the light source direction, which can now be estimated in an iterative manner. <<ETX>>
Effect of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation during pregnancy or lactation on infant and child body composition: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND n-3 (omega-3) Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) inhibit fat cell differentiation and fat storage in adults, and this has led to the hypothesis that maternal n-3 LC-PUFA supplementation may reduce fat mass in children. OBJECTIVE The objective of this systematic review was to evaluate the effect of n-3 LC-PUFA supplementation in pregnancy or lactation on infant and child body composition in randomized controlled trials. DESIGN MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched for relevant articles. Human trials that supplemented the maternal diet with n-3 LC-PUFAs during pregnancy or lactation and assessed either body fat mass or body mass index in children were included. Trials had to be randomized in design. The quality of all included studies was assessed against set criteria, and results of eligible trials were compared. RESULTS There were only 3 human trials (4 publications) that met our inclusion criteria. There was considerable disparity in study design and trial quality. The results were variable and showed positive, negative, or neutral effects of maternal n-3 LC-PUFA supplementation on body fat mass in children. CONCLUSIONS This systematic review highlights the paucity of robust data from human studies to evaluate the effect of increased n-3 LC-PUFA exposure during the perinatal period on body fat mass in offspring. Further studies are required in which the intervention is confined to the perinatal period and that are sufficiently powered, have appropriate controls, have adequate blinding of participants and investigators, and have high retention rates.
A Concurrency Control Method for Parallel Btree Structures

A new concurrency control protocol for parallel Btree structures, MARK-OPT, is proposed. MARK-OPT marks the lowest structure-modification-operation (SMO) occurrence point during optimistic latch coupling operations, to reduce the cost of SMO compared to the conventional protocols such as ARIES/IM and INC-OPT. The marking reduces the frequency of restarts for spreading the range of X latches, which will clearly improves the system throughput. Moreover, the MARK-OPT is deadlock free and satis- fies the physical consistency requirement for Btrees. These indicate that the MARK-OPT is right and suitable as a concurrency control protocol for Btree structures. This paper also proposes three variations of the protocol, INC-MARKOPT, 2P-INT-MARK-OPT and 2P-REP-MARK-OPT, by focusing on tree structure changes from other transactions. We implement the proposed protocols, the INC-OPT, and the ARIES/IM for the Fat-Btree, a form of parallel Btree, and compare the performance of these protocols using a large-scale blade system. The experimental results indicate that the proposed protocols always improve the system throughput, and the 2P-REP-MARK-OPT is the most useful protocol in a high update environment. Moreover, in the experiment, the low frequency of restarts in the proposed protocols indicates that the marking in the proposed protocols is effective.
FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF COLON TARGETED ORAL DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS FOR METRONIDAZOLE IN TREATMENT OF AMOEBIASIS

The aim of present study was to develop colon targeted system for metronidazole using guar gum and xanthan gum. Matrix formulations containing various proportions of guar gum and xanthan gum were prepared by wet granulation technique using 10% starch paste. Later on, multilayer tablets were prepared by using 50 mg and 100 mg of guar gum as release controlling layer on either side of (M5) guar gum matrix tablets of metronidazole. All the formulations were evaluated for in-process quality control tests. The in-vitro drug release study was undertaken at 37±0.5°C in 0.1N HCl for 2 h; followed by pH 7.4 phosphate buffer (3h) finally in, simulated colonic fluid pH 6.8 phosphate buffer containing 4%w/v rat ceacal content for 15 h. Results indicated that guar gum was alone failed to control drug release. M5 (GG: XG, 0:100) formulation seems to quiet promising for colonic drug delivery and only 12.3% drug is released in first 5h wherease, other matrix tablets released 12-33% of metronidazole in physiological environment of stomach and small intestine. When studies were continued in colonic fluids, matrix tablets released almost 100% drug. whereas, metronidazole multilayer formulations did not release drug in stomach and small intestine, but delivered drug to the colon resulting in slow absorption of the drug and making drug available for local action in the colon.
Digital Divides: Past, Present, and Future

The goal of this chapter is to introduce the concepts of the digital divide and to examine how they have changed, and continue to do so. We discuss opportunities for social and economic development that are possible as digital divides evolve from those of access, to use, to outcomes; and as access to personal computers, mobile devices, the internet, and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) is becoming more widespread. To illustrate the challenges to building an inclusive global information society, we compare digital development in Europe, Africa, Asia and other parts of the world. We also explore regional digital inequalities within the United States and Russia. Finally, we describe international aspirations to narrow or close existing digital divides as well as examples of emerging divides. Introduction to Chapter Digital divides refer to differences in access to and purposeful use of information systems and technologies by people, or by social or political units, such as cities, states, and nations. As computing became more widespread in the late 20th century, government and academic awareness of a variety of digital divides commenced, as illustrated by the early studies of the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA 1995-1999), international agencies (International Telecommunication Union 1997-2016; World Bank 1982-2016; World Economic Forum 2004-2016), early researchers (Hargittai 1999; Robison and Crenshaw 2002-2003), and by the recognition of the global information society (Castells 1996-1998). In the 1990s, some national governments recognized the need to support digital access for their citizens. For example, Estonia, which established its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, set attainment of widespread information technology as a national goal. With investment and support from
IMMUNE FUNCTION IN FREE-RANGING HARBOR SEAL (PHOCA VITULINA) MOTHERS AND THEIR PUPS DURING LACTATION

Immune function in harbor seal mothers and their pups during lactation was studied on Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, during the springs of 1989 and 1990. Methods included total white blood cell and differential counts, a Protein A enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for total immunoglobulin G (IgG) quantification, and functionality testing of lymphocytes in vitro using the T-cell mitogen concanavalin A (ConA). Lymphocyte functionality and total IgG levels were reduced in the mothers at the end of lactation, suggesting a reduction in immune function, possibly as a result of the stress of fasting, or hormonal changes associated with lactation and estrus. By contrast, lymphocyte functionality and total IgG levels in pups were low at birth and higher at the end of lactation. Pups at birth and females late in lactation may therefore be more susceptible to infection by viral and bacterial agents. This study represents the first broad examination of immune function in a free-ranging pinniped population.
Extraction of Entailed Semantic Relations Through Syntax-Based Comma Resolution

This paper studies textual inference by investigating comma structures, which are highly frequent elements whose major role in the extraction of semantic relations has not been hitherto recognized. We introduce the problem of comma resolution, defined as understanding the role of commas and extracting the relations they imply. We show the importance of the problem using examples from Textual Entailment tasks, and present A Sentence Transformation Rule Learner (ASTRL) , a machine learning algorithm that uses a syntactic analysis of the sentence to learn sentence transformation rules that can then be used to extract relations. We have manually annotated a corpus identifying comma structures and relations they entail and experimented with both gold standard parses and parses created by a leading statistical parser, obtaining F-scores of 80.2% and 70.4% respectively.
CACHECA: A Cache Language Model Based Code Suggestion Tool

Nearly every Integrated Development Environment includes a form of code completion. The suggested completions ("suggestions") are typically based on information available at compile time, such as type signatures and variables in scope. A statistical approach, based on estimated models of code patterns in large code corpora, has been demonstrated to be effective at predicting tokens given a context. In this demo, we present CACHECA, an Eclipse plug in that combines the native suggestions with a statistical suggestion regime. We demonstrate that a combination of the two approaches more than doubles Eclipse's suggestion accuracy. A video demonstration is available at https://www.youtube. com/watch? v=3INk0N3JNtc.
Functional analysis and transcriptomic profiling of iPSC-derived macrophages and their application in modeling Mendelian disease.

RATIONALE An efficient and reproducible source of genotype-specific human macrophages is essential for study of human macrophage biology and related diseases. OBJECTIVE To perform integrated functional and transcriptome analyses of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived macrophages (IPSDMs) and their isogenic human peripheral blood mononuclear cell-derived macrophage (HMDM) counterparts and assess the application of IPSDM in modeling macrophage polarization and Mendelian disease. METHODS AND RESULTS We developed an efficient protocol for differentiation of IPSDM, which expressed macrophage-specific markers and took up modified lipoproteins in a similar manner to HMDM. Like HMDM, IPSDM revealed reduction in phagocytosis, increase in cholesterol efflux capacity and characteristic secretion of inflammatory cytokines in response to M1 (lipopolysaccharide+interferon-γ) activation. RNA-Seq revealed that nonpolarized (M0) as well as M1 or M2 (interleukin-4) polarized IPSDM shared transcriptomic profiles with their isogenic HMDM counterparts while also revealing novel markers of macrophage polarization. Relative to IPSDM and HMDM of control individuals, patterns of defective cholesterol efflux to apolipoprotein A-I and high-density lipoprotein-3 were qualitatively and quantitatively similar in IPSDM and HMDM of patients with Tangier disease, an autosomal recessive disorder because of mutations in ATP-binding cassette transporter AI. Tangier disease-IPSDM also revealed novel defects of enhanced proinflammatory response to lipopolysaccharide stimulus. CONCLUSIONS Our protocol-derived IPSDM are comparable with HMDM at phenotypic, functional, and transcriptomic levels. Tangier disease-IPSDM recapitulated hallmark features observed in HMDM and revealed novel inflammatory phenotypes. IPSDMs provide a powerful tool for study of macrophage-specific function in human genetic disorders as well as molecular studies of human macrophage activation and polarization.
β-Lactamases Responsible for Resistance to Expanded-Spectrum Cephalosporins in Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, and Proteus mirabilis Isolates Recovered in South Africa

ABSTRACT Although resistance to the expanded-spectrum cephalosporins among members of the family Enterobacteriaceae lacking inducible β-lactamases occurs virtually worldwide, little is known about this problem among isolates recovered in South Africa. Isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, and Proteus mirabilis resistant to expanded-spectrum cephalosporins recovered from patients in various parts of South Africa over a 3-month period were investigated for extended-spectrum β-lactamase production. Antibiotic susceptibility was determined by standard disk diffusion and agar dilution procedures. Production of extended-spectrum β-lactamases was evaluated by using the double-disk test, and the β-lactamases were characterized by spectrophotometric hydrolysis assays and an isoelectric focusing overlay technique which simultaneously determined isoelectric points and general substrate or inhibitor characteristics. DNA amplification and sequencing were performed to confirm the identities of these enzymes. The P. mirabilis and E. coliisolates were found to produce TEM-26-type, SHV-2, and SHV-5 extended-spectrum β-lactamases. An AmpC-related enzyme which had a pI of 8.0 and which conferred resistance to cefoxitin as well as the expanded-spectrum cephalosporins was found in a strain of K. pneumoniae. This is the first study which has identified organisms producing different extended-spectrum β-lactamases from South Africa and the first report describing strains of P. mirabilis producing a TEM-26-type enzyme. The variety of extended-spectrum β-lactamases found among members of the familyEnterobacteriaceae isolated from major medical centers in South Africa is troubling and adds to the growing list of countries where these enzymes pose a serious problem for antimicrobial therapy.
Local Variability of CO2 Partial Pressure in a Mid-Latitude Mesotidal Estuarine System (Tagus Estuary, Portugal)

Estuaries play a crucial role in regional carbon cycling. Until now, accurate estimations of the impact of environmental variables on estuarine air–water CO2 fluxes have been mostly characterized by a low spatial-temporal sampling resolution. This study reports on the variations of CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) and related environmental parameters, at both tidal and seasonal temporal scales, in the surface seawater of a station located in the lower section of the Tagus estuary, Portugal. The study was carried out from February to December 2007. Air–water CO2 fluxes suggest that the lower estuary acted as a relatively weak source of CO2 to the atmosphere, with an average rate of 7.2 mol∙m−2∙year−1, with highest fluxes occurring in winter. Over a tidal cycle, pCO2 was mainly influenced by tidal-induced mixing. Results suggest an influence of upper and central estuary inputs with higher pCO2 values. pCO2 varied seasonally, with values decreasing from ~890 µatm in winter to ~400 µatm in summer and increasing again to ~990 µatm in autumn. The generalized linear model (GLM) applied to the data set explained 69.3% of the pCO2 variability, pointing to the thermodynamic effect of temperature and biological activity as the most relevant processes in CO2 dynamics. Tidal variation of pCO2 corresponded to ~35% of its seasonal variability, denoting the importance of tide conditions on the dynamics of inorganic carbon. Results showed distinct patterns in the dynamics of CO2 at the tidal scale. This outcome suggests that disregarding tidal variability in the use of seasonal data sets may lead to significant errors in annual carbon budget estimations.
Hypergraph-based saliency map generation with potential region-of-interest approximation and validation

A novel saliency model is proposed in this paper to automatically process images in the similar way as the human visual system which focuses on conspicuous regions that catch human beings' attention. The model combines a hypergraph representation and a partitioning process with potential region-of-interest (p-ROI) approximation and validation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method shows considerable improvement in the performance of saliency map generation. © 2012 SPIE and IS&T. (DOI: 10.1117/1.JEI.21.1.013012)
A robotic aircraft that follows terrain using a neuromorphic eye

Future Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) and Micro Air Vehicles (MAV) will fly in urban areas and very close to obstacles. We have built a miniature (35 cm, 0.840 kg) electrically-powered aircraft which uses a motion-sensing visual system to follow terrain and avoid obstacles. Signals from the 20-photoreceptor onboard eye are processed by 19 custom Elementary Motion Detection (EMD) circuits which are derived from those of the fly. Visual, inertial, and rotor RPM signals from the aircraft are acquired by a flight computer which runs the real-time Linux operating system. Vision-guided trajectories and landings were simulated and automatic terrain-following flights at 2 m/s were demonstrated with the aircraft tethered to a whirling-arm. This UAV project is at the intersection of neurobiology, robotics, and aerospace. It provides technologies for MAV operations.
Optical activity and circular dichroism of 3D-chiral holes: Symmetry, causality, reciprocity and reversibility aspects

We report substantial and broadband optical activity and circular dichroism of subwavelength arrays of 3D-chiral holes in a freely suspended silver film. We explain our observations in terms of general physical principles. In particular, we consider the implications of the array in-plane 4-fold symmetry and the difference of the interfaces, verify the appropriate form of the Kramers-Kronig relations, and show how the Lorentz reciprocity lemma connects the circular dichroism with irreversibility due to dissipation. We suggest a possibility of asymmetric transmission through arrays of lower in-plane symmetry.
In Vitro and In Vivo Imaging Characteristics Assessment of Polymeric Coils Compared with Standard Platinum Coils for the Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysms

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Conventional platinum coils cause imaging artifacts that reduce imaging quality and therefore impair imaging interpretation on intraprocedural or noninvasive follow-up imaging. The purpose of this study was to evaluate imaging characteristics and artifact production of polymeric coils compared with standard platinum coils in vitro and in vivo. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Polymeric coils and standard platinum coils were evaluated in vitro with the use of 2 identical silicon aneurysm models coiled with a packing attenuation of 20% each. DSA, flat panel CT, CT, and MR imaging were performed. In vivo evaluation of imaging characteristics of polymeric coils was performed in experimentally created rabbit carotid bifurcation aneurysms. DSA, CT/CTA, and MR imaging were performed after endovascular treatment of the aneurysms. Images were evaluated regarding visibility of individual coils, coil mass, artifact production, and visibility of residual flow within the aneurysm. RESULTS: Overall, in vitro and in vivo imaging showed relevantly reduced artifact production of polymeric coils in all imaging modalities compared with standard platinum coils. Image quality of CT and MR imaging was improved with the use of polymeric coils, which permitted enhanced depiction of individual coil loops and residual aneurysm lumen as well as the peri-aneurysmal area. Remarkably, CT images demonstrated considerably improved image quality with only minor artifacts compared with standard coils. On DSA, polymeric coils showed transparency and allowed visualization of superimposed vessel structures. CONCLUSIONS: This initial experimental study showed improved imaging quality with the use of polymeric coils compared with standard platinum coils in all imaging modalities. This might be advantageous for improved intraprocedural imaging for the detection of complications and posttreatment noninvasive follow-up imaging.
Π10 classes with complex elements

Abstract An infinite binary sequence is complex if the Kolmogorov complexity of its initial segments is bounded below by a computable function. We prove that a class P contains a complex element if and only if it contains a wtt-cover for the Cantor set. That is, if and only if for every Y ⊆ ω there is an X in P such that X ≥wttY. We show that this is also equivalent to the class's being large in some sense. We give an example of how this result can be used in the study of scattered linear orders.
Lateral flow immunoassay for bisphenol A: Development of test strips and their application for ecological monitoring

Lateral flow tests for rapid detection of bisphenol A, a widely present toxic contaminant, were developed. Two types of markers were used as labels in combination with a visual-results estimation (control of coloration lost in the test zone) and instrumental photometric registration (decrease of coloration intensity in comparison with sample data without analyte). A test system based on gold nanoparticles allowed for detection of bisphenol A at concentrations up to 20 ng/mL visually and 0.1 pg/mL instrumentally. The use of colored latex particles as alternate labels provided visual and instrumental detection limits of 5 ng/mL and 0.3 pg/mL, respectively. The test strips were applied for bisphenolA detection in snow samples. No matrix effects influencing the analyte were found. The tests are characterized by rapidity (10 min) and simplicity of assays, including the possibility of on-site application, and may be recommended for practical use.