Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In vivo replication of hamster polyomavirus DNA displays lymphotropism in hamsters susceptible to lymphoma induction.

Using the whole body section hybridization technique, we monitored the organ- and age-specific pattern of replication of hamster polyomavirus (HaPV) DNA in a colony of Syrian hamsters, which are susceptible to lymphoma induction. Three phases of viral infection and replication could be distinguished: first, a phase of acute infection characterized by high levels of replication of HaPV DNA in the haemopoietic organs and the liver. This culminated 5 to 7 days post-infection (p.i.); second, at 10 days p.i. , a phase of viral clearance became evident; and finally, a third phase reflected both the restriction of HaPV replication in adult hamsters and the accumulation of HaPV DNA at sites of tumour development. A remarkable conformity was observed between the tissue specificity of viral replication and the induced tumour profile: high levels of replication of HaPV DNA were restricted to cells of the haemopoietic system and lymphoid tumours were induced. As shown by in situ hybridization, the viral infection in non-haemopoietic organs was due to the dissemination of HaPV-infected blood cells.
Design of variable latency adder based on present and transitional states prediction

A novel circuit architecture for variable latency adder based on present and transitional states prediction (PTSP) method is presented in this paper, for taking the low power benefits of voltage-over-scaling. With the scaling down of CMOS technology, failure from process variation and high power consumption has become severe problem in VLSI design and the traditional conservative methodology is about to reach its limit. The technique of adaptive clocking has been proved promising to jointly address the mentioned two issues above. Previous works have focused on two or multi-stage predictions of present input data with error recovery but ignored the data correlation, which could result plenty of redundant cycles. In this work, along with the present data, sequence dependence between successive data is also introduced into function speculation and realized by a simple feedback strategy. Analytical energy saving and performance models have been deduced and validated by simulation using Hspice with 65nm CMOS technology, where the redundant cycles are eliminated up to 16% and the maximum energy saving is 15% with 3% area overhead, being compared with conventional adaptive clocking adder. Furthermore, the new adder with PTSP is applied to the domain of approximate computation and gets a decrement in error deviation of up to 50% in an accumulator.
Understanding the Friction Measured by Standardised Test Methodologies Used to Assess Shoe-surface Slip Risk

This paper discusses standardised mechanical test methodologies that measure dynamic coefficient of friction in order to assess the risk of a pedestrian slip. Currently, two shoesurface contact test methods are specified in British Standards to assess the risk of pedestrian slips during the heel strike phase. A pendulum test device as specified in BS 7976-2:2002 is used to determine the slip resistance of surfaces. Another standard, BS EN ISO 13287:2007 specifies the test method to assess the slip resistance of conventionally soled safety, protective and occupational footwear. Experiments were conducted on six common household surfaces in water contaminated conditions in compliance with the aforementioned standard procedures. The roughness and stiffness of each surface was also found. The results show no statistically significant linear correlation between the dynamic coefficient of friction found via the two standardised test methods. At low levels of roughness, no statistically significant linear correlations were found between the coefficient of friction found via the two standardised test methods and roughness. For flooring with a compliant layer, the contact conditions of the pendulum test device were found to cause friction losses associated with energy dissipated as the surface deforms and recovers during sliding. Differences in sliding velocity and area of contact were found to influence the measurements given by the two test procedures. The higher velocity pendulum is a more appropriate test device to replicate slip in wet conditions as it predicts the worst case scenario. However, it is likely to give misleading results on deformable surfaces as, on such surfaces, as it is not replicating the loading conditions during a real-life heel strike.
An integrating approach to meshing scattered point data

In this paper, we propose a new method for approximating an unorganized set of points scattered over a piecewise smooth surface by a triangle mesh. The method is based on the Garland-Heckbert local quadric error minimization strategy. First an adaptive spherical cover and auxiliary points corresponding to the cover elements are generated. Then the intersections between the spheres of the cover are analyzed and the auxiliary points are connected. Finally the resulting mesh is cleaned from non-manifold parts. The method allows us to control the approximation accuracy, process noisy data, and reconstruct sharp edges and corners. Further, the vast majority of the triangles of the generated mesh have their aspect ratios close to optimal. Thus our approach integrates the mesh reconstruction, smoothing, decimation, feature restoration, and remeshing stages together.
Finding the Collineation between Two Projective Reconstructions

The problem of finding the collineation between two 3D projective reconstructions has been proved to be useful for a variety of tasks such as calibration of a stereo rig and 3D affine and/or Euclidean reconstruction. Moreover, such a collineation may well be viewed as a point transfer method between two image pairs with applications to visually guided robot control. Despite this potential, methods for properly estimating such a projective transformation have received little attention in the past. In this paper we describe linear, nonlinear, and robust methods for estimating this transformation. We test the numerical stability of these methods with respect to image noise, to the number of matched points, and as a function of the number of outliers. Finally, we devise a specialized technique for the case where 3D Euclidean coordinates are provided for a number of control points.
Oxide-based RRAM switching mechanism: A new ion-transport-recombination model

This paper presents a unified physical model to elucidate the resistive switching behavior of metal-oxide-based resistive random access memory (RRAM) devices using the ion-transport-recombination model. In this model, the rupture of conductive filaments is caused by recombination of oxygen ions and electron-low-occupied oxygen vacancies. The transport equations of interstitial oxygen ions in the oxide matrix are introduced to quantitatively investigate the reset speed and other properties such as uniformity, endurance, and reset current. The proposed mechanism was verified by experiments.
Ownership Structure, Banks and Private Benefits of Control

What affects the number of banks a company chooses to borrow from? This paper provides evidence of a negative correlation across countries between shareholder protection and average number of banks used by firms, and proposes a simple explanation for this result. The intuition of the model is that setting up fewer bank relations induces the controlling shareholder to extract more private benefits of control because the banks share a larger fraction of the costs via the larger rent they earn. Since the opportunity to enjoy private benefits of control is larger in countries with lower shareholder protection, the model predicts more bank relationships (and higher ownership concentration) in those countries. Consistent with the model's predictions, in Italy the number of bank relations per firm increases with firm ownership concentration and with the size of the private benefits of control as measured by the voting premium.
An ICA Based Approach for Complex Color Scene Text Binarization

Binarization of text in natural scene images is a challenging task due to the variations in color, size, and font of the text and the results are often affected by complex backgrounds, different lighting conditions, shadows and reflections. A robust solution to this problem can significantly enhance the accuracy of scene text recognition algorithms leading to a variety of applications such as scene understanding, automatic localization and navigation, and image retrieval. In this paper, we propose a method to extract and binarize text from images that contains complex background. We use an Independent Component Analysis (ICA) based technique to map out the text region, which is inherently uniform in nature, while removing shadows, specularity and reflections, which are included in the background. The technique identifies the text regions from the components extracted by ICA using a global thresholding method to isolate the foreground text. We show the results of our algorithm on some of the most complex word images from the ICDAR 2003 Robust Word Recognition Dataset and compare with previously reported methods.
Identification and Characterization of a Novel Non-Structural Protein of Bluetongue Virus

Bluetongue virus (BTV) is the causative agent of a major disease of livestock (bluetongue). For over two decades, it has been widely accepted that the 10 segments of the dsRNA genome of BTV encode for 7 structural and 3 non-structural proteins. The non-structural proteins (NS1, NS2, NS3/NS3a) play different key roles during the viral replication cycle. In this study we show that BTV expresses a fourth non-structural protein (that we designated NS4) encoded by an open reading frame in segment 9 overlapping the open reading frame encoding VP6. NS4 is 77–79 amino acid residues in length and highly conserved among several BTV serotypes/strains. NS4 was expressed early post-infection and localized in the nucleoli of BTV infected cells. By reverse genetics, we showed that NS4 is dispensable for BTV replication in vitro, both in mammalian and insect cells, and does not affect viral virulence in murine models of bluetongue infection. Interestingly, NS4 conferred a replication advantage to BTV-8, but not to BTV-1, in cells in an interferon (IFN)-induced antiviral state. However, the BTV-1 NS4 conferred a replication advantage both to a BTV-8 reassortant containing the entire segment 9 of BTV-1 and to a BTV-8 mutant with the NS4 identical to the homologous BTV-1 protein. Collectively, this study suggests that NS4 plays an important role in virus-host interaction and is one of the mechanisms played, at least by BTV-8, to counteract the antiviral response of the host. In addition, the distinct nucleolar localization of NS4, being expressed by a virus that replicates exclusively in the cytoplasm, offers new avenues to investigate the multiple roles played by the nucleolus in the biology of the cell.
Robust Linear Transceiver Design in MIMO Ad Hoc Cognitive Radio Networks with Imperfect Channel State Information

The joint linear transceiver design for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) \adhoc cognitive radio networks when the channel state information (CSI) is uncertain is discussed in this paper. The uncertainty in CSI is modeled using Stochastic Error (SE) and Norm Bounded Error (NBE) models. The Sum-Mean Square Error (SMSE) performance is used to formulate the design problem. To optimize the network, the transmit power budget for secondary user transmitters and the maximum allowed interference at primary user receivers are constrained. In the design methodology, the network parameters are optimized to best serve the users when the worst possible channel realizations occur. It is shown that for the SE model of uncertainty, this problem can be cast as a Second Order Cone Problem (SOCP), while for the NBE model, the problem becomes a Semi-Definite Program (SDP). These two problems are solved efficiently using the numerical solver packages YALMIP and SDPT3. Finally simulation results are presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods.
Massive parallelization of SPICE device model evaluation on GPU-based SIMD architectures

Device model evaluation is one of the most time-consuming tasks in analog simulators such as SPICE. Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) architectures allow massive utilization of vector data on SIMD architectures. In this paper, the formulation of double precision device model equations into a form compatible with stream computing is presented. We show data on isolating typical bottlenecks, especially the communication and kernel call overheads. Our results indicate speedup of up to 20X when counting overheads, and up to 50X when using techniques to overcome these overheads. In particular, we show that our techniques are valid for small device counts, which is typically a well known problem for accelerated parallel computing with communications overheads.
Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation

Combining high performance with low power consumption is becoming one of the primary objectives of processor designs. Instead of relying just on sleep mode for conserving power, an increasing number of processors take advantage of the fact that reducing the clock frequency and corresponding operating voltage of the CPU can yield quadratic decrease in energy use. However , performance reduction can only be beneficial if it is done transparently, without causing the software to miss its deadlines. In this paper, we describe the implementation and performance-setting algorithms used in Vertigo, our power management extensions for Linux. Vertigo makes its decisions automatically, without any application-specific involvement. We describe how a hierarchy of performance-setting algorithms, each specialized for different workload characteristics, can be used for controlling the processor's performance. The algorithms operate independently from one another and can be dynamically configured. As a basis for comparison with conventional algorithms, we contrast measurements made on a Transmeta Crusoe-based computer using its built-in LongRun power manager with Vertigo running on the same system. We show that unlike conventional interval-based algorithms like Lon-gRun, Vertigo is successful at focusing in on a small range of performance levels that are sufficient to meet an application's deadlines. When playing MPEG movies , this behavior translates into a 11%-35% reduction of mean performance level over LongRun, without any negative impact on the framerate. The performance reduction can in turn yield significant power savings.
Effects of Potassium Fertilizer on Diurnal Change of Photosynthesis in Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni

The effects of potassium fertilizer on diurnal change of photosynthesis in Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni had been studied. Diurnal changes of net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and environmental and physiological traits in leaves of Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni were measured using LI-6400 portable photosynthesis system. The results showed that optimal potassium fertilizer can increased chlorophyll content and improved photosynthesis rate and decreased the chlorophyll a/b ratio. At the same time, midday depression of photosynthesis abated or disappeared.
Isolation and characterization of enhanced fluorescence mutants of Rhodopseudomonas capsulata

After enrichment by a tetracycline suicide under conditions nonpermissive for the growth of mutants defective in photosynthesis, colonies were screened for enhanced fluorescence in near-infrared light by using high-speed infrared photography. Twenty mutants were isolated, and the chromatophore membranes were analyzed by a new, rapid microprocedure that revealed many different phenotypes among the mutants. The enhanced fluorescence mutants typically possessed a functional light-harvesting II antenna, but showed reduced or absent light-harvesting I. Twelve isolates were also defective in reaction center polypeptides. An R-prime plasmid that bears 50 kilobases of Rhodopseudomonas capsulata DNA coding for components of the photosynthetic apparatus (B. L. Marrs, J. Bacteriol. 146:1003-1012, 1981), pRPS404, complemented all 20 enhanced fluorescence mutants as demonstrated by the quenching of fluorescence in mutants that had received the R-prime plasmid by conjugation. Fluorescence was regained upon loss of the 50-kilobase insert. Complementation of the fluorescent lesions implies that most or all of the genes necessary for the expression of the reaction center and the light-harvesting antennae are carried by the R-prime plasmid and that these genes are actively transcribed in the homologous organism. All 20 mutants are complemented by one of two pBR322 subclones of the R-prime plasmid, pRPSEB2 or pRPSE2. pRPSEB2 bears a 4.5-kilobase fragment of R. capsulata DNA including the rxcA locus, and pRPSE2 is a pBR322 derivative bearing a 7.5-kilobase R. capsulata DNA fragment bearing the rxcB locus. These fragments therefore carry sequences necessary for the normal synthesis of the light-harvesting and reaction center polypeptide complexes.
Normal meshes

Normal meshes are new fundamental surface descriptions inspired by differential geometry. A normal mesh is a multiresolution mesh where each level can be written as a normal offset from a coarser version. Hence the mesh can be stored with a single float per vertex. We present an algorithm to approximate any surface arbitrarily closely with a normal semi-regular mesh. Normal meshes can be useful in numerous applications such as compression, filtering, rendering, texturing, and modeling.
A parsimonious tree-grow method for haplotype inference

MOTIVATION Haplotype information has become increasingly important in analyzing fine-scale molecular genetics data, such as disease genes mapping and drug design. Parsimony haplotyping is one of haplotyping problems belonging to NP-hard class. RESULTS In this paper, we aim to develop a novel algorithm for the haplotype inference problem with the parsimony criterion, based on a parsimonious tree-grow method (PTG). PTG is a heuristic algorithm that can find the minimum number of distinct haplotypes based on the criterion of keeping all genotypes resolved during tree-grow process. In addition, a block-partitioning method is also proposed to improve the computational efficiency. We show that the proposed approach is not only effective with a high accuracy, but also very efficient with the computational complexity in the order of O(m2n) time for n single nucleotide polymorphism sites in m individual genotypes. AVAILABILITY The software is available upon request from the authors, or from http://zhangroup.aporc. org/bioinfo/ptg/ CONTACT chen@elec.osaka-sandai.ac. jp SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supporting materials is available from http://zhangroup.aporc. org/bioinfo/ptg/bti572supplementary.pdf
Case report: manualized trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy with an unaccompanied refugee minor girl

Background There is uncertainty whether young traumatized refugees should be treated with culturally adapted psychotherapy or with an evidence-based western approach. As yet, empirical studies on culturally adapted treatments for unaccompanied young refugees in industrialized host countries are not available. Studies do, however, suggest that trauma-focused treatment is promising for this group. Objective We describe the treatment of an unaccompanied refugee minor girl with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who underwent manualized trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT; Cohen, Mannarino, & Deblinger, 2006). Methods A 17-year-old girl from East Africa, who came to Germany without a caregiver, was treated for PTSD resulting from several traumatic experiences and losses in her home country and while fleeing. She lived in a group home for adolescents. Baseline, post, and follow-up data are reported. Results The girl participated in 12 sessions of manualized TF-CBT. Her caregiver from the youth services received another 12 sessions in line with the treatment manual. Symptoms decreased in a clinically significant manner; at the end of the treatment, the girl was deemed to have recovered from PTSD. Treatment success remained stable over 6 months. Conclusions Manualized TF-CBT is feasible for young refugees without significant cultural adaptations. It can, however, be seen as culturally sensitive.
Micro-opto-mechanical devices fabricated by anisotropic etching of (110) silicon

Anisotropic etching of (110) silicon is used to fabricate high-aspect-ratio microstructures and electrostatic microactuators suitable for optical applications. The atomically smooth (111) sidewalls resulting from anisotropic etching of (110) silicon provide large-area, optical-quality surfaces. The reflectance of such (111) surfaces, which can be used as mirrors, was measured using a He-Ne laser and was found to be nearly the same as those for the mirror-polished surface of a typical (100) silicon wafer. Thin silicon plates with widths less than 2 mu m were found to be partially transparent (even at the value of He-Ne laser wavelength of 632.8 nm) and could be used as beam splitters. A novel electrostatically actuated micromirror was fabricated by (110) silicon etching and subsequent bonding to a glass substrate. The micromirror provides an optical beam deflection of 0.7 degrees for a 25 V excitation.
Vowel and Consonant Sequences in three Bavarian Dialects of Austria

In 1913, Anton Pfalz described a specific relation of vowel and consonant sequences for East Middle Bavarian dialects, located in the eastern parts of Austria. According to his observations, a long vowel is always followed by a lenis consonant, and a short vowel is always followed by a fortis consonant. Consequently, vowel duration depends on the quality of the following consonant. Phonetic examinations of what became to be known as the Pfalz’s Law yielded different results. Specifically, the occurrence of a third category, namely a long vowel followed by a fortis consonant, seems to be firmly embedded in East Middle Bavarian. Up till now, phonetic examinations concentrated on CVCV sequences. The analysis of monosyllables and of sequences including consonant clusters has been largely neglected so far. In the present contribution, we analyse the impact of initial and final consonant clusters in monosyllables on the assumed relationship of vowel + consonant sequences. Thus, we included 18 speakers from three Bavarian varieties. The results show that in all examined varieties long vowel + fortis consonants occur and that the cluster complexity has no influence on the absolute vowel duration, contradicting Pfalz’s Law.
Hardwired Paeth codec for portable network graphics (PNG)

This paper describes an execution unit capable of computing the Paeth predictor, as used in the portable network graphics (PNG) standard. PNG is a rather new, lossless compression method for real-world pictures. It features five prediction schemes, of which the modified Paeth predictor is the most computational intensive. This paper focuses on a hardware implementation of the Paeth predictor and a hardware Paeth codec capable of computing three different quantities: the Paeth predictor of three inputs, the difference of the current pixel and the Paeth predictor of the other inputs (coding), and the sum of the coded input and the Paeth predictor of the other three inputs (decoding). The proposed Paeth codec takes two cycles, where a cycle is comparable to an general purpose ALU cycle. Depending on the mode of operation, the proposed mechanism produces the predictor or the (de/en)-coded pixel value.