Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
QoS-aware fully decentralized service assembly

Large distributed software systems are increasingly common in today geographically distributed IT infrastructures. A key challenge for the software engineering community is how to efficiently and effectively manage such complex systems. Extending software services with autonomic capabilities has been suggested as a possible way to address this challenge. Ideally, self-management capabilities should be based on fully distributed, peer-to-peer (P2P) architectures in order to try to overcome the scalability and robustness problems of centralized solutions. Within this context, we propose an approach for the adaptive self-assembly of distributed services, based on a simple epidemic protocol. Our approach is based on the three-layer reference model for adaptive systems, and is centered on the use of a gossip protocol to achieve decentralized information dissemination and decision making. The goal of our system is to build and maintain an assembly of services that, besides functional requirements, is able to fulfill global quality of service (QoS) and structural requirements. A set of simulation experiments is used to assess the effectiveness of our approach in terms of convergence speed towards the optimal solution, and resilience to failures.
Arbitrary convex and concave rectilinear module packing using TCG

Deals with arbitrary convex and concave rectilinear module packing using the transitive closure graph (TCG) representation. The geometric meanings of modules are transparent to TCG and its induced operations, which makes TCG an ideal representation for floor-planning/placement with arbitrary rectilinear modules. We first partition a rectilinear module into a set of submodules and then derive necessary and sufficient conditions of feasible TCG for the submodules. Unlike most previous works that process each submodule individually and thus need post processing to fix deformed rectilinear modules, our algorithm treats a set of submodules as a whole and thus not only can guarantee the feasibility of each perturbed solution but also can eliminate the need of the post processing on deformed modules, implying better solution quality and running time. Experimental results show that our TCG-based algorithm is capable of handling very complex instances; further, it is very efficient and results in better area utilization than previous work.
The cyclic loading of saline ice

Abstract This paper details the results of an experimental programme to investigate the constitutive behaviour of saline ice under reversed direct-stress conditions. The test material was laboratory-grown saline (NaC1) ice. The work explored the effects of temperature (from – 5 to – 50°C), cyclic stress amplitude (0·1–0·8 MPa) and loading frequency (10−3−1 Hz) on the response of the ice. Variations in the ice growth conditions allowed the effects of microstructural variations to be investigated as well, with total porosity in the range 30–104 ppt. The experiments were generally performed by applying a sinusoidally varying uniaxial load, oscillating about zero, to the cylindrical specimens. Several experiments employed cyclic strain control. The material response was typically composed of elastic and anelastic strain, with various degrees of permanent or viscous strain occurring at higher temperatures and lower frequencies, and proved to be very sensitive to variations in loading conditions and to microstr.
Efficient presentation of soluble antigen by cultured human dendritic cells is maintained by granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor plus interleukin 4 and downregulated by tumor necrosis factor alpha

Using granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and interleukin 4 we have established dendritic cell (DC) lines from blood mononuclear cells that maintain the antigen capturing and processing capacity characteristic of immature dendritic cells in vivo. These cells have typical dendritic morphology, express high levels of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and class II molecules, CD1, Fc gamma RII, CD40, B7, CD44, and ICAM-1, and lack CD14. Cultured DCs are highly stimulatory in mixed leukocyte reaction (MLR) and are also capable of triggering cord blood naive T cells. Most strikingly, these DCs are as efficient as antigen-specific B cells in presenting tetanus toxoid (TT) to specific T cell clones. Their efficiency of antigen presentation can be further enhanced by specific antibodies via FcR- mediated antigen uptake. Incubation of these cultured DCs with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) or soluble CD40 ligand (CD40L) for 24 h results in an increased surface expression of MHC class I and class II molecules, B7, and ICAM-1 and in the appearance of the CD44 exon 9 splice variant (CD44-v9); by contrast, Fc gamma RII is markedly and sometimes completely downregulated. The functional consequences of the short contact with TNF-alpha are in increased T cell stimulatory capacity in MLR, but a 10-fold decrease in presentation of soluble TT and a 100-fold decrease in presentation of TT-immunoglobulin G complexes.
State estimation for highly dynamic flying systems using key frame odometry with varying time delays

System state estimation is an essential part for robot navigation and control. A combination of Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) and further exteroceptive sensors such as cameras or laser scanners is widely used. On small robotic systems with limitations in payload, power consumption and computational resources the processing of exteroceptive sensor data often introduces time delays which have to be considered in the sensor data fusion process. These time delays are especially critical in the estimation of system velocity. In this paper we present a state estimation framework fusing an INS with time delayed, relative exteroceptive sensor measurements. We evaluate its performance for a highly dynamic flight system trajectory including a flip. The evolution of velocity and position errors for varying measurement frequencies from 15Hz to 1Hz and time delays up to 1s is shown in Monte Carlo simulations. The filter algorithm with key frame based odometry permits an optimal, local drift free navigation while still being computationally tractable on small onboard computers. Finally, we present the results of the algorithm applied to a real quadrotor by flying from inside a house out through the window.
Approximated raising of the curvature of a double-ridged waveguide horn antenna in a computational model

In this paper the curvature and the shape of the double ridged horn antennas is studied in its computational modeling, whose application is very significant for EMC/EMI tests. The ridges, curved structures inside the double ridged horn antennas, are an important structural parameter. Its curvature is described by a function, and this function needs a mathematical treatment when building its 3D geometry in a computational model. When the function of the ridges is not known, an approximated function is an available approach to build its 3D structure. To accurately characterize the double ridged horn, an approximated function of the ridges is raised and implemented in a computer simulation. The approach was verified and results show significantly consistency with manufacturer's data.
Influence of Time since Fire and Micro-Habitat Availability on Terricolous Lichen Communities in Black Spruce (Picea mariana) Boreal Forests

Terricolous lichens are an important component of boreal forest ecosystems, both in terms of function and diversity. In this study, we examined the relative contribution of microhabitat characteristics and time elapsed since the last fire in shaping terricolous lichen assemblages in boreal forests that are frequently affected by severe stand-replacing fires. We sampled 12 stands distributed across five age classes (from 43 to >200 years). In each stand, species cover (%) of all terricolous lichen species and species richness were evaluated within 30 microplots of 1 m2. Our results show that time elapsed since the last fire was the factor that contributed the most to explaining terricolous lichen abundance and species composition, and that lichen cover showed a quadratic relationship with stand age. Habitat variables such as soil characteristics were also important in explaining lichen richness. These results suggest that the presence of suitable substrates is not sufficient for the conservation of late-successional terricolous lichen communities in this ecosystem, and that they also need relatively long periods of times for species dispersal and establishment.
ItswTCM: a new aggregate marker to improve fairness in DiffServ

Recent demand for real time applications has given rise to a need for quality of service (QoS) in the Internet. Differentiated Services is one such effort currently pursued by IETF. Previous researchers found unfairness in the DiffServ network. To solve the unfairness problem, we propose a new TSW based three color marker (ItswTCM) which achieves proportional fair sharing of excess bandwidth among aggregates. We have compared the fairness of our proposed ItswTCM marker with srTCM, trTCM, and tswTCM. Results show that our proposed marker performs better than the other three schemes for low to middle network provision level (20%-70%); we believe this is the region where all well provisioned networks will operate. Results also show that our proposed marker is not as sensitive to the number of flows as previous markers. We point out that yellow packets play a significant role in achieving proportional fair sharing of excess bandwidth among aggregates. We conclude that in order to achieve proportional fair sharing of excess bandwidth, it is important to inject the right amount of yellow packets into the network.
Evaluation of the HER2 amplification status in oesophageal adenocarcinoma by conventional and automated FISH: a tissue microarray study

Introduction The manual fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2)/CEP17 testing method is frequently used, however, it is time consuming and liable to subjectivity. Automation of FISH might increase the throughput and accuracy. Aim To evaluate the agreement between automated and conventional FISH with regard to a reference test silver-enhanced in situ hybridization (SISH) for HER2 amplification, as well as its prognostic significance. Material and methods 154 oesophageal adenocarcinomas were included in a tissue microarray. HER2/CEP17 gene amplification was assessed by automated FISH and was compared with conventional HER2/CEP17 testing methods. Results 46.8% of patients showed HER2 amplified tumours by automated FISH (ratio ≥1.8) compared with 18.1% by conventional FISH. A high automated HER2/CEP17 ratio (≥1.8) was significantly associated with worse survival (HR 1.731; 95% CI 1.075 to 2.786; p=0.024). However, agreement between automated and conventional FISH was only 72.2% and 71.4% between automated FISH and SISH, compared with 94.6% for conventional FISH/SISH. Therefore, thresholds for HER2/CEP17 amplification were sequentially raised from HER2/CEP17 ratio 1.8 till 5.0. A HER2/CEP17 ratio threshold of ≥3.6 had similar prognostic significance as conventional FISH (HR 1.880; 95% CI 1.060 to 3.332; p=0.031 vs HR 1.828; 95% CI 1.102 to 3.033; p=0.020), yielded comparable amplification rates as conventional FISH (14.3% vs 18.1%) and comparable agreement to SISH/Immunohistochemistry (IHC). Conclusions Automation of HER2 FISH analysis in oesophageal cancer has not been performed before. Automated HER2 is feasible, but it seems that the HER2/CEP17 threshold should be adjusted to ≥3.6 to arrive at best comparability with other methods and prognostic value.
Segmentation of lung lesions on CT scans using watershed, active contours, and Markov random field.

PURPOSE Lung lesions vary considerably in size, density, and shape, and can attach to surrounding anatomic structures such as chest wall or mediastinum. Automatic segmentation of the lesions poses a challenge. This work communicates a new three-dimensional algorithm for the segmentation of a wide variety of lesions, ranging from tumors found in patients with advanced lung cancer to small nodules detected in lung cancer screening programs. METHODS The authors' algorithm uniquely combines the image processing techniques of marker-controlled watershed, geometric active contours as well as Markov random field (MRF). The user of the algorithm manually selects a region of interest encompassing the lesion on a single slice and then the watershed method generates an initial surface of the lesion in three dimensions, which is refined by the active geometric contours. MRF improves the segmentation of ground glass opacity portions of part-solid lesions. The algorithm was tested on an anthropomorphic thorax phantom dataset and two publicly accessible clinical lung datasets. These clinical studies included a same-day repeat CT (prewalk and postwalk scans were performed within 15 min) dataset containing 32 lung lesions with one radiologist's delineated contours, and the first release of the Lung Image Database Consortium (LIDC) dataset containing 23 lung nodules with 6 radiologists' delineated contours. The phantom dataset contained 22 phantom nodules of known volumes that were inserted in a phantom thorax. RESULTS For the prewalk scans of the same-day repeat CT dataset and the LIDC dataset, the mean overlap ratios of lesion volumes generated by the computer algorithm and the radiologist(s) were 69% and 65%, respectively. For the two repeat CT scans, the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.998, indicating high reliability of the algorithm. The mean relative difference was -3% for the phantom dataset. CONCLUSIONS The performance of this new segmentation algorithm in delineating tumor contour and measuring tumor size illustrates its potential clinical value for assisting in noninvasive diagnosis of pulmonary nodules, therapy response assessment, and radiation treatment planning.
Enhanced interfacial adhesion via interfacial crystallization between sisal fiber and isotactic polypropylene: direct evidence from single‐fiber fragmentation testing

Bioresource natural sisal fiber (SF) was used to prepare single fiber-reinforced isotactic polypropylene (iPP) composites. Three kinds of interfacial crystalline morphologies, spherulites, medium nuclei density transcrystallinity (MD-TC) and high nuclei density transcrystallinity (HD-TC), were obtained in the single fiber-reinforced composites by implementing quiescent or dynamic shear-enhanced crystallization and by modulating the compatibility interaction between SF and iPP. The development of interfacial shear strength (IFSS) during the interfacial crystallization process was demonstrated for the first time using a combination of single-fiber fragmentation testing and optical microscope observation. A close correlation between IFSS and morphological characteristics of interfacial crystallization was well elucidated. The increases in IFSS were very different for spherulitic, MD-TC and HD-TC morphologies. The highest IFSS obtained was 28 MPa, after the formation of HD-TC, which was about 62% of the tensile strength of neat iPP (45 MPa). These results offer powerful and direct evidence that interfacial crystallization could play an important role in the enhancement of interfacial adhesion of real SF/iPP composites. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry
The DNA Data Bank of Japan launches a new resource, the DDBJ Omics Archive of functional genomics experiments

The DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ; http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp) maintains and provides archival, retrieval and analytical resources for biological information. The central DDBJ resource consists of public, open-access nucleotide sequence databases including raw sequence reads, assembly information and functional annotation. Database content is exchanged with EBI and NCBI within the framework of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC). In 2011, DDBJ launched two new resources: the ‘DDBJ Omics Archive’ (DOR; http://trace.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/dor) and BioProject (http://trace.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/bioproject). DOR is an archival database of functional genomics data generated by microarray and highly parallel new generation sequencers. Data are exchanged between the ArrayExpress at EBI and DOR in the common MAGE-TAB format. BioProject provides an organizational framework to access metadata about research projects and the data from the projects that are deposited into different databases. In this article, we describe major changes and improvements introduced to the DDBJ services, and the launch of two new resources: DOR and BioProject.
Detecting Termination by Weight-Throwing in a Faulty Distributed System

Abstract This paper presents a fault-tolerant termination detection algorithm for a distributed system in which processes tend to fail. Allowing an arbitrary number of processes to have fail-stop behavior, the algorithm can detect termination efficiently with O ( M + kn + n ) control messages and O ( k + 1) detection delays, where M is the number of basic messages issued, n is the number of processes, and k is the actual number of processes that fail. This algorithm has fewer detection delays than existing algorithms in the literature and comparable performance in terms of message complexity. In particular, when no fault occurs, the algorithm has constant detection delay and it uses, in the worst case, an optimal number of messages.
Tensor Voting Based Text Localization in Natural Scene Images

A new and efficient text localization method by tensor voting is proposed. Tensor voting is used to extract the text line information based on the observation that the text characters are situated close together and arranged in a line or on a smooth curve. The text line information is useful to reduce the false positive rate in region-based text localization methods. The experimental results obtained for different types of natural text images show that the proposed method successfully detects the text regions with a low false-positive rate.
Light fluence correction for quantitative determination of tissue absorption coefficient using multi-spectral optoacoustic tomography

MultiSpectral Optoacoustic Tomography (MSOT) is a fast developing imaging modality, combining the high resolution and penetration depth of ultrasound with the excellent contrast from optical imaging of tissue. Absorption and scattering of the near infrared excitation light modulates the spectral profile of light as it propagates deep into biological tissue, meaning the images obtained provide only qualitative insight into the distribution of tissue chromophores. The goal of this work is to accurately recover the spectral profile of excitation light by modelling light fluence in the data reconstruction, to enable quantitative imaging. We worked with a commercial small animal MSOT scanner and developed our light fluence correction for its' cylindrical geometry. Optoacoustic image reconstruction pinpoints the sources of acoustic waves detected by the transducers and returns the initial pressure amplitude at these points. This pressure is the product of the dimensionless Grüneisen parameter, the absorption coefficient and the light fluence. Under the condition of constant Grüneisen parameter and well modelled light fluence, there is a linear relationship between the initial pressure amplitude measured in the optoacoustic image and the absorption coefficient. We were able to reproduce this linear relationship in different physical regions of an agarose gel phantom containing targets of known optical absorption coefficient, demonstrating that our light fluence model was working. We also demonstrate promising results of light fluence correction effects on in vivo data.
An investigation on the initiation and propagation of damaged zones in adhesively bonded lap joints

In this study, the initiation and propagation of damaged zones in the adhesive layer and adherends of adhesively bonded single and double lap joints were investigated considering the geometrical non-linearity and the non-linear material behaviour of the adhesive and adherends. The modified von Mises criteria for adherends and Raghava and Cadell's failure criteria (J. Mater. Sci. 8, 225 (1973) [1]) including the effects of the hydrostatic stress states for the epoxy adhesive were used to determine the damaged adhesive and adherend zones which exceeded the specified ultimate strains. The stiffness of all finite elements corresponding to these zones was reduced so that they could not contribute to the overall stiffness of the adhesive joint. This approach simplifies to observe the initiation and propagation of the damaged zones in both the adhesive layer and adherends. A tensile load caused first the damaged adhesive zones to appear at the right free end of the adhesive-lower adherend interface and at the left free end of the adhesive-upper adherend interface, and then to propagate through the adhesive regions near the adhesive-adherend interfaces (interfacial failure). In the bending test, the damaged zone initiated at the left free end of the adhesive-upper adherend interface in tension, and similarly propagated through the adhesive regions close to the adhesive-adherend interface (interfacial failure). In the double-lap joint subjected to a tensile load, the damaged adhesive zones initiated first at the right free end of the adhesive-middle adherend interface and then propagated through the adhesive region near the adhesive-adherend interface. After the damaged zone reached a specific length it also grew through the adhesive thickness, and the adhesive joint failed. The SEM micrographs of fracture surfaces around the free edges of the overlap region indicated that the failure was interfacial. An additional damaged zone growth was observed in the side adhesive regions due to lateral straining, called the Poisson effect.
Plural transformation-processes from spiral to coccoid Helicobacter pylori and its viability.

OBJECTIVES Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), present in a half of the world's population, is a very successful pathogen. The infection by this bacterium causes several gastric diseases in human. H. pylori is morphologically divided into two types; a spiral and a coccoid form. Both types are observed in human stomach. Although the former is converted into the latter in vitro, the process of coccoid formation remains obscure. Furthermore, whether coccoid forms possess viability arouses much controversy among scientists. We investigated both the process of coccoid formation by electron microscopy and the viability of coccoid H. pylori. METHODS A laboratory strain, ATCC43504, was cultured in liquid medium (Brucella Broth medium with 10% heat inactivated horse serum) for seven days. In each culture day, the organisms were observed by scanning-, conventional transmission- and immuno-electron microscopy and were simultaneously examined the culturability of H. pylori to identify the viability of coccoid form. RESULTS As the days went by, spiral forms were replaced by coccoid forms in each medium which possessed culturability to some degree until the 4th day. By the detailed observation of ultrastructural features, coccoid forms were classified into two types on the ground that represents different transformation-processes and distinctive ultrastructures. One was the coccoid form that we named Type A with an irregularly surface- and intracytoplasmic-structure which adhered to one another. The other was Type B having a smooth surface with flagella coiled around its own body and the strictly membranous structure. This type was not adhered to another organism. In later days, each type came to be similar external structure and lost the culturability. CONCLUSIONS The coccoid forms of H. pylori can be classified into two types by electron microscopy which represent different transformation-processes and consist of the dying bacteria, the living ones with culturability and the viable but non-culturable ones.