Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
I’m Loving It – Marketing Ploy or Language Change in Progress?

ABSTRACT Based on data from COCA and COHA, this article provides a corpus study of constructions with loving it (they’re loving it, he was loving every minute of it, … and loving it) in present-day and historical American English. It argues that loving it fulfils a double function: it interprets a specific part of the previous discourse, and adds evaluation by way of emphasis. To achieve emphasis, progressive loving it combines grammatical hyperbole (through the use of the progressive) and lexical hyperbole (through the use of the verb love). The interpretative function also derives from the use of the progressive and from the use of a restricted (activity-referential) function of it. The lexically hyperbolic use of love can in turn be traced back further in time. With the use of love to mean ‘like’ and the bleaching of this hyperbolic use over the twentieth century, the need arose to express a more emphatic meaning by subtly different means again, a function that progressive loving it fulfils today.
Sequential Priming with Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) DNA Vaccines, with or without Encoded Cytokines, and a Replicating Adenovirus-SIV Recombinant Followed by Protein Boosting Does Not Control a Pathogenic SIVmac251 Mucosal Challenge

ABSTRACT Previously, combination DNA/nonreplicating adenovirus (Ad)- or poxvirus-vectored vaccines have strongly protected against SHIV89.6P, DNAs expressing cytokines have modulated immunity elicited by DNA vaccines, and replication-competent Ad-recombinant priming and protein boosting has strongly protected against simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) challenge. Here we evaluated a vaccine strategy composed of these promising components. Seven rhesus macaques per group were primed twice with multigenic SIV plasmid DNA with or without interleukin-12 (IL-12) DNA or IL-15 DNA. After a multigenic replicating Ad-SIV immunization, all groups received two booster immunizations with SIV gp140 and SIV Nef protein. Four control macaques received control DNA plasmids, empty Ad vector, and adjuvant. All vaccine components were immunogenic, but the cytokine DNAs had little effect. Macaques that received IL-15-DNA exhibited higher peak anti-Nef titers, a more rapid anti-Nef anamnestic response postchallenge, and expanded CD8CM T cells 2 weeks postchallenge compared to the DNA-only group. Other immune responses were indistinguishable between groups. Overall, no protection against intrarectal challenge with SIVmac251 was observed, although immunized non-Mamu-A*01 macaques as a group exhibited a statistically significant 1-log decline in acute viremia compared to non-Mamu-A*01 controls. Possible factors contributing to the poor outcome include administration of cytokine DNAs to sites different from the Ad recombinants (intramuscular and intratracheal, respectively), too few DNA priming immunizations, a suboptimal DNA delivery method, failure to ensure delivery of SIV and cytokine plasmids to the same cell, and instability and short half-life of the IL-15 component. Future experiments should address these issues to determine if this combination approach is able to control a virulent SIV challenge.
SmartHomeML: Towards a Domain-Specific Modeling Language for Creating Smart Home Applications

There is an increasing demand for smart homeconnectivity from controlling the home temperature, to switchinglight bulbs, controlling the window shades and pet feeders.Smart home control systems such as Amazon Alexa and GoogleHome provide user interfaces to coordinate the operation ofseveral home appliances. While this facilitate integrating theoperations of several appliances, system integrators still needto specify and define the integration and communication logic.This logic depends on both the appliance and the controlsystem providers. This paper introduces SmartHomeML, adomain specific modelling language for smart home applications,that allows users to define new skills (functionalities). SmartHomeML consists of a model designer that supportsmodelling smart home applications and a model generator thatuses template-based transformation to automatically generatesmart home device adapters and connectors that conform to thespecification of a selected target home control system. We showthrough an example how to use SmartHomeML to model asmart home service independently from the target smart homeprovider and then generate Amazon Alexa Skill Adapters andSmartThings SmartApps automatically.
Simulating recurrent events that mimic actual data: a review of the literature with emphasis on event-dependence

We conduct a review to assess how the simulation of repeated or recurrent events are planned. For such multivariate time-to-events, it is well established that the underlying mechanism is likely to be complex and to involve in particular both heterogeneity in the population and event-dependence. In this respect, we particularly focused on these two dimensions of events dynamic when mimicking actual data. Next, we investigate whether the processes generated in the simulation studies have similar properties to those expected in the clinical data of interest. Finally we describe a simulation scheme for generating data according to the timescale of choice (gap time/ calendar) and to whether heterogeneity and/or event-dependence are to be considered. The main finding is that event-dependence is less widely considered in simulation studies than heterogeneity. This is unfortunate since the occurrence of an event may alter the risk of occurrence of new events.
A Cyclic AMP-dependent Pathway Regulates the Expression of Acetylcholinesterase during Myogenic Differentiation of C2C12 Cells*

The expression of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is markedly increased during myogenic differentiation of C2C12 myoblasts to myotubes; the expression is mediated by intrinsic factor(s) during muscle differentiation. In order to analyze the molecular mechanisms regulating AChE expression during myogenic differentiation, a ∼2.2-kb human AChE promoter tagged with a luciferase reporter gene, namely pAChE-Luc, was stably transfected into C2C12 cells. The profile of promoter-driven luciferase activity during myogenic differentiation of C2C12 myotubes was found to be similar to that of endogenous expression of AChE catalytic subunit. The increase of AChE expression was reciprocally regulated by a cAMP-dependent signaling pathway. The level of intracellular cAMP, the activity of cAMP-dependent protein kinase, the phosphorylation of cAMP-responsive element binding protein and the activity of cAMP- responsive element (CRE) were down-regulated during the myotube formation. Mutating the CRE site of human AChE promoter altered the original myogenic profile of the promoter activity and its suppressive response to cAMP. In addition, the suppressive effect of the CRE site is dependent on its location on the promoter. Therefore, our results suggest that a cAMP-dependent signaling pathway serves as a suppressive element in regulating the expression of AChE during early myogenesis.
Evaluating the fault tolerance capabilities of embedded systems via BDM

Fault injection is a viable solution for verifying the correct design and implementation of fault tolerance mechanisms at different levels (hardware and software). The paper discusses the use of the background diagnostic mode (BDM), available on several Motorola microprocessors and microcontrollers, for implementing a fault injection environment. BDM is well suited to implement some of the most critical operations required by a fault injection environment, such as activating the injection procedure, injecting the fault in memory or registers, and observing the faulty system behavior. The characteristics of a BDM-based fault injection environment in terms of intrusiveness, flexibility, time efficiency, and system requirements are analyzed. The authors exploit a prototypical environment they implemented to validate this analysis. As a result, the approach appears to be well suited for implementing low-cost fault injection experiments on simple embedded microprocessor- and microcontroller-based boards. Some limitations are also outlined, mostly in terms of execution time slow-down.
Connecting Physical+Temporal Events to Digital Contexts

In this paper we present two versions of a system we deployed to consider how to support a light-weight interaction to ‘tag’ a temporally and physically located event for later, digital access. In each deployment, we chose similar kinds of events, used similar interactions to tag the artifacts/information at the events, and provided similar digital representations of the artifacts/information tagged. We explore how the differences in the context of each event affected the perceived usability of the system. We present a comparison of these differences towards the development of a design heuristics for pervasive systems interested in supporting persistent access to otherwise transient information that a user has actively selected as of interest.
Modulation of cell function by electric field: a high-resolution analysis

Regulation of cell function by a non-thermal, physiological-level electromagnetic field has potential for vascular tissue healing therapies and advancing hybrid bioelectronic technology. We have recently demonstrated that a physiological electric field (EF) applied wirelessly can regulate intracellular signalling and cell function in a frequency-dependent manner. However, the mechanism for such regulation is not well understood. Here, we present a systematic numerical study of a cell-field interaction following cell exposure to the external EF. We use a realistic experimental environment that also recapitulates the absence of a direct electric contact between the field-sourcing electrodes and the cells or the culture medium. We identify characteristic regimes and present their classification with respect to frequency, location, and the electrical properties of the model components. The results show a striking difference in the frequency dependence of EF penetration and cell response between cells suspended in an electrolyte and cells attached to a substrate. The EF structure in the cell is strongly inhomogeneous and is sensitive to the physical properties of the cell and its environment. These findings provide insight into the mechanisms for frequency-dependent cell responses to EF that regulate cell function, which may have important implications for EF-based therapies and biotechnology development.
Design of Modified Exclusive-128 Bit NLFSR Stream Cipher and Randomness Test

In this paper, we describe modified Exclusive-128 NLFSR stream cipher which generates 128 bit keystreams using only NLFSR element as its main function and XOR operation. It consists of different sizes of NLFSRs both in Fibonacci and Galois configurations which offer better trade off between the algorithm security and hardware capability. Further, using this modified version of Exclusive-128 NLFSR stream cipher, analysis has been done for pseudorandom test to prove that this stream cipher is highly non-linear and truly randomness when all the initial key inputs are either zero and/or one. Keyword Cryptography, Stream cipher, NLFSR, Fibonacci configuration, Galois configuration, NIST Randomness Test.
Pneumococcal Surface Protein A Inhibits Complement Deposition on the Pneumococcal Surface by Competing with the Binding of C-Reactive Protein to Cell-Surface Phosphocholine

In the presence of normal serum, complement component C3 is deposited on pneumococci primarily via the classical pathway. Pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA), a major virulence factor of pneumococci, effectively inhibits C3 deposition. PspA’s C terminus has a choline-binding domain that anchors PspA to the phosphocholine (PC) moieties on the pneumococcal surface. C-reactive protein (CRP), another important host defense molecule, also binds to PC, and CRP binding to pneumococci enhances complement C3 deposition through the classical pathway. Using flow cytometry of PspA+ and PspA− strains, we observed that the absence of PspA led to exposure of PC, enhanced the surface binding of CRP, and increased the deposition of C3. Moreover, when the PspA− mutant was incubated with a pneumococcal eluate containing native PspA, there was decreased deposition of CRP and C3 on the pneumococcal surface compared with incubation with an eluate from a PspA− strain. This inhibition was not observed when a recombinant PspA fragment, which lacks the choline-binding region of PspA, was added to the PspA− mutant. Also, there was much greater C3 deposition onto the PspA− pneumococcus when exposed to normal mouse serum from wild-type mice as compared with that from CRP knockout mice. Furthermore, when CRP knockout mouse serum was replenished with CRP, there was a dose-dependent increase in C3 deposition. The combined data reveal a novel mechanism of complement inhibition by a bacterial protein: inhibition of CRP surface binding and, thus, diminution of CRP-mediated complement deposition.
Phosphorylation of the TAL1 oncoprotein by the extracellular-signal-regulated protein kinase ERK1

Alteration of the TAL1 gene is the most common genetic lesion found in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. TAL1 encodes phosphoproteins, pp42TAL1 and pp22TAL1, that represent phosphorylated versions of the full-length (residues 1 to 331) and truncated (residues 176 to 331) TAL1 gene products, respectively. Both proteins contain the basic helix-loop-helix motif, a DNA-binding and protein dimerization motif common to several known transcriptional regulatory factors. We now report that serine residue 122 (S122) is a major phosphorylation site of pp42TAL1 in leukemic cell lines and transfected COS1 cells. In vivo phosphorylation of S122 is induced by epidermal growth factor with a rapid time course that parallels activation of the ERK/MAP2 protein kinases. Moreover, S122 is readily phosphorylated in vitro by the extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase ERK1. These data suggest that TAL1 residue S122 serves as an in vivo substrate for ERK/MAP2 kinases such as ERK1. Therefore, S122 phosphorylation may provide a mechanism whereby the properties of TAL1 polypeptides can be modulated by extracellular stimuli.
Recognition and treatment of neonatal community‐associated MRSA pneumonia and bacteremia

Community‐associated strains of methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA‐MRSA) have recently emerged as a major cause of serious infections among older children and are now being seen in NICU patients. We present the case of a preterm infant with CA‐MRSA necrotizing pneumonia and secondary bacteremia. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2008; 43:203–205. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Tracking objects in occluding environments using temporal spatio-velocity transform

This paper presents a methodology for tracking moving objects in an occluded environment when occlusion occurs. We analyze sequences in which physical obstacles such as fences and trees divide an object into several blobs, both spatially and temporally. Our system successfully tracks the divided blobs as one object and reconstructs the whole object. We use the temporal spatio-velocity (TSV) transform and a cylinder model of object trajectories. The TSV transform extracts pixels with stable velocities and removes noisy pixels with unstable velocities. The cylinder model connects several blobs into one object and associates blobs that are occluded for a long period of time. We present results in which moving persons and vehicles occluded by fences and trees are successfully tracked even when the occlusion lasts for as long as 100 frames.
Closure properties for fuzzy recursively enumerable languages and fuzzy recursive languages

There are several variations of fuzzy Turing machines in the literature, many of them require a t-norm in order to establish their accepted language. This paper generalize the concept of non-deterministic fuzzy Turing machine - NTFM, replacing the t-norm operator for several aggregation functions. We establish the languages accepted by these machines, called fuzzy recursively enumerable languages or simply LFRE and show, among other results, which classes of LFRE are closed under unions and intersections.
Reliability of nand-Based SSDs: What Field Studies Tell Us

Solid-state drives (SSDs) based on NAND flash are making deep inroads into data centers as well as the consumer market. In 2016, manufacturers shipped more than 130 million units totaling around 50 Exabytes of storage capacity. As the amount of data stored on solid state drives keeps increasing, it is important to understand the reliability characteristics of these devices. For a long time, our knowledge about flash reliability was derived from controlled experiments in lab environments under synthetic workloads, often using methods for accelerated testing. However, within the last two years, three large-scale field studies have been published that report on the failure behavior of flash devices in production environments subjected to real workloads and operating conditions. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of what we have learned about flash reliability in production, and where appropriate contrasting it with prior studies performing controlled experiments.
Combined intravenous and intra-arterial approach in acute stroke treatment

Despite the significant improvement in the outcome of ischaemic stroke with the use of intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator, experience has shown limitations of the sole use of this approach in acute stroke treatment. This has encouraged the search for alternative managements for acute stroke. The combined use of intravenous/intra-arterial therapy is one such alternate treatment, if used in the right setting. In this review, the authors discuss the advantages and limitations of using this approach, together with an overview of the available therapies used through each route. The authors discuss the process of patient selection using clinical, as well as state of the art imaging modalities.
A Text Similarity Measurement Method Based on Singular Value Decomposition and Semantic Relevance

The traditional text similarity measurement methods based on word frequency vector ignore the semantic relationships between words, which has become the obstacle to text similarity calculation, together with the high-dimensionality and sparsity of document vector. To address the problems, the improved singular value decomposition is used to reduce dimensionality and remove noises of the text representation model. The optimal number of singular values is analyzed and the semantic relevance between words can be calculated in constructed semantic space. An inverted index construction algorithm and the similarity definitions between vectors are proposed to calculate the similarity between two documents on the semantic level. The experimental results on benchmark corpus demonstrate that the proposed method promotes the evaluation metrics of F-measure.
Modeling Urban Behavior by Mining Geotagged Social Data

Data generated on location-based social networks provide rich information on the whereabouts of urban dwellers. Specifically, such data reveal who spends time where, when, and on what type of activity (e.g., shopping at a mall, or dining at a restaurant). That information can, in turn, be used to describe city regions in terms of activity that takes place therein. For example, the data might reveal that citizens visit one region mainly for shopping in the morning, while another for dining in the evening. Furthermore, once such a description is available, one can ask more elaborate questions. For example, one might ask what features distinguish one region from another—some regions might be different in terms of the type of venues they host and others in terms of the visitors they attract. As another example, one might ask which regions are similar across cities. In this paper, we present a method to answer such questions using publicly shared Foursquare data. Our analysis makes use of a probabilistic model, the features of which include the exact location of activity, the users who participate in the activity, as well as the time of the day and day of week the activity takes place. Compared to previous approaches to similar tasks, our probabilistic modeling approach allows us to make minimal assumptions about the data—which relieves us from having to set arbitrary parameters in our analysis (e.g., regarding the granularity of discovered regions or the importance of different features). We demonstrate how the model learned with our method can be used to identify the most likely and distinctive features of a geographical area, quantify the importance features used in the model, and discover similar regions across different cities. Finally, we perform an empirical comparison with previous work and discuss insights obtained through our findings.
Repetitive stretch suppresses denervation‐induced atrophy of soleus muscle in rats

This study was conducted to examine whether stretch‐related mechanical loading on skeletal muscle can suppress denervation‐induced muscle atrophy, and if so, to depict the underlying molecular mechanism. Denervated rat soleus muscle was repetitively stretched (every 5 s for 15 min/day) for 2 weeks. Histochemical analysis showed that the cross‐sectional area of denervated soleus muscle fibers with repetitive stretching was significantly larger than that of control denervated muscle (P < 0.05). We then examined the involvement of the Akt/mammalian target of the rapamycin (mTOR) cascade in the suppressive effects of repetitive stretching on muscle atrophy. Repetitive stretching significantly increased the Akt, p70S6K, and 4E‐BP1 phosphorylation in denervated soleus muscle compared to controls (P < 0.05). Furthermore, repetitive stretching‐induced suppression of muscle atrophy was fully inhibited by rapamycin, a potent inhibitor of mTOR. These results indicate that denervation‐induced muscle atrophy is significantly suppressed by stretch‐related mechanical loading of the muscle through upregulation of the Akt/mTOR signal pathway. Muscle Nerve, 2009
Modeling Service Composition Using Priced Probabilistic Process Algebra

Process algebras are a set of formal languages that are suitable to describe concurrent and composite systems including services composition. Nowadays, though process algebras have been effectively exploited for modeling and verifying functional aspects of services composition, modeling non-functional aspects of services composition with process algebras has been ignored. Cost is one of the most important non-functional aspects of services composition, but existing process algebras have not cost modeling capability. We propose Priced Probabilistic Process Algebra by extending existing probabilistic process algebra with cost. We model services composition with the algebra and demonstrate that services composition can be controlled by Markov decision process with target function of optimal cost.
DL-based classification of LV wall motion in cardiac MRI with a parametric approach

In this paper, we propose an automated method to assess wall motion in Left Ventricle (LV) function in cardiac cine-Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) based on Dictionary Learning (DL) classification with a parametric approach. Time-signal intensity curves (TSICs) are identified in spatio-temporal profiles extracted from differents anatomical segments in a cardiac MRI study. Parameters are extracted from TSICs that present a decreasing then increasing shape reflecting dynamic information of the LV contraction. Several parameter combinations are used as input atoms to train a sparse classifier based on kernel DL and results are compared with Support Vector Machines. Best classification performance is obtained with an accuracy about 94%.