Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Batched Network Coding With Adaptive Recoding for Multi-Hop Erasure Channels With Memory

In this paper, we study the achievable throughput of batched temporal network coding in multi-hop erasure channels, where network coding is applied only within small coding blocks and each communication hop is modeled as a Gilbert–Elliott (GE) packet erasure channel. The GE channel is a 2-state Markov model that is commonly used for channels with memory. While channel memory does not affect the end-to-end capacity of multi-hop erasure channels, we show that it degrades the end-to-end throughput, when batched network coding with finite batch size is applied, due to the higher variance in erasures within one coding block. On the other hand, if the initial channel state information is available, the channel variance can be significantly reduced. We show that this fact can be utilized for improving the efficiency of the recoding operations at the intermediate nodes, and hence improve the end-to-end throughput of batched network coding schemes. Specifically, we propose adaptive recoding operations, where the network coded packets are adaptively generated based on the number of received packets and the initial channel state for each coding block. The simulation results show that the proposed adaptive recoding scheme significantly enhances the end-to-end throughput of batched network coding over multi-hop GE channels.
Assess BA10 activity in slide-based and immersive virtual reality prospective memory task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)

ABSTRACT By using slide-based task in a laboratory setting, previous studies have found that activation of the rostral prefrontal cortex (BA10) is related to prospective memory performance. In this present study, we used immersive virtual reality (VR) technology to measure PM performance in a real-life task in a simulated virtual environment. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used simultaneously to record the rostral prefrontal cortex activities of the subjects. By comparing the data against the ones from the slide-based task, the result suggested that the activation of BA10 in the VR tasks were greater than the one in the slide-based tasks, and the VR tasks have the potential to identify the particular location of BA10 that is connected to the PM performance in our daily lives.
QDFA: Query-Dependent Feature Aggregation for Medical Image Retrieval

We propose a novel query-dependent feature aggregation (QDFA) method for medical image retrieval. The QDFA method can learn an optimal feature aggregation function for a multi-example query, which takes into account multiple features and multiple examples with different importance. The experiments demonstrate that the QDFA method outperforms three other feature aggregation methods.
Reaching a Consensus in a Dynamically Changing Environment: Convergence Rates, Measurement Delays, and Asynchronous Events

This paper uses recently established properties of compositions of directed graphs together with results from the theory of nonhomogeneous Markov chains to derive worst case convergence rates for the headings of a group of mobile autonomous agents which arise in connection with the widely studied Vicsek consensus problem. The paper also uses graph-theoretic constructions to solve modified versions of the Vicsek problem in which there are measurement delays, asynchronous events, or a group leader. In all three cases the conditions under which consensus is achieved prove to be almost the same as the conditions under which consensus is achieved in the synchronous, delay-free, leaderless case.
Genetic Diversity and Ecosystem Functioning in the Face of Multiple Stressors

Species diversity is important for a range of ecosystem processes and properties, including the resistance to single and multiple stressors. It has been suggested that genetic diversity may play a similar role, but empirical evidence is still relatively scarce. Here, we report the results of a microcosm experiment where four strains of the marine diatom Skeletonema marinoi were grown in monoculture and in mixture under a factorial combination of temperature and salinity stress. The strains differed in their susceptibility to the two stressors and no strain was able to survive both stressors simultaneously. Strong competition between the genotypes resulted in the dominance of one strain under both control and salinity stress conditions. The overall productivity of the mixture, however, was not related to the dominance of this strain, but was instead dependent on the treatment; under control conditions we observed a positive effect of genetic richness, whereas a negative effect was observed in the stress treatments. This suggests that interactions among the strains can be both positive and negative, depending on the abiotic environment. Our results provide additional evidence that the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship is also relevant at the level of genetic diversity.
Synthesis and characterisation of new copolymers for medical imaging visualization of medical device.

Synthetic polymers are widely used nowadays as prosthetic implants. Unfortunately, these implants are invsisble by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The visualization of these implants is a necessity in order to gain information concerning their fixation in the body and post-operation fate. One of the challenges is then to fix a contrast agent on the implant. Thus the objective is to develop novel strategies for the long-term visualization of prosthetic implants by MRI. For this goal, a polymer will first be functionalized with a contrast agent in a covalent way, and then it will be deposited by coating on the surface of the prosthesis. Polymers will be functionalized by free radical polymerization followed by “click chemistry. In a first step, poly(methyl methacrylate-co-propargyl methacrylate) with low molar ratio in propargyl methacrylate (F< 10 %) will be prepared by free radical copolymerization of methyl methacrylate with propargyl methacrylate. In a second step, a novel gadolinium based contrast agent will be grafted by click chemistry onto the propargylated poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA-co-PMA) polymer. The obtained polymeric contrast agent will be spread on a commercial polypropylene mesh by the airbrushing technique and the mesh will be assessed for MRI visualization on a 7T instrument. Cytocompatibility and cytotoxicity tests will be performed to evaluate the use of this contrast agent in biomedical applications.At the same time, fluorescence imaging techniques are also gaining popularity. For this, the same synthesized polymer (PMMA-co-PMA) will be attached to different fluorescent precursors: anthracene, fluoresceine, and europium complex.
Large scale data based linguistic investigations using speech technology tools: The case of Romanian

This paper provides a summary of previous efforts made to build an ASR system for Romanian. Thereafter, the data developed within the ASR framework are used to conduct linguistic studies. A first study is dedicated to morpho-phonetic processes in Romanian such as the deletion of masculine definite article -l and the realization of the word final palatalized consonants as plural marker in nouns and person marker in verb conjugation. Data shows that the two phenomena are variable in continuous speech and depend on the degree of spontaneity of the corpus. The second study is dedicated to Romanian vowels acoustic properties. This study takes into account a 7 hours corpus used as development and evaluation data to build the ASR system. Data confirm a seven-vowel system. They also highlight an acoustic proximity and a complementary distribution of the non low central vowels [] and [Λ]. The current findings support previous hypotheses built from laboratory data investigations and encourage further explorations on large scale data.
Political Budget Cycles in the European Union

This paper provides research on the theme of the political budget cycles. The goal is to find out whether or not the government tries to manipulate the state budget and its components for the purpose of re-election across the countries of the European Union. In order to verify this theory a dynamic panel data model was used. The results were significant, but only if predetermined elections were not counted into the estimations. In that case, the theory of the political budget cycles could be accepted as valid for the EU countries. The main driving force of the political budget cycles across the countries of the European Union is fluctuation of the government expenditures. During the election year, the government expenditures are higher, and a year after the election, government expenditures are lower. This is reflected into the state budget balance.
Maternal immune activation in neurodevelopmental disorders

Converging lines of evidence from basic science and clinical studies suggest a relationship between maternal immune activation (MIA) and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia. The mechanisms through which MIA increases the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders have become a subject of intensive research. This review aims to describe how dysregulation of microglial function and immune mechanisms may link MIA and neurodevelopmental pathologies. We also summarize the current evidence in animal models of MIA. Developmental Dynamics 247:588–619, 2018. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
p-Amino phenol immobilized on multi-walled carbon nanotubes for the preparation of chitosan nanocomposites

Novel nanocomposites of chitosan and p-amino phenol functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (chitosan/multi-walled carbon nanotube–p-amino phenol nanocomposites) were synthesized by solution casting method. The resulting chitosan/multi-walled carbon nanotube–p-amino phenol nanocomposites were characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and thermogravimetric analysis. The effects of multi-walled carbon nanotubes–p-amino phenol content on the structure, morphology, and thermal properties, as well as the mechanical properties of the nanocomposite films, were studied. The presence of the p-amino phenol functional moieties helped to improve the dispersion and compatibility of the multi-walled carbon nanotubes in the chitosan matrix. The results showed that the low multi-walled carbon nanotubes–p-amino phenol content leads to increasing in the mechanical and thermal properties of chitosan.
Tubular manipulators: a new concept for intracochlear positioning of an auditory prosthesis

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the applicability of tubular manipulators as an actuator mechanism for intracochlear positioning of the electrode array (EA) of a cochlear implant (CI). This is motivated by the vision of an atraumatic insertion of the EA into the inner ear (cochlea) without any damage to the intracochlear structures in combination with a well-defined final position. To realize this, an actuator mechanism is required which allows consideration of the patient-specific anatomy. We propose a tubular manipulator for this task. It consists of three concentric tubes: A straight outer tube serves as a guiding sleeve to enter the inner ear (cochlea) and two additional telescoping, superelastic, helically precurved tubes. By selecting helical tube parameters of both tubes prior insertion, a patient-specific curling behaviour of the tubular manipulator can be achieved. For preliminary investigation, segmentation and skeletonization of 5 human scala tympani were performed to determine their centrelines. These centrelines were considered as individual ideal insertion paths. An optimization algorithm was developed to identify suitable tube set parameters (curvature, diameter, length, torsion, stiffness) as well as configuration parameters (translation and rotation of the 2 inner tubes). Different error values describing the deviation of the shape of the tubes with respect to the insertion path were used to quantify the optimization results. In all cases tube set parameters for a final position within the cochlea were found, while keeping the maximum error below 1mm. These preliminary results are promising in terms of the potential applicability of tubular manipulators for positioning auditory prosthesis inside the scala tympani of the inner ear.
Opto-Smart Systems in Microfluidics

The possibility of using photo-stimulus to control flow in microfluidics devices is very appealing as light can provide contactless stimulation, is biocompatible and can be applied in a non-invasive and highly precise manner. One of the most popular ways to achieve photo-control flow in microfluidic channels is throughout the use of photo-responsive molecules. We review here the different principles and strategies of using photo-responsive molecules to induce or control liquid motion using light, which include the use of photo-controlled polymeric actuators, photo-sensitive coatings, or photo-sensitive surfactants. We further analyse the capability of these approaches to induce flow control throughout the photo-operation of valves, photo-control of electro-osmotic flows or photo-manipulation of discrete microliter-sized droplets.
Convergence and Divergence in a Long-Term Experiment with Bacteria*

Suitably designed experiments offer the possibility of quantifying evolutionary convergence because the fraction of replicate populations that converge is known. Here I review an experiment with Escherichia coli, in which 12 populations were founded from the same ancestral strain and have evolved for almost 30 years and more than 65,000 generations under the same conditions. The tension between divergence and convergence has been a major focus of this experiment. I summarize analyses of competitive fitness, correlated responses to different environments, cell morphology, the capacity to use a previously untapped resource, mutation rates, genomic changes, and within-population polymorphisms. These analyses reveal convergence, divergence, and often a complicated mix thereof. Complications include concordance in the direction of evolutionary change with sustained quantitative variation among populations, and the potential for a given trait to exhibit divergence on one timescale and convergence on another. Despite these complications, which also occur in nature, experiments provide a powerful way to study evolutionary convergence based on analyzing replicate lineages that experience the same environment.
Achieving Robust Mobile Web Content Delivery Performance Based on Multiple Coordinated QUIC Connections

In order to minimize the downloading time of short-lived applications like Web browsing, Web application, and short video clips, the recently standardized HTTP/2 adopts stream multiplexing on one single TCP connection. However, aggregating all content objects within one single connection suffers from the head-of-line blocking issue. Quick UDP Internet connection (QUIC), by eliminating such an issue on the basis of UDP, is expected to further reduce the content downloading time. However, in mobile network environments, the single connection strategy still leads to a degraded and high-variant completion time due to the unexpected hindrance of congestion window growth caused by the common but uncertain fluctuations in round trip time and also random loss event at the air interface. To retain resilient congestion window against such network fluctuations, we propose an intelligent connection management scheme based on QUIC which not only employs adaptively multiple connections but also conducts a tailored state and congestion window synchronization between these parallel connections upon the detection of network fluctuation events. According to the performance evaluation results obtained from an LTE-A/Wi-Fi testing network, the proposed multiple QUIC scheme can effectively overcome the limitations of different congestion control algorithms (e.g., the loss-based new reno/CUBIC and the rate-based BBR), achieving substantial performance improvement in both median (up to 59.1%) and 95th completion time (up to 72.3%). The significance of this piece of work is to achieve highly robust short-lived content downloading performance against various uncertainties of network conditions as well as with different congestion control schemes.
Non-contiguous finished genome sequence and description of Corynebacterium jeddahense sp. nov.

Corynebacterium jeddahense sp. nov., strain JCBT, is the type strain of Corynebacterium jeddahense sp. nov., a new species within the genus Corynebacterium. This strain, whose genome is described here, was isolated from fecal flora of a 24-year-old Saudi male suffering from morbid obesity. Corynebacterium jeddahense is a Gram-positive, facultative anaerobic, nonsporulating bacillus. Here, we describe the features of this bacterium, together with the complete genome sequencing and annotation, and compare it to other member of the genus Corynebacterium. The 2,472,125 bp-long genome (1 chromosome but not plasmid) contains 2,359 protein-coding and 53 RNA genes, including 1 rRNA operon.
Fragmenting very large XML data warehouses via K-means clustering algorithm

XML data sources are gaining popularity in the context of Business Intelligence and On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) applications, due to the amenities of XML in representing and managing complex and heterogeneous data. However, XML-native database systems currently suffer from limited performance, both in terms of volumes of manageable data and query response time. Therefore, recent research efforts are focusing on horizontal fragmentation techniques, which are able to overcome the above limitations. However, classical fragmentation algorithms are not suitable to control the number of originated fragments, which instead plays a critical role in data warehouses. In this paper, we propose the use of the K-means clustering algorithm for effectively and efficiently supporting the fragmentation of very large XML data warehouses. We complement our analytical contribution with a comprehensive experimental assessment where we compare the efficiency of our proposal against existing fragmentation algorithms.
New Vaccine Formulations Containing a Modified Version of the Amastigote 2 Antigen and the Non-Virulent Trypanosoma cruzi CL-14 Strain Are Highly Antigenic and Protective against Leishmania infantum Challenge

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a major public health issue reported as the second illness in mortality among all tropical diseases. Clinical trials have shown that protection against VL is associated with robust T cell responses, especially those producing IFN-γ. The Leishmania amastigote 2 (A2) protein has been repeatedly described as immunogenic and protective against VL in different animal models; it is recognized by human T cells, and it is also commercially available in a vaccine formulation containing saponin against canine VL. Moving toward a more appropriate formulation for human vaccination, here, we tested a new optimized version of the recombinant protein (rA2), designed for Escherichia coli expression, in combination with adjuvants that have been approved for human use. Moreover, aiming at improving the cellular immune response triggered by rA2, we generated a recombinant live vaccine vector using Trypanosoma cruzi CL-14 non-virulent strain, named CL-14 A2. Mice immunized with respective rA2, adsorbed in Alum/CpG B297, a TLR9 agonist recognized by mice and human homologs, or with the recombinant CL-14 A2 parasites through homologous prime-boost protocol, were evaluated for antigen-specific immune responses and protection against Leishmania infantum promastigote challenge. Immunization with the new rA2/Alum/CpG formulations and CL-14 A2 transgenic vectors elicited stronger cellular immune responses than control groups, as shown by increased levels of IFN-γ, conferring protection against L. infantum challenge. Interestingly, the use of the wild-type CL-14 alone was enough to boost immunity and confer protection, confirming the previously reported immunogenic potential of this strain. Together, these results support the success of both the newly designed rA2 antigen and the ability of T. cruzi CL-14 to induce strong T cell-mediated immune responses against VL in animal models when used as a live vaccine vector. In conclusion, the vaccination strategies explored here reveal promising alternatives for the development of new rA2 vaccine formulations to be translated human clinical trials.
Selection for Adaptation to Dietary Shifts: Towards Sustainable Breeding of Carnivorous Fish

Genetic adaptation to dietary environments is a key process in the evolution of natural populations and is of great interest in animal breeding. In fish farming, the use of fish meal and fish oil has been widely challenged, leading to the rapidly increasing use of plant-based products in feed. However, high substitution rates impair fish health and growth in carnivorous species. We demonstrated that survival rate, mean body weight and biomass can be improved in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) after a single generation of selection for the ability to adapt to a totally plant-based diet (15.1%, 35.3% and 54.4%, respectively). Individual variability in the ability to adapt to major diet changes can be effectively used to promote fish welfare and a more sustainable aquaculture.
INFLUENCE OF MINERAL ADMIXTURE ON CHLORIDE ION PERMEABILITY OF CONCRETE

The influence of fly ash (FA) and silica fume (SF) or a mixture of FA and SF and age on pore structure, capability of chlo-ride binding and permeability of concrete with various ages were investignted by the evaporable water test and rapid electric transport of chloride ion methods. The correlations between pore structure and chloride binding and chloride ion permeability of concretes were investigated. The results indicate that the pore structure, capability of chloride binding and permeability of concrete are greatly influ-enced by FA and SF. For concrete contained with FA and SF, the change of pore structure of concrete is responsible for reduction of Coulomb electric charge of concrete at 6 h during the beginning of cementitious material hydration. However, during the later age of cementitious material hydration, change of pore structure and improvement of chloride binding capability are the main reason for the decrement of Coulomb electric charge of concrete at 6 h. Improvement of pore structure, decrease of porosity and chloride binding in concrete are the main reasons in improving the resistance to chloride penetration in concrete.
Dynamic prediction in functional concurrent regression with an application to child growth

In many studies, it is of interest to predict the future trajectory of subjects based on their historical data, referred to as dynamic prediction. Mixed effects models have traditionally been used for dynamic prediction. However, the commonly used random intercept and slope model is often not sufficiently flexible for modeling subject‐specific trajectories. In addition, there may be useful exposures/predictors of interest that are measured concurrently with the outcome, complicating dynamic prediction. To address these problems, we propose a dynamic functional concurrent regression model to handle the case where both the functional response and the functional predictors are irregularly measured. Currently, such a model cannot be fit by existing software. We apply the model to dynamically predict children's length conditional on prior length, weight, and baseline covariates. Inference on model parameters and subject‐specific trajectories is conducted using the mixed effects representation of the proposed model. An extensive simulation study shows that the dynamic functional regression model provides more accurate estimation and inference than existing methods. Methods are supported by fast, flexible, open source software that uses heavily tested smoothing techniques.