Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IL-4 Exacerbates Anaphylaxis 1

We evaluated whether IL-4, a cytokine critical for inducing allergic responses, also contributes to the effector phase of allergy. Pretreatment of mice with IL-4 or the related cytokine, IL-13, rapidly and dramatically increased the severity of anaphylaxis induced by cross-linking FcεRI or FcγRIII. This effect was inhibited by endogenously produced IFN-γ, was T cell-, B cell-, and common γ-chain-independent, and required IL-4Rα and Stat6. IL-4Rα signaling also enhanced anaphylaxis in mice infected with a nematode parasite that stimulates IL-4/IL-13 production. IL-4 exacerbated anaphylaxis by acting synergistically with vasoactive mediators to increase vascular permeability. Synergy between IL-4 and vasoactive mediators during the effector phase of allergic inflammation may both contribute to allergic immunopathology and enhance protective immunity against gastrointestinal worms.
Combining UML Interaction Diagrams and State-Charts for Testing of Object Oriented Software Systems

Successful integration of classes results in correct functioning of object-oriented software. It can be possible that individual classes may function correctly but several new faults can emerge when these independent classes are integrated together. Typically, the complexity of an OO system lies in its object interactions, not within class methods which tend to be small and simple. As a result, complex behaviors are observed when related classes are integrated and several kinds of faults can arise during integration: interface faults, conflicting functions, and missing functions. Thus testing each class independently does not eliminate the need for integration testing. A large number of possible interactions between interacting classes may need to be tested to ensure the correct functionality of the system. We present a technique that enhances the integration testing of classes by accounting for all possible states of interacting classes. This is important as interactions may trigger correct behavior for certain states and not for others.
Metal-Density-Driven Placement for CMP Variation and Routability

In this paper, we propose the first metal-density-driven (MDD) placement algorithm to reduce chemical-mechanical planarization/polishing (CMP) variation and achieve higher routability. To efficiently estimate metal density and thickness, we first apply a probabilistic routing model and then a predictive CMP model to obtain the metal-density map. Based on the metal-density map, we use an analytical placement framework to spread blocks to reduce metal-density variation. Experimental results based on BoxRouter and NTUgr show that our method can effectively reduce the CMP variation. By using our MDD placement, for example, the topography variation can be reduced by up to 38% (23%) and the number of dummy fills can be reduced by up to 14% (8%), compared with those using wirelength-driven (cell-density-driven) placement. The results of our MDD placement can also lead to better routability.
An improved modulation strategy for the high-frequency-isolated DC-AC flyback converter with differential output connection

This paper introduces a new modulation strategy to the bidirectional flyback converter with differential output connection. This improved modulation provides better performance by reducing the RMS current values for on every circuit elements, thus contributing to reducing the conduction losses. A 500 W, 20 kHz, 70 V input and 127 Vrms output voltage prototype has been built and experimental results comparing the new modulation strategy with the complementary switching strategy confirm the theoretical analysis and superior performance. An output voltage with low THD is achieved for both switching strategies even in open-loop operation.
The Progression of Nearwork Myopia

The purpose of this letter is to present a simplified mathematical model of progressive myopia. A proposed hypothesis for refractive error development of the human eye requires that there is an optical signal related to the amount of refractive error which would in turn correct the refractive error of the eye. A specific first-order feedback system, defined by the transfer function F (s) = 1 / (1+ks) [1] was proposed by Medina and Fariza in 1993 [1].
On Displaying Empathy: Dilemma, Category, and Experience

ABSTRACT This article examines several conversational practices by which people show empathy with others’ experiences of extremely distressing, life-changing events. We recorded and analyzed volunteers’ handling of evacuees’ experiences of the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami and the related Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. The article demonstrates three different practices in how the volunteers reacted: formulating the troubles-teller’s experience as uniquely owned, differentiating the troubles-teller’s experiences from others’, and invoking the volunteer’s similar experiences as a basis for empathy. By orienting themselves toward the issue of who owns an experience, and which categories they can identify with, recipients do more than simply agree—they also affiliate with the speaker’s stance and show their understanding of the nature of the speaker’s experiences. Data are in Japanese with English translation.
Learning motivation and perfectionism in English language learning: An analysis of Taiwanese university students

This study aimed to identify the interrelations among background characteristic, measures of learning motivation and the dimension of perfectionism among Taiwanese English as foreign Language (EFL) university students. The instruments were a Likert-scale survey questionnaire which consisted of (1) the Work Preference Inventory (Students Version) created by Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, and Tighe (1994); and (2) the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale designed by Hewitt and Flett (1991). The results indicated that most students were intrinsically-motivated and were self-oriented perfectionists. It was found that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations were significantly and positively associated with self-oriented perfectionism for EFL learning. The results also indicated that perfectionism differs significantly among the participated students in terms of age and majors. Students who aged 18 showed higher positive levels for perfectionism than students aged 20 and students from management majors had significantly higher perfectionism tendencies.
Comparative performance study between Spectral Subtraction and Discreet Wavelet Transform for Speech enhancement

In this paper we present a comparative performance study between Spectral Subtraction (SS) and Discreet Wavelet Transform (DWT) methods for Speech enhancement. We have implemented three extended approached based on SS and two other ones based on the DWT. We have used a speech corpus extracted from NOISZEUS database [5]. Two different noises, Babble and Street, have been used to validate the implemented methods. Experimental results show that the DWT based approaches outperformed the classical methods.
On Hydrodynamic Diffusion and Velocity Fluctuations in Two--Dimensional Simulations of Sedimentation

We present a numerical method to deal efficiently with large numbers of particles in incompressible fluids. The interactions between particles and fluid are taken into account by a physically motivated ansatz based on locally defined drag forces. We demonstrate the validity of our approach by performing numerical simulations of sedimenting non-Brownian spheres in two spatial dimensions and compare our results with experiments. Our method reproduces essential aspects of the experimental findings, in particular the strong anisotropy of the hydrodynamic bulk self-diffusivities.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy in College Counseling Centers: Current Trends and Barriers to Implementation

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine trends and barriers in implementation of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) programs in college counseling centers (CCCs). Participants were 107 CCC employees who participated in an electronic survey. One third of respondents endorsed use or planned use of DBT at their centers. The most prevalent primary mode of DBT offered was group skills training. Highly endorsed barriers to implementation included productivity demands and lack of individual therapists, time for team consultation, and willingness to offer phone coaching. Suggested implementation strategies include developing community partnerships, use of virtual teams, supporting programs with campus data, and adapting DBT strategically.
Combination of Prior Relations with Visual Information by Random Walk Model for Object Recognition

Traditional object recognition methods in computer vision are almost based on just the visual features, which cannot perform well in a more complex circumstance. To attack this critical problem, this paper proposes a novel object recognition method which combines object recognition with the prior relations. During the training stage, structured presentation of the prior relations is applied through a hybrid graph which contains image similar sub-graph, semantic similar sub-graph and the relations between the two sub-graphs. A random walk model is then constructed according to the hybrid graph. During the recognition stage, a new testing image node is added to the random walk model. Then the relations between this node and the nodes in the random walk model are calculated. At last, random walks which start from the testing image node are performed at the random walk model. The probability rank provided by the result of random walks will serve as the recognition result of the testing image. Experimental results illustrate the validity and stronger recognition performance of the proposed method.
MicroRNA Transcriptomic Analysis of Heterosis during Maize Seed Germination

Heterosis has been utilized widely in the breeding of maize and other crops, and plays an important role in increasing yield, improving quality and enhancing stresses resistance, but the molecular mechanism responsible for heterosis is far from clear. To illustrate whether miRNA-dependent gene regulation is responsible for heterosis during maize germination, a deep-sequencing technique was applied to germinating embryos of a maize hybrid, Yuyu22, which is cultivated widely in China and its parental inbred lines, Yu87-1 and Zong3. The target genes of several miRNAs showing significant expression in the hybrid and parental lines were predicted and tested using real-time PCR. A total of 107 conserved maize miRNAs were co-detected in the hybrid and parental lines. Most of these miRNAs were expressed non-additively in the hybrid compared to its parental lines. These results indicated that miRNAs might participate in heterosis during maize germination and exert an influence via the decay of their target genes. Novel miRNAs were predicted follow a rigorous criterion and only the miRNAs detected in all three samples were treated as a novel maize miRNA. In total, 34 miRNAs belonged to 20 miRNA families were predicted in germinating maize seeds. Global repression of miRNAs in the hybrid, which might result in enhanced gene expression, might be one reason why the hybrid showed higher embryo germination vigor compared to its parental lines.
miR-146a Exerts Differential Effects on Melanoma Growth and Metastatization

Malignant melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer; therefore, it is crucial to disclose its underlying molecular mechanisms. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small endogenous noncoding RNAs able to posttranscriptionally downregulate the expression of direct target genes. Using a melanoma progression model, miR-146a was identified as a key double-acting player in melanoma malignancy. In fact, miR-146a is able to enhance tumor growth, while it suppresses dissemination. It was determined that miR-146a coordinated melanoma cell growth by its direct targets lunatic fringe (LFNG) and NUMB, which operate on the NOTCH/PTEN/Akt pathway; while inhibition of metastasis formation was linked to decreased expression of ITGAV and ROCK1. Relevantly, miR-146a expression correlated with melanoma recurrence and was enriched in both patient-derived melanoma and cutaneous metastasis specimens, while its direct targets were depleted. However, miR-146a levels drop in circulating tumor cells (CTCs), suggesting the necessity for miR-146a expression to fluctuate during tumor progression in order to favor tumor growth and allow dissemination. This study reconciles the contradictory biologic functions of miR-146a in melanoma progression and unravels distinct molecular mechanisms that need to be considered for therapeutic interventions. Implications: miR-146a controls melanoma progression in a dual way, promoting growth and inhibiting dissemination; however, it is poorly expressed in CTCs, resulting in overall tumor spreading and distant-site colonization. Mol Cancer Res; 14(6); 548–62. ©2016 AACR.
An Energy-Related Routing Algorithm of Interlaced Cobweb Model in Multi-sink Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), energy of the sensor nodes applied by battery is the important resource. Though multi-sink wireless sensor networks can reduce the length of path to sink nodes, an economical and efficient routing algorithm is still indispensable for improving the utilization of energy. This paper proposes an interlaced cobweb model (ICobM) and an energy-related routing algorithm in ICobM (IC_ER) based on the speciality of multi-sink WSNs. In ICobM, the nodes only maintain the simple information of neighbors and the minimum hops to all sink nodes. In IC_ER, data packets are forwarded among the neighbor nodes with maximum residual energy and reach the nearest sink node finally. The results of analysis and experiments show ICobM model and IC_ER routing algorithm have outstanding performance in packets delay, dissipated energy and lifetime of network.
Power allocation in wireless multi-user relay networks

In this paper, we consider an amplify-and-forward wireless relay system where multiple source nodes communicate with their corresponding destination nodes with the help of relay nodes. Conventionally, each relay equally distributes the available resources to its relayed sources. This approach is clearly sub-optimal since each user experiences dissimilar channel conditions, and thus, demands different amount of allocated resources to meet its quality-of-service (QoS) request. Therefore, this paper presents novel power allocation schemes to i) maximize the minimum signal-to-noise ratio among all users; ii) minimize the maximum transmit power over all sources; iii) maximize the network throughput. Moreover, due to limited power, it may be impossible to satisfy the QoS requirement for every user. Consequently, an admission control algorithm should first be carried out to maximize the number of users possibly served. Then, optimal power allocation is performed. Although the joint optimal admission control and power allocation problem is combinatorially hard, we develop an effective heuristic algorithm with significantly reduced complexity. Even though theoretically sub-optimal, it performs remarkably well. The proposed power allocation problems are formulated using geometric programming (GP), a well-studied class of nonlinear and nonconvex optimization. Since a GP problem is readily transformed into an equivalent convex optimization problem, optimal solution can be obtained efficiently. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach.
Secure Data Deduplication With Reliable Key Management for Dynamic Updates in CPSS

With the increasing sensing and communication in cyber physical social system (CPSS), the data volume is growing much rapidly in recent years. Secure deduplication has attracted considerable interests of storage provider for data management efficiency and data privacy preserving. One of the most challenging issues in secure deduplication is how to manage data and the convergent key when users frequently update it. To solve this problem, D. Koo et al. use bilinear paring as the key method. However, bilinear paring requires high computation cost for implementations. In this paper, we propose a session-key-based convergent key management scheme, named SKC, to secure the dynamic update in the data deduplication. Specifically, each data owner in SKC can verify the correctness of the session key and dynamically change it with the data update. Furthermore, to enable group combination and remove the aid of gateway (GW), a convergent key sharing scheme, named CKS, is presented. Security analysis demonstrates that both SKC and CKS can protect the confidentiality of the data and the convergent key in the case of dynamic updates. The simulation results show that our SKC and CKS can significantly reduce computation complexity and communication during the data uploading phase.
Using medication list-problem list mismatches as markers of potential error

The goal of this project was to specify and develop an algorithm that will check for drug and problem list mismatches in an electronic medical record (EMR). The algorithm is based on the premise that a patient's problem list and medication list should agree, and a mismatch may indicate medication error. Successful development of this algorithm could mean detection of some errors, such as medication orders entered into a wrong patient record, or drug therapy omissions, that are not otherwise detected via automated means. Additionally, mismatches may identify opportunities to improve problem list integrity. To assess the concept's feasibility, this study compared medications listed in a pharmacy information system with findings in an online nursing adult admission assessment, serving as a proxy for the problem list. Where drug and problem list mismatches were discovered, examination of the patient record confirmed the mismatch, and identified any potential causes. Evaluation of the algorithm in diabetes treatment indicates that it successfully detects both potential medication error and opportunities to improve problem list completeness. This algorithm, once fully developed and deployed, could prove a valuable way to improve the patient problem list, and could decrease the risk of medication error.
TCP VIA SATELLITE CONSTELLATIONS

Many Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) versions have been proposed for terrestrial wired networks over the Internet Protocol (IP), e.g. Tahoe and Reno. TCP/IP is being studied to overcome its limitations within the satellite medium and to allow its efficient use in hybrid terrestrial/satellite networks. So far studies have been mainly directed to the use of Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) constellations. However, interest in use of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations is increasing, especially for multimedia transmissions within the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). This paper aims at providing some TCP performance results in GEO and LEO satellite scenarios. First, it presents basic characteristics of some relevant TCP versions. Then, it discusses some key problems related to the adaptation of the TCP protocol to a satellite environment. Finally, it provides simulation results for goodput in case of LEO polar and inclined constellations. Results are provided for unshadowed and shadowed scenarios. They show the robustness of TCP even in built-up environments with significant goodput levels at the data-rate of 128 kbit/s with average obstruction masking angles of about 30°-40°, especially when satellite diversity is adopted.
Theoretical isochrones in several photometric systems I. Johnson-Cousins-Glass, HST/WFPC2, HST/NICMOS, Washington, and ESO Imaging Survey filter sets

We provide tables of theoretical isochrones in several photometric systems. To this aim, the following steps are followed: (1) first, we re-write the formalism for converting synthetic stellar spectra into tables of bolometric corrections. The resulting formulas can be applied to any photometric system, provided that the zero-points are specified by means of either ABmag, STmag, VEGAmag, or a standard star system that includes well-known spectrophotometric standards. Interstellar ab- sorption can be considered in a self-consistent way. (2) We assemble an extended and updated library of stellar intrinsic spectra. It is mostly based on "non-overshooting" ATLAS9 models, suitably extended to both low and high eective temperatures. This oers an excellent coverage of the parameter space of Te ,l ogg ,a nd (M/H). We briefly discuss the main uncertainties and points still deserving more improvement. (3) From the spectral library, we derive tables of bolometric corrections for Johnson- Cousins-Glass, HST/WFPC2, HST/NICMOS, Washington, and ESO Imaging Survey systems (this latter consisting on the WFI, EMMI, and SOFI filter sets). (4) These tables are used to convert several sets of Padova isochrones into the corresponding absolute magnitudes and colours, thus providing a useful database for several astrophysical applications. All data files are made available in electronic form.
Mathematical Model for Processing Multi-user Requests on POMDP Hybrid Dialog Management

We present a mathematical model that integrates multiparty/multimodal components with a stochastic dialog model based on a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). Our suggested model consists of three subcomponents: a discrete input streamer, a dialog stack manager, and a back-end dialog system. The discrete input streamer extracts discrete hypotheses from input streams, while the dialog stack manager manages several dialog stacks. The back-end dialog system selects a proper system action by using hybrid POMDP model. We introduce our hybrid POMDP architecture which can be extended to advanced interface systems such as those used in drones and mobile applications.
Multi-Relational Learning at Scale with ADMM

Learning from multiple-relational data which contains noise, ambiguities, or duplicate entities is essential to a wide range of applications such as statistical inference based on Web Linked Data, recommender systems, computational biology, and natural language processing. These tasks usually require working with very large and complex datasets - e.g., the Web graph - however, current approaches to multi-relational learning are not practical for such scenarios due to their high computational complexity and poor scalability on large data. In this paper, we propose a novel and scalable approach for multi-relational factorization based on consensus optimization. Our model, called ConsMRF, is based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) framework, which enables us to optimize each target relation using a smaller set of parameters than the state-of-the-art competitors in this task. Due to ADMM's nature, ConsMRF can be easily parallelized which makes it suitable for large multi-relational data. Experiments on large Web datasets - derived from DBpedia, Wikipedia and YAGO - show the efficiency and performance improvement of ConsMRF over strong competitors. In addition, ConsMRF near-linear scalability indicates great potential to tackle Web-scale problem sizes.
A tight multiframe registration problem with application to Earth observation satellite design

Image registration can play a key role to increase the SNR of Earth satellite images by fusing many successive noisy thin image stripes in real time, before transmitting to the ground the final fused image. Yet these stripes cannot be fused directly by addition because their position is altered by microvibrations and other geometric perturbations. These must be compensated using limited onboard computational resources with high subpixel accuracy and in real time. In this paper we study the fundamental performance limits for this problem and propose a real time solution that nonetheless gets close to the theoretical limits. We introduce a scheme using temporal convolution together with online noise estimation, optical flow and a non-conventional multiframe method for measuring global translation. Finally, we compare our results with the theoretical bounds and other state-of-the-art methods. The results are conclusive on the fronts of accuracy and complexity.