Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three-dimensional nanoassembly of multi-walled carbon nanotubes through nanorobotic manipulations by using electron-beam-induced deposition

Nanoassembly of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) in three-dimensional space by using electron-beam-induced deposition (EBID) is realized through nanorobotic manipulations. Concept of parallel EBID is presented and feasibility of using MWNTs as electron-beam emitters for EBID is investigated. A selection method of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) from raw materials according to their mechanical properties is presented, which is realized through buckling a nanotube with nanorobotic manipulators. Destructive construction of CNT-based nano building blocks is also demonstrated by extracting an inner layer from outer layer of a multi-walled carbon nanotubes, which is potentially a nanometer scale bearing. MWNT-junctions are constructed with EBID through nanorobotic manipulations.
Differential Activation of Mitogenic Signaling Pathways in Aortic Smooth Muscle Cells Deficient in Superoxide Dismutase Isoforms

Objective—Reactive oxygen species (ROS) integrate cellular signaling pathways involved in aortic smooth muscle cell (SMC) proliferation and migration associated with atherosclerosis. However, the effect of subcellular localization of ROS on SMC mitogenic signaling is not yet fully understood. Methods and Results—We used superoxide dismutase (SOD)–deficient mouse aortic SMCs to address the role of subcellular ROS localization on SMC phenotype and mitogenic signaling. Compared with wild-type, a 54% decrease in total SOD activity (≈50% decrease in SOD1 protein levels) and a 42% reduction in SOD2 activity (≈50% decrease in SOD2 protein levels) were observed in SOD1+/− and SOD2+/− SMCs, respectively. Consistent with this, basal and thrombin-induced superoxide levels increased in these SMCs. SOD1+/− and SOD2+/− SMCs exhibit increased basal proliferation and enhanced [3H]-thymidine and [3H]-leucine incorporation in basal and thrombin-stimulated conditions. Our results indicate preferential activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases in SOD1+/− and janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcriptase (JAK/STAT) pathway in SOD2+/− SMCs. Pharmacological inhibitors of ERK1/2 p38 and JAK2 confirm the SOD genotype-dependent SMC proliferation. Conclusions—Our results suggest that SOD1 and SOD2 regulate SMC quiescence by suppressing divergent mitogenic signaling pathways, and dysregulation of these enzymes under pathophysiological conditions may lead to SMC hyperplasia and hypertrophy.
Chaperones as Suppressors of Protein Misfolded Oligomer Toxicity

Chaperones have long been recognized to play well defined functions such as to: (i) assist protein folding and promote formation and maintenance of multisubunit complexes; (ii) mediate protein degradation; (iii) inhibit protein aggregation; and (iv) promote disassembly of undesired aberrant protein aggregates. In addition to these well-established functions, it is increasingly clear that chaperones can also interact with aberrant protein aggregates, such as pre-fibrillar oligomers and fibrils, and inhibit their toxicity commonly associated with neurodegenerative diseases without promoting their disassembly. In particular, the evidence collected so far in different labs, exploiting different experimental approaches and using different chaperones and client aggregated proteins, indicates the existence of two distinct mechanisms of action mediated by the chaperones to neutralize the toxicity of aberrant proteins oligomers: (i) direct binding of the chaperones to the hydrophobic patches exposed on the oligomer/fibril surface, with resulting shielding or masking of the moieties responsible for the aberrant interactions with cellular targets; (ii) chaperone-mediated conversion of aberrant protein aggregates into large and more innocuous species, resulting in a decrease of their surface-to-volume ratio and diffusibility and in deposits more easily manageable by clearance mechanisms, such as autophagy. In this review article we will describe the in vitro and in vivo evidence supporting both mechanisms and how this results in a suppression of the detrimental effects caused by protein misfolded aggregates.
Cyber–Physical Control of Road Freight Transport

Freight transportation is of outmost importance in our society and is continuously increasing. At the same time, transporting goods on roads accounts for about 26% of the total energy consumption and 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. Despite the influence the transportation system has on our energy consumption and the environment, road transportation is mainly done by individual long-haulage trucks with no real-time coordination or global optimization. In this paper, we review how modern information and communication technology supports a cyber-physical transportation system architecture with an integrated logistic system coordinating fleets of trucks traveling together in vehicle platoons. From the reduced air drag, platooning trucks traveling close together can save about 10% of their fuel consumption. Utilizing road grade information and vehicle-to-vehicle communication, a safe and fuel-optimized cooperative look-ahead control strategy is implemented on top of the existing cruise controller. By optimizing the interaction between vehicles and platoons of vehicles, it is shown that significant improvements can be achieved. An integrated transport planning and vehicle routing in the fleet management system allows both small and large fleet owners to benefit from the collaboration. A realistic case study with 200 heavy-duty vehicles performing transportation tasks in Sweden is described. Simulations show overall fuel savings at more than 5% thanks to coordinated platoon planning. It is also illustrated how well the proposed cooperative look-ahead controller for heavy-duty vehicle platoons manages to optimize the velocity profiles of the vehicles over a hilly segment of the considered road network.
A Gradient Search Method to Round the Semideflnite Programming Relaxation Solution for Ad Hoc Wireless Sensor Network Localization

In this report we develop an e‐cient and efiective procedure to solve the distance geometry problem. This method is based on the semideflnite programming (SDP) relaxation proposed in [5, 6], and further improved by a gradient-based local search method. We flrst develop two alternative SDP relaxations for the distance geometry problem, which represent the (weighted) maximum-likelihood estimation (WMLE). Then, using the SDP relaxation solution as the initial point, we apply a gradient-based search method to further reducing the estimation error. We show that the gradient search method permits an exact line-search and it can always improve the SDP solution with or without distance measurement noises. A checkable bound of suboptimality can be used to ensure the solution quality. We demonstrate the efiectiveness of the method from solving the 2-dimensional ad hoc wireless sensor network localization problem. Even for large scale problems with thousands of sensors, a satisfactory localization can be found on a single PC in few minutes.
An Empirical Study of Unsupervised Semantic Classification of Chinese Reviews

This paper is an empirical study of unsupervised semantic classification of Chinese reviews. The focus is on exploring the ways to improve the performance of the unsupervised semantic classification based on limited existing semantic resources in Chinese. On the one hand, all available Chinese semantic lexicons — individual and combined — are evaluated under our proposed framework. On the other hand, the domain dependent semantic noise words are identified and removed using unlabeled data, to improve the classification performance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such attempt. Experiments have been conducted on three open datasets in two domains, and the results show that the proposed algorithm for semantic noise words removal can improve the classification performance significantly.
A multiple imputation procedure of censored values in family-based genetic association studies

Biological quantitative data are subjected to censoring when a portion of values cannot be quantified because they are smaller or greater than the limit of detection (LOD) of the laboratory assay. In genetic association studies of quantitative trait, the handling of censored data has received little attention and often the solutions are unsatisfactory. However, the approach used to deal with such data can havea substantial impact on the results of the analysis. While the Tobit model represents an appropriate method for independent data, there is no evidence on its performance in the presence of non-independent observations, typical of family- or pedigree based studies. In the context of a family-based study, we propose a Bayesian approach which takes into account the uncertainty of the imputation procedure using several imputations for each censored value. In particular, assuming vague (uninformative) priors for all hyper-parameters, the imputation based on Gibbs sampling is applied to variance-components linear regression models, where the primary outcome is related to a secondary outcome. Through simulation, we describe the behavior of the Tobit model in the presence of different degrees of censoring and heritability of the trait compared with the Bayesian model and the naive approach of replacing all censored values with the LOD value.
Data Posting: a New Frontier for Data Exchange in the Big Data Era

Data exchange [5, 1] is the problem of migrating a data instance from a source schema to a target schema such that the materialized data on the target schema satisfies a number of given integrity constraints (mainly inclusion and functional dependencies). The target schema typically contains some new attributes that are defined using existentially quantified variables: the main issue is to reduce arbitrariness in selecting such variable values. Therefore a data exchange solution is required to be “universal” in the sense that homomorphisms exists into every possible solution, i.e., a universal solution enjoys a sort of “minimal arbitrariness” property. The main research goal of the large data exchange literature is to single out situations for which a universal solution exists and can be computed in polynomial time. Recently a different approach to data exchange has been proposed in [11] that considers a new type of data dependency, called count constraint (an extension of cardinality constraint), that prescribes the result of a given count operation on a relation to be within a certain range. We illustrate this approach by means of an example. Consider a source relation scheme S with the following attributes: I (Item), B (Brand), P (Price). The target scheme is the relation scheme T with attributes: I, B, P, W (Warehouse), C (product Category), R (price Range). We assume that the domains of I, B and P for T are the projections of the source relation S on the respective attributes, e.g., DB = πB(S). Also the domains of the other attributes of T are finite and are defined by supplementary source relations: DW (the list of all available warehouses for storing items), DC (a 2-arity relation listing the category for each product) and DR (a 3-arity relation listing all price ranges together with the interval extremes). The mapping is defined as follows (as usual, lower-case and upper-case letters denote variables that are respectively universally and existentially quantified – in addition, dotted letters denote free variables used for defining sets):
Characterization, Leaching, and Filtration Testing for Bismuth Phosphate Sludge (Group 1) and Bismuth Phosphate Saltcake (Group 2) Actual Waste Sample Composites

A testing program evaluating actual tank waste was developed in response to Task 4 from the M-12 External Flowsheet Review Team (EFRT) issue response plan. () The test program was subdivided into logical increments. The bulk water-insoluble solid wastes that are anticipated to be delivered to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) were identified according to type such that the actual waste testing could be targeted to the relevant categories. Eight broad waste groupings were defined. Samples available from the 222S archive were identified and obtained for testing. The actual waste-testing program included homogenizing the samples by group, characterizing the solids and aqueous phases, and performing parametric leaching tests. Two of the eight defined groups—bismuth phosphate sludge (Group 1) and bismuth phosphate saltcake (Group 2)—are the subjects of this report. The Group 1 waste was anticipated to be high in phosphorus and was implicitly assumed to be present as BiPO4 (however, results presented here indicate that the phosphate in Group 1 is actually present as amorphous iron(III) phosphate). The Group 2 waste was also anticipated to be high in phosphorus, but because of the relatively low bismuth content and higher aluminum content, it was anticipated that the Group 2 waste would contain a mixture of gibbsite, sodium phosphate, and aluminum phosphate. Thus, the focus of the Group 1 testing was on determining the behavior of P removal during caustic leaching, and the focus of the Group 2 testing was on the removal of both P and Al. The waste-type definition, archived sample conditions, homogenization activities, characterization (physical, chemical, radioisotope, and crystal habit), and caustic leaching behavior as functions of time, temperature, and hydroxide concentration are discussed in this report. Testing was conducted according to TP-RPP-WTP-467.
A Framework of Personalized Travelling Information Services for Thailand

Planning each comprehensive trip is regarded as a complicated and time-consuming task which includes the process starting from searching specific tourist information to planning an itinerary in unfamiliar areas. In response to the decision making challenges that tourists may encounter in planning a trip or discovering a destination, this paper proposes an integrated framework for a system supporting tourists in Thailand. The aim of the framework is to provide a service that considers data from a variety of sources, including static and social data, and then recommends points of interest (POI) and itineraries for POI, based on the requirements and interests of the user. The framework consists of three components: a personalized POI recommendation engine, an itinerary planner, and a mobile application. Together these form the foundation of a personalized travelling information system for Thailand. This paper outlines the basic framework and provides a discussion on the potential issues encountered.
De-centralised dynamic task scheduling using hill climbing algorithm in cloud computing environments

There are many tasks in cloud computing that should be executed by available resources to acquire high performance, reduce task completion time, increase utilisation of resources etc. Since task scheduling problem in cloud computing is an NP-hard problem, designing an efficient scheduling strategy to achieve the intentions listed above is challenging. Task scheduling is the process of allocating tasks to available resources such that performance metrics are improved. This paper proposes a dynamic scheduling algorithm that uses hill climbing algorithm. It tries to minimise completion time of tasks while maximising throughput and utilisation of resources. This algorithm allocates independent tasks to available resources to achieve load balance. The simulation results show that the algorithm can achieve load balance and reduces completion time of tasks.
Dopaminergic and noradrenergic circuit development in zebrafish

Dopaminergic and noradrenergic neurons constitute some of the major far projecting systems in the vertebrate brain and spinal cord that modulate the activity of circuits controlling a broad range of behaviors. Degeneration or dysfunction of dopaminergic neurons has also been linked to a number of neurological and psychiatric disorders, including Parkinson's disease. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) have emerged over the past two decades into a major genetic vertebrate model system, and thus contributed to a better understanding of developmental mechanisms controlling dopaminergic neuron specification and axonogenesis. In this review, we want to focus on conserved and dynamic aspects of the different catecholaminergic systems, which may help to evaluate the zebrafish as a model for dopaminergic and noradrenergic cellular specification and circuit function as well as biomedical aspects of catecholamine systems. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 72: 256–268, 2012
Effects of Distance between Classes and Training Datasets Size to the Performance of XCS: Case of Imbalance Datasets

This paper analyzes the effects of distance between classes and training datasets size to XCS classifier system on imbalanced datasets. Our purpose is to answer the question whether the loss of performance incurred by the classifier faced with class imbalance problems stems from the class imbalance per se or it can be explained in some other ways. The experiments from 250 artificial imbalanced datasets show that XCS can perform well in some imbalance domains if the training datasets size is large enough and the distance between classes is appropriate. Thus, it dose not seem fair to correlate imbalance datasets directly to the loss performance of XCS. Through this research, we also know what kinds of datasets are suitable for training XCS and dealing with class imbalances alone will not always help improve performance of classifiers.
Institutional theory and human resource management

The study of institutions traverses the academic fields of economics, sociology, political science and organisational theory. The common denominator for institutionalism in various disciplines appears to be that of, 'institutions matter' (Kaufman 2011). An underlying assumption in the study of institutions is that organisations are deeply embedded in the wider institutional context (Powell 1988; DiMaggio & Powell 1991). Thus, "organisational practices are either a direct reflection of, or response to, rules and structures built into their larger environment" (Paauwe & Boselie 2003, p. 59). This institutional environment is the source of legitimisation, rewards or incentives for, as well as constraints or sanctions on, organisational activities (Meyer & Rowan 1977). The relevance of institutional theory to Human Resource Management (HRM) was initially derived from this view (Rosenzweig & Nohria 1994).
A spectro-temporal algorithm for pitch frequency estimation from noisy observations

A novel algorithm for pitch frequency (PF) estimation from non-stationary noise-corrupted speech observations is presented in this paper based on both spectral pre-processing and temporal representation. A modified power spectral subtraction based de-noising scheme that allows tracking the time-variation of the underlying non-stationary noise is put forward to enhance speech prior to PF estimation. The de-noised speech is then utilized to propose a squared difference function of the Linear Prediction (LP) residual which is expected to reveal more prominent dips at integral multiples of the pitch period compared to that revealed by the LP residual. The dips at different pitch-harmonic locations are added and weighted by a periodicity dependent weighting factor for every possible pitch period thus yielding a weighted and harmonically summed temporal function which is globally minimized to extract the desired PF. Simulation results using the Keele database show the superior efficacy of the proposed method in the presence of a multi-talker babble noise relative to some of the existing methods.
Secure Route Discovery for Preventing Black Hole Attacks on AODV-Based MANETs

Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) allow mobile hosts to initiate communications with each other over a network without an established infrastructure or a central network authority. Because of this, MANETs have dynamic topologies because nodes can easily join or leave the network at any time. From a security design perspective, MANETs are vulnerable to various types of malicious attacks. As are result, Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV), which is one of the standard MANET protocols, can be attacked by malicious nodes. A black hole attack is one type of malicious attack that can be easily employed against data routing in MANETs. A black hole node replies to route requests rapidly with the shortest path and the highest destination sequence number. The black hole node does not have an active route to a specified destination associated with it and it drops all of the data packets that it receives. This paper proposes a mechanism that provides Secure Route Discovery for the AODV protocol (SRD-AODV) in order to prevent black hole attacks. This mechanism requires the source node and the destination node to verify the sequence numbers in the Route Request (RREQ) and Route Reply (RREP) messages, respectively, based on defined thresholds before establishing a connection with a destination node for sending the data. The simulation results using the Network Simulator 2 (NS2) demonstrate an improvement in the ratio of packet delivery for three different environments using our mechanism as compared to the standard AODV protocol.
Probabilistic Addressing in Wireless Networks

The lack of permanent network infrastructure and often unplanned deployments in many multihop wireless communication scenarios restrict nodes to determine their own addresses based on the underlying connectivity in the network. However, due to unreliable connectivity and rapidly changing link qualities in wireless networks, establishing uniform addressing and stable point-to-point routing is challenging. In this paper, we present Statistical Vector Routing (SVR), a virtual coordinates based addressing and routing mechanism that efficiently deals with dynamic communication links in wireless networks. It assigns stable probabilistic addresses to nodes without the need to pessimistically estimate links over longer periods of time. The routing metric predicts the current location of a node in its address distribution. Our prototype implementation over real testbeds indicates that SVR, when compared to current approaches, achieves 3-7 times more stable addressing, reduces the magnitude of change in addresses by 2-10 times, and minimizes the hop distance and transmissions in the network by 10-15%.
Genome-Wide Analysis of Spatial Gene Expression in Arabidopsis Flowers

We have compared the gene expression profiles of inflorescences of the floral homeotic mutants apetala1, apetala2, apetala3, pistillata, and agamous with that of wild-type plants using a flower-specific cDNA microarray and a whole genome oligonucleotide array. By combining the data sets from the individual mutant/wild type comparisons, we were able to identify a large number of genes that are, within flowers, predicted to be specifically or at least predominantly expressed in one type of floral organ. We have analyzed the expression patterns of several of these genes by in situ hybridization and found that they match the predictions that were made based on the microarray experiments. Moreover, genes with known floral organ–specific expression patterns were correctly assigned by our analysis. The vast majority of the identified transcripts are found in stamens or carpels, whereas few genes are predicted to be expressed specifically or predominantly in sepals or petals. These findings indicate that spatially limited expression of a large number of genes is part of flower development and that its extent differs significantly between the reproductive organs and the organs of the perianth.