Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New upper bounds for the chromatic number of a graph

We show that for any graph G, the chromatic number G 2 G  1, where 2 G is the largest degree that a vertex v can have subject to the condition that v is adjacent to a vertex whose degree is at least as big as its own. Moreover, we show that the upper bound is best possible in the the following sense: If 2 G 3, then to determine whether G 2 G is an NP-complete problem. ß 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 36: 117±120, 2001 Keywords: simple graph; chromatic number; degree of a vertex Determining the chromatic number G of a graph G is an old and very hard problem. In fact, if k 3, then the question whether G k is an NP-complete problem [4]. A classical result of Brooks [1] says that G G  1, where G denotes the maximum degree in G. In addition, Brooks showed that the complete graphs and odd cycles are the only graphs for which the upper bound is
Fractional Hopfield Neural Networks: Fractional Dynamic Associative Recurrent Neural Networks

This paper mainly discusses a novel conceptual framework: fractional Hopfield neural networks (FHNN). As is commonly known, fractional calculus has been incorporated into artificial neural networks, mainly because of its long-term memory and nonlocality. Some researchers have made interesting attempts at fractional neural networks and gained competitive advantages over integer-order neural networks. Therefore, it is naturally makes one ponder how to generalize the first-order Hopfield neural networks to the fractional-order ones, and how to implement FHNN by means of fractional calculus. We propose to introduce a novel mathematical method: fractional calculus to implement FHNN. First, we implement fractor in the form of an analog circuit. Second, we implement FHNN by utilizing fractor and the fractional steepest descent approach, construct its Lyapunov function, and further analyze its attractors. Third, we perform experiments to analyze the stability and convergence of FHNN, and further discuss its applications to the defense against chip cloning attacks for anticounterfeiting. The main contribution of our work is to propose FHNN in the form of an analog circuit by utilizing a fractor and the fractional steepest descent approach, construct its Lyapunov function, prove its Lyapunov stability, analyze its attractors, and apply FHNN to the defense against chip cloning attacks for anticounterfeiting. A significant advantage of FHNN is that its attractors essentially relate to the neuron’s fractional order. FHNN possesses the fractional-order-stability and fractional-order-sensitivity characteristics.
Molecular and Cellular Pathobiology RNF 8 Regulates Assembly of RAD 51 at DNA Double-Strand Breaks in the Absence of BRCA 1 and 53 BP 1

The tumor suppressor protein BRCA1 localizes to sites of DNA double-strand breaks (DSB), promoting repair by homologous recombination through the recruitment of DNA damage repair proteins. In normal cells, homologous recombination largely depends on BRCA1. However, assembly of the pivotal homologous recombination regulator RAD51 can occur independently of BRCA1 in the absence of 53BP1, another DNA damage response protein. How this assembly process proceeds is unclear, but important to understand in tumor cell settings where BRCA1 is disabled. Here we report that RNF8 regulates BRCA1-independent homologous recombination in 53BP1-depleted cells. RNF8 depletion suppressed the recruitment of RAD51 to DSB sites without affecting assembly or phosphorylation of the replication protein RPA in neocarzinostatin-treated or X-ray-irradiated BRCA1/53BP1-depleted cells. Furthermore, RNF8/BRCA1/53BP1-depleted cells exhibited less efficient homologous recombination thanBRCA1/53BP1-depleted cells. Intriguingly, neither RNF8 nor its relative RNF168 were required for RAD51 assembly at DSB sites in 53BP1-expressing cells. Moreover, RNF8-independent RAD51 assembly was found to be regulated by BRCA1. Together, our findings indicate a tripartite regulation of homologous recombination by RNF8, BRCA1, and 53BP1. In addition, our results predict that RNF8 inhibition may be a useful treatment of BRCA1-mutated/53BP1 cancers, which are considered resistant to treatment by PARP1 inhibitors and of marked current clinical interest. Cancer Res; 72(19); 4974–83. 2012 AACR.
Gradient Intensity: A New Mutual Information-Based Registration Method

Conventional mutual information (Ml)-based registration using pixel intensities is time-consuming and ignores spatial information, which can lead to misalignment. We propose a method to overcome these limitation by acquiring initial estimates of transformation parameters. We introduce the concept of 'gradient intensity' as a measure of spatial strength of an image in a given direction. We determine the rotation parameter by maximizing the MI between gradient intensity histograms. Calculation of the gradient intensity MI function is extremely efficient. Our method is designed to be invariant to scale and translation between the images. We then obtain estimates of scale and translation parameters using methods based on the centroids of gradient images. The estimated parameters are used to initialize an optimization algorithm which is designed to converge more quickly than the standard Powell algorithm in close proximity of the minimum. Experiments show that our method significantly improves the performance of the registration task and reduces the overall computational complexity by an order of magnitude.
Graph Matching using SIFT Descriptors - An Application to Pose Recovery of a Mobile Robot

Image-feature matching based on Local Invariant Feature Extraction (LIFE) methods has proven to be successful, and SIFT is one of the most effective. SIFT matching uses only local texture information to compute the correspondences. A number of approaches have been presented aimed at enhancing the image-features matches computed using only local information such as SIFT. What most of these approaches have in common is that they use a higher level information such as spatial arrangement of the feature points to reject a subset of outliers. The main limitation of the outlier rejectors is that they are not able to enhance the configuration of matches by adding new useful ones. In the present work we propose a graph matching algorithm aimed not only at rejecting erroneous matches but also at selecting additional useful ones. We use both the graph structure to encode the geometrical information and the SIFT descriptors in the node’s attributes to provide local texture information. This algorithm is an ensemble of successful ideas previously reported by other researchers. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm in a pose recovery application.
Segregation scheme of indium in AlGaInAs nanowire shells

JSR thanks the European H2020 for funding through grant LIMQUET. EDR and LR thank Labex EMC3 AQURATE (French ANR). SMS acknowledges funding from “Programa Internacional de Becas ‘la Caixa’-Severo Ochoa. ” JA and SMS acknowledge funding from Generalitat de Catalunya 2017 SGR 327 and the Spanish MINECO project ENE2017-85087-C3. ICN2 acknowledges support from the Severo Ochoa Programme (MINECO, Grant No. SEV-2013-0295) and is funded by the CERCA Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya. Part of the present work has been performed in the framework of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Materials Science PhD program. This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 654360 NFFA-Europe.
Is the Evaluation of Quality of Life in NSCLC Trials Important? Are the Results to be Trusted?

The majority of patients with non-small cell lung cancer present at the time of diagnosis with stage IV metastatic disease and they experience 2 or more disease-related symptoms. These symptoms may have a negative impact on their health-related quality of life (HR QOL). Data has shown many of these patients prefer a therapy to improve their symptoms rather than receive a therapy which slightly prolongs their survival without improving their symptoms. The improvement of disease-related symptoms on a specific drug or regimen augments the significance of prolongation of the progression-free survival or the response rate as well as symptom worsening. The choice of the questionnaires to evaluate patients’ reported outcomes and HR QOL benefits and the methods of collecting the data and their interpretations are very important. Only if the data are collected and analyzed properly will they be meaningful and can then be viewed as components that add the total value to a treatment and provide a comprehensive picture of the benefits and risks of a certain anticancer therapy.
A Catalogue of Human Saliva Proteins Identified by Free Flow Electrophoresis-based Peptide Separation and Tandem Mass Spectrometry*S

Human saliva has great potential for clinical disease diagnostics. Constructing a comprehensive catalogue of saliva proteins using proteomic approaches is a necessary first step to identifying potential protein biomarkers of disease. However, because of the challenge presented in cataloguing saliva proteins with widely varying abundance, new proteomic approaches are needed. To this end, we used a newly developed approach coupling peptide separation using free flow electrophoresis with linear ion trap tandem mass spectrometry to identify proteins in whole human saliva. We identified 437 proteins with high confidence (false positive rate below 1%), producing the largest catalogue of proteins from a single saliva sample to date and providing new information on the composition and potential diagnostic utility of this fluid. The statistically validated, transparently presented, and annotated dataset provides a model for presenting large scale proteomic data of this type, which should facilitate better dissemination and easier comparisons of proteomic datasets from future studies in saliva.
SarA Represses agr Operon Expression in a Purified In Vitro Staphylococcus aureusTranscription System

ABSTRACT Mutation and genetic complementation studies suggested that two chromosomal loci, agr and sar, are involved in the upregulation of several exotoxin genes and the downregulation of a number of surface protein genes in a growth phase-dependent manner inStaphylococcus aureus. We purified recombinant T7-tagged SarA from Escherichia coli and determined its effect on transcription from several S. aureus promoters by using purified RNA polymerase reconstituted with either ςA or ςB from S. aureus. Of the seven ςA-dependent promoters that we tested, SarA repressed transcription from agrP2, agrP3,cna, sarP1, and sea promoters and did not affect sec and znt promoters. Furthermore, SarA had no effect on transcription from the ςB-dependent sarP3 promoter. In vitro experimental data presented in this report suggest that SarA expression is autoregulated.
XBP-1 specifically promotes IgM synthesis and secretion, but is dispensable for degradation of glycoproteins in primary B cells

Differentiation of B cells into plasma cells requires X-box binding protein–1 (XBP-1). In the absence of XBP-1, B cells develop normally, but very little immunoglobulin is secreted. XBP-1 controls the expression of a large set of genes whose products participate in expansion of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and in protein trafficking. We define a new role for XBP-1 in exerting selective translational control over high and sustained levels of immunoglobulin M (IgM) synthesis. XBP-1−/− and XBP-1+/+ primary B cells synthesize IgM at comparable levels at the onset of stimulation with lipopolysaccharide or CpG. However, later there is a profound depression in synthesis of IgM in XBP-1−/− B cells, notwithstanding similar levels of μmRNA. In marked contrast, lack of XBP-1 does not affect synthesis and trafficking of other glycoproteins, or of immunoglobulin light chains. Contrary to expectation, degradation of proteins from the ER, using TCRα or US11-mediated degradation of class I major histocompatibility complex molecules as substrates, is normal in XBP-1−/− B cells. Furthermore, degradation of membrane μ was unaffected by enforced expression of XBP-1. We conclude that in primary B cells, the XBP-1 pathway promotes synthesis and secretion of IgM, but does not seem to be involved in the degradation of ER proteins, including that of μ chains themselves.
A Quantitative Evaluation Model for Network Security

The existing network security assessment models have the problems of inadequate capacity of quantitative analysis and lacking for vulnerabilities correlation. To address these problems, a hierarchical network security evaluation model is proposed. The network is divided into vulnerability level, service level, equipment level and network level. The model uses attack graph to correlate the network vulnerabilities, and then calculates the probabilities of successfully exploiting the vulnerabilities. On this basis, the quantitative risks of each level are calculated. Since this model much more accords with the features of network structure, it is an effectively guidance for the network administrators to develop and improve the network security policies.
Perinatal Complications and Aging Indicators by Midlife

BACKGROUND: Perinatal complications predict increased risk for morbidity and early mortality. Evidence of perinatal programming of adult mortality raises the question of what mechanisms embed this long-term effect. We tested a hypothesis related to the theory of developmental origins of health and disease: that perinatal complications assessed at birth predict indicators of accelerated aging by midlife. METHODS: Perinatal complications, including both maternal and neonatal complications, were assessed in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study cohort (N = 1037), a 38-year, prospective longitudinal study of a representative birth cohort. Two aging indicators were assessed at age 38 years, objectively by leukocyte telomere length (TL) and subjectively by perceived facial age. RESULTS: Perinatal complications predicted both leukocyte TL (β = −0.101; 95% confidence interval, −0.169 to −0.033; P = .004) and perceived age (β = 0.097; 95% confidence interval, 0.029 to 0.165; P = .005) by midlife. We repeated analyses with controls for measures of family history and social risk that could predispose to perinatal complications and accelerated aging, and for measures of poor health taken in between birth and the age-38 follow-up. These covariates attenuated, but did not fully explain the associations observed between perinatal complications and aging indicators. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide support for early-life developmental programming by linking newborns’ perinatal complications to accelerated aging at midlife. We observed indications of accelerated aging “inside,” as measured by leukocyte TL, an indicator of cellular aging, and “outside,” as measured by perceived age, an indicator of declining tissue integrity. A better understanding of mechanisms underlying perinatal programming of adult aging is needed.
Singer Percussion Antonio Mairena No Chano Lobato No Chocolate Yes Jacinto Almadén No Jesus Heredia No Manuel Simón Yes Miguel Vargas No Naranjito No Paco de Lucia No Talegon de Córdoba

The present study investigates the mechanisms involved in the perception of melodic similarity in the context of a cappella flamenco singing performances. Flamenco songs belonging to the same style are characterized by a common melodic skeleton, which is subject to spontaneous improvisation containing strong prolongations and ornamentations. For our research we collected human similarity judgements from naı̈ve and expert listeners who listened to audio recordings of a cappella flamenco performances as well as synthesized versions of the same songs. We furthermore calculated distances from manually extracted highlevel descriptors defined by flamenco experts. The suitability of a set of computational melodic similarity measures was evaluated by analyzing the correlation between computed similarity and human ratings. We observed significant differences between listener groups and stimuli types. Furthermore, we observed a high correlation between human ratings and similarities computed from features from flamenco experts. We also observed that computational models based on temporal deviation, dynamics and ornamentation are better suited to model perceived similarity for this material than models based on chroma distance.
Characteristics, causes and treatment of postpartum haemorrhage in first and second pregnancies

We investigated characteristics, causes and treatment of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) in a random sample of 294 women's first and second pregnancies involving at least one PPH. Among 588 pregnancies, PPH affected 169 first pregnancies, 105 second pregnancies only and recurrent PPH affected 48 pregnancies. In 34% of PPHs, atony was the primary cause. Second pregnancy PPH involved increased pharmacological therapy, blood transfusion and median blood loss. It is important to ascertain PPH history in parous women and be prepared for PPH recurrence.
Anxiety Can Influence Analogy-Making Both Positively and Negatively Depending on the Complexity of the Mapping Task

In attempt to resolve the controversial issue of the influence of the anxiety state on analogy-making this paper presents a replication of the original Tohill and Holyoak study extending it with a new factor – the complexity of the mapping. It turns out that the anxiety influence interacts with the complexity of the mapping task. This has certain implications for the models of analogy and for the further study of the role anxiety plays in analogy-making.
Centrally administered lipopolysaccharide elicits sympathetic excitation via NAD(P)H oxidase-dependent mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling

Objective The mechanisms by which inflammation activates sympathetic drive in heart failure and hypertension remain ill-defined. In this study, an intracerebroventricular injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was used to induce the expression of cytokines and other inflammatory mediators in the brain, in the absence of other excitatory mediators, and the downstream signaling pathways leading to sympathetic activation were examined using intracerebroventricular injections of blocking or inhibiting agents. Methods and results In anesthetized rats, intracerebroventricular injection of LPS (5 μg) increased (P < 0.05) renal sympathetic nerve activity, blood pressure and heart rate. LPS increased (P < 0.05) hypothalamic mRNA for NAD(P)H oxidase subunits p47phox and gp91phox, NAD(P)H oxidase-dependent superoxide generation, hypothalamic mRNA for tumor necrosis factor-α, cyclooxygenase-2 and cerebrospinal fluid levels of tumor necrosis factor-α and prostaglandin E2. In the paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus, dihydroethidium staining for superoxide expression and c-Fos activity (indicating neuronal excitation) increased. The superoxide scavenger tempol significantly (P < 0.05) diminished the expression of inflammatory mediators, as well as superoxide expression and neuronal excitation in paraventricular nucleus. SB203580 (p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitor) also reduced the expression of inflammatory mediators in hypothalamus and cerebrospinal fluid. Tempol, apocynin [NAD(P)H oxidase inhibitor], SB203580 and NS398 (cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor) all reduced cerebrospinal fluid prostaglandin E2 and the sympathoexcitatory response to LPS. LPS also increased angiotensin II type 1 receptor mRNA, a response blocked by apocynin and tempol but not by SB203580. Conclusion These findings suggest that central inflammation in pathophysiological conditions activates the sympathetic nervous system via NAD(P)H oxidase and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase-dependent synthesis of prostaglandin E2.
An Action-Selection Calculus

This article describes a unifying framework for five highly influential but disparate theories of natural learning and behavioral action selection. These theories are normally considered independently, with their own experimental procedures and results. The framework presented builds on a structure of connection types, propagation rules and learning rules, which are used in combination to integrate results from each theory into a whole. These connection types and rules form the action-selection calculus. The calculus will be used to discuss the areas of genuine difference between the factor theories and to identify areas where there is overlap and where apparently disparate findings have a common source. The discussion is illustrated with exemplar experimental procedures. The article focuses on predictive or anticipatory properties inherent in these action-selection and learning theories, and uses the dynamic expectancy model and its computer implementation SRS/E as a mechanism to conduct this discussion.
Benchmarking Real-Time Network Processing

Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science CE-MS-2003-01 The latest Internet developments pose two requirements on network devices: performance and flexibility. Such requirements have sparked the emergence of the network processor. The advent of network processors has significantly contributed to the efficient management of bandwidth resources, the resolution of latency-related problems, the processing data at wire-speed and the support of emerging applications over Internet. A key challenge is to find an adequate way to evaluate the performance of the heterogeneous collection of network processors when used in a networking environment, such as web switches, routers, etc. It is important and necessary to create benchmarks to evaluate the performance of network processors with different architectures. Existing network processing benchmarks have not covered the processing on real-time (multimedia) data delivery, which is required by numerous new emerging applications, such as Voice over IP (VoIP). VoIP becomes a promising technology because it is inevitable that the convergence of voice and data will play an important roll in future’s network. It is becoming increasingly more important to create benchmarks on real-time network processing. In this thesis, we introduce a benchmark suite that allows the performance of real-time network processing to be evaluated. The benchmark suite consists of three benchmarks: an RTP Sender benchmark, an RTP Receiver benchmark, and an RTCP Processing benchmark. For each benchmark, three aspects are specified: function, measurement and environment. The results on the benchmark suite are presented from performance and architectural characteristics points of view. The performance results highlight how fast, measured in terms of clock cycles, the benchmarks are executed. Subsequently, profiling on the benchmarks is performed to determine time-critical functions. The results on architectural characteristics show that the created benchmarks focusing on real-time network processing are justified when compared with existing benchmarks, such as NetBench and MediaBench. The created benchmark suite in this thesis helps to measure and evaluate the performance of network processors and direct the design of the architectures of future network processors. Benchmarking Real-Time Network Processing