Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Wild Lentil Species as Genetic Resources to Improve Drought Tolerance in Cultivated Lentil

Increasingly unpredictable annual rainfall amounts and distribution patterns have far reaching implications for pulse crop biology. Seedling and whole plant survival will be affected given that water is a key factor in plant photosynthesis and also influences the evolving disease spectrum that affects crops. The wild relatives of cultivated lentil are native to drought prone areas, making them good candidates for the evaluation of drought tolerance traits. We evaluated root and shoot traits of genotypes of cultivated lentil and five wild species grown under two water deficit regimes as well as fully watered conditions over a 13 week period indoors. Plants were grown in sectioned polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tubes containing field soil from the A, B, and C horizons. We found that root distribution into different soil horizons varied among wild lentil genotypes. Secondly, wild lentil genotypes employed diverse strategies such as delayed flowering, reduced transpiration rates, reduced plant height, and deep root systems to either escape, evade or tolerate drought conditions. In some cases, more than one drought strategy was observed within the same genotype. Sequence based classification of wild and cultivated genotypes did not explain patterns of drought response. The environmental conditions at their centers of origin may explain the patterns of drought strategies observed in wild lentils. The production of numerous small seeds by wild lentil genotypes may have implications for yield improvement in lentil breeding programs.
Effects of sub-lethal high-pressure homogenization treatment on the outermost cellular structures and the volatile-molecule profiles of two strains of probiotic lactobacilli

Applying sub-lethal levels of high-pressure homogenization (HPH) to lactic acid bacteria has been proposed as a method of enhancing some of their functional properties. Because the principal targets of HPH are the cell-surface structures, the aim of this study was to examine the effect of sub-lethal HPH treatment on the outermost cellular structures and the proteomic profiles of two known probiotic bacterial strains. Moreover, the effect of HPH treatment on the metabolism of probiotic cells within a dairy product during its refrigerated storage was investigated using SPME-GC-MS. Transmission electron microscopy was used to examine the microstructural changes in the outermost cellular structures due to HPH treatment. These alterations may be involved in the changes in some of the technological and functional properties of the strains that were observed after pressure treatment. Moreover, the proteomic profiles of the probiotic strains treated with HPH and incubated at 37°C for various periods showed different peptide patterns compared with those of the untreated cells. In addition, there were differences in the peaks that were observed in the low-mass spectral region (2000–3000 Da) of the spectral profiles of the control and treated samples. Due to pressure treatment, the volatile-molecule profiles of buttermilk inoculated with treated or control cells and stored at 4°C for 30 days exhibited overall changes in the aroma profile and in the production of molecules that improved its sensory profile, although the two different species imparted specific fingerprints to the product. The results of this study will contribute to understanding the changes that occur in the outermost cellular structures and the metabolism of LAB in response to HPH treatment. The findings of this investigation may contribute to elucidating the relationships between these changes and the alterations of the technological and functional properties of LAB induced by pressure treatment.
Enhanced Pathogenicity of Diabetogenic T Cells Escaping a Non-MHC Gene-Controlled Near Death Experience1

For unknown reasons, the common MHC class I variants encoded by the H2g7 haplotype (Kd, Db) aberrantly elicit autoreactive CD8 T cell responses essential to type 1 diabetes development when expressed in NOD mice, but not other strains. In this study, we show that interactive non-MHC genes allow a NOD-derived diabetogenic CD8 T cell clonotype (AI4) to be negatively selected at far greater efficiency in C57BL/6 mice congenically expressing H2g7 (B6.H2g7). However, the few AI4 T cells escaping negative selection in B6.H2g7 mice are exported from the thymus more efficiently, and are more functionally aggressive than those of NOD origin. This provides mechanistic insight to previous findings that resistant mouse strains carry some genes conferring greater diabetes susceptibility than the corresponding NOD allele. In the B6.H2g7 stock, non-MHC gene-controlled elevations in TCR expression are associated with both enhanced negative selection of diabetogenic CD8 T cells and increased aggressiveness of those escaping this process. An implication of this finding is that the same phenotype, in this case relatively high TCR expression levels, could have double-edged sword effects, contributing to type 1 diabetes resistance at one level of T cell development, but at another actually promoting pathogenesis.
Log-only temporal object storage

As main memory capacity increases, more of the database read requests will be satisfied from the buffer system. Consequently, the amount of disk write operations relative to disk read operations will increase. This calls for a focus on write optimized storage managers. We show how the Vagabond object storage manager uses no-overwrite sequential writing of long blocks to achieve high write performance. Vagabond also supports versioned/temporal objects, with the no-overwrite policy used, this does not imply any extra cost. Large objects, e.g., video and matrices, are divided into large chunks. This makes it easy to achieve high read and write bandwidth. This is important, since in many application areas, high data bandwidth is just as important as high transaction throughput. The buffer system in Vagabond is object based, rather than page based. This gives better utilization of main memory. Transparent compression of objects on disk is supported.
Education and Reproductive Autonomy: The Case of Married Nigerian Women

Abstract: In this article, we examine the influence of education on the exercise of married women’s reproductive autonomy. We carried out 34 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with purposively sampled married Ikwerre women in Rivers State, Nigeria. The participants were between the ages of 22 and 60, had different educational backgrounds, and were in monogamous and polygynous marriages. Data were analyzed using MAXQDA 11 software. We found that although formal education enhanced women’s ability to exercise reproductive autonomy, the culture of demanding absolute respect for men remains a major barrier. Formal education provides women with the knowledge that they need in order to access adequate health services for themselves and their children. Participants also believed that educating men was critical for the exercise of women’s reproductive autonomy. The cultural aspects that promote female subordination and patriarchy should be addressed more openly in Nigeria.
Acute Blood Pressure Reduction in Patients With Intracerebral Hemorrhage Does Not Result in Borderzone Region Hypoperfusion

Background and Purpose— The Intracerebral Hemorrhage Acutely Decreasing Arterial Pressure Trial (ICH ADAPT) demonstrated blood pressure (BP) reduction does not affect mean perihematoma or hemispheric cerebral blood flow. Nonetheless, portions of the perihematoma and borderzones may reach ischemic thresholds after BP reduction. We tested the hypothesis that BP reduction after intracerebral hemorrhage results in increased critically hypoperfused tissue volumes. Methods— Patients with Intracerebral hemorrhage were randomized to a target systolic BP (SBP) of <150 or <180 mm Hg and imaged with computed tomographic perfusion 2 hours later. The volumes of tissue below cerebral blood flow thresholds for ischemia (<18 mL/100 g/min) and infarction (<12 mL/100 g/min) were calculated as a percentage of the total volume within the internal and external borderzones and the perihematoma region. Results— Seventy-five patients with intracerebral hemorrhage were randomized a median (interquartile range) of 7.8 (13.3) hours from onset. Acute hematoma volume was 17.8 (27.1) mL and mean SBP was 183±22 mm Hg. At the time of computed tomographic perfusion (2.3 [1.0] hours after randomization), SBP was lower in the <150 mm Hg (n=37; 140±18 mm Hg) than in the <180 mm Hg group (n=36; 162±12 mm Hg; P<0.001). BP treatment did not affect the percentage of total borderzone tissue with cerebral blood flow <18 (14.7±13.6 versus 15.6±13.7%; P=0.78) or <12 mL/100 g/min (5.1±5.1 versus 5.8±6.8%; P=0.62). Similar results were found in the perihematoma region. Low SBP load (fraction of time with SBP<150 mmHg) did not predict borderzone tissue volume with cerebral blood flow <18 mL/100 g/min (&bgr;=0.023 [−0.073, 0.119]). Conclusions— BP reduction does not increase the volume of critically hypoperfused borderzone or perihematoma tissue. These data support the safety of early BP reduction in intracerebral hemorrhage. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT00963976.
Body mass index and risk of gastric cancer: a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE Overweight and obesity, indicated as increased body mass index, are associated with the risk of some cancers. We carried out a meta-analysis on published cohort and case-control studies to assess the strength of association between body mass index and gastric cancer. METHODS Relevant studies were identified through PubMed, Web of Science and Medline electronic databases. Adjusted relative risks (odds ratios) with 95% confidence interval were used to assess the strength of association between body mass index and gastric cancer. RESULTS Sixteen eligible studies were included in this meta-analysis. Overall, obesity (body mass index ≥ 30 kg/m(2)) was associated with an increased risk of gastric cancer (odds ratio = 1.13, 95% confidence interval = 1.03-1.24) compared with normal weight (body mass index = 18.5 to <25 kg/m(2)), while overweight (body mass index = 18.5 to <30 kg/m(2)) showed no association (odds ratio = 1.04, 95% confidence interval = 0.96-1.12). Specifically, a stratified analysis showed there were associations between obesity and the increased risk of gastric cancer for males (odds ratio = 1.27, 95% confidence interval = 1.09-1.48), non-Asians (odds ratio = 1.14, 95% confidence interval = 1.02-1.28) and both cohort studies (odds ratio = 1.10, 95% confidence interval = 1.00-1.22) and case-control studies (odds ratio = 1.29, 95% confidence interval = 1.03-1.60). Both overweight (odds ratio = 1.22, 95% confidence interval = 1.05-1.42) and obesity (odds ratio = 1.61, 95% confidence interval = 1.15-2.24) were associated with the increased risk of gastric cardia cancer. CONCLUSIONS The results indicated that obesity was associated with the risk of gastric cancer, especially for males and among non-Asians. Both overweight and obesity were associated with the risk of gastric cardia cancer.
Robust finite-time consensus tracking for second-order multi-agent systems with reduced communication

In this paper, we study the finite-time consensus tracking problem for second-order multi-agent systems with input uncertain dynamics and external disturbances. Robust finite-time consensus tracking controllers are designed with reduced communication. The proposed controllers achieve finite-time consensus tracking in the presence of bounded input uncertainties with only relative position information under general directed communication topologies. Both the cases of static and dynamic leaders are considered. An application in the coordinated attitude control of multiple satellites is used as an example to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies.
Acute Effects of Sildenafil and Dobutamine in the Hypertrophic and Failing Right Heart in Vivo

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether acute intravenous administration of the phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE-5) inhibitor sildenafil in a single clinically relevant dose improves the in vivo function of the hypertrophic and failing right ventricle (RV). Wistar rats (n = 24) were subjected to pulmonary trunk banding (PTB) causing RV hypertrophy and failure. Four weeks after surgery, they were randomized to receive an intravenous bolus dose of sildenafil (1 mg/kg; n = 7), vehicle (n = 6), or dobutamine (10 μg/kg; n = 6). Invasive RV pressures were recorded continuously, and transthoracic echocardiography was performed 1, 5, 15, 25, 35, 50, 70, and 90 minutes after injecting the bolus. Cardiac function was compared to baseline measurements to evaluate the in vivo effects of each specific treatment. The PTB procedure caused significant hypertrophy, cardiac fibrosis, and reduction in RV function evaluated by echocardiography (TAPSE) and invasive pressure measurements. Sildenafil did not improve the function of the hypertrophic failing right heart in vivo, measured by TAPSE, RV systolic pressure (RVsP), and dp/dtmax. Dobutamine improved RV function 1 minute after injection measured by TAPSE (0.1242 ± 0.03 vs. 0.1565 ± 0.04 cm; P < 0.001), RVsP (83 ± 11 vs. 107 ± 11 mmHg; P < 0.001), and dp/dtmax (3, 136 ± 521 vs. 4, 489 ± 706 mmHg/s; P < 0.001). Acute administration of the PDE-5 inhibitor sildenafil in a single clinically relevant dose did not modulate the in vivo function of the hypertrophic failing right heart of the rat measured by echocardiography and invasive hemodynamics. In the same model, dobutamine acutely improved RV function.
Automatic Generation of Just-in-time Online Assessments from Software Design Models

Computer software is pervasive in today’s society. The rate at which new versions of computer software products are released is phenomenal when compared to the release rate of new products in traditional industries such as aircraft building. This rapid rate of change can partially explain why most certifications in the software industry are generic as opposed to those in the aircraft-building industry where engineers and technicians are certified to work on a specific aircraft. For example, a software engineer may be certified on a database management system, but not on a specific implementation based on the database management system. Hence, software engineers are allowed to make critical changes to specific designs for the next release of a software product with little formal assessment of their understanding of the design. This paper presents a system that automatically generates just-in-time online assessments for judging a software engineer’s comprehension of artifacts representing software designs. The assessments thus generated are compliant with the IMS-QTI 2.1 standard. The system is based on the AXIS web-services architecture and provides a priori statistical estimates of effectiveness of each individually generated assessment.
Project/Team LEAR : Learning and Recognition in Vision

LEAR is part of the GRAVIR/IMAG laboratory, a Joint Research Unit of INRIA, the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) and the Universite Joseph Fourier (UJF). LEAR was created officially on 1st July 2003, but this report summarizes the activities of its members throughout all of 2003.
A lightweight mutual authentication protocol for RFID networks

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is expected to become an important and ubiquitous infrastructure technology of supply chain processes and customer service. The low-cost tag, or so-called passive tag, will be likely the factor for widespread adoption of the technology. It must be noticed that the deployment of such tags may create new threats to user privacy due to the powerful tracking capability of the tags. As a result, some sort of security issues must be imposed on the passive tags for addressing the privacy problem. However, providing security in such tags is a challenging task because they are highly resource constrained and cannot support strong cryptography. This paper provides both discussion on the requirements and restrictions of security implementation of a RFID system. It also examines the features and issues pertinent to several existing RFID security solution. Finally, this paper suggests the use of our proposed lightweight security protocol based on Ohkubo's scheme, which protects user privacy using a hash chain mechanism and also provides an analysis of the protocol
Beyond Nagios - Design of a Cloud Monitoring System

The paper describes a monitoring system specially designed for cloud infrastructures. The features that are relevant for such distributed application are -) scalability, that allows utilization in systems of thousands of nodes, -) flexibility, to be customized for a large number of applications, -) openness, to allow the coexistence of user and administration monitoring. We take as a starting point the Nagios monitoring system, that has been successfully used for Grid monitoring and is still used for clouds. We analyze its shortcomings when applied to cloud monitoring, and propose a new monitoring system, that we call Rocmon, that sums up Nagios experience with a cloud perspective. Like Nagios, Rocmon is plugin-oriented to be flexible. To be fully interoperable and long-living, it uses standard tools: the OGF OCCI for the configuration interface, the REST paradigm to take advantage of Web tools, and HTML5 WebSockets for data transfers. The design is checked with an open source Ruby implementation featuring the most relevant aspects.
Noninvasive Transcutaneous Doppler Ultrasound–Derived Hemodynamic Reference Ranges in Chinese Adolescents

Objectives: The ultrasonic cardiac output monitor is a noninvasive, quantitative method for measuring and monitoring cardiovascular hemodynamic parameters in patients. The aims of this study were first to establish reference ranges for cardiovascular indices measured by the ultrasonic cardiac output monitor in Chinese children aged 12–18 yr, second to assess the interobserver reliability of the method, and third to compare these ranges with a Caucasian group from Australia. Design, Setting, and Subjects: This was a population-based cross-sectional cohort study of Chinese adolescents 12–18 years old, performed in secondary schools in Hong Kong. Interventions: Ultrasonic cardiac output monitor scans were performed on each subject to measure stroke volume, cardiac output, and systemic vascular resistance together with standard oscillometric measurement of blood pressure and heart rate. Ultrasonic cardiac output monitor parameters were also standardized by deriving body surface area referenced indices. Normal ranges were defined as lying within two standard deviations on either side of the mean. To assess interobserver variability, a second, blinded operator repeated 17% of scans. Measurements and Main Results: A total of 590 Chinese adolescents (49% boys) were scanned. Normal ranges for cardiac output, cardiac index, stroke volume, stroke volume index, stroke volume resistance, and systemic vascular resistance index are presented. Males had a significantly higher mean stroke volume, cardiac output, and systemic vascular resistance index compared with females (p < 0.05), but no significant differences were found for the indexed values. When compared with a group of 31 Australian Caucasian adolescents (71% boys), Chinese adolescents have a significantly lower cardiac output and stroke volume (p <0.05), but these differences disappeared when adjusted for body surface area (i.e., stroke volume index, cardiac index, and systemic vascular resistance index). Interobserver variability of ultrasonic cardiac output monitor–derived stroke volume showed a coefficient of variation of 10.2%, a correlation coefficient of 0.90 (95% confidence interval 0.85–0.93), while Bland-Altman analysis showed a mean bias of 1.5% (95% limits of agreement were –19.9% to 23.0%). Conclusions: This study presents normal values for cardiovascular indices in Chinese adolescents using the ultrasonic cardiac output monitor. When referenced to body surface area, the differences between Caucasians and Chinese were insignificant.
Leishmania major Phosphoglycans Influence the Host Early Immune Response by Modulating Dendritic Cell Functions

ABSTRACT The precise role of Leishmania glycoconjugate molecules including phosphoglycans (PGs) and lipophosphoglycan (LPG) on host cellular responses is still poorly defined. Here, we investigated the interaction of Leishmania major LPG2 null mutant (lpg2−), which lacks both PGs and LPG, with dendritic cells (DCs) and the subsequent early immune response in infected mice. Surprisingly, the absence of phosphoglycans did not influence expression pattern of major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC II), CD40, CD80, and CD86 on DCs in vitro and in vivo. However, lpg2−L. major induced significantly higher production of interleukin-12p40 (IL-12p40) by infected bone marrow-derived DCs (BMDCs) than wild-type (WT) parasites in vitro. Furthermore, the production of IL-12p40 by draining lymph node cells from lpg2− mutant-infected mice was higher than those from WT L. major-infected mice. In model antigen presentation experiments, DCs from lpg2− mutant-infected mice induced more gamma interferon (IFN-γ) and IL-2 production by Leishmania-specific T cells than those from WT-infected mice. Lymphocytes isolated from mice infected for 3 days with lpg2− parasites produce similar levels of IFN-γ, but significantly less IL-4 and IL-10 than WT controls. Decreased IL-4 production was also seen in another general PG-deficient mutant lacking the Golgi UDP-galactose transporters (lpg5A−lpg5B−), but not with the lpg1− mutant lacking only LPG, thereby implicating PGs generally in the reduction of IL-4 production. Thus, Leishmania PGs influence host early immune response by modulating DC functions in a way that inhibits antigen presentation and promotes early IL-4 response, and their absence may impact the balance between Th1 and Th2 responses.
Quantified Equality Constraints

An equality template (also equality constraint language) is a relational structure with infinite universe whose relations can be defined by boolean combinations of equalities. We prove a complete complexity classification for quantified constraint satisfaction problems (QCSPs) over equality templates: these problems are in L (decidable in logarithmic space), NP-complete, or PSPACE-complete. To establish our classification theorem we combine methods from universal algebra with concepts from model theory.
An E ective and Practical Performance Prediction Model forParallel Computing on Non-dedicated Heterogeneous NOW

Networks of Workstations (NOW) are receiving increased attention as a viable platform for high performance parallel computations. Heterogeneity and time-sharing are two characteristics that distinguish the NOW systems from conventional multiprocessor/multicomputer systems which are homogeneous and dedicated. It is important to have a practical model for users to predict the execution times of large-scale parallel applications on non-dedicated heterogeneous NOW. Another objective of this study is to provide insight into the dynamic performance of parallel computing, and into the eeects of program structures and system factors on such a platform. In this paper, we study performance predictions for parallel computing on non-dedicated heterogeneous networks of workstations. Our approach is based on a two-level model. On the top level a semi-deterministic task graph is used to capture the parallel execution behavior including the variances of communication and synchronization. On the bottom level, a discrete time model is used to quantify eeects from NOW systems. An iterative process is used to determine the interactive eeects between network contention and task execution. We validate the prediction model using experiments on a non-dedicated heterogeneous NOW. The maximum diierences between predicted results and measured results were less than 10% in most cases, and 15% in the worst cases.