Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Network architectures for packet classification in wireless mobile network

In IEEE 802.16e, one of mechanisms for service differentiation over the air interface relies on packet classification in the mobile subscriber station (MSS) and the access point (AP). Classification involves matching multiple packet header fields against a possibly large set of classifier rules identifying the different service classes. In the Internet router, two important classification properties are fast lookup time and low memory consumption. In a wireless mobile network, there are frequent dynamic updates of classifier rules whenever MSS move among cells. Fast handoffs demand fast update time. Frequent updates between MSS and AP degrade the efficiency of network resources and classification performance. The paper considers distributed and centralized network architectures for classification, and analyzes the signaling loads for updating classifier rules during handoffs and their classification performance. We show that the distributed architecture has a better classification performance but generates more signaling load. The paper concludes that, for fast handoffs, a tradeoff between classification performance and the efficiency of network resources is needed.
The Development and Evaluation of a Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Method for the Rapid Detection of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi

Typhoid fever remains a public health threat in many countries. A positive result in traditional culture is a gold-standard for typhoid diagnosis, but this method is time consuming and not sensitive enough for detection of samples containing a low copy number of the target organism. The availability of the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay, which offers high speed and simplicity in detection of specific targets, has vastly improved the diagnosis of numerous infectious diseases. However, little research efforts have been made on utilizing this approach for diagnosis of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi by targeting a single and specific gene. In this study, a LAMP assay for rapid detection of S. Typhi based on a novel marker gene, termed STY2879-LAMP, was established and evaluated with real-time PCR (RT-PCR). The specificity tests showed that STY2879 could be amplified in all S. Typhi strains isolated in different years and regions in China, whereas no amplification was observable in non-typhoidal strains covering 34 Salmonella serotypes and other pathogens causing febrile illness. The detection limit of STY2879-LAMP for S. Typhi was 15 copies/reaction in reference plasmids, 200 CFU/g with simple heat-treatment of DNA extracted from simulated stool samples and 20 CFU/ml with DNA extracted from simulated blood samples, which was 10 fold more sensitive than the parallel RT-PCR control experiment. Furthermore, the sensitivity of STY2879-LAMP and RT-PCR combining the traditional culture enrichment method for simulated stool and blood spiked with lower S. Typhi count during the 10 h enrichment time was also determined. In comparison with LAMP, the positive reaction time for RT-PCR required additional 2-3 h enrichment time for either simulated stool or blood specimens. Therefore, STY2879-LAMP is of practical value in the clinical settings and has a good potential for application in developing regions due to its easy-to-use protocol.
A Generic Deformable Model for Vehicle Recognition

This paper reports the development of a highly parameterised 3-D model able to adopt the shapes of a wide variety of different classes of vehicles (cars, vans, buses, etc), and its subsequent specialisation to a generic car class which accounts for most commonly encountered types of car (includng saloon, hatchback and estate cars). An interactive tool has been developed to obtain sample data for vehicles from video images. A PCA description of the manually sampled data provides a deformable model in which a single instance is described as a 6 parameter vector. Both the pose and the structure of a car can be recovered by fitting the PCA model to an image. The recovered description is sufficiently accurate to discriminate between vehicle sub-classes.
Cytotoxic activity in broth-culture filtrates of Campylobacter pylori.

Broth-culture filtrates of Campylobacter pylori induced non-lethal cytopathic effects in vitro in 7 of 9 mammalian cell lines tested. Transmission electronmicroscopy revealed that the response consisted of intracellular vacuolisation. Intestine 407 cells were among the most responsive and were used for routine assay. About 55% of isolates of C. pylori tested, originating from four geographic regions worldwide, produced cytotoxic activity. The activity was neutralisable by specific antisera to broth-culture filtrates or to sonicated bacteria but not by antisera to other bacterial preparations. Cytotoxic activity was heat-labile (70 degrees C for 30 min), was protease-sensitive and ammonium-sulphate precipitable. It did not pass through an ultrafiltration membrane with a nominal mol. -wt limit of 100 X 10(3). It was concluded that C. pylori can produce a factor that alters cultured cells in vitro. The relevance of this factor to the pathogenesis of gastritis associated with C. pylori remains to be determined.
An Efficient Dictionary Learning Algorithm and Its Application to 3-D Medical Image Denoising

In this paper, we propose an efficient dictionary learning algorithm for sparse representation of given data and suggest a way to apply this algorithm to 3-D medical image denoising. Our learning approach is composed of two main parts: sparse coding and dictionary updating. On the sparse coding stage, an efficient algorithm named multiple clusters pursuit (MCP) is proposed. The MCP first applies a dictionary structuring strategy to cluster the atoms with high coherence together, and then employs a multiple-selection strategy to select several competitive atoms at each iteration. These two strategies can greatly reduce the computation complexity of the MCP and assist it to obtain better sparse solution. On the dictionary updating stage, the alternating optimization that efficiently approximates the singular value decomposition is introduced. Furthermore, in the 3-D medical image denoising application, a joint 3-D operation is proposed for taking the learning capabilities of the presented algorithm to simultaneously capture the correlations within each slice and correlations across the nearby slices, thereby obtaining better denoising results. The experiments on both synthetically generated data and real 3-D medical images demonstrate that the proposed approach has superior performance compared to some well-known methods.
A novel nonlinear modulation technique for stabilizing DC-DC switching converters

In this paper a novel modulation technique is proposed to eliminate instabilities such as subharmonic and chaotic oscillations in dc-dc switching converters. This modulation technique injects a stabilizing signal which is generated internally from its own state variables so that the system is free from the problems due to externally injected signal, such as frequency mismatch, phase shift, etc. Stability analysis of the system is carried out using Floquet theory taking into account its switching nature. Our results show that the system has larger stable region in the parameter space compared to the conventional modulation techniques. Numerical simulations illustrate the performance of the proposed technique under line and load disturbances.
Influence of extraction solvent on antioxidant capacity value of oleaster measured by ORAC method

Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) is a widely used hydrogen atom transfer-based method which measures the antioxidant capacity of natural products. ORAC values of oleaster (Elaeagnus angustifolia L.), which was extracted with ethanol/acetone (7:3, v/v), ethanol/water (1:1, v/v) and methanol/water (1:1, v/v) in order to evaluate the effects of solvent type on antioxidant capacity, were examined. In general, results revealed that ethanol/water extracts exhibited better antioxidant capacity values. Furthermore, results obtained by using ORAC-eosin y (ORAC-EY), one of the widely used derivative of fluorescein (FL), as a fluorescent probe were compared with those obtained by using ORAC-FL. According to the results, ORAC-EY values were found to be compatible with ORAC-FL values.
Regional and Subcellular Distribution of Thy‐1 in Human Brain Assayed by a Solid‐Phase Radioimmunoassay

Abstract: A solid‐phase radioimmunoassay, specific for the monomeric form of human Thy‐1, was developed and used for quantitation of the Thy‐1 antigen in human brain tissue. Determination of Thy‐1 in homogenates of 12 anatomically defined brain regions showed that Thy‐1 is present throughout the human brain. However, significant variation was found in the expression of the glycoprotein in different regions. Thy‐1 appears to be generally enriched within gray matter: caudate nucleus, cerebral cortex, and putamen were found to contain the highest Thy‐1 concentration (approximately 2.5 μg Thy‐1/mg protein). Interestingly, the cerebellar cortex contained only 25% of the Thy‐1 concentration of cerebral gray matter. Cerebral subcortical white matter contained half the amount of Thy‐1 compared to cerebral cortex. Determination of Thy‐1 in subcellular fractions prepared from human brain biopsy tissue indicated that the highest relative concentration of Thy‐1 is associated with synaptosomal membranes and myelin/axonal membrane fractions.
Combining automated analysis and visualization techniques for effective exploration of high-dimensional data

Visual exploration of multivariate data typically requires projection onto lower-dimensional representations. The number of possible representations grows rapidly with the number of dimensions, and manual exploration quickly becomes ineffective or even unfeasible. This paper proposes automatic analysis methods to extract potentially relevant visual structures from a set of candidate visualizations. Based on features, the visualizations are ranked in accordance with a specified user task. The user is provided with a manageable number of potentially useful candidate visualizations, which can be used as a starting point for interactive data analysis. This can effectively ease the task of finding truly useful visualizations and potentially speed up the data exploration task. In this paper, we present ranking measures for class-based as well as non class-based Scatterplots and Parallel Coordinates visualizations. The proposed analysis methods are evaluated on different datasets.
Rat Parvovirus Type 1: the Prototype for a New Rodent Parvovirus Serogroup

ABSTRACT A newly recognized parvovirus of laboratory rats, designated rat parvovirus type 1a (RPV-1a), was found to be antigenically distinct. It was cloned, sequenced, and compared with the University of Massachusetts strain of rat virus (RV-UMass) and other autonomous parvoviruses. RPV-1a VP1 identity with these viruses never exceeded 69%, thus explaining its antigenic divergence. In addition, RPV-1a had reduced amino acid identity in NS coding regions (82%), reflecting phylogenetic divergence from other rodent parvoviruses. RPV-1a infection in rats had a predilection for endothelium and lymphoid tissues as previously reported for RV. Infectious RPV-1a was isolated 3 weeks after inoculation of infant rats, suggesting that it, like RV, may result in persistent infection. In contrast to RV, RPV-1a was enterotropic, a characteristic previously associated with parvovirus infections of mice rather than rats. RPV-1a also differed from RV in that infection was nonpathogenic for infant rats under conditions where RV infection causes high morbidity and mortality. Thus, RPV-1a is the prototype virus of an antigenically, genetically, and biologically distinct rodent parvovirus serogroup.
A fully integrated charge pump using parasitics to increase the usable capacitance by 25 % and the efficiency by up to 18 % with poly-poly capacitors

In this paper, an advanced layout scheme of an integrated capacitor is presented which improves the efficiency of a poly-poly capacitor based voltage doubler charge pump. The main losses in voltage doubler charge pumps are mathematically described and the importance of low stray capacitances are discussed. By means of the improved poly-poly capacitor layout, the usable capacitance is increased while the stray capacitance is reduced. To quantify the improvements, a standard charge pump architecture is fabricated in a 0.35 μm CMOS technology with three different capacitor types. The presented measurement results show an efficiency of up to 77.9 % and an improvement by up to 18 % if compared to the same charge pump architecture using a standard capacitor. While following all design rules, the improved poly-poly capacitor layout scheme achieves almost the efficiency of a double metal-metal capacitor which allows typically for the highest efficiency of fully integrated charge pumps.
Intimacy and angst in the field

This article explores the paradoxes of angst and intimacy in ‘the field. ’ One aim of feminist research is to attend to overlooked day-to-day practices through which difference and power work. Yet, this focus on intimate and submerged experience is also risky, potentially asking that people share their most intimate experiences with the researcher. How does such attention to the personal lives of others intersect with ethical demands and postcolonial critiques of representation? A desire to understand the submerged life of the geopolitical in women's day-to-day life in India's Ladakh region has driven my research on the politics of marriage and contraceptive choices. Taken by a feminist approach to the geopolitical, I sought out the ways that intimate life was inflected by territorial struggles, without adequately comprehending either the promise or the risks of making intimacy and the body a subject of research. This work was complicated and enriched by my status as a foreigner married into a local family, which provides a not-quite-outsider positionality. This article reflects on the role of intimacy in fieldwork in two senses: doing research on intimacy, and navigating intimacies in and after the field. I argue that intimate fieldwork is full of both promise and peril for feminist researchers. I call then for careful engagement with such topics, and for a rethinking of the boundaries of the field as they relate to the researcher, who carries these boundaries in his or her own body when navigating social relations in the field.
More like Us: The Effect of Immigrant Generation on College Success in Mathematics 1

This article investigates the impact of immigrant generation on students’ performance in college calculus courses and examines the extent to which the observed patterns corroborate or contradict various assimilation theories. It goes beyond past studies of the relationship between immigrant generation and mathematics achievement that focused primarily on middle and high school students and typically excluded foreign students. Our principal finding is that foreign students and the 1.25 generation earned the highest grades, on average, even after controlling for race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Our findings provide partial support for the immigrant advantage theory.
Fuzzy image fusion application in detecting coronary layers in IVUS pictures

Intra Vascular UltraSound (IVUS) is a medical imaging technique, which is based on inserting an ultrasound catheter inside a vessel and producing real-time high-resolution images from the inner side of the vessel. In this paper, processing of fused IVUS frames in order to automatically detecting the coronary inner layers is provided. To reach this goal, preprocessing actions including substitution of the catheter region with the average brightness of the whole image, wavelet transform and edge-preserving smoothing are performed first. Then detecting the borders applying deformable models (distance-potential snake is used according to these images topology) has been displayed. Finally, using fuzzy integral operators for fusion in three levels including data-level, feature- level and decision-level, the mentioned process is done again and the good effect of image fusion on the IVUS frames of NIOC hospital data bank has been displayed. This method has the advantage of being fully automated, without needing the initial contour to be manually determined. The merit of this method comparing with similar methods is also its acceptable executing time, which is very important for curing patients.
Genetic Ablation of CD38 Protects against Western Diet-Induced Exercise Intolerance and Metabolic Inflexibility

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a key cofactor required for essential metabolic oxidation-reduction reactions. It also regulates various cellular activities, including gene expression, signaling, DNA repair and calcium homeostasis. Intracellular NAD+ levels are tightly regulated and often respond rapidly to nutritional and environmental changes. Numerous studies indicate that elevating NAD+ may be therapeutically beneficial in the context of numerous diseases. However, the role of NAD+ on skeletal muscle exercise performance is poorly understood. CD38, a multi-functional membrane receptor and enzyme, consumes NAD+ to generate products such as cyclic-ADP-ribose. CD38 knockout mice show elevated tissue and blood NAD+ level. Chronic feeding of high-fat, high-sucrose diet to wild type mice leads to exercise intolerance and reduced metabolic flexibility. Loss of CD38 by genetic mutation protects mice from diet-induced metabolic deficit. These animal model results suggest that elevation of tissue NAD+ through genetic ablation of CD38 can profoundly alter energy homeostasis in animals that are maintained on a calorically-excessive Western diet.
PCR Analysis of platelet mtDNA: Lack of specific changes in Parkinson's disease

An alteration within the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has been hypthesized to underlie the deficiencies in mitochondrial complex I activity observed in the platelets, striatal muscle, and brain tissue of individuals with Parkinson's disease. Here we utilized the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to analyze mtDNA obtained from the platelets of nonmedicated patients with early Parkinson's disease (n =8) and aged‐matched cantrols (n =6) for the presence of deletion(s) or addition(s) equal to or greater than 50–100 base pairs. Initial attention was focused upon detecting a 4.977 kb deletion previously found in the brains of parkinsonian patients and some aged controls. Indeed, a large deletion of approximately 5.0 kb was observed in the platelet mtDNA from all parkinsonian individuals. However, this defect was also found in all age‐matched controls as well as in a group of young healthy subjects (n = 5). In addition, we searched for the presence of smaller changes in platelet mtDNA from parkinsonian patients by PCR analysis of four mtDNA segments that code for seven of the complex I polypeptides. No large deletions or additions were detected within these four regions of mtDNA in any of the disease or age‐matched control samples. We conclude that (a) a 4.977 kb deletion is apparently present in a subpopulation of platelet mtDNA from all individuals, and (b) no macrosequence alteration in mtDNA is likely to underlie the deficiency in complex I activity reported in platelet mitochondria from parkinsonian patients.
Traumatic brain injury patients: does frontal brain lesion influence basic emotion recognition?

Adequate emotion recognition is relevant to individuals' interpersonal communication. Patients with frontal traumatic brain injury (TBI) exhibit a lower response to facial emotional stimuli, influencing social interactions. In this sense, the main goal of the current study was to assess the ability of TBI patients in recognizing basic emotions. Photographs of facial expressions of five basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and surprise) were presented to 32 TBI patients and 41 healthy controls. Emotion recognition was measured by accuracy and reaction time. Overall performance of the TBI group was poorer than control group for emotion recognition, both in terms of accuracy and reaction time. It is suggested that TBI patients show impairment on emotion recognition, and this relation seems to be moderated by the lesion localization.
An Investigation of the Internal Structure of the Biggs Study Process Questionnaire

Analysis of the responses of 562 Australian university students to the Biggs Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) showed the scales to reflect only moderate internal consistency reliability and to lack uni dimensionality. However, factor analysis of the scales revealed a similar structure to that reported by Biggs (1978) and lent support to Biggs' proposed model of the study process complex.
Voters Apathy and Revival of Genuine Political Participation in Nigeria

Voters’ apathy has become increasingly serious globally indicative of the need to build a sustainable society with minimal voters apathy. The study investigates the causes of voters’ apathy . Questionnaires were distributed to 1,120 respondents. The mean age was 24.89, SD=1.70. The gender mean was 1.46 and occupation mean was 1.80. Result revealed that there exist a relationship between voter’s age, occupation and gender and voting in general (P=0.000). The age of voters, the occupation and gender are all significantly related to voters apathy. What could be done to revive genuine political participation was therefore discussed. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013. v4n3p439
Enabling Rapid Creation of Content for Consumption in Mobile Augmented Reality

As smart phones are getting powerful multimedia devices, with a plethora of sensors, they are the perfect enablers for Augmented Reality, allowing users to see the real world through a magic lens. Augmented Reality applications and services have been typically utilized in a limited number of domains, while adding new content is typically a privilege of developers, as programming skills are required for linking to existing clients or systems. In this paper we study how power users and small businesses can bring their content, advertizing and general data to an Augmented Reality view, with minimal effort. We present three prototyped approaches based on the Image Space mirror world service.
Evidence for the chemical interaction between 2-mercaptoethanol and tetrahydrofolate.

Ascorbate, 2-mercaptoethanol, and 2,3-dimercaptopropanol (l-3) are used as protective agents to stabilize solutions of tetrahydrofolate and its derivatives. The protective action of these compounds has been thought to be due exclusively to their reducing properties. The spontaneous decomposition of HI-folate to the diazotizable amine, p-aminobenzoylglutamate, has been used to measure quantitatively the reduction of folate with folate reductase (4-6). This method has been criticized as not being quantitative (7). It has been found in this laboratory that when no mercaptoethanol is used during the enzymatic reduction of folate, the amount of diazotizable amine formed is quantitative. On the other hand, when samples of H4-folate prepared by different procedures in the presence of mercaptoethanol were assayed for the content of diazotizable amine, in no case was there a quantitative release of ABG.1 The purpose of the investigation reported here was to clarify this discrepancy. Evidence for a chemical interaction between HI-folate and 2mercaptoethanol is presented. This interaction has a somewhat stabilizing effect on H1-folate. It will also be shown that the rate of spontaneous decomposition of Htfolate to the diazotizable amine is much slower in the case of H1-folate-mercaptoethanol complex.