Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IoT-based integration of IEC 61131 industrial automation systems: The case of UML4IoT

Internet of Things (IoT) plays a key role in the new generation of industrial automation systems (IASs). Evolving IoT standards if effectively used may address many challenges in the development of IASs. However, the use of the IoT and the REST architectural paradigm that IoT is based on, is not an easy task for the automation engineer. In this paper, a model driven system engineering process is adopted for IASs and it is extended to exploit IoT standardization efforts in IEC 61131 based system. IoT is considered as an enabling technology for the integration of cyber-physical and cyber components of the system and humans, bringing into the industrial automation domain the benefits of this technology. A UML profile for IoT is exploited to automate the generation process of the IoTwrapper, i.e., the software layer that is required on top of the IEC 61131 cyber part of the cyber-physical component to expose its functionality to the modern IoT IAS environment. A prototype implementation and performance measurements prove the feasibility of the presented approach.
The Irrelevance of Capital Structure for the Impact of Inflation on Investment

Studies concerning the effect of inflation on firms' investment decisions suggest that the form of financing is relevant in assessing the effect of inflation on investment. This paper demonstrates that when the equilibrium relationship between market rates of return on bonds and stocks is considered, the effect of inflation on investment is independent of the capital structure. The paper also shows that when the "Fisher effect" is assumed to hold, the cut-off rate of return on investment declines with anticipated inflation independently of the financing. However, if the real interest rate rises with inflation, inflation may increase the cut-off rate. CORPORATE INVESTMENT DECISIONS ARE affected by inflation because the tax code does not provide perfect adjustments for inflation: real tax payments may vary with the inflation rate, even if fully anticipated inflation does not affect other pre-tax real flows. Three such effects have been commonly discussed in the literature. First, the real tax shield on depreciation decreases with inflation because depreciation allowances for tax purposes are based on historical costs rather than on current nominal values. This "depreciation effect" causes the pretax required real rate of return on investments to rise with the rate of inflation. Second, the real tax subsidy on interest deductions increases with inflation because firms are allowed to deduct interest expenses at nominal rates rather than at real rates. If the interest rate does not rise with inflation sufficiently to offset the increased tax shelter, the cut-off rate of return tends to decrease with inflation. This effect is termed, in this paper, the "interest effect. " The third effect, the "capital gains" effect, may occur when inflation-induced nominal capital-gains on assets are subject to capital-gains tax. However, since firms do not pay capital-gains tax unless the asset is sold, these tax payments are deferred. The present value of these payments is presumed to be small and, therefore, the
A Discrete , Deterministic Model for Understanding Software Project Development Contingency Profiles

This paper describes a simple, discrete deterministic model for the allocation of project contingency as a function of project phase. When a project starts, there is always some uncertainty regarding the resources it will require. As the project proceeds, the participants discover this uncertainty and remove it through the expenditure of resources. In addition, the project may encounter unexpected changes in its environment that force the project to change. The model assumes that the project will eventually discover a (relatively small) number of contingencies, each of which requires the same workforce and duration to resolve. Because the time of appearance and resolution time for each contingency is independent of other contingencies, there may be several overlapping contingencies the project will work on at the same time. Because the model assumes that contingencies suddenly add and subtract staff, managing staff becomes much more complex than is the case with a more uniform staffing plan. In particular, if there are appreciable hiring and firing costs, a project may find it desirable to simply retain staff that can be assigned to contingencies, even though there may be periods with no contingency work.
DNA-Dependent Protein Kinase Is a Therapeutic Target and an Indicator of Poor Prognosis in B-Cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Purpose: del(17p), del(11q), and associated p53 dysfunction predict for short survival and chemoresistance in B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) is activated by DNA damage and mediates DNA double-strand break repair. We hypothesized that inhibiting DNA-PK would sensitize CLL cells to drug-induced DNA damage and that this approach could increase the therapeutic index of agents used to treat CLL. Experimental Design: Fifty-four CLL cases were characterized for poor prognosis markers [del(17p), del(11q), CD38, and ZAP-70]. In selected cases, DNA-PK catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs) expression and activity and p53 function were also measured. Ex vivo viability assays established sensitivity to fludarabine and chlorambucil and also tested the ability of a novel DNA-PK inhibitor (NU7441) to sensitize CLL cells to these drugs. The effects of NU7441 on fludarabine-induced DNA damage repair were also assessed (Comet assays and detection of γH2AX). Results: DNA-PKcs levels correlated with DNA-PK activity and varied 50-fold between cases but were consistently higher in del(17p) (P = 0.01) and del(11q) cases. NU7441 sensitized CLL cells to chlorambucil and fludarabine, including cases with del(17p), del(11q), p53 dysfunction, or high levels of DNA-PKcs. NU7441 increased fludarabine-induced double-strand breaks and abrogated drug-induced autophosphorylation of DNA-PKcs at Ser2056. High DNA-PK levels predicted for reduced treatment-free interval. Conclusions: These data validate the concept of targeting DNA-PKcs in poor risk CLL, and demonstrate a mechanistic rationale for use of a DNA-PK inhibitor. The novel observation that DNA-PKcs is overexpressed in del(17p) and del(11q) cases indicates that DNA-PK may contribute to disease progression in CLL.
Service logic revisited: who creates value? And who co‐creates?

Purpose – In the discussion on service‐dominant logic and its consequences for value creation and marketing the inner meaning of the value‐in‐use notion and the nature of service marketing have not been considered thoroughly. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the meaning of a service logic as a logic for consumption and provision, respectively, and explore the consequences for value creation and marketing.Design/methodology/approach – Being a research‐based paper, the topic is approached by theoretical analysis and conceptual development.Findings – Discussing the differences between value‐in‐exchange and value‐in‐use, the paper concludes that value‐in‐exchange in essence concerns resources used as a value foundation which are aimed at facilitating customers' fulfilment of value‐in‐use. When accepting value‐in‐use as a foundational value creation concept customers are the value creators. Adopting a service logic makes it possible for firms to get involved with their customers' value‐generating proces.
Offline Decoding of End-Point Forces Using Neural Ensembles: Application to a Brain–Machine Interface

Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) hold a lot of promise for restoring some level of motor function to patients with neuronal disease or injury. Current BMI approaches fall into two broad categories-those that decode discrete properties of limb movement (such as movement direction and movement intent) and those that decode continuous variables (such as position and velocity). However, to enable the prosthetic devices to be useful for common everyday tasks, precise control of the forces applied by the end-point of the prosthesis (e.g., the hand) is also essential. Here, we used linear regression and Kalman filter methods to show that neural activity recorded from the motor cortex of the monkey during movements in a force field can be used to decode the end-point forces applied by the subject successfully and with high fidelity. Furthermore, the models exhibit some generalization to novel task conditions. We also demonstrate how the simultaneous prediction of kinematics and kinetics can be easily achieved using the same framework, without any degradation in decoding quality. Our results represent a useful extension of the current BMI technology, making dynamic control of a prosthetic device a distinct possibility in the near future.
Rat T Cell Responses to Superantigens . II . Ailelic Differences in V 38 . 2 and V 38 . 5 3 Chains Determine Responsiveness to Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B and Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus-encoded Products

The previous paper in this series demonstrates that rat T cells developing de novo in the presence of mouse mammary tumor virus (Mtv) antigens in rat --* severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mouse xenochimeras display a distinct pattern of V3-restricted deletion; this deletion pattern is remarkably similar to that occurring during thymic development of mouse T cells in Mtv + strains. In addition, T cells developing in the absence of Mtv antigens in these rat --~ mouse xenochimeras are tolerant of host antigens, but show strong primary proliferative responses in cultures stimulated with Mtv-7 § (Mls a) mouse cells; like the mouse, these rat T cell responses are dominated by V36 and V38 T cells. Here, we continue analysis of rat T cell responses to superantigens; we show that T cells from Lewis and Fischer 344 rats expressing VB8.2 display an important all-or-nothing difference in their responses to Mtv-7 superantigens. This all-ornone strain difference in the response to Mtv-7 applies also to the response by V38.2 and V38.5 T cells to the soluble superantigen staphylococcal enterotoxin B. Because these two rat strains express different alleles of these two V38 family members, this finding identifies additional, hitherto unreported residues of the T cell receptor 3 chain important in T cell responses to superantigens.
Taurine Boosts Cellular Uptake of Small d-Peptides for Enzyme-Instructed Intracellular Molecular Self-Assembly

Due to their biostability, d-peptides are emerging as an important molecular platform for biomedical applications. Being proteolytically resistant, d-peptides lack interactions with endogenous transporters and hardly enter cells. Here we show that taurine, a natural amino acid, drastically boosts the cellular uptake of small d-peptides in mammalian cells by >10-fold, from 118 μM (without conjugating taurine) to >1.6 mM (after conjugating taurine). The uptake of a large amount of the ester conjugate of taurine and d-peptide allows intracellular esterase to trigger intracellular self-assembly of the d-peptide derivative, further enhancing their cellular accumulation. The study on the mechanism of the uptake reveals that the conjugates enter cells via both dynamin-dependent endocytosis and macropinocytosis, but likely not relying on taurine transporters. Differing fundamentally from the positively charged cell-penetrating peptides, the biocompatibility, stability, and simplicity of the enzyme-cleavable taurine motif promise new ways to promote the uptake of bioactive molecules for countering the action of efflux pump and contributing to intracellular molecular self-assembly.
Red tides prediction using fuzzy inference and decision tree

A red tide is a temporary natural phenomenon in which harmful algal blooms (HABs) can lead to finfish and shellfish dying en masse. Prediction of red tide bloom consists of a categorical type and a numerical type, which can minimize the mitigation cost of HAB disasters and the suffering caused by the damage from red tide events. The categorical prediction has high precision but it represents a simple binary result, and the numerical prediction can predict how much harm an algal increase causes, but its prediction has lower accuracy than the results of the categorical type. This paper proposes a red tide prediction method that combines fuzzy inference with decision tree to obtain prediction results of the categorical and numerical types. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a better red tide prediction performance than other prediction methods by classifiers.
Sustainable and Just Social Protection in Southeast Asia

Poverty remains a continuing crisis in Southeast Asia, regardless of the timing and severity of the global economic crisis. Moreover, being poor and falling into poverty is often beyond an individual's capacity to avoid. Who should help these individuals and how much help should be given — the individuals themselves, their families, their friends, their communities, and/or their governments? A just and financially sustainable social protection system is perhaps an answer to those questions. This paper provides an analytical background for the five articles in this special issue of ASEAN Economic Bulletin, dealing with issues on social protection in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It discusses what social protection is, reviews an analytical framework of a continuum pioneered by Esping-Anderson (1990), and attempts to locate where the five Southeast Asian countries are in the continuum.
Multidrug resistance analysis in lymphoproliferative disease of large granular lymphocytes

Multi‐drug resistance (MDR) phenotype contributes to the ineffectiveness of chemotherapy. P‐glycoprotein (PgP) and lung resistance protein (LRP) are proteins implicated in chemoresistance. We analysed the expression of PgP and LRP respectively in 17 and 15 cases of lymphoproliferative disease of granular lymphocytes (LDGL) including 10 cases of clonal large granular lymphocytic (LGL) leukaemia, six cases of oligoclonal (n = 5) and polyclonal (n = 1) CD3+ lymphoproliferation and one case of CD3− NK lymphocytosis. Functional PgP activity, as determined by Rh123 dye efflux assay, was found in all the patients. The mean percentage of effluxing cells was 47 ± 22%, compared to 35 ± 8% on normal lymphocytes (P < 0.04). The efflux was blocked in the presence of verapamil, a PgP revertant agent. A high proportion of CD57+ cells (66 ± 10%) from these patients expelled Rh123. Functional PgP activity was associated with expression of MDR1 mRNA. By using immunocytochemistry, LRP expression was detected in 11/15 patients (73%). 7/10 LGL leukaemia patients presented a LRP+/Efflux+ phenotype and 5/7 had LRP+/Efflux+/MDR1 mRNA+ phenotype. These findings suggest that the PgP+/LRP+ phenotype is frequently observed in LDGL. Its clinical relevance in aggressive cases remains to be determined.
Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Promotes Macrophage-derived Foam Cell Formation by Up-regulating Cluster of Differentiation 36 (CD36) Expression*

Background: Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is involved in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Results: Pharmacological manipulation and siRNA treatment to reduce ER stress mitigate ox-LDL-induced CD36 up-regulation, which is promoted synergistically by ER stress inducer. Conclusion: ER stress promotes macrophage-derived foam cell formation by up-regulating CD36. Significance: ER stress-mediated macrophage-derived foam cell formation may be a novel target in the prevention of atherosclerosis. Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) up-regulates CD36, a scavenger receptor responsible for macrophage uptake of ox-LDL without limitation. However, the precise underlying mechanism is not completely understood. Our previous study has demonstrated that ox-LDL induces endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in macrophages. The goal of this study was to explore the exact relationship between ER stress and macrophage-derived foam cell formation and whether ER stress would be involved in ox-LDL-induced CD36 up-regulation. Our results showed that ox-LDL-induced lipid accumulation in macrophages was promoted synergistically by ER stress inducer tunicamycin (TM), while attenuated by ER stress inhibitor 4-phenylbutyric acid (PBA). Ox-LDL caused CD36 up-regulation with concomitant activation of ER stress as assessed by phosphorylation of inositol-requiring kinase/endonuclease-1 (IRE-1) and protein kinase-like ER kinase (PERK), up-regulation of X-box-binding protein 1 (XBP1) and glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP 78), and nuclear translocation of activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6). TM not only up-regulated CD36 alone but also synergized with ox-LDL to increase CD36 expression. Alleviation of ER stress with PBA and siRNA against ATF6, IRE1, and GRP78 mitigated ox-LDL-induced CD36 protein up-regulation. Moreover, administration of apoE−/− mice with PBA suppressed the up-regulation of CD36, phospho-IRE1, and GRP78 in macrophage-dense atherosclerotic lesions and in peritoneal macrophages. Additionally, CD36 silencing attenuated ox-LDL-induced nuclear translocation of ATF6, phosphorylation of IRE1 and up-regulation of XBP1 and GRP78. These data indicate that CD36-mediated ox-LDL uptake in macrophages triggers ER stress response, which, in turn, plays a critical role in CD36 up-regulation, enhancing the foam cell formation by uptaking more ox-LDL.
SR-IOV Based Network Interrupt-Free Virtualization with Event Based Polling

Along with the developments of networking and virtualization technologies, high speed network connections have become one of the key components in cloud computing and data-centers. Single-Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) enhances the network throughput to the extent of becoming close to the line rate and achieving high scalability in the 10Gbps and higher network environments. However, the overhead of SR-IOV interrupt virtualization remains significant due to some additional trap-and-emulation overhead on the virtual interrupt controller. The higher the virtualization network connection is, the higher the interrupt frequency becomes through high bandwidth network. To mitigate this problem, we propose a smart Event-Based Polling model (sEBP), which leverages existing system events to trigger a regular packet polling such that network interrupts are eliminated from the critical I/O paths in the virtual environment. Due to the many varieties of system events, sEBP can deal with the network workload in a configurable and flexible manner. Based on a hierarchical virtualized environment, it can also be implemented either at the guest OS kernel level or at the Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) level. Since polling is much lighter than interrupt processing, sEBP significantly reduces the network processing overhead. The experimental results prove the efficiency of sEBP, which can achieve up to a 59% performance improvement and a 23% improved scalability ratio.
Arbuscular mycorrhizal community composition associated with two plant species in a grassland ecosystem

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are biotrophic symbionts colonizing about two‐thirds of land plant species and found in all ecosystems. They are of major importance in plant nutrient supply and their diversity is suggested to be an important determinant of plant community composition. The diversity of the AM fungal community composition in the roots of two plant species (Agrostis capillaris and Trifolium repens) that co‐occurred in the same grassland ecosystem was characterized using molecular techniques. We analysed the small subunit (SSU) ribosomal RNA gene amplified from a total root DNA extract using AM fungal‐specific primers. A total of 2001 cloned fragments from 47 root samples obtained on four dates were analysed by restriction fragment length polymorphism, and 121 of them were sequenced. The diversity found was high: a total of 24 different phylotypes (groups of phylogenetically related sequences) colonized the roots of the two host species. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that 19 of these phylotypes belonged to the Glomaceae, three to the Acaulosporaceae and two to the Gigasporaceae. Our study reveals clearly that the AM fungal community colonizing T. repens differed from that colonizing A. capillaris, providing evidence for AM fungal host preference. In addition, our results reveal dynamic changes in the AM fungal community through time.
Social Mobility in Europe between 1970 and 2000

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Assessment of implanted stent coverage of side-branches in intravascular optical coherence tomographic images

Coronary stents improve the blood flow by keeping narrowed vessels open, but small stent cells that overlay a side branch may cause restenosis and obstruct the blood flow to the side branch. There are increasing demands for precise measurement of the stent coverage of side branches for outcome evaluation and clinical research. Capturing micrometerresolution images, intravascular optical coherence tomography (IVOCT) allows proper visualization of the stent struts, which subsequently can be used for the coverage measurement purpose. In this paper, a new approach to compute the stent coverage of side branches in IVOCT image sequences is presented. The amount of the stent coverage of a side branch is determined by the ostial area of the stent cells that cover this side branch. First, the stent struts and the guide wires are detected to reconstruct the irregular stent surface and the stent cell contours are generated to segment their coverage area on the stent surface. Next, the covered side branches are detected and their lumen contours are projected onto the stent surface to specify the side branch areas. By assessing the common parts between the stent cell areas and the side branch areas, the stent cell coverage of side branches can be computed. The evaluation based on a phantom data set demonstrated that the average error of the stent coverage of side branches is 8.9% ± 7.0%. The utility of the presented approach for in-vivo data sets was also proved by the testing on 12 clinical IVOCT image sequences.
Performance study of augmentation techniques for HEp2 CNN classification

Computers have been playing an important role in the medical field. More specifically in the field of computer aided diagnoses. Moreover, making computers and human work together, in the medical field, not only makes it easy for medical experts to do their tasks, but also makes their work more accurate. That is the main motivation of the growing utilization of advanced computer techniques such as machine learning and artificial intelligence in the medical field. In this proposed work, we use the recent machine learning framework that is implemented in the latest MATLAB[1] version to classify HEp2 cell images. Which is one of the difficult classification tasks for a computer due to the low resolution, amount of details, and also to how similar the different classes are from each other. We make an intense study for pre-augmentation and real-time augmentation that is built-in the latest MATLAB version. In this work we use Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with some of the state of the art techniques that proved significant improvements over older classical architectures. The proposed work has achieved 98.29% validation accuracy in only 10 epochs of training.