Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A graph-based trust-enhanced recommender system for service selection in IOT

In an Internet of Things (IOT) network, each node (device) provides and requires services and with the growth in IOT, the number of nodes providing the same service have also increased, thus creating a problem of selecting one reliable service from among many providers. In this paper, we propose a scalable graph-based collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm, improved using trust to solve service selection problem, which can scale to match the growth in IOT unlike a central recommender which fails. Using this recommender, a node can predict its ratings for the nodes that are providing the required service and then select the best rated service provider.
6MWT Performance and its Correlations with VO2 and Handgrip Strength in Home-Dwelling Mid-Aged and Older Chinese

Six-minute walk test (6MWT) performance is more commonly used in clinic patients with chronic cardiopulmonary diseases but not in home-dwelling individuals of similar age, and its correlations with oxygen uptake (VO2) and muscle strength require further investigation. The current study determined the 6MWT performance of 106 home-dwelling residents (mean age of 62 years) in Suzhou, China. VO2 at a respiratory exchange ratio (R) of 1 was measured through graded cycling exercise tests on 46 participants. Handgrip strength of all participants was tested. 6MWT distance measured 543.4 ± 67.2 m (total work 351.0 ± 62.8 kJ) with similar distances ambulated each minute. Heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of perceived exertion scores significantly increased after 6MWT. VO2 at R = 1 reached 1238 ± 342 mL/min (18.6 ± 4.7 mL/kg/min), whereas handgrip strength totaled 29.8 ± 9.6 kg. 6MWT distance showed strong correlations with VO2 (r = 0.549, p ≤ 0.001) and handgrip strength (r = 0.359, p < 0.001). Aside from providing reference values for 6MWT performance (~543 m, ~559 m in males and ~533 in females) for home-dwelling Chinese residents, our results suggest that as a parameter of exercise endurance, 6MWT performance correlates with both aerobic capacity and muscle fitness.
Electrical pulse stimulation: an in vitro exercise model for the induction of human skeletal muscle cell hypertrophy. A proof‐of‐concept study

What is the central question of this study? Is electrical pulse stimulation (EPS) an in vitro exercise model able to elicit the hypertrophy of human muscle cells? What is the main finding and its importance? The addition of a restitution period of 8 h after EPS induces the enlargement of human muscle cells, a major physiological end‐point to resistance exercise. This is supported by downregulation of myostatin, a negative regulator of muscle mass, and increased phosphorylated mTOR and 4E‐BP1, key factors in the growth cascade. This proof‐of‐concept study provides a model of physiologically mediated muscle growth, which will be the basis for future studies aiming to depict molecular events governing the hypertrophy of human muscle cells.
Impact of Line Resistance Variations on Crosstalk Delay and Noise in Multilayer Graphene Nano Ribbon Interconnects

Impact of line resistance variations on the crosstalk induced delay and noise is investigated in Multilayer Graphene Nano Ribbon interconnects (MLGNRs) with the help of Spectre simulations in Cadence Virtuoso design environment. Simulations are performed for intermediate and global level interconnects at both 11 nm and 8 nm technology node using latest ITRS-2013 parameters. It is found that irrespective of the technology nodes, doped perfectly specular MLGNR interconnects are marginally better as far as tolerance to line resistance variations is concerned. It is also noted that % of signal transmission delay variation is almost the same as the % line resistance variation, whereas % of peak noise voltage varies from ~1/4× to ~1/2× that of the % line resistance variation when ±40% variation is considered. Delay is found to be least affected due to line resistance variations (i.e., <;3% delay variations) when center line resistance is at the nominal value. Finally, our analysis has shown that from the perspective of line resistance variations, perfectly specular, doped multilayer zigzag GNR interconnects are more advantagious to copper interconnects for future Integrated circuit technology generations.
Reshaping economics to encompass quality of life issues

In this paper we have given a short account of the shortfalls of neoclassical economics, far removed from Aristotelian political economics, which was considered by him as the art of household management. The objective of it was a flourishing life or the Good Life. The main aim of humankind is the development of a desirable way of living and sustaining the quality of life, also for future generations. In order to achieve that goal, people created a number of institutions to facilitate achieving that end. All institutions, as they are devised for human purposes, cannot be outside human control, they should serve society. In the paper it is argued that the economy, as one of the social institutions, should play a particular role in enhancing human and non-human well-being. The paper contains the proposal of a unified system of measuring institutional and eco-system performance. Moreover, it is argued that among many proposals for the development of new proposals for studying economic matters, ecological economics is the most suitable for researching into the quality of life.
H160 helicopter: Development of a carbon thermoplastic hub

Airbus Helicopters is developing for the new helicopter H160, a main rotor hub made of carbon fiber with the thermoplastic resin PEEK, a key innovation for such rotor systems. This paper presents the Airbus Helicopters experience of rotor composite components based on thermoset resin and their specificities particularly the thickness and the fatigue loading. The key advantages of carbon thermoplastic material are then underlined. The mastering of the manufacturing process is a challenge and this paper presents the process applied in order to obtain the right quality level. The sizing and the certification process are also described. The development plan put in place will lead to be fully compliant with the last requirements coming from regulations CS29. Some key results are discussed.
Dynamics of cell wall components of Magnaporthe grisea during infectious structure development

Oligosaccharides derived from cell wall of fungal pathogens induce host primary immune responses. To understand fungal strategies circumventing the host plant immune responses, cell wall polysaccharide localization was investigated using fluorescent labels during infectious structure differentiation in the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea. α‐1,3‐glucan was labelled only on appressoria developing on plastic surfaces, whereas it was detected on both germ tubes and appressoria on plant surfaces. Chitin, chitosan and β‐1,3‐glucan were detected on germ tubes and appressoria regardless of the substrate. Major polysaccharides labelled at accessible surface of infectious hyphae were α‐1,3‐glucan and chitosan, but after enzymatic digestion of α‐1,3‐glucan, β‐1,3‐glucan and chitin became detectable. Immunoelectron microscopic analysis showed α‐1,3‐glucan and β‐1,3‐glucan intermixed in the cell wall of infectious hyphae; however, α‐1,3‐glucan tended to be distributed farther from the fungal cell membrane. The fungal cell wall became more tolerant to chitinase digestion upon accumulation of α‐1,3‐glucan. Accumulation of α‐1,3‐glucan was dependent on the Mps1 MAP kinase pathway, which was activated by a plant wax derivative, 1,16‐hexadecanediol. Taken together, α‐1,3‐glucan spatially and functionally masks β‐1,3‐glucan and chitin in the cell wall of infectious hyphae. Thus, a dynamic change of composition of cell wall polysaccharides occurs during plant infection in M. grisea.
Essays on nonlinear panel data models

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Mobile Augmented Reality using scalable recognition and tracking

In this paper, a new mobile Augmented Reality (AR) framework which is scalable to the number of objects being augmented is proposed. The scalability is achieved by a visual word recognition module on the remote server and a mobile phone which detects, tracks, and augments target objects with the received information from the server. The server and the mobile phone are connected through a conventional Wi-Fi. In the experiment, it takes 0.2 seconds for the cold start of an AR service initiation on a 10k object database, which is fairly acceptable in a real-world AR application.
Confidence Using Best Practices to Teach Writing: A Case Study of Community College Professors

Individuals charged with the instruction of writing to underprepared students have a formidable task. The subject of remedial education in higher education is a controversial subject, often accompanied by finger pointing at secondary education, family support levels, or society in general. Questions remain as to the way we assess college readiness, and numerous initiatives are taking place throughout the country to address these topics. One topic that has not received considerable attention to date is the confidence level of English professors to carry out their instruction using recommended practices. If the professors are not sure how best to approach their task, their link in the education chain becomes weak.
An Expert System for Harmonizing Four-Part Chorales

Quite a few trends in algorithmic composition today are based on a streamlined formalism, for example, in the form of random generation of note attributes using elegant statistical distributions (Xenakis 1971), terse and powerful formal grammars (Jones 1981), elegant mathematical models (Kendall 1981; Vaggione 1984), or generalizations of serial composition procedures (Laske 1981). The economy and elegance of the formal representation underlying these musical styles (which are not in the least less respectable than traditional styles of music), may often have an aesthetic appeal in and of themselves. On the other hand, traditional music and most of modern music, which are usually composed without a computer, do not seem to permit such economical representations. In the traditional style, the typical basic training the composer has to go through in harmony, strict counterpoint, fugue,
A new look at variation in employment growth in Canada

We examine fluctuations in employment growth using Canadian data from 1976 to 2010. We consider a wide range of models and examine the sensitivity of our â€¦findings to modeling assumptions. The results from our most preferred model, which we selected using the Bayesian Information Criteria, indicate that most of the variance in employment growth that is not due to the idiosyncratic error comes from domestic sources, with most of this coming from industry and provincial factors. Overall, we find external and national factors play a much smaller role in employment fluctuations than earlier research. We provide some possible explanations for these differences.
An Ultrasonic-Adaptive Beamforming Method and Its Application for Trans-skull Imaging of Certain Types of Head Injuries; Part I: Transmission Mode

A new adaptive beamforming algorithm for imaging via small-aperture 1-D ultrasonic-phased arrays through composite layered structures is reported. Such structures cause acoustic phase aberration and wave refraction at undulating interfaces and can lead to significant distortion of an ultrasonic field pattern produced by conventional beamforming techniques. This distortion takes the form of defocusing the ultrasonic field transmitted through the barrier and causes loss of resolution and overall degradation of image quality. To compensate for the phase aberration and the refractional effects, we developed and examined an adaptive beamforming algorithm for small-aperture linear-phased arrays. After accurately assessing the barrier's local geometry and sound speed, the method calculates a new timing scheme to refocus the distorted beam at its original location. As a tentative application, implementation of this method for trans-skull imaging of certain types of head injuries through human skull is discussed. Simulation and laboratory results of applying the method on skull-mimicking phantoms are presented. Correction of up to 2.5 cm focal point displacement at up to 10 cm depth under our skull phantom is demonstrated. Quantitative assessment of the method in a variety of temporal focusing scenarios is also reported. Overall temporal deviation on the order of a few nanoseconds was observed between the simulated and experimental results. The single-point adaptive focusing results demonstrate strong potential of our approach for diagnostic imaging through intact human skull. The algorithms were implemented on an ultrasound advanced open-platform controlling 64 active elements on a 128-element phased array.
Investigation of CaF2 substrate based plasmonic gas sensor in IR

The performance of proposed surface plasmon resonance based methane gas sensor based on Kretschmann configuration in infrared (IR) is discussed. In this structure, calcium fluoride (CaF2) substrate is considered with gold (Au) layer deposited on its base and methane gas is used as a sensing layer. Performance of sensor is analysed in terms of sensitivity and figure of merit (FOM) with various metal layer thicknesses using angular interrogation method.
Differential cold tolerance, starch, sugar, protein, and lipid of yellow and purple nutsedge tubers.

From measurements of viability after exposure of tubers to natural overwintering in the soil and 6 weeks exposure at 2 C, species cold tolerance of the tubers was ranked in decreasing order: yellow nutsedge ;I' (Cyperus esculentus L.), an ecotype originating in Illinois; yellow nutsedge ;G', an ecotype originating in Georgia; and purple nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus L.). The ratios of unsaturated-saturated fatty acids in tuber triglycerides, tuber polar lipids, and leaf polar lipids followed the same order as the cold tolerance rankings, with the most cold-hardy species having the highest ratios. Lipid content was less than 1% of dry weight in purple nutsedge tubers, but was from 5 to 7% in both yellow nutsedge tubers. Starch, sugar, and lipid contents increased significantly in the hardy yellow nutsedge ;I' tubers during a 6-week exposure to 2 C, but did not change in the susceptible purple nutsedge tubers; only sugar increased in yellow nutsedge ;G' tubers after this treatment. Protein content was not altered by the 2 C treatment in any of the tubers. Apparently, several factors involving starch, sugar, lipids, and fatty acids are related to the differences in tolerance to cold in these species.
Analysis of worst-case delay bounds for best-effort communication in wormhole networks on chip

In packet-switched network-on-chip, computing worst-case delay bounds is crucial for designing predictable and cost-effective communication systems but yet an intractable problem due to complicated resource sharing scenarios. For wormhole networks with credit-based flow control, the existence of cyclic dependency between flit delivery and credit generation further complicates the problem. Based on network calculus, we propose a technique for analyzing communication delay bounds for individual flows in wormhole networks. We first propose router service analysis models for flow control, link and buffer sharing. Based on these analysis models, we obtain a buffering-sharing analysis network, which is open-ended and captures both flow control and link sharing. Furthermore, we compute equivalent service curves for individual flows using the network contention tree model in the buffer-sharing analysis network, and then derive their delay bounds. Our experimental results verify that the theoretical bounds are correct and tight.
Genetic Analyses of Conserved Residues in the Carboxyl-Terminal Domain of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Integrase

ABSTRACT Results of in vitro assays identified residues in the C-terminal domain (CTD) of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) integrase (IN) important for IN-IN and IN-DNA interactions, but the potential roles of these residues in virus replication were mostly unknown. Sixteen CTD residues were targeted here, generating 24 mutant viruses. Replication-defective mutants were typed as class I (blocked at integration) or class II (additional reverse transcription and/or assembly defects). Most defective viruses (15 of 17) displayed reverse transcription defects. In contrast, replication-defective HIV-1E246K synthesized near-normal cDNA levels but processing of Pr55gag was largely inhibited in virus-producing cells. Because single-round HIV-1E246K.Luc(R-) transduced cells at approximately 8% of the wild-type level, we concluded that the late-stage processing defect contributed significantly to the overall replication defect of HIV-1E246K. Results of complementation assays revealed that the CTD could function in trans to the catalytic core domain (CCD) in in vitro assays, and we since determined that certain class I and class II mutants defined a novel genetic complementation group that functioned in cells independently of IN domain boundaries. Seven of eight novel Vpr-IN mutant proteins efficiently trans-complemented class I active-site mutant virus, demonstrating catalytically active CTD mutant proteins during infection. Because most of these mutants inefficiently complemented a class II CCD mutant virus, the majority of CTD mutants were likely more defective for interactions with cellular and/or viral components that affected reverse transcription and/or preintegration trafficking than the catalytic activity of the IN enzyme.
Expression of the angiopoietins and their receptor Tie2 in human renal clear cell carcinomas; regulation by the von Hippel‐Lindau gene and hypoxia

Angiogenesis is essential for tumour growth and metastasis, and is co‐ordinated by several classes of angiogenic factors. To determine the significance and regulation of the angiopoietin (Ang) pathway in highly vascular human renal cell carcinomas (RCCs), this study has investigated the expression of the Ang‐1, Ang‐2, Ang‐4, and Tie2 genes in a series of normal (n = 26) and neoplastic (n = 45; clear cell n = 35, papillary n = 10) human kidney tissues, examined the pattern of Ang‐2 and Tie2 protein expression, and correlated expression with clinicopathological variables. The effect of the von Hippel‐Lindau (VHL) gene and hypoxia in the renal cell lines RCC786‐0 and RCC4 has also been investigated. Ang‐1, Ang‐2 and Tie2, but not Ang‐4 mRNA, were detected in normal and tumour samples. A significant increase in Ang‐2 (p < 0.001) and a decrease in Tie2 receptor mRNA (p = 0.001) were observed, but no significant difference was observed in Ang‐1 mRNA abundance between normal kidney and RCC (p = 0.37). Immunohistochemistry for Ang‐2 showed strong expression in vascular endothelium and weak expression in tumour cells, whereas Tie2 was expressed exclusively on endothelium. Tie2 gene expression was positively correlated with Ang‐2 expression in cancers (p = 0.001) and showed a borderline significant association with Ang‐1 (p = 0.06), but there was no significant relationship between Ang‐1 and Ang‐2 (p = 0.69). No significant relationships were observed in clear cell carcinomas between Ang‐1, Ang‐2 and Tie2 mRNA abundance and patient sex, patient age, or tumour size (p > 0.05). However, there was significantly greater Ang‐1 (p = 0.02), Ang‐2 (p = 0.03), and Tie2 (p = 0.04) mRNA abundance in clear cell than in chromophil RCCs. Ang‐2 gene expression was down‐regulated by hypoxia in VHL wild‐type RCC786‐0 and RCC4 transfectants (p = 0.0002 and p = 0.04, respectively), mirroring the low expression in human tumour cells. These data suggest that it is endothelial induction of Ang‐2 in tumours that regulates vessel stability and supports targeting Tie2 as an effective novel anti‐angiogenic therapy in clear cell RCCs. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Long-Term Insulin Independence in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus Using a Simplified Autologous Stem Cell Transplant.

CONTEXT Efforts to find a cure for type 1 diabetes have focused on the removal of the autoimmune pathophysiologic substrate, with the use of immunosuppressive regimens including autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT). OBJECTIVE The main objective of determining long-term insulin independence as well as changes in glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). Secondary outcomes were procedure morbidity and the need for hospital management. DESIGN We enrolled patients with type 1 diabetes between 2012 and 2014. Median follow-up was 34 months (range, 25-56 mo). SETTING Ambulatory care. INTERVENTIONS We decided to carry out an AHSCT protocol using a less toxic and affordable simplified method based on fludarabine in an outpatient setting. PATIENTS Patients were of both sexes, age 8-25 years, with positive levels of anti-GAD antibodies, a C-peptide level >1.0 ng/mL, and <3 months since diagnosis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Insulin independence. RESULTS Sixteen patients were included. Overall response was 81% with seven patients achieving insulin independence (44%); six were partial responders (37%) whereas three were nonresponders (19%). The HbA1c level showed a mean decrease of -2.3% at 6 months in the Insulin Independence group. Median age was 12 years old (range, 8-17 years old). A mean of 11.5 × 10(6) CD34+ cells (SD ± 8.2) was obtained. Related mortality at 100 days was 0% as well as during follow-up. Outpatient setting was 100%. CONCLUSIONS Simplified AHSCT in an outpatient setting is a feasible, safe and potentially therapeutic intervention for early-onset type 1 diabetes.
INITIAL DISPARITY ESTIMATION USING SPARSE MATCHING FOR WIDE-BASELINE DENSE STEREO

We propose a triangulation based initialization met hod for dense disparity estimation from uncalibrated wide-b aseline image pairs using sparse correspondences. The metho d includes: (a) sparse correspondence retrieval, (b) Delaunay triangulation and homography estimation, and (c) ob taining a dense initial disparity map to initialize dense ste reo algorithms. Comparison with existing methods demons trates improvement in results with lower computational com plexity.