Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Joint buffer management and scheduling for input queued switches

JOINT BUFFER MANAGEMENT AND SCHEDULING FOR INPUT QUEUED SWITCHES by Dequan Liu Input queued (IQ) switches are highly scalable and they have been the focus of many studies from academia and industry. Many scheduling algorithms have been proposed for IQ switches. However, they do not consider the buffer space requirement inside an IQ switch that may render the scheduling algorithms inefficient in practical applications. In this dissertation, the Queue Length Proportional (QLP) algorithm is proposed for IQ switches. QLP considers both the buffer management and the scheduling mechanism to obtain the optimal allocation region for both bandwidth and buffer space according to real traffic load. In addition, this dissertation introduces the Queue Proportional Fairness (QPF) criterion, which employs the cell loss ratio as the fairness metric. The research in this dissertation will show that the utilization of network resources will be improved significantly with QPF. Furthermore, to support diverse Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of heterogeneous and bursty traffic, the Weighted Minmax algorithm (WMinmax) is proposed to efficiently and dynamically allocate network resources. Lastly, to support traffic with multiple priorities and also to handle the decouple problem in practice, this dissertation introduces the multiple dimension scheduling algorithm which aims to find the optimal scheduling region in the multiple Euclidean space. JOINT BUFFER MANAGEMENT AND SCHEDULING FOR INPUT QUEUED SWITCHES
Signal-Boosted Qualitative Ultrasensitive p24 Antigen Assay for Diagnosis of Subtype C HIV-1 Infection in Infants Under the Age of 2 Years

The gold standard for diagnosis of HIV-1 infection in infants under the age of 2 years is DNA or reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. However, these tests are expensive and therefore not available in resource-limited countries. With the increasing availability of antiretroviral drugs for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and treatment of AIDS in resource-poor countries, there is an urgent need to develop cheaper, alternative, and cost-effective laboratory methods for early diagnosis of infant HIV-1 infection that will be useful in identifying infected infants who may benefit from early cotrimoxazole prophylaxis or commencement of antiretroviral therapy. We evaluated an alternative method, the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay-based qualitative ultrasensitive p24 antigen assay for diagnosis of subtype C HIV-1 infection in infants under the age of 2 years using DNA polymerase chain reaction as the reference method. The assay showed a sensitivity of 96.7% (95% CI: 93.0-100) for detection of HIV-1 infection among infants 0-18 months of age with a specificity of 96.1% (95% CI: 91.7-100). These evaluated parameters were not statistically different between infants aged 0-6 and 7-18 months. The ultrasensitive p24 antigen assay is a useful diagnostic test for detection of HIV-1 infection among infants aged 0-18 months.
Does patient satisfaction reflect differences in care received after stroke?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Despite the volume of research into patient satisfaction, it is not clear whether satisfaction ratings reflect differences in care received after stroke or the characteristics of patients. The aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that patient satisfaction is independently related to differences in care received after stroke. METHODS Stroke patients participating in a randomized controlled trial of early discharge to community therapy completed a satisfaction questionnaire and physical and psychological outcome measures at 4 and 12 months. Two hundred seventy-four patients (83%) were followed up at 4 months and 262 patients (79%) at 12 months. Use of therapy and community services was quantified. Logistic regression was used to investigate associations between satisfaction, patient characteristics, and service provision. RESULTS The more therapy, meals on wheels, and home help visits patients received, the more likely they were to be satisfied. Patients in the conventional arm of the trial were less likely to express satisfaction than those discharged early to community therapy. Women, older people, anxious people, and those more functionally independent were more likely to be satisfied, while those with depression, speech and swallowing deficit, motor deficit, and poor subjective health were less likely to be satisfied. CONCLUSIONS The finding that satisfaction assessments reflect real differences in the provision of care and occur independently of any associations with patient characteristics is new. Patient satisfaction should be taken seriously as an outcome.
The kil-kor regulon of broad-host-range plasmid RK2: nucleotide sequence, polypeptide product, and expression of regulatory gene korC

Broad-host-range plasmid RK2 encodes several kil operons (kilA, kilB, kilC, kilE) whose expression is potentially lethal to Escherichia coli host cells. The kil operons and the RK2 replication initiator gene (trfA) are coregulated by various combinations of kor genes (korA, korB, korC, korE). This regulatory network is called the kil-kor regulon. Presented here are studies on the structure, product, and expression of korC. Genetic mapping revealed the precise location of korC in a region near transposon Tn1. We determined the nucleotide sequence of this region and identified the korC structural gene by analysis of korC mutants. Sequence analysis predicts the korC product to be a polypeptide of 85 amino acids with a molecular mass of 9,150 daltons. The KorC polypeptide was identified in vivo by expressing wild-type and mutant korC alleles from a bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase-dependent promoter. The predicted structure of KorC polypeptide has a net positive charge and a helix-turn-helix region similar to those of known DNA-binding proteins. These properties are consistent with the repressorlike function of KorC protein, and we discuss the evidence that KorA and KorC proteins act as corepressors in the control of the kilC and kilE operons. Finally, we show that korC is expressed from the bla promoters within the upstream transposon Tn1, suggesting that insertion of Tn1 interrupted a plasmid operon that may have originally included korC and kilC.
Early Cognitive Predictors of Vascular Dementia: A Population-based Longitudinal Study in Chinese Elderly

Background and Objectve: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as pre-dementia syndrome has not been thouroughly studied in underdeveloped regions with cultural and social-economic backgrounds different from Western countries. This study was designed to characterize cognitive profiles of MCI prodromal for vascular dementia (VaD) among an elderly Chinese population. Methods: Subjects identified with MCI in a large epidemiological study of dementia and major subtypes in Beijing, China, were re-examined three years later, by repeating the baseline psychometric protocol. Baseline versus follow-up psychometric performance was compared among two outcome groups: 1) MCI converting to VaD (MCI-VaD) and 2) MCI-Non-converters. Results: 121 of 175 subjects identified as MCI at baseline were available for follow-up, with 18 diagnosed VaD, 70 didn’t convert to any dementias. At baseline, MCI-VaD displayed extensive impairments in attention, naming and verbal fluency. At the time of dementia diagnosed, multiple cognitive domains declined significantly. Conclusions: The present study provided additional evidence for the existence of prodromal VaD in an elderly Chinese population. The distinctive cognitive patterns of prodromal VaD allowed for an early intervention and improved control of vascular risk factors, which were less well controlled for than in developed countries.
Contribution of Flow Cytometry to the Diagnosis of Malignant and Non Malignant Conditions in Lymph Node Biopsies

In order to assess the contribution of FC to the diagnosis of lymph node disorders we retrospectively compared the pathological and the FC diagnosis made in 118 consecutive lymph node biopsies. Pathological diagnosis included non malignant conditions (n = 43), B-cell Non Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) (n = 30), T-cell NHL (1 case), carcinoma (n = 18), Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) (n = 15), melanoma (n = 2), chronic myelocytic leukemia (n = 12), miscellaneous non-lymphoid tissues (n = 6) and undetermined conditions (n = 2). Among the 116 assessable samples, FC was in agreement with histology in 102 cases (87.9%; 95%CI = 81-93) which included 38 benign conditions (90%; 95% CI = 77-97%), 29 NHL (96.7%; 95% CI = 83-100), 18 carcinomas (100%; 95% CI = 81-100), and 12 HL (80.0%; 95% CI = 52-96). Discrepancies (14 cases) included 3 HL undiagnosed by FC and 2 granulomatous adenitis with an erroneous FC diagnosis of HL. Finally, a malignant condition was suspected only by FC in 5 cases (1 carcinoma, 2 B-cell and 2 T-cell NHL) and subsequently demonstrated by additional diagnostic procedures. In conclusion, this study confirms that FC performed on fresh lymph node samples is a powerful diagnostic tool in patients with malignant lymphoma. A few cases left undiagnosed by classical pathological analysis can be recognized by FC. Carcinoma is readily identified by FC analysis, while some benign conditions and Hodgkin lymphoma can be misdiagnosed with the use of FC, although the potential of FC to properly recognize HL is improving compared to previously reported studies. FC is a useful adjunct to pathological analysis of lymph node specimens.
Study on Meta-Learning Approach Application in Rank Aggregation Algorithm Selection

Rank aggregation is an important task in many areas, nevertheless, none of rank aggregation algorithms is best for all cases. The main goal of this work is to develop a method, which for a given rank list finds the best rank aggregation algorithm with respect to a certain optimality criterion. Two approaches based on meta-feature description are proposed and one of them shows promising results.
&bgr;-Alanine Supplementation

&bgr;-Alanine is rapidly developing as one of the most popular sport supplements used by strength/power athletes worldwide. The popularity of &bgr;-alanine stems from its unique ability to enhance intramuscular buffering capacity and thereby attenuating fatigue. This review will provide an overview of the physiology that underlies the mechanisms of action behind &bgr;-alanine, examine dosing schemes, and examine the studies that have been conducted on the efficacy of this supplement. In addition, the effect that &bgr;-alanine has on body mass changes or whether it can stimulate changes in aerobic capacity also will be discussed. The review also will begin to explore the potential health benefits that &bgr;-alanine may have on older adult populations. Discussion will examine the potential adverse effects associated with this supplement as well as the added benefits of combining &bgr;-alanine with creatine.
Computational cluster validation in post-genomic data analysis

MOTIVATION The discovery of novel biological knowledge from the ab initio analysis of post-genomic data relies upon the use of unsupervised processing methods, in particular clustering techniques. Much recent research in bioinformatics has therefore been focused on the transfer of clustering methods introduced in other scientific fields and on the development of novel algorithms specifically designed to tackle the challenges posed by post-genomic data. The partitions returned by a clustering algorithm are commonly validated using visual inspection and concordance with prior biological knowledge--whether the clusters actually correspond to the real structure in the data is somewhat less frequently considered. Suitable computational cluster validation techniques are available in the general data-mining literature, but have been given only a fraction of the same attention in bioinformatics. RESULTS This review paper aims to familiarize the reader with the battery of techniques available for the validation of clustering results, with a particular focus on their application to post-genomic data analysis. Synthetic and real biological datasets are used to demonstrate the benefits, and also some of the perils, of analytical clustervalidation. AVAILABILITY The software used in the experiments is available at http://dbkweb.ch.umist.ac. uk/handl/clustervalidation/. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Enlarged colour plots are provided in the Supplementary Material, which is available at http://dbkweb.ch.umist.ac. uk/handl/clustervalidation/.
Activation of volume-sensitive Cl- channel Is involved in carboplatin-induced apoptosis in human lung adenocarcinoma cells

The purpose of this present study is to observe the role of volume-sensitive Cl- channels in carboplatin-induced apoptosis in the human lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549 cells. Using patch clamp and apoptosis assays, we found that A549 cells underwent the process of apoptotic volume decrease (AVD) and apoptosis when treated with carboplatin or staurosporine (STS). This AVD and apoptosis process were blocked by chloride channel blockers, 4,4'-diisothiocyanostilbene-2,2'-disulfonic acid (DIDS) and 5-nitro-2-(3- phenyl propylamino)-benzoate (NPPB). Both carboplatin and STS treatment activated a Cl- current, which shows similar properties to hypotonicity-induced volume-sensitive Cl- current in A549 cells. In addition, carboplatin pretreatment augmented the magnitude of the hypoosmotic-induced volume-sensitive Cl- current. These results suggest that volume-sensitive Cl- channels may be responsible for the carboplatin-induced apoptosis in A549 cells by inducing the AVD process.
The Role of Protein Kinase A Regulation of the E6 PDZ-Binding Domain during the Differentiation-Dependent Life Cycle of Human Papillomavirus Type 18

ABSTRACT Human papillomavirus (HPV) E6 proteins of high-risk alpha types target a select group of PSD95/DLG1/ZO1 (PDZ) domain-containing proteins by using a C-terminal PDZ-binding motif (PBM), an interaction that can be negatively regulated by phosphorylation of the E6 PBM by protein kinase A (PKA). Here, we have mutated the canonical PKA recognition motif that partially overlaps with the E6 PBM in the HPV18 genome (E6153PKA) and compared the effect of this mutation on the HPVl8 life cycle in primary keratinocytes with the wild-type genome and with a second mutant genome that lacks the E6 PBM (E6ΔPDZ). Loss of PKA recognition of E6 was associated with increased growth of the genome-containing cells relative to cells carrying the wild-type genome, and upon stratification, a more hyperplastic phenotype, with an increase in the number of S-phase competent cells in the upper suprabasal layers, while the opposite was seen with the E6ΔPDZ genome. Moreover, the growth of wild-type genome-containing cells was sensitive to changes in PKA activity, and these changes were associated with increased phosphorylation of the E6 PBM. In marked contrast to E6ΔPDZ genomes, the E6153PKA mutation exhibited no deleterious effects on viral genome amplification or expression of late proteins. Our data suggest that the E6 PBM function is differentially regulated by phosphorylation in the HPV18 life cycle. We speculate that perturbation of protein kinase signaling pathways could lead to changes in E6 PBM function, which in turn could have a bearing on tumor promotion and progression.
What is Johansonia?

The bitunicate ascomycete genus Johansonia is presently treated as a member of Saccardiaceae, a family regarded as incertae sedis within the Ascomycota. Recent collections on leaves of a leguminous host, Dimorphandra mollis, in Mato Grosso, Brazil, led to the discovery of a new species of Johansonia, described here as J. chapadiensis. Based on DNA sequence data of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (LSU), Johansonia is revealed to represent a member of Dothideomycetes, Capnodiales. Although its family could not be resolved, it clustered basal to Schizothyriaceae and Mycosphaerellaceae, and could well represent a species of Saccardiaceae. DNA sequence data of other members of Saccardiaceae would be required, however, to confirm this classification.
PREDATOR: Proactive Recognition and Elimination of Domain Abuse at Time-Of-Registration

Miscreants register thousands of new domains every day to launch Internet-scale attacks, such as spam, phishing, and drive-by downloads. Quickly and accurately determining a domain's reputation (association with malicious activity) provides a powerful tool for mitigating threats and protecting users. Yet, existing domain reputation systems work by observing domain use (e.g., lookup patterns, content hosted) often too late to prevent miscreants from reaping benefits of the attacks that they launch. As a complement to these systems, we explore the extent to which features evident at domain registration indicate a domain's subsequent use for malicious activity. We develop PREDATOR, an approach that uses only time-of-registration features to establish domain reputation. We base its design on the intuition that miscreants need to obtain many domains to ensure profitability and attack agility, leading to abnormal registration behaviors (e.g., burst registrations, textually similar names). We evaluate PREDATOR using registration logs of second-level . com and . net domains over five months. PREDATOR achieves a 70% detection rate with a false positive rate of 0.35%, thus making it an effective and early first line of defense against the misuse of DNS domains. It predicts malicious domains when they are registered, which is typically days or weeks earlier than existing DNS blacklists.
Enabling live video streaming services realization in telecommunication networks using P2P technology

Peer‐to‐peer (P2P) systems enjoy wide adoption from internet users. Success of P2P architecture is due to its ability to scale and organize dynamically the traffic according to the user resources and requests. However, P2P adoption is constrained in non‐real time applications, like content distribution and file sharing. The major reason behind this fact is the inability of P2P to deliver content within user‐desired bit rates by making optimal use of network resources. In this paper we focus on the solution and implementation of technical problems toward a complete system implementation that delivers live multimedia streaming through P2P architecture by the use of IMS. The content indexing and discovery, the scalable management and the distributed optimization of the graph that connects participating peers, the distributed scheduling mechanisms for data exchange, a scalable monitoring architecture and a bandwidth control mechanism constitute the major components toward a complete scalable multimedia streaming system offering streaming stability and high performance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Dietary Administration of Scallion Extract Effectively Inhibits Colorectal Tumor Growth: Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms in Mice

Colorectal cancer is a common malignancy and a leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Diet is known to play an important role in the etiology of colon cancer and dietary chemoprevention is receiving increasing attention for prevention and/or alternative treatment of colon cancers. Allium fistulosum L. , commonly known as scallion, is popularly used as a spice or vegetable worldwide, and as a traditional medicine in Asian cultures for treating a variety of diseases. In this study we evaluated the possible beneficial effects of dietary scallion on chemoprevention of colon cancer using a mouse model of colon carcinoma (CT-26 cells subcutaneously inoculated into BALB/c mice). Tumor lysates were subjected to western blotting for analysis of key inflammatory markers, ELISA for analysis of cytokines, and immunohistochemistry for analysis of inflammatory markers. Metabolite profiles of scallion extracts were analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Scallion extracts, particularly hot-water extract, orally fed to mice at 50 mg (dry weight)/kg body weight resulted in significant suppression of tumor growth and enhanced the survival rate of test mice. At the molecular level, scallion extracts inhibited the key inflammatory markers COX-2 and iNOS, and suppressed the expression of various cellular markers known to be involved in tumor apoptosis (apoptosis index), proliferation (cyclin D1 and c-Myc), angiogenesis (VEGF and HIF-1α), and tumor invasion (MMP-9 and ICAM-1) when compared with vehicle control-treated mice. Our findings may warrant further investigation of the use of common scallion as a chemopreventive dietary agent to lower the risk of colon cancer.
Penicillin-resistant viridans streptococci have obtained altered penicillin-binding protein genes from penicillin-resistant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Penicillin-resistant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae possess altered forms of penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) with decreased affinity for penicillin. The PBP2B genes of these strains have a mosaic structure, consisting of regions that are very similar to those in penicillin-sensitive strains, alternating with regions that are highly diverged. Penicillin-resistant strains of viridans groups streptococci (e.g., S. sanguis and S. oralis) that produce altered PBPs have also been reported. The PBP2B genes of two penicillin-resistant clinical isolates of S. sanguis were identical in sequence to the mosaic class B PBP2B genes found in penicillin-resistant serotype 23 strains of S. pneumoniae. Emergence of penicillin resistance appears to have occurred by the horizontal transfer of an altered PBP2B gene from penicillin-resistant S. pneumoniae into S. sanguis. The PBP2B genes of three penicillin-resistant S. oralis strains were similar to the mosaic class B PBP2B gene of penicillin-resistant strains of S. pneumoniae but possessed an additional block of diverged sequence. Penicillin resistance in S. oralis has also probably arisen by horizontal transfer of this variant form of the class B mosaic PBP2B gene from a penicillin-resistant strain of S. pneumoniae.
Exploring Combinations of Sources for Interaction Features for Document Re-ranking

The behavior of the user when interacting with a result page or the corresponding landing documents is a possible source of evidence that Information Retrieval (IR) systems can exploit to assist the user when searching for information. Interaction features can be adopted as evidence to model the user behavior, thus making it usable to assist relevance prediction. One issue when dealing with interaction features is the selection of the sources from which these features are distilled. Individual users and group of users which perform a similar task or look for information matching the same query are possible sources. This paper will focus on these two sources, particularly investigating group of users searching for the same topic as source for interaction features to be used as an alternative to, or in combination with, individual users. The objective of this work is to investigate the impact of diverse combinations of these sources on the retrieval eectiveness, specically when interaction features are used as evidence to support document re-ranking.
Computation of the Probability of Initial Substring Generation by Stochastic Context-Free Grammars

Speech recognition language models are based on probabilities P(Wk+1 = v | w1w2,.,wk) that the next word Wk+1 will be any particular word v of the vocabulary, given that the word sequence w1,w2,. ,wk is hypothesized to have been uttered in the past. If probabilistic context-free grammars are to be used as the basis of the language model, it will be necessary to compute the probability that successive application of the grammar rewrite rules (beginning with the sentence start symbol s) produces a word string whose initial substring is an arbitrary sequence w1,w2,. ,wk+1. In this paper we describe a new algorithm that achieves the required computation in at most a constant times k3-steps.