Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Incidence of abacavir hypersensitivity and its relationship with HLA-B*5701 in HIV-infected patients in Taiwan.

OBJECTIVES To describe the incidence of hypersensitivity to abacavir and frequency of human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-B*5701 in HIV-infected Taiwanese persons. METHODS Medical records of 337 HIV-infected Taiwanese in whom abacavir-containing combination antiretroviral therapy (CART) was prescribed from 1 May 2001 to 31 December 2006 were reviewed, and HLA typing of the patients was performed in 320 patients (232 receiving abacavir and 88 not receiving abacavir) with available blood samples. HLA class I and II polymorphisms were determined by PCR with specific primers. HLA-B*5701 was further confirmed by sequence-based typing. RESULTS Of the 337 patients, median CD4 count was 166.5 cells/mm3 (range, 1.0-1914.0) and 83 patients (24.6%) had AIDS-defining opportunistic infections. Thirty-eight patients (11.3%) discontinued abacavir within 6 weeks of starting abacavir-containing CART. Among them, 10 patients had successful abacavir re-challenge and another 11 patients had other specific reasons for abacavir discontinuation. Therefore, 14 patients (4.2%) were classified as cases in whom abacavir hypersensitivity could not be excluded, and 3 patients (0.9%) met the criteria of abacavir hypersensitivity. Of the 320 patients undergoing HLA typing, HLA-A02 was the most common allele and only one individual (0.3%) expressed HLA-B*5701. Along with some differences in allele distributions, there was a significant difference in the genetic frequency of HLA-B57 in our patients compared with those of previous studies in other Chinese populations. CONCLUSIONS Abacavir hypersensitivity was less frequently encountered in HIV-infected Taiwanese initiating abacavir-containing CART than in Caucasians, which might be explained by the low frequency of the HLA-B*5701 allele.
A BIST scheme for an SNR test of a sigma-delta ADC

Built-In-Self-Test (BIST) for VLSI systems is desirable in order to reduce the cost per chip of production-time testing by the manufacturer. In addition, it can provide the means to perform in-the-field diagnostics. This paper discusses a mixed analog-digital BIST (MADBIST) for a signal-to-noise-ratio test of an analog-to-digital converter. The MAD-BIST strategy for the SNR test of the A/D converter is introduced, accuracy issues are discussed, and experimental results are presented. <<ETX>>
Antiviral actions of flavanoid-derived compounds on dengue virus type-2

Dengue viruses, mosquito-borne members of the Flaviviridae family, are the causative agents of dengue fever and its associated complications, dengue haemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. To date, more than 2.5 billion people in over 100 countries are at risk of infection, and approximately 20 million infections were reported annually. There is currently no treatment or vaccine available for dengue infection. This study employed a whole-cell organism model or in vitro methods to study the inhibitory property of the flavanoid-derived compounds against DENV2 activity. Results showed that at concentration not exceeding the maximum non-toxic dose (MNTD), these compounds completely prevented DENV2 infection in HepG2 cells as indicated by the absence of cytophatic effects. The in vitro antiviral activity assessed in HepG2 cells employing virus inhibition assay showed high inhibitory activity in a dose dependent manner. At concentration below MNTD, compounds exhibited inhibitory activity against DENV2 with a range of potency strengths of 72% to 100%. The plaque forming unit per ml (pfu/ml) was reduced prominently with a maximum reduction of 98% when the infected HepG2 cells were treated with the highest non-toxic dose of compounds. The highly potent activity of the compounds against DENV2 infection strongly suggests their potential as a lead antiviral agent for dengue.
FASA: a scalable software framework for distributed control systems

Building a distributed control application is currently performed ad hoc: it consists of building each application part as an independent program and connecting them through a communication layer. With the pervasiveness of multicore chips, future generations of controllers will include a variable number of cores and hosts, making such a static development process obsolete. To solve this issue, the FASA component framework for distributed control systems computes a deployment of the components onto the available computation resources (cores and hosts) and a static schedule for their execution. Depending on the given deployment, FASA chooses a suitable communication protocol for each pair of connected components. This makes FASA a scalable software architecture for heterogeneous distributed control systems. This article presents the framework, as well as a validation of FASA using a case study of a distributed control system comprising both multicore and single-core processors.
Near‐Bulk Conductivity of Gold Nanowires as Nanoscale Interconnects and the Role of Atomically Smooth Interface

The electronics industry has consistently decreased the dimensions of structural components and they are now well into the nanoscale range. Naturally, a significant portion of the chip is composed of interconnects. Besides, the engineering problems associated with short wavelength lithography to achieve smaller components, the performance of increasing number of interconnections has become one of the biggest limiting factors in device performance. [1,2] The power loss, signal degradation, interconnection delays, and other performance limitations related to interconnects should be minimized. The importance of such a task can be seen from the perspective of power dissipation by computation elements. The energy dissipation density in electronic chips approaches that in nuclear reactors. [3,4] Therefore, the decrease of the resistivity of metal interconnects is one of the key challenges in the design of nanoscale electronic circuits. Intense studies on methods of preparation of interconnects by advanced lithographic techniques including e-beam lithography lead to the preparation of Au, Pd, Pt, and Cu nanowires (NWs) with resistivities much greater than the bulk metal value (see Supporting Information). [5‐11] The reason for the drastic increase in resistivity for NWs is that charge carriers experience grain boundaries reflections and surface scattering. The smaller the diameter of the conductor, the greater this effect becomes. Even NWs with diameters much above the nanometer scale can exhibit resistivities as high as two orders of magnitude greater that the bulk. [12]
Statistical QoS routing for IEEE 802.11 multihop ad hoc networks

In this paper, we propose a model-based quality-of-service (QoS) routing scheme for IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks. Unlike most of QoS routing schemes in the literature, the proposed scheme provides stochastic end-to-end delay guarantees, instead of average delay guarantees, to delay-sensitive bursty traffic sources. Via a cross-layer design approach, the scheme selects the routes based on a geographical on-demand ad hoc routing protocol and checks the availability of network resources by using traffic source and link-layer channel modeling, taking into consideration the IEEE 802.11 characteristics and node interactions. Our scheme extends the well developed effective bandwidth theory and its dual effective capacity concept to multihop IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks. Extensive computer simulations demonstrate that the proposed scheme is effective in satisfying the end-to-end delay bound to a probabilistic limit.
Real-Time Stereo Mosaicing Using Feature Tracking

Real-time creation of video mosaics needs fast and accurate motion computation. While most mosaicing methods can use 2D image motion, the creation of multi view stereo mosaics needs more accurate 3D motion computation. Fast and accurate computation of 3D motion is challenging in the case of unstabilized cameras moving in 3D scenes, which is always the case when stereo mosaics are used. Efficient blending of the mosaic strip is also essential. Most cases of stereo mosaicing satisfy the assumption of limited camera motion, with no forward motion and no change in internal parameters. Under these assumptions uniform sideways motion creates straight epipolar lines. When the 3D motion is computed correctly, images can be aligned in space-time volume to give straight epipolar lines, a method which is depth invariant. We propose to align the video sequence in a space-time volume based on efficient feature tracking, and in this paper we used Kernel Tracking. Computation is fast as the motion in computed only for a few regions of the image, yet giving accurate 3D motion. This computation is faster and more accurate than the previously used direct approach. We also present "Barcode Blending", a new approach for using pyramid blending in video mosaics, which is very efficient. Barcode Blending overcomes the complexity of building pyramids for multiple narrow strips, combining all strips in a single blending step. The entire stereo mosaicing process is highly efficient in computation and in memory, and can be performed on mobile devices.
Research report Retinotopic organization of visual mental images as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging

In this study, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate whether visual mental images retinotopically activate early visual cortex. Six participants were instructed to visualize or view horizontally or vertically oriented flashing bow-tie shaped stimuli. When compared to baseline, imagery globally activated Area V1. When the activation evoked by the stimuli at the different orientations was directly compared, distinct spatial activation patterns were obtained for each orientation in most participants. Not only was the topography of the activation patterns from imagery similar to the topography obtained with a corresponding visual perception task, but it closely matched the individual cortical representation of either the horizontal or the vertical visual field meridians. These findings strongly support that visual imagery and perception share low-level anatomical substrate and functional processes. Binding of spatial features is suggested as one possible mechanism. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Theme: Sensory Systems Topic: Visual Cortex: striate
Minimizing Interference through Channel Assignment in Multiradio Wireless Mesh Networks

Breadth First Search Channel Assignment(BFSCA) is a hybrid channel assignment algorithm that utilize multiple radio interfaces to improve the throughput and minimize the interference within the wireless mesh network and between the mesh network and co-located wireless mesh networks. This new channel assignment scheme allows different nodes in the same network to communicate with each other without causing too much interference to their neighbors. It is introducing Multiradio Conflict Graph(MCG) to model interference in the wireless mesh network. Breadth First Search Channel Assignment considers both the fixed channels (static) and the dynamic channels to reduce interference of the network. BFSCA will increase the network throughput greatly.
Encoding Time Reduction method for the Wavelet based Fractal Image Compression

In this paper we show the two implementations of fractal (Pure- fractal and Wavelet fractal image compression algorithms) which have been applied on the images in order to investigate the compression ratio and corresponding quality of the images using peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR). And in this paper we also set the threshold value for reducing the redundancy of domain blocks and range blocks, and then to search and match. By this, we can largely reduce the computing time. In this paper we also try to achieve the best threshold value at which we can achieve optimum encoding time.
The brightest stars of the σ Orionis cluster

Context. The very young σ Orionis cluster (∼3 Ma) is a cornerstone in understanding the formation of stars and substellar objects down to planetary masses. However, its stellar population is far from being completely known. Aims. This study’s purpose is to identify and characterise the most massive stars of σ Orionis to complement current and future deep searches for brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects in the cluster. Methods. I have cross-correlated the sources in the Tycho and 2MASS catalogues in a region of 30 arcmin radius with its centre in the O-type star σ Ori A. In this area, I studied the membership in the Ori OB 1b association of the brightest stars in the optical using astrometric, X-ray, and both infrared and optical photometric data from public catalogues, and spectroscopic data from the literature. Results. A list of 26 young stars, four candidate young stars, and 16 probable foreground stars has arisen from the study. Seven young stars probably harbour discs (four are new). There is no mass dependence of the disc frequency in the cluster. I have derived the first mass spectrum for σ Orionis from 1.1 to 24 M� (α =+ 2.0 +0.2 −0.1 ; roughly Salpeter-like). I also provide additional proof of the existence of several spatially superimposed stellar populations in the direction of σ Orionis. Finally, the cluster may be closer and older than previously thought �� .
Improving Sponsor's Experience in Reward-Based Crowdfunding: A Psychological Ownership Perspective

Psychological ownership brings new perspective to understand individual behaviors in organization, team, and the information system areas. In this research we use this theory to investigate how to improve sponsor experience in the context of reward-based crowdfunding. We propose that psychological ownership is one important mental state for sponsors in crowdfunding. The research model in this study shows that psychological ownership could predict sponsor’s commitment to project and continuous intention to contribute to it. Sponsors can develop the feeling of psychological ownership through three routes, i.e., perceived control, intimate knowing, and self-investment. In addition, social capital (sponsor expertise, social trust in entrepreneur and social ties) and social interaction (sponsor participation and entrepreneur activeness) are hypothesized to be important antecedents to the routes to psychological ownership in crowdfunding. The research model and hypotheses will be tested with survey data from www.zhongchou. cn, a famous crowdfunding platform in China. The expected research findings would provide interesting implications for research and practice.
Morphine Suppresses IFN Signaling Pathway and Enhances AIDS Virus Infection

Background Opioids exert a profound influence on immunomodulation and enhance HIV infection and replication. However, the mechanism(s) of their action remains to be determined. We thus investigated the impact of morphine on the intracellular innate antiviral immunity. Methodology/Principal Findings Seven-day-cultured macrophages were infected with equal amounts of cell-free HIV Bal or SIV DeltaB670 for 2 h at 37°C after 24 h of treatment with or without morphine. Effect of morphine on HIV/SIV infection and replication was evaluated by HIV/SIV RT activity assay and indirect immunofluorescence for HIV p24 or SIV p28 antigen. The mRNA expression of cellular factors suppressed or induced by morphine treatment was analyzed by the real-time RT-PCR. We demonstrated that morphine treatment of human blood monocyte-derived macrophages significantly inhibited the expression of interferons (IFN-α, IFN-β and IFN-λ) and IFN-inducible genes (APOBEC3C/3F/3G and 3H). The further experiments showed that morphine suppressed the expression of several key elements (RIG-I and IRF-7) in IFN signaling pathway. In addition, morphine treatment induced the expression of suppressor of cytokine signaling protein-1, 2, 3 (SOCS-1, 2, 3) and protein inhibitors of activated STAT-1, 3, X, Y (PIAS-1, 3, X, Y), the key negative regulators of IFN signaling pathway. Conclusions These findings indicate that morphine impairs intracellular innate antiviral mechanism(s) in macrophages, contributing to cell susceptibility to AIDS virus infection.
Comparative Analysis between Notations to Classify Named Entities using Conditional Random Fields

Conditional Random Fields (CRF) is a probabilistic Machine Learning (ML) method based on structured prediction. It has been applied in several areas, such as Natural Language Processing (NLP), image processing, computer vision, and bioinformatics. In this paper we analyse two different notations for identifying the words that compose a Named Entity (NE): BILOU and IO. We found out that IO notation presents better results in F-measure than BILOU notation in all categories of HAREM corpus.
Construction and validation of a preliminary Chinese version of the Wake Forest Physician Trust Scale

Background The development, validation, and psychometric properties of the Wake Forest Physician Trust Scale (WFPTS)-equivalent instrument for Chinese patients were investigated. Material/Methods We approached 3442 randomly selected outpatients at 3 Shanghai (China) general hospitals, treated ≥2 times per year by the same physician, for participation between November 2008 and December 2008. A Chinese version of the WFPTS (C-WFPTS) was prepared and administered to eligible and consenting patients, and subjected to validity assessment using 5 patient behaviors: (1) recommendation of the physician; (2) occurrence of dispute; (3) seeking a second opinion; (4) treatment adherence; and (5) consideration of switching physicians. Results A total of 352 (M: F, 149: 203; mean age, 40.67±17.31 years; age range, 14–94 years) consenting and eligible patients were included in the analysis. The unidimensionality and internal consistency of C-WFPTS was confirmed (Cronbach’s α=0.833). Physician trust correlated significantly with physician satisfaction (r=0.73, P<0.001) and all 5 behaviors (1: r=0.453, 2: r=0.209, 3: r=0.406, 4: r=0.444, 5: r=0.471; P<0.001 for all), indicating validity and predictive validity, respectively. Patient trust increased significantly with increasing age and physician visits (P>0.05), but was not related to gender, birthplace, or insurance type. Conclusions C-WFPTS has good psychometric properties, reliability, and validity for the evaluation of patient trust in the patient-physician relationship, and thereby provides an essential tool for the characterization of patient-physician relationships in China, which is necessary for healthcare reform.
A hierarchical , multi-resolution approach for model-based skull-segmentation in MRI volumes

We present a model-based approach for segmentation of the skull from T1 weighted MR images of the human head. Segmentation is performed by fitting a morphable skull model into a pre-segmented version of the image. This yields a segmentation result that is constrained to the normal skull anatomy and thus gives a statistically meaningful approximation of the skull, even in places where the bony structure cannot be distinguished from the surrounding tissue. We propose a multiresolution approach to model-fitting that leads to an improved convergence rate. Further, we show how a hierarchy of statistical models can be used to increase the flexibility of the statistical model and thus to obtain more accurate segmentation results. To validate our method, we present experimental result using a statistical model based on 17 example skulls acquired from segmented CTimages. The results show that a good approximation to the skull structure can be found. Our experiments confirm that by incorporating strong prior knowledge even such difficult segmentation tasks as skull-segmentation from MR images become feasible.
Stochastic text generation

Natural language generation systems must achieve fluency goals, as well as fidelity goals. Fluency helps make systems more usable by, for instance, producing language that is easier for people to process, or which engenders a positive evaluation of the system. Using very simple examples, we have explored one way to achieve specific fluency goals. These goals are stated as norms on ‘macroscopic’ properties of the text as a whole, rather than on individual words or sentences. Such properties are hard to accommodate within a conventional architecture. One solution is a two-component architecture, which permits independent variation of the components, either or both of which can be stochastic.
RHJoin: A fast and space-efficient join method for log processing in MapReduce

Equi-join is heavily used in MapReduce-based log processing. With the rapid growth of dataset sizes, join methods on MapReduce are extensively studied recently. We find that existing join methods usually cannot get high query performance and affordable storage consumption at the same time when faced with a huge amount of log data. They either only optimize one aspect but significantly sacrifice the other or have limited applications. In this paper, after analyzing characteristics of the workloads and underlying MapReduce, we present a join method with specific optimizations for log processing called RHJoin (Repartition Hash Join) and its implementation on Hadoop. In RHJoin, reference tables are partitioned in the pre-processing step, the log table is partitioned on the map side and hash join is executed on the reduce side. The shuffle procedure of MapReduce is also optimized by removing the sort step and overlapping the execution of mappers and reducers. Comprehensive experiments show that RHJoin achieves high query performance with only a small extra storage cost, and has wide application circumstances for log processing.
A Framework for Security Transparency in Cloud Computing

Individuals and corporate users are persistently considering cloud adoption due to its significant benefits compared to traditional computing environments. The data and applications in the cloud are stored in an environment that is separated, managed and maintained externally to the organisation. Therefore, it is essential for cloud providers to demonstrate and implement adequate security practices to protect the data and processes put under their stewardship. Security transparency in the cloud is likely to become the core theme that underpins the systematic disclosure of security designs and practices that enhance customer confidence in using cloud service and deployment models. In this paper, we present a framework that enables a detailed analysis of security transparency for cloud based systems. In particular, we consider security transparency from three different levels of abstraction, i.e., conceptual, organisation and technical levels, and identify the relevant concepts within these levels. This allows us to provide an elaboration of the essential concepts at the core of transparency and analyse the means for implementing them from a technical perspective. Finally, an example from a real world migration context is given to provide a solid discussion on the applicability of the proposed framework.