Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Model Driven Engineering for Designing Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems

A current challenge in MAS design is the provision of new, efficient, CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools by using, in particular, Model Driven Engineering (MDE) approach. The goal of MDE is to improve the development process and the quality of the software produced. In our work, we want to focus on two aspects of a MAS: functional which is application dependent and close to the decision process of agents and operational related to elementary skills of agents. For each point of view, we have defined specific meta-models. Our goal in this paper is to address the mapping from the functional meta-model to the operational one in order to provide a model of a specific platform. Furthermore, systems we are interested in must be adaptive and we take into account the adaptation at both agent and system levels by respectively using JavAct flexible architecture and AMAS (Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems) principles.
Influence of Obesity on Progression of Non-Diabetic Chronic Kidney Disease: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background: There is increasing awareness of the impact of obesity on chronic diseases including chronic kidney disease (CKD). Until recently, a limited number of epidemiologic studies have examined the association between obesity and CKD. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to evaluate whether obesity impacts on the rate of non-diabetic CKD progression. Methods: The medical records of 125 non-diabetic CKD patients in the Sheffield Kidney Institute, Sheffield, UK, who have been followed-up for around 10 years, were reviewed. Various socio-demographic, clinical and biochemical parameters were retrospectively collected from the patients’ database. Participants were categorized into normal weight, overweight and obese groups. Multivariate regression analysis was used for modelling with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) reduction per year as the dependent variable to evaluate the impact of obesity (BMI) on CKD progression. Results: Patients studied were mostly CKD stage 3 with a mean GFR of 36.2 ml/min/1.73 m2 for the control group and 44.3 ml/min/1.73 m2 for those who were overweight or obese. Baseline diastolic and mean arterial blood pressure were significantly higher in overweight than normal weight CKD patients (p = 0.009 and p = 0.014 respectively). On follow-up, systolic, diastolic and mean arterial blood pressure were significantly higher in overweight (p = 0.03, p = 0.005 and p = 0.003, respectively) and obese (p = 0.008, p = 0.022 and p = 0.003, respectively) compared to normal weight CKD patients. Mean follow-up triglycerides level was significantly higher in obese than normal weight patients (p = 0.042). The frequency of CKD progression based on eGFR fall per year (>1 ml/min/1.73 m2/year) was 62.5% in overweight and 79.5% in obese compared to 44.7% in normal weight CKD patients (p = 0.007). However, no significant difference in the rate of progression (fall of eGFR ml/min/1.73 m2/year) was observed between the three groups. On multivariate regression analysis, adjusted for other covariates (age, BP and proteinuria), baseline BMI was an independent predictor of CKD progression (fall in eGFR, ml/min/1.73 m2/year) (R2 = 0.122 and p < 0.001). Percentage changes in BMI over the observation period did not affect the rate of eGFR decline. Young age also predicted a faster CKD progression. Conclusions: Baseline BMI and young age are strongly and independently associated with faster CKD progression based on the annual rate of eGFR fall. Prospective studies to investigate the relationship between BMI and CKD and its complications are warranted.
RNA-Seq Analysis of the Response of the Halophyte, Mesembryanthemum crystallinum (Ice Plant) to High Salinity

Understanding the molecular mechanisms that convey salt tolerance in plants is a crucial issue for increasing crop yield. The ice plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum) is a halophyte that is capable of growing under high salt conditions. For example, the roots of ice plant seedlings continue to grow in 140 mM NaCl, a salt concentration that completely inhibits Arabidopsis thaliana root growth. Identifying the molecular mechanisms responsible for this high level of salt tolerance in a halophyte has the potential of revealing tolerance mechanisms that have been evolutionarily successful. In the present study, deep sequencing (RNAseq) was used to examine gene expression in ice plant roots treated with various concentrations of NaCl. Sequencing resulted in the identification of 53,516 contigs, 10,818 of which were orthologs of Arabidopsis genes. In addition to the expression analysis, a web-based ice plant database was constructed that allows broad public access to the data. The results obtained from an analysis of the RNAseq data were confirmed by RT-qPCR. Novel patterns of gene expression in response to high salinity within 24 hours were identified in the ice plant when the RNAseq data from the ice plant was compared to gene expression data obtained from Arabidopsis plants exposed to high salt. Although ABA responsive genes and a sodium transporter protein (HKT1), are up-regulated and down-regulated respectively in both Arabidopsis and the ice plant; peroxidase genes exhibit opposite responses. The results of this study provide an important first step towards analyzing environmental tolerance mechanisms in a non-model organism and provide a useful dataset for predicting novel gene functions.
To each according to its need: kernel class specific classifiers

We present in this paper a new multi-class Bayes classifier that permits using separate feature vectors, chosen specifically for each class. This technique extends previous work on feature class specific classifier to kernel methods, using a new class of Gibbs probability distributions with nonlinear kernel mapping as energy function. The resulting method, that we call kernel class specific classifier, permits using a different kernel and a different feature set for each class. Moreover, the proper kernel for each class can be learned by the training data with a leave-one-out technique. This removes the ambiguity regarding the proper choice of the feature vectors for a given class. Experiments on appearance-based object recognition show the power of the proposed approach.
Intraspecific variation shapes community-level behavioural responses to urbanisation in spiders: from traits to function

Approaches based on functional traits have proven especially valuable to understand how communities respond to environmental gradients. Until recently, they have, however, often ignored the potential consequences of intraspecific trait variation (ITV). This position becomes potentially more problematic when studying animals and behavioural traits, as behaviours can be altered very flexibly at the individual level to track environmental changes. Urban areas are an extreme example of human-changed environments, exposing organisms to multiple, strong, yet relatively standardized, selection pressures. Adaptive behavioural responses are thought to play a major role in animals’ success or failure in these new environments. The consequences of such behavioural changes for ecosystem processes remain understudied. Using 62 sites of varying urbanisation level, we investigated how species turnover and ITV influenced community-level behavioural responses to urbanisation, using orb web spiders and their webs as models of foraging behaviour. ITV explained around 30% of the total trait variation observed among communities. Spiders altered their web-building behaviour in cities in ways that increase the capture efficiency of webs. These traits shifts were partly mediated by species turnover, but ITV increased their magnitude. The importance of ITV varied depending on traits and on the spatial scale at which urbanisation was considered. Available prey biomass decreased with urbanisation; the corresponding decrease in prey interception by spiders was less important when ITV in web traits was accounted for. By facilitating trait-environment matching despite urbanisation, ITV thus helps communities to buffer the effects of environmental changes on ecosystem functioning. Despite being often neglected from community-level analyses, our results highlight the importance of accounting for intraspecific trait variation to fully understand trait responses to (human-induced) environmental changes and their impact on ecosystem functioning.
Deletion of Abca7 Increases Cerebral Amyloid-β Accumulation in the J20 Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease

ATP-binding cassette transporter A7 (ABCA7) is expressed in the brain and has been detected in macrophages, microglia, and neurons. ABCA7 promotes efflux of lipids from cells to apolipoproteins and can also regulate phagocytosis and modulate processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP) to generate the Alzheimer's disease (AD) amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide. Genome-wide association studies have indicated that ABCA7 single nucleotide polymorphisms confer increased risk for late-onset AD; however, the role that ABCA7 plays in the brain in the AD context is unknown. In the present study, we crossed ABCA7-deficient (A7−/−) mice with J20 amyloidogenic mice to address this issue. We show that ABCA7 loss doubled insoluble Aβ levels and thioflavine-S–positive plaques in the brain. This was not related to changes in APP processing (assessed by analysis of full-length APP and the APP β C-terminal fragment). Apolipoprotein E regulates cerebral Aβ homeostasis and plaque load; however, the apolipoprotein E concentration was not altered by ABCA7 loss. Spatial reference memory was significantly impaired in both J20 and J20/A7−/− mice compared with wild-type mice; however, there were no cognitive differences between J20 and J20/A7−/− mice. There were also no major differences detected in hippocampal or plaque-associated microglial/macrophage markers between J20 and J20/A7−/− mice, whereas the capacity for bone marrow-derived macrophages derived from A7−/− mice to take up oligomeric Aβ was reduced by 51% compared with wild-type mice. Our results suggest that ABCA7 plays a role in the regulation of Aβ homeostasis in the brain and that this may be related to altered phagocyte function.
Goal-oriented treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension

Purpose of review To understand the rational of establishing a goal-oriented therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension management. Recent findings During the last decades, the development of targeted therapies and the recognition of prognostic markers represented a major step for improving pulmonary arterial hypertension survival. Now, changing the strategy on using these compounds therapies might represent the best way to optimize treatment response. Summary Prespecified goals with regular reassessment should be incorporated as the routine practice for pulmonary arterial hypertension management to provide the best available treatment, aiming to improve or maintain every patient in a clinical and functional status that reflects better long-term survival.
CLMP Is Essential for Intestinal Development, but Does Not Play a Key Role in Cellular Processes Involved in Intestinal Epithelial Development

Loss-of-function mutations in CLMP have been found in patients with Congenital Short Bowel Syndrome (CSBS), suggesting that its encoded protein plays a major role in intestinal development. CLMP is a membrane protein that co-localizes with tight junction proteins, but its function is largely unknown. We expressed wild-type (WT)-CLMP and a mutant-CLMP (associated with CSBS) in human intestinal epithelial T84 cells that, as we show here, do not produce endogenous CLMP. We investigated the effects of WT-CLMP and mutant-CLMP proteins on key cellular processes that are important for intestinal epithelial development, including migration, proliferation, viability and transepithelial resistance. Our data showed that expression of WT-CLMP or mutant-CLMP does not affect any of these processes. Moreover, our aggregation assays in CHO cells show that CLMP does not act as a strong adhesion molecule. Thus, our data suggest that, in the in vitro model systems we used, the key processes involved in intestinal epithelial development appear to be unaffected by WT-CLMP or mutant-CLMP. Further research is needed to determine the role of CLMP in the development of the intestine.
Foam extrusion of polypropylene–rice husk composites using CO2 as the blowing agent

The biodegradability and low cost of natural fibers make them attractive for composite applications. However, the density of natural fibers is higher than that of polymers, which increases the density of natural fiber composites. This drawback could be reduced by foaming. In this study, a polypropylene/rice husk natural fiber composite was extrusion foamed by a single-screw extruder using CO2 as the blowing agent. The effects of coupling agent, screw rotation speed, CO2 content, and die temperature on the cell structure were studied. Because moisture and volatile organic compounds from rice husks could be released during the extrusion process and deteriorate the cell structure, the thermal degradation behavior of rice husks was simulated using thermogravimetric analysis. The experiment results showed that the addition of a coupling agent improved the cell morphology and reduced the cell size of the composite. Before the coupling agent was added, there was a clear relation between the foam density and both the screw speed and the CO2 loading level. However, the relation disappeared after the coupling agent was added. The foam density decreased much more significantly with the decreasing die temperature. The lowest foam density achieved in this experiment was 0.6 g/cm3. Melt fracture phenomena were observed when the die temperature was below 160°C. In addition, a bouquet-like anisotropic cell structure was observed at a low die temperature of 147°C.
Which optical smoothing for LMJ and NIF?

This paper is concerned with the statistical comparison of 2D smoothing by spectral dispersion and smoothing by optical fiber, both techniques being proposed for uniform irradiation in plasma physics. In the asymptotic framework of a large number of elements of the random phase plate or excited optical modes of the fiber, closed-form expressions for the contrast and spatial spectrum of the integrated intensity of the speckle pattern are derived so as to put into evidence performance differences between these methods. These differences essentially originate from the much longer time delay induced by the multimode fiber with respect to the one induced by the gratings and from the interplay between the nature of the delay line vs. the nature of the spectral broadening.
Applications of Collective Circular Motion Control to Multirobot Systems

Collective circular motion is common in both natural systems and engineering applications. Recent theoretical research has intensively studied the fundamental control mechanism. This brief aims to pave the way from theoretical design to practical implementation by addressing a set of issues encountered in real applications. As a result, a practically effective control algorithm is successfully implemented and examined for a multirobot system to achieve a desired circular formation.
FTT-Ethernet: a platform to implement the Elastic Task Model over message streams

Real-time distributed systems are becoming more pervasive, supporting a broad range of applications such as automotive, adaptive control, robotics, computer vision, and multimedia. Furthermore, in all such applications there is a growing demand for flexibility in order to support dynamic configuration changes such as those arising from evolving requirements and on-line quality-of-service management. The elastic task model, proposed previously, is well suited to support that level of flexibility in multitasking systems running on single processors. This paper presents the extension Of such model to the network, which runs the FTT-Ethernet protocol. The paper includes a brief presentation of this protocol and of the elastic task model, discusses the referred extension and presents a set of experimental results involving the dynamic adjustment of the quality of service delivered to several message streams, with guaranteed timeliness.
Body composition and its association with physical performance, quality of life, and clinical indicators in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease: a pilot study

Abstract Aim: To investigate whether the amount and distribution of lean body mass and fat mass is associated with disease severity in adults with Charcot-Marie Tooth. Methods: Ten participants (age 46 ± 13 y, height 1.7 ± 0.1 m, and body mass 77 ± 17 kg) with Charcot-Marie Tooth disease were involved in this study. Participants were evaluated for quality of life, falls efficacy, balance, mobility, muscle strength, and power. Body composition was measured using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. Statistical analyses were conducted on subsets of all participants. Results: Better static balance was associated with higher lean body mass of the lower leg (r = 0.73, p = 0.03), while superior leg press strength and power was associated with greater lean body mass of the leg and lower leg (r ≥ 0.80, p ≤ 0.01). Faster habitual walking speed and enhanced quality of life was associated with lower fat mass of several regions. Conclusion: Our study seems to suggest that assessing of body composition could assist with monitoring of disease progression in people with Charcot-Marie Tooth; however these findings need to be substantiated in a larger cohort. Implications for Rehabilitation Higher lean body mass and lower fat mass of the legs is associated with better physical performances in people with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Lower fat mass is related to greater quality of life and reduced clinical symptoms in people with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Optimising favorable body composition profiles (higher lean body mass and lower fat mass) in people with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease may be highly clinically relevant.
Aging 2.0: Health Information about Dementia on Twitter

Online social media is widespread, easily accessible and attracts a global audience with a widening demographic. As a large proportion of adults now seek health information online and through social media applications, communication about health has become increasingly interactive and dynamic. Online health information has the potential to significantly impact public health, especially as the population gets older and the prevalence of dementia increases. However, little is known about how information pertaining to age-associated diseases is disseminated on popular social media platforms. To fill this knowledge gap, we examined empirically: (i) who is using social media to share information about dementia, (ii) what sources of information about dementia are promoted, and (iii) which dementia themes dominate the discussion. We data-mined the microblogging platform Twitter for content containing dementia-related keywords for a period of 24 hours and retrieved over 9,200 tweets. A coding guide was developed and content analysis conducted on a random sample (10%), and on a subsample from top users’ tweets to assess impact. We found that a majority of tweets contained a link to a third party site rather than personal information, and these links redirected mainly to news sites and health information sites. As well, a large number of tweets discussed recent research findings related to the prediction and risk management of Alzheimer’s disease. The results highlight the need for the dementia research community to harness the reach of this medium and its potential as a tool for multidirectional engagement.
Exploring immature‐to‐mother social distances in Mexican mantled howler monkeys at Los Tuxtlas, Mexico

We analyzed immature‐to‐mother social distance (juveniles and non‐nursing infants) in two Mexican mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliata) troops inhabiting a tropical rainforest fragment (40 ha) at Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico. During July and August of 2000 and 2001 we applied an instantaneous sampling method (317 hr) to record the behaviors of the immatures and their mothers, as well as distances (ordinal scale) between immatures and their mothers (IMD), and between immatures and nonmother individuals (INMD). Immatures were generally less than 5 m away from any individual of the troop. Social distance was influenced by the different behaviors of both mothers and immatures, with the shortest distances occurring during rest (IMD <5 m in 94% of all instantaneous samples) and the longest during exploration (21%≥10 m) and play (26%≥10 m). When IMD increased, we found a higher percentage of records <5 m to other individuals, particularly with the probable father. When the variation in distance to the mother and to other individuals in the troop was considered, the immature animals' distance to other troop members depended on the immatures' age and type of behavior. Overall, these results suggest that in this low‐activity species the development of the immature is associated with a complex set of relationships with other troop members. Am. J. Primatol. 69:1–9, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Managing dive centres: SCUBA divers' behavioural intentions

Research question: Although drivers of customers' behavioural intentions are seen as a necessary source of information to management, there is a scarcity of research in the sports literature. The current study examines an integrated model of behavioural intentions towards dive centres through the simultaneous relationships among service quality, value, perceived crowding, novelty, emotions, satisfaction and behavioural intentions, and the moderator effect of involvement. Research methods: The framework proposed has been developed through a critical review of existing literature. A survey was conducted among self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA) divers (n = 454) who had just finished diving around the Medes Islands. Results and findings: The results, gathered from structural equation models, indicate that service quality influences behavioural intentions and that novelty influences emotions and satisfaction. These results also provide evidence of the strong influence of emotions on behavioural intentions, with direct and indirect effects. Additionally, the level of involvement was tested by means of a multi-group analysis. The results showed that the level of involvement moderates some of the relationships. Implications: These findings suggest managerial implications, such as the need to provide high levels of services before, during and after the dives; the need to maintain low carrying capacity to avoid the perception of crowding; and to increase the emotional offer of diving services.
Abnormal relaxation rates in subjects susceptible to malignant hyperthermia

ABSTRACT— The acute malignant hyperthermia crisis appears to be mediated by asudden and sustained rise in the concentration of sarcoplasmic calcium, leading to a prolonged muscle contraction. It is not known whethr clcium metabolism in skeletal muscie is abnormal in malignant hyperthermia susceptible (MHS) subjects under normal condition. Ahpermetabolic state in skeletal muscle can be assessed in vivo by measuring relaxation rate. In the present study the relaxation rate was measured in the adductor policis muscle after electerical stimulation of the ulnar nerve. Ten MHS subjects with no clinical symptoms of muscle disease were investigated. Relaxation rates were found to be significantly higher in the MH‐susceptible subects compared with controls even under normal condition (p0.0001). Determination of relaxtion rate could thus be considered a possible addition to those methods currently available for the diagnosis of MHS.