Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detecting copy-paste forgeries using transform-invariant features

Image manipulation has become commonplace with growing easy access to powerful computing abilities. One of the most common types of image forgeries is the copy-paste forgery, wherein a region from an image is replaced with another region from the same image (with possible transformations). A brute-force approach to finding identical regions suffers from many problems, including inability to detect transformed regions. In this paper, we propose a novel technique based on transform-invariant features. These are obtained by adapting the MPEG-7 image signature tools to specifically deal with copy-paste forgeries. Results are provided to justify the application of these tools in copy-paste forgery detection.
RDP58, a Novel Immunomodulatory Peptide with Anti-Inflammatory Effects. A Pharmacological Study in Trinitrobenzene Sulphonic Acid Colitis and Crohn Disease

Background: Tumour necrosis factor (TNF) plays a key role in the pathogenesis of Crohn disease (CD). RDP58 is a novel anti-inflammatory decapeptide which was developed using a novel rational design strategy. Recently, RDP58 has proved to be a potent inhibitor of TNF production at a post-transcriptional step. The aims of this study were to investigate the anti-inflammatory properties of RDP58 ex vivo in human CD and in vivo in an experimental model colitis. Methods: Biopsies and lamina propria mononuclear cells from inflamed colonic mucosa of 18 CD patients were cultured for 24 h in the presence or absence of RDP58. TNF was quantified in a bioassay; interferon (IFN)-γ and interleukin (IL)-1β levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Colitis was induced by intra-rectal administration of 2, 4, 6 trinitrobenzene sulphonic acid (TNBS) in rats. Inflammation was assessed following 7 days of oral therapy with RDP58 or vehicle alone. Results: RDP58 led to decreased TNF and IFN-γ (but not IL-1β) production by biopsies and lamina propria mononuclear cells from CD patients. In rats with TNBS-induced colitis, oral RDP58 therapy reduced weight loss and diarrhoea and improved macroscopic and histological inflammation scores. Conclusions: Our results suggest that RDP58 may be an effective therapy for CD with the clinical advantage of an oral administration.
Phytoremediation and Removal Mechanisms in Bouteloua Curtipendula Growing in Sterile Hydrocarbon Spiked Cultures

Tolerance index and phytoremediation factors of side oats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) with recalcitrant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) phenanthrene (PHE), pyrene (PYR), and benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) and the resulting impact on phenotypic response, were evaluated in sterile conditions with whole plant growing in test-tube cultures with MS medium with PAH and compared with Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), control for this study. PAH mixture of PHE, PYR and BaP (1:1:1 w/w/w) blended with Maya crude oil (1:1 w/w), final concentration of 1 500 mg kg−1 was used. After 40 days, BaP removal, in the presence of Maya crude was superior compared with PHE and PYR removal. Although the presence of PAH negatively affects the phenotypic response of the plants; sterile conditions experiments were helpful to evaluate phytoremediation factors to elucidate some important questions regarding phytoremediation mechanisms; in this study, B. curtipendula was able to phytostabilizate BaP associated to a significant hydrocarbon removal (57.4%) with high root accumulation but attenuated transport to stems, here reported as translocation factor. To our knowledge, this is the first time that quantifiable phytoremediation factors were used to evaluate the tolerance and removal capacity of a native semi-arid climate plant which is probably able to phytoremediate hydrocarbon contaminated soils.
TRPC3 and TRPC4 Associate to Form a Redox-sensitive Cation Channel

Canonical transient receptor potential proteins (TRPC) have been proposed to form homo- or heteromeric cation channels in a variety of tissues, including the vascular endothelium. Assembly of TRPC multimers is incompletely understood. In particular, heteromeric assembly of distantly related TRPC isoforms is still a controversial issue. Because we have previously suggested TRPC proteins as the basis of the redox-activated cation conductance of porcine aortic endothelial cells (PAECs), we set out to analyze the TRPC subunit composition of endogenous endothelial TRPC channels and report here on a redox-sensitive TRPC3-TRPC4 channel complex. The ability of TRPC3 and TRPC4 proteins to associate and to form a cation-conducting pore complex was supported by four lines of evidence as follows: 1) Co-immunoprecipitation experiments in PAECs and in HEK293 cells demonstrated the association of TRPC3 and TRPC4 in the same complex. 2) Fluorescence resonance energy transfer analysis demonstrated TRPC3-TRPC4 association, involving close proximity between the N terminus of TRPC4 and the C terminus of TRPC3 subunits. 3) Co-expression of TRPC3 and TRPC4 in HEK293 cells generated a channel that displayed distinct biophysical and regulatory properties. 4) Expression of dominant-negative TRPC4 proteins suppressed TRPC3-related channel activity in the HEK293 expression system and in native endothelial cells. Specifically, an extracellularly hemagglutinin (HA)-tagged TRPC4 mutant, which is sensitive to blockage by anti-HA-antibody, was found to transfer anti-HA sensitivity to both TRPC3-related currents in the HEK293 expression system and the redox-sensitive cation conductance of PAECs. We propose TRPC3 and TRPC4 as subunits of native endothelial cation channels that are governed by the cellular redox state.
Terahertz wave generation and terahertz reference transfer

We have developed a THz synthesizer to generate a THz continuous wave based on a broadband optical frequency comb. Using the stimulated Brillouin scattering of a long optical fiber, only two optical modes are selectively extracted from the optical comb and a highly accurate THz continuous wave is generated by photomixing. In generation of 100GHz and 700GHz waves, fractional frequency instability of 1×10-15 at 1000 seconds was confirmed. This THz generation scheme is applied to a transmission of THz frequency reference via an optical fiber. Actually a 3THz reference following the Japan Standard Time was transmitted and used for phase-locking of a THz quantum cascade laser.
Time to Electrode Rewarming After Cryoablation Predicts Lesion Size

Introduction: There are no methods in clinical use to assess tissue cooling during catheter cryoablation. Cryoablation electrode temperature may be a poor predictor of lesion size. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the time necessary for the cryoablation electrode to cool to target temperature or to rewarm after cryoablation can predict lesion size.
Simple Justice or Complex Injustice?: American Racial Dynamics and the Ironies of Brown and Grutter

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court rendered one of the most important legal decisions in American history. With its first opinion in the Brown v. Board of Education, the Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that racial segregation should not be allowed even if Black and White schools had equal funding, equal opportunities, and were equivalent in all other resources. The eventual result of the Brown decision was the complete breakdown of the legally mandated, or de jure segregation. It is appropriate that fifty years later, we commemorate the decision, which is aptly described by the title of Richard Kluger's (1975) famous book, Simple Justice.
Development of life-sized humanoid robot platform with robustness for falling down, long time working and error occurrence

In this paper, we described a new developed life-size humanoid robot. A purpose of the developed robot is to realize continuous operation for a long time and to improve an action autonomously. we considered three aspects of robustness, mechanical robustness, functional robustness and robustness of an action. Mechanical robustness was confirmed by the experiment that the robot fell down without mechanical failures and continued to work after falling down by using hard points. Functional robustness was designed to use power cable and to wear a suit which can be changed by required functionality. Robustness of an action was achieved as a standing up action using “StateNet”, which realized autonomous error recovery. Finally, we present a methodology to develop a humanoid robot platform which can continue to work in the real world.
Performance of principal scores to estimate the marginal compliers causal effect of an intervention

We examine the properties of principal scores methods to estimate the causal marginal odds ratio of an intervention for compliers in the context of a randomized controlled trial with non‐compliers. The two‐stage estimation approach has been proposed for a linear model by Jo and Stuart (Statistics in Medicine 2009; 28:2857–2875) under a principal ignorability (PI) assumption. Using a Monte Carlo simulation study, we compared the performance of several strategies to build and use principal score models and the robustness of the method to violations of underlying assumptions, in particular PI. Results showed that the principal score approach yielded unbiased estimates of the causal marginal log odds ratio under PI but that the method was sensitive to violations of PI, which occurs in particular when confounders are omitted from the analysis. For principal score analysis, probability weighting performed slightly better than full matching or 1:1 matching. Concerning the variables to be included in principal score models, the lowest mean squared error was generally obtained when using the true confounders. Using variables associated with the outcome only but not compliance however yielded very similar performance. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Relative labilities of the two types of interchain disulfide bond of rabbit gamma G-immunoglobulin.

A molecule of rabbit yG-globulin’ evidently consists of four polypeptide chains held together by interchain disulfide bonds and noncovalent interactions. Each molecule comprises a pair of similar or identical “light” chains having an approximate molecular weight of 20,000, and another pair of “heavy” chains of weight 50,000 to 55,000 (2-7). Each light chain is linked to a heavy chain and the two heavy chains are joined to one another (3, 8). The presence of 1 X-carboxymethylcysteine residue per light chain, isolated after reduction and alkylation with iodoacetate, indicates that a single interchain disulfide bond joins each light chain to a heavy chain (3). Similarly, in a large part if not all of the molecules, reduction of a single disulfide bond is sufficient to permit separation at 10~ pH of half-molecules, each consisting of a light and a heavy chain (9, 10). This is evidently the same disulfide bond that links two “univalent” (Fab’ (1)) fragments after peptic digestion (11). To be consistent with the structural model of Fleischman, Porter, and Press (3), it was necessary to postulate that this bond joins two heavy chains (11). The present investigation provides direct evidence that this is the case. A study was also made of the relative labilities of the disulfide bonds linking light and heavy chains as compared with that of the bond joining half-molecules.2 Conditions for preferential reduction of the H-H disulfide bond, with minimal cleavage of L-H disulfide bonds, were defined. The extent of exchange of light and heavy chains, under the conditions used for separation and hybridization of half-molecules, was estimated. Also, it was found that after reduction of all interchain disulfide bonds, separation into half-molecule subunits occurs under milder conditions than are required for dissociation into separate light and heavy chains.
UTD-Based Path Loss Prediction with Experimental Validations for Micro-Cellular Mobile Radio Communications

The new work makes three UTD (uniforn geometrical theory of diffraction) based path-loss prediction models and their experimental validations for urban micro-cellular mobile radio communications. The three models apply to the base station and mobile antennas much lower than the surrounding buildings and can be written in explicit forms for both vertical-and horizontal-polarization transmission and reception. Comparisons of their predictions with measurements at 900.5 and 1800 MHz in shadow zones of urban areas confirm the three models experimentally. The results demonstrate that fast two-dimensional (2-D) models which do not require a building height database can provide acceptable accuracy for micro-cellular mobile radio propagation predictions in urban environments. The methodology of this work is to deternine in advance significant rays to use, from a particular geometry of the buildings in an urban area. It appears suitable here for 2-D modeling for parallel-street problem and irregular side-street problems. It has the potential to be used in practical design of micro-cellular mobile radio systems.
Transcriptome assembly and polymorphism detection in Silene ciliata (Caryophyllaceae)

Abstract Silene ciliata (Caryophyllaceae) is a key species to test evolutionary hypotheses in a global warming context. The recent advances in Next Generation Sequencing technologies can help in providing clues about climate-mediated local adaptation. In the present study, we analysed the full transcriptome of six individuals of S. ciliata from Central Spain, by aligning it with the transcriptome of S. latifolia. We aimed (a) to identify Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in the transcriptome of the species, (b) to describe the biological function of the polymorphic genes expressed and (c) to identify loci that may be involved in local adaptation processes at optimal and marginal populations of the species. We identified a total of 147,118 SNPs distributed throughout 12,688 sequences. The number of polymorphic sequences annotated was 8023. One hundred thirty sequences containing polymorphisms strongly associated with optimal and marginal conditions were selected. Gene ontology searches were successful for 118, and many of these were related to responses to stress (n = 19) and abiotic stimulus (n = 16). Genomic data generated provide a starting point for further research on the identification of candidate genes related to local adaptation and other processes in the species.
Comments on “On the Necessity of Diffusive Couplings in Linear Synchronization Problems With Quadratic Cost”

In this note, we want to comment on the recent paper “On the necessity of diffusive couplings in linear synchronization problems with quadratic cost” (IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 60, pp. 3029–3034, 2015) by Montenbruck et al. on the necessity of diffusiveness of optimal control laws in linear quadratic control problems in the context of synchronization. In the above paper, the authors concentrate on the optimal feedback law associated with the maximal solution of the underlying algebraic Riccati equation (ARE). In this comment, we argue that it is more natural to use the smallest positive semidefinite solution of the ARE. Our approach generalizes the results in the above paper to the case in which the agent dynamics is allowed to have eigenvalues in the open right half plane. Moreover, our proof considerably simplifies the one in the above paper, as it avoids the analysis of the Riccati differential equation. In addition, we propose and solve the zero endpoint version of the linear quadratic problem studied in the above paper.
Distributed Topological Camera Selection Without Location Information

In this paper, a distributed algorithm, namely distributed topological camera selection, is proposed for selecting the minimum number of cameras to cover the entire area in the case that there is no location information. In order to relax the location information assumption, we propose an approach based on homology. We consider the nerve complex corresponding to the camera network and demonstrate how combinatorial Laplacian and topological properties of the network can be used to formulate the problem of selecting the minimum number of cameras for covering the entire space as an optimization problem. Proposed optimization problem works on the simplicial complex of the network and finds the least number of two-simplices that cover the entire area. Then, we propose a distributed algorithm using the subgradient method for this problem. Finally, we validate the algorithm via one experimental setup and evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm by conducting simulations.
First committed step of lipid A biosynthesis in Escherichia coli: sequence of the lpxA gene

The min 4 region of the Escherichia coli genome contains genes (lpxA and lpxB) that encode proteins involved in lipid A biosynthesis. We have determined the sequence of 1,350 base pairs of DNA upstream of the lpxB gene. This fragment of DNA contains the complete coding sequence for the 28.0-kilodalton lpxA gene product and an upstream open reading frame capable of encoding a 17-kilodalton protein (ORF17). In addition there appears to be an additional open reading frame (ORF? ) immediately upstream of ORF17. The initiation codon for lpxA is a GUG codon, and the start codon for ORF17 is apparently a UUG codon. The start and stop codons overlap between ORF? and ORF17, ORF17 and lpxA, and lpxA and lpxB. This overlap is suggestive of translational coupling and argues that the genes are cotranscribed. Crowell et al. (D.N. Crowell, W.S. Reznikoff, and C.R.H. Raetz, J. Bacteriol. 169:5727-5734, 1987) and Tomasiewicz and McHenry (H.G. Tomasiewicz and C.S. McHenry, J. Bacteriol. 169:5735-5744, 1987) have demonstrated that there are three similarly overlapping coding regions downstream of lpxB including dnaE, suggesting the existence of a complex operon of at least seven genes: 5'-ORF? -ORF17-lpxA-lpxB-ORF23-dnaE-ORF37-3 '.
Planar transformer winding technique for reduced capacitance in LLC power converters

Planar transformers (PTs) offer advantages over traditional wire-wound transformers including low-height, low leakage inductance, excellent thermal characteristics, Exceptional reproducibility and manufacturing simplicity. Despite these features, PTs have very high parasitic capacitance due to the large overlapping area and the small distance between consecutive layers. These parasitic capacitances can severely affect the performance of power converters and limit the application of PTs in high frequencies. In this paper, a new PT with very low parasitic capacitance is introduced to mitigate the problems that arise from the parasitic capacitances. The superiority of the proposed PT is confirmed through finite element analysis (FEA) and the experimental measurements and it is shown that the proposed transformer has 21.2 times less intra and 16.6 times less inter-winding capacitance than traditional spiral PT. This significant capacitance reduction has a tangible effect on the performance of power converter and the experimental results of employing the proposed transformer in 1.2 kW LLC resonant converter shows considerable performance improvement of the converter in terms of common mode (CM) noise and light-loading voltage regulation.
Softwarization and Optimization for Sustainable Future Mobile Networks: A Survey

Due to the tremendous growth in mobile data traffic, cellular networks are witnessing architectural evolutions. Future cellular networks are expected to be extremely dense and complex systems, supporting a high variety of end devices (e.g., smartphone, sensors, machines) with very diverse QoS requirements. Such an amount of network and end-user devices will consume a high percentage of electricity from the power grid to operate, thus increasing the carbon footprint and the operational expenditures of mobile operators. Therefore, environmental and economical sustainability have been included in the roadmap toward a proper design of the next-generation cellular system. This paper focuses on softwarization paradigm, energy harvesting technologies, and optimization tools as enablers of future cellular networks for achieving diverse system requirements, including energy saving. This paper surveys the state-of-the-art literature embedding softwarization paradigm in densely deployed radio access network (RAN). In addition, the need for energy harvesting technologies in a densified RAN is provided with the review of the state-of-the-art proposals on the interaction between softwarization and energy harvesting technology. Moreover, the role of optimization tools, such as machine learning, in future RAN with densification paradigm is stated. We have classified the available literature that balances these three pillars, namely, softwarization, energy harvesting, and optimization with densification, being a common RAN deployment trend. Open issues that require further research efforts are also included.
A Conspicuous Connection: Structure Defines Function for the Phosphatidylinositol-Phosphate Kinase Family

ABSTRACT The phosphatidylinositol phosphate (PIP) kinases are a unique family of enzymes that generate an assortment of lipid messengers, including the pivotal second messenger phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PI4,5P2). While members of the PIP kinase family function by catalyzing a similar phosphorylation reaction, the specificity loop of each PIP kinase subfamily determines substrate preference and partially influences distinct subcellular targeting. Specific protein-protein interactions that are unique to particular isoforms or splice variants play a key role in targeting PIP kinases to appropriate subcellular compartments to facilitate the localized generation of PI4,5P2 proximal to effectors, a mechanism key for the function of PI4,5P2 as a second messenger. This review documents the discovery of the PIP kinases and their signaling products, and summarizes our current understanding of the mechanisms underlying the localized generation of PI4,5P2 by PIP kinases for the regulation of cellular events including actin cytoskeleton dynamics, vesicular trafficking, cell migration, and an assortment of nuclear events.