Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Requirement of CD4 Help for Induction of CD8 T Cell Response Specific for Virally Derived H60

CD40-CD40L-mediated help from CD4 T cells is essential to induce primary CD8 T cell responses specific to the non-inflammatory cell-based antigen H60. In this study, using H60 as a model antigen, we generated recombinant vaccinia viruses (rVVs) expressing the H60 CD8 epitope and investigated whether CD4 help was required to activate the CD8 T cell response specific to the virally expressed H60. The immune response after infection with rVVs expressing H60 was similar to that after immunization with H60 congenic splenocytes, with a peak frequency of H60-specific CD8 T cells detected in the blood on day 10 post-infection. A CD8 T cell response specific for virally derived H60 was not induced in CD4-depleted mice, but was in CD40-deficient mice. These results provide insights into the characterization of the CD8 T cell response specifically for antigens originating from cellular sources compared to viral sources.
Physiological and Biochemical Reactions of Olive Genotypes during Site-Relevant Ozone Exposure

Ozone (O3) is one of the major atmospheric pollutants in the Mediterranean area and negatively interacts with several biochemical and physiological processes of the plants. Olive is one of the most widely cultivated trees in the Mediterranean climates and previous studies have shown that O3 can potentially interfere with olive trees productivity. In order to test the physiological and biochemical changes induced by realistic O3 levels (100 and 50 ppb, 5 h -1 day) in newly developed olive leaves, the effects of long term (18 months) O3 exposure were investigated on Moraiolo and Frantoio cultivars. Data on gas exchange showed that O3 treatment had significant effects on photosynthetic activity and stomatal conductance with some differences between the two cultivars. X-ray spectra obtained from guard cells of open and closed stomata confirmed the main role of K to establish the differences in the ionic state between open and closed stomata. Moreover, O3 exposure induced a decrease in K and Ca net counts with respect to the control treatment suggesting the development of an adaptive mechanism to O3 which controls stomata responses at reduced ionic levels. Biochemical assays showed that ascorbate peroxidase activity was not affected by O3 treatments in Frantoio, while it increased in Moraiolo plants exposed to 50 ppb of O3.
Extraction of video songs from movies using audio features

A movie gathers different fractions like comedy scenes, action, dialogs and songs. Extraction of songs from movies is carried out in this paper with the help of special audio features which helps to distinguish between song and non-song. The algorithm used here performs the operations of movie segmentation, intensity based classification and audio clues based improvements. Intensity based classifications leads to the promising song sequences which may include non-song portions. Such false detections are eliminated using audio clues namely tempo and zero crossing rate. Movies of different genre like comedy, drama, action, thriller, romantic and suspense having different languages specifically Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and English are taken here for measuring accuracy of this work.
A novel insomnia identification method based on Hjorth parameters

In this work, we present a &-means classifier using Hjorth parameters extracted from the central electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to accurately detect insomnia. To develop and test our classifier we used data from thirty six subjects: 18 patients diagnosed with primary insomnia (10 females, 8 males) and 18 controls (10 females, 8 males). The main findings of our work can be summarized as follows: 1) the Hjorth parameters, particularly the mobility and the complexity, accurately quantify the differences between the EEG sleep from insomnia patients and controls; 2) these differences can be observed across both C3 and C4 central channels; and 3) a k-means classifier based on Hjorth parameters extracted from the C3 channel is able to accurately detect epochs from insomnia patients with a Cohen's Kappa of 0.83, sensitivity of 91.9% and specificity of 91%.
Decode-And-Forward Full Duplex relaying in MIMO - OFDMA Systems

: Co-operative communication with relay assistance helps in enhancing the capacity of point to point links. Next-generation wireless communication systems require higher spectral efficiency and macroscopic coverage to support the quality of service needed for a wide variety of multimedia applications. Much research has been devoted to enhancing the spectral efficiency of wireless communication systems. Among these, relay based communication systems have attracted a great deal of attention thanks to their potential to deliver extended cell coverage and reduced power consumption. We discuss resource efficiency in relay systems, particularly in two-way and full-duplex relay systems that utilize multiple antennas and improved duplexing to enhance system efficiency. Besides, a theoretically optimal hybrid relaying, which allows a dynamic selection between AF relaying and DF relaying protocols with full-duplex relays or half-duplex relays, is also considered in the problem formulation and serves as a performance benchmark. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed source and relay design algorithms perform much better than the existing techniques in terms of probability of error Vs transmit power.
Call Admission Control and Routing in Integrated Service Networks Using Reinforcement Learning

In integrated service communication networks, an important problem is to exercise call admission control and routing so as to optimally use the network resources. This problem is naturally formulated as a dynamic programming problem, which, however, is too complex to be solved exactly. We use methods of reinforcement learning (RL), together with a decomposition approach, to find call admission control and routing policies. We compare the performance of our policy with a commonly used heuristic policy.
Large-scale co-evolution analysis of protein structural interlogues using the global protein structural interactome map (PSIMAP)

MOTIVATION Interacting pairs of proteins should co-evolve to maintain functional and structural complementarity. Consequently, such a pair of protein families shows similarity between their phylogenetic trees. Although the tendency of co-evolution has been known for various ligand-receptor pairs, it has not been studied systematically in the widest possible scope. We investigated the degree of co-evolution for more than 900 family pairs in a global protein structural interactome map (PSIMAP--a map of all the structural domain-domain interactions in the PDB). RESULTS There was significant correlation in 45% of the total SCOPs Family level pairs, rising to 78% in 454 reliable family interactions. Expectedly, the intra-molecular interactions between protein families showed stronger co-evolution than inter-molecular interactions. However, both types of interaction have a fundamentally similar pattern of co-evolution except for cases where different interfaces are involved. These results validate the use of co-evolution analysis with predictive methods such as PSIMAP to improve the accuracy of prediction based on "homologous interaction". The tendency of co-evolution enabled a nearly 5-fold enrichment in the identification of true interactions among the potential interlogues in PSIMAP. The estimated sensitivity was 79.2%, and the specificity was 78.6%. AVAILABILITY The results of co-evolution analysis are available online at http://www.biointeraction. org
Monitoring of Xenograft Tumor Growth and Response to Chemotherapy by Non-Invasive In Vivo Multispectral Fluorescence Imaging

A continuous monitoring of the whole tumor burden of individuals in orthotopic tumor models is a desirable aim and requires non-invasive imaging methods. Here we investigated whether quantification of a xenograft tumor intrinsic fluorescence signal can be used to evaluate tumor growth and response to chemotherapy. Stably fluorescence protein (FP) expressing cell clones of colorectal carcinoma and germ cell tumor lines were generated by lentiviral transduction using the FPs eGFP, dsRed2, TurboFP635, and mPlum. Applying subcutaneous tumor models in different experimental designs, specific correlations between measured total fluorescence intensity (FI) and the tumor volume (V) could be established. The accuracy of correlation of FI and V varied depending on the cell model used. The application of deep-red FP expressing xenografts (TurboFP635, mPlum) was observed to result in improved correlations. This was also reflected by the results of a performed error analysis. In a model of visceral growing mPlum tumors, measurements of FI could be used to follow growth and response to chemotherapy. However, in some cases final necropsy revealed the existence of additional, deeper located tumors that had not been detected in vivo by their mPlum signal. Consistently, only the weights of the tumors that were detected in vivo based on their mPlum signal correlated with FI. In conclusion, as long as tumors are visualized by their fluorescence signal the FI can be used to evaluate tumor burden. Deep-red FPs are more suitable for in vivo applications as compared to eGFP and dsRed2.
What is the effect of ischemic preconditioning on the kinetics of pulmonary oxygen uptake and muscle deoxygenation during exercise?

Ischemic preconditioning (IPC, brief cycles of ischemia) induces protection against ischemia–reperfusion injury, due to IPC‐mediated change in the metabolism of skeletal muscles and micro‐ and macrovascular function. Since high‐intensity aerobic exercise depends on such physiological factors, it has been hypothesized that IPC can also improve exercise performance. Although some studies confirmed this hypothesis (Salvador et al. 2015), others did not (Salvador et al. 2015). Moreover, even when IPC improved exercise performance, the mechanisms involved were unclear. For example, increase in maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) (De Groot et al. 2010) and decrease in blood lactate concentration (Bailey et al. 2012) have been reported, but these findings were not unanimous among studies (Salvador et al. 2015). In this context, a recent study by Kido et al. (2015) examined the effects of IPC of the lower limbs on the kinetics of pulmonary VO2 and muscle deoxygenation during square‐wave transitions from low‐ to moderate‐intensity and from moderate‐ to severe‐intensity cycling exercise. Besides, authors assessed the effect of IPC on the time to exhaustion in the severe‐intensity workload. Authors found that IPC increased the time to exhaustion, which supports an increase in exercise performance. Furthermore, IPC did not change the pulmonary VO2 kinetics, but changed the kinetics of muscle deoxygenation. These findings are original and advance the …
SOA-Scanner: An Integrated Tool to Detect Vulnerabilities in Service-Based Infrastructures

Service Oriented Architectures are nowadays used in a wide range of organizations to support critical daily operations. Although the underlying services should behave in a secure manner, they are often deployed with bugs that can be maliciously exploited. The characteristics of service-based environments open the door to security challenges that must be handled properly, including services under the control of multiple providers and dynamism of interactions and compositions. This paper presents an extensible tool able to widely test such infrastructures for vulnerabilities. The tool is based in an iterative process that uses interface monitoring to automatically monitor and discover the existing services, resources and interactions, and applies different testing approaches depending on the level of access to each existing services. Two case studies has been developed do demonstrate the tool, and results show that the tool can effectively be used in different service-based scenarios, under different access conditions to the target services.
Predicting Attrition Along the Way: The UIUC Model

Discussion forum and clickstream are two primary data streams that enable mining of student behavior in a massively open online course. A student’s participation in the discussion forum gives direct access to the opinions and concerns of the student. However, the low participation (5-10%) in discussion forums, prompts the modeling of user behavior based on clickstream information. Here we study a predictive model for learner attrition on a given week using information mined just from the clickstream. Features that are related to the quiz attempt/submission and those that capture interaction with various course components are found to be reasonable predictors of attrition in a given week.
Minimizing Cost of Virtual Machines for Deadline-Constrained MapReduce Applications in the Cloud

As Cloud computing provides Anything as a Service (XaaS), many applications can be developed and run on the Cloud without concerns of platforms. Data-incentive applications are also easily developed on virtual machines provided by the Cloud. In this work, we investigate cost-effective resource provisioning for MapReduce applications with deadline constraints, as the MapReduce programming model is useful and powerful in developing data-incentive applications. When users want to run MapReduce applications, they submit jobs to a Cloud resource broker which allocates appropriate virtual machines with consideration of SLAs (Service-Level Agreements). The goal of resource provisioning in this paper is to minimize the cost of virtual machines for executing MapReduce applications without violating their deadlines to be finished by. We propose two resource provisioning approaches: one based on listed pricing policies and the other based on deadline-aware tasks packing. Throughout simulations, we evaluate and analyze them in various ways.
Einfluss von Emotionsregulation und emotionaler Erregung auf Lebensqualität und Adhärenz bei Paaren nach Nierentransplantation

Zusammenfassung Einleitung Bei Patienten nach Nierentransplantationen ist die Nonadhärenz an die immunsuppressive Behandlung das größte Risiko für einen Transplantatverlust. Maladaptive Emotionsregulationsstrategien (ERS) stellen Risikofaktoren für Nonadhärenz dar, während bei Patienten in Partnerschaft Unterstützung des Partners protektiv wirkt. In Zusammenhang mit dem partnerschaftlichen Unterstützungsverhalten steht außerdem emotionale Erregung, objektiv messbar mithilfe der Sprachgrundfrequenz (f0 ). Material & Methoden Bei N=50 Paaren nach Nierentransplantation wurde der Zusammenhang zwischen Erfahrungen und Überzeugungen hinsichtlich der imunsuppressiven Medikation (ISM), Lebensqualität (LQ), erlebten Emotionen, ERS und f0 während eines Paargesprächs untersucht. Ergebnisse Mehr maladaptive ERS des Transplantierten hingen mit geringerer mentaler LQ des Partners, tendenziell höherem eigenen negativem Affekt und schlechteren eigenen Erfahrungen und Überzeugungen hinsichtlich der ISM zusammen. Maladaptive ERS des Partners wiesen negative Korrelationen mit der eigenen mentalen LQ auf. Bezüglich der f0 fanden sich Geschlechterunterschiede. Eine höhere f0 des männlichen Transplantierten hing mit mehr maladaptiven ERS der Partnerinnen zusammen. Tendenziell signifikante Zusammenhänge zeigten sich auch mit schlechteren eigenen Erfahrungen und Überzeugungen hinsichtlich der ISM. Eine erhöhte f0 der Partnerinnen männlicher Transplantierter wies Zusammenhänge mit geringerem eigenem positivem Affekt, mehr negativem Affekt des Transplantierten und schlechteren Erfahrungen und Überzeugungen hinsichtlich der ISM aus Sicht der Partnerin auf. Höhere f0 weiblicher Transplantierter stand in Zusammenhang mit geringeren eigenen maladaptiven ERS und denen des Partners. Diskussion Die Ergebnisse geben Hinweise auf die Relevanz von frühzeitigen Interventionen nach einer Nierentransplantation, in denen auf die Identifizierung und Modifizierung maladaptiver ERS von Patient und Partner fokussiert werden sollte.
HELIOS IX tracked vehicle for urban search and rescue operations: Mechanical design and first tests

Fire brigades and special rescue agencies are often demanded to operate for search and aid of human lives in extremely dangerous scenarios. The use of robotic tools can make those operations safer for the operators and more efficient in terms of time and allocation of resources. This contribution describes the development of the newest tracked vehicle HELIOS IX. This mobile platform equipped with a manipulator represents the first stage of a Japanese national founded project. It aims to the development of a robotic system to be utilized in extreme environments such as rescue operations in heavily stricken urban areas. With respect to the previous prototypes the mechanical design and the system architecture is described. A new gripper is also introduced and tested together with few mobility experiments of the platform.
Mastery grids: an open-source social educational progress visualization

Many pieces of educational software are underused by students. Open learning model and social visualization are two approaches which have been helpful in ameliorating that low usage problem. This article introduces a fusion of these two ideas in a form of social progress visualization. A classroom evaluation indicates that this combination may be effective in engaging students, guiding them to suitable content, and enabling faster content access.
he dynamical impact of electronic thermal conductivity on deep mantle onvection of exosolar planets

We have modelled the time-dependent dynamics of exosolar planets within the framework of a twodimensional Cartesian model and the extended-Boussinesq approximation. The mass of the super-Earth models considered is 8 times the Earth’s mass and the thickness of the mantle is 4700 km, based on a constant density approximation and a similar core mass fraction as in the Earth. The effects of depthdependent properties have been considered for the thermal expansion coefficient, the viscosity and thermal conductivity. The viscosity and thermal conductivity are also temperature-dependent. The thermal conductivity has contributions from phonons, photons and electrons. The last dependence comes from the band-gap nature of the material under high pressure and increases exponentially with temperature and kicks in at temperatures above 5000 K. The thermal expansivity decreases by a factor of 20 across the mantle because of the high pressures, greater than 1 TPa in the deep mantle. We have varied the temperatures at the core–mantle boundary between 6000 and 10,000 K. Accordingly the Rayleigh number based on the surface values varies between 3.5 × 107 and 7 × 107 in the different models investigated. Three phase transitions have been considered: the spinel to perovskite, the post-perovskite transition and the post-perovskite decomposition in the deep lower mantle. We have considered an Arrhenius type of temperature dependence in the viscosity and have extended the viscosity contrast due to temperature to over one million. The parameter values put us well over into the stagnant lid regime. Our numerical results show that because of the multiple phase transitions and strongly depth-dependent properties, particularly the thermal expansitivity, initially most of the planetary interior is strongly super-adiabatic in spite of a high surface Rayleigh number, because of the presence of partially layered and penetrative convective flows throughout the mantle, very much unlike convection in the Earth’s mantle. But with the passage of time, after several billion years, the temperature profiles become adiabatic. The notable influence of electronic thermal conductivity is to heat up the bottom boundary layer quasi-periodically, giving rise to strong coherent upwellingss, which can punch their way to the upper mantle and break up ttern the layered convective pa
Jewel in the Crown: The Nobel Banquet Broadcast as Co-Construction

Abstract This study explores the aims of the Nobel Banquet broadcast, produced by the Swedish public service company SVT and the Nobel Foundation. The study suggests that the programme can be viewed as a co-construction of science and media, and that the Nobel Foundation has three primary purposes: 1) to teach the audience about science; 2) to honour the laureates; and 3) to maintain and increase the status of the Nobel prize. SVT, for their part, has two main purposes: 1) to teach their audience about science, and 2) to entertain. The aims of the Nobel Foundation and SVT may seem disparate, but they are interrelated. At the same time, the subtleties between the entities create a tension that develops through mutual negotiations. The study ends with a discussion of two unexpected findings: 1) the shared, yet essentially differently-grounded aims of both parties to inform about science, and 2) the fact that their scientific content has increased in both absolute and relative terms over the years, a finding that questions notions of a continuous mediatisation of social institutions.
Acceleration Techniques for Volume Rendering

Volume rendering offers an alternative method for the investigation of three dimensional data to that of surface tiling as described by Jones [1], Lorensen and Cline [2], Wilhelms and Van Gelder [3], Wyvill et. al. [4] and Payne and Toga [5]. Surface tiling can be regarded as giving one particular view of the data set, one which just presents all instances of one value – the threshold value. All other values within the data are ignored and do not contribute to the final image. This is acceptable when the data being visualised contains a surface that is readily understandable, as is the case when viewing objects contained within the data produced by CT scans. In certain circumstances this view alone is not enough to reveal the subtle variations in the data, and for such data sets volume rendering was developed [6, 7, 8, 9]. In this paper the underlying technique employed by volume rendering is given in Section 14.2 presented with the aid of a volume rendering model introduced by Levoy [6]. Section 14.3 examines various other volume rendering models and the differing representations they give of the same data. A more efficient method for sampling volume data is presented in Section 14.4 and acceleration techniques are covered in Section 14.5. In Section 14.6 a thorough comparison is made of many of the more popular acceleration techniques with the more efficient method of Section 14.4. It is shown that the new method offers a 30%-50% improvement in speed over current techniques, with very little image degradation and in most cases no visible degradation. A review of existing methods, systems and techniques is given in Section 14.7.
Analysis of neuronal interactions during adaptation and learning in motor control of primates

In this study, we investigate how neurons from different cortices of the brain interact with each other during learning of a task, and how they adapt after perturbation in rhesus monkeys. The level of interaction between neurons over time was estimated through a nonparametric approach by calculating the mutual information between their neural spike trains. It was observed that the average mutual information between neurons was increased significantly within the motor cortex and between the motor and sensory cortices or the brain during the last days of the experiment. Moreover, the increased interactions within the motor cortex were observed before the onset of expected perturbations of arm movements, indicating that the neurons interact well in advance in anticipation of a perturbation, and coordinate their activity to adapt to the task faster and more successfully.