Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Analysis of gO Isoforms Reveals that Strains of Human Cytomegalovirus Differ in the Ratio of gH/gL/gO and gH/gL/UL128-131 in the Virion Envelope

ABSTRACT Herpesvirus glycoprotein complex gH/gL provides a core entry function through interactions with the fusion protein gB and can also influence tropism through receptor interactions. The Epstein-Barr virus gH/gL and gH/gL/gp42 serve both functions for entry into epithelial and B cells, respectively. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) gH/gL can be bound by the UL128-131 proteins or gO. The phenotypes of gO and UL128-131 mutants suggest that gO-gH/gL interactions are necessary for the core entry function on all cell types, whereas the binding of UL128-131 to gH/gL likely relates to a distinct receptor-binding function for entry into some specific cell types (e.g., epithelial) but not others (e.g., fibroblasts and neurons). There are at least eight isoforms of gO that differ by 10 to 30% of amino acids, and previous analysis of two HCMV strains suggested that some isoforms of gO function like chaperones, disassociating during assembly to leave unbound gH/gL in the virion envelope, while others remain bound to gH/gL. For the current report, we analyzed the gH/gL complexes present in the virion envelope of several HCMV strains, each of which encodes a distinct gO isoform. Results indicate that all strains of HCMV contain stable gH/gL/gO trimers and gH/gL/UL128-131 pentamers and little, if any, unbound gH/gL. TR, TB40/e, AD169, and PH virions contained vastly more gH/gL/gO than gH/gL/UL128-131, whereas Merlin virions contained mostly gH/gL/UL128-131, despite abundant unbound gO remaining in the infected cells. Suppression of UL128-131 expression during Merlin replication dramatically shifted the ratio toward gH/gL/gO. These data suggest that Merlin gO is less efficient than other gO isoforms at competing with UL128-131 for binding to gH/gL. Thus, gO diversity may influence the pathogenesis of HCMV through effects on the assembly of the core versus tropism gH/gL complexes.
Factorial Switching Linear Dynamical Systems Applied to Physiological Condition Monitoring

Condition monitoring often involves the analysis of systems with hidden factors that switch between different modes of operation in some way. Given a sequence of observations, the task is to infer the filtering distribution of the switch setting at each time step. In this paper, we present factorial switching linear dynamical systems as a general framework for handling such problems. We show how domain knowledge and learning can be successfully combined in this framework, and introduce a new factor (the ldquoX-factorrdquo) for dealing with unmodeled variation. We demonstrate the flexibility of this type of model by applying it to the problem of monitoring the condition of a premature baby receiving intensive care. The state of health of a baby cannot be observed directly, but different underlying factors are associated with particular patterns of physiological measurements and artifacts. We have explicit knowledge of common factors and use the X-factor to model novel patterns which are clinically significant but have unknown cause. Experimental results are given which show the developed methods to be effective on typical intensive care unit monitoring data.
Signs of Media Logic Half a Century of Political Communication in the Netherlands

Abstract On the basis of three elections, covering a period of fifty years, the authors aim at testing the increasingly popular hypothesis that political communication is driven by media logic and by political and media system characteristics. In short: sooner or later, the modes and styles of American media will appear in Europe too.The complex and volatile relationship between media and politics in the Netherlands in the last half century does show some, although not uni-linear signs of media logic. The strength of a public service tradition and a political culture of non-adversariality, however, seem to have stopped the developments short of a political communication style which is characterised by performance driven campaigning, horse race and poll driven reporting, orientation on the public as consumers, journalistic dominance, agenda setting and cynicism.
A Pheromone-Based Negotiation Mechanism for Lot-Sizing in Supply Chains

A new generic negotiation mechanism to coordinate decentralized planning of a group of independent and self-interested decision makers or agents, who are searching for an agreeable contract regarding multiple interdependent issues, in the case of asymmetric information is presented. The basic idea of the mechanism is that the group members carry out a joint search based on a mediated pheromone matrix. By means of the Borda maximin voting rule, the agents determine contract proposals in each round of the negotiation process which are then used for the adaptation of pheromones or the generation of new contracts, respectively. The new negotiation mechanism is applied to the problem of decentralized lot-sizing in a supply chain. The resulting solution approach for the multi-level uncapacitated lot-sizing problem (MLULSP) is evaluated on the basis of 40 benchmark problems taken from the relevant literature. The derived results come close to those results which are obtained by centralized planning. Moreover, the new mechanism is competitive with other negotiation approaches which have been presented in the literature so far.
Artificial magnetic conductor surfaces and their application to low-profile high-gain planar antennas

Planar periodic metallic arrays behave as artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) surfaces when placed on a grounded dielectric substrate and they introduce a zero degrees reflection phase shift to incident waves. In this paper the AMC operation of single-layer arrays without vias is studied using a resonant cavity model and a new application to high-gain printed antennas is presented. A ray analysis is employed in order to give physical insight into the performance of AMCs and derive design guidelines. The bandwidth and center frequency of AMC surfaces are investigated using full-wave analysis and the qualitative predictions of the ray model are validated. Planar AMC surfaces are used for the first time as the ground plane in a high-gain microstrip patch antenna with a partially reflective surface as superstrate. A significant reduction of the antenna profile is achieved. A ray theory approach is employed in order to describe the functioning of the antenna and to predict the existence of quarter wavelength resonant cavities.
The Costs of Resilience in Overlay Multicast Protocols

One of the most important challenges of peer-to-peer multicast protocols lies in their ability to handle the high degree of transiency inherent to their environment. A number of techniques have been recently proposed aimed at improving the resilience of these application-layer approaches. However, achieving high delivery ratios without sacrificing end-to-end latencies or incurring additional costs has proven to be a challenging task. In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of various representative protocols by contrasting their performance and associated cost through simulation and wide-area experimentation. Our results show that while it is possible to improve the resilience of an existing protocol, there are clear advantages to building resilience into a protocol from the outset. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported comparison of DHT-based and alternative end-system multicast schemes.
Detailed cache coherence characterization for OpenMP benchmarks

Past work on studying cache coherence in shared-memory symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs) concentrates on studying aggregate events, often from an architecture point of view. However, this approach provides insufficient information about the exact sources of inefficiencies in parallel applications. For SMPs in contemporary clusters, application performance is impacted by the pattern of shared memory usage, and it becomes essential to understand coherence behavior in terms of the application program constructs -- such as data structures and source code lines.The technical contributions of this work are as follows. We introduce ccSIM, a cache-coherent memory simulator fed by data traces obtained through on-the-fly dynamic binary rewriting of OpenMP benchmarks executing on a Power3 SMP node. We explore the degrees of freedom in interleaving data traces from the different processors and assess the simulation accuracy by comparing with hardware performance counters. The novelty of ccSIM lies in its ability to relate coherence traffic -- specifically coherence misses as well as their progenitor invalidations -- to data structures and to their reference locations in the source program, thereby facilitating the detection of inefficiencies. Our experiments demonstrate that (a) cache coherence traffic is simulated accurately for SPMD programming styles as its invalidation traffic closely matches the corresponding hardware performance counters, (b) we derive detailed coherence information indicating the location of invalidations in the application code, i.e, source line and data structures and (c) we illustrate opportunities for optimizations from these details. By exploiting these unique features of ccSIM, we were able to identify and locate opportunities for program transformations, including interactions with OpenMP constructs, resulting in both significantly decreased coherence misses and savings of up to 73% in wall-clock execution time for several real-world benchmarks.
MyD88-Dependent Signaling Influences Fibrosis and Alternative Macrophage Activation during Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm Infection

Bacterial biofilms represent a significant therapeutic challenge based on their ability to evade host immune and antibiotic-mediated clearance. Recent studies have implicated IL-1β in biofilm containment, whereas Toll-like receptors (TLRs) had no effect. This is intriguing, since both the IL-1 receptor (IL-1R) and most TLRs impinge on MyD88-dependent signaling pathways, yet the role of this key adaptor in modulating the host response to biofilm growth is unknown. Therefore, we examined the course of S. aureus catheter-associated biofilm infection in MyD88 knockout (KO) mice. MyD88 KO animals displayed significantly increased bacterial burdens on catheters and surrounding tissues during early infection, which coincided with enhanced dissemination to the heart and kidney compared to wild type (WT) mice. The expression of several proinflammatory mediators, including IL-6, IFN-γ, and CXCL1 was significantly reduced in MyD88 KO mice, primarily at the later stages of infection. Interestingly, immunofluorescence staining of biofilm-infected tissues revealed increased fibrosis in MyD88 KO mice concomitant with enhanced recruitment of alternatively activated M2 macrophages. Taken in the context of previous studies with IL-1β, TLR2, and TLR9 KO mice, the current report reveals that MyD88 signaling is a major effector pathway regulating fibrosis and macrophage polarization during biofilm formation. Together these findings represent a novel example of the divergence between TLR and MyD88 action in the context of S. aureus biofilm infection.
Information extraction and ontology model for a 'call for paper' manager

Deal with Call for Paper (CFP) is a time consuming task, find if a conference suit to your requirement, check deadlines, specifications, etc. In order to improve this matter, this paper proposes a web-based system to automatically extract useful data from CFP emails using six different text mining methods and organizes them in an ontology model which advises user about interesting conferences according to his personal data. Focusing on both extraction method and ontology model, we will also slightly describe future work and improvement in a large-scale.
Resettlement in Lao PDR: mobility, resistance and gendered impacts

Villagers in northern Laos have been on the move for generations. Recent changes, however, in the location of their village and their daily mobility patterns differ from what they have experienced before; the government's resettlement programme has changed their livelihoods and made them more socially and economically vulnerable. The ethnic groups we studied have decided to use mobility to resist state control and seek livelihood security for themselves. By using the concept of motility, this article analyses how this household and community choices have a gender-differentiated impact. The mobility patterns of men and women have changed. While men attend to long-term investments, women are forced to make ends meet on a day-to-day basis. Men visit the market and public places more frequently, while women spend more time looking for non-timber forest products and working as hired labour. Although women now support the family and their mobility has increased, their say in the household seems to be on the decline, resulting in weakening women's motility.
Action’s Influence on Thought: The Case of Gesture

Recent research has shown that people’s actions can influence how they think. A separate body of research has shown that the gestures people produce when they speak can also influence how they think. In this article, we bring these two literatures together to explore whether gesture has an effect on thinking by virtue of its ability to reflect real-world actions. We first argue that gestures contain detailed perceptual-motor information about the actions they represent, information often not found in the speech that accompanies the gestures. We then show that the action features in gesture do not just reflect the gesturer’s thinking––they can feed back and alter that thinking. Gesture actively brings action into a speaker’s mental representations, and those mental representations then affect behavior––at times more powerfully than do the actions on which the gestures are based. Gesture thus has the potential to serve as a unique bridge between action and abstract thought.
Power management in disasters: Application of loadshedding and wind turbine controller

Electric infrastructure is vulnerable to damage during disasters and the downstream microgrid may be left without electricity for a long time. Even networks with distributed generators (DG) will fail due to immediate frequency fluctuations that are the results of mismatch between electrical demand and generation. This paper studies the campus of The University of British Columbia's electrical network, and analyses its future expansion needs in terms of expanded local generation to meet the demand growth while reducing greenhouse emissions. In particular, local biomass CHP and wind generation are standard while working together with the main power grid supply. The paper introduces a load and generation management method for the campus during and after disasters to mitigate campus-wide power outages. The methodology is a combination of two-stage loadshedding and wind turbine regulation to reduce the islanding duration time while maintaining frequency at normal level. Immediately after a power outage, the wind turbine maintains the frequency close to normal until primary loadshedding completes and a few seconds later the island is reconnected to the grid. If multiple synchronization and reconnection attempts are unsuccessful, the second stage of loadshedding occurs at the same time that the wind turbine controller disconnects. Once the wind turbine returns to its initial operation, loads that were disconnected in the second phase are restored and the microgrid continues its operation with the least number of loads disconnected. A load priority scheme is considered to exist for the load shedding and restoration scheme.
Avaliação da adequação de aplicação de técnicas multivariadas em estudos do comportamento do consumidor em teses e dissertações de duas instituições de ensino superior

Este artigo faz parte de um amplo estudo de avaliacao da adequacao no uso de tecnicas estatisticas multivariadas em teses e dissertacoes de duas instituicoes de ensino superior na area de marketing na tematica do comportamento do consumidor, entre 1997 e 2006. Neste artigo sao focalizadas onze tecnicas multivariadas (analise de regressao, analise discriminante, analise de regressao logistica, correlacao canonica, analise multivariada de variância, analise conjunta, modelagem de equacoes estruturais, analise fatorial, analise de conglomerados, analise de correspondencia, escalonamento multidimensional), as quais tem apresentado grande potencial de uso em estudos de marketing. Foi objetivo no trabalho relatado a analise da adequacao do emprego dessas tecnicas as necessidades dos problemas de pesquisa apresentados nas teses e dissertacoes e, tambem, a afericao do nivel de adequacao no atendimento de suas premissas. De forma geral, os resultados sugerem a necessidade de um aumento do comprometimento dos pesquisadores na verificacao de todos os preceitos teoricos de aplicacao das tecnicas multivariadas.
Position Measurement Using Sinusoidal Encoders and All-Analog PLL Converter With Improved Dynamic Performance

This paper describes a phase-locked loop (PLL) converter with improved dynamic response for the determination of mechanical angle from sinusoidal encoders and resolvers. PLL converters are tracking-type converters that use the sine and cosine signals of the transducer in a closed-loop arrangement aiming to match an estimated output angle to the true angle encoded in the sine and cosine input signals. Such a scheme requires means to determine the sine and cosine of the estimated output angle; conventional converters achieve this by using voltage-controlled oscillators, digital-to-analog converter (DAC), counter, and lookup tables. The proposed converter simplifies implementation by making use of the estimated output angle signal to approximate its sine and cosine using analog triangle-sine conversion technique. A new method is also proposed to enhance the dynamic performance of the converter enabling near instantaneous response. This paper describes the proposed method, full details of its analog implementation, and experimental results. Results demonstrate agreement with theory and computer simulation.
The new career: Issues and challenges

Abstract The profound changes taking place in the way work is organised and structured mean that the traditional concept of the career needs updating to take account of the widening diversity of career patterns and experiences that are occurring. The papers in this symposium are concerned with examining key aspects of the new career. These include the development of theory, the study of how people are currently managing and developing their careers, and the types of career interventions that are most appropriate for the new career. They offer fresh perspectives on what is happening to careers and a range of insights about how the new career is qualitatively different from its predecessor
When pliers become fingers in the monkey motor system

The capacity to use tools is a fundamental evolutionary achievement. Its essence stands in the capacity to transfer a proximal goal (grasp a tool) to a distal goal (e.g., grasp food). Where and how does this goal transfer occur? Here, we show that, in monkeys trained to use tools, cortical motor neurons, active during hand grasping, also become active during grasping with pliers, as if the pliers were now the hand fingers. This motor embodiment occurs both for normal pliers and for “reverse pliers,” an implement that requires finger opening, instead of their closing, to grasp an object. We conclude that the capacity to use tools is based on an inherently goal-centered functional organization of primate cortical motor areas.
Literacy and feelings: The encoding of affect in Nukulaelae letters

The primäry purpose of literacy production on Nukulaelae Atoll (Central Pacific) is to write letters. Nukulaelae letters are sent to relatives on neighboring atolls, and serve a variety offunctions: monitoring economic reciprocity; informing kin of family events; and admonishing younger people. Permeating every aspect of letters is a heavy emphasis on the overt expression of affect, of a nature notfound in any other arena of Nukulaelae social life. This paper describes the way in which affect is encoded in the text of these letters, and shows how the topics addressed in letters are emically defined äs affectively charged. A content and historical-ethnographic analysis of letter-writing on the atoll indicates that letters have been defined äs cathartic events from the very introduction of literacy. It is suggested that the metaphorical affiliation of letter-writing with parting is in large pari responsihle for letters having become qffect-display context. This case study challenged traditional views that Dritten communication is universally less affective than spoken communication. Tapauta, Sept. 13, 1897 To Mrs. David, the lady,— My love to you! alas my mother! The thought weeps when I think of you, together with the others, because of your kindness to me. Alas for my love! Dear, oh dear, my heart is füll of love, but it is difficult because I cannot speak; but I thought I would try and send this small piece of paper to make known to you my love. Alas my mother! my love is very great, and it is difficult and hard because we shall be so soon parted. Grief continues to grow in my heart when I think of the days we were together in Funafuti. Alas! I do not forget them and you all. I feel I want to be still with you. It is hard that we have been so soon parted on shore. May you return with blessing to your home. This love of mine has nothing with which to make itself known, but I have striven to make appear before you that which was hidden, namely, my love to you. Alas, my parents, love is difficult. 01655-4888/89/0009-0069 $2.00 Text 9 (l) (1989), pp. 69-91 © Mouton de Gruyter
Scrum goes formal: Agile methods for safety-critical systems

Formal methods have had a relative low penetration in industry but have the potential for much wider use. The use of agile methods has been highly limited in development of safety-critical systems due to the lack of formal evaluation techniques and rigorous planning. A combination of formal methods and agile development processes can potentially widen the use of formal methods in industry as well as enabling the use of agile methods in development of safety-critical systems. This paper describes a way to add the use of formal methods to the agile development process Scrum. Experiences from using a variant of the strategy in an industrial case are summarised.
High-Quality Correspondence and Segmentation Estimation for Dual-Lens Smart-Phone Portraits

Estimating correspondence between two images and extracting the foreground object are two challenges in computer vision. With dual-lens smart phones, such as iPhone 7+ and Huawei P9, coming into the market, two images of slightly different views provide us new information to unify the two topics. We propose a joint method to tackle them simultaneously via a joint fully connected conditional random field (CRF) framework. The regional correspondence is used to handle textureless regions in matching and make our CRF system computationally efficient. Our method is evaluated over 2,000 new image pairs, and produces promising results on challenging portrait images.