Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TCP k-SACK: a simple protocol to improve performance over lossy links

We propose k-SACK, a TCP variant that has considerably improved throughput characteristics over lossy links. A k-SACK source does not consider every packet loss as an indication of congestion. It uses the selective acknowledgement option to estimate a parameter lookahead-loss, which is used in congestion detection. Our results demonstrate that k-SACK maintains a steady performance in a non-lossy environment while showing considerable performance improvement over paths spanning lossy links. Throughput gains of more than 90% are observed over links with packet loss rates of the order of 5%. We show that when k-SACK is used over wireline Internet links, it does not harm the existing TCP variants significantly. k-SACK is simple to implement and does not involve any additional overheads.
Brassinosteroid signaling directs formative cell divisions and protophloem differentiation in Arabidopsis root meristems

ABSTRACT Brassinosteroids (BRs) trigger an intracellular signaling cascade through its receptors BR INSENSITIVE 1 (BRI1), BRI1-LIKE 1 (BRL1) and BRL3. Recent studies suggest that BR-independent inputs related to vascular differentiation, for instance root protophloem development, modulate downstream BR signaling components. Here, we report that protophloem sieve element differentiation is indeed impaired in bri1 brl1 brl3 mutants, although this effect might not be mediated by canonical downstream BR signaling components. We also found that their small meristem size is entirely explained by reduced cell elongation, which is, however, accompanied by supernumerary formative cell divisions in the radial dimension. Thus, reduced cell expansion in conjunction with growth retardation, because of the need to accommodate supernumerary formative divisions, can account for the overall short root phenotype of BR signaling mutants. Tissue-specific re-addition of BRI1 activity partially rescued subsets of these defects through partly cell-autonomous, partly non-cell-autonomous effects. However, protophloem-specific BRI1 expression essentially rescued all major bri1 brl1 brl3 root meristem phenotypes. Our data suggest that BR perception in the protophloem is sufficient to systemically convey BR action in the root meristem context. Highlighted article: In addition to controlling cell expansion, brassinosteroid signaling acts cell-autonomously and non-cell-autonomously to promote protophloem differentiation and restrict formative divisions in root meristems.
A Model for Indexing Medical Documents Combining Statistical and Symbolic Knowledge

OBJECTIVES To develop and evaluate an information processing method based on terminologies, in order to index medical documents in any given documentary context. METHODS We designed a model using both symbolic general knowledge extracted from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) and statistical knowledge extracted from a domain of application. Using statistical knowledge allowed us to contextualize the general knowledge for every particular situation. For each document studied, the extracted terms are ranked to highlight the most significant ones. The model was tested on a set of 17,079 French standardized discharge summaries (SDSs). RESULTS The most important ICD-10 term of each SDS was ranked 1st or 2nd by the method in nearly 90% of the cases. CONCLUSIONS The use of several terminologies leads to more precise indexing. The improvement achieved in the models implementation performances as a result of using semantic relationships is encouraging.
Experimental evidence of chemical deterrence against multiple herbivores in the seagrass Posidonia oceanica .

There is increasing evidence of the importance of herbivory in seagrass communities, but the factors that regulate seagrass-herbivore interactions remain largely unknown. Many terres- trial plants and marine algae chemically deter herbivores using secondary metabolites, yet their inci- dence and role on seagrasses have received little attention. Posidonia oceanica, the dominant sea- grass in the Mediterranean Sea, suffers a high level of herbivory and produces phenolics, a type of compounds known to deter feeding in algae and terrestrial plants. We have experimentally quanti- fied the chemical deterrence of P. oceanica against 3 types of sympatric consumers by comparing feeding on palatable agar-based foods containing aqueous and organic extracts of P. oceanica at nat- ural concentrations with that on appropriate controls. The effect of plant chemistry was measured on the feeding of the sea urchins Spharechinus granularis, Paracentrotus lividus and Arbacia lixula, the mesograzer gastropod Cerithium vulgatum, and the general fish assemblage inhabiting P. oceanica meadows. Since these 5 experiments were run independently, we used meta-analysis to test the over- all hypothesis that P. oceanica is chemically defended against multiple consumers and to compare the magnitude of their inhibition. Our results clearly showed that the seagrass extracts significantly deterred feeding, although inhibition varied between consumers. S. granularis was the most deterred organism, while the mesograzer C. vulgatum was the only species unaffected by P. oceanica extracts. These results represent the first experimental evidence for seagrass chemical deterrence against a range of consumers, and emphasise the potential importance of chemically mediated interactions between seagrass and herbivores.
Wearable Social Sensing: Content-Based Processing Methodology and Implementation

Developing wearable activity and speech sensing for assessing human physical and mental health is just as significant as conscious content for determining social behavior. Multiple social relevant sensors, such as microphones and accelerometer, embedded in wearable devices paves the way to provide the opportunity to continuously and non-invasively monitor anxiety and stress in real-life situation. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and deployment of a wearable computing platform capable of automatically extracting and analyzing social signals. In particular, we benchmarked a set of integrated social features to objectively quantify the level of anxiety using an in-house built wearable device. In addition, in order to protect privacy, we propose a potential method to embed the audio features processing in the hardware to avoid recording their voice directly. In addition, we have implemented the $k$ -means classification to determine the level of anxiety of the subjects. The obtained performance has demonstrated that both activity and speech social features have the potential to directly infer anxiety across multiple individuals.
Extended spectrum of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase mutations in patients receiving multiple nucleoside analog inhibitors

Objective: To characterize reverse transcriptase (RT) mutations by their association with extent of nucleoside RT inhibitor (NRTI) therapy. To identify mutational clusters in RT sequences from persons receiving multiple NRTI. Design: A total of 1210 RT sequences from persons with known antiretroviral therapy were analyzed: 641 new sequences were performed at Stanford University Hospital; 569 were previously published. Methods: Chi-square tests and logistic regression were done to identify associations between mutations and NRTI therapy. Correlation studies were done to identify mutational clusters. The Benjamini–Hochberg procedure was used to correct for multiple comparisons. Results: Mutations at 26 positions were significantly associated with NRTI including 17 known resistance mutations (positions 41, 44, 62, 65, 67, 69, 70, 74, 75, 77, 116, 118, 151, 184, 210, 215, 219) and nine previously unreported mutations (positions 20, 39, 43, 203, 208, 218, 221, 223, 228). The nine new mutations correlated linearly with number of NRTI; 777 out of 817 (95%) instances occurred with known drug resistance mutations. Positions 203, 208, 218, 221, 223, and 228 were conserved in untreated persons; positions 20, 39, and 43 were polymorphic. Most NRTI-associated mutations clustered into three groups: (i) 62, 65, 75, 77, 115, 116, 151; (ii) 41, 43, 44, 118, 208, 210, 215, 223; (iii) 67, 69, 70, 218, 219, 228. Conclusions: Mutations at nine previously unreported positions are associated with NRTI therapy. These mutations are probably accessory because they occur almost exclusively with known drug resistance mutations. Most NRTI mutations group into one of three clusters, although several (e.g., M184V) occur in multiple mutational contexts.
Targeted gold nanoparticles enable molecular CT imaging of cancer: an in vivo study

In recent years, advances in molecular biology and cancer research have led to the identification of sensitive and specific biomarkers that associate with various types of cancer. However, in vivo cancer detection methods with computed tomography, based on tracing and detection of these molecular cancer markers, are unavailable today. This paper demonstrates in vivo the feasibility of cancer diagnosis based on molecular markers rather than on anatomical structures, using clinical computed tomography. Anti-epidermal growth factor receptor conjugated gold nanoparticles (30 nm) were intravenously injected into nude mice implanted with human squamous cell carcinoma head and neck cancer. The results clearly demonstrate that a small tumor, which is currently undetectable through anatomical computed tomography, is enhanced and becomes clearly visible by the molecularly-targeted gold nanoparticles. It is further shown that active tumor targeting is more efficient and specific than passive targeting. This noninvasive and nonionizing molecular cancer imaging tool can facilitate early cancer detection and can provide researchers with a new technique to investigate in vivo the expression and activity of cancer-related biomarkers and molecular processes.
Identities and Racial Attitudes of South African and American Adolescents: A Cross-Cultural Examination

Issues of group identity and prejudice have played a large role in the history of South Africa. In this study the authors examined differences among Xhosa-speaking black, so-called coloured, English-speaking white, and Afrikaans-speaking white adolescents within a context of social change. Data was collected from 818 high school students using a questionnaire that assessed aspects of these groups' perceptions of themselves (their identities), attitudes toward other racial groups (their prejudices), and beliefs about changes in the socio-political environment. Several statistically significant differences between the groups were found. Comparative analyses on identity and attitude variables performed with 263 white American adolescents were also statistically significant for all groups.
Coalitional game theoretic approach for cooperative transmission in vehicular networks

Cooperative transmission in vehicular networks is studied by using coalitional game and pricing in this paper. There are several vehicles and roadside units (RSUs) in the networks. Each vehicle has a desire to transmit with a certain probability, which represents its data burtiness. The RSUs can enhance the vehicles' transmissions by cooperatively relaying the vehicles' data. We consider two kinds of cooperations: cooperation among the vehicles and cooperation between the vehicle and RSU. First, vehicles cooperate to avoid interfering transmissions by scheduling the transmissions of the vehicles in each coalition. Second, a RSU can join some coalition to cooperate the transmissions of the vehicles in that coalition. Moreover, due to the mobility of the vehicles, we introduce the notion of encounter between the vehicle and RSU to indicate the availability of the relay in space. To stimulate the RSU's cooperative relaying for the vehicles, the pricing mechanism is applied. A non-transferable utility (NTU) game is developed to analyze the behaviors of the vehicles and RSUs. The stability of the formulated game is studied. Finally, we present and discuss the numerical results for the 2-vehicle and 2-RSU scenario, and the numerical results verify the theoretical analysis.
Mostly-automated verification of low-level programs in computational separation logic

Several recent projects have shown the feasibility of verifying low-level systems software. Verifications based on automated theorem-proving have omitted reasoning about first-class code pointers, which is critical for tasks like certifying implementations of threads and processes. Conversely, verifications that deal with first-class code pointers have featured long, complex, manual proofs. In this paper, we introduce the Bedrock framework, which supports mostly-automated proofs about programs with the full range of features needed to implement, e.g., language runtime systems. The heart of our approach is in mostly-automated discharge of verification conditions inspired by separation logic. Our take on separation logic is computational, in the sense that function specifications are usually written in terms of reference implementations in a purely functional language. Logical quantifiers are the most challenging feature for most automated verifiers; by relying on functional programs (written in the expressive language of the Coq proof assistant), we are able to avoid quantifiers almost entirely. This leads to some dramatic improvements compared to both past work in classical verification, which we compare against with implementations of data structures like binary search trees and hash tables; and past work in verified programming with code pointers, which we compare against with examples like function memoization and a cooperative threading library.
Auditory attention evaluation in the elderly using a Persian version of consonant-vowel dichotic test

Background and Aim: Aging is accompanied with changes in cognitive capacities. In spite of advances in neural imaging technologies, there is not a straightforward met hod to observe cognitive functions. For assessing brain functions, researchers mainly use psychometric tests. The aim of this study was using consonant - vowel (CV) dichotic test as a non invasive behavioral test for auditory attention (focused and divided a ttention) and language laterality evaluation in young and old age groups. Methods: In the present cross - sectional study, Persian version of consonant - vowel dichotic test was performed on 28 young subjects within 18 28 and 27 old subjects within 60 - 80 year - old age range of both genders. All subjects had normal peripheral hearing and were right handed. Right and left ear scores were compared under three different attention conditions: divided or non - forced attention, attention to the right ear, attention to t he left ear. Results: In non - forced condition there was no significant difference for the right ear score between the two age groups (p=0.97) but the left ear score was statistically different (p ≤0.001). In addition, there was a significant difference betw een two ears’ scores in attention to right/ left ear for both age groups (p ≤0.001). Conclusion: In the older group under divided attention condition, the left ear score was lower than the younger group and they had problem in paying attention especially to the left ear stimuli. In the older group, ear asymmetry for consonant - vowel dichotic test score w as higher than the younger one.
Simulation and Validation of the InfraSnow: An Instrument to Measure Snow Optically Equivalent Grain Size

Quantifying snow grain size is crucial to analyze radiative transfer and mechanical interactions in the snow cover. We present a nondestructive method for fast measurements of snow optically equivalent diameter (OED). The method consists of diffuse near-infrared reflectance measurements by a compact integrating sphere setup to derive OED. This principle is realized in the handheld InfraSnow instrument. The correlation between snow OED and reflectance is calculated by applying Monte Carlo ray tracing to a 3-D implementation of the measurement geometry. Including the geometrical boundary conditions is essential to obtain a good agreement between modeled and measured InfraSnow reflectance values. In addition to InfraSnow reflectance, snow density is required as second input parameter to the OED analysis. Our InfraSnow OED measurements agree with reference OED measurements by micro computed tomography (micro-CT) within 25% for seven of the ten tested snow blocks. Furthermore, the relative differences between both measurement methods are close to the estimated uncertainties of the InfraSnow methodology. If density is measured by micro-CT and then used as InfraSnow model input to derive OED, an average agreement with the reference micro-CT OED values within 13% is found. If density is measured by a permittivity sensor, the average agreement is within 20%.
Congruence between consumer, brand and store personality in luxury sector: the results of an international research

Objectives. The paper analyses the phenomena of congruence between consumer, brand and store personality and its effect on attachment to brands in luxury sector at an international level. Methodology. From a theoretical point of view, human personality, brand personality and store personality research streams are considered. The paper takes into account relevant theoretical contributions developed on congruence between consumer, brand and store personality. Then the attachment construct is considered. From an empirical point of view, the paper presents the results of a quantitative primary research run on a sample young people "luxury experienced" from Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy, UK). The empirical research considers specifically 6 luxury brands. Results and conclusions: This paper presents the validation of the personality congruence measurement scale proposed by the authors; furthermore the research highlights the existence of a correlation between personality congruence and brand attachment discovering at the same time specific country peculiarities.
Endomorphins inhibit contractile responses of rat thoracic aorta rings induced by phenylephrine and angiotensin II in vitro.

AIM To study the effects of opioid receptor agonists endomorphin-1 and -2 on contractile responses of rat thoracic aorta rings to phenylephrine (PE) and angiotensin II (Ang II), and their possible mechanism in vitro. METHODS Isometric tension recording was progressed in thoracic aorta rings from Wistar rats. RESULTS Pretreatment of morphine, endomorphin-1 and -2 (0.1, 1, and 10 micromol/L) could inhibit the contractile responses of the endothelium-intact aorta rings to PE (0.1 micromol/L) and Ang II ( 1 micromol/L) in a concentration-dependent manner (P < 0.01), but could not inhibit the contraction of rings without endothelium (P > 0.05). Naloxone (1 micromol/L) could partially antagonize the effects of endomorphine-1 and -2 (P < 0.01). N(omega)-nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA, 10 micromol/L) or endothelial rubbing could completely blocked the effects of morphine, endomorphine-1 and -2 (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION Endomorphin-1 and -2 could inhibit PE- and Ang II-induced contractions of rat aorta rings, which was partially by naloxone-sensitive mechanism and related to the release of nitric oxide from vascular endothelium.
Exploring language attitudes and ideologies in university students’ discussion of Irish in a context of increasing language diversity

ABSTRACT The apparent gap between positive attitudes and low levels of everyday usage of the language is often cited as one of the greatest challenges facing Irish language revitalisation. In a context of increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in the Republic of Ireland, this article reports on a research project which set out to explore the attitudes of groups of Irish undergraduate students towards the languages which they come into contact with in their daily lives, in particular, the Irish language, using a focus group method. Four themes in particular emerge in the students’ discussion of Irish as they encounter it in their everyday lives: ‘functionality’, ‘a hidden agenda’, ‘exclusivity’, and ‘heightened culture’. The metapragmatic comments of the respondents indicate deep ambivalence towards use of the Irish language, as well as complex language-ideological positions. The linguistic authority [Woolard, 2008. Language and identity choice in Catalonia: The interplay of contrasting ideologies of linguistic authority. In K. Süselbeck, U. Mühlschlegel, & P. Masson (Eds.), Lengua, nación e identidad. La regulación del plurilingüismo en España y América Latina (pp. 303–323). Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert/Iberoamericana] of Irish as both an anonymous and authentic variety is contrasted negatively with that of allochthonous languages in Ireland, such as Polish. Our study suggests that a fuller understanding of this apparent paradox may be facilitated by qualitative approaches, which explore attitudes in depth.
Anti-inflammatory Activity of Hautriwaic Acid Isolated from Dodonaea viscosa Leaves

The aim of this study was to identify an anti-inflammatory compound from D. viscosa leaves. The structure of this bioactive substance was elucidated by IR and NMR studies, which indicated that this natural product corresponds to hautriwaic acid (HA). This diterpene exhibited good anti-inflammatory activity in 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA) mice ear edema models by applications at doses of 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 mg/ear (60.2, 70.2 and 87.1% inhibition, respectively); additionally Dodonaea viscosa dichloro-methane extract (DvDE) displays a 97.8% anti-inflammatory effect at 3 mg/kg. Multiple applications of DvDE at doses of 100 mg/kg on TPA mice ear edema inhibited the edema-associated inflammation by 71.8%, while HA at doses of 15 mg/kg, reduced edema to 64% and indomethacin 40%.
High contrast tumor imaging with radio-labeled antibody Fab fragments tailored for optimized pharmacokinetics via PASylation

Although antigen-binding fragments (Fabs) of antibodies constitute established tracers for in vivo radiodiagnostics, their functionality is hampered by a very short circulation half-life. PASylation, the genetic fusion with a long, conformationally disordered amino acid chain comprising Pro, Ala and Ser, provides a convenient way to expand protein size and, consequently, retard renal filtration. Humanized αHER2 and αCD20 Fabs were systematically fused with 100 to 600 PAS residues and produced in E. coli. Cytofluorimetric titration analysis on tumor cell lines confirmed that antigen-binding activities of the parental antibodies were retained. The radio-iodinated PASylated Fabs were studied by positron emission tomography (PET) imaging and biodistribution analysis in mouse tumor xenograft models. While the unmodified αHER2 and αCD20 Fabs showed weak tumor uptake (0.8% and 0.2% ID/g, respectively; 24 h p.i.) tumor-associated radioactivity was boosted with increasing PAS length (up to 9 and 26-fold, respectively), approaching an optimum for Fab-PAS400. Remarkably, 6- and 5-fold higher tumor-to-blood ratios compared with the unmodified Fabs were measured in the biodistribution analysis (48 h p.i.) for αHER2 Fab-PAS100 and Fab-PAS200, respectively. These findings were confirmed by PET studies, showing high imaging contrast in line with tumor-to-blood ratios of 12.2 and 5.7 (24 h p.i.) for αHER2 Fab-PAS100 and Fab-PAS200. Even stronger tumor signals were obtained with the corresponding αCD20 Fabs, both in PET imaging and biodistribution analysis, with an uptake of 2.8% ID/g for Fab-PAS100 vs. 0.24% ID/g for the unmodified Fab. Hence, by engineering Fabs via PASylation, plasma half-life can be tailored to significantly improve tracer uptake and tumor contrast, thus optimally matching reagent/target interactions.