Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive Quantization Matrices for HD and UHD Resolutions in Scalable HEVC

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), and its standardized extensions including Scalable HEVC (SHVC), contains a feature to enable default or custom Quantization Matrices (QMs). The default intra QM technique in HEVC, originally designed for the JPEG standard [1, 2], is based on a perceptual Human Visual System (HVS) Contrast Sensitivity Function (CSF) approach and its associated Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) [3]. Visual Display Units (VDUs), capable of displaying video data at High Definition (HD) and Ultra HD (UHD) display resolutions, are frequently utilized in a vast variety of technological domains. Compression artifacts caused by quantization, which are not noticeable in low display resolution environments, are clearly visible on HD and UHD video data and VDUs.
External memory bisimulation reduction of big graphs

In this paper, we present, to our knowledge, the first known I/O efficient solutions for computing the k-bisimulation partition of a massive directed graph, and performing maintenance of such a partition upon updates to the underlying graph. Ubiquitous in the theory and application of graph data, bisimulation is a robust notion of node equivalence which intuitively groups together nodes in a graph which share fundamental structural features. k-bisimulation is the standard variant of bisimulation where the topological features of nodes are only considered within a local neighborhood of radius $k\geqslant 0$. The I/O cost of our partition construction algorithm is bounded by $O(k\cdot \mathit{sort}(|\et|) + k\cdot scan(|\nt|) + \mathit{sort}(|\nt|))$, while our maintenance algorithms are bounded by $O(k\cdot \mathit{sort}(|\et|) + k\cdot \mathit{sort}(|\nt|))$. The space complexity bounds are $O(|\nt|+|\et|)$ and $O(k\cdot|\nt|+k\cdot|\et|)$, resp. Here, $|\et|$ and $|\nt|$ are the number of disk pages occupied by the input graph's edge set and node set, resp. , and $\mathit{sort}(n)$ and $\mathit{scan}(n)$ are the cost of sorting and scanning, resp. , a file occupying $n$ pages in external memory. Empirical analysis on a variety of massive real-world and synthetic graph datasets shows that our algorithms perform efficiently in practice, scaling gracefully as graphs grow in size.
Improving Clinical Data Warehouse Performance via a Windowing Data Structure Architecture

Data warehousing and on-line analytical processing (OLAP) are essential elements of decision support and commonly require large periods of time to process query results. Given that, it is crucial to tailor individual performance solutions based on the structure and merits of the data within the data warehouse to obtain the most optimal configuration. Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of the defining features of a clinical data warehouse, where the focus of the analysis is centered on the opportunities and threats for optimization purposes, based on the types of queries that are likely to arise. From the findings, the paper introduces a Windowing Data Structure Architecture(WDSA) to increase the performance of OLAP queries on a clinical data warehouse, which manages a collection of popular windows. The cost of processing a query using a simple instance of the WDSA was compared against existing query processing techniques such as nested join and hash join, to which the technique greatly outperformed both in almost all cases.
Over-Expression of Porcine Myostatin Missense Mutant Leads to A Gender Difference in Skeletal Muscle Growth between Transgenic Male and Female Mice

Myostatin, a transforming growth factor-β family member, is a negative regulator of skeletal muscle development and growth. Piedmontese cattle breeds have a missense mutation, which results in a cysteine to tyrosine substitution in the mature myostatin protein (C313Y). This loss-of-function mutation in myostatin results in a double-muscled phenotype in cattle. Myostatin propeptide is an inhibitor of myostatin activity and is considered a potential agent to stimulate muscle growth in livestock. In this study, we generated transgenic mice overexpressing porcine myostatin missense mutant (pmMS), C313Y, and wild-type porcine myostatin propeptide (ppMS), respectively, to examine their effects on muscle growth in mice. Enhanced muscle growth was observed in both pmMS and ppMS transgenic female mice and also in ppMS transgenic male mice. However, there was no enhanced muscle growth observed in pmMS transgenic male mice. To explore why there is such a big difference in muscle growth between pmMS and ppMS transgenic male mice, the expression level of androgen receptor (AR) mutant AR45 was measured by Western blot. Results indicated that AR45 expression significantly increased in pmMS transgenic male mice while it decreased dramatically in ppMS transgenic male mice. Our data demonstrate that both pmMS and ppMS act as myostatin inhibitors in the regulation of muscle growth, but the effect of pmMS in male mice is reversed by an increased AR45 expression. These results provide useful insight and basic theory to future studies on improving pork quality by genetically manipulating myostatin expression or by regulating myostatin activity.
Morphological, Physiological, and Molecular Evidences Suggest that Euplotes parawoodruffi is a Junior Synonym of Euplotes woodruffi (Ciliophora, Euplotida)

Euplotes woodruffi Gaw 1939 is a striking ciliate species commonly used in many fields of protistology. Euplotes parawoodruffi Song and Bradbury 1997 is separated from E. woodruffi by several morphological differences (e.g. the absence of pre‐oral pouch) and in particular the brackish habitat (vs. freshwater). However, recent molecular data dispute the separation of E. woodruffi into two species. Based on a brackish isolate from the southeast of China, we investigated the morphology, molecular phylogeny, and adaptation of E. woodruffi using living observation, protargol impregnation, gene sequencing, and cultivation experiments. The morphological variability present in our isolate encompasses the previous descriptions of E. woodruffi and E. parawoodruffi. The pre‐oral pouch, which occurs in living cells of freshwater isolates, is also recognizable in the brackish specimens. Laboratory experiments suggested that the brackish isolate could acclimatize and reproduce in both brackish and fresh water. The molecular analyses using 13 available small subunit (SSU) rRNA gene sequences showed that the minimum pairwise sequence similarity is as high as 99.2% and nine sequences from both brackish and freshwater isolates are even 100% matched. Therefore, we conclude that E. parawoodruffi is a junior synonym of E. woodruffi.
Bond Strength of Resin Cements to Noble and Base Metal Alloys with Different Surface Treatments

Objectives: The bond strength of resin cements to metal alloys depends on the type of the metal, conditioning methods and the adhesive resins used. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the bond strength of resin cements to base and noble metal alloys after sand blasting or application of silano-pen. Materials and Method: Cylinders of light cured Z 250 composite were cemented to “Degubond 4” (Au Pd) and “Verabond” (Ni Cr) alloys by either RelyX Unicem or Panavia F2, after sandblasting or treating the alloys with Silano-Pen. The shear bond strengths were evaluated. Data were analyzed by three-way ANOVA and t tests at a significance level of P<0.05. Results: When the alloys were treated by Silano-Pen, RelyX Unicem showed a higher bond strength for Degubond 4 (P=0.021) and Verabond (P< 0.001). No significant difference was observed in the bond strength of Panavia F2 to the alloys after either of surface treatments, Degubond 4 (P=0.291) and Verabond (P=0.899). Panavia F2 showed a higher bond strength to sandblasted Verabond compared to RelyX Unicem (P=0.003). The bond strength of RelyX Unicem was significantly higher to Silano-Pen treated Verabond (P=0.011). The bond strength of the cements to sandblasted Degubond 4 showed no significant difference (P=0.59). RelyX Unicem had a higher bond strength to Silano-Pen treated Degubond 4 (P=0.035). Conclusion: The bond strength of resin cements to Verabond alloy was significantly higher than Degubond 4. RelyX Unicem had a higher bond strength to Silano-Pen treated alloys. Surface treatments of the alloys did not affect the bond strength of Panavia F2.
Interaction of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus Replicase Protein with a NAC Domain Transcription Factor Is Associated with the Suppression of Systemic Host Defenses

ABSTRACT An interaction between the helicase domain of the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) 126-/183-kDa replicase protein(s) and the Arabidopsis thaliana NAC domain transcription factor ATAF2 was identified via yeast two-hybrid and in planta immunoprecipitation assays. ATAF2 is transcriptionally induced in response to TMV infection, and its overexpression significantly reduces virus accumulation. Proteasome inhibition studies suggest that ATAF2 is targeted for degradation during virus infection. The transcriptional activity of known defense-associated marker genes PR1, PR2, and PDF1.2 significantly increase within transgenic plants overexpressing ATAF2. In contrast, these marker genes have reduced transcript levels in ATAF2 knockout or repressor plant lines. Thus, ATAF2 appears to function in the regulation of host basal defense responses. In response to TMV infections, ATAF2 and PR1 display increased transcript accumulations in inoculated tissues but not in systemically infected tissues. ATAF2 and PR1 transcript levels also increase in response to salicylic acid treatment. However, the salicylic acid treatment of systemically infected tissues did not produce a similar increase in either ATAF2 or PR1 transcripts, suggesting that host defense responses are attenuated during systemic virus invasion. Similarly, noninfected ATAF2 knockout or ATAF2 repressor lines display reduced levels of PR1 transcripts when treated with salicylic acid. Taken together, these findings suggest that the replicase-ATAF2 interaction suppresses basal host defenses as a means to promote systemic virus accumulation.
Dynamical Re-striping Data on Storage Servers in Parallel File Systems

This paper proposes a mechanism for tracing I/O operations and their corresponding physical access on the storage servers in a parallel file system, then it guides data re-striping on the storage servers for handling complex physical access cases. To put this framework to work, we first figured out the way to map logical I/O operations on the client side to physical I/O access on the storage server side. We then developed a toolkit to generate I/O access patterns and their corresponding disk access. Finally, the information about both logical I/O access patterns and physical I/O access patterns can benefit to dynamical data re-striping and data pre-fetching on the storage servers for improving I/O performance. Experimental results show that the proposed data re-striping method by analyzing I/O access patterns and their associated disk access patterns can boost I/O data throughput significantly for applications with complicated access patterns. Especially, it work fairy well for the applications that deal with multi-dimension data sets across the fields of science, technology, education and business.
E-participation: Factors affect Citizens' acceptance and readiness in Kingdom of Bahrain

Technology has become an integral element in the life of communities. One of the major fields that Technology is playing a major role is the citizens participation through what is called E-participation. E-participation is the use of Technology to enhance participation between different stakeholders and governments. It increases transparency, enhances the communication between the government and stakeholders including citizens, and enables them to involved in policy making process. E-participation by its real mean is now applied in Kingdom of Bahrain. Therefore, it is useful to measure the acceptance and readiness of citizens towards E-participation tools. This research is to investigate the factors that affect citizens' acceptance and readiness to use E-participation tools. Towards this aim, 250 questionnaires were collected from citizens in Kingdom of Bahrain at different ages over 18 years. The findings of this research revealed that there are significant factors that influence citizens' readiness and acceptance of E-participation tools including optimum, innovation, insecurity, and discomfort. This research provides the government of Kingdom of Bahrain insights on factors that are important to enhance the readiness and acceptance of their citizens towards using E-participation tools.
Constant Communication Oblivious RAM

There have been several attempts recently at using homomorphic encryption to increase the efficiency of Oblivious RAM protocols. One of the most successful has been Onion ORAM, which achieves O(1) communication overhead with polylogarithmic server computation. However, it has a number of drawbacks. It requires a very large block size of B = Ω(log N), with large constants. Although it needs only polylogarithmic computation complexity, that computation consists mostly of expensive homomorphic multiplications. Finally, it achieves O(1) communication complexity but only amortized over a number of accesses. In this work we aim to address these problems, reducing the required block size to Ω(log N), removing almost all of the homomorphic multiplications and achieving O(1) worst-case communication complexity. We achieve this by replacing their homomorphic eviction routine with a much less expensive permute-and-merge one which eliminates homomorphic multiplications while maintaining the same level of security. In turn, this removes the need for layered encryption that Onion ORAM relies on and reduces both the minimum block size and worst-case bandwidth.
Muscle group activity estimation utilizing state observer and neuromusculoskeletal system model

This paper presents a novel inverse muscle activity estimation method utilizing neuromusculoskeletal system model and state observer. The state-space equation of neuromusculoskeletal system is elaborated with standard models in physiology and proposed neural input model. Then, the observability of neuromusculoskeletal system is investigated and is physiologically satisfied. Therefore, the muscle activity can be analytically estimated by a state observer algorithm. An experimental study is conducted to verify the proposed method in the case of normal gait and the estimation result shows reasonable values compare to average EMG patterns. Since models used in the proposed method are purely based on the physiology and only utilize joint kinematics and ground reaction forces to estimate muscle activities, proposed method are expected to provide simple, fast and physiological estimation which will lead to a human-friendly controller design for bio-inspired assist devices.
High resolution aerosol jet printing of conductive ink for stretchable electronics

Stretchable electronics is gaining wide spread attention due to its application in many applications such as wearable devices, soft robotics, biomedical and consumer products. Aerosol jet printing, which is capable of printing very fine features, can be used to fabricate high performance flexible electronic devices. In this paper, we explore aerosol jet process technique to print conductive stretchable ink for fabricating new-age electronic circuits. Functional composite ink made of silicone and silver composite were used to print directly on stretchable silicone rubber substrate. Electronic functional devices such as flexible circuit and strain gauge were successfully printed, characterized and tested for stretchability.
Survivable routing using path criticality

Network criticality measures the robustness of a network to changes in topology, traffic demand, and faults. Recent research has shown that path selection according to network criticality metrics can lead to improved utilization and reduced blocking in mesh networks. In this paper we investigate the selection of survivable routes within the context of dynamic routing using weighted random-walk path criticality routing (WRW-PCR). To build backup paths for primary routes a shared backup path selection strategy is considered. Each link is characterized by its active bandwidth, backup bandwidth, and available capacity. The WRW-PCR algorithm is used to find paths with less sensitivity to traffic and topology changes. We present simulation results that demonstrate that path criticality routing results in much lower blocking than alternative routing algorithms.
Impaired Insulin Sensitivity as Indexed by the HOMA Score Is Associated With Deficits in Verbal Fluency and Temporal Lobe Gray Matter Volume in the Elderly

OBJECTIVE Impaired insulin sensitivity is linked to cognitive deficits and reduced brain size. However, it is not yet known whether insulin sensitivity involves regional changes in gray matter volume. Against this background, we examined the association between insulin sensitivity, cognitive performance, and regional gray matter volume in 285 cognitively healthy elderly men and women aged 75 years from the Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors (PIVUS) study. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Insulin sensitivity was calculated from fasting serum insulin and plasma glucose determinations using the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) method. Cognitive performance was examined by a categorical verbal fluency. Participants also underwent a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan. Multivariate analysis using linear regression was conducted, controlling for potential confounders (sex, education, serum LDL cholesterol, mean arterial blood pressure, and abdominal visceral fat volume). RESULTS The HOMA-IR was negatively correlated with verbal fluency performance, brain size, and temporal lobe gray matter volume in regions known to be involved in speech production (Brodmann areas 21 and 22, respectively). No such effects were observed when examining diabetic (n = 55) and cognitively impaired (n = 27) elderly subjects as separate analyses. CONCLUSIONS These cross-sectional findings suggest that both pharmacologic and lifestyle interventions improving insulin signaling may promote brain health in late life but must be confirmed in patient studies.
ISI Novelty Track System for TREC 2004

We describe our system developed at ISI for the Novelty track at TREC 2004. The system’s two modules recognize relevant event and opinion sentences respectively. We focused mainly on recognizing relevant opinion sentences using various opinionbearing word lists. Of our 5 runs submitted for task 1, the best run provided an F-score of 0.390 (precision 0.30 and recall 0.71).
Stochastic ant agent for priority-based coverage

In this paper, we present a stochastic ant agent algorithm that provides priority-based coverage of an area. The algorithm gives an agent the capability to concentrate on areas that need cleaning with more dirty areas receiving more rigorous cleaning regimes than less dirty areas. This capability is useful for vacuuming, containing pollution or infection especially in areas of very large dimensions. This results in energy-saving benefits for such an agent due to the priority-based nature of the algorithm. We also show in this work that even though the algorithm is stochastic, it is capable of achieving guaranteed coverage of polluted areas. Using a brief mathematical analysis, we show that the algorithm is capable of tracking spatiotemporal functions as well, provided that the tracking speed is faster than the rate of change of the spatiotemporal quantity. Using the commonly used deterministic Boustrophedon cellular decomposition coverage method as a benchmark, we show that our algorithm can converge to a contaminant's spatial distribution faster than the time taken to scan the entire environment.
Effects of an unusual poison identify a lifespan role for Topoisomerase 2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

A progressive loss of genome maintenance has been implicated as both a cause and consequence of aging. Here we present evidence supporting the hypothesis that an age-associated decay in genome maintenance promotes aging in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) due to an inability to sense or repair DNA damage by topoisomerase 2 (yTop2). We describe the characterization of LS1, identified in a high throughput screen for small molecules that shorten the replicative lifespan of yeast. LS1 accelerates aging without affecting proliferative growth or viability. Genetic and biochemical criteria reveal LS1 to be a weak Top2 poison. Top2 poisons induce the accumulation of covalent Top2-linked DNA double strand breaks that, if left unrepaired, lead to genome instability and death. LS1 is toxic to cells deficient in homologous recombination, suggesting that the damage it induces is normally mitigated by genome maintenance systems. The essential roles of yTop2 in proliferating cells may come with a fitness trade-off in older cells that are less able to sense or repair yTop2-mediated DNA damage. Consistent with this idea, cells live longer when yTop2 expression levels are reduced. These results identify intrinsic yTop2-mediated DNA damage as a potentially manageable cause of aging.
A Comparative Study of Alternative Middle Tier Caching Solutions to Support Dynamic Web Content Acceleration

E-business sites are increasingly utilizing dynamic web pages since they enable a much wider range of interaction than static HTML pages can provide. Dynamic page generation technologies allow a Web site to generate pages at run-time, based on various parameters. Delaying content decisions until run-time a ords a Web site signi cant exibility in customizing page content, thereby enriching users' Web experiences. At the same time, however, dynamic page generation technologies have resulted in serious performance problems due to the increased load placed on the server-side infrastructure. Consequently, end users experience increased response times. According to recent research [1], 40% of the total page delivery delay experienced by end users can be attributed to server-side latency. As server-side techniques such as dynamic page generation techologies become more widespread, this percentage will only increase. There has been very little work so far to address the delays associated with dynamic page generation. One proposed approach is to cache entire pages of dynamically generated content (e.g., [3, 5]). However, caching dynamically generated pages in this manner is infeasible, since two calls to the same script with the same input parameters are not guaranteed to produce the same output. Our approach to this problem
Optimisation of transmission bandwidth for indoor cellular OWC system using a dynamic handover decision-making algorithm

In this paper, we propose a novel cellular optical wireless communications (COWC) system with four diffused cells. A dynamic handover scheme is proposed to make the link more flexible by the way of adaptive channel allocation in different environments. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm offers almost five times of the maximum dynamic transmission bandwidth and energy efficiency compared to the worst scenarios when all base stations (BS)s are active.
Robotic Dynamic Sculpture: Architecture, Modeling, and Implementation of Dynamic Sculpture

The well-developed and well-known robotic technology used for product adaptability and versatility has the potential to be applied to sculptures or three-dimensional (3-D) artifacts, leading to a new class of sculptures called dynamic sculpture. The promise of dynamic sculpture is to enable the sculpture to exhibit controlled motion. This article introduces the architecture, modeling, and implementation of dynamic sculpture.