Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced Light Extraction From Green Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Diodes by Attaching Microstructure Arrayed Films

In this study, microstructure arrayed films, such as microlens and microprism arrayed sheets, were introduced to the front side of quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) to enhance the extraction efficiency of the QLEDs without fabricating complex micro/nano-structures directly on the substrate of the QLEDs. Additionally, the optical properties of the microlens and microprism film-attached QLEDs were compared with those of conventional QLEDs (without microstructures). Conventional QLEDs were fabricated as a reference device with gradient-thick shell green emitting CdSe@ZnS/ZnS quantum dots (QDs). The microlens-attached QLEDs have a high current efficiency (CE) of 31.3 cd/A, an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 7.9% at 7 V, and a bright luminescence value of 99 350 cd/m2 at 10 V. The CE, EQE, and luminescence values of the microlens-attached QLEDs are 1.47, 1.41, and 1.57 times higher than those of conventional QLEDs, respectively. The EL spectra and the color coordinates of the QLEDs only changed very slightly by adding microstructured arrays to the QLEDs.
Adaptive weighted orthogonal matching pursuit for robust pattern classification

Orthogonal Matching Pursuit has been a popular sparse representation algorithm due to its simplicity and competitive performance. However, the original orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm and most of its variant utilize the mean square error (MSE) criterion and assign the same weight to each entry of the data. In the presence of large impulsive noise, their performance may severely degrade due to the effect of corrupted entries with large noises. In this work, we propose a novel adaptive weighted orthogonal matching pursuit method for sparse representation with application to robust classification. We show that the proposed method can adaptively assign large weights on clean entries of data and small weights on severely corrupted ones. The experiments on benchmark real-world databases demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method for handwritten digit and face recognition.
Real-Time Ensemble Based Face Recognition System for Humanoid Robots

Humanoid robots are being used in many industrial and domestic application in which human-robot interaction plays an important role. One of the important existing challenges is developing an accurate real-time face recognition system which is not required to be computationally expensive. In this research work a real-time face recognition system which requires low computational complexity is proposed. For this purpose, this thesis is investigating block processing of local binary patterns of the face images captured by NAO robot, a humanoid. For test purposes, the proposed method is adopted on NAO robot and tested under realworld conditions. The experimental results through this thesis are showing that the proposed face recognition algorithm compares favorably to the conventional and state-of-the-art techniques.
Design of real-time periodic control systems through synchronization and fixed priorities

Control systems are often designed using a set of co-operating periodic modules running under control of a real-time operating system. A correct behaviour of the closed-loop controller requires that the system meets timing constraints like periods and latencies, which can be expressed as deadlines. The control system timing requirements are captured through a partition in control paths by which priorities are assigned according to their relative urgency. Latencies are managed through precedence constraints and more or less tight synchronization between modules. The implementation uses the fixed-priority based pre-emption service of an off-the-shelf real-time operating system. Such a system can be modelled with timed event graphs, and its temporal behaviour can be analysed using the underlying (max, plus) algebra. Examples coming from a uni-processor robot controller are provided.
HbCIPK2, a novel CBL-interacting protein kinase from halophyte Hordeum brevisubulatum, confers salt and osmotic stress tolerance.

Protein kinases play an important role in regulating the response to abiotic stress in plant. CIPKs are plant-specific signal transducers, and some members have been identified. However, the precise functions of novel CIPKs still remain unknown. Here we report that HbCIPK2 is a positive regulator of salt and osmotic stress tolerance. HbCIPK2 was screened out of the differentially expressed fragments from halophyte Hordeum brevisubulatum by cDNA-AFLP technique, and was a single-copy gene without intron. Expression of HbCIPK2 was increased by salt, drought and ABA treatment. HbCIPK2 is mainly localized to the plasma membrane and nucleus. Ectopic expression of 35S:HbCIPK2 not only rescued the salt hypersensitivity in Arabidopsis mutant sos2-1, but also enhanced salt tolerance in Arabidopsis wild type, and exhibited tolerance to osmotic stress during germination. The HbCIPK2 contributed to the ability to prevent K(+) loss in root and to accumulate less Na(+) in shoot resulting in K(+) /Na(+) homeostasis and protection of root cell from death, which is consistent with the gene expression profile of HbCIPK2-overexpressing lines. These findings imply possible novel HbCIPK2-mediated salt signalling pathways or networks in H. brevisubulatum.
Feedback-Based Resource Allocation in MapReduce-Based Systems

Containers are considered an optimized fine-grain alternative to virtual machines in cloud-based systems. Some of the approaches which have adopted the use of containers are the MapReduce frameworks. This paper makes an analysis of the use of containers in MapReduce-based systems, concluding that the resource utilization of these systems in terms of containers is suboptimal. In order to solve this, the paper describes AdaptCont, a proposal for optimizing the containers allocation in MapReduce systems. AdaptCont is based on the foundations of feedback systems. Two different selection approaches, Dynamic AdaptCont and Pool AdaptCont, are defined. Whereas Dynamic AdaptCont calculates the exact amount of resources per each container, Pool AdaptCont chooses a predefined container from a pool of available configurations. AdaptCont is evaluated for a particular case, the application master container of Hadoop YARN. As we can see in the evaluation, AdaptCont behaves much better than the default resource allocation mechanism of Hadoop YARN.
Intracranial infusion of monoamine‐activated α2‐Macroglobulin decreases dopamine concentrations within the rat caudate putamen

Monoamine‐activated α2‐macroglobulin (α2M) has been shown to inhibit choline acetyltransferase in basal forebrain neurons as well as neurotrophin‐dependent neuronal functions. The objective of this study was to determine whether monoamine‐activated α2M can affect the caudate putamen (CP) dopaminergic system in vivo. Male rats received intracranial infusions of methylamine‐activated α2M (0.6 nmole) and contralateral infusions of its vehicle, phosphate‐buffered saline (PBS). Five days following infusion, the animals were killed, the CP dissected into three rostral‐caudal segments, and assayed for dopamine (DA) using a high‐performance liquid chromatography system. Within the two rostral CP segments (the approximate site of cannula placement), statistically significant (26%) reductions of DA concentrations were obtained on the α2M‐infused side of the CP with 90–100% of the animals showing decreases. At a more distal (caudal) site of the CP, DA concentrations showed only an insignificant (12%) reduction. No differences in DA concentrations between sides infused with bovine serum albumin versus PBS or from olfactory tubercle samples were obtained in these animals. These results demonstrate that monoamine‐activated α2M is capable of producing significant degeneration of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system in vivo and suggest that this factor may play a role in age‐related neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The complete mitochondrial genome of Ceracris versicolor (Orthoptera: Acridoidea: Arcypteridae)

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of Ceracris versicolor is determined here. It is 15,616 bp in length and contains 75.2% AT. All 13 mitochondrial PCGs share the start codon ATN, except for cox1 (CCG start codon). The usual termination codons (TAA) and incomplete stop codons (T) are found from 13 protein-coding genes. All tRNA genes could be folded into the typical cloverleaf secondary structure, except trnS (AGN) lacking of the dihydrouridine arm. The most frequent amino acids in the PCGs of C. versicolor are Leucine (14.45%), Isoleucine (10.50%), Serine (9.53%), Phenylalanine (9.26%), and the total content of these amino acids was 43.74%. The sizes of the large and small ribosomal RNA genes are 1315 and 781 bp, respectively. The AT content of the A + T-rich region is 87.5%.
Training SVM email classifiers using very large imbalanced dataset

The Internet has been flooded with spam emails, and during the last decade there has been an increasing demand for reliable anti-spam email filters. The problem of filtering emails can be considered as a classification problem in the field of supervised learning. Theoretically, many mature technologies, for example, support vector machines (SVM), can be used to solve this problem. However, in real enterprise applications, the training data are typically collected via honeypots and thus are always of huge amounts and highly biased towards spam emails. This challenges both efficiency and effectiveness of conventional technologies. In this article, we propose an undersampling method to compress and balance the training set used for the conventional SVM classifier with minimal information loss. The key observation is that we can make a trade-off between training set size and information loss by carefully defining a similarity measure between data samples. Our experiments show that the SVM classifier provides a better performance by applying our compressing and balancing approach.
Tripterygium Wilfordii inhibits tonsillar IgA production by downregulating IgA class switching in IgA nephropathy

IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is characterized by high serum IgA levels and IgA deposition in the renal mesangium. Recent research has indicated that pathogenic IgA may originate from affected tonsils, where present enhancement of IgA production by IgA class switching and immuno-activation. Tripterygium Wilfordii (TW) was found to be especially effective in IgAN by its’ immunosuppression effect. Given this background, we investigated the mechanisms underlying the role of TW in the generation of IgA and IgA class switching in tonsillar GCs of IgAN patients. Immunohistochemistry and RT-PCR revealed that the expression of thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) and IgA inducing cytokines were decreased in the tonsils of IgAN patients with TW treatment compared with those without treatment, followed by significantly decreased of IgA-bearing cells. The location of TSLP and IgA inducing cytokines in tonsillar tissue was confirmed by double immunofluorescence. Importantly, TW inhibit TSLP and IgA production in isolated FDC-associated clusters. Serum TSLP levels were decreased and correlated with IgA downregulation in the tonsils and serum of IgAN patients. These data indicated that TW may be involved in IgA production in the tonsils of IgAN patients, inhibiting IgA class switching in IgAN patients through the cooperative roles of AID, TGF-β1, BAFF, and APRIL, highlighting a promising strategy for therapeutic intervention in IgAN.
Hidden costs of infection: Chronic malaria accelerates telomere degradation and senescence in wild birds

Chronic malaria shortens telomeres Chronic infections are assumed to cause little damage to the host, but is this true? Migrant birds can pick up various species of malaria parasite while overwintering in the tropics. After initial acute malaria, migrant great reed warblers, which nest in Sweden and overwinter in Africa, are asymptomatically infected for life. Asghar et al. discovered that these cryptically infected birds laid fewer eggs and were less successful at rearing healthy offspring than uninfected birds. Furthermore, infected birds had significantly shorter telomeres (the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes) and produced chicks with shortened telomeres. Science, this issue p. 436 Chronic asymptomatic infection correlates with reduced breeding success and shortened telomeres in great reed warblers. Recovery from infection is not always complete, and mild chronic infection may persist. Although the direct costs of such infections are apparently small, the potential for any long-term effects on Darwinian fitness is poorly understood. In a wild population of great reed warblers, we found that low-level chronic malaria infection reduced life span as well as the lifetime number and quality of offspring. These delayed fitness effects of malaria appear to be mediated by telomere degradation, a result supported by controlled infection experiments on birds in captivity. The results of this study imply that chronic infection may be causing a series of small adverse effects that accumulate and eventually impair phenotypic quality and Darwinian fitness.
Using High-Rate GPS Data to Monitor the Dynamic Behavior of a Cable-Stayed Bridge

This paper presents the results of the first real application, over one cable-stayed bridge, of a research under improvement since 2000 and presents the results of the monitoring of dynamic behavior under traffic load of Hawkshaw Cable-stayed Bridge, in New Brunswick, Canada. This bridge has 2 lanes, with total length of 301.20 m and its main span of 217.32 m is supported by two towers of 36 m of height. Two sessions of 1-hour GPS data have been conducted on the 30 October 2003. For each session, 5 GPS receivers (NOVATEL OEM4DL4 and TRIMBLE 5700) were used, observing at a data rate of 0.2 seconds; one triaxial accelerometer and one total station. These GPS data were processed and analyzed by using a different method (SCHAAL et al., 2001; 2002; LAROCCA, 2004) that is described below. This method is part of a research in which the main objective is to confirm that GPS can be used as a trustworthy tool for characterizing the dynamic behavior of large structures, such as bridges, footbridges, tall buildings and towers, undergoing dynamic loads. Data analyses of Hawkshaw Bridge trial provide results that confirmed the potentiality of the method. Results presented on this paper agree with international trends in the engineering community. These trends include dynamic testing, monitoring of long span bridges and the dissemination and practice of monitoring systems that provide reliable data analysis and interpretation (SUMITRO, 2001; FARRAR, et al, 1999). This permits that assumptions used in the bridge design are correctly verified by conventional instrumentation and GPS. It is important to mention that there is not previous information about the Hawkshaw Bridge dynamic behavior, according to New Brunswick Department of Transportation.
ULTRACAM z′-band detection of the secondary eclipse of WASP-12b

We present z′-band secondary eclipse photometry of the highly irradiated hot Jupiter WASP-12b using ULTRACAM on the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope. We measure a decrease in flux of δ = 0.130 ± 0.013 per cent during the passage of the planet behind the star, which is significantly deeper than the previous measurement at this wavelength (0.082 ± 0.015 per cent). Our secondary eclipse is best fitted with a mid-eclipse phase, ϕ, that is compatible with a circular orbit ϕ = 0.501 ± 0.002, in agreement with previous results. In combination with existing data, our eclipse depth measurement allows us to constrain the characteristics of the planet's atmosphere, which is consistent with a carbon-rich model, with no evidence for a strong thermal inversion. If the difference in eclipse depth reported here compared to that of Lopez-Morales et al. is of physical origin, as opposed to due to systematics, it may be caused by temporal variability in the flux, due to atmospheric dynamics.
Scalable Simulation of Decoupled Accelerator Architectures

In this paper we introduce TaskSim, a simulator targeting a new generation of accelerator-based architectures built from a few master processors that off-load computation to specialized processing elements. The task off-load programming model essentially loads data on the accelerator scratchpad, performs the computation on the local data, and spills out the generated results back to shared memory. We observe that during the computation phase, the accelerator does not interact at all with the rest of the system: interaction is limited to the data transfer before and after the computation itself. Based on that isolation, TaskSim abstracts CPU phases as a single delay burst instead of simulating the computation in detail. Such abstraction does not introduce any error in the simulation, since the data transfer phases are still modeled in cycle-accurate detail. However, the CPU abstraction greatly reduces the computation demands of the simulator, and allows us to simulate very large systems (with hundreds of accelerators) at a very high detail in a reasonable time.
A unified texture model based on a 2-D Wold-like decomposition

A unified texture model that is applicable to a wide variety of texture types found in natural images is presented. This model leads to the derivation of texture analysis and synthesis algorithms designed to estimate the texture parameters and to reconstruct the original texture field from these parameters. The texture field is assumed to be a realization of a regular homogeneous random field, which is characterized in general by a mixed spectral distribution. The texture field is orthogonally decomposed into a purely indeterministic component and a deterministic component. The deterministic component is further orthogonally decomposed into a harmonic component, and a generalized-evanescent component. Both analytical and experimental results show that the deterministic components should be parameterized separately from the purely indeterministic component. The model is very efficient in terms of the number of parameters required to faithfully represent textures. Reconstructed textures are practically indistinguishable from the originals. >
Assessment of pulmonary rehabilitation efficacy in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients using the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease assessment test

Aim: We evaluated the relationship between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) assessment test (CAT) and improvements after pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) and PR efficiency in COPD patients. Methods & results: Forty COPD patients completed PR. After PR, mean change in CAT score was found to be 13 (p < 0.001), Medical Research Council (MRC), St George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SRGQ) and London Chest Activity Daily Living (LCADL) scores decreased, while Endurance Shuttle Walking Test (ESWT) time and Incremental Shuttle Walking Test (ISWT) distance increased significantly. Baseline CAT scores correlated with MRC, SRGQtotal, %FVC, ISWT, ESWT, LCADL. Change in CAT was significantly correlated with changes in MRC, SGRQtotal, LCADL-leisure scores, and ESWT. Conclusion: CAT score shows moderate degree correlation with some measures of outcome of PR and response to PR efficacy.
Mycotic aneurysm of the renal artery: CT appearance.

Mycotic aneurysms of the renal artery are rare with the diagnosis usually made by angiography (Clark et al, 1972; Kaufman & White, 1978). Computed tomographic diagnosis of abdominal mycotic aneurysms has been discussed (Pripstein et al, 1979), but to date the CT appearance of a renal artery mycotic aneurysm has not been reported. Mycotic aneurysms are uncommon and difficult to differentiate on CT from an aortic dissection with involvement of the renal artery. However, renal artery mycotic aneurysms should be considered, given the appropriate clinical circumstances. We report a case of a pathologically proven main renal artery mycotic aneurysm. A 66-year-old white man was admitted with right lower quadrant tenderness, fever, and leukocytosis. His urinalysis indicated three to five white blood cells per low power field and the rare occurrence of bacteria. He had a longstanding history of chronic urinary tract infections secondary to benign prostatic hypertrophy, and the urinalysis findings were considered h.
A Cloud-Edge Computing Framework for Cyber-Physical-Social Services

Cyber-physical-social systems (CPSSs) represent an emerging paradigm encompassing the cyber world, physical world and social world. One of the main purposes of CPSSs is to provide high-quality, proactive, and personalized services for humans. For CPSSs to realize this purpose, a novel services framework is needed. In this article, we present a tensor-based cloud-edge computing framework that mainly includes the cloud and edge planes. The cloud plane is used to process large-scale, long-term, global data, which can be used to obtain decision making information such as the feature, law, or rule sets. The edge plane is used to process small-scale, short-term, local data, which is used to present the real-time situation. Also, personalized services will be directly provided for humans by the edge plane according to the obtained feature, law, or rule sets and the local high-quality data obtained in the edge plane. Then a tensor-based services model is proposed to match the requirement of users in the local CPSS. Finally, a case study about CPSS services is proposed to demonstrate the application features of the proposed framework.
Differences in the Biologic Activity of 2 Novel MEK Inhibitors Revealed by 18F-FDG PET: Analysis of Imaging Data from 2 Phase I Trials

Two mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MAPK2, also known as MEK) inhibitors were assessed with 18F-FDG PET in separate phase I clinical studies, clearly illustrating the potential of metabolic imaging for dose, dosing regimen, and compound selection in early-phase trials and utility for predicting nonresponding patients. Methods: 18F-FDG PET data were collected during 2 independent, phase I, dose-escalation trials of 2 novel MEK inhibitors (RO5126766 and RO4987655). PET acquisition procedures were standardized between the 2 trials, and PET images were analyzed centrally. Imaging was performed at baseline; at cycle 1, day 15; and at cycle 3, day 1. A 10-mm-diameter region of interest was defined for up to 5 lesions, and peak standardized uptake values were determined for each lesion. The relationship between PET response and pharmacokinetic factors (dose and exposure), inhibition of extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and anatomic tumor response as measured by Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors was investigated for both compounds. Results: Seventy-six patients underwent PET, and 205 individual PET scans were analyzed. Strong evidence of biologic activity was seen as early as cycle 1, day 15, for both compounds. 18F-FDG PET revealed striking differences between the 2 MEK inhibitors at their recommended dose for phase II investigation. The mean amplitude of the decrease in 18F-FDG from baseline to cycle 1, day 15, was greater for patients receiving RO4987655 than for those receiving RO5126766 (47% vs. 16%, respectively; P = 0.052). Furthermore, a more pronounced relationship was seen between the change in 18F-FDG uptake and dose or exposure and phosphorylated ERK inhibition in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in patients receiving RO4987655. For both investigational drugs, PET responses tended to be greatest in patients with melanoma tumors. 18F-FDG was able to identify early nonresponding patients with a 97% negative predictive value. Conclusion: These data exemplify the role of 18F-FDG PET for guiding the selection of novel investigational drugs, choosing dose in early-phase clinical development, and predicting nonresponding patients early in treatment.