Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Graph Neural Network Empowered Resource Allocation for Connected Autonomous Mobility

Autonomous mobility and computations provided for passengers impose a high hardware and energy consumption related costs when deployed locally on connected autonomous vehicle (CAV). Distribution of resources for computation accross the edge of mobile network by means of multi-access edge computing (MEC) allows to reduce the cost of the CAVs. However, the decision on computation offloading and allocation of resources for computing is itself a computationally complex task. Existing works typically do not fully exploit the potential of machine learning by combining novel advances in deep reinforcement learning (DRL) and graph neural networks (GNNs) that are suited for graph structure of the MEC. We propose a novel framework combining GNNs with deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) variant of DRL. The proposed concept is tested in environment with simulated gNodeBs, CAVs and execution of actions that simultaneously trade off uplink and processing resources and control the soft deadline buffer. In scenario with one base station and 12 CAVs our approach outperforms commonly used multilayer perceptron DDPG by 59% in terms of failed task ratio metric. Additionally, in scenario with 3 base stations and 25 CAVs, the proposal reaches over 33% for the same metric over round robin (RR) distribution.
The conventions of sport clubs: enabling and constraining the implementation of social goods through sport

In order to shed light on the possibilities for using sport as a vehicle for the realization of social goods—understood as sport having a wider social role—this paper scrutinizes Norwegian sport clubs. The study is guided by the concept of convention, which refers to individuals’ cognitive structures, and to social structure. Three sport clubs were investigated and three qualitative methods, including document analysis, observation and interviews, were employed. First, in the results section, the main sport convention is identified as being competitiveness. Secondly, it is argued that as a consequence of the main convention for sport there are limited possibilities for the realization of social goods such as health. The possibilities of sports clubs combining the convention of competitiveness with others is discussed, considering the former as substantial for practice and discussing whether the latter is mere rhetoric.
A Novel Sialic Acid Binding Site on Factor H Mediates Serum Resistance of Sialylated Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Factor H (fH), a key alternative complement pathway regulator, is a cofactor for factor I–mediated cleavage of C3b. fH consists of 20 short consensus repeat (SCR) domains. Sialic acid binding domains have previously been localized to fH SCRs 6–10 and 13. To examine fH binding on a sialylated microbial surface, we grew Neisseria gonorrhoeae in the presence of 5′-cytidinemonophospho-N-acetylneuraminic acid, which sialylates lipooligosaccharide and converts to serum resistance gonococci previously sensitive to nonimmune serum killing. fH domains necessary for binding sialylated gonococci were determined by incubating organisms with recombinant human fH (rH) and nine mutant rH molecules (deletions spanning the entire fH molecule). rH and all mutant rH molecules that contained SCRs 16–20 bound to the sialylated strain; no mutant molecule bound to serum-sensitive nonsialylated organisms. Sialic acid was demonstrated to be the fH target by flow cytometry that showed a fourfold increase in fH binding that was reversed by neuraminidase-mediated cleavage of sialic acid off gonococci. Functional specificity of fH was confirmed by decreased total C3 binding and almost complete conversion to iC3b on sialylated gonococci. Sialic acid can therefore bind fH uniquely through SCRs 16–20. This blocks complement pathway activation for N. gonorrhoeae at the level of C3.
Primary Congenital Glaucoma and the Involvement of CYP1B1

Primary congenital glaucoma (PCG) is an autosomal recessive disorder in children due to the abnormal development of the trabecular meshwork and the anterior chamber angle. With an onset at birth to early infancy, PCG is highly prevalent in inbred populations and consanguinity is strongly associated with the disease. Gene mapping of PCG-affected families has identified three chromosomal loci, GLC3A, GLC3B and GLC3C, of which, the CYP1B1 gene on GLC3A harbors mutations in PCG. The mutation spectra of CYP1B1 vary widely across different populations but are well structured based on geographic and haplotype backgrounds. Structural and functional studies on CYP1B1 have suggested its potential role in the development and onset of glaucomatous symptoms. A new locus (GLC3D) harboring the LTBP2 gene has been characterized in developmental glaucoma but its role in classical cases of PCG is yet to be understood. In this review, we provide insight into PCG pathogenesis and the potential role of CYP1B1 in the disease phenotype.
A New approach in on-line task scheduling for reconfigurable computing systems

Reconfiguration overhead is an important obstacle that limits the performance of on-line scheduling algorithms in reconfigurable computing systems and increases the overall execution time. Configuration reusing (task reusing) can decrease reconfiguration overhead considerably, particularly in periodic applications. In this paper, we present a new approach for on-line scheduling and placement in which configuration reusing is considered as a main characteristic in order to reduce reconfiguration overhead and decrease total execution time of the tasks. A large variety of experiments have been conducted on the proposed algorithm. Obtained results show considerable improvement in overall execution time of the tasks.
Ontologies and semantics for seamless connectivity

The goal of having networks of seamlessly connected people, software agents and IT systems remains elusive. Early integration efforts focused on connectivity at the physical and syntactic layers. Great strides were made; there are many commercial tools available, for example to assist with enterprise application integration. It is now recognized that physical and syntactic connectivity is not adequate. A variety of research systems have been developed addressing some of the semantic issues. In this paper, we argue that ontologies in particular and semantics-based technologies in general will play a key role in achieving seamless connectivity. We give a detailed introduction to ontologies, summarize the current state of the art for applying ontologies to achieve semantic connectivity and highlight some key challenges.
Freedom, Determinism, and Hope in Little Dorrit: A Literary Anthropology

In the sesquicentennials of Darwin's The Origin of Species and Mill's On Liberty, determinism and freedom returned to grand and popular narrative. NeoDarwinian books like The Literary Animal (2005) and Madame Bovary's Ovaries (2005) returned us via evolutionary psychology or E. O. Wilson's socio-biology to a universal human nature based in genes and reproduction. Whereas Habermasians grounded freedom and constraint solely in community and communication, NeoDarwinians reduced human decisions to reproductive instincts. Then 2010 saw the tenth anniversary of the completed human genome sequence, and reductive conceptions of the genome were rife. Confronted with such reductionisms, we are challenged to maintain a more complex understanding of the interworkings of nature and culture in species self-formation.This essay does so by reconsidering the methods of the philosophical anthropologists who valued the human capacities for freedom and choice, self-creation, and self-formation, within natural limits and constraints. In the complex workings of nature and culture, humans cannot be reduced to genes or reproductive strategies, nor can they be reduced to mere cultural constructs. The philosophical anthropologists studied the way culture and technology mediated biological nature, and vice versa, the way nature mediated culture and technology. When they wanted to know what humankind was, they looked at the history of its interactions with nature. Through that history, they saw its capabilities and limits. There was no essence of humankind outside its historical existence, and the ability to reflect on that history opened the world to ideal goals.This empirical or historical ontology that asked what kinds of creatures humans were at home in both nature and their diverse cultures was at its height in the mid-nineteenth century and is only now returning after a century and a half of reductions to either nature or culture. From geneticists to meteorologists, scientists are looking at the ways in which culture interacts with the environment at both molecular and global levels. They write of onto-genetic or developmental niches in which nature is nurtured as the product of mutually influencing genes and environment. The terms they use are Emergence, post-genomics, and the new epigenesis.My contention is that cutting-edge science today is much closer to the pre-disciplinary sciences of the mid-nineteenth century than we have seen for 150 years and that when reading the Victorians we should celebrate their epistemic pluralism and diversity. We should celebrate the uneasy pleasures of knowing that we are both nature and culture, free, but only within limits. Dickens was characteristically knowledgeable of the science of his time, and his work shows the scope and limits of the human animal as conceived in the 1850s. I use Little Dorrit to demonstrate this because it is a novel about limits and constraints. I present my argument in the form of four theses on Nature, culture, technology, and hope, and I claim that these not only reflect the science of Dickens's time but also of our own.
Random feature subset selection in a nonstationary environment: Application to textured image segmentation

In this paper, we present a new feature subset selection method that intends to optimize or preserve the performances of a decisional system in case of nonstationary perturbations or loss of information. A two-step process is proposed. First, multiple classifiers are created based on random subspace method, and an initial decision is obtained by combining all the classifiers according to a weighted voting rule. Then, we classify anew all the observations with a subset of these classifiers, chosen in function of the quality of their related feature subspaces. To illustrate this approach, the two-class textured image segmentation problem is considered. Our attention is focused on trying to determine the optimum feature subsets in order to improve the classification accuracy at the borders between two textures. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
A non-parametric approach for the estimation of intensity-frequency dependent noise

We present a non-parametric method estimating an intensity and frequency dependent noise from a single image. The noise model is estimated on image patches and can be used consequently in all patch-based denoising methods. The method applies to cases where no access is granted to the image noise model, in particular to scanned photographs and JPEG images. The general noise model and the method to evaluate it are validated by comparing the estimations with the corresponding ground-truth curves for raw and JPEG images. Denoising experiments on scanned photographs also support the efficiency of the estimation method.
The Effect of Product Size and Form Distortion on Consumer Recycling Behavior

The present research examines conditions under which consumers dispose of recyclable products in the garbage. Results from a field study and four laboratory studies demonstrate that a consumer's decision to recycle a product or throw it in the trash can be determined by the extent to which the product has been distorted during the consumption process. Specifically, if the consumption process distorts a product sufficiently from its original form (i.e., changes in size or form), consumers perceive it as less useful and in turn are more likely to throw it in the garbage (as opposed to recycle it). These findings point to important outcomes of the consumption process that have largely been ignored and provide initial insight into the psychological processes influencing recycling behavior.
Genetic Diversity of Upland Rice Germplasm in Malaysia Based on Quantitative Traits

Genetic diversity is prerequisite for any crop improvement program as it helps in the development of superior recombinants. Fifty Malaysian upland rice accessions were evaluated for 12 growth traits, yield and yield components. All of the traits were significant and highly significant among the accessions. The higher magnitudes of genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were recorded for flag leaf length-to-width ratio, spikelet fertility, and days to flowering. High heritability along with high genetic advance was registered for yield of plant, days to flowering, and flag leaf length-to-width ratio suggesting preponderance of additive gene action in the gene expression of these characters. Plant height showed highly significant positive correlation with most of the traits. According to UPGMA cluster analysis all accessions were clustered into six groups. Twelve morphological traits provided around 77% of total variation among the accessions.
The First Postgraduate Experience Conference '97 : a personal perspective

This issue of the Journal of Further and Higher Education includes selected papers from the First Postgraduate Experience Conference '97, which was held in Cape Town in December 1997. This article seeks to contextualise these papers by offering a summary of the key themes that were threaded through the conference sessions. The paper is structured according to the subtitle of the conference into three sections: Approach; Access; and Management. 'Approach' considers the student approach to postgraduate study, and in particular focuses on the student experience and the student-supervisor relationships. 'Access' is concerned with approaches to widening access to postgraduate study and the embedding of a research culture in academic institutions on which such a culture has not been previously valued or encouraged. 'Management' deals with broader institutional and strategic issues, that might support the creation of quality research capacity.
Interpolation of ray-space data by adaptive filtering

We propose a new ray-space interpolation scheme using an adaptive filter. Unlike the previous works related to view interpolation, which detect disparities, our scheme adopts a simple signal processing method; adaptive filtering to Epipolar Plane Image (EPI). First, the original EPI is up- sampled. Then, for each pixel to be interpolated, the block surrounding the pixel is analyzed and the best filter is selected according to the analysis. The filter set includes various interpolation filters with different directionality. Finally, we apply the filter to up-sampled EPI and generate the intermediate ray-space data. Since our scheme does not need pattern matching, it requires less computation cost than the conventional interpolation schemes, and therefore, it is very fast and suitable for hardware implementation. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme interpolates ray-space data with higher PSNR than other interpolation methods, such as nearest neighbor interpolation, the linear interpolation and block matching interpolation.
DETERMINATION OF KINETIC CONSTANTS FOR NITRIFYING BACTERIA IN MIXED CULTURE, WITH THE AID OF AN ELECTRONIC COMPUTER.

SUMMARY: An electronic computer was used to integrate differential equations for bacterial growth, and thus to determine simultaneously growth-rate constants, saturation (‘Michaelis’) constants, and initial numbers of bacteria. In one case numerical methods were necessary to effect the integration and the work would have been prohibitively great if a computer had not been used. By this means curves have been fitted to experimental data on the course of nitrification in water from the Thames Estuary. Kinetic constants for Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter at various temperatures were obtained, and the rate of death of these bacteria in the absence of their substrates was estimated.
Synthetic biology and therapeutic strategies for the degenerating brain

Synthetic biology is an emerging engineering discipline that attempts to design and rewire biological components, so as to achieve new functions in a robust and predictable manner. The new tools and strategies provided by synthetic biology have the potential to improve therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, synthetic biology will help design small molecules, proteins, gene networks, and vectors to target disease‐related genes. Ultimately, new intelligent delivery systems will provide targeted and sustained therapeutic benefits. New treatments will arise from combining ‘protect and repair’ strategies: the use of drug treatments, the promotion of neurotrophic factor synthesis, and gene targeting. Going beyond RNAi and artificial transcription factors, site‐specific genome modification is likely to play an increasing role, especially with newly available gene editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9 systems. Taken together, these advances will help develop safe and long‐term therapies for many brain diseases in human patients.
Can We Have Superconvergent Gradient Recovery Under Adaptive Meshes?

We study adaptive finite element methods for elliptic problems with domain corner singularities. Our model problem is the two-dimensional Poisson equation. Results of this paper are twofold. First, we prove that there exists an adaptive mesh (gauged by a discrete mesh density function) under which the recovered gradient by the polynomial preserving recovery (PPR) is superconvergent. Second, we demonstrate by numerical examples that an adaptive procedure with an a posteriori error estimator based on PPR does produce adaptive meshes that asatisfy our mesh density assumption, and the recovered gradient by PPR is indeed superconvergent in the adaptive process.
Ocular Application of the Kinin B1 Receptor Antagonist LF22-0542 Inhibits Retinal Inflammation and Oxidative Stress in Streptozotocin-Diabetic Rats

Purpose Kinin B1 receptor (B1R) is upregulated in retina of Streptozotocin (STZ)-diabetic rats and contributes to vasodilation of retinal microvessels and breakdown of the blood-retinal barrier. Systemic treatment with B1R antagonists reversed the increased retinal plasma extravasation in STZ rats. The present study aims at determining whether ocular application of a water soluble B1R antagonist could reverse diabetes-induced retinal inflammation and oxidative stress. Methods Wistar rats were made diabetic with STZ (65 mg/kg, i.p.) and 7 days later, they received one eye drop application of LF22-0542 (1% in saline) twice a day for a 7 day-period. The impact was determined on retinal vascular permeability (Evans blue exudation), leukostasis (leukocyte infiltration using Fluorescein-isothiocyanate (FITC)-coupled Concanavalin A lectin), retinal mRNA levels (by qRT-PCR) of inflammatory (B1R, iNOS, COX-2, ICAM-1, VEGF-A, VEGF receptor type 2, IL-1β and HIF-1α) and anti-inflammatory (B2R, eNOS) markers and retinal level of superoxide anion (dihydroethidium staining). Results Retinal plasma extravasation, leukostasis and mRNA levels of B1R, iNOS, COX-2, VEGF receptor type 2, IL-1β and HIF-1α were significantly increased in diabetic retinae compared to control rats. All these abnormalities were reversed to control values in diabetic rats treated with LF22-0542. B1R antagonist also significantly inhibited the increased production of superoxide anion in diabetic retinae. Conclusion B1R displays a pathological role in the early stage of diabetes by increasing oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory mediators involved in retinal vascular alterations. Hence, topical application of kinin B1R antagonist appears a highly promising novel approach for the treatment of diabetic retinopathy.
The Effects of Somatic Hypermutation on Neutralization and Binding in the PGT121 Family of Broadly Neutralizing HIV Antibodies

Broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies (bnAbs) are typically highly somatically mutated, raising doubts as to whether they can be elicited by vaccination. We used 454 sequencing and designed a novel phylogenetic method to model lineage evolution of the bnAbs PGT121–134 and found a positive correlation between the level of somatic hypermutation (SHM) and the development of neutralization breadth and potency. Strikingly, putative intermediates were characterized that show approximately half the mutation level of PGT121–134 but were still capable of neutralizing roughly 40–80% of PGT121–134 sensitive viruses in a 74-virus panel at median titers between 15- and 3-fold higher than PGT121–134. Such antibodies with lower levels of SHM may be more amenable to elicitation through vaccination while still providing noteworthy coverage. Binding characterization indicated a preference of inferred intermediates for native Env binding over monomeric gp120, suggesting that the PGT121–134 lineage may have been selected for binding to native Env at some point during maturation. Analysis of glycan-dependent neutralization for inferred intermediates identified additional adjacent glycans that comprise the epitope and suggests changes in glycan dependency or recognition over the course of affinity maturation for this lineage. Finally, patterns of neutralization of inferred bnAb intermediates suggest hypotheses as to how SHM may lead to potent and broad HIV neutralization and provide important clues for immunogen design.
Direct-write assembly of 3D scaffolds using colloidal calcium phosphates inks

ABSTRACT Additive manufacture techniques using concentrated colloidal inks are a promising approach for creating three-dimensional (3D) calcium phosphates scaffolds for bone repair and regeneration. Among those, the direct-write assembly allows building scaffolds with precise size and geometry. In the present work, commercial β-TCP and HA were used to produce two types of colloidal ink. According to the ink composition used to build the scaffolds, two different groups were obtained. Group I: scaffolds produced with β-TCP-based ink; and Group II: scaffolds produced with biphasic CaP-based ink (BCP). The 3D scaffolds were assembled in a cylindrical shape (Φ = 8mm x H= 16 mm) with interconnected pore channels of approximately 500μm by robotic deposition of 64 layers using a robocasting machine. The mechanical compression property of the scaffolds was determined using universal testing machine. To assure the controlled geometry of the scaffolds, digital images were obtained by reconstructing each individual scan obtained with a micro-computed tomography. An optical contact angle measurement system was used to evaluate the wettability of the materials. After analyzing the results it was concluded that: the robocasting system is suitable for building 3D periodic calcium phosphates scaffolds; the direct-write assembly didn’t change the hydrophilic characteristic of CaPs; and presented mean compressive strength around 11 MPa (β-TCP group) and 15 MPa (BCP group), which is compatible with trabecular bone.