Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Taking Care of (E)-Business?: Australian IT Professionals' Views of Wireless Network Vulnerability Assessments

M-commerce, a growing sub-category of E-business, allows business to be done 'anywhere, anytime'. However security of wireless devices remains problematic. It is unclear whether protocols to alleviate security problems, such as wireless vulnerability assessments (WNVAs), are being used or are effective. The paper reports on a survey-based study of Australian computer security professionals' use of and opinions about two types of WNVA: wireless monitoring and penetration testing. An initially surprising finding was how little both types are used, despite the ease with which wireless networks can be attacked and the fact that penetration testing is fairly well understood. In the light of organizational culture the survey findings become more explicable. Senior management, and even IT staff, may still hold a traditional, 'wired network' view of their organization. Aspects of organizational culture also appear to limit the way WNVA users go about the assessment process. A cultural shift could help change users' perceptions about the risks and rewards of WNVAs. This could threaten IT staff's professional identity, however, and needs further research.
EVALUATION OF TIME SERIES TANDEM-X DIGITAL ELEVATION MODELS

Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is an important input for geo-spatial analysis. For various applications like flood management, ortho rectification of remote sensing images, navigation, architectural works, defence, etc., high resolution DEM is required. TanDEM-X mission was launched in 2010 to obtain high resolution global DEM with HTRI-3 standard. SAR interferometry (InSAR) technique is used for DEM generation from TanDEM-X SAR data. The accuracy of DEM depends on many parameters like height ambiguity, incidence angle, polarization, etc. In this study, time series TanDEM-X data spanning over 3 years, had processed for generating DEM at the spatial resolution of 6 m and their accuracy had studied using DGPS elevation data and SRTM 90 m DEM. The products generated during DEM generation process are DEM, precision (or height error), coherence, layover and shadow images. Using weighted average fusion technique, ascending and descending DEMs are fused for improving the quality of DEM and to reduce invalid pixels corresponding to layover and shadow areas. Results from time series data were analysed and found RMSE error of fused DEMs is in the range of 2 m to 4 m, while individual DEM has accuracy of 3 m to 6 m with respect to DGPS elevation data. Fused DEMs are having high accuracy as well as less voids. The reduction of voids by fusion, ranges from 40 to 85% in different combinations of data.
Short-Duration Maximal and Long-Duration Submaximal Effort Forearm Exercise Achieve Elevations in Serum Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a major orchestrator of exercise-induced brain plasticity and circulating (peripheral) BDNF may have central effects. Approximately 99% of circulating BDNF is platelet-bound, and at rest ~30% of circulating platelets are stored in the spleen. Interestingly, forearm handgrip exercise significantly elevates sympathetic outflow and has been shown to induce splenic constriction, suggesting that small muscle mass exercise could stand as a viable strategy for increasing circulating BDNF; however, the BDNF response to handgrip exercise is currently unknown. Purpose: This study examined BDNF and platelet responses to short-duration maximal (ME) and prolonged submaximal (SE) effort handgrip exercise. Methods: Healthy males (n = 18; 21.4 ± 2.1 years, BMI 25.0 ± 1.0 kg/m2) performed 10 min of ME and 30 min of SE. Blood was sampled for the determination of serum BDNF and platelet count at rest and during the last minute of exercise. Results: Compared to rest, serum BDNF significantly increased during ME (21.2%) and SE (11.2%), which displayed a non-significant trend toward an intensity-dependent response. Platelets increased in an intensity-dependent fashion compared to rest with an 8.0% increase during ME and 3.1% during SE, and these responses were significantly correlated with diastolic blood pressure responses to handgrip exercise. Further, the amount of BDNF per platelet significantly increased compared to rest during ME (13.4%) and SE (8.7%). Conclusions: Handgrip exercise evokes significant increases in serum BDNF and platelets, implicating splenic constriction as a key mechanism and confirming efficacy of this exercise model for elevating circulating BDNF.
A Shared Interface Mediates Paramyxovirus Interference with Antiviral RNA Helicases MDA5 and LGP2

ABSTRACT Diverse members of the Paramyxovirus family of negative-strand RNA viruses effectively suppress host innate immune responses through the actions of their V proteins. The V protein mediates interference with the interferon regulatory RNA helicase MDA5 to avoid cellular antiviral responses. Analysis of the interaction interface revealed the MDA5 helicase C domain as necessary and sufficient for association with V proteins from human parainfluenza virus type 2, parainfluenza virus type 5, measles virus, mumps virus, Hendra virus, and Nipah virus. The identified ∼130-residue region is highly homologous between MDA5 and the related antiviral helicase LGP2, but not RIG-I. Results indicate that the paramyxovirus V proteins can also associate with LGP2. The V protein interaction was found to disrupt ATP hydrolysis mediated by both MDA5 and LGP2. These findings provide a potential mechanistic basis for V protein-mediated helicase interference and identify LGP2 as a second cellular RNA helicase targeted by paramyxovirus V proteins.
BRP-170 and BRP190 isoforms of Bruchpilot protein differentially contribute to the frequency of synapses and synaptic circadian plasticity in the visual system of Drosophila

In the first optic neuropil (lamina) of the optic lobe of Drosophila melanogaster, two classes of synapses, tetrad and feedback, show daily rhythms in the number and size of presynaptic profiles examined at the level of transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Number of tetrad presynaptic profiles increases twice a day, once in the morning and again in the evening, and their presynaptic ribbons are largest in the evening. In contrast, feedback synapses peak at night. The frequency of synapses is correlated with size of the presynaptic element measured as the platform size of so-called T-bars, with T-bar platforms being largest with increasing synapse frequency. The large scaffold protein Bruchpilot (BRP) is a major essential constituent of T-bars, with two major isoforms of 190 and 170 kD forming T-bars of the peripheral neuromuscular junctions (NMJ) synapses and in the brain. In addition to the analysis of cyclic plasticity of tetrad and feedback synapses in wild-type flies, we used TEM to examine daily changes in the size and distribution of synapses within isoform-specific BRP mutants, expressing BRP-190 (BRPΔ170) or BRP-170 (BRPΔ190) only. We found that the number and circadian plasticity of synapses depends on both isoforms. In the BRPΔ190 lacking BRP-190 there was almost 50% less tetrad synapses demonstrable than when both isoforms were present. The lack of BRP-170 and BRP-190 increased and decreased, respectively the number of feedback synapses, indicating that BRP-190 forms most of the feedback synapses. In both mutants, the daily plasticity of tetrad and feedback presynaptic profiles was abolished, except for feedback synapses in BRPΔ190. The oscillations in the number and size of presynaptic elements seem to depend on a different contribution of BRP isoforms in a presynaptic element at different time during the day and night and at various synapse types. The participation of both BRP isoforms may vary in different classes of synapses.
Investigation on hot-carrier-induced degradation for the n-type lateral DMOS with floating p-top layer

The hot-carrier-induced degradation for the n-type lateral DMOS (nLDMOS) with floating p-top layer has been experimentally investigated for the first time. Our experiments show that the degradation of the linear drain current (Idlin) has a strange shift at the beginning of the stress. The studies demonstrate that the strange shift comes from the unexpected depletion of the p-top layer. Moreover, it is noted that the corrected saturation drain current (Idsat) degradation has a turnover at stressing 100s while the degradation of Idlin has not. Further studies illustrate that the different degradation phenomenon comes from different influence mechanisms of generated interface states and injected hot holes on the Idlin and Idsat for their different current distributions.
Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2/neu overexpression in urothelial carcinoma of the bladder and its prognostic significance: Is it worth hype?

Abstract Aims: In urothelial tumors of the urinary bladder, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2)/neu expression has been reported over 10 years, but there is no clear correlation between prognosis and recurrence rate. The present study evaluates prognostic implication of HER-2/neu expression. Subjects and Methods: In this study, 100 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens of primary transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder were processed. HER-2/neu monoclonal antibody immunohistochemistry staining procedure used for the study. Results: A total of 70 (70%) patients were positive for overexpression of HER-2/neu. HER-2/neu was positive in patients with 42 (70%) superficial tumor, 28 (70%) muscle invasive tumor, 41 (75.9%) high-grade tumor, 29 (63%) low grade tumor, 31 (68.9%) recurrent tumor, and 6 (66.6%) had positive lymph nodes. Conclusions: Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2/neu over expression was not correlated with the tumor stage, lymphnode metastasis or recurrence of the disease. HER-2/neu overexpression was statistically insignificantly correlated with the differentiation grade (P < 0.161) as compared to previous studies. Future studies on HER-2 expression with chemo-sensitivity and efficacy of HER-2-targeted therapies in urothelial carcinomas is needed.
Challenges in biological literature mining for online discovery of molecular interaction pathways

The new challenge in post-genome research is to unravel the underlying interplay of bio-molecules as informative molecular interaction pathways. However, much of the molecular interaction information is currently contained in scientific journals. Despite previous accomplishments from the text mining community and the increasing research activities in biological text mining, biologists are still expending great efforts by laborious hand-curation of the scientific literature to create quality online databases of bio-molecules and their interactions. In this paper, we examine why this is the case by reviewing the various challenges in mining biological literature for bio-molecular interaction pathways. We propose a methodology for training and evaluating biological literature-based data mining applications with annotated biological review papers. By laying out the various computational challenges, we hope that a road map can be furnished for the text-based data mining community to collectively solve this complex but increasingly important data mining task in bio-informatics.
Evolution and Biogeography of Talpid Moles from Continental East Asia and the Japanese Islands Inferred from Mitochondrial and Nuclear Gene Sequences

Abstract We sequenced the cytochrome b gene from two little-studied mammal species from the highlands of Southwest China, the long-tailed mole Scaptonyx fusicaudus and the gracile shrew-like mole Uropsilus gracilis. This data was used to examine the phylogenetic relationships among 19 talpid species within the family Talpidae (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla). Cytochrome b gene trees supported a basal placement of shrew-like moles (Uropsilus) within the Talpidae, and suggested that fossorial specializations arose twice during talpid evolution. To assess the evolutionary relationships of moles endemic to this region, we additionally sequenced the 12S rRNA gene and the nuclear recombination-activating gene-1 from eight and ten East Asian taxa, respectively. Analyses of these single and concatenated data sets suggested that East Asian shrew moles diverged prior to the evolution of fossorial Eurasian moles. However, we were unable to determine whether semi-fossorial shrew moles are monophyletic. In contrast, fossorial Eurasian genera (Talpa, Mogera and Euroscaptor) were consistently found to form a monophyletic clade, with Mogera and Euroscaptor representing sister taxa. Furthermore, this fossorial clade grouped with the semi-aquatic Desmana, although with fairly low (35–62%) bootstrap support. Mogera imaizumii was found to be more closely related to M. wogura than to M. tokudae. This implies that the ancestors of these three species entered Japan from the Asian continent in this order via a series of migration events, suggesting that the Japanese Islands have played an important role in preserving mole lineages from ancient to recent times.
Ah , that 3 / 8 ! Weinberg ’ s angle and Z 0 decay width

The GUT value of Weinberg’s angle is also the value that minimises the total square matrix elements of Z decay, independently of any GUT consideration, and thus the one that maximises the neutrino branching ratio against total width. We review the proof of this result and some related facts. From any textbook (eg [1]), the amplitude for decay of Z into a fermion pair, at leading order, is Γ(Z → ff̄) = Cf (|Vf | + |Af |) GF M 3 Z 6 √ 2π (1) where Cf is a colour normalisation constant, 1 for fermions and 3 for quarks, and Vf and Af are the vector and axial charges, Vf = T 3 f − 2Qf sin θW (2) Af = T 3 f (3) If we are interested on the decay into a set of fermions, we add the contributions to get the total square matrix element:
Kupffer Cells Protect Liver from Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury by an Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase-Dependent Mechanism

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of nitric oxide (NO) in rat hepatic ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Animals were divided into four groups: Group I, control; Group II, gadolinium chloride (GdCl3), a Kupffer cell depleting agent, pretreated; Group III, S-methylisothiourea (SMT), a potent inducible NO synthase (iNOS) inhibitor, pretreated; Group IV, pretreated with SMT, then treated with S-Nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP), a NO donor, after ischemia. Sprague-Dawley rats underwent left lateral and median lobe ischemia for 60 min and reperfusion for 120 min. The left lateral and median lobes were used as ischemic lobes, and the right lateral lobe in the same rat was used as a control lobe. The total NOS (tNOS), iNOS, constitutive NOS (cNOS) activity, and liver protein were determined. The liver tissue malonaldehyde (MDA) level was measured as an index of lipid peroxidation. Liver histology was also examined. The liver tNOS activity in ischemic lobes of Group I, II, III, and IV was increased by 214%, 86%, 61%, and 45%, respectively. The increase in tNOS activity is mainly due to the induction of iNOS activity in the ischemic lobes of rat liver. GdCl3 significantly decreased the tNOS by 66% in the ischemic lobes. GdCl3 significantly increased MDA by 39% in the ischemic lobes. SMT significantly decreased tNOS and iNOS activity by 66% and 85% in ischemic lobes. SMT increased MDA by 67% in the ischemic lobes. SMT + SNAP treatment increased iNOS activity by 117% in the ischemic lobes in comparison with the ischemic lobes of the SMT group. SMT + SNAP treatment decreased MDA by 39% in the ischemic lobes. SMT + SNAP treatment also decreased the sinusoidal congestion and spotty necrosis of hepatocytes in the ischemic lobes. iNOS immunostaining showed an obvious increase in sinusodial area of the ischemic lobes where most Kupffer cells were interspersed. In conclusion, in this model of liver I/R injury, I/R increased the activity of tNOS and iNOS, but not the cNOS activity. Kupffer cells might be the major source of the induction of iNOS activity. The iNOS specific inhibitor SMT increased the lipid peroxidation and the tissue damage in hepatic I/R injury. On the contrary, the NO donor SNAP increased the activity of iNOS and decreased the hepatic injury in this study. Kupffer cells could protect liver from I/R injury by an iNOS-dependent mechanism, thus NO production has a beneficial role in hepatic IR injury.
Effects of Temperature on Methane Consumption in a Forest Soil and in Pure Cultures of the Methanotroph Methylomonas rubra

Methane oxidation in soil cores from a mixed hardwood-coniferous forest varied relatively little as a function of incubation temperatures from −1 to 30°C. The increase in oxidation rate was proportional to T2.4 (in kelvins). This relationship was consistent with limitation of methane transport through a soil gas phase to a subsurface zone of consumption by diffusion. The Q10 for CO2 production, 3.4, was substantially higher than that for methane oxidation, 1.1, and indicated that the response of soil respiration to temperature was limited by enzymatic processes and not diffusion of either organic substrates or molecular oxygen. When grown under conditions of phase-transfer limitation, cultures of Methylomonas rubra showed a minimal response to temperature changes between 19 and 38°C, as indicated by methane oxidation rates; in the absence of phase-transfer limitations, M. rubra oxidized methane at rates strongly dependent on temperature.
Random hypergraphs and algorithmics

Hypergraphs are structures that can be decomposed or described; in other words they are recursively countable. Here, we get exact and asymptotic enumeration results on hypergraphs by means of exponential generating functions. The number of hypergraph component is bounded, as a generalisation of Wright inequalities for graphs: the proof is a combinatorial understanding of the structure by inclusion exclusion. Asymptotic results are obtained, thanks to generating functions proofs are at the end very easy to read, through complex analysis by saddle point method. By this way, we characterized: - the components with a given number of vertices and of hyperedges by the expected size of a random hypermatching in these structures. - the random hypergraphs (evolving hyperedge by hyperedge) according to the expected number of hyperedges when the first cycle appears in the evolving structure. This work is an open road to further works on random hypergraphs such as threshold phenomenon, tools used here seem to be sufficient at first sight.
Rapid prototyping of multi-mode QC-LDPC decoder for 802.11n/ac standard

A multi-mode QC-LDPC decoder is proposed to satisfy the 802.11n/ac WiFi standard. With code-specific design, the overall performance of the decoder is enhanced while ensuring an on-the-fly reconfigurable ability. The proposed architecture has been synthesized using an FPGA for measurements. A state-of-art error rate and implementation complexity are reported. Meanwhile, the throughput has been increased to range from 382 MHz to 1852 MHz.
Robotic assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy following transrectal compared to transperineal prostate biopsy: surgical, oncological and functional outcomes.

BACKGROUND To assess if transperineal prostate (TP) biopsy affects the outcome of robotic-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP), with particular reference to peri-operative complications, oncological results and functional outcomes in the early post operative setting. METHODS We identified 61 men who had undergone RALP after TP biopsies, from June 2012 to June 2014 and a control group of 120 men who had undergone RALP after conventional TRUS biopsy in the same period. Data was compared from the pre-operative biopsy, peri and post-operative period, procedural outcomes including histological, oncological and functional outcomes between the groups. RESULTS The groups had comparable demographics, with matched median ages and PSA levels. There was a higher incidence of Gleason 6 disease detected in the TRUS group (p = 0.01). Mean operative time (146 minutes TRUS vs. 158 minutes TP, p = 0.133), blood loss (250mls TRUS vs. 288mls TP, p=0.462) and intraoperative complications were not significantly different between groups. Median length of stay (1 day) and median catheter duration (7 days) were identical in both cohorts. PSA failure rate at 6 months was similar (11.7% TRUS vs. 9.8% TP, p=0.904). There were no differences in functional outcomes (potency or continence) between groups at 6 months follow up. CONCLUSIONS RALP is safe after TP biopsy with no adverse impact on oncological or short-term functional outcomes.
Gesture, Segment, Prosody: Prosodic structure and tempo in a sonority model of articulatory dynamics

Introduction One of the most difficult facts about speech to model is that it unfolds in time. The phonological structure of an utterance can be represented in terms of a timeless organization of categorical properties and entities – phonemes in sequence, syllables grouped into stress feet, and the like. But a phonetic representation must account for the realization of such structures as physical events. It must be able to describe, and ultimately to predict, the time course of the articulators moving and the spectrum changing. Early studies in acoustic phonetics demonstrated a plethora of influences on speech timing, with seemingly complex interactions (e.g. Klatt 1976). The measured acoustic durations of segments were shown to differ widely under variation in overall tempo, in the specification of adjacent segments, in stress placement or accentuation, in position relative to phrase boundaries, and so on. Moreover, the articulatory kinematics implicated in any one linguistic specification – tempo or stress, say – showed a complicated variation across speakers and conditions (e.g. Gay 1981). The application of a general model of limb movement (task dynamics) shows promise of resolving this variation by relating the durational correlates of tempo and stress to the control of dynamic parameters such as gestural stiffness and amplitude (e.g. Kelso et al . 1985; Ostry and Munhall 1985). However, the mapping between these parameters and the underlying phonological specification of prosodic structure is not yet understood.
Automatic Evaluation of Commonsense Knowledge for Refining Japanese ConceptNet

In this paper we present two methods for automatic common sense knowledge evaluation for Japanese entries in ConceptNet ontology. Our proposed methods utilize text-mining approach: one with relation clue words and WordNet synonyms, and one without. Both methods were tested with a blog corpus. The system based on our proposed methods reached relatively high precision score for three relations (MadeOf, UsedFor, AtLocation), which is comparable with previous research using commercial search engines and simpler input. We analyze errors and discuss problems of common sense evaluation, both manual and automatic and propose ideas for further improvements.
Ancient human mtDNA genotypes from England reveal lost variation over the last millennium

We analysed the historical genetic diversity of human populations in Europe at the mtDNA control region for 48 ancient Britons who lived between ca AD 300 and 1000, and compared these with 6320 modern mtDNA genotypes from England and across Europe and the Middle East. We found that the historical sample shows greater genetic diversity than for modern England and other modern populations, indicating the loss of diversity over the last millennium. The pattern of haplotypic diversity was clearly European in the ancient sample, representing each of the modern haplogroups. There was also increased representation of one of the ancient haplotypes in modern populations. We consider these results in the context of possible selection or stochastic processes.