Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Semantic Agent Contracts for Internet of Agents

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a current approach which aims to act on pervasive environments for connecting smart objects. These objects are capable to sense their own environment, interacting and cooperating with other devices. However, the IoT also requires to perform coordination actions that devices cannot carry out with the embedded electronic. In order to create smarter collaborative systems, the Internet of Agents (IoA) approach arises as an alternative for providing information and services to other objects, systems and people, and to initialize actions if necessary. In this paper, a semantic model of public agent contracts based on OWL ontologies enriched with Open Linked Data has been proposed as a fundamental way to describe standard collaborative units that can interact in a social context. The overarching ontology we have named IoA-OWL takes into account functional and non-functional aspects organized in six profiles such as agent, context, model, service, social, and object.
A new method to quantify mineral dust and other aerosol species from aircraft platforms using single particle mass spectrometry

Abstract. Single-particle mass spectrometer (SPMS) instruments characterize the composition of individual aerosol particles in real time. Their fundamental ability to differentiate the externally mixed particle types that constitute the atmospheric aerosol population enables a unique perspective into sources and transformation. However, quantitative measurements by SPMS systems are inherently problematic. We introduce a new technique that combines collocated measurements of aerosol composition by SPMS and size-resolved absolute particle concentrations on aircraft platforms. Quantitative number, surface area, volume, and mass concentrations are derived for climate-relevant particle types such as mineral dust, sea salt, and biomass burning smoke. Additionally, relative ion signals are calibrated to derive mass concentrations of internally mixed sulfate and organic material that are distributed across multiple particle types. The NOAA Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry (PALMS) instrument measures size-resolved aerosol chemical composition from aircraft. We describe the identification and quantification of nine major atmospheric particle classes, including sulfate/organic/nitrate mixtures, biomass burning, elemental carbon, sea salt, mineral dust, meteoric material, alkali salts, heavy fuel oil combustion, and a remainder class. Classes can be sub-divided as necessary based on chemical heterogeneity, accumulated secondary material during aging, or other atmospheric processing. Concentrations are derived for sizes that encompass the accumulation and coarse size modes. A statistical error analysis indicates that particle class concentrations can be determined within a few minutes for abundances above ~ 10 ng m−3. Rare particle types require longer sampling times. We explore the instrumentation requirements and the limitations of the method for airborne measurements. Reducing the size resolution of the particle data increases time resolution with only a modest increase in uncertainty. The principal limiting factor to fast time response concentration measurements is statistically relevant sampling across the size range of interest, in particular, sizes D 2 μm for coarse mode analysis. We demonstrate the use of a virtual impactor to enhance sampling statistics for the inherently sparse coarse mode. Performance is compared to other airborne and ground-based composition measurements, and examples of atmospheric mineral dust concentrations are given. The wealth of information afforded by composition-resolved size distributions for all major aerosol types represents a new and powerful tool to characterize atmospheric aerosol properties in a quantitative fashion.
Computational analysis of extracellular calcium effects on an improved human ventricular action potential model

A decrease in extracellular calcium concentration ([Ca2+]o) prolongs the action potential (AP) in ventricular cardiomyocytes, and vice versa. Although this phenomenon can be relevant to arrhythmogenesis in clinical settings, it is not included in most of the commonly used computational models of ventricular AP. Therefore, the aim of this study has been to improve a recently published human ventricular model (O'Hara-Rudy, 2011), in order to reproduce the inverse relationship between [Ca2+]o and AP duration (APD). The original L-type Calcium current (ICaL) formulation has been replaced by a minimal Markov chain, developed on purpose. Some minor modifications were also implemented to preserve the physiological behavior of the whole cell and to maintain consistency with the experimental data reported in the original paper. Thus, the modified model can be used as a framework to explore the impact of [Ca2+]o imbalances on the myocyte electrical activity. Further modifications are foreseen to improve model behavior in a larger variety of contexts.
Filling in the Blanks - Krimp Minimisation for Missing Data

Many data sets are incomplete. For correct analysis of such data, one can either use algorithms that are designed to handle missing data or use imputation. Imputation has the benefit that it allows for any type of data analysis. Obviously, this can only lead to proper conclusions if the provided data completion is both highly accurate and maintains all statistics of the original data. In this paper, we present three data completion methods that are built on the MDL-based KRIMP algorithm. Here, we also follow the MDL principle, i.e. the completed database that can be compressed best, is the best completion because it adheres best to the patterns in the data. By using local patterns, as opposed to a global model, KRIMP captures the structure of the data in detail. Experiments show that both in terms of accuracy and expected differences of any marginal, better data reconstructions are provided than the state of the art, Structural EM.
Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosisin Veterinary Medicine

SUMMARY Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (basonym M. paratuberculosis) is the etiologic agent of a severe gastroenteritis in ruminants known as Johne's disease. Economic losses to the cattle industry in the United States are staggering, reaching $1.5 billion annually. A potential pathogenic role in humans in the etiology of Crohn's disease is under investigation. In this article, we review the epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnostics, and disease control measures of this important veterinary pathogen. We emphasize molecular genetic aspects including the description of markers used for strain identification, diagnostics, and phylogenetic analysis. Recent important advances in the development of animal models and genetic systems to study M. paratuberculosis virulence determinants are also discussed. We conclude with proposals for the applications of these models and recombinant technology to the development of diagnostic, control, and therapeutic measures.
Chinese word segmentation based on conditional random fields with character clustering

Chinese word segmentation plays an important role in Chinese text mining. It is the foundation of automatic relation extraction and identification in Chinese information processing. In this paper, we propose a method for Chinese word segmentation based on conditional random fields (CRF) with character clustering. For the character clustering, we firstly use the Skip-Gram model to obtain character embedding from a raw corpus (without word delimiters). We then apply two different clustering algorithms, K-means and Brown clustering algorithm, to get the clusters of character embedding. The effect of different numbers of dimensions of character embedding, the number of clusters, and different clustering algorithms have been studied. We verify our method using the 4th CCF Conference on Natural Language Processing and Chinese Computing (NLPCC2015) Weibo text segmentation task. Our system achieves an F-score of 95.67% and an out of vocabulary (OOV) rate of 94.78%. The result shows that clustering character embedding based on character representation can improve the performance of Chinese word segmentation on short text.
Stem cells for ischemic brain injury: A critical review

No effective therapy is currently available to promote recovery following ischemic stroke. Stem cells have been proposed as a potential source of new cells to replace those lost due to central nervous system injury, as well as a source of trophic molecules to minimize damage and promote recovery. We undertook a detailed review of data from recent basic science and preclinical studies to investigate the potential application of endogenous and exogenous stem cell therapies for treatment of cerebral ischemia. To date, spontaneous endogenous neurogenesis has been observed in response to ischemic injury, and can be enhanced via infusion of appropriate cytokines. Exogenous stem cells from multiple sources can generate neural cells that survive and form synaptic connections after transplantation in the stroke‐injured brain. Stem cells from multiple sources cells also exhibit neuroprotective properties that may ameliorate stroke deficits. In many cases, functional benefits observed are likely independent of neural differentiation, although the exact mechanisms remain poorly understood. Future studies of neuroregeneration will require the demonstration of function in endogenously born neurons following focal ischemia. Further, methods are currently lacking to demonstrate definitively the therapeutic effect of newly introduced neural cells. Increased plasticity following stroke may facilitate the functional integration of new neurons, but the loss of appropriate guidance cues and supporting architecture in the infarct cavity will likely impede the restoration of lost circuitry. Thus careful investigation of the mechanisms underlying trophic benefits will be essential. Evidence to date suggests that continued development of stem cell therapies may ultimately lead to viable treatment options for ischemic brain injury. J. Comp. Neurol. 515:125–144, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Retargeting PLAPACK to clusters with hardware accelerators

Hardware accelerators are becoming a highly appealing approach to boost the raw performance as well as the price-performance and power-performance ratios of current clusters. In this paper we present a strategy to retarget PLAPACK, a library initially designed for clusters of nodes equipped with general-purpose processors and a single address space per node, to clusters equipped with graphics processors (GPUs). In our approach data are kept in the device memory and only retrieved to main memory when they have to be communicated to a different node. Here we benefit from the object-based orientation of PLAPACK which allows all communication between host and device to be embedded within a pair of routines, providing a clean abstraction that enables an efficient and direct port of all the contents of the library. Our experiments in a cluster consisting of 16 nodes with two NVIDIA Quadro FX5800 GPUs each show the performance of our approach.
Unipolar spin diodes and transistors

Unipolar devices constructed from ferromagnetic semiconducting materials with variable magnetization direction are shown theoretically to behave very similarly to nonmagnetic bipolar devices such as the p-n diode and the bipolar (junction) transistor. Such devices may be applicable for magnetic sensing, nonvolatile memory, and reprogrammable logic.
Modulation of leg joint function to produce emulated acceleration during walking and running in humans

Understanding how humans adapt gait mechanics for a wide variety of locomotor tasks is important for inspiring the design of robotic, prosthetic and wearable assistive devices. We aimed to elicit the mechanical adjustments made to leg joint functions that are required to generate accelerative walking and running, using metrics with direct relevance to device design. Twelve healthy male participants completed constant speed (CS) walking and running and emulated acceleration (ACC) trials on an instrumented treadmill. External force and motion capture data were combined in an inverse dynamics analysis. Ankle, knee and hip joint mechanics were described and compared using angles, moments, powers and normalized functional indexes that described each joint as relatively more: spring, motor, damper or strut-like. To accelerate using a walking gait, the ankle joint was switched from predominantly spring-like to motor-like, while the hip joint was maintained as a motor, with an increase in hip motor-like function. Accelerating while running involved no change in the primary function of any leg joint, but involved high levels of spring and motor-like function at the hip and ankle joints. Mechanical adjustments for ACC walking were achieved primarily via altered limb positioning, but ACC running needed greater joint moments.
Which should you use, intuition or logic? Cultural differences in injunctive norms about reasoning

Past research has shown that tendencies to engage in holistic and analytical reasoning are differentially encouraged by East Asian and Western cultures. But little is known about cultural differences in the perceived value of analytic versus intuitive reasoning. In Study 1, Koreans and Americans ranked the importance of traits including ‘intuitive’ and ‘logical’ in work and family contexts. In Study 2, Euro-Canadians and East-Asian-Canadians read scenarios of intuitive versus rule-following business decisions. Relative to Western participants, East Asians rated intuitive reasoning as more important and reasonable than analytic reasoning. Implications for the epistemic status of reasoning modes, culture’s effect on values about reasoning, and multiculturalism are discussed.
Design and Implementation of Brain Fiber Tracking for GPUs and PC Clusters

Fiber tracking is a technique that determines the location of fiber bundles in a human brain. Sequential implementations of fiber tracking usually require a large execution time, which hinders both the interactivity currently experienced by physicians and its applications to large collections of data sets. In this paper we present the design and implementation of fiber tracking applications in two different parallel environments, GPUs and PC clusters. The performance results obtained in our experiments show that both HPC configurations are suitable for fiber tracking: GPUs for interactive applications targeted at physicians and PC clusters for batch processing by fiber tracking researchers.
Dealing with identifiers and comments in source code comprehension and maintenance: results from an ethnographically-informed study with students and professionals

There are a number of empirical studies that assess the benefit deriving from the use of documentation and models in the execution of maintenance tasks. The greater part of these studies are quantitative and fail to analyze the values, beliefs, and assumptions that inform and shape source code comprehensibility and maintainability. We designed and conducted a qualitative study to understand the role of source code comments and identifiers in source code comprehensibility and maintainability. In particular, we sought to understand how novice and young professional developers perceive comments and identifier names after they have inspected the system behavior visible in its user interfaces. Novice developers were 18 third-year Bachelor students in Computer Science. The young professional developers were 12 and had work experience in between 3 months and 2 and half years. The used qualitative methodological approach is ethnographic. We asked the participants to inspect the behavior of a Java application visible in its user interfaces and then to comprehend and modify the source code of that application. We immersed ourselves and participated to the study, while collecting data by means of contemporaneous field notes, audio recordings, and copies of various artifacts. From the collected data, we have identified insights into comprehension and maintenance practices. The main insights can be summarized as follows: (i) with respect to novice developers, professional developers prefer to deal with identifier names rather than comments, (ii) all the participants indicate as essential the use of naming convention techniques for identifiers, and (iii) for all the participants the names of identifiers are important and should be properly chosen. Summarizing, independently from the kind of developer, it is advisable to use naming convention techniques and to properly choose identifiers.
Quantifying Antivascular Effects of Monoclonal Antibodies to Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor: Insights from Imaging

Purpose: Little is known concerning the onset, duration, and magnitude of direct therapeutic effects of anti–vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapies. Such knowledge would help guide the rational development of targeted therapeutics from bench to bedside and optimize use of imaging technologies that quantify tumor function in early-phase clinical trials. Experimental Design: Preclinical studies were done using ex vivo microcomputed tomography and in vivo ultrasound imaging to characterize tumor vasculature in a human HM-7 colorectal xenograft model treated with the anti-VEGF antibody G6-31. Clinical evaluation was by quantitative magnetic resonance imaging in 10 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer treated with bevacizumab. Results: Microcomputed tomography experiments showed reduction in perfused vessels within 24 to 48 h of G6-31 drug administration (P ≤ 0.005). Ultrasound imaging confirmed reduced tumor blood volume within the same time frame (P = 0.048). Consistent with the preclinical results, reductions in enhancing fraction and fractional plasma volume were detected in patient colorectal cancer metastases within 48 h after a single dose of bevacizumab that persisted throughout one cycle of therapy. These effects were followed by resolution of edema (P = 0.0023) and tumor shrinkage in 9 of 26 tumors at day 12. Conclusion: These data suggest that VEGF-specific inhibition induces rapid structural and functional effects with downstream significant antitumor activity within one cycle of therapy. This finding has important implications for the design of early-phase clinical trials that incorporate physiologic imaging. The study shows how animal data help interpret clinical imaging data, an important step toward the validation of image biomarkers of tumor structure and function. (Clin Cancer Res 2009;15(21):6674–82)
I / O Scheduling in FreeBSD ’ s CAM Subsystem

FreeBSD’s default I/O scheduling policy strives for a general purpose performance across a wide range of applications and media types. Its scheduler does not allow some I/O requests to be given priority over others. It makes no allowances for write amplification in flash devices. GEOM level scheduling is available, but it is limited in what it provides. It is too high in the stack to allow precise control over I/O access patterns. A scheduler in Common Access Method (CAM) can exploit characteristics of the device to precisely control I/O patterns to improve performance. At Netflix, we found that limiting write requests to the drive limited the effects of write amplification on read latency. In addition, we found that favoring reads over writes improves average read latency, but does not fix extreme outliers. Updates to the software since this paper was written can be found in an appendix. The changes in code and evolution of the understanding of what conclusions can be drawn haven’t been integrated through the whole paper as yet.
Circulating CD4+CD28null T Cells May Increase the Risk of an Atherosclerotic Vascular Event Shortly after Kidney Transplantation

Proinflammatory CD4+ T cells without the costimulatory molecule CD28 (CD4+CD28null T cells) are expanded in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and associated with atherosclerotic vascular events (AVE). In a prospective study, the number of circulating CD4+CD28null T cells was established in 295 ESRD patients prior to receiving a kidney allograft. Within the first year after transplantation, an AVE occurred in 20 patients. Univariate analysis showed that besides a history of cardiovascular disease (CVDpos, HR 8.1, P < 0.001), age (HR 1.04, P = 0.02), dyslipidaemia (HR 8.8, P = 0.004), and the % of CD4+CD28null T cells (HR 1.04 per % increase, 95% CI 1.00–1.09, P = 0.01) were significantly associated with the occurrence of a posttransplantation AVE. In a multivariate analysis, only CVDpos remained a significant risk factor with a significant and positive interaction between the terms CVDpos and the % of CD4+CD28null T cells (HR 1.05, 95% CI 1.03–1.11, P < 0.001). Within the CVDpos group, the incidence of an AVE was 13% in the lowest tertile compared to 25% in the highest tertile of % of CD4+CD28null T cells. In conclusion, the presence of circulating CD4+CD28null T cells is associated with an increased risk for a cardiovascular event shortly after kidney transplantation.
Concept abduction and contraction in semantic-based P2P environments

Reasoning engines are largely used in resource discovery and matchmaking scenarios where, given a request, they are able to provide a list of compatible items arranged in relevance order. A significant added value is the possibility to explain match outcomes in order to obtain information for modifying or refining early queries. Though the feasibility of running logic-based reasoning tasks over various knowledge bases has been widely proven on fixed servers, it is a challenging subject to execute inference processes on handheld devices. The paper presents a revised lightweight version of abduction and contraction algorithms (going back to previous works) for matchmaking in Description Logics in mobile ad-hoc contexts. Implementation and tests have been carried out in a mobile P2P case study based on a simplified Bluetooth interaction paradigm.
Hyperlinks as a data source for science mapping

Hyperlinks between academic web sites, like citations, can potentially be used to map disciplinary structures and identify evidence of connections between disciplines. In this paper we classified a sample of links originating in three different disciplines: maths, physics and sociology. Links within a discipline were found to be different in character to links between pages in different disciplines. There were also disciplinary differences in both types of link. As a consequence, we argue that interpretations of web science maps covering multiple disciplines will need to be sensitive to the contexts of the links mapped.
Prosodic Profiles of Social Affects in Mandarin Chinese

This work examines the production side of social affects in Mandarin Chinese, with the aim of extracting the more prominent patterns of acoustical variations. Results are then compared to previous perception data obtained on the same expressions. The F 0 , intensity and duration characteristics of 76 utterances conveying 19 prosodic attitudes are statistically examined in this study. All attitudes are regrouped into 5 clusters according to their prosodic features. The result of the statistical analysis shows that the prominent differentiation between clusters is mostly related to F 0 and duration parameters; some similarities are noted between the clustering of attitudes from acoustic features and from perceptual confusions obtained in previous experiments; inside each cluster, some attitudes show typical characteristics in F 0 and duration.