Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Angiotensin II Induces Hypertrophy of Human Airway Smooth Muscle Cells : Expression of Transcription Factors and Transforming Growth Factor-b 1

Increased smooth muscle mass due to hyperplasia and hypertrophy of airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells is a common feature in asthma. Angiotensin II (Ang II), a potent vasoconstrictor and mitogen for a wide variety of cells, has recently been implicated in bronchoconstriction in asthmatics. However, a possible mitogenic role as well as underlying molecular mechanisms of this octapeptide in human ASM cells are not yet known. We studied the effects of Ang II on ASM cell proliferation and growth and on the expression of three transcription factors, egr-1, c-fos, and c-jun, as well as a cytokine, transforming growth factorb 1 (TGFb 1 ). Human ASM cells were isolated by enzymatic digestion of bronchial smooth muscle obtained from lung resection tissue. Confluent cells were growth-arrested and subsequently incubated with Ang II (100 nM) for different time periods and processed for the measurement of cell growth and gene expression. Ang II significantly induced DNA and protein synthesis in human ASM cells at 8 h, resulting in a net increase in the accumulation of protein over DNA (i.e., cellular hypertrophy) at 16 h of incubation. Cell counts and MTT-reduction assay, however, showed no increase in cell number as a result of Ang II stimulation. Ang II stimulated the expression of egr-1 and c-fos as early as 15 min, reaching maximum levels at 45 min, whereas the expression of c-jun peaked at 2 h of Ang II exposure. Furthermore, steadystate mRNA levels of TGFb 1 were upregulated by Ang II after 4 h and reached peak levels at 16 h of incubation. Secretion of biologically active TGFb 1 from human ASM cells was significantly ( P < 0.02) enhanced by Ang II incubation after 8 h, which remained elevated until 24 h. Our results suggest that the Ang II-induced transient early expression of transcription factors may regulate autocrine genes like TGFb 1 , of which the subsequent late upregulation could contribute to cellular hypertrophy during, for example, airway remodeling in asthma. McKay, S. , J. C. de Jongste, P. R. Saxena, and H. S. Sharma. 1998. Angiotensin II induces hypertrophy of human airway smooth muscle cells: expression of transcription factors and transforming growth factorb 1 . Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol. 18:823–833.
International Conference on Sustainable Energy Information Technology ( SEIT 2013 ) Model-Based Fault-Tolerant Control to Guarantee the Performance of a Hybrid Wind-Diesel Power System in a Microgrid Configuration

This paper presents a comparison of two different adaptive control schemes for improving the performance of a hybrid wind-diesel power system in an islanded microgrid configuration against the baseline controller, IEEE type 1 automatic voltage regulator (AVR). The first scheme uses a model reference adaptive controller (MRAC) with a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller tuned by a genetic algorithm (GA) to control the speed of the diesel engine (DE) for regulating the frequency of the power system and uses a classical MRAC for controlling the voltage amplitude of the synchronous machine (SM). The second scheme uses a MRAC with a PID controller tuned by a GA to control the speed of the DE, and a MRAC with an artificial neural network (ANN) and a PID controller tuned by a GA for controlling the voltage amplitude of the SM. Different operating conditions of the microgrid and fault scenarios in the diesel engine generator (DEG) were tested: 1) decrease in the performance of the diesel engine actuator (40% and 80%), 2) sudden connection of 0.5 MW load, and 3) a 3-phase fault with duration of 0.5 seconds. Dynamic models of the microgrid components are presented in detail and the proposed microgrid and its faulttolerant control (FTC) are implemented and tested in the Simpower Systems of MATLAB/Simulink simulation environment. The simulation results showed that the use of ANNs in combination with model-based adaptive controllers improves the FTC system performance in comparison with the baseline controller. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of [name organizer]
Early Exposure and Sensitization to Cat and Dog: Different Effects on Asthma Risk After Wheezing in Infancy

Korppi M, Hyvarinen M, Kotaniemi-Syrjanen A, Piippo-Savolainen E, Reijonen T. Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2008;19(8):696–701 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY. Birth cohort studies have suggested that early exposure to furred pets protects from later asthma and allergy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between exposure or sensitization to cat or dog in infancy and later asthma and allergy assessed at the median ages of 4.0, 7.2, and 12.3 years. STUDY POPULATION. Children 1 to 23 …
Research on AdaBoost.M1 with Random Forest

The AdaBoost.M1 is one of the machine learning algorithms. But it will fail if the weak learner cannot achieve at least 50% accuracy when run on these hard distributions. Random Forest is computationally effective and offer good prediction performance. A new approach AdaBoost.M1-RF algorithm, which using Random Forest as weak learner, is proposed in the paper. To evaluate the performance of AdaBoost.M1-RF algorithm, it is compared with other machine learning algorithms.
Detecting anomalous activities by fusion of accelerometer and passive infrared sensor

In ambient intelligence environment, cameras serve as interface or monitoring devices for user activities. However, the use of cameras is often associated with privacy concerns and resource limitations. In order to alleviate these problems, anomaly detection by fusion of an accelerometer and a passive infrared (PIR) sensor can be employed to trigger the corresponding camera for further analysis only as the need arises. This paper discusses the combination of these off-the-shelf sensors to detect specific anomalous activities. In particular, an example of detecting an irregular user in the work environment is presented. We describe how to extract expressive features from both modalities and combine them to train a classifier on highly imbalanced datasets. The experimental results over real-life data show the effectiveness of our approach in detecting anomalous activities and therefore potentially reducing the use of cameras.
Planning domain definition using GIPO

Abstract In this paper an object-centric perspective on planning domain definition is presented along with an overview of GIPO (graphical interface for planning with objects), a supporting tools environment. It is argued that the object-centric view assists the domain developer in conceptualizing the domain’s structure, and we show how GIPO enables the developer to capture that conceptualization at an appropriate and matching conceptual level. GIPO is an experimental environment which provides a platform for exploring and demonstrating the range and scope of tools required to support the knowledge engineering aspects of creating and validating planning systems, both for classical pre-condition planning and hierarchical planning. GIPO embodies the object-centric view, leading to a range of benefits typically associated with object-oriented methods in other fields of software engineering such as highly visual development methods, code reuse and efficient, reliable development.
Characterization of nicotinic receptors in chick retina using a snake venom neurotoxin that blocks neuronal nicotinic receptor function

Nicotinic receptor function has been described in the retinas of a variety of vertebrate species. Neuronal bungarotoxin (NBT, also known as bungarotoxin 3.1, toxin F, or kappa-bungarotoxin) blocks nicotinic receptors in several neuronal preparations, while the neuromuscular antagonist alpha-bungarotoxin (BGT) fails to block most of these receptors. NBT (100 nM), but not BGT (10 microM), substantially blocks nicotinic function on ganglion cells in intact chick retina. 125I-NBT binds to 2 sites in homogenates of chick retina; one site that is shared with BGT (Kd = 5–7 nM, Bmax approximately 500 fmol/retina) and one which is not (Kd = 2–3 nM, Bmax approximately 100 fmol/retina). 125I-NBT binding to the NBT-specific site (binding in the presence of 1 microM unlabeled BGT) is localized to 2 bands in the inner plexiform layer, corresponding to regions richly innervated by neurons containing immunoreactivity for choline acetyltransferase. Furthermore, this binding is blocked by competitive nicotinic agonists and antagonists, but nicotine or other nicotinic agonists do not displace 125I-NBT binding with very high affinity relative to the displacement of 3H- nicotine reported by others in brain. Thus, of the 2 NBT binding sites, the site not recognized by BGT most likely represents functional nicotinic receptors in the chick retina, but these receptors have relatively low affinity for nicotinic agonists, similar to nicotinic receptors found in autonomic ganglia.
MapReduce-Style Computation in Distributed Virtual Memory

Many cloud computing technologies, such as MapReduce, use file systems as the system-wide substrate for data handling. A distributed file system provides a global name space and stores data persistently, but it also introduces significant overhead. Several recent systems use DRAM to store data and tremendously improve the performance of cloud computing systems. However, both our own experience and related work indicate that a simple substitution of distributed DRAM for the file system does not provide a solid and viable foundation for data storage and processing in the datacenter environment, and the capacity of such systems is limited by the amount of physical memory in the cluster. To overcome the challenge, we construct a distributed virtual memory to unify the physical memories and disk resources on many compute nodes to form a system-wide data substrate. The new substrate provides a general memorybased abstraction, takes advantage of DRAM in the system to accelerate computation, and, transparent to programmers, scales the system to handle large datasets by swapping data to disks and remote servers. Above the distributed virtual memory, we develop vMR, a new design of the MapReduce framework with enhanced functionality enabled by the memory-based abstraction. The evaluation results show that vMR is faster than Hadoop on all the 4 workloads, and delivers 6-11x speedups on the adjacency list workload. For iterative k-means clustering, vMR can run more than 7 times faster than Hadoop and scale linearly to 160 compute nodes on the TH-1/GZ supercomputer.
Evaluation of PD-L1 Expression and Associated Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Purpose: Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1; also known as CD274 or B7-H1) expression represents a mechanism of immune escape for cancer. Our purpose was to characterize tumor PD-L1 expression and associated T-cell infiltration in primary laryngeal squamous cell carcinomas (SCC). Experimental Design: A well-annotated cohort of 260 operable primary laryngeal SCCs [formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) specimens] was morphologically characterized for stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL), on hematoxylin/eosin-stained whole sections and for PD-L1 mRNA expression by qRT-PCR in FFPE specimens. For PD-L1 protein expression, automated quantitative protein analysis (AQUA) was applied on tissue microarrays consisting of two cores from these tumors. In addition, PD-L1 mRNA expression in fresh-frozen tumors and normal adjacent tissue specimens was assessed in a second independent cohort of 89 patients with primary laryngeal SCC. Results: PD-L1 mRNA levels were upregulated in tumors compared with surrounding normal tissue (P = 0.009). TILs density correlated with tumor PD-L1 AQUA levels (P = 0.021). Both high TILs density and high PD-L1 AQUA levels were significantly associated with superior disease-free survival (DFS; TILs: P = 0.009 and PD-L1: P = 0.044) and overall survival (OS; TILs: P = 0.015 and PD-L1: P = 0.059) of the patients and retained significance in multivariate analysis. Conclusions: Increased TILs density and PD-L1 levels are associated with better outcome in laryngeal squamous cell cancer. Assessment of TILs and PD-L1 expression could be useful to predict response to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Clin Cancer Res; 22(3); 704–13. ©2015 AACR.
A study of different unwarping methods for omnidirectional imaging

This paper evaluates the performance of the 3 universal un-warping methods currently applied actively around the world in transforming omnidirectional image to panoramic image, namely the pano-mapping table method, discrete geometry method (DGT) and the log-polar mapping method. The algorithm of these methods will first be proposed, and the code will then be generated and be tested on several different omnidirectional images. The images converted will then be compared among each other and be evaluated based on their performance on the resolutions, quality, algorithm used, complexity based on Big-O computations, processing time, and finally their data compression rate available for each of the methods. The most preferable unwarping method will then be concluded, taking into considerations all these factors.
Performance evaluation of bio-inspired optimization algorithms in resolving chromosomal occlusions

This work evaluates the performance of bio-inspired optimization algorithms in resolving occlusion in chromosomal images. The presence of occlusion hinders accurate identification and classification in automatic karyotyping and a manual intervention is needed to complete the procedure. For this reason, karyotyping is not completely automatic and a novel technique based on bio-inspired optimization algorithms is proposed to identify the individual chromosomes even in the presence of occlusion. The technique employs stochastic search algorithms including the Firefly algorithm (FA), Genetic algorithm (GA) and Particle swarm Optimization (PSO) in resolving occlusion, by starting with a random population of solutions from the image of occluded chromosomes and recursively doing operations borrowed from evolutionary methods and swarm intelligence, on the population. The hidden chromosomes are identified after a certain number of iterations. The technique performs well, even when 80% of the chromosome is occluded by the other. The performance of the stochastic search algorithms in resolving chromosomal occlusions is evaluated and FA gives superior results in identifying the occluded chromosomes.
3D Audio Conference System with Backward Compatible Conference Server using HRTF Synthesis

This article describes a system that is able to perform online sound localization, separation and speaker recognition for the purpose of channel assignment in teleconferencing scenarios. The assigned channels are then virtually synthesized to different positions around the listener by a conference server using Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs), which enables the user to identify active speakers in an audio conference. Intelligibility of communication is also increased by making use of the cocktail party effect which describes how a user can concentrate on one specific participant, even if there are more simultaneously active speakers. To support regular telephone systems, we focus in particular on compatibility to existing Voice over IP (VoIP) infrastructure by using standardized protocols and central signal processing. Both tradi- tional telephone devices and software clients are put into one heterogeneous conference. While the conference server transmits the down-mixed, single-channel conference signal to regular phones, the software clients can receive a stereo- signal enabling full 3D audio.
Cutaneous Nerve Terminal Degeneration in Painful Mononeuropathy

Nociceptive nerves innervate the skin and play an important role in the generation of neuropathic pain. However, it remains elusive whether and how nociceptive nerve terminals degenerate in neuropathic pain conditions. To address this issue, we investigated cutaneous innervation in a model of painful mononeuropathy, the chronic constriction injury (CCI). The hind paws of rats were immunocytochemically stained with a pan-axonal marker, protein gene product 9.5 (PGP 9.5). Within 2 days after CCI, rats exhibited thermal hyperalgesia, and there was a partial depletion of epidermal nerves. The extent of reduction in epidermal nerves after CCI was variable with an epidermal nerve density of 3.65 +/- 1.97 fibers/mm (compared to 15.39 +/- 1.58 fibers/mm on the control side, P < 0.02). There was a mild but concomitant increase in PGP 9.5 (+) Langerhans cells in the epidermis of the skin with CCI (10.19 +/- 1.99 vs 7.75 +/- 1.36 cells/mm, P < 0.05). In the skin denervated by tight ligation of the sciatic nerve, epidermal nerves were completely depleted (0 fibers/mm vs. 12.26 +/- 1.44 fibers/mm on the control side, P < 0.001). Animals with tight ligation of the sciatic nerve exhibited thermal anesthesia. These findings suggest that the epidermis is partially denervated in CCI, and that a partial injury of nerves is correlated with the development of neuropathic pain.
Topographic Information Based Three-Dimensional Localization Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

There have been a number of three-dimensional localization algorithms designed for wireless sensor networks, and most of them suffer from high computational complexity and error accumulation problems. In this paper, we propose Topographic Information Based Three-Dimensional Localization Algorithm (TIBTDLA) for wireless sensor networks. The basic idea is to reduce error accumulation of three- dimensional localization in wireless sensor networks by referencing topographic information. TIBTDLA exploits a limited region traversal method to locate unknown sensors. Hence, its computational complexity is reasonably low by only traversing the points in the limited region. The proposed method can be implemented in a distributed manner, and this manner gains low time complexity. We compare TIBTDLA with 3D-AML (Three Dimensional Adapted Multi-Lateration). Simulation results show that the TIBTDLA method achieves lower localization error than 3D-AML localization algorithm.
Implicit Communication in a Joint Action

Robots must be cognizant of how their actions will be interpreted in context. Actions performed in the context of a joint activity comprise two aspects: functional and communicative. The functional component achieves the goal of the action, whereas its communicative component, when present, expresses some information to the actor's partners in the joint activity. The interpretation of such communication requires leveraging information that is public to all participants, known as common ground. Much of human communication is performed through this implicit mechanism, and humans cannot help but infer some meaning - whether or not it was intended by the actor - from most actions. We present a framework for robots to utilize this communicative channel on top of normal functional actions to work more effectively with human partners. We consider the role of the actor and the observer, both individually and jointly, in implicit communication, as well as the effects of timing. We also show how the framework maps onto various modes of action, including natural language and motion. We consider these modes of action in various human-robot interaction domains, including social navigation and collaborative assembly.
Bletchley Park Text: Using mobile and semantic web technologies to support the post-visit use of online museum resources

Abstract: A number of technologies have been developed to support the museum visitor, with the aim of making their visit more educationally rewarding and/or entertaining. Examples include PDA-based personalized tour guides and virtual reality representations of cultural objects or scenes. Rather than supporting the actual visit, we decided to employ technology to support the post-visitor, that is, encourage follow-up activities among recent visitors to a museum. This allowed us to use the technology in a way that would not detract from the existing curated experience and allow the museum to provide access to additional heritage resources that cannot be presented during the physical visit. Within our application, called "Bletchley Park Text", visitors express their interests by sending text (SMS) messages containing suggested keywords using their own mobile phone. The semantic description of the archive of resources is then used to retrieve and organize a collection of content into a personalized web site for use when they get home. In designing the interface we aimed to support exploration across the content archive rather than just the search and retrieval of specific resources. The service was developed for the Bletchley Park museum and has since been launched for use by all visitors. Editors: Ann Jones, Agnes Kukulska-Hulme and Daisy Mwanza. Reviewers: Kevin Walker (Institute of Education), Peter Lonsdale (Birmingham), Jenny Waycott (Australia). Interactive demonstrations: Figures 8, 9 and 10 in section 3.3 are available as interactive demos of Bletchley Park Text.
A large-scale cross-architecture evaluation of thread-coarsening

OpenCL has become the de-facto data parallel programming model for parallel devices in today's high-performance supercomputers. OpenCL was designed with the goal of guaranteeing program portability across hardware from different vendors. However, achieving good performance is hard, requiring manual tuning of the program and expert knowledge of each target device. In this paper we consider a data parallel compiler transformation - thread-coarsening - and evaluate its effects across a range of devices by developing a source-to-source OpenCL compiler based on LLVM. We thoroughly evaluate this transformation on 17 benchmarks and five platforms with different coarsening parameters giving over 43,000 different experiments. We achieve speedups over 9x on individual applications and average speedups ranging from 1.15x on the Nvidia Kepler GPU to 1.50x on the AMD Cypress GPU. Finally, we use statistical regression to analyse and explain program performance in terms of hardware-based performance counters.
Flexible Web Services Discovery and Composition using SATPlan and A * Algorithms

Agents with web services based interfaces have service description encoded in machine-understandable formats so that they can easily interact with other agents. Therefore, locating right agents and combining them to form more complex services becomes increasingly an important task on the Web. However, when there are a large number of web services based agents available, it is non-trivial to quickly discover and combine them to satisfy the given request. Toward this problem, in this paper, we propose to adopt solutions developed in the context of AI search and planning. In particular, we present two algorithms, BF-SATPlan and BF*, that can flexibly compose web services using a succinct data structure and fast planning technique.