Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hemagglutinin Receptor Binding Avidity Drives Influenza A Virus Antigenic Drift

Flu's Tricky Tricks After vaccination against influenza A virus, single-point mutations are selected in hemagglutinin (the virus molecule that binds to sialic acid molecules on the surface of host cells) that escape neutralization by polyclonal antibody responses. Hensley et al. (p. 734) have discovered that in mice these mutations increased the virus's avidity for sialic acid. Amino acid substitutions that occur during reiterations of immune escape and avidity modulation can thus drive antigenic variation. This constant evolution of influenza viruses requires us to change vaccine components annually, and, for equine influenza, Park et al. (p. 726) show that as the match between virus and vaccine strains drifts apart with time, the probability of becoming infected and the length of the infectious period increase to the point where outbreaks occur. Nevertheless, even imperfect vaccines may be of benefit to a population because increasing the proportion of vaccinated individuals can supply enough herd immunity to offset a poor antigenic match, especially if used in conjunction with antiviral drugs. For humans, Yang et al. (p. 729, published online 10 September) estimate that the rate of transmission within U.S. households puts influenza A 2009 H1N1 (the current pandemic “swine flu”) in the higher range of transmissibility, compared to past seasonal and pandemic strains. Thus, to achieve mitigation this fall, children should be the first recipients of vaccine, followed by adults—aiming overall for 70% coverage of the population. Viruses escape antibody responses by changing surface protein structures to increase the strength of binding to host cells. Rapid antigenic evolution in the influenza A virus hemagglutinin precludes effective vaccination with existing vaccines. To understand this phenomenon, we passaged virus in mice immunized with influenza vaccine. Neutralizing antibodies selected mutants with single–amino acid hemagglutinin substitutions that increased virus binding to cell surface glycan receptors. Passaging these high-avidity binding mutants in naïve mice, but not immune mice, selected for additional hemagglutinin substitutions that decreased cellular receptor binding avidity. Analyzing a panel of monoclonal antibody hemagglutinin escape mutants revealed a positive correlation between receptor binding avidity and escape from polyclonal antibodies. We propose that in response to variation in neutralizing antibody pressure between individuals, influenza A virus evolves by adjusting receptor binding avidity via amino acid substitutions throughout the hemagglutinin globular domain, many of which simultaneously alter antigenicity.
Musical Influence Network Analysis and Rank of Sample-Based Music

Computational analysis of musical influence networks and rank of sample-based music is presented with a unique outside examination of the WhoSampled.com dataset. The exemplary dataset maintains a large collection of artist-to-artist relationships of sample-based music, specifying the origins of borrowed or sampled material on a song-by-song basis. Directed song, artist, and musical genre networks are created from the data, allowing the application of social network metrics to quantify various trends and characteristics. In addition, a method of influence rank is proposed, unifying song-level networks to higher-level artist and genre networks via a collapse-and-sum approach. Such metrics are used to help interpret and describe interesting patterns of musical influence in sample-based music suitable for musicological analysis. Empirical results and visualizations are also presented, suggesting that sampled-based influence networks follow a power-law degree distribution; heavy influence of funk, soul, and disco music on modern hip-hop, RB and other musicological results.
Calibration of polarimetric radar system with giant aperture antenna

This paper describes a convenient technique for polarimetric calibration of a polarimetric inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) system with giant aperture antennas. With this technique, only a polarimetric active radar calibrator (PARC) with two independently rotary antennas is needed to calibrate the radar system. A complete polarimetric measurement mathematical model is adopted without any assumption. The calibration method is on the basis of Pauli matrix decomposition. We use four Lexicographic calibrators provided by the PARC instead of three Pauli calibrators. For these reasons, the calculation of error coefficients in the model is easier and the calibration performance is better than that in other calibration methods, such as the generalized calibration technique (GCT) and target spinor calibration (TSC). An experimental validation is presented. Excellent agreement is obtained between the theoretical analysis and the experimental results. A 35 dB improvement in the system cross-polarization isolation is obtained using the proposed method.
Construction Tonology: The Case of Kalabari

Although it is common for “replacive” tonal patterns to be assigned by word-level morphological constructions, it is far less common for such overriding schemas to be assigned by specific phrase-level syntactic constructions. Kalabari, an Ijoid language of Nigeria, does exactly this: Whenever the noun is preceded by a modifier, it loses its tones and receives different “melodies” depending on the constructional word class of the preceding specifier/modifier, either /HL/, /HLH/, /LH/ or /L/. In this paper we first document the assignment of these different syntactic melodies and then provide evidence for how they developed diachronically.
Word Alignment Annotation in a Japanese-Chinese Parallel Corpus

Parallel corpora are critical resources for machine translation research and development since parallel corpora contain translation equivalences of various granularities. Manual annotation of word & phrase alignment is of significance to provide gold-standard for developing and evaluating both example-based machine translation model and statistical machine translation model. This paper presents the work of word & phrase alignment annotation in the NICT Japanese-Chinese parallel corpus, which is constructed at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT). We describe the specification of word alignment annotation and the tools specially developed for the manual annotation. The manual annotation on 17,000 sentence pairs has been completed. We examined the manually annotated word alignment data and extracted translation knowledge from the word & phrase aligned corpus.
Ecology and phylogeography of an Australasian green turtle population: a case study for conservation from Aru

Indonesia’s geographically wide distribution of about 17,000 islands, contains 100 known green turtle (Chelonia mydas) nesting areas. Surprisingly, however, few quantitative studies exist on this species’ population structure, demography and reproductive biology in Indonesia. Many C. mydas populations throughout Indonesia have declined as a result of overexploitation or other anthropogenic and environmental sources of mortality. This study compiles comprehensive population demographic information on a large population of C. mydas nesting in the Aru Islands (Southwest Moluccas), providing essential data for population persistence and metapopulation dynamics studies. Beach-patrols were carried out across four nesting seasons from 1997 to 2001 to quantify the number of female nesting attempts, nest-densities, and hatching success, as well as the temporal and spatial variation in nesting density. An in-situ experiment tested the influence of the nesting substrate type on hatching and emergence success. C. mydas nests year-round in Aru, with a distinct peak between November and March. The annual nesting population size of C. mydas in Aru falls within the size-class of 500 1000 individuals, with fluctuating population densities across years. Only a small proportion (23%) of all nesting attempts in the 1997/1998 season were successful, with only 1.3 ± 0.03 clutches per female.
A unified interprocedural program representation for a maintenance environment

A unified interprocedural program representation, the unified interprocedural graph (UIG) is presented; it combines the features of existing program representations to permit access to information for modifying, understanding, analyzing, testing and debugging. The algorithms developed for each of these independent graphs are adapted to use this unified representation by identifying the subset of nodes and edges required for that computation. The UIG can be incorporated into a maintenance environment and the associated algorithms used to build program maintenance tools. The authors present a brief overview of the graph representations on which the UIG is based and illustrate them with an example. The algorithms that use these graphs to gather the interprocedural information are described. <<ETX>>
Can genotype determine the sports phenotype? A paradigm shift in sports medicine

Abstract In last two decades, there has been an evolution in sports medicine. Several researchers have worked on different domains of sports medicine, like strength, endurance, sports injury, and psychology. Besides this, several groups have explored the changes at cellular and molecular levels during exercise, which has led to the development of the new domain in sports science known as genetic medicine. Genetic medicine deals with the genotypic basis of sports phenotype. In this article, we try to provide an up-to-date review on genetic determinants of sports performance, which will be like a journey from the nostalgic past towards the traditional present and the romantic future of sports medicine. Endurance and power performance are two important domains of athletes. They vary in individuals, even among trained athletes. Researches indicate that the genetic makeup of sportsmen play a vital role in their performance. Several genetic factors are reported to be responsible for endurance, power, susceptibility to injury, and even psychology of the individual. Besides this, proper training, nutrition, and environment are also important in shaping their potential. The aim of this discussion is to understand the influence of the environment and the genetic makeup on the performance of the athletes. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that genotype determines the sports phenotype in an athlete. Choosing the right sports activity based on genetic endowment is the key for achieving excellence in sports.
The PARIS in-orbit demonstrator

Mesoscale ocean altimetry remains being a challenging area for satellite observations. Conventional nadir looking radar altimeters can make observations only along the satellite ground track and many of them are needed to sample the sea surface at the required spatial and temporal resolutions. The Passive Reflectometry and Interferometry System (PARIS) using GNSS reflected signals was proposed as a means to perform ocean altimetry along several tracks simultaneously spread over a wide swath. The present paper describes such an instrument specially conceived to fully exploit the GNSS signals for best altimetric performance, and to provide multi-frequency observations to correct for the ionospheric delay. Instrument calibration strategy is also discussed. Furthermore an in-orbit demonstration mission is proposed that would prove the expected altimetric accuracy suited for mesoscale ocean science.
The Ignominy of Evenness: An Exploratory Study of Pakhtun Social Organization in Gendered Occupational Decision-Making Among Pakhtuns of Malakand, KPK Pakistan

Gender disparity is no limited to a specific region, society or culture, but in-fact it is a global and universal matter of concern (Naz and Rehman, 2011). History shows numerous miseries in which the severe one is gender disparity and inequality (Khan, 2011). The current research study persists to explore gender based discrimination in occupational decision making process in a typical traditional society of Pakhtuns of Malakand KPK Pakistan. The study overtly describes women's deprivation and subjugation with respect to their occupational decision-making. The was undertaken in Batkhela (capital of District Malakand "former Malakand Agency"), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan and the data was collected from 200 respondents including both male and female through stratified random sampling technique and pre-determined interview schedule for data collection. The collected information has been analyzed in the form of tables, charts and findings have been verified through applying Chi-Square test. In addition, the study has been framed in the light of Marxist Feminism, which reflects a strong relation between the ethnography of the area and the collected information in respect of occupational role. Resultantly, the study reveals that the process of occupational decision-making is extremely gendered biased that is caused by the practice of patriarchy, male dominance, customary law and rigidity of Pakhtun social organization.
Rondo: a programming platform for generic model management

Model management aims at reducing the amount of programming needed for the development of metadata-intensive applications. We present a first complete prototype of a generic model management system, in which high-level operators are used to manipulate models and mappings between models. We define the key conceptual structures: models, morphisms, and selectors, and describe their use and implementation. We specify the semantics of the known model-management operators applied to these structures, suggest new ones, and develop new algorithms for implementing the individual operators. We examine the solutions for two model-management tasks that involve manipulations of relational schemas, XML schemas, and SQL views.
Performance Analysis of a Load Balancing Hash-Join Algorithm for a Shared Memory Multiprocessor

Within the last several years, there has been a growing interest in applying general multiprocessor systems to relational database query processing. Efficient parallel algorithms have been designed for the join operation but usually have a failing in that their performance deteriorates greatly when the data is nonuniform. In this paper, we propose a new version of the hashbased join algorithm that balances the load between the processors, for any given bucket, in a shared everything environment. We develop an analytical model of the cost of the algorithm and implement the algorithm on a shared memory multiprocessor machine. We also perform a number of experiments comparing our model with our empirical results.
Study and design of ontology for cloud based web services attacks: A survey

Among the various applications of high performance computing, security of cloud computing is very essential and greater awareness in India. Security issues in cloud are very challenging, as the data are roaming without any control. The need to keep the security as well as privacy of the information in the cloud becomes a critical issue. On the basis of cloud architectures we can specify the security rules for the web application attacks. In this paper we go through study, design and purpose of ontology containing encryption algorithms. Here ontology describes the security rule specification. Encryption algorithm describes comparision of performance among different algorithms. The main focus of this kind of work is to present a study of cloud security policy using some encryption algorithm based on ontology. This study will follow the ontology framework build for security policy rules. This paper also discusses cloud based web services attacks, design of semantic rules, and detection of malicious traffic over internet as well as tools for handling ontology.
Analysis, Synthesis, and Estimation of Fractal-Rate Stochastic Point Processes

Fractal and fractal-rate stochastic point processes (FSPPs and FRSPPs) provide useful models for describing a broad range of diverse phenomena, including electron transport in amorphous semiconductors, computer-network traffic, and sequences of neuronal action potentials. A particularly useful statistic of these processes is the fractal exponent α, which may be estimated for any FSPP or FRSPP by using a variety of statistical methods. Simulated FSPPs and FRSPPs consistently exhibit bias in this fractal exponent, however, rendering the study and analysis of these processes non-trivial. In this paper, we examine the synthesis and estimation of FRSPPs by carrying out a systematic series of simulations for several different types of FRSPP over a range of design values for α. The discrepancy between the desired and achieved values of α is shown to arise from finite data size and from the character of the point-process generation mechanism. In the context of point-process simulation, reduction of this discrepan.
Modelling and using imperfect context information

Most recently developed context-aware software applications make unrealistic assumptions about the quality of the available context information, which can lead to inappropriate actions by the application and frustration on the part of the user. Here, we explore the problem of imperfect context information and some of its causes, and propose a novel approach for modelling incomplete and inaccurate information. Additionally, we present a discussion of our experiences in developing a context-aware communication application, highlighting design issues that are pertinent when developing applications that rely on imperfect context information.
Delayed blood pressure recovery after head‐up tilting during sleep in preterm infants

Dramatic changes in cardiovascular control occur in sleep during infancy, when sleep time is at a lifetime maximum. In infants born preterm there are significant cardiovascular complications later in life, and also an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), possibly a result of inadequate compensation to a cardiorespiratory challenge in sleep. We aimed to examine the consequences of preterm birth on heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP) responses to head‐up tilting (HUT) during sleep in infants. Preterm (n = 25) and term (n = 20) infants were studied using daytime polysomnography at 2–4 weeks’, 2–3 months’ and 5–6 months’ term‐corrected age (CA). BP was recorded using a photoplethysmographic cuff (Finometer™); 15° HUTs were performed during both quiet and active sleep. Preterm infants responded to HUT with increased HR and BP, followed by a bradycardia and a subsequent return of HR and BP to baseline. Overall, HUT responses were similar between term and preterm infants at matched ages. Notably, however, return of BP to baseline was considerably delayed in preterm infants (∼37 beats post‐tilt) compared with term infants (∼23 beats post‐tilt) at both 2–4 weeks’ and 2–3 months’ CA (P < 0.05). Our study has demonstrated that preterm infants respond to a BP perturbation with changes in HR that match those of term infants. However, delayed recovery of BP during sleep in the preterm infant may be indicative of underlying deficits or immaturity in vascular function or control, which may contribute to their vulnerability to SIDS and cardiovascular complications later in life.
Making The European Polity: Reflexive integration in the EU

Introduction Chapter 1. Reflexive integration in Europe Erik O. Eriksen Chapter 2. Reflexive constitution-making and transnational governance Chapter 3. On the political theory of the Euro-polity Chapter 4. Public discourse, identity, and the problem of democratic legitimacy Bernhard Peters Chapter 5. The quest for European identity Chapter 6. Contemporary European constitution-making: constrained or reflexive? Chapter 7. Towards a post-national foreign policy? Chapter 8. The purse of the polity Chapter 9. Soft governance, employment policy and committee deliberation Chapter 10. Widening or reconstituting the EU? Chapter 11. Conclusion: From reflexive integration to deliberative supranationalism
Synergistic antibacterial efficacy of early combination treatment with tobramycin and quorum-sensing inhibitors against Pseudomonas aeruginosa in an intraperitoneal foreign-body infection mouse model.

OBJECTIVES Quorum sensing (QS)-deficient Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms formed in vitro are more susceptible to tobramycin than QS-proficient P. aeruginosa biofilms, and combination treatment with a QS inhibitor (QSI) and tobramycin shows synergistic effects on the killing of in vitro biofilms. We extended these results to an in vivo P. aeruginosa foreign-body biofilm model. The effect of treatment initiated prophylactically was compared with treatment initiated 11 days post-insertion. METHODS Silicone tube implants pre-colonized with wild-type P. aeruginosa were inserted into the peritoneal cavity of BALB/c mice. Mice were treated with intraperitoneal or subcutaneous injections of the QSIs furanone C-30, ajoene or horseradish juice extract in combination with tobramycin. Mice were euthanized on day 1, 2, 3 or 14 post-infection for the estimation of quantitative bacteriology, histopathology and cytokine measurements. RESULTS Combination treatment of P. aeruginosa resulted in a significantly lower cfu per implant as compared with the placebo groups for all QSIs tested. For early-initiated treatment, a significant difference in clearing was also observed between the combination group and the single-treatment groups, and between the placebo group and the single-treatment groups. In one case a significant difference in clearing was found between the two single-treatment groups. CONCLUSIONS Synergistic antimicrobial efficacy could be achieved when treating mice with both a QSI and tobramycin, resulting in an increased clearance of P. aeruginosa in a foreign-body infection model. Our study highlights the important prospects in developing an early combinatory treatment strategy for chronic infections.
A disciplined approach to aspect composition

Aspect-oriented programming is a promising paradigm that challenges traditional notions of program modularity. Despite its increasing acceptance, aspects have been documented to suffer limited reuse, hard to predict behavior, and difficult modular reasoning. We develop an algebraic model that relates aspects to program transformations and uncovers aspect composition as a significant source of the problems mentioned. We propose an alternative model of composition that eliminates these problems, preserves the power of aspects, and lays an algebraic foundation on which to build and understand AOP tools.
Contribution of Hypoglycemia to Medical Care Expenditures and Short-Term Disability in Employees With Diabetes

Objective: Diabetes is the third-most expensive physical health condition among US employees. We sought to evaluate the contribution of hypoglycemia to these costs. Methods: We studied 2664 employees using insulin for whom medical encounters and short-term disability (STD) records were available. Results: Among these employees, 442 (16.6%) had a diagnosis of hypoglycemia during an average follow-up of 2.5 years. The risk of hospitalization and emergency room visits was increased twofold in this group. Much of this excess was associated with hypoglycemia. The annualized medical cost of hypoglycemia was $3241. Patients with hypoglycemia had 77% more STD days annually. The risk of STD in the week after hypoglycemia was increased fivefold. Conclusion: These data suggest that hypoglycemia contributes substantially to medical care utilization and to disability-related work absence among employees using insulin.