Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance evaluation of switched ethernet as communication media in controller networks

The paper presents a simulation scenario for performance evaluation of switched Ethernet as communication media in controller networks. Ethernet is the most accepted Local Area Network technology, characterized with low price and deployment robustness. Using Ethernet instead of custom industrial communication protocol can ease the development of applications. The introduction of Fast Ethernet and micro-segmentation eliminates some of the biggest problems of using Ethernet in controller networks. This also enables integration of controller networks with the enterprise and global networks. The use of queue management discipline shows a lot of possibilities for achieving requirements for different type of services. The evaluation is by means of simulation analysis, using network simulator -- NS2 as a tool. The results are used for studying the interactions in multi-tier model for distributed automation and for improving its communication performance. Some particular classes are proposed for prioritisation of different CNDEP traffic used in the multi-tier model.
Building and Validating a Reduced TPC-H Benchmark

The properties of computer system such as performance, energy, reliability, etc. are commonly evaluated by running benchmarks. However, the benchmarking process is complicated to set-up and use and running the benchmarks takes a substantial amount of time. Furthermore, when designing a computer, architects resort to simulation of the system, increasing the benchmarking time by several orders of magnitude. This problem can be alleviated by reducing the execution time of the benchmark suite. In this paper, we investigate a method to reduce the number of queries in TPC-H, a decision support system benchmark. Our evaluation shows that out of the 22 original queries, a subset of only 6 achieves a high representativeness at only 40% of the original execution time. The results also show that subsets built for a particular database size may be used for evaluating computer systems with other database sizes. Finally, we validate our approach against the full benchmark execution for a set of architecture case studies. The validation results show that the proposed subsets lead to similar conclusions than the ones drawn using the full benchmark.
Functional agonism of insect odorant receptor ion channels

In insects, odor cues are discriminated through a divergent family of odorant receptors (ORs). A functional OR complex consists of both a conventional odorant-binding OR and a nonconventional coreceptor (Orco) that is highly conserved across insect taxa. Recent reports have characterized insect ORs as ion channels, but the precise mechanism of signaling remains unclear. We report the identification and characterization of an Orco family agonist, VUAA1, using the Anopheles gambiae coreceptor (AgOrco) and other orthologues. These studies reveal that the Orco family can form functional ion channels in the absence of an odor-binding OR, and in addition, demonstrate a first-in-class agonist to further research in insect OR signaling. In light of the extraordinary conservation and widespread expression of the Orco family, VUAA1 represents a powerful new family of compounds that can be used to disrupt the destructive behaviors of nuisance insects, agricultural pests, and disease vectors alike.
Pressure ulcers.

Pressure ulcers are localized areas of tissue necrosis that result from unrelieved pressure. They are graded or staged according to the degree of tissue damage observed. The main etiologic factors include pressure, shearing forces, friction, and moisture. The clinical course may be complicated by several conditions including infection, sepsis, osteomyelitis, fistulas, and carcinoma. Preventive measures in persons at risk can significantly reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers. Successful management should address the four etiologic factors as well as the general condition of the patient.
Activities of Benzimidazole d- and l-Ribonucleosides in Animal Models of Cytomegalovirus Infections

ABSTRACT Since human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) does not infect or replicate in nonhuman cells and tissues, there are few animal models currently available for evaluation of antiviral therapies for these infections. In the present studies, we utilized two different models in which severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice were implanted with human fetal tissue that was subsequently infected with HCMV. In one model, human fetal retinal tissue was implanted into the anterior chamber of the SCID mouse eye, and in the second, human fetal thymus and liver (thy/liv) tissues were implanted under the kidney capsule. After the implants were established, they were infected with 2,000 to 9,000 PFU of HCMV. To determine the efficacy of three benzimidazole nucleosides, 2-bromo-5,6-dichloro-(1-β-d-ribofuranosyl)benzimidazole (BDCRB), GW275175X (175X), and GW257406X (1263W94, maribavir [MBV]) treatment was initiated 24 h after infection of the implants and continued for 28 days. Treatment consisted of either placebo, 25 mg of ganciclovir (GCV)/kg of body weight administered intraperitoneally (i.p.) twice daily, 33 or 100 mg of BDCRB/kg administered i.p. twice daily, or 75 mg of either MBV or 175X/kg administered orally twice daily. GCV was effective in both models, inhibiting HCMV infection by 5- to 3,000-fold. In the retinal tissue model, MBV and BDCRB reduced HCMV replication about fourfold through 21 days postinfection compared with results for the vehicle control. In the thy/liv tissue model, all three benzimidazole nucleosides were effective in inhibiting HCMV replication by approximately 30- to 3,000-fold in comparison to the vehicle control. These data indicate that the benzimidazole nucleosides were efficacious in these animal models and suggest that this class of compounds should be active against the various HCMV infections that occur in the immunocompromised host.
The Influence of Chronic Wound Extracts on Inflammatory Cytokine and Histatin Stability

Chronic ulcers represent a major health burden in our society. Despite many available therapies, a large number of ulcers do not heal. Protein based therapies fail in part due to proteolytic activity in the chronic wound bed. The aim of this in vitro study was to determine whether typical inflammatory cytokines and human salivary histatins remain stable when incubated with chronic wound extracts. Furthermore we determined whether a short exposure of histatins or cytokines was sufficient to exert long term effects on fibroblast migration. Stability of human recombinant cytokines IL-6 and CXCL8, and histatin variants (Hst1, Hst2, cyclic Hst1, minimal active domain of Hst1) in the presence of chronic wound extracts isolated from non-healing ulcers, was monitored by capillary zone electrophoresis. Migration-stimulating activity was assessed using a dermal fibroblast wound healing scratch assay. Histatins and cytokines stayed stable in saline for > 24h at 37°C, making them ideal as an off-the-shelf product. However, incubation with chronic wound extracts resulted in serious breakdown of Hst1 and Hst2 (~50% in 8h) and to lesser extent cyclic Hst1 and the minimal active domain of Hst1 (~20% in 8h). The cytokines IL-6 and CXCL8 were more stable in chronic wound extracts (~40% degradation in 96h). An initial 8-hour pulse of histatins or cytokines during a 96-hour study period was sufficient to stimulate fibroblast migration equally well as a continuous 96-hour exposure, indicating that they may possibly be used as novel bioactive therapeutics, exerting their activity for up to four days after a single exposure.
Exploiting the Separable Structure of SLAM

In this paper we point out an overlooked structure of SLAM that distinguishes it from a generic nonlinear least squares problem. The measurement function in most common forms of SLAM is linear with respect to robot and features’ positions. Therefore, given an estimate for robot orientation, the conditionally optimal estimate for the rest of state variables can be easily obtained by solving a sparse linear-Gaussian estimation problem. We propose an algorithm to exploit this intrinsic property of SLAM by stripping the problem down to its nonlinear core, while maintaining its natural sparsity. Our algorithm can be used together with any Newton-based iterative solver and is applicable to 2D/3D pose-graph and feature-based problems. Our results suggest that iteratively solving the nonlinear core of SLAM leads to a fast and reliable convergence as compared to the state-of-the-art back-ends.
Measurement of Cerebral Hemispheric Blood Flow by Intracarotid Injection of Hydrogen Gas: VALIDATION OF THE METHOD IN THE MONKEY

To develop a reliable method for measuring hemispheric blood flow and metabolism in man, the clearance of hydrogen was measured in the cerebral lateral sinus blood of macaque monkeys after intracarotid injection. Hydrogen is an inert gas and its clearance from cerebral venous blood depends solely on arterial inflow, and since it is highly diffusible, rapid equilibrium is maintained between brain tissue and its capillary-venous blood. Cerebral venous clearance curves for hydrogen appeared to provide accurate and reproducible measures of cerebral blood flow. A bolus of 0.2 to 0.3 ml of saline saturated with hydrogen was injected rapidly into the internal carotid artery. Electrodes placed on the cortex showed that the bolus was almost exclusively distributed to the ipsilateral cerebral hemisphere. Blood flow of each hemisphere was calculated by Meier and Zierler's formula based on the Stewart-Hamilton principle, as well as by compartmental analysis. The values obtained for hemispheric blood flow were in good agreement with average cerebral blood flow measured by inhalation of hydrogen using the Fick principle. Values for hemispheric blood flow were the same whether the intracarotid injection of hydrogen was rapid or slow.
Data-Driven Model-Free Adaptive Control for a Class of MIMO Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems

In this paper, a data-driven model-free adaptive control (MFAC) approach is proposed based on a new dynamic linearization technique (DLT) with a novel concept called pseudo-partial derivative for a class of general multiple-input and multiple-output nonlinear discrete-time systems. The DLT includes compact form dynamic linearization, partial form dynamic linearization, and full form dynamic linearization. The main feature of the approach is that the controller design depends only on the measured input/output data of the controlled plant. Analysis and extensive simulations have shown that MFAC guarantees the bounded-input bounded-output stability and the tracking error convergence.
Circulating Immunoglobulins Are Not Associated with Intraplaque Mast Cell Number and Other Vulnerable Plaque Characteristics in Patients with Carotid Artery Stenosis

Background Recently, we have shown that intraplaque mast cell numbers are associated with atherosclerotic plaque vulnerability and with future cardiovascular events, which renders inhibition of mast cell activation of interest for future therapeutic interventions. However, the endogenous triggers that activate mast cells during the progression and destabilization of atherosclerotic lesions remain unidentified. Mast cells can be activated by immunoglobulins and in the present study, we aimed to establish whether specific immunoglobulins in plasma of patients scheduled for carotid endarterectomy were related to (activated) intraplaque mast cell numbers and plasma tryptase levels. In addition, the levels were related to other vulnerable plaque characteristics and baseline clinical data. Methods and Results OxLDL-IgG, total IgG and total IgE levels were measured in 135 patients who underwent carotid endarterectomy. No associations were observed between the tested plasma immunoglobulin levels and total mast cell numbers in atherosclerotic plaques. Furthermore, no associations were found between IgG levels and the following plaque characteristics: lipid core size, degree of calcification, number of macrophages or smooth muscle cells, amount of collagen and number of microvessels. Interestingly, statin use was negatively associated with plasma IgE and oxLDL-IgG levels. Conclusions In patients suffering from carotid artery disease, total IgE, total IgG and oxLDL-IgG levels do not associate with plaque mast cell numbers or other vulnerable plaque histopathological characteristics. This study thus does not provide evidence that the immunoglobulins tested in our cohort play a role in intraplaque mast cell activation or grade of atherosclerosis.
Local Reasoning for Global Invariants, Part II: Dynamic Boundaries

Dedicated to the memory of John C. Reynolds (1935--2013). The hiding of internal invariants creates a mismatch between procedure specifications in an interface and proof obligations on the implementations of those procedures. The mismatch is sound if the invariants depend only on encapsulated state, but encapsulation is problematic in contemporary software due to the many uses of shared mutable objects. The mismatch is formalized here in a proof rule that achieves flexibility via explicit restrictions on client effects, expressed using ghost state and ordinary first order assertions. The restrictions amount to a stateful frame condition that must be satisfied by any client; this dynamic encapsulation boundary complements conventional scope-based encapsulation. The technical development is based on a companion article, Part I, that presents Region Logic---a programming logic with stateful frame conditions for commands.
Nonlinear unmixing of hyperspectral data with partially linear least-squares support vector regression

In recent years, nonlinear unmixing of hyperspectral data has become an attractive topic in hyperspectral image analysis, because nonlinear models appear as more appropriate to represent photon interactions in real scenes. For this challenging problem, nonlinear methods operating in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces have shown particular advantages. In this paper, we derive an efficient nonlinear unmixing algorithm based on a recently proposed linear mixture/ nonlinear fluctuation model. A multi-kernel learning support vector regressor is established to determine material abundances and nonlinear fluctuations. Moreover, a low complexity locally-spatial regularizer is incorporated to enhance the unmixing performance. Experiments with synthetic and real data illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Why is quality estimation judgment fast? Comparison of gaze control strategies in quality and difference estimation tasks

Abstract. To understand the viewing strategies employed in a quality estimation task, we compared two visual tasks—quality estimation and difference estimation. The estimation was done for a pair of natural images having small global changes in quality. Two groups of observers estimated the same set of images, but with different instructions. One group estimated the difference in quality and the other the difference between image pairs. The results demonstrated the use of different visual strategies in the tasks. The quality estimation was found to include more visual planning during the first fixation than the difference estimation, but afterward needed only a few long fixations on the semantically important areas of the image. The difference estimation used many short fixations. Salient image areas were mainly attended to when these areas were also semantically important. The results support the hypothesis that these tasks’ general characteristics (evaluation time, number of fixations, area fixated on) show differences in processing, but also suggest that examining only single fixations when comparing tasks is too narrow a view. When planning a subjective experiment, one must remember that a small change in the instructions might lead to a noticeable change in viewing strategy.
An efficient constrained training algorithm for feedforward networks

A novel algorithm is presented which supplements the training phase in feedforward networks with various forms of information about desired learning properties. This information is represented by conditions which must be satisfied in addition to the demand for minimization of the usual mean square error cost function. The purpose of these conditions is to improve convergence, learning speed, and generalization properties through prompt activation of the hidden units, optimal alignment of successive weight vector offsets, elimination of excessive hidden nodes, and regulation of the magnitude of search steps in the weight space. The algorithm is applied to several small- and large-scale binary benchmark training tasks, to test its convergence ability and learning speed, as well as to a large-scale OCR problem, to test its generalization capability. Its performance in terms of percentage of local minima, learning speed, and generalization ability is evaluated and found superior to the performance of the backpropagation algorithm and variants thereof taking especially into account the statistical significance of the results.
Interleukin-28B polymorphism improves viral kinetics and is the strongest pretreatment predictor of sustained virologic response in genotype 1 hepatitis C virus.

BACKGROUND & AIMS We recently identified a polymorphism upstream of interleukin (IL)-28B to be associated with a 2-fold difference in sustained virologic response (SVR) rates to pegylated interferon-alfa and ribavirin therapy in a large cohort of treatment-naive, adherent patients with chronic hepatitis C virus genotype 1 (HCV-1) infection. We sought to confirm the polymorphism's clinical relevance by intention-to-treat analysis evaluating on-treatment virologic response and SVR. METHODS HCV-1 patients were genotyped as CC, CT, or TT at the polymorphic site, rs12979860. Viral kinetics and rates of rapid virologic response (RVR, week 4), complete early virologic response (week 12), and SVR were compared by IL-28B type in 3 self-reported ethnic groups: Caucasians (n = 1171), African Americans (n = 300), and Hispanics (n = 116). RESULTS In Caucasians, the CC IL-28B type was associated with improved early viral kinetics and greater likelihood of RVR (28% vs 5% and 5%; P < .0001), complete early virologic response (87% vs 38% and 28%; P < .0001), and SVR (69% vs 33% and 27%; P < .0001) compared with CT and TT. A similar association occurred within African Americans and Hispanics. In a multivariable regression model, CC IL-28B type was the strongest pretreatment predictor of SVR (odds ratio, 5.2; 95% confidence interval, 4.1-6.7). RVR was a strong predictor of SVR regardless of IL-28B type. In non-RVR patients, the CC IL-28B type was associated with a higher rate of SVR (Caucasians, 66% vs 31% and 24%; P < .0001). CONCLUSIONS In treatment-naive HCV-1 patients treated with pegylated interferon and ribavirin, a polymorphism upstream of IL-28B is associated with increased on-treatment and sustained virologic response and effectively predicts treatment outcome.
Evaluation of the eighth American Joint Committee on Cancer staging system for malignant melanoma of the skin.

AIM To validate the changes among the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) eighth staging system for cutaneous melanoma. METHODOLOGY Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database (2004-2014) was queried. Kaplan-Meier survival estimates were evaluated according to both AJCC seventh and eighth systems. RESULTS Overall survival was assessed according to the two editions and p-values for overall trend were significant (p < 0.001) for all scenarios. Notably for pathologically staged patients, the mean survival for stage IIC was lower than that for stage IIIA and IIIB. Likewise, among clinically staged patients the mean survival for stage IIC was lower than that for stage III (these findings were identical among both editions). CONCLUSION AJCC eighth system holds comparable performance to AJCC seventh system.
Temperature-Aware Performance and Power Modeling

Power has become the primary design constraint for systems ranging from server computers to handhelds. As semiconductor technology scales down, leakage power becomes significant. Leakage power is exponentially dependent on temperature. Therefore, future design studies call for temperature-aware power modeling and coupled power and thermal management due to the temperature dependence of leakage power. Additionally, temperature-aware performance modeling must be carried out with coupled power and thermal management because circuit delay also depends on temperature. In this paper we study microarchitecture-level temperature-aware power and performance modeling. We present a leakage power model with temperature and voltage scaling. We show that leakage energy and total energy vary 38% and 24% for temperatures between 65C and 110C, respectively. We study thermal runaway induced by the interdependence between temperature and leakage power. We also demonstrate that without temperature-aware modeling, underestimation of leakage power may lead to the failure of thermal controls, and overestimation of leakage power may result in excessive performance penalties of up to 5.24%. All of these studies underscore the necessity of temperature-aware power modeling. Furthermore, we study optimal voltage scaling for best performance with dynamic power and thermal management under different packaging options. We show that dynamic power and thermal management allows designs targeting at the common-case thermal scenario among benchmarks and improves performance by 6.59% compared to designs targeting at the worst-case thermal scenario without dynamic power and thermal management. Additionally, the optimal Vdd for the best performance may not be the largest Vdd allowed by the given packaging platform, and that advanced cooling techniques can improve throughput significantly.
Modelling of potentially promising SARS protease inhibitors

In many cases, at the beginning of a high throughput screening experiment some information about active molecules is already available. Active compounds (such as substrate analogues, natural products and inhibitors of related proteins) are often identified in low throughput validation studies on a biochemical target. Sometimes the additional structural information is also available from crystallographic studies on protein and ligand complexes. In addition, the structural or sequence similarity of various protein targets yields a novel possibility for drug discovery. Co-crystallized compounds from homologous proteins can be used to design leads for a new target without co-crystallized ligands. In this paper we evaluate how far such an approach can be used in a real drug campaign, with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus providing an example. Our method is able to construct small molecules as plausible inhibitors solely on the basis of the set of ligands from crystallized complexes of a protein target, and other proteins from its structurally homologous family. The accuracy and sensitivity of the method are estimated here by the subsequent use of an electronic high throughput screening flexible docking algorithm. The best performing ligands are then used for a very restrictive similarity search for potential inhibitors of the SARS protease within the million compounds from the Ligand.Info small molecule meta-database. The selected molecules can be passed on for further experimental validation.