Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Traffic Prioritization Subject to Cost

In order to carry real-time traffic like video, IP networks -- especially intranets -- recently began to deal with different levels of priority for communication flows. Traffic prioritization is the key to meeting the demands of real-time traffic, which are much more stringent than mere data traffic, such as file transfers. Now that the question: "How should we specify different levels of priority? " is reasonably understood, the challenge is to answer this new one: "How should we charge for these different levels of priority? " This document discusses the introduction of Quality of Service (QoS) in the corporate network of a large industrial enterprise. Its main contributions are a charging model for different types of traffic with different levels of priority, and a network simulation for verifying the impact of a QoS implementation.
The White Collar Complex Is Involved in Sexual Development of Fusarium graminearum

Sexual spores (ascospores) of Fusarium graminearum, a homothallic ascomycetous fungus, are believed to be the primary inocula for epidemics of the diseases caused by this species in cereal crops. Based on the light requirement for the formation of fruiting bodies (perithecia) of F. graminearum under laboratory conditions, we explored whether photoreceptors play an important role in sexual development. Here, we evaluated the roles of three genes encoding putative photoreceptors [a phytochrome gene (FgFph) and two white collar genes (FgWc-1 and FgWc-2)] during sexual development in F. graminearum. For functional analyses, we generated transgenic strains lacking one or two genes from the self-fertile Z3643 strain. Unlike the wild-type (WT) and add-back strains, the single deletion strains (ΔFgWc-1 and ΔFgWc-2) produced fertile perithecia under constant light on complete medium (CM, an unfavorable medium for sexual development) as well as on carrot agar (a perithecial induction condition). The expression of mating-type (MAT) genes increased significantly in the gene deletion strains compared to the WT under both conditions. Deletion of FgFph had no significant effect on sexual development or MAT gene expression. In contrast, all of the deletion strains examined did not show significant changes in other traits such as hyphal growth, mycotoxin production, and virulence. A split luciferase assay confirmed the in vivo protein-protein interactions among three photoreceptors along with FgLaeA, a global regulator of secondary metabolism and fungal development. Introduction of an intact copy of the A. nidulans LreA and LreB genes, which are homologs of FgWc-1 and FgWc-2, into the ΔFgWc-1 and ΔFgWc-2 strains, respectively, failed to repress perithecia formation on CM in the gene deletion strains. Taken together, these results demonstrate that FgWc-1 and FgWc-2, two central components of the blue-light sensing system, negatively regulate sexual development in F. graminearum, which differs from the regulation pattern in A. nidulans.
The Role of the Sedimentary Regime in Shaping the Distribution of Subtidal Sandbank Environments and the Associated Meiofaunal Nematode Communities: An Example from the Southern North Sea

We combined sediment and faunal data to explore the role of the sedimentary regime in shaping the distribution of subtidal sandbank environments and the associated meiofaunal nematode communities at Broken Bank and Swarte Bank, in the southern North Sea. A variety of sediment transport processes occur in the area, differing in the frequency and magnitude of sediment mobility, and the continuum between erosion, translation and sediment accumulation. The seabed contained a variety of bedforms, including longitudinal furrows, and small to very large sandwaves. The bed sediments were dominated by fine and medium sands, with admixtures of silt and gravel. Based on sedimentary bedforms and grain size analysis, a total of 11 sedimentary facies were delineated, of which 8 were analysed in detail for their relationships with the meiofauna. The sedimentary facies fell clearly into groups of facies, respectively representing high, high-moderate and moderate, and episodic sediment mobility. For those sedimentary facies where daily movement of sediments and bedforms occurred (‘high’ sediment mobility), the resulting spatially homogeneous environments were dominated by an impoverished nematode community comprising small deposit feeders and large predators. Resistance to sediment movement and the ability to exploit alternative food sources were prominent functional features of the successful colonisers. Those facies characterised by relatively infrequent sediment mobility (‘episodic’ and ‘high-moderate and moderate’ sediment mobility) comprised a heterogeneous suite of benthic habitats, containing taxonomically and functionally diverse assemblages of nematodes of various sizes, feeding types and reproductive potential. Faunal distribution patterns here indicated trade-offs between the resistance to sediment movement, environmental tolerance and competitive abilities. Our focus on diverse assemblages of organisms with high turnover times, inhabiting highly dynamic sedimentary environments, has revealed new animal-sediment relationships of relevance to pure and applied science.
A framework for energy-efficient optimization on multi-cores

In recent years, many studies on energy-efficient optimization with performance constraint have focused on “power-performance” assignment in multi-core processors. To find the solution of “power-performance” assignment, progressive search for optimal configuration of core number and frequency can be implemented in two dimensions (core number and frequency) according to power-performance models. However, the existing methods of searching for optimal energy-efficient configuration in the space of core number and frequency have the faults of slow convergence speed, great overhead and poor scalability. In this paper, a search method based on feasible direction method is developed to quickly reduce search space in the two dimensions of core number and frequency and converge to the minimum point of energy consumption in the iterative process. Simultaneously, the practical energy and performance of each feasible configuration can revise model computation. The experimental results show that compared with Hill-climbing Heuristic, the best one of the existing search methods for energy-efficient optimization, in the number of execution, execution time and energy overhead, our framework makes an average reduction by 38.6%, 43.9% and 46.7% respectively, 47.6%, 50.2% and 49.3% when doubling cores of a multi-core processor, and 44.7%, 49.1%, 53.2% when doubling the frequency levels.
xStreams: Recommending Items to Users with Time-evolving Preferences

Over the last decade a vast number of businesses have developed online e-shops in the web. These online stores are supported by sophisticated systems that manage the products and record the activity of customers. There exist many research works that strive to answer the question "what items are the customers going to like" given their historic profiles. However, most of these works miss to take into account the time dimension and cannot respond efficiently when data are huge. In this paper, we study the problem of recommendations in the context of multi-relational stream mining. Our algorithm first separates customers based on their historic data into clusters. It then employs collaborative filtering (CF) to recommend new items to the customers based on their clustering structure. We evaluate our algorithm on two data sets, MovieLens and a synthetic data set.
Generic data types for planning and control in intermodal freight transshipment applications

Planning and control environments for automated guided vehicles are predominantly dedicated to specialized vehicles, e.g. special carriers used in harbor areas for the transport of containers between quays and stackyards. The environment is completely different for commercial standard vehicles when operated under automated guidance. Typically, these are articulated vehicles with a high degree of variability, particularly with respect to their geometric and kinematic properties. Adaptivity requirements have to be taken into account and lead to the design and development of data types with a high degree of genericity. How planning and control depend upon those data types is explained in the broader scope of a new intermodal role-on, roll-off traffic concept which is currently under research. Furthermore, the data types play a central role in the validation process to achieve the legal approval for the automated guided traffic of standard commercial vehicles.
Gaze-based Interaction for Virtual Environments

We present an alternative interface that allows users to perceive new sensa- tions in virtual environments. Gaze-based interaction in virtual environments creates the feeling of controlling objects with the mind, arguably translating into a more in- tense immersion sensation. Additionally, it is also free of some of the most cumbersome aspects of interacting in virtual worlds. By incorporating a real-time physics engine, the sensation of moving something real is further accentuated. We also describe various simple yet effective techniques that allow eyetracking devices to enhance the three-dimensional visualization capabilities of current displays. Some of these techniques have the additional advantage of freeing the mouse from most navigation tasks. This work focuses on the study of existing techniques, a detailed description of the im- plemented interface and the evaluation (both objective and subjective) of the interface. Given that appropriate filtering of the data from the eye tracker used is a key aspect for the correct functioning of the interface, we will also discuss that aspect in depth.
Reduction in Hospitalisation for Cytomegalovirus Disease in HIV-Infected Patients Before and After the Introduction of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe trends in hospital admissions by HIV-infected patients for cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in Australia in the eight year period from 1993 (before highly active antiretroviral therapy) to 2001 (widespread use of highly active antiretroviral therapy). Study Design: Using data from the National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD) complied by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), we examined the rates of hospital admissions for CMV in HIV-infected patients, by year, sex, age group, length of stay and number of diagnoses. Results: Between 1993 and 2001, 21,846 patients were admitted with both HIV infection and CMV disease. 30.2% (6610/21846) of the HIV infected patients admitted to hospital were principally diagnosed with CMV disease. By 2000- 2001, the rate of hospital admissions was only 45cases per 1000 HIV-infected population. Conclusion: Dramatic decreases in the number of hospitalizations for CMV disease in HIV-infected patients have oc- curred over the eight-year study period in Australia, which may be related to the introduction of highly active antiretrovi- ral therapy.
Plant Peroxisomes: Biogenesis and Function

Peroxisomes are eukaryotic organelles that are highly dynamic both in morphology and metabolism. Plant peroxisomes are involved in numerous processes, including primary and secondary metabolism, development, and responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. Considerable progress has been made in the identification of factors involved in peroxisomal biogenesis, revealing mechanisms that are both shared with and diverged from non-plant systems. Furthermore, recent advances have begun to reveal an unexpectedly large plant peroxisomal proteome and have increased our understanding of metabolic pathways in peroxisomes. Coordination of the biosynthesis, import, biochemical activity, and degradation of peroxisomal proteins allows for highly dynamic responses of peroxisomal metabolism to meet the needs of a plant. Knowledge gained from plant peroxisomal research will be instrumental to fully understanding the organelle’s dynamic behavior and defining peroxisomal metabolic networks, thus allowing the development of molecular strategies for rational engineering of plant metabolism, biomass production, stress tolerance, and pathogen defense.
Visualizing dynamic software system information through high-level models

Dynamic information collected as a software system executes can help software engineers perform some tasks on a system more effectively. To interpret the sizable amount of data generated from a system's execution, engineers require tool support. We have developed an off-line, flexible approach for visualizing the operation of an object-oriented system at the architectural level. This approach complements and extends existing profiling and visualization approaches available to engineers attempting to utilize dynamic information. In this paper, we describe the technique and discuss preliminary qualitative studies into its usefulness and usability. These studies were undertaken in the context of performance tuning tasks.
Glutamate transport is downregulated in the cerebral cortex of alcohol-preferring rats.

INTRODUCTION Ethanol (EtOH) affects glutamatergic neurotransmission and this may underlie craving in alcoholics. The present study aimed to further elucidate the EtOH-induced modulation of glutamatergic neurotransmission in a model for alcoholism: the alcohol-preferring cAA rat. MATERIAL AND METHODS Glutamate transporter binding and function was assessed in membrane and synaptosomal preparations from the cerebral cortex of alcohol-preferring cAA rats and alcohol-naive cAA rats. RESULTS [3H]L-glutamate transport activity (Vmax) was 699 pmol.min-1.mg-1 in alcohol-naive cAA rats and 487 pmol.min-1.mg-1 in alcohol-preferring cAA rats. The specific binding sites (Bmax) for [3H]D-aspartate were markedly decreased in alcohol-preferring cAA rats (2059 pmol/mg) as compared to alcohol-naive cAA rats (4275 pmol/mg). CONCLUSIONS We hypothesize that the reduced density and function of glutamate transporter sites in alcohol-preferring cAA rats may represent an adaptive mechanism in order to counteract suppressed glutamatergic neurotransmission during chronic EtOH exposure.
Providing sublexical constraints for word spotting within the ANGIE framework

We describe our recent work in implementing a word-spotting system based on the ANGIE framework and the effects of varying the nature of the sublexical constraints placed upon the wordspotter’s filler model. ANGIE is a framework for modelling speech where the morphological and phonological substructures of words are jointly characterized by a context-free grammar and are represented in a multi-layered hierarchical structure. In this representation, the upper layers capture syllabification, morphology, and stress, the preterminal layer represents phonemics, and the bottom terminal categories are the phones. ANGIE provides a flexible framework where we can explore the effects of sublexical constraints within a word-spotting environment. Our experiments with spotting city names in ATIS validate the intuition that increasing the constraints present in the model improves performance, from 85.3 FOM for phone bigram to 89.3 FOM for a word lexicon. They also empirically strengthens our belief that ANGIE provides a feasible framework for various speech recognition tasks, of which word-spotting is one.
Gut–brain actions underlying comorbid anxiety and depression associated with inflammatory bowel disease

Introduction Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic relapsing and remitting disorder characterised by inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. There is a growing consensus that IBD is associated with anxiety- and depression-related symptoms. Psychological symptoms appear to be more prevalent during active disease states with no difference in prevalence between Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Behavioural disturbances including anxiety- and depression-like symptoms have also been observed in animal models of IBD. Results The likely mechanisms underlying the association are discussed with particular reference to communication between the gut and brain. The close bidirectional relationship known as the gut–brain axis includes neural, hormonal and immune communication links. Evidence is provided for a number of interacting factors including activation of the inflammatory response system in the brain, the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, and brain areas implicated in altered behaviours, changes in blood brain barrier integrity, and an emerging role for gut microbiota and response to probiotics in IBD. Discussion The impact of psychological stress in models of IBD remains somewhat conflicted, however, it is weighted in favour of stress or early stressful life events as risk factors in the development of IBD, stress-induced exacerbation of inflammation and relapse. Conclusion It is recommended that patients with IBD be screened for psychological disturbance and treated accordingly as intervention can improve quality of life and may reduce relapse rates.
How does the zoo soundscape affect the zoo experience for animals and visitors

This project aims to evaluate the zoo soundscape from the animals and visitors perspective. A complete acoustic environment study in zoological parks should involve these two different, but equally important, characters. This thesis presents the results of the influence of the sound components of the zoo environment in the welfare and behaviour of mammals and in the visitors’ experience. Firstly, a critical literature review was made concerning the impact of noise on wildlife. Several papers were evaluated regarding some topics such as the target species, the sound source studied, and the methodology applied. The aim was to assess the reliability of the articles and to propose a guideline for future studies in this area. The results of the literature review have shown that only seven per cent of the published papers used suitable equipment and acoustic metrics to investigate the sound effect on wildlife and confirmed the importance of a complete and well-described methodology for studies replicability. The influence of sound on zoo mammals was explored by direct recordings of animal behaviour and sound measurements, and by the collection of faecal samples for glucocorticoid metabolites analysis in two zoos, Chester Zoo and Twycross Zoo. The results show that animals express some behavioural and hormonal responses to different environmental sound amplitudes. Therefore, zoos could use these findings for a better animal management and enclosures planning. The zoo soundscape perception by the public was investigated by the application of questionnaires with the soundwalk methodology around Chester Zoo. The objective of this part of the study is to understand how the zoo visitors perceive the environmental sound around the zoo and how different aspects of an area can influence the individual perception of the sound. The results show, among other important variables, that technological sounds can have a negative on the visitors’ perception and evaluation of the soundscape. For this reason, zoos should be more careful about the environmental sound of places with predominant technological sounds. In conclusion, for the animals, sound levels and the visitors can be a source of stress that causes variations in the expression of behaviour and in physiological stress levels. For the visitors, the influence of sound is caused mostly by the noise sources and less by the sound levels.
Cytoplasmic LPS Activates Caspase-11: Implications in TLR4-Independent Endotoxic Shock

Move Over, TLR4 The innate immune system senses bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) through Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) (see the Perspective by Kagan). However, Kayagaki et al. (p 1246, published online 25 July) and Hagar et al. (p. 1250) report that the hexa-acyl lipid A component of LPS from Gramnegative bacteria is able to access the cytoplasm and activate caspase-11 to signal immune responses independently of TLR4. Mice that lack caspase-11 are resistant to LPS-induced lethality, even in the presence of TLR4. Cytoplasmic lipopolysaccharide from Gram-negative bacteria can activate the innate immune system directly. [Also see Perspective by Kagan] Inflammatory caspases, such as caspase-1 and -11, mediate innate immune detection of pathogens. Caspase-11 induces pyroptosis, a form of programmed cell death, and specifically defends against bacterial pathogens that invade the cytosol. During endotoxemia, however, excessive caspase-11 activation causes shock. We report that contamination of the cytoplasm by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is the signal that triggers caspase-11 activation in mice. Specifically, caspase-11 responds to penta- and hexa-acylated lipid A, whereas tetra-acylated lipid A is not detected, providing a mechanism of evasion for cytosol-invasive Francisella. Priming the caspase-11 pathway in vivo resulted in extreme sensitivity to subsequent LPS challenge in both wild-type and Tlr4-deficient mice, whereas Casp11-deficient mice were relatively resistant. Together, our data reveal a new pathway for detecting cytoplasmic LPS.
A novel passive off-line light-emitting diode (LED) driver with long lifetime

This paper describes a patent-pending passive offline LED driver that has no semiconductor switches, electrolytic capacitors, auxiliary power supply and control board. It can provide a fairly smooth current from the ac mains to drive LED strings. The new circuit has the advantages of high input power factor, high energy efficiency and luminous efficacy, long lifetime, stable luminous output and high robustness against extreme weather conditions. In addition, over 90% of the driver material is recyclable, leading to reduction of electronic waste. It is particularly suitable public LED lighting systems such as road lighting systems. Experimental results based on a 50W system are included in the paper to confirm the validity of the proposal. Due to the circuit simplicity, an energy efficiency exceeding 93.6% has been achieved.
A versatile pipeline for the multi-scale digital reconstruction and quantitative analysis of 3D tissue architecture

A prerequisite for the systems biology analysis of tissues is an accurate digital three-dimensional reconstruction of tissue structure based on images of markers covering multiple scales. Here, we designed a flexible pipeline for the multi-scale reconstruction and quantitative morphological analysis of tissue architecture from microscopy images. Our pipeline includes newly developed algorithms that address specific challenges of thick dense tissue reconstruction. Our implementation allows for a flexible workflow, scalable to high-throughput analysis and applicable to various mammalian tissues. We applied it to the analysis of liver tissue and extracted quantitative parameters of sinusoids, bile canaliculi and cell shapes, recognizing different liver cell types with high accuracy. Using our platform, we uncovered an unexpected zonation pattern of hepatocytes with different size, nuclei and DNA content, thus revealing new features of liver tissue organization. The pipeline also proved effective to analyse lung and kidney tissue, demonstrating its generality and robustness. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.11214. 001