Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Designing optimal interlink structures for interdependent networks under budget constraints

In this work, we focus on the problem of obtaining the optimal interlink structures, which maximizes the robustness of networks against random node failures, in a cost constrained setting. Using percolation theory based system equations, we have formulated our objective as a constrained optimization problem and designed algorithms serving two key purposes: i) obtaining the budget limits, Bl and Bu, defined as the minimum budget guaranteeing the existence of a feasible and optimal interlink structure, respectively; and ii) obtaining interlink structures for intermediate budgets. Through these algorithms and associated simulation results, we demonstrate the importance of cost in network design. Furthermore, the designed algorithms have close to optimal performance while being much cheaper than cost agnostic network designs.
Modular Model Based Performance Evaluation of a DiffServ Network Supporting Assured Forwarding PHB

The paper presents an analytical modular model of a DiffServ network supporting assured forwarding PHB. Individual DiffServ network elements such as meter/markers and droppers are modeled separately. Additional equations make it possible to describe behavior of a complex DiffServ network in mathematical terms. The modular model makes it possible to calculate several network performance parameters under various configurations and traffic volume. The model can be used for designing networks, is helpful in initial setting of configuration parameters and enables quick evaluation of network performance.
CLOSED-FORM SOLUTION OF A METAL PLATE WITH A CENTRAL CRACK UNDER TENSION

Accurate prediction of stress and displacement in plates with central cracks is vital for engineering design safety. However, the impact of finite plate size on stress and displacement distribution is an important factor that has not been fully addressed in previous studies, highlighting the need for further investigation. Thus, this study presents a closed-form elastic solution for a rectangular plate with a central crack under tension load. The solution uses complex polynomial functions satisfying equilibrium equations and boundary conditions. Numerical finite element models verify the analytical solution's accuracy for plates with varying crack lengths. The presented closed-form solution accounts for the impact of finite plate size on stress and displacement distribution accurately. Developing closed-form solutions for structural mechanics problems enables engineers to optimize designs for safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness more accurately.
Quantized feedback and feedback reduction for precoded spatial multiplexing MIMO systems

In this paper, we discuss different options for quantized feedback and feedback reduction for a precoded spatial-multiplexing multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system in a time-varying channel. The novel contributions of this paper are a quantized feedback strategy based on the bit-error-rate (BER) of a linear receiver, and two new feedback reduction strategies for a time-varying channel. Both these feedback reduction schemes exploit the time correlation of the MIMO channel. They basically can be viewed as an optimized generalization of existing feedback reduction strategies.
Partial Directed Coherence estimated on Stereo-EEG signals in patients with Taylor's type focal cortical dysplasia

The study was aimed at evaluating the changes in dynamical connectivity, between interictal, preictal and ictal condition, among signals derived from StereoEEG recordings in patients with Taylor's type focal cortical dysplasia (FCD type-II), by means of Partial Directed Coherence and indexes derived from graph theory. Results showed that seizures are characterized by an increased synchronization, mainly within the regions involved in the generation of the epileptogenic activity. Our findings reveal that the proposed procedure can be considered a suitable techinque to properly identify the pathological synchronization mechanisms underlying seizure generation and to support the identification of the epileptogenic zone.
Generic summaries for indexing in information retrieval

This paper examines the use of generic summaries for indexing in information retrieval. Our main observations are that: (1) With or without pseudo-relevance feedback, a summary index may be as effective as the corresponding fulltext index forprecision-oriented search of highly relevant documents. %43 But a reasonably sophisticated summarizer, using a compression ratio of 10-30%, is desirable for this purpose. (2) In pseudo-relevance feedback, using a summary index at initial search and a fulltext index at final search is possibly effective for precision-oriented search, regardless of relevance levels. This strategy is significantly more effective than the one using the summary index only and probably more effective than using summaries as mere term selection filters. %the use of summaries as mere term selection filters. %The summary quality is probably not a critical factor for this strategy, For this strategy, the summary quality is probably not a critical factor, and a compression ratio of 5-10% appears best.
Up-regulation of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-A by Active Membrane-type 1 Matrix Metalloproteinase through Activation of Src-Tyrosine Kinases*

Membrane-type 1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) are two key molecules involved in pericellular proteolysis and cell proliferation during tumor growth and angiogenesis. Our previous data showed that MT1-MMP overexpression in human breast carcinoma MCF7 cells induced an up-regulation of VEGF expression. This effect was associated in vivo with accelerated tumor growth and angiogenesis. We now provide evidence that MT1-MMP overexpression specifically affected VEGF-A production and failed to influence that of other VEGF family members (VEGF, B, C, D, or PlGF) or their receptors. The up-regulation of VEGF-A by MT1-MMP was related to an increased transcriptional activation rather than to a modification of mRNA stability. It was blocked by synthetic MMP inhibitors, TIMP2, but not TIMP-1 and abolished by a partial deletion of the catalytic domain or the cytoplasmic tail of MT1-MMP. Analysis of the signal transduction mechanisms demonstrated that MT1-MMP acts through a signaling pathway involving Src tyrosine kinases. Thus, our results provide new insight into the mechanisms of action of MT1-MMP during angiogenesis and suggest that the full enzymatic activity of MT1-MMP is required for a specific up-regulation of VEGF-A through an activation of Src tyrosine kinase pathways.
Dynamic Event-Based Control of Nonlinear Stochastic Systems

In this paper, the event-based control problems for nonlinear stochastic systems are investigated. First, a novel condition for stochastic input-to-state stability is established. Then, the dynamic event-triggered control approach is proposed and the stochastic stability of the resulting closed-loop system is also proved. Next, a new dynamic self-triggering mechanism is developed and the additional internal dynamic variable is designed according to the predicted value of the system state and error, which ensures that the closed-loop system is stochastically stable. It is shown that the lower bounds of interexecution times by the proposed dynamic event-triggered and self-triggered control approaches are all larger than zero, and the so-called Zeno phenomenon is avoided. Compared with the static event-triggering and self-triggering results, the interexecution times by the proposed dynamic approaches are prolonged on the whole. Two simulation examples are provided to show the efficiency of the proposed approaches.
The influence of cell surface properties of thermophilic streptococci on attachment to stainlesssteel

The quality of milk products is threatened by the formation of biofilms of thermophilicstreptococci on the internal surfaces of plate heat exchangers used in milk processing. Althoughattachment to stainless steel surfaces is one of the first stages in the development of a biofilm, themechanisms involved in attachment have not been reported. The cell surface properties of 12strains of thermophilic streptococci were examined to determine their importance in attachment tostainless steel surfaces. Hydrophobicity, extracellular polysaccharide production and cell surfacecharge varied between the different strains but could not be related to numbers attaching. Treatingthe cells with sodium metaperiodate, lysozyme or trichloroacetic acid to disrupt cell surfacepolysaccharide had no effect on attachment. Treatment with trypsin or sodium dodecyl sulphate toremove cell surface proteins resulted in a 100‐fold reduction in the number of bacteria attaching.This result suggests that the surface proteins of the thermophilic streptococci are important intheir attachment to stainless steel.
Remote Sensing Image Segmentation for Aircraft Recognition Using U-Net as Deep Learning Architecture

Recognizing aircraft automatically by using satellite images has different applications in both the civil and military sectors. However, due to the complexity and variety of the foreground and background of the analyzed images, it remains challenging to obtain a suitable representation of aircraft for identification. Many studies and solutions have been presented in the literature, but only a few studies have suggested handling the issue using semantic image segmentation techniques due to the lack of publicly labeled datasets. With the advancement of CNNs, researchers have presented some CNN architectures, such as U-Net, which has the ability to obtain very good performance using a small training dataset. The U-Net architecture has received much attention for segmenting 2D and 3D biomedical images and has been recognized to be highly successful for pixel-wise satellite image classification. In this paper, we propose a binary image segmentation model to recognize aircraft by exploiting and adopting the U-Net architecture for remote sensing satellite images. The proposed model does not require a significant amount of labeled data and alleviates the need for manual aircraft feature extraction. The public dense labeling remote sensing dataset is used to perform the experiments and measure the robustness and performance of the proposed model. The mean IoU and pixel accuracy are adopted as metrics to assess the obtained results. The results in the testing dataset indicate that the proposed model can achieve a 95.08% mean IoU and a pixel accuracy of 98.24%.
From the Digitization of Cultural Artifacts to the Web Publishing of Digital 3D Collections: an Automatic Pipeline for Knowledge Sharing

In this paper, we introduce a novel approach intended to simplify the production of multimedia content from real objects for the purpose of knowledge sharing, which is particularly appropriate to the cultural heritage field. It consists in a pipeline that covers all steps from the digitization of the objects up to the Web publishing of the resulting digital copies. During a first stage, the digitization is performed by a high speed 3D scanner that recovers the object's geometry. A second stage then extracts from the recovered data a color texture as well as a texture of details, in order to enrich the acquired geometry in a more realistic way. Finally, a third stage converts these data so that they are compatible with the recent WebGL paradigm, then providing 3D multimedia content directly exploitable by end-users by means of standard Internet browsers. The pipeline design is centered on automation and speed, so that it can be used by non expert users to produce mul- timedia content from potentially large object's collections, like it may be the case in cultural heritage. The choice of a high speed scanner is particularly adapted for such a design, since this kind of devices has the advantage of being fast and intuitive. Processing stages that follow the digitization are both completely automatic and "seamless", in the sense that it is not incumbent upon the user to perform tasks manually, nor to use external softwares that generally need additional operations to solve compatibility issues.
Increased Vitamin B12 Requirement Associated with Chronic Acid Suppression Therapy

BACKGROUND: Assimilation of vitamin B12 from dietary sources requires gastric acid. By decreasing acid production, the proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and histamine2 (H2)-blockers may reduce vitamin B12 absorption. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether chronic acid suppression therapy is associated with the initiation of vitamin B12 supplementation, we conducted a retrospective case–control study using a state-wide Medicaid population. METHODS: Case patients were identified as those who initiated vitamin B12 supplementation during the study period. Four control patients were age-and gender-matched to each case. Patients (n = 109 844) with a paid claim between September 27, 1995, and September 27, 1997, were eligible for inclusion. Chronic acid suppression therapy was defined as treatment with H2-blockers or PPIs for ≥10 of the 12 months prior to the first vitamin B12 injection. Comparisons were made between the case and control groups regarding exposure to chronic acid suppression therapy. RESULTS: One hundred twenty-five cases were matched to 500 controls. Twenty-three patients (18.4%) had been exposed to chronic acid suppression therapy compared with 55 (11.0%) of the control group (p = 0.025; OR 1.82; 95% CI 1.08 to 3.09). CONCLUSIONS: Initiation of vitamin B12 supplementation was associated with chronic gastric acid suppression therapy.
Plant Carotene Cis-Trans Isomerase CRTISO

The carotene cis-trans isomerase CRTISO is a constituent of the carotene desaturation pathway as evolved in cyanobacteria and prevailing in plants, in which a tetra-cis-lycopene species, termed prolycopene, is formed. CRTISO, an evolutionary descendant of the bacterial carotene desaturase CRTI, catalyzes the cis-to-trans isomerization reactions leading to all-trans-lycopene, the substrate for the subsequent lycopene cyclization to form all-trans-α/β-carotene. CRTISO and CRTI share a dinucleotide binding motif at the N terminus. Here we report that this site is occupied by FAD in CRTISO. The reduced form of this cofactor catalyzes a reaction not involving net redox changes. Results obtained with C(1)- and C(5)-deaza-FAD suggest mechanistic similarities with type II isopentenyl diphosphate: dimethylallyl diphosphate isomerase (IDI-2). CRTISO, together with lycopene cyclase CRTY and IDI-2, thus represents the third enzyme in isoprenoid metabolism belonging to the class of non-redox enzymes depending on reduced flavin for activity. The regional specificity and the kinetics of the isomerization reaction were investigated in vitro using purified enzyme and biphasic liposome-based systems carrying specific cis-configured lycopene species as substrates. The reaction proceeded from cis to trans, recognizing half-sides of the symmetrical prolycopene and was accompanied by one trans-to-cis isomerization step specific for the C(5)-C(6) double bond. Rice lycopene β-cyclase (OsLCY-b), when additionally introduced into the biphasic in vitro system used, was found to be stereospecific for all-trans-lycopene and allowed the CRTISO reaction to proceed toward completion by modifying the thermodynamics of the overall reaction.
Does Spatial Dispersal Continue Post-Financial Crisis? Analysis of Global Air Transport Network 2011-2015

Economic performance of a city (or region) and its air travel capability are deemed as interlocked in the modern age. It is thus important for planners and stakeholders to understand the changes of the global air transport network. This paper uses a mixed approach, by utilizing both the topological metrics and volume-embedded tools, to examine the global aviation network between 2011 and 2015. With sophisticated demarcation of the concentration concept, the research reconfirms the trend in recent literature that suggested a dispersal pattern in the global aviation network. Furthermore, with the development of an “airport centrality index”, the paper provides evidence consistent with the bypassing of traditional hubs, especially among the mega-hubs. Competition for connecting passengers among mega- and major-hubs is also discussed.
Comparison studies for the removal of a basic dye from aqueous solution using coffee residues and waste tea

Dyes are one of the most important industrial pollutants, especially in textile industries. The coffee residues and wastes tea are food industrial solid wastes, were used as low-cost adsorbents for the removal of methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solution. Many methods have been proposed in order to remove color from wastewater among which, adsorption is more acceptable due to the ability for its use in the large scale. The influence of various experimental factors such as contact time, adsorbent dosage, temperature and pH of dye solution was investigated. Two simplified kinetic models including pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order equation were selected to follow the adsorption processes. It was observed that chemisorptions pseudo-second order kinetic model described the sorption process with high coefficients of determination (R2) better than pseudo-first order kinetic model. Thermodynamic parameters such as Î”GÂ°, Î”HÂ°, and Î”SÂ° were calculated the results of this parameteres indicated that the adsorption of methylene blue onto residues coffee and waste tea were spontaneous process. Â Â
Multiplicative approximations and the hypervolume indicator

Indicator-based algorithms have become a very popular approach to solve multi-objective optimization problems. In this paper, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of algorithms maximizing the hypervolume for a given problem by distributing μ points on the Pareto front. We examine this common approach with respect to the achieved multiplicative approximation ratio for a given multi-objective problem and relate it to a set of μ points on the Pareto front that achieves the best possible approximation ratio. For the class of linear fronts and a class of concave fronts, we prove that the hypervolume gives the best possible approximation ratio. In addition, we examine Pareto fronts of different shapes by numerical calculations and show that the approximation computed by the hypervolume may differ from the optimal approximation ratio.
Determining the Impact Regions of Competing Options in Preference Space

In rank-aware processing, user preferences are typically represented by a numeric weight per data attribute, collectively forming a weight vector. The score of an option (data record) is defined as the weighted sum of its individual attributes. The highest-scoring options across a set of alternatives (dataset) are shortlisted for the user as the recommended ones. In that setting, the user input is a vector (equivalently, a point) in a d-dimensional preference space, where d is the number of data attributes. In this paper we study the problem of determining in which regions of the preference space the weight vector should lie so that a given option (focal record) is among the top-k score-wise. In effect, these regions capture all possible user profiles for which the focal record is highly preferable, and are therefore essential in market impact analysis, potential customer identification, profile-based marketing, targeted advertising, etc. We refer to our problem as k-Shortlist Preference Region identification (kSPR), and exploit its computational geometric nature to develop a framework for its efficient (and exact) processing. Using real and synthetic benchmarks, we show that our most optimized algorithm outperforms by three orders of magnitude a competitor we constructed from previous work on a different problem.
The influence of bubonic plaque in England 1500-1667.

A GOOD DEAL is now known about the incidence of plague in this country during the early modern period, but attempts to probe the wider impact of these epidemics on the general history of the era have been rare. This is curious, for plague occupies a prominent position in tlhe historiography of the later middle ages; but while the disease remained a major factor in the lives of Englishmen for nearly two centuries after the close of the medieval period, the modem historian can find no place for it in his survey of the forces moulding the development of Tudor and Stuart England. This essay is an attempt to examine the demographic, social, economic, and moral impact of plague epidemics. It makes no attempt to cover the chronological and geographical patterns of the disease, or to describe its medical aspects, since these areas are well reviewed by recent published work. ' Of course plague was only one among many epidemic diseases which afflicted the period under examination: typhus and dysentery were more common, influenza (particularly in the great pandemic of 1556-59) killed many more people, and the rate of population growth continued to be determined by the many and obscure destroyers of children. Why, then, should we select plague for a special prominence? The answer lies in the uniquely disruptive and disturbing consequences of its epidemics, caused by certain basic characteristics of the disease which deserve prior treatment and are chiefly derived from the peculiar transmission of the organism by means of the rat flea. A most important feature of plague was that it travelled slowly, and crossed open spaces with the greatest difficulty. This was due to the sedentary nature of the black rat, living whenever possible in the roof spaces of houses and averse to wandering across countryside or crossing water. For this reason plague was essentially a disease of towns, for only in such settlements was a concentration of houses, and so of rats, possible: the epizootic among rats which necessarily preceded a human epidemic required that infected rats or their fleas should be able to move easily between one house and the next, not commonly true of villages. When the disease was spread between communities, it was probably taken by infected rats or their fleas, carried involuntarily by carts, packhorses or ships, another factor concentrating infection on ports and towns on major roads. It is this necessarily urban concentration ofplague Alan D. Dyer, B.A., Ph.D., University College of North Wales, Bangor. 1 E.g. Leonard F. Hirst, The conquest of plague, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1953; John F. D. Shrewsbury, A history ofbubonic plague in the British Isles, Cambridge University Press, 1971; J.-N. Biraben, L'homme et la peste, 2 vols. , Paris, Mouton, 1975-76; The plague reconsidered, Matlock, Derbyshire, Local Population Studies, 1977.