Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Les communications multipoints dans les réseaux haut débit multimédia : Le multicast en environnement IP sur ATM. (Multipoint Communication in High-Speed Multimedia Networks: IP Multicast over ATM)

L'evolution des reseaux actuels vise principalement l'amelioration des performances a travers une augmentation importante des debits disponibles. Cependant, les besoins des applications multimedia se situent egalement dans l'acces a de nouvelles fonctionnalites telles que le multipoint et la garantie de qualite de service (QoS). Pour satisfaire ces besoins, nous proposons d'associer une architecture pour le multipoint avec QoS aux technologies de commutation. Une premiere instanciation de cette approche nous a amenes a etudier l'integration de RSVP sur les reseaux ATM, et a proposer une solution palliant l'absence de service multipoint avec QoS capable de soutenir efficacement RSVP. Nous nous interessons ainsi a CLIP, l'une des techniques d'integration d'IP sur ATM, pour realiser l'integration du modele RSVP. La contribution repose sur l'utilisation de plusieurs arbres multipoints pour eviter les limitations intrinseques aux reseaux ATM. Cette approche a ete experimentee sur la plate-forme MIRIHADE a l'aide d'une application video a codage hierarchique. La commutation associee a une signalisation orientee connexion se pretant mal a l'integration des nouvelles fonctionnalites, nous nous sommes orientes vers l'utilisation d'une signalisation en mode non connecte a travers une solution de type ``Commutation par label''. Appliquee a RSVP, nous avons integre directement la signalisation de la commutation dans celle assurant les nouvelles fonctionnalites pour permettre la commutation directe du trafic de donnees tout en conservant les fonctionnalites de la couche reseau. Notre solution, appelee ``RSVP Switching'', est en cours d'experimentation sur la plate-forme SAFIR, pour un projet de simulation interactive distribuee ayant des besoins importants en terme de multipoint avec QoS.
The thrombin inhibitors hirudin and Refludan® activate the soluble guanylyl cyclase and the cGMP pathway in washed human platelets

Summary A number of direct thrombin inhibitors are successfully used clinically and experimentally as novel antithrombotics and specific anticoagulants. They are also used as anticoagulants in certain blood collection tubes for the analysis of platelet function. A series of platelet function tests have emerged to measure adequate responses to antiplatelet therapy. For comparative and practical reasons, it would be of advantage to use the same anticoagulant in blood collection tubes for different methods, e.g. thrombin inhibitors. However, there are little data on the effects of thrombin inhibitors on platelet signalling pathways that could influence results. We examined the applicability of thrombin inhibitor containing blood for platelet reactivity index (PRI) measurements of the VASP assay and investigated the effects of two thrombin inhibitors (hirudin and lepirudin) on cAMP- and cGMP-mediated signalling pathways in washed human platelets. We show that induction of VASP phosphorylation by PGE1 is markedly reduced in lepirudin containing blood samples. In consequence, PRI levels were highly variable compared to routinely used citrated blood. Surprisingly, in vitro incubation of platelets with thrombin inhibitors increases platelet cGMP levels and induces NOS independent sGC/PKG-mediated VASP phosphorylation. We conclude that thrombin inhibitors activate sGC/PKG-dependent pathways resulting in an increase of VASP phosphorylation which contributes to deviations in PRI measurements. These effects of thrombin inhibitors on sGC- and cGMP-mediated pathways including increased VASP phosphorylation may indicate the presence of an important additional platelet-based mechanism for the reduction of thrombus formation and thromboembolism by thrombin inhibitors.
Gene Expression Profiling in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms After Finite Element Rupture Risk Assessment

Purpose: To investigate the association between local biomechanical rupture risk calculations from finite element analysis (FEA) and whole-genome profiling of the abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) wall to determine if AAA wall regions with highest and lowest estimated rupture risk show different gene expression patterns. Methods: Six patients (mean age 74 years; all men) scheduled for open surgery to treat asymptomatic AAAs (mean diameter 55.2±3.5 mm) were recruited for the study. Rupture risk profiles were estimated by FEA from preoperative computed tomography angiography data. During surgery, AAA wall samples of ~10 mm2 were extracted from the lowest and highest rupture risk locations identified by the FEA. Twelve samples were processed for RNA extraction and subsequent whole genome expression profiling. Expression of single genes and of predefined gene groups were compared between vessel wall areas with highest and lowest predicted rupture risk. Results: Normalized datasets comprised 15,079 gene transcripts with expression above background. In biopsies with high rupture risk, upregulation of 18 and downregulation of 18 genes was detected when compared to the low-risk counterpart. Global analysis of predefined gene groups revealed expression differences in genes associated with extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation (p<0.001), matrix metalloproteinase activity (p<0.001), and chemokine signaling (p<0.001). Conclusion: Increased expression of genes involved in degrading ECM components was present in AAA wall regions with highest biomechanical stress, supporting the thesis of mechanotransduction. More experimental studies with cooperation of multicenter vascular biobanks are necessary to understand AAA etiologies and identify further parameters of FEA model complementation.
IP3 receptor mutations and brain diseases in human and rodents

The inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate receptor (IP3R) is a huge Ca2+ channel that is localized at the endoplasmic reticulum. The IP3R releases Ca2+ from the endoplasmic reticulum upon binding to IP3, which is produced by various extracellular stimuli through phospholipase C activation. All vertebrate organisms have three subtypes of IP3R genes, which have distinct properties of IP3‐binding and Ca2+ sensitivity, and are differently regulated by phosphorylation and by their associated proteins. Each cell type expresses the three subtypes of IP3R in a distinct proportion, which is important for creating and maintaining spatially and temporally appropriate intracellular Ca2+ level patterns for the regulation of specific physiological phenomena. Of the three types of IP3Rs, the type 1 receptor (IP3R1) is dominantly expressed in the brain and is important for brain function. Recent emerging evidence suggests that abnormal Ca2+ signals from the IP3R1 are closely associated with human brain pathology. In this review, we focus on the recent advances in our knowledge of the regulation of IP3R1 and its functional implication in human brain diseases, as revealed by IP3R mutation studies and analysis of human disease‐associated genes.
Inter-Domain Traffic Estimation for the Outsider

Characterizing the flow of Internet traffic is important in a wide range of contexts, from network engineering and application design to understanding the network impact of consumer demand and business relationships. Despite the growing interest, the nearly impossible task of collecting large-scale, Internet-wide traffic data has severely constrained the focus of traffic-related studies. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to characterize inter-domain traffic by reusing large, publicly available traceroute datasets. Our approach builds on a simple insight -- the popularity of a route on the Internet can serve as an informative proxy for the volume of traffic it carries. It applies structural analysis to a dual-representation of the AS-level connectivity graph derived from available traceroute datasets. Drawing analogies with city grids and traffic, it adapts data transformations and metrics of route popularity from urban planning to serve as proxies for traffic volume. We call this approach Network Syntax, highlighting the connection to urban planning Space Syntax. We apply Network Syntax in the context of a global ISP and a large Internet eXchange Point and use ground-truth data to demonstrate the strong correlation ($r^2$ values of up to 0.9) between inter-domain traffic volume and the different proxy metrics. Working with these two network entities, we show the potential of Network Syntax for identifying critical links and inferring missing traffic matrix measurements.
Information flow clustering via similarity of a propagation tree

Social network services (SNSs) serve numerous users with large amounts of information of different kinds. On an SNS, information will propagate on a user network, which is represented as a complex network in general but can be reformed as a tree by using the direction of propagation and allowing duplication. Our goal in this study was to show the propagation of a particular kind of information on an SNS, as well as the clustering of a similar propagation scheme for each user. For this goal, we used elastic tree pattern matching to calculate the similarity of two tree structures. A set of users are propagated from source to destination in the same or similar way, and these users are given information from a similar source. We also aimed to find the high-influence person who is at the start of the same or similar propagation, which will indicate that she/he is the moderator of a topic. We used tumblr data for the experiment. Findings indicated that the similar part of each information propagation tree on tumblr was too small for the clustering propagation pattern.
Association of adenoid surface biofilm formation and chronic otitis media with effusion.

OBJECTIVES To investigate bacterial biofilm formation on the adenoid surface of pediatric patients undergoing adenoidectomy and to reveal whether this formation is associated with chronic otitis media with effusion (COME). DESIGN Prospective, single-blinded study with scanning electron microscopy. SETTING Dişkapi Yildirim Beyazit Research and Educational Hospital, Ankara, Turkey. PATIENTS Thirty-four children between 4 and 15 years of age (mean age, 7.76 years) who had undergone adenoidectomy from June 1 through December 31, 2007, were divided into 2 groups. The first group (17 children) had undergone adenoidectomy alone, whereas the second group (17 children) had undergone adenoidectomy combined with ventilation tube insertion for COME. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Scanning electron microscopy was performed to observe biofilm formation on the surface of adenoid tissues. The biofilm formation was graded according to extension. The roles of adenoid size, age, sex, and duration of COME symptoms were evaluated. RESULTS Biofilm formation was detected on all samples. Adenoids removed from patients with COME had higher-grade biofilm formation than the other group (P = .001). No correlation was found between adenoid size and biofilm formation. CONCLUSION In pediatric patients, adenoid surface biofilm formation may be associated with COME etiopathogenesis.
Comparative Study on the Vaginal Flora and Incidence of Asymptomatic Vaginosis among Healthy Women and in Women with Infertility Problems of Reproductive Age.

INTRODUCTION The normal vaginal flora is highly complex, dominated by lactobacilli of doderlein that plays a vital role in maintaining the women's health and inhibits other pathogenic microorganisms. Fluctuation in local environment or exposure to any exogenous and endogenous sources changes the vaginal flora over a period of time. Disruption of the vaginal ecosystem changes the microflora of the healthy vagina, altering the pH and predisposing to lower reproductive tract infections. The change in the microflora of the female genital tract by pathogenic organisms may ascend from vagina to upper genital tract and may cause infertility. Although several studies demonstrate a higher prevalence of bacterial vaginosis in infertile population. The role of vaginal microbiome in infertility is not clear and need to be explored further. AIM To compare the vaginal flora and analyse the incidence of asymptomatic vaginosis among healthy women and in women with infertility problems. MATERIALS AND METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of six months at Sri Lakshmi Narayana Medical College and Hospital Puducherry, India. A total of 200 high vaginal swabs were collected from Group 1 which included 84 healthy women with regular menstrual cycles without any gynaecological disorder and from Group 2, 116 women with infertility problems attending fertility clinic within the age group of 18 to 45 years. All swabs were subjected to routine aerobic, anaerobic and fungal culture. Saline wet mount was performed for the detection of clue cells and Trichomonas vaginalis, 10% KOH was performed for demonstration of budding yeast cells and pseudo hyphae, Gram's staining to determine the presence of yeast cells, leucocytes and bacterial morphotypes. The smear was also graded using Nugent scoring system. RESULTS The vaginal flora of Group 1 was dominated by Lactobacillus (40, 27.8 %) followed by Micrococcus (22, 15.3 %), Enterococcus (16, 11.1%), Coagulase negative Staphylococcus spp. (12, 8.3%). Whereas in Group 2, the most dominant flora was Candida spp. (30, 26.5 %), Enterococcus (26, 23%) followed by Gram negative bacilli such as E. coli (16, 14.1 %). The percentage of Lactobacillus in Group 2 women with infertility problems was relatively low (4, 3.5%). Asymptomatic vaginosis was present in 32 (27.6 %) of Group 2 women compared to Group 1 women were only 6 (7.1%) had asymptomatic vaginosis. CONCLUSION Women with infertility problems showed higher prevalence of asymptomatic vaginosis and abundance of Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) associated bacteria compared to healthy women. Hence, this study recommends the screening of vaginal flora as a routine for all women, especially in women undergoing infertility treatment and also suggests the importance of vaginal culture and sensitivity in routine practice.
WINDWare: Supporting ubiquitous computing with passive sensor enabled RFID

Recent emergence of passive sensor enabled RFID tags (sensor tags) is creating new possibilities for low cost and maintenance free paradigm for industrial and ubiquitous monitoring applications (such as structural health, elder care, cold chain management). Despite the clear advantages, the widespread adoption of sensor tag technology requires the development of middleware to support the management of data streams with integrated sensor and ID (identification) data. In this paper we propose a generic middleware architecture adhering to the standardized EPCglobal architecture for managing integrated ID and sensor data streams from sensor tags. Furthermore, we demonstrate its successful implementation, WINDWare, through laboratory experiments and an application demonstration.
Road extraction and intersection detection based on tensor voting

Road is the skeleton of the city, which is usually elongated. Extracting road information is of great significance in urban planning. Tensor voting can detect the geometric characteristics of the typical objects in the image. In this paper in order to improve the accuracy of road extraction in high-resolution remote sensing image, road is extracted preliminary using morphological edge segmentation and shape index feature extraction, then tensor voting is introduced to purify the road information and detect road intersections. Voting in stick field can detect and amplify the stick saliency of road pixels, the gaps can also be connected after tensor voting. On the basis of pure road extraction result above, the voting in ball field is used to detect the road intersections. The experiments on remote sensing images show that the proposed method in this paper is superior to traditional morphological post-processing method, it can precisely extract the roads, and detect all the road intersections at the same time.
Comparison of multiple model particle filter and interacting multiple model EKF in maneuvering target tracking

Particle filters can provide better results than Kalman filter based algorithms in the problems where the nonlinear elements are dominant. In this study the problem of tracking an airborne platform using radar measurements, which has nonlinearities both in measurement and system models is considered. Different models are used for different target maneuvers; extended Kalman filter (EKF), interacting multiple model (IMM) structure and multiple model particle filter are compared on a sample scenario.
Psychology and the Internet : intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal implications

Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Internet in Context Part I Intrapersonal 2. Children and the Internet 3. Self Online: Personality and Demogrpahic Implications 4. Disinhibition and the Internet 5. The Psychology of Sex: A Mirror from the Internet 6. Internet Addiction: Does it Really Exist? (Revisited) Part II Interpersonal 7. Revisiting Computer--Mediated Communication for Work, Community, and Learning 8. The Virtual Society: Its Driving Forces, Arrangements, Practices and Implications 9. Internet Self-Help and Support Groups: The Pros and Cons of Text-Based Mutual Aid 10. Cyber Shrinks: Expanding the Paradigm Part III Transpersonal 11. From Mediatred Environments to the Development of Consciousness II 12. World Wide Brain: Self-Organizing Internet Intelligence as the Actualization of the Collective Unconscious 13. The Internet and Higher States of Consciousness--A Transpersonal Perspective Index
The influence of caches on the performance of heaps

As memory access times grow larger relative to processor cycletimes, the cache performance of algorithms has an increasinglylarge impact on overall performance. Unfortunately, most commonlyused algorithms were not designed with cache performance in mind.This paper investigates the cache performance of implicit heaps. Wepresent optimizations which significantly reduce the cache missesthat heaps incur and improve their overall performance. We presentan analytical model called collective analysis that allows cacheperformance to be predicted as a function of both cacheconfiguration and algorithm configuration. As part of ourinvestigation, we perform an approximate analysis of the cacheperformance of both traditional heaps and our improved heaps in ourmodel. In addition empirical data is given for five architecturesto show the impact our optimizations have on overall performance.We also revisit a priority queue study originally performed byJones [25]. Due to the increases in cache miss penalties, therelative performance results we obtain on today's machines differgreatly from the machines of only ten years ago. We compare theperformance of implicit heaps, skew heaps and splay trees anddiscuss the difference between our results and Jones's.
The use (and misuse) of PISA in guiding policy reform: the case of Spain

ABSTRACT In 2013 Spain introduced a series of educational reforms explicitly inspired by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 results. These reforms were mainly implemented in secondary education – based upon the assumption that this is where Spain's educational problems lie. This paper questions this assumption by attempting to identify the point where Spanish children fall behind young people in other developed countries. Specifically, by drawing data from multiple international assessments, we are able to explore how cross-national differences in reading skills change as children age. Consideration is given to both the average level of achievement and the evolution of educational inequalities. Our conclusion is that policy-makers have focused their efforts on the wrong part of the education system; educational achievement is low in Spain (and educational inequalities large) long before children enter secondary school. This study therefore serves as a note of caution against simplistic interpretation of the PISA rankings.
Taming the storage dragon: the adventures of hoTMaN

HoTMaN (HoT-standby MaNager) is a joint project between MySpace and USC Database Laboratory to design and develop a tool to ensure a 24x7 up-time and ease administration of Terabytes of storage that sits underneath hundreds of database servers. The HoTMaN tool's innovation and uniqueness is that it can, with a few clicks, perform operational tasks that require hundreds of keyboard strokes by "trusted trained" experts. With HoTMaN, MySpace can within minutes migrate the relational database(s) of a failed server to a hot-standby. A process that could take over 1 hour and had a high potential for human error is now performed reliably. A database internal to HoTMaN captures all virtual disks, volume and file configurations associated with each SQL Server and candidate hot-standby servers where SQL server processing could be migrated. HoTMaN is deployed in production and its current operational benefits include: (i) enhanced availability of data, and (ii) planned maintenance and patching.
The Deadly Heat Wave of Pakistan, June 2015

Correspondence to Irfan Masood, MD, Department of General Surgery, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan E-mail: irfanrida@ hotmail.com Received: Aug 30, 2015 Accepted: Sep 15, 2015 Cite this article as: Masood I, Majid Z, Sohail S, et al. The deadly heat wave of Pakistan, June 2015. Int J Occup Environ Med 2015;6:247-248. doi: 10.15171/ijoem.2015. 672 The Deadly Heat Wave of Pakistan, June 2015