Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel design of node-disjoint multi-path QoS routing in multi-hop ad hoc networks

Recently, quality-of-service routing in dynamic, wireless multi-hop ad hoc networks becomes a hot research topic, and various QoS protocols are proposed. However, popular QoS routing protocols rarely provide multiple routes. Once links break due to node mobility, establishment of new routes leads to large control overhead and extra end-to-end delay. We design a quality-of-service routing protocol, containing efficient bandwidth estimations, admission control and node-disjoint multipath establishment. While detecting link breaks, we use back-up routes to avoid another wasteful route discovery. If a single route with sufficient bandwidth can not be discovered, we combine multiple routes to support QoS transmission.
Modification of OATP2B1-Mediated Transport by Steroid Hormones

The family of the organic anion transporting polypeptides forms an increasing group of uptake transport proteins with a wide substrate spectrum. Although the expression of some members of this group, such as organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP)-A or C, is limited to special tissues (such as liver or brain), the organic anion transporting polypeptide 2B1 (OATPB/SLCO2B1) is expressed in many organs, including liver, placenta, mammary gland, brain, and intestine. However, little is known about its function in those tissues because only a limited number of compounds, such as dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEAS) and estrone-3-sulfate (E3S), have been characterized as OATP2B1 substrates. To further elucidate the role of OATP2B1 on steroid transport, we examined the influence of steroid hormones on OATP2B1-mediated E3S and DHEAS uptake using OATP2B1-overexpressing Madin-Darby canine kidney II cells. We identified unconjugated androgens (e.g., testosterone) as potent inhibitors for OATP2B1. In contrast, gestagenes such as progesterone enhanced E3S uptake in a concentration-dependent manner to up to 300% of the control, accompanied by a significant decrease in the OATP2B1 Km value for E3S (control, Km = 14 μM; in the presence of 31.6 μM progesterone, Km = 3.6 μM). Moreover, we demonstrated that testosterone and progesterone are not substrates of OATP2B1, indicating an allosteric mechanism for the observed effects. Furthermore, we showed that progesterone enhances the OATP2B1-dependent pregnenolone sulfate transport. Taken together, the results indicate functional modification of OATP2B1-mediated E3S and DHEAS as well as pregnenolone sulfate transport through steroid hormones such as progesterone. These effects can have physiological consequences for the organ-specific uptake of steroids.
Forgiveness and Justice: A Research Agenda for Social and Personality Psychology

Forgiveness and related constructs (e.g., repentance, mercy, reconciliation) are ripe for study by social and personality psychologists, including those interested in justice. Current trends in social science, law, management, philosophy, and theology suggest a need to expand existing justice frameworks to incorporate alternatives or complements to retribution, including forgiveness and related processes. In this article, we raise five challenging empirical questions about forgiveness. For each question, we briefly review representative research, raise hypotheses, and suggest specific ways in which social and personality psychologists could make distinctive contributions.
A Medium Survey of the Hard X-Ray Sky with ASCA. II. The Source’s Broadband X-Ray Spectral Properties

A complete sample of 60 serendipitous hard X-ray sources with flux in the range ~1 × 10-13 ergs cm-2 s-1 to ~4 × 10-12 ergs cm-2 s-1 (2-10 keV), detected in 87 ASCA GIS2 images, was recently presented in the literature. Using this sample it was possible to extend the description of the 2-10 keV log N(> S)- log S down to a flux limit of ~6 × 10-14 ergs cm-2 s-1 (the faintest detectable flux), resolving about a quarter of the cosmic X-ray background (CXB). In this paper we have combined the ASCA GIS2 and GIS3 data of these sources to investigate their X-ray spectral properties using the hardness ratios and the stacked-spectra method. Because of the sample statistical representativeness, the results presented here, which refer to the faintest hard X-ray sources that can be studied with the current instrumentation, are relevant to the understanding of the CXB and of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) unification scheme. The "stacked" spectra show that the average source's spectrum hardens toward fainter fluxes; it changes from an energy spectral index = 0.87 ± 0.08 for the 20 brightest sources (2-10 keV count rate ≥3.9 × 10-3 counts s-1, the "bright" sample) to = 0.36 ± 0.14 for the remaining 40 fainter sources (the "faint" sample). The dividing line of 3.9 × 10-3 counts s-1 corresponds to unabsorbed 2-10 keV fluxes in the range ~5.4 × 10-13 to ~3.1 × 10-13 ergs cm-2 s-1 for a source described by a power-law model with energy spectral index between 0.0 and 2.0. It thus seems that we are now beginning to detect those sources that have the "correct" spectral shape to be responsible for the 2-10 keV CXB. The hardness-ratio analyses indicate that this flattening is due to a population of sources with very hard spectra showing up in the faint sample; about half of the sources in this sample require αE ≲ 0.5, while only ~10% of the sources in the bright sample are consistent with an energy spectral index so flat. A number of sources (~30%) in the faint sample seem to be characterized by an apparently "inverted" X-ray spectrum (i.e., αE ≲ 0.0). These objects are probably extremely absorbed sources, as expected from the CXB synthesis models based on the AGN unification scheme, if not a new population of very hard serendipitous sources. The broadband (0.7-10 keV) spectral properties of the selected sources, as inferred from the hardness-ratios diagram, seem to be more complex than is expected from a simple absorbed power-law model. We have thus investigated more complex models, in line with the AGN unification scheme, and we find that these models seem to be able to explain the overall spectral properties of the present sample; this result also seems to be suggested by a comparison of the hardness-ratio diagram of the serendipitous ASCA sources with that obtained using a sample of nearby and well-known Seyfert 1 and Seyfert 2 galaxies observed with ASCA.
Conundrum, an ARHGAP18 orthologue, regulates RhoA and proliferation through interactions with Moesin

RhoA, a small GTPase, regulates epithelial integrity and morphogenesis by controlling filamentous actin assembly and actomyosin contractility. Another important cytoskeletal regulator, Moesin (Moe), an ezrin, radixin, and moesin (ERM) protein, has the ability to bind to and organize cortical F-actin, as well as the ability to regulate RhoA activity. ERM proteins have previously been shown to interact with both RhoGEF (guanine nucleotide exchange factors) and RhoGAP (GTPase activating proteins), proteins that control the activation state of RhoA, but the functions of these interactions remain unclear. We demonstrate that Moe interacts with an unusual RhoGAP, Conundrum (Conu), and recruits it to the cell cortex to negatively regulate RhoA activity. In addition, we show that cortically localized Conu can promote cell proliferation and that this function requires RhoGAP activity. Surprisingly, Conu's ability to promote growth also appears dependent on increased Rac activity. Our results reveal a molecular mechanism by which ERM proteins control RhoA activity and suggest a novel linkage between the small GTPases RhoA and Rac in growth control.
University of Malaya from the Selectedworks of Arine Fadzlun Ahmad Morphological Characteristics of Developmental Stages of Acanthamoeba and Naegleria Species before and after Staining by Various Techniques Morphological Characteristics of Developmental Stages of Acanthamoeba and Naegleria Species b

titis (AK) which is reported in 1-2 cases per million contact lens wearers annually (CDC, 2010), and is capable of causing skin lesions and granulomatous amebic encephalitis (GAE) in individuals with compromised or competent immune systems, who inhale infective cysts or develop indolent, granulomatous skin lesions in soil-contaminated wounds (CDC, 2010). Unlike Acanthamoeba, only one species of Naegleria, Naegleria fowleri, is known to infect humans by causing an Abstract. Seven stains were studied to determine the best color and contrast for staining the developmental stages of free living pathogenic Acanthamoeba and Naegleria species. The acid-fast bacilli stain (AFB) produced a blue color without contrast; trichrome-eosin and modified Field's showed various color contrasts; Giemsa, iron-hematoxylin, modified AFB and Gram produced only one color which distinguished the nucleus, nucleolus, cytoplasm, food-and water-vacuoles. The motile organs (acanthopodia, pseudopodia, lobopodia and flagella) were also clearly differentiated but produced a similar color as the cytoplasm. These motile organelles were first induced by incubating at 37ºC for at least 15 minutes and then fixing with methanol in order to preserve the protruding morphology prior to staining. The trichrome-eosin and iron-hematoxylin stains showed good color contrast for detecting all three stages, the trophozoite, cyst and flagellate; Giemsa and Gram stained the trophozoite and flagellate stages; the modified Field's and modified AFB stains stained only the trophozoite stage. Depending on the purpose, all these stains (except the AFB stain) can be used to identify the developmental stages of Acanthamoeba and Naegleria for clinical, epidemiological or public health use.
Theories in Practice : Easy-to-Write Speci & # 64257 ; cations that Catch Bugs

Automated testing during development helps ensure that software works according to the test suite. Traditional test suites verify a few well-picked scenarios or example inputs. However, such example-based testing does not uncover errors in legal inputs that the test writer overlooked. We propose theory-based testing as an adjunct to example-based testing. A theory generalizes a (possibly infinite) set of examplebased tests. A theory is an assertion that should be true for any data, and it can be exercised by human-chosen data or by automatic data generation. A theory is expressed in an ordinary programming language, it is easy for developers to use (often even easier than example-based testing), and it serves as a lightweight form of specification. Six case studies demonstrate the utility of theories that generalize existing tests to prevent bugs, clarify intentions, and reveal design problems.
Efficient synthesis of fault-tolerant controllers

Today, there is an increasing need for fault tolerance capabilities in integrated circuits used in critical applications such as aircraft control. The classical way to achieve fault tolerance in a logic block is to triplicate it and to implement a majority voting block on the outputs (Triple Modular Redundancy, or TMR). The Single Independent Decoder (SID) architecture was defined in order to achieve with a lower hardware overhead the tolerance of faults in the circuit control part (the Finite State Machine), and more precisely in the sequencing logic (next-state logic and state register). A dedicated synthesis tool (ASYL-SdF) has been developed and the results obtained on a large set of examples in terms of silicon area and dependability evaluation have shown its efficiency, especially compared with the TMR implementation of the sequencing logic (TMR Seq). <<ETX>>
On the Systematic Measurement Matrix for Compressed Sensing in the Presence of Gross Errors

Inspired by syndrome source coding using linear error-correcting codes, we explore a new form of measurement matrix for compressed sensing. The proposed matrix is constructed in the systematic form [A I], where A is a randomly generated submatrix with elements distributed according to i.i. d. Gaussian, and I is the identity matrix. In the noiseless setting, this systematic construction retains similar property as the conventional Gaussian ensemble achieves. However, in the noisy setting with gross errors of arbitrary magnitude, where Gaussian ensemble fails catastrophically, systematic construction displays strong stability. In this paper, we prove its stable reconstruction property. We further show its l1-norm sparsity recovery property by proving its restricted isometry property (RIP). We also demonstrate how the systematic matrix can be used to design a family of lossy-to-lossless compressed sensing schemes where the number of measurements trades off the reconstruction distortions.
An edge-guided image interpolation method using Taylor series approximation

In this paper, a novel real-time edge-guided interpolation method is presented to produce the high resolution image without any disturbing artifacts such as blurring, jagging, and overshooting. The proposed method computes the first- and second-order derivatives of an input image to measure the geometry of edges in the image. Based on these measures, the value of a pixel to be interpolated is estimated along four directions using Taylor series approximation. The four directional estimates are adaptively fused based on the orientation of a local edge to obtain the edge-guided interpolation output. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed interpolation method outperforms the conventional ones both in terms of objective and subjective image qualities with low computational complexity.
Changes in components of the hydrological cycle in the Yellow River basin during the second half of the 20th century

The Yellow River basin of China, located in the semi‐humid, semi‐arid and arid climatic zones, is now confronted with serious problems of water deficit. With regard to intensified human activities and climatic change, knowledge about changes in the regional hydrological cycle should be seen as a key requirement in searching for an adaptation strategy in water resource use. This paper attempts to detect trends associated with hydrological cycle components in the region. The hydrological cycle components are derived from monthly precipitation and runoff date, based on the schemes proposed herein. Two methods, including linear regression and Mann–Kendall, have been applied to the detection of trends in the hydrological cycle components. For the Lanzhou station, only surface runoff showed a decreasing trend. As for Huayuankou station, the results have shown that natural runoff, surface runoff and groundwater runoff all have significant decreasing trends, whereas the decreasing trend of the other components is not significant. Impacts of human activities, climatic change and annual runoff coefficient change on the hydrological cycle components are also discussed. The study suggests that increasing water resources development and utilization is the most important factor in causing the frequent drying‐up in the main course of the Yellow River. Moreover, the similarities of the trends in precipitation and natural runoff suggest a linkage between climatic change and hydrological cycle change. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Pleiotropic Actions of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptors (PPARs) in Dysregulated Metabolic Homeostasis, Inflammation and Cancer: Current Evidence and Future Perspectives

Background: Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) have demonstrated a lot of important effects in the regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism and in the correct functioning of adipose tissue. Recently, many studies have evaluated a possible effect of PPARs on tumor cells. The purpose of this review is to describe the effects of PPARs, their action and their future prospective; Methods: Narrative review aimed to synthesize cutting-edge evidence retrieved from searches of computerized databases; Results: PPARs play a key role in metabolic diseases, which include several cardiovascular diseases, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, impaired immunity and the increasing risk of cancer; in particular, PPARα and PPARβ/δ mainly enable energy combustion, while PPARγ contributes to energy storage by enhancing adipogenesis; Conclusion: PPAR agonists could represent interesting types of molecules that can treat not only metabolic diseases, but also inflammation and cancer. Additional research is needed for the identification of high-affinity, high-specificity agonists for the treatment of obesity, type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and other metabolic diseases. Further studies are needed also to elucidate the role of PPARs in cancer.
Interactions of misfolded influenza virus hemagglutinin with binding protein (BiP)

We have characterized the association between the binding protein, BiP (also known as GRP 78), and misfolded forms of the influenza virus hemagglutinin precursor, HA0. BiP is a heat-shock-related protein that binds to unassembled immunoglobulin heavy chain and to a variety of misfolded proteins in the lumen of the ER. A small fraction (5-10%) of newly synthesized HA0 in CV-1 cells was found to be misfolded and retained in the ER. When glycosylation was blocked with tunicamycin, all of the HA0 produced was similarly misfolded. The misfolded HA0 was retained as relatively small (9-25-S) complexes associated with BiP. In these complexes the top domains of HA0 were correctly folded judging by their reactivity with monoclonal antibodies, but the polypeptides were cross-linked via anomalous interchain disulfides. The association with BiP was non-covalent and easily broken by warming to 37 degrees C or by adding ATP to the lysate. Pulse-chase experiments showed that HA0's self-association into complexes occurred immediately after synthesis and was followed rapidly by BiP association. The misfolded, BiP- associated HA0 was not transported to the plasma membrane but persisted as complexes in the ER for a long period of time before degradation (t1/2 = 6 h). The results suggested that BiP may be part of a quality control system in the ER and that one of its functions is to detect and retain misfolded proteins.
Human Cancer Biology GM-CSF Production by Tumor Cells Is Associated with Improved Survival in Colorectal Cancer

Purpose: Colorectal cancer infiltration by CD16þmyeloid cells correlates with improved prognosis. We addressed mechanistic clues and gene and protein expression of cytokines potentially associated with macrophage polarization. Experimental Design: GM-CSF or M-CSF–stimulated peripheral blood CD14þ cells from healthy donors were cocultured with colorectal cancer cells. Tumor cell proliferation was assessed by H-thymidine incorporation. Expression of cytokine genes in colorectal cancer and autologous healthymucosa was tested by quantitative, real-time PCR. A tumor microarray (TMA) including >1,200 colorectal cancer specimens was stainedwithGM-CSFandM-CSF–specific antibodies. Clinicopathological features and overall survival
Combined object-based classification and manual interpretation–synergies for a quantitative assessment of parcels and biotopes

Recent technical advances in remote sensing data capture and spatial resolution lead to a widening gap between increasing data availability on the one hand and insufficient methodology for semi-automated image data processing and interpretation on the other hand. At the interface of GIS and remote sensing, object-based image analysis methodologies are one possible approach to close this gap. With this, methods from either side are integrated to use both the capabilities of information extraction from image data and the power to perform spatial analysis on derived polygon data. However, dealing with image objects from various sources and in different scales implies combining data with inconsistent boundaries. A landscape interpretation support tool (LIST) is introduced which seeks to investigate and quantify spatial relationships among image objects stemming from different sources by using the concept of spatial coincidence. Moreover, considering different categories of object fate, LIST enables a change categorization for each polygon of a time series of classifications. The application of LIST is illustrated by two case-studies, using Landsat TM and ETM as well as CIR aerial photographs: the first showing how the tool is used to perform object quantification and change analysis; the latter demonstrating how superior aggregation capabilities of the human brain can be combined with the fine spatial segmentation and classification. Possible fields of application are identified and limitations of the approach are discussed.
Sensor fault detection for the roll dynamic model of a generic delta-wing aircraft

This paper proposes a fault detection algorithm for the roll dynamic model of a generic delta-wing aircraft. It is assumed that the system model has some noise/uncertainties and the measured roll angle and roll rate used by the control law are faulty/under attack. The proposed fault detection algorithm employs a fault detection estimator and adaptive thresholds to detect the occurrence of a fault in the sensor measurements. Simulation results are presented to show the performance of the proposed algorithm.
Formation of Molecular Complexes Between a Structurally Defined M Protein and Acylated or Deacylated Lipoteichoic Acid of Streptococcus pyogenes

The orientation of lipoteichoic acid (LTA) molecules on the surface of bacterial cells undoubtedly is determined by the ability of the LTA, during its transit through the cell wall, to bind via its polyglycerophosphate backbone or its glycolipid moieties to other constituents of the cytoplasmic membrane and the cell wall. We have investigated the possibility that LTA may become anchored to the cell surface by binding through its polyanionic backbone to positively charged regions of cell wall proteins. LTA was found to prevent the precipitation of partially purified HCl extracts of several strains of streptococci as well as a structurally defined streptococcal M protein molecule (pep M24) in 83% solutions of ethanol. The formation of complexes between LTA and M protein was demonstrated further by immunoelectrophoresis of pep M24 protein with increasing concentrations of radiolabeled LTA and by using antiserum against pep M24 to develop precipitin arcs. Pep M24 electrophoresed alone produced a single precipitin arc close to the origin. In contrast, when electrophoresed as a mixture with LTA or deacylated LTA, the M protein produced a second precipitin arc toward the anode coinciding with the area of migration of the radioactive LTA. Increasing concentrations of LTA or deacylated LTA shifted increasing amounts of the pep M24 antigen to the region of the second arc. Maleylation of M protein to block the positively charged free amino groups before mixing it with LTA prevented the formation of complexes. The complexes formed by the M protein with LTA, but not with deacylated LTA, showed the capacity to bind bovine serum albumin; LTA had been shown previously to bind to the fatty acid binding sites on bovine serum albumin. These results indicate that the LTA molecule is able to bind via its polyanionic backbone to positively charged residues of surface proteins of cells of S. pyogenes. The implications of such interaction as to the orientation of LTA molecules on the surface of cells of S. pyogenes are discussed.
Visibly pushdown automata on trees: universality and u-universality

An automaton is universal if it accepts every possible input. We study the notion of u-universality, which asserts that the automaton accepts every input starting with u. Universality and u-universality are both EXPTIME-hard for non-deterministic tree automata. We propose efficient antichain-based techniques to address these problems for visibly pushdown automata operating on trees. One of our approaches yields algorithms for the universality and u-universality of hedge automata.