Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Verification of timed erlang/OTP components using the process algebra μcrl

Recent work has looked at how Erlang programs could be model-checked via translation into the process algebra μCRL. Rules for translating Erlang programs and OTP components into μCRL have been defined and investigated. However, in the existing work, no rule is defined for the translation of timeout events into μCRL. This could degrade the usability of the existing work as in some real applications, timeout events play a significant role in the system development. In this paper, by extending the existing work, we investigate the verification of timed Erlang/OTP components in μCRL. By using an explicit tick action in the μCRL specification, a discrete-time timing model is defined to support the translation of timed Erlang functions into μCRL. Two small examples are presented, which demonstrates the applications of the proposed approach.
Study of VOD streaming on BitTorrent

Nowadays, the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Video-on-Demand (VOD) systems knows a huge success for several reasons: a) each peer is both server and client leading to scalable system, b) it is not necessary to build and maintain infrastructures. BitTorrent is the most popular P2P file sharing protocols due to its effectiveness in the delivery of content. Thus, many VoD protocols have been proposed based on it. They investigate new ways for pieces and neighbor peers selections to assure the tight displaying time deadlines of video frames. In this paper, we present an up-to-date literature review of the main P2P VoD works based on the BitTorrent protocol. Furthermore, we propose a taxonomy of these works considering the pieces and the peers selection algorithms criterions.
Radiation hybrid mapping and comparative sequence analysis of bovine RIG-I and MAVS genes

Retinoic acid inducible gene I (RIG-I) and mitochondrial antiviral signaling (MAVS) proteins have recently been found to operate in a pathway for the detection and subsequent elimination of replicating viral genomes. Because of this innate immunity role, RIG-I and MAVS are candidates for studies of disease resistance. The objectives of this work were to (1) radiation hybrid (RH) map bovine RIG-I and MAVS and (2) perform comparative sequence analysis of partial genomic sequence from each gene. Using a bovine 5000rad RH panel, RIG-I was localized to BTA08 (LOD > 12) and MAVS was localized to BTA13 (LOD > 12). RIG-I exon 14 and partial MAVS exon five were sequenced in nine breeds and compared with available sequence from the Bovine Genome Project. RIG-I exon 14 and partial MAVS exon five were conserved in all samples examined. One T–A transversion SNP was found in intronic sequence downstream of RIG-I exon 14.
Intima-media thickness segmentation using weighted graph based active contour technique

Segmentation of ultrasound images is a challenging task due to the lower contrast and the speckle noise. Active contour is one of the most widely used techniques for ultrasound image segmentation. This method has drawbacks such as the predefined initial curve position and the number of contour points to be considered. A new active contour segmentation for extracting the intima media layer and plaque in the Common Carotid Artery (CCA) ultrasound images is presented in this paper. This paper has proposed a fuzzy weighted graph based active contour segmentation technique to overcome all these drawbacks. The proposed method is used for segmenting Intima-Media Thickness (IMT) and plaque in common carotid artery B-mode ultrasound images to assess the risk of stroke in the human subject under investigation. Using canny edge detection and connected component analysis methods, the initial contour was determined and applied as input to the proposed active contour segmentation algorithm. The proposed algorithm was compared with five conventional methods. Experimental results prove that the proposed approach has produced better results than traditional methods. The overall probability of error achieved by the proposed algorithm was 5.28%, which was very less compared to other conventional methods.
Online word‐of‐mouth: a comparison of American and Chinese discussion boards

Purpose – The important influence of peer recommendations on consumer purchases has been strongly established. However, the growth of electronic discussion boards has created a channel for online word‐of‐mouth (OWOM) between people who have never met. This study aims to examine and compare the frequency and content of postings on digital camera electronic discussion boards within US and China based websites.Methodology – Data was collected from the “Photography” discussion boards on eBay and EachNet (a China based website). A total of 552 discussion postings from 257 participants over a three month period were analyzed and coded.Findings – The analysis showed quantitative and qualitative differences in the content across the two sites. There were differences in the pattern of brand mentions across the two websites, and requests for information seeking behaviour also varied across the two sites; users of EachNet were more likely to request information, thus possibly increasing the likelihood of, and influe.
Seamless Integration of Multimodal Shader Compositing into a Flexible Ray Casting Pipeline

In the last three years a number of multi-volume GPU ray casting systems have been presented. Some of them are very powerful and provide a wide variety of features. However, these approaches are either only capable of displaying multiple modalities together without logically combining them or they lack the necessary ﬂexibility for rapid visual development. These features are fundamental for visualizing the coherent information of multimodal data. In this paper we therefore present an integrated way of visually specifying a volume rendering pipeline including a ﬂexible multimodal compositing of sampling, transfer functions, logical operators and shading. As a result the data ﬂow can be visually constructed and retraced from preprocessing through to the shader operations. Hence intuitive visual prototyping of multimodal transfer function compositing is possible at runtime.
Losartan modulation on NOS isoforms and COX-2 expression in early renal fibrogenesis in unilateral obstruction.

BACKGROUND Angiotensin II plays a central role in the initiation of renal fibrogenesis at a very early stage leading to a rapid progression in unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO). We examined the effect of an angiotensin II receptor inhibitor (AT(1)) losartan, independent from its effects on blood pressure, on nitric oxide synthase (NOS) isoforms and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression and the significance of this interaction on interstitial fibrosis in UUO. METHODS Rats underwent UUO for 24 hours or control sham operation after been treated with losartan in the drinking water at 10 mg/kg/day for 15 days. AT(1) receptor binding and distribution was determined by in situ autoradiographic study. Renal fibrosis was evaluated through the relative volume of the tubulointerstitium (Vv) measured by an image analyzer, and transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) at mRNA levels. NOS activity, expression of NOS isoforms by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay and COX-2 protein expression, were determined. RESULTS After administration of a nonhypotensive dose of losartan prevention of renal fibrogenesis was demonstrated in obstructed kidneys by means of Vv values and TGF-beta mRNA expression near controls. Decreased AT(1) receptor binding density was observed in cortex and inner stripe of the outer medulla of nontreated obstructed kidney compared to control, whereas no differences were observed in ipsilateral UUO related to obstructed kidney-treated group. The increased inducible NOS (iNOS) activity and expression of obstructed kidney medulla, increased neuronal NOS (nNOS), and endothelial NOS (eNOS) isoforms expression and COX-2 protein expression in obstructed kidney cortex showed down-regulation of iNOS, nNOS, and COX-2 with persistent levels of eNOS after losartan administration. CONCLUSION These results allowed us to infer an interstitial fibrogenesis prevention independent action of losartan, involving NOS isoforms and COX-2, in unilateral obstructive nephropathy.
Modular hierarchical feature learning with deep neural networks for face verification

Feature representations play a crucial role in modern face recognition systems. Most hand-crafted image descriptors usually provide low-level information. In this paper, we propose a novel feature learning method based on deep neural networks to obtain high-level, hierarchical representations for face verification. Learning proceeds in two phases. In the pre-training phase, we train Restricted Boltzmann Machine(RBM) networks for each modular region in the image separately. In the fine-tuning phase, in order to develop good discriminative ability, we stack the RBM networks of each region in deep architecture and combine deep learning with side information constraints in the whole image scale. Finally, we formulate the proposed method as an appropriate optimization problem and adopt gradient descent algorithm to get the optimal solution. We evaluate our method on the LFW dataset. Representations learned from the networks achieve comparable performance (93.11%) to the state-of-art method.
Examining the impact of website take-down on phishing

Banks and other organisations deal with fraudulent phishing websites by pressing hosting service providers to remove the sites from the Internet. Until they are removed, the fraudsters learn the passwords, personal identification numbers (PINs) and other personal details of the users who are fooled into visiting them. We analyse empirical data on phishing website removal times and the number of visitors that the websites attract, and conclude that website removal is part of the answer to phishing, but it is not fast enough to completely mitigate the problem. The removal times have a good fit to a lognormal distribution, but within the general pattern there is ample evidence that some service providers are faster than others at removing sites, and that some brands can get fraudulent sites removed more quickly. We particularly examine a major subset of phishing websites (operated by the 'rock-phish' gang) which accounts for around half of all phishing activity and whose architectural innovations have extended their average lifetime. Finally, we provide a ballpark estimate of the total loss being suffered by the banking sector from the phishing websites we observed.
Intersectionality and publics: How exploring publics’ multiple identities questions basic public relations concepts

As a descriptive theory, intersectionality refers to individuals’ interdependent and simultaneous identities that affect how publics confront issues. In this article, we introduce an intersectional approach to publics that complements current segmentation strategies with publics. This article complements early efforts to study multiple identities by expanding the possibilities and realities of accessing and analyzing intersectionality within our intellectual and practical discipline. Also, this article attempts to make apparent possible taken-for-granted assumptions in the research and campaign design process. This approach helps researchers and practitioners to better understand the sociopolitical contexts of public relations communication relationships that lead to the construction of identities.
Bounded Parametric Verification for Distributed Time Petri Nets with Discrete-Time Semantics

Bounded Model Checking (BMC) is an efficient technique applicable to verification of temporal properties of (timed) distributed systems. In this paper we show for the first time how to apply BMC to parametric verification of time Petri nets with discrete-time semantics. The properties are expressed by formulas of the logic PRTECTL - a parametric extension of the existential fragment of Computation Tree Logic (CTL).
Affordable visual driver monitoring system for fatigue and monotony

In this contribution we present a visual driver surveillance system to monitor the driver's head motion as well as the eye blink patterns. Based on these measured features the system is able to detect symptoms of fatigue and monotony. The main advantages of the presented system in contrast to existing ones is the usage of standard equipment to achieve a good cost-performance ratio, fast computation time, the possibility of measurements in darkness and the consideration of monotony. The image analysis is realized in a coarse-to-fine architecture. At first the driver's face is detected which is based on a boosted cascade of Haar wavelets. Then the eyes are searched in the face and occurring eye blinks measured by analyzing the optical flow of the eyes' region. The performance of the system was tested successfully under ideal and natural conditions.
Establishment of a Cell Line (CNUH-HNSCC-1) Derived from an Advanced Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Cancer cell lines are the basic material for various lines of cancer research. Diverse cancer cell lines derived from tissues of various head and neck regions are needed for biological research on head and neck cancer. However, cell lines derived from cancer of the head and neck are not common. Recently, we established and characterized a novel human squamous carcinoma cell line, CNUH-HNSCC-1. From six cases of head and neck cancer, we established one specimen that was maintained for over 50 passages. We characterized the cell line as follows: growth patterns and curve, morphology by use of phase-contrast microscopy, and tumorigenicity by implanting the cell line into nude mice and making morphological comparisons. CNUH-HNSCC-1 cells grew well in vitro even after passage 50. However, the cells failed to form tumors in nude mice. CNUH-HNSCC-1 cells could be used as a control cell line for studying the biology of head and neck cancer.
Latin Vallex. A Treebank-based Semantic Valency Lexicon for Latin

Despite a centuries-long tradition in lexicography, Latin lacks state-of-the-art computational lexical resources. This situation is strictly related to the still quite limited amount of linguistically annotated textual data for Latin, which can help the building of new lexical resources by supporting them with empirical evidence. However, projects for creating new language resources for Latin have been launched over the last decade to fill this gap. In this paper, we present Latin Vallex, a valency lexicon for Latin built in mutual connection with the semantic and pragmatic annotation of two Latin treebanks featuring texts of different eras. On the one hand, such a connection between the empirical evidence provided by the treebanks and the lexicon allows to enhance each frame entry in the lexicon with its frequency in real data. On the other hand, each valency-capable word in the treebanks is linked to a frame entry in the lexicon.
Adaptation of fibers in fast-twitch muscles of rats to spaceflight and hindlimb suspension.

The adaptation of single fibers in medial gastrocnemius (MG), a fast-twitch extensor, and tibialis anterior (TA), a fast-twitch flexor, was studied after 14 days of spaceflight (COSMOS 2044) or hindlimb suspension. Cross-sectional area (CSA) and succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), alpha-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase (GPD), and myofibrillar adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) activities were determined in fibers identified in frozen serial cross sections. Fibers were categorized as light, dark, or intermediate on the basis of myosin ATPase staining and alkaline preincubation and immunohistochemically as reacting with slow, fast, or both slow and fast myosin heavy chain monoclonal antibodies. Because there was a close relationship between these two means of categorizing fibers, all fibers were categorized on the basis of the immunohistochemical reaction. The percentage of slow- and fast-twitch fibers of the MG and TA were unchanged in either group. Mean fiber size of all fibers, irrespective of type, was unaffected in either muscle after flight or suspension. The fibers that expressed both fast and slow myosin heavy chains were smaller than control in the MG of both experimental groups. Compared with control, the SDH and total SDH activities in the MG were significantly less in suspended rats, with the fast-twitch fibers showing the largest difference. The ATPase activity in the MG was higher in flight than in control or suspended rats. There were no significant effects of flight on fibers of the TA. In contrast, the TA in suspended rats had higher GPD activities than either control or flight rats. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A Bayesian-Compressive-Sampling-Based Inversion for Imaging Sparse Scatterers

In this paper, a new approach based on the Bayesian compressive sampling (BCS ) and within the contrast source formulation of an inverse scattering problem is proposed for imaging sparse scatterers. By enforcing a probabilistic hierarchical prior as a sparsity regularization constraint, the problem is solved by means of a fast relevance vector machine. The effectiveness and robustness of the BCS-based approach are assessed through a set of numerical experiments concerned with various scatterer configurations and different noisy conditions.
Effect of cabozantinib on CYP 450 isoforms activity of rats

Cabozantinib S-malate is a vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2, c-MET, and RET multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor that has antiangiogenic and antitumorigenic properties with potential efficacy for the treatment of several cancers. In order to investigate the effects of cabozantinib on the metabolic capacity of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, a cocktail method was employed to evaluate the activities of CYP2B1, CYP2D1, CYP1A2, CYP3A2, CYP2C11. The rats were randomly divided into cabozantinib group (Low, Medium, High) and control group. The cabozantinib group rats were given 10, 20, 30 mg/kg (Low, Medium, High) cabozantinib by continuous intragastric administration for 7 days. Five probe drugs bupropion, metroprolol, phenacetin, testosterone and tolbutamide were given to rats through intragastric administration, and the plasma concentrations were determined by UPLCMS/MS. Statistical pharmacokinetics difference for bupropion, phenacetin and testosterone in rats were observed by comparing cabozantinib group with control group. Combined with PCR results, continuous 7 days-intragastric administration of cabozantinib inhibits the activities of CYP2B1 and CYP1A2 of rats. Enzyme inhibition by co-administered drugs and genetic variations of their expression can increase the risk of adverse reactions. Additionally, high dosage cabozantinib may cause hepatotoxicity.
A universal update-pacing framework for visual tracking

This paper proposes a novel framework to alleviate the model drift problem in visual tracking, which is based on paced updates and trajectory selection. Given a base tracker, an ensemble of trackers is generated, in which each tracker's update behavior will be paced and then traces the target object forward and backward to generate a pair of trajectories in an interval. Then, we implicitly perform self-examination based on trajectory pair of each tracker and select the most robust tracker. The proposed framework can effectively leverage temporal context of sequential frames and avoid to learn corrupted information. Extensive experiments on the standard benchmark suggest that the proposed framework achieves superior performance against state-of-the-art trackers.
Introduction to 'Queer Theory: Law, Culture, Empire'

This is the introduction to an edited collection. The book uses queer theory to examine the complex interactions of law, culture, and empire in relation to sexual minorities. Building on recent work on empire, it studies how law-reform efforts by sexual minorities can unwittingly advance imperial projects and how queer theory can itself show imperial ambitions. The book takes a contextual, socio-legal, comparative, and interdisciplinary approach. The authors - from five continents - study examples from Bollywood cinema to California’s 2008 marriage referendum. The chapters view a wide range of texts - from cultural productions to laws and judgments - as regulatory forces requiring scrutiny from outside Western, heterosexual privilege. The collection stands above earlier queer legal work because of the global positioning of its authors and their case studies (India, South Africa, the US, Australasia, Eastern Europe) and of its engagement with recent developments.
Analysis of the Molecular Variance at the Phenylalanine Hydroxylase (PAH) Locus

The frequencies of the different haplotypes identified at the phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) locus were analyzed for both phenylketonuria (PKU) and normal haplotypes of various European, Asiatic, Polynesian and Black American populations. These molecular variants were studied by applying a specific model of multivariate analysis of variance, allowing an estimation of components of variance at different levels of hierarchical subdivisions (intrapopulation, among different geographical groups of populations, and between PKU and normal haplotypes within populations). The results indicate that the PAH polymorphism could be appropriate to study divergence between African, European and Asiatic population groups, but is not sufficient to explain the diversity among European populations. However, the differences in PAH haplotype frequencies between PKU and normal haplotypes are statistically significant over all European populations.
Aspects dynamiques de XML et spécification des interfaces de services web avec PEWS. (Dynamic aspects of XML and web service interface specification with PEWS)

Nous nous interessons par le probleme de la semantique des mises a jour et de la coherence des bases de donnees dans differents contextes comme les documents XML et les services web. En effet, des difficultes particulieres sont a prevoir lors de la mise a jour d'une base ayant des contraintes a respecter, car, des donnees originalement coherentes par rapport aux contraintes peuvent devenir incoherentes suite aux mises a jour. Dans une premiere partie de notre travail, nous considerons la mise a jour et le maintien de la coherence d'une base de donnees XML par rapport au type (ou schema) ainsi que par rapport aux contraintes d'integrite. Nous abordons ce probleme de differentes manieres. Tout d'abord, nous proposons une procedure de validation incrementale par rapport aux contraintes, evitant de revalider les parties du document qui n'ont pas ete touchees par les mises a jour. Cette approche traite aussi bien le cas des contraintes de schema que le cas des contraintes d'integrite. Dans ce cadre, les listes de mises a jour qui violent la validite sont rejetees. Quand la validation incrementale echoue, c'est-a-dire, quand une mise a jour viole le type, deux propositions de traitement sont faites\,: (A) Une routine de correction est activee pour adapter le document XML au type tout en prenant en compte la mise a jour. La mise a jour a donc une priorite par rapport aux donnees deja stockees. (B) Une routine propose une adaptation du type du document, de facon a accepter le document mis a jour en preservant la validite des autres documents originalement valides et non soumis a la mise a jour. Dans ce cas, la mise a jour est prioritaire et les contraintes peuvent etre modifiees. Une deuxieme partie du travail considere la construction d'une plate-forme d'aide a la specification, a l'implementation et a la manipulation de services. L'idee de pouvoir specifier et modifier des compositions de services nous a amene a la definition du langage PEWS (\textit{Path Expressions for Web Services}), ayant une semantique formelle bien definie et permettant la specification du comportement des interfaces des services web simples ou composes. Pour pouvoir tester statiquement des proprietes liees a la composition des services, nous proposons l'utilisation de la theorie des traces et les graphes de dependances.