Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of Reverse Logistics Networks for Outsourcing Decisions Author: Characterization of Reverse Logistics Networks for Outsourcing

Strategic decisions about reverse logistics (RL) are complicated by the uncertainty of product returns. To aid firms in deciding whether to outsource RL activities, a characterization of RL networks according to two critical factors is proposed. These factors are the length of the product life cycle, which affects variability of expected returns over time, and the uncertainty of the rate of returns in each time period. Even if changes in the average return rate according to the life cycle are well understood, the variability in returns relative to the known average differs significantly depending on the product characteristics, as well as the length of each stage in its life cycle. Some of the most important RL networks in the U.S. market are classified in the proposed categories. Finally, as a first step in outsourcing decisions, several Third Party Reverse Logistics Providers that actually offer their services in some of the proposed categories are described.
Survey on Access Control for Community-Centered Collaborative Systems

The last decades have seen a growing interest and demand for community-centered collaborative systems and platforms. These systems and platforms aim to provide an environment in which users can collaboratively create, share, and manage resources. While offering attractive opportunities for online collaboration and information sharing, they also open several security and privacy issues. This has attracted several research efforts toward the design and implementation of novel access control solutions that can handle the complexity introduced by collaboration. Despite these efforts, transition to practice has been hindered by the lack of maturity of the proposed solutions. The access control mechanisms typically adopted by commercial collaborative systems like online social network websites and collaborative editing platforms, are still rather rudimentary and do not provide users with a sufficient control over their resources. This survey examines the growing literature on access control for collaborative systems centered on communities, and identifies the main challenges to be addressed in order to facilitate the adoption of collaborative access control solutions in real-life settings. Based on the literature study, we delineate a roadmap for future research in the area of access control for community-centered collaborative systems.
Effects of Feeding Hexane-Extracts of a Shochu Distillery By-Product on Skeletal Muscle Protein Degradation in Broiler Chicken

We have found that shochu distillery by-product (SDBP) contains a growth promoting factor that can be extracted with ether. In the present study, we administered hexane-extracts of SDBP (HSDBP) to broiler chickens and observed changes in skeletal muscle protein degradation in order to clarify the mechanism of growth promotion due to SDBP feeding. The pectoralis superficial muscle weight was significantly increased by HSDBP feeding. Plasma N τ-methylhistidine concentration was significantly decreased by HSDBP, showing that the rate of muscle protein degradation decreased. It was also found that the expression of mRNA of ubiquitin-proteasome system and calpain was decreased by HSDBP. These results indicate that growth promotion due to SDBP is caused by suppression of skeletal muscle protein degradation, which is related to the ubiquitin-ptoteasome system and calpain.
Performance Evaluation of Moving Small-Cell Network with Proactive Cache

Due to rapid growth in mobile traffic, mobile network operators (MNOs) are considering the deployment of moving small-cells (mSCs). mSC is a user-centric network which provides voice and data services during mobility. mSC can receive and forward data traffic via wireless backhaul and sidehaul links. In addition, due to the predictive nature of users demand, mSCs can proactively cache the predicted contents in off-peak-traffic periods. Due to these characteristics, MNOs consider mSCs as a cost-efficient solution to not only enhance the system capacity but also provide guaranteed quality of service (QoS) requirements to moving user equipment (UE) in peak-traffic periods. In this paper, we conduct extensive system level simulations to analyze the performance of mSCs with varying cache size and content popularity and their effect on wireless backhaul load. The performance evaluation confirms that the QoS of moving small-cell UE (mSUE) notably improves by using mSCs together with proactive caching. We also show that the effective use of proactive cache significantly reduces the wireless backhaul load and increases the overall network capacity.
Polyethylene glycol rinse solution: an effective way to prevent ischemia-reperfusion injury.

AIM To test whether a new rinse solution containing polyethylene glycol 35 (PEG-35) could prevent ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) in liver grafts. METHODS Sprague-Dawley rat livers were stored in University of Wisconsin preservation solution and then washed with different rinse solutions (Ringer's lactate solution and a new rinse solution enriched with PEG-35 at either 1 or 5 g/L) before ex vivo perfusion with Krebs-Heinseleit buffer solution. We assessed the following: liver injury (transaminase levels), mitochondrial damage (glutamate dehydrogenase activity), liver function (bile output and vascular resistance), oxidative stress (malondialdehyde), nitric oxide, liver autophagy (Beclin-1 and LCB3) and cytoskeleton integrity (filament and globular actin fraction); as well as levels of metalloproteinases (MMP2 and MMP9), adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) and heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1). RESULTS When we used the PEG-35 rinse solution, reduced hepatic injury and improved liver function were noted after reperfusion. The PEG-35 rinse solution prevented oxidative stress, mitochondrial damage, and liver autophagy. Further, it increased the expression of cytoprotective heat shock proteins such as HO-1 and HSP70, activated AMPK, and contributed to the restoration of cytoskeleton integrity after IRI. CONCLUSION Using the rinse solution containing PEG-35 was effective for decreasing liver graft vulnerability to IRI.
Learning Program Component Order

Successful programs are written to be maintained. One aspect to this is that programmers order the components in the code files in a particular way. This is part of programming style. While the conventions for ordering are sometimes given as part of a style guideline, such guidelines are often incomplete and programmers tend to have their own more comprehensive orderings in mind. This paper defines a model for ordering program components and shows how this model can be learned from sample code. Such a model is a useful tool for a programming environment in that it can be used to find the proper location for inserting new components or for reordering files to better meet the needs of the programmer. The model is designed so that it can be fine- tuned by the programmer. The learning framework is evaluated both by looking at code with known style guidelines and by testing whether it inserts existing components into a file correctly.
Exact laser beam positioning for measurement of vegetation vitality

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a novel application for a newly developed Technical Vision System (TVS), which uses a laser scanner and dynamic triangulation, to determine the vitality of agriculture vegetation. This vision system, installed on an unmanned aerial vehicle, shall measure the reflected laser energy and thereby determine the normalized differenced vegetation index. Design/methodology/approach The newly developed TVS shall be installed on the front part of the unmanned aerial vehicle, to perform line-by-line scan in the vision system field-of-view. The TVS uses high-quality DC motors, instead of previously researched low-quality DC motors, to eliminate the existence of two mutually exclusive conditions, for exact positioning of a DC motor shaft. The use of high-quality DC motors reduces the positioning error after control. Findings Present paper emphasizes the exact laser beam positioning in the field-of-view of a TVS. By use of high-quality instead of low-quality DC motors, a significant reduced positioning time was achieved, maintaining the relative angular position error less than 1 per cent. Best results were achieved, by realizing a quasi-continuous control, using a high pulse-width modulated duty cycle resolution and a high execution frequency of the positioning algorithm. Originality/value The originality of present paper is represented by the novel application of the newly developed TVS in the field of agriculture. The vitality of vegetation shall be determined by measuring the reflected laser energy of a scanned agriculture zone. The paper’s main focus is on the exact laser beam positioning within the TVS field-of-view, using high-quality DC motors in closed-loop position control configuration.
Dead leaves model for measuring texture quality on a digital camera

We describe the procedure to evaluate the image quality of a camera in terms of texture preservation. We use a stochastic model coming from stochastic geometry, and known as the dead leaves model. It intrinsically reproduces occlusions phenomena, producing edges at any scale and any orientation with a possibly low level of contrast. An advantage of this synthetic model is that it provides a ground truth in terms of image statistics. In particular, its power spectrum is a power law, as many natural textures. Therefore, we can define a texture MTF as the ratio of the Fourier transform of the camera picture by the Fourier transform of the original target and we fully describe the procedure to compute it. We will compare the results with the traditional MTF (computed on a slanted edge as defined in the ISO 12233 standard) and will show that the texture MTF is indeed more appropriate for describing fine detail rendering.
The Significance of Mobile Security Breaches in Terms of Their Economic Impact on Users

The issue of security in mobile devices and applications has been mostly examined from a technological perspective but not adequately from an economic point of view. In particular, the opinions of users in terms of the economic impact of mobile security breaches on them would be of great interest. This paper firstly analyses the basic mobile user types and classifies mobile services (except for phone calls) into these types. The basic user types are: (i) sporadic users, (ii) socializers, (iii) entertainment type, (iv) instrumental, and (v) advanced users. Through a survey conducted among mobile users, it is shown that the mobile user type is determined by the frequency and the variety of use of mobile services. It is also demonstrated that the perceptions of users with regard to the economic impact of mobile security breaches on them differ. These perceptions are dependent on how security breaches should be grouped. These groups are: (a) the breaches strictly related to device loss/theft, (b) those strictly related to malware attacks, and (c) those pertaining to both previous cases. This work falls in the efforts that have been made to assess the economic implications of mobile security breaches for different types of users.
Face Hallucination Using Bilateral-Projection-Based Two-Dimensional Principal Component Analysis

In this paper, we propose a new super-resolution face hallucination method based on Bilateral-projection-based Two-Dimensional Principal Component Analysis (B2DPCA). Firstly, the high-resolution (HR) face image and its corresponding low-resolution (LR) face image are projected to the HR and LR B2DPCA feature spaces, respectively. In these spaces, the linear mixing relationship between HR and LR feature is estimated from a training set. For reconstructing the HR image from the observed LR image, the LR image is firstly projected to LR feature space and then mapped to HR feature. Finally, the HR feature is reconstructed to the HR face image. Experiments on the well-known face databases show that the performance of our proposed method. The resolution and quality of the hallucinated face images are greatly enhanced over the LR ones, which is very helpful for human recognition.
On image quality enhancement in photoacoustic image reconstruction by motion compensation

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a relatively new noninvasive medical imaging modality. It is a tech- nique which is harmless for the human body and uses pulsed optical energy. The process is based on the ab- sorption of the pulse of optical energy by an object leading to local temperature increases. This temperature distri- bution leads to the generation of pressure waves, which in term can be measured outside of the object. The measured acoustical signals at the boundary of the object can be used to reconstruct the original energy absorption distribution. Reconstruction of the absorption distribution involves back projecting of the ultrasound measurements in some spatial map. Unexpected movements of the object can dis- tort this reconstruction and result in blurred images. The aim of this work is to research a technique that corrects for these unexpected and a priori unknown movements. The approach is based on tracking known landmarks in the received signal. By assuming rigidness of the object under consideration, the tracking of landmarks in the PA signal can be used to estimate small translations of the object during the signal acquisition.
Application of Evolutionary Fuzzy Cognitive Maps for Prediction of Pulmonary Infections

In this paper, a new evolutionary-based fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) methodology is proposed to cope with the forecasting of the patient states in the case of pulmonary infections. The goal of the research was to improve the efficiency of the prediction. This was succeeded with a new data fuzzification procedure for observables and optimization of gain of transformation function using the evolutionary learning for the construction of FCM model. The approach proposed in this paper was validated using real patient data from internal care unit. The results emerged had less prediction errors for the examined data records than those produced by the conventional genetic-based algorithmic approaches.
Cache-oblivious string B-trees

B-trees are the data structure of choice for maintaining searchable data on disk. However, B-trees perform suboptimally when keys are long or of variable length, when keys are compressed, even when using front compression, the standard B-tree compression scheme, for range queries, and with respect to memory effects such as disk prefetching.This paper presents a cache-oblivious string B-tree (COSB-tree) data structure that is efficient in all these ways: The COSB-tree searches asymptotically optimally and inserts and deletes nearly optimally. It maintains an index whose size is proportional to the front-compressed size of the dictionary. Furthermore, unlike standard front-compressed strings, keys can be decompressed in a memory-efficient manner. It performs range queries with no extra disk seeks; in contrast, B-trees incur disk seeks when skipping from leaf block to leaf block. It utilizes all levels of a memory hierarchy efficiently and makes good use of disk locality by using cache-oblivious layout strategies.
Behavioral/systems/cognitive Selective Increase in Representations of Sounds Repeated at an Ethological Rate

Exposure to sounds during early development causes enlarged cortical representations of those sounds, leading to the commonly held view that the size of stimulus representations increases with stimulus exposure. However, representing stimuli based solely on their prevalence may be inefficient, because many frequent environmental sounds are behaviorally irrelevant. Here, we show that cortical plasticity depends not only on exposure time but also on the temporal modulation rate of the stimulus set. We examined cortical plasticity induced by early exposure to 7 kHz tone pips repeated at a slow (2 Hz), fast (15 Hz), or ethological (6 Hz) rate. Certain rat calls are modulated near 6 Hz. We found that spectral representation of 7 kHz increased only in the ethological-rate-reared animals, whereas improved entrainment of cortical neurons was seen in animals reared in the slow-and fast-rate condition. This temporal rate dependence of spectral plasticity may serve as a filtering mechanism to selectively enlarge representations of species-specific vocalizations. Furthermore , our results indicate that spectral and temporal plasticity can be separately engaged depending on the statistical properties of the input stimuli.
Low prevalence of renal dysfunction in HIV‐infected pregnant women: implications for guidelines for the prevention of mother‐to‐child transmission of HIV

Emerging international guidelines for the prevention of mother‐to‐child transmission of HIV infection across sub‐Saharan Africa call for the initiation of a triple‐drug antiretroviral regimen containing tenofovir, a potentially nephrotoxic agent, in all HIV‐infected pregnant women at the first antenatal clinic visit. While there are significant benefits to the rapid initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in pregnancy, there are few data on the prevalence of pre‐existing renal disease in HIV‐infected pregnant women and in turn, the potential risks of this approach are not well understood.
Response inhibition in adolescents diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder during childhood: an event-related FMRI study.

OBJECTIVE Frontostriatal neural abnormalities have been implicated in the response inhibition impairments that are characteristic of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, reports of such abnormalities in adolescents are inconsistent. The present study used behavioral and functional neuroimaging techniques to examine inhibitory control processes in adolescents who had been diagnosed with ADHD during childhood. METHOD The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during performance of a Go/No-Go task to scan 10 male adolescents who were diagnosed with DSM-III-R ADHD when they were 7 to 11 years old and nine age-, sex-, and IQ-matched comparison subjects with no history of ADHD. Response inhibition was tested by contrasting neural activation during No-Go trials with that during Go trials. RESULTS The inhibition of a prepotent tendency to respond produced markedly greater activation of the left anterior cingulate gyrus, bilateral frontopolar regions, bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and left medial frontal gyrus in the adolescents with childhood ADHD than in the adolescents with no history of ADHD. Activity in the first two regions was inversely related to task performance across the study group. CONCLUSIONS Compared with adolescents who had no history of ADHD, adolescents who were diagnosed with ADHD during childhood exhibited enhanced responses during inhibition in ventrolateral prefrontal cortical areas that subserve response inhibition, as well as in anterior cingulate and frontopolar regions implicated in other executive functions.
Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Reduces Subcellular Heterogeneity of Ryanodine Receptors, T-Tubules, and Ca2+ Sparks Produced by Dyssynchronous Heart Failure

Background—Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is a major advance for treatment of patients with dyssynchronous heart failure (DHF). However, our understanding of DHF-associated remodeling of subcellular structure and function and their restoration after CRT remains incomplete. Methods and Results—We investigated subcellular heterogeneity of remodeling of structures and proteins associated with excitation–contraction coupling in cardiomyocytes in DHF and after CRT. Three-dimensional confocal microscopy revealed subcellular heterogeneity of ryanodine receptor (RyR) density and the transverse tubular system (t-system) in a canine model of DHF. RyR density at the ends of lateral left ventricular cardiomyocytes was higher than that in cell centers, whereas the t-system was depleted at cell ends. In anterior left ventricular cardiomyocytes, however, we found a similar degree of heterogeneous RyR remodeling, despite preserved t-system. Synchronous heart failure was associated with marginal heterogeneity of RyR density. We used rapid scanning confocal microscopy to investigate effects of heterogeneous structural remodeling on calcium signaling. In DHF, diastolic Ca2+ spark density was smaller at cell ends versus centers. After CRT, subcellular heterogeneity of structures and function was reduced. Conclusions—RyR density exhibits remarkable subcellular heterogeneity in DHF. RyR remodeling occurred in lateral and anterior cardiomyocytes, but remodeling of t-system was confined to lateral myocytes. These findings indicate that different mechanisms underlie remodeling of RyRs and t-system. Furthermore, we suggest that ventricular dyssynchrony exacerbates subcellular remodeling in heart failure. CRT efficiently reduced subcellular heterogeneity. These results will help to explain remodeling of excitation–contraction coupling in disease and restoration after CRT.
A monad for full ground reference cells

We present a denotational account of dynamic allocation of potentially cyclic memory cells using a monad on a functor category. We identify the collection of heaps as an object in a different functor category equipped with a monad for adding hiding/encapsulation capabilities to the heaps. We derive a monad for full ground references supporting effect masking by applying a state monad transformer to the encapsulation monad. To evaluate the monad, we present a denotational semantics for a call-by-value calculus with full ground references, and validate associated code transformations.
Dynamic Bayesian Networks for Context-Aware Fall Risk Assessment

Fall incidents among the elderly often occur in the home and can cause serious injuries affecting their independent living. This paper presents an approach where data from wearable sensors integrated in a smart home environment is combined using a dynamic Bayesian network. The smart home environment provides contextual data, obtained from environmental sensors, and contributes to assessing a fall risk probability. The evaluation of the developed system is performed through simulation. Each time step is represented by a single user activity and interacts with a fall sensors located on a mobile device. A posterior probability is calculated for each recognized activity or contextual information. The output of the system provides a total risk assessment of falling given a response from the fall sensor.
Somatolactin Transcription during Oogenesis in Female Blue Gourami (Trichogaster trichopterus)

Somatolactin (SL), a specific pituitary hormone belonging to the prolactin (PRL) super family, is involved in background adaptation, osmoregulation, reproduction and fatty acid metabolism. The goal of this study was to examine the gene transcription of SL changes in the ovary of blue gourami females (Trichogaster trichopterus) during oogenesis by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (Real-Time PCR). Somatolactin in the pituitary was higher in females at low vitellogenesis compared to females with oocytes in maturation, and the difference was significant (p < 0.05). No significant differences were found in mRNA levels between low and high vitellogenesis, and high vitellogenesis and maturation. The findings of this and previous studies demonstrate that SL, growth hormone (GH) and PRL are involved in oogenesis in blue gourami; however, considerably more studies are required in order to separate the functions of these hormones.