Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distribution and processing of a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs-4, aggrecan, versican, and hyaluronan in equine digital laminae.

OBJECTIVE To determine the expression and distribution of a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs-4 (ADAMTS-4), its substrates aggrecan and versican, and their binding partner hyaluronan in laminae of healthy horses. SAMPLE Laminae from the forelimb hooves of 8 healthy horses. PROCEDURES Real-time quantitative PCR assay was used for gene expression analysis. Hyaluronidase, chondroitinase, and keratanase digestion of lamina extracts combined with SDS-PAGE and western blotting were used for protein and proteoglycan analysis. Immunofluorescent and immunohistochemical staining of tissue sections were used for protein and hyaluronan localization. RESULTS Genes encoding ADAMTS-4, aggrecan, versican, and hyaluronan synthase II were expressed in laminae. The ADAMTS-4 was predominantly evident as a 51-kDa protein bearing a catalytic site neoepitope indicative of active enzyme and in situ activity, which was confirmed by the presence of aggrecan and versican fragments bearing ADAMTS-4 cleavage neoepitopes in laminar protein extracts. Aggrecan, versican, and hyaluronan were localized to basal epithelial cells within the secondary epidermal laminae. The ADAMTS-4 localized to these cells but was also present in some cells in the dermal laminae. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Within digital laminae, versican exclusively and aggrecan primarily localized within basal epithelial cells and both were constitutively cleaved by ADAMTS-4, which therefore contributed to their turnover. On the basis of known properties of these proteoglycans, it is possible that they can protect the basal epithelial cells of horses from biomechanical and concussive stress.
Joint Eurographics -ieee Tcvg Symposium on Visualization (2003) Isoslider: a System for Interactive Exploration of Isosurfaces

We present ISOSLIDER, a system for interactive exploration of isosurfaces of a scalar field. Our algorithm focuses on fast update of isosurfaces for interactive display as a user makes small changes to the isovalue of the desired surface. We exploit the coherence of this update. Larger changes are supported as well. The update to the isosur-face is made at a correct level of detail so that not too many operations need be performed nor too many triangles need be rendered. ISOSLIDER does not need to retain the entire volume in the main memory and stores most data out of core. The central idea of the ISOSLIDER algorithm is to determine salient isovalues where surface topology changes and pre-encode these changes so as to facilitate fast updates to the triangulation.
On Two Generalized Connectivities of Graphs

Abstract The concept of generalized k-connectivity κk(G), mentioned by Hager in 1985, is a natural generalization of the path-version of the classical connectivity. The pendant tree-connectivity τk(G) was also introduced by Hager in 1985, which is a specialization of generalized k-connectivity but a generalization of the classical connectivity. Another generalized connectivity of a graph G, named k-connectivity κ′k(G), introduced by Chartrand et al. in 1984, is a generalization of the cut-version of the classical connectivity. In this paper, we get the lower and upper bounds for the difference of κ′k(G) and τk(G) by showing that for a connected graph G of order n, if κ′k(G) ≠ n − k + 1 where k ≥ 3, then 1 ≤ κ′k(G) − τk(G) ≤ n − k; otherwise, 1 ≤ κ′k(G) ‘− τk(G) ≤ n − k + 1. Moreover, all of these bounds are sharp. We get a sharp upper bound for the 3-connectivity of the Cartesian product of any two connected graphs with orders at least 5. Especially, the exact values for some special cases are determined. Among our results, we also study the pendant tree-connectivity of Cayley graphs on Abelian groups of small degrees and obtain the exact values for τk(G), where G is a cubic or 4-regular Cayley graph on Abelian groups, 3 ≤ k ≤ n.
An Approach To Estimate Function Point Analysis Using Unadjusted Function Points And Value Adjustment Factor

Function point analysis was developed by Albercht. In this approach, we calculate unadjusted function point by obtaining formulated parameter values for all the five parameters namely: ILF, EIF, EO, and EQ, EI based on the complexity and assign the value for each. After calculating the five parameters, the UAF value is obtained. On the other side, we calculate value adjustment factor by observing fourteen different characteristics and assigning a value to each characteristic based on its degree of influence. Finally unadjusted function point is multiplied by value adjustment factor which results in Function point analysis. The main reason in carrying out this approach as it reduces the risk of "inflation" of the created lines of code, and thus reducing the value of the measurement system, if developers are incentivized to be more productive. FP advocates refer to this as measuring the size of the solution instead of the size of the problem.
Resection for bronchial carcinoma in the elderly

The results of surgery for carcinoma of the bronchus among an elderly population are reviewed in relation to the total number of cases seen. Although there is a 20% operative hospital mortality, nevertheless a survival rate of 39% for four years makes surgery in the elderly worthwhile. The span of life in untreated cases is even less than in the younger age groups.
Automated image analysis of corneal structures in anterior-segment optical coherence tomography and in-vivo confocal microscopy images

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive imaging modality that has significantly contributed to the quantitative assessment of ocular diseases. Another tool available to ophthalmic clinicians is in-vivo confocal microscopy, which allows anatomical structures to be observed live at the cellular level. Incorporating both of these modalities for imaging the cornea allows us to take structural measurements to characterize disease-related changes in corneal anatomy. Notable diseases that directly impact or correlate with corneal structures include glaucoma and diabetic neuropathy. Given glaucoma’s impact as the second leading cause of blindness in the world, great efforts have been made in researching and understanding the disease. Correlations have been found between the central corneal thickness (CCT) and the risk of developing visual field loss in patients diagnosed with glaucoma. It should come as no surprise that measuring CCT among glaucoma suspects has also now become a clinical standard of practice. Diabetes is a group of metabolic diseases where the body experiences high blood sugar levels over prolonged periods of time. It is a prominent disease that affects millions of Americans each day. While not necessarily an ocular disease in its own right, it has been shown that diabetes can still affect the corneal structures. Diabetics have decreased corneal sensitivity and a significant link has been established between neuropathic severity in diabetic patients and corneal nerve fiber density. Given the availability of these imaging tools and the significant impact these prominent diseases have on society, a growing focus has developed on relating corneal structure measurements and ophthalmic diseases. However, manually acquiring structural measures of the cornea can be a labor-intensive and daunting task. Hence, experts have sought to develop automatic alternatives. The goals of our work include the ability to automatically segment the corneal structures from anterior segmentoptical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) and in-vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) to provide useful structural information from the cornea.
Fe3O4 Nanowire Arrays on Flexible Polypropylene Substrates for UV and Magnetic Sensing

The in situ growth of one-dimensional magnetite (Fe3O4) nanowire (NW) arrays with deterministic and tunable control over their orientation and morphology on a wide range of flexible and low heat resistance substrates is still a challenge. Herein, a facile method of controlling the orientation of Fe3O4 NW arrays on a polypropylene (PP) nonwoven fabric surface (PP-g-PAO/Fe3O4) through simultaneous radiation induced graft polymerization and coprecipitation processes was realized. We demonstrated a control over the orientation and geometric properties of coprecipitated Fe3O4 NWs via complex iron ion using amidoxime groups, which not only endow the material with high durability but also lead to the oriented growth of Fe3O4 NWs. The results showed that Fe3O4 NWs were only grown on the surface of the PP nonwoven fabric (length:diameter ratio ≈ 10), whereas the Fe3O4 produced in the solution exhibited a spherical structure under identical conditions. The PP-g-PAO/Fe3O4 composite presented a good saturated magneti.
Countering byzantine attacks in cognitive radio networks

Collaborative (or distributed) spectrum sensing has been shown to have various advantages in terms of spectrum utilization and robustness in cognitive radio networks (CRNs). The data fusion scheme is a key component of collaborative spectrum sensing. We have recently analyzed the problem of Byzantine attacks in CRNs, where malicious users send false sensing data to the fusion center (FC) leading to an increased probability of spectrum sensing error. In this paper, we propose a novel and easy to implement technique to counter Byzantine attacks in CRNs. In this approach, the FC identifies the attackers and removes them from the data fusion process. Our analysis indicates that the proposed scheme is robust against Byzantine attacks and can successfully remove the Byzantines in a short time span.
Definition of disease-risk stratification groups in childhood medulloblastoma using combined clinical, pathologic, and molecular variables.

PURPOSE Medulloblastomas are heterogeneous and include relatively good-prognosis tumors characterized by Wnt pathway activation, as well as those that cannot be successfully treated with conventional therapy. Developing a practical therapeutic stratification that allows accurate identification of disease risk offers the potential to individualize adjuvant therapy and to minimize long-term adverse effects in a subgroup of survivors. METHODS Using formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue for immunohistochemistry, fluorescent in situ hybridization, and direct sequencing to identify tumors with a Wnt pathway signature and those harboring copy number abnormalities (CNAs) of potential prognostic significance (MYC/MYCN amplification, CNAs of chromosome 6 and 17), we evaluated clinical, pathologic, and molecular outcome indicators and stratification models in a cohort (n = 207) of patients with medulloblastoma 3 to 16 years of age from the International Society of Pediatric Oncology CNS9102 (PNET3) trial. RESULTS Metastatic disease and large-cell/anaplastic (LC/A) phenotype were the clinicopathologic variables associated with poor progression-free survival (PFS). Nuclear immunoreactivity for β-catenin, CTNNB1 mutation, and monosomy 6 all identified a group of good-prognosis patients. MYC amplification was associated with poor outcome, but other CNAs were not. Low-risk medulloblastomas were defined as β-catenin nucleopositive tumors without metastasis at presentation, LC/A phenotype, or MYC amplification. High-risk medulloblastomas were defined as tumors with metastatic disease, LC/A phenotype, or MYC amplification. Low-risk, standard-risk, and high-risk categories of medulloblastoma had significantly (P < .0001) different outcomes. CONCLUSION Integrating assays of molecular biomarkers undertaken on routinely collected diagnostic FFPE tissue into stratification schemes for medulloblastoma alongside clinical and pathologic outcome indicators can refine current definition of disease risk and guide adjuvant therapy.
Discovering shilling groups in a real e-commerce platform

Purpose – With the popularity of e-commerce, shilling attack is becoming more rampant in online shopping websites. Shilling attackers publish mendacious ratings as well as reviews for promoting or suppressing target products. The purpose of this paper is to investigate group shilling, a new typed shilling attack, behavior in a real e-commerce platform (e.g. Amazon.cn). Design/methodology/approach – Several behavioral features are proposed for modeling the shilling group, and thus an unsupervised ranking method based on principal component analysis (PCA) is presented for identifying shilling groups from real users on Amazon.cn. Findings – As indicated by the behavior analysis, the proposed method has successfully identified a number of shilling groups on Amazon. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the proposed features and accuracy of the proposed unsupervised method are carefully validated. Originality/value – This paper presents a set of solutions for discovering shilling groups when the ground truth labels .
Additive Manufacturing of Free Standing Structure from Thermally Cured Resins

3D printing or Additive Manufacturing is a class of manufacturing processes for creating three-dimensional objects. In an additive manufacturing process, an object is fabricated by printing multilayers of material successively until the final desired size of an object is obtained. The 3D printing technology can be used for both rapid and functional prototyping as well as small batch production. Stereolithography, Selective Laser Sintering and Fused Deposition Modeling are three common technologies for 3D printing of plastics which employ photosensitive resins or thermoplastic materials as a printing material. Laser and heat are the energy sources in these technologies. In this research, a novel additive manufacturing technology using high intensity ultrasound as the energy source is introduced. Commercial thermally cured resin will be employed as a printing material. For a better understanding of developing a method for 3D printing of this kind of resin, the numerical analysis of the process is performed. In order to get familiar with the 3D printing process, a simple CAD model of an object is printed using one of the commercial 3D printers which work based on the stereolithography technology. Using the simulation results and finding the quality of 3D printed parts produced by a mentioned standard 3D printer, the employed setup for performing experiments will be introduced. Then, the obtained results from experiments are presented. Experiment results are utilized to find the optimum condition for performing the 3D printing with this new technology. Therefore, by applying the optimum conditions and using selected resin, a simple 3D object will be printed. The printing process takes about 10 minutes which is the fastest time for 3D printing. Measured dimensions of a product show that the resolution of printed part is affected by a size of a focal region, accuracy in determination of its location during the process, and streaming inside the cavity.
Host-guest complexes with protein-ligand-like affinities: computational analysis and design.

It has recently been discovered that guests combining a nonpolar core with cationic substituents bind cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) in water with ultrahigh affinities. The present study uses the Mining Minima algorithm to study the physics of these extraordinary associations and to computationally test a new series of CB[7] ligands designed to bind with similarly high affinity. The calculations reproduce key experimental observations regarding the affinities of ferrocene-based guests with CB[7] and beta-cyclodextrin and provide a coherent view of the roles of electrostatics and configurational entropy as determinants of affinity in these systems. The newly designed series of compounds is based on a bicyclo[2.2. 2]octane core, which is similar in size and polarity to the ferrocene core of the existing series. Mining Minima predicts that these new compounds will, like the ferrocenes, bind CB[7] with extremely high affinities.
Intraspecific Signals Inducing Aggregation in Periplaneta americana (Insecta: Dictyoptera)

ABSTRACT Chemical communication is necessary to induce aggregation and to maintain the cohesion of aggregates in Periplaneta americana (L.) cockroaches. We aimed to identify the chemical message inducing aggregation in this species. Two types of bioassays were used—binary choice tests in Petri dishes and tests in Y-olfactometer. Papers conditioned by direct contact of conspecifics induce aggregation when proposed in binary choice tests and were attractive in a Y-olfactometer. The identification of the molecules present on these conditioned papers indicated that dichloromethane extracts contained mainly cuticular hydrocarbons whereas methanol extracts contained more volatile molecules. Only a mixture of extracts in both solvents induced aggregation. High concentrations of cuticular hydrocarbons are necessary to induce aggregation when presented alone. When presented with volatile molecules present in methanol extracts, low concentrations of cuticular hydrocarbons are sufficient to induce aggregation if they are presented in contact. Among volatile molecules collected on filter paper, a mixture of three compounds—hexadecanoic acid, pentadecanoic acid, and pentaethylene glycol—induced aggregation. Our results provide evidence that aggregation processes in P. americana relies on a dual mechanism: attraction over long distances by three volatile molecules and maintenance on site by contact with cuticular hydrocarbons.
Substituent effects on photosensitized splitting of thymine cyclobutane dimer by an attached indole.

In chromophore-containing cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (CPD) model systems, solvent effects on the splitting efficiency may depend on the length of the linker, the molecular conformation, and the oxidation potential of the donor. To further explore the relationship between chromophore structure and splitting efficiency, we prepared a series of substituted indole-T< >T model compounds 2 a-2 g and measured their splitting quantum yields in various solvents. Two reverse solvent effects were observed: an increase in splitting efficiency in solvents of lower polarity for models 2 a-2 d with an electron-donating group (EDG), and vice versa for models 2 e-2 g with an electron-withdrawing group (EWG). According to the Hammett equation, the negative value of the slope of the Hammett plot indicates that the indole moiety during the T< >T-splitting reaction loses negative charge, and the larger negative value implies that the repair reaction is more sensitive to substituent effects in low-polarity solvents. The EDGs of the models 2 a-2 d can delocalize the charge-separated state, and low-polarity solvents make it more stable, which leads to higher splitting efficiency in low-polarity solvents. Conversely, the EWGs of models 2 e-2 g favor destabilization of the charge-separated state, and high-polarity solvents decrease the destabilization and hence lead to more efficient splitting in high-polarity solvents.
High-level polymetric views of condensed run-time information

Understanding the run-time behavior of object-oriented legacy systems is a complex task due to factors such as late binding and polymorphism. Current approaches extract and use information from the complete execution trace of a system. The sheer size and complexity of such traces make their handling, storage, and analysis difficult. Current software systems which run almost nonstop do not permit such a full analysis. In this paper we present a lightweight approach based on the extraction of a condensed amount of information, e.g., measurements, that does not require a full trace. Using this condensed information, we propose a visualization approach which allows us to identify and understand certain aspects of the objects' lifetime such as their role played in the creation of other objects and the communication architecture they support.
Individual Variation in Field Metabolic Rate of Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) during the Chick‐Rearing Period

Field metabolic rate (FMR), using the doubly labelled water (DLW) method, was measured in free‐ranging adult kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) early and late in the chick‐rearing period at Svalbard, Norway. Individual variation in FMR was analysed by comparing FMR with body mass, sex, nest attendance, chick age, brood size, and basal metabolic rate (BMR). Mean FMR of kittiwakes during the chick‐rearing period was \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape $$27.0\pm 0.9$$ \end{document} (SE) W kg−1, while the individual variation (calculated as coefficient of variation [CV]) in FMR was 24%. Sex, time spent away from the nest, age of the chicks, and brood size contributed significantly to FMR and explained 65% of the variation in FMR. The FMR increased by 32% from early until late in the chick‐rearing period. This occurred simultaneously with an increase in the time spent away from the nest. In 15 of 20 pairs, one of the mates had 15% or higher (mean of the 15 pairs, \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape $$22\% \pm 8\% $$ \end{document} ) FMR (W kg−1) than their partner, even though the mates spent equal amounts of time away from the nest. This indicates an intrapair conflict in FMR. The variation in total FMR of pairs was 40% less than the individual variation, and total FMR of pairs increased with age of the chicks. This indicates that the mates adjust their energy expenditure within a relatively constant FMR determined by the energy needs of the chicks. Individual variation in FMR could not be explained by variation in body mass or BMR. BMR measured late in the chick‐rearing period was 26% lower than previous measurements of BMR from the prebreeding and incubation periods. The increase in FMR and simultaneous decrease in BMR caused a 40% increase in metabolic intensity (FMR/BMR) of kittiwakes during the chick‐rearing period. It is suggested that the metabolic intensity is not a proper measure of the metabolic load in seabirds.