Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Scheduling Framework That Makes Any Disk Schedulers Non-Work-Conserving Solely Based on Request Characteristics

Exploiting spatial locality is critical for a disk scheduler to achieve high throughput. Because of the high cost of disk head seeks and the non-preemptible nature of request service, state-of-the-art disk schedulers consider the locality of both pending and future requests. Though schedulers adopting the approach, such as the anticipatory scheduler, show substantial performance advantages, they need to know from which processes requests are issued to evaluate locality. This approach is not effective when the knowledge about processes is not available (e.g., in virtual machine environment, network or parallel file systems, and SAN) or the locality exhibited on a disk region is not solely determined by individual processes (e.g., in the case of cooperative process groups and disk array where requested data are striped). We propose a light-weight disk scheduling framework that does not require any process knowledge for analyzing request locality. Solely based on requests' own characteristics the framework can make any work-conserving scheduler non-work-conserving, i.e., able to take future requests as dispatching candidates, to fully exploit locality. Additionally, we show how to effectively extend the framework to the disk array environment. Our design, Stream Scheduling, is prototyped in the Linux kernel 2.6. 31. With extensive experiments of representative benchmarks, and in various environments such as the Xen virtual machine and the PVFS parallel file system, we show that the proposed scheduling framework can improve their performance by up to 3.2 times.
RESOLVING THE STELLAR OUTSKIRTS OF M81: EVIDENCE FOR A FAINT, EXTENDED STRUCTURAL COMPONENT

We present a wide field census of resolved stellar populations in the northern half of M81, conducted with Suprime-Cam on the 8 m Subaru telescope and covering an area ∼0.3 deg2. The resulting color–magnitude diagram reaches over one magnitude below the red giant branch (RGB) tip, allowing a detailed comparison between the young and old stellar spatial distributions. The surface density of stars with ages ≲100 Myr is correlated with that of neutral hydrogen in a manner similar to the disk-averaged Kennicutt–Schmidt relation. We trace this correlation down to gas densities of ∼2 × 1020 cm−2, lower than typically probed with Hα flux. Both diffuse light and resolved RGB star counts show compelling evidence for a faint, extended structural component beyond the bright optical disk, with a much flatter surface brightness profile. The star counts allow us to probe this component to significantly fainter levels than is possible with the diffuse light alone. From the colors of its RGB stars, we estimate that this component has a peak global metallicity [M/H] ∼ −1.1 ± 0.3 at deprojected radii 32–44 kpc assuming an age of 10 Gyr and distance of 3.6 Mpc. The spatial distribution of its RGB stars follows a power-law surface density profile, I(r) ∝ r−γ, with γ ∼ 2. If this component were separate from the bulge and from the bright optical disk, then it would contain ∼10%–15% of M81's total V-band luminosity. We discuss the possibility that this is M81's halo or thick disk, and in particular highlight its similarities and differences with these components in the Milky Way. Other possibilities for its nature, such as a perturbed disk or the faint extension of the bulge, cannot be completely ruled out, though our data disfavor the latter. These observations add to the growing body of evidence for faint, complex extended structures beyond the bright disks of spiral galaxies.
Capturing the Biofuel Wellhead and Powerhouse: The Chloroplast and Mitochondrial Genomes of the Leguminous Feedstock Tree Pongamia pinnata

Pongamia pinnata (syn. Millettia pinnata) is a novel, fast-growing arboreal legume that bears prolific quantities of oil-rich seeds suitable for the production of biodiesel and aviation biofuel. Here, we have used Illumina® ‘Second Generation DNA Sequencing (2GS)’ and a new short-read de novo assembler, SaSSY, to assemble and annotate the Pongamia chloroplast (152,968 bp; cpDNA) and mitochondrial (425,718 bp; mtDNA) genomes. We also show that SaSSY can be used to accurately assemble 2GS data, by re-assembling the Lotus japonicus cpDNA and in the process assemble its mtDNA (380,861 bp). The Pongamia cpDNA contains 77 unique protein-coding genes and is almost 60% gene-dense. It contains a 50 kb inversion common to other legumes, as well as a novel 6.5 kb inversion that is responsible for the non-disruptive, re-orientation of five protein-coding genes. Additionally, two copies of an inverted repeat firmly place the species outside the subclade of the Fabaceae lacking the inverted repeat. The Pongamia and L. japonicus mtDNA contain just 33 and 31 unique protein-coding genes, respectively, and like other angiosperm mtDNA, have expanded intergenic and multiple repeat regions. Through comparative analysis with Vigna radiata we measured the average synonymous and non-synonymous divergence of all three legume mitochondrial (1.59% and 2.40%, respectively) and chloroplast (8.37% and 8.99%, respectively) protein-coding genes. Finally, we explored the relatedness of Pongamia within the Fabaceae and showed the utility of the organellar genome sequences by mapping transcriptomic data to identify up- and down-regulated stress-responsive gene candidates and confirm in silico predicted RNA editing sites.
Fractionation and Anti-tumor Activity of the Mycelia of Liquid-cultured Phellinus linteus

All the fractions of Phellinus linteus mycelia showed anti-tumor activity toward solid tumors planted in mice. The highest anti-tumor activity of 81.2% was observed in the protein–glucan complex obtained by precipitating the 24% NaOH extract at pH 6.0. This protein–glucan complex consisted of 39.3% polysaccharide and 49.4% protein. Its 13C- and 1H-NMR data showed that the main glucan part of the complex was simple α-1,3-glucan chains.
Thermal imaging based breast cancer analysis using BEMD and uniform RLBP

Breast cancer is the foremost cause of morbidity and mortality among womenfolk. India has 17% of world's population suffering from breast cancer. World Health Organization's International agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) estimates that more than 4,00,000 women die every year due to breast cancer. Thus early identification of breast cancer plays a vital role in reducing the mortality rate. Medical infrared thermography is gaining popularity as it can detect abnormality at an early stage when compared to mammogram. In this work an attempt has been made to distinguish healthy and pathological subjects using Bidirectional Empirical Mode Decomposition (BEMD) and uniform Rotated Local Binary Pattern (RLBP). Frontal thermogram images are pre-processed using anisotropic diffusion filtering which preserves sharp edges, fine details and effectively removes noise. Level set segmentation technique is applied on pre-processed image to obtain the required Region Of Interest (ROI). The delineated ROI's are subjected to BEMD where the image is decomposed into Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) and a residue. IMF1 is considered for further processing as it contains maximum edge information about the image. Texture analysis is performed on IMF1 using uniform RLBP technique to obtain feature vector comprising of 59 unique elements. The dimensionality of features is reduced to 20 using Kernel Principal Component Analysis (KPCA). The subjects are classified using Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM) classifier with different kernel functions and the classifier results are evaluated based on classifier performance measures. Analysis is performed on 43 healthy and 24 cancerous subjects chosen from DMR (Database of Mastology Research) database. The experimental results obtained by LSSVM classifier using Radial Basis Function (RBF) kernel with σ2=3D0.5 and γ=3D1 outstands by achieving 89% accuracy. Hence the proposed system effectively distinguishes healthy and pathological subjects.
Analysis of noninvasive macromolecular transport measurements in the lung.

Several groups of investigators are measuring transcapillary protein flux in the lung using noninvasive methods. Results from these studies are reported using several different protein transport indexes, including pulmonary transvascular transfer coefficient, relative extravascular protein, pulmonary transcapillary escape rate, protein leak index, lung transferrin index, slope index, and lung-to-heart count ratios. The purpose of this study is to discover the relationships between these indexes by employing a two-compartment theory of protein transcapillary transport in the lung. We found that all the above indexes can be related to a single index, which we call the normalized slope index. This index is the time rate of change of radioactivity originating from protein in lung interstitium divided by radioactivity arising from protein in lung plasma, normalized by this ratio at time 0, and corrected for blood volume changes. In particular the normalized slope index is shown to be the same as pulmonary transcapillary escape rate under normal sampling conditions and is relatively unaffected by changes in interstitial volume. The response of the normalized slope index to changes in microvascular pressure and microvascular permeability is explored by applying a two-pore model of the microvascular barrier. Results indicate that the normalized slope index is relatively insensitive to changes in microvascular pressure but is greatly affected by changes in microvascular permeability (i.e., changes in large-pore size or number). Since all published leak indexes are related, we would encourage all investigators in the field to adopt a single leak index. We recommend that when a two-compartment model is applied to external detection data, the results be expressed as pulmonary transcapillary escape rate. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Potentials, consequences and trade-offs of terrestrial carbon dioxide removal

For hundreds of years, humans have engineered the planet to fulfil their need for increasing energy consumption and production. Since the industrial revolution, one consequence are rising global mean temperatures which could change by 2◦C to 4.5◦C until 2100 if mitigation enforcement of CO2 emissions fails.To counteract this projected global warming, climate engineering techniques aim at intendedly cooling Earth’s climate for example through terrestrial carbon dioxide removal (tCDR) which is commonly perceived as environmentally friendly. Here, tCDR refers to the establishment of large-scale biomass plantations (BPs) in combination with the production of long-lasting carbon products such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage or biochar. This thesis examines the potentials and possible consequences of tCDR by analysing land-use scenarios with different spatial and temporal scales of BPs using an advanced biosphere model forced by varying climate projections. These scenario simulations were evaluated with focus on their carbon sequestration potentials, trade-offs with food production and impacts on natural ecosystems and climate itself. Synthesised, the potential of tCDR to permanently extract CO2 out of the atmosphere is found to be small, regardless of the emission scenario, the point of onset or the spatial extent. On the contrary, the aforementioned trade-offs and impacts are shown to be unfavourable in most cases. In a high emission scenario with a late onset of BPs (i.e. around 2050), even unlimited area availability for tCDR could not reverse past emissions sufficiently, e.g. BPs covering 25% of all agricultural or natural land could delay 2100’s carbon budget by no more than two or three decades (equivalent to ≈550 or 800 GtC tCDR), respectively. However, simultaneous emission reductions and an earlier establishment of BPs (i.e. around 2035) could result in strong carbon extractions reversing past emissions (e.g. six or eight decades or ≈500 or 800 GtC, respectively). In both cases, land transformation for tCDR leads to high “costs” for ecosystems (e.g. biodiversity loss) and food production (e.g. reduction of almost 75%). Restricting the available land for BPs by these trade-off constraints leaves very small tCDR potentials (well below 100 GtC) despite a near-future onset (in 2020). Similarly, simulated tCDR potentials on dedicated BP areas defined in a commonly used and published low emissions scenario stay below the aimed values using current management practices. Some potential may lie the reduction of carbon losses from field to end-products, new management options and the restoration of degraded soils with BPs. This thesis contradicts the assumption that tCDR could be an effective and environmentally friendly way of complementing or substituting strong and rapid mitigation efforts.
Pertussis-Specific Memory B-Cell and Humoral IgG Responses in Adolescents after a Fifth Consecutive Dose of Acellular Pertussis Vaccine

ABSTRACT In order to impede the increase in pertussis incidence in the adolescent group, a school-leaving booster dose administered at the age of 14 to 16 years will be introduced in Sweden in 2016. Preceding this introduction, an open-label, randomized, multicenter, clinical trial without a control group and with blinded analysis was performed, investigating both safety and immunogenicity. Reported here are the memory B-cell and serological responses detected in a smaller cohort (n = 34) of the 230 subjects recruited to the study. All subjects had received primary vaccination consisting of three doses of diphtheria–tetanus–5-component pertussis (DTaP5) vaccine, at 3, 5, and 12 months of age, and a tetanus–low-dose diphtheria–5-component pertussis (Tdap5) vaccine booster at 5.5 years. In this study, the subjects were randomly assigned and received either a Tdap1 or Tdap5 booster. Of the 230 participants, 34 subjects had samples available for evaluation of IgG-producing memory B-cell responses. Both vaccine groups had significant increases in pertussis toxin-specific serum IgG levels, but only the 1-component group showed significant increases in pertussis toxin-specific memory B cells. The 5-component group had significant increases in filamentous hemagglutinin- and pertactin-specific memory B-cell and serum IgG levels; these were not seen in the 1-component group, as expected. In conclusion, this study shows that a 5th consecutive dose of an acellular pertussis vaccine induces B-cell responses in vaccinated adolescents. (This study has been registered at EudraCT under registration no. 2008-008195-13 and at ClinicalTrials.gov under registration no. NCT00870350.)
The Relationship between Morning Hypertension and Sleep Quality in Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of abnormal diurnal blood pressure (BP) profiles in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) in relation to the data of a sleep study. Total 103 patients newly diagnosed with OSAS underwent overnight polysomnography and 24-hour ambulatory BP measurements. Patients without morning or nocturnal hypertension (control group), patients with morning hypertension but not nocturnal hypertension (surge-type group), and patients with both morning and nocturnal hypertension (sustained-type group) were compared. Morning hypertension was present in 54 patients (16 surge-type and 38 sustained-type). The apnea–hypopnea index and sleep efficiency were higher and lower, respectively, in the sustained-type group than in the other groups. Slow-wave sleep incidence was significantly lower in the sustained-type and surge-type groups than in the control group. These results suggest that approximately half the OSAS patients displayed morning hypertension, the sustained-type being more common than the surge-type. Poor sleep quality plays an important role in the pathogenesis of morning hypertension in both the sustained- and the surge-type group.
Use of carvedilol in hypertension: an update

β-blockers are effective antihypertensive agents and, together with diuretics, have been the cornerstone of pioneering studies showing their benefits on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality as a consequence of blood pressure reduction in patients with hypertension. However, evidence from recent meta-analyses have demonstrated no benefit afforded by atenolol compared with placebo in risk of mortality, myocardial infarction, or stroke, and a higher risk of mortality and stroke with atenolol/propranolol compared with other antihypertensive drug classes. Thus, the effect of these agents on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in hypertensive patients, especially their use in uncomplicated hypertension, has remained largely controversial. However, it is recognized that the clinical studies used in these meta-analyses were mainly based on the older second-generation β-blockers, such as atenolol and metoprolol. Actually, considerable heterogeneity in, eg, pharmacokinetic, pharmacological, and physicochemical properties exists across the different classes of β-blockers, particularly between the second-generation and newer third-generation agents. Carvedilol is a vasodilating noncardioselective third-generation β-blocker, without the negative hemodynamic and metabolic effects of traditional β-blockers, which can be used as a cardioprotective agent. Compared with conventional β-blockers, carvedilol maintains cardiac output, has a reduced prolonged effect on heart rate, and reduces blood pressure by decreasing vascular resistance. Studies have also shown that carvedilol exhibits favorable effects on metabolic parameters, eg, glycemic control, insulin sensitivity, and lipid metabolism, suggesting that it could be considered in the treatment of patients with metabolic syndrome or diabetes. The present report provides an overview of the main clinical studies concerning carvedilol administered as either monotherapy or in combination with another antihypertensive or more frequently a diuretic agent, with particular focus on the additional benefits beyond blood pressure reduction.
Immunomodulation of allergic responses by targeting costimulatory molecules

Purpose of review This review focuses on putative targets, including costimulatory and additional pathways involving T regulatory cells, that may be critical for modifying allergic responses. Recent findings Multiple costimulatory signals including CD28/CTLA4: CD80/CD86, ICOS: ICOSL, OX40:OX40L and PD-1: PD-L1/PD-L2 have been identified and implicated in the regulation of immune disorders. Recent studies indicate that T regulatory cells may also suppress T cell costimulation by the secretion of TGF-β and IL-10, suggesting an important role of T regulatory cells in the regulation of allergic disorders. Summary Immune-mediated disorders, including allergic diseases, have been increasing in prevalence. Unravelling these immune pathways may suggest new targets for immunomodulation.
Artificial Intelligence for the Interventional Cardiologist: Powering and Enabling OCT Image Interpretation

Intravascular optical coherence tomography (IVOCT) is a form of intra-coronary imaging that uses near-infrared light to generate high-resolution, cross-sectional, and 3D volumetric images of the vessel. Given its high spatial resolution, IVOCT is well-placed to characterise coronary plaques and aid with decision-making during percutaneous coronary intervention. IVOCT requires significant interpretation skills, which themselves require extensive education and training for effective utilisation, and this would appear to be the biggest barrier to its widespread adoption. Various artificial intelligence-based tools have been utilised in the most contemporary clinical IVOCT systems to facilitate better human interaction, interpretation and decision-making. The purpose of this article is to review the existing and future technological developments in IVOCT and demonstrate how they could aid the operator.
LIDAR and vision‐based pedestrian detection system

A perception system for pedestrian detection in urban scenarios using information from a LIDAR and a single camera is presented. Two sensor fusion architectures are described, a centralized and a decentralized one. In the former, the fusion process occurs at the feature level, i.e., features from LIDAR and vision spaces are combined in a single vector for posterior classification using a single classifier. In the latter, two classifiers are employed, one per sensor‐feature space, which were offline selected based on information theory and fused by a trainable fusion method applied over the likelihoods provided by the component classifiers. The proposed schemes for sensor combination, and more specifically the trainable fusion method, lead to enhanced detection performance and, in addition, maintenance of false‐alarms under tolerable values in comparison with single‐based classifiers. Experimental results highlight the performance and effectiveness of the proposed pedestrian detection system and the related sensor data combination strategies. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
APOEε4 Carriers Exhibit Objective Cognitive Deficits: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Single Center Trial

Objective: To explore the association between the apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype and objectively assessed cognitive function. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 537 participants underwent a neuropsychological assessment for cognitive function and blood testing for APOE genotype. Based on cognitive test results, participants were stratified into two cohorts: Cognitively Unimpaired participants (CU) and Cognitively Impaired participants (CI). The CI group was further divided into Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Furthermore, we conducted age stratification, categorizing participants into three age groups: age 1: <65 years, age 2: 65–75 years, and age 3: >75 years. We assessed the disparities in cognitive function associated with ε4 carrier status across different age brackets. Plasma amyloid-β levels were measured in a cohort of 294 participants to investigate potential interactions involving ε4 carrier status, diagnosis, sex, or plasma markers. Results: The APOE genotypic distribution among the 537 participants was characterized as follows: ε2/ε2 (5 participants), ε2/ε3 (67), ε2/ε4 (13), ε3/ε3 (330), ε3/ε4 (113), and ε4/ε4 (9). Allele frequencies were: ε3 at 78.21%, ε4 at 13.41%, and ε2 at 8.38%. Notably, the ε4 carrier frequency was markedly elevated in the AD group at 81.8% when compared to MCI at 32.8% and CU at 21.3% (p < 0.05). Within the Cognitively Unimpaired (CU) cohort, the sole discernible contrast between ε4+ and ε4− emerged in STT-B (p < 0.05). Within the CI group, ε4 carriers showed statistically poorer scores as compared to non-ε4 carriers in several cognitive tests (p < 0.05). Age stratification result revealed that, among ε4 carriers, cognitive function scores within the age 3 group were significantly inferior to those of age 1 and age 2 groups (p < 0.05). Plasma amyloid-β detection was applied to the 294 participants. We tested plasma amyloid-β (Aβ42) and plasma amyloid-β (Aβ40) levels and calculated the Aβ42/Aβ40 ratio. We found that among female ε4 carriers, both Aβ42 and the Aβ42/Aβ40 ratio were notably lower than their male counterparts (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The ε3/ε3 was the most prevalent among participants, succeeded by ε3/ε4 and ε2/ε3. The least prevalent were ε2/ε4, ε4/ε4, and ε2/ε2 genotypes. The ε3 was predominant, followed by the ε4 and ε2. Individuals with the ε4 allele exhibited significant cognitive impairment, with an especially high prevalence in AD group at 81.8%. The study unveils a pronounced correlation between the ε4 allele and cognitive deficits, implying its potential role in the advancement and severity of cognitive disorders, notably Alzheimer’s disease. Cognitive function declines with age in individuals carrying the ε4, and women are more affected by ε4.