Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Markov model for modelling and managing dynamic trust

In this paper we propose a trust model for decision making that models both the context specific and the dynamic nature of trust. We propose to make use of the Markov model for modelling the context specific and the dynamic nature of trust. Using the Markov model, we show how we can predict the trustworthiness value of an entity in the immediate future time slot. We make use of the trust levels and the trust scales that we had introduced in an earlier publication, in this paper.
Age Related Changes in the Parasympathetic Control of the Heart

Age related impairment in the parasympathetic control of the heart is a causal component for increased risk of cardiovascular diseases like arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death in the elderly. Abnormal heart rate responses as a result of parasympathetic dysfunction have demonstrated altered sympatho vagal modulation of the heart in the elderly. Simple, bedside, non invasive ECG based tests designed by Ewing & Clarke assess parasympathetic function. These are heart rate responses to Deep breathing, Valsalva maneuver and to standing. Parasympathetic function was assessed by the above mentioned cardiovascular autonomic function tests in 60 elderly subjects above 60 years who were further grouped as young old (60-74 yrs) and old old (75-90 yrs). The results thus obtained were compared with young healthy subjects (18-33 yrs) who served as controls to study the effect of aging on the parasympathetic control of heart rate. There was a significant reduction in heat rate responses to Deep breathing, Valsalva maneuver and to standing indicating reduction in parasympathetic function in the elderly above 60 years. There was no significant difference in all the tests of parasympathetic function between the young old and the old old suggesting no further decline in parasympathetic function after 75 years. much studied. The impetus for continuing interest in this topic have come in part from the recognition that in a range of cardiovascular disorders including sudden cardiac death and ventricular arrhythmia, for all of which incidence rises with age, parasympathetic nervous system pathophysiology may be an important causal component. The Autonomic Nervous System mechanisms involved in the aging process are extremely complex and many questions concerning the neurologic effects of aging have yet to be answered. Some of the mechanisms associated with aging are pathologically induced but the distinction between these mechanisms and those that are part of the normal aging process remains somewhat cloudy (5). The importance to be able to differentiate between autonomic abnormalities which are associated with systemic diseases and those which are purely the consequence of the natural processes of aging
IMPROVE TCP PERFORMANCE IN AD HOC NETWORKS , WITH DELAY ROUTING AND PATH RESERVATION

In the present work we examine the impact of average path-delay routing (APDR) to TCP, in ad hoc networks. The route discovery algorithm is based on the lowest average-delay path, and is OLSR based. Although such an approach might seem evident for the performance of TCP, its simulation study on realistic MANET scenarios allows to draw interesting conclusions. First, the route selected by OLSR is not always the best one from the viewpoint of TCP round-trip time (RTT), so the shortest path does not necessarily guarantee the lowest delay. Therefore, a decrease on the end-to-end average is often achieved at the expense of a longer path. Even though the collision probability does not increase as a result of the increased hop count, APDR results in reducing the overall throughput. As shown, events of regular route oscillations cause packet reordering, and in the context of TCP, evoke duplicate acknowledgements (ACKs) and retransmissions. The route oscillations happen because a node cannot tell apart the delay it induces to the channel, from the total delay. Second, only the delay as a routing metric is not sufficient, without the invocation of a path reservation scheme, to avoid the route oscillations. In ad hoc networks with no mobility, we apply APDR using source routing, without changing the path during the TCP flow. With the path reservation, APDR outperforms standard OLSR and improves the throughput. In networks incorporating mobility, because the path changes due to route disconnections, packet reordering cannot be avoided. The APDR study helps to deeper comprehend the TCP behavior with respect to density and mobility, and yields for source routing, to avoid the multiple paths.
Systematic Review of the Use of Dried Blood Spots for Monitoring HIV Viral Load and for Early Infant Diagnosis

Background Dried blood spots (DBS) have been used as alternative specimens to plasma to increase access to HIV viral load (VL) monitoring and early infant diagnosis (EID) in remote settings. We systematically reviewed evidence on the performance of DBS compared to plasma for VL monitoring and EID. Methods and Findings Thirteen peer reviewed HIV VL publications and five HIV EID papers were included. Depending on the technology and the viral load distribution in the study population, the percentage of DBS samples that are within 0.5 log of VL in plasma ranged from 52–100%. Because the input sample volume is much smaller in a blood spot, there is a risk of false negatives with DBS. Sensitivity of DBS VL was found to be 78–100% compared to plasma at VL below 1000 copies/ml, but this increased to 100% at a threshold of 5000 copies/ml. Unlike a plasma VL test which measures only cell free HIV RNA, a DBS VL also measures proviral DNA as well as cell-associated RNA, potentially leading to false positive results when using DBS. The systematic review showed that specificity was close to 100% at DBS VL above 5000 copies/ml, and this threshold would be the most reliable for predicting true virologic failure using DBS. For early infant diagnosis, DBS has a sensitivity of 100% compared to fresh whole blood or plasma in all studies. Conclusions Although limited data are available for EID, DBS offer a highly sensitive and specific sampling strategy to make viral load monitoring and early infant diagnosis more accessible in remote settings. A standardized approach for sampling, storing, and processing DBS samples would be essential to allow successful implementation. Trial Registration PROSPERO Registration #: CRD42013003621.
Role of RNA polymerase IV in plant small RNA metabolism

In addition to the three RNA polymerases (RNAP I–III) shared by all eukaryotic organisms, plant genomes encode a fourth RNAP (RNAP IV) that appears to be specialized in the production of siRNAs. Available data support a model in which dsRNAs are generated by RNAP IV and RNA-dependent RNAP 2 (RDR2) and processed by DICER (DCL) enzymes into 21- to 24-nt siRNAs, which are associated with different ARGONAUTE (AGO) proteins for transcriptional or posttranscriptional gene silencing. However, it is not yet clear what fraction of genomic siRNA production is RNAP IV-dependent, and to what extent these siRNAs are preferentially processed by certain DCL(s) or associated with specific AGOs for distinct downstream functions. To address these questions on a genome-wide scale, we sequenced ≈335,000 siRNAs from wild-type and RNAP IV mutant Arabidopsis plants by using 454 technology. The results show that RNAP IV is required for the production of >90% of all siRNAs, which are faithfully produced from a discrete set of genomic loci. Comparisons of these siRNAs with those accumulated in rdr2 and dcl2 dcl3 dcl4 and those associated with AGO1 and AGO4 provide important information regarding the processing, channeling, and functions of plant siRNAs. We also describe a class of RNAP IV-independent siRNAs produced from endogenous single-stranded hairpin RNA precursors.
Surprising Arginine Biosynthesis: a Reappraisal of the Enzymology and Evolution of the Pathway in Microorganisms

SUMMARY Major aspects of the pathway of de novo arginine biosynthesis via acetylated intermediates in microorganisms must be revised in light of recent enzymatic and genomic investigations. The enzyme N-acetylglutamate synthase (NAGS), which used to be considered responsible for the first committed step of the pathway, is present in a limited number of bacterial phyla only and is absent from Archaea. In many Bacteria, shorter proteins related to the Gcn5-related N-acetyltransferase family appear to acetylate l-glutamate; some are clearly similar to the C-terminal, acetyl-coenzyme A (CoA) binding domain of classical NAGS, while others are more distantly related. Short NAGSs can be single gene products, as in Mycobacterium spp. and Thermus spp. , or fused to the enzyme catalyzing the last step of the pathway (argininosuccinase), as in members of the Alteromonas-Vibrio group. How these proteins bind glutamate remains to be determined. In some Bacteria, a bifunctional ornithine acetyltransferase (i.e., using both acetylornithine and acetyl-CoA as donors of the acetyl group) accounts for glutamate acetylation. In many Archaea, the enzyme responsible for glutamate acetylation remains elusive, but possible connections with a novel lysine biosynthetic pathway arose recently from genomic investigations. In some Proteobacteria (notably Xanthomonadaceae) and Bacteroidetes, the carbamoylation step of the pathway appears to involve N-acetylornithine or N-succinylornithine rather than ornithine. The product N-acetylcitrulline is deacetylated by an enzyme that is also involved in the provision of ornithine from acetylornithine; this is an important metabolic function, as ornithine itself can become essential as a source of other metabolites. This review insists on the biochemical and evolutionary implications of these findings.
Vygotsky and Research

1. An Introduction to the Work of L.S Vygotsky 2. Dual Stimulation and the 'Vygotsky Blocks' 3. Sociocultural Approach to Research 4. Situated Cognition and Situated Learning Research Approaches 5. Research and Distributed Cognition 6. Cultural Historical Activity Theory 7. Reflection
Adaptation of Motor Parameters in Sensorless PMSM Drives

The paper proposes an on-line method for the estimation of the stator resistance and the permanent magnet flux in sensorless permanent magnet synchronous motor drives. An adaptive observer augmented with a high-frequency signal injection technique is used for sensorless control. The observer contains excess information that is not used for the speed and position estimation. This information is used for the adaptation of the motor parameters. At low speeds, the stator resistance is estimated, whereas at medium and high speeds, the permanent magnet flux is estimated. Steady-state analysis and small-signal analysis are carried out to investigate the parameter estimation, and adaptation mechanisms are defined for the parameters. The convergence of the parameter estimates is shown by simulations and laboratory experiments. The stator resistance adaptation works down to zero speed in sensorless control.
Cooperative boosting: needy versus greedy power management

This paper examines the interaction between thermal management techniques and power boosting in a state-of-the-art heterogeneous processor consisting of a set of CPU and GPU cores. We show that for classes of applications that utilize both the CPU and the GPU, modern boost algorithms that greedily seek to convert thermal headroom into performance can interact with thermal coupling effects between the CPU and the GPU to degrade performance. We first examine the causes of this behavior and explain the interaction between thermal coupling, performance coupling, and workload behavior. Then we propose a dynamic power-management approach called cooperative boosting (CB) to allocate power dynamically between CPU and GPU in a manner that balances thermal coupling against the needs of performance coupling to optimize performance under a given thermal constraint. Through real hardware-based measurements, we evaluate CB against a state-of-the-practice boost algorithm and show that overall application performance and power savings increase by 10% and 8% (up to 52% and 34%), respectively, resulting in average energy efficiency improvement of 25% (up to 76%) over a wide range of benchmarks.
On the capacity of memoryless finite-state multiple access channels with asymmetric noisy state information at the encoders

We consider the capacity of memoryless finite-state multiple access channels (FS-MACs) with causal asymmetric noisy state information available at both transmitters and complete state information available at the receiver. Single letter inner and outer bounds are provided for the capacity of such channels when the state process is independent and identically distributed. The outer bound is attained by observing that the proposed inner bound is tight for the sum-rate capacity.
Associative Arrays: Unified Mathematics for Spreadsheets, Databases, Matrices, and Graphs

Data processing systems impose multiple views on data as it is processed by the system. These views include spreadsheets, databases, matrices, and graphs. The common theme amongst these views is the need to store and operate on data as whole sets instead of as individual data elements. This work describes a common mathematical representation of these data sets (associative arrays) that applies across a wide range of applications and technologies. Associative arrays unify and simplify these different approaches for representing and manipulating data into common two-dimensional view of data. Specifically, associative arrays (1) reduce the effort required to pass data between steps in a data processing system, (2) allow steps to be interchanged with full confidence that the results will be unchanged, and (3) make it possible to recognize when steps can be simplified or eliminated. Most database system naturally support associative arrays via their tabular interfaces. The D4M implementation of associative arrays uses this feature to provide a common interface across SQL, NoSQL, and NewSQL databases.
Cisplatin plus gemcitabine with or without vinorelbine as neoadjuvant therapy for radically treatable stage III non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Preliminary results of a randomised study of the GON (Grupo Oncológico del Norte de España).

7171 Background: The combinations of cisplatin (C) with gemcitabine (G) and/or vinorelbine (V) have shown to be effective and safe regimens in the first line treatment of NSCLC.This study was conducted to determine whether the association of V to the combination of CG (VCG) increases the efficacy and not the toxicity when compared to CG administered as neoadjuvant therapy in patients with radically-treatable stage III NSCLC. METHODS Patients (pts) ≤ 75 years old, Karnofsky index ≥ 70% and adequate haematological, renal and hepatic function are stratified by stage (IIIA versus IIIB) and randomly assigned to: C 50 mg/m2 i.v. and G 1250 mg/m2 i.v. d1 and d8 alone (CG) or in combination with V 25 mg/m 2 i.v. d1 and d8 (VCG) both regimens every 3 weeks for 3 consecutive cycles followed by definitive local treatment (LT). From December 1999 to December 2003, a Hundred and fifteen pts have been randomised and evaluated (CG/VCG); median age 57/58; median Karnofsky index 80/80; stage IIIA 19/21; stage IIIB 39/36; adenocarcinoma 27/27; squamous 26/26; anaplastic 5/4. RESULTS [Figure: see text] Five pts in CG and 6 in VCG arm developed progression disease during induction treatment with chemotherapy. Major toxicity grade 3-4 (CG/VCG; %); Anaemia (7/5) neutropenia (35/36); thrombocytopenia (4/6). Two pts in both arms developed neutropenic fever. Non haematological toxicities registered in both groups have been ≤ grade 2 except for N/Vomiting grade 2/3 seen in 19% and 25% of pts of CG and VCG respectively. Local/ distant failure has been registered (%) in 17/31 of pts in CG and 24/25 in VCG respectively. CONCLUSIONS Preliminary results show similar high efficacy associated with moderate toxicity in both groups of treatment. The study is continuing. No significant financial relationships to disclose.
Excitatory GABA Action Is Essential for Morphological Maturation of Cortical Neurons In Vivo

GABA exerts excitatory actions on embryonic and neonatal cortical neurons, but the in vivo function of this GABA excitation is essentially unknown. Using in utero electroporation, we eliminated the excitatory action of GABA in a subpopulation of rat ventricular progenitors and cortical neurons derived from these progenitors by premature expression of the Cl− transporter KCC2, as confirmed by the changes in the reversal potential of GABA-induced currents and the resting membrane potential after GABAA receptor blockade. We found that radial migration to layer II/III of the somatosensory cortex of neurons derived from the transfected progenitors was not significantly affected, but their morphological maturation was markedly impaired. Furthermore, reducing neuronal excitability of cortical neurons in vivo by overexpressing an inward-rectifying K+ channel, which lowered the resting membrane potential, mimicked the effect of premature KCC2 expression. Thus, membrane depolarization caused by early GABA excitation is critical for morphological maturation of neonatal cortical neurons in vivo.
Multi-Modal Non-Prototypical Music Mood Analysis in Continuous Space: Reliability and Performances

Music Mood Classification is frequently turned into ‘Music Mood Regression’ by using a continuous dimensional model rather than discrete mood classes. In this paper we report on automatic analysis of performances in a mood space spanned by arousal and valence on the 2.6 k songs NTWICM corpus of popular UK chart music in full realism, i. e. , by automatic web-based retrieval of lyrics and diverse acoustic features without pre-selection of prototypical cases. We discuss optimal modeling of the gold standard by introducing the evaluator weighted estimator principle, group-wise feature relevance, ‘tuning’ of the regressor, and compare early and late fusion strategies. In the result, correlation coefficients of . 736 (valence) and . 601 (arousal) are reached on previously unseen test data.
Dihydropyrimidinase and β-ureidopropionase gene variation and severe fluoropyrimidine-related toxicity.

AIMS To assess the association of DPYS and UPB1 genetic variation, encoding the catabolic enzymes downstream of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase, with early-onset toxicity from fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy. PATIENTS & METHODS The coding and exon-flanking regions of both genes were sequenced in a discovery subset (164 patients). Candidate variants were genotyped in the full cohort of 514 patients. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS Novel rare deleterious variants in DPYS (c.253C > T and c.1217G > A) were detected once each in toxicity cases and may explain the occurrence of severe toxicity in individual patients, and associations of common variants in DPYS (c.1-1T > C: p(adjusted) = 0.003; OR = 2.53; 95% CI: 1.39-4.62, and c.265-58T > C: p(adjusted) = 0.039; OR = 0.61; 95% CI: 0.38-0.97) with 5-fluorouracil toxicity were replicated.
Extract of Reishi Polysaccharides Induces Cytokine Expression via TLR4-Modulated Protein Kinase Signaling Pathways1

We have demonstrated that an extract of Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi or Ling-Zhi) polysaccharides (EORP) exerts immunomodulating activities by stimulating the expression of inflammatory cytokines from mouse spleen cells. Interestingly, via responding to LPS in genetic variation of murine macrophage HeNC2 and GG2EE cell lines, and using TLR4 Ab blockage in human blood-derived monocytic macrophages, we have found that the TLR4, but not complement receptor type 3, is a putative receptor of EORP, mediating the consequent immunomodulating events associated with IL-1 gene expression. Based on our studies of reactive oxygen species production, polymyxin B inhibition, and protein tyrosine kinase (PTK) activity, we ruled out the possibility of LPS contamination in EORP. We have found that EORP differentially modulates the protein kinase (PK)-mediated signal transduction pathways associated with inflammatory cytokine IL-1. In human macrophages and murine macrophage J774A.1 cells, EORP was found to up-regulate IL-1 secretion and pro-IL-1 (precursor of IL-1) as well as IL-1-converting enzyme expression. Specifically, EORP rapidly stimulates PTK-mediated phosphorylation, followed by induction of PKs and activation of MAPKs: ERK, JNK, and p38. Using PK inhibitors in the kinase activity assays, Western blot analyses and IL-1 ELISA, we have extensively examined and dissected the role of individual PK in the regulation of pro-IL-1/IL-1. Our findings establish that EORP-mediated signaling pathways are involved in the pro-IL-1/IL-1 regulation: PTK/protein kinase C/MEK1/ERK and PTK/Rac1/p21-activated kinase/p38.
Failover and Load Sharing in SIP Telephony

: We apply some of the existing web server redundancy techniques for high service availability and scalability to the relatively new IP telephony context. The paper compares various failover and load sharing methods for registration and call routing servers based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). In particular, we consider SIP server failover techniques based on the clients, DNS (Domain Name Service), database replication and IP address takeover, and load sharing techniques using DNS, SIP identi(cid:12)ers, network address translators and servers with same IP addresses. We describe our two-stage reliable and scalable SIP server architecture in which the (cid:12)rst stage proxies the request to one of the second stage server group based on the destination user identi(cid:12)er. We quantitatively evaluate the performance improvement of the load sharing architecture using our SIP server. Additionally, we present an overview of the failover mechanism we implemented in our test-bed using the open source MySQL database.
A coherent authentication framework for mobile computing based on homomorphic signature and implicit authentication

Mobile cloud computing is an extension of cloud computing that allow the users to access the cloud service via their mobile devices. Although mobile cloud computing is convenient and easy to use, the security challenges are increasing significantly.One of the major issues is unauthorized access.Identity Management enables to tackle this issue by protecting the identity of users and controlling access to resources. Although there are several IDM frameworks in place, they are vulnerable to attacks like timing attacks in OAuth, malicious code attack in OpenID and huge amount of information leakage when user’s identity is compromised in Single Sign-On. Our proposed framework implicitly authenticates a user based on user’s typing behavior.The authentication information is encrypted into homomorphic signature before being sent to IDM server and tokens are used to authorize users to access the cloud resources.Advantages of our proposed framework are: user’s identity protection and prevention from unauthorized access.