Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Arbitrary Decay Rate for Euler-Bernoulli Beam by Backstepping Boundary Feedback

We consider a problem of stabilization of the Euler-Bernoulli beam. The beam is controlled at one end (using position and moment actuators) and has the ldquoslidingrdquo boundary condition at the opposite end. We design the controllers that achieve any prescribed decay rate of the closed loop system, removing a long-standing limitation of classical ldquoboundary damperrdquo controllers. The idea of the control design is to use the well-known representation of the Euler-Bernoulli beam model through the Schrodinger equation, and then adapt recently developed backstepping designs for the latter in order to stabilize the beam. We derive the explicit integral transformation (and its inverse) of the closed-loop system into an exponentially stable target system. The transformation is of a novel Volterra/Fredholm type. The design is illustrated with simulations.
Interleukin-1 as a Common Denominator from Autoinflammatory to Autoimmune Disorders: Premises, Perils, and Perspectives

A complex web of dynamic relationships between innate and adaptive immunity is now evident for many autoinflammatory and autoimmune disorders, the first deriving from abnormal activation of innate immune system without any conventional danger triggers and the latter from self-/non-self-discrimination loss of tolerance, and systemic inflammation. Due to clinical and pathophysiologic similarities giving a crucial role to the multifunctional cytokine interleukin-1, the concept of autoinflammation has been expanded to include nonhereditary collagen-like diseases, idiopathic inflammatory diseases, and metabolic diseases. As more patients are reported to have clinical features of autoinflammation and autoimmunity, the boundary between these two pathologic ends is becoming blurred. An overview of monogenic autoinflammatory disorders, PFAPA syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes mellitus, uveitis, pericarditis, Behçet's disease, gout, Sjögren's syndrome, interstitial lung diseases, and Still's disease is presented to highlight the fundamental points that interleukin-1 displays in the cryptic interplay between innate and adaptive immune systems.
Closed-form eigenstructure-based direction finding using arbitrary but identical subarrays on a sparse uniform Cartesian array grid

A sparse uniform Cartesian-grid array suffers cyclic ambiguity in its Cartesian direction-cosine estimates due to the spatial Nyquist sampling theorem. The proposed MUSIC-based or MODE-based algorithm improves and generalizes previous disambiguation schemes that populate the thin array grid with identical subarrays-such as electromagnetic vector sensors, underwater acoustic vector hydrophones, or half-wavelength spaced subarrays.
Learning to rank using evolutionary computation: immune programming or genetic programming?

Nowadays ranking function discovery approaches using Evolutionary Computation (EC), especially Genetic Programming (GP), have become an important branch in the Learning to Rank for Information Retrieval (LR4IR) field. Inspired by the GP based learning to rank approaches, we provide a series of generalized definitions and a common framework for the application of EC in learning to rank research. Besides, according to the introduced framework, we propose RankIP, a ranking function discovery approach using Immune Programming (IP). Experimental results demonstrate that RankIP evidently outperforms the baselines. In addition, we study the differences between IP and GP in theory and experiments. Results show that IP is more suitable for LR4IR due to its high diversity.
Ephrin signaling establishes asymmetric cell fates in an endomesoderm lineage of the Ciona embryo

Mesodermal tissues arise from diverse cell lineages and molecular strategies in the Ciona embryo. For example, the notochord and mesenchyme are induced by FGF/MAPK signaling, whereas the tail muscles are specified autonomously by the localized determinant, Macho-1. A unique mesoderm lineage, the trunk lateral cells, develop from a single pair of endomesoderm cells, the A6.3 blastomeres, which form part of the anterior endoderm, hematopoietic mesoderm and muscle derivatives. MAPK signaling is active in the endoderm descendants of A6.3, but is absent from the mesoderm lineage. Inhibition of MAPK signaling results in expanded expression of mesoderm marker genes and loss of endoderm markers, whereas ectopic MAPK activation produces the opposite phenotype: the transformation of mesoderm into endoderm. Evidence is presented that a specific Ephrin signaling molecule, Ci-ephrin-Ad, is required to establish asymmetric MAPK signaling in the endomesoderm. Reducing Ci-ephrin-Ad activity via morpholino injection results in ectopic MAPK signaling and conversion of the mesoderm lineage into endoderm. Conversely, misexpression of Ci-ephrin-Ad in the endoderm induces ectopic activation of mesodermal marker genes. These results extend recent observations regarding the role of Ephrin signaling in the establishment of asymmetric cell fates in the Ciona notochord and neural tube.
Bulk cryopreservation of lymphocytes in glycerol

The authors describe a method for freezing large amounts of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) in a 20 percent glycerol solution. Between 0.6 and 4.3 × 10(9) cells in autologous plasma were frozen in polyethylene freezing bags in a final volume of 50 ml. The recovery after thawing averaged 89 +/− 14 percent with a mean viability by trypan blue dye exclusion of 80 +/− 7 percent (n = 11). In aliquots of fresh and frozen‐ thawed PBL from the same subjects radiolabeled with 111In, the radiolabeling efficiency for both fresh and thawed cells was 49 +/− 15 percent (p = 0.98, n = 5). The mitogen mean stimulation indices for glycerol‐frozen cells (471 with phytohemagglutinin‐M, 176 with pokeweed mitogen, and 380 with concanavalin A) were superior to those of cells frozen by a standard technique with dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) (141, 47, and 123; p less than 0.05) and comparable to those of fresh PBL (403, 75, and 147). In a mixed lymphocyte culture, glycerol‐frozen PBL showed significantly greater responsiveness to a pool of stimulator cells than did PBL frozen in DMSO (p = 0.03). Thawed cells are viable and functional as demonstrated by their response to mitogens and their ability to stimulate and respond in mixed lymphocyte culture.
AAA in a Cloud-Based Virtual DIME Network Architecture (DNA)

The design of a cloud architecture can be difficult according the business logic complexity which Cloud Service Providers (SPs) want to achieve. This paper describes a possible solution for simplifying the design of cloud-based services exploiting a DIME Network Architecture (DNA). More specifically, exploiting the signaling channel and FCAPS of DIMEs, we discuss an approach for the management of SSO Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting in cloud-based services.
A self-organizing downlink ICIC scheme for LTE

In this paper, we propose a distributed, self-organizing, adaptive and semi-static Soft Frequency Reuse based downlink Inter-Cell Interference Coordination scheme for an LTE system to increase the throughput of cell-edge users. Cells are able to self-organize the allocation of frequency sub-bands for cell-edge users using a distributed algorithm without requiring extensive pre-planning needed for static schemes. The proposed scheme is adaptive to changes in the number and location of users in the cell and to changes in cell-edge frequency subband allocations of neighbouring cells. The changes in frequency sub-band allocations is semi-static and occurs periodically (eg. every 200 ms). We also explain how the algorithm can be implemented in an LTE system by using the existing specification and not requiring proprietary extensions to standards. Results from extensive simulation of the algorithm using the open source Network Simulator 3 show that the scheme outperforms the static Soft Frequency Reuse scheme.
MR evaluation of laryngohypopharyngeal cancer: value of gadopentetate dimeglumine enhancement.

PURPOSE To investigate the value of gadopentetate dimeglumine-enhanced MR imaging in determining the extent of laryngohypopharyngeal cancer. METHODS Unenhanced and contrast-enhanced T1-weighted, proton-density-weighted, and T2-weighted images from 24 patients with laryngohypopharyngeal cancer were reviewed and compared with the pathologic findings of resected specimens. In 18 patients, ex vivo MR images of the resected specimens were also compared with pathologic findings. RESULTS Laryngohypopharyngeal cancer showed intermediate intensity on T1-weighted and proton-density-weighted images, high intensity on T2-weighted images, and moderate enhancement on T1-weighted enhanced images. Cartilage-invaded tumor enhanced moderately, whereas unossified cartilage in contact with tumors but without tumor invasion showed no enhancement. Laryngohypopharyngeal mucosa enhanced intensely; endolaryngeal muscles enhanced less. CONCLUSIONS Enhanced MR images were more useful in assessing the extent of tumors and the presence of laryngeal cartilage invasion than were proton-density-weighted and T2-weighted images.
Utilizing Network Science and Honeynets for Software Induced Cyber Incident Analysis

Increasing situational awareness and investigating the cause of a software-induced cyber attack continues to be one of the most difficult yet important endeavors faced by network security professionals. Traditionally, these forensic pursuits are carried out by manually analyzing the malicious software agents at the heart of the incident, and then observing their interactions in a controlled environment. Both these steps are time consuming and difficult to maintain due to the ever changing nature of malicious software. In this paper we introduce a network science based framework which conducts incident analysis on a dataset by constructing and analyzing relational communities. Construction of these communities is based on the connections of topological features formed when actors communicate with each other. We evaluate our framework using a network trace of the Black Energy malware network, captured by our honey net. We have found that our approach is accurate, efficient, and could prove as a viable alternative to the current status quo.
Trading off Cache Capacity for Reliability to Enable Low Voltage Operation

One of the most effective techniques to reduce a processor's power consumption is to reduce supply voltage. However, reducing voltage in the context of manufacturing-induced parameter variations can cause many types of memory circuits to fail. As a result, voltage scaling is limited by a minimum voltage, often called Vccmin, beyond which circuits may not operate reliably. Large memory structures (e.g., caches) typically set Vccmin for the whole processor. In this paper, we propose two architectural techniques that enable microprocessor caches (L1 and L2), to operate at low voltages despite very high memory cell failure rates. The Word-disable scheme combines two consecutive cache lines, to form a single cache line where only non-failing words are used. The Bit-fix scheme uses a quarter of the ways in a cache set to store positions and fix bits for failing bits in other ways of the set. During high voltage operation, both schemes allow use of the entire cache. During low voltage operation, they sacrifice cache capacity by 50% and 25%, respectively, to reduce Vccmin below 500mV. Compared to current designs with a Vccmin of 825 mV, our schemes enable a 40% voltage reduction, which reduces power by 85% and energy per instruction (EPI) by 53%.
Statistical prediction of protein-chemical interactions based on chemical structure and mass spectrometry data

MOTIVATION Prediction of interactions between proteins and chemical compounds is of great benefit in drug discovery processes. In this field, 3D structure-based methods such as docking analysis have been developed. However, the genomewide application of these methods is not really feasible as 3D structural information is limited in availability. RESULTS We describe a novel method for predicting protein-chemical interaction using SVM. We utilize very general protein data, i.e. amino acid sequences, and combine these with chemical structures and mass spectrometry (MS) data. MS data can be of great use in finding new chemical compounds in the future. We assessed the validity of our method in the dataset of the binding of existing drugs and found that more than 80% accuracy could be obtained. Furthermore, we conducted comprehensive target protein predictions for MDMA, and validated the biological significance of our method by successfully finding proteins relevant to its known functions. AVAILABILITY Available on request from the authors.
Synthesizing view definitions from data

Given a database instance and a corresponding view instance, we address the view definitions problem (VDP): Find the most succinct and accurate view definition, when the view query is restricted to a specific family of queries. We study the tradeoffs among succintness, level of approximation, and the family of queries through algorithms and complexity results. For each family of queries, we address three variants of the VDP: (1) Does there exist an exact view definition, and if so find it. (2) Find the best view definition, i.e., one as close to the input view instance as possible, and as succinct as possible. (3) Find an approximate view definition that satisfies an input approximation threshold, and is as succinct as possible.
Manufacturing strategy and innovation in indigenous and foreign firms: an international study

This paper examines manufacturing strategy and innovation as determinants of competitiveness by comparing indigenous and foreign firms from the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS). To this end, we consider indigenous firms, those operating in their home country of origin whereas foreign firms are those who operate outside their home country in foreign host country settings. Manufacturing strategy is examined through clearly distinguished manufacturing priorities, practices and performance. This paper takes the perspective of the Resource Based View (RBV), which sees competitiveness as 'deploying resources in a distinctive way' through a combination of priorities and practices. In examining manufacturing strategy and innovation, we detected a number of differences and similarities between indigenous and foreign plants using data gathered in 17 countries. Although there is growing empirical evidence showing that international firms perform better in almost all areas than their domestic counterparts, we found that innovative firms are more competitive regardless of their origin.
E‐government and developing countries: an overview

E‐governance is more than just a government website on the Internet. The strategic objective of e‐governance is to support and simplify governance for all parties; government, citizens and businesses. The use of ICTs can connect all three parties and support processes and activities. In other words, in e‐governance electronic means support and stimulate good governance. Therefore, the objectives of e‐governance are similar to the objectives of good governance. Good governance can be seen as an exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to better manage affairs of a country at all levels. It is not difficult for people in developed countries to imagine a situation in which all interaction with government can be done through one counter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without waiting in lines. However to achieve this same level of efficiency and flexibility for developing countries is going to be difficult. The experience in developed countries shows that this is possible if governments are willing to decentralize responsibilities and processes, and if they start to use electronic means. This paper is going to examine the legal and infrastructure issues related to e‐governance from the perspective of developing countries. Particularly it will examine how far the developing countries have been successful in providing a legal framework.
Natural history of genital warts.

Genital warts were known to the ancients, and many Greek and Roman writers referred to them. The early history of the disease has recently been reviewed by Bafverstedt (1967), who pointed out that some of the early synonyms for the lesions, particularly the words 'fig' and 'condyloma', have survived into modern times. In the Middle Ages, descriptions of diseases were less precise than in the ancient world, but some of the genital lesions described (Lanfranc, 1306) may have been warts. The outbreak of syphilis in Europe at the end of the 15th century led to renewed interest in genital diseases, but at this time most genital lesions were attributed to the 'venereal poison', and no causal distinction was made between the diseases now known as gonorrhoea, syphilis, and genital warts. Even Hunter (1786), who gave a clear description of genital warts, regarded them as a manifestation of syphilis, and did not differentiate them from condylomata lata. The important recognition that genital warts comprised a disease entity unrelated to syphilis was first made by Bell (1793), and his work was later confirmed by Jourdan (1826) and Ricord (1838). But, as the belief that genital warts were due to syphilis was gradually abandoned, the erroneous view developed that they were connected with gonorrhoea (Pirrie, 1852); indeed, in the 19th century, they were sometimes referred to as 'gonorrhoeal warts'. But Aime Martin (1872) pointed out that many patients with genital warts gave no history of gonorrhoea, and after the isolation of the gonococcus in 1879 it was realised that over half of the patients with genital warts showed no sign of it (Jadassohn, 1905). Many 19th century writers thought that genital warts were caused by irritation of the epidermis by various agents such as dirt, decomposed smegma, and genital discharges (Astley Cooper, 1835; Bumstead, 1864). This 'non-specific irritant' theory was widely accepted for many years; Cronquist (1912) strongly supported it, and it was reaffirmed well into the 20th century (Kaplan, 1942).
A framework for geophysical inversions with application to vadose zone parameter estimation

Inverse modeling is a powerful tool for extracting information about the subsurface from geophysical and hydrologic data. Geophysical inverse problems are inherently multidisciplinary, requiring elements from the relevant physics, numerical simulation, and optimization, as well as knowledge of the geologic setting, hydrologic processes, and a comprehension of the interplay between all of these elements. Increasingly geoscientists are tackling complex problems that require integration of multiple types of information in order to better characterize the subsurface. However, many of the subfields of geophysics are developing simulation and inversion approaches, algorithms, and supporting software in isolation. This isolation is a barrier to quantitative integration and leads to inefficiencies in advancing interdisciplinary research. Greater efficiencies, and higher quality outcomes, could be achieved if (hydro)geophysicists had a common framework to accelerate an integrated approach. The main goal of my thesis is to organize the components of (hydro)geophysical simulations and inverse problems, and synthesize these into a comprehensive, modular framework. The development of a geophysical framework requires considering a number of disciplines and geophysical problems (e.g. electromagnetics and potential fields) to ensure generality as well as extensibility. However, the goal is also to have the framework work outside of geophysics and most notably in hydrogeology; vadose zone fluid flow
Bio-inspired vertebral column, compliance and semi-passive dynamics in a lightweight humanoid robot

This paper presents the humanoid robot Acroban. We study two main issues: 1) Compliance and semi-passive dynamics for locomotion of humanoid robots regarding robustness against unknown external perturbations; 2) The advantages of a bio-inspired multi-articulated vertebral column. We combine mechatronic compliance with structural compliance due to the use of flexible materials. And we explore how these capabilities allow to enforce morphological computation in the design of robust dynamic locomotion. We also investigate the use of compliance to design semi-passive motor primitives using the torso and the arms as a system of accumulation/release of potential/kinetic energy.
Quantitative contrast-enhanced mammography for contrast medium kinetics studies

Quantitative contrast-enhanced mammography, based on a dual-energy approach, aims to extract quantitative and temporal information of the tumour enhancement after administration of iodinated vascular contrast media. Simulations using analytical expressions and optimization of critical parameters essential for the development of quantitative contrast-enhanced mammography are presented. The procedure has been experimentally evaluated using a tissue-equivalent phantom and an amorphous silicon active matrix flat panel imager. The x-ray beams were produced by a tungsten target tube and spectrally shaped using readily available materials. Measurement of iodine projected thickness in mg cm−2 has been performed. The effect of beam hardening does not introduce nonlinearities in the measurement of iodine projected thickness for values of thicknesses found in clinical investigations. However, scattered radiation introduces significant deviations from slope equal to unity when compared with the actual iodine projected thickness. Scatter correction before the analysis of the dual-energy images provides accurate iodine projected thickness measurements. At 10% of the exposure used in clinical mammography, signal-to-noise ratios in excess of 5 were achieved for iodine projected thicknesses less than 3 mg cm−2 within a 4 cm thick phantom. For the extraction of temporal information, a limited number of low-dose images were used with the phantom incorporating a flow of iodinated contrast medium. The results suggest that spatial and temporal information of iodinated contrast media can be used to indirectly measure the tumour microvessel density and determine its uptake and washout from breast tumours. The proposed method can significantly improve tumour detection in dense breasts. Its application to perform in situ x-ray biopsy and assessment of the oncolytic effect of anticancer agents is foreseeable.
Assessing thesaurus-based query expansion using the UMLS Metathesaurus

OBJECTIVES Assess query expansion using thesaurus relationships and definitions in the UMLS Metathesaurus for improving searching performance. METHODS The queries from a MEDLINE test collection (OHSUMED) were expanded using synonym, hierarchical, and related term information as well as term definitions from the UMLS Metathesaurus. Documents were retrieved from a word-statistical retrieval system and assessed for recall and precision based on relevance judgments from the test collection. RESULTS All types of query expansion degraded aggregate retrieval performance as measured by recall and precision, although 38.6% of the queries with synonym expansion and up to 29.7% of the queries with hierarchical expansion showed improvement. CONCLUSIONS Thesaurus-based query expansion causes a decline in retrieval performance generally but improves it in specific instances. Further research must focus on identifying instances where performance improves and how it can be exploited by real users.