Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Feature Detection for Haptic Exploration with Robotic Fingers

The authors consider the detection of small surface features, such as cracks, bumps, and ridges, on the surface of an object during haptic exploration and dexterous manipulation. Surface feature definition and detection are essential for intelligent haptic exploration and modeling of unknown objects. First, the authors review the representation of object surface geometry and present definitions of features based on local surface curvature. These definitions depend on both the geometry of the robot fingertips and the object being explored. It is also shown that the trajectory traced by a round fingertip rolling or sliding over the object surface has some intrinsic properties that facilitate feature detection. Several algorithms for feature detection based on feature definitions are described and compared, and simulated and experimental results are presented for feature detection using a hemispherical fingertip equipped with a tactile sensor.
The herpes simplex virus 1 RNA binding protein US11 is a virion component and associates with ribosomal 60S subunits

The herpes simplex virus 1 US11 gene encodes a site- and conformation-specific RNA binding regulatory protein. We fused the coding sequence of this protein with that of beta-galactosidase, expressed the chimeric gene in Escherichia coli, and purified a fusion protein which binds RNA in the same way as the infected cell protein. The fusion protein was used to generate anti-US11 monoclonal antibody. Studies with this antibody showed that US11 protein is a viral structural protein estimated to be present in 600 to 1,000 copies per virion. The great majority of cytoplasmic US11 protein was found in association with the 60S subunit of infected cell ribosomes. US11 protein associates with ribosomes both late in infection at the time of its synthesis and at the time of infection after its introduction into the cytoplasm by the virion. US11 protein expressed in an uninfected cell line stably transfected with the US11 gene associates with ribosomal 60S subunits and localizes to nucleoli, suggesting that US11 protein requires no other viral functions for these associations.
Leader-Follower MDP Models with Factored State Space and Many Followers - Followers Abstraction, Structured Dynamics and State Aggregation

The Leader-Follower Markov Decision Processes (LFMDP) framework extends both Markov Decision Processes (MDP) and Stochastic Games. It provides a model where an agent (the leader) can influence a set of other agents (the followers) which are playing a stochastic game, by modifying their immediate reward functions, but not their dynamics. It is assumed that all agents act selfishly and try to optimize their own long-term expected reward. Finding equilibrium strategies in a LF-MDP is hard, especially when the joint state space of followers is factored. In this case, it takes exponential time in the number of followers. Our theoretical contribution is threefold. First, we analyze a natural assumption (substitutability of followers), which holds in many applications. Under this assumption, we show that a LF-MDP can be solved exactly in polynomial time, when deterministic equilibria exist for all games encountered in the LF-MDP. Second, we show that an additional assumption of sparsity of the problem dynamics allows us to decrease the exponent of the polynomial. Finally, we present a stateaggregation approximation, which decreases further the exponent and allows us to approximately solve large problems. We empirically validate the LF-MDP approach on a class of realistic animal disease control problems. For problems of this class, we find deterministic equilibria for all games. Using our first two results, we are able to solve the exact LF-MDP problem with 15 followers (compared to 6 or 7 in the original model). Using state-aggregation, problems with up to 50 followers can be solved approximately. The approximation quality is evaluated by comparison with the exact approach on problems with 12 and 15 followers.
Microgravity Induces Changes in Microsome-Associated Proteins of Arabidopsis Seedlings Grown on Board the International Space Station

The “GENARA A” experiment was designed to monitor global changes in the proteome of membranes of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings subjected to microgravity on board the International Space Station (ISS). For this purpose, 12-day-old seedlings were grown either in space, in the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) under microgravity or on a 1 g centrifuge, or on the ground. Proteins associated to membranes were selectively extracted from microsomes and identified and quantified through LC-MS-MS using a label-free method. Among the 1484 proteins identified and quantified in the 3 conditions mentioned above, 80 membrane-associated proteins were significantly more abundant in seedlings grown under microgravity in space than under 1 g (space and ground) and 69 were less abundant. Clustering of these proteins according to their predicted function indicates that proteins associated to auxin metabolism and trafficking were depleted in the microsomal fraction in µg space conditions, whereas proteins associated to stress responses, defence and metabolism were more abundant in µg than in 1 g indicating that microgravity is perceived by plants as a stressful environment. These results clearly indicate that a global membrane proteomics approach gives a snapshot of the cell status and its signaling activity in response to microgravity and highlight the major processes affected.
On Encrypting and Signing Binary XML Messages in the Wireless Environment

In the wireless world there has been much interest in alternate serialization formats for XML data, mostly driven by the weak capabilities of both devices and networks. However, an alternate serialization format is not easily made compatible with XML security features such as encryption and signing. We consider here ways to integrate an alternate format with security, and present a solution that we see as a viable alternative. In addition to this, we present extensive performance measurements, including ones on a mobile phone, on the effect of an alternate format when using XML-based security. These measurements indicate that, in the wireless world, reducing message sizes is the most pressing concern, and that processing efficiency gains of an alternate format are a much lesser concern
A Similarity Search Method for Encrypted Cloud Document

The increasing popularity of cloud computing makes the data owner to outsource sensitive data in encrypted form onto the cloud. To tackle the problem of searching over encrypted cloud data, many keyword-based searchable encryption schemes have been proposed. However, there are few document-based search schemes in this field, which are also important in real applications. In this paper, we use the simhash algorithm to realizing similarity search over encrypted document with privacy-preserving. Through our method, data users can find similar encrypted documents stored in cloud by querying a document. In addition, a trie-based index is adopted in our solution to improve search efficiency.
CRF and urocortin peptides as modulators of energy balance and feeding behavior during stress

Early on, corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), a hallmark brain peptide mediating many components of the stress response, was shown to affect food intake inducing a robust anorexigenic response when injected into the rodent brain. Subsequently, other members of the CRF signaling family have been identified, namely urocortin (Ucn) 1, Ucn 2, and Ucn 3 which were also shown to decrease food intake upon central or peripheral injection. However, the kinetics of feeding suppression was different with an early decrease following intracerebroventricular injection of CRF and a delayed action of Ucns contrasting with the early onset after systemic injection. CRF and Ucns bind to two distinct G-protein coupled membrane receptors, the CRF1 and CRF2. New pharmacological tools such as highly selective peptide CRF1 or CRF2 agonists or antagonists along with genetic knock-in or knock-out models have allowed delineating the primary role of CRF2 involved in the anorexic response to exogenous administration of CRF and Ucns. Several stressors trigger behavioral changes including suppression of feeding behavior which are mediated by brain CRF receptor activation. The present review will highlight the state-of-knowledge on the effects and mechanisms of action of CRF/Ucns-CRF1/2 signaling under basal conditions and the role in the alterations of food intake in response to stress.
Identifying Novel Lignocellulosic Processing Enzymes from Cellulomonas fimi using Transcriptomic, Proteomic and Evolution Adaptive Studies

The declining reserves of fossil fuel twined with an increasing concern about the environmental consequences of burning these fuels and rising carbon dioxide levels, means that a more sustainable replacement is required. Lignocellulosic biomass is an attractive candidate that has been shown to be the best sustainable alternative source to produce bioethanol for liquid transportation fuels. It has enormous availability, is renewable and cost-effective. As an agricultural residue, it does not compete with food production. However, lignocellulosic biomass of plant cell walls is composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, which are extremely resistant to digestion. Converting this biomass to useful products of fermentable sugars for bioethanol production has met with little success as harsh pretreatment and costly enzyme applications are required. An arsenal of enzymes and a synergistic mechanism are required to deconstruct recalcitrant lignocellulosic biomass for an efficient production of lignocellulosic bioethanol. To achieve this goal, this study used transcriptomic and proteomic approaches with the objective of identifying new genes and enzymes involved in lignocellulose degradation. This revealed that the only one AA10 of Cellulomonas fimi was among the highest enzymes identified during the degradation of cellulose. Another other 20 hypothetical proteins co-expressed with CAZymes have been identified including a potentially exclusively new C. fimi β-glucosidase (PKDP1) that contains a PKD-domain and oxidoreductase predicted function of PQQ-domain. A naturally mutagenized C. fimi population also was screened from an adaptive evolution experiment involving exposure to a wheat straw environment. One of the strains in the adaptive population (Strain-6) showed a higher association with wheat straw biomass, which may be an indication of the strategy that being used by the adapted strain to tackle obstinate substrates to sustain growth. These results show many new enzymes would be revealed from the C. fimi repertoire in order to have a better enzymatic cocktails for lignocellulose breakdown. For the future, this encourages a deeper understanding of lignocellulose deconstruction mechanisms by an orchestra of multiple enzymes in a bacterial system.
The association between periodontitis and sleep duration

AIM Due to its potential to influence systemic inflammation and oxidative stress, and to predispose to bacterial infections, sleep duration could potentially be a risk factor for periodontitis. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate if there was in 2012 an association between periodontitis and sleep duration in a representative sample of the South Korean population. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 5812 subjects representative of 39.4 million of adults were examined. Multivariate logistic regressions were applied controlling for age, gender, education, smoking status, alcoholism and consumption frequency of coffee, tea, chocolate and red wine. RESULTS Compared to the group sleeping ≤5 h/day, the adjusted odds ratios for periodontitis prevalence defined as Community Periodontal Index (CPI) = 4 were OR = 2.46 (95% CI: 1.20-5.06) in the 6 h/day sleepers group, OR = 2.66 (95% CI: 1.35-5.25) in the 7 h/day sleepers group, OR = 2.29 (95% CI: 1.13-4.63) in the 8 h/day sleepers group and OR = 4.27 (95% CI: 1.83-9.97) in the ≥9 h/day sleepers group. The association has shown to be highlighted in middle-aged people, females, non-smokers, lower educated, with lower lead and higher cadmium blood levels and with higher carotene dietary intake ones and to be partially mediated by lipid profile alterations, diabetes, serum Vitamin D levels and WBC count. CONCLUSIONS A novel, direct and independent association between sleep duration and the prevalence of periodontitis was found. However, it needs to be investigated how the factors influencing the sleep duration affect this association.
Up-Regulation of 1-Deoxy-d-Xylulose-5-Phosphate Synthase Enhances Production of Essential Oils in Transgenic Spike Lavender1

Spike lavender (Lavandula latifolia) is an aromatic shrub cultivated worldwide for the production of essential oils. The major constituents of these oils are monoterpenes, which are obtained from isopentenyl diphosphate and dimethylallyl diphosphate precursors through the plastidial methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway and/or the cytosolic mevalonate pathway. 1-Deoxy-d-xylulose-5-P synthase (DXS) catalyzes the first step of the MEP pathway. A cDNA coding for the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) DXS was constitutively expressed in spike lavender. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analyses revealed that transgenic plants accumulated significantly more essential oils compared to controls (from 101.5% to 359.0% and from 12.2% to 74.1% yield increase compared to controls in leaves and flowers, respectively). T0 transgenic plants were grown for 2 years, self-pollinated, and the T1 seeds obtained. The inheritance of the DXS transgene was studied in the T1 generation. The increased essential oil phenotype observed in the transgenic T0 plants was maintained in the progeny that inherited the DXS transgene. Total chlorophyll and carotenoid content in DXS progenies that inherited the transgene depended on the analyzed plant, showing either no variation or a significant decrease in respect to their counterparts without the transgene. Transgenic plants had a visual phenotype similar to untransformed plants (controls) in terms of morphology, growth habit, flowering, and seed germination. Our results demonstrate that the MEP pathway contributes to essential oil production in spike lavender. They also demonstrate that the DXS enzyme plays a crucial role in monoterpene precursor biosynthesis and, thus, in essential oil production in spike lavender. In addition, our results provide a strategy to increase the essential oil production in spike lavender by metabolic engineering of the MEP pathway without apparent detrimental effects on plant development and fitness.
Query Labelling for Indic Languages using a hybrid approach

With a boom in the internet, social media text has been increasing day by day. Much of the user generated content on internet is written in a very informal way. Usually people tend to write text on social media using indigenous script. To understand a script different from ours is a difficult task. Moreover, nowadays queries received by the search engines are large number of transliterated text. Hence providing a common platform to deal with the problem of transliterated text becomes really important. This paper presents our approach to handle labeling of queries as part of the FIRE2015 shared task on Mixed-Script Information Retrieval. Tokens in the query are labeled on basis of a hybrid approach which involves rule based and machine learning techniques. Each annotation has been dealt separately but sequentially.
Smoking and oral health: a population survey in Finland.

OBJECTIVES A survey was conducted to study smokers' oral health behaviors and attitudes, and to determine if smokers were advised by their dentists to quit smoking. METHODS A random sample of 1,200 adults 15 to 64 years of age living in the province of North Karelia, Finland, was selected in each of two study years (1990 and 1991) and surveyed using a mail questionnaire. The 102-item questionnaire solicited information on smoking status, oral health behaviors, missing teeth, perceptions of tobacco's harmful effects on oral health, smoking status and quitting, and advice on smoking cessation provided by dentists. Variations in behaviors and opinions according to smoking status were analyzed. RESULTS Nonsmokers reported more frequent healthy oral health behaviors than did daily smokers, with the exception that no difference in toothbrushing frequencies existed among women. Daily smoking was associated with increased use of sugar in tea or coffee, and with more frequent alcohol consumption. Daily smoking was correlated with the number of missing teeth in bivariate analyses, but not in multivariate analyses. Fewer daily smokers than nonsmokers considered smoking to have harmful effects on oral health. The majority of daily smokers, however, wanted to quit. Eight percent of daily smokers reported that they had been advised by their dentist to quit. CONCLUSIONS Dentists need to provide patients with counseling on tobacco use because of the desire of many smokers to quit. Counseling of smokers by the oral health team requires special attention and skills, because smokers' health behaviors and attitudes appear to be less favorable to oral health compared to nonsmokers.
Rumen Fermentation and Nitrogen Balance of Lambs fed Diets Containing Plant Extracts Rich in Tannins and Saponins, and Associated Emissions of Nitrogen and Methane

Tannins were added to experimental diets at levels of 1 and 2g/kg DM (hydrolysable tannins; Castanea sativa wood extract) and saponins at 2 and 30mg/kg DM (sarsaponin; Yucca schidigera extract). These levels were far below thresholds expected to be adverse in ruminants. Effects were measured in lambs by comparison with unsupplemented control diets calculated to be either deficient (10%) or adequate in protein. The diets consisted of hay, concentrate (1:1) and extra wheat starch with increasing body weight. Ruminal pH, VFA concentration, protozoa count and apparent digestibilities of organic matter and fibre did not differ among treatments. The low tannin dose significantly decreased bacteria count compared to the high saponin dose. Saponin supplementation and the high tannin dose showed some potential to reduce ruminal ammonia concentration. This was associated with weak trends towards lower urine N excretion (only tannins) and ammonia emission from manure. Methane release was increased by the low tannin dose compared to the unsupplemented control. Diet effects on heat production were not systematic. In conclusion, the extracts rich in tannins or saponins gave only slight indications for either increased body nitrogen retention or reduced nitrogen emission. However, effects might have been larger with more pronounced dietary protein deficit.
Syndicate : Building a Virtual Cloud Storage Service Through Service Composition

Applications increasingly combine cloud storage, edge caches, and local storage to host and share data. They do so, however, in ad-hoc ways, producing a landscape of point solutions that solve similar problems. This paper describes an alternative approach that composes storage systems in a general, but configurable way. The resulting system, called Syndicate, factors out data consistency, system security, and storage policies in a coherent manner, allowing developers to control these functions independent of the underlying storage. This paper describes Syndicate’s design, and in particular, its novel consistency protocol. It also evaluates a PlanetLab-based deployment of Syndicate, showing that it introduces a small amount of overhead relative to directly using underlying storage mechanisms.
Fetal alcohol syndrome in adolescents and adults

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a specific recognizable pattern of malformation. Manifestations in 61 adolescents and adults suffering from alcohol teratogenesis are presented. After puberty, the faces of patients with fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects were not as distinctive. Patients tended to remain short and microcephalic, although their weight was somewhat closer to the mean. The average IQ was 68, but the range of IQ scores widely varied. Average academic functioning was at the second- to fourth-grade levels, with arithmetic deficits most characteristic. Maladaptive behaviors such as poor judgment, distractibility, and difficulty perceiving social cues were common. Family environments were remarkably unstable. Fetal alcohol syndrome is not just a childhood disorder; there is a predictable long-term progression of the disorder into adulthood, in which maladaptive behaviors present the greatest challenge to management.
Interconnect architectures for modulo-scheduled coarse-grained reconfigurable arrays

The ability of a compiler to exploit loop-level parallelism in a reconfigurable array is significantly affected by the amount of flexibility in the interconnect architecture. A less flexible interconnect will make it more difficult for the compiler to find efficient loop-level pipelined schedules, leading to reduced instruction throughput, and larger configuration bit storage area. In this paper, we determine the optimum flexibility and topology for a point-to-point interconnect architecture in a reconfigurable system. We present four topologies, and show that their performance per unit area is significantly better than that that would be obtained if a fully-connected network had been used.
Role of the human medial frontal cortex in task switching: a combined fMRI and TMS study.

We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity when subjects were performing identical tasks in the context of either a task-set switch or a continuation of earlier performance. The context, i.e., switching or staying with the current task, influenced medial frontal cortical activation; the medial frontal cortex is transiently activated at the time that subjects switch from one way of performing a task to another. Two types of task-set-switching paradigms were investigated. In the response-switching (RS) paradigm, subjects switched between different rules for response selection and had to choose between competing responses. In the visual-switching (VS) paradigm, subjects switched between different rules for stimulus selection and had to choose between competing visual stimuli. The type of conflict, sensory (VS) or motor (RS), involved in switching was critical in determining medial frontal activation. Switching in the RS paradigm was associated with clear blood-oxygenation-level-dependent signal increases ("activations") in three medial frontal areas: the rostral cingulate zone, the caudal cingulate zone, and the presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA). Switching in the VS task was associated with definite activation in just one medial frontal area, a region on the border between the pre-SMA and the SMA. Subsequent to the fMRI session, we used MRI-guided frameless stereotaxic procedures and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to test the importance of the medial frontal activations for task switching. Applying rTMS over the pre-SMA disrupted subsequent RS performance but only when it was applied in the context of a switch. This result shows, first, that the pre-SMA is essential for task switching and second that its essential role is transient and limited to just the time of behavioral switching. The results are consistent with a role for the pre-SMA in selecting between response sets at a superordinate level rather than in selecting individual responses. The effect of the rTMS was not simply due to the tactile and auditory artifacts associated with each pulse; rTMS over several control regions did not selectively disrupt switching. Applying rTMS over the SMA/pre-SMA area activated in the VS paradigm did not disrupt switching. This result, first, confirms the limited importance of the medial frontal cortex for sensory attentional switching. Second, the VS rTMS results suggest that just because an area is activated in two paradigms does not mean that it plays the same essential role in both cases.