Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modeling mobile application test platform and environment: testing criteria and complexity analysis

With the rapid advance of mobile computing technology and wireless networking, there is a significant increase of mobile subscriptions. This drives a strong demand on mobile application testing on mobile devices. Since mobile APPs are native to mobile devices, an underlying mobile platform becomes the basic foundation of their test environments. To achieve effective test automation, test solutions must be compatible, deployable, and executable on different mobile platforms, devices, network, and appliance APIs. This paper is written to provide an approach to modeling mobile test environments based on a Mobile Test Environment Semantic Tree (MTE_ST). Based on this model, the paper discusses test complexity evaluation methods for test environment. Furthermore, some case study results are reported to demonstrate and analyze the proposed testing models.
On ARQ-Based Fast-Fading Channels

Automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocols are normally studied under slow-fading or quasi-static channel assumption where the fading coefficients are assumed to remain fixed during the transmission of a codeword or for the duration of all ARQ retransmission rounds, respectively. This letter investigates the performance of basic ARQ and incremental redundancy hybrid ARQ protocols in fast-fading channels where a number of channel realizations are experienced in each retransmission round. Long-term throughput, delay-limited throughput and outage probability of the ARQ schemes are obtained. Compared to slow-fading and quasi-static channels, a fast-fading channel results in a higher performance for both basic and incremental redundancy ARQ. The fast-fading channel, however, can be mapped to an equivalent slow-fading model at low signal-to-noise ratios. Finally, we show that the efficiency of ARQ protocols is overestimated if the fast-fading variations during a codeword transmission are approximated by their average value.
Religiosity and major depression in adults at high risk: a ten-year prospective study.

OBJECTIVE Previously the authors found that personal importance of religion or spirituality was associated with a lower risk for major depression in a study of adults with and without a history of depression. Here the authors examine the association of personal importance of religion or spirituality with major depression in the adult offspring of the original sample using a 10-year prospective longitudinal design. METHOD Participants were 114 adult offspring of depressed and nondepressed parents, followed longitudinally. The analysis covers the period from the 10-year to the 20-year follow-up assessments. Diagnosis was assessed with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Lifetime Version. Religiosity measures included personal importance of religion or spirituality, frequency of attendance at religious services, and denomination (all participants were Catholic or Protestant). In a logistic regression analysis, major depression at 20 years was used as the outcome measure and the three religiosity variables at 10 years as predictors. RESULTS Offspring who reported at year 10 that religion or spirituality was highly important to them had about one-fourth the risk of experiencing major depression between years 10 and 20 compared with other participants. Religious attendance and denomination did not significantly predict this outcome. The effect was most pronounced among offspring at high risk for depression by virtue of having a depressed parent; in this group, those who reported a high importance of religion or spirituality had about one-tenth the risk of experiencing major depression between years 10 and 20 compared with those who did not. The protective effect was found primarily against recurrence rather than onset of depression. CONCLUSIONS A high self-report rating of the importance of religion or spirituality may have a protective effect against recurrence of depression, particularly in adults with a history of parental depression.
Approximately Counting Triangles in Sublinear Time

We consider the problem of estimating the number of triangles in a graph. This problem has been extensively studied in both theory and practice, but all existing algorithms read the entire graph. In this work we design a sublinear-time algorithm for approximating the number of triangles in a graph, where the algorithm is given query access to the graph. The allowed queries are degree queries, vertex-pair queries and neighbor queries. We show that for any given approximation parameter 0<;epsilon<;1, the algorithm provides an estimate hat{t} such that with high constant probability, (1-epsilon) t<;hat{t}κ(1+epsilon)t, where t is the number of triangles in the graph G. The expected query complexity of the algorithm is O(n/t̂{1/3} + min {m, m̂{3/2}/t}) poly(log n, 1/epsilon), where n is the number of vertices in the graph and m is the number of edges, and the expected running time is (n/t̂{1/3} + m̂{3/2}/t) poly(log n, 1/epsilon). We also prove that Omega(n/t̂{1/3} + min {m, m̂{3/2}/t}) queries are necessary, thus establishing that the query complexity of this algorithm is optimal up to polylogarithmic factors in n (and the dependence on 1/epsilon).
Protective Role of Cannabinoid Receptor Type 2 in a Mouse Model of Diabetic Nephropathy

OBJECTIVE The cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2) has protective effects in chronic degenerative diseases. Our aim was to assess the potential relevance of the CB2 receptor in both human and experimental diabetic nephropathy (DN). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS CB2 expression was studied in kidney biopsies from patients with advanced DN, in early experimental diabetes, and in cultured podocytes. Levels of endocannabinoids and related enzymes were measured in the renal cortex from diabetic mice. To assess the functional role of CB2, streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice were treated for 14 weeks with AM1241, a selective CB2 agonist. In these animals, we studied albuminuria, renal function, expression of podocyte proteins (nephrin and zonula occludens-1), and markers of both fibrosis (fibronectin and transforming growth factor-β1) and inflammation (monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 [MCP-1], CC chemokine receptor 2 [CCR2], and monocyte markers). CB2 signaling was assessed in cultured podocytes. RESULTS Podocytes express the CB2 receptor both in vitro and in vivo. CB2 was downregulated in kidney biopsies from patients with advanced DN, and renal levels of the CB2 ligand 2-arachidonoylglycerol were reduced in diabetic mice, suggesting impaired CB2 regulation. In experimental diabetes, AM1241 ameliorated albuminuria, podocyte protein downregulation, and glomerular monocyte infiltration, without affecting early markers of fibrosis. In addition, AM1241 reduced CCR2 expression in both renal cortex and cultured podocytes, suggesting that CB2 activation may interfere with the deleterious effects of MCP-1 signaling. CONCLUSIONS The CB2 receptor is expressed by podocytes, and in experimental diabetes, CB2 activation ameliorates both albuminuria and podocyte protein loss, suggesting a protective effect of signaling through CB2 in DN.
Implementing Circumscription Using a Tableau Method

A tableau calculus for first-order circumscriptive reason- ing is developed. Parallel circumscription with fixed and varying predicates with respect to Herbrand models is treated. Firs t a new clausal tableau calculus for first-order reasoning is developed where a hyper-type rule is combined with a restricted analytical c ut rule. The use of a cut rule offers the advantages that when deciding logical con- sequence the space of counter-models is searched with a preference to (subset) minimal (Herbrand) models and each counter-model is not generated more than once. Then the calculus is extended to handle parallel circumscription. The circumscriptive calculus i s sound in the general case and complete when no function symbols are allowed. Low space complexity is obtained by employing a groundedness property of minimal models that enables a one branch at a time ap- proach to constructing tableaux for circumscriptive infer ence.
STRAIN IDENTIFICATION OF SPODOPTERA FRUGIPERDA (LEPIDOPTERA: NOCTUIDAE) INSECTS AND CELL LINE: PCR-RFLP OF CYTOCHROME OXIDASE C SUBUNIT I GENE

Abstract A simple method was developed to analyze the two morphologically indistinguishable host-associated strains of the fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith). Total DNA extracted from the FAW corn and rice strains, as well as from the S. frugiperda cell line (SF9) was used to PCR amplify a 569 base pairs region of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI). The amplified DNA from the Spodoptera corn strain and the SF9 cell line contained a restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) marker, the MspI recognition site that was not present in the rice strain. This PCR-RFLP method does not require purification of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) or the use of radioactive isotopes, and differs from previous methods in that only a few nanograms of total DNA are needed to yield clear and accurate strain identification of individual insects.
Comorbidity and Its Effect on Mortality in Nursing Home Patients with Dementia

The relation between comorbidity and survival was investigated in an 8-year follow-up study of 606 nursing home dementia patients by means of proportional hazards analysis. Two-year survival rates for women (N = 437) and men (AT = 169) were 60% and 39%, respectively. Parkinsonism, atrial fibrillation, pulmonary infection, and malignancies were powerful predictors: they more or less doubled the mortality chances. Stroke patients with a pulmonary infection had a particularly poor prognosis. More severely demented patients had more comorbidity than less severely demented patients, but the impact of comorbidity on survival did not depend on severity of dementia. Patients coming from a hospital had more comorbidity and were more severely demented than patients coming from home, but this did not modify the effects of age, gender, and comorbidity in a multivariate survival model. It was concluded that comorbidity and severity of dementia independently influence mortality. Thus a better prognostic judgment is obtained from their combination than from each separately.
All in the family: the impact of caring for grandchildren on grandparents' health.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of caring for grandchildren on health behaviors and mental and physical health among older adults. METHODS Using a sample of 12,872 grandparents aged 50 through 80 from the Health and Retirement Study, we examined the relationship between stability and change in various types of grandchild care and subsequent health, controlling for covariates and earlier health. RESULTS We found no evidence to suggest that caring for grandchildren has dramatic and widespread negative effects on grandparents' health and health behavior. We found limited evidence that grandmothers caring for grandchildren in skipped-generation households are more likely to experience negative changes in health behavior, depression, and self-rated health. We also found some evidence of benefits to grandmothers who babysit. DISCUSSION Our findings suggest that the health disadvantages found previously among grandparent caregivers arise from grandparents' prior characteristics, not as a consequence of providing care. Health declines as a consequence of grandchild care appear to be the exception rather than the rule. These findings are important given continuing reliance on grandparents for day care and increasing reliance on grandparents for custodial care. However, the findings should be tempered by the recognition that for a minority of grandparents, coresidential grandchild care may compromise health.
Biomarkers of Proteolytic Damage Following Traumatic Brain Injury

The history of numerous failed clinical trials designed to identify therapeutic agents to assist in improving outcomes after traumatic brain injury points to the critical importance of understanding biochemical markers of injury. Such biomarkers should be readily accessible, provide information specific to the pathologic disruptions occurring in the central nervous system, and allow improved monitoring of the progression of secondary damage. Additionally, these biomarkers should may provide investigators a window on the individual patient's response to treatment, and should contribute to prediction of outcome. Most research on this topic to date has focused on neuron‐specific enolase (NSE) and S‐100 proteins but these have not proven to be satisfactory for a variety of reasons. A different approach is provided by the study of 2 important proteases, caspase‐3 and calpain. This paper reports the current state of knowledge concerning caspase and calpain as specific markers of TBI, and discusses alll‐spectrin, a principal substrate for both caspase and calpain, as well as initial findings regarding neurofilament 68 protein (NF‐68).
DrawSound: a drawing instrument for sound performance

DrawSound is a drawing instrument for sound performances that combines multi-touch input technology with the expressive character of drawing. The instrument is intended to be used in two different art projects, The SINE WAVE QUARTET, and aeo. In this paper, we describe the implementation of DrawSound with three different pens and show how we design the two different sound performances. We also explain our preliminarily observations about the unique characters of DrawSound.
Election in Asynchronous Complete Networks with Intermittent Link Failures

Considers the problem of fault-tolerant leader election in asynchronous complete (fully-connected) distributed networks. The processors are reliable, but some of the communication channels may fail intermittently before or during the execution of the algorithm. Channel failures are undetectable due to the asynchronous nature of the network. Let n be the number of processors in the network and f be the maximum number of faulty channels incident on each processor, where f/spl les/ 1/2 [n-1]. Our algorithm uses at most O(n/sup 2/+nf/sup 2/) messages to elect a unique leader of the network. Each message consists of at most O(log|T|) bits, where |T| is the cardinality of the set of processor identifiers. All previous algorithms either tolerated only benign failures such as fail-stop failures, assumed that the network is synchronous, tolerated only a small number of failures, or assumed that the faults are detectable. Our algorithm is the first election algorithm that is designed specifically for asynchronous intermittently faulty complete networks in which up to 1/4 n[n-1] channels may be faulty, where each processor is adjacent to no more than 1/2 [n-1] faulty channels, and where the faults are undetectable. >
The origin of TCP traffic burstiness in short time scales

Internet traffic exhibits multifaceted burstiness and correlation structure over a wide span of time scales. Previous work analyzed this structure in terms of heavy-tailed session characteristics, as well as TCP timeouts and congestion avoidance, in relatively long time scales. We focus on shorter scales, typically less than 100-1000 milliseconds. Our objective is to identify the actual mechanisms that are mostly responsible for creating bursty traffic in those scales. We show that TCP selfclocking, joint with queueing in the network, can shape the packet interarrivals of a TCP connection in a two-level ON-OFF pattern. This structure creates strong correlations and burstiness in time scales that extend up to the Round-Trip Time (RTT) of the connection, especially for bulk transfers that have a large bandwidthdelay product relative to their window size. Also, the aggregation of many flows, without rescaling their packet interarrivals, does not converge to a Poisson stream, as one might expect from classical superposition results. Instead, the burstiness in those scales can be significantly reduced by TCP pacing, depending however on the minimum pacing timer. Finally, we show that sub-RTT burstiness is important in queueing performance not only in moderate load conditions, as previously shown, but also in high loads when the bottleneck buffer size is relatively small.
Regional-Scale Estimation of Density and Habitat Use of the Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) in Arizona

Abstract Desert Tortoise surveys and management in the Sonoran Desert typically exclude intermountain valleys, where tortoises are generally thought to be absent. Furthermore, few regional-level surveys have been conducted because of difficulties in sampling in the complex landscape of Sonoran Desert upland habitat. We used distance-sampling to document macrohabitat use and regional density of Desert Tortoises across the 76,800-ha Ironwood Forest National Monument in Arizona. We observed 42 tortoises on transects, and distance sampling produced an estimate of 17,997 tortoises ≥ 150 mm carapace length (coefficient of variation = 41.5%) on the monument. Stratification by habitat type (steep topography with boulders, incised washes, or neither of these components) improved precision slightly (37.2%). Detection probability contributed least to density variance, compared to encounter rate and tortoise detectability on the transect line, indicating that assumptions of the technique were met during sampling. We found tortoises or their sign on 92% of transects in boulder habitat, on 71% that included incised washes, and on 25% in habitat with neither of these features (up to 1.7 km away from the nearest slope). Our results indicate that Desert Tortoises in the Sonoran Desert occur at low density, but are not absent, from intermountain valleys, and the maintenance of these valleys for tortoise movement between local populations may be important for long-term population viability. With this in mind, concentrating survey effort in areas with steep topography and boulders will increase tortoise encounter rate, result in better precision of regional density and trend estimates, and may also reduce survey effort.
The Pipe Nebula as seen with Herschel: formation of filamentary structures by large-scale compression?

A growing body of evidence indicates that the formation of filaments in interstellar clouds is a key component of the star formation process. In this paper, we present new Herschel-PACS and SPIRE observations of the B59 and Stem regions in the Pipe Nebula complex, revealing a rich, organized network of filaments. The asymmetric column density profiles observed for several filaments, along with the bow-like edge of B59, indicates that the Pipe Nebula is being compressed from its western side, most likely by the winds from the nearby Sco OB2 association. We suggest that this compressive flow has contributed to the formation of some of the observed filamentary structures. In B59, the only region of the entire Pipe complex showing star formation activity, the same compressive flow has likely enhanced the initial column density of the clump, allowing it to become globally gravitationally unstable. Although more speculative, we propose that gravity has also been responsible for shaping the converging filamentary pattern observed in B59. While the question of the relative impact of large-scale compression and gravity remains open in B59, large-scale compression appears to be a plausible mechanism for the initial formation of filamentary structures in the rest of the complex.
Durable Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA)-Specific Humoral and Cellular Immune Responses in Colorectal Carcinoma Patients Vaccinated with Recombinant CEA and Granulocyte/Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor

Purpose: Previous studies have indicated that carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) might be a suitable immunotherapeutic target in colorectal carcinoma (CRC). The aim of the present study was to analyze the immunological and clinical effects of vaccination with CEA together with the adjuvant granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). Experimental Design: Twenty-four resected CRC patients without macroscopic disease were immunized seven times with recombinant CEA at four different dose levels over a 12-month period. Half of the patients received GM-CSF (80 μg/day for 4 consecutive days) at each immunization. Patients were monitored immunologically for 36 months and clinically for 76 months. T-cell response was evaluated by a [3H]thymidine incorporation assay, and IgG response was determined by ELISA. Results: Minor local side effects were common. All 12 patients (100%) in the GM-CSF group developed a CEA-specific T-cell as well as an IgG response. The corresponding figures in the CEA alone group were 9 of 12 (75%) and 8 of 12 (66%), respectively. GM-CSF significantly augmented the amplitude of the T-cell response and the IgG titers. No dose–response relationship was noted. The immune responses at 12 months persisted 24 months after the last vaccination. Anti-CEA IgG titers were associated with increased survival (P < 0.05), whereas standard prognostic factors had no relationship, with the exception of serum CEA value. Conclusions: Vaccination with recombinant CEA and GM-CSF appears to be a nontoxic regimen inducing potent and durable antigen-specific IgG and T-cell response. The results of this study justify more extensive trials with recombinant CEA protein for immunotherapy of CRC.
Hierarchical System Design and Control of an MMC-Based Power-Electronic Transformer

Modular multilevel converter (MMC) is an emerging and highly attractive multilevel topology for medium- and high-voltage applications. This paper proposes an MMC-based power electronic transformer (PET) for dc distribution grid. The high-voltage side is an H-bridge MMC to generate a high-frequency adjustable-magnitude sinusoidal voltage, and the low-voltage side is paralleled multiwindings and rectifiers to allow high-load currents. As the number of MMC voltage levels increases, the complexity of the control system as well as the control algorithm increases largely. In order to simplify the control system and reduce the computation time, a hierarchical control system is designed for the MMC-based PET, and the relevant hierarchical control algorithm is also presented in this paper. The modulation method, capacitor voltage balancing method, and communication solution under the hierarchical control system are all discussed in detail. Simulation and experimental results are presented to demonstrate this system and control method.
The subcellular distribution of dystrophin in mouse skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle

We use a highly specific and sensitive antibody to further characterize the distribution of dystrophin in skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle. No evidence for localization other than at the cell surface is apparent in skeletal muscle and no 427-kD dystrophin labeling was detected in sciatic nerve. An elevated concentration of dystrophin appears at the myotendinous junction and the neuromuscular junction, labeling in the latter being more intense specifically in the troughs of the synaptic folds. In cardiac muscle the distribution of dystrophin is limited to the surface plasma membrane but is notably absent from the membrane that overlays adherens junctions of the intercalated disks. In smooth muscle, the plasma membrane labeling is considerably less abundant than in cardiac or skeletal muscle and is found in areas of membrane underlain by membranous vesicles. As in cardiac muscle, smooth muscle dystrophin seems to be excluded from membrane above densities that mark adherens junctions. Dystrophin appears as a doublet on Western blots of skeletal and cardiac muscle, and as a single band of lower abundance in smooth muscle that corresponds most closely in molecular weight to the upper band of the striated muscle doublet. The lower band of the doublet in striated muscle appears to lack a portion of the carboxyl terminus and may represent a dystrophin isoform. Isoform differences and the presence of dystrophin on different specialized membrane surfaces imply multiple functional roles for the dystrophin protein.