Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of the RND-Type Multidrug Efflux Pump MexAB-OprM of the Plant Pathogen Pseudomonas syringae

ABSTRACT In gram-negative bacteria, transporters belonging to the RND family are the transporters most relevant for resistance to antimicrobial compounds. In Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a clinically important pathogen, the RND-type pump MexAB-OprM has been recognized as one of the major multidrug efflux systems. Here, homologues of MexAB-OprM in the plant pathogens Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola 1448A, P. syringae pv. syringae B728a, and P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000 were identified, and mexAB-oprM-deficient mutants were generated. Determination of MICs revealed that mutation of MexAB-OprM dramatically reduced the tolerance to a broad range of antimicrobials. Moreover, the ability of the mexAB-oprM-deficient mutants to multiply in planta was reduced. RNA dot blot hybridization revealed growth-dependent regulation of the mexAB-oprM operon in P. syringae; the expression of this operon was maximal in early exponential phase and decreased gradually during further growth.
Towards a mechanistic understanding of lipodystrophy and seipin functions

CGL (Congenital generalized lipodystrophy) is a genetic disorder characterized by near complete loss of adipose tissue along with increased ectopic fat storage in other organs including liver and muscle. Of the four CGL types, BSCL2 (Berardinelli–Seip Congenital lipodystrophy type 2), resulting from mutations in the BSCL2/seipin gene, exhibits the most severe lipodystrophic phenotype with loss of both metabolic and mechanical adipose depots. The majority of Seipin mutations cause C-terminal truncations, along with a handful of point mutations. Seipin localizes to the ER and is composed of a conserved region including a luminal loop and two transmembrane domains, plus cytosolic N- and C-termini. Animal models deficient in seipin recapitulate the human lipodystrophic phenotype. Cells isolated from seipin knockout mouse models also exhibit impaired adipogenesis. Mechanistically, seipin appears to function as a scaffolding protein to bring together interacting partners essential for lipid metabolism and LD (lipid droplet) formation during adipocyte development. Moreover, cell line and genetic studies indicate that seipin functions in a cell-autonomous manner. Here we will provide a brief overview of the genetic association of the CGLs, and focus on the current understanding of differential contributions of distinct seipin domains to lipid storage and adipogenesis. We will also discuss the roles of seipin-interacting partners, including lipin 1 and 14-3-3β, in mediating seipin-dependent regulation of cellular pathways such as actin cytoskeletal remodelling.
Improved Fuzzy Neural Network Control for a Pneumatic System Based on Extended Kalman Filter

Although pneumatic systems are used in many applications such as robotics and manufacturing field, accurate control for such systems is difficult to be achieved due to their inherent nonlinear dynamics. This paper presents the favored results of fuzzy neural network (FNN) control for a pneumatic system based on extended Kalman filer (EKF). To optimally design a FNN controller for the pneumatic system, back- propagation (BP) algorithm is used to update the parameters of membership functions on-line. The partial derivative of the plant output with respect to the input, which is required by the learning process of FNN, is approximately estimated with a feed-forward neural network trained by recursive EKF. With the designed FNN controller for the pneumatic system, precise steady-state response and good dynamic tracking are obtained, which demonstrate that the nonlinear dynamics of the pneumatic system are efficiently overcome.
A Hyper-Heuristic Scheduling Algorithm for Cloud

Rule-based scheduling algorithms have been widely used on many cloud computing systems because they are simple and easy to implement. However, there is plenty of room to improve the performance of these algorithms, especially by using heuristic scheduling. As such, this paper presents a novel heuristic scheduling algorithm, called hyper-heuristic scheduling algorithm (HHSA), to find better scheduling solutions for cloud computing systems. The diversity detection and improvement detection operators are employed by the proposed algorithm to dynamically determine which low-level heuristic is to be used in finding better candidate solutions. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, this study compares the proposed method with several state-of-the-art scheduling algorithms, by having all of them implemented on CloudSim (a simulator) and Hadoop (a real system). The results show that HHSA can significantly reduce the makespan of task scheduling compared with the other scheduling algorithms evaluated in this paper, on both CloudSim and Hadoop.
MESSENGER Observations of Mercury's Magnetic Field Structure

[1] We present a baseline, time-averaged model for Mercury's magnetosphere, derived from MESSENGER Magnetometer data from 24 March to 12 December 2011, comprising the spacecraft's first three Mercury years in orbit around the innermost planet. The model, constructed under the approximation that the magnetospheric shape can be represented as a paraboloid of revolution, includes two external (magnetopause and magnetotail) current systems and an internal (dipole) field and allows for reconnection. We take advantage of the geometry of the orbital Magnetometer data to estimate all but one of the model parameters, and their ranges, directly from the observations. These parameters are then used as a priori constraints in the paraboloid magnetospheric model, and the sole remaining parameter, the dipole moment, is estimated as 190 nTRM3from a grid search. We verify that the best fit dipole moment is insensitive to changes in the other parameters within their determined ranges. The model provides an excellent first-order fit to the MESSENGER observations, with a root-mean-square misfit of less than 20 nT globally. The results show that the magnetopause field strength ranges from 10% to 50% of the dipole field strength at observation locations on the dayside and at nightside latitudes north of 60°N. Globally, the residual signatures observed to date are dominated by the results of magnetospheric processes, confirming the dynamic nature of Mercury's magnetosphere.
Depletion of Luminal Pyridine Nucleotides in the Endoplasmic Reticulum Activates Autophagy with the Involvement of mTOR Pathway

It has been recently shown that redox imbalance of luminal pyridine nucleotides in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) together with oxidative stress results in the activation of autophagy. In the present study we demonstrated that decrease of luminal NADPH/NADP+ ratio alone by metyrapone was sufficient to promote the mechanism of “self-eating” detected by the activation of LC3. Depletion of luminal NADPH had also significant effect on the key proteins of mTOR pathway, which got inactivated by dephosphorylation. These findings were also confirmed by silencing the proteins (glucose-6-phosphate transporter and hexose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) responsible for NADPH generation in the ER lumen. However, silencing the key components and addition of metyrapone had different effects on downstream substrates 4EBP1 and p70S6K of mTOR. The applied treatments did not compromise the viability of the cells. Our data suggest that ER stress caused by luminal NADPH depletion activates a pro-survival autophagic mechanism firmly coupled to the activation of mTOR pathway.
Parallelism through dynamic instrumentation at runtime

This paper presents a novel approach to achieve parallelism on multi-core systems out of the legacy software without recompilation. A profiler tool can be enhanced, from identifying the bottleneck areas, to analyzing the instruction set in bottleneck areas. As the instructions along with all data dependencies are available in the running program, heuristics can be applied to detect the candidates for instruction level parallelism. The serial regions can be regenerated into parallel regions for multiple cores using predefined OpenMP calls and instrument dynamically at runtime. We discuss the problems for parallelism 1) Identifying the parallel regions for parallelism from serial code 2) Detailed approach for generating code generation at runtime.
A Novel Protocol for Securing Wireless Internet Service Provider's Hotspots

Wireless Internet service providers need to secure their networks. Establishing a secure link between an access point and a client's Wi-Fi enabled device is a challenging issue. This paper provides an efficient cross-layer pairing protocol for internet WI-FI networks. The protocol uses information-theoretic security. We also present how to establish secure communication between clients' devices. Besides, we propose a mechanism to enforce the communication security by encrypting the MAC addresses at each frame.
Design of Quasi-Cyclic LDPC codes based on Euclidean Geometries

A new method for constructing Quasi-Cyclic (QC) Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes based on Euclidean Geometry (EG) is presented. The proposed method results in a class of QC-LDPC codes with girth of at least 6 and the designed codes perform very close to the Shannon limit with iterative decoding. Simulations show that the designed QC-LDPC codes have almost the same performance with the existing EG-LDPC codes.
Towards visual mapping in industrial environments - a heterogeneous task-specific and saliency driven approach

The highly percipient nature of human mind in avoiding sensory overload is a crucial factor which gives human vision an advantage over machine vision, the latter has otherwise powerful computational resources at its disposal given today's technology. This stresses the need to focus on methods which extract a concise representation of the environment inorder to approach a complex problem such as visual mapping. This article is an attempt of creating a mapping system, which proposes an architecture that combines task-specific and saliency driven approaches. The proposed method is implemented on a warehouse robot. The proposed solution provide a priority framework which enables an industrial robot to build a concise visual representation of the environment. The method is evaluated on data collected by a RGBD sensor mounted on a fork-lift robot and shows promise for addressing visual mapping problems in industrial environments.
IDS Using Mitigation Rules Approach to Mitigate ICMP Attacks

The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) attack is an example of a DDoS attack and regarded as an Internet menace that aims to deny service to legitimate users by violating the availability of resource in a system. A number of researches have been conducted to propose different methods of mitigating the attack but yet, the problem still arises. Thus, to improve the current mitigation solution, this study intents to proposethe Intrusion Detection System (IDS) with the mitigation rules approach to mitigate the ICMP attack. The mitigation rules are developed specifically to mitigate the ICMP attack and to suppress the number of false alarms. Project implementation is done using Snort, which is installed in the Linux platform. For evaluation purpose, testing is carried out with live private data in identical environment, with the default rules and the proposed mitigation rules enabled in the same LAN. Experimental result shows that deployment of mitigation rules is 63.95% efficient to mitigate the ICMP attack compared to the original Snort rules.
The Effect of Psychosocial Support Intervention on Depression in Patients with Dementia and Their Family Caregivers: An Assessor-Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial

Background/Aim: A three-component tailored psychosocial 12-month assessor-blinded randomized controlled trial to reduce depression in people with dementia (PWD) and carers was conducted. Methods: A total of 230 home-dwelling dyads of PWD and their carers were randomized to usual care or intervention consisting of three components over 12 months. Primary outcomes were the difference between the baseline and 12-month score on the Cornell Scale of Depression in Dementia (CSDD) in the PWD and on the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) in the carers. Results: The intent-to-treat difference between the baseline and 12- month change score was not significant between the intervention and control groups for the CSDD (p = 0.95) or GDS (p = 0.82). Conclusions: The trial did not show a significant difference between usual care and the intervention on depressive symptoms in PWD or their family caregivers.
Monocular simultaneous multi-body motion segmentation and reconstruction from perspective views

In this paper, we tackle the problem of mapping multiple 3D rigid structures and estimating their motions from perspective views through a car-mounted camera. The proposed method complements conventional localization and mapping algorithms (such as Visual Odometry and SLAM) to estimate motions of other moving objects in addition to the vehicle's motion. We present a theoretical framework for robust estimation of multiple motions and structures from perspective images. The method is based on the factorization of the projective trajectory matrix without explicit estimation of projective depth values. We exploit the epipolar geometry of calibrated cameras to generate several hypotheses for motion segments. Once the hypotheses are obtained, they are evaluated in an iterative scheme by alternating between estimation of 3D structures and estimation of multiple motions. The proposed framework does not require any knowledge about the number of motions and is robust to noisy image measurements. The method is evaluated on street-level sequences from a car-mounted camera. A benchmark dataset is also used to compare the results with previous works, although most of the related works use synthetic scenes simulating desktop environments.
AppFusion: Interactive Appearance Acquisition Using a Kinect Sensor

We present an interactive material acquisition system for average users to capture the spatially varying appearance of daily objects. While an object is being scanned, our system estimates its appearance on‐the‐fly and provides quick visual feedback. We build the system entirely on low‐end, off‐the‐shelf components: a Kinect sensor, a mirror ball and printed markers. We exploit the Kinect infra‐red emitter/receiver, originally designed for depth computation, as an active hand‐held reflectometer, to segment the object into clusters of similar specular materials and estimate the roughness parameters of BRDFs simultaneously. Next, the diffuse albedo and specular intensity of the spatially varying materials are rapidly computed in an inverse rendering framework, using data from the Kinect RGB camera. We demonstrate captured results of a range of materials, and physically validate our system.
Perceived usefulness of mirrored video self-modeling in the development of bilateral competence in elite team-sports

The use of video technology in perfecting athletic training has many benefits on performance. The aim of this study was to determine: (1) athletes' perception of the importance of bilateral skills in sports; (2) the prevalence of use of video feedback in individual skill development; and (3) athletes' attitude toward "mirrored" video self-modelling in four sports. A total of 20 elite athletes, from four popular team sports, were interviewed regarding the three issues using semi-structured interviews. The qualitative results indicate that bilateral skills are differently appreciated in the four team sports. They are perceived as the most important by soccer players, followed by basketball- and handball players and least important by the water polo players. These findings are in full synchrony with athletes’ attitudes toward using mirrored video self-modelling. It emerges that the use of technology for developing bilateral skills, with the aim to improve sport performance, is currently sport specific and matches the actual worldwide ranking of the sports' popularity.
Development of an anthropomorphic hand for a mobile assistive robot

In this paper the mechanism, design, and control system of a new humanoid-type hand with human-like manipulation abilities is discussed. The hand is designed for the humanoid robot which has to work autonomously or interactively in cooperation with humans. The ideal end effector for such a humanoid would be able to use the tools and objects that a person uses when working in the same environment. Therefore, a new hand is designed for anatomical consistency with the human hand. This includes the number of fingers and the placement and motion of the thumb, the proportions of the link lengths, and the shape of the palm. The hand can perform most of human grasping types. In this paper, particular attention is dedicated to measurement analysis, technical characteristics, and functionality of the hand prototype. Furthermore, first experience gained from using hand prototypes on a humanoid robot is outlined.
A Three-Step Transition-Based System for Non-Projective Dependency Parsing

This paper presents a non-projective dependency parsing system that is transition-based and operates in three steps. The three steps include one classical method for projective dependency parsing and two inverse methods predicting separately the right and left non-projective dependencies. Splitting the parsing allows to increase the scores on both projective and non-projective dependencies compared to state-of-the-art non-projective dependency parsing. Moreover, each step is performed in linear time.
A fast self-collision detection method for cloth animation based on constrained particle-based model

To simulate cloth fast, we present a fast processing constraint method on the constrained particle-based model. The strict constraint, limiting the tensile length of the stretch and shear connections, makes the cloth animation have more characteristic of cloth than that of rubbery. The most important, a fast pruning method based on the strict constraint is presented to prune most of the unwanted particles in self-collision detection, which improves the efficiency of cloth animation much.
Le moment big data des sciences sociales

Ce texte est une introduction au numero special de la Revue Francaise de Sociologie sur "Big data, societes et sciences sociales", coordonne par Gilles Bastin et Paola Tubaro. Faisant le point sur le moment big data des sciences sociales, les auteurs s’interrogent sur les effets des deux grandes revolutions qui se deroulent dans le domaine des donnees aujourd’hui : leur captation par des plateformes du web et l’irruption du machine learning dans leur analyse.
AutoWeb: automatic classification of mobile web pages for revisitation

Revisitation in mobile Web browsers takes more time than that in desktop browsers due to the limitations of mobile phones. In this paper, we propose AutoWeb, a novel approach to speed up revisitation in mobile Web browsing. In AutoWeb, opened Web pages are automatically classified into different groups based on their contents. Users can more quickly revisit an opened Web page by narrowing down search scope into a group of pages that share the same topic. We evaluated the classification accuracy and the accuracy is 92.4%. Three experiments were conducted to investigate revisitation performance in three specific tasks. Results show AutoWeb can save significant time for revisitation by 29.5%, especially for long time Web browsing, and that it improves overall mobile Web revisitation experience. We also compare automatic classification with other revisitation methods.
GEOMETRICAL AND TOPOLOGICAL ISSUES FOR COUPLING DIMENSIONALLY REDUCED MULTIZONE MODELS WITH HIGH-RESOLUTION CFD TECHNIQUES

In this paper we emphasize a technique based on graph theory that allows for deriving both a dimensionally reduced object model required for setting up a thermal multizone model and a geometrical model for defining a single or multiple CFD domains in a building model together with incidence matrices correlating these models. The incidence matrices are an essential precondition for establishing a runtime coupling between both approaches such as automatically providing a CFD model with boundary conditions obtained during a thermal multizone simulation and vice versa. We thereby start from a CAD or a building product model. The algorithm is basically applicable to any building energy simulation tool.
Child protection decision-making: social workers’ perceptions

ABSTRACT Decision-making is located at the heart of social work as a core professional activity, because much of what social workers do concerns decisions about future courses of action. Drawing on elements of the learning together systems model and Falkov’s Systemic Family Model, this study investigated social workers’ perceptions regarding how child protection decisions are made. Evidence was drawn from a constructivist–-interpretivist qualitative research design, involving 16 semi-structured interviews with qualified and experienced social workers and 20 direct, non-participant observations of child protection meetings. Evidence from the study suggests that professionals and family members do not rely entirely on the guidance on the threshold criterion of the likelihood and significance of risk of harm when making decisions. Instead, they use discretionary intuition and analytical judgement, involving multidimensional criteria which includes consensus between professionals and with family members; individual professional’s state of mind; other agencies and professionals’ priorities as well as external factors such as the availability of resources. Conclusion can be drawn that existing guidance on decision-making is inadequate, hence the discretionary use of a combination of intuitive heuristics and analytical thinking in a complementary manner. This study, therefore, contributes to considerable conceptual clarity regarding the complex child protection decision-making process.
Can cosmic rays affect cloud condensation nuclei by altering new particle formation rates?

Although controversial, many observations have suggested that low‐level cloud cover correlates with the cosmic ray flux. Because galactic cosmic rays have likely decreased in intensity over the last century, this hypothesis, if true, could partly explain 20th century warming, thereby upsetting the consensus view that greenhouse‐gas forcing has caused most of the warming. The “ion‐aerosol clear‐air” hypothesis suggests that increased cosmic rays cause increases in new‐particle formation, cloud condensation nuclei concentrations (CCN), and cloud cover. In this paper, we present the first calculations of the magnitude of the ion‐aerosol clear‐air mechanism using a general circulation model with online aerosol microphysics. In our simulations, changes in CCN from changes in cosmic rays during a solar cycle are two orders of magnitude too small to account for the observed changes in cloud properties; consequently, we conclude that the hypothesized effect is too small to play a significant role in current climate change.
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 Virus in Asia: Evolution and Vaccination

HPAI (H5N1) is still an important emerging disease posing threat on both human and animal health. The causative agent continues to evolve rapidly within various poultry populations and may cause unpredictable outcome. Evolution of the virus will continue until it reaches equilibrium. At present, the HPAI (H5N1) viruses still possess avian virus characteristics. However, if the viruses gain opportunities to infect and evolve in human, it may accelerate adaptation of the avian viruses to be more human preference and thus acquires ability to infect and transmit efficiently among human population. This review aims to elucidate crucial issues regarding to role of vaccination in virus evolution including influence of immune response after vaccination and adaptation of virus to cross species. Additionally, role of vaccination in HPAI (H5N1) control and drawback of vaccine usage are discussed.