Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
QoS-Driven Adaptation of BPEL Scenario Execution

BPEL/WSBPEL is the predominant approach for combining individual web services into integrated business processes, allowing for the specification of their sequence, control flow and data exchanges. BPEL however does not include mechanisms for considering the invoked services’ Quality of Service (QoS) parameters and thus BPEL scenarios can neither tailor their execution to the individual user’s needs or adapt to the highly dynamic environment of the WEB, where new services may be deployed, old ones withdrawn or existing ones changing their QoS parameters. Moreover, infrastructure failures in the distributed environment of the web introduce an additional source of failures that must be considered in the context of QoS-aware service execution. In this work we propose a framework for addressing the issues identified above; the framework allows the users to specify the QoS parameters that they require and it undertakes the task of locating and invoking suitable services. Finally, the proposed framework intercepts and resolves faults occurring during service invocation, respecting the QoS restrictions specified by the consumer.
Nanopore sequencing: from imagination to reality.

DNA sequencing and hence genomics have been transformed over the last decade by the commercialization of inexpensive, massively parallel, short-read sequencing technology. Nonetheless, a new generation of single-molecule DNA sequencers, which uses nanopore technology, is initiating a further upheaval in genomics. These instruments are portable, capable of reads of >100 kb, cheap, and fast. Nanopore sequencing, a huge technical challenge, took >25 years to develop. Today's availability of a commercial nanopore sequencing device can be traced to the 1990s, when nucleic acid translocation through nanopores was first observed, stochastic sensing was developed, and the high-resolution structure of a protein nanopore was solved. The nanopore platform that has been developed is also capable of the single-molecule detection of a wide variety of additional analytes of medical interest, ranging from small molecules to posttranslationally modified proteins. When my group began work on the α-hemolysin (αHL)2 pore in the 1980s (1), the possibility of nanopore sequencing was not on our agenda. Following the molecular characterization of the pore by pioneers including Sidney Harshman and Sucharit Bhakdi, we sought to investigate its mechanism of assembly. αHL is secreted by Staphylococcus aureus as a monomeric water-soluble 293–amino acid protein that forms an oligomeric pore in lipid bilayers. To us, this appeared to be a relatively simple system from which basic principles in membrane protein assembly might be learned. Over the years, this has indeed proved to be the case. In particular, the prepore concept, in which an oligomer forms on a membrane surface before penetrating the bilayer, has proved to be generally applicable to pore-forming proteins (2). Nonetheless, in the late 1980s, we began to think about applications of protein pores in biotechnology. Our ideas included the incorporation of nanopores into filters for rapid purifications and separations, the permeabilization of cells both to …
Finding non-dominated paths in uncertain road networks

With the rapidly growing availability of vehicle trajectory data, travel costs such as travel time and fuel consumption can be captured accurately as distributions (e.g., travel time distributions) instead of deterministic values (e.g., average travel times). We study a new path finding problem in uncertain road networks, where paths have travel cost distributions. Given a source and a destination, we find optimal, non-dominated paths connecting the source and the destination, where the optimality is defined in terms of the stochastic dominance among cost distributions of paths. We first design an A based framework that utilizes the uncertain graph to obtain the most accurate cost distributions while finding the candidate paths. Next, we propose a three-stage dominance examination method that employs extreme values in each candidate path's cost distribution for early detection of dominated paths, thus reducing the need for expensive distributions convolutions. We conduct extensive experiments using real world road network and trajectory data. The results show that our algorithm outperforms baseline algorithms by up to two orders of magnitude in terms of query response time while achieving the most accurate results.
Using strokes as command shortcuts: cognitive benefits and toolkit support

This paper investigates using stroke gestures as shortcuts to menu selection. We first experimentally measured the performance and ease of learning of stroke shortcuts in comparison to keyboard shortcuts when there is no mnemonic link between the shortcut and the command. While both types of shortcuts had the same level of performance with enough practice, stroke shortcuts had substantial cognitive advantages in learning and recall. With the same amount of practice, users could successfully recall more shortcuts and make fewer errors with stroke shortcuts than with keyboard shortcuts. The second half of the paper focuses on UI development support and articulates guidelines for toolkits to implement stroke shortcuts in a wide range of software applications. We illustrate how to apply these guidelines by introducing the Stroke Shortcuts Toolkit (SST) which is a library for adding stroke shortcuts to Java Swing applications with just a few lines of code.
Refractory immune-mediated and haematological diseases: candidates for peptide receptor radiotherapy?

Somatostatin receptors have been demonstrated in the brain, in the pituitary gland, and on endocrine pancreatic islet cells (1, 2). These receptors may also be expressed on mostly neuroendocrine tumours (3) and in areas infested by certain immune-mediated diseases (4±7). The presence or overexpression of somatostatin receptors on these tumours and in these diseases is used when in vivo somatostatin receptor imaging (SRS) is performed in patients. A chelated, radiolabelled somatostatin analogue, [In-DTPA]octreotide (OctreoScan, Mallinckrodt, Petten, the Netherlands), was injected and images were made after an interval of usually 24 h, which allows for primarily urinary and also, to a very small extent, hepatobiliary excretion. By then, background radioactivity had dropped considerably. Normal scintigraphic features due to receptor binding include visualization of the pituitary (to a variable degree), the thyroid and the spleen, whereas visualization of the liver, kidneys and urinary bladder mainly represents the metabolization of the radiopharmaceutical. Because of the normal accumulation of radioactivity in the above-mentioned organs, but especially in the spleen, kidneys, and to a lesser degree in the liver, the detection of somatostatin receptor-positive pathology in or near these organs may be hampered. This may be overcome by performing single photon energy computed tomography but, in diseases with low receptor density, the detection of lesions in the upper abdomen may be difficult. If receptor density is high, however, the recognition of lesions usually poses no problems. Therefore, in neuroendocrine gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) tumours, which have a high receptor density, SRS has been found to be more sensitive than other imaging techniques, and is advocated as the imaging technique of choice in the staging procedure (8). SRS may also demonstrate lesions in a number of non-neuroendocrine tumours, such as, for instance, breast carcinoma, Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and in immune-mediated diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and granulomatous diseases. However, its role in the diagnosis of these diseases is very limited, and its value in staging and monitoring the response to therapy remains to be evaluated. Localization of somatostatin receptors in haematological and immune-mediated disease and results of SRS
Adaptive integral backstepping control for a 3-DOF helicopter

Unmanned aerial vehicles have enormous potential applications in military and civil fields. A Quanser's 3-DOF helicopter is a simplified and benchmark experimental model for validating the effectiveness of various flight control algorithms. The attitude control of the 3-DOF helicopter is a challenging task since it is an under-actuated system with strong coupling and model uncertainty characteristics. In this paper, the dynamics model of the helicopter is established and an adaptive integral backstepping algorithm is applied to realize robust control of a 3-DOF helicopter. The proposed control algorithm can estimate model uncertainties online and improve the robustness of the system. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs well in tracking and under model uncertainties.
Application of new voltage control rules in distribution networks

Several countries are undergoing a considerable development of distributed generation (DG). Hence, Distribution System Operators (DSO) are coping with unprecedented technical issues which force introducing new connection rules for customers that produce energy. This work focuses on voltage control issues of distribution systems with inclusion of distributed generation. A review of the standards that have been recently introduced is accompanied by a discussion on simulation results based on a real-world distribution grid. All simulations are solved with DOME, a novel Python-based software tool.
How the R Community Creates and Curates Knowledge: A Comparative Study of Stack Overflow and Mailing Lists

One of the many effects of social media in software development is the flourishing of very large communities of practice where members share a common interest, such as programming languages, frameworks, and tools. These communities of practice use many different communication channels but little is known about how these communities create, share, and curate knowledge using such channels. In this paper, we report a qualitative study of how one community of practice—the R software development community—creates and curates knowledge associated with questions and answers (Q&A) in two of its main communication channels: the R-tag in Stack Overflow and the R-users mailing list. The results reveal that knowledge is created and curated in two main forms: participatory, where multiple members explicitly collaborate to build knowledge, and crowdsourced, where individuals work independently of each other. The contribution of this paper is a characterization of knowledge types that are exchanged by these communities of practice, including a description of the reasons why members choose one channel over the other. Finally, this paper enumerates a set of recommendations to assist practitioners in the use of multiple channels for Q&A.
Particle aggregation in a turbulent Keplerian flow

For the problem of planetary formation one seeks a mechanism to gather small dust particles together into larger solid objects. Here we describe a scenario in which turbulence mediates this process by aggregating particles into anticyclonic regions. If, as our simulations suggest, anticyclonic vortices form as long-lived coherent structures, the process becomes more powerful because such vortices trap particles effectively. Even if the turbulence is decaying, following the upheaval that formed the disk, there is enough time to make the dust distribution quite lumpy.
Involvement of ESCRT-II in Hepatitis B Virus Morphogenesis

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is an enveloped DNA virus that replicates via reverse transcription of its pregenomic RNA (pgRNA). Budding of HBV is supposed to occur at intracellular membranes and requires scission functions of the endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) provided by ESCRT-III and VPS4. Here, we have investigated the impact of the upstream-acting ESCRT-I and ESCRT-II complexes in HBV morphogenesis. RNA interference knockdown of the ESCRT-I subunits TSG101 and VPS28 did not block, but rather stimulate virus release. In contrast, RNAi-mediated depletion of the ESCRT-II components EAP20, EAP30 and EAP45 greatly reduced virus egress. By analyzing different steps of the HBV maturation pathway, we find that the knockdown of ESCRT-II not only inhibited the production and/or release of enveloped virions, but also impaired intracellular nucleocapsid formation. Transcription/translation studies revealed that the depletion of ESCRT-II neither affected the synthesis and nuclear export of HBV-specific RNAs nor the expression of the viral core and envelope proteins. Moreover, the absence of ESCRT-II had no effects on the assembly capability and integrity of HBV core/capsids. However, the level of encapsidated pgRNA was significantly reduced in ESCRT-II-depleted cells, implicating that ESCRT-II directs steps accompanying the formation of replication-competent nucleocapsids, like e.g. assisting in RNA trafficking and encapsidation. In support of this, the capsid protein was found to interact and colocalize with ESCRT-II subunits in virus-producing cells. Together, these results indicate an essential role for ESCRT-II in the HBV life cycle and suggest that ESCRT-II functions prior to the final HBV budding reaction.
The impact of lithologic heterogeneity and focused fluid flow upon gas hydrate distribution in marine sediments

Gas hydrate and free gas accumulation in heterogeneous marine sediment is simulated using a two‐dimensional (2‐D) numerical model that accounts for mass transfer over geological timescales. The model extends a previously documented one‐dimensional (1‐D) model such that lateral variations in permeability (k) become important. Various simulations quantitatively demonstrate how focused fluid flow through high‐permeability zones affects local hydrate accumulation and saturation. Simulations that approximate a vertical fracture network isolated in a lower permeability shale (kfracture >> kshale) show that focused fluid flow through the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) produces higher saturations of gas hydrate (25–70%) and free gas (30–60%) within the fracture network compared to surrounding shale. Simulations with a dipping, high‐permeability sand layer also result in elevated saturations of gas hydrate (60%) and free gas (40%) within the sand because of focused fluid flow through the GHSZ. Increased fluid flux, a deep methane source, or both together increase the effect of flow focusing upon hydrate and free gas distribution and enhance hydrate and free gas concentrations along the high‐permeability zones. Permeability anisotropy, with a vertical to horizontal permeability ratio on the order of 10−2, enhances transport of methane‐charged fluid to high‐permeability conduits. As a result, gas hydrate concentrations are enhanced within these high‐permeability zones. The dip angle of these high‐permeability structures affects hydrate distribution because the vertical component of fluid flux dominates focusing effects. Hydrate and free gas saturations can be characterized by a local Peclet number (localized, vertical, focused, and advective flux relative to diffusion) relative to the methane solubility gradient, somewhat analogous to such characterization in 1‐D systems. Even in lithologically complex systems, local hydrate and free gas saturations might be characterized by basic parameters (local flux and diffusivity).
The Effects of Bilingualism and Multilingualism on Lexical Retrieval

This research reviews literature that has been written concerning the positive and negative cognitive impact bilingualism has on the speaker. It then takes this research one step further asking whether increasing the number of languages one speaks slows down the person’s lexical retrieval. Methods include an interview and two tests, the data from which strongly supports the hypothesis mentioned in the literature review that bilingualism slows down lexical processing. This research concludes that having more languages does increase a person’s difficulty with retrieving words on demand. Key terms: bilingualism, lexical retrieval, RIF, retrieval induced forgetting, aphasia, tip of the tongue, presque vu MULTILINGUALISM AND LEXICAL RETRIEVAL 3 The Effects of Bilingualism and Multilingualism on Lexical Retrieval
Effects of dietary n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, breed and dietary vitamin E on the fatty acids of lamb muscle, liver and adipose tissue

The effect of feeding n-3 PUFA on the fatty acid composition of muscle, adipose tissue and liver of lambs was investigated. Groups of eight ram lambs per breed, Suffolk×Lleyn (24kg live weight) and Scottish Blackface (18kg live weight), were each fed one of six diets containing one of three fat sources (50g fatty acids/kg DM; Megalac® (calcium soap of palm fatty acid distillate; Volac Ltd, Royston, Herts., UK) and formaldehyde-treated whole linseed (Trouw Nutrition UK, Northwich, Ches., UK) either alone or with fish oil (1:1, w/w) and either 100 or 500mg α-tocopheryl acetate/kg DM. Feed was offered ad libitum until slaughter at approximately half breed mature live weight. The type of dietary fat had no effect on intake, growth rate or feed conversion ratio. The 3·0-fold higher concentration of 18:3n-3 in the linseed compared with the Megalac® diet approximately doubled (P<0·001) the concentration in the neutral and polar lipid fractions of musculus semimembranosus and liver, and in adipose tissue it increased 2·5-fold. Feeding protected linseed also increased (P<0·001) concentrations of 20:5n-3 and 22:5n-3 in muscle polar lipids and both lipid fractions of liver. The linseed–fish oil raised the 20:5n-3 concentrations above those for the linseed diet and also increased 22:6n-3. Scottish Blackface lambs had lower concentrations of 18:3n-3 in all lipids compared with Suffolk x Lleyn lambs, but more 20:5n-3 in the polar lipids of muscle and liver. High levels of dietary vitamin E were associated with small decreases in the concentration of monounsaturated fatty acids and increases in PUFA. Linseed raised the PUFA:saturated fatty acid ratios in liver and adipose tissue but not in muscle, and improved the n-6:n-3 fatty acid ratio, as did the linseed–fish oil. Different combinations of dietary fatty acids and better protection against rumen biohydrogenation are required to improve muscle PUFA:saturated fatty acids ratios.
GABAA receptor subunit immunoreactivity in primate visual cortex: distribution in macaques and humans and regulation by visual input in adulthood

Subunit proteins that make up functional GABAA receptors were localized immunocytochemistry in the primary visual cortex (area 17) of adult monkeys and humans. Immunoreactivity for the alpha 1, beta 2/3, and gamma 2 subunits is greatest in layers (II-III, IVA and IVC) of monkey area 17 that contain the highest density of GABA neurons and terminals. Immunostaining for each subunit is unevenly distributed in layers II and III, where patches of immunoreactivity correspond to regions of intense cytochrome oxidase (CO) staining, and in layer IVA, where intense immunoreactivity forms a honeycomb pattern identical to the CO staining pattern. Immunoreactivity for the subunits is localized principally within the neuropil, which, by simultaneous comparison with the distribution of microtubule-associated protein immunostaining, was found to include bundles of thin dendrites and zones of numerous dendritic segments. In addition, gamma 2 immunostaining surrounds the somata of a subpopulation of GABAergic neurons, immunoreactive for the calcium-binding protein parvalbumin. All three subunits are present in the somata and processes of neurons that occupy the white matter subjacent to monkey area 17. In human visual cortex, the alpha 1, beta 2/3, and gamma 2 subunits are distributed in a manner similar to that found in monkeys, with relatively intense immunostaining in layers IVC and IVA. In layer IVC, vertical stripes of intense receptor immunostaining (20–30 microns wide) alternate with wider stripes of pale immunostaining (30–60 microns wide). In the upper and lower halves of IVC beta, these stripes form lattices similar to those in layers IVC and IVA of monkeys. Following monocular deprivation by intravitreal injections of TTX in adult monkeys, immunoreactivity for each subunit in layer IVC consists of alternating intensely and lightly stained stripes. Comparison with the pattern of CO staining indicates that intense immunostaining for alpha 1, beta 2/3, and gamma 2 occurs in normal-eye stripes while abnormally light immunostaining is present in deprived-eye stripes. For all three subunits, immunoreactivity in deprived-eye stripes is reduced within 5 d of monocular deprivation and remains abnormally low for deprivations that extend to at least 30 d. These findings indicate that each of several GABAA receptor subunits adopt similar laminar and compartmental distributions in monkey and human area 17 and are likely to be expressed by the same neurons. The deprivation-dependent reduction in immunoreactivity for alpha 1, beta 2/3, and gamma 2 subunits suggests that all are regulated by visually driven activity. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
End-user programming and the intrinsic complexity of networked artefacts

In this article, we propose a model for networked artifacts inspired from molecular chemistry. It demonstrates the intrinsic complexity of the domain illustrated with unsolved problems such as mastering the semantics of networked artefacts. Based on this model, we identify similarities with the service-oriented computing paradigm and suggest possible avenues for collaboration between Software Engineering and researchers in EUD including: semantic alignment between end-user programming languages and service descriptions, and human-service interaction as a transversal issue in software design.
2 Neural Stem Cells

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are the self-renewing, multipotent cells that generate neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes in the nervous system. In the fetus, NSCs participate to the development of the nervous system. Stem cells are present in many tissues of adult mammals where they contribute to cellular homeostasis and regeneration after injury. The central nervous system (CNS), unlike other adult tissues, elicits limited capacity to recover from injury. It was believed contrary to other adult tissues that the CNS lacks stem cells, and thus the capacity to generate new nerve cells. In the 1960s, preliminary studies by Altman and Das gave the first evidence that new neuronal cells were being generated in the adult brain. In the following decades, with the emergence of new technologies for identifying and characterizing neural progenitor and stem cells in vivo, and in vitro, new studies have contributed to confirm that neurogenesis occurs in the adult brain, and that NSCs reside in the adult CNS. Thus overturning the long-held dogma that we are born with a certain number of nerve cells and that the brain cannot generate new neurons and renew itself. In this chapter, we will review the evidences that neurogenesis occurs throughout adulthood in discrete regions of the adult brain and that NSCs reside in the CNS of mammals, including human beings. We will review and discuss the different theories regarding the origin of NSCs in the adult in the brain and spinal cord.