Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Compact Semantic Model for Characterization of Stochastic T emporal Properties of Concurrent Systems

In this paper, a new semantic model is proposed for characterizing the performance properties of stochastic concurrent systems, called Maximality-based Labeled Stochastic Transition System (MLSTS). A Stochastic Process Algebra, called S-LOTOS, is associated with these MLSTS models as a specification language to describe the stochastic temporal aspects of concurrent systems under the assumption of generally distributed durations of actions. The MLSTS models can be automatically generated from S-LOTOS specifications according to the (true concurrency) maximality semantics. In addition, we bring out the main advantage of the MLSTS as it is shown on practical examples in reducing the number of states and transitions w.r. t. standard ST-semantic models, which are frequently used in specification and modeling of stochastic systems with non-Markovian Process Algebra. Using our MoVeS Tool, we bring out the main advantage of our approach which is a drastic reduction obtained in the number of states and transitions, in comparison to standard ST-semantic models.
Low delay rate control for HEVC

This paper presents a rate control scheme for low delay video communication of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. To prevent the buffer overflow and underflow under small buffer size constraint in low delay communication, the state-of-the-art R-λ algorithm is improved for more accurate bit allocation. A new bit allocation method based on the buffer status is proposed to control the buffer better, which is very important in low delay applications. Experimental results show that compared with the original R-λ algorithm, the proposed scheme has a smaller bit fluctuation and can avoid buffer overflow and underflow with a smaller buffer size, which often means a lower delay, and the PSNR degradation is negligible.
Corn Cob Xylan-based Nanoparticles: Ester Prodrug of 5-Aminosalicylic Acid for Possible Targeted Delivery of Drug

Xylan, a green biopolymer extracted from agro-waste corn cob may be used as a tool to deliver drugs principally to the colon because of their timely retention in the physiological environment of stomach and small intestine and can only be degraded in colon by vast anaerobic microflora such as Bifidobacterium. Present research work relates to incorporate the drug molecule such as 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) into polymeric backbone of xylan by intermolecular covalent bond formation so that absorption of the drug is prevented in upper gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and minimizing the systemic side effects. The intermolecular covalent formation of 5-ASA to polymeric backbone of xylan was evaluated by means FT-IR, H-NMR, solid C-NMR spectroscopy. It may further be confirmed by TGA/DTA and powder X-ray diffraction. The resulting prodrug was self assembled into spherical nanoparticles with an average diameter of 54±11nm and 13±4nm as evaluated by means of AFM and TEM technique respectively. The prodrugs were synthesized which might be active against inflammatory bowel diseases, a novel idea towards advanced drug delivery by corn cob xylan will be discussed.
Privacy Preserving Decentralized Identity Validation for Geo-social Networks over MANET

Mobile phones, and more specifically smart gadgets, have known a rapid proliferation over the past years in terms of their adoption and usage. Their prices have also known noticeable declines making the ownership of a smart-phone at the ability of all pocket sizes. This has created tremendous potential for the design and creation of services that users can consume through their smart-phones and that would improve their daily lives tasks. In this work, we focus on the potential of using smart-phones in geographically bounded areas, such as shopping malls, museums, conference venues, etc, to establish collaborative ad-hoc networks over MANET. These networks are meant to allow for the provision of P2P exchange of information and help between visitors of such places to improve their visiting experience. We discuss how such a network could be designed and we focus on two main challenges: 1. identity validation over the network to ensure the worthiness of provided information, and 2. privacy preservation both against personal information inference from provided information and over the p2p overlay.
Reforma administrativa do estado e governança pública nas cidades brasileiras

In the last decades, there was an effort of the Brazilian society to rethink the functions played for the state device. In the bulge of more general transformations, provoked in part for the change of standard of the itself capitalist accumulation and for the decline of the model of welfare state Keynesian, Brazil surpassed the dictatorial phase, engineered a new Constitution, controlled the inflation and considered an administrative reform of the State, keeping, however, the immense social abyss that separates the economic elites of the kept out of society populations. The challenge for the skill of the government was to show that the Democracy builds up itself in the instrument to face the social debt. The Democracy would have to guarantee the Right to the City, or either, the right to the life that reproduces itself in the city, to the objects that are produced and consumed in the city, to the productive, affective and of organization relations that crystallize the urban inequalities, to the symbolic universe that intercross cultures, myths, religiosities, beliefs and wisdom in the city. To recoup the public governance opens way to fortify the confidence in the democratic government.
Supply chain network design based on fuzzy neural network and PSO

This paper designs supply chain network in uncertain environment, in which the demands of customers are assumed to be random variables, and the operation costs are considered as fuzzy numbers. After modeling by fuzzy programming, a fuzzy neural network optimized by particle swarm optimization is presented to solve the established model. Through an example, compared with the traditional fuzzy neural network, it is proved that the presented method has advantage in calculation efficiency.
Handling Soft Error in Embedded Software for Networking System

Single event upset (SEU) is a well known and documented phenomenon that affects electronic circuitry. These events are caused by either atmospheric neutrons or alpha particles emitted by trace impurities in the silicon processing and packaging materials. The error in device output or operation caused by SEU is called soft error. Soft error is not software defects, but instead refers to a hardware data corruption that does not involve permanent chip damage. Soft errors can lead to catastrophic failures for embedded system. Due to the nature of the soft error, it is almost impossible to prevent them. Based on the impact severity, the recommended handling is to detect and correct them, called mitigation methodologies. The mitigation strategies are implemented in embedded software for networking system. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for single-event upset (SEU) mitigation methodologies for networking system. To achieve this goal we start by defining the SEU mitigation strategy as a combination of chip level methods and system level handling methods. Given a particular SEU chip level or system level mitigation choice, we propose first categorizing the SEU Failure In Time (FIT) into different time window bins based on SEU recovery time. Then we analyze the impact of each mitigation strategy, results in the FIT value change in each bin. This framework enables the engineers to do the SEU mitigation design in early product development phase. A user-friendly Excel tool is also developed to make the complicated model easy to use. The embedded system like networking device can be modeled using the tool at an early stage to support design decisions and trade-offs related to potentially costly implementation.
Traumatic Stressors in the Intensive Care Unit: Iranian Patients’ and Nurses’ Viewpoints

Background: Treatment in an intensive care unit (ICU) is both stressful and psychologically traumatic for patients. Many mental disorders can arise following traumatic and stressful events, including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Studies have investigated nurses’ and patients’ views on the stressors in a typical intensive care unit. However, there have been inconsistencies in the results of these studies. Moreover, only a limited number of studies have been conducted on this issue in Iran. Objectives: This study aimed to compare patients’ and nurses’ views of the traumatic stressors inherent in intensive care units. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 patients who were hospitalized in intensive care units, as well as 60 nurses in the intensive care units, in 2014. The study instrument consisted of two parts, namely a demographic questionnaire (age, sex, level of education for nurses, and length of hospitalization for patients) and Cochran and Ganong’s modified intensive care unit environmental stressor scale. All the nurses and literate patients answered the questionnaire through self-report. However, illiterate patients were interviewed and their answers were recorded in the questionnaires. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the independent samples t-test. Results: Themean scores of the stressors were 123.23±17.81 and 125.16±17.35 from the nurses’ and patients’ viewpoints, respectively (P > 0.05). A lack of control over urine and stool, fear of death, pain, and having a tube in themouth or nose were themost important stressors from both the patients’ and nurses’ viewpoints. Moreover, the mean stressor scores were approximately the same in both groups for the first eight stressors. Conclusions: Nurses and patients had approximately similar views as to the top eight stressors in the average intensive care unit. However, it seems that nurses not only need more training in appraising intensive care unit patients’ stressors, but also in how to reduce or eliminate those stressors. Such an approach could be of importance in the provision of high quality care due to reducing stressors and meeting patients’ care-related needs in intensive care units. Hence, early intra-ICU clinical psychological intervention may help critically ill trauma patients recover from this stressful experience.
Effect of avalanche photodiode and thermal noises on the performance of binary phase-shift keyingsubcarrier-intensity modulation/free-space optical systems over turbulence channels

In this study, the authors theoretically study the performance of direct-detection free-space optical communication systems using binary phase-shift keying subcarrier-intensity modulation and avalanche photodiode (APD). The system bit-error rate and channel capacity are theoretically derived in cases of log-normal and gamma-gamma channel models for weak-to-moderate and moderate-to-strong atmospheric turbulence conditions, respectively. The authors quantitatively discuss the optimal values of the APD average gain, required transmitted optical power, and operating bit-rate considering various turbulence conditions, APD shot noise and thermal noise. It is seen that, although the impact of turbulence is severe, a proper selection of APD average gain could significantly improve the system performance in both cases of turbulence channels. The optimal value of APD average gain remains almost the same for different levels of turbulence; nevertheless it varies significantly in accordance to the change of receiver noise temperature.
Freezing and anoxia stresses induce expression of metallothionein in the foot muscle and hepatopancreas of the marine gastropod Littorina littorea

SUMMARY Differential screening of cDNA libraries constructed from the foot muscle of marine snails Littorina littorea revealed several cDNAs that are upregulated during anoxia or freezing exposures, environmental stresses that are naturally endured by this species. One full-length clone of 1196 nucleotides (GenBank accession number AY034179) hybridized with a 1200-nucleotide band on northern blots and encoded a 100-amino-acid protein that was identified as belonging to the metallothionein (MT) family. L. littorea MT shared 45% and 56% identity with the copper- and cadmium-binding MT isoforms, respectively, from another gastropod, Helix pomatia and 43–47% identity with marine bivalve MTs. The L. littorea sequence included the mollusc-specific C-terminal motif Cys-X-Cys-X(3)-Cys-Thr-Gly-X(3)-Cys-X-Cys-X(3)-Cys-X-Cys-Lys that identifies it as a family 2 (mollusc) MT. Northern blot analysis showed that L. littorea MT was upregulated in both foot muscle and hepatopancreas in response to both freezing and anoxia stresses; within 1 h of the beginning of the stress transcript levels rose 2.5- to sixfold of control levels, reaching maximal levels at 12 or 24 h. After 24 h recovery from either stress, transcript levels were reduced again in three cases but remained elevated in hepatopancreas from anoxia-treated snails. Upregulation of MT during environmental stress could serve one or more possible roles, including a function in antioxidant defense.
Dual Disruption of DNA Repair and Telomere Maintenance for the Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer

Purpose: Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARP) and the Mre11, Rad50, and Nbs1 (MRN) complex are key regulators of DNA repair, and have been recently shown to independently regulate telomere length. Sensitivity of cancers to PARPi is largely dependent on the BRCAness of the cells. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cancers are BRCA-proficient. In this study, therefore, we investigated whether a targeted molecular “hit” on the MRN complex, which is upstream of BRCA, can effectively sensitize BRCA-proficient head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) to PARP inhibitor (PARPi). Experimental Design: Human HNSCC cell lines and a mouse model with HNSCC xenografts were used in this study. In vitro and in vivo studies were conducted to evaluate the effects and underlying mechanisms of dual molecular disruption of PARP and the MRN complex, using a pharmacologic inhibitor and a dominant-negative Nbs1 expression vector, respectively. Results: Our findings demonstrate that downregulation of the MRN complex disrupts homologous recombination, and, when combined with PARPi, leads to accumulation of lethal DNA double-strand breaks. Moreover, we show that PARPi and MRN complex disruption induces significantly shortening telomere length. Together, our results demonstrate that dual disruption of these pathways causes significant cell death in BRCA-proficient tumor cells both in vitro and in vivo. Conclusion: Our study, for the first time, elucidates a novel mechanism for MRN complex and PARP inhibition beyond DNA repair, demonstrating the feasibility of a dual disruption approach that extends the utility of PARPi to the treatment of BRCA-proficient cancers. Clin Cancer Res; 20(24); 6465–78. ©2014 AACR.
Stable Isotopes Reveal Long-Term Fidelity to Foraging Grounds in the Galapagos Sea Lion (Zalophus wollebaeki)

Most otariids have colony-specific foraging areas during the breeding season, when they behave as central place foragers. However, they may disperse over broad areas after the breeding season and individuals from different colonies may share foraging grounds at that time. Here, stable isotope ratios in the skull bone of adult Galapagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki) were used to assess the long-term fidelity of both sexes to foraging grounds across the different regions of the Galapagos archipelago. Results indicated that the stable isotope ratios (δ13C and δ15N) of sea lion bone significantly differed among regions of the archipelago, without any significant difference between sexes and with a non significant interaction between sex and region. Moreover, standard ellipses, estimated by Bayesian inference and used as a measure of the isotopic resource use area at the population level, overlapped widely for the sea lions from the southern and central regions, whereas the overlap of the ellipses for sea lions from the central and western regions was small and non-existing for those from the western and southern regions. These results suggest that males and females from the same region within the archipelago use similar foraging grounds and have similar diets. Furthermore, they indicate that the exchange of adults between regions is limited, thus revealing a certain degree of foraging philopatry at a regional scale within the archipelago. The constraints imposed on males by an expanded reproductive season (~ 6 months), resulting from the weak reproductive synchrony among females, and those imposed on females by a very long lactation period (at least one year but up to three years), may explain the limited mobility of adult Galapagos sea lions of both sexes across the archipelago.
Identification of an opd (Organophosphate Degradation) Gene in an Agrobacterium Isolate

ABSTRACT We isolated a bacterial strain, Agrobacterium radiobacter P230, which can hydrolyze a wide range of organophosphate (OP) insecticides. A gene encoding a protein involved in OP hydrolysis was cloned from A. radiobacter P230 and sequenced. This gene (called opdA) had sequence similarity to opd, a gene previously shown to encode an OP-hydrolyzing enzyme in Flavobacterium sp. strain ATCC 27551 and Brevundimonas diminuta MG. Insertional mutation of the opdA gene produced a strain lacking the ability to hydrolyze OPs, suggesting that this is the only gene encoding an OP-hydrolyzing enzyme in A. radiobacter P230. The OPH and OpdA proteins, encoded by opd and opdA, respectively, were overexpressed and purified as maltose-binding proteins, and the maltose-binding protein moiety was cleaved and removed. Neither protein was able to hydrolyze the aliphatic OP malathion. The kinetics of the two proteins for diethyl OPs were comparable. For dimethyl OPs, OpdA had a higher kcat than OPH. It was also capable of hydrolyzing the dimethyl OPs phosmet and fenthion, which were not hydrolyzed at detectable levels by OPH.
BP Neural Network for Human Activity Recognition in Smart Home

In this paper, BP (back propagation) neural network is applied to represent and recognize human activities from observed sensor sequences. The proper features for activity recognition are selected. Then, the model of BP neural network for activity recognition is established. The results show that BP neural network can recognize human activity successfully and achieve good recognition accuracy.
Self-constrained resource allocation procedures for parallel task graph scheduling on shared computing grids

Two of the main characteristics of computation grids are their heterogeneity and the sharing of resources between different users. This is the cost of the tremendous computing power offered by such platforms. Scheduling several applications concurrently in such an environment is thus challenging. In this paper we propose a first step towards the scheduling of multiple parallel task graphs (PTG), a class of applications that can benefit of large and powerful platforms, by focusing on the allocation process. We consider the application of a resource constraint on the schedule and determine the number of processors allocated to the different tasks of a PTG while respecting that constraint. We present two different allocation procedures and validate them in simulation over a wide range of scenarios with regard to their respect of the resource constraint and their impact on the completion time of the scheduled applications. We find that our procedures provide a guarantee on the resource usage for a low cost in terms of execution time.
Changing patterns of chikungunya virus: re-emergence of a zoonotic arbovirus.

Arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) are the causative agents of some of the most important emerging infectious diseases and are responsible for significant global public health problems (Gubler, 2001). Of these viruses, the genus Alphavirus belongs in the family Togaviridae, and the species in this genus cause diseases ranging from mild febrile illness to severe polyarthritis to encephalitis. One alphavirus, chikungunya virus (CHIKV), caused recent outbreaks associated with severe morbidity. Traditionally, CHIKV causes a febrile illness similar to that seen in dengue virus infections. The hallmark feature of CHIKV disease is a debilitating and prolonged arthralgic syndrome that primarily affects the peripheral small joints. While the acute febrile phase of the illness normally resolves within a few days, the pain associated with CHIKV infection of the joints typically persists for weeks or months causing serious economic and social impact on both the individual and the affected communities. During the 2005–2007 explosive epidemics on the Indian Ocean islands and in India, anecdotal cases of CHIKV-associated deaths, encephalitis and neonatal infections were reported. Here, we review outbreaks of CHIKV disease and present a comprehensive analysis and comparison of clinical presentation, virus– vector associations and viral genetics to assess the possibility of further expansion and re-emergence of CHIKV illness.
Technology for Planning and Scheduling UnderComplex

Within the context of law enforcement, several problems fall into the category of planning and scheduling under constraints. Examples include resource and personnel scheduling, and court scheduling. In the case of court scheduling, a schedule must be generated considering available resources, e.g., court rooms and personnel. Additionally, there are constraints on individual court cases, e.g., temporal and spatial, and between diierent cases, e.g., precedence. Finally, there are overall objectives that the schedule should satisfy such as timely processing of cases and optimal use of court facilities. Manually generating a schedule that satisses all of the constraints is a very time consuming task. As the number of court cases and constraints increases, this becomes increasingly harder to handle without the assistance of automatic scheduling techniques. This paper describes Artiicial Intelligence (AI) technology that has been used to develop several high performance scheduling applications including a military transportation scheduler, a military in-theater airlift scheduler, and a nuclear power plant outage scheduler. We will discuss possible law enforcement applications where we feel the same technology could provide long-term beneets to law enforcement agencies and their operations personnel.
The Role of Caring Practices and Resources for Care in Child Survival, Growth, and Development: South and Southeast Asia

This paper evaluates the extent to which programs for improving nutrition in seven Asian countries evaluate care practices and resources for care, and how this understanding is incorporated into their plans. Care practices and resources for care are defined according to the UNICEF framework, and the more unfamiliar care practices are described. The value of including care in nutrition programs is shown through several model programs. The significance of care not only for nutrition, but also for child development is highlighted. The most commonly mentioned care practice in the seven countries was breastfeeding, and the most widely recognized resource for care was maternal education. Care practices such as psychosocial care and care for women received less attention, as did the autonomy or decision-making power of the caregiver. Although the importance of care practices and resources for care is recognized, recommendations are general and lack specificity. Program planners will need training in scientific disciplines such as psychology or anthropology in order to develop strategies for incorporating care into nutrition and child development programs.