Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytochrome P450 Metabolism of Betel Quid-Derived Compounds: Implications for the Development of Prevention Strategies for Oral and Pharyngeal Cancers

Betel quid (BQ) products, with or without tobacco, have been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as group I human carcinogens that are associated with an elevated risk of oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) and cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx. There are estimated 600 million BQ users worldwide. In Taiwan alone there are 2 million habitual users (approximately 10% of the population). Oral and pharyngeal cancers result from interactions between genes and environmental factors (BQ exposure). Cytochrome p450 (CYP) families are implicated in the metabolic activation of BQ- and areca nut-specific nitrosamines. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge base regarding CYP genetic variants and related oral disorders. In clinical applications, we focus on cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx and OPMDs associated with CYP gene polymorphisms, including CYP1A1, CYP2A6, CYP2E1, and CYP26B1. Our discussion of CYP polymorphisms provides insight into the importance of screening tests in OPMDs patients for the prevention of oral and pharyngeal cancers. Future studies will establish a strong foundation for the development of chemoprevention strategies, polymorphism-based clinical diagnostic tools (e.g., specific single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) “barcodes”), and effective treatments for BQ-related oral disorders.
Optimizing Energy Consumption with Transmission Pushbacks in Sensor Networks

Failed transmission attempts lead to significant wastage of energy in sensor networks. CSMA attempts to addre ss this issue by sensing the carrier before transmissions and b y backing off in case of failed transmissions. However, in man y scenarios packet losses are caused by interfering nodes, th a are not directly contending with a given transmission. We propose a new technique to reduce such losses by delayed transmissions, calledtransmission pushbacks, to overcome periods of poor channel quality due to high interference, while ensuring a high throughput. In order to determine the optimum pushback period, we devise an adaptive channel prediction technique . Our technique is based on estimating the parameters of a simple hidden Markov model (HMM), which represents the channel. We dynamically update the parameters of the HMM based solely on the ACK sequence for the previous packet transmissions. We choose the appropriate pushback period by considering th e throughput requirement measured by the incoming data rate, and the predicted quality of the channel. We implement this approach over CSMA in the ns2 simulator, and show that the pushback algorithm can improve the packet success rate by up to 71% and reduce the number of transmissions needed by up to 38% with the throughput maintained.
Antioxidant Properties of Brazilian Tropical Fruits by Correlation between Different Assays

Four different assays (the Folin-Ciocalteu, DPPH, enzymatic method, and inhibitory activity on lipid peroxidation) based on radically different physicochemical principles and normally used to determine the antioxidant activity of food have been confronted and utilized to investigate the antioxidant activity of fruits originated from Brazil, with particular attention to more exotic and less-studied species (jurubeba, Solanum paniculatum; pequi, Caryocar brasiliense; pitaya, Hylocereus undatus; siriguela, Spondias purpurea; umbu, Spondias tuberosa) in order to (i) verify the correlations between results obtained by the different assays, with the final purpose to obtain more reliable results avoiding possible measuring-method linked mistakes and (ii) individuate the more active fruit species. As expected, the different methods give different responses, depending on the specific assay reaction. Anyhow all results indicate high antioxidant properties for siriguela and jurubeba and poor values for pitaya, umbu, and pequi. Considering that no marked difference of ascorbic acid content has been detected among the different fruits, experimental data suggest that antioxidant activities of the investigated Brazilian fruits are poorly correlated with this molecule, principally depending on their total polyphenolic content.
Joint source-channel decoding of variable-length codes for convolutional codes and turbo codes

Several recent publications have shown that joint source-channel decoding could be a powerful technique to take advantage of residual source redundancy for fixed- and variable-length source codes. This letter gives an in-depth analysis of a low-complexity method recently proposed by Guivarch et al., where the redundancy left by a Huffman encoder is used at a bit level in the channel decoder to improve its performance. Several simulation results are presented, showing for two first-order Markov sources of different sizes that using a priori knowledge of the source statistics yields a significant improvement, either with a Viterbi channel decoder or with a turbo decoder.
Increasing temporal diversity with purchase intervals

The development of Web 2.0 technology has led to huge economic benefits and challenges for both e-commerce websites and online shoppers. One core technology to increase sales and consumers' satisfaction is the use of recommender systems. Existing product recommender systems consider the order of items purchased by users to obtain a list of recommended items. However, they do not consider the time interval between the products purchased. For example, there is often an interval of 2-3 months between the purchase of printer ink cartridges or refills. Thus, recommending appropriate ink cartridges one week before the user needs to replace the depleted ink cartridges would increase the likelihood of a purchase decision. In this paper, we propose to utilize the purchase interval information to improve the performance of the recommender systems for e-commerce. We design an efficient algorithm to compute the purchase intervals between product pairs from users' purchase history and integrate this information into the marginal utility model. We evaluate our approach on a real world ecommerce dataset. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach significantly improves the conversion rate and temporal diversity compared to state-of-the-art algorithms.
Exhumation of basement‐cored uplifts: Example of the Kyrgyz Range quantified with apatite fission track thermochronology

The Kyrgyz Range, the northernmost portion of the Kyrgyzstan Tien Shan, displays topographic evidence for lateral propagation of surface uplift and exhumation. The highest, most deeply dissected segment lies in the center of the range. To the east, topography and relief decrease, and preserved remnants of a Cretaceous regional erosion surface imply minimal amounts of bedrock exhumation. The timing of exhumation of range segments defines the lateral propagation rate of the range‐bounding reverse fault and quantifies the time and erosion depth needed to transform a mountain range from a juvenile to a mature morphology. New multicompositional apatite fission track (AFT) data from three transects from the eastern Kyrgyz Range, combined with published AFT data, demonstrate that the range has propagated over 110 km eastward over the last ∼7–11 Myr. On the basis of the thermal and topographic evolutionary history, we present a model for a time‐varying exhumation rate driven by rock uplift and changes in erodability and the timescale of geomorphic adjustment to surface uplift. Easily eroded, Cenozoic sedimentary rocks overlying resistant basement control early, rapid exhumation and exhibit slow surface uplift rates. As increasing amounts of resistant basement are exposed, exhumation rates decrease while surface uplift rates are sustained or increase, thereby growing topography. As the range becomes high enough to cause ice accumulation and to develop steep river valleys, fluvial and glacial erosion becomes more powerful, and exhumation rates once again increase. Independently determined range‐normal shortening rates also varied over time, suggesting a feedback between erosional efficiency and shortening rate.
A homography-based visual inertial fusion method for robust sensing of a Micro Aerial Vehicle

The combination of a camera and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) has received much attention for state estimation of Micro Aerial Vehicles. In contrast to many map based solutions, this paper focuses on optic flow (OF) based approaches which are much more computationally efficient. The robustness of a popular OF algorithm is improved using a transformed binary image from the intensity image. Aided by an IMU, a homography model is developed and it is proposed to directly obtain speed (up to scale) from the homography matrix without performing Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) afterwards. The visual output is then fused with the inertial measurements using the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to estimate metric speed, distance to the scene and also acceleration bias. Real images and IMU data are collected from our quadrotor platform to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed approach.
Territoriality of Law and the International Trade Game: Towards a New Institutional Economics of International Transactions

The conventional theory of international trade is dominated by a model presupposing a legal order that is perfect in its s pecifications and controllability, binding for all economic agents, no matter their nationalit y. World order appears to be cosmopolitan in the sense of Kant. An international private law community such as this, however, does not exist. In fact, there is a multit ude of legal orders and a territoriality of law, leading to problems largely neglected in the t raditional theory of international trade. They are at the heart of what we would like to call the New Institutional Economics of International Transactions (NIEIT) - a research pro gram which started from a monograph published in 1990 (see Schmidt-Trenz 1990). This paper addresses two questions: (1) Which specific problems emerge in contracts and the contracting process because of factors such as the multitude of legal orders and t he territoriality of law? (2) What solutions are there to these problems a) on th e level of the law, and b) in the shadow of the law or completely independent of it ( "private ordering")? How do they work from an efficiency point of view? We restrict attention to the international exchange of goods. However, the insights gained can be transferred to other types of transactions, such as international finance transactions, direct investment, and investment agr eements.
Protein Folding and Mechanisms of Proteostasis

Highly sophisticated mechanisms that modulate protein structure and function, which involve synthesis and degradation, have evolved to maintain cellular homeostasis. Perturbations in these mechanisms can lead to protein dysfunction as well as deleterious cell processes. Therefore in recent years the etiology of a great number of diseases has been attributed to failures in mechanisms that modulate protein structure. Interconnections among metabolic and cell signaling pathways are critical for homeostasis to converge on mechanisms associated with protein folding as well as for the preservation of the native structure of proteins. For instance, imbalances in secretory protein synthesis pathways lead to a condition known as endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress which elicits the adaptive unfolded protein response (UPR). Therefore, taking this into consideration, a key part of this paper is developed around the protein folding phenomenon, and cellular mechanisms which support this pivotal condition. We provide an overview of chaperone protein function, UPR via, spatial compartmentalization of protein folding, proteasome role, autophagy, as well as the intertwining between these processes. Several diseases are known to have a molecular etiology in the malfunction of mechanisms responsible for protein folding and in the shielding of native structure, phenomena which ultimately lead to misfolded protein accumulation. This review centers on our current knowledge about pathways that modulate protein folding, and cell responses involved in protein homeostasis.
Optimizing MPI Communication on Multi-GPU Systems Using CUDA Inter-Process Communication

Many modern clusters are being equipped with multiple GPUs per node to achieve better compute density and power efficiency. However, moving data in/out of GPUs continues to remain a major performance bottleneck. With CUDA 4.1, NVIDIA has introduced Inter-Process Communication (IPC) to address data movement overheads between processes using different GPUs connected to the same node. State-of-the-art MPI libraries like MVAPICH2 are being modified to allow application developers to use MPI calls directly over GPU device memory. This improves the programmability for application developers by removing the burden of dealing with complex data movement optimizations. In this paper, we propose efficient designs for intra-node MPI communication on multi-GPU nodes, taking advantage of IPC capabilities provided in CUDA. We also demonstrate how MPI one-sided communication semantics can provide better performance and overlap by taking advantage of IPC and the Direct Memory Access (DMA) engine on a GPU. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our designs using micro-benchmarks and an application. The proposed designs improve GPU-to-GPU MPI Send/Receive latency for 4MByte messages by 79% and achieve 4 times the bandwidth for the same message size. One-sided communication using Put and Active synchronization shows 74% improvement in latency for 4MByte message, compared to the existing Send/Receive based implementation. Our benchmark using Get and Passive Synchronization demonstrates that true asynchronous progress can be achieved using IPC and the GPU DMA engine. Our designs for two-sided and one-sided communication improve the performance of GPULBM, a CUDA implementation of Lattice Boltzmann Method for multiphase flows, by 16%, compared to the performance using existing designs in MVAPICH2. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to provide a comprehensive solution for MPI two-sided and one-sided GPU-to-GPU communication within a node, using CUDA IPC.
Dynamic Provisioning of Storage Workloads

Due to lack of generic, accurate, dynamic and comprehensive models for performance estimation, customers typically tend to underprovision or over-provision storage systems today. With multi-tenancy, virtualization, scale and unified storage becoming norms in the industry, it is highly desirable to strike an optimum balance between utilization and performance. However, performance prediction for enterprise storage systems is a tricky problem, considering that there are multiple hardware and software layers cascaded in complex ways that affect behavior of the system. Configuration factors such as CPU, cache size, RAM size, capacity, storage backend (HDD/Flash) and network cards etc. are known to have significant effect on the number of IOPS that can be pushed to the system. However, apart from system characteristics as these, storage workloads vary reasonably and therefore, IOPS numbers depend heavily on types of workloads provisioned on storage systems. In this work, we treat storage system as a hybrid of black-box and white-box models, and propose a solution that will enable administrators to make decisions in the presence of multiple workloads dynamically. Our worst-case prediction is within 15% error margin.
Multistate resistive switching in silver nanoparticle films

Abstract Resistive switching devices have garnered significant consideration for their potential use in nanoelectronics and non-volatile memory applications. Here we investigate the nonlinear current–voltage behavior and resistive switching properties of composite nanoparticle films comprising a large collective of metal–insulator–metal junctions. Silver nanoparticles prepared via the polyol process and coated with an insulating polymer layer of tetraethylene glycol were deposited onto silicon oxide substrates. Activation required a forming step achieved through application of a bias voltage. Once activated, the nanoparticle films exhibited controllable resistive switching between multiple discrete low resistance states that depended on operational parameters including the applied bias voltage, temperature and sweep frequency. The films’ resistance switching behavior is shown here to be the result of nanofilament formation due to formative electromigration effects. Because of their tunable and distinct resistance states, scalability and ease of fabrication, nanoparticle films have a potential place in memory technology as resistive random access memory cells.
Cityfit - High-Quality Urban Reconstruction by Fitting Shape Grammars to Image and derived Textured Point Clouds

Many approaches for automatic 3D city reconstruction exist, but they are still missing an important feature: detailed facades. The goal of the CityFit project is to reconstruct the facades of 80% of the buildings in the city of Graz fully automatically. The challenge is to establish a complete workflow, ranging from acquisition of images and LIDAR data over 2D/3D feature detection and recognition to the generation of lean polygonal facade models. The desired detail level is to represent all significant facade elements larger than 50 cm by explicit polygonal geometry. All geometry shall also carry descriptive annotations (semantic enrichment). This paper presents an outline of the workflow, important design decisions, and the current state of the project. First results were obtained by case studies of facade analysis followed by manual reconstruction. This gave important hints how to structure grammars for automatic reconstruction.
Wireless Malware Propagation: A Reality Check

The paper discusses the data security on wireless communications. In recent years, several authors began to work on the concept of security attacks against wireless communication protocols- in particular, the propagation of malware through them. It was fun to design covert attack devices and evaluate the Bluetooth user population's exposure to them. However, the latest "developments" on these threats are stepping progressively away from reality and into an abstract, academic world of their own, something that might be just as fun, but that should be brought back into perspective when assessing the actual risks related to these scenarios. The author presents two distinct examples, the wireless LAN contagion and Bluetooth epidemics. The author concludes that wireless and mobile security, and, in particular, worm propagation over wireless networks, is an interesting and novel concept. It challenges and thrills, creating appealing newspaper headlines along the way. However, it must be sure to check our models against reality, and after predicting threats that failed to materialize, it must be able to understand where it went wrong.
On choosing which game to play when ignorant of the rules

This paper suggests a theory of choice among strategic situations when the rules of play are not properly specified. We take the view that a “strategic situation” is adequately described by a TU game since it specifies what is feasible for each coalition but is silent on the procedures that are used to allocate the surplus. We model the choice problem facing a decision maker (DM) as having to choose from finitely many “actions”. The known “consequence” of the ith action is a coalition from game fi over a fixed set of players $$N_i\cup\{d\}$$ (where d stands for the DM). Axioms are imposed on her choice as the list of consequences (f1,., fm) from the m actions varies. We characterize choice rules that are based on marginal contributions of the DM in general and on the Shapley Value in particular.
Multilevel Thresholding Segmentation of T2 weighted Brain MRI images using Convergent Heterogeneous Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper proposes a new image thresholding segmentation approach using the heuristic method, Convergent Heterogeneous Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm. The proposed algorithm incorporates a new strategy of searching the problem space by dividing the swarm into subswarms. Each subswarm particles search for better solution separately lead to better exploitation while they cooperate with each other to find the best global position. The consequence of the aforementioned cooperation is better exploration, convergence and it able the algorithm to jump from local optimal solution to the better spots. A practical application of this method is demonstrated for the problem of medical image thresholding segmentation. We considered two classical thresholding techniques of Otsu and Kapur separately as the objective function for the optimization method and applied on a set of brain MR images. Comparative experimental results reveal that the proposed method outperforms another state of the art method from the literature in terms of accuracy, computation time and stable results.
On the quantum sl_2 invariants of knots and integral homology spheres

We will announce some results on the values of quantum sl2 invariants of knots and integral homology spheres. Lawrence’s universal sl2 invariant of knots takes values in a fairly small subalgebra of the center of the h-adic version of the quantized enveloping algebra of sl2 . This implies an integrality result on the colored Jones polynomials of a knot. We define an invariant of integral homology spheres with values in a completion of the Laurent polynomial ring of one variable over the integers which specializes at roots of unity to the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants. The definition of our invariant provides a new definition of Witten-ReshetikhinTuraev invariant of integral homology spheres. AMS Classification 57M27; 17B37
Management by values: A theoretical proposal for strategic human resource management in China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to integrate cultural value management into the high level of human resource management to propose a new direction of strategic human resource management (SHRM) development through management by the values (MBV) concept.Design/methodology/approach – The paper proposes an integrative MBV SHRM model for Chinese management, incorporating Neo‐Confucian values for responsible, pragmatic and humanistic management, as well as two dynamic SHRM elements: leadership and learning. First SHRM in China is described; then the MBV concept and model are introduced. At that point, the evolution of cultural studies and Chinese Neo‐Confucianism is introduced before proposing an integrative MBV SHRM model for Chinese management.Findings – Instead of the economic approach most often adopted by SHRM researchers, a harmonious managerial approach is argued for, based on the MBV triaxial model: ethical, economic, and emotional values, to orient the operations of the organisation.Originality/.
Finding Error-Handling Bugs in Systems Code Using Static Analysis

Run-time errors are unavoidable whenever software interacts with the physical world. Unchecked errors are especially pernicious in operating system file management code. Transient or permanent hardware failures are inevitable, and errormanagement bugs at the file system layer can cause silent, unrecoverable data corruption. Furthermore, even when developers have the best of intentions, inaccurate documentation can mislead programmers and cause software to fail in unexpected ways. We use static program analysis to understand and make error handling in large systems more reliable. We apply our analyses to numerous Linux file systems and drivers, finding hundreds of confirmed error-handling bugs that could lead to serious problems such as system crashes, silent data loss and corruption.