bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Detection of free intraperitoneal tumour cells in peritoneal lavage fluid from patients with peritoneal metastasis before and after treatment with pressurised intraperitoneal aerosol chemotherapy (PIPAC)
Authors: Graversen Martin , Fristrup Claus , Kristensen Thomas Kielsgaard , Larsen Trine Rennebod , Pfeiffer Per , Mortensen Michael Bau , Detlefsen Sönke
Published: February 2019

Aims

In this study, we investigated whether free intraperitoneal tumour cells (FITC) were detectable in ascites or peritoneal lavage fluid (PLF) from patients with peritoneal metastasis (PM) before and after treatment with pressurised intraperitoneal aerosol chemotherapy (PIPAC).

Methods

Ascites or PLF retrieved at the first and third PIPAC procedures was analysed by conventional cytology, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and total protein concentration, and quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) for mRNA expression of CEA, epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) and cancer antigen 125 (CA-125). Conventional cytology and qRT-PCR were also performed in a negative control group (benign PLF specimens and inflammatory ascites). The treatment response was compared with the histological response based on repeated peritoneal biopsies evaluated by the Peritoneal Regression Grading Score (PRGS).

Results

Thirty-five patients with PM of various origins were included from 2015 to 2016. At the first PIPAC procedure, FITC were detected by conventional cytology (sensitivity 0.58, specificity 1.00), CEA protein (cut-off 0.4 µg/L, sensitivity 0.71), CEA mRNA (sensitivity 0.75, specificity 1.00), EpCAM mRNA (sensitivity 0.71, specificity 1.00) and CA-125 mRNA (sensitivity 0.43, specificity 1.00). The combination of CEA/EpCAM mRNA had a sensitivity of 0.88 and a specificity of 1.00. The evaluation of ascites or PLF retrieved at the third PIPAC procedure failed to detect treatment response, when compared with the histological PRGS.

Conclusions

The evaluation of CEA and EpCAM mRNA detects FITC with a high sensitivity and an excellent specificity, but is not useful for response evaluation in patients treated with PIPAC.

Trial registration number

NCT02320448.
High plasma concentrations of organic pollutants negatively impact survival in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Authors: Goutman Stephen A , Boss Jonathan , Patterson Adam , Mukherjee Bhramar , Batterman Stuart , Feldman Eva L
Published: February 2019

Objective

To determine whether persistent organic pollutants (POP) affect amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) survival.

Methods

ALS participants seen at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) provided plasma samples for measurement of POPs. ALS disease and clinical features were collected prospectively from the medical records. Survival models used a composite summary measure of exposure due to multiple POPs (environmental risk score or ERS).

Results

167 participants (40.7% female, n=68) with ALS were recruited, of which 119 died during the study period. Median diagnostic age was 60.9 years (IQR 52.7–68.2), median time from symptom onset to diagnosis was 1.01 years (IQR 0.67–1.67), bulbar onset 28.7%, cervical onset 33.5% and lumbar onset 37.7%. Participants in the highest quartile of ERS (representing highest composite exposure), adjusting for age at diagnosis, sex and other covariates had a 2.07 times greater hazards rate of mortality (p=0.018, 95% CI 1.13 to 3.80) compared with those in the lowest quartile. Pollutants with the largest contribution to the ERS were polybrominated diphenyl ethers 154 (HR 1.53, 95% CI 0.90 to 2.61), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) 118 (HR 1.50, 95% CI 0.95 to 2.39), PCB 138 (HR 1.69, 95% CI 0.99 to 2.90), PCB 151 (HR 1.46, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.10), PCB 175 (HR 1.53, 95% CI 0.98 to 2.40) and p,p′-DDE (HR 1.39, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.81).

Conclusions

Higher concentrations of POPs in plasma are associated with reduced ALS survival, independent of age, gender, segment of onset and other covariates. This study helps characterise and quantify the combined effects of POPs on ALS and supports the concept that environmental exposures play a role in disease pathogenesis.
Militaries and the duty of care to enhanced veterans
Authors: Henschke Adam
Published: February 2019

This article argues that there is a duty of care held by the State to military veterans who have been technologically enhanced as part of their military service. It suggests that enhancements may be permanent, persistent or protracted and demonstrates how enhancements generate additional moral responsibilities from the chain of command. The paper concludes by demonstrating how this institutional duty of care relates to issues such as informed consent.
An autopsy report of basilar artery aneurysm flow diversion complicated by postoperative day 3 hemorrhage from vessel rupture
Authors: Rehman Azeem A , Turner Ryan C , Wright Stephanie , Boo SoHyun , Rai Ansaar T
Published: February 2019

A middle-aged patient presented with posterior circulation symptoms attributable to a large eccentric basilar trunk aneurysm. The planned treatment was flow diversion with loose coil packing which was successfully performed using a Pipeline Flex device deployed from the basilar to the left posterior cerebral artery. The complete procedure including live biplane fluoroscopy was digitally recorded. The patient had symptomatic improvement postoperatively and was discharged on day 1. The patient suffered a cardiac arrest on postoperative day 3 secondary to massive intraventricular and subarachnoid hemorrhage. An aneurysm rupture was suspected; however, postmortem examination showed an intact aneurysm sac. The hemorrhage was attributed to a small focal rent in the distal basilar artery next to an atheromatous plaque. The Pipeline device was visible through the rent. This is an autopsy report documenting an injury to the parent artery and not the aneurysm as a source of fatal delayed subarachnoid hemorrhage following flow diversion.
Explaining dissociative seizures: a neuropsychological perspective
Authors: Rockliffe-Fidler Claire , Willis Mark
Published: February 2019

Dissociative seizures are common in routine neurological practice and cause considerable morbidity. However, explaining such episodes to patients is rarely straightforward. Taking a neuropsychological perspective, we present a strategy for communicating this diagnosis to both patients and families.
Treating ischaemic stroke with intravenous tPA beyond 4.5 hours under the guidance of a MRI DWI/T2WI mismatch was safe and effective
Authors: Bai Qing-ke , Zhao Zhen-guo , Lu Lian-jun , Shen Jian , Zhang Jian-ying , Sui Hai-jing , Xie Xiu-hai , Chen Juan , Yang Juan , Chen Cui-rong
Published: February 2019

Purpose

Clinical trials have provided evidence that treating patients with acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) beyond 4.5 hours was feasible. Among them using MRI diffusion-weighted imaging/fluid attenuation inversion response (DWI/FLAIR) mismatch to guide intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) was successful. Our study explored the outcome and safety of using DWI/T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) mismatch to guide intravenous tPA therapy for patients with AIS between 4.5 hours and 12 hours of onset.

Method

This was a retrospective study. Records of 1462 AIS patients with the time of onset of <12 hours were reviewed. Those had MRI rapid sequence study and had hyperintense signal on DWI but normal T2WI and received intravenous tPA up to 12 hours of onset were included in the analysis. Their demographics, risk factors, post-tPA complications, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores and outcome were recorded and analyse. χ2was used to compare the intergroup variables. SAS was used to perform statistical calculation. A p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results

Of 1462 identified, 601 (41%) patients were entered into the final analysis. Among them, 327 (54%) had intravenous tPA within 4.5 hours of onset and 274 (46%) were treated between 4.5–12 hours. After intravenous tPA, 426 cases (71%) had >4 pints of improvement on NIHSS score within 24 hours. Postintravenous tPA, 32 (5.32%) cases had haemorrhagic transformation. 26 (4.33%) were asymptomatic ICH and 4 (0.67%) died. At 90 days, 523 (87%) achieved a modified Rankin scale of 0–2.

Conclusion

Using MRI DWI/T2WI mismatch to identify patients with AIS for intravenous tPA between 4.5 hours and 12 hours was safe and effective. The outcome was similar to those used DWI/PWI or DWI/FLAIR mismatch as the screening tool. However, obtaining DWI/T2WI was faster and avoided the need of contrast material.
Association of smoking and electronic cigarette use with wheezing and related respiratory symptoms in adults: cross-sectional results from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, wave 2
Authors: Li Dongmei , Sundar Isaac K , McIntosh Scott , Ossip Deborah J , Goniewicz Maciej Lukasz , O’Connor Richard J , Rahman Irfan
Published: February 2019

Background

Wheezing is a symptom of potential respiratory disease and known to be associated with smoking. Electronic cigarette use (‘vaping’) has increased exponentially in recent years. This study examined the cross-sectional association of vaping with wheezing and related respiratory symptoms and compare this association with smokers and dual users.

Methods

The Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study wave 2 data collected from October 2014 to October 2015 with 28 171 adults were used. The cross-sectional association of vaping with self-reported wheezing and related respiratory symptoms relative to smokers and dual users of tobacco and electronic cigarettes were studied using multivariable logistic and cumulative logistic regression models with consideration of complex sampling design.

Results

Among the 28 171 adult participants, 641 (1.2%) were current vapers who used e-cigarettes exclusively, 8525 (16.6%) were current exclusive smokers, 1106 (2.0%) were dual users and 17 899 (80.2%) were non-users. Compared with non-users, risks of wheezing and related respiratory symptoms were significantly increased in current vapers (adjusted OR (aOR)=1.67, 95% CI: 1.23 to 2.15). Current vapers had significantly lower risk in wheezing and related respiratory symptoms compared with current smokers (aOR=0.68, 95% CI: 0.53 to 0.87). No significant differences were found between dual users and current smokers in risk of wheezing and related respiratory symptoms (aOR=1.06, 95% CI: 0.91 to 1.24).

Conclusions

Vaping was associated with increased risk of wheezing and related respiratory symptoms. Current vapers had lower risk in wheezing and related respiratory symptoms than current smokers or dual users but higher than non-users. Both dual use and smoking significantly increased the risk of wheezing and related respiratory symptoms.
Correlation of avian bornavirus‐specific antibodies and viral ribonucleic acid shedding with neurological signs and feather‐damaging behaviour in psittacine birds
Authors: Fluck Alexandra , Enderlein Dirk , Piepenbring Anne , Heffels‐Redmann Ursula , Herzog Sybille , Pieper Kay , Herden Christiane , Lierz Michael
Published: February 2019

Parrot bornaviruses (PaBV) are the causative agents of proventricular dilatation disease in psittacine birds, but have also been linked to other clinical signs, including behavioural disorders and neurological signs. The aim of this study was to correlate PaBV infection in birds showing feather‐damaging behaviour or neurological signs for which no other cause of disease could be identified. Psittacine birds presented to a private practice were divided into three groups: birds with neurological signs (n=28), birds showing feather‐damaging behaviour (n=42) and birds presented for routine examinations (n=56). Swabs of crop and cloaca were collected and investigated for the presence of PaBV‐RNA using real time RT‐PCR. Additionally, serum samples were taken and examined for the presence of anti‐PaBV antibodies by immunofluorescence test. PaBV infection was detected in one of the test systems in 40.5 per cent of all birds (n=126) investigated. In the clinically healthy birds (n=56), 19.6 per cent of the birds were positive in at least one of the PaBV tests, compared with 52.38 per cent of the feather‐damaging (n=42) and 64.28 per cent of the neurologically diseased birds (n=28). Interestingly, the anti‐PaBV antibody titres in birds with neurological signs were highest up to 1:20 480. High antibody titres (up to 1:5120) were also found in the feather‐damaging group, whereas the birds of the control group, if PaBV positive, had only very low titres. Similarly, the highest viral load was found in the group of the neurologically diseased birds, followed by feather‐damaging birds, whereas PaBV‐positive birds in the control group demonstrated only low viral RNA shedding. A clear correlation between severity of clinical signs, amount of viral shedding and high levels of antibody titres was observed for most of the neurologically diseased birds and also for few birds with feather‐damaging behaviour. For the first time, these results clearly indicate a correlation between PaBV infection and neurological signs in birds without gastrointestinal signs presented to the veterinarian in practice. It also may demonstrate a possible correlation with feather‐damaging behaviour and anti‐PaBV antibody presence. The antibody titre seems to represent a diagnostic tool to correlate clinical signs to PaBV as a cause.
Molecular control of protein synthesis, glucose metabolism, and apoptosis in the brain of hibernating thirteen-lined ground squirrels
Authors: Tessier Shannon N. , Wu Cheng-Wei , Storey Kenneth B.
Published: February 2019

Thirteen-lined ground squirrels (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus) are excellent models for studying acute brain ischemia because they show high resistance to reductions in blood flow and oxygen delivery without evidence of neurological damage. In this study, we analyzed the insulin signaling pathway and regulation of mitochondrial substrate oxidation in three regions of ground squirrel brain (forebrain, cerebellum, and brainstem), comparing summer, late torpor, and interbout arousal conditions. We found select decreases in phospho-Akt in the cerebellum during torpor compared with summer animals, as well as select increases in the forebrain during interbout arousal, suggesting that Akt may influence either metabolism or cytoprotective pathways. The phosphoprotein abundance of glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3β) showed the most consistent trend across all three brain regions, with peak increases observed during deep torpor, suggesting a crucial role for this protein during hibernation. Furthermore, all three regions of the brain showed increased phospho-protein abundance of pyruvate dehydrogenase at serine 232 during both deep torpor and interbout arousal, and serine 300 during interbout arousal only, whereas other phosphorylation sites showed a region-specific expression pattern. Information collected from these studies sheds light on the molecular controls governing insulin signaling and fuel utilization in the brain of hibernating ground squirrels.
Crustal density structure of the northwestern Iranian Plateau
Authors: Teknik Vahid , Ghods Abdolreza , Thybo Hans , Artemieva Irina M.
Published: February 2019

We present a new 2D crustal-scale model of the northwestern Iranian plateau based on gravity–magnetic modeling along the 500 km long China–Iran Geological and Geophysical Survey in the Iranian plateau (CIGSIP) seismic profile across major tectonic provinces of Iran from the Arabian plate into the South Caspian Basin (SCB). The seismic P-wave receiver function (RF) model along the profile is used to constrain major crustal boundaries in the density model. Our 2D crustal model shows significant variation in the sedimentary thickness, Moho depth, and the depth and extent of intra-crustal interfaces. The Main Recent Fault (MRF) between the Arabian crust and the overriding central Iran crust dips at approximately 13° towards the northeast to a depth of about 40 km. The geometry of the MRF suggests about 150 km of underthrusting of the Arabian plate beneath central Iran. Our results indicate the presence of a high-density lower crustal layer beneath Zagros. We identify a new crustal-scale suture beneath the Tarom valley between the South Caspian Basin crust and Central Iran and the Alborz. This suture is associated with sharp variation in Moho depth, topography, and magnetic anomalies, and is underlain by a 20 km thick high-density crustal root at 35–55 km depth. The high-density lower crust in Alborz and Zagros may be related to partial eclogitization of crustal roots below about 40 km depth. The gravity and magnetic models indicate a highly extended continental crust for the SCB crust along the profile. Low observed magnetic susceptibility of the Kermanshah ophiolites likely indicates that the ophiolite rocks only form a thin layer that has been thrust over the sedimentary cover.
Characteristic study of irregularity measures of some nanotubes
Authors: Iqbal Zahid , Aslam Adnan , Ishaq Muhammad , Aamir Muhammad
Published: February 2019

In many applications and problems in material engineering and chemistry, it is valuable to know how irregular a given molecular structure is. Furthermore, measures of the irregularity of underlying molecular graphs could be helpful for quantitative structure property relationships and quantitative structure-activity relationships studies, and for determining and expressing chemical and physical properties, such as toxicity, resistance, and melting and boiling points. Here we explore the following three irregularity measures: the irregularity index by Albertson, the total irregularity, and the variance of vertex degrees. Using graph structural analysis and derivation, we compute the above-mentioned irregularity measures of several molecular graphs of nanotubes.
Phase structure of the Euclidean three-dimensional O(1) ghost model
Authors: Péli Z. , Nagy S. , Sailer K.
Published: February 2019

We have treated the Euclidean three-dimensional O(1) ghost model with a modified version of the effective average action (EAA) renormalization group (RG) method, developed by us. We call it Fourier–Wetterich RG approach and it is used to investigate the occurrence of a periodic condensate in terms of the functional RG. The modification involves additional terms in the ansatz of the EAA, corresponding to the Fourier-modes of the periodic condensate. The RG flow equations are derived keeping the terms up to the fourth order of the gradient expansion (GE), however the numerical calculations are conducted in the second order (or next-to-leading order, NLO) of the GE. The expansion of the flow equations around the nontrivial minimum of the local potential takes into account properly the vertices induced by the periodic condensate even if the wave function renormalization is set to be field-independent. The numerical analysis reveals several different phases with three multicritical points.
A Physics-Based Analytical Model for MgZnO/ZnO HEMT
Authors: Verma Yogesh Kumar , Mishra Varun , Gupta Santosh Kumar
Published: February 2019

In this paper, a physics-based compact model is developed for novel MgZnO/ZnO high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT). Poisson’s equation coupled with 1D Schrödinger equation is solved self-consistently in the triangular quantum well to derive an expression of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) density with respect to gate voltage at the heterointerface of barrier (MgZnO) and buffer (ZnO) layers. A compact mathematical framework has been devised further for the first time for ZnO-based HEMT to the best of our knowledge using the expression of 2DEG density to compute surface potential, gate charge, gate current, gate capacitance, current–voltage characteristics, output conductance, transconductance and cut-off frequency with respect to gate voltage and along with the drain–source output resistance [Formula: see text].
Klein–Gordon oscillator in the presence of a Cornell potential in the cosmic string space-time
Authors: Hosseini M. , Hassanabadi H. , Hassanabadi S. , Sedaghatnia P.
Published: February 2019

In this paper, we find solutions for the Klein–Gordon equation in the presence of a Cornell potential under the influence of noninertial effects in the cosmic string space-time. Then, we study Klein–Gordon oscillator in the cosmic string space-time. In addition, we show that the presence of a Cornell potential causes the forming bound states for the Klein–Gordon equation in this kind of background.
Stability of generalized polytropic models
Authors: Nazir I. , Azam M.
Published: February 2019

In this paper, we have investigated the stability of a spherically symmetric object with charged anisotropic matter by using the concept of cracking. The cracking is a very intuitive technique to check the stability which is based on the analysis of the radial forces that appear on the system due to perturbations taking it out of its equilibrium state. For this, we have applied and studied the effect of local density perturbations to the hydrostatic equilibrium equation and on all the physical parameters with generalized polytropic equation of state. It is found that some of the generalized polytropic models exhibit cracking.
On the number of subgroups of non-metacyclic minimal non-abelian p-groups
Authors: Kumar Pradeep , Jain Vivek Kumar
Published: February 2019

In this paper, we find the number of subgroups in non-metacyclic minimal non-abelian [Formula: see text]-groups, [Formula: see text] an odd prime. In particular, we study a problem introduced by Berkovich [Groups of Prime Power Order, Vol. III (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 2011)].
A class of projective coordinate spaces over modules
Authors: Akpinar Ati̇lla , Erdogan Fatma Ozen
Published: February 2019

In this paper, we study a class of local rings that are not isomorphic to the class of two local rings we have been working on before. This class is also an isomorphism to a special matrix algebra. We construct a projective coordinate space over a module defined on this special algebra class. Specifically, in a 3-dimensional projective coordinate space, the incidence matrix for a line that combines the certain two points and also all points of a line given with the incidence matrix are found by the help of Maple programme.
Waypoint Constrained Multi-Phase Optimal Guidance of Spacecraft for Soft Lunar Landing
Authors: Sachan Kapil , Padhi Radhakant
Published: February 2019

A waypoint constrained multi-phase nonlinear optimal guidance scheme is presented in this paper for the soft landing of a spacecraft on the Lunar surface by using the recently developed computationally efficient Generalized Model Predictive Static Programming (G-MPSP). The proposed guidance ensures that the spacecraft passes through two waypoints, which is a strong requirement to facilitate proper landing site detection by the on-board camera for mission safety. Constraints that are required at the waypoints as well as at the terminal point include position, velocity, and attitude of the spacecraft. In addition to successfully meeting these hard constraints, the G-MPSP guidance also minimizes the fuel consumption, which is a very good advantage. An optimal final time selection procedure is also presented in this paper to facilitate minimization of fuel requirement to the best extent possible. Extensive simulation studies have been carried out with various perturbations to illustrate the effectiveness of the algorithm. Finally, processor-in-loop simulation has been carried out, which demonstrates the feasibility of on-board implementation of the proposed guidance.
Giant Cell Tumor of the Tendon Sheath (GCTTS) with Multiple Bone Destruction of Different States: A Case Report
Authors: Kim Jin Young , Kim Jae Hyun
Published: February 2019

Giant cell tumour of tendon sheath (GCTTS) is considered benign, but well known for its high recurrence rate. Bone involvement of GCTTS is not uncommon and closely related to local recurrence after surgery. Radiologic findings of bone involvement are pressure erosion, circumscribed cortical destruction and degenerative arthritis. The treatment involves complete resection of tumor including bone lesion. This case presents GCTTS of young male patient with multiple bone destructions of different state, treated by complete excision of the tumor and curettage of bone lesion.
Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Information Systems and Enterprise Integration: A Review Based on Systems Theory Perspective
Authors: Gorkhali Anjee , Xu Li Da
Published: February 2019

Systems theory is one of the most important and well-used concept to explain the phenomenon in social sciences. Therefore, systems science plays an important role in explaining many of the phenomena in information systems research. Enterprise Systems (ES), Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) and Enterprise Architecture (EA) are three such emerging technologies in which systems’ perspective plays an important role in explaining the growth and development of these technologies. However, there is lack of literature that illustrates the development and the impact of systems science in these three technologies. This research carefully collects and studies 106 existing literature in the field of ES, EA and EIS, and a summary review of all the latest developments in the ways systems theory has been implemented to these three fields as well as different areas of these three technologies. In the conclusion, three future trends are concluded from the review.
DreamWeaver
Authors: Meisner David , Wenisch Thomas F.
Published: February 2019

Numerous data center services exhibit low average utilization leading to poor energy efficiency. Although CPU voltage and frequency scaling historically has been an effective means to scale down power with utilization, transistor scaling trends are limiting its effectiveness and the CPU is accounting for a shrinking fraction of system power. Recent research advocates the use of full-system idle low-power modes to combat energy losses, as such modes provide the deepest power savings with bounded response time impact. However, the trend towards increasing cores per die is undermining the effectiveness of these sleep modes, particularly for request-parallel data center applications, because the independent idle periods across individual cores are unlikely to align by happenstance.

We propose DreamWeaver, architectural support to facilitate deep sleep for request-parallel applications on multicore servers. DreamWeaver comprises two elements: Weave Scheduling, a scheduling policy to coalesce idle and busy periods across cores to create opportunities for system-wide deep sleep; and the Dream Processor, a light-weight co-processor that monitors incoming network traffic and suspended work during sleep to determine when the system must wake. DreamWeaver is based on two key concepts: (1) stall execution and sleep anytime any core is unoccupied, but (2) constrain the maximum time any request may be stalled. Unlike prior scheduling approaches, DreamWeaver will preempt execution to sleep, maximizing time spent at the systems' most efficient operating point. We demonstrate that DreamWeaver can smoothly trade-off bounded, predictable increases in 99th-percentile response time for increasing power savings, and strictly dominates the savings available with voltage and frequency scaling and timeout-based request batching schemes.
Green-Marl
Authors: Hong Sungpack , Chafi Hassan , Sedlar Edic , Olukotun Kunle
Published: February 2019

The increasing importance of graph-data based applications is fueling the need for highly efficient and parallel implementations of graph analysis software. In this paper we describe Green-Marl, a domain-specific language (DSL) whose high level language constructs allow developers to describe their graph analysis algorithms intuitively, but expose the data-level parallelism inherent in the algorithms. We also present our Green-Marl compiler which translates high-level algorithmic description written in Green-Marl into an efficient C++ implementation by exploiting this exposed data-level parallelism. Furthermore, our Green-Marl compiler applies a set of optimizations that take advantage of the high-level semantic knowledge encoded in the Green-Marl DSL. We demonstrate that graph analysis algorithms can be written very intuitively with Green-Marl through some examples, and our experimental results show that the compiler-generated implementation out of such descriptions performs as well as or better than highly-tuned hand-coded implementations.
SIMD defragmenter
Authors: Park Yongjun , Seo Sangwon , Park Hyunchul , Cho Hyoun Kyu , Mahlke Scott
Published: February 2019

Single-instruction multiple-data (SIMD) accelerators provide an energy-efficient platform to scale the performance of mobile systems while still retaining post-programmability. The central challenge is translating the parallel resources of the SIMD hardware into real application performance. In scientific applications, automatic vectorization techniques have proven quite effective at extracting large levels of data-level parallelism (DLP). However, vectorization is often much less effective for media applications due to low trip count loops, complex control flow, and non-uniform execution behavior. As a result, SIMD lanes remain idle due to insufficient DLP. To attack this problem, this paper proposes a new vectorization pass called
SIMD Defragmenter
to uncover hidden DLP that lurks below the surface in the form of instruction-level parallelism (ILP). The difficulty is managing the data packing/unpacking overhead that can easily exceed the benefits gained through SIMD execution. The SIMD degragmenter overcomes this problem by identifying groups of compatible instructions (subgraphs) that can be executed in parallel across the SIMD lanes. By SIMDizing in bulk at the subgraph level, packing/unpacking overhead is minimized. On a 16-lane SIMD processor, experimental results show that SIMD defragmentation achieves a mean 1.6x speedup over traditional loop vectorization and a 31% gain over prior research approaches for converting ILP to DLP.
Deep Cross-Modal Correlation Learning for Audio and Lyrics in Music Retrieval
Authors: Yu Yi , Tang Suhua , Raposo Francisco , Chen Lei
Published: February 2019

Deep cross-modal learning has successfully demonstrated excellent performance in cross-modal multimedia retrieval, with the aim of learning joint representations between different data modalities. Unfortunately, little research focuses on cross-modal correlation learning where temporal structures of different data modalities, such as audio and lyrics, should be taken into account. Stemming from the characteristic of temporal structures of music in nature, we are motivated to learn the deep sequential correlation between audio and lyrics. In this work, we propose a deep cross-modal correlation learning architecture involving two-branch deep neural networks for audio modality and text modality (lyrics). Data in different modalities are converted to the same canonical space where intermodal canonical correlation analysis is utilized as an objective function to calculate the similarity of temporal structures. This is the first study that uses deep architectures for learning the temporal correlation between audio and lyrics. A pretrained Doc2Vec model followed by fully connected layers is used to represent lyrics. Two significant contributions are made in the audio branch, as follows: (i) We propose an end-to-end network to learn cross-modal correlation between audio and lyrics, where feature extraction and correlation learning are simultaneously performed and joint representation is learned by considering temporal structures. (ii) And, as for feature extraction, we further represent an audio signal by a short sequence of local summaries (VGG16 features) and apply a recurrent neural network to compute a compact feature that better learns the temporal structures of music audio. Experimental results, using audio to retrieve lyrics or using lyrics to retrieve audio, verify the effectiveness of the proposed deep correlation learning architectures in cross-modal music retrieval.
Edge Cloud Offloading Algorithms
Authors: Wang Jianyu , Pan Jianli , Esposito Flavio , Calyam Prasad , Yang Zhicheng , Mohapatra Prasant
Published: February 2019

Mobile devices supporting the “Internet of Things” often have limited capabilities in computation, battery energy, and storage space, especially to support resource-intensive applications involving virtual reality, augmented reality, multimedia delivery, and artificial intelligence, which could require broad bandwidth, low response latency, and large computational power. Edge cloud or edge computing is an emerging topic and a technology that can tackle the deficiencies of the currently centralized-only cloud computing model and move the computation and storage resources closer to the devices in support of the above-mentioned applications. To make this happen, efficient coordination mechanisms and “offloading” algorithms are needed to allow mobile devices and the edge cloud to work together smoothly. In this survey article, we investigate the key issues, methods, and various state-of-the-art efforts related to the offloading problem. We adopt a new characterizing model to study the whole process of offloading from mobile devices to the edge cloud. Through comprehensive discussions, we aim to draw an overall “big picture” on the existing efforts and research directions. Our study also indicates that the offloading algorithms in the edge cloud have demonstrated profound potentials for future technology and application development.
An Exhaustive Survey on Security Concerns and Solutions at Different Components of Virtualization
Authors: Patil Rajendra , Modi Chirag
Published: February 2019

Virtualization is a key enabler of various modern computing technologies. However, it brings additional vulnerabilities that can be exploited to affect the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of the underlying resources and services. The dynamic and shared nature of the virtualization poses additional challenges to the traditional security solutions. This article explores the vulnerabilities, threats, and attacks relevant to virtualization. We analyze the existing security solutions and identify the research gaps that can help the research community to develop a secured virtualization platform for current and future computing technologies.
Trust Evaluation in Cross-Cloud Federation
Authors: Ahmed Usama , Raza Imran , Hussain Syed Asad
Published: February 2019

Cross-Cloud Federation (CCF) is beneficial for heterogeneous Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) for leasing additional resources from each other. Despite the benefits of on-demand scalability and enhanced service footprints for better service quality, the adoption of CCF is however mainly hindered due to the lack of a comprehensive trust model. The basic aim of such a model should be to address the security and performance concerns of a home CSP on its foreign peers before placing its users’ data and applications in their premises. A transitivity of users’ trust on home CSP and home CSP's trust on its foreign CSPs marks the uniqueness of trust paradigm in CCF. Addressing the concerns of cloud-to-cloud trust paradigm is inevitable to achieve users’ trust in a federation. Various trust models have been proposed in literature for conventional and multi-cloud computing environments. They focus on user requirements but none on federation perspective. Their applicability to CCF for addressing the concerns of cloud-to-cloud trust paradigm requires further consideration. For this reason, we have first outlined the general characteristics of CCF as being dynamic, multi-level and heterogeneous. Afterwards, cloud-to-cloud trust paradigm is proposed based on a set of unique principles identified as (i) trust bi-directionality, (ii) trust composition, (iii) delegation control, and (iv) Resource awareness. An insightful review of Trust Management Systems (TMS) proposed in literature reveals their shortcomings in addressing the requirements of cloud-to-cloud trust paradigm. To overcome these shortcomings, we suggest that some challenges can be merely addressed by aligning the existing methods to the nature of CCF. The remaining challenges require entirely new mechanisms to be introduced. A demonstration of this concept is presented in the form of a requirement matrix suggesting how the characteristics and properties of both CCF and the TMS are influenced by each other. This requirement matrix reveals the potential avenues of research for a TMS aimed specifically for CCF.
L

p

Samplers and Their Applications
Authors: Cormode Graham , Jowhari Hossein
Published: February 2019

The notion of
L

p

sampling, and corresponding algorithms known as
L

p

samplers, has found a wide range of applications in the design of data stream algorithms and beyond. In this survey, we present some of the core algorithms to achieve this sampling distribution based on ideas from hashing, sampling, and sketching. We give results for the special cases of insertion-only inputs, lower bounds for the sampling problems, and ways to efficiently sample multiple elements. We describe a range of applications of
L

p

sampling, drawing on problems across the domain of computer science, from matrix and graph computations, as well as to geometric and vector streaming problems.
How Generative Adversarial Networks and Their Variants Work
Authors: Hong Yongjun , Hwang Uiwon , Yoo Jaeyoon , Yoon Sungroh
Published: February 2019

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have received wide attention in the machine learning field for their potential to learn high-dimensional, complex real data distribution. Specifically, they do not rely on any assumptions about the distribution and can generate real-like samples from latent space in a simple manner. This powerful property allows GANs to be applied to various applications such as image synthesis, image attribute editing, image translation, domain adaptation, and other academic fields. In this article, we discuss the details of GANs for those readers who are familiar with, but do not comprehend GANs deeply or who wish to view GANs from various perspectives. In addition, we explain how GANs operates and the fundamental meaning of various objective functions that have been suggested recently. We then focus on how the GAN can be combined with an autoencoder framework. Finally, we enumerate the GAN variants that are applied to various tasks and other fields for those who are interested in exploiting GANs for their research.
Urban Computing Leveraging Location-Based Social Network Data
Authors: Silva Thiago H. , Viana Aline Carneiro , Benevenuto Fabrício , Villas Leandro , Salles Juliana , Loureiro Antonio , Quercia Daniele
Published: February 2019

Urban computing is an emerging area of investigation in which researchers study cities using digital data. Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs) generate one specific type of digital data that offers unprecedented geographic and temporal resolutions. We discuss fundamental concepts of urban computing leveraging LBSN data and present a survey of recent urban computing studies that make use of LBSN data. We also point out the opportunities and challenges that those studies open.
A Survey on Various Threats and Current State of Security in Android Platform
Authors: Bhat Parnika , Dutta Kamlesh
Published: February 2019

The advent of the Android system has brought smartphone technology to the doorsteps of the masses. The latest technologies have made it affordable for every section of the society. However, the emergence of the Android platform has also escalated the growth of cybercrime through the mobile platform. Its open source operating system has made it a center of attraction for the attackers. This article provides a comprehensive study of the state of the Android Security domain. This article classifies the attacks on the Android system in four categories (i) hardware-based attacks, (ii) kernel-based attacks, (iii) hardware abstraction layer-based attacks, and (iv) application-based attacks. The study deals with various threats and security measures relating to these categories and presents an in-depth analysis of the underlying problems in the Android security domain. The article also stresses the role of Android application developers in realizing a more secure Android environment. This article attempts to provide a comparative analysis of various malware detection techniques concerning their methods and limitations. The study can help researchers gain knowledge of the Android security domain from various aspects and build a more comprehensive, robust, and efficient solution to the threats that Android is facing.
Identifying Top-
k
Nodes in Social Networks
Authors: Bian Ranran , Koh Yun Sing , Dobbie Gillian , Divoli Anna
Published: February 2019

Top-
k
nodes are the important actors for a subjectively determined topic in a social network. To some extent, a topic is taken as a ranking criteria for identifying top-
k
nodes. Within a viral marketing network, subjectively selected topics can include the following: Who can promote a new product to the largest number of people, and who are the highest spending customers? Based on these questions, there has been a growing interest in top-
k
nodes research to effectively identify key players. In this article, we review and classify existing literature on top-
k
nodes identification into two major categories: top-
k
influential nodes and top-
k
significant nodes. We survey both theoretical and applied work in the field and describe promising research directions based on our review. This research area has proven to be beneficial for data analysis on online social networks as well as practical applications on real-life networks.
Quantifying Visual Abstraction Quality for Computer-Generated Illustrations
Authors: Spicker Marc , Götz-Hahn Franz , Lindemeier Thomas , Saupe Dietmar , Deussen Oliver
Published: February 2019

We investigate how the perceived abstraction quality of computer-generated illustrations is related to the number of primitives (points and small lines) used to create them. Since it is difficult to find objective functions that quantify the visual quality of such illustrations, we propose an approach to derive perceptual models from a user study. By gathering comparative data in a crowdsourcing user study and employing a paired comparison model, we can reconstruct absolute quality values. Based on an exemplary study for stippling, we show that it is possible to model the perceived quality of stippled representations based on the properties of an input image. The generalizability of our approach is demonstrated by comparing models for different stippling methods. By showing that our proposed approach also works for small lines, we demonstrate its applicability toward quantifying different representational drawing elements. Our results can be related to Weber--Fechner’s law from psychophysics and indicate a logarithmic relationship between number of rendering primitives in an illustration and the perceived abstraction quality thereof.
Incomplete Tests for Undetectable Faults to Improve Test Set Quality
Authors: Pomeranz Irith
Published: February 2019

The presence of undetectable faults in a set of target faults implies that tests, which may be important for detecting defects, are missing from the test set. This article suggests an approach for addressing missing tests that fits with the rationale for computing an
n
-detection test set. The artcile defines the concept of an incomplete test that is relevant when a target fault is undetectable. An incomplete test activates the fault but fails to detect it because of one or more assignments that are missing from the test. The procedure described in this article improves the quality of a test set by attempting to ensure that every undetectable fault has
n
incomplete tests with the smallest possible numbers of missing assignments, for a constant
n
≥ 1. The incomplete tests are expected to contribute to the detection of detectable defects around the site of the undetectable fault. The computation of missing assignments for a test is performed in linear time by avoiding fault simulation and considering all the undetectable faults simultaneously. Experimental results demonstrate the extent to which a given test set can be improved without increasing the number of tests.
What Kind of Research Do We Want?
Authors: Salisbury Dave , Schwarz Andrew
Published: February 2019

From January 1, 2012 - December 31, 2016, David Salisbury and Andrew Schwarz served as Editors-in-Chief of The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. In this reflection, the former editors-in-chief share how their relationship with this publication as well as their own partnership emerged over time. Salisbury and Schwarz share some of their major accomplishments while serving in this role as they sought to develop and promote this publication during their tenure.
Impaired neonatal cardiorespiratory responses to hypoxia in mice lacking PAC1 or VPAC2 receptors
Authors: Barrett Karlene T. , Hasan Shabih U. , Scantlebury Morris H. , Wilson Richard J. A.
Published: February 2019

The stress peptide pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP) and its specific receptor PACAP type 1 receptor (PAC1) have been implicated in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). PACAP is also critical to the neonatal cardiorespiratory response to homeostatic stressors identified in SIDS, including hypoxia. However, which of PACAP’s three receptors, PAC1, vasoactive intestinal peptide receptor type 1 (VPAC1), and/or vasoactive intestinal peptide receptor type 2 (VPAC2), are involved is unknown. In this study, we hypothesized that PAC1, but not VPAC2, is involved in mediating the cardiorespiratory response to hypoxia during neonatal development. To test this hypothesis, head-out plethysmography and surface ECG electrodes were used to assess the cardiorespiratory variables of unanesthetized postnatal day 4 PAC1 and VPAC2-knockout (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice in response to a 10% hypoxic challenge. Our results demonstrate that compared with WT pups, the early and late hypoxic rate of expired CO2(V̇co2), V̇co2and ventilatory responses were blunted in PAC1-KO neonates, and during the posthypoxic period, minute ventilation (V̇e), V̇co2and heart rate were increased, while the increase in apneas normally associated with the posthypoxic period was reduced. Consistent with impaired cardiorespiratory control in these animals, the V̇e/V̇co2slope was reduced in PAC1-KO pups, suggesting that breathing was inappropriately matched to metabolism. In contrast, VPAC2-KO pups exhibited elevated heart rate variability during hypoxia compared with WT littermates, but the effects of the VPAC2-KO genotype on breathing were minimal. These findings suggest that PAC1 plays the principal role in mediating the cardiorespiratory effects of PACAP in response to hypoxic stress during neonatal development and that defective PACAP signaling via PAC1 may contribute to the pathogenesis of SIDS.