bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Socio-economic vision graph generation and handover in distributed smart camera networks
Authors: Esterle Lukas , Lewis Peter R. , Yao Xin , Rinner Bernhard
Published: January 2014

In this article we present an approach to object tracking handover in a network of smart cameras, based on self-interested autonomous agents, which exchange responsibility for tracking objects in a market mechanism, in order to maximise their own utility. A novel ant-colony inspired mechanism is used to learn the vision graph, that is, the camera neighbourhood relations, during runtime, which may then be used to optimise communication between cameras. The key benefits of our completely decentralised approach are on the one hand generating the vision graph online, enabling efficient deployment in unknown scenarios and camera network topologies, and on the other hand relying only on local information, increasing the robustness of the system. Since our market-based approach does not rely on
a priori
topology information, the need for any multicamera calibration can be avoided. We have evaluated our approach both in a simulation study and in network of real distributed smart cameras.
Progressively refined wyner-ziv video coding for visual sensors
Authors: Deligiannis Nikos , Verbist Frederik , Slowack Jürgen , Walle Rik van de , Schelkens Peter , Munteanu Adrian
Published: January 2014

Wyner-Ziv video coding constitutes an alluring paradigm for visual sensor networks, offering efficient video compression with low complexity encoding characteristics. This work presents a novel hash-driven Wyner-Ziv video coding architecture for visual sensors, implementing the principles of successively refined Wyner-Ziv coding. To this end, so-called side-information refinement levels are constructed for a number of grouped frequency bands of the discrete cosine transform. The proposed codec creates side-information by means of an original overlapped block motion estimation and pixel-based multihypothesis prediction technique, specifically built around the pursued refinement strategy. The quality of the side-information generated at every refinement level is successively improved, leading to gradually enhanced Wyner-Ziv coding performance. Additionally, this work explores several temporal prediction structures, including a new hierarchical unidirectional prediction structure, providing both temporal scalability and low delay coding. Experimental results include a thorough evaluation of our novel Wyner-Ziv codec, assessing the impact of the proposed successive refinement scheme and the supported temporal prediction structures for a wide range of hash configurations and group of pictures sizes. The results report significant compression gains with respect to benchmark systems in Wyner-Ziv video coding (e.g., up to 42.03% over DISCOVER) as well as versus alternative state-of-the-art schemes refining the side-information.
A predictive duty cycle adaptation framework using augmented sensing for wireless camera networks
Authors: Shin Paul J. , Park Johnny , Kak Avinash C.
Published: January 2014

Energy efficiency dominates practically every aspect of the design of a wireless sensor network and duty cycling is an important tool for achieving high energy efficiencies. Duty cycling for wireless camera networks meant for tracking objects is made complex by the nodes having to anticipate the arrival of the objects in their field-of-view. The consequences of an object arriving in the view-region of a camera when it is sleeping need no elaboration. Our work presents a predictive framework to provide nodes with an ability to anticipate the arrival of objects in the field-of-view of their cameras. Our predictive framework differs from others in that the nodes whose duty cycles are increased are at least one step removed from the immediate neighborhood of the nodes where the objects are currently visible. By eliminating the need for the currently busiest nodes to also be in charge of informing their nonbusy immediate neighbors to get ready for object arrival, we end up with a more robust strategy for updating the duty cycle at the nodes where the objects are highly likely to appear soon. The proposed scheme works by using an existing MAC header bit that is already in the 802.15.4 protocol and, in that sense, our anticipatory approach for notifying the nodes about the current state of the object location entails no additional expenditure of energy. Our contribution includes evaluations based on large-scale simulations as well as real experiments with an Imote2-based wireless camera network.
Online control of active camera networks for computer vision tasks
Authors: Ilie Adrian , Welch Greg
Published: January 2014

Large networks of cameras have been increasingly employed to capture dynamic events for tasks such as surveillance and training. When using active cameras to capture events distributed throughout a large area, human control becomes impractical and unreliable. This has led to the development of automated approaches for online camera control. We introduce a new automated camera control approach that consists of a
stochastic performance metric
and a
constrained optimization method
. The metric quantifies the uncertainty in the state of multiple points on each target. It uses state-space methods with stochastic models of target dynamics and camera measurements. It can account for occlusions, accommodate requirements specific to the algorithms used to process the images, and incorporate other factors that can affect their results. The optimization explores the space of camera configurations over time under constraints associated with the cameras, the predicted target trajectories, and the image processing algorithms. The approach can be applied to conventional surveillance tasks (e.g., tracking or face recognition), as well as tasks employing more complex computer vision methods (e.g., markerless motion capture or 3D reconstruction).
Multicamera video summarization and anomaly detection from activity motifs
Authors: Leo Carter de , Manjunath B. S.
Published: January 2014

Camera network systems generate large volumes of potentially useful data, but extracting value from multiple, related videos can be a daunting task for a human reviewer. Multicamera video summarization seeks to make this task more tractable by generating a reduced set of output summary videos that concisely capture important portions of the input set. We present a system that approaches summarization at the level of detected activity motifs and shortens the input videos by compacting the representation of individual activities. Additionally, redundancy is removed across camera views by omitting from the summary activity occurrences that can be predicted by other occurrences. The system also detects anomalous events within a unified framework and can highlight them in the summary. Our contributions are a method for selecting useful parts of an activity to present to a viewer using activity motifs and a novel framework to score the importance of activity occurrences and allow transfer of importance between temporally related activities without solving the correspondence problem. We provide summarization results for a two camera network, an eleven camera network, and data from PETS 2001. We also include results from Amazon Mechanical Turk human experiments to evaluate how our visualization decisions affect task performance.
Communication costs of Strassen's matrix multiplication
Authors: Ballard Grey , Demmel James , Holtz Olga , Schwartz Oded
Published: January 2014

Algorithms have historically been evaluated in terms of the number of arithmetic operations they performed. This analysis is no longer sufficient for predicting running times on today's machines. Moving data through memory hierarchies and among processors requires much more time (and energy) than performing computations. Hardware trends suggest that the relative costs of this communication will only increase. Proving lower bounds on the communication of algorithms and finding algorithms that attain these bounds are therefore fundamental goals. We show that the communication cost of an algorithm is closely related to the graph expansion properties of its corresponding computation graph.

Matrix multiplication is one of the most fundamental problems in scientific computing and in parallel computing. Applying expansion analysis to Strassen's and other fast matrix multiplication algorithms, we obtain the first lower bounds on their communication costs. These bounds show that the current sequential algorithms are optimal but that previous parallel algorithms communicate more than necessary. Our new parallelization of Strassen's algorithm is communication-optimal and outperforms all previous matrix multiplication algorithms.
Would cybersecurity professionalization help address the cybersecurity crisis?
Authors: Burley Diana L. , Eisenberg Jon , Goodman Seymour E.
Published: January 2014

Evaluating the trade-offs involved in cybersecurity professionalization.
Bugs and bragging rights
Authors: Neville-Neil George V.
Published: January 2014

It is not always size that matters.
Learning to Recommend Descriptive Tags for Questions in Social Forums
Authors: Nie Liqiang , Zhao Yi-Liang , Wang Xiangyu , Shen Jialie , Chua Tat-Seng
Published: January 2014

Around 40% of the questions in the emerging social-oriented question answering forums have at most one manually labeled tag, which is caused by incomprehensive question understanding or informal tagging behaviors. The incompleteness of question tags severely hinders all the tag-based manipulations, such as feeds for topic-followers, ontological knowledge organization, and other basic statistics. This article presents a novel scheme that is able to comprehensively learn descriptive tags for each question. Extensive evaluations on a representative real-world dataset demonstrate that our scheme yields significant gains for question annotation, and more importantly, the whole process of our approach is unsupervised and can be extended to handle large-scale data.
Indexing Word Sequences for Ranked Retrieval
Authors: Huston Samuel , Culpepper J. Shane , Croft W. Bruce
Published: January 2014

Formulating and processing phrases and other term dependencies to improve query effectiveness is an important problem in information retrieval. However, accessing word-sequence statistics using inverted indexes requires unreasonable processing time or substantial space overhead. Establishing a balance between these competing space and time trade-offs can dramatically improve system performance.

In this article, we present and analyze a new index structure designed to improve query efficiency in dependency retrieval models. By adapting a class of (
ε, δ
)-approximation algorithms originally proposed for sketch summarization in networking applications, we show how to accurately estimate statistics important in term-dependency models with low, probabilistically bounded error rates. The space requirements for the vocabulary of the index is only logarithmically linked to the size of the vocabulary.

Empirically, we show that the sketch index can reduce the space requirements of the vocabulary component of an index of
n
-grams consisting of between 1 and 4 words extracted from the GOV2 collection to less than 0.01% of the space requirements of the vocabulary of a full index. We also show that larger
n
-gram queries can be processed considerably more efficiently than in current alternatives, such as positional and next-word indexes.
Document Score Distribution Models for Query Performance Inference and Prediction
Authors: Cummins Ronan
Published: January 2014

Modelling the distribution of document scores returned from an information retrieval (IR) system in response to a query is of both theoretical and practical importance. One of the goals of modelling document scores in this manner is the inference of document relevance. There has been renewed interest of late in modelling document scores using parameterised distributions. Consequently, a number of hypotheses have been proposed to constrain the mixture distribution from which document scores could be drawn.

In this article, we show how a standard performance measure (i.e., average precision) can be inferred from a document score distribution using labelled data. We use the accuracy of the inference of average precision as a measure for determining the usefulness of a particular model of document scores. We provide a comprehensive study which shows that certain mixtures of distributions are able to infer average precision more accurately than others. Furthermore, we analyse a number of mixture distributions with regard to the recall-fallout convexity hypothesis and show that the convexity hypothesis is practically useful.

Consequently, based on one of the best-performing score-distribution models, we develop some techniques for query-performance prediction (QPP) by automatically estimating the parameters of the document score-distribution model when relevance information is unknown. We present experimental results that outline the benefits of this approach to query-performance prediction.
Automatic exploit generation
Authors: Avgerinos Thanassis , Cha Sang Kil , Rebert Alexandre , Schwartz Edward J. , Woo Maverick , Brumley David
Published: January 2014

The idea is to identify security-critical software bugs so they can be fixed first.
Report on EuroHCIR 2013
Authors: Hansen Preben , Wilson Max L. , Larsen Birger , Norling Kristian , Russell-Rose Tony
Published: January 2014

This paper reports on the 3rd European Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval co-located with the 36th international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval, held in Dublin, Ireland, August 1, 2013. The workshop gathered 32 participants with 6 papers for oral presentations and 8 short papers with poster presentations covering a good range of topics and research questions in the intersection of HCI and IR. Group exercises in connection to the oral presentations resulted in a set of important aspects to be considered in future research in HCI and IR.
Report on the WebQuality 2013 workshop
Authors: Jatowt Adam , Castillo Carlos , Gyongyi Zoltan , Tanaka Katsumi
Published: January 2014

The 3rd Joint WICOW/AIRWeb Workshop on Web Quality (WebQuality 2013) was held in conjunction with the 22nd International World Wide Web Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil on the 13th May 2013. A keynote talk and four full and four short paper presentations were delivered in four sessions. This report briefly summarizes the workshop.
Targeted deletion of C1q/TNF-related protein 9 increases food intake, decreases insulin sensitivity, and promotes hepatic steatosis in mice
Authors: Wei Zhikui , Lei Xia , Petersen Pia S. , Aja Susan , Wong G. William
Published: January 2014

Transgenic overexpression of CTRP9, a secreted hormone downregulated in obesity, confers striking protection against diet-induced obesity and type 2 diabetes. However, the physiological relevance of this adiponectin-related plasma protein remains undefined. Here, we used gene targeting to establish the metabolic function of CTRP9 in a physiological context. Mice lacking CTRP9 were obese and gained significantly more body weight when fed standard laboratory chow. Increased food intake, due in part to upregulated expression of hypothalamic orexigenic neuropeptides, contributed to greater adiposity in CTRP9 knockout mice. Although the frequency of food intake remained unchanged, CTRP9 knockout mice increased caloric intake by increasing meal size and decreasing satiety ratios. The absence of CTRP9 also resulted in peripheral tissue insulin resistance, leading to increased fasting insulin levels, impaired hepatic insulin signaling, and reduced insulin tolerance. Increased expression of lipogenic genes, combined with enhanced caloric intake, contributed to hepatic steatosis in CTRP9 knockout mice. Loss of CTRP9 also resulted in reduced skeletal muscle AMPK activation and mitochondrial content. Together, these results provide the genetic evidence for a physiological role of CTRP9 in controlling energy balance via central and peripheral mechanisms.
Long-term niacin treatment induces insulin resistance and adrenergic responsiveness in adipocytes by adaptive downregulation of phosphodiesterase 3B
Authors: Heemskerk Mattijs M. , van den Berg Sjoerd A. A. , Pronk Amanda C. M. , van Klinken Jan-Bert , Boon Mariëtte R. , Havekes Louis M. , Rensen Patrick C. N. , van Dijk Ko Willems , van Harmelen Vanessa
Published: January 2014

The lipid-lowering effect of niacin has been attributed to the inhibition of cAMP production in adipocytes, thereby inhibiting intracellular lipolysis and release of nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA) to the circulation. However, long-term niacin treatment leads to a normalization of plasma NEFA levels and induces insulin resistance, for which the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. The current study addressed the effects of long-term niacin treatment on insulin-mediated inhibition of adipocyte lipolysis and focused on the regulation of cAMP levels. APOE*3-Leiden.CETP transgenic mice treated with niacin for 15 wk were subjected to an insulin tolerance test and showed whole body insulin resistance. Similarly, adipocytes isolated from niacin-treated mice were insulin resistant and, interestingly, exhibited an increased response to cAMP stimulation by 8Br-cAMP, β1- and β2-adrenergic stimulation. Gene expression analysis of the insulin and β-adrenergic pathways in adipose tissue indicated that all genes were downregulated, including the gene encoding the cAMP-degrading enzyme phosphodiesterase 3B (PDE3B). In line with this, we showed that insulin induced a lower PDE3B response in adipocytes isolated from niacin-treated mice. Inhibiting PDE3B with cilostazol increased lipolytic responsiveness to cAMP stimulation in adipocytes. These data show that long-term niacin treatment leads to a downregulation of PDE3B in adipocytes, which could explain part of the observed insulin resistance and the increased responsiveness to cAMP stimulation.
Direct Synthesis and Morphological Characterization of Gold-Dendrimer Nanocomposites Prepared Using PAMAM Succinamic Acid Dendrimers: Preliminary Study of the Calcification Potential
Authors: Vasile E. , Serafim A. , Petre D. , Giol D. , Dubruel P. , Iovu H. , Stancu I. C.
Published: January 2014

Gold-dendrimer nanocomposites were obtained for the first time by a simple colloidal approach based on the use of polyamidoamine dendrimers with succinamic acid terminal groups and dodecanediamine core. Spherical and highly crystalline nanoparticles with dimensions between 3 nm and 60 nm, and size-polydispersity depending on the synthesis conditions, have been generated. The influence of the stoichiometric ratio and the structural and architectural features of the dendrimers on the properties of the nanocomposites has been described. The self-assembling behaviour of these materials produces gold-dendrimer nanostructured porous networks with variable density, porosity, and composition. The investigations of the reaction systems, by TEM, at two postsynthesis moments, allowed to preliminary establish the control over the properties of the nanocomposite products. Furthermore, this study allowed better understanding of the mechanism of nanocomposite generation. Impressively, in the early stages of the synthesis, the organization of gold inside the dendrimer molecules has been evidenced by micrographs. Growth and ripening mechanisms further lead to nanoparticles with typical characteristics. The potential of such nanocomposite particles to induce calcification when coating a polymer substrate was also investigated.
A Reward Optimization Method Based on Action Subrewards in Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Fu Yuchen , Liu Quan , Ling Xionghong , Cui Zhiming
Published: January 2014

Reinforcement learning (RL) is one kind of interactive learning methods. Its main characteristics are “trial and error” and “related reward.” A hierarchical reinforcement learning method based on action subrewards is proposed to solve the problem of “curse of dimensionality,” which means that the states space will grow exponentially in the number of features and low convergence speed. The method can reduce state spaces greatly and choose actions with favorable purpose and efficiency so as to optimize reward function and enhance convergence speed. Apply it to the online learning in Tetris game, and the experiment result shows that the convergence speed of this algorithm can be enhanced evidently based on the new method which combines hierarchical reinforcement learning algorithm and action subrewards. The “curse of dimensionality” problem is also solved to a certain extent with hierarchical method. All the performance with different parameters is compared and analyzed as well.
Rhinosporidiosis of the Parotid Duct
Authors: Yadav Santosh Kumar , Shrestha Suraksha
Published: January 2014

Rhinosporidiosis is a benign chronic granulomatous infection caused byRhinosporidiosis seeberi(R.seeberi). Rhinosporidiosis is endemic in South Asia, notably in Southern India and Sri Lanka. The common sites of involvement are the nose and nasopharynx followed by ocular tissue. Rhinosporidiosis is also known to involve many rare sites and may become disseminated to ocular in generalized form. Rhinosporidiosis of parotid duct is extremely rare. The case presented here is of 18-year-old male from the nonendemic zone of Nepal with a proliferative mass in the parotid duct. Although rhinosporidiosis was not taken into consideration in the clinical differential diagnosis, eventual histopathological diagnosis confirmed rhinosporidiosis. Thus clinicians should be flexible in the differential diagnosis of proliferative growth in the parotid duct, even in those cases which are from nonendemic areas.
Spaces of Ideal Convergent Sequences
Authors: Mursaleen M. , Sharma Sunil K.
Published: January 2014

In the present paper, we introduce some sequence spaces using ideal convergence and Musielak-Orlicz functionℳ=Mk. We also examine some topological properties of the resulting sequence spaces.
A Quantitative Study on the Trachea of the Red Sokoto (Maradi) Goat (Capra hircus)
Authors: Byanet O. , Bosha J. A. , Onoja B. O.
Published: January 2014

The trachea forms the part of the conducting system which transports air from the external environment to the lungs. The aim of this study was to provide quantitative dimensions of the trachea of Red Sokoto goat (Capra hircus). Quantitative analysis was conducted on nine tracheas from goats (ages were ranged between eight months and three years) without sex variation in this study. The results showed that tracheas were extended from the cricoid cartilage of larynx to the hilus of the lungs, where they were divided into the right and left bronchi. They were structurally composed of the cartilaginous rings that were incomplete dorsally but bridged by tracheal muscles at the ends of the tracheal cartilages. The mean length of the trachea from the first to the last ring was 257 ± 7.11 mm and the number of tracheal rings varied from 35 to 57, with a mean value of 49.33 ± 2.78. The left bronchial mean length (19.78 ± 2.66 mm) was significantly longer than the right (10.44 ± 1.79 mm). The cross-sectional area (CSA) was wider at the intrathoracic area (221.5 ± 0.2 mm2) than cervical area (176 ± 0.1 mm2).
Integrated Approach to Investigate the Effect of Leachate on Groundwater around the Ikot Ekpene Dumpsite in Akwa Ibom State, Southeastern Nigeria
Authors: George N. J. , Ubom A. I. , Ibanga J. I.
Published: January 2014

Geophysical, geochemical, and hydrogeological measurements have been integrated to assess the effect of leachate on groundwater quality within the dumpsite in Ikot Epene Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, Southern Nigeria, and its environs. The resistivity values and depth of burial of the geomaterials, constrained by geology, were used in producing resistivity cross sections which show the geoelectric distribution of the subsurface near and away from the dumpsite. The observed high conductivity in subsurface layers closed to the dumpsite is symptomatic of the leachate-loaded conductive fluid leached and drained into the subsurface. The hydrochemical results of some species conform to WHO standards, while some were found to be relatively higher due to dissolution, leaching, and draining of leachate related contaminants in the soil. The correlation indices of the ion pairs show no significant effect on the paired ions, indicating that the significant value of some of the individual ions is not geologic but due to precipitation from the leachate residue. In general, the effect of leachate is more dominant in the immediate groundwater pathway near the dumpsite than aquifer repositories away from it. The crossplots of the water resistivity and bulk resistivity show exponential increase for the different layers.
Heat and Mass Transfer with Condensation in Capillary Porous Bodies
Authors: Larbi Salah
Published: January 2014

The purpose of this present work is related to wetting process analysis caused by condensation phenomena in capillary porous material by using a numerical simulation. Special emphasis is given to the study of the mechanism involved and the evaluation of classical theoretical models used as a predictive tool. A further discussion will be given for the distribution of the liquid phase for both its pendular and its funicular state and its consequence on diffusion coefficients of the mathematical model used. Beyond the complexity of the interaction effects between vaporisation-condensation processes on the gas-liquid interfaces, the comparison between experimental and numerical simulations permits to identify the specific contribution and the relative part of mass and energy transport parameters. This analysis allows us to understand the contribution of each part of the mathematical model used and to simplify the study.
Testicular “Hyperstimulation” Syndrome: A Case of Functional Gonadotropinoma
Authors: Thakkar Astha , Kannan Subramanian , Hamrahian Amir , Prayson Richard A. , Weil Robert J. , Faiman Charles
Published: January 2014

Gonadotropins secreting pituitary tumors tend to present as sellar mass with hypogonadism. Biologically active LH secretion by these tumors resulting in elevated testosterone is extremely rare. We report a case of a 48-year-old male patient who presented with giant pituitary tumor, elevated testosterone, and elevated levels of gonadotropins. Surgical resection of the tumor resulted in normalization of gonadotropins and fall in serum testosterone to subnormal levels in the postoperative period confirming that the tumor was secreting bioactive luteinizing hormone (LH).
A Dual Band Slotted Patch Antenna on Dielectric Material Substrate
Authors: Habib Ullah M. , Islam M. T. , Ahsan M. R. , Mandeep J. S. , Misran N.
Published: January 2014

A low profile, compact dual band slotted patch antenna has been designed using finite element method-based high frequency full-wave electromagnetic simulator. The proposed antenna fabricated using LPKF printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication machine on fiberglass reinforced epoxy polymer resin material substrate and the performance of the prototype has been measured in a standard far-field anechoic measurement chamber. The measured impedance bandwidths of (reflection coefficient<-10 dB) 12.26% (14.3–16.2 GHZ), 8.24% (17.4–18.9 GHz), and 3.08% (19.2–19.8) have been achieved through the proposed antenna prototype. 5.9 dBi, 3.37 dBi, and 3.32 dBi peak gains have been measured and simulated radiation efficiencies of 80.3%, 81.9%, and 82.5% have been achieved at three resonant frequencies of 15.15 GHz, 18.2 GHz, and 19.5 GHz, respectively. Minimum gain variation, symmetric, and almost steady measured radiation pattern shows that the proposed antenna is suitable for Ku and K band satellite applications.
Entanglement Dynamics of Second Quantized Quantum Fields
Authors: Erementchouk Mikhail , Leuenberger Michael N.
Published: January 2014

We study the entanglement dynamics in the system of coupled boson fields. We demonstrate that there are different natural notions of locality in this context leading to inequivalent notions of entanglement. We concentrate on the particle picture, when entanglement of one particle is determined by one-particle density matrix. We study, in detail, the effect of interaction preserving populations of individual one-particle states. We show that if the system is initially in a disentangled state with the definite total number of particles and the dimension of the one-particle Hilbert space is more than two, then only potentials of the special form admit complete entanglement, which is shown to be reached at NOON states. If the system is initially in Glauber’s coherent state, complete entanglement is not reached despite the presence of two entangling channels in this case. We conclude with studying the time evolution of entanglement of photons in a cavity with multiple quantum dots in the limit of large number of photons. We show that in a relatively short time scale the completely entangled states belong to the class of graph states and are formed due to the interaction with dots in resonance with the cavity modes.
In VitroPhytochemical, Antibacterial, and Antifungal Activities of Leaf, Stem, and Root Extracts ofAdiantum capillus veneris
Authors: Ishaq Muhammad Saqib , Hussain Muhammad Medrar , Siddique Afridi Muhammad , Ali Ghadir , Khattak Mahrukh , Ahmad Sohail , Shakirullah
Published: January 2014

Adiantum capillus venerisis a medicinally essential plant used for the treatment of diverse infectious diseases. The study of phytochemical and antimicrobial activities of the plant extracts against multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria and medically important fungi is of immense significance. Extracts from the leaves, stems, and roots ofAdiantum capillus veneriswere extracted with water, methanol, ethanol, ethyl acetate, and hexane and screened for their antimicrobial activity against ten MDR bacterial strains and five fungal strains isolated from clinical and water samples. Ash, moisture, and extractive values were determined according to standard protocols. FTIR (Fourier transform infrared Spectroscopy) studies were performed on different phytochemicals isolated from the extracts ofAdiantum capillus Veneris. Phytochemical analysis showed the presence of flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins, saponins, cardiac glycosides, terpenoids, steroids, and reducing sugars. Water, methanol, and ethanol extracts of leaves, stems, and roots showed significant antibacterial and antifungal activities against most of the MDR bacterial and fungal strains. This study concluded that extracts ofAdiantum capillus venerishave valuable phytochemicals and significant activities against most of the MDR bacterial strains and medically important fungal strains.
Energy Efficient Design for Two-Way AF Relay Networks
Authors: Li Yong , Zheng Zhengguang , Zhao Mingyue , Chen Yunli , Liu Chuanyong
Published: January 2014

Conventional designs on two-way relay networks mainly focus on the spectral efficiency (SE) rather than energy efficiency (EE). In this paper, we consider a system where two source nodes communicate with each other via an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay node and study the power allocation schemes to maximize EE while ensuring a certain data rate. We propose an optimal energy-efficient power allocation algorithm based on iterative search technique. In addition, a closed-form suboptimal solution is derived with reduced complexity and negligible performance degradation. Numerical results show that the proposed schemes can achieve considerable EE improvement compared with conventional designs.
Association between Information and Communication Technology Usage and the Quality of Sleep among School-Aged Children during a School Week
Authors: Ononogbu Sandra , Wallenius Marjut , Punamäki Raija-Leena , Saarni Lea , Lindholm Harri , Nygård Clas-Håkan
Published: January 2014

Objective. To determine the association between intensity of information and communication technology (ICT) usage and quality of sleep in school-aged children during a school week.Methods. In all 61 subjects, 10–14 years of age, a quasiexperimental laboratory study where criterions for inclusion were absence of prior medical condition and duration of ICT use. A portable device (Holter monitor) was used to measure heart rate variability (HRV) over a 24-hour period, while activity diary was used to record in 15-minute intervals ICT use and sleep and wake up time. Low and high ICT user groups were formed according to their intensity of ICT use. Statistical analysis was done with two independent samples tests and factorial ANCOVA.Results. The higher ICT users showed a lower sleep time standard deviation of normal to normal interval (SDNN) measures in comparison to the low ICT users.Conclusion. The intensive ICT use was associated with poorer quality of sleep indicated by physiological measures among children and adolescents. Knowing the crucial role of healthy sleep in this age, the results are reason for concern.
Surgical Excision with Forehead Flap as Single Modality Treatment for Basal Cell Cancer of Central Face: Single Institutional Experience of 50 Cases
Authors: Rao Jagdeep , Deora Harsh
Published: January 2014

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common skin cancer worldwide. The WHO has defined it as “a locally invasive, slowly spreading tumor which rarely metastasizes, arising in the epidermis or hair follicles and in which the peripheral cells usually simulate the basal cells of the epidermis.” Here we discuss the management of BCCs of central face with surgical excision and reconstruction with forehead flap as single modality treatment.Material and Methods. This is a retrospective review of 50 patients who underwent surgical excision of BCC involving the facial region followed by primary reconstruction using forehead flaps at a single institution. There were 20 males and 30 females, mean age of 59 years.Results. No recurrence at primary site was observed during the follow-up of 1–4 yrs. There was no ectropion or exposure sequela. However, epiphora was evident. Size of lesions ranged from 2 to 6 cm. Keloid formation was seen in 2 (4%) patients. Functional and cosmetic outcomes were satisfactory.Conclusion. For the face, the best reconstructive effort eventually fails in the face of tumor recurrence. The forehead flap represents one of the best methods for repair of extensive facial defects. Complete tumor extirpation, the primary event, is the key.
Age Differences in the Longitudinal Relationship between Work-Family Conflict and Alcohol Use
Authors: Wolff Jennifer M. , Rospenda Kathleen M. , Richman Judith A.
Published: January 2014

Research on the relationship between work-family conflict and alcohol use has generally shown small effects possibly due to failure to include important individual differences relevant to the experience of work-family conflict and alcohol use, notably age. This study examined whether the relationships between aspects of work-family conflict and alcohol use variables differed by age. Participants were 543 individuals (51.2% women) from a community sample of working adults in the greater Chicagoland area who responded to a mail survey at three time points. Results showed important differences between age groups in several predictors of alcohol use. Strain versus time-based conflict had different effects on drinking, and strain-based forms of work-family conflict were related to increased problematic alcohol use depending on age. This study indicates that individual differences, particularly age, should be systematically accounted for when studying the relationship between work-family conflict and alcohol use.
A-Statistical Cluster Points in Finite Dimensional Spaces and Application to Turnpike Theorem
Authors: Das Pratulananda , Dutta Sudipta , Mohiuddine S. A. , Alotaibi Abdullah
Published: January 2014

In the first part of the paper, following the works of Pehlivan et al. (2004), we study the set of allA-statistical cluster points of sequences inm-dimensional spaces and make certain investigations on the set of allA-statistical cluster points of sequences inm-dimensional spaces. In the second part of the paper, we apply this notion to study an asymptotic behaviour of optimal paths and optimal controls in the problem of optimal control in discrete time and prove a general version of turnpike theorem in line of the work of Mamedov and Pehlivan (2000). However, all results of this section are presented in terms of a more general notion ofℐ-cluster points.
Adaptive PI‐Based Sliding Mode Control for Nanopositioning of Piezoelectric Actuators
Authors: Li Jin , Yang Liu
Published: January 2014

This paper proposes an adaptive proportion‐integral (PI)‐based sliding mode control design (APISMC) used for nanopositioning of piezoelectric actuators (PEAs). Nonlinearities, mainly hysteresis, can drastically degrade the system performance. As well as the model imperfection, hysteresis can be treated as uncertainties of the system. These uncertainties can be addressed by sliding mode control (SMC) since SMC is promising for positioning and tracking control. To further improve the response speed, suppress chattering, and reduce the steady‐state error, the adaptive PI‐based SMC is employed to replace the discontinuous control. Actually, the adaptive PI‐based SMC offers a fast convergence of the sliding surface. Further, another advantage of the proposed controller lies in that its implementation only requires the online tuning PI parameters without acquiring the knowledge of bounds on system uncertainties. A linear second‐order system is utilized as the estimated model to compensate for the process nonlinearity and estimate the control gain. The robust stability of the APISMC is proved through a Lyapunov stability analysis. Simulation results demonstrate that the modified SMC is superior to the original one for both positioning and tracking applications. Compared with the original, the proposed controller provides better performance—less chattering, faster response, and higher precision.
Arterial Injury and Endothelial Repair: Rapid Recovery of Function after Mechanical Injury in Healthy Volunteers
Authors: Tilling Lindsey , Hunt Joanne , Donald Ann , Clapp Brian , Chowienczyk Phil
Published: January 2014

Objective. Previous studies suggest a protracted course of recovery after mechanical endothelial injury; confounders may include degree of injury and concomitant endothelial dysfunction. We sought to define the time course of endothelial function recovery using flow-mediated dilation (FMD), after ischaemia-reperfusion (IR) and mechanical injury in patients and healthy volunteers. The contribution of circulating CD133+/CD34+/VEGFR2+“endothelial progenitor” (EPC) or repair cells to endothelial repair was also examined.Methods. 28 healthy volunteers aged 18–35 years underwent transient forearm ischaemia induced by cuff inflation around the proximal biceps and radial artery mechanical injury induced by inserting a wire through a cannula. A more severe mechanical injury was induced using an arterial sheath and catheter inserted into the radial artery of 18 patients undergoing angiography.Results. IR and mechanical injury produced immediate impairment of FMD (from 6.5 ± 1.2% to 2.9 ± 2.2% and from 7.4 ± 2.3% to 1.5 ± 1.6% for IR and injury, resp., eachP<0.001) but recovered within 6 hours and 2 days, respectively. FMD took up to 4 months to recover in patients. Circulating EPC did not change significantly during the injury/recovery period in all subjects.Conclusions. Recovery of endothelial function after IR and mechanical injury is rapid and not associated with a change in circulating EPC.
Axillary Artery Thrombosis in a NeonateIn Utero: A Case Report
Authors: Szvetko A. , Hurrion E. , Dunn A. , Fasihullah S. , Withers S.
Published: January 2014

We describe a neonate of 38-week and 6-day gestation born by lower uterine cesarean section for breech presentation, where it was evident on delivery that there was significant edema of the right arm from the deltoid to the distal tips of the fingers. Doppler flow ultrasound revealed extensive arterial thromboembolus. Intravenous heparin was prescribed for three days at a dose of 27.5 U/kg/h, targeting an activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) of 60–75 seconds, followed by a course of subcutaneous enoxaparin at a dose of 1.8 mg/kg and then 2 mg/kg twice daily, titrated to a factor Xa level of 0.5–1.0 U/mL for another three days. Significant clinical improvement occurred and the child was eventually, discharged on subcutaneous enoxaparin. Magnetic resonance imaging showed multiple intracranial abnormalities. At five months increased upper limb tone, brisk reflexes, and small head circumference were noted. At one year, increased tone and increased paucity of movement on the right side persisted, and some speech delay and visual inattention were noted. Recent follow-up at 16.5 months of age demonstrated a right sided hemiplegia with increased tone and brisk reflexes. We describe the case in detail and review current knowledge regarding the management of arterial thrombosis in the neonate.
A Comparison of Capillary and Venous Blood Haematocrits of Pregnant Women in Nigeria: The Impact on Diagnosis and Prevalence of Anaemia in Pregnancy
Authors: Dim Cyril Chukwudi , Ugwu Emmanuel Onyebuchi , Anyaehie Ugochukwu Bond , Obioha Kingsley Chukwu
Published: January 2014

Background. Volume of red cells in capillary blood varies from that of venous blood. The magnitude of this variation as well as its impact on the diagnosis of anaemia in pregnancy needs to be studied. This study demonstrates the disparity between capillary and venous PCV in pregnancy.Objectives. To determine whether capillary blood PCV (cPCV) differed from venous blood PCV (vPCV) of normal pregnant women in Enugu, Nigeria, and its effect on diagnosis and prevalence of anaemia.Methods. PCV was estimated using pairs of venous and capillary blood samples from 200 consecutive pregnant women at the Antenatal Clinic of University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria.Results. Participants’ cPCV(median=34.0%,IQR=31.0–35.8)was significantly lower than their vPCV(median=34.0%,IQR=32.0–37.0)(Z=-6.85,P<0.001). However, women’s cPCV had strong positive correlation with their vPCV (r=0.883,P<0.001). The prevalence of anaemia among participants using capillary and venous blood was 33.5% (67/200) and 28.0% (56/200), respectively (O.R=1.3(CI 95%: 0.85, 1.98),  P=0.233).Conclusions. Capillary blood PCV was lower than vPCV among pregnant women in Enugu, Nigeria. Nevertheless, the prevalence of anaemia derived from cPCV did not differ significantly from that of vPCV.
Iterative Approximation of the Minimal and Maximal Positive Solutions for Multipoint Fractional Boundary Value Problem on an Unbounded Domain
Authors: Wang Guotao , Liu Sanyang , Zhang Lihong
Published: January 2014

By employing the monotone iterative method, this paper not only establishes the existence of the minimal and maximal positive solutions for multipoint fractional boundary value problem on an unbounded domain, but also develops two computable explicit monotone iterative sequences for approximating the two positive solutions. An example is given for the illustration of the main result.
Nutraceutical Potential of Tinctures from Fruits, Green Husks, and Leaves ofJuglans regiaL.
Authors: Gawlik-Dziki Urszula , Durak Agata , Pecio Łukasz , Kowalska Iwona
Published: January 2014

The aim of this study was to assess the phenolic composition and nutraceutical potential of tinctures from fruits in two stages of maturity (F3, younger; F25, older), green husks (GH), and leaves (L) ofJuglans regiaL. In all extracts gallic, protocatechuic, 3-caffeoylquinic, 3-ρ-coumaroylquinic, 4-caffeoylquinic, 4-ρ-coumaroylquinic, andρ-coumaric acids and quercetin-3-O-deoxyhexoside were detected using UPLC-MS technique. Caffeic acid hexoside I and quercetin-3-O-deoxyhexoside I have been identified in GH tincture. The highest ability to chelate Fe2+was observed for GH tincture (EC50=71.01±3.55 mg FM/mL), whereas the lowest was observed (EC50=131.06±6.55 mg FM/mL) for F3 tincture. The highest reducing power was found for F3 and F25 (EC50=32.47±1.53and36.07±1.72 mg FM/mL, resp.). Ability of tinctures to prevent lipids against oxidation was relatively low. The highest activity (EC50=126.49±6.32 mg FM/mL) was determined for F25. Tested tinctures showed relatively high antiradical activity—EC50values ranged from100.56±5.03to129.04±6.45 mg FM/mL for L and F25, respectively. The results obtained suggest thatJ. regiacan be a source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant properties.
Molecular Markers for Breast Cancer: Prediction on Tumor Behavior
Authors: Banin Hirata Bruna Karina , Oda Julie Massayo Maeda , Losi Guembarovski Roberta , Ariza Carolina Batista , Oliveira Carlos Eduardo Coral de , Watanabe Maria Angelica Ehara
Published: January 2014

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers with greater than 1,300,000 cases and 450,000 deaths each year worldwide. The development of breast cancer involves a progression through intermediate stages until the invasive carcinoma and finally into metastatic disease. Given the variability in clinical progression, the identification of markers that could predict the tumor behavior is particularly important in breast cancer. The determination of tumor markers is a useful tool for clinical management in cancer patients, assisting in diagnostic, staging, evaluation of therapeutic response, detection of recurrence and metastasis, and development of new treatment modalities. In this context, this review aims to discuss the main tumor markers in breast carcinogenesis. The most well-established breast molecular markers with prognostic and/or therapeutic value like hormone receptors,HER-2oncogene, Ki-67, and p53 proteins, and the genes for hereditary breast cancer will be presented. Furthermore, this review shows the new molecular targets in breast cancer:CXCR4, caveolin, miRNA, andFOXP3, as promising candidates for future development of effective and targeted therapies, also with lower toxicity.
The Assessment of Viability ofM. Tuberculosisafter Exposure to CPC Using Different Methods
Authors: Sekar Gomathi , Lakshmi R. , Selvakumar N.
Published: January 2014

Settings. National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, Chennai.Objective. To assess the proportion of metabolically active cells ofMycobacterium tuberculosisafter exposed to CPC using FDA-EB vital staining and viable counts on LJ medium. Mycolic acid content inM. tuberculosisafter exposure to CPC was estimated using HPLC.Methods. Clinical isolates ofM. tuberculosisand standard reference strainM. tuberculosisH37Rv were used for FDA-EB, viable count, and HPLC.Results. FDA/EB consistently stained 70–90% of log phase cells as green and the remaining cells as red-orange. After CPC treatment, 65–70% of the cells stained red-orange. The viability counts were comparable to 0-day controls. Synthesis of mycolic acids in mycobacteria was reduced when exposed to CPC using HPLC due to the decreased metabolic activity of the organisms.Conclusion. The cells are metabolically inactive during storage with CPC but these cells grew well on LJ medium after removal of CPC. The viability ofM. tuberculosiswas maintained in CPC with minimal reduction. Mycolic acid content was reduced if the cells ofM. tuberculosiswere treated with CPC for 7 days. All the above findings provide yet another evidence for the damage of cell wall ofM. tuberculosis.