bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The application of pressuremeter test results in deformation analyses
Authors: Burgess N. , Eisenstein Z.
Published: September 2010

The overconsolidated soils and soft rocks which form a large proportion of foundation materials in Western Canada typically have a substantial component of their total deformation of an immediate (time independent) nature. This makes them particularly suitable for application of pressuremeter testing when deformation characteristics are sought for settlement or heave analysis.The presented study is a continuation of work on pressuremeter testing carried out at the University of Alberta systematically since 1971 with a view to developing a pragmatic approach to a complex problem of foundation deformation analysis.Described in detail are pressuremeter testings on three sites in Western Canada where documented case histories of deformation behavior were available. The first case history analysed was a settlement of Mount Blackstrap near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which is a man-made ski hill founded on very deep till strata. The second case was the settlement of concrete silos in Calgary, Alberta, founded on a layer of dense, coarse gravel. The third study was concerned with an analysis of a load test on a bored pile embedded in Cretaceous bedrock at the Calgary Airport.At all three sites the pressuremeter derived moduli were used in back-analysis of foundation behavior and the results were compared with previously recorded field data. An agreement between the back-analysis and field data in some cases and discrepancies in others indicate the limitations of this approach to pressuremeter testing in these types of foundation materials. The results are discussed and conclusions are drawn on the basis of these as well as the previously studied case histories.
An examination of some theories of earth pressure on shaft linings
Authors: Prater E. G.
Published: September 2010

Various theories for determining the earth pressure on shaft linings in cohesionless soils are discussed, and results are presented for a Coulomb-type analysis with a conical sliding surface. The assumed shape of the failure surface approximates closely the one given in published results obtained by the method of characteristics. The simplicity of the cone permits an investigation of a number of parameters, e.g. the earth pressure coefficient on radial planes, which turns out to be a decisive parameter in the analysis, and accounts for the widely differing published values for earth pressures on shaft linings. Certain theories could lead, especially at greater depths, to rather conservative designs.A similar theory is also presented for earth pressures on shafts in cohesive soils. In this case the possibility of base failure must be considered as well, and it is shown that this might be the deciding failure mechanism.
Compositional and structural anisotropy of Winnipeg soils — a study based on scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analyses
Authors: Baracos A.
Published: September 2010

Samples of Winnipeg tan silt, brown clay, grey clay, and grey plastic clay were examined using X-ray diffraction and the scanning electron microscope (SEM). These same samples from the Winnipeg Floodway test site had been the subject of an extensive investigation by Freeman, who had shown that they were anisotropic in shear strength and permeability.Evidence was obtained that the presence of non-clay minerals in varves, veins, and inclusions in otherwise clayey material was a cause of anisotropy. Clay particle horizontal orientation and the presence of horizontal planes of uniformly graded silt are further reasons for anisotropy. In addition photographic data were obtained of shape, size, and grouping of the soil particles.
Bearing capacity model test of stratified subsoil loaded by strip foundation
Authors: Tejchman A.
Published: September 2010

The paper presents the results of model tests concerning the bearing capacity of a strip foundation resting on stratified subsoil. The foundation was loaded with vertical and inclined forces, acting axially and eccentrically. The subsoil assumed for the testing consisted of a strong layer overlying a weak one. Three principal problems were analysed based on results obtained from the model tests as follows: the effect of stratified subsoil on the foundation's bearing capacity, the effect of the loading system on the foundation's bearing capacity, and the effect of stratified subsoil on the settlement of the foundation. In the concluding remarks the mechanism of failure for stratified subsoil and practical notes on the soil bearing capacity under the analysed conditions are presented.
A HIGH PERFORMANCE 3D EXACT EUCLIDEAN DISTANCE TRANSFORM ALGORITHM FOR DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING
Authors: TORELLI JULIO CESAR , FABBRI RICARDO , TRAVIESO GONZALO , BRUNO ODEMIR MARTINEZ
Published: September 2010

The Euclidean distance transform (EDT) is used in various methods in pattern recognition, computer vision, image analysis, physics, applied mathematics and robotics. Until now, several sequential EDT algorithms have been described in the literature, however they are time- and memory-consuming for images with large resolutions. Therefore, parallel implementations of the EDT are required specially for 3D images. This paper presents a parallel implementation based on domain decomposition of a well-known 3D Euclidean distance transform algorithm, and analyzes its performance on a cluster of workstations. The use of a data compression tool to reduce communication time is investigated and discussed. Among the obtained performance results, this work shows that data compression is an essential tool for clusters with low-bandwidth networks.
PANORAMIC 3D RECONSTRUCTION USING STEREO MULTI-PERSPECTIVE PANORAMA
Authors: JIANG WEI , SUGIMOTO SHIGEKI , OKUTOMI MASATOSHI
Published: September 2010

In this paper, we present a novel approach to imaging a panoramic (360°) environment and computing its dense depth map. Our approach adopts a multi-baseline stereo strategy using a set of multi-perspective panoramas where large baseline lengths are available. We design two image acquisition rigs for capturing such multi-perspective panoramas. The first one is composed of two parallel stereo cameras. By rotating the rig about a vertical axis, we generate four multi-perspective panoramas by resampling the regular perspective images captured by the stereo cameras. Then a depth map is estimated from the four multi-perspective panoramas and an original perspective image using a multi-baseline matching technique with different types of epipolar constraints. The second one is composed of a single camera and two mirrors. By rotating the rig, we acquire a spatio-temporal volume that is made up of the sequential images captured by the camera. Then we estimate a depth map by extracting trajectories from the spatio-temporal volume by using a multi-baseline stereo technique by considering occlusions. We can consider both rotating rigs as a single rotating camera with a very large field of view (FOV), that offers a large baseline length in depth estimation. In addition, compared with a previous approach using two multi-perspective panoramas from a single rotating camera, our approach can reduce matching errors due to image noise, repeated patterns, and occlusions by multi-baseline stereo techniques. Experimental results using both synthetic and real images show that our approach produces high quality panoramic 3D reconstruction.
A NOVEL PRIVACY-PRESERVING ASSOCIATION RULES MINING METHOD
Authors: HONG TIAN , XIUKUN WANG
Published: September 2010

In order to mine association rules accurately and efficiently while preserving the privacy thereof, a novel privacy-preserving association rules mining method is proposed in this paper. Known as the partial randomized response based on probability matrix, or PRRPM, this method chooses different data transition strategies to find frequent 1-itemsets and k-itemsets (k > 1). The PRRPM algorithm is explored and its validity examined through theoretical analysis and experiments.
AN OPEN MODULE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT (OMDE) FOR INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY SYSTEMS
Authors: KIM HADONG , LEE MALREY
Published: September 2010

Graphic designers and developers would like to use virtual reality (VR) systems with a friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) and development environment that provide efficient creation, modification and deletion functions. Although current VR graphical design systems incorporate the most up-to-date features, graphic designers are not able to specify the interface features that they desire or features that are most suitable for specific design and development tasks. This paper proposes an Open Module Development Environment (OMDE) for VR systems that can provide interactive functions that reflect the graphic designers requirements. OMDE allows graphic designers to specify their specific interface features and functions, and the system configuration to utilize plug-in modules. Hence a dynamically created development environment is provided that is also tailored to the graphic designer's requirements and facilitates graphical composition and editing. The functions of the graphical interface modules and the OMDE system specifications are identified. The system implementation environment and structure of the 3D VR software are described and the implementation is evaluated for performance, as an improved 3D graphic design tool.
EFFICIENT CLASSIFICATION OF SCANNED MEDIA USING SPATIAL STATISTICS
Authors: UNAL GOZDE , SHARMA GAURAV , ESCHBACH REINER
Published: September 2010

Photography, lithography, xerography, and inkjet printing are the dominant technologies for color printing. Images produced on these "different media" are often scanned either for the purpose of copying or creating an electronic representation. For an improved color calibration during scanning, a media identification from the scanned image data is desirable. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm for automated classification of input media into four major classes corresponding to photographic, lithographic, xerographic and inkjet. Our technique exploits the strong correlation between the type of input media and the spatial statistics of corresponding images, which are observed in the scanned images. We adopt ideas from spatial statistics literature, and design two spatial statistical measures of dispersion and periodicity, which are computed over spatial point patterns generated from blocks of the scanned image, and whose distributions provide the features for making a decision. We utilize extensive training data and determined well separated decision regions to classify the input media. We validate and tested our classification technique results over an independent extensive data set. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is able to distinguish between the different media with high reliability.
DISTANCE-BASED PHYLOGENETIC ALGORITHMS: NEW INSIGHTS AND APPLICATIONS
Authors: POMPEI S. , CAGLIOTI E. , LORETO V. , TRIA F.
Published: September 2010

Phylogenetic methods have recently been rediscovered in several interesting areas among which immunodynamics, epidemiology and many branches of evolutionary dynamics. In many interesting cases the reconstruction of a correct phylogeny is blurred by high mutation rates and/or horizontal transfer events. As a consequence, a divergence arises between the true evolutionary distances and the distances between pairs of taxa as inferred from the available data, making the phylogenetic reconstruction a challenging problem. Mathematically this divergence translates in the non-additivity of the actual distances between taxa and the quest for new algorithms able to efficiently cope with these effects is wide open. In distance-based reconstruction methods, two properties of additive distances were extensively exploited as antagonist criteria to drive phylogeny reconstruction: on the one hand a local property of quartets, i.e. sets of four taxa in a tree, the four-point condition; on the other hand, a recently proposed formula that allows to write the tree length as a function of the distances between taxa, the Pauplin's formula. A deeper comprehension of the effects of the non-additivity on the inspiring principles of the existing reconstruction algorithms is thus of paramount importance. In this paper we present a comparative analysis of the performances of the most important distance-based phylogenetic algorithms. We focus in particular on the dependence of their performances on two main sources of non-additivity: back-mutation processes and horizontal transfer processes. The comparison is carried out in the framework of a set of generative algorithms for phylogenies that incorporate non-additivity in a tunable way.
The FIRE 2008 Evaluation Exercise
Authors: Majumder Prasenjit , Mitra Mandar , Pal Dipasree , Bandyopadhyay Ayan , Maiti Samaresh , Pal Sukomal , Modak Deboshree , Sanyal Sucharita
Published: September 2010

The aim of the Forum for Information Retrieval Evaluation (FIRE) is to create an evaluation framework in the spirit of TREC (Text REtrieval Conference), CLEF (Cross-Language Evaluation Forum), and NTCIR (NII Test Collection for IR Systems), for Indian language Information Retrieval. The first evaluation exercise conducted by FIRE was completed in 2008. This article describes the test collections used at FIRE 2008, summarizes the approaches adopted by various participants, discusses the limitations of the datasets, and outlines the tasks planned for the next iteration of FIRE.
Comparative Study of Indexing and Search Strategies for the Hindi, Marathi, and Bengali Languages
Authors: Dolamic Ljiljana , Savoy Jacques
Published: September 2010

The main goal of this article is to describe and evaluate various indexing and search strategies for the Hindi, Bengali, and Marathi languages. These three languages are ranked among the world’s 20 most spoken languages and they share similar syntax, morphology, and writing systems. In this article we examine these languages from an Information Retrieval (IR) perspective through describing the key elements of their inflectional and derivational morphologies, and suggest a light and more aggressive stemming approach based on them.

In our evaluation of these stemming strategies we make use of the FIRE 2008 test collections, and then to broaden our comparisons we implement and evaluate two language independent indexing methods: the
n
-gram and trunc-
n
(truncation of the first
n
letters). We evaluate these solutions by applying our various IR models, including the Okapi, Divergence from Randomness (DFR) and statistical language models (LM) together with two classical vector-space approaches:
tf idf
and
Lnu-ltc
.

Experiments performed with all three languages demonstrate that the I(n
e
)C2 model derived from the Divergence from Randomness paradigm tends to provide the best mean average precision (MAP). Our own tests suggest that improved retrieval effectiveness would be obtained by applying more aggressive stemmers, especially those accounting for certain derivational suffixes, compared to those involving a light stemmer or ignoring this type of word normalization procedure. Comparisons between no stemming and stemming indexing schemes shows that performance differences are almost always statistically significant. When, for example, an aggressive stemmer is applied, the relative improvements obtained are ~28% for the Hindi language, ~42% for Marathi, and ~18% for Bengali, as compared to a no-stemming approach. Based on a comparison of word-based and language-independent approaches we find that the trunc-4 indexing scheme tends to result in performance levels statistically similar to those of an aggressive stemmer, yet better than the 4-gram indexing scheme. A query-by-query analysis reveals the reasons for this, and also demonstrates the advantage of applying a stemming or a trunc-4 indexing scheme.
An event driven framework for assistive CPS environments
Authors: Makedon Fillia , Le Zhengyi , Huang Heng , Becker Eric , Kosmopoulos Dimitrios
Published: September 2010

Assistive Cyberphysical Systems (ACPS) are pervasive and ubiquitous systems connecting the cyber with the physical worlds, with the aim to assist a human's daily activities both at home and at work. We present an event driven framework with event identification mechanisms that drive actuators, transform a substrate and alter human behavior in a feedback loop process that allows a human to control her ACPS. This framework is a dynamic, context aware, adaptive, self-repairing and high-confidence system that couples computational power with physical substrate (testbed) control and command; it monitors human activities with differential privacy and security capabilities, recognizes events, human needs from lifestyle, and processes environmental and longitudinal health data.
A modular framework for clinical decision support systems
Authors: Williams M. , Wu F. , Kazanzides P. , Brady K. , Fackler J.
Published: September 2010

This paper describes the design and initial implementation of a modular framework for Clinical Decision Support Systems and highlights the need for medical device plug-and-play standards. The software handles the tasks of data acquisition and validation, visualization, and treatment management in order to enable the development of protocol guideline modules as "plug-ins" to the framework. The system utilizes an asynchronous data-driven design to support real-time information flow and user interaction. All components of the framework are modular and easily extendible, allowing for new data sources, visualization methods, and protocols to be inserted. The system is configured by assigning each protocol a manager that handles decision communication with the rest of the framework. A set of classes has been created to allow communication between the different modules along with persistence of all data, decisions, and treatments to a database. The initial prototype is a Clinical Decision Support System focusing on the treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury.
Wireless health and the smart phone conundrum
Authors: Woodbridge Jonathan , Nahapetian Ani , Noshadi Hyduke , Sarrafzadeh Majid , Kaiser William
Published: September 2010

This paper presents a study of the five best selling Smart Phones in terms of their applicability to Wireless Health. Smart Phones are generally used as central controlling units in Wireless Health applications. We carried out our investigation by implementing a wireless health application that performs sensor communication, data processing, and data visualization. Our overarching goal is to develop a plug-and-play Wireless Health software platform. Our task begins with an in depth study of Smart Phones: the central controller of Wireless health applications.
What is Manchester encoding?
Authors: Guastella Robert
Published: September 2010

When developing an embedded system that requires basic serial network communications, the list of design options are plentiful. But when all of the off-the-shelf alternatives fail to meet your requirements, it's worth remembering that traditional and well-tested protocols, such as Manchester encoding, offer some unique alternatives to the current commercial methods of wired and wireless control-data transmission.
What is an embedded antenna?
Authors: Love Janine
Published: September 2010

Embedded systems design is garnering a lot of attention these days, but for many designers, the embedded antenna remains somewhat of a mystery. Indeed, antennas have always had a bit of RF mystique around them, and probably will continue to do so.
What is timing-closure in high-end FPGAs?
Authors: Sutton Angela , Garrison Jeff
Published: September 2010

Timing-closure is a growing concern for FPGA designers, particularly with the recent introduction of multi-million gate architectures fabricated at the 90 nm and 65 nm technology nodes. It is not sufficient for a timing-closure solution - the entire flow, including synthesis - to meet only the required timing; such a solution must also minimize the number of time-consuming synthesis-place-route iterations and provide results that remain stable across multiple physical synthesis runs and during final routing.
What is electronic contact lens?
Authors: Johnson R. Colin
Published: September 2010

Electronic contact lenses promise to overlay a heads-up display over a user's visual field, enabling tactical information-like an automobile speedometer for drivers-to be seen only by the wearer. Researchers at the University of Washington (Seattle) recently demonstrated the world's first electronic contact lens, complete with integrated light-emitting-diodes. So far the researchers have only completed animal testing on unpowered lenses, but for the upcoming human trials the researchers hope to power a virtual control panel that enables the display to appear to float in mid-air. Future applications could give military users virtual heads-up displays, give video gamers "anywhere" action, and let any contact-lens wearer surf the Internet sans monitor.
What is i-Snake?
Authors: BBC News
Published: September 2010

Experts are developing a flexible surgical robot, known as the i-Snake, which they say could revolutionise keyhole surgery.
What are high-k and low-k dielectrics?
Authors: Ruzyllo Jerzy
Published: September 2010

The dielectric constant, k, is a parameter defining ability of material to store charge. Consequently, it also defines capacitance, C, of any capacitor comprising of a layer of dielectric sandwiched between two metal plates. In the figure below size of the upper plate defines area of the capacitor contact (A).
What is eavesdropping on laptops through walls?
Authors: Simonite Tom
Published: September 2010

Have you considered that someone could be reading what's on your monitor from a few rooms away? It's unlikely, but possible, as work by Cambridge University computer security researcher Markus Kuhn shows.
Querying RDF streams with C-SPARQL
Authors: Barbieri Davide Francesco , Braga Daniele , Ceri Stefano , Valle Emanuele Della , Grossniklaus Michael
Published: September 2010

Continuous SPARQL (C-SPARQL) is a new language for continuous queries over streams of RDF data. CSPARQL queries consider windows, i.e., the most recent triples of such streams, observed while data is continuously flowing. Supporting streams in RDF format guarantees interoperability and opens up important applications, in which reasoners can deal with knowledge evolving over time. Examples of such application domains include real-time reasoning over sensors, urban computing, and social semantic data. In this paper, we present the C-SPARQL language extensions in terms of both syntax and examples. Finally, we discuss existing applications that already use C-SPARQL and give an outlook on future research opportunities.
Search result diversification
Authors: Drosou Marina , Pitoura Evaggelia
Published: September 2010

Result diversification has recently attracted much attention as a means of increasing user satisfaction in recommender systems and web search. Many different approaches have been proposed in the related literature for the diversification problem. In this paper, we survey, classify and comparatively study the various definitions, algorithms and metrics for result diversification.
SmartCIS
Authors: Liu Mengmeng , Mihaylov Svilen R. , Bao Zhuowei , Jacob Marie , Ives Zachary G. , Loo Boon Thau , Guha Sudipto
Published: September 2010

With the increasing adoption of networked sensors, a new class of applications is emerging that combines data from the "digital world" with real-time sensor readings, in order to intelligently manage physical environments and systems (e.g., "smart" buildings, power grids, data centers). This leads to new challenges in providing programmability, performance, extensibility, and multi-purpose heterogeneous data acquisition. The ASPEN project addresses these challenges by extending data integrationtechniques to the distributed stream world, and adding new abstractions for physical phenomena. We describe the architecture and implementation of our ASPEN system and its showcase intelligent building application, SmartCIS, which was demonstrated at SIGMOD 2009. We summarize the new query processing algorithms we have developed for integrating highly distributed stream data sources, both in low-power sensor devices and traditional PCs and servers; describe query optimization techniques for federations of stream processors; and detail new capabilities such as incremental maintenance of recursive views. Our algorithms and techniques generalize across a wide range of data from RFID and light measurements to real-time machine usage monitoring, energy consumption and recursive query computation.
The scheme environment
Authors: Clinger William
Published: September 2010

I can think of no better way to introduce this department than to quote the first two paragraphs of the introduction to the new Scheme standard, the

Revisea
3
Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme

[4], which I will refer to as

R
3
RS

. The first paragraph conveys a sense of the Scheme philosophy, while the second paragraph lists technical features that distinguish Scheme from other programming languages. One of my goals for future articles will be to explain and illustrate those features, as well as some other features that were considered too experimental to be included in

R
3
RS

.
A programmer's guide to common Lisp
Authors: Tatar Deborah G. , Weinreb Daniel
Published: September 2010

Lisp has been around for more than twenty-five years. But for most of Lisp's lifetime, there haven't been any good books that teach the language. Only a few books were available, ranging from mediocre to awful.
Moving forward?
Authors: Torres-Coronas Teresa , Vidal-Blasco María-Arántzazu , Monclús-Guitart Ricard
Published: September 2010

Both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union believe that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have potential to transform the way in which we work. Many organizations, including those of the Third Social Sector, have to incorporate the web 2.0 tools and social software into their structures and their daily activity. The aim of this article is to analyze whether these tools are regularly used by institutions of the Third Social Sector in Catalonia in an attempt to transform their daily tasks and move towards a change in their organizational culture.
Technology use in reporting to parents of primary school children
Authors: Turner Eva
Published: September 2010

The British Government emphasizes the involvement of family and parents in children's education. In parallel there is a rapid increase in the use of computer technology in schools. Primary school teachers are required to present parents with an end of year school report, which often represents the only real information parents receive. While the government assumes that teachers' communication with parents can improve through the use of computerised systems and report writing software, the evidence appears to point to primary schools and parents rejecting the use of technological communication as insufficiently personal and informative. The Government assumes that schools will implement highly sophisticated technology while it presumes that parents and teachers approach their communication from a level power base and equal technological ability. Thus the school systems reinforce social and class differences.
Japanese risk society
Authors: Murata Kiyoshi , Orito Yohko
Published: September 2010

The construction of a secure and safe society using information and communication technology (ICT) is recognised as an urgent issue in Japan. This recognition is based on public fear about crime related to manufactured risk caused by modernisation or industrial civilisation. This fear has created a social atmosphere that has led to the rapid development and implementation of security systems using ICT, such as security cameras, smart IC cards and mobile phones, to establish security and safety in Japanese society. However, the never-ending quest for social security and safety with ICT will inevitably cause further manufactured risk, which could lead to serious problems in the future. We have to recognise such risk and control it appropriately.
e-exclusion and the gender digital divide
Authors: Foteinou Georgia
Published: September 2010

The digital divide is considered by many authors as one of the major ethical issues of the information age as it reinforces existing inequalities in society. This paper examines the gender digital divide in Europe and presents a detailed case-study of one of the most successful e-Government systems in Greece: the Greek TAXation Information System. Surprisingly, this efficient and well-running system exhibits longstanding gender discrimination. However, the problem is not technical but legal and political and requires careful consideration, as the analysis unveils a gender digital gap in e-Government usage not only in Greece but all around Europe.
Engaging the students of technology in an ethical discourse in the information age
Authors: Dhariwal Manju , Pradhan Ramesh C. , Sharan Raghubir
Published: September 2010

This paper is about making the ethical discourse relevant to the students of technology in the present age of information. Information ethics is already a part of the present day engagement with information technology at all levels. This encourages us to carry forward the ethical discourse further by bringing in the moral thoughts of Wiener and Gandhi. Both Wiener and Gandhi lived in the age of technology, but both rebelled against it for basically moral reasons. Wiener is the founder of cybernetics and communication science, while Gandhi is a humanist and moralist and a crusader for freedom of humanity. Both agreed, however, that human freedom needs check on the inhuman use of technology. That is, both shared the philosophy of human dignity and value which demand a "human use" of technology. In this paper we explore the possibility of a humanistic ethics for information technology on the basis of moral thoughts of Wiener and Gandhi and wish to present the vision of the human civilization which underlies their thoughts.
Fundamentals of the problem
Authors: Chávez Edgar , Navarro Gonzalo
Published: September 2010

Spatial distance has been for decades a natural concept in applications such as computational geometry, geomatics, meshing, and others. There are several other applications, however, where a more general notion of
proximity
is necessary. To reuse the large body of knowledge built around spatial distances, researchers have tried to map non-spatial proximity measures to those. This approach is not always successful, and fails in some emblematic cases. Instead, a flexible model, called "metric spaces", captures in a natural way more general proximity concepts. We will briefly present its fundamentals; exhaustive books and surveys exist [2, 3, 1].
Intrinsic dimensionality
Authors: Pestov Vladimir
Published: September 2010

Nature of the concept
. Intrinsic dimensionality of data does not refer to a single well-defined parameter, but rather a diverse family of parameters associated to a given similarity workload (X,
d
, U) and allowing to gauge the performance of various indexing schemes for similarity-based information retrieval.
Beyond the metric space model
Authors: Bustos Benjamin , Skopal Tomáš
Published: September 2010

The metric space model has represented a reasonable trade-off concerning the efficiency and effectiveness problem in similarity search. However, complex similarity models that do not satisfy the metric properties have been used in a wide variety of research domains like multimedia information retrieval, digital libraries, biological and chemical databases, time series analysis, and biometry [2]. All these domains require the management of very large data collections, but the algorithms and data structures for searching in metric spaces cannot be used directly, as they require to use nonmetric similarity measures. As the term
nonmetric
simply means that a similarity function does not satisfy some (or all) the properties of a metric, we restrict its definition to nonmetric similarity functions that are "context-free and static", that is, the similarity between two objects is constant regardless of the context (time, user, query, other objects in the collection, etc.).
Metric-space search in bioinformatics
Authors: Miranke Daniel P.
Published: September 2010

Of the many problems in biological data retrieval, the problem of biological sequence retrieval has the highest profile. The standard solution to this problem, BLAST, has ascended, like
google
, to become synonymous with search. Also like Google, BLAST leverages statistical properties as heuristics to create a good user experience. Ironically, many early biological sequence similarity efforts explicitly sought to model evolutionary distance as a metric-distance. Recent interest in metric-index methods has rekindled these early directions. A review of these efforts provides an opportunity to characterize the challenges and opportunities in similarity search of biological data.
Prenatal testosterone excess alters Sertoli and germ cell number and testicular FSH receptor expression in rams
Authors: Rojas-García Pedro P. , Recabarren Mónica P. , Sarabia Luis , Schön Jennifer , Gabler Christoph , Einspanier Ralf , Maliqueo Manuel , Sir-Petermann Teresa , Rey Rodolfo , Recabarren Sergio E.
Published: September 2010

Exposure to excess testosterone (T) during fetal life has a profound impact on the metabolic and reproductive functions in the female's postnatal life. However, less is known about the effects of excess testosterone in males. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact (consequences) of an excess of T during fetal development on mature male testis. The testicular evaluation was by histological analysis and by determination of mRNA expression of the FSH receptor (FSH-R), transforming growth factor-β type I receptor (TβR-I), and two members of the TGF-β superfamily, transforming growth factor-β3 (TGFβ3) and anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) in males born to mothers receiving an excess of T during pregnancy. At 42 wk of age, postpubertal males born to mothers treated with 30 mg of T propionate twice weekly from day 30 to 90, followed by 40 mg of T propionate from day 90 to 120 of pregnancy (T males), showed higher concentrations of FSH in response to a GnRH analog, a higher number of Sertoli cells/seminiferous tubule cross-section, and a lower number of germ cells/tubules ( P < 0.05) than control males (C males) born to mothers treated with the vehicle. The mRNA expression of FSH-R and of TβR-I was higher in T males compared with C males ( P < 0.05). Moreover, in T males, AMH expression level correlated negatively with the expression level of TGFβ3. In C males, this latter correlation was not observed. These results suggest that prenatal exposure to an excess of T can negatively modify some histological and molecular characteristics of the mature testis.
Decidual PTEN expression is required for trophoblast invasion in the mouse
Authors: Laguë Marie-Noëlle , Detmar Jacqui , Paquet Marilène , Boyer Alexandre , Richards JoAnne S. , Adamson S. Lee , Boerboom Derek
Published: September 2010

Trophoblast invasion likely depends on complex cross talk between the fetal and maternal tissues and may involve the modulation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT signaling activity in maternal decidual cells. In this report, we studied implantation in Ptentm1Hwu/tm1Hwu ;Amhr2tm3(cre)Bhr/+ mice, which lack the PI3K signaling antagonist gene Pten in myometrial and stromal/decidual cells. Primiparous Ptentm1Hwu/tm1Hwu ;Amhr2tm3(cre)Bhr/+ mice were found to be subfertile because of increased fetal mortality at e11.5. Histopathological analyses revealed a failure of decidual regression in these mice, accompanied by reduced or absent invasion of fetal trophoblast glycogen cells and giant cells, abnormal development of the placental labyrinth, and frequent apparent intrauterine fetal growth restriction. Unexpectedly, the loss of phosphate and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) expression in Ptentm1Hwu/tm1Hwu ;Amhr2tm3(cre)Bhr/+ decidual cells was not accompanied by a detectable increase in AKT phosphorylation or altered expression or activation of PI3K/AKT downstream effectors such as mammalian target of rapamycin or glycogen synthase kinase-3β. Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated nick end labeling and bromodeoxyuridine incorporation analyses attributed to the lack of decidual regression mainly to decreased apoptosis in Ptentm1Hwu/tm1Hwu ;Amhr2tm3(cre)Bhr/+ decidual cells, rather than to increased proliferation. Remodeling of the maternal vasculature was delayed in Ptentm1Hwu/tm1Hwu ;Amhr2tm3(cre)Bhr/+ uteri at e11.5, as evidenced by persistence of vascular smooth muscle and decreased infiltration of uterine natural killer cells. In addition, thickening of the myometrium and disorganization of the muscle fibers were observed before and throughout gestation. Almost all Ptentm1Hwu/tm1Hwu ;Amhr2tm3(cre)Bhr/+ mice failed to carry a second litter to term, apparently attributable to endometrial hyperplasia and uterine infections. Together, these data demonstrate novel roles of PTEN in the mammalian uterus and its requirement for proper trophoblast invasion and decidual regression.
Plasma lipoproteins are required for both basal and stress-induced adrenal glucocorticoid synthesis and protection against endotoxemia in mice
Authors: Hoekstra Menno , Korporaal Suzanne J. A. , Li Zhaosha , Zhao Ying , Van Eck Miranda , Van Berkel Theo J. C.
Published: September 2010

Lipoprotein-associated cholesterol has been suggested to make a significant contribution to adrenal steroidogenesis in vivo. To determine whether lipoproteins indeed contribute to optimal adrenal steroidogenesis in mice, in the current study we have determined the effect of relative lipoprotein deficiency on adrenal steroidogenesis in C57BL/6 wild-type mice. Feeding C57BL/6 mice the lipid-lowering drug probucol (0.25% wt/wt) for 2 wk induced a 90% decrease in plasma high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels and a 77% reduction in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. Neutral lipid stores were depleted upon probucol treatment specifically in the glucocorticoid-producing zona fasciculata of the adrenal, leading to a 44% decreased plasma corticosterone level under basal conditions. Exposure to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced a 37% increase in the adrenal uptake of HDL cholesteryl esters. Probucol-treated mice could induce only a relatively minor corticosterone response upon a LPS challenge compared with controls, which coincided with an approximately twofold increased hepatic expression level of interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α and an 89% higher TNFα response in plasma. Furthermore, a compensatory two- to fivefold upregulation of LDL receptor (cholesterol uptake) and HMG-CoA reductase (cholesterol synthesis) expression was noticed in the adrenals of probucol-treated mice. In conclusion, we have shown that lipoprotein deficiency in mice as a result of probucol feeding is associated with decreased adrenal cortex cholesterol levels, a lower basal and stress-induced plasma glucocorticoid level, and an increased susceptibility to LPS-induced inflammation. Therefore, it is suggested that plasma lipoproteins are required for optimal adrenal steroidogenesis and protection against endotoxemia in mice.
Electrical signals affect the cardiomyocyte transcriptome independently of contraction
Authors: Martherus Ruben S. R. M. , Vanherle Sabina J. V. , Timmer Erika D. J. , Zeijlemaker Volkert A. , Broers Jos L. , Smeets Hubert J. , Geraedts Joep P. , Ayoubi Torik A. Y.
Published: September 2010

Cardiomyocytes in vivo are continuously subjected to electrical signals that evoke contractions and instigate drastic changes in the cells' morphology and function. Studies on how electrical stimulation affects the cardiac transcriptome have remained limited to a small number of heart-specific genes. Furthermore, these studies have ignored the interplay between the electrical excitation and the subsequent contractions. We carried out a genomewide assessment of the effects of electrical signaling on gene expression, while distinguishing between the effects deriving from the electrical pulses themselves and the effects instigated by the evoked contractions. Changes in gene expression in primary cultures of neonatal ventricular cardiomyocytes from Lewis Rattus norvegicus were investigated with microarrays and RT-quantitative PCR (QPCR). A series of experiments was included in which the culture medium was supplemented with the contraction inhibitor blebbistatin to allow for electrical stimulation in the absence of contraction. Electrical stimulation was shown to directly enhance calcium handling and induce cardiomyocyte differentiation by arresting cell division and activating key cardiac transcription factors as well as additional differentiation mechanisms such as wnt signaling. Several genes involved in metabolism were also directly activated by electrical stimulation. Furthermore, our data suggest that contraction exerts negative feedback on the transcription of various genes. Together, these observations indicate that intercellular electric currents between adjacent cardiomyocytes have an important role in cardiomyocyte development. They act at least partially through a pulse-specific gene expression program that is activated independently from the evoked contractions.
Expression of a Novel Chimeric Truncated t-PA in CHO Cells Based on in Silico Experiments
Authors: Davami Fatemeh , Sardari Soroush , Majidzadeh-A Keivan , Hemayatkar Mehdi , Barkhrdari Farzaneh , Omidi Maryam , Azami Mehrnaz , Adeli Ahmad , Davoudi Noushin , Mahboudi Fereidoun
Published: September 2010

Tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) is one of the fibrin-specific serine proteases that play a crucial role in the fibrinolytic system. The rapid clearance of the drug from the circulation, caused by its active uptake in the liver, has lead to complicated clinical applications. Different forms of plasminogen activators have been developed to treat thrombotic disease. Deletion of the first three domains of t-PA by gene manipulation techniques has shown a significant increase in its plasma half life. In order to compensate the disadvantage of higher bleeding risk, a novel chimeric truncated form of t-PA with 394 amino acids and more fibrin affinity compared to the truncated form was designed to be expressed in Chinese Hamster Ovarian (CHO) cells. The recombinant chimeric plasminogen activator consists of kringle 2 and serine protease (K2S) domains of t-PA, namely GHRP-SYQ-K2S. The level of expression was found to be 752 IU/ml with 566,917 IU/mg specific activity, based on amidolytic activity. The fibrin binding of this novel chimeric truncated t-PA was 86% of the full length t-PA at a fibrinogen concentration of 0.2 mg/ml. This could be a promising approach with more desirable pharmacodynamic properties compared to existing commercial forms.
Gastric Carcinoid with Hypergastrinemia: Report of Three Cases
Authors: Furumoto Katsuyoshi , Kojima Hidenobu , Okuno Masayuki , Fuji Hiroaki , Mizuno Rei , Mori Tomohiko , Ito Daisuke , Kogire Masafumi
Published: September 2010

We report 3 cases of gastric carcinoids with hypergastrinemia.Case 1: A 60-year-old man had a 2 cm carcinoid of the stomach and underwent partial resection. Involvement of the muscularis propria and lymph nodes metastasis were observed microscopically. Follow-up gastroscopy revealed another carcinoid lesion and total gastrectomy was performed.Case 2: A 67-year-old woman with multiple carcinoids of the entire stomach underwent antrectomy. No growth of residual tumors has been detected so far.Case 3: A 61-year-old man had a tumor near the esophagogastric junction and underwent total gastrectomy. Carcinoid component was diffusely intermingled with adenocarcinoma in the tumor and invaded into the subserosa. In all 3 cases, the serum gastrin level was high and atrophic gastritis was microscopically observed. Carcinoid tumor in Case 3 was different from those in Cases 1 and 2 and interestingly, gastric carcinoid with hypergastrinemia showed various types of appearance.
A Computational Perspective on Network Coding
Authors: Guo Qin , Luo Mingxing , Li Lixiang , Yang Yixian
Published: September 2010

From the perspectives of graph theory and combinatorics theory we
obtain some new upper bounds on the number of encoding nodes, which can characterize
the coding complexity of the network coding, both in feasible acyclic and cyclic multicast
networks. In contrast to previous work, during our analysis we first investigate the simple
multicast network with source rate h = 2, and then h ≥ 2. We find that for feasible acyclic
multicast networks our upper bound is exactly the lower bound given by M. Langberg et al. in 2006. So the gap between their lower and upper bounds for feasible acyclic multicast
networks does not exist. Based on the new upper bound, we improve the computational
complexity given by M. Langberg et al. in 2009. Moreover, these results further support
the feasibility of signatures for network coding.
Effect of Low-Intensity Aerobic Exercise on Insulin-Like Growth Factor-I and Insulin-Like Growth Factor-Binding Proteins in Healthy Men
Authors: Nishida Yuichiro , Matsubara Takeshi , Tobina Takuro , Shindo Munehiro , Tokuyama Kumpei , Tanaka Keitaro , Tanaka Hiroaki
Published: September 2010

Increased concentrations of circulating insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) or IGF-I relative to IGF-binding proteins (IGFBPs) are associated with increased risk of developing several forms of cancer. Conversely, exercise is linked with reduced risk. This study aims to investigate the effect of a low-intensity exercise program on circulating levels of IGF-I, IGFBP-1, and IGFBP-3, in previously sedentary males. Fourteen healthy men participated in cycle ergometer training at lactate threshold intensity for 60 min/day, 5 days/week for 6 weeks. After aerobic training, insulin sensitivity improved by 20%, while fasting insulin levels decreased by 13%. Simultaneously, low-intensity aerobic training decreased the circulating levels of IGF-I by 9%, while IGFBP-1 levels increased by 16%. An interesting finding was that higher pretraining level of IGF-I was associated with greater decline in IGF-I with training. Insulin-sensitizing low-intensity aerobic exercise is thus considered to be an effective method for downregulating IGF-I and upregulating IGFBP-1 levels.
Dynamics of a Higher‐Order Nonlinear Difference Equation
Authors: Tang Guo-Mei , Hu Lin-Xia , Jia Xiu-Mei
Published: September 2010

We consider the higher‐order nonlinear difference equation xn+1 = (α + xn)/(A + Bxn + xn−k), n = 0, 1, …, where parameters are positive real numbers and initial conditions x−k, …, x0 are
nonnegative real numbers, k ≥ 2. We investigate the periodic character, the invariant
intervals, and the global asymptotic stability of all positive solutions of the abovementioned equation. We show that the unique equilibrium of the equation is globally
asymptotically stable under certain conditions.