bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Duplicate Detection in Programming Question Answering Communities
Authors: Zhang Wei Emma , Sheng Quan Z. , Lau Jey Han , Abebe Ermyas , Ruan Wenjie
Published: April 2018

Community-based Question Answering (CQA) websites are attracting increasing numbers of users and contributors in recent years. However, duplicate questions frequently occur in CQA websites and are currently manually identified by the moderators. Automatic duplicate detection, on one hand, alleviates this laborious effort for moderators before taking close actions, and, on the other hand, helps question issuers quickly find answers. A number of studies have looked into related problems, but very limited works target Duplicate Detection in Programming CQA (PCQA), a branch of CQA that is dedicated to programmers. Existing works framed the task as a supervised learning problem on the question pairs and relied on only textual features. Moreover, the issue of selecting candidate duplicates from large volumes of historical questions is often un-addressed. To tackle these issues, we model duplicate detection as a two-stage “ranking-classification” problem over question pairs. In the first stage, we rank the historical questions according to their similarities to the newly issued question and select the top ranked ones as candidates to reduce the search space. In the second stage, we develop novel features that capture both textual similarity and latent semantics on question pairs, leveraging techniques in deep learning and information retrieval literature. Experiments on real-world questions about multiple programming languages demonstrate that our method works very well; in some cases, up to 25% improvement compared to the state-of-the-art benchmarks.
Efficient Computation of Middle Levels Gray Codes
Authors: MÜTZE Torsten , Nummenpalo Jerri
Published: April 2018

For any integer
n
≥ 1, a
middle levels Gray code
is a cyclic listing of all bitstrings of length 2
n
+1 that have either
n
or
n
+1 entries equal to 1 such that any two consecutive bitstrings in the list differ in exactly one bit. The question whether such a Gray code exists for every
n
≥ 1 has been the subject of intensive research during the past 30 years and has been answered affirmatively only recently [T. Mütze. Proof of the middle levels conjecture.
Proc. London Math. Soc.
, 112(4):677--713, 2016]. In this work, we provide the first efficient algorithm to compute a middle levels Gray code. For a given bitstring, our algorithm computes the next ℓ bitstrings in the Gray code in time
O
(
n
ℓ (1+
n
/ℓ)), which is
O
(
n
) on average per bitstring provided that ℓ = Ω (
n
).
A Comprehensive Perspective on Pilot-Job Systems
Authors: Turilli Matteo , Santcroos Mark , Jha Shantenu
Published: April 2018

Pilot-Job systems play an important role in supporting distributed scientific computing. They are used to execute millions of jobs on several cyberinfrastructures worldwide, consuming billions of CPU hours a year. With the increasing importance of task-level parallelism in high-performance computing, Pilot-Job systems are also witnessing an adoption beyond traditional domains. Notwithstanding the growing impact on scientific research, there is no agreement on a definition of Pilot-Job system and no clear understanding of the underlying abstraction and paradigm. Pilot-Job implementations have proliferated with no shared best practices or open interfaces and little interoperability. Ultimately, this is hindering the realization of the full impact of Pilot-Jobs by limiting their robustness, portability, and maintainability. This article offers a comprehensive analysis of Pilot-Job systems critically assessing their motivations, evolution, properties, and implementation. The three main contributions of this article are as follows: (1) an analysis of the motivations and evolution of Pilot-Job systems; (2) an outline of the Pilot abstraction, its distinguishing logical components and functionalities, its terminology, and its architecture pattern; and (3) the description of core and auxiliary properties of Pilot-Jobs systems and the analysis of six exemplar Pilot-Job implementations. Together, these contributions illustrate the Pilot paradigm, its generality, and how it helps to address some challenges in distributed scientific computing.
A Survey of Sensors in Healthcare Workflow Monitoring
Authors: Antunes Rodolfo S. , Seewald Lucas A. , Rodrigues Vinicius F. , Costa Cristiano A. Da , Jr. Luiz Gonzaga , Righi Rodrigo R. , Maier Andreas , Eskofier Björn , Ollenschläger Malte , Naderi Farzad , Fahrig Rebecca , Bauer Sebastian , Klein Sigrun , Campanatti Gelson
Published: April 2018

Activities of a clinical staff in healthcare environments must regularly be adapted to new treatment methods, medications, and technologies. This constant evolution requires the monitoring of the workflow, or the sequence of actions from actors involved in a procedure, to ensure quality of medical services. In this context, recent advances in sensing technologies, including Real-time Location Systems and Computer Vision, enable high-precision tracking of actors and equipment. The current state-of-the-art about healthcare workflow monitoring typically focuses on a single technology and does not discuss its integration with others. Such an integration can lead to better solutions to evaluate medical workflows. This study aims to fill the gap regarding the analysis of monitoring technologies with a systematic literature review about sensors for capturing the workflow of healthcare environments. Its main scientific contribution is to identify both current technologies used to track activities in a clinical environment and gaps on their combination to achieve better results. It also proposes a taxonomy to classify work regarding sensing technologies and methods. The literature review does not present proposals that combine data obtained from Real-time Location Systems and Computer Vision sensors. Further analysis shows that a
multimodal
analysis is more flexible and could yield better results.
Security Evaluation of a Banking Fraud Analysis System
Authors: Carminati Michele , Polino Mario , Continella Andrea , Lanzi Andrea , Maggi Federico , Zanero Stefano
Published: April 2018

The significant growth of banking fraud, fueled by the underground economy of malware, has raised the need for effective detection systems. Therefore, in the last few years, banks have upgraded their security to protect transactions from fraud. State-of-the-art solutions detect fraud as deviations from customers’ spending habits. To the best of our knowledge, almost all existing approaches do not provide an in-depth model’s granularity and security analysis against elusive attacks.

In this article, we examine Banksealer, a decision support system for banking fraud analysis that evaluates the influence on detection performance of the granularity at which spending habits are modeled and its security against evasive attacks. First, we compare user-centric modeling, which builds a model for each user, with system-centric modeling, which builds a model for the entire system, from the point of view of detection performance. Then, we assess the robustness of Banksealer against malicious attackers that are aware of the structure of the models in use. To this end, we design and implement a proof-of-concept attack tool that performs mimicry attacks, emulating a sophisticated attacker that cloaks frauds to avoid detection. We experimentally confirm the feasibility of such attacks, their cost, and the effort required by an attacker in order to perform them. In addition, we discuss possible countermeasures.

We provide a comprehensive evaluation on a large real-world dataset obtained from one of the largest Italian banks.
Mining Graphlet Counts in Online Social Networks
Authors: Chen Xiaowei , Lui John C. S.
Published: April 2018

Counting subgraphs is a fundamental analysis task for online social networks (OSNs). Given the sheer size and restricted access of OSN, efficient computation of subgraph counts is highly challenging. Although a number of algorithms have been proposed to estimate the relative counts of subgraphs in OSNs with restricted access, there are only few works which try to solve a more general problem, i.e., counting subgraph frequencies. In this article, we propose an efficient random walk-based framework to estimate the subgraph counts. Our framework generates samples by leveraging consecutive steps of the random walk as well as by observing neighbors of visited nodes. Using the importance sampling technique, we derive unbiased estimators of the subgraph counts. To make better use of the degree information of visited nodes, we also design improved estimators, which increases the accuracy of the estimation with no additional cost. We conduct extensive experimental evaluation on real-world OSNs to confirm our theoretical claims. The experiment results show that our estimators are unbiased, accurate, efficient, and better than the state-of-the-art algorithms. For the Weibo graph with more than 58 million nodes, our method produces estimate of triangle count with an error less than 5% using only 20,000 sampled nodes. Detailed comparison with the state-of-the-art methods demonstrates that our algorithm is 2--10 times more accurate.
How Far We Have Progressed in the Journey? An Examination of Cross-Project Defect Prediction
Authors: Zhou Yuming , Yang Yibiao , Lu Hongmin , Chen Lin , Li Yanhui , Zhao Yangyang , Qian Junyan , Xu Baowen
Published: April 2018

Background.
Recent years have seen an increasing interest in cross-project defect prediction (CPDP), which aims to apply defect prediction models built on source projects to a target project. Currently, a variety of (complex) CPDP models have been proposed with a promising prediction performance.

Problem.
Most, if not all, of the existing CPDP models are not compared against those simple module size models that are easy to implement and have shown a good performance in defect prediction in the literature.

Objective.
We aim to investigate how far we have really progressed in the journey by comparing the performance in defect prediction between the existing CPDP models and simple module size models.

Method.
We first use module size in the target project to build two simple defect prediction models, ManualDown and ManualUp, which do not require any training data from source projects. ManualDown considers a larger module as more defect-prone, while ManualUp considers a smaller module as more defect-prone. Then, we take the following measures to ensure a fair comparison on the performance in defect prediction between the existing CPDP models and the simple module size models: using the same publicly available data sets, using the same performance indicators, and using the prediction performance reported in the original cross-project defect prediction studies.

Result.
The simple module size models have a prediction performance comparable or even superior to most of the existing CPDP models in the literature, including many newly proposed models.

Conclusion.
The results caution us that, if the prediction performance is the goal, the real progress in CPDP is not being achieved as it might have been envisaged. We hence recommend that future studies should include ManualDown/ManualUp as the baseline models for comparison when developing new CPDP models to predict defects in a complete target project.
Computing the Gromov-Hausdorff Distance for Metric Trees
Authors: Agarwal Pankaj K. , Fox Kyle , Nath Abhinandan , Sidiropoulos Anastasios , Wang Yusu
Published: April 2018

The Gromov-Hausdorff (GH) distance is a natural way to measure distance between two metric spaces. We prove that it is NP-hard to approximate the GH distance better than a factor of 3 for geodesic metrics on a pair of trees. We complement this result by providing a polynomial time
O
(min
n
, √
rn
)-approximation algorithm for computing the GH distance between a pair of metric trees, where 
r
is the ratio of the longest edge length in both trees to the shortest edge length. For metric trees with unit length edges, this yields an
O
(√
n
)-approximation algorithm
1
.
iGRM
Authors: Nesa Nashreen , Ghosh Tania , Banerjee Indrajit
Published: April 2018

Occupancy detection is one of the many applications of Building Automation Systems (BAS) or Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) control systems, especially, with the rising demand of Internet of Things (IoT) services. This article describes the fusion of data collected from sensors by exploiting their potential to sense occupancy in a room. For this purpose, a sensor test bed is deployed that includes four sensors measuring temperature, relative humidity, distance from the first obstacle, and light along with a Arduino micro-controller to validate our model. In addition, this article proposes three algorithms for efficient fusion of the sensor data that is inspired by the Grey theory. An improved Grey Relational Model (iGRM) is proposed, which acts as the base classifier for the other two algorithms, namely, Grey Relational Model with Bagging (iGRM-BG) and Grey Relational Model with Boosting (iGRM-BT). Furthermore, all three algorithms use a sliding window concept, where only the samples inside the window participate in model training. Also, we have considered varying number of window size for optimal comparison. The algorithms were tested against the experimental data collected through a test bed as well as on a publicly available large dataset, where both the ensemble models, iGRM-BG and iGRM-BT, are seen to enhance the performance of iGRM. The results reveal exceptionally high performances with accuracies above 95% (iGRM) and up to 100% (iGRM-BT) for the experimental dataset and above 98.24% (iGRM) and up to 99.49% (iGRM-BG) using the publicly available dataset. Among the three proposed models, iGRM-BG was observed to outperform both iGRM and iGRM-BT owing to its advantage of being an ensemble model and its robustness against over-fitting.
Assessing the Refactoring of Brain Methods
Authors: Vidal Santiago , berra Iñaki , Zulliani Santiago , Marcos Claudia , Pace J. Andrés Díaz
Published: April 2018

Code smells are a popular mechanism for identifying structural design problems in software systems. Several tools have emerged to support the detection of code smells and propose some refactorings. However, existing tools do not guarantee that a smell will be automatically fixed by means of refactorings. This article presents Bandago, an automated approach to fix a specific type of code smell called
Brain Method
. A
Brain Method
centralizes the intelligence of a class and manifests itself as a long and complex method that is difficult to understand and maintain by developers. For each
Brain Method
, Bandago recommends several refactoring solutions to remove the smell using a search strategy based on simulated annealing. Our approach has been evaluated with several open-source Java applications, and the results show that Bandago can automatically fix more than 60% of
Brain Methods
. Furthermore, we conducted a survey with 35 industrial developers that showed evidence about the usefulness of the refactorings proposed by Bandago. Also, we compared the performance of the Bandago against that of a third-party refactoring tool.
A mitochondrial delicacy: dynamin-related protein 1 and mitochondrial dynamics
Authors: Breitzig Mason T. , Alleyn Matthew D. , Lockey Richard F. , Kolliputi Narasaiah
Published: April 2018

The constant physiological flux of mitochondrial fission and fusion is inextricably tied to the maintenance of cellular bioenergetics and the fluidity of mitochondrial networks. Yet, the intricacies of this dynamic duo remain unclear in diseases that encompass mitochondrial dysregulation. Particularly, the role of the GTPase fission protein dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) is of profound interest. Studies have identified that Drp1 participates in complex signaling pathways, suggesting that the function of mitochondria in pathophysiology may extend far beyond energetics alone. Research indicates that, in stressed conditions, Drp1 translocation to the mitochondria leads to elevated fragmentation and mitophagy; however, despite this, there is limited knowledge about the mechanistic regulation of Drp1 in disease conditions. This review highlights literature about fission, fusion, and, more importantly, discusses Drp1 in cardiac, neural, carcinogenic, renal, and pulmonary diseases. The therapeutic desirability for further research into its contribution to diseases that involve mitochondrial dysregulation is also discussed.
Is the Cushing mechanism a dynamic blood pressure-stabilizing system? Insights from Granger causality analysis of spontaneous blood pressure and cerebral blood flow
Authors: Saleem Saqib , Teal Paul D. , Howe Connor A. , Tymko Michael M. , Ainslie Philip N. , Tzeng Yu-Chieh
Published: April 2018

Blood pressure (BP) regulation is widely recognized as being integral to the control of end-organ perfusion, but it remains unclear whether end-organ perfusion also plays a role in driving changes in BP. A randomized and placebo-controlled study design was followed to examine feedback relationships between very-low-frequency fluctuations in BP and cerebral blood flow (CBF) in humans under placebo treatment and α1-adrenergic blockade. To determine the causal relations among hemodynamic variables, BP, middle cerebral artery blood velocity (MCAv), and end-tidal CO 2 time-series were decimated, low-pass filtered (<0.07 Hz), fitted to vector autoregressive models, and tested for Granger causality in the time domain. Results showed that 1) at baseline, changes in BP and MCAv often interact in a closed-loop; and 2) α1-adrenergic blockade results in the dominant causal direction from BP to MCAv. These results suggest that, between subjects, cerebral pressure-flow interactions at time scales < 0.07 Hz are frequently bidirectional, and that in the presence of an intact autonomic nervous system BP may be regulated by reflex pathways sensitive to changes in CBF.
Tumor necrosis factor-α potentiates the effects of angiotensin II on subfornical organ neurons
Authors: Simpson Nick J. , Ferguson Alastair V.
Published: April 2018

Inflammation is thought to play a fundamental role in the pathophysiology of hypertension and heart failure, although the mechanisms for this remain unclear. Proinflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), influence the subfornical organ (SFO) to modulate sympathetic activity and blood pressure. The pressor effects of TNF-α in the SFO are partially mediated by angiotensin II (ANG II) receptor type 1 (AT1R), and TNF-α is known to potentiate ANG II-induced hypertension. However, the cellular mechanism of the interaction between TNF-α and ANG II/AT1R signaling remains unknown. In the present study, we performed Ca2+ imaging on dissociated SFO neurons in vitro from male Sprague-Dawley rats to determine whether TNF-α modulates ANG II-induced increases in intracellular Ca2+ in SFO neurons. We first established that a proportion of SFO neurons respond to ANG II, an effect that required AT1R signaling and extracellular Ca2+. We then tested the hypothesis that TNF-α may modulate the effects of ANG II on SFO neurons by examining the effects of TNF-α treatment on the ANG II-induced rise in intracellular Ca2+. We discovered that TNF-α potentiated the ANG II-induced rise in intracellular Ca2+, an effect that was dependent on the duration of TNF-α treatment. Finally, we determined that this potentiation of ANG II-induced Ca2+ activity relied on tetrodotoxin-sensitive voltage-gated Na+ (vgNa+) channels. These data suggest that the potentiation of ANG II/AT1R activity by TNF-α in SFO neurons results from the previously demonstrated ability of this cytokine to modulate the activation threshold of vgNa+ currents.
Chronic lithium treatment induces novel patterns of pendrin localization and expression
Authors: Himmel Nathaniel J. , Wang Yirong , Rodriguez Daniel A. , Sun Michael A. , Blount Mitsi A.
Published: April 2018

Prolonged lithium treatment is associated with various renal side effects and is known to induce inner medullary collecting duct (IMCD) remodeling. In animals treated with lithium, the fraction of intercalated cells (ICs), which are responsible for acid-base homeostasis, increases compared with renal principal cells (PCs). To investigate the intricacies of lithium-induced IMCD remodeling, male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a lithium-enriched diet for 0,1, 2, 3, 6, 9, or 12 wk. Urine osmolality was decreased at 1 wk, and from 2 to 12 wk, animals were severely polyuric. After 6 wk of lithium treatment, approximately one-quarter of the cells in the initial IMCD expressed vacuolar H+-ATPase, an IC marker. These cells were localized in portions of the inner medulla, where ICs are not normally found. Pendrin, a Cl−/[Formula: see text] exchanger, is normally expressed only in two IC subtypes found in the convoluted tubule, the cortical collecting duct, and the connecting tubule. At 6 wk of lithium treatment, we observed various patterns of pendrin localization and expression in the rat IMCD, including a novel phenotype wherein pendrin was coexpressed with aquaporin-4. These observations collectively suggest that renal IMCD cell plasticity may play an important role in lithium-induced IMCD remodeling.
Direct peritoneal resuscitation reduces inflammation in the kidney after acute brain death
Authors: Weaver Jessica L. , Matheson Paul J. , Matheson Amy , Graham Victoria S. , Downard Cynthia , Garrison Richard N. , Smith Jason W.
Published: April 2018

Brain death is associated with significant inflammation within the kidneys, which may contribute to reduced graft survival. Direct peritoneal resuscitation (DPR) has been shown to reduce systemic inflammation after brain death. To determine its effects, brain dead rats were resuscitated with normal saline (targeted intravenous fluid) to maintain a mean arterial pressure of 80 mmHg; DPR animals also received 30 cc of intraperitoneal peritoneal dialysis solution. Rats were euthanized at 0, 2, 4, and 6 h after brain death. Pro-inflammatory cytokines were measured using ELISA. Levels of IL-1β, TNF-α, and IL-6 in the kidney were significantly increased as early as 2 h after brain death and significantly decreased with DPR. Levels of leukocyte adhesion molecules ICAM and VCAM increased after brain death and were decreased with DPR (ICAM 2.33 ± 0.14 vs. 0.42 ± 0.04, P = 0.002; VCAM 82.6 ± 5.8 vs. 37.3 ± 1.9, P = 0.002 at 4 h) as were E-selectin and P-selectin (E-selectin 25,605 vs. 16,144, P = 0.005; P-selectin 82.5 ± 3.3 vs. 71.0 ± 2.3, P = 0.009 at 4 h). Use of DPR reduces inflammation and adhesion molecule expression in the kidneys, and is associated with reduced macrophages and neutrophils on immunohistochemistry. Using DPR in brain dead donors has the potential to reduce the immunologic activity of transplanted kidneys and could improve graft survival.
Ubiquitin COOH-terminal hydrolase L1 deletion is associated with urinary α-klotho deficiency and perturbed phosphate homeostasis
Authors: Boisvert Naomi C. , Holterman Chet E. , Gutsol Alexey , Coulombe Josée , Pan Wanling , Alexander R. Todd , Gray Douglas A. , Kennedy Chris R.
Published: April 2018

Loss of ubiquitin COOH-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCHL1), a deubiquitinating enzyme required for neuronal function, led to hyperphosphatemia accompanied by phosphaturia in mice, while calcium homeostasis remained intact. We therefore investigated the mechanisms underlying the phosphate imbalance in Uchl1−/− mice. Interestingly, phosphaturia was not a result of lower renal brush border membrane sodium-phosphate cotransporter expression as sodium-phosphate cotransporter 2a and 2c expression levels was similar to wild-type levels. Plasma parathyroid hormone and fibroblast growth factor 23 levels were not different; however, fibroblast growth factor 23 mRNA levels were significantly increased in femur homogenates from Uchl1−/− mice. Full-length and soluble α-klotho levels were comparable in kidneys from wild-type and Uchl1−/− mice; however, soluble α-klotho was reduced in Uchl1−/− mice urine. Consistent with unchanged components of 1,25(OH)2D3 metabolism (i.e., CYP27B1 and CYP24A1), sodium-phosphate cotransporter 2b protein levels were not different in ileum brush borders from Uchl1−/− mice, suggesting that the intestine is not the source of hyperphosphatemia. Nonetheless, when Uchl1−/− mice were fed a low-phosphate diet, plasma phosphate, urinary phosphate, and fractional excretion of phosphate were significantly attenuated and comparable to levels of low-phosphate diet-fed wild-type mice. Our findings demonstrate that Uchl1-deleted mice exhibit perturbed phosphate homeostasis, likely consequent to decreased urinary soluble α-klotho, which can be rescued with a low-phosphate diet. Uchl1−/− mice may provide a useful mouse model to study mild perturbations in phosphate homeostasis.
Inactivation of MAP3K7 in FOXD1-expressing cells results in loss of mesangial PDGFRΒ and juvenile kidney scarring
Authors: Karolak Michele J. , Guay Justin A. , Oxburgh Leif
Published: April 2018

Transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) plays a central role in renal scarring, controlling extracellular matrix deposition by interstitial cells and mesangial cells. TGFβ signals through Smad and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. To understand the role of MAPK in interstitial and mesangial cells, we genetically inactivated TGFβ-activated kinase-1 ( Map3k7) using Foxd1+/cre. Embryonic kidney development was unperturbed in mutants, but spontaneous scarring of the kidney ensued during the first postnatal week, with retention of embryonic nephrogenic rests and accumulation of collagen IV in the mesangium. MAPK signaling in the mesangium of mutant mice was skewed, with depressed p38 but elevated c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) activation at postnatal day 3. Despite normal expression of platelet-derived growth factor receptor-β (PDGFRβ) in the mesangium of mutants at birth, expression was lost concomitantly with the increase in JNK activation, and studies in isolated mesangial cells revealed that JNK negatively regulates Pdgfrβ. In summary, we show that MAP3K7 balances MAPK signaling in mesangial cells, suppressing postnatal JNK activation. We propose that the balance of MAPK signaling is essential for appropriate postnatal regulation of mesangial PDGFRβ expression.
Experimental heat stress nephropathy and liver injury are improved by allopurinol
Authors: Roncal-Jimenez Carlos A. , Sato Yuka , Milagres Tamara , Andres Hernando Ana , García Gabriela , Bjornstad Petter , Dawson Jaime Butler , Sorensen Cecilia , Newman Lee , Krisher Lyndsay , Madero Magdalena , Glaser Jason , Gárcía-Trabanino Ramón , Romero Emmanuel Jarquin , Song Zhilin , Jensen Thomas , Kuwabara Masanari , Rodriguez-Iturbe Bernardo , Sanchez-Lozada Laura Gabriela , Lanaspa Miguel A. , Johnson Richard J.
Published: April 2018

An epidemic of chronic kidney disease (CKD) has been observed in Central America among workers in the sugarcane fields. One hypothesis is that the CKD may be caused by recurrent heat stress and dehydration, and potentially by hyperuricemia. Accordingly, we developed a murine model of kidney injury associated with recurrent heat stress. In the current experiment, we tested whether treatment with allopurinol (a xanthine oxidase inhibitor that reduces serum urate) provides renal protection against recurrent heat stress and dehydration. Eight-week-old male C57BL/6 mice were subjected to recurrent heat stress (39.5°C for 30 min, 7 times daily, for 5 wk) with or without allopurinol treatment and were compared with control animals with or without allopurinol treatment. Mice were allowed ad libitum access to normal laboratory chow (Harlan Teklad). Kidney histology, liver histology, and renal function were examined. Heat stress conferred both kidney and liver injury. Kidneys showed loss of proximal tubules, infiltration of monocyte/macrophages, and interstitial collagen deposition, while livers of heat-stressed mice displayed an increase in macrophages, collagen deposition, and myofibroblasts. Allopurinol provided significant protection and improved renal function in the heat-stressed mice. The renal protection was associated with reduction in intrarenal uric acid concentration and heat shock protein 70 expression. Heat stress-induced renal and liver injury can be protected with allopurinol treatment. We recommend a clinical trial of allopurinol for individuals developing renal injury in rural areas of Central America where the epidemic of chronic kidney disease is occurring.
Cell type-specific plasticity at parallel fiber synapses onto Purkinje cells in the posterior caudal lobe of the mormyrid fish cerebellum
Authors: Zhang Yueping , Magnus Gerhard , Han Victor Z.
Published: April 2018

It has been demonstrated that there are two morphological subtypes of Purkinje cells (PCs)—fan-shaped Purkinje cells (fPCs) and multipolar Purkinje cells (mPCs)—in the posterior caudal lobe of the mormyrid fish cerebellum, but whether these cell types are also functionally distinct is unknown. Here, we have used electrophysiological and pharmacological tools in a slice preparation to demonstrate that pairing parallel fiber (PF) and climbing fiber (CF) inputs at a low frequency induces long-term depression (LTD) in fPCs but long-term potentiation (LTP) in mPCs. The induction of plasticity in both cell types required postsynaptic Ca2+ and type 1α metabotropic glutamate receptors. However, the LTD in fPCs was inducted via a calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II cascade, whereas LTP induction in mPCs required calcineurin. Moreover, the LTD in fPCs and LTP in mPCs were accompanied by changes to the corresponding paired-pulse ratios and their coefficients of variation, suggesting presynaptic modes of expression for the plasticity at PF terminals for both cell types. Hence, the synaptic plasticity at PF synapses onto PCs in the posterior caudal lobe of the mormyrid cerebellum is cell type specific, with both pre- and postsynaptic mechanisms contributing to its induction and expression.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY Much has been learnt about the cerebellar long-term depression (LTD) in the cortex. More recent work has shown that long-term potentiation (LTP) is equally important for cerebellar motor learning. Here we report for the first time that plasticity in the mormyrid cerebellum is cell type specific, e.g., following the conventional pairing of parallel and climbing fiber inputs in an in vitro preparation leads to LTD in one Purkinje cell subtype and LTP in another.
Neck muscle biomechanics and neural control
Authors: Fice Jason B. , Siegmund Gunter P. , Blouin Jean-Sébastien
Published: April 2018

The mechanics, morphometry, and geometry of our joints, segments, and muscles are fundamental biomechanical properties intrinsic to human neural control. The goal of our study was to investigate whether the biomechanical actions of individual neck muscles predict their neural control. Specifically, we compared the moment direction and variability produced by electrical stimulation of a neck muscle (biomechanics) to the preferred activation direction and variability (neural control). Subjects sat upright with their head fixed to a six-axis load cell and their torso restrained. Indwelling wire electrodes were placed into the sternocleidomastoid (SCM), splenius capitis (SPL), and semispinalis capitis (SSC) muscles. The electrically stimulated direction was defined as the moment direction produced when a current (2–19 mA) was passed through each muscle’s electrodes. Preferred activation direction was defined as the vector sum of the spatial tuning curve built from root mean squared electromyogram when subjects produced isometric moments at 7.5% and 15% of their maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) in 26 three-dimensional directions. The spatial tuning curves at 15% MVC were well defined (unimodal, P < 0.05), and their preferred directions were 23°, 39°, and 21° different from their electrically stimulated directions for the SCM, SPL, and SSC, respectively ( P < 0.05). Intrasubject variability was smaller in electrically stimulated moment directions compared with voluntary preferred directions, and intrasubject variability decreased with increased activation levels. Our findings show that the neural control of neck muscles is not based solely on optimizing individual muscle biomechanics but, as activation increases, biomechanical constraints in part dictate the activation of synergistic neck muscles.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY Biomechanics are an intrinsic part of human neural control. In this study, we found that the biomechanics of individual neck muscles cannot fully predict their neural control. Consequently, physiologically based computational neck muscle controllers cannot calculate muscle activation schemes based on the isolated biomechanics of muscles. Furthermore, by measuring biomechanics we showed that the intrasubject variability of the neural control was lower for electrical vs. voluntary activation of the neck muscles.
Neural mechanisms of speed-accuracy tradeoff of visual search: saccade vigor, the origin of targeting errors, and comparison of the superior colliculus and frontal eye field
Authors: Reppert Thomas R. , Servant Mathieu , Heitz Richard P. , Schall Jeffrey D.
Published: April 2018

Balancing the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) is necessary for successful behavior. Using a visual search task with interleaved cues emphasizing speed or accuracy, we recently reported diverse contributions of frontal eye field (FEF) neurons instantiating salience evidence and response preparation. Here, we report replication of visual search SAT performance in two macaque monkeys, new information about variation of saccade dynamics with SAT, extension of the neurophysiological investigation to describe processes in the superior colliculus (SC), and a description of the origin of search errors in this task. Saccade vigor varied idiosyncratically across SAT conditions and monkeys but tended to decrease with response time. As observed in the FEF, speed-accuracy tradeoff was accomplished through several distinct adjustments in the superior colliculus. In “Accurate” relative to “Fast” trials, visually responsive neurons in SC as in FEF had lower baseline firing rates and later target selection. The magnitude of these adjustments in SC was indistinguishable from that in FEF. Search errors occurred when visual salience neurons in the FEF and the SC treated distractors as targets, even in the Accurate condition. Unlike FEF, the magnitude of visual responses in the SC did not vary across SAT conditions. Also unlike FEF, the activity of SC movement neurons when saccades were initiated was equivalent in Fast and Accurate trials. Saccade-related neural activity in SC, but not FEF, varied with saccade peak velocity. These results extend our understanding of the cortical and subcortical contributions to SAT.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY Neurophysiological mechanisms of speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) have only recently been investigated. This article reports the first replication of SAT performance in nonhuman primates, the first report of variation of saccade dynamics with SAT, the first description of superior colliculus contributions to SAT, and the first description of the origin of errors during SAT. These results inform and constrain new models of distributed decision making.
Emissions of Airport Monitoring with Solar Occultation Flux-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer
Authors: Han Xin , Li Xiangxian , Gao Minguang , Tong Jingjing , Wei Xiuli , Li Sheng , Ye Shubin , Li Yan
Published: April 2018

Both domestic and international aviation industries have experienced a boom, which results in a dramatic increase in emissions of the aviation industry in recent decades. Therefore, domestic and abroad scientists adopted different methods to measure emissions; however, there are no appropriate methods to measure the emissions of the whole airport. In order to provide data support for the relevant departments to take appropriate emission reduction measures, solar occultation flux-Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (SOF-FT-IR) is used to monitor the emissions of Beijing Capital International Airport. CO, CO2, C2H4, and CH2O are selected as the target gases and are quantitatively analyzed with the nonlinear least squares method to get the column concentration. Then, the flux can also be calculated by linking the wind velocity and direction with the column concentration. A comparison between the results measured by SOF-FT-IR and the results measured by the method published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that auxiliary power equipment and ground support equipment for the emission of the airport are also important emission sources besides the aircraft and the concentration distribution gives powerful and useful pieces of evidence to locate the emission sources. In order to decrease the contribution of the airport to the air pollution, the key point is to reduce the emissions of the APU and mobiles in the airport.
The Evolutionary p(x)-Laplacian Equation with a Partial Boundary Value Condition
Authors: Zhan Huashui , Zhou Zhen
Published: April 2018

Consider a diffusion convection equation coming from the electrorheological fluids. If the diffusion coefficient of the equation is degenerate on the boundary, generally, we can only impose a partial boundary value condition to ensure the well-posedness of the solutions. Since the equation is nonlinear, the partial boundary value condition cannot be depicted by Fichera function. In this paper, when α
p+-1, the stability of the solutions is obtained without the boundary value condition. At the same time, only if α>0 and p->1 can the uniqueness of the solutions be proved without any boundary value condition.
Glehnia littoralis Root Extract Inhibits Fat Accumulation in 3T3‐L1 Cells and High‐Fat Diet‐Induced Obese Mice by Downregulating Adipogenic Gene Expression
Authors: Hong Heeok , dela Cruz Joseph F. , Kim Won Seob , Yoo Kiyeol , Hwang Seong Gu
Published: April 2018

Glehnia littoralis has been reported to have several pharmacological properties but no reports describing the antiadipogenic effect of this plant have been published. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of Glehnia littoralis root hot water extract (GLE) and its underlying mechanism on 3T3‐L1 cell adipogenesis and in high‐fat diet‐ (HFD‐) induced obese mice. We measured intracellular lipid accumulation using oil red O staining in vitro. For in vivo study, twenty‐eight C57BL/6J male mice were randomly divided into four groups, Control, HFD, HFD + 1% GLE, and HFD + 5% GLE, which was performed for eight weeks. We determined the expression levels of the adipogenesis‐related proteins by RT‐PCR and western blotting in HFD‐induced obese mice. The GLE dose‐dependently inhibited 3T3‐L1 adipocyte differentiation and intracellular lipid accumulation in differentiated adipocytes. Further, body weight gain and fat accumulation were significantly lower in the GLE‐treated HFD mice than in the untreated HFD mice. GLE treatment suppressed the expression of adipogenic genes such as peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor (PPAR) γ, CCAAT/enhancer‐binding protein (C/EBP) α, fatty acid synthase (aP2), and fatty acid synthase (FAS). These results suggest that the GLE inhibits adipocyte differentiation and intracellular lipid accumulation by downregulating the adipogenic gene expression both in vitro and in vivo.
Desmoplastic Fibroma Recurrence Associated with Tuberous Sclerosis in a Young Patient
Authors: Espinoza-Coronado A. M. , Loyola-Rodríguez J. P. , Olvera-Delgado J. H. , García-Cortes J. O. , Reyes-Macías J. F.
Published: April 2018

Case Report. A nine-year-old patient with a diagnosis of tuberous sclerosis (with no pathological record) that showed calcifications at the brain level. Besides, the case showed the Vogt triad (epilepsy, mental retardation, and sebaceous adenoma). The patient clinically showed a volume increase of hard consistency, without suppuration and no sessile that included the following teeth 73, 74, and 75. Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) was obtained, and it displayed a delimited unilocular lesion. After surgical excision, the histopathological report was desmoplastic fibroma (DF). It was observed that the patient had an aggressive recurrence of DF at four months after surgery treatment. Due to these clinical findings, resective osseous surgery and curettage were carried out. It is uncommon to find these two pathologies together (DF and tuberous sclerosis). Since DF is a benign pathology but very invasive and destructive, it is necessary a constant follow-up examination due to a high recurrence frequency.
Privacy-Preserving Data Aggregation Protocol for Fog Computing-Assisted Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Scenario
Authors: Chen Yanan , Lu Zhenyu , Xiong Hu , Xu Weixiang
Published: April 2018

Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication enables moving vehicles to upload real-time data about road surface situation to the Internet via fixed roadside units (RSU). Thanks to the resource restriction of mobile vehicles, fog computation-enhanced V2I communication scenario has received increasing attention recently. However, how to aggregate the sensed data from vehicles securely and efficiently still remains open to the V2I communication scenario. In this paper, a light-weight and anonymous aggregation protocol is proposed for the fog computing-based V2I communication scenario. With the proposed protocol, the data collected by the vehicles can be efficiently obtained by the RSU in a privacy-preserving manner. Particularly, we first suggest a certificateless aggregate signcryption (CL-A-SC) scheme and prove its security in the random oracle model. The suggested CL-A-SC scheme, which is of independent interest, can achieve the merits of certificateless cryptography and signcryption scheme simultaneously. Then we put forward the anonymous aggregation protocol for V2I communication scenario as one extension of the suggested CL-A-SC scheme. Security analysis demonstrates that the proposed aggregation protocol achieves desirable security properties. The performance comparison shows that the proposed protocol significantly reduces the computation and communication overhead compared with the up-to-date protocols in this field.
A Mixed-Signal Programmable Time-Division Power-On-Reset and Volume Control Circuit for High-Resolution Hearing-Aid SoC Application
Authors: Chen Chengying , Chen Liming , Yang Jun
Published: April 2018

A mixed-signal programmable Time-Division Power-On-Reset (TD-POR) circuit based on 8-bit Successive Approximation Analog-to-Digital Converter (SAR ADC) for accurate control in low-power hearing-aid System on Chip (SoC) is presented in this paper. The end-of-converter (EOC) signal of SAR ADC is used as the mode-change signal so that the circuit can detect the battery voltage and volume voltage alternately. And the TD-POR circuit also has brown-out reset (BOR) detection capability. Through digital logic circuit, the POR, BOR threshold, and delay time can be adjusted according to the system requirement. The circuit is implemented in SMIC 0.13 μm 1P8M CMOS process. The measurement results show that, in 1 V power supply, the POR, BOR, and volume control function are accomplished. The detection resolution is the best among previous work. With 120 Hz input signal and 15 kHz clock, the ADC shows that Signal to Noise plus Distortion Ratio (SNDR) is 46.5 dB and Effective Number Of Bits (ENOB) is 7.43 bits. Total circuit power consumption is only 86 μw for low-power application.
Polarization Lidar Detection of Agricultural Aerosol Emissions
Authors: Gregorio Eduard , Gené Jordi , Sanz Ricardo , Rocadenbosch Francesc , Chueca Patricia , Arnó Jaume , Solanelles Francesc , Rosell-Polo Joan R.
Published: April 2018

Agricultural aerosol emissions can significantly impact human and animal health as well as the environment. Therefore, it is essential to adopt new sensing techniques for real-time monitoring these emissions in high temporal and spatial resolution. In recent years, light detection and ranging (lidar) technology has been used for measuring the particulate matter emitted from agricultural operations. However, conventional nonpolarized lidar systems cannot discriminate between different types of aerosols, which can lead to misinterpretation of the results. To overcome this limitation, this study applies the polarization lidar technique to monitor agricultural aerosols. A 355 nm polarization lidar system was used to measure the emissions generated during pesticide spraying operations. The results showed that depolarization ratios due to field dust (0.220–0.268) and to road dust (0.385) are clearly higher than those caused by pesticide spray drift (0.028–0.043) or by diesel exhaust (0.099), which can be used to differentiate each type of aerosol. These results support the development of new polarization lidar systems specifically designed to study the impact of agricultural activities on air quality.
The Probabilities of Trees and Cladograms under Ford’s α-Model
Authors: Coronado Tomás M. , Mir Arnau , Rosselló Francesc
Published: April 2018

Ford’s α-model is one of the most popular random parametric models of bifurcating phylogenetic tree growth, having as specific instances both the uniform and the Yule models. Its general properties have been used to study the behavior of phylogenetic tree shape indices under the probability distribution it defines. But the explicit formulas provided by Ford for the probabilities of unlabeled trees and phylogenetic trees fail in some cases. In this paper we give correct explicit formulas for these probabilities.
Brusatol Enhances the Chemotherapy Efficacy of Gemcitabine in Pancreatic Cancer via the Nrf2 Signalling Pathway
Authors: Xiang Yukai , Ye Wen , Huang Chaohao , Yu Dinglai , Chen Hao , Deng Tuo , Zhang Fan , Lou Bin , Zhang Jie , Shi Keqing , Chen Bicheng , Zhou Mengtao
Published: April 2018

Although gemcitabine is the standard chemotherapy treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer, its benefits are quite limited due to prevalent chemoresistance, and the mechanism underlying gemcitabine chemoresistance remains unclear. Currently, Nrf2 has been deemed as a significant contributor to gemcitabine chemoresistance in pancreatic cancer. Brusatol is a unique inhibitor of the Nrf2 pathway, and in previous studies, we determined that brusatol exhibits the effects of growth inhibition and proapoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells. Due to these data, we speculate that brusatol can reverse gemcitabine‐induced Nrf2 activation and propose that it can enhance gemcitabine efficacy in treating pancreatic cancer. In this study, we first proved that brusatol can effectively inhibit the Nrf2 signalling pathway and increase ROS accumulation in pancreatic cancer cells. Next, we demonstrated that brusatol can abrogate gemcitabine‐induced Nrf2 activation in pancreatic cancer cells. In addition, we discovered that brusatol potentiates gemcitabine‐induced growth inhibition and apoptosis in human pancreatic cancer cells. In nude mice with PANC‐1 xenografts, treatment with a combination of brusatol and gemcitabine considerably reduced in vivo tumour growth compared with control treatment or treatment with either brusatol or gemcitabine alone. Immunohistochemical staining also showed that Nrf2 expression levels were reduced in brusatol‐treated xenograft tumour tissues. In summary, our results suggest that brusatol is capable of enhancing the antitumour effects of gemcitabine in both pancreatic cancer cells and PANC‐1 xenografts via suppressing the Nrf2 pathway.