bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Accuracy, user-friendliness and usefulness of the Cobas h232 point-of-care test for NT-proBNP in primary care
Authors: Hex Chiel , Smeets Miek , Penders Joris , Van Hoof Viviane , Verbakel Jan , Buntinx Frank , Vaes Bert
Published: December 2017

Aims

N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) has been shown to be useful for ruling out heart failure in primary care. In this study, we examined the accuracy of the Cobas h232 point-of-care (POC) instrument in primary care compared with an in-hospital measurement. Furthermore, we investigated the user-friendliness and usefulness of the POC device.

Methods

Five general practitioner (GP) groups were asked to evaluate adult patients who were suspected of having heart failure and to test NT-proBNP with the Cobas h232. The samples were subsequently delivered to and analysed at a central hospital laboratory by the Cobas e602 using conventional transport and storage. Difference between the paired measurements was analysed using a percentage difference plot, and correlation was assessed using Passing-Bablok linear regression analysis. User-friendliness and usefulness were assessed using semistructured questionnaires.

Results

Nineteen GPs studied 94 patients. Passing-Bablok analysis showed a slope of 1.05 (95% CI 1.00 to 1.11) (R2=0.97). The percentage difference plot showed a mean difference of 15.7% (95% CI −46.0% to –77.4%). User-friendliness and usefulness had median scores of 4 or 5 on a five-point Likert scale. Eighteen out of 19 GPs confirmed that the device influenced their clinical practice. During the study, GPs’ confidence in using NT-proBNP increased significantly from a mean score of 4.4 (95% CI 3.2 to 5.6) to 7.6 out of 10 (95% CI 7.1 to 8.2).

Conclusions

The Cobas h232 NT-proBNP POC test proved to be an accurate, user-friendly and useful test in primary care. Nearly all participating GPs were convinced that the test could benefit clinical decision making.
Understanding child disadvantage from a social determinants perspective
Authors: Goldfeld Sharon , O’Connor Meredith , Cloney Dan , Gray Sarah , Redmond Gerry , Badland Hannah , Williams Katrina , Mensah Fiona , Woolfenden Sue , Kvalsvig Amanda , Kochanoff Anita T
Published: December 2017

Background

Child health and developmental inequities exist in all countries. Comprehensive and robust concepts of disadvantage are fundamental to growing an evidence base that can reveal the extent of inequities in childhood, and identify modifiable leverage points for change. We conceptualise and test a multidimensional framework of child disadvantage aligned to a social determinants and bioecological perspective.

Methods

The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children is a nationally representative sample of two cohorts of Australian children, including the birth cohort of 5107 infants, which commenced in May 2004. The analysis focused on disadvantage indicators collected at age 4–5 years. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test a theoretically informed model of disadvantage. Concurrent validity was examined through associations with academic performance at 8–9 years.

Results

The model comprising four latent factors of sociodemographic (10 indicators), geographical environments (three indicators), health conditions (three indicators) and risk factors (14 indicators) was found to provide a better fit for the data than alternative models. Each factor was associated with academic performance, providing evidence of concurrent validity.

Conclusion

The study provides a theoretically informed and empirically tested framework for operationalising relative child disadvantage. Understanding and addressing inequities will be facilitated by capturing the complexity of children’s experiences of disadvantage across the multiple environments in which their development unfolds.
Geographical epidemiology of health and overall deprivation in England, its changes and persistence from 2004 to 2015: a longitudinal spatial population study
Authors: Kontopantelis Evangelos , Mamas Mamas A , van Marwijk Harm , Ryan Andrew M , Buchan Iain E , Ashcroft Darren M , Doran Tim
Published: December 2017

Background

Socioeconomic deprivation is a key determinant for health. In England, the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is a widely used composite measure of deprivation. However, little is known about its spatial clustering or persistence across time.

Methods

Data for overall IMD and its health domain were analysed for 2004–2015 at a low geographical area (average of 1500 people). Levels and temporal changes were spatially visualised for the whole of England and its 10 administrative regions. Spatial clustering was quantified using Moran’s I, correlations over time were quantified using Pearson’s r.

Results

Between 2004 and 2015 we observed a strong persistence for both overall (r=0.94) and health-related deprivation (r=0.92). At the regional level, small changes were observed over time, but with areas slowly regressing towards the mean. However, for the North East, North West and Yorkshire, where health-related deprivation was the highest, the decreasing trend in health-related deprivation reversed and we noticed increases in 2015. Results did not support our hypothesis of increasing spatial clustering over time. However, marked regional variability was observed in both aggregate deprivation outcomes. The lowest autocorrelation was seen in the North East and changed very little over time, while the South East had the highest autocorrelation at all time points.

Conclusions

Overall and health-related deprivation patterns persisted in England, with large and unchanging health inequalities between the North and the South. The spatial aspect of deprivation can inform the targeting of health and social care interventions, particularly in areas with high levels of deprivation clustering.
P4HB recurrent missense mutation causing Cole-Carpenter syndrome
Authors: Balasubramanian Meena , Padidela Raja , Pollitt Rebecca C , Bishop Nicholas J , Mughal M Zulf , Offiah Amaka C , Wagner Bart E , McCaughey Janine , Stephens David J
Published: December 2017

Background

Cole-Carpenter syndrome (CCS) is commonly classified as a rare Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) disorder. This was following the description of two unrelated patients with very similar phenotypes who were subsequently shown to have a heterozygous missense mutation in P4HB.

Objectives

Here, we report a 3-year old female patient with severe OI who on exome sequencing was found to carry the same missense mutation in P4HB as reported in the original cohort. We discuss the genetic heterogeneity of CCS and underlying mechanism of P4HB in collagen production.

Methods

We undertook detailed clinical, radiological and molecular phenotyping in addition, to analysis of collagen in cultured fibroblasts and electron microscopic examination in the patient reported here.

Results

The clinical phenotype appears consistent in patients reported so far but interestingly, there also appears to be a definitive phenotypic clue (crumpling metadiaphyseal fractures of the long tubular bones with metaphyseal sclerosis which are findings that are uncommon in OI) to the underlying genotype (P4HB variant).

Discussion

P4HB (Prolyl 4-hydroxylase, betasubunit) encodes for PDI (Protein Disulfide isomerase) and in cells, in its tetrameric form, catalyses formation of 4-hydroxyproline in collagen. The recurrent variant in P4HB, c.1178A>G, p.Tyr393Cys, sits in the C-terminal reactive centre and is said to interfere with disulphide isomerase function of the C-terminal reactive centre. P4HB catalyses the hydroxylation of proline residues within the X-Pro-Gly repeats in the procollagen helical domain. Given the inter-dependence of extracellular matrix (ECM) components in assembly of a functional matrix, our data suggest that it is the organisation and assembly of the functional ECM that is perturbed rather than the secretion of collagen type I per se.

Conclusions

We provide additional evidence of P4HB as a cause of a specific form of OI-CCS and expand on response to treatment with bisphosphonates in this rare disorder.
Retrospective evaluation of 140 dogs involved in road traffic accidents
Authors: Klainbart Sigal , Bibring Uri , Strich Dalia , Chai Orit , Bdolah‐Abram Tali , Aroch Itamar , Kelmer Efrat
Published: December 2017

This study has retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 140 dogs sustaining road traffic accident (RTA), and has examined the population characteristics, medical history, injury type, physical examination, emergency laboratory tests and radiography findings, the animal trauma triage (ATT) score, the length of hospitalisation, the complications and the outcome. The survival rate was 83.2 per cent. Younger dogs sustained more frequently lung contusions and limb fractures, while larger dogs more frequently suffered limb fractures, and smaller dogs and older ones sustained more frequently pelvic fractures and sacroiliac luxation (P<0.05 for all). Dogs sustaining orthopaedic injuries required longer hospitalisation (P<0.001). The survival rates of non‐ambulatory dogs (P<0.001) and those with neurological abnormalities (P<0.001), abnormal body temperature (P=0.001), hyperglycaemia (P=0.026) or hypoproteinaemia (P=0.04) at presentation were lower compared with those in which these were absent. The number of injured body systems was significantly (P<0.001) and positively associated with death. Dogs surviving RTA to presentation to the hospital have a good prognosis for survival to discharge. Older age, and high ATT score, abnormal body temperature, neurological deficits, hyperglycaemia and hypoproteinaemia at presentation, and occurrence of multiorgan trauma are negative prognostic indicators in such dogs.
Effect of a short-term physical activity intervention on liver fat content in obese children
Authors: Kang Dong-Woo , Park Ji-Hye , Lee Mi Kyung , Kim YoonMyung , Kong In Deok , Chung Choon Hee , Lee Young Hee , Jeon Justin Y.
Published: December 2017

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common chronic liver disease and can present with advanced fibrosis or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a 7-day intense physical activity intervention on liver fat content in children with obesity. Fifty-seven obese children (mean body mass index: 26.5 ± 3.2 kg/m2; mean age: 12.0 ± 0.8 years) participated in a 7-day physical activity program. All participants were housed together, and their food intake and energy expenditure were strictly controlled. Anthropometric measurements, abdominal computerized tomography scans, and blood analyses were conducted at baseline and post-intervention. Participants lost weight by 2.53 ± 0.85 kg on average (61.0 ± 9.8 vs. 58.5 ± 9.5 kg, p < 0.05), fat mass (16.7 ± 5.1 vs. 15.7 ± 4.9 kg, p < 0.05), and serum insulin (13.7 ± 6.7 vs. 3.5 ± 2.0 μU/mL, p < 0.05). However, liver fat content was increased, presented as liver-to-spleen ratio (LSR) where lower LSR represents higher liver fat content. The intervention increased aspartate transaminase level (29.42 ± 6.78 IU/L vs. 33.50 ± 9.60 IU/L, p < 0.001). The change in liver fat content was not associated with the change in fasting insulin and liver enzymes. Short-term intense physical activity increased liver fat content independent of change in fasting insulin level and liver enzymes. This is the first human study to report increased liver fat content after physical activity-induced rapid weight loss.
Laboratory investigation of pore pressure dissipation in clay around permeable piles
Authors: Ni Pengpeng , Mangalathu Sujith , Mei Guoxiong , Zhao Yanlin
Published: December 2017

Excess pore-water pressures induced by pile driving could have a detrimental effect on a project, especially on the construction sequence and ground settlement. Measures that can effectively accelerate dissipation of pore pressures are therefore valuable. One way to reduce the pore pressure is the use of permeable piles. This paper presents a series of model-scale laboratory tests conducted on piles with drainage holes around the pile circumference. It is found that permeable piles could accelerate soil consolidation significantly, and the beneficial effects are more apparent for group pile tests. An approximate influencing zone of permeable piles was derived in this study based on the experimental observations.
Partial wave off-shell Coulomb amplitudes at excited-state energy
Authors: Kharchenko Vladyslav F.
Published: December 2017

Based on the integral representation of the three-dimensional Coulomb transition matrix elaborated by us formerly with the use of specific symmetry of the interaction in the four-dimensional Euclidean space introduced by Fock, the possibility of analytical solution of the integral equation for the partial wave transition matrices at the excited bound state energy has been studied. New analytical expressions for the partial s-, p-, and d-wave Coulomb t-matrices for like-charged particles and the expression for the partial d-wave t-matrix for unlike-charged particles at the energy of the first excited bound state have been derived.
Site-specific female-biased sex ratio of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) during a stopover early in the southern migration
Authors: Franklin Trish , Franklin Wally , Brooks Lyndon , Harrison Peter
Published: December 2017

Previous research on humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski, 1781)), in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, has reported site-specific male-biased sex ratios in breeding grounds and along migratory corridors. However, one recent Southern Hemisphere study reported a female-biased sex ratio in a feeding area within a coastal migratory corridor, indicating that females may preferentially occupy some habitats. We investigated the classes and relative seasonal timing of humpback whales using Hervey Bay (Queensland, Australia) as a stopover early in the southern migration. Modeling and analyzes were undertaken using data from resighting histories of 361 individually identified whales between 1992 and 2009. The data consisted of 2131 sightings categorized by either sex, age, reproductive status, or maturational status. A female-biased sex ratio of 2.94:1 indicates that Hervey Bay is a preferential stopover for females. The data revealed that the bay is important for mature females who co-occur with immature males and females during August. During September and October, mothers with calves accompanied by a few escorts dominate the Bay. Immature males and females socialize with mature females during August and September. The data support the hypothesis that habitat preferences and differential migration of females and males provide a plausible explanation for site-specific sex-bias in breeding grounds, migratory stopovers, and along migratory corridors.
Effects of Fierz transformation on gap equation and CEP at finite chemical potential and finite temperature in Hartree–Fock approximation
Authors: Wu Zuqing , Ping Jialun , Zong Hongshi
Published: December 2017

Three representations of Nambu–Jona-Lasinio interaction Lagrangians are constructed by Fierz transformation, and gap equation and critical end point in these three representations at finite temperature and finite chemical potential are studied. We find that the values of the quark mass and the critical end point are different in these three representations because of the consideration of Hartree–Fock approximation in our calculation.
The holographic principle, the equipartition of energy and Newton’s gravity
Authors: Sadiq M.
Published: December 2017

Assuming the equipartition of energy to hold on a holographic sphere, Erik Verlinde demonstrated that Newton’s gravity follows as an entropic force. Some comments are in place about Verlinde’s assumptions in his derivation. It is pointed out that the holographic principle allows for freedom up to a free scale factor in the choice of Planck scale area while leading to classical gravity. Similarity of this free parameter with the Immirzi parameter of loop quantum gravity is discussed. We point out that the equipartition of energy is inbuilt into the holographic principle and, therefore, need not be assumed from the outset.
The proton mass and scale-invariant hidden local symmetry for compressed baryonic matter
Authors: Rho Mannque
Published: December 2017

I discuss how to access dense baryonic matter of compact stars by combining hidden local symmetry (HLS) of light-quark vector mesons with spontaneously broken scale invariance of a (pseudo) Nambu–Goldstone boson, dilaton, in a description that parallels the approach to dilatonic Higgs. Some of the surprising observations are that the bulk of proton mass is not Nambu–Goldstonian, parity doubling emerges at high density and the EoS of baryonic matter can be soft enough for heavy-ion processes at low density and stiff enough at high density for [Formula: see text] solar mass neutron stars.
Development and application of bio-inspired microfluidics
Authors: Min Lingli , Chen Songyue , Xie Xinwen , Dong Hepeng , Pan Hong , Sheng Zhizhi , Wang Honglong , Wu Feng , Wang Miao , Hou Xu
Published: December 2017

Bio-inspired microfluidic systems can be obtained through multidisciplinary approaches by using bio-inspired structural and functional designs for the microfluidic devices. This review mainly focuses on the concept of bio-inspired microfluidics to improve the properties of microfluidic systems for breaking through the bottlenecks of the current microfluidic devices, such as anti-fouling, smart, and dynamic response inside the microchannels under different environments. In addition, here, we show the current research progress of bio-inspired microfluidic systems in applications related to anti-fouling and smart devices, and biomedical research. The review discusses both physical theories and critical technologies in the bio-inspired microfluidics, from biomimetic design to real-world applications, so as to offer new ideas for the design and application of smart microfluidics, and the authors hope this review will inspire the active interest of many scientists in the area of the development and application of soft matter, and multifunctional and smart bio-inspired devices.
Higher-order geodesic deviation for charged particles and resonance induced by gravitational waves
Authors: Heydari-Fard M. , Hasani S. N.
Published: December 2017

We generalize the higher-order geodesic deviation for the structure-less test particles to the higher-order geodesic deviation equations of the charged particles [R. Kerner, J. W. van Holten and R. Colistete Jr., Class. Quantum Grav. 18 (2001) 4725]. By solving these equations for charged particles moving in a constant magnetic field in the spacetime of a gravitational wave, we show for both cases when the gravitational wave is parallel and perpendicular to the constant magnetic field, a magnetic resonance appears at [Formula: see text]. This feature might be useful to detect the gravitational wave with high frequencies.
Committee-Based Profiles for Politician Finding
Authors: De Campos Luis M. , Fernández-Luna Juan M. , Huete Juan F.
Published: December 2017

One step towards breaking down barriers between citizens and politicians is to help people identify those politicians who share their concerns. This paper is set in the field of expert finding and is based on the automatic construction of politicians’ profiles from their speeches on parliamentary committees. These committee-based profiles are treated as documents and are indexed by an information retrieval system. Given a query representing a citizen’s concern, a profile ranking is then obtained. In the final step, the different results for each candidate are combined in order to obtain the final politician ranking. We explore the use of classic combination strategies for this purpose and present a new approach that improves state-of-the-art performance and which is more stable under different conditions. We also introduce a two-stage model where the identification of a broader concept (such as the committee) is used to improve the final politician ranking.
Axiomatic Analysis of Language Modelling of Recommender Systems
Authors: Valcarce Daniel , Parapar Javier , Barreiro Álvaro
Published: December 2017

Language Models constitute an effective framework for text retrieval tasks. Recently, it has been extended to various collaborative filtering tasks. In particular, relevance-based language models can be used for generating highly accurate recommendations using a memory-based approach. On the other hand, the query likelihood model has proven to be a successful strategy for neighbourhood computation. Since relevance-based language models rely on user neighbourhoods for producing recommendations, we propose to use the query likelihood model for computing those neighbourhoods instead of cosine similarity. The combination of both techniques results in a formal probabilistic recommender system which has not been used before in collaborative filtering. A thorough evaluation on three datasets shows that the query likelihood model provides better results than cosine similarity. To understand this improvement, we devise two properties that a good neighbourhood algorithm should satisfy. Our axiomatic analysis shows that the query likelihood model always enforces those constraints while cosine similarity does not.
Income Shifting as an Aspect of Tax Avoidance: Evidence from U.S. Multinational Corporations
Authors: Cordis Adriana , Kirby Chris
Published: December 2017

We use jurisdiction-specific effective tax rates (ETRs) to investigate income shifting as an aspect of tax avoidance by U.S. firms. Our central prediction is that tax-based incentives for shifting income, as measured by the spread between domestic and foreign ETRs, should be reflected in the share of pre-tax income earned by U.S. firms in foreign jurisdictions. The data lend substantial support to this prediction. We find robust evidence of a positive correlation between the foreign share of pre-tax income and the ETR spread that is consistent with firms shifting income both into and out of the United States. The evidence also indicates that firms respond asymmetrically to positive and negative ETR spreads. Specifically, the response to a negative spread is stronger than to a positive spread of the same magnitude.
Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles by Tannic Acid with Improved Catalytic Performance Towards the Reduction of Methylene Blue
Authors: Hao Yueyue , Zhang Nan , Luo Jing , Liu Xiaoya
Published: December 2017

In this work, a facile, environmental-friendly and cost-effective method was developed to prepare silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) in aqueous solution at room temperature. In our approach, tannic acid was employed as the reducing agent and stabilizer simultaneously, avoiding the usage of any toxic agent. The tannic acid derived silver nanoparticles (TA-Ag NPs) were fully characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). The particle size of the synthesized TA-Ag NPs is tunable from 6.5[Formula: see text]nm to 19.2[Formula: see text]nm with narrow distribution by varying the molar ratio of TA to silver precursor. Efficient reduction of methylene blue (MB) catalyzed by TA-Ag NPs was observed, which was dependent upon the particle size of TA-Ag NPs or the TA concentration used for synthesis. By optimizing the TA concentration, complete reduction of MB was accomplished by TA-Ag NPs within 8[Formula: see text]min. The high catalytic activity of TA-Ag NPs was attributed to their nanosize and good dispersity as well as the electrostatic interaction between TA and MB which induces rapid enrichment of MB towards TA-Ag NPs, creating a locally concentrated layer of MB. Considering the facile and environmental-friendly preparation procedure and excellent catalytic activity, TA-Ag NPs are green, efficient and highly economical candidates for the catalysis of organic dyes and extendable of other reducible contaminants as well.
Learning Label Preserving Binary Codes for Multimedia Retrieval
Authors: Li Kai , Qi Guo-Jun , Hua Kien A.
Published: December 2017

Learning-based hashing has been researched extensively in the past few years due to its great potential in fast and accurate similarity search among huge volumes of multimedia data. In this article, we present a novel multimedia hashing framework, called Label Preserving Multimedia Hashing (LPMH) for multimedia similarity search. In LPMH, a general optimization method is used to learn the joint binary codes of multiple media types by explicitly preserving semantic label information. Compared with existing hashing methods which are typically developed under and thus restricted to some specific objective functions, the proposed optimization strategy is not tied to any specific loss function and can easily incorporate bit balance constraints to produce well-balanced binary codes. Specifically, our formulation leads to a set of Binary Integer Programming (BIP) problems that have exact solutions both with and without bit balance constraints. These problems can be solved extremely fast and the solution can easily scale up to large-scale datasets. In the hash function learning stage, the boosted decision trees algorithm is utilized to learn multiple media-specific hash functions that can map heterogeneous data sources into a homogeneous Hamming space for cross-media retrieval. We have comprehensively evaluated the proposed method using a range of large-scale datasets in both single-media and cross-media retrieval tasks. The experimental results demonstrate that LPMH is competitive with state-of-the-art methods in both speed and accuracy.
Leveraging personal experience for academic research and outreach
Authors: Peña Joslenne
Published: December 2017

Use your individuality to build your career path whether it leans toward academia, outreach, or both. The existing underlying threads between your experiences and the pursuit of research problems might surprise you.
"We had tough times, but we've sort of sewn our way through it: the partnership quilt
Authors: Strohmayer Angelika , Meissner Janis
Published: December 2017

Using capacitive touch sensors and traditional quilting techniques lead to the collision of seemingly disparate worlds and resulted in the creation of the Partnership Quilt, a living archive of voices in the shape of an interactive piece of craftwork.
Triple Engine Processor (TEP)
Authors: Lim Hongyeol , Park Giho
Published: December 2017

The advent of 3D memory stacking technology, which integrates a logic layer and stacked memories, is expected to be one of the most promising memory technologies to mitigate the memory wall problem by leveraging the concept of near-memory processing (NMP). With the ability to process data locally within the logic layer of stacked memory, a variety of emerging big data applications can achieve significant performance and energy-efficiency benefits. Various approaches to the NMP logic layer architecture have been studied to utilize the advantage of stacked memory. While significant acceleration of specific kernel operations has been derived from previous NMP studies, an NMP-based system using an NMP logic architecture capable of handling some specific kernel operations can suffer from performance and energy efficiency degradation caused by a significant communication overhead between the host processor and NMP stack.

In this article, we first analyze the kernel operations that can greatly improve the performance of NMP-based systems in diverse emerging applications, and then we analyze the architecture to efficiently process the extracted kernel operations. This analysis confirms that three categories of processing engines for NMP logic are required for efficient processing of a variety of emerging applications, and thus we propose a Triple Engine Processor (TEP), a heterogeneous near-memory processor with three types of computing engines. These three types of engines are an in-order core, a coerce-grain reconfigurable processor (CGRA), and dedicated hardware. The proposed TEP provides about 3.4 times higher performance and 33% greater energy savings than the baseline 3D memory system.
No Need to Laugh Out Loud
Authors: Barral Oswald , Kosunen Ilkka , Jacucci Giulio
Published: December 2017

We explore electroencephalography (EEG), electrodermal activity (EDA), and electrocardiography (ECG) as valid sources to infer humor appraisal in a realistic environment. We report on an experiment in which 25 participants browsed a popular user-generated humorous content website while their physiological responses were recorded. We build predictive models to infer the participants’ appraisal of the humorousness of the content and demonstrate that the fusion of several physiological signals can lead to classification performances up to 0.73 in terms of the area under the ROC curve (AUC). We identify that the most discriminative changes in physiological signals happen at the later stages of the information consumption process, reflected in changes on the upper EEG frequency bands, higher levels of EDA, and heart-rate acceleration. Additionally, we present a comprehensive analysis by benchmarking the predictive power of each of the physiological signals separately, and by comparing them to state-of-the-art facial recognition algorithms based on facial video recordings. The classification performance ranges from 0.88 (in terms of AUC) when combining physiological signals and video recordings, to 0.55 when using ECG signals alone.
ReDirect
Authors: Patsilaras George , Tuck James
Published: December 2017

As we enter the dark silicon era, architects should not envision designs in which every transistor remains turned on permanently but rather ones in which portions of the chip are judiciously turned on/off depending on the characteristics of a workload. At the same time, due to the increasing cost per transistor, architects should also consider new ways to re-purpose transistors to increase their architectural value.

In this work, we consider the design of directory-based cache coherence in light of the dark silicon era and the need to re-purpose transistors. We point out that directories are not needed all of the time, and we argue that directories (and coherence) should be off unless it is actually needed for correctness. In our design, directories will be disabled and powered off for workloads with no sharing. Then only when parallel workloads need cache coherence will directories be enabled in proportion to the sharing that is present.

At the same time, we exploit the structural similarities of directories and cache. If a directory is idle, then we reconfigure it to be used as extra capacity in the last-level cache. Since our novel approach can keep most directories off, we are free to select sparse overprovisioned directory designs that are reconfigurable to large amounts of cache that can significantly boost performance when the directory is idle.

We call these combined features
Reconfigured Dark Directories
, since directories are usually dark (off) and can be reconfigured. Our results for Reconfigurable Dark Directories running SPEC 2006 applications show a performance benefit, on average, of 17% for an 8× overprovisioned fully mapped directory on a 64-tile system under low system concurrency (10% under heavy concurrency), or a 29% average speedup for a 2× overprovisioned directory on 256-tile system (10% under heavy concurrency) to systems with a conventional sparse directory design using the same overprovisioning factor.
Cell Biology of T Cell Receptor Expression and Regulation
Authors: Alcover Andrés , Alarcón Balbino , Di Bartolo Vincenzo
Published: December 2017

T cell receptors (TCRs) are protein complexes formed by six different polypeptides. In most T cells, TCRs are composed of αβ subunits displaying immunoglobulin-like variable domains that recognize peptide antigens associated with major histocompatibility complex molecules expressed on the surface of antigen-presenting cells. TCRαβ subunits are associated with the CD3 complex formed by the γ, δ, ε, and ζ subunits, which are invariable and ensure signal transduction. Here, we review how the expression and function of TCR complexes are orchestrated by several fine-tuned cellular processes that encompass (a) synthesis of the subunits and their correct assembly and expression at the plasma membrane as a single functional complex, (b) TCR membrane localization and dynamics at the plasma membrane and in endosomal compartments, (c) TCR signal transduction leading to T cell activation, and (d) TCR degradation. These processes balance each other to ensure efficient T cell responses to a variety of antigenic stimuli while preventing autoimmunity.
Precision Medicine: Functional Advancements
Authors: Caskey Thomas
Published: December 2017

Precision medicine was conceptualized on the strength of genomic sequence analysis. High-throughput functional metrics have enhanced sequence interpretation and clinical precision. These technologies include metabolomics, magnetic resonance imaging, and I rhythm (cardiac monitoring), among others. These technologies are discussed and placed in clinical context for the medical specialties of internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, and gynecology. Publications in these fields support the concept of a higher level of precision in identifying disease risk. Precise disease risk identification has the potential to enable intervention with greater specificity, resulting in disease prevention—an important goal of precision medicine.
Stimulation of mucus secretion, ciliary activity, and transport in frog palate epithelium
Authors: Spungin B. , Silberberg A.
Published: December 2017

Particle transport velocity and ciliary beat frequency, at the level of a single cell of the epithelium, were measured simultaneously. The preparation used keeps the mucociliated epithelium of the frog palate functionally intact but is thin enough for light to be transmitted. The observations confirm that there exists a resting, or unstimulated, state of the epithelium in which the cilia do not beat. It is shown that tactile stimulation (contact with a small 50- to 75-microns foreign particle or with a fine wire probe) restarts ciliary beat. If the epithelium has not been depleted of its mucus, normal ciliary beat frequency is restored, and there is particle transport at the normal velocity. Only the cilia surrounding the moving particle in a patch about 10 times larger are beating at one time. Beat frequency is highest in the center of the patch, near the particle, and tapers to zero toward the edge. Mucus has to be present for particle transport to occur. Particles impacted on a depleted epithelium are not moved. The placement of previously collected endogenous mucus onto a depleted epithelium produces full ciliary activity and normal particle transport. The moving patch of beating cilia corresponds to a plaque of mucus surrounding the particle being transported. This plaque was produced upon first impact of the particle, presumably by mucus secretion, from the epithelial region which then surrounds it. Stimulation of a quiescent nondepleted epithelium with a wire probe induces a normal ciliary beat frequency that gradually decreases to zero. Stimulation by a wire probe of a mucus-depleted epithelium produces a level of initial beat frequency much below normal. Depletion of the epithelial preparation is by an episode of "creeping" over a glass surface. Depletion of the epithelium could be demonstrated histochemically. Analysis of the data of particle velocity and beat frequency is consistent with a wave-length of 45 microns for the metachronous wave.
Chloride movement across basolateral membrane of Necturus gallbladder epithelium
Authors: Fisher R. S.
Published: December 2017

The relative Cl- and K+ sensitivity of the basolateral membrane potential of the in vitro Necturus gallbladder epithelium was determined. Tissues were punctured with two conventional glass microelectrodes to simultaneously measure the intracellular voltage (Vcs) and the voltage across the subepithelial connective tissue (Vse). Increasing the serosal K+ concentration from 2.5 to 25 mM caused a rapid monotonic depolarization of Vcs without changes of Vse. Reduction of serosal Cl- concentration (98 to 8 mM) caused a transient change of Vse. Thus the difference between Vcs and Vse more accurately reflected the basolateral membrane voltage (Vc) after Cl- concentration changes. The changes of Vc were small and biphasic in response to the decrease of serosal Cl- concentration. Perfusion of a low-ionic-strength solution in the mucosal chamber decreased the current that normally passes through the epithelium. Consistent with the notion that the basolateral voltage changes are attenuated by parallel pathways, the K+-induced depolarization increased by 80% under these conditions. The changes of Vc in response to Cl- substitutions were not different from those of tissue bathed in control solution. Thus the basolateral membrane voltage is relatively insensitive to changes of serosal Cl- concentration. I conclude that Cl- movement across the basolateral membrane is not attributable to simple electrodiffusion, and Cl- exit from these cells at this membrane must be electroneutral.
FRAX® Fracture Risks Are Associated with Coronary Artery Calcification Score
Authors: Chuang Tzyy-Ling , Li Yi-Da , Hsiao Fu-Tsung , Chuang Mei-Hua , Wang Yuh-Feng
Published: December 2017

Purpose. To examine the association between fracture risk assessment tool (FRAX) scores and coronary artery calcification (CAC) score in adults. Methods. The medical records of 81 adults who underwent both coronary computed tomography and bone mineral density (BMD) studies in a package during their health exams were reviewed at a regional hospital in Southern Taiwan. Data collected included health history, anthropomorphic characteristics, clinical laboratory results, and BMD. Fracture risk was determined using FRAX. Univariate and multivariate linear regression analysis were used to assess the association between CAC score and 10-year probability of hip fracture (HF) and major osteoporotic fracture (MOF) determined by FRAX. Results. The mean age of the patients was 55.8 years, and 63.0% were male. Univariate linear regression analysis showed that increases in MOF and HF risks, as measured by FRAX, were significantly and positively associated with CAC score. Multiple linear regression analysis adjusting for potential confounders showed that CAC score remained significantly associated with four FRAX indicators, including right MOF (r=0.45, P<0.001), left MOF (r=0.31, P=0.021), right HF (r=0.38, P=0.001), and left HF (r=0.23, P=0.049). Conclusions. Increased risks of MOF and HF as determined by FRAX were significantly and independently associated with CAC score.
Structural Glass Systems under Fire: Overview of Design Issues, Experimental Research, and Developments
Authors: Bedon Chiara
Published: December 2017

Architectural design concepts incorporating glass beams, panels, or generally load-carrying elements and stiffeners for buildings, claddings, windows, and partitions are largely considered in modern high-rise constructions. A multitude of aspects, including motivations related to transparency, aesthetics, illumination, and energy conservation, progressively increased the use and interest for such a still rather innovative constructional material. However, compared to other traditional materials for buildings, standard glass is typically characterized by brittle behaviour and limited tensile resistance. The intrinsic properties of glass, moreover, together with typically limited thickness-to-size ratios for glazing elements, or the mutual interaction of glass components with adjacent constructional elements as a part of full assemblies they belong (i.e., fixing systems, sealants, etc.), as well as the combination of mechanical and thermal phenomena, make glass structures highly vulnerable. Special safety design rules are hence required, especially under extreme loading conditions. In this review paper, a state of the art on structural glass systems exposed to fire is presented. Careful consideration is paid for actual design methods and general regulations, as well as for existing research outcomes—both at the material and assembly levels—giving evidence of current challenges, issues, and developments.
A Multiproduct Single‐Period Inventory Management Problem under Variable Possibility Distributions
Authors: Guo Zhaozhuang , Tian Shengnan , Liu Yankui
Published: December 2017

In multiproduct single‐period inventory management problem (MSIMP), the optimal order quantity often depends on the distributions of uncertain parameters. However, the distribution information about uncertain parameters is usually partially available. To model this situation, a MSIMP is studied by credibilistic optimization method, where the uncertain demand and carbon emission are characterized by variable possibility distributions. First, the uncertain demand and carbon emission are characterized by generalized parametric interval‐valued (PIV) fuzzy variables, and the analytical expressions about the mean values and second‐order moments of selection variables are established. Taking second‐order moment as a risk measure, a new credibilistic multiproduct single‐period inventory management model is developed under mean‐moment optimization criterion. Furthermore, the proposed model is converted to its equivalent deterministic model. Taking advantage of the structural characteristics of the deterministic model, a domain decomposition method is designed to find the optimal order quantities. Finally, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed mean‐moment credibilistic optimization method. The computational results demonstrate that a small perturbation of the possibility distribution can make the nominal optimal solution infeasible. In this case, the decision makers should employ the proposed credibilistic optimization method to find the optimal order quantities.
Robust Group Identification and Variable Selection in Regression
Authors: Alkenani Ali , Dikheel Tahir R.
Published: December 2017

The elimination of insignificant predictors and the combination of predictors with indistinguishable coefficients are the two issues raised in searching for the true model. Pairwise Absolute Clustering and Sparsity (PACS) achieves both goals. Unfortunately, PACS is sensitive to outliers due to its dependency on the least-squares loss function which is known to be very sensitive to unusual data. In this article, the sensitivity of PACS to outliers has been studied. Robust versions of PACS (RPACS) have been proposed by replacing the least squares and nonrobust weights in PACS with MM-estimation and robust weights depending on robust correlations instead of person correlation, respectively. A simulation study and two real data applications have been used to assess the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Equalized Energy Consumption in Wireless Body Area Networks for a Prolonged Network Lifetime
Authors: El Azhari Maryam , El Moussaid Nadya , Toumanari Ahmed , Latif Rachid
Published: December 2017

The phenomenal advances in electronics contributed to a widespread use of distributed sensors in wireless communications. A set of biosensors can be deployed or implanted in the human body to form a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN), where various WBAN PHY layers are utilized. The WBAN allows the measurement of physiological data, which is forwarded by the gateway to the base station for analysis purposes. The main issue in conceiving a WBAN communication mechanism is to manage the residual energy of sensors. The mobile agent system has been widely applied for surveillance applications in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). It consists in dispatching one or more mobile agents simultaneously to collect data, while following a predetermined optimum itinerary. The continuous use of the optimal itinerary leads to a rapid depletion of sensor nodes batteries, which minimizes the network lifetime. This paper presents a new algorithm to equalize the energy consumption among sensor motes. The algorithm exploits all the available paths towards the destination and classifies them with respect to the end-to-end delay and the overall energy consumption. The proposed algorithm performs better compared to the optimal routing path. It increases the network lifetime to the maximum by postponing routing of data via the most-recently used path, and it also maintains data delivery within the delay interval threshold.
Experimental Study of Enhancing Oil Recovery with Weak Base Alkaline/Surfactant/Polymer
Authors: Yin Dandan , Zhao Dongfeng , Gao Jianfeng , Gai Jian
Published: December 2017

Na2CO3 was used together with surfactant and polymer to form the Alkaline/Surfactant/Polymer (ASP) flooding system. Interfacial tension (IFT) and emulsification of Dagang oil and chemical solutions were studied in the paper. The experiment results show that the ASP system can form super-low interfacial tension with crude oil and emulsified phase. The stability of the emulsion is enhanced by the Na2CO3, surfactant, and the soap generated at oil/water contact. Six core flooding experiments are conducted in order to investigate the influence of Na2CO3 concentration on oil recovery. The results show the maximum oil recovery can be obtained with 0.3 wt% surfactant, 0.6 wt% Na2CO3, and 2000 mg/L polymer. In a heterogeneous reservoir, the ASP flooding could not enhance the oil recovery by reducing IFT until it reaches the critical viscosity, which indicates expanding the sweep volume is the premise for reducing IFT to enhance oil recovery. Reducing or removing the alkali from ASP system to achieve high viscosity will reduce oil recovery because of the declination of oil displacement efficiency. Weak base ASP alkali can ensure that the whole system with sufficient viscosity can start the medium and low permeability layers and enhance oil recovery even if the IFT only reaches 10−2 mN/m.
Synthetic Jet Actuator-Based Aircraft Tracking Using a Continuous Robust Nonlinear Control Strategy
Authors: Ramos-Pedroza N. , MacKunis W. , Reyhanoglu M.
Published: December 2017

A robust nonlinear control law that achieves trajectory tracking control for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with synthetic jet actuators (SJAs) is presented in this paper. A key challenge in the control design is that the dynamic characteristics of SJAs are nonlinear and contain parametric uncertainty. The challenge resulting from the uncertain SJA actuator parameters is mitigated via innovative algebraic manipulation in the tracking error system derivation along with a robust nonlinear control law employing constant SJA parameter estimates. A key contribution of the paper is a rigorous analysis of the range of SJA actuator parameter uncertainty within which asymptotic UAV trajectory tracking can be achieved. A rigorous stability analysis is carried out to prove semiglobal asymptotic trajectory tracking. Detailed simulation results are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control law in the presence of wind gusts and varying levels of SJA actuator parameter uncertainty.