bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Apoptosis induced by microwave radiation in pancreatic cancer JF305 cells
Authors: Zhu Wenhe , Zhang Wei , Wang Huiyan , Xu Junjie , Li Yan , Lv Shijie
Published: April 2014

New therapeutic approaches are needed to improve the survival rate from pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal human malignancies. In this study, JF305 cells were treated with microwaves at doses of 2.5, 5.0, 10.0, 15.0, and 20.0 mW/cm2 for 20 min. The inhibition of JF305 cell proliferation was tested using the MTT assay. Apoptotic cells were detected with Hoechst 33258 staining and a Nucleo-Counter NC-3000. The expression of apoptosis-related proteins was examined with Western blot. The results showed that microwaves inhibited the growth of JF305 cells in a dose–dependent manner, and caused morphological changes in apoptotic body formation. The percentages of apoptosis detected using annexin V–fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) were 4.0%, 10.0%, 12.0%, and 30.0% with the dosage of microwave (0, 5.0, 10.0, and 20.0 mW/cm2), respectively. Treatment with microwaves increased the activity of caspase-9 and caspase-3, down-regulated the expression of Bcl-2, and up-regulated the expression of Bax and CytoC. In addition, the expression level of p65 was increased whereas the level of IκBα down-regulated. Those results suggest that microwaves inhibit cell growth and induce apoptosis in JF305 cells through an NF-κB-regulated mitochondria-mediated pathway.
Structural, morphological, magnetic and hydrogen absorption properties of LaNi5 alloy: A comprehensive study
Authors: Sarhaddi Reza , Arabi Hadi , Pourarian Faiz
Published: April 2014

A comprehensive study of structural, morphological, magnetic and hydrogen absorption properties of LaNi 5–H system was investigated. The X-ray diffraction patterns show that as-synthesized LaNi 5 alloy is single phase with CaCu5-type structure while some weak peaks of elemental nickel also appeared after several hydrogenation/dehydrogenation (H/D) cycling. The presence of pure Ni was also followed using the room temperature magnetic measurements. After H/D cycling, the particle size decreases and particle size distribution was found nearly uniform compared to noncycled alloy. The pressure-composition isotherms (PCIs) of the hydrogen absorption reaction were determined in the temperature range 20–80°C using a homemade Sievert's type experimental apparatus, and then the enthalpy and entropy of hydride formation were calculated. The hydriding kinetic mechanism of LaNi 5 was evaluated using the different fitting models: Jander diffusion model (JDM), Johnson–Mehl–Avrami (JMA) and Chou models. All employed models confirm an increase in the hydriding reaction rate with temperature. However, the calculated results using JMA model show a better agreement with the experimental data and hence we believe that diffusion along with nucleation and growth is the rate-controlling step for the hydriding reaction. The values of activation energy for hydriding reaction were also obtained by JD and JMA models.
EFFECTS OF SHORT-TERM CYCLIC HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE ON INITIATING AND ENHANCING THE EXPRESSION OF CHONDROGENIC GENES IN HUMAN ADIPOSE-DERIVED MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS
Authors: SAFSHEKAN FARZANEH , SHADPOUR MOHAMMAD TAFAZZOLI , SHOKRGOZAR MOHAMMAD ALI , HAGHIGHIPOUR NOOSHIN , ALAVI SEYED HAMED
Published: April 2014

Cartilage tissue engineering is a promising treatment for damaged or diseased cartilage that requires thorough understanding of influential parameters involved in chondrogenic differentiation. This study examined how 4-h application of cyclic hydrostatic pressure (CHP) of 5 MPa at 0.5 Hz could modulate chondroinduction of human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hAMSCs) in vitro. Four groups were examined including a negative control group, a chemical group treated by growth factor for 10 days, a mechanical group exposed to 4-h loading on the 10th day of pellet culture without any chondrogenic stimulator, and finally a chemical-mechanical group subjected to both growth factor and loading. Application of cyclic hydrostatic pressure increased the expression of chondrogenic genes, including sox9 and aggrecan to higher levels than those of the chemical group. This study indicates that cyclic hydrostatic pressure initiates and enhances the chondrogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells with or without growth factors in vitro and confirms the important role of hydrostatic pressure during chondrogenesis in vivo.
New NP-Hardness Results for 3-Coloring and 2-to-1 Label Cover
Authors: Austrin Per , O’Donnell Ryan , Tan Li-Yang , Wright John
Published: April 2014

We show that given a 3-colorable graph, it is NP-hard to find a 3-coloring with (16/17 + ε) of the edges bichromatic. In a related result, we show that given a satisfiable instance of the 2-to-1 Label Cover problem, it is NP-hard to find a (23/24 + ε)-satisfying assignment.
Cybersecurity Education
Authors: Lukowiak Marcin , Radziszowski Stanisław , Vallino James , Wood Christopher
Published: April 2014

With the continuous growth of cyberinfrastructure throughout modern society, the need for secure computing and communication is more important than ever before. As a result, there is also an increasing need for entry-level developers who are capable of designing and building practical solutions for systems with stringent security requirements. This calls for careful attention to algorithm choice and implementation method, as well as trade-offs between hardware and software implementations. This article describes motivation and efforts taken by three departments at Rochester Institute of Technology (Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Software Engineering) that were focused on creating a multidisciplinary course that integrates the algorithmic, engineering, and practical aspects of security as exemplified by applied cryptography. In particular, the article presents the structure of this new course, topics covered, lab tools and results from the first two spring quarter offerings in 2011 and 2012.
Efficient Multiview Maintenance under Insertion in Huge Social Networks
Authors: Pugliese Andrea , Bröcheler Matthias , Subrahmanian V. S. , Ovelgönne Michael
Published: April 2014

Applications to monitor various aspects of social networks are becoming increasingly popular. For instance, marketers want to look for semantic patterns relating to the content of tweets and Facebook posts relating to their products. Law enforcement agencies want to track behaviors involving potential criminals on the Internet by looking for certain patterns of behavior. Music companies want to track patterns of spread of illegal music. These applications allow multiple users to specify patterns of interest and monitor them in real time as new data gets added to the Web or to a social network. In this article we develop the concept of
social network view servers
in which all of these types of applications can be simultaneously monitored. The patterns of interest are expressed as views over an underlying graph or social network database. We show that a given set of views can be
compiled
in multiple possible ways to take advantage of common substructures and define the concept of an
optimal merge
. Though finding an optimal merge is shown to be NP-hard, we develop the AddView to find very good merges quickly. We develop a very fast MultiView algorithm that scalably and efficiently maintains multiple subgraph views when insertions are made to the social network database. We show that our algorithm is correct, study its complexity, and experimentally demonstrate that our algorithm can scalably handle updates to hundreds of views on 6 real-world social network databases with up to 540M edges.
Leveraging Social Feedback to Verify Online Identity Claims
Authors: Sirivianos Michael , Kim Kyungbaek , Gan Jian Wei , Yang Xiaowei
Published: April 2014

Anonymity is one of the main virtues of the Internet, as it protects privacy and enables users to express opinions more freely. However, anonymity hinders the assessment of the veracity of assertions that online users make about their identity attributes, such as age or profession. We propose FaceTrust, a system that uses online social networks to provide lightweight identity credentials while preserving a user’s anonymity. FaceTrust employs a “game with a purpose” design to elicit the opinions of the friends of a user about the user’s self-claimed identity attributes, and uses attack-resistant trust inference to assign veracity scores to identity attribute assertions. FaceTrust provides credentials, which a user can use to corroborate his assertions. We evaluate our proposal using a live Facebook deployment and simulations on a crawled social graph. The results show that our veracity scores are strongly correlated with the ground truth, even when dishonest users make up a large fraction of the social network and employ the Sybil attack.
Analysis of Search and Browsing Behavior of Young Users on the Web
Authors: Duarte Torres Sergio , Weber Ingmar , Hiemstra Djoerd
Published: April 2014

The Internet is increasingly used by young children for all kinds of purposes. Nonetheless, there are not many resources especially designed for children on the Internet and most of the content online is designed for grown-up users. This situation is problematic if we consider the large differences between young users and adults since their topic interests, computer skills, and language capabilities evolve rapidly during childhood. There is little research aimed at exploring and measuring the difficulties that children encounter on the Internet when searching for information and browsing for content. In the first part of this work, we employed query logs from a commercial search engine to quantify the difficulties children of different ages encounter on the Internet and to characterize the topics that they search for. We employed query metrics (e.g., the fraction of queries posed in natural language), session metrics (e.g., the fraction of abandoned sessions), and click activity (e.g., the fraction of ad clicks). The search logs were also used to retrace stages of child development. Concretely, we looked for changes in interests (e.g., the distribution of topics searched) and language development (e.g., the readability of the content accessed and the vocabulary size).

In the second part of this work, we employed toolbar logs from a commercial search engine to characterize the browsing behavior of young users, particularly to understand the activities on the Internet that trigger search. We quantified the proportion of browsing and search activity in the toolbar sessions and we estimated the likelihood of a user to carry out search on the Web vertical and multimedia verticals (i.e., videos and images) given that the previous event is another search event or a browsing event.

We observed that these metrics clearly demonstrate an increased level of confusion and unsuccessful search sessions among children. We also found a clear relation between the reading level of the clicked pages and characteristics of the users such as age and educational attainment.

In terms of browsing behavior, children were found to start their activities on the Internet with a search engine (instead of directly browsing content) more often than adults. We also observed a significantly larger amount of browsing activity for the case of teenager users. Interestingly we also found that if children visit knowledge-related Web sites (i.e., information-dense pages such as Wikipedia articles), they subsequently do more Web searches than adults. Additionally, children and especially teenagers were found to have a greater tendency to engage in multimedia search, which calls to improve the aggregation of multimedia results into the current search result pages.
E-government intermediaries and the challenges of access and trust
Authors: Dombrowski Lynn , Hayes Gillian R. , Mazmanian Melissa , Voida Amy
Published: April 2014

In this article, we present the results of a study examining challenges related to access and trust for nutrition assistance outreach workers and suggest design implications for these challenges. Outreach workers are e-government intermediaries who assist clients with accessing and using e-government online applications, systems, and services. E-government intermediaries are not typical end users; they use e-government systems on behalf of clients, and as such their challenges differ from those of primary users. We detail social and technical aspects of these challenges to develop a nuanced understanding of access and trust in the ecosystems surrounding e-government systems. First, we describe how the practical accomplishment of access involves multiple stakeholders, actors, and practices. Second, we highlight how trust emerges through the e-government intermediaries’ work to project themselves as professional and competent through their technical practice. Last, we propose design implications sensitive to both the social and technical aspects of these challenges.
The Hardness of Being Private
Authors: Ada Anil , Chattopadhyay Arkadev , Cook Stephen A. , Fontes Lila , Koucký Michal , Pitassi Toniann
Published: April 2014

Kushilevitz [1989] initiated the study of information-theoretic privacy within the context of communication complexity. Unfortunately, it has been shown that most interesting functions are not privately computable [Kushilevitz 1989, Brandt and Sandholm 2008]. The unattainability of perfect privacy for many functions motivated the study of
approximate privacy
. Feigenbaum et al. [2010a, 2010b] define notions of worst-case as well as average-case approximate privacy and present several interesting upper bounds as well as some open problems for further study. In this article, we obtain asymptotically tight bounds on the trade-offs between both the worst-case and average-case approximate privacy of protocols and their communication cost for Vickrey auctions.

Further, we relate the notion of average-case approximate privacy to other measures based on information cost of protocols. This enables us to prove exponential lower bounds on the subjective approximate privacy of protocols for computing the Intersection function, independent of its communication cost. This proves a conjecture of Feigenbaum et al. [2010a].
Computational Thinking in Elementary and Secondary Teacher Education
Authors: Yadav Aman , Mayfield Chris , Zhou Ninger , Hambrusch Susanne , Korb John T.
Published: April 2014

Computational thinking (CT) is broadly defined as the mental activity for abstracting problems and formulating solutions that can be automated. In an increasingly information-based society, CT is becoming an essential skill for everyone. To ensure that students develop this ability at the K-12 level, it is important to provide teachers with an adequate knowledge about CT and how to incorporate it into their teaching. This article describes a study on designing and introducing computational thinking modules and assessing their impact on preservice teachers’ understanding of CT concepts, as well as their attitude towards computing. Results demonstrate that introducing computational thinking into education courses can effectively influence preservice teachers’ understanding of CT concepts.
On Effective Convergence of Numerical Solutions for Differential Equations
Authors: Sun Shu-Ming , Zhong Ning
Published: April 2014

This article studies the effective convergence of numerical solutions of initial value problems (IVPs) for ordinary differential equations (ODEs). A convergent sequence {
Y
m
} of numerical solutions is said to be effectively convergent to the exact solution if there is an algorithm that computes an
N
∈ ℕ, given an arbitrary
n
∈ ℕ as input, such that the error between
Y
m
and the exact solution is less than 2
-n
for all
m
≥
N
. It is proved that there are convergent numerical solutions generated from Euler’s method which are not effectively convergent. It is also shown that a theoretically-proved-computable solution using Picard’s iteration method might not be computable by classical numerical methods, which suggests that sometimes there is a gap between theoretical computability and practical numerical computations concerning solutions of ODEs. Moreover, it is noted that the main theorem (Theorem 4.1) provides an example of an IVP with a nonuniform Lipschitz function for which the numerical solutions generated by Euler’s method are still convergent.
A novel approach for collaborative last-mile performance testing implementation using an object-oriented approach
Authors: R Kaushik , Tauro Clarence J.M. , Souza Vishal D. , Bhowmick Koushik
Published: April 2014

The goal of this paper is to propose an implementation of a last-mile performance testing solution for small and medium organizations using a collaborative approach. This paper will discuss three important topics: (a) the willingness of small and medium organizations to participate in the collaborative approach, (b) an object-oriented implementation for generating the performance test scripts, and (c) an effective way for executing an almost no cost last-mile performance test. This paper will propose an overall approach for conducting economical last-mile performance testing for small and medium organizations using real machines as load testing agents.
Report of the 2013 IEEE 7th international symposium on the maintenance and evolution of service-oriented and cloud-based systems (MESOCA 2013)
Authors: Ionita Anca Daniela , Lewis Grace A. , Litoiu Marin
Published: April 2014

The 2013 IEEE 7th International Symposium on the Maintenance and Evolution of Service-Oriented and Cloud-Based Systems (MESOCA 2013) took place in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, on September 24, 2013, as a co-located event of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM 2013). MESOCA 2013 covered a wide range of academic and industrial experiences, brought together through one keynote, two invited presentations and eleven paper presentations, which triggered lively discussions. They approached aspects related to the entire software maintenance process, from requirements to testing, with specific solutions for Service-Oriented Architecture and Cloud Computing environments. Technical and business perspectives were discussed, including issues about optimization techniques, pre-migration evaluation of legacy software, decision analysis, energy efficiency, multi-cloud architectures and adaptability. It thus confirmed MESOCA as an ongoing forum for researchers and practitioners to identify and address the increasing challenges related to the evolution of service-provisioning systems.
Refresh pausing in DRAM memory systems
Authors: Nair Prashant J. , Chou Chia-Chen , Qureshi Moinuddin K.
Published: April 2014

Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) cells rely on periodic refresh operations to maintain data integrity. As the capacity of DRAM memories has increased, so has the amount of time consumed in doing refresh. Refresh operations contend with read operations, which increases read latency and reduces system performance. We show that eliminating latency penalty due to refresh can improve average performance by 7.2%. However, simply doing intelligent scheduling of refresh operations is ineffective at obtaining significant performance improvement.

This article provides an alternative and scalable option to reduce the latency penalty due to refresh. It exploits the property that each refresh operation in a typical DRAM device internally refreshes multiple DRAM rows in JEDEC-based distributed refresh mode. Therefore, a refresh operation has well-defined points at which it can potentially be
Paused
to service a pending read request. Leveraging this property, we propose
Refresh Pausing
, a solution that is highly effective at alleviating the contention from refresh operations. It provides an average performance improvement of 5.1% for 8Gb devices and becomes even more effective for future high-density technologies. We also show that Refresh Pausing significantly outperforms the recently proposed Elastic Refresh scheme.
Identifying Sign Language Videos in Video Sharing Sites
Authors: Shipman Frank M. , Gutierrez-Osuna Ricardo , Monteiro Caio D. D.
Published: April 2014

Video sharing sites enable members of the sign language community to record and share their knowledge, opinions, and worries on a wide range of topics. As a result, these sites have formative digital libraries of sign language content hidden within their large overall collections. This article explores the problem of locating these sign language (SL) videos and presents techniques for identifying SL videos in such collections. To determine the effectiveness of existing text-based search for locating these SL videos, a series of queries were issued to YouTube to locate SL videos on the top 10 news stories of 2011 according to Yahoo!. Overall precision for the first page of results (up to 20 results) was 42%. An approach for automatically detecting SL video is then presented. Five video features considered likely to be of value were developed using standard background modeling and face detection. The article compares the results of an SVM classifier when given all permutations of these five features. The results show that a measure of the symmetry of motion relative to the face position provided the best performance of any single feature. When tested against a challenging test collection that included many likely false positives, an SVM provided with all five features achieved 82% precision and 90% recall. In contrast, the text-based search (queries with the topic terms and “ASL” or “sign language”) returned a significant portion of non-SL content---nearly half of all videos found. By our estimates, the application of video-based filtering techniques such as the one proposed here would increase precision from 42% for text-based queries up to 75%.
Neighbor Selection and Weighting in User-Based Collaborative Filtering
Authors: Bellogín Alejandro , Castells Pablo , Cantador Iván
Published: April 2014

User-based collaborative filtering systems suggest interesting items to a user relying on similar-minded people called neighbors. The selection and weighting of these neighbors characterize the different recommendation approaches. While standard strategies perform a neighbor selection based on user similarities, trust-aware recommendation algorithms rely on other aspects indicative of user trust and reliability. In this article we restate the trust-aware recommendation problem, generalizing it in terms of performance prediction techniques, whose goal is to predict the performance of an information retrieval system in response to a particular query. We investigate how to adopt the preceding generalization to define a unified framework where we conduct an objective analysis of the effectiveness (predictive power) of neighbor scoring functions. The proposed framework enables discriminating whether recommendation performance improvements are caused by the used neighbor scoring functions or by the ways these functions are used in the recommendation computation. We evaluated our approach with several state-of-the-art and novel neighbor scoring functions on three publicly available datasets. By empirically comparing four neighbor quality metrics and thirteen performance predictors, we found strong predictive power for some of the predictors with respect to certain metrics. This result was then validated by checking the final performance of recommendation strategies where predictors are used for selecting and/or weighting user neighbors. As a result, we have found that, by measuring the predictive power of neighbor performance predictors, we are able to anticipate which predictors are going to perform better in neighbor-scoring-powered versions of a user-based collaborative filtering algorithm.
Unions of Disjoint NP-Complete Sets
Authors: Glaßer Christian , Hitchcock John M. , Pavan A. , Travers Stephan
Published: April 2014

We study the following question: if
A
and
B
are disjoint NP-complete sets, then is
A
∪
B
NP-complete? We provide necessary and sufficient conditions under which the union of disjoint NP-complete sets remain complete.
Mitochondrial Channels: Ion Fluxes and More
Authors: Szabo Ildiko , Zoratti Mario
Published: April 2014

The field of mitochondrial ion channels has recently seen substantial progress, including the molecular identification of some of the channels. An integrative approach using genetics, electrophysiology, pharmacology, and cell biology to clarify the roles of these channels has thus become possible. It is by now clear that many of these channels are important for energy supply by the mitochondria and have a major impact on the fate of the entire cell as well. The purpose of this review is to provide an up-to-date overview of the electrophysiological properties, molecular identity, and pathophysiological functions of the mitochondrial ion channels studied so far and to highlight possible therapeutic perspectives based on current information.
Structure and Function of TMEM16 Proteins (Anoctamins)
Authors: Pedemonte Nicoletta , Galietta Luis J. V.
Published: April 2014

TMEM16 proteins, also known as anoctamins, are involved in a variety of functions that include ion transport, phospholipid scrambling, and regulation of other membrane proteins. The first two members of the family, TMEM16A (anoctamin-1, ANO1) and TMEM16B (anoctamin-2, ANO2), function as Ca2+-activated Cl−channels (CaCCs), a type of ion channel that plays important functions such as transepithelial ion transport, smooth muscle contraction, olfaction, phototransduction, nociception, and control of neuronal excitability. Genetic ablation of TMEM16A in mice causes impairment of epithelial Cl−secretion, tracheal abnormalities, and block of gastrointestinal peristalsis. TMEM16A is directly regulated by cytosolic Ca2+as well as indirectly by its interaction with calmodulin. Other members of the anoctamin family, such as TMEM16C, TMEM16D, TMEM16F, TMEM16G, and TMEM16J, may work as phospholipid scramblases and/or ion channels. In particular, TMEM16F (ANO6) is a major contributor to the process of phosphatidylserine translocation from the inner to the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane. Intriguingly, TMEM16F is also associated with the appearance of anion/cation channels activated by very high Ca2+concentrations. Furthermore, a TMEM16 protein expressed in Aspergillus fumigatus displays both ion channel and lipid scramblase activity. This finding suggests that dual function is an ancestral characteristic of TMEM16 proteins and that some members, such as TMEM16A and TMEM16B, have evolved to a pure channel function. Mutations in anoctamin genes ( ANO3, ANO5, ANO6, and ANO10) cause various genetic diseases. These diseases suggest the involvement of anoctamins in a variety of cell functions whose link with ion transport and/or lipid scrambling needs to be clarified.
The Increasing Financial Impact of Chronic Kidney Disease in Australia
Authors: Tucker Patrick S. , Kingsley Michael I. , Morton R. Hugh , Scanlan Aaron T. , Dalbo Vincent J.
Published: April 2014

The aim of this investigation was to determine and compare current and projected expenditure associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD), renal replacement therapy (RRT), and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Australia. Data published by Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and World Bank were used to compare CKD-, RRT-, and CVD-related expenditure and prevalence rates. Prevalence and expenditure predictions were made using a linear regression model. Direct statistical comparisons of rates of annual increase utilised indicator variables in combined regressions. Statistical significance was set atP<0.05. Dollar amounts were adjusted for inflation prior to analysis. Between 2012 and 2020, prevalence, per-patient expenditure, and total disease expenditure associated with CKD and RRT are estimated to increase significantly more rapidly than CVD. RRT prevalence is estimated to increase by 29%, compared to 7% in CVD. Average annual RRT per-patient expenditure is estimated to increase by 16%, compared to 8% in CVD. Total CKD- and RRT-related expenditure had been estimated to increase by 37%, compared to 14% in CVD. Per-patient, CKD produces a considerably greater financial impact on Australia’s healthcare system, compared to CVD. Research focusing on novel preventative/therapeutic interventions is warranted.
Hub-Induced Synchronization in Scale-Free Networks with Cluster Structure
Authors: Zhang Jianbao , Ma Zhongjun , Cao Jinde
Published: April 2014

A recent research indicated that the corticocortical connectivity network of the cat possesses cluster structure and that each cluster in the network is scale-free and has a most connected hub. Motivated by that research, we slightly modify the network model and derive sufficient conditions for cluster synchronization of the modified network based on Lyapunov function method. The obtained results indicate that cluster synchronization can be induced by the hubs of the scale-free networks. In our opinion, the concept of hub-induced synchronization provides a better understanding of cluster synchronization in scale-free networks. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.
Essential Oil of Artemisia annua L.: An Extraordinary Component with Numerous Antimicrobial Properties
Authors: Bilia Anna Rita , Santomauro Francesca , Sacco Cristiana , Bergonzi Maria Camilla , Donato Rosa
Published: April 2014

Artemisia annua L. (Asteraceae) is native to China, now naturalised in many other countries, well known as the source of the unique sesquiterpene endoperoxide lactone artemisinin, and used in the treatment of the chloroquine‐resistant and cerebral malaria. The essential oil is rich in mono‐ and sesquiterpenes and represents a by‐product with medicinal properties. Besides significant variations in its percentage and composition have been reported (major constituents can be camphor (up to 48%), germacrene D (up to 18.9%), artemisia ketone (up to 68%), and 1,8 cineole (up to 51.5%)), the oil has been subjected to numerous studies supporting exciting antibacterial and antifungal activities. Both gram‐positive bacteria (Enterococcus, Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Bacillus, and Listeria spp.), and gram‐negative bacteria (Escherichia, Shigella, Salmonella, Haemophilus, Klebsiella, and Pseudomonas spp.) and other microorganisms (Candida, Saccharomyces, and Aspergillus spp.) have been investigated. However, the experimental studies performed to date used different methods and diverse microorganisms; as a consequence, a comparative analysis on a quantitative basis is very difficult. The aim of this review is to sum up data on antimicrobial activity of A. annua essential oil and its major components to facilitate future approach of microbiological studies in this field.
CMYB1Encoding a MYB Transcriptional Activator Is Involved in Abiotic Stress and Circadian Rhythm in Rice
Authors: Duan Min , Huang Peng , Yuan Xi , Chen Hui , Huang Ji , Zhang Hongsheng
Published: April 2014

Through analysis of cold-induced transcriptome, a novel gene encoding a putative MYB transcription factor was isolated and designatedCold induced MYB 1 (CMYB1). Tissue-specific gene expression analysis revealed thatCMYB1was highly expressed in rice stems and nodes. qRT-PCR assay indicated thatCMYB1was dramatically induced by cold stress (>100-folds) and induced by exogenous ABA and osmotic stress. Interestingly,CMYB1showed rhythmic expression profile in rice leaves at different developmental stages. Subcellular localization assay suggested thatCMYB1-GFP (green fluorescent protein) fusion protein was localized in the nuclei. Moreover,CMYB1exhibited the transcriptional activation activity when transiently expressed in rice protoplast cells. Taken together,CMYB1probably functions as a transcriptional activator in mediating stress and rhythm responsive gene expression in rice.
Effects of Chemical Reaction on Dissipative Radiative MHD Flow through a Porous Medium over a Nonisothermal Stretching Sheet
Authors: Ibrahim S. Mohammed
Published: April 2014

The steady two-dimensional radiative MHD boundary layer flow of an incompressible, viscous, electrically conducting fluid caused by a nonisothermal linearly stretching sheet placed at the bottom of fluid saturated porous medium in the presence of viscous dissipation and chemical reaction is studied. The governing system of partial differential equations is converted to ordinary differential equations by using the similarity transformations, which are then solved by shooting method. The dimensionless velocity, temperature, and concentration are computed for different thermophysical parameters, namely, the magnetic parameter, permeability parameter, radiation parameter, wall temperature parameter, Prandtl number, Eckert number, Schmidt number, and chemical reaction.
MicroBlack Holes Thermodynamics in the Presence of Quantum Gravity Effects
Authors: Soltani H. , Damavandi Kamali A. , Nozari K.
Published: April 2014

Black hole thermodynamics is corrected in the presence of quantum gravity effects. Some phenomenological aspects of quantum gravity proposal can be addressed through generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) which provides a perturbation framework to perform required modifications of the black hole quantities. In this paper, we consider the effects of both a minimal measurable length and a maximal momentum on the thermodynamics of TeV-scale black holes. We then extend our study to the case that there are all natural cutoffs as minimal length, minimal momentum, and maximal momentum simultaneously. We also generalize our study to the model universes with large extra dimensions (LED). In this framework existence of black holes remnants as a possible candidate for dark matter is discussed. We study probability of black hole production in the Large Hadronic Collider (LHC) and we show this rate decreasing for sufficiently large values of the GUP parameter.
Effect of Flow Blockage on the Coolability during Reflood in a 2×2 Rod Bundle
Authors: Kim Kihwan , Kim Byung-Jae , Youn Young-Jung , Choi Hae-Seob , Moon Sang-Ki , Song Chul-Hwa
Published: April 2014

During the reflood phase of a large-break loss-of-coolant accident (LBLOCA) in a pressurized-water reactor (PWR), the fuel rods can be ballooned or rearranged owing to an increase in the temperature and internal pressure of the fuel rods. In this study, an experimental study was performed to understand the thermal behavior and effect of the ballooned region on the coolability using a 2 × 2 rod bundle test facility. The electrically heated rod bundle was used and the ballooning shape of the rods was simulated by superimposing hollow sleeves, which have a 90% blockage ratio. Forced reflood tests were performed to examine the transient two-phase heat transfer behavior for different reflood rates and rod powers. The droplet behaviors were also investigated by measuring the velocity and size of droplets near the blockage region. The results showed that the heat transfer was enhanced in the downstream of the blockage region, owing to the reduced flow area of the subchannel, intensification of turbulence, and deposition of the droplet.
The Effect of Mushroom Beta‐Glucans from Solid Culture of Ganoderma lucidum on Inhibition of the Primary Tumor Metastasis
Authors: Chen Shiu-Nan , Chang Ching-Sheng , Hung Ming-Hsin , Chen Sherwin , Wang William , Tai Cheng-Jeng , Lu Chung-Lun
Published: April 2014

This study evaluates the effect of mushroom beta‐glucans (MBGS) derived from solid culture of Ganoderma lucidum on tumor inhibition by examining size of the primary tumor and rate of metastasis in Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) bearing mice (C57BL/6), given oral administration of MBGS with radiation therapy. A previous result showed that MBGS enhances NK cell‐mediated cytotoxicity in mice without LLC bearing in advance. Furthermore, applications of MBGS in conjunction with radiation therapy were effective in controlling tumor growth, and rate of metastasis, life threatening, and can potentially serve as a protective factor for wounds and hair loss that resulted from the overgrowth of primary tumor in LLC bearing mice.
MicroRNA Profiling of Activated and Tolerogenic Human Dendritic Cells
Authors: Stumpfova Zuzana , Hezova Renata , Meli Albano Carlo , Slaby Ondrej , Michalek Jaroslav
Published: April 2014

Dendritic cells (DCs) belong to the immune system and are particularly studied for their potential to direct either an activated or tolerogenic immune response. The roles of microRNAs (miRNAs) in posttranscriptional gene expression regulation are being increasingly investigated. This study’s aim is to evaluate the miRNAs’ expression changes in prepared human immature (iDCs), activated (aDCs), and tolerogenic dendritic cells (tDCs). The dendritic cells were prepared using GM-CSF and IL-4 (iDC) and subsequently maturated by adding LPS and IFN-γ(aDC) or IL-10 and TGF-β(tDC). Surface markers, cytokine profiles, and miRNA profiles were evaluated in iDC, tDC, and aDC at 6 h and 24 h of maturation. We identified 4 miRNAs (miR-7, miR-9, miR-155 and miR-182), which were consistently overexpressed in aDC after 6 h and 24 h of maturation and 3 miRNAs (miR-17, miR-133b, and miR-203) and miR-23b cluster solely expressed in tDC. We found 5 miRNAs (miR-10a, miR-203, miR-210, miR-30a, and miR-449b) upregulated and 3 miRNAs downregulated (miR-134, miR-145, and miR-149) in both tDC and aDC. These results indicate that miRNAs are specifically modulated in human DC types. This work may contribute to identifying specific modulating miRNAs for aDC and tDC, which could in the future serve as therapeutic targets in the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Identifying Network Public Opinion Leaders Based on Markov Logic Networks
Authors: Zhang Weizhe , Li Xiaoqiang , He Hui , Wang Xing
Published: April 2014

Public opinion emergencies have important effect on social activities. Recognition of special communities like opinion leaders can contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the development trend of public opinion. In this paper, a network opinion leader recognition method based on relational data was put forward, and an opinion leader recognition system integrating public opinion data acquisition module, data characteristic selection, and fusion module as well as opinion leader discovery module based on Markov Logic Networks was designed. The designed opinion leader recognition system not only can overcome the incomplete data acquisition and isolated task of traditional methods, but also can recognize opinion leaders comprehensively with considerations to multiple problems by using the relational model. Experimental results demonstrated that, compared with the traditional methods, the proposed method can provide a more accurate opinion leader recognition and has good noise immunity.
Manual Characterization of Sleep Spindle Index in Patients with Narcolepsy and Idiopathic Hypersomnia
Authors: DelRosso Lourdes M. , Chesson Andrew L. , Hoque Romy
Published: April 2014

This is a retrospective review of PSG data from 8 narcolepsy patients and 8 idiopathic hypersomnia (IH) patients, evaluating electrophysiologic differences between these two central hypersomnias. Spindles were identified according to the AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events; and counted per epoch in the first 50 epochs of N2 sleep and the last 50 epochs of N2 sleep in each patient’s PSG. Spindle count data (mean ± standard deviation) per 30 second-epoch (spindle index) in the 8 narcolepsy patients was as follows: 0.37 ± 0.73 for the first 50 epochs of N2; 0.65 ± 1.09 for the last 50 epochs of N2; and 0.51 ± 0.93 for all 100 epochs of N2. Spindle index data in the 8 IH patients was as follows: 2.31 ± 2.23 for the first 50 epochs of N2; 2.84 ± 2.43 for the last 50 epochs of N2; and 2.57 ± 2.35 for all 100 epochs of N2. Intergroup differences in spindle count in the first 50 N2 epochs, the last 50 N2 epochs, and all 100 epochs of scored N2 were significant (P<0.01) as were the intragroup differences between the first 50 N2 epochs and the last 50 N2 epochs.
The Effect of Antivascular Endothelial Growth Factor Therapy on the Development of Neovascular Glaucoma after Central Retinal Vein Occlusion: A Retrospective Analysis
Authors: Ryu Christina L. , Elfersy Adrian , Desai Uday , Hessburg Thomas , Edwards Paul , Gao Hua
Published: April 2014

Purpose. Ischemic central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) eyes are at high risk of developing neovascular glaucoma (NVG). Our purpose is to investigate the effect of anti-VEGF therapy for macular edema after CRVO on the development of neovascular glaucoma (NVG) in ischemic CRVO eyes.Methods. This is a retrospective case series of 44 eyes from 44 patients with CRVO treated with anti-VEGF therapy for macular edema. The primary outcome was the development of NVG.Results. Of the 44 eyes, 14 eyes had ischemic CRVO, and 30 eyes had nonischemic CRVO. Nonischemic eyes received a mean of 8.4 anti-VEGF doses, over mean follow-up of 24 months. One nonischemic eye (3.3%) developed NVD but not NVG. The 14 ischemic eyes received a mean of 5.6 anti-VEGF doses, with mean follow-up of 23 months. Of these 14 ischemic eyes, two eyes (14%) developed iris neovascularization and 3 eyes (21%) developed posterior neovascularization. Three of these 5 eyes with neovascularization progressed to NVG, at 19.7 months after symptom onset, on average.Conclusion. Anti-VEGF therapy for macular edema may delay, but does not prevent, the development of ocular NV in ischemic CRVO. Significant risk of NVG still exists for ischemic CRVO eyes.
Real-Time Pricing-Based Scheduling Strategy in Smart Grids: A Hierarchical Game Approach
Authors: Yang Jie , Zhang Guoshan , Ma Kai
Published: April 2014

This paper proposes a scheduling strategy based on real-time pricing in smart grids. A hierarchical game is employed to analyze the decision-making process of generators and consumers. We prove the existence and uniqueness of Nash equilibrium and utilize a backward induction method to obtain the generation and consumption strategies. Then, we propose two dynamic algorithms for the generators and consumers to search for the equilibrium in a distributed fashion. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheduling strategy can match supply with demand and shift load away from peak time.
A Proposed New Index for Clinical Evaluation of Interproximal Soft Tissues: The Interdental Pressure Index
Authors: Luigi Checchi , Marco Montevecchi , Gianluca Marucci , Vittorio Checchi
Published: April 2014

The interdental pressure index (IPI) is introduced to specifically evaluate clinical interproximal-tissue conditions and assess the effect of interproximal hygiene stimulation. This index scores clinical responses of periodontal tissues to the apical pressure of a horizontally placed periodontal probe. It is negative when gingival tissues are firm, bleeding-free, and slightly ischemic by the stimulation; otherwise it is positive. The clinical validation showed high intraoperator agreement (0.92; 95% CI: 0.82–0.96;P=0.0001) and excellent interoperator agreement (0.76; 95% CI: 0.14–1.38;P=0.02). High internal consistency with bleeding on probing (κ=0.88) and gingival index (Cronbach’sα=0.81) was obtained. Histological validation obtained high sensitivity (100%) and specificity (80%) for IPI+ toward inflammatory active form. The same results were recorded for IPI− toward chronic inactive form. IPI results as a simple and noninvasive method with low error probability and good reflection of histological condition that can be applied for oral hygiene motivation. Patient compliance to oral hygiene instructions is essential in periodontal therapy and IPI index can be a practical and intuitive tool to check and reinforce this important aspect.
Endovascular and Surgical Treatment of Unruptured MCA Aneurysms: Meta-Analysis and Review of the Literature
Authors: Blackburn Spiros L. , Abdelazim Abdelrahman M. , Cutler Andrew B. , Brookins Kevin T. , Fargen Kyle M. , Hoh Brian L. , Kadkhodayan Yasha
Published: April 2014

Introduction. The best treatment for unruptured middle cerebral artery (MCA) aneurysms is unclear. We perform a meta-analysis of recent publications to evaluate the results of unruptured MCA aneurysms treated with surgical clipping and endovascular coiling.Methods. A PubMed search for articles published between January 2004 and November 2013 was performed. The R statistical software package was used to create a random effects model for each desired incidence rate. Cochran’sQtest was used to evaluate possible heterogeneity among the rates observed in each study.Results. A total of 1891 unruptured MCA aneurysms, 1052 clipped and 839 coiled, were included for analysis. The complete occlusion rate at 6–9 months mean follow-up was 95.5% in the clipped group and 67.8% in the coiled group (P<0.05). The periprocedural thromboembolism rate in the clipping group was 1.8% compared with 10.7% in the aneurysms treated by coiling (P<0.05). The recanalization rate was 0% for clipping and 14.3% for coiling (P=0.05). Modified Rankin scores of 0–2 were obtained in 98.9% of clipped patients compared to 95.5% of coiled (NS).Conclusions. This review weakly supports clipping as the preferred treatment of unruptured MCA aneurysms. Clinical outcomes did not differ significantly between the two groups.
Effect of Chronic Valproic Acid Treatment on Hepatic Gene Expression Profile inWfs1Knockout Mouse
Authors: Punapart Marite , Eltermaa Mall , Oflijan Julia , Sütt Silva , Must Anne , Kõks Sulev , Schalkwyk Leonard C. , Fernandes Catherine , Vasar Eero , Soomets Ursel , Terasmaa Anton
Published: April 2014

Valproic acid (VPA) is a widely used anticonvulsant and mood-stabilizing drug whose use is often associated with drug-induced weight gain. Treatment with VPA has been shown to upregulateWfs1expressionin vitro. Aim of the present study was to compare the effect of chronic VPA treatment in wild type (WT) andWfs1knockout (KO) mice on hepatic gene expression profile. Wild type,Wfs1heterozygous, and homozygous mice were treated with VPA for three months (300 mg/kg i.p. daily) and gene expression profiles in liver were evaluated using Affymetrix Mouse GeneChip 1.0 ST array. We identified 42 genes affected byWfs1genotype, 10 genes regulated by VPA treatment, and 9 genes whose regulation by VPA was dependent on genotype. Among the genes that were regulated differentially by VPA depending on genotype was peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta (Ppard), whose expression was upregulated in response to VPA treatment in WT, but not inWfs1KO mice. Thus, regulation ofPpardby VPA is dependent onWfs1genotype.
Synchronization of Fractional-Order Hyperchaotic Systems via Fractional-Order Controllers
Authors: Li Tianzeng , Wang Yu , Yang Yong
Published: April 2014

In this paper, the synchronization of fractional-order chaotic systems is studied and a new fractional-order controller for hyperchaos synchronization is presented based on the Lyapunov stability theory. The proposed synchronized method can be applied to an arbitrary four-dimensional fractional hyperchaotic system. And we give the optimal value of control parameters to achieve synchronization of fractional hyperchaotic system. This approach is universal, simple, and theoretically rigorous. Numerical simulations of several fractional-order hyperchaotic systems demonstrate the universality and the effectiveness of the proposed method.
(M,N)-Soft Intersection BL-Algebras and Their Congruences
Authors: Ma Xueling , Kim Hee Sik
Published: April 2014

The purpose of this paper is to give a foundation for providing a new soft algebraic tool in considering many problems containing uncertainties. In order to provide these new soft algebraic structures, we discuss a new soft set-(M, N)-soft intersection set, which is a generalization of soft intersection sets. We introduce the concepts of (M, N)-SI filters of BL-algebras and establish some characterizations. Especially, (M, N)-soft congruences in BL-algebras are concerned.