bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Inferring coevolution in a plant–pollinator network
Authors: Lomáscolo Silvia B. , Giannini Norberto , Chacoff Natacha P. , Castro‐Urgal Rocío , Vázquez Diego P.
Published: December 2018

Mutualistic interactions are at the core of community dynamics, determining dispersal, colonization and differential survival and reproduction among individuals and species. Mutualistic interactions therefore affect the fitness of interaction partners, hence modifying their respective evolutionary trajectories reciprocally, potentially leading to coevolution. Although mathematical models predict coevolution in mutualistic interaction networks, no empirical data are available. By taking into account the patterns of interactions and reconstructing evolutionary change in plant and pollinator traits, we tested the hypothesis that coevolution occurs between plants and insects that interact more frequently, or more symmetrically. To test this hypothesis, we built an interaction network with data from five flowering seasons, measured plant and insect morphology, mapped morphology on the plant and insect phylogenies, and reconstructed ancestral character changes based on maximum parsimony. We calculated an index, called the coevolutionary ratio, which represents the amount of correlated change in traits that mediate the interaction between plants and pollinators (i.e. proboscis versus corolla length, and body width and corolla aperture). Our results suggest that high frequency of interaction, i.e. the number of times two species interact, does not lead to coevolution. Instead, symmetry of interaction strength, i.e. the reciprocal similarity in the mutual effect of interaction partners, may lead to coevolution, in spite of a pervasive lack of reciprocal specialization and high interaction frequency. Although the statistical signal is quite weak, our results hold for three statistical tests of very different nature. The most specialized species, expected to be under directional selection, do not show more evolutionary change than do generalist species, expected to be under different, perhaps opposing, selective pressures. By dissecting the complexity of an interaction network we show that coevolution may partially shape functional morphology of interaction partners, thus providing the closest evidence to date of mutualistic adaptation of organisms within a community.
Suitability of Solanum lycopersicum L. ‘Microtom’ for growth in Bioregenerative Life Support Systems: exploring the effect of high‐LET ionising radiation on photosynthesis, leaf structure and fruit traits
Authors: Arena C. , Vitale E. , Hay Mele B. , Cataletto P. R. , Turano M. , Simoniello P. , De Micco V.
Published: December 2018

The realisation of manned space exploration requires the development of Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS). In such self‐sufficient closed habitats, higher plants have a fundamental role in air regeneration, water recovery, food production and waste recycling. In the space environment, ionising radiation represents one of the main constraints to plant growth.

In this study, we explore whether low doses of heavy ions, namely Ca 25 Gy, delivered at the seed stage, may induce positive outcomes on growth and functional traits in plants of Solanum lycopersicum L. ‘Microtom’. After irradiation of seed, plant growth was monitored during the whole plant life cycle, from germination to fruit ripening. Morphological parameters, photosynthetic efficiency, leaf anatomical functional traits and antioxidant production in leaves and fruits were analysed.

Our data demonstrate that irradiation of seeds with 25 Gy Ca ions does not prevent achievement of the seed‐to‐seed cycle in ‘Microtom’, and induces a more compact plant size compared to the control. Plants germinated from irradiated seeds show better photochemical efficiency than controls, likely due to the higher amount of D1 protein and photosynthetic pigment content. Leaves of these plants also had smaller cells with a lower number of chloroplasts. The dose of 25 Gy Ca ions is also responsible for positive outcomes in fruits: although developing a lower number of berries, plants germinated from irradiated seeds produce larger berries, richer in carotenoids, ascorbic acid and anthocyanins than controls.

These specific traits may be useful for ‘Microtom’ cultivation in BLSS in space, in so far as the crew members could benefit from fresh food richer in functional compounds that can be directly produced on board.
Patriotism and Nationalism, Left and Right: A Q‐Methodology Study of American National Identity
Authors: Hanson Kristin , O’Dwyer Emma
Published: December 2018

In the current polarized U.S. political environment, what it means to be a “true American” is increasingly contested. Researchers often look to conceptualizations of patriotism and nationalism to account for national identity; but the extent to which these measures capture current understandings of American identity beyond left and right political divides is unknown. In a novel application of Q‐methodology, this study investigates the relationship between patriotism and nationalism measures and participants’ subjective understandings of their national identity. Forty‐seven U.S. citizens representing a wide range of ideological positions constructed American identity profiles by ranking 56 statements taken from patriotic and nationalistic operationalizations. The two extracted profiles revealed national identities largely along left/right ideological, not patriotism/nationalism, lines. Further analysis indicated that the political left and right also differently interpret items within patriotism and nationalism measures. These findings highlight the intertwining of American national identity and political ideology; they also cast doubt on the ideological independence and descriptive value of patriotism and nationalism measures.
Evaluation of virulence and pathogenicity of Alternaria patula on French marigold (Tagetes patula)
Authors: Wu H. C. , Wu W. S.
Published: December 2018

Alternaria patula, the cause of French marigold leaf black spot and flower blight, was first isolated from seeds of French marigold cv. Queen Sophia. It is described as a new species of Alternaria and has a considerable morphological variation with a preferential pathogenicity to Asteraceae, Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae plants. Alternaria patula produces an array of pectin depolymerases that can break 1,4‐α‐glycosidic bonds either by hydrolysis of polygalacturonases (PG, E.C. 3.2.1.15) or via trans‐elimination of pectate lyases (PL, E.C. 4.2.2.2) and pectin lyases (PNL, E.C. 4.2.2.10). This study is the first to emphasize the variability and significance to pathogenesis of the pectinolytic enzymes of A. patula that target various pectic polymers structures during host tissue invasion. Alternaria patula also produced zinniol derivatives as non‐host‐specific toxins (nHSTs), albeit without phytotoxic symptoms in French marigold. The management of Alternaria blight caused by A. patula via the application of pyrifenox and antagonistic Bacillus amyloliquefaciens effectively reduced disease severity, without adverse effects on French marigold in both in vitro and in vivo bioassays.
Additive Quantile Regression for Clustered Data with an Application to Children's Physical Activity
Authors: Geraci Marco
Published: December 2018

Additive models are flexible regression tools that handle linear as well as non-linear terms. The latter are typically modelled via smoothing splines. Additive mixed models extend additive models to include random terms when the data are sampled according to cluster designs (e.g. longitudinal). These models find applications in the study of phenomena like growth, certain disease mechanisms and energy expenditure in humans, when repeated measurements are available. We propose a novel additive mixed model for quantile regression. Our methods are motivated by an application to physical activity based on a data set with more than half a million accelerometer measurements in children of the UK Millennium Cohort Study. In a simulation study, we assess the proposed methods against existing alternatives.
Coping and financial strain as predictors of mental illness in over‐ indebted individuals in Sweden
Authors: Holmgren Rebecka , Nilsson Sundström Emma , Levinsson Henrik , Ahlström Richard
Published: December 2018

This cross‐sectional study examined psychological mechanisms in order to increase knowledge regarding mental illness amongst 561 over‐indebted individuals in Sweden. Differences were explored between individuals with probable clinical depression and/or anxiety and individuals without probable clinical depression and/or anxiety, considering objective measures of the debt, financial strain, coping strategies as well as sociodemographic variables. Furthermore, binary logistic regression analyses were performed in order to construct a model of predictors of mental illness. In order to collect the data, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Brief Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (COPE_, as well as questions formulated by the research team, were used as measures. Prominent results showed that over‐indebted individuals with probable clinical depression and/or anxiety were younger, showed greater levels of financial strain, used adaptive coping strategies to a lesser extent, and maladaptive coping strategies to a greater extent. Additionally, financial strain, use of maladaptive and emotion‐focused coping, age and employment status were significant predictors of mental illness. These results put emphasis on the importance of adaptive coping as well as the psychological exposure of over‐indebted individuals.
Affiliation motivates children’s prosocial behaviors: Relating helping and comforting to imitation
Authors: Giner Torréns Marta , Kärtner Joscha
Published: December 2018

The current study focuses on the motivation that drives children's prosocial behavior by analyzing the association between prosocial behavior and children's imitative tendencies, which is a well‐established indicator of the motivation to affiliate with others. Therefore, we tested 30‐month‐old children (N = 59) in an imitation task and two domains of prosocial behavior, namely helping and comforting. Using a confirmatory factor analysis, we demonstrated that the two prosocial domains were explained by a common factor, which was in turn significantly related to children's imitation. Overall, our findings suggest that affiliative motives should be considered in order to better understand children's motivations to engage in prosocial behaviors.
Atraumatic splenic rupture following IVIg for parvovirus B19 pure red cell aplasia post renal transplant
Authors: Tiong Mark , Casan Joshua , McLean Catriona
Published: December 2018

Parvovirus B19 (PB19) associated pure red cell aplasia (PRCA) is an uncommon but well described complication of immunosuppression post solid organ transplantation. We report a unique case of a renal transplant patient with PB19 associated PRCA who developed a spontaneous splenic rupture after receiving IVIg for persistent anemia. He subsequently required splenectomy. Within the spleen we subsequently identified PB19 affected cells.
Evaluation of combined idarucizumab and prothrombin complex concentrate treatment for bleeding related to dabigatran in a lethal porcine model of double trauma
Authors: Honickel Markus , Braunschweig Till , Rossaint Rolf , Schöchl Herbert , Grottke Oliver
Published: December 2018

BACKGROUND

Idarucizumab (IDA) is approved for emergency reversal of dabigatran; prothrombin complex concentrates (PCCs) are recommended in the absence of specific antidote. The combined effects of IDA and PCC in trauma‐related bleeding are unknown. The efficacy and safety of combined IDA + PCC were assessed in a lethal porcine model of double trauma under dabigatran anticoagulation.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS

Male pigs (n = 28) received oral dabigatran etexilate (30 mg/kg bid) for 3 days; a non‐dabigatran control group (n = 7) received placebo. On Day 4, dabigatran‐treated animals were randomized 1:1:1:1 to receive placebo + placebo (dabigatran‐treated control), IDA + PCC (60 mg/kg + 50 IU/kg), PCC + IDA, or IDA + IDA. Trauma was induced at t = 0 (bilateral femur fractures and blunt liver injury) and t = 60 minutes (second blunt liver injury). Study treatment was administered 15 minutes after each trauma. Animals were monitored for 5 hours or until death.

RESULTS

Total blood loss in IDA + PCC, PCC + IDA, and IDA + IDA was 1673 ± 370, 1981 ± 361, and 1417 ± 135 mL, respectively, with 100% survival at 5 hours. Blood loss in dabigatran‐treated controls was 4427 ± 162 mL with 100% mortality. With IDA + IDA, plasma coagulation parameters and thrombin generation were similar to non‐dabigatran control group levels after the second dose and remained stable over time. In the IDA + PCC and PCC + IDA groups, thrombin generation and d‐dimer levels after the second dose were higher than with IDA + IDA. No thromboembolic complications were found.

CONCLUSION

IDA and PCC are effective in treating trauma‐related bleeding with dabigatran anticoagulation. IDA is preferable for emergency reversal of dabigatran, but PCC may be valuable when the anticoagulant is unknown.
Leukoreduction system chambers are a reliable cellular source for the manufacturing of T‐cell therapeutics
Authors: Boudreau Gabrielle , Carli Cédric , Lamarche Caroline , Rulleau Caroline , Bonnaure Guillaume , Néron Sonia , Delisle Jean‐Sébastien
Published: December 2018

BACKGROUND

Following solid organ or hematopoietic cell transplantation, refractory opportunistic viral reactivations are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality but can effectively be controlled by virus‐specific T‐cell transfer. Among effective and safe strategies is the use of “third‐party” (neither from the transplant donor nor recipient) virus‐specific T cells that can be manufactured from healthy donors and used as “off‐the‐shelf” therapies. Leukoreduction system chambers (LRSCs), recovered after routine plateletpheresis, were evaluated as a potential source of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) for the manufacturing of clinical‐scale virus‐specific T cell.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS

PBMCs from the same donors obtained either from LRSCs or peripheral blood were compared, focusing on T‐cell function and phenotype as well as the potential to generate cytomegalovirus (CMV)‐specific T‐cell lines from both CMV seropositive and seronegative donors.

RESULTS

PBMCs from both sources were comparable except for a transient downregulation of CD62L expression on freshly extracted PBMCs from LRSCs. Both nonspecific stimulation using anti‐CD3/CD28 antibodies and CMV peptides revealed that LRSCs or blood T cells were equivalent in terms of expansion, differentiation, and function. Moreover, PBMCs from LRSCs can be used to generate autologous monocyte‐derived dendritic cells to prime and expand CMV‐specific T cells from seronegative donors.

CONCLUSION

LRSCs are a reliable source of PBMCs for the generation of virus‐specific T cells for immunotherapy. These findings have implications for the development of third‐party therapeutic T‐cell products from well‐characterized blood product donors.
A multidimensional study of interactive registers in Pakistani and US English
Authors: Shakir Muhammad , Deuber Dagmar
Published: December 2018

The present study is a multidimensional analysis of spoken and interactive online registers—comments, Facebook groups, Facebook status updates, and tweets—of Pakistani English in comparison to U.S. English. Four dimensions of variation are identified, namely oral narrative, abstract informational versus first person focus, interactive focus on mental activities and feelings, and present and future activities. Dimension 1 and 2 are the most prominent indicators of regional variation, while some registers also show variation on dimensions 3 and 4. The results suggest that conveying abstract and other kind of information is the most prominent general communicative purpose in Pakistani registers. US English, in contrast, also has communicative purposes like the expression of feelings and narration, in addition to conveying information. It is also suggested that the Internet is providing new avenues of communication for non‐native speakers of English, which demands further study and inclusion of these registers in corpora of varieties of English around the world.
Public-Private Partnership in Health Care and Its Impact on Health Outcomes: Evidence from Ruharo Mission Hospital in Uganda
Authors: Asasira Justus , Ahimbisibwe Frank
Published: December 2018

Background: Uganda’s government has embraced private provision of social services including health care. The involvement of private providers is an indicator that the public facilities are not sufficient enough to meet the high demands of the ever-increasing population. This has been done through partnership arrangements. This paper discusses the impact of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in health care outcomes of the local population and opportunities for improving health outcomes, challenges facing private providers in a low income setting.Methodology: Data were collected using qualitative methods in January 2017 through interview (using semi-structured questions) at Ruharo Mission Hospital (RMH) administration, health workers, district health office and used a structured questionnaire for patients/clients. This was a nascent study, with a sample size of 22 respondents. The hospital has three departments; Organized Useful Rehabilitation Services (OURS), General Medical Services (GMS) and Eye Department (ED). All the departments of the hospital were represented in this study.Results: The hospital is a Church of Uganda project and runs a budget of 5 billion shillings ($ 1,351,351.4) annually, had multiple sources of funding including PHC funding annually and that, health services were delivered adequately to clients. Much as some services were accessed at no costs, other services like eye treatment were found expensive on the side of clients. The hospital’s hybrid mode of delivering health services through outreaches and facility-based services was cherished, however it had no ambulance and relied only on a hospital van.Conclusions and Recommendations: Our study concluded that if private providers are supported under the partnership arrangement, they can adequately deliver services to the clients and decongest the public facilities. We recommend that the government devote funds to support the hospital through employing more sub-seconded staff, procuring medicines, and ambulances to enable it to subsidize services especially eye treatment and other services not supported under the partnership.
Understanding Differences between CORE and CACREP Counselors-in-Training Perceptions of Self-Efficacy
Authors: Harris Sabrina , Brooks Michael , Liles Robin , Ethridge Glacia , Boston Quinton , Blalock Kacie
Published: December 2018

An examination of differences in perceptions of self-efficacy between students in CORE-accredited rehabilitation counseling programs and students in CACREP -accredited clinical mental health counseling programs enrolled in practicum/internship classes is absent in the literature. Results indicated there was not a significant difference (p = .05) between the total self-efficacy scores between both treatment groups (CORE and CACREP). Further, there was not a significant difference between helping skills, session management, and counseling challenging situations scores for both treatment groups (CORE and CACREP). Predictors of self-efficacy for CACREP participants consisted of prior work experience in a field other than helping. Predictors of self-efficacy for CORE participants were gender.
Low Handgrip Strength Levels in Non-Athlete Adolescents Compared to Adolescent Athletes
Authors: Melekoğlu Tuba , Işin Ali , Türk Ayşen
Published: December 2018

Handgrip strength is an important determinant of general health. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the handgrip strength levels in adolescents in terms of sports participation. The second purpose is to determine the association between handgrip strength and other strength parameters. Physically active adolescent athletes (n = 31, 14.26 ± 0.68 years), and the age, pubertal stage and gender-matched non-athlete adolescents (n = 31, 14.21 ± 0.66 years) at the age of 13 to 15 participated in the study. Maximum isometric muscle strength for hand, leg, and back were measured with a handheld dynamometer. Handgrip strength was correlated with leg strength and back strength (r=0.675; r=0.698, respectively). Non-athletes had lower strength values compared to the athletes (98.48 ± 38.25 kg vs 82.94 ± 33.70 kg; 91.48 ± 35.23 kg vs 70.35 ± 25.81 kg; 30.53 ± 7.05 kg; 25.97 ± 5.98 kg for leg, back and handgrip strength, respectively). There was a positive correlation between handgrip strength and other strength parameters in adolescents. Therefore, handgrip strength can be used as a general strength indicator in adolescents. Sports participation in adolescents seems to increase strength parameters notably and may affect health correlatively.
Electromechanical properties of cathodic arc deposited high entropy alloy thin films on polymer substrates
Authors: Xia Ao , Glushko Oleksandr , Cordill Megan J. , Franz Robert
Published: December 2018

Within this work, in situ tensile straining tests are employed to study the electromechanical properties of MoNbTaVW and AlCuCrTaTi high entropy alloy thin films which were synthesized by cathodic arc deposition on polyimide substrates at room temperature. The crack onset strains of MoNbTaVW and AlCuCrTaTi were observed to be around 2% and 2.5%, respectively. The sharp rise in resistance at strains exceeding the crack onset strain indicates a brittle behavior of both films, while the interfacial shear stress is higher for the MoNbTaVW film.
Modelling noise annoyance responses to combined sound sources and views of sea, road traffic, and mountain greenery
Authors: Chau Chi Kwan , Leung Tze Ming , Xu Jing Mei , Tang Shiu Keung
Published: December 2018

This paper studies the effect of human perception of visual and audio settings in an urban environment on annoyance. Video clips were projected onto a window panel of a living room to simulate neighborhood views containing different percentages of sea, mountain greenery, and road. These video clips were combined with audio stimuli corresponding to the congruent traffic and sea sounds. 246 participants were presented with 11 audio-visual stimuli and requested to respond to questions after the presentation. The collected responses were used to formulate a multivariate ordered logit model to predict the probability of evoking a high annoyance response. The findings revealed that views embracing mountain greenery close-by could enhance annoyance, which is contrary to other findings that greenery could always moderate noise annoyance. In addition, a 60% sea view was found to be able to yield 1 dB equivalent reduction in total sound pressure level. The trade-off was comparable to that achieved by having sea sound at a level 5 dB higher than road traffic noise. Exposure to road traffic noise level being 3 dB higher than sea sound level (i.e., signal-to-noise ratio = −3) together with a 60% sea view could provide an additional 1.5 dB equivalent reduction.
Electroweak couplings and LHC constraints on alternative Z′ models in E6
Authors: Benavides Richard H. , Muñoz Luis , Ponce William A. , Rodríguez Oscar , Rojas Eduardo
Published: December 2018

We report the most general expression for the chiral charges of a [Formula: see text] gauge boson coming from an [Formula: see text] unification model, as a function of the electroweak parameters and the charges of the [Formula: see text] factors in the chain of subgroups. These charges are valid for an arbitrary Higgs sector and only depend on the branching rules of the [Formula: see text] fundamental representation and the corresponding rules for the fermionic representations of their subgroups. By assuming [Formula: see text] unification, the renormalization group equations (RGE) allow us to calculate the electroweak parameters at low energies for most of the chains of subgroups in [Formula: see text]. From RGE and unitary conditions, we show that at low energies there must be a mixing between the gauge boson of the standard model hypercharge and the [Formula: see text]. From this, it is possible to delimit the preferred region in the parameter space for a breaking pattern in [Formula: see text]. In general, without unification, it is not viable to determine this region; however, for some models and under certain assumptions, it is possible to limit the corresponding parameter space. By using the most recent upper limits on the cross-section of extra gauge vector bosons [Formula: see text] decaying into dileptons from the ATLAS data at 13 TeV with accumulated luminosities of 36.1 fb[Formula: see text] and 13.3 fb[Formula: see text], we report the 95% C.L. lower limits on the [Formula: see text] mass for the typical [Formula: see text] benchmark models. We also show the contours in the 95% C.L. of the [Formula: see text] mass bounds for the entire parameter space of [Formula: see text].
Acoustic characteristics of standing waves in ultrasound-assisted laser–metal inert gas hybrid welding
Authors: Yang Chuan , Zhu Zongtao , Cheng Qian
Published: December 2018

We propose an ultrasound-assisted laser–metal inert gas hybrid welding process, where acoustic effects are introduced by applying ultrasonic vibration in the axial direction of the arc. We studied the acoustic characteristics in the space between the acoustic radiating and reflecting surfaces. Based on a simplified two-dimensional model, we used the finite-element method to study the influence of the height and inclination of the radiating surface on the acoustic characteristics. The simulated sound pressure distribution was highly sensitive to the height and inclination of the radiating surface. The sound pressure decreased as the height of the radiating surface increased from a maximum value at the resonance height, and decreased as the inclination of radiating surface increased. Experimental results of the detachment of a water droplet from a needle were consistent with the simulation results. We simulated the distribution of the standing-wave field under different radiating concave-sphere surfaces to evaluate the acoustic focusing effects. Both experimental and simulation results for ultrasonic standing-wave levitation of plastic beads revealed the concave-sphere shape to be optimal.
Self-Adjusting Fuzzy Support Vector Machine Based on Analysis of Potential Support Vector Sample Point
Authors: Zhou Huaping , Qin Huangli
Published: December 2018

Fuzzy support vector machine (FSVM) is a part of machine learning with its good classification effect. So far, there are two most commonly used FSVM models: FSVM on account of class core and fuzzy support vector machine on account of hyperplane that is over class core. Each has its own problems: FSVM on account of class core are dependent on the geometric shape of sample sets. Although FSVM on account of hyperplane that is over class core can solve the above problems to some extent. However, this algorithm has low generalization ability and high time complexity. Therefore, Inspired by these two common models, the paper proposes an improved membership function method. By analyzing and calculating the potential support vector sample points, adjustment factor is obtained, which drives the class core to adjust along the direction away from the outliers. In this way, membership of noise and outliers are reduced and the membership of support vector will also increase to some extent. In this paper, a new experimental comparison method is used, which can make the comparison of classification effect more obvious and convincing. The experimental part compares the proposed FSVM model with the above two FSVM models. It shows that the proposed algorithm improves the stability and classification accuracy to some extent.
Rank and Nielsen equivalence in hyperbolic extensions
Authors: Dowdall Spencer , Taylor Samuel J.
Published: December 2018

In this note, we generalize a theorem of Juan Souto on rank and Nielsen equivalence in the fundamental group of a hyperbolic fibered [Formula: see text]-manifold to a large class of hyperbolic group extensions. This includes all hyperbolic extensions of surfaces groups as well as hyperbolic extensions of free groups by convex cocompact subgroups of [Formula: see text].
MODELING MONOCYTE-DERIVED DENDRITIC CELLS AS A THERAPEUTIC VACCINE AGAINST HIV
Authors: SAHA SHUBHANKAR , ROY PRITI KUMAR , SMITH? ROBERT
Published: December 2018

Successful immunologic control of HIV infection can be achieved in long-term non-progressors or HIV-1 controllers. Dendritic cells (DCs) are required for specific antigen presentation to naïve T lymphocytes and for antiviral, type I interferon secretion. To understand this mechanism, we develop a mathematical model that describes the role of direct presentation (replicating virus-infected DCs or other [Formula: see text] T cells directly) and cross presentation (DCs obtain antigen processed in other infected cells such as [Formula: see text] T lymphocytes) during HIV-1 infection. We find equilibria and determine stability in the case of no vaccination, and then, when vaccination is taken, we determine analytical thresholds for the strength and frequency of the vaccine to ensure the disease-free equilibrium remains stable. Our theoretical results suggest that the restoration of DC numbers may be predictive of immune restoration and may be a goal for immunotherapy to enhance viral control in a larger proportion of patients.
The connection between evolution algebras, random walks and graphs
Authors: Cadavid Paula , Rodiño Montoya Mary Luz , Rodriguez Pablo M.
Published: December 2018

Evolution algebras are a new type of non-associative algebras which are inspired from biological phenomena. A special class of such algebras, called Markov evolution algebras, is strongly related to the theory of discrete time Markov chains. The winning of this relation is that many results coming from Probability Theory may be stated in the context of Abstract Algebra. In this paper, we explore the connection between evolution algebras, random walks and graphs. More precisely, we study the relationships between the evolution algebra induced by a random walk on a graph and the evolution algebra determined by the same graph. Given that any Markov chain may be seen as a random walk on a graph, we believe that our results may add a new landscape in the study of Markov evolution algebras.
Modeling and Analysis of an Ecological System Incorporating Infection and Prey Refuge
Authors: Jana Soovoojeet , Haldar Samadyuti , Das Debabrata , Nandi Swapan Kumar , Kar T. K.
Published: December 2018

This paper describes a prey–predator type ecological model with infection in the prey populations. We also consider here a nonlinear functional response for disease transmission and a constant amount of refuge for the sound prey populations. The dynamical behavior of the mathematical model is described from the point of view of stability and bifurcation. A geometric method is also applied to establish the global asymptotic stability at the co-existence equilibrium point. Some computer simulation works have been presented to illustrate the theoretical results.
An optimal control problem associated to a class of fractional Burgers’ equations
Authors: Mohammadizadeh F. , Tehrani H. A. , Georgiev S. G. , Noori Skandari M. H.
Published: December 2018

In this paper, we prove that a class of fractional Burgers’ equations has a unique solution under some special conditions. Moreover, we show that an optimal control problem for a special class of fractional Burgers’ equations has at least one optimal solution.
Ab-Initio Prediction of Intrinsic Half-Metallicity in Binary Alkali–Metal Chalcogenides: KX (X=S, Se and Te)
Authors: Abbouni N. , Amari S. , Sadouki H. , Belkadi A. , Zaoui Y. , Obodo K. O. , Beldi L. , Bouhafs B.
Published: December 2018

First-principles full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave method based on density functional theory is used to investigate the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of KX ([Formula: see text], Se and Te) binary alkali–metal chalcogenides compounds. These compounds in different crystalline phases, NaCl (B1), CsCl (B2), ZB (B3), NiAs (B8[Formula: see text], WZ (B4) and Pnma, were calculated within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA-PBE) and the modified Becke–Johnson approach (mBJ-GGA-PBE) for the exchange–correlation energy and potential. We found that the most stable phase for the KX binary compounds is the nonmagnetic Pnma phase. The calculated lattice parameters, bulk moduli, their first-pressure derivatives and internal parameters are in good agreement with the other theoretical data. The electronic band structure and density of states show that half-metallic and magnetic character arises, which can be attributed to the presence of spin-polarized [Formula: see text] orbitals in the group VI elements. KX ([Formula: see text], Se and Te) compounds, except for KSe and KTe in the CsCl and NiAs phases, show HM character in all phases, with an integer magnetic moment of 1[Formula: see text][Formula: see text] per formula unit and HM gaps.
What Your DRAM Power Models Are Not Telling You
Authors: Ghose Saugata , Yaglikçi Abdullah Giray , Gupta Raghav , Lee Donghyuk , Kudrolli Kais , Liu William X. , Hassan Hasan , Chang Kevin K. , Chatterjee Niladrish , Agrawal Aditya , O'Connor Mike , Mutlu Onur
Published: December 2018

Main memory (DRAM) consumes as much as half of the total system power in a computer today, due to the increasing demand for memory capacity and bandwidth. There is a growing need to understand and analyze DRAM power consumption, which can be used to research new DRAM architectures and systems that consume less power. A major obstacle against such research is the lack of detailed and accurate information on the power consumption behavior of modern DRAM devices. Researchers have long relied on DRAM power models that are predominantly based off of a set of standardized current measurements provided by DRAM vendors, called IDD values. Unfortunately, we find that state-of-the-art DRAM power models are often highly inaccurate, as these models do not reflect the actual power consumed by real DRAM devices. To build an accurate model and provide insights into DRAM power consumption, we perform the first comprehensive experimental characterization of the power consumed by modern real-world DRAM modules. Our extensive characterization of 50 DDR3L DRAM modules from three major vendors yields four key new observations about DRAM power consumption that prior models cannot capture: (1) across all IDD values that we measure, the current consumed by real DRAM modules varies significantly from the current specified by the vendors; (2) DRAM power consumption strongly depends on the data value that is read or written; (3) there is significant structural variation, where the same banks and rows across multiple DRAM modules from the same model consume more power than other banks or rows; and (4) over successive process technology generations, DRAM power consumption has not decreased by as much as vendor specifications have indicated. Because state-of-the-art DRAM power models do not account for any of these four key characteristics, they are highly inaccurate compared to the actual, measured power consumption of 50 real DDR3L modules. Based on our detailed analysis and characterization data, we develop the Variation-Aware model of Memory Power Informed by Real Experiments (VAMPIRE). VAMPIRE is a new, accurate power consumption model for DRAM that takes into account (1) module-to-module and intra-module variations, and (2) power consumption variation due to data value dependency. We show that VAMPIRE has a mean absolute percentage error of only 6.8% compared to actual measured DRAM power. VAMPIRE enables a wide range of studies that were not possible using prior DRAM power models. As an example, we use VAMPIRE to evaluate the energy efficiency of three different encodings that can be used to store data in DRAM. We find that a new power-aware data encoding mechanism can reduce total DRAM energy consumption by an average of 12.2%, across a wide range of applications. We have open-sourced both VAMPIRE and our extensive raw data collected during our experimental characterization.
A Hybrid Approach for Improving the Design Quality of Web Service Interfaces
Authors: Ouni Ali , Wang Hanzhang , Kessentini Marouane , Bouktif Salah , Inoue Katsuro
Published: December 2018

A key success of a Web service is to appropriately design its interface to make it easy to consume and understand. In the context of service-oriented computing (SOC), the service’s interface is the main source of interaction with the consumers to reuse the service functionality in real-world applications. The SOC paradigm provides a collection of principles and guidelines to properly design services to provide best practice of third-party reuse. However, recent studies showed that service designers tend to pay little care to the design of their service interfaces, which often lead to several side effects known as
antipatterns
. One of the most common Web service interface antipatterns is to expose a large number of semantically unrelated operations, implementing different abstractions, in one single interface. Such bad design practices may have a significant impact on the service reusability, understandability, as well as the development and run-time characteristics. To address this problem, in this article, we propose a hybrid approach to improve the design quality of Web service interfaces and fix antipatterns as a combination of both deterministic and heuristic-based approaches. The first step consists of a deterministic approach using a graph partitioning-based technique to split the operations of a large service interface into more cohesive interfaces, each one representing a distinct abstraction. Then, the produced interfaces will be checked using a heuristic-based approach based on the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) to correct potential antipatterns while reducing the interface design deviation to avoid taking the service away from its original design. To evaluate our approach, we conduct an empirical study on a benchmark of 26 real-world Web services provided by Amazon and Yahoo. Our experiments consist of a quantitative evaluation based on design quality metrics, as well as a qualitative evaluation with developers to assess its usefulness in practice. The results show that our approach significantly outperforms existing approaches and provides more meaningful results from a developer’s perspective.
Predicting Episodes of Non-Conformant Mobility in Indoor Environments
Authors: Jayarajah Kasthuri , Misra Archan
Published: December 2018

Traditional mobility prediction literature focuses primarily on improved methods to extract latent patterns from individual-specific movement data. When such predictions are incorrect, we ascribe it to 'random' or 'unpredictable' changes in a user's movement behavior. Our hypothesis, however, is that such apparently-random deviations from daily movement patterns can, in fact, of ten be anticipated. In particular, we develop a methodology for predicting Likelihood of Future Non-Conformance (LFNC), based on two central hypotheses: (a) the likelihood of future deviations in movement behavior is positively correlated to the intensity of such trajectory deviations observed in the user's recent past, and (b) the likelihood of such future deviations increases if the user's strong-ties have also recently exhibited such non-conformant movement behavior. We use extensive longitudinal indoor location data (spanning 4+ months) from an urban university campus to validate these hypotheses, and then show that these features can be used to build an accurate non-conformance predictor: it can predict non-conformant mobility behavior two hours in advance with an AUC ≥ 0.85, significantly outperforming the baseline. We also show that this prediction methodology holds for a representative outdoor public-transport based mobility dataset. Finally, we use a real-world mobile crowd-sourcing application to show the practical impact of such non-conformance: failure to identify such likely anomalous movement behavior causes workers to suffer a noticeable drop in task completion rates and reduces the spatial spread of successfully completed tasks.
Just-in-Time but Not Too Much
Authors: Liao Peng , Dempsey Walter , Sarker Hillol , Hossain Syed Monowar , al'Absi Mustafa , Klasnja Predrag , Murphy Susan
Published: December 2018

There is a growing scientific interest in the use and development of just-in-time adaptive interventions in mobile health. These mobile interventions typically involve treatments, such as reminders, activity suggestions and motivational messages, delivered via notifications on a smartphone or a wearable to help users make healthy decisions in the moment. To be effective in influencing health, the combination of the right treatment and right delivery time is likely critical. A variety of prediction/detection algorithms have been developed with the goal of pinpointing the best delivery times. The best delivery times might be times of greatest risk and/or times at which the user might be most receptive to the treatment notifications. In addition, to avoid over burdening users, there is of ten a constraint on the number of treatments that should be provided per time interval (e.g., day or week). Yet there may be many more times at which the user is predicted or detected to be at risk and/or receptive. The goal then is to spread treatment uniformly across all of these times. In this paper, we introduce a method that spreads the treatment uniformly across the delivery times. This method can also be used to provide data for learning whether the treatments are effective at the delivery times. This work is motivated by our work on two mobile health studies, a smoking cessation study and a physical activity study.
Computing with Near Data
Authors: Tang Xulong , Kandemir Mahmut Taylan , Zhao Hui , Jung Myoungsoo , Karakoy Mustafa
Published: December 2018

One cost that plays a significant role in shaping the overall performance of both single-threaded and multi-thread applications in modern computing systems is the cost of moving data between compute elements and storage elements. Traditional approaches to address this cost are code and data layout reorganizations and various hardware enhancements. More recently, an alternative paradigm, called Near Data Computing (NDC) or Near Data Processing (NDP), has been shown to be effective in reducing the data movements costs, by moving computation to data, instead of the traditional approach of moving data to computation. Unfortunately, the existing Near Data Computing proposals require significant modifications to hardware and are yet to be widely adopted.

In this paper, we present a software-only (compiler-driven) approach to reducing data movement costs in both single-threaded and multi-threaded applications. Our approach, referred to as Computing with Near Data (CND), is built upon a concept called "recomputation," in which a costly data access is replaced by a few less costly data accesses plus some extra computation, if the cumulative cost of the latter is less than that of the costly data access. If implemented carefully, CND can successfully trade off data access with computation, and considering the continuously increasing latency gap between the two, doing so can significantly reduce the execution latencies of both sequential and parallel application programs.

We i) quantify the intrinsic recomputability of a set of single-threaded and multi-threaded applications, ii) propose a practical, compiler-driven approach that automatically transforms a given application code fragment to a version that employs recomputation, iii) discuss an optimization strategy that increases recomputability; and iv) compare CND, both qualitatively and quantitatively, against NDC. Our experimental analysis of CND reveals that i) the average recomputability across our benchmarks is 51.1%, ii) our compiler-driven strategy is able to exploit 79.3% of the recomputation opportunities presented by our workloads, and iii) our enhancements increase the value of the recomputability metric significantly. As a result, our compiler-driven approach with the proposed enhancements brings an average execution time improvement of 40.1%.
Two Extensions of Kingman's GI/G/1 Bound
Authors: Ciucu Florin , Poloczek Felix
Published: December 2018

A simple bound in GI/G/1 queues was obtained by Kingman using a discrete martingale transform. We extend this technique to 1) multiclass Σ\textrmGI/G/1 $ queues and 2) Markov Additive Processes (MAPs) whose background processes can be time-inhomogeneous or have an uncountable state-space. Both extensions are facilitated by a necessary and sufficient ordinary differential equation (ODE) condition for MAPs to admit continuous martingale transforms. Simulations show that the bounds on waiting time distributions are almost exact in heavy-traffic, including the cases of 1) heterogeneous input, e.g., mixing Weibull and Erlang-k classes and 2) Generalized Markovian Arrival Processes, a new class extending the Batch Markovian Arrival Processes to continuous batch sizes.
Between purpose and profit
Authors: Frick Tim
Published: December 2018

In this forum we highlight innovative thought, design, and research in the area of interaction design and sustainability, illustrating the diversity of approaches across HCI communities.
--- Roy Bendor, Editor
Energy-Efficient Multicore Scheduling for Hard Real-Time Systems
Authors: Sheikh Saad Zia , Pasha Muhammad Adeel
Published: December 2018

As real-time embedded systems are evolving in scale and complexity, the demand for a higher performance at a minimum energy consumption has become a necessity. Consequently, many embedded systems are now adopting multicore architectures into their design. However, scheduling on multicores is not a trivial task and scheduling to minimize the energy consumption further increases the complexity of the problem. This problem is especially aggravated for hard real-time systems where failure to meet a deadline can be catastrophic. Such scheduling algorithms yearn for a polynomial time complexity for the task-to-core assignment problem with an objective to minimize the overall energy consumption. There is now a trend toward heterogeneous multicores where cores differ in power, performance, and architectural capabilities. The desired performance and energy consumption is attained by assigning a task to the core that is best suited for it. In this article, we present a survey on energy-efficient multicore scheduling algorithms for hard real-time systems. We summarize various algorithms reported in the literature and classify them based on Partitioned, Semi-Partitioned, and Global scheduling techniques for both homogeneous and heterogeneous multicores. We also present a detailed discussion on various open issues within this domain.