bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lattice Boltzmann simulation of immiscible displacement in the cavity with different channel configurations
Authors: Lou Qin , Zang Chenqiang , Yang Mo , Xu Hongtao
Published: November 2017

In this work, the immiscible displacement in a cavity with different channel configurations is studied using an improved pseudo-potential lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE) model. This model overcomes the drawback of the dependence of the fluid properties on the grid size, which exists in the original pseudo-potential LBE model. The approach is first validated by the Laplace law. Then, it is employed to study the immiscible displacement process. The influences of different factors, such as the surface wettability, the distance between the gas cavity and liquid cavity and the surface roughness of the channel are investigated. Numerical results show that the displacement efficiency increases and the displacement time decreases with the increase of the surface contact angle. On the other hand, the displacement efficiency increases with increasing distance between the gas cavity and the liquid cavity at first and finally reaches a constant value. As for the surface roughness, two structures (a semicircular cavity and a semicircular bulge) are studied. The comprehensive results show that although the displacement processes for both the structures depend on the surface wettability, they present quite different behaviors. Specially, for the roughness structure constituted by the semicircular cavity, the displacement efficiency decreases and displacement time increases evidently with the size of the semicircular cavity for the small contact angle. The trend slows down as the increase of the contact angle. Once the contact angle exceeds a certain value, the size of the semicircular cavity almost has no influence on the displacement process. While for the roughness structure of a semicircular bulge, the displacement efficiency increases with the size of bulge first and then it decreases for the small contact angle. The displacement efficiency increases first and finally reaches a constant for the large contact angle. The results also show that the displacement time has an extreme value in these cases for the small contact angles.
Multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann study of the magnetic field effects on natural convection of non-Newtonian fluids
Authors: Yang Xuguang , Wang Lei
Published: November 2017

In this paper, the magnetic field effects on natural convection of power-law non-Newtonian fluids in rectangular enclosures are numerically studied by the multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). To maintain the locality of the LBM, a local computing scheme for shear rate is used. Thus, all simulations can be easily performed on the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) using NVIDIA’s CUDA, and high computational efficiency can be achieved. The numerical simulations presented here span a wide range of thermal Rayleigh number ([Formula: see text]), Hartmann number ([Formula: see text]), power-law index ([Formula: see text]) and aspect ratio ([Formula: see text]) to identify the different flow patterns and temperature distributions. The results show that the heat transfer rate is increased with the increase of thermal Rayleigh number, while it is decreased with the increase of Hartmann number, and the average Nusselt number is found to decrease with an increase in the power-law index. Moreover, the effects of aspect ratio have also investigated in detail.
A Combined Back and Foreground-Based Stereo Matching Algorithm Using Belief Propagation and Self-Adapting Dissimilarity Measure
Authors: Wang Xiaofeng , Su Yingying , Tang Liming , Tan Jie
Published: November 2017

Belief propagation (BP) algorithm still exists some shortages, such as inaccurate edge preservation and ambiguous detail information in the foreground, while self-adapting dissimilarity measure (SDM) also exists some shortages, such as ill textureless and occluded information in the background. To address these problems, we present a novel stereo matching algorithm fusing BP and SDM with an excellent background and foreground information. Lots of experiments show that BP and SDM can complement each other. BP algorithm can hold the better background information due to message propagation inference, whereas SDM can possess the better foreground information due to detail treatment. Therefore, a piecewise function is proposed, which can combine BP algorithm in an excellent background information and SDM in the foreground information, and greatly improve the disparity effect as a whole. We also expect that this work can attract more attention on combination of local methods and global methods, due to its simplicity, efficiency, and accuracy. Experimental results show that the proposed method can keep the superior performance and hold better background and foreground on the Middlebury datasets, compared to BP and SDM.
Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Target Self-Calibrating System with Nonlinear Optimization Technique
Authors: Wang Qiangfeng , Cao Yan , Bai Yu , Wu Yujia , Wu Qingyun
Published: November 2017

In this paper, the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of target self-calibrating system for the guidance system of air-to-air missile is researched. The basic ideology of self-calibrating theory is studied in depth and also the advantages and disadvantages of traditional calibration method, which is based on active vision and target self-calibrating method, are listed for comparison. The mathematical model of the perspective camera is established, and on this basis, the camera parameters are figured out combining with LM optimization algorithm. The reconstruction is conducted by the method of stratified calibrating. It is proved that the theory of 3D reconstruction of target self-calibrating system in air to air missile is available according to the experimental results. It puts forward a new research approach for the guidance system of air to air missile to identify the target characteristic information in different azimuths.
RAPID: Measuring Deformation of Biological Tissues from MR Images Through the Riemannian Pseudo Kernel
Authors: Chen Jia , Zhang Zili , He Ruhan , Hu Xinrong , Qin Xiao
Published: November 2017

Due to the nonlinear deformation of nonrigid and nonuniform tissues, it is challenging to accurately measure the displacements of feature points distributed on the inner parts, boundaries, and separatrices of tissue layers. To address this challenge, we propose a feature point matching technique called RAPID to measure MR 2D slice deformation of nonuniform and nonrigid biological tissues. We propose to use the covariance of several neighboring point statistics computed around a keypoint, as the keypoint descriptor. Inspired by the kernel methods, we advocate adopting a Riemannian pseudo kernel to map SPD matrices to a high dimensional Hilbert space, where the Euclidean geometry applies. We compare our RAPID with two existing schemes (i.e., SIFT and SURF). Our experimental results show that our RAPID is superior to SIFT and SURF, because the benefits offered by RAPID are two-fold. First, our RAPID increases the number of matched data points. Second, RAPID substantially improves the key-point matching accuracy of SIFT and SURF.
Research on Cloud Computing Modeling Based on Fusion Difference Method and Self-Adaptive Threshold Segmentation
Authors: Sun Hong , Chen Shi-Ping , Xu Li-Ping
Published: November 2017

The traditional Gaussian mixture background model failed to build a reasonable background in complex scenarios, so this paper proposes an improved self-adaptive Gaussian mixture background modeling which integrates the difference method and adaptive threshold segmentation to improve the traditional one. In the proposed model, the difference method is applied to achieve the segmentation of changing area and background area, and different weight update policies are used for different areas. Background area updates background model with a fixed update rate. The changing region is divided into moving target area and background show area with the fusion of adaptive threshold; the background show area has a large update rate, allowing the previously obscured parts to recover rapidly; the moving target area won’t build new Gaussian components for the Gaussian mixture model. Experiments show that the video sequence algorithm with uncertainties of building background model has good adaptability. It helps to improve computing speed to a large extent and it can also respond to the change of the actual scene quickly.
Wavelet-based extended morphological profile and deep autoencoder for hyperspectral image classification
Authors: Luo Huiwu , Tang Yuan Yan , Biuk-Aghai Robert P. , Yang Xu , Yang Lina , Wang Yi
Published: November 2017

In this paper, we propose a novel scheme to learn high-level representative features and conduct classification for hyperspectral image (HSI) data in an automatic fashion. The proposed method is a collaboration of a wavelet-based extended morphological profile (WTEMP) and a deep autoencoder (DAE) (“WTEMP-DAE”), with the aim of exploiting the discriminative capability of DAE when using WTEMP features as the input. Each part of WTEMP-DAE is ingenious and contributes to the final classification performance. Specifically, in WTEMP-DAE, the spatial information is extracted from the WTEMP, which is then joined with the wavelet denoised spectral information to form the spectral-spatial description of HSI data. The obtained features are fed into DAE as the original input, where the good weights and bias of the network are initialized through unsupervised pre-training. Once the pre-training is completed, the reconstruction layers are discarded and a logistic regression (LR) layer is added to the top of the network to perform supervised fine-tuning and classification. Experimental results on two real HSI data sets demonstrate that the proposed strategy improves classification performance in comparison with other state-of-the-art hand-crafted feature extractors and their combinations.
SU(5) grand unified theory, its polytopes and 5-fold symmetric aperiodic tiling
Authors: Koca Mehmet , Koca Nazife Ozdes , Al-Siyabi Abeer
Published: November 2017

We associate the lepton–quark families with the vertices of the 4D polytopes 5-cell [Formula: see text] and the rectified 5-cell [Formula: see text] derived from the [Formula: see text] Coxeter–Dynkin diagram. The off-diagonal gauge bosons are associated with the root polytope [Formula: see text] whose facets are tetrahedra and the triangular prisms. The edge-vertex relations are interpreted as the [Formula: see text] charge conservation. The Dynkin diagram symmetry of the [Formula: see text] diagram can be interpreted as a kind of particle-antiparticle symmetry. The Voronoi cell of the root lattice consists of the union of the polytopes [Formula: see text] whose facets are 20 rhombohedra. We construct the Delone (Delaunay) cells of the root lattice as the alternating 5-cell and the rectified 5-cell, a kind of dual to the Voronoi cell. The vertices of the Delone cells closest to the origin consist of the root vectors representing the gauge bosons. The faces of the rhombohedra project onto the Coxeter plane as thick and thin rhombs leading to Penrose-like tiling of the plane which can be used for the description of the 5-fold symmetric quasicrystallography. The model can be extended to [Formula: see text] and even to [Formula: see text] by noting the Coxeter–Dynkin diagram embedding [Formula: see text]. Another embedding can be made through the relation [Formula: see text] for more popular [Formula: see text]. Appendix A includes the quaternionic representations of the Coxeter–Weyl groups [Formula: see text] which can be obtained directly from [Formula: see text] by projection. This leads to relations of the [Formula: see text] polytopes with the quasicrystallography in 4D and [Formula: see text] polytopes. Appendix B discusses the branching of the polytopes in terms of the irreducible representations of the Coxeter–Weyl group [Formula: see text].
Extracting heartrate from optical signal of functional near-infrared spectroscopy based on mathematical morphology
Authors: Sun Jinyan , Rao Linshang , Gao Chenyang
Published: November 2017

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), as a new optical functional neuroimaging method, has been widely used in neuroscience research. In some research fields with NIRS, heartrate (HR) (or heartbeat) is needed as useful information to evaluate its influence, or to know the state of subject, or to remove its artifact. If HR (or heartbeat) can be detected with high accuracy from the optical intensity, this will undoubtedly benefit a lot to many NIRS studies. Previous studies have used the moving time window method or mathematical morphology method (MMM) to detect heartbeats in the optical intensity. However, there are some disadvantages in these methods. In this study, we proposed a method combining the periodic information of heartbeats and the operator of mathematical morphology to automatically detect heartbeats in the optical intensity. First the optical intensity is smoothed using a moving average filter. Then, the opening operator of mathematical morphology extracts peaks in the smoothed optical intensity. Finally, one peak is identified as a heartbeat peak if this peak is the maximum in a predefined point range. Through validation on experimental data, our method can overcome the disadvantages of previous methods, and detect heartbeats in the optical signal of fNIRS with nearly 100% accuracy.
Improving the stability of subnano-MoO3/meso-SiO2 catalyst through amino-functionalization
Authors: Wang Jiasheng , Wu Wenpei , Yang Qianfan , Wang Wan-Hui , Bao Ming
Published: November 2017

Subnano-MoO3 clusters (below 1[Formula: see text]nm) have excellent catalytic activity on oxidative desulfurization (ODS). However, the stability is not very satisfactory due to the leaching of MoO3 during the reaction. To enhance the stability, here we developed a method by grafting NH2 to silica. NH2 could form coordination bond with MoO3, as proved by solid state 1H NMR, which can prevent MoO3 from leaching and thus significantly enhance the stability.
Effect of visual attention guidance by camera work in visualization using dome display
Authors: Ogi Tetsuro , Yokota Takeshi
Published: November 2017

Dome display is expected to be used as effective visualization environment for modeling and simulation due to the features of frameless and high immersive sensation. However, since the users in the dome display can see the projected image in arbitrary direction freely, it is difficult to share information among the viewers. In this research, in order to solve such a problem, the effect of visual attention guidance in the dome environment due to the effect of camera work was examined. As a visualization system, DomePlayer that can express the effect of camera work based on the camera work description language was developed. From the result of evaluation experiments using this system, the constraint condition of the camera work in the dome environment was derived and the effect of visual attention guidance by the camera work was evaluated.
AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF COMPONENTS OF CLIMATE ARCHITECTURES
Authors: MEULEMANN MAX
Published: November 2017

Based on unique data from a worldwide survey among participants of international climate conferences, I investigate the acceptance of the most discussed components of architectures for an international climate agreement, namely: global quantitative targets, sector targets, research and development, geoengineering, land use, and adaptation. Regional and economic differences as well as personal attitudes play an important role for the perception of the different components. Global quantitative targets and adaptation are the most accepted in contrast to a low acceptance of geoengineering. People that are more affected by climate change and value fairness a lot care more about global and sector targets and research and development. Surprisingly, being vulnerable to climate change does not increase the preference for adaptation by much. Furthermore, I analyze which countries or groups of countries are expected to play a leading role for each component. The EU is seen as a key player and not much is expected from the USA and China. I detect a normative bias that increases expectations on China, the EU, and the USA for some of the components.
Dune-slope activity due to frost and wind throughout the north polar erg, Mars
Authors: Diniega Serina , Hansen Candice J. , Allen Amanda , Grigsby Nathan , Li Zheyu , Perez Tyler , Chojnacki Matthew
Published: November 2017

Repeat, high-resolution imaging of dunes within the Martian north polar erg have shown that these dune slopes are very active, with alcoves forming along the dune brink each Mars year. In some areas, a few hundred cubic metres of downslope sand movement have been observed, sometimes moving the dune brink ‘backwards’. Based on morphological and activity-timing similarities of these north polar features to southern dune gullies, identifying the processes forming these features is likely to have relevance for understanding the general evolution/modification of dune gullies. To determine alcove-formation model constraints, we have surveyed seven dune fields, each over 1–4 Mars winters. Consistent with earlier reports, we found that alcove-formation activity occurs during the autumn–winter seasons, before or while the stable seasonal frost layer is deposited. We propose a new model in which alcove formation occurs during the autumn, and springtime sublimation activity then enhances the feature. Summertime winds blow sand into the new alcoves, erasing small alcoves over a few Mars years. Based on the observed rate of alcove erasure, we estimated the effective aeolian sand transport flux. From this, we proposed that alcove formation may account for 2–20% of the total sand movement within these dune fields.
Research for practice
Authors: Regehr John , Bailis Peter
Published: November 2017

Expert-curated guides to the best of CS research.
Flexible and Tradeoff-Aware Constraint-Based Design Space Exploration for Streaming Applications on Heterogeneous Platforms
Authors: Rosvall Kathrin , Sander Ingo
Published: November 2017

Due to its complexity, the problem of mapping and scheduling streaming applications on heterogeneous MPSoCs under real-time and performance constraints has traditionally been tackled by incomplete heuristic algorithms. In recent years, approaches based on Constraint Programming (CP) have shown promising results as complete methods for finding optimal mappings, in particular concerning throughput. However, so far none of the available CP approaches consider the tradeoff between throughput and buffer requirements or throughput and power consumption. This article integrates tradeoff awareness into the CP model and introduces a two-step solving approach that utilizes the advantages of heuristics, while still keeping the completeness property of CP. With a number of experiments considering several streaming applications and different platform models, the article illustrates not only the efficiency of the presented model but also its suitability for solving different problems with various combinations of performance constraints.
Automatically accelerating non-numerical programs by architecture-compiler co-design
Authors: Campanoni Simone , Brownell Kevin , Kanev Svilen , Jones Timothy M. , Wei Gu-Yeon , Brooks David
Published: November 2017

Because of the high cost of communication between processors, compilers that parallelize loops automatically have been forced to skip a large class of loops that are both critical to performance and rich in latent parallelism. HELIX-RC is a compiler/microprocessor co-design that opens those loops to parallelization by decoupling communication from thread execution in conventional multicore architecures. Simulations of HELIX-RC, applied to a processor with 16 Intel Atom-like cores, show an average of 6.85× performance speedup for six SPEC CINT2000 benchmarks.
"Constrained crowd judgment analysis" by Sujoy Chatterjee, Anirban Mukhopadhyay and Malay Bhattacharyya with Martin Vesely as coordinator
Authors: Chatterjee Sujoy , Mukhopadhyay Anirban , Bhattacharyya Malay
Published: November 2017

Leveraging the online crowd replacing limited experts has become a successful practice over the last decade for solving diverse real-life problems. Various complex problems are now being solved utilizing the power of crowd, an approach popularly termed as 'crowdsourcing'. Judgment analysis refers to a particular type of crowdsourcing task where we aggregate the opinions collected from the crowd for a purpose. We, being the rational agents, have a common interest towards knowing others' opinions before providing our own. This broadly categorizes the problem of judgment analysis into two types --- with independent and with dependent opinions. However, a new paradigm of crowd based judgment analysis has recently evolved, which can tackle the constrained opinions of crowd workers. In this article, we touch upon this novel problem of constrained crowd judgment analysis and discuss its possible dimensions of research.
Perovskites boost solar-cell potential
Authors: Monroe Don
Published: November 2017

New materials could allow cheaper, more efficient solar cells for both traditional and novel applications.
Grooming the leaders of tomorrow
Authors: Hoffmann Leah
Published: November 2017

Former Stanford University president John Hennessy is the academic architect behind the knight-hennessy scholars program.
Lousy advice to the lovelorn
Authors: Davis Ernest
Published: November 2017

The 37% rule is rarely applicable in real-world situations. It is certainly entirely wrong-headed as advice for getting married.
Cold, hard cache
Authors: Neville-Neil George V.
Published: November 2017

On the implementation and maintenance of caches.
Green Method for Synthesis of Gold Nanoparticles Using Polyscias scutellaria Leaf Extract under UV Light and Their Catalytic Activity to Reduce Methylene Blue
Authors: Yulizar Yoki , Utari Tresye , Ariyanta Harits Atika , Maulina Digha
Published: November 2017

The aqueous fraction of Polyscias scutellaria leaf extract (PSE) has been used as a reducing agent and stabilizer in the green synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). UV-Vis spectrophotometry, particle size analyzer (PSA), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy-selected area electron diffraction (TEM-SAED), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize AuNPs. The AuNPs have a size of 5–20 nm and have a face centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure and are stable for 21 days. Phenolic compounds, which are secondary metabolites of PSE, act as an active compound to reduce Au3+ ion to Au0, as well as stabilize the AuNPs through their surface interaction with carbonyl and hydroxyl groups of phenols. AuNPs exhibit excellent catalytic activity for the reduction of methylene blue with NaBH4. The reduction of methylene blue using AuNPs catalysts is a pseudo-first-order reaction with a reduction rate constant (kobs) of 0.0223 min−1.
Overexpression of Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein Increases Macrophage-Derived Foam Cell Accumulation in Atherosclerotic Lesions of Transgenic Rabbits
Authors: Gao Shoucui , Wang Xiaojing , Cheng Daxing , Li Jiayan , Li Lu , Ran Linwu , Zhao Sihai , Fan Jianglin , Liu Enqi
Published: November 2017

High levels of plasma high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) are inversely associated with the risk of atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases; thus, pharmacological inhibition of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) is considered to be a therapeutic method of raising HDL-C levels. However, many CETP inhibitors have failed to achieve a clinical benefit despite raising HDL-C. In the study, we generated transgenic (Tg) rabbits that overexpressed the human CETP gene to examine the influence of CETP on the development of atherosclerosis. Both Tg rabbits and their non-Tg littermates were fed a high cholesterol diet for 16 weeks. Plasma lipids and body weight were measured every 4 weeks. Gross lesion areas of the aortic atherosclerosis along with lesional cellular components were quantitatively analyzed. Overexpression of human CETP did not significantly alter the gross atherosclerotic lesion area, but the number of macrophages in lesions was significantly increased. Overexpression of human CETP did not change the plasma levels of total cholesterol or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol but lowered plasma HDL-C and increased triglycerides. These data revealed that human CETP may play an important role in the development of atherosclerosis mainly by decreasing HDL-C levels and increasing the accumulation of macrophage-derived foam cells.
Hybrid Solutions of (3 + 1)‐Dimensional Jimbo‐Miwa Equation
Authors: Zhang Yong , Sun Shili , Dong Huanhe
Published: November 2017

The rational solutions, semirational solutions, and their interactions to the (3 + 1)‐dimensional Jimbo‐Miwa equation are obtained by the Hirota bilinear method and long wave limit. The hybrid solutions contain rogue wave, lump solution, and the breather solution, in which the breathers which are manifested as growing and decaying periodic line waves show different dynamics in different planes. Rogue waves are localized in time and are obtained theoretically as a long wave limit of breathers with indefinitely larger periods; they arise from a constant background at t ≪ 0 and then disappear in the constant background when time goes on. More importantly, the interactions between some hybrid solutions are demonstrated in detail by the three‐dimensional figures, such as hybrid solution between the stripe soliton and breather and hybrid solution between stripe soliton and lump solution.
The Outcome of Thoracentesis versus Chest Tube Placement for Hepatic Hydrothorax in Patients with Cirrhosis: A Nationwide Analysis of the National Inpatient Sample
Authors: Ridha Ali , Al-Abboodi Yasir , Fasullo Matthew
Published: November 2017

There are only a few studies with a small sample size of patients that have compared the risks of using chest tubes versus thoracentesis in hepatic hydrothorax. It has been shown that many complications may arise secondary to chest tube placement and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. In this retrospective study, patients with cirrhosis were identified from the 2009 National Inpatient Sample by using ICD-9 codes; we evaluated the risk of chest tube versus thoracentesis in a largest population with hepatic hydrothorax to date to measure the mortality and the length of stay. A total of 140,573 patients with liver cirrhosis were identified. Of this, 1981 patients had a hepatic hydrothorax and ended up with either thoracentesis (1776) or chest tube (205). The mortality in those who received a chest tube was two times higher than that in thoracentesis group with a P value of ≤0.001 (CI 1.43–312). In addition, the length of hospital stay of the chest tube group was longer than that of the thoracentesis subset (7.2 days versus 3.8 days, resp.). We concluded that chest tube placement has two times higher mortality rate and longer hospital length of stay when compared to patients who underwent thoracentesis.
Analysis of the Optimal Resource Allocation for a Tandem Queueing System
Authors: Liu Zaiming , Deng Wei , Chen Gang
Published: November 2017

We study a controllable two‐station tandem queueing system, where customers (jobs) must first be processed at upstream station and then the downstream station. A manager dynamically allocates the service resource to each station to adjust the service rate, leading to a tradeoff between the holding cost and resource cost. The goal of the manager is to find the optimal policy to minimize the long‐run average costs. The problem is constructed as a Markov decision process (MDP). In this paper, we consider the model in which the resource cost and service rate functions are more general than linear. We derive the monotonicity of the optimal allocation policy by the quasiconvexity properties of the value function. Furthermore, we obtain the relationship between the two stations’ optimal policy and conditions under which the optimal policy is unique and has the bang‐bang control property. Finally, we provide some numerical experiments to illustrate these results.
Cracking Behavior of a Concrete Arch Dam with Weak Upper Abutment
Authors: Xu Lei , Jing Shuaizhao , Liu Jie , Huang Yefei
Published: November 2017

The cracking behavior and failure mode of a 78 m high concrete double‐curvature arch dam with weak upper abutment are investigated through performing cracking analysis. The mechanical behavior of concrete is simulated using a smeared crack model, in which a combination of the compression yield surface and the crack detection surface with a damaged elasticity concept is employed to describe the failure of concrete. The arch dam with practical mechanical properties of the upper and lower abutments is firstly studied with emphasis on its cracking behavior during overloading. Then, a comprehensive sensitivity analysis is carried out to investigate the influence of the ratio of the mechanical properties of upper abutment to those of lower abutment on dam failure with prime attention placed on the failure mode. Simulation results indicate the adopted smeared crack model is well‐suited to the crack analysis of concrete arch dam. It is shown that cracking is localized around the interface between upper and lower abutments, which leads to a fast crack growth in the through‐thickness direction of dam and finally causes the dam failure. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis presents three types of failure modes corresponding to different ratio value, wherein Modes II and III should be avoided since the weak upper abutment plays a predominant role in the cracking and failure of concrete arch dam.
Association between Soil Fertility and Growth Performance of Planted Shorea macrophylla (de Vriese) after Enrichment Planting at Rehabilitation Sites of Sampadi Forest Reserve, Sarawak, Malaysia
Authors: Perumal Mugunthan , Wasli Mohd Effendi , Ying Ho Soo , Lat Jonathan , Sani Hamsawi
Published: November 2017

A study was conducted to determine the status of soil properties after enrichment planting in comparison to an adjacent secondary forest and to evaluate the effect of enrichment planting of Shorea macrophylla (de Vriese) on the soil fertility status with special reference to Soil Fertility Index (SFI) and Soil Evaluation Factor (SEF) at Sampadi Forest Reserve, Sarawak. The study sites were stands rehabilitated in different years (1996: SM96; 1997: SM97; 1998: SM98; 1999: SM99) and secondary forest (SF). Findings indicated that the soils at rehabilitation sites and SF were strongly acidic in nature, with pH less than 5.50, poor soil exchangeable bases, and nutrient status. The soils were relatively of sandy clay loam to sandy clay. Principal Component Analysis revealed the three most significant components of the soil properties which explained 76.3% of the total variation. At surface soils, SFI was correlated with tree growth parameters of S. macrophylla, indicating that SFI is an applicable soil quality index as compared to SEF. Notwithstanding, a significant association was found between soil available phosphorus and planted S. macrophylla, indicating that soil phosphorus is a better indicator than SFI. Further studies on other environmental factors influencing tree growth performance, early establishment of experimental reforestation at nursery, and field should be implemented to obtain the initial data on seedling growth performance prior to outplanting.
Efficient Active Sensing with Categorized Further Explorations for a Home Behavior-Monitoring Robot
Authors: Yu Wenwei , Nakahata Keigo , Sun Guang Hao , Namiki Akio , Suwa Sayuri , Tsujimura Mayuko , Xie Le , Wang Jinwu , Huang Shao Ying
Published: November 2017

Mobile robotics is a potential solution to home behavior monitoring for the elderly. For a mobile robot in the real world, there are several types of uncertainties for its perceptions, such as the ambiguity between a target object and the surrounding objects and occlusions by furniture. The problem could be more serious for a home behavior-monitoring system, which aims to accurately recognize the activity of a target person, in spite of these uncertainties. It detects irregularities and categorizes situations requiring further explorations, which strategically maximize the information needed for activity recognition while minimizing the costs. Two schemes of active sensing, based on two irregularity detections, namely, heuristic-based and template-matching-based irregularity detections, were implemented and examined for body contour-based activity recognition. Their time cost and accuracy in activity recognition were evaluated through experiments in both a controlled scenario and a home living scenario. Experiment results showed that the categorized further explorations guided the robot system to sense the target person actively. As a result, with the proposed approach, the robot system has achieved higher accuracy of activity recognition.
Special Care Dentistry in a Patient with Prader–Willi Syndrome through the Use of Atraumatic Restorative Treatment under General Anesthesia
Authors: Roman-Torres Caio Vinícius Gonçalves , Kussaba Sérgio Takashi , Bantim Yasmin Comoti Vita , de Oliveira Roberta de Barros Antunes Almeida
Published: November 2017

Prader–Willi syndrome described in 1956 has a genetic origin, affecting both genders, varying in presence and intensity from individual to individual. A precocious diagnosis, before the manifestation of symptoms, has brought some improvement in the quality of life of the carriers in the last years. The objective of this case report was to describe the treatment realized in a 3-year-old boy who presented grade II obesity, difficulty of locomotion, hypotonia, and history of cardiopathy. A dental treatment under general anesthesia was defined, allowing an oral adequation in a single section, in which it was planned the extraction of the element 74 and atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) technique in the other teeth. The precocious intervention in this 3-year-old patient by the therapy realized with ART under general anesthesia was done with success, avoiding unnecessary extractions, preserving dental elements, and maintaining the oral cavity in adequate function.
Noncommutative Relativistic Spacetimes and Worldlines from 2 + 1 Quantum (Anti-)de Sitter Groups
Authors: Ballesteros Ángel , Bruno N. Rossano , Herranz Francisco J.
Published: November 2017

Theκ-deformation of the (2 + 1)D anti-de Sitter, Poincaré, and de Sitter groups is presented through a unified approach in which the curvature of the spacetime (or the cosmological constant) is considered as an explicit parameter. The Drinfel’d-double and the Poisson–Lie structure underlying theκ-deformation are explicitly given, and the three quantum kinematical groups are obtained as quantizations of such Poisson–Lie algebras. As a consequence, the noncommutative (2 + 1)D spacetimes that generalize theκ-Minkowski space to the (anti-)de Sitter ones are obtained. Moreover, noncommutative 4D spaces of (time-like) geodesics can be defined, and they can be interpreted as a novel possibility to introduce noncommutative worldlines. Furthermore, quantum (anti-)de Sitter algebras are presented both in the known basis related to 2 + 1 quantum gravity and in a new one which generalizes the bicrossproduct one. In this framework, the quantum deformation parameter is related to the Planck length, and the existence of a kind of “duality” between the cosmological constant and the Planck scale is also envisaged.
Neuroprotective Effects and Mechanism of β‐Asarone against Aβ1–42‐Induced Injury in Astrocytes
Authors: Yang Yuanxiao , Xuan Ling , Chen Hongshu , Dai Shijie , Ji Liting , Bao Yuting , Li Changyu
Published: November 2017

Emerging evidence suggests that activated astrocytes play important roles in AD, and β‐asarone, a major component of Acorus tatarinowii Schott, was shown to be a potential therapeutic candidate for AD. While our previous study found that β‐asarone could improve the cognitive function of rats hippocampally injected with Aβ, the effects of β‐asarone on astrocytes remain unclear, and this study aimed to investigate these effects. A rat model of Aβ1–42 (10 μg) was established, and the rats were intragastrically treated with β‐asarone at doses of 10, 20, and 30 mg/kg or donepezil at a dose of 0.75 mg/kg. The sham and model groups were intragastrically injected with an equal volume of saline. Animals were sacrificed on the 28th day after administration of the drugs. In addition, a cellular model of Aβ1–42 (1.1 μM, 6 h) was established, and cells were treated with β‐asarone at doses of 0, 2.06, 6.17, 18.5, 55.6, and 166.7 μg/mL. β‐Asarone improved cognitive impairment, alleviated Aβ deposition and hippocampal damage, and inhibited GFAP, AQP4, IL‐1β, and TNF‐α expression. These results suggested that β‐asarone could alleviate the symptoms of AD by protecting astrocytes, possibly by inhibiting TNF‐α and IL‐1β secretion and then downregulating AQP4 expression.
Clinical Application of Quantitative Foetal Fibronectin for the Prediction of Preterm Birth in Symptomatic Women
Authors: Radford Samara K. , Da Silva Costa Fabricio , Araujo Júnior Edward , Sheehan Penelope M.
Published: November 2017

Aim: To evaluate the clinical application of the new Hologic quantitative foetal fibronectin (qfFN) bedside test for the prediction of spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) in patients with symptoms suggestive of spontaneous threatened preterm labour (sPTL). Methods: A prospective observational study with 154 pregnant women presenting signs and symptoms of sPTL was conducted. These women were subjected to a qfFN test between 22 and 35 weeks of gestation For each cut-off threshold, the ability to predict sPTB at within 14 days of conducting the test and <37 weeks was assessed by calculating the positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), likelihood ratios, odds ratios, sensitivity, and specificity. Results: For the outcome of delivery within 14 days of the test, qfFN <10 ng/mL had a 100% NPV and >200 ng/mL produced a 50.0% PPV; thus, qfFN added enhanced discrimination between high- and low-risk patients. The overall rate of sPTB (<37) was 13.3% (16/120), which increased progressively with increasing levels of fFN, with rates of 9.8% (8/81), 11.5% (3/26), 14.2% (1/7), 50% (3/6) within the 4 categories (fFN 0-9, 10-49, 50-200, 200+) respectively. Conclusions: The use of the qfFN testing in symptomatic patients allowed for more accurate identification of women at risk of sPTB and thus more directed management.
The Recovery of Microvascular Status Evaluated by Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography in Patients after Successful Macular Hole Surgery
Authors: Demirel Sibel , Değirmenci Mehmet Fatih Kağan , Bilici Serdar , Yanik Özge , Batıoğlu Figen , Özmert Emin , Alp Numan
Published: November 2017

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) features of patients who underwent successful macular hole (MH) surgery. Methods: Nineteen patients who underwent surgery in a single eye due to MH and 13 healthy subjects as a control group were included in the study. Vascular densities, flow indexes, and the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area in superficial and deep retinal capillary plexuses were evaluated by OCTA in the right eyes of the control group, and both the surgical and healthy fellow eyes of the patients. Results: The mean vascular densities of the superficial and deep capillary plexuses were significantly lower in the surgical eyes than in the control group (44.1 vs. 49.6%, p = 0.002, and 47.3 vs. 59.1%, p = 0.009, respectively). The mean superficial and deep capillary flow indexes were significantly lower in the surgical eyes than in the control group (0.85 vs. 1.35, p = 0.003, and 0.57 vs. 1.45, p = 0.001, respectively), while the mean superficial and deep FAZ area were significantly greater in the surgical eyes in comparison to the control group (0.55 vs. 0.32, p < 0.001, and 0.64 vs. 0.37, p = 0.001, respectively). There was no difference between the flow indexes of both layers of the healthy fellow eyes and the control group. Conclusions: These preliminary results may be an explanation for unsatisfactory visual gain after surgery, despite the successful anatomical closure of the MH.
Rehabilitation of Cancer Survivors with Long-Term Toxicities
Authors: Schmielau Jan , Rick Oliver , Reuss-Borst Monika , Kalusche-Bontemps Eva-Maria , Steimann Monika
Published: November 2017

The prognosis of cancer patients is constantly improving, which increases the importance of securing long-term quality of life. While therapy of treatment-related disability mostly succeeds a cancer-specific treatment, physicians' awareness of simultaneous supportive therapy is rising. Early interventions such as physical exercise during chemotherapy are effective in reducing conditions such as fatigue. Specific sensorimotor training is able to improve or even prevent impairment of balance caused by neurotoxic agents. Although targeted therapies reduce the risk of side effects, combinations with established drugs have to be monitored with regard to cardiotoxicity, which is already a concern in children's cancer therapy and is now also focused on in long-term adult survivors. Improvement in diagnosis und surgical procedures have reduced impairments such as lymphedema. Furthermore, management and quality of life of breast cancer patients benefit from evidence showing that physical exercise and resistance training do not increase the risk of developing lymphedema.
Microarray Expression Profile of Circular RNAs in Plasma from Primary Biliary Cholangitis Patients
Authors: Zheng Jiajia , Li Zhenrong , Wang Tiancheng , Zhao Yang , Wang Yongfeng
Published: November 2017

Background/Aims: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play a crucial role in the occurrence of several diseases, including autoimmune diseases. However, their role in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) remains unclear. Here, we aimed to determine the circRNA expression profile in plasma from PBC patients and further explore the value of circRNA in diagnosing PBC. Methods: CircRNA microarrays were used to determine circRNA expression profiles in plasma samples from 6 PBC patients and 6 healthy controls. Statistical analyses identified differentially expressed circRNAs, and these circRNAs were verified by qRT-PCR in 29 PBC patients and 30 healthy controls. MicroRNA (miRNA) target prediction software identified putative miRNA response elements (MREs), which were used to construct a map of circRNA-miRNA interactions for the differentially expressed circRNAs. Results: Our results indicated that there were 18 up-regulated and 4 down-regulated circular RNAs in the plasma from PBC patients compared with that from healthy individuals. Among the differentially expressed circRNAs, hsa_circ_402458 (P=0.0033), hsa_circ_087631 and hsa_circ_406329 (P=0.0185) were up-regulated, and hsa_circ_407176 (P=0.0066) and hsa_circ_082319 were down-regulated in the PBC group versus the healthy group as demonstrated by qRT-PCR. In particular, hsa_circ_402458 was significantly higher in PBC patients not receiving UDCA treatment than in PBC patients receiving UDCA treatment (P=0.0338). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for hsa_circ_402458 for diagnosing PBC was 0.710 (P=0.005). For hsa_circ_402458, two putative miRNA targets, hsa-miR-522-3p and hsa-miR-943, were predicted. Conclusions: circRNA dysregulation may play a role in PBC pathogenesis, and hsa_circ_402458 shows promise as a candidate biomarker for PBC.
MiR-193a-3p is an Important Tumour Suppressor in Lung Cancer and Directly Targets KRAS
Authors: Fan Qian , Hu Xiuting , Zhang Haiyang , Wang Shengguang , Zhang Huilai , You Chaoying , Zhang Chen-Yu , Liang Hongwei , Chen Xi , Ba Yi
Published: November 2017

Background/Aims: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as major regulators of tumour development and progression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the role of miR-193a-3p in NSCLC is still unclear. Methods: Quantitative RT-PCR was used to detect miR-193a-3p expression levels in NSCLC tumour tissues. CCK8, EdU and cell migration assays were performed to analyse the biological functions of miR-193a-3p in NSCLC cells. Luciferase reporter assays were used to validate the bioinformatics-predicted target genes of miR-193a-3p. Western blotting and RNA/DNA interference carried out to evaluate the association between miR-193a-3p and KRAS. Results: miR-193a-3p expression was decreased in the NSCLC tumour tissues. We investigated the biological effects of miR-193a-3p both in vivo and in vitro and found that enforced expression of miR-193a-3p inhibited tumour formation and suppressed cell proliferation and cell migration. KRAS was found to be a potential target of miR-193a-3p, and dual luciferase reporter assays showed that miR-193a-3p directly binds to the 3’-untranslated region (3’-UTR) of KRAS mRNA. In addition, we found that changing the expression of KRAS had the opposite results to those induced by miR-193a-3p in the NSCLC cells. Importantly, simultaneous overexpression of miR-193a-3p and KRAS could counteract the effects of both on cellular functions. Conclusion: These findings highlight an important role for miR-193a-3p as a tumour suppressor in NSCLC pathogenesis via the regulation of KRAS expression.
Emodin Inhibits ATP-Induced Proliferation and Migration by Suppressing P2Y Receptors in Human Lung Adenocarcinoma Cells
Authors: Wang Xia , Li Long , Guan Ruijuan , Zhu Danian , Song Nana , Shen Linlin
Published: November 2017

Background/Aims: Extracellular ATP performs multiple important functions via activation of P2 receptors on the cell surface. P2Y receptors play critical roles in ATP evoked response in human lung adenocarcinoma cells (A549 cells). Emodin is an anthraquinone derivative originally isolated from Chinese rhubarb, possesses anticancer properties. In this study we examined the inhibiting effects of emodin on proliferation, migration and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) by suppressing P2Y receptors-dependent Ca2+ increase and nuclear factor-κB (NF-KB) signaling in A549 cells. Methods: A549 cells were pretreated with emodin before stimulation with ATP for the indicated time. Then, intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) was measured by Fluo-8/AM staining. Cell proliferation and cell cycle progression were tested by CCK8 assay and flow cytometry In addition, wound healing and western blot were performed to determine cell migration and related protein levels (Bcl-2, Bax, claudin-1, NF-κB). Results: Emodin blunted ATP/UTP-induced increase of [Ca2+]i and cell proliferation concentration-dependently Meanwhile, it decreased ATP-induced cells accumulation in the S phase. Furthermore, emodin altered protein abundance of Bcl-2, Bax and claudin-1 and attenuated EMT caused by ATP. Such ATP-induced cellular reactions were also inhibited by a nonselective P2Y receptors antagonist, suramin, in a similar way to emodin. Besides, emodin could inhibit activation of NF-κB, thus suppressed ATP-induced proliferation, migration and EMT. Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that emodin inhibits ATP-induced proliferation, migration, EMT by suppressing P2Y receptors-mediated [Ca2+]i increase and NF-κB signaling in A549 cells.