bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Empowering union and intersection types with integrated subtyping
Authors: Muehlboeck Fabian , Tate Ross
Published: October 2018

Union and intersection types are both simple and powerful but have seen limited adoption. The problem is that, so far, subtyping algorithms for type systems extended with union and intersections have typically been either unreliable or insufficiently expressive. We present a simple and composable framework for empowering union and intersection types so that they interact with the rest of the type system in an intuitive and yet still decidable manner. We demonstrate the utility of this framework by illustrating the impact it has made throughout the design of the Ceylon programming language developed by Red Hat.
Format abstraction for sparse tensor algebra compilers
Authors: Chou Stephen , Kjolstad Fredrik , Amarasinghe Saman
Published: October 2018

This paper shows how to build a sparse tensor algebra compiler that is agnostic to tensor formats (data layouts). We develop an interface that describes formats in terms of their capabilities and properties, and show how to build a modular code generator where new formats can be added as plugins. We then describe six implementations of the interface that compose to form the dense, CSR/CSF, COO, DIA, ELL, and HASH tensor formats and countless variants thereof. With these implementations at hand, our code generator can generate code to compute any tensor algebra expression on any combination of the aforementioned formats.

To demonstrate our technique, we have implemented it in the taco tensor algebra compiler. Our modular code generator design makes it simple to add support for new tensor formats, and the performance of the generated code is competitive with hand-optimized implementations. Furthermore, by extending taco to support a wider range of formats specialized for different application and data characteristics, we can improve end-user application performance. For example, if input data is provided in the COO format, our technique allows computing a single matrix-vector multiplication directly with the data in COO, which is up to 3.6× faster than by first converting the data to CSR.
Towards understanding the costs of avoiding out-of-thin-air results
Authors: Ou Peizhao , Demsky Brian
Published: October 2018

Eliminating so-called “out-of-thin-air” (OOTA) results is an open problem with many existing programming language memory models including Java, C, and C++. OOTA behaviors are problematic in that they break both formal and informal modular reasoning about program behavior. Defining memory model semantics that are easily understood, allow existing optimizations, and forbid OOTA results remains an open problem. This paper explores two simple solutions to this problem that forbid OOTA results. One solution is targeted towards C/C++-like memory models in which racing operations are explicitly labeled as atomic operations and a second solution is targeted towards Java-like languages in which all memory operations may create OOTA executions. Our solutions provide a per-candidate execution criterion that makes it possible to examine a single execution and determine whether the memory model permits the execution. We implemented and evaluated both solutions in the LLVM compiler framework. Our results show that on an ARMv8 processor the first solution has no overhead on average and a maximum overhead of 6.3% on 43 concurrent data structures, and that the second solution has an average overhead of 3.1% and a maximum overhead of 17.6% on the SPEC CPU2006 C/C++ benchmarks.
Precise and scalable points-to analysis via data-driven context tunneling
Authors: Jeon Minseok , Jeong Sehun , Oh Hakjoo
Published: October 2018

We present context tunneling, a new approach for making
k
-limited context-sensitive points-to analysis precise and scalable. As context-sensitivity holds the key to the development of precise and scalable points-to analysis, a variety of techniques for context-sensitivity have been proposed. However, existing approaches such as
k
-call-site-sensitivity or
k
-object-sensitivity have a significant weakness that they unconditionally update the context of a method at every call-site, allowing important context elements to be overwritten by more recent, but not necessarily more important, context elements. In this paper, we show that this is a key limiting factor of existing context-sensitive analyses, and demonstrate that remarkable increase in both precision and scalability can be gained by maintaining important context elements only. Our approach, called context tunneling, updates contexts selectively and decides when to propagate the same context without modification.

We attain context tunneling via a data-driven approach. The effectiveness of context tunneling is very sensitive to the choice of important context elements. Even worse, precision is not monotonically increasing with respect to the ordering of the choices. As a result, manually coming up with a good heuristic rule for context tunneling is extremely challenging and likely fails to maximize its potential. We address this challenge by developing a specialized data-driven algorithm, which is able to automatically search for high-quality heuristics over the non-monotonic space of context tunneling.

We implemented our approach in the Doop framework and applied it to four major flavors of context-sensitivity: call-site-sensitivity, object-sensitivity, type-sensitivity, and hybrid context-sensitivity. In all cases, 1-context-sensitive analysis with context tunneling far outperformed deeper context-sensitivity with
k
=2 in both precision and scalability.
Refinement in object-sensitivity points-to analysis via slicing
Authors: Rama Girish Maskeri , Komondoor Raghavan , Sharma Himanshu
Published: October 2018

Object sensitivity analysis is a well-known form of context-sensitive points-to analysis. This analysis is parameterized by a bound on the names of symbolic objects associated with each allocation site. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on object sensitivity analysis that takes as input a set of client queries, and tries to answer them using an initial round of inexpensive object sensitivity analysis that uses a low object-name length bound at all allocation sites. For the queries that are answered unsatisfactorily, the approach then pin points "bad" points-to facts, which are the ones that are responsible for the imprecision. It then employs a form of program slicing to identify allocation sites that are potentially causing these bad points-to facts to be generated. The approach then runs object sensitivity analysis once again, this time using longer names for just these allocation sites, with the objective of resolving the imprecision in this round. We describe our approach formally, prove its completeness, and describe a Datalog-based implementation of it on top of the Petablox framework. Our evaluation of our approach on a set of large Java benchmarks, using two separate clients, reveals that our approach is more precise than the baseline object sensitivity approach, by around 29% for one of the clients and by around 19% for the other client. Our approach is also more precise on most large benchmarks than a recently proposed approach that uses SAT solvers to identify allocation sites to refine.
FlashProfile: a framework for synthesizing data profiles
Authors: Padhi Saswat , Jain Prateek , Perelman Daniel , Polozov Oleksandr , Gulwani Sumit , Millstein Todd
Published: October 2018

We address the problem of learning a
syntactic profile
for a collection of strings, i.e. a set of regex-like patterns that succinctly describe the syntactic variations in the strings. Real-world datasets, typically curated from multiple sources, often contain data in various syntactic formats. Thus, any data processing task is preceded by the critical step of data format identification. However, manual inspection of data to identify the different formats is infeasible in standard big-data scenarios.

Prior techniques are restricted to a small set of pre-defined patterns (e.g. digits, letters, words etc.), and provide no control over granularity of profiles. We define syntactic profiling as a problem of clustering strings based on syntactic similarity, followed by identifying patterns that succinctly describe each cluster. We present a technique for synthesizing such profiles over a given language of patterns, that also allows for interactive refinement by requesting a desired number of clusters.

Using a state-of-the-art inductive synthesis framework, PROSE, we have implemented our technique as FlashProfile. Across 153 tasks over 75 large real datasets, we observe a median profiling time of only ∼ 0.7s. Furthermore, we show that access to syntactic profiles may allow for more accurate synthesis of programs, i.e. using fewer examples, in programming-by-example (PBE) workflows such as Flash Fill.
Software multiplexing: share your libraries and statically link them too
Authors: Dietz Will , Adve Vikram
Published: October 2018

We describe a compiler strategy we call “
Software Multiplexing
” that achieves many benefits of both statically linked and dynamically linked libraries, and adds some additional advantages. Specifically, it achieves the code size benefits of dynamically linked libraries while eliminating the major disadvantages: unexpected failures due to missing dependences, slow startup times, reduced execution performance due to indirect references to globals, and the potential for security vulnerabilities. We design Software Multiplexing so that it works even in the common case where application build systems support only dynamic and not static linking; we have automatically built thousands of Linux software packages in this way. Software Multiplexing combines two ideas:
Automatic Multicall
, i.e., where multiple independent programs are automatically merged into a single executable, and
Static Linking of Shared Libraries
, which works by linking an IR-level version of application code and all its libraries, even if the libraries are normally compiled as shared,
before
native code generation. The benefits are achieved primarily through deduplication of libraries across the multiplexed programs, while using static linking, and secondly through more effective unused code elimination for statically linked shared libraries. Compared with equivalent dynamically linked programs, allmux-optimized programs start more quickly and even have slightly lower memory usage and total disk size. Compared with equivalent statically linked programs, allmux-optimized programs are
much
smaller in both aggregate size and memory usage, and have similar startup times and execution performance. We have implemented Software Multiplexing in a tool called allmux, part of the open-source ALLVM project. Example results show that when the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure is optimized using allmux, the resulting binaries and libraries are 18.3% smaller
and
30% faster than the default production version. For 74 other packages containing 2–166 programs each, multiplexing each package into one static binary reduces the aggregate package size by 39% (geometric mean) compared with dynamic linking.
Speeding up symbolic reasoning for relational queries
Authors: Wang Chenglong , Cheung Alvin , Bodik Rastislav
Published: October 2018

The ability to reason about relational queries plays an important role across many types of database applications, such as test data generation, query equivalence checking, and computer-assisted query authoring. Unfortunately, symbolic reasoning about relational queries can be challenging because relational tables are multisets (bags) of tuples, and the underlying languages, such as SQL, can introduce complex computation among tuples.

We propose a space refinement algorithm that soundly reduces the space of tables such applications need to consider. The refinement procedure, independent of the specific dataset application, uses the abstract semantics of the query language to exploit the provenance of tuples in the query output to prune the search space. We implemented the refinement algorithm and evaluated it on SQL using three reasoning tasks: bounded query equivalence checking, test generation for applications that manipulate relational data, and concolic testing of database applications. Using real world benchmarks, we show that our refinement algorithm significantly speeds up (up to 100×) the SQL solver when reasoning about a large class of challenging SQL queries, such as those with aggregations.
Compositional programming and testing of dynamic distributed systems
Authors: Desai Ankush , Phanishayee Amar , Qadeer Shaz , Seshia Sanjit A.
Published: October 2018

A real-world distributed system is rarely implemented as a standalone monolithic system. Instead, it is composed of multiple independent interacting components that together ensure the desired system-level specification. One can scale systematic testing to large, industrial-scale implementations by decomposing the system-level testing problem into a collection of simpler component-level testing problems.

This paper proposes techniques for compositional programming and testing of distributed systems with two central contributions: (1) We propose a module system based on the theory of compositional trace refinement for dynamic systems consisting of asynchronously-communicating state machines, where state machines can be dynamically created, and communication topology of the existing state machines can change at runtime; (2) We present ModP, a programming system that implements our module system to enable compositional reasoning (assume-guarantee) of distributed systems.

We demonstrate the efficacy of our framework by building two practical fault-tolerant distributed systems, a transaction-commit service and a replicated hash-table. ModP helps implement these systems modularly and validate them via compositional testing. We empirically demonstrate that the abstraction-based compositional reasoning approach helps amplify the coverage during testing and scale it to real-world distributed systems. The distributed services built using ModP achieve performance comparable to open-source equivalents.
Finding broken promises in asynchronous JavaScript programs
Authors: Alimadadi Saba , Zhong Di , Madsen Magnus , Tip Frank
Published: October 2018

Recently, promises were added to ECMAScript 6, the JavaScript standard, in order to provide better support for the asynchrony that arises in user interfaces, network communication, and non-blocking I/O. Using promises, programmers can avoid common pitfalls of event-driven programming such as event races and the deeply nested counterintuitive control ow referred to as “callback hell”. Unfortunately, promises have complex semantics and the intricate control– and data- ow present in promise-based code hinders program comprehension and can easily lead to bugs. The promise graph was proposed as a graphical aid for understanding and debugging promise-based code. However, it did not cover all promise-related features in ECMAScript 6, and did not present or evaluate any technique for constructing the promise graphs. In this paper, we extend the notion of promise graphs to include all promise-related features in ECMAScript 6, including default reactions, exceptions, and the synchronization operations race and all. Furthermore, we report on the construction and evaluation of PromiseKeeper, which performs a dynamic analysis to create promise graphs and infer common promise anti-patterns. We evaluate PromiseKeeper by applying it to 12 open source promise-based Node.js applications. Our results suggest that the promise graphs constructed by PromiseKeeper can provide developers with valuable information about occurrences of common anti-patterns in their promise-based code, and that promise graphs can be constructed with acceptable run-time overhead.
Safe replication through bounded concurrency verification
Authors: Kaki Gowtham , Earanky Kapil , Sivaramakrishnan KC , Jagannathan Suresh
Published: October 2018

High-level data types are often associated with semantic invariants that must be preserved by any correct implementation. While having implementations enforce strong guarantees such as linearizability or serializability can often be used to prevent invariant violations in concurrent settings, such mechanisms are impractical in geo-distributed replicated environments, the platform of choice for many scalable Web services. To achieve high-availability essential to this domain, these environments admit various forms of weak consistency that do not guarantee all replicas have a consistent view of an application's state. Consequently, they often admit difficult-to-understand anomalous behaviors that violate a data type's invariants, but which are extremely challenging, even for experts, to understand and debug.

In this paper, we propose a novel programming framework for replicated data types (RDTs) equipped with an automatic (bounded) verification technique that discovers and fixes weak consistency anomalies. Our approach, implemented in a tool called Q9, involves systematically exploring the state space of an application executing on top of an eventually consistent data store, under an unrestricted consistency model but with a finite concurrency bound. Q9 uncovers anomalies (i.e., invariant violations) that manifest as finite counterexamples, and automatically generates repairs for such anamolies by selectively strengthening consistency guarantees for specific operations. Using Q9, we have uncovered a range of subtle anomalies in implementations of well-known benchmarks, and have been able to apply the repairs it mandates to effectively eliminate them. Notably, these benchmarks were written adopting best practices suggested to manage distributed replicated state (e.g., they are composed of provably convergent RDTs (CRDTs), avoid mutable state, etc.). While the safety guarantees offered by our technique are constrained by the concurrency bound, we show that in practice, proving bounded safety guarantees typically generalize to the unbounded case.
Somatosensory working memory in human reinforcement-based motor learning
Authors: Sidarta Ananda , van Vugt Floris T. , Ostry David J.
Published: October 2018

Recent studies using visuomotor adaptation and sequence learning tasks have assessed the involvement of working memory in the visuospatial domain. The capacity to maintain previously performed movements in working memory is perhaps even more important in reinforcement-based learning to repeat accurate movements and avoid mistakes. Using this kind of task in the present work, we tested the relationship between somatosensory working memory and motor learning. The first experiment involved separate memory and motor learning tasks. In the memory task, the participant’s arm was displaced in different directions by a robotic arm, and the participant was asked to judge whether a subsequent test direction was one of the previously presented directions. In the motor learning task, participants made reaching movements to a hidden visual target and were provided with positive feedback as reinforcement when the movement ended in the target zone. It was found that participants that had better somatosensory working memory showed greater motor learning. In a second experiment, we designed a new task in which learning and working memory trials were interleaved, allowing us to study participants’ memory for movements they performed as part of learning. As in the first experiment, we found that participants with better somatosensory working memory also learned more. Moreover, memory performance for successful movements was better than for movements that failed to reach the target. These results suggest that somatosensory working memory is involved in reinforcement motor learning and that this memory preferentially keeps track of reinforced movements.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY The present work examined somatosensory working memory in reinforcement-based motor learning. Working memory performance was reliably correlated with the extent of learning. With the use of a paradigm in which learning and memory trials were interleaved, memory was assessed for movements performed during learning. Movements that received positive feedback were better remembered than movements that did not. Thus working memory does not track all movements equally but is biased to retain movements that were rewarded.
Mining‐Induced Damage Characteristics of Floors during Fully Mechanized Caving Mining: A Case Study
Authors: Jiang Yulong , Zhang Dongfeng , Wang Kai , Zhang Xiaoqiang
Published: October 2018

To study the mining‐induced damage characteristics of floors during fully mechanized mining, in situ measurements were performed using the hollow inclusion strain sensors in the No. 100502 (80 m, 180 m) mining face of the Yitang Coal Mine in the Huoxi coal field in the Shanxi Province of China. The in situ measurement results show that the failure depths of the floor rocks in the 100502 (80 m) and 100502 (180 m) mining faces were 12.50∼14.65 m and 17.50∼19.20 m, respectively. The longer the mining face was, the greater the failure depth and the more severe the deformation and damage of the floor rocks were. The failures of the damaged floor rocks can be divided into two types: pull‐pressure strain mutations and abnormal mutations. With the advancement of the mining face, the strain increments of floor rocks at different buried depths showed obvious advanced and lagged responses. Specifically, the advanced response distance decreased with a negative exponential trend, while the lagged response distance generally first increased and then decreased as the depth increased. The results can not only provide important guidance to coal mining under water pressure, but also offer a key theoretical reference for failure depth control of floor rocks under similar geophysical conditions.
Promising Biosurfactant Produced by Cunninghamella echinulata UCP 1299 Using Renewable Resources and Its Application in Cotton Fabric Cleaning Process
Authors: Andrade Rosileide F. S. , Silva Thayse A. L. , Ribeaux Daylin R. , Rodriguez Dayana M. , Souza Adriana F. , Lima Marcos A. B. , Lima Roberto A. , Alves da Silva Carlos Alberto , Campos-Takaki Galba M.
Published: October 2018

A biosurfactant was produced from Cunninghamella echinulata using sustainable technology for cleaning and degreasing of cotton fabric impregnated with burned motor oil. The surface tension was 32.4 mN/m on a medium containing instant noodle waste (2%), corn steep liquor (2%), and postfrying oil (0.5%) with a carbon/nitrogen ratio of 30 : 1, yield of 6.0 g·L−1, emulsifier index of 81.4%, and dispersant property of 32.15 cm2. The biosurfactant produced is a glycolipid constituted by carbohydrate (47.7%) and lipids (50.0%). The structure was confirmed by GC‐MS (stearic acid in predominance with mass of 298 m/z), FTIR spectroscopy (polysaccharides in bands between 1025 and 1152 cm−1 and fatty acids in bands between 2057 and 3100 cm−1), 1H NMR, and 13C NMR spectrum (carbohydrates in signal of 4.38 ppm and 77.0 ppm). The properties of cleaning and degreasing of burned engine oil in cotton fabric by biosurfactant of C. echinulata was evidenced by removal of 86% of oil. After use of the biosurfactant, the fibers were not damaged, which is important for structural integrity of cotton fabric after the wash. In addition, the biosurfactant did not show toxic effect. This study suggests that the biosurfactant from C. echinulata can be used in formulation of textile detergents, in particular for removal of hydrophobic residues from the automobile industry.
SARC018_SPORE02: Phase II Study of Mocetinostat Administered with Gemcitabine for Patients with Metastatic Leiomyosarcoma with Progression or Relapse following Prior Treatment with Gemcitabine-Containing Therapy
Authors: Choy Edwin , Ballman Karla , Chen James , Dickson Mark A. , Chugh Rashmi , George Suzanne , Okuno Scott , Pollock Raphael , Patel Rajiv M. , Hoering Antje , Patel Shreyaskumar
Published: October 2018

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) can reverse chemoresistance, enhance chemotherapy-induced cytotoxicity, and reduce sarcoma proliferation in cell lines and animal models. We sought to determine the safety and toxicity of mocetinostat and its ability to reverse chemoresistance when administered with gemcitabine in patients with metastatic leiomyosarcoma resistant to prior gemcitabine-containing therapy. Participants with metastatic leiomyosarcoma received mocetinostat orally, 70 mg per day, three days per week, increasing to 90 mg after three weeks if well tolerated. Gemcitabine was administered at 1,000 mg/m2 intravenously at 10 mg/m2/minute on days five and 12 of every 21-day cycle. Disease response was evaluated with CT or MRI. Twenty participants with leiomyosarcoma were evaluated for toxicity. Median time to disease progression was 2.0 months (95% CI 1.54–3.12). Eighteen participants were evaluated for radiologic response by RECIST 1.1. Best responses included one PR and 12 SD. Tumor size reduced in 3 patients. Most common toxicities were fatigue, thrombocytopenia, anemia, nausea, and anorexia. One patient experienced a significant pericardial adverse event. No study-related deaths were observed. Rechallenging with gemcitabine by adding mocetinostat was feasible and demonstrated modest activity in patients with leiomyosarcoma. Further studies are needed to better define the role of HDAC inhibitors in patients with metastatic leiomyosarcoma.
Preparation and Microwave Absorption Properties of Polyaniline and Magnetite Core-Shell-Structured Hybrid
Authors: Zhang Xuan
Published: October 2018

In this study, polyaniline and Fe3O4 (PAN@Fe3O4) hybrids are fabricated and their microwave absorption property is studied. PAN@Fe3O4 hybrids are fabricated by the in situ aniline polymerization at spherical of Fe3O4 which is prepared by the solvothermal process. Fourier-transform infrared spectrophotometer (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) are applied to confirm the composition of the fabricated PAN@Fe3O4 hybrids. The morphologies of PAN@Fe3O4 hybrids are studied by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The content of polyaniline in the PAN@Fe3O4 hybrids is calculated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The magnetic properties of PAN@Fe3O4 hybrids are characterized by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The microwave absorption property of PAN@Fe3O4 hybrids are measured on a vector network analyzer. The research show that the microwave absorptions property of the obtained PAN@Fe3O4 hybrids can be adjusted by controlling the in situ aniline polymerization at spherical of Fe3O4.
MAGDM Method with Pythagorean 2-Tuple Linguistic Information and Applications in the HSE Performance Assessment of Laboratory
Authors: Zhao Chunyu , Tang Xiyue , Yuan Lijuan
Published: October 2018

There is a significant gap between the safety management in the Chinese colleges and many renowned colleges in other countries. The subject of this study is how to assess the performance of health, safety, and environment (HSE) in Chinese college laboratories. The assessment system is established by three parts. First of all, HSE performance assessment indicators for laboratories in Chinese colleges are identified based on the previous studies. Then set valued iteration is used to calculate the weights of the various indicators. Following that, multiple attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) method with Pythagorean 2-tuple linguistic operators is used to assess the laboratory HSE performance in colleges. Finally, taking a college in Sichuan Province as an example, the proposed method is used to assess the laboratory HSE performance. The assessment result shows that the proposed method used in this study is practical and feasible.
Swimming with the Pigs: A Case of Severe Soft Tissue Infection during a Caribbean Vacation
Authors: Dretler Alexandra W. , Jacob Jesse T. , Rouphael Nadine G.
Published: October 2018

A 74-year-old man presented to the emergency department with severe right leg cellulitis following a trip to the Bahamas where he swam in both chlorinated pools and the ocean. His blood cultures grew Shewanella species, a marine pathogen known to cause disease in humans, following exposure to seawater. He was treated with cefepime for a total of two weeks without needing any surgical intervention. The patient had complete resolution of infection and was able to return to his activities of daily living.
Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, a Sequel of Untreated Childhood Onset Growth Hormone Deficiency Developing in a 17-Year-Old Patient
Authors: Henry Rohan K. , Menon Ram K.
Published: October 2018

In a seminal report, a 17-year-old boy with panhypopituitarism had fatty liver (FL) amelioration with growth hormone (GH). By extension, since hepatic insulin resistance (IR) is key to FL and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), GH then may ameliorate the IR of T2DM. We present a 17-year-old nonobese female with untreated childhood onset growth hormone deficiency (CO-GHD) who developed type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and steatohepatitis with bridging fibrosis. Based on height z-score of – 3.1 and a history of radiation therapy as treatment for a medulloblastoma at 7 years of age, GHD was quite likely. GH therapy was, however, not initiated at 15 years of age (when growth was concerning) based on full skeletal maturity. After she developed T2DM, GHD was confirmed and GH was initiated. With its initiation, though insulin dose decreased from 2.9 (~155 units) to 1.9 units/kg/day (~ 100 units), her T2DM was, however, not fully reversed. This illustrates the natural history of untreated CO-GHD and shows that though hepatic IR can be ameliorated by GH, full reversal of T2DM may be prevented with irreversible hepatic changes (fibrosis). Clinicians caring for pediatric patients and otherwise should remember that, even in patients beyond the cessation of linear growth, GH can have a crucial role in both glucose and lipid metabolism.
HMBG1 as a Driver of Inflammatory and Immune Processes in the Pathogenesis of Ocular Diseases
Authors: Liu Yi , Zhuang Guo-Bin , Zhou Xue-Zhi
Published: October 2018

High-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is a nuclear protein that can also act as an extracellular trigger of inflammation, proliferation, and migration in eye diseases. It induces signaling pathways by binding to the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) and Toll-like receptors (TLRs) 2, 4, and 9. This proinflammatory activity is considered to be important in the pathogenesis of a wide range of ocular diseases resulting from hemodynamic changes, presence of neovascular endothelial cells, secretion of intraocular immune factors or inflammation, and apoptosis of retinal cell layers. Further work is needed to elucidate in detail how HMGB1 contributes to ocular disease and how its damaging activity can be modulated. In this review, we summarize current knowledge on HMGB1 as a ligand that can evoke inflammation and immune responses in ocular diseases.
Is There a Role for Biweekly Romiplostim in the Management of Chronic Immune Thrombocytopenia (ITP)? A Report of Three Cases
Authors: Rooprai Jasjit Kaur , Khamisa Karima
Published: October 2018

Romiplostim is a peptibody, which stimulates platelet production by a mechanism similar to that of endogenous thrombopoietin. It has an established indication as second-line therapy in patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). The agent is typically administered weekly; however, there are instances where a biweekly (i.e., alternate week) dosing may be feasible in a select group of patients. We conducted a retrospective case review to evaluate the efficacy and safety of biweekly administration of romiplostim in maintaining a platelet count of >30 × 109/L in three patients with chronic ITP. Treatment was started with a weekly injection (1 µg/kg) with a dose escalation to achieve a platelet count >30 × 109/L. Once stable on weekly romiplostim, these patients received biweekly administration. No bleeding complications were noted during biweekly dosing for these patients. The current findings suggest that lengthening the dose interval of romiplostim is feasible in select patients with chronic ITP to maintain stable platelet counts. Additional studies are therefore warranted to further evaluate biweekly dosing for romiplostim to increase convenience and decrease costs for patients with chronic ITP.
Effect of Metronidazole on the Oxidoreductive Processes in the Submandibular and Parotid Glands in Experimental Research
Authors: Onopiuk Barbara , Onopiuk Paweł , Dąbrowska Zofia , Dąbrowska Ewa , Pietruska Małgorzata , Car Halina
Published: October 2018

Oxidative stress takes part in the pathomechanisms of many diseases, including oral disorders. The imbalance between oxidative and antioxidative processes may lead to periodontitis, osteitis, or oral cancers. Furthermore, many chemotherapeutics, e.g., metronidazole (MTZ), may also cause toxic reactions and affect oxidative reactions. The research focused on MTZ influence on oxidative destruction in the parotid and submandibular gland tissue in animal experimental model. Therefore, the concentrations of enzymatic and nonenzymatic markers of oxidative stress were measured in these two rat glands in the control and experimental MTZ‐treated groups. The material for analysis included parotid and submandibular glands of male Wistar rats, which were treated with metronidazole for 7 days by gastric tube in a dose of 100 mg/kg b.w. On day 8, the material was obtained and frozen in temp. −80°C. Then, the following seven enzymatic and nonenzymatic parameters were measured: GPx, TOS, TAS, SOD, LPO, CAT, and GSH. The data were analysed using Statistica 10.0. Metronidazole treatment in the experimental model showed an increase in LPO, TOS, and TOS/TAS and a decrease in CAT, SOD, GPx, and TAS. The conclusions of this research were made. Metronidazole treatment in a dose of 100 mg/kg b.w. caused imbalance between oxidative and antioxidative reactions in the rat parotid and submandibular glands. An increase was observed in LPO, TOS, and TOS/TAS in both glands exposed to metronidazole. Decreased activity of CAT, SOD, GPx, and TAS was noted, which indicates attenuation of the gland antioxidative protective barrier.
Hierarchical Newton Iterative Parameter Estimation of a Class of Input Nonlinear Systems Based on the Key Term Separation Principle
Authors: Wang Cheng , Li Kaicheng , Su Shuai
Published: October 2018

This paper investigates the identification problem for a class of input nonlinear systems whose disturbance is in the form of the moving average model. In order to improve the computation complexity, the key term separation principle is introduced to avoid the redundant parameter estimation. Based on the decomposition technique, a hierarchical Newton iterative identification method combining the key term separation principle is proposed for enhancing the estimation accuracy and handling the computational load with the presence of the high dimensional matrices. In the identification procedure, the unknown internal items or vectors are replaced with their iterative estimates. The effectiveness of the proposed identification methods is shown via a numerical simulation example.
Offloading Positioning onto Network Edge
Authors: Santa José , Fernández Pedro J. , Sanchez-Iborra Ramon , Ortiz Jordi , Skarmeta Antonio F.
Published: October 2018

While satellite or cellular positioning implies dedicated hardware or network infrastructure functions, indoor navigation or novel IoT positioning techniques include flexible storage and computation requirements that can be fulfilled by both end‐devices or cloud back‐ends. Hybrid positioning systems support the integration of several algorithms and technologies; however, the common trend of delegating position calculation and storage of local geoinformation to mobile devices or centralized servers causes performance degradation in terms of delay, battery usage, and waste of network resources. The strategy followed in this work is offloading this computation effort onto the network edge, following a Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) approach. MEC nodes in the access network of the mobile device are in charge of receiving navigation data coming from both the smart infrastructure and mobile devices, in order to compute the final position following a hybrid approach. With the aim of supporting mobility and the access to multiple networks, an Information Centric Networking (ICN) solution is used to access generic position information resources. The presented system currently supports WiFi, Bluetooth LE, GPS, cellular and NFC technologies, involving both indoor and outdoor positioning, using fingerprinting and proximity for indoor navigation, and the integration of smart infrastructure data sources such as the door opening system within real smart campus deployment. Evaluations carried out reveal latency improvements of 50%, as compared with a regular configuration where position fixes are computed by mobile devices; at the same time the MEC solution offers extra flexibility features to manage positioning databases and algorithms and move extensive computation from constrained devices to the edge.
Evolutionary Computation for Modelling Social Traits in Realistic Looking Synthetic Faces
Authors: Fuentes-Hurtado Felix , Diego-Mas Jose A. , Naranjo Valery , Alcañiz Mariano
Published: October 2018

Human faces play a central role in our lives. Thanks to our behavioural capacity to perceive faces, how a face looks in a painting, a movie, or an advertisement can dramatically influence what we feel about them and what emotions are elicited. Facial information is processed by our brain in such a way that we immediately make judgements like attractiveness or masculinity or interpret personality traits or moods of other people. Due to the importance of appearance‐driven judgements of faces, this has become a major focus not only for psychological research, but for neuroscientists, artists, engineers, and software developers. New technologies are now able to create realistic looking synthetic faces that are used in arts, online activities, advertisement, or movies. However, there is not a method to generate virtual faces that convey the desired sensations to the observers. In this work, we present a genetic algorithm based procedure to create realistic faces combining facial features in the adequate relative positions. A model of how observers will perceive a face based on its features’ appearances and relative positions was developed and used as the fitness function of the algorithm. The model is able to predict 15 facial social traits related to aesthetic, moods, and personality. The proposed procedure was validated comparing its results with the opinion of human observers. This procedure is useful not only for creating characters with artistic purposes, but also for online activities, advertising, surgery, or criminology.
Acute Pancreatitis Mimicking ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction
Authors: Agrawal Akanksha , Sayyida Nuzhat , Penalver Jorge Luis , Ziccardi Mary R.
Published: October 2018

Introduction. Electrocardiographic changes imitating myocardial ischemia have been occasionally reported in patients with intra-abdominal pathology including acute pancreatitis. Case Report. A 60-year-old man with no past medical history presented to the emergency department (ED) after a syncopal episode. In ED, his vitals were stable. His ECG showed sinus bradycardia at 53 beats per minute, peaked T waves, 1 mm ST-segment elevation in leads II, III, and aVF, and 2 mm ST elevation in V3 as shown in the figures. With the concern for STEMI, he was taken for left heart catheterization (LHC) emergently, showing nonobstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). His laboratory workup was remarkable for lipase of 25,304 IU/l (normal level 8–78 IU/l). His liver function test and triglyceride level were normal. Troponin was <0.01 ng/ml. A computed tomographic exam of the abdomen revealed acute interstitial pancreatitis with a small discrete fluid collection in the uncinate process. He was treated with aggressive intravenous fluid resuscitation and was discharged on day 3. Discussion. Intra-abdominal pathologies like acute pancreatitis can lead to transient ECG changes mimicking STEMI. It is important to use ECG clues, echocardiographic findings, and clinical judgement to avoid cardiac catheterization, contrast exposure, and associated health care costs.
Assessment of Respiratory Symptoms and Pulmonary Function Status among Workers of Flour Mills in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Comparative Cross-Sectional Study
Authors: Demeke Dessalegn , Haile Diresibachew W.
Published: October 2018

Background. Flour dust in the respiratory tract affects lung function. Flour dust is a heterogeneous organic substance which can have a tendency to cause respiratory ailments. There is growing consensus on the deleterious effects of flour dust on respiratory symptoms and lung performance of flour mill workers. Methods. The study design was comparative cross-sectional. A total of 54 flour mill workers who work for more than eight-hour shift per day and 54 control subjects matched for sex, age, weight, height, and area of residence were enrolled. Anthropometric measurement was done. Lung function was measured by using a digital portable spirometer (Spiro Pro) based on the ATS guidelines. FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC, PEFR, and FEF25%  -75% were measured. Productive cough, dry cough, wheeze, and breathlessness were evaluated using BMRC questionnaire guidelines, administered through face-to-face interview. Result. This study showed statistically significant reduction in the mean values of pulmonary function tests in flour mill workers as compared to their matched controls. Reduction of pulmonary function indices in study subjects was significant for FVC (4.25±0.93 vs. 5.30±0.71, p<0.001), FEV1 (3.46±0.86 vs. 4.50±0.72, p<0.001), PEFR (5.43±2.43 vs. 7.87±2.53, p<0.001), and FEF25%  -75%, (3.87±1.61 vs. 4.60±1.60, p<0.05), but not significant for FEV1/FVC (81.93±12.74 vs. 83.40±12.50, p>0.05). Flour mill workers developed 27.7% of restrictive type and 11.1% of obstructive type of lung disorders. Percentage prevalence of respiratory symptoms was evaluated as dry cough (27.7% vs. 9.3%), productive cough (11.1% vs. 5.6%), wheeze (14.8% vs. 3.8%), and breathlessness (16.6% vs.7.4%) in flour mill workers and controls, respectively. Conclusion. Based on the results of the present study, occupational exposure to flour dust could cause respiratory dysfunction, thereby reducing lung efficiency.
New Trigonometric Basis Possessing Denominator Shape Parameters
Authors: Wang Kai , Zhang Guicang
Published: October 2018

Four new trigonometric Bernstein-like bases with two denominator shape parameters (DTB-like basis) are constructed, based on which a kind of trigonometric Bézier-like curve with two denominator shape parameters (DTB-like curves) that are analogous to the cubic Bézier curves is proposed. The corner cutting algorithm for computing the DTB-like curves is given. Any arc of an ellipse or a parabola can be exactly represented by using the DTB-like curves. A new class of trigonometric B-spline-like basis function with two local denominator shape parameters (DT B-spline-like basis) is constructed according to the proposed DTB-like basis. The totally positive property of the DT B-spline-like basis is supported. For different shape parameter values, the associated trigonometric B-spline-like curves with two denominator shape parameters (DT B-spline-like curves) can be C2 continuous for a non-uniform knot vector. For a special value, the generated curves can be C(2n-1)  (n=1,2,3,…) continuous for a uniform knot vector. A kind of trigonometric B-spline-like surfaces with four denominator shape parameters (DT B-spline-like surface) is shown by using the tensor product method, and the associated DT B-spline-like surfaces can be C2 continuous for a nonuniform knot vector. When given a special value, the related surfaces can be C(2n-1)  (n=1,2,3,…) continuous for a uniform knot vector. A new class of trigonometric Bernstein–Bézier-like basis function with three denominator shape parameters (DT BB-like basis) over a triangular domain is also constructed. A de Casteljau-type algorithm is developed for computing the associated trigonometric Bernstein–Bézier-like patch with three denominator shape parameters (DT BB-like patch). The condition for G1 continuous jointing two DT BB-like patches over the triangular domain is deduced.
Inhibition of CXCR4 by MicroRNA-1192 Reduces the Activation of Th17 Cells and Expression of Inflammation Factors in a Mouse Model of Vulvovaginal Candidiasis
Authors: Liu Jing , Wang Huai-Zhen , Sun Yong
Published: October 2018

Background/Aims: Vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) is a disease commonly occurring in sexually active women. The involvement of microRNAs in several kinds of infectious diseases has been highlighted in a number of researches. Therefore, we conducted the present study in order to investigate whether microRNA-1192 (miR-1192) would significantly target CXCR4 in Th17 cells as well as inflammatory factors in mouse models suffering from VVC. Methods: Seventy-five mice were selected as test subjects for this study, of which twenty-five were used as the normal control, while the rest were treated with estradiol or oil-treated in order to establish VVC mouse models (each n = 25). Protein expressions of CXCR4, IL-6, IL-17, and IL-23 were all measured using both an immunohistochemistry and ELISA. The Th17 cell percentage in peripheral blood and the expression of RORγt in Th17 cells were detected using a flow cytometry. Mouse vaginal epithelial cells were isolated from normal mice, after which the mice were treated with estradiol to regulate their estrogen, followed by treatments involving the miR-1192 mimic, miR-1192 inhibitor, siRNA-CXCR4, and miR-1192 inhibitor + si-CXCR4. The cell cycle, apoptosis, and proliferation were all examined by using an additional flow cytometry as well as the employment of the MTT assay. The miR-1192, CXCR4, IL-6, IL-17, and IL-23 expressions in tissues and cells were both measured using both RT-qPCR and western blot assay techniques. Results: The mice treated with either estradiol or oil had presented to us lowered levels in miR-1192 expression as well as higher levels in both Th17 cell percentage and expression of RORγt in Th17 cells, along with mRNA and protein expressions of CXCR4, IL-6, IL-17, and IL-23. In cell experiments, the mouse vaginal epithelial cells that had been treated with miR-1192 inhibitor had shown us a decreased cell proliferation rate and contrarily increased expressions of CXCR4, IL-6, IL-17, and IL-23 mRNA, protein, and cell apoptosis rate; these results were opposite to the ones found in the mice treated with miR-1192 mimic. Conclusion: Our results provided significant evidence that miR-1192 could directly development and progression of VVC by restraining the CXCR4 gene in the VVC mice.