bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Impact of the distance from the chest wall to the heart on surface ECG voltage in athletes
Authors: Hedman Kristofer , Patti Alessandro , Moneghetti Kegan J , Hsu David , Christle Jeffrey W , Ashley Euan , Hadley David , Haddad Francois , Froelicher Victor 
Published: March 2020

ObjectiveAvailable ECG criteria for detection of left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy have been reported to have limited diagnostic capability. Our goal was to describe how the distance between the chest wall and the left ventricle determined by echocardiography affected the relationship between ECG voltage and LV mass (LVM) in athletes.MethodsWe retrospectively evaluated digitised ECG data from college athletes undergoing routine echocardiography as part of their preparticipation evaluation. Along with LV mass and volume, we determined the chest wall–LV distance in the parasternal short-axis and long-axis views from two-dimensional transthoracic echocardiographic images and explored the relation with ECG QRS voltages in all leads, as well as summed voltages as included in six major ECG-LVH criteria.Results239 athletes (43 women) were included (age 19±1 years). In men, greater LV–chest wall distance was associated with higher R-wave amplitudes in leads aVL and I (R=0.20 and R=0.25, both p<0.01), while in women greater distance was associated with higher R-amplitudes in V5 and V6 (R=0.42 and R=0.34, both p<0.01). In women, the chest wall–LV distance was the only variable independently (and positively) associated with R V5 voltage, while LVM, height and weight contributed to the relationship in men.ConclusionsThe chest wall–LV distance was weakly associated with ECG voltage in athletes. Inconsistent associations in men and women imply different intrathoracic factors affecting impedance and conductance between sexes. This may help explain the poor relationship between QRS voltage and LVM in athletes.
Downregulation of RIG-I mediated by ITGB3/c-SRC/STAT3 signaling confers resistance to interferon-α-induced apoptosis in tumor-repopulating cells of melanoma
Authors: Li Yong , Song Yingqiu , Li Pindong , Li Mingxing , Wang Haizhou , Xu Tao , Yu Xiongjie , Yu Yuandong , Tai YunYan , Chen Ping , Cai Xiaojun , Wang Xianhe , Xiang Longchao , Deng Rui , Zhang Xiufang , Gao Liping , Wang Xuanbin , Liu Jing , Cao Fengjun 
Published: March 2020

BackgroundInterferon-α (IFN-α) plays a pivotal role in host antitumor immunity, and the evasion of IFN-α signaling pathway can lead to IFN-α resistance during the treatment of cancer. Although the interplay between IFN-α and tumor cells has been extensively investigated in differentiated tumor cells, much less attention has been directed to tumor-repopulating cells (TRCs).MethodsThree-dimentional soft fibrin matrix was used to select and grow highly malignant and tumorigenic melanoma TRCs. The regulation of integrin β3 (ITGB3)-c-SRC-STAT signaling pathway in melanoma TRCs was investigated both in vitro and in vivo. The relevant mRNA and protein expression levels were analyzed by qRT-PCR and western blot analysis. Immunoprecipitation and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) followed by qPCR (ChIP-qPCR) assays were performed to detect protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions. The clinical impacts of retinoic acid inducible gene-I (RIG-I) were assessed in melanoma datasets obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus profiles.ResultsIFN-α-induced apoptosis was decreased in melanoma TRCs. Compared with conventional flask-cultured cells, IFN-α-mediated STAT1 activation was diminished in melanoma TRCs. Decreased expression of RIG-I in melanoma TRCs led to diminished activation of STAT1 via enhancing the interaction between Src homology region 2 domain-containing phosphatase-1 and STAT1. In addition, low expression levels of RIG-I correlated with poor prognosis in patients with melanoma. STAT3 was highly phosphorylated in TRCs and knockdown of STAT3 reversed the downregulation of RIG-I in TRCs. Knockdown of STAT3 resulted in STAT1 activation and increased expression of the pro-apoptosis genes in IFN-α-treated TRCs. Combined treatment of STAT3 inhibitor and IFN-α increased the apoptosis rate of TRCs. Disruption of ITGB3/c-SRC/STAT3 signaling pathway significantly elevated the efficiency of IFN-α-induced apoptosis of TRCs.ConclusionsIn melanoma TRCs, ITGB3-c-SRC-STAT3 pathway caused RIG-I repression and then affect STAT1 activation to cause resistance to IFN-α-induced apoptosis. RIG-I is a prognostic marker in patients with melanoma. Combination of STAT3 inhibitor and IFN-α could enhance the efficacy of melanoma treatment. Our findings may provide a new concept of combinatorial treatment for future immunotherapy.
Association of smoking and right ventricular function in middle age: CARDIA study
Authors: Moreira Henrique T , Armstrong Anderson C , Nwabuo Chike C , Vasconcellos Henrique D , Schmidt Andre , Sharma Ravi K , Ambale-Venkatesh Bharath , Ostovaneh Mohammad R , Kiefe Catarina I , Lewis Cora E , Schreiner Pamela J , Sidney Stephen , Ogunyankin Kofo O , Gidding Samuel S , Lima Joao A C 
Published: March 2020

ObjectiveTo evaluate the association of cigarette smoking and right ventricular (RV) systolic and diastolic functions in a population-based cohort of individuals at middle age.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included participants who answered the smoking questionnaire and underwent echocardiography at the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adulthood year 25 examination. RV systolic function was assessed by echocardiographic-derived tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE) and by right ventricular peak systolic velocity (RVS’), while RV diastolic function was evaluated by early right ventricular tissue velocity (RVE’). Multivariable linear regression models assessed the relationship of smoking with RV function, adjusting for age, sex, race, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, alcohol consumption, pulmonary function, left ventricular systolic and diastolic function and coronary artery calcium score.ResultsA total of 3424 participants were included. The mean age was 50±4 years; 57% were female; and 53% were black. There were 2106 (61%) never smokers, 750 (22%) former smokers and 589 (17%) current smokers. In the multivariable analysis, current smokers had significantly lower TAPSE (β=−0.082, SE=0.031, p=0.008), RVS’ (β=−0.343, SE=0.156, p=0.028) and RVE’ (β=−0.715, SE=0.195, p<0.001) compared with never smokers. Former smokers had a significantly lower RVE’ compared with never smokers (β=−0.414, SE=0.162, p=0.011), whereas no significant difference in RV systolic function was found between former smokers and never smokers.ConclusionsIn a large multicenter community-based biracial cohort of middle-aged individuals, smoking was independently related to both worse RV systolic and diastolic functions.
miR‐106B‐25 Cluster expression: a comparative human and canine osteosarcoma study
Authors: Leonardi Leonardo , Benassi Maria Serena , Pollino Serena , Locaputo Carmen , Pazzaglia Laura 
Published: March 2020

BackgroundOsteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary malignant bone tumour in dogs and human beings, characterised by similar genetic and clinical features. With the aim to define similarities and differences in the biological aspects involved in OS progression, a comparative study was performed to create a model to improve patient outcome.MethodsFirst, the expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) belonging to the cluster miR‐106b‐25 (miR‐106b, miR‐25 and miR‐93‐5p) in human and canine OS tissue was compared.ResultsmiR‐25 and miR‐106b presented a variable expression not significantly different from the corresponding normal bone, while miR‐93‐5p expression was increased in all OS specimens, with higher levels in the canine subset compared with human. Accordingly, its target p21 presented a weaker and less homogeneous immunostaining distribution in the canine group. Given the high expression of miR‐93‐5p in all OS specimens, the functional response of human 143B and canine DAN OS cells to miRNA inhibition was evaluated. Although p21 expression increased after miR‐93‐5p inhibition both at mRNA and protein level, a more significant cell response in terms of proliferation and apoptosis was seen in canine OS cells.ConclusionsIn conclusion, canine OS tissue and cell line presented higher expression levels of miR‐93‐5p than human OS. In addition, the introduction of miR‐93‐5p inhibitor caused a cell response in 143B and DAN that differed for the more intense functional impact in the canine OS cell line.
Towards Round-Optimal Secure Multiparty Computations: Multikey FHE Without a CRS
Authors: Kim Eunkyung , Lee Hyang-Sook , Park Jeongeun 
Published: March 2020

Multikey fully homomorphic encryption (MFHE) allows homomorphic operations between ciphertexts encrypted under different keys. In applications for secure multiparty computation (MPC) protocols, MFHE can be more advantageous than usual fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) since users do not need to agree with a common public key before the computation when using MFHE. In EUROCRYPT 2016, Mukherjee and Wichs constructed a secure MPC protocol in only two rounds via MFHE which deals with a common random/reference string (CRS) in key generation. After then, Brakerski et al. replaced the role of CRS with the distributed setup for CRS calculation to form a four round secure MPC protocol. Thus, recent improvements in round complexity of MPC protocols have been made using MFHE. In this paper, we go further to obtain round-efficient and secure MPC protocols. The underlying MFHE schemes in previous works still involve the common value, CRS, it seems to weaken the power of using MFHE to allow users to independently generate their own keys. Therefore, we resolve the issue by constructing an MFHE scheme without CRS based on LWE assumption, and then we obtain a secure MPC protocol against semi-malicious security in three rounds. We also define a new security notion “multikey-CPA security” to prove that a multikey ciphertext cannot be decrypted unless all the secret keys are gathered and our scheme is multikey-CPA secure.
Constructing population of initial university timetable: design and analysis
Authors: Wahid Juliana , Abdul-Rahman Syariza , Mohamed Din Aniza , Mohd-Hussin Naimah 
Published: March 2020

The construction of population of initial timetable is an essential stage in population-based metaheuristic approach for solving curriculum-based university course timetabling problem because it may impact the quality of the final timetable. This paper presents population of initial timetable construction approach in curriculum based course timetabling problem by using the graph heuristics to determine the sequential order of courses/lectures to be assigned in the timetable. The graph heuristics were implemented as single and combination of two heuristics. The courses in curriculum-based university course timetabling problem that was organized based on the heuristics setting will be repeatedly assigned to valid empty slots while fulfilling all the hard constraints. If a course is unable to be assigned to whichever slots because of no more valid empty slots, it will be inserted into the unscheduled courses/lectures list. The unscheduled courses/lectures list will be assigned later to the timetable using several procedures executed in a sequence. The approaches were tested on the ITC2007 instances and the results were analyzed with some statistical tests to determine the best setting of heuristics in the construction approach. The result shows that the construction approach with combination of largest degree followed by saturation degree heuristic, generate the maximum number of population of initial timetables. The result from this study can be used in the improvement stage of metaheuristic algorithm that uses population-based approach.
Reverse biased nanocrystalline graphite (NCG)/p-Si schottky junction for methane gas sensor
Authors: Nawawi A. A. , Sultan S.M. , Rahmah S.F.A. , Khalid P.I. , Pu S.H. 
Published: March 2020

An investigation on the effect of the reverse biased operation of NCG/p-Si Schottky contact during methane gas exposure at room temperature has been presented. The experimental results show the larger current shift at the reverse bias operation, compared to the forward bias by exposing to methane gas. This can be attributed to the adsorption of methane gas into the metal surface layer and produces a negative charge at the junction, thus reduces the barrier height of the device. The reverse barrier height was calculated under the reverse bias condition, demonstrated the value decreased from 0.58-0.53eV towards a higher concentration of methane gas. The Schottky junction also affected by the increase in a free carrier when exposure to the reducing gas such as methane. Raman spectra are reported to be detected at G, D and 2D band with the grain size 1.88nm to exhibit single crystallite graphite properties. The results correlate well with the 3D AFM scans reveal the RMS surface roughness of 1.1 to 2.8nm.
Advanced optimal by PSO-PI for DC motor
Authors: Jeaeb Salam Waley , Salman Abbas Zghair , Jawad Qusay A. , Shareef Haider 
Published: March 2020

<p>Interest in the drive system which used in many applications is increasing day by day. So, many researchers have focused on the analyses, design and control of these systems. In this study, Optimal for Dc motor in drive system control strategy has been proposed for PSO-PI and fuzzy logic controller (FLC) based Dc motor in drive system. In order to test dynamic performance of PSO-PI based drive System, simulation study was carried out by MATLAB/Simulink. The results obtained from the PSO-PI based drive system are not only superior in the rise time, settling time and overshoot but can prevent from voltage and has improved power quality. </p>
A cashless payment transaction (CPaT) using RFID technology
Authors: Ya’acob Norsuzila , Yusoff AzitaLaily , Seroja Sarnin Suzi , Mohd Ali Darmawaty , Fadzlina Naim Nani , Kassim Murizah , Binti Mohd Azni Nur Amirah 
Published: March 2020

<span>Virtual money is an actual money that a person own but in a form of a plastic card, an online account and a token or a ticket. Referring to the cash-base system, it is full of fraud and money scam activity. It even happens in a smaller division of a human population which are among family members. For example, when a child decided to do a money scam towards their parents by asking for extra money for what they actually needed to pay for school internal fee and with today’s technology, they can easily recreate a receipt of the payment based on the amount of money they have scammed. In this Cashless Payment Transaction (CPaT) in a school based on Low Frequency (LF) RFID Technology system, the system offers a virtual money transaction in the plastic card form and allows the transaction to be monitored by parents with the help of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, MySQL database and Email notification system. The MySQL database is paired with the PHP prgramming language where the calculation for deduction credit will be done before being updated to the RFID card and MySQL database. As a result, the system will allow a cash-free transaction for school payment activity and allow parents to monitor their child spending activity and nutrition intake via MySQL database that are designed based on Graphical User Interface (GUI) within one minute after the transaction is successfully done.</span>
Comparative analysis of energy based optimized dynamic source multipath routing protocol in WSNs
Authors: Ameen Nabeena , Jamal Najumnissa , Raj L. Arun 
Published: March 2020

<p>Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has been considered to be a formula for overcoming various requirements like surveillance, health care, traffic surveillance and defense systems. As an aid to the demands for Wireless sensor network, research has been going on the efficient consumption of energy and secure communication areas for WSN. Here introducing Ant colony optimization based Optimized dynamic Secure multipath routing protocol (ODMRP) have improvised WSN in terms of energy efficiency, performance, strength and scalability. This paper proposed mechanism of Ant Colony Optimization based on the optimized dynamic secure multipath routing protocol (ODMRP-ACO) for data transmission in the WSNs. This eases the data transmission via WSNs. The shortest path between the source node and the destination node is analyzed by the ant colony cooperation which is based on the ACO. There are several routing protocols like Energy-aware and Secure Routing with Trust (ESRT-ACO), Split multipath routing protocol-Ant colony Optimization (SMR-ACO), Light Weight Trust Based routing protocol (TLB-AODV) and AODV routing protocols that are built with the ACO based Routing Protocol. They are concerned over the End to End Delay, Packet Delivery Rate, Routing Overhead, Throughput and Energy Efficiency. The data analytic results have proven to be effective compared to the other routing protocols designed for WSN. This is because; the overall ODMRP-ACO was calculated to be 96.98% better than the other existing. For the newly developed ODMRP-ACO protocol, the simulation platform used is NS2 simulation software.</p>
Short term load forecast of Kano zone using artificial intelligent techniques
Authors: Imam Huzaimu Lawal , Gaya M.S , Galadanci G. S. M 
Published: March 2020

<span lang="EN-MY">Load forecast provides useful information for effective electricity dispatch, planning for future expansion and significantly enhances operational efficiency. Conventional techniques yield unsatisfactory forecast which results in high energy losses and in turn leads to high operational cost and suppressed electricity demand. This paper presents hybrid neuro fuzzy (HNF) and Nonlinear Auto-Regressive with eXogeneous input (NARX) neural network for the short term load prediction of Kano region Nigeria. Simulation results obtained demonstrated the generalization capabilities of the models in predicting the load accurately well by achieving MAPE of 0.025% and 0.6551% for the HNF model and NARX network model respectively. The models could serve as promising tool for predicting Kano Zone load demand</span>.
File encryption based on reduced-round AES with revised round keys and key schedule
Authors: De Los Reyes Edjie Malonzo , Sison Ariel M. , Medina Ruji P. 
Published: March 2020

The continuing advancement of technology had provided security issues in protecting the confidentiality of information. The need to protect unauthorized access of a third party is warranted. In this paper, the reduced-round modified AES with revised round keys and key schedule is proposed to ensure file confidentiality. The modifications to the AES cipher round was the reduction of the round iterations from 10 to 6, and additional key permutations were added in between states; while in the key schedule, additional byte substitution process was appended. Time and throughput were utilized to measure the performance of the application's encryption/decryption process; while the avalanche effect and randomness tests were used to measure the security of the modified AES algorithm. The results of evaluations have shown that the encryption and decryption time have improved by 1.27% and 1.21% respectively while the throughput has similarly improved by 1.29% and 3.19% for both encryption and decryption respectively. Whereas the avalanche effect of the modified AES was 50.06% which was more than the ideal value of 50% and it was also better than the standard AES which was 49.94% using the sample dataset. Finally, all the ciphertext outputs of the modified AES passed the randomness tests.
Numerical investigation of V shaped three elements resonator for optical closed loop system
Authors: Sadegh Amiri Iraj , Zaki Rashed Ahmed Nabih 
Published: March 2020

<span>This study have outlined numerical investigation of V shaped three element resonator. The stability parameter is measured against </span><span>back mirror curvature radius</span><span>, </span><span>back mirror phase angle</span><span>, </span><span>focusing length</span><span>, </span><span>focusing mirror phase angle</span><span>, </span><span>folding range</span><span> in both S plane and T plane. The stability parameter is changed in positive and negative trend under the operating system parameters. The stability parameter should be optimized in order to achieve high performance efficiency of resonator system. Beam radius variations are also measured versus </span><span>focusing range</span><span>, folding range, and back mirror phase angle. It is clear that the negative effects of increasing system parameters on beam radius variation in both S plane and T plane. </span>
<p><strong>A revision of taxonomic relation between <em>Oenothera royfraseri </em>and <em>O. turoviensis</em></strong><em> </em><strong>(sect. <em>Oenothera</em>, subsect. <em>Oenothera</em>; Onagraceae) based on multivariate analyses of morphological characters</strong></p>
Authors: WOŹNIAK-CHODACKA MONIKA 
Published: March 2020

The taxonomic relation between Oenothera royfraseri and O. turoviensis (sect. Oenothera, subsect. Oenothera; Onagraceae) has remained unresolved. According to the representatives of the so-called American school of taxonomy (W. Dietrich, P.H. Raven, W.L. Wagner) the former name is one of almost 70 synonyms of widely treated O. biennis (AB-II plastome-genome combination) while the latter is a synonym of O. parviflora (BC-IV arrangement). On the other hand, European researchers (K. Rostański, A. Soldano, V. Jehlík) tend to assign both names to one species, under the name O. royfraseri. In order to establish the taxonomic relation of the studied taxa, morphometric comparisons, based on qualitative and quantitative traits, were carried out. The studies included European specimens labelled as O. royfraseri and/or O. turoviensis (with the nomenclatural types of the two names) as well as representatives of the two other species, O. biennis and O. parviflora, which were taken as a background. The performed multivariate statistical analyses (correspondence analysis, principal component analysis, discriminant analysis followed by canonical discriminant analysis) provided strong evidence supporting the American’s hypothesis on separateness of the two species. As it was demonstrated, O. royfraseri and O. turoviensis differ mostly by the sepal tips arrangement, which is considered by American and European researchers as one of the most essential variables in taxa recognition within the group. The obtained results have also indicated that O. royfraseri is distinct from European representatives of O. biennis, which is partially concordant with Rostański’s opinion. The two last-mentioned species can be discriminated by red vs. green papillae, strigillose vs. glandular hair predominance, respectively, as well as by quantitative features of the flowers, which are significantly larger in O. biennis.