title
stringlengths 0
1.91k
⌀ | abstract
stringlengths 0
17k
⌀ | keywords
stringlengths 0
7.81k
| source_name
stringclasses 6
values |
|---|---|---|---|
null | While the data deluge accelerates, most of the data produced remains locked in deep Web databases. For the linked open data to benefit from the potential represented by this huge amount of data, it is crucial to come up with solutions to expose heterogeneous databases as linked data. The xR2RML mapping language is an endeavor towards this goal: it is designed to map various types of databases to RDF, by flexibly adapting to heterogeneous query languages and data models while remaining free from any specific language. It extends R2RML, the W3C recommendation for the mapping of relational databases to RDF, and relies on RML for the handling of various data formats. In this paper we present xR2RML, we analyse data models of several modern databases as well as the format in which query results are returned, and we show how xR2RML translates any result data element into RDF, relying on existing languages such as XPath and JSONPath when necessary. We illustrate some features of xR2RML such as the generation of RDF collections and containers, and the ability to deal with mixed data formats. We also describe a real-world use case in which we applied xR2RML to build a SKOS thesaurus aimed at supporting studies on History of Zoology, Archaeozoology and Conservation Biology. | Linked data;RDF;R2RML;NoSQL;History of zoology | WoS |
null | While the diagnosis of migraine in children is generally straightforward, treatment can seem complex with a number of medication choices, many of which are used "off label." Patients with intermittent migraines can often be managed with ibuprofen or naproxen taken as needed. Unfortunately, by the time that children present to our practice, they have often tried these medications without improvement. Triptans are frequently prescribed to these patients with good success. It is important to make the patient aware of the possible associated serotonergic reactions. If the patient is having more than one headache per week or the headaches are prolonged, prophylactic treatment is indicated. In our practice, the overwhelming majority of these patients will be treated with amitriptyline or topiramate. We generally allow side effect tolerability to guide our choice of medication. Cyproheptadine is often used in younger patients as it comes in a liquid form. There is evidence supporting the use of propranolol, though the potential worsening of underlying asthma symptoms may limit its use, and sodium valproate, which must be used with caution in female patients of childbearing age due to significant teratogenicity risks. Other prophylactic treatments with less robust evidence include the antiepileptic drugs gabapentin, zonisamide, and levetiracetam; calcium channel blockers such as verapamil and amlodipine; and the angiotensin receptor blocking agent candasartin (not available in the USA). Almost all patients in our practice are advised to take magnesium supplementation. Magnesium is a supplement with relatively few adverse effects and good evidence for improvement of migraine symptoms. We evaluate lifestyle issues and comorbidities in all our patients. Ignoring these will make successful treatment near impossible. Good sleep, adequate hydration, appropriate diet, and exercise are vitally important. Finally, most of our patients benefit from a psychology evaluation with cognitive behavioral therapy. Stress management and biofeedback are tremendously helpful in improving quality of life in migraineurs. | Pediatric migraine;Prophylaxis;Abortives;Comorbidities;Cognitive behavioral therapy | WoS |
null | While the etiology of depression is not fully understood, increasing evidence from animal models suggests a role for the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in pathogenesis. In this paper, we investigate the potential role of VTA mechanistic target of rapamycin 2 (TORC2) signaling in mediating susceptibility to chronic social defeat stress (CSDS), a well-established mouse model of depression. Utilizing genetic and viral knockout of Rictor (rapamycin-insensitive companion of target of rapamycin), a requisite component of TORC2, we demonstrate that decreasing Rictor-dependent TORC2 signaling in catecholaminergic neurons, or within the VTA specifically, does not alter susceptibility to CSDS. Opiate abuse and mood disorders are often comorbid, and previous data demonstrate a role for VTA TORC2 in mediating opiate reward. Thus, we also investigated its potential role in mediating changes in opiate reward following CSDS. Catecholaminergic deletion of Rictor increases water, sucrose, and morphine intake but not preference in a two-bottle choice assay in stress-naive mice, and these effects are maintained after stress. VTA-specific knockout of Rictor increases water and sucrose intake after physical CSDS, but does not alter consummatory behavior in the absence of stress. These findings suggest a novel role for TORC2 in mediating stress-induced changes in consummatory behaviors that may contribute to some aspects of mood disorders. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Ventral tegmental area;Stress;Drinking;Locomotor activity;Catecholamine;Consummatory | WoS |
null | While the family is increasingly being recognised as pivotal to migration, there remain too few studies examining how migration impacts on intergenerational relationships. Although traditional intergenerational gaps are intensified by migration, arguably there has been an over-emphasis on the divisions between traditional' parents and modern' children at the expense of examining the ways in which both generations adapt. As Foner and Dreby [2011. Relations Between the Generations in Immigrant Families. Annual Review of Sociology 37: 545-564] stress, the reality of post-migration intergenerational relations is inevitably more complex, requiring the examination of both conflict and cooperation. This article contributes to this growing literature by discussing British data from comparative projects on intergenerational relations in African families (in Britain, France and South Africa). It argues that particular understandings can be gained from examining the adaptation of parents and parenting strategies post-migration and how the reconfiguration of family relations can contribute to settlement. By focusing on how both parent and child generations engage in conflict and negotiation to redefine their relationships and expectations, it offers insight into how families navigate and integrate the values of two cultures. In doing so, it argues that the reconfiguration of gender roles as a result of migration offers families the space to renegotiate their relationships and make choices about what they transmit to the next generation. | African migration;migrant families;intergenerational relations;gender and transmission | WoS |
null | While the field of shock-wave physics has provided significant insights into many of the processes related to wave propagation in materials, the exact operative micromechanisms of defect generation occurring during the shock and thereafter those controlling defect storage and damage evolution remain incompletely understood and poorly modeled. Attainment of a truly predictive capability to enable accurate simulations of dynamic impact, shock, and high-rate loading phenomena applications requires a linked experimental, modeling, and validation research program. In this talk an overview of the microstructural mechanisms affecting the strength of materials at high pressure and strain rates as well as the processes controlling damage evolution during shock loading will be reviewed. The spectrum of physical phenomena and the potential nation-wide experimental facilities poised to study them is discussed. In addition, the limitations and caveats involved in using only velocimetry, single-pass radiography, and/or shock recovery alone to elucidate the 3-D aspects of defect generation, storage, and recovery will be examined in detail. Examples of how both "real-time" and post-mortem experimental approaches are needed to quantify dislocation / defect generation, shock-induced phase transitions, and damage evolution and spallation will be discussed. | shock loading;deformation;defect generation;mechanisms;kinetics;dynamic damage;spall | WoS |
null | While the first narcoseries as Sin tetas no hay paraiso and Las munecas de la mafia have had characterized female roles as victims, Telemundo (a broadcast television network) has changed this image by including leading female roles of the drug dealing. Seemingly, it provokes an investment in the traditional gender roles, because these women turn into an active agent in a patriarchal world. Nevertheless, these protagonists are defined by means of stereotypically feminine elements, such as kindness, sacrifice and maternity that are concreted, in a literal and metaphorical way, in two analyzed narcoseries: La Reina del Sur and Camelia la texana. Notwithstanding, the real subversive act of these characters-in order to depart from gender prototypes-is their abilities to analyze and decide. They, rather than consider themselves as victims of their circumstances, assume their responsibility for the life that they have chosen and their violent acts. | drug dealing;narcoseries;gender roles;victims;violence | WoS |
null | While the goal of reducing environmental impact has become an urgent imperative for Chinese leadership, the central and potentially competing objective for policy makers and planners remains economic growth and job creation. This paper systematically examines the perceived trade-offs between pollution control regulation and employment at the microeconomic and macroeconomic scale. We synthesize the theoretical literature on the employment impact of pollution control regulation at the firm, industry, and economy levels and summarize the theoretically sufficient conditions for employment-enhancing regulation. The paper examines the US experience with the impact of pollution control on job growth in the 1980s and 1990s and draws out the mechanisms through which job growth and pollution control can be congruent, examining their adaptability to the Chinese context. Specifically, this paper highlights the importance of targeting regulations toward sectors where labor costs represent a small portion of overall costs or sectors with low labor intensity. We demonstrate that in the Chinese context, a transition to an economy with a higher proportion of tertiary output is likely to facilitate a joint strategy of stringent pollution control combined with job growth. | Environmental regulation;Employment;Green jobs;China | WoS |
null | While the hominin fossil record cannot inform us on either the presence or extent of social and cognitive abilities that may have paved the way for the emergence of language, studying non-vocal communication among our closest living relatives, the African apes, may provide valuable information about how language originated. Although much has been learned from gestural signaling in non-human primates, we have not yet established how and why gestural repertoires vary across species, what factors influence this variation, and how knowledge of these differences can contribute to an understanding of gestural signaling's contribution to language evolution. In this paper, we review arguments surrounding the theory that language evolved from gestural signaling and suggest some important factors to consider when conducting comparative studies of gestural communication among African apes. Specifically, we propose that social dynamics and positional behavior are critical components that shape the frequency and nature of gestural signaling across species and we argue that an understanding of these factors could shed light on how gestural communication may have been the basis of human language. We outline predictions for the influence of these factors on the frequencies and types of gestures used across the African apes and highlight the importance of including these factors in future gestural communication research with primates. Am. J. Primatol. 75:891-903, 2013. (c) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | African apes;gesture;language evolution;social dynamics;positional behavior | WoS |
null | While the importance of faces in person recognition has been the subject of many studies, there are relatively few studies examining recognition of the whole person in motion even though this most closely resembles daily experience. Most studies examining the whole body in motion use point light displays, which have many advantages but are impoverished and unnatural compared to real life. To determine which factors are used when recognizing the whole person in motion we conducted two experiments using naturalistic videos. In Experiment 1 we used a matching task in which the first stimulus in each pair could either be a video or multiple still images from a video of the full body. The second stimulus, on which person recognition was performed, could be an image of either the full body or face alone. We found that the body contributed to person recognition beyond the face, but only after exposure to motion. Since person recognition was performed on still images, the contribution of motion to person recognition was mediated by form-from-motion processes. To assess whether dynamic identity signatures may also contribute to person recognition, in Experiment 2 we presented people in motion and examined person recognition from videos compared to still images. Results show that dynamic identity signatures did not contribute to person recognition beyond form-from-motion processes. We conclude that the face, body and form-from-motion processes all appear to play a role in unfamiliar person recognition, suggesting the importance of considering the whole body and motion when examining person perception. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Person recognition;Face recognition;Body recognition;Biological motion;Form-from-motion processes;Dynamic identity signatures | WoS |
null | While the influence of sleep on memory has a long history, sleep's role in the formation of false memories is less clear. Moreover, virtually nothing is known about the development of false memories beyond delays of about 12 h. Here, for the first time, we assess post-sleep development of true and false memories across longer delay intervals of 24 and 48 h. Although technically a false memory, remembering information that is related to the theme, or gist, of an experience can be considered an adaptive process. Some evidence suggests that sleep, compared to a wake period, increases both true and gist-based false memories in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) task, but not all studies have returned this result, and most studies cannot rule out the possibility that sleep is merely protecting the information from interference, as opposed to actively aiding its consolidation. Here, to equate amount of time spent awake and asleep across groups, we assess how the positioning of sleep relative to memory encoding impacts retention across longer delays of 24 and 48 h. Participants encoded 16 DRM lists in the morning (WAKE 1st Groups) or evening (SLEEP 1st Groups), and were tested either 24 or 48 h later at the same time of day. Results demonstrate that true memory is better when participants sleep soon after learning. Sleeping first also increased false memory, but only in low performers. Importantly, and similar to previous studies, we found a negative correlation between slow-wave sleep (SWS) and false memory, suggesting that SWS may be detrimental for semantic/gist processing. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. | False memory;Sleep;Gist;Episodic memory;Semantic memory;Slow-wave sleep | WoS |
null | While the initial treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) usually relies on surgical resection followed by systemic cytotoxic chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy, recent advances in understanding of NSCLC biology and immunology have spurred the development of numerous targeted therapies. In particular, a class of immune modulatory drugs targeting the immune checkpoint pathways has demonstrated remarkable durable remissions in a select minority of advanced NSCLC patients, potentially heralding the elusive "cancer cure". This review focuses on the clinical evidence for one of these agents, nivolumab, and clarifies the role of this drug in the context of the other targeted therapies currently available for the treatment of NSCLC. We also discuss the impact of nivolumab on patient quality of life and health economics. | nivolumab;lung cancer;immune checkpoint;targeted therapy | WoS |
null | While the link between educational attainment and future health and wellness is well understood, little investigation has considered the potential impacts of distinct forms of childhood maltreatment on high school completion. In the present study, the relationship between five categories of childhood maltreatment (physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and physical and emotional neglect) and completion of high school education were examined using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). From September 2005 to May 2013, data were collected for the At-Risk Youth Study (ARYS), a cohort of street-involved young people who use illicit drugs in Vancouver, Canada. We used logistic regression to examine the relationship between childhood maltreatment and high school completion, while controlling for a range of potential confounding variables. Specifically, five separate models for each category of maltreatment and two combined models were employed to examine the relative associations between, and cumulative impact of, different forms of childhood maltreatment and educational attainment. Among 974 young people, 737 (76%) reported not completing high school. In separate multivariable analyses physical abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect remained positively and independently associated with an incomplete high school education. In a combined multivariable model with all forms of childhood maltreatment considered together, emotional abuse (adjusted odds ratio=2.08; 95% confidence interval: 1.51-2.86) was the only form of maltreatment that remained significantly associated with an incomplete high school education. The cumulative impact assessment indicated a moderate dose-dependent trend where the greater the number of different forms of childhood maltreatment the greater the risk of not completing a high school education. These findings point to the need for trauma-informed interventions to improve educational attainment among vulnerable young people, as well as evidence-based prevention programmes, such as the Nurse-Family Partnership, aimed at supporting at-risk families before maltreatment occurs. | child abuse;child;adolescent mental health;Childhood Trauma Questionnaire;education;homelessness;substance use | WoS |
null | While the paradigm of sustainable development has largely influenced architecture projects worldwide, Green Building Certifications (GBCs) have become the new (increasingly mandatory) standard of project performance. Numerous studies have concentrated on the influence of sustainable development (SD) in the final product: the building. However, more research is still needed in order to understand how GBCs have influenced building processes, particularly collaboration and innovation within architecture projects. In order to fill this gap, this study presents results from 19 interviews with professionals in the built environment and examines three architecture projects conducted in Canada that received a widely popular GBC and were significantly influenced by SD principles during the design and building process. The research applies recent frameworks for exploring stakeholders' interests on GBCs and the collaboration and innovation practices developed by them. Research results show that processes within these projects are shaped by at least four tensions that can either enhance or hinder collaboration and innovation: strategic-tactical, collaborative-competitive, participative-effective and individual-collective. The study highlights the importance of understanding GBC as a process and not only as a final outcome, and thus, to better manage these tensions so that they contribute to product and process performance. | collaboration;green certifications;innovation;sustainable development;project management | WoS |
null | While the practice of rainwater harvesting (RWH) can be traced back millennia, the degree of its modern implementation varies greatly across the world, often with systems that do not maximize potential benefits. With a global focus, the pertinent practical, theoretical and social aspects of RWH are reviewed in order to ascertain the state of the art. Avenues for future research are also identified. A major finding is that the degree of RWH systems implementation and the technology selection are strongly influenced by economic constraints and local regulations. Moreover, despite design protocols having been set up in many countries, recommendations are still often organized only with the objective of conserving water without considering other potential benefits associated with the multiple-purpose nature of RWH. It is suggested that future work on RWH addresses three priority challenges. Firstly, more empirical data on system operation is needed to allow improved modelling by taking into account multiple objectives of RWH systems. Secondly, maintenance aspects and how they may impact the quality of collected rainwater should be explored in the future as a way to increase confidence on rainwater use. Finally, research should be devoted to the understanding of how institutional and socio-political support can be best targeted to improve system efficacy and community acceptance. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Rainwater harvesting;Stormwater management;Sustainable urban water systems;Water conservation;Water efficiency | WoS |
null | While the public health burden posed by borderline personality disorder (BPD) rivals that associated with other major mental illnesses, the prevailing disposition of psychiatrists toward the disorder remains characterized by misinformation, stigma, aversive attitudes, and insufficient familiarity with effective generalist treatments that can be delivered in nonspecialized health care settings. Residency training programs are well positioned to better equip the next generation of psychiatrists to address these issues, but no consensus or guidelines currently exist for what and how residents should be taught about managing BPD. Instead, disproportionately limited curricular time, teaching of non-evidence-based approaches, and modeling of conceptually confused combinations of techniques drawn from specialty BPD treatments are offered. In this article, we (1) explain why training in a generalist model is sensible and why alternative approaches are not appropriate for residents, (2) propose a plan for giving residents adequate training via a generalist model, highlighting minimal didactic and clinical-training objectives (dubbed core competencies and milestones) and a model curriculum developed at the Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Hospital residency program, and (3) describe obstacles to implementation of effective generalist training posed by infrastructural, faculty-centered, and resident-centered variables. | borderline personality disorder;core competencies;generalist treatment;Good Psychiatric Management;milestones;residency training | WoS |
null | While the quality of products is a competitive advantage for very small software development organizations, the usage of Software and Systems Engineering standards amongst such very small organizations is extremely low. A key factor in the literature explaining this lack of quality standards adoption is the perception by small and very small organizations that such standards have been developed for large multi-national companies and not with small and very small organizations in mind. The ISO/IEC 29110 standard is unique amongst software and systems engineering standards, in that the working group (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 WG 24) mandated to develop a new standard approached industry to conduct a needs assessment and gather actual requirements for a new standard as part of the standards development process. This paper presents a historical perspective behind the development of the ISO/IEC 29110 systems and software engineering standard and its constituent components, including the rationale behind its development and the innovative design of implementation guides to assist very small companies in adopting the standards. Further this paper will present an overview of the various parts of the ISO/IEC 29110 family and briefly present the plans for the future evolution of this series of standards. | ISO/IEC 29110;Profiles;Software Engineering;Software Process;Standards;Systems Engineering;Very Small Entities | WoS |
null | While the sustainability concept has gained recognition in Indonesia, contractors have been slowly implementing the principles in construction projects. An assessment model was developed as a tool to identify the baseline conditions of contractors' readiness, i.e. awareness, willingness, and capacity towards sustainability practices. The model involves parameters and indicators derived from green building and green contractor concepts, and sustainable construction best practices. The scoring system for these parameters and indicators was set up through discussions with experts using the Delphi method facilitated by the Ministry of Public Works. Trial surveys were conducted to refine the model. A preliminary portrayal of existing conditions in Indonesia was assessed using the proposed readiness assessment model. This limited survey indicated that while large contractors are fully aware and willing, they have been only partly implementing sustainability practices. Because the process of developing the model had involved experts and champions of the industry/stakeholders, and was also led by the government/Ministry of Public Works, the proposed assessment model should be inherently acceptable for industry-wide application. | contractors;readiness;model;assessment;sustainable construction | WoS |
null | While the terns "gluten has become commonplace, the disorders associated with gluten still remain poorly understood. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), the most recently recognized of the gluten-related disorders, is arguably the most unknown. While celiac disease and wheat allergy have diagnostic algorithm, NCGS remains a diagnosis of exclusion. With no evidence-based objective diagnostic criteria or serological tests, it is difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to study epidemiologically. Studies often use varied definitions of NCGS and are difficult to compare or validate. Further complicating diagnosis. NCGS has variable and vside-ranging symptoms which overlap with a number of other diseases and changes to diet are inherently difficult to study. In fact, some have argued that NCGS does not exist as a distinct entity or that it may not be caused by the gluten portion of foods. In this review, we outline the current knowledge, hypotheses, and debates surrounding the epidemiology of NCGS in the context of the spectrum of gluten-related disorders. | Celiac disease;Glutens;Epidemiology | WoS |
null | While the US Food and Drug Administration has not approved the use of 3% papain gel in the United States, the authors feel this study adds to the literature regarding its use. Introduction. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of 3% papain gel on wounds in mice. Materials and Methods. Thirty healthy C57BL mice (25-30 g) aged 10 weeks were randomly divided into 2 groups: mice treated with 3% papain gel and mice treated with placebo gel. Skin incisions were performed with a 6-mm metallic punch with a cutting blade edge. On days 3 and 7 after creating the lesion, the mice were euthanized and lesion samples were collected. The lesion samples were processed and sectioned into 3 fragments of skin to be stained with 3 types of dye: hematoxylin and eosin, Picrosirius red, and Weigert. In addition, immunohistochemical analysis (alpha-SM actin and Ki67) followed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) protocol was performed on the samples. Results. On gross examination, the 3% papain-treated group took less time to heal the wounds compared with the control. On day 7, microscopic examination showed the 3% papain-treated group had lower numbers of inflammatory cells, increased neovascularization, and improved organization of collagen and elastic fibers. Using PCR analysis, the 3% papain-treated group showed a significant increase in transforming growth factor beta and interleukin-6 expression compared with the control (P < .05). Conclusion. Due to a reduced local inflammatory response, increased angiogenesis, and improved organization of collagen deposition, these findings demonstrate 3% papain gel can improve cutaneous wound healing in mice. | Carica papaya;wound healing;collagen fibers;elastic fibers | WoS |
null | While the water quality issues in suburban watersheds have been greatly attributed to rapid urban development and stormwater runoff, pollution contribution from agricultural practices are still significant but often overlooked. The objective of this study is to assess water quality impacts of managing both agricultural and urban lands in a suburban watershed. Neshanic River watershed is a headwater watershed with mixed land uses located in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, USA. It has 40% of agricultural lands and 33% of urban lands, which represents typical natural resource conditions and water quality problems in suburban New Jersey, USA. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to evaluate the potential water quality impacts of agricultural and urban land use and management practices in this suburban watershed. Four management scenarios (baseline, best-case and worst-case I and II) are developed through interviews and meetings with farmers and natural resource conservation professionals to represent achievable, ideal and worst operation conditions in urban and agricultural lands in the watershed. The specific water quality parameters assessed are soil, total nitrogen and phosphorus losses. The modeling results demonstrate that mismanagement in urban and agricultural lands in suburban watersheds (worst-case I and II) could significantly exacerbate the existing water quality problems while no-till in row crops (best-case) doesn't necessarily improve water quality. Agriculture is still the primary source of water pollution and attention should continuously be paid to implement agricultural BMPs to reduce agricultural nonpoint source pollution in suburban watersheds. | nonpoint source pollution;stormwater runoff;SWAT;suburban watershed management | WoS |
null | While therapies targeting the co-inhibitory or immune checkpoint receptors PD-1 and CTLA-4 have shown remarkable success in many cancers, not all patients benefit from these therapies. This has catalyzed enormous interest in the targeting of other immune checkpoint receptors. In this regard, TIGIT and CD96 have recently entered the limelight as novel immune checkpoint receptor targets. TIGIT and CD96 together with the co-stimulatory receptor CD226 form a pathway that is analogous to the CD28/CTLA-4 pathway, in which shared ligands and differential receptor: ligand affinities fine-tune the immune response. Although the roles of TIGIT and CD96 as immune checkpoint receptors in T cell and natural killer cell biology are just beginning to be uncovered, accumulating data support the targeting of these receptors for improving anti-tumor immune responses. A clear understanding of the immune cell populations regulated by TIGIT and CD96 is key to the design of immunotherapies that target these receptors in combination with other existing immune checkpoint blockade therapies. | anti-tumor immunity;cancer immunotherapy;CD96;checkpoint inhibitors;co-inhibitory receptors;TIGIT | WoS |
null | While there is a general consensus in the literature that individuals with autism spectrum disorder have difficulty with cognitive empathy, much less is known about emotional empathy processing in these individuals. Most research has employed subjective self-report measures, which can often be misinterpreted or under-reported/over-reported. More objective measures such as psychophysiological recordings of arousal offer a more objective response. Furthermore, combining physiological responses with self-report ratings allows us to explore the relationship between these two responses to emotionally charged stimuli. A total of 25 individuals with autism spectrum disorder were compared with 25 matched controls on their physiological (arousal) and psychological (self-report) responses to emotionally distressing video scenes. These responses were also then compared with self-report cognitive and emotional trait empathy. Results indicate that while individuals with autism spectrum disorder appear to respond similarly to controls physiologically, their interpretation of this response is dampened emotionally. Furthermore, this dampening of self-report emotional response is associated with a general reduction in trait empathy. | arousal;autism spectrum disorder;emotional response;empathy;psychophysiology | WoS |
null | While traditional nutrition research has dealt with providing nutrients to nourish populations, it nowadays focuses on improving health of individuals through diet. Modem nutritional research is aiming at health promotion and disease prevention and on performance improvement. As a consequence of these ambitious objectives, the disciplines "nutrigenetics" and "nutrigenomics" have evolved. Nutri-genetics asks the question how individual genetic disposition, manifesting as single nucleotide polymorphisms, copy-number polymorphisms and epigenetic phenomena, affects susceptibility to diet. Nutrigenomics addresses the inverse relationship, that is how diet influences gene transcription, protein expression and metabolism. A major methodological challenge and first pre-requisite of nutrigenomics is integrating genomics (gene analysis), transcriptomics (gene expression analysis), proteomics (protein expression analysis) and metabonomics (metabolite profiling) to define a "healthy" phenotype. The long-term deliverable of nutrigenomics is personalised nutrition for maintenance of individual health and prevention of disease. Transcriptomics serves to put proteomic and metabolomic markers into a larger biological perspective and is suitable for a first "round of discovery" in regulatory networks. Metabonomics is a diagnostic tool for metabolic classification of individuals. The great asset of this platform is the quantitative, non-invasive analysis of easily accessible human body fluids like urine, blood and saliva. This feature also holds true to some extent for proteomics, with the constraint that proteomics is more complex in terms of absolute number, chemical properties and dynamic range of compounds present. Apart from addressing the most complex "-ome", proteomics represents the only platform that delivers not only markers for disposition and efficacy but also targets of intervention. The Omics disciplines applied in the context of nutrition and health have the potential to deliver biomarkers for health and comfort, reveal early indicators for disease disposition, assist in differentiating dietary responders from non-responders, and, last but not least, discover bioactive, beneficial food components. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of the three Omics platforms, discusses their implication in nutrigenomics and elaborates on applications in nutrition and health such as digestive health, allergy, diabetes and obesity, nutritional intervention and nutrient bioavailability. Proteomic developments, applications and potential in the field of nutrition have been specifically addressed in another review issued by our group. | nutrition;health;proteomics;transcriptomics;metabonomics;biomarkers | WoS |
null | While Turkey is mostly a Muslim country, officially it is a secular country; traditional gender roles are still maintained, and homosexuality is a taboo subject. The Turkish sporting world is no exception; it also excludes and ignores the existence of homosexuals and homosexuality. Using a single case study, this study aimed to contribute to fill the gap in the understudied subject of homosexuality in physical education (PE) and sports literature through investigating the experiences of a gay male Turkish PE and sports major. The respondent was aged 25 and a fourth-year undergraduate student at the time. Purposive sampling was used to select the respondent based on his willingness to participate in the study and a semi-structured interview allowed for data to be collected regarding being gay in Turkey, and in particular in the PE and sports environment. The four major themes derived from the analysed interview data were (1) conflicting feelings about coming out of the closet, (2) life in the Turkish community, (3) life in a PE and sports department and (4) perceived roots of homophobia. The findings indicated that the respondent's disclosure of his sexual orientation to friends resulted in positive reactions; however, he still hesitates to acknowledge his homosexuality publicly. Traditional gender roles, misconceptions about homosexuality and homosexuals and religion were perceived as the most influential factors for homophobic attitudes and behaviour in Turkish society. His experiences in Turkey's world of PE and sports were rife with homophobia. | Homophobia;Sports Homophobia;Gay;Lesbian;Homosexuality;Physical Education | WoS |
null | While urbanization brings economic and social benefits, it also causes water pollution and other environmental ecological problems. This paper provides a theoretical framework to quantitatively analyze the dynamic relationship between water resource utilization and the process of urbanization. Using data from Jiangsu province, we first construct indices to evaluate urbanization and water resource utilization. We then adopt an entropy model to examine the correlation between urbanization and water resource utilization. In addition, we introduce a dynamic coupling model to analyze and predict the coupling degree between urbanization and water resource utilization. Our analyses show that pairing with rising urbanization during 2002-2014, the overall index of water resource utilization in Jiangsu province has experienced a "decline-rise-decline" trend. Specifically, after the index of water resource utilization reached its lowest point in 2004, it gradually began to rise. Water resource utilization reached its highest value in 2010. The coupling degree between urbanization and water resource utilization was relatively low in 2002 and 2003 varying between -90 degrees and 0 degrees. It has been rising since then. Out-of-sample forecasts indicate that the coupling degree will reach its highest value of 74.799 degrees in 2016, then will start to gradually decline. Jiangsu province was chosen as our studied area because it is one of the selected pilot provinces for China's economic reform and social development. The analysis of the relationship between provincial water resource utilization and urbanization is essential to the understanding of the dynamic relationship between these two systems. It also serves as an important input for developing national policies for sustainable urbanization and water resource management. | urbanization;water resource utilization;the coupling degree | WoS |
null | While ustekinumab has been widely used as an effective biologic for the treatment of chronic plaque psoriasis, no prospective studies have specifically investigated the clinical factors that may influence treatment outcomes with ustekinumab. This post-hoc analysis aimed to identify specific clinical factors that may influence treatment outcomes with ustekinumab in psoriasis patients. In the MARCOPOLO study, 102 Korean patients with moderate to severe psoriasis were analyzed to assess the influence of baseline characteristics as clinical factors on clinical response (improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index by 75%/90% [PASI75/PASI90]) to ustekinumab. In addition, differences in PASI75 and PASI90 responses between the responder group and non-responders were evaluated at weeks 28 and 52. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine adjusted clinical factors predicting treatment outcomes among patient characteristics. At week 28, there was a significant difference in PASI75/PASI90 response based on prior biologic experience, although the difference did not persist at week 52. In addition, after adjusting for the effects of relevant clinical factors, biologic experience was significantly associated with less PASI75 (odds ratio [OR] = 0.14, P = 0.001) and PASI90 (OR = 0.22, P = 0.036) responses at week 28. The presence of comorbidities was higher among non-responders than among PASI75/PASI90 responders at both weeks 28 and 52, but was not statistically significant. Previous biologic use was the only clinical factor predicting less response at week 28, although it did not influence the clinical response after week 52. Further studies are warranted to investigate the association between presence of comorbidities and clinical response. | clinical factors;clinical response;comorbidities;psoriasis;ustekinumab | WoS |
null | While we are witnessing a transition from petascale to exascale computing, we experience, when teaching students and scientists to adopt distributed computing infrastructures for computational science, what Geoffrey A. Moore once coined "the chasm" between the visionaries in computational science and the early majority of scientific pragmatists. Using the EU-funded DRIHM project (Distributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Meteorology) as a case study, we observe that innovative research infrastructures have difficulties to be accepted by the scientific pragmatists because the infrastructure and scientific services are not "mainstream" enough. Excellence in workforce, however, can only be achieved if the tools are not only available but also used. In this paper we report on how "this chasm" is exhibited in the DRIHM case, how it was (partially) crossed, and what can be learned from this experience for more general cases. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. | Research infrastructure;Extreme scale computing;Hydro-meteorology;Chasm model | WoS |
null | While we are working or living in severe environment, the internal pressure changes of functional garments, the resistance from clothing and the thermal insulation for individual will lead obviously changes of our workload, heart rate and metabolic rate. Working in extreme circumstances and dressing pressure garments make workload increased significantly which limit people's ability to accomplish the tasks and reducing the efficiency of activity. This paper mainly report the study on relationship between different upper limb workloads and metabolic rate when subjects were dressing, undressed or with pressures. Specially, we focus on the relationship between heart rate and metabolic rate in clothes. The main conclusions of this paper is: Wearing different garments the correspondence between heart rate and metabolic rate are far from the same. And Liquid Cooling Garment (LCG) is the most effective garment for human metabolism among the clothes in this research. The pressures inside clothes increased workload, as well as the metabolic rate. | Metabolic rate;Heart rate;Workloads;Garment;Ergonomics | WoS |
null | While weeds in sugar beet farming reduce crop yield and quality, they also lead to higher labor and material losses. In recent years, in order to eliminate or reduce the damage caused by weeds in sugar beet farming, weed control has gained importance. To this end, various studies have been conducted on robotic weed control by detecting weeds using image processing algorithms and hoeing or spraying the weeds. In this study, weeds in sugar beet fields were detected by the image processing algorithm and were sprayed with a liquid. When height of spraying nozzle above the ground was 30 cm and 50 cm, measurements of spraying robot were carried out for 8 different speeds. The weed surface covering area of spraying liquid was evaluated by two different methods. A decrease of 40% in nozzle height of smart spraying robot caused a decrease of about 12.18% at 4 different weeds surface covering area (cm(2)) of spraying liquid and a decrease of 16.70% at weed surface covering area (pixels) of spraying liquid. | Image processing;Herbicide application;Precision agriculture;Precision spraying | WoS |
null | Whilst many vertebrates appear externally left-right symmetric, the arrangement of internal organs is asymmetric. In zebrafish, the breaking of left-right symmetry is organised by Kupffer's Vesicle (KV): an approximately spherical, fluid-filled structure that begins to form in the embryo 10 hours post fertilisation. A crucial component of zebrafish symmetry breaking is the establishment of a cilia-driven fluid flow within KV. However, it is still unclear (a) how dorsal, ventral and equatorial cilia contribute to the global vortical flow, and (b) if this flow breaks left-right symmetry through mechanical transduction or morphogen transport. Fully answering these questions requires knowledge of the three-dimensional flow patterns within KV, which have not been quantified in previous work. In this study, we calculate and analyse the three-dimensional flow in KV. We consider flow from both individual and groups of cilia, and (a) find anticlockwise flow can arise purely from excess of cilia on the dorsal roof over the ventral floor, showing how this vortical flow is stabilised by dorsal tilt of equatorial cilia, and (b) show that anterior clustering of dorsal cilia leads to around 40 % faster flow in the anterior over the posterior corner. We argue that these flow features are supportive of symmetry breaking through mechano-sensory cilia, and suggest a novel experiment to test this hypothesis. From our new understanding of the flow, we propose a further experiment to reverse the flow within KV to potentially induce situs inversus. | Symmetry-breaking flow;Kupffer's Vesicle;Cilia;Zebrafish embryo | WoS |
null | Whipple's disease is a rare infectious disease that can be fatal if left untreated. The disease is caused by infection with Tropheryma whipplei, a bacterium that may be more common than was initially assumed. Most patients present with nonspecific symptoms, and as routine cultivation of the bacterium is not feasible, it is difficult to diagnose this infection. On the other hand, due to the generic symptoms, infection with this bacterium is actually quite often in the differential diagnosis. The gold standard for diagnosis used to be periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) staining of duodenal biopsy specimens, but PAS staining has a poor specificity and sensitivity. The development of molecular techniques has resulted in more convenient methods for detecting T. whipplei infections, and this has greatly improved the diagnosis of this often missed infection. In addition, the molecular detection of T. whipplei has resulted in an increase in knowledge about its pathogenicity, and this review gives an overview of the new insights in epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and treatment of Tropheryma whipplei infections. | Whipple's disease;Tropheryma whipplei;PCR;histopathology;clinical manifestations;antibiotics;therapy | WoS |
null | White Matter (WM) microstructures, such as axonal density and average diameter, are crucial to the normal function of the Central Nervous System (CNS) as they are closely related with axonal conduction velocities. Conversely, disruptions of these microstructural features may result in severe neurological deficits, suggesting that their noninvasive mapping could be an important step towards diagnosing and following pathophysiology. Whereas diffusion based MRI methods have been proposed to map these features, they typically entail the application of powerful gradients, which are rarely available in the clinic, or extremely long acquisition schemes to extract information from parameter-intensive models. In this study, we suggest that simple and time-efficient multi-gradient-echo (MGE) MRI can be used to extract the axon density from susceptibility-driven non-monotonic decay in the time-dependent signal. We show, both theoretically and with simulations, that a non-monotonic signal decay will occur for multi-compartmental microstructures - such as axons and extra-axonal spaces, which were here used as a simple model for the microstructure - and that, for axons parallel to the main magnetic field, the axonal density can be extracted. We then experimentally demonstrate in ex-vivo rat spinal cords that its different tracts - characterized by different microstructures- can be clearly contrasted using the MGE-derived maps. When the quantitative results are compared against ground-truth histology, they reflect the axonal fraction (though with a bias, as evident from Bland-Altman analysis). As well, the extra-axonal fraction can be estimated. The results suggest that our model is oversimplified, yet at the same time evidencing a potential and usefulness of the approach to map underlying microstructures using a simple and time-efficient MRI sequence. We further show that a simple general-linear-model can predict the average axonal diameters from the four model parameters, and map these average axonal diameters in the spinal cords. While clearly further modelling and theoretical developments are necessary, we conclude that salient WM microstructural features can be extracted from simple, SNR-efficient multi-gradient echo MRI, and that this paves the way towards easier estimation of WM microstructure in vivo. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. | Axon density;Axon diameter;Susceptibility;Gradient echo;Multi-gradient echo;T2*;Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI);Ultrahigh field MRI | WoS |
null | White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is the most severe viral pathogen to the crustacean aquaculture industry worldwide. Recently, serious WSSV outbreaks caused catastrophic losses in the Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis in Jiangsu Province, Eastern China. However, to date, little is known about its infection mechanism in the new natural host. This study aimed to reveal the temporal and spatial dynamics of WSSV in E. sinensis. The slow viral growth in the early stage of infection was the light infection stage (from 0 to 24hpi), and the exponential growth stage that followed was the logarithmic phase (from 24 to 72hpi). The viral growth curve ended with the plateau phase (from 72 to 144hpi) which demonstrated a consistent high level of viral load and accompanied heavy crab mortality. The viral load increased as time progressed with similar growth curves, however, at different degrees. The viral copy numbers of tissues at different time intervals, analysed using one-way analysis of variance (anova), showed significant differences between tissues at all time points (P<0.05). Infection was detectable as early as 6hpi in all the tissues screened. The severity of infection was found to be maximum in gill and pleopods, which could be recommended for diagnostic testing. This study might provide important data to analyse theoretically the interaction between WSSV and the host. | white spot syndrome virus;Eriocheir sinensis;real-time PCR;viral load | WoS |
null | White-light coronal and heliospheric imagers observe scattering of photospheric light from both dust particles (the F-Corona) and free electrons in the corona (the K-corona). The separation of the two coronae is thus vitally important to reveal the faint K-coronal structures (e. g., streamers, co-rotating interaction regions, coronal mass ejections, etc.). However, the separation of the two coronae is very difficult, so we are content in defining a background corona that contains the F-and as little K-as possible. For both the LASCO-C2 and LASCO-C3 coronagraphs aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the white-light imagers of the SECCHI suite aboard the Solar Terrestrial Relationships Observatory (STEREO), a time-dependent model of the background corona is generated from about a month of similar images. The creation of such models is possible because the missions carrying these instruments are orbiting the Sun at about 1 au. However, the orbit profiles for the upcoming Solar Orbiter and Solar Probe Plus missions are very different. These missions will have elliptic orbits with a rapidly changing radial distance, hence invalidating the techniques in use for the SOHO/LASCO and STEREO/SECCHI instruments. We have been investigating techniques to generate background models out of just single images that could be used for the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager and the Wide-field Imager for the Solar Probe Plus packages on board the respective spacecraft. In this paper, we introduce a state-of-the-art, heuristic technique to create the background intensity models of STEREO/HI-1 data based solely on individual images, report on new results derived from its application, and discuss its relevance to instrumental and operational issues. | methods | WoS |
null | White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a fungal disease responsible for decimating many bat populations in North America. Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), the psychrophilic fungus responsible for WNS, prospers in the winter habitat of many hibernating bat species. The immune response that Pd elicits in bats is not yet fully understood; antibodies are produced in response to infection by Pd, but they may not be protective and indeed may be harmful. To understand how bats respond to infection during hibernation, we studied the effect of Pd inoculation on the survival and gene expression of captive hibernating Myotis lucifugus with varying pre-hibernation antifungal antibody titres. We investigated gene expression through the transcription of selected cytokine genes (Il6, Il17a, Il1b, Il4 and Ifng) associated with inflammatory, Th1, Th2 and Th17 immune responses in wing tissue and lymph nodes. We found no difference in survival between bats with low and high anti-Pd titres, although anti- Pd antibody production during hibernation differed significantly between infected and uninfected bats. Transcription of Il6 and Il17a was higher in the lymph nodes of infected bats compared with uninfected bats. Increased transcription of these cytokines in the lymph node suggests that a pro-inflammatory immune response to WNS is not restricted to infected tissues and occurs during hibernation. The resulting Th17 response may be protective in euthermic bats, but because it may disrupt torpor, it could be detrimental during hibernation. | bats;wildlife disease;fungal infection;cytokines;gene expression;Pseudogymnoascus destructans | WoS |
null | Whitewater parks (WWPs) are increasingly popular recreational amenities, but the effects of WWPs on fish habitat and passage are poorly understood. This study investigated the use of a two-dimensional (2-D) model as compared with a three-dimensional (3-D) hydrodynamic model (flow-3D((R))) for assessing effects of WWPs on fish habitat. The primary aims of this study were to (1) examine the utility of 3-D modelling versus 2-D modelling in a hydraulically complex WWP and (2) compare modelled habitat quality for resident fishes with actual fish abundance and biomass generated from field sampling surveys. Two reaches of a wadeable river in Colorado were modelled: a natural reach and a reach containing a WWP. A 2-D habitat suitability analysis for juvenile and adult brown trout, juvenile and adult rainbow trout, longnose dace and longnose sucker predicted the same or higher habitat quality in the WWPs than the natural pools for all four species and for all modelled flow rates; however, results from fish sampling found significantly higher fish biomass for all four species in natural pools compared with WWP pools. All hydraulic metrics (depth, depth-averaged velocity, turbulent kinetic energy, 2-D and 3-D vorticity) had higher magnitudes in WWP pools than in natural pools. In the WWP pools, 3-D model results described the spatial distribution of flow characteristics or the magnitude of variables better than 2-D results. This supports the use of 3-D modelling for complex flows found in WWPs, but improved understanding of linkages between fish habitat quality and 3-D hydraulic descriptors is needed. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | whitewater park;kayak;flow-3D;hydraulic modelling;flow complexity;fish habitat;habitat modelling;vorticity | WoS |
null | Whole grain consumption is associated with reduced risk of chronic disease. One-fifth of UK adults and children do not consume any whole grains, and adolescents have low consumption rates. Factors affecting whole grain intake among adolescents are not well understood. This study examined the socioeconomic, environmental, lifestyle and psychological factors likely to influence consumption and explored whether outcomes aligned with behavioural predictors proposed in the Reasoned Action Approach. Five focus groups explored young people's attitudes towards, knowledge and consumption of wholegrain foods, as well as barriers to, and facilitators of, consumption. Participants were male and female adolescents (n = 50) aged 11-16 years from mixed socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicities, recruited through schools in the city of Leeds, UK. Focus groups were analysed using thematic analysis. Most participants had tried wholegrain food products, with cereal products being the most popular. Many recognised whole grain health benefits related to digestive health but not those related to heart disease or cancers. Several barriers to eating whole grains were identified including: difficulties in identifying wholegrain products and their health benefits; taste and visual appeal; and poor availability outside the home. Suggested facilitators of consumption were advertisements and educational campaigns, followed by improved sensory appeal, increased availability and choice, and tailoring products for young people. All constructs of the Theory of Reasoned Action were identifiable in the data, suggesting that the factors influencing whole grain intake in adolescents are well captured by this model. Study outcomes may inform research and health promotion to increase whole grain intake in this age group. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Adolescents;Wholegrain;Qualitative research;Focus groups;Correlates;Reasoned action approach | WoS |
null | Why did the pope Pius XI address his discourse on sexual morals, traditionally limited to priests, to the whole humanity? This and other questions find answers in the history of the encyclical Casti connubii (1930). Based on unpublished documents from the historical archive of the Pontifical Gregorian University, this essay traces parts of this history. It tells the origin and tries to interpret the meaning of the document The first part of our paper summarizes the main features of the historical context of the encyclical: the alliance between the Catholic Church and Fascism on conjugal morals, the debate on the demographic campaign and the politicization of sexuality and reproduction, the modernization of the family and the feminist claims of the American birth control movement. The second part sketches its redactional history: the identity of the ghostwriter and the instructions of the pope. | Church;Fascism;Sexual Morals | WoS |
null | Why do elites in some authoritarian regimes but not others remove from power the leaders who harm their interests? We develop a formal theory explaining this. The theory shows how elites' ambition prevents them from controlling authoritarian leaders. Because ambitious elites are willing to stage coups to acquire power even when the leader is good, ambition renders elites' claims that the leader's actions harm them less credible, making the other elites less likely to support coups. We show that the impact of the proportion of competent politicians on personalist regimes is non-monotonic: personalist regimes are most likely to emerge not only when there are few competent politicians but also when there are lots of them. We also provide insight into which elites become coup-plotters. The theory explains the emergence of personalist regimes, the frequency of coups, and why some authoritarian countries enjoy a more competent leadership than others. | authoritarian regimes;political control;coups | WoS |
null | Why do foreign investors invest in authoritarian regimes despite higher political risks? In this paper, I evaluate the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), coups, and political risk. I develop a formal model of leadership dynamics in authoritarian regimes and examine how the initial investment decision by foreign investors is affected by expected likelihood of coups. Using the formal model, I discriminate between diverging predictions made by the greed and patronage models of authoritarian regime dynamics. Accounting for both the greed and patronage mechanisms, I demonstrate that patronage effects predominate and that increasing FDI reduces the risk of a coup. Investors are more likely to send larger FDI amounts to authoritarian states when coup risk is high to increase the likelihood of a peaceful patronage equilibrium. Using a large-n test, I find that FDI reduces the likelihood of coups, while higher coup risk is associated with increased FDI in less mobile sectors. | foreign direct investment;authoritarian politics;coups;political risk | WoS |
null | Why do people defend the institution of marriage and related beliefs about committed romantic relationships? Why do they sometimes stereotype and discriminate against single people? In this article, I review research that provides some answers. I center on the role of a set of commonly held beliefs about romantic relationshipscommitted relationship ideology. In particular, I focus on how system and individual-level factors can help explain people's motivated defense of these consequential beliefs. | Ideology;relationships;singles;singlism;system justification | WoS |
null | Why do people vote? We design a field experiment to estimate a model of voting "because others will ask". The expectation of being asked motivates turnout if individuals derive pride from telling others that they voted, or feel shame from admitting that they did not vote, provided that lying is costly. In a door-to-door survey about election turnout, we experimentally vary (1) the informational content and use of a flyer pre-announcing the survey, (2) the duration and payment for the survey, and (3) the incentives to lie about past voting. The experimental results indicate significant social image concerns. For the 2010 Congressional election, we estimate a value of voting "to tell others" of about $ 15, contributing 2 percentage points to turnout. Finally, we evaluate a get-out-the-vote intervention in which we tell potential voters that we will ask if they voted. | Turn out;Behavioral political economy;Get-out-the-vote;Structural behavioral economics | WoS |
null | Why is drug resistance common and vaccine resistance rare? Drugs and vaccines both impose substantial pressure on pathogen populations to evolve resistance and indeed, drug resistance typically emerges soon after the introduction of a drug. But vaccine resistance has only rarely emerged. Using well-established principles of population genetics and evolutionary ecology, we argue that two key differences between vaccines and drugs explain why vaccines have so far proved more robust against evolution than drugs. First, vaccines tend to work prophylactically while drugs tend to work therapeutically. Second, vaccines tend to induce immune responses against multiple targets on a pathogen while drugs tend to target very few. Consequently, pathogen populations generate less variation for vaccine resistance than they do for drug resistance, and selection has fewer opportunities to act on that variation. When vaccine resistance has evolved, these generalities have been violated. With careful forethought, it may be possible to identify vaccines at risk of failure even before they are introduced. | antimicrobial resistance;vaccine escape;pathogen evolution;evolutionary rescue | WoS |
null | Why some individuals seek social engagement while others shy away has profound implications for normal and pathological human behavior. Evidence suggests that oxytocin (OT), the paramount human social hormone, and CD38 that governs OT release, contribute to individual differences in social skills from intense social involvement to extreme avoidance that characterize autism. To explore the neurochemical underpinnings of sociality, CD38 expression of peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL) was measured in Han Chinese undergraduates. First, CD38 mRNA levels were correlated with lower Autism Quotient (AQ), indicating enhanced social skills. AQ assesses the extent of autistic-like traits including the propensity and dexterity needed for successful social engagement in the general population. Second, three CD157 eQTL SNPs in the CD38/CD157 gene region were associated with CD38 expression. CD157 is a paralogue of CD38 and is contiguous with it on chromosome 4p15. Third, association was also observed between the CD157 eQTL SNPs, CD38 expression and AQ In the full model, CD38 expression and CD157 eQTL SNPs altogether account for a substantial 14% of the variance in sociality. Fourth, functionality of CD157 eQTL SNPs was suggested by a significant association with plasma oxytocin immunoreactivity products. Fifth, the ecological validity of these findings was demonstrated with subjects with higher PBL CD38 expression having more friends, especially for males. Furthermore, CD157 sequence variation predicts scores on the Friendship questionnaire. To summarize, this study by uniquely leveraging various measures reveals salient elements contributing to nonkin sociality and friendship, revealing a likely pathway underpinning the transition from normality to psychopathology. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Oxytocin;CD38 expression;CD157;Human social affiliation;Friendship;Autism quotient | WoS |
null | WIA-PA is an industrial wireless networking protocol standard used in process automation. One mechanism based on the WIA-PA multi-channel MAC has been proposed to solve industry wireless sensing questions in network channel disturbance and medium turning on conflict. The mechanism mainly includes the multi-channel MAC mechanism design proposal and the channel assignment algorithm design about WIA-PA. | WIA-PA;Multi-channel;MAC mechanism;Channel Assignment Algorithm | WoS |
null | Wide bandgap semiconductors have been increasingly adopted to enhance the efficiency and reduce the volume of power converters, as these devices are able to switch at dozens of megahertz or even 100 megahertz with lower power losses. However, such a high frequency operation may impose a challenge to the digital control system, and the required clock frequency should be up to 100 gigahertz in high precision applications, which is difficult to realize in low-cost microprocessors such as field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Instead of using hardware-dependent high frequency clocks, an alternative solution is to utilize digital pulse-width-modulated (DPWM) dither techniques to enhance the DPWM resolution. Unfortunately, this is achieved at the expense of introducing low frequency harmonics, which may complicate the output filter and system controller design. In this paper, an optimal dither technique is proposed to enhance the resolution of DPWM power converters. The concepts of positive dither and negative dither are first proposed in this paper. Furthermore, vector diagram-based analysis indicates that with the combination of positive dithers, negative dithers and a carefully selected dither sequence, the lowest order harmonics can be completely eliminated when the dither period is multiples of six switching periods. In other cases, the proposed optimal dither technique can produce minimized lowest order harmonics. Finally, experimental results obtained from a synchronous buck converter validate the feasibility of the proposed technique. | Dither;digital pulse-width modulation;harmonic elimination;high precision converters;wide bandgap | WoS |
null | Wide spread monitoring cameras on construction sites provide large amount of information for construction management. The emerging of computer vision and machine learning technologies enables automated recognition of construction activities from videos. As the executors of construction, the activities of construction workers have strong impact on productivity and progress. Compared to machine work, manual work is more subjective and may differ largely in operation flow and productivity among different individuals. Hence only a handful of work studies on vision based action recognition of construction workers. Lacking of publicly available datasets is one of the main reasons that currently hinder advancement. The paper studies worker actions comprehensively, abstracts 11 common types of actions from 5 kinds of trades and establishes a new real world video dataset with 1176 instances. For action recognition, a cutting-edge video description method, dense trajectories, has been applied. Support vector machines are integrated with a bag-of-features pipeline for action learning and classification. Performances on multiple types of descriptors (Histograms of Oriented Gradients - HOG, Histograms of Optical Flow - HOF, Motion Boundary Histogram - MBH) and their combination have been evaluated. Discussion on different parameter settings and comparison to the state-of-the-art method are provided. Experimental results show that the system with codebook size 500 and MBH descriptor has achieved an average accuracy of 59% for worker action recognition, outperforming the state-of-the-art result by 24%. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Worker;Action recognition;Construction;Computer vision;Dense trajectories | WoS |
null | Wide spread use of biometric based authentication implies the need to secure biometric reference data. Various template protection schemes have been introduced to prevent biometric forgery and identity thefts. Cancelable biometrics and visual cryptography are two recent technologies introduced to address the concerns regarding privacy of biometric data, and to improve public confidence and acceptance of biometric systems. Cancelable biometrics is an important technique that allows generation of revocable biometric templates. As the number of biometric instances are limited and once compromised they are lost forever. Cancelable biometrics allows templates to be cancelled and revoked like passwords innumerable times. Recently, various approaches that utilize visual cryptography to secure the stored template and impart privacy to the central databases have been introduced. This work attempts to summarize the existing approaches in literature making use of these two technologies to protect biometric templates. | Biometric template protection;Cancelable biometrics;Biometric salting;Non-invertible transforms;Visual cryptography;Visual secret sharing | WoS |
null | Widely adumbrated as patterns of parallel computation and communication, algorithmic skeletons introduce a viable solution for efficiently programming modern heterogeneous multi-core architectures equipped not only with traditional multi-core CPUs, but also with one or more programmable Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). By systematically applying algorithmic skeletons to address complex programming tasks, it is arguably possible to separate the coordination from the computation in a parallel program, and therefore subdivide a complex program into building blocks (modules, skids, or components) that can be independently created and then used in different systems to drive multiple functionalities. By exploiting such systematic division, it is feasible to automate coordination by addressing extra-functional and non-functional features such as application performance, portability, and resource utilisation from the component level in heterogeneous multi-core architectures. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to exploit the inherent features of skeleton-based applications in order to automatically coordinate them over heterogeneous (CPU/GPU) multi-core architectures and improve their performance. Our systematic evaluation demonstrates up to one order of magnitude speed-up on heterogeneous multi-core architectures. | Algorithmic skeletons;Parallel patterns;Multicore architectures;Parallel architectures;Parallel computing;Structured parallelism;Software development methods | WoS |
null | Widely distributed osteosclerosis is an unusual radiographic finding with multiple causes. A 42-year-old premenopausal Spanish woman gradually acquired dense bone diffusely affecting her axial skeleton and focally affecting her proximal long bones. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) diagnosed in adolescence had been well controlled. She had not fractured or received antiresorptive therapy, and she was hepatitis C virus antibody negative. Family members had low bone mass. Lumbar spine bone mineral density (BMD) measured by dual-photon absorptiometry (DPA) at age 17 years, while receiving glucocorticoids, was 79% the average value of age-matched controls. From ages 30 to 37 years, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) BMD Z-scores steadily increased in her lumbar spine from +3.8 to +7.9, and in her femoral neck from -1.4 to -0.7. Serum calcium and phosphorus levels were consistently normal, 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) <20ng/mL, and parathyroid hormone (PTH) sometimes slightly increased. Her reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was 38 to 55mL/min. Hypocalciuria likely reflected positive mineral balance. During increasing BMD, turnover markers (serum bone-specific alkaline phosphatase [ALP], procollagen type 1N propeptide [P1NP], osteocalcin [OCN], and carboxy-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type 1 collagen [CTx], and urinary amino-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type 1 collagen [NTx and CTx]) were 1.6- to 2.8-fold above the reference limits. Those of bone formation seemed increased more than those of resorption. FGF-23 was slightly elevated, perhaps from kidney disease. Serum osteoprotegerin (OPG) and TGF1 levels were normal, but sclerostin (SOST) and receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-B ligand (RANKL) were elevated. Serum multiplex biomarker profiling confirmed a high level of SOST and RANKL, whereas Dickkopf-1 (DKK-1) seemed low. Matrix metalloproteinases-3 (MMP-3) and -7 (MMP-7) were elevated. Iliac crest biopsy revealed tetracycline labels, no distinction between thick trabeculae and cortical bone, absence of peritrabecular fibrosis, few osteoclasts, and no mastocytosis. Then, for the past 3 years, BMD Z-scores steadily decreased. Skeletal fluorosis, mastocytosis, myelofibrosis, hepatitis C-associated osteosclerosis, multiple myeloma, and aberrant phosphate homeostasis did not explain her osteosclerosis. Mutation analysis of the LRP5, LRP4, SOST, and osteopetrosis genes was negative. Microarray showed no notable copy number variation. Perhaps her osteosclerosis reflected an interval of autoimmune-mediated resistance to SOST and/or RANKL. (c) 2016 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. | AUTOIMMUNITY;BONE TURNOVER MARKERS;LUPUS;MATRIX METALLOPROTEINASES;RANKL;SCLEROSING BONE;SCLEROSTIN | WoS |
null | Widespread lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography is urgently needed in Europe to identify lung cancers early and reduce lung cancer deaths. The most effective method of identifying high-risk individuals and recruiting them for screening has not been determined. In the present pilot study we investigated direct telephoning to families as a way of identifying high risk individuals and recruiting them to a screening/smoking cessation program, that avoided the selection bias of voluntary screening. Families in the province of Milan, Italy, were contacted by telephone at their homes and asked about family members over 50 years who were heavy smokers (30 or more pack-years). Persons meeting these criteria were contacted and asked to participate in the program. Those who agreed were given an appointment to undergo screening and receive smoking cessation counseling. Among the 1000 contacted families, involving 2300 persons, 44 (1.9%) were eligible for LDCT screening, and 12 (27%) of these participated in the program. The cost of this recruitment strategy pilot study was around 150 euro per screened subject. We obtained useful information on the proportion of the general population eligible for lung cancer screening and the proportion of those who responded. However the cost of home telephone calling is probably too high to be practicable as a method of recruiting high risk persons for screening. Alternative recruitment methods, possibly involving family physicians practitioners, need to be investigated. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. | Lung cancer;Screening;Low-dose computed tomography;Recruitment;Telephone contact;Smoking cessation | WoS |
null | Widespread utilization of mobile ad hoc networks, which communicate via broadcast wireless channels without any sort of infrastructure, raises security concerns. Introduction of identity-based cryptography shed some light to security problems of mobile ad hoc networks. Key management (KM) plays significant role in network security. Although many proposals are suggested for identity-based KM, they usually assume a trusted set of nodes during network initialization, which is not the case in many real-world applications. In this paper, a novel identity-based KM method is proposed, which utilizes Pedersen's verifiable secret sharing method. By distributing shared secret and key generation role among network nodes, the proposed method provides high levels of availability and scalability, while eliminating single point of failure. The proposed method provides a mechanism to check the validity of secret shares, which are generated by network nodes. To illustrate the effectiveness and capabilities of the proposed methods, they are simulated and compared with the performance of the existing methods. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | identity-based cryptography;threshold cryptography;verifiable secret sharing;security of MANETs | WoS |
null | Wiener processes have received considerable attention in degradation modeling over the last two decades. In this paper, we propose a generalized Wiener process degradation model that takes unit-to-unit variation, time-correlated structure and measurement error into considerations simultaneously. The constructed methodology subsumes a series of models studied in the literature as limiting cases. A simple method is given to determine the transformed time scale forms of the Wiener process degradation model. Then model parameters can be estimated based on a maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method. The cumulative distribution function (CDF) and the probability distribution function (PDF) of the Wiener process with measurement errors are given based on the concept of the first hitting time (FHT). The percentiles of performance degradation (PD) and failure time distribution (FTD) are also obtained. Finally, a comprehensive simulation study is accomplished to demonstrate the necessity of incorporating measurement errors in the degradation model and the efficiency of the proposed model. Two illustrative real applications involving the degradation of carbon-film resistors and the wear of sliding metal are given. The comparative results show that the constructed approach can derive a reasonable result and an enhanced inference precision. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Degradation analysis;Wiener process;Measurement errors;Maximum likelihood estimation | WoS |
null | Wi-Fi is a local area wireless networking technology that is widely used for different purposes such as data transmission and wireless communication. Wi-Fi connection will most often result in faster, more reliable internet access and it is cheap. A penetration test on Wi-Fi is a proactive and authorized attempt to evaluate the security of an IT infrastructure by safely attempting to exploit system vulnerabilities, including OS, service and application flaws, improper configurations, and even risky end-user behavior. Several operating system distributions like Kali Linux, pentoo are taken to the penetration testing. These systems require highly skilled technical users. Our approach is to convert these into a complete automated tool which eliminates manual effort and provides a complete solution for assessing Wi-i security. The proposed automated tool is implemented as a mobile application it would provide a handy Wi-Fi analysis and penetration suite mobile application which aims to be the most complete and advanced toolkit for IT security experts to perform network security assessments on from a mobile device. Issues and challenges related to the proposed mobile app have been discussed in this paper. | DNS;Penetration Testing;Spoofing;Wi-Fi;Traceroute | WoS |
null | WiFi offloading, where mobile users opportunistically obtain data through WiFi rather than cellular networks, is a promising technique for greatly improving spectrum efficiency and reduce cellular network congestion. We consider a system where the service provider deploys multiple WiFi hotspots to offload mobile traffic, and study the scheduling policy to maximize the amount of offloaded data. Since users' movements are unpredictable, we focus on online scheduling policy, where APs have no knowledge of users' mobility patterns. We study the performance of online policies by comparing them against the optimal offline policy. We prove that any work-conserving policy is able to offload at least half as much data as the offline policy, and then propose an online policy such that when the requested data by each user is very large, the policy can offload (e-1)/e as much data as the offline policy, where e is Euler's constant. We further study the case where the service provider can increase the capacity of WiFi so as to provide some guarantees on the amount of offloaded data. We derive a lower-bound on the trade-off between capacity and the amount of offloaded data, and propose a simple online policy that achieves this lower bound. In addition, we show that our policy only needs half as much capacity as current mechanisms to provide the same performance guarantee. | Algorithm design and analysis;optimal scheduling | WoS |
null | Wikipedia has become a very common and frequently used tool and information source for students when they are asked for any academic assignment. Aware of this circumstance and also of the limitations and the quality of existing articles in relation to manufacturing processes, technologies and systems, a project was initiated aimed at enhancing and organising learning activities around the creation and improvement of these contents in Wikipedia. The present work will describe the particular experience in two optional subjects: "Design for Manufacture and Assembly" and " Plastics Technology". Main objectives of this activity were: to encourage understanding, knowledge, skills and values closely bound to the active use of open and free information systems; to promote autonomous learning; to study in depth subject contents with a more active attitude; to give the possibility that work and knowledge generated by students remain on-line and accessible to other people and not just for the lecturer; to raise the ability for being critical and for evaluating different information sources; and to learn how to work in cooperative and collaborative contexts. In addition, manufacturing engineering contents in Wikipedia were significantly improved, with several remarkable created or improved articles in the manufacturing domain. Based on the results of the project, objectives have been fulfilled and outcomes have been very positive. Lecturers are satisfied in terms of both the quantity and quality of the contributions, whose time devoted by students has fit adequately to what was planned and intended skills have been exercised. Furthermore, some of the works have even been awarded a Manufacturing Engineering Society prize. Regarding students, most of them have agreed that the activity was very interesting, would recommend it in the future and even think they will make more contributions in the Wikipedia. | active learning;cooperative learning;wikipedia;manufacturing engineering | WoS |
null | Wild animals may play an important role in the transmission and maintenance of Toxoplasma gondii in the environment. The purpose of the present study was to isolate and genotype T. gondii from a free-ranging crab-eating fox (Cerdocyon thous Linnaeus, 1766). A crab-eating fox in critical health condition was attended in a veterinary hospital in Recife, Pernambuco State, Brazil. The animal died despite emergency treatment. The brain was collected aseptically and destined for mouse bioassay. One isolate of T. gondii was obtained, and Polymerase Chain Reaction Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used to assess genetic variability at 11 markers (SAG1, SAG2, altSAG2, SAG3, BTUB, GRA6, c228, c292, 1358, PK1 and APICO). A murine model was used to assess the virulence of the isolate. Using the PCR-RFLP, genotype ToxoDB #13 was identified, which is considered an atypical strain. The isolate was classified as avirulent in the murine model. This is the first study to report T. gondii infection in the crab-eating fox. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. | Bioassay;Genotyping;Toxoplasmosis;Wild canids | WoS |
null | Wildfires have significant effects on human populations, economically, environmentally, and in terms of their general well-being. Smoke pollution, in particular, from either prescribed burns or uncontrolled wildfires, can have significant health impacts. Some estimates suggest that smoke dispersion from fire events may affect the health of one in three residents in the United States, leading to an increased incidence of respiratory illnesses such as asthma and pulmonary disease. Scarcity in the measurements of particulate matter responsible for these public health issues makes addressing the problem of smoke dispersion challenging, especially when fires occur in remote regions. Crowdsourced data have become an essential component in addressing other societal problems (e.g., disaster relief, traffic congestion) but its utility in monitoring air quality impacts of wildfire events is unexplored. In this study, we assessed if user-generated social media content can be used as a complementary source of data in measuring particulate pollution from wildfire smoke. We found that the frequency of daily tweets within a 40,000km(2) area was a significant predictor of PM2.5 levels, beyond daily and geographic variation. These results suggest that social media can be a valuable tool for the measurement of air quality impacts of wildfire events, particularly in the absence of data from physical monitoring stations. Also, an analysis of the semantic content in people's tweets provided insight into the socio-psychological dimensions of fire and smoke and their impact on people residing in, working in, or otherwise engaging with affected areas. | Crowdsourcing;air quality;wildfire;smoke;risk perception | WoS |
null | Wilkerson, GB, Gupta, A, Allen, JR, Keith, CM, and Colston, MA. Utilization of practice session average inertial load to quantify college football injury risk. J Strength Cond Res 30(9): 2369-2374, 2016Relatively few studies have investigated the potential injury prevention value of data derived from recently developed wearable technology for measurement of body mass accelerations during the performance of sport-related activities. The available evidence has been derived from studies focused on avoidance of overtraining syndrome, which is believed to induce a chronically fatigued state that can be identified through monitoring of inertial load accumulation. Reduced variability in movement patterns is also believed to be an important injury risk factor, but no evidence currently exists to guide interpretation of data derived from inertial measurement units (IMUs) in this regard. We retrospectively analyzed archived data for a cohort of 45 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1-football bowl subdivision football players who wore IMUs on the upper back during practice sessions to quantify any associations between average inertial load measured during practice sessions and occurrence of musculoskeletal sprains and strains. Both the coefficient of variation for average inertial load and frequent exposure to game conditions were found to be strongly associated with injury occurrence. Having either or both of the 2 risk factors provided strong discrimination between injured and noninjured players ((2) = 9.048; p = 0.004; odds ratio = 8.04; 90% CI: 2.39, 27.03). Our findings may facilitate identification of individual football players who are likely to derive the greatest benefit from training activities designed to reduce injury risk through improved adaptability to rapidly changing environmental demands. | prevention;sports analytics;inertial measurement unit;movement variability | WoS |
null | Will the use of levonorgestrel (LNG) 1.5 mg taken at each day of coitus by women who have relatively infrequent sex be an efficacious, safe and acceptable contraceptive method? Typical use of LNG 1.5 mg taken pericoitally, before or within 24 h of sexual intercourse, provides contraceptive efficacy of up to 11.0 pregnancies per 100 women-years (W-Y) in the primary evaluable population and 7.1 pregnancies per 100 W-Y in the evaluable population. LNG 1.5 mg is an effective emergency contraception following unprotected intercourse. Some users take it repeatedly, as their means of regular contraception. This was a prospective, open-label, single-arm, multicentre Phase III trial study with women who have infrequent coitus (on up to 6 days a month). Each woman had a follow-up visit at 2.5, 4.5 and 6.5 months after admission or until pregnancy occurs if sooner, or she decided to interrupt participation. The study was conducted between 10 January 2012 and 15 November 2014. A total of 330 healthy fertile women aged 18-45 years at risk of pregnancy who reported sexual intercourse on up to 6 days a month, were recruited from four university centres located in Bangkok, Thailand; Campinas, Brazil; Singapore and Szeged, Hungary to use LNG 1.5 mg pericoitally (24 h before or after coitus) as their primary method of contraception. The participants were instructed to take one tablet every day she had sex, without taking more than one tablet in any 24-h period, and to maintain a paper diary for recording date and time for every coital act and ingestion of the study tablet, use of other contraceptive methods and vaginal bleeding patterns. Anaemia was assessed by haemoglobin evaluation. Pregnancy tests were performed monthly and pregnancies occurring during product use were assessed by ultrasound. At the 2.5-month and final visit at 6.5 months, acceptability questions were administered. There were 321 women included in the evaluable population (which includes all eligible women enrolled), with 141.9 woman-years (W-Y) of observation and with a rate (95% confidence interval [CI]) of 7.1 (3.8; 13.1) pregnancies per 100 W-Y of typical use (which reflects use of the study drug as main contraceptive method, but also includes possible use of other contraceptives from admission to end of study) and 7.5 (4.0; 13.9) pregnancies per 100 W-Y of sole use. In the primary evaluable population (which includes only eligible enrolled women < 35 years old), the rate was 10.3 (5.4; 19.9) pregnancies per 100 W-Y of typical use, and 11.0 (5.7; 13.1) pregnancies per 100 W-Y of sole use. There were three reported severe adverse events and 102 other mild adverse events (most common were headache, nausea, abdominal and pelvic pain), with high recovery rate. The vaginal bleeding patterns showed a slight decrease in volume of bleeding and the number of bleeding-free days increased over time. There was only one case of severe anaemia, found at the final visit (0.4%). The method was considered acceptable, as over 90% of participants would choose to use it in the future or would recommend it to others. This was a single-arm study with small sample size, without a control group, designed as a proof of concept study to explore the feasibility of this type of contraception. A larger clinical study evaluating pericoital contraception with LNG is feasible and our data show that this method would be acceptable to many women. This study received partial financial support from the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), Department of Reproductive Health and Research (RHR) and the World Health Organization. Gynuity and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) provided financial support for project monitoring. HRA Pharma donated the LNG product. N.K. was the initial project manager when she was with WHO/HRP and was employed by HRA Pharma, which distributes LNG for emergency contraception. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest. This study was registered on ANZCTR, Trial ID ACTRN12611001037998. 4 October 2011. 10 January 2012. | oral levonorgestrel;contraception;pericoital;effectiveness;anaemia | WoS |
null | Williams Syndrome (WS) is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder associated with a hemideletion in chromosome 7, which manifests a distinct behavioral phenotype characterized by a hyperaffiliative social drive, in striking contrast to the social avoidance behaviors that are common in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). MRI studies have observed structural and functional abnormalities in WS cortex, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a region implicated in social cognition. This study utilizes the Bellugi Williams Syndrome Brain Collection, a unique resource that comprises the largest WS postmortem brain collection in existence, and is the first to quantitatively examine WS PFC cytoarchitecture. We measured neuron density in layers II/III and V/VI of five cortical areas: PFC areas BA 10 and BA 11, primary motor BA 4, primary somatosensory BA 3, and visual area BA 18 in six matched pairs of WS and typically developing (TD) controls. Neuron density in PFC was lower in WS relative to TD, with layers V/VI demonstrating the largest decrease in density, reaching statistical significance in BA 10. In contrast, BA 3 and BA 18 demonstrated a higher density in WS compared to TD, although this difference was not statistically significant. Neuron density in BA 4 was similar in WS and TD. While other cortical areas were altered in WS, prefrontal areas appeared to be most affected. Neuron density is also altered in the PFC of individuals with ASD. Together these findings suggest that the PFC is targeted in neurodevelopmental disorders associated with sociobehavioral alterations. Autism Res2017, 10: 99-112. (c) 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | frontal pole;design-based stereology;cytoarchitecture;Williams syndrome;prefrontal cortex;neuron density | WoS |
null | Win 2009 French people consumed nearly 36 billion euros worth of drugs, 18% more than in 2004, resulting in growing burden for French Social Security. Expenses refunded by public health insurance amount to 26.8 billion euros or 74.5% of the total cost of drug purchase. While French authorities point to the need for rational prescribing, especially concerning psychotropic drugs, few data on the prescription of second-generation antidepressants (SGA) are synthesized for clinicians' use. Objective of the study. - To offer a description of effectiveness and tolerability/acceptability for each SGA according to data from the most recent meta-analyzes. Method. - For each SGA we searched for the latest meta-analysis in Medline (1966-present), Web of Science (1975-present) and Cochrane (all journals). Results. - Considering the benefit-risk ratio and the cost (generic), the first-line treatment for a major depressive episode may be currently sertraline (50 mg/day). It may however have more digestive side effects than other SSRIs (due to the serotonin action), which calls for caution while increasing doses. The four most effective antidepressants may be, in this order, mirtazapine, escitalopram, venlafaxine and sertraline. Escitalopram and sertraline may show a better acceptability profile than mirtaapine, duloxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine, and venlafaxine. Fluoxetine seems relevant in treatment of negative symptoms of schizophrenia (20 mg/day) and in bulimia (60 mg/day). Fluvoxamine seems relevant in the case of sexual side effects with a previous SSRI, in treatment of anxiety disorders (it's affinity for sigma receptors may confer a specific action) and in psychotic depression. Mirtazapine may be a treatment of interest when a fast remission of depressive symptoms is warranted but its tolerance profile makes it difficult to use. We found no meta-analysis comparing the efficacy and tolerability of duloxetine with other antidepressants, probably due to the recent availability of the molecule. We found no arguments in favor of first-prescription of tianeptine except perhaps a better safety profile but data were scarce. The presence of generalized anxiety disorder is an indication to start treatment at half doses over a few days, whatever the molecule, to avoid a resurgence of anxious symptomatology. Prescription of antidepressants has demonstrated its efficacy in major depressive episode, in anxiety disorders (for most molecules), in dysthymia but not in seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Efficiency in dysthymia may explain the prescription of antidepressants that exceed the scope of the marketing authorization. Conclusion. - We summarize in this article all current data from recent meta-analyzes regarding the effectiveness, tolerance and acceptability of SGA to help practitioners' choices of prescription. (c) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. | Acceptability;Cost-effectiveness;Efficacy;Second generation antidepressants (SGA);Serotonin and epinephrine recapture inhibitors;Tolerance | WoS |
null | Wind energy - generated from wind power - is plentiful, renewable, clean and available in many places in the world. This energy is generated by wind turbines, in which the wind captured by propellers is connected to a turbine that drives an electrical generator. The use of this source to generate electricity on a commercial scale began in the 1970s, when the international oil crisis escalated. The U.S. and some European countries became interested in the development of alternatives for the production of electricity sources, seeking to reduce dependence on oil and coal. The use of wind power to generate electricity has some drawbacks, however, such as uncertainties in generation and some difficulty in planning and operation of the power system. Several models for wind power forecasting using artificial neural networks have been presented with promising results. This paper presents the use of an ensemble approach to improve the results obtained by models using artificial neural networks, specifically reservoir computing. Reservoir computing is a new paradigm that offers an intuitive methodology for using the temporal processing power of RNNs without the inconvenience of training them. The main issue of using ensemble approach is the consideration of accuracy and diversity of individual predictors which constitute an ensemble. | wind energy;artificial neural networks;reservoir computing;ensemble;wind power forecasting | WoS |
null | Wind energy has become one of the most cost-effective renewable sources nowadays. However, the stochastic nature associated with wind-energy production represents a great challenge for power-system operations. Therefore, probabilistic techniques are necessary to evaluate the performance of power systems with substantial amounts of wind generation. This paper presents a probabilistic based bi-level optimization approach for evaluating the impact of wind farm location and control strategy on the penetration level of wind farms and electricity market prices. The bi-level optimization model is formulated as mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) and solved by means of the NLPEC solver in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) environment. Several cases studies are presented in this paper to determine to the optimal wind generation penetration and market prices with different locations and control strategies for wind farms. Moreover, some scenarios are discussed in regards to the practical allocation of wind farms. Crown Copyright (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Wind energy;Stochastic optimization;Mathematical program with equilibrium;constraints;General algebraic modeling system;Electricity market | WoS |
null | Wind energy has many advantages, it does not pollute and it is an inexhaustible source. However, evaluation of control schemes for electrical generator is hard with wind turbine, since the wind speed varies. For similar environment of turbine, a wind turbine emulator (WTE) is used.The purpose of wind energy systemsis tomaximize energy efficiency, and extract maximum power from the wind speed. In other words, having a power coefficientis maximum and therefore the maximum power point tracking. in This case, the MPPT control becomes important,To realize this control, strategy conventional proportional and integral (Pi) controller is usually used. However, this strategy cannot achieve better performance. This paper proposes a robust control of a turbine which optimizes its production, that is improve the quality and energy efficiency, namely, a strategy of sliding mode control. The proposed sliding mode control strategy presents attractive features such as robustness to parametric uncertainties of the turbine; the proposed sliding mode control approach was applied to wind turbine emulator with Matlab/Simulink. | component | WoS |
null | Wind energy has seen a tremendous growth for electricity generation worldwide and reached 456 GW by the end of June 2016. According to the World Wind Energy Association, global wind power will reach 500 GW by the end of 2016. Africa is a continent that possesses huge under-utilized wind potentials. Some African countries, e.g., Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and South Africa, have already adopted wind as an alternative power generation source in their energy mix. Among these countries, South Africa has invested heavily in wind energy with operational wind farms supplying up to 26,000 GWh annually to the national grid. However, two African countries, i.e., Cameroon and Nigeria, have vast potentials, but currently are lagging behind in wind energy development. For Nigeria, there is slow implementation of renewable energy policy, with no visible operational wind farms; while Cameroon does not have any policy plan for wind power. These issues are severely hindering both direct foreign and local investments into the electricity sector. Cameroon and Nigeria have huge wind energy potentials with similar climatic conditions and can benefit greatly from the huge success recorded in South Africa in terms of policy implementation, research, development and technical considerations. Therefore, this paper reviews the wind energy potentials, policies and future renewable energy road-maps in Cameroon and Nigeria and identifies their strength and weakness, as well as providing necessary actions for future improvement that South Africa has already adopted. | renewable energy;wind power;Cameroon;Nigeria;South Africa | WoS |
null | Wind energy is characterized by fluctuation because of a main intermittent source, which can damage the stability of the electrical network which leads to an imbalance between production and consumption. To resolve this difficulty, an integration of a micro-grid based on a wind farm interconnected to the electricity grid is proposed which presents the first objective of this paper. The two-level inverter is so much used in this domain, but the main limitations of this solutions are the fact that the voltage output presents high ripples and that this inverter is not a practical solution for applications with high power. Thus, the second aim of this paper consists in using a multicellular inverter. The main unit of this farm is based on a three permanent magnet synchronous generators which are entrained by three aero-generators. This unity is connected to a DC bus through three controlled rectifiers. The obtained power is injected to the electricity grid using a multicellular inverter as well as an inductor and resistor filter. The three generators and the proposed inverter are controlled through a vector control. A theoretical study of the suggested farm is parented and simulated using a Matlab/Simulink environment. The obtained simulation results confirm the approach robustness. | Wind farm;PMSG;Multicellular Converters;Micro-Grid (MG);Pitch angle | WoS |
null | Wind energy is one of the fastest growing sources of sustainable energy production. As more wind turbines are coming into operation, the best locations are already becoming occupied by turbines, and wind-farm developers have to look for new and still available areas-locations that may not be ideal such as complex terrain landscapes. In these locations, turbulence and wind shear are higher, and in general wind conditions are harder to predict. Also, the modelling of the wakes behind the turbines is more complicated, which makes energy-yield estimates more uncertain than under ideal conditions. This theme issue includes 10 research papers devoted to various fluid-mechanics aspects of using wind energy in complex terrains and illustrates recent progress and future developments in this important field. This article is part of the themed issue 'Wind energy in complex terrains'. | atmospheric boundary layer;wind-turbine aerodynamics;wind-farm modelling | WoS |
null | Wind energy is one of the renewable energy sources which the trend is positive and increasing year by year. This technology applied widely in several regions in the world and already has maturity in technology, good infrastructure and relative cost competitiveness. The application of structural health monitoring (SHM) is crucial especially to evaluate the performance of wind turbine in real time assessment. Furthermore, the smart material in SHM can be utilized as micro energy harvester as well. However, the application of SHM and micro energy harvester for wind turbine is still premature especially in SHM embedded or bonded strategy. Several issues are highlighted such as SHM material selection, wind turbine selection and the issue in micro energy harvester. The issues are discussed and compared with the recent finding in this review. Several recommendations are suggested for future study especially on the application of micro energy harverster. | Structural Health Monitoring (SHM);Vertical Axis Wind Turbine;Piezoelectric;Micro energy harvester | WoS |
null | Wind generation systems require mechanisms that allow optimal adaptation of the generator to varying wind speed and to extract maximum energy from the wind. Robust and affordable high-performance methods are also needed for isolated sites. This paper takes this approach, in which an AC switched reluctance generator is used as a generator with a variable rotor speed. Although the voltage obtained is of insufficient quality to connect the generator directly to the power grid, this kind of generator can be used in isolated sites to charge a battery bank with a simple bridge rectifier. Due to the nonlinear behavior of the machine with the position and current, along with the alternating nature of the current that circulates through its phases, the machine experiences cyclical energy transformations of a mechanical, electrical and magnetic nature. This paper analyzes these transformations for the purpose of providing guidelines for machine design and optimization as a wind turbine in isolated sites. | AC generators;parametric oscillators;reluctance generators;tunable oscillators | WoS |
null | Wind power generation of electricity has gained popular support because of its low environmental impact and its low costs relative to other renewable energy sources. However, concerns have been raised in the power sector that wind power generation will come at the price of increased damage to other power generators. Wind power generation is naturally volatile which requires other power sources to start up and shut down in accordance with weather conditions, which for instance coal or gas generators are in general not built to do. The previous literature has used simulations to show that the damage done and the associated costs can be substantial. We use a dataset containing all reported failures in the Nordic electricity market Nord Pool and data for Danish wind power generation. The analysis shows that for both Denmark and the rest of Nord Pool the short-term costs associated with the volatility of wind power generation are non-significant. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Intermittent electricity production;Cycling costs;Nord Pool;UMMs;Failures | WoS |
null | Wind power integration in an existing power system needs more attention due to its uncertain nature. If a difference creates between the actual and forecasted wind speeds and the power delivery contract is signed between the Generation Companies (GENCOs) and Distribution Companies (DISCOs) as per the forecasted speed, then the GENCOs may be awarded or penalized by the Independent System Operator (ISO) for their surplus or deficit power supply. This paper proposes an approach to assess the uncertainties of wind speed of the wind integrated electrical system within a completely deregulated environment. In this work, twelve spots in India have been chosen randomly for the application of the proposed approach and to verify the outcome of the proposed approach. The real time data for actual wind speed (AWS) and forecasted wind speed (FWS) of all selected spots have been also considered. The imbalance cost due to mismatch between the forecasted and actual wind speeds is evaluating by formulation of surplus charge rate and deficit charge rate. Modified IEEE 14-bus and modified IEEE 30-bus systems are considered for analyzing the effectiveness of the proposed approach. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Competitive power market;Imbalance cost;Forecasted wind speed;Actual wind speed;Power pool;Locational marginal pricing | WoS |
null | Wind power is a clean and renewable resource, and it is rapidly becoming an important component of sustainable development and resource transfer. However, the construction of wind farms impacts the environment and has been the subject of considerable research. In this study, we verified whether China's GF-2 HD satellite (GF-2) could be used to monitor the 10 million kilowatt wind power grassland construction area in Jiuquan City, Gansu Province. Monitoring was performed by comparing the imaging results from the Landsat 8 OLI and China's GF-1 HD satellite (GF-1). We performed an interactive interpretation of the remote sensing images and verified the accuracy of these interpretations using measured field data. We evaluated 354 pieces of wind turbine equipment with an average construction density of 0.31 km(2) per device. The construction of a single wind turbine was found to damage nearly 3000 m(2) of grassland. The average area of grassland damaged by 3 MW and 1.5 MW turbines was 5757 m(2) and 2496 m(2), respectively. Approximately 2.44 km(2) of farmland was occupied by wind power construction and accounted for approximately 2.2% of the study area. Roads covered 60.6% of the farmland occupied by wind power construction. The average difference between the measured and calculated GF-2 image data was 0.09, and the overall interpretation accuracy was approximately 84%. Therefore, the use of comprehensive imaging analyses and GF-2 image data are feasible for monitoring grasslands under construction for wind power. In addition, the impacts of wind farm construction on vegetation destruction and soil erosion are discussed. In this study, grassland wind farms are explored using remote sensing tools to guide decision making with regards to the rational use of grassland resources and their sustainable development. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. | Wind farm;Grassland monitoring;China's GF-2 HD satellite;Gansu province | WoS |
null | Wind power is a type of clean and renewable energy, and reasonable utilization of wind power is beneficial to environmental protection and economic development. Therefore, a short-term hydro thermal-wind economic emission dispatching (SHTW-EED) problem is presented in this paper. The proposed problem aims to distribute the load among hydro, thermal and wind power units to simultaneously minimize economic cost and pollutant emission. To solve the SHTW-EED problem with complex constraints, a modified gravitational search algorithm based on the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-III (MGSA-NSGA-III) is proposed. In the proposed MGSA-NSGA-III, a non-dominated sorting approach, reference-point based selection mechanism and chaotic mutation strategy are applied to improve the evolutionary process of the original gravitational search algorithm (GSA) and maintain the distribution diversity of Pareto optimal solutions. Moreover, a parallel computing strategy is introduced to improve the computational efficiency. Finally, the proposed MGSA-NSGA-III is applied to a typical hydro-thermal-wind system to verify its feasibility and effectiveness. The simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm can obtain low economic cost and small pollutant emission when dealing with the SHTW-EED problem. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. | Hydro-thermal-wind system;Economic emission dispatch problem;Parallel computing strategy;Gravitational search algorithm;NSGA-III approach | WoS |
null | Wind speed forecasting plays a pivotal role in power dispatching and normal operations of power grids. However, it is both a difficult and challenging problem to achieve high-precision forecasting for the wind speed because the original sequence includes many nonlinear stochastic signals. The current conventional forecasting methods are more suitable for capturing linear trends, and artificial neural networks easily fall into a local optimum. This paper proposes a model that combines a denoising method with a dynamic fuzzy neural network to address the problems above. Singular spectrum analysis optimized by brain storm optimization is applied to preprocess the original wind speed data to obtain a smoother sequence, and a generalized dynamic fuzzy neural network is utilized to perform the forecasting. With a smaller and simpler structure of the neural network, the model can effectively achieve a rapid learning rate and accurate forecasting. Three experimental results, which cover 10-min, 30-min and 60-min interval wind speed time series data, demonstrate that the model can both satisfactorily approximates the actual value and be used as an effective and simple tool for the planning of smart grids. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. | Short-term wind speed forecasting;Generalized dynamic fuzzy neural network;Singular spectrum analysis;Brain storm optimization | WoS |
null | Wind turbine drivetrains consist of components that directly convert kinetic energy from the wind to electrical energy. Therefore, guaranteeing robust and reliable drivetrain designs is important to minimize turbine downtime. Current drivetrain models often lack the ability to model both the impacts of electrical transients as well as wind turbulence and shear in one package. In this work, the capability of the FAST wind turbine computer-aided engineering tool, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is enhanced through integration of a dynamic model of the drivetrain. The dynamic drivetrain model is built using Simscape in the MATLAB/Simulink environment and incorporates detailed electrical generator models. This model can be used in the future to test advanced control schemes to extend life of the gearbox. | gears;stress control;variable-speed drives;wind power generation | WoS |
null | Wind turbine drivetrains consist of components that directly convert kinetic energy from the wind to electrical energy. Therefore, guaranteeing robust and reliable drivetrain designs is important to prevent turbine downtime. Current drivetrain models often lack the ability to model both the impacts of electrical transients as well as wind turbulence and shear in one package. In this paper, the capability of the FAST wind turbine computer-aided-engineering tool, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is enhanced through the integration of a dynamic model of the drivetrain. The dynamic drivetrain model is built using Simscape in the MATLAB/Simulink environment and incorporates detailed electrical generator models. This model can be used to evaluate internal drivetrain loads due to excitations from both the wind and generator. | Gears;mechanical power transmission;resonance;variable-speed drives;vibration;wind energy | WoS |
null | Wind turbine generators (WTGs) consist of many different components to convert kinetic energy of the wind into electrical energy for end users. Wind energy is accessed to provide mechanical torque for driving the shaft of the electrical generator. The conversion from wind power to mechanical power is governed by the aerodynamic conversion. The aerodynamic-electrical-conversion efficiency of a WTG is influenced by the efficiency of the blades, the gearbox, the generator, and the power converter. This paper describes the use of MATLAB/Simulink to simulate the electrical and grid-related aspects of a WTG coupled with the FAST aeroelastic wind turbine computer-aided engineering tool to simulate the aerodynamic and mechanical aspects of a WTG. The combination of the two enables studies involving both electrical and mechanical aspects of a WTG. For example, mechanical engineers can formulate generator control that may preserve the life of the gearbox or mitigate the impact of transient events occurring on the transmission lines (faults, voltage and frequency dips, unbalanced voltages, etc.). Similarly, electrical engineers can study the impact of high-ramping wind speeds on power systems, as well as the impact of turbulence on the voltage and frequency of a small balancing authority area. This digest includes some examples of the capabilities of the FAST and MATLAB coupling, namely the effects of electrical faults on the blade moments. | aerodynamic control;electromechanical interaction;variable speed;wind turbine;wind power generation | WoS |
null | Wind turbine generators (WTGs) consist of many different components to convert kinetic energy of the wind into electrical energy for end users. Wind energy is accessed to provide mechanical torque for driving the shaft of the electrical generator. The conversion from wind power to mechanical power is governed by the aerodynamic conversion. The aerodynamicelectrical- conversion efficiency of a WTG is influenced by the efficiency of the blades, the gearbox, the generator, and the power converter. This paper describes the use of MATLAB/Simulink to simulate the electrical and grid-related aspects of a WTG coupled with the FAST aero-elastic wind turbine computer-aided engineering tool to simulate the aerodynamic and mechanical aspects of a WTG. The combination of the two enables studies involving both electrical and mechanical aspects of a WTG. For example, mechanical engineers can formulate generator control that may preserve the life of the gearbox or mitigate the impact of transient events occurring on the transmission lines (faults, voltage and frequency dips, unbalanced voltages, etc.). Similarly, electrical engineers can study the impact of high-ramping wind speeds on power systems, as well as the impact of turbulence on the voltage and frequency of a small balancing area. | aerodynamic control;electromechanical interaction;variable speed;wind turbine;wind power generation | WoS |
null | Wind-induced and earthquake-induced excitations on tall structures can be effectively controlled by Tuned Liquid Damper (TLD). This work presents a numerical simulation procedure to study the performance of tuned liquid tank-structure system through sigma-transformation based fluid-structure coupled solver. For this, a 'C' based computational code is developed. Structural equations are coupled with fluid equations in order to achieve the transfer of sloshing forces to structure for damping. Structural equations are solved by fourth order Runge-Kutta method while fluid equations are solved using fmite difference based sigma transformed algorithm. Code is validated with previously published results. The minimum displacement of structure is observed when the resonance condition of the coupled system is satisfied through proper tuning of TLD. Since real-time excitations are random in nature, the performance study of TLD under random excitation is also carried out in which the Bretschneider spectrum is used to generate the random input wave. | tuned liquid damper;liquid sloshing;transformation;random excitation;computational fluid mechanics | WoS |
null | Windows Azure Storage (WAS) is a cloud storage system that provides customers the ability to store seemingly limitless amounts of data for any duration of time. WAS customers have access to their data from anywhere at any time and only pay for what they use and store. In WAS, data is stored durably using both local and geographic replication to facilitate disaster recovery. Currently, WAS storage comes in the form of Blobs (files), Tables (structured storage), and Queues (message delivery). In this paper, we describe the WAS architecture, global namespace, and data model, as well as its resource provisioning, load balancing, and replication systems. | Cloud storage;distributed storage systems;Windows Azure | WoS |
null | Wind-tunnel study on the improvement of aerodynamic stability of simplified suspension-bridge girder structures was conducted with using a 1/40-scaled section model. Objective of the study is the development of an economically superior suspension bridge with 500-1,000 m center span length. The wind-tunnel test showed that an edge-girder type cross section exhibited large amplitude torsional vortex-induced vibration as well as torsional flutter at a low wind speed. Accordingly, aerodynamic countermeasures of open grating deck and triangular faring, and structural countermeasures of center stay, diagonal bracing and mass increase were tried to improve the aerodynamic stability. Finally, feasibility of the best combination to a full-scale bridge was examined by structural analysis. (C) Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016 | suspension bridge;aerodynamics;simplified girder;wind-tunnel test | WoS |
null | Wine originally emerged as a serendipitous mix of chemistry and biology, where microorganisms played a decisive role. From these ancient fermentations to the current monitored industrial processes, winegrowers and winemakers have been continuously changing their practices according to scientific knowledge and advances. A new enology direction is emerging and aiming to blend the complexity of spontaneous fermentations with industrial safety of monitored fermentations. In this context, wines with distinctive autochthonous peculiarities have a great acceptance among consumers, causing important economic returns. The concept of terroir, far from being a rural term, conceals a wide range of analytical parameters that are the basis of the knowledge-based enology trend. In this sense, the biological aspect of soils has been underestimated for years, when actually it contains a great microbial diversity. This soil-associated microbiota has been described as determinant, not only for the chemistry and nutritional properties of soils, but also for health, yield, and quality of the grapevine. Additionally, recent works describe the soil microbiome as the reservoir of the grapevine associated microbiota, and as a contributor to the final sensory properties of wines. To understand the crucial roles of microorganisms on the entire wine making process, we must understand their ecological niches, population dynamics, and relationships between 'microbiome-vine health' and 'microbiome-wine metabolome.' These are critical steps for designing precision enology practices. For that purpose, current metagenomic techniques are expanding from laboratories, to the food industry. This review focuses on the current knowledge about vine and wine microbiomes, with emphasis on their biological roles and the technical basis of next-generation sequencing pipelines. An overview of molecular and informatics tools is included and new directions are proposed, highlighting the importance of -omics technologies in wine research and industry. | NGS;wine microbiome;vine health;soil microbiome;metagenomic analysis;bioinformatic tools and databases;16S rRNA gene sequencing | WoS |
null | Wine, and particularly red wine, is a beverage with a great chemical complexity that is in continuous evolution. Chemically, wine is a hydroalcoholic solution (similar to 78% water) that comprises a wide variety of chemical components, including aldehydes, esters, ketones, lipids, minerals, organic acids, phenolics, soluble proteins, sugars and vitamins. Flavonoids constitute a major group of polyphenolic compounds which are directly associated with the organoleptic and health-promoting properties of red wine. However, due to the insufficient epidemiological and in vivo evidences on this subject, the presence of a high number of variables such as human age, metabolism, the presence of alcohol, the complex wine chemistry, and the wide array of in vivo biological effects of these compounds suggest that only cautious conclusions may be drawn from studies focusing on the direct effect of wine and any specific health issue. Nevertheless, there are several reports on the health protective properties of wine phenolics for several diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, some cancers, obesity, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, allergies and osteoporosis. The different interactions that wine flavonoids may have with key biological targets are crucial for some of these health-promoting effects. The interaction between some wine flavonoids and some specific enzymes are one example. The way wine flavonoids may be absorbed and metabolized could interfere with their bioavailability and therefore in their health-promoting effect. Hence, some reports have focused on flavonoids absorption, metabolism, microbiota effect and overall on flavonoids bioavailability. This review summarizes some of these major issues which are directly related to the potential health-promoting effects of wine flavonoids. Reports related to flavonoids and health highlight some relevant scientific information. However, there is still a gap between the knowledge of wine flavonoids bioavailability and their health-promoting effects. More in vivo results as well as studies focused on flavonoid metabolites are still required. Moreover, it is also necessary to better understand how biological interactions (with microbiota and cells, enzymes or general biological systems) could interfere with flavonoid bioavailability. | wine polyphenols;polyphenol-protein interactions;bioavailability of wine polyphenols;health;biological effects | WoS |
null | Wing-Wave is an ocean, alternative energy system to convert the circular motion of ocean waves as they propagate through the sea into electrical energy. The system consists of planes, called "wings". The wings are mounted on the sea floor and move in a radial motion as a result of the passing waves. The mechanical energy is translated into electrical energy by means of an electrical generator. Three Wing-Wave prototype systems were built at Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech) and deployed November 17th, 2010, June 23rd, 2011, and June 6th, 2012, respectively. Each deployment provided valuable information that lead to modifications in subsequent versions and deployment techniques, culminating in the demonstration of a fully functioning and feasible alternative, renewable, electrical energy producing subsea system. | ocean energy;wave energy;wave energy converter;WEC;electrical energy;alternative energy;hydrokinetic energy;hydroelectric;green energy | WoS |
null | Winter oilseed rape (WOSR) is a major crop in Germany, combining economic benefits with a high value in crop rotation, but it still lacks agronomically sound concepts for site-specific nitrogen (N) fertilization. Since ecological challenges resulting from high optimal N rates and a low N harvest index are approaching on WOSR cropping systems, optimizing N fertilization becomes crucial. Recent studies showed the importance of taking autumnal N uptake into account when estimating optimal N rates for WOSR, thus autumnal N is pivotal in the algorithm that is introduced in this study. The algorithm was parameterized by using data from site-specific N fertilization trials and optimized to reduce N fertilizer amounts. Afterwards it was tested on different commercial farms in northern Germany. The autumnal N uptake was estimated using hyperspectral reflection measurements gained from tractor-mounted devices, and the data was processed to N application maps used for the N application in spring. In addition, a uniform optimal fertilization and a uniform application of average N rates calculated by the algorithm were applied to provide control treatments. Yield, N balance and economic net-revenue were evaluated for each treatment. Yields from site-specific fertilization were slightly lower (0.06 t/ha) than from uniform optimal treatment but 0.22 t/ha higher than from the uniform application of the site-specific N amount (not significant in both cases). The N balance was significantly lower when fertilizing site-specifically instead of applying uniform optimal N rate, while the net-revenues were slightly higher. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. | Precision agriculture;N fertilization;Remote sensing;Winter oilseed rape;Site-specific fertilization | WoS |
null | Wireless big data significantly challenges the current network management and control architecture, mathematical modeling techniques, and distributed algorithm design, in particular, in the promising cognitive, distributed, and ultra-dense networks. Motivated by the idea of divide-and-conquer, in this article, we first present a multiple cognitive agent-based divide-and-conquer network management and control architecture. Furthermore, a Markovian game-theoretic modeling framework is proposed to model the state big data-based decision-making problem. Then, we investigate various learning methodologies with respect to different kinds of the state information, in particular, we concentrate on the construction of state space, the state transition computation, and the convergence of parallel Q-learning technique. This work provides a suitable network management architecture, an effective modeling tool, and various learning techniques for wireless big data networks. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. | Big data;5G wireless networks;Markovian game;Multi-agent system;Q-learning | WoS |
null | Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) has been a key element in e-health to monitor bodies. This technology enables new applications under the umbrella of different domains, including the medical field, the entertainment and ambient intelligence areas. This survey paper places substantial emphasis on the concept and key features of the WBAN technology. First, the WBAN concept is introduced and a review of key applications facilitated by this networking technology is provided. The study then explores a wide variety of communication standards and methods deployed in this technology. Due to the sensitivity and criticality of the data carried and handled by WBAN, fault tolerance is a critical issue and widely discussed in this paper. Hence, this survey investigates thoroughly the reliability and fault tolerance paradigms suggested for WBANs. Open research and challenging issues pertaining to fault tolerance, coexistence and interference management and power consumption are also discussed along with some suggested trends in these aspects. | Wireless body area networks;QoS;medical;channel access;fading;WBAN standards | WoS |
null | Wireless body area network (WBAN) provide a mechanism of transmitting a persons physiological data to application providers e.g. hospital. Given the limited range of connectivity associated with WBAN, an intermediate portable device e.g. smartphone, placed within WBAN's connectivity, forwards the data to a remote server. This data, if not protected from an unauthorized access and modification may be lead to poor diagnosis. In order to ensure security and privacy between WBAN and a server at the application provider, several authentication schemes have been proposed. Recently, Wang and Zhang proposed an authentication scheme for WBAN using bilinear pairing. However, in their scheme, an application provider could easily impersonate a client. In order to overcome this weakness, we propose an efficient remote authentication scheme for WBAN. In terms of performance, our scheme can not only provide a malicious insider security, but also reduce running time of WBAN (client) by 51 % as compared to Wang and Zhang scheme. | Body sensor network;Authentication;Certificateless scheme;Elliptic curve cryptography | WoS |
null | Wireless communication is widely used for node localization in various automation domains. Schemes based on time difference of arrival (TDOA) are a good compromise of achievable accuracy and implementation effort. Due to restrictions on possible reference sensor positions in industrial environments, the geometric conditions between reference and mobile nodes locations are often difficult. Consequently, iterative algorithms can fail or result in high computational effort. Exact direct methods introduce no additional errors, but can result in a valid pair of solutions. Existing direct methods thus either rely on a priori information to sort out one of those two solutions, or revert to nonexact linearization approaches of the underlying hyperbolic equations. In this work, we present a direct approach that applies exact direct methods, and resolves the ambiguous pairs of solutions without a priori information. Its divide and conquer structure and the high computational efficiency of the available exact direct methods makes it a very good candidate for fast parallel computing in distributed sensor networks. The performance is compared to the Cramer-Rao lower bound, to the iterative GaussNewton method and to another direct method. The new method is presented for the TDOA scheme, but can also be applied to time of arrival, or any other range-based scheme. | Divide and conquer (D&C);hyperbolic multilateration;indoor location;localization;positioning;pseudoranging;ranging;time difference of arrival (TDOA);time of arrival (TOA) | WoS |
null | Wireless communication plays a critical role in determining the lifetime of Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems. Data aggregation approaches have been widely used to enhance the performance of IoT applications. Such approaches reduce the number of packets that are transmitted by combining multiple packets into one transmission unit, thereby minimising energy consumption, collisions and congestion. However, current data aggregation schemes restrict developers to a specific network structure or cannot handle multi-hop data aggregation. In this paper, we propose Hitch Hiker 2.0, a component binding model that provides support for multi-hop data aggregation. Hitch Hiker uses component meta-data to discover remote component bindings and to construct a multi-hop overlay network within the free payload space of existing traffic flows. Hitch Hiker 2.0 provides end-to-end routing of low-priority traffic while using only a small fraction of the energy of standard communication. This paper extends upon our previous work by incorporating new mechanisms for decentralised route discovery and providing additional application case studies and evaluation. We have developed a prototype implementation of Hitch Hiker for the LooCI component model. Our evaluation shows that Hitch Hiker consumes minimal resources and that using Hitch Hiker to deliver low-priority traffic reduces energy consumption by up to 32 %. | Data aggregation;Binding model;Component-based software engineering;Low energy;Component meta data;Middleware;IoT | WoS |
null | Wireless domestic applications involving high data rates are required to work on millimeter wave band. Signal propagation at this frequency range is affected by walls and oxygen absorption which limits communication distances to few meters in one room. Radio coverage can be extended to other rooms by optical links. Performances of such photonic systems are dependent on optoelectronic devices, electrical driving, and receiver circuits. In this paper, radio-over-fiber (RoF) links based on the intensity modulation and direct detection technique are investigated for transmission of a broadband OFDM signal. Direct and external modulations are exploited to analyze system performances according to the ultra wideband (UWB) millimeter-band standard. To avoid component tolerances at high frequencies, an intermediate frequency modulation of the optical transducers is chosen. Optoelectronic and optical components of RoF links are modeled by equivalent electrical circuits with consideration of noise and nonlinearities. These models are validated in system simulation by error vector magnitude evaluation with a measurement setup according to the UWB centimeter-band standard. | Microwave photonics;Modeling;Simulation and characterizations of devices and circuits | WoS |
null | Wireless Laser Communication (WLC) is emerging as an effective last mile solution for high rate data transmission. It consists of a transmitter, a receiver and the atmosphere as an unguided propagation medium. The transimpedance design based optical receivers employed till now still involve an unwanted compromise between bandwidth and noise, both of which are influenced by the capacitance of the photodiode. We suggest an Operational Transresistance Amplifier (OTRA) based receiver section for the link arrangement. The OTRA is a new building block in the field of analog signal processing. We show that it highly improves upon the compromise between bandwidth and noise. We also show how the proposed receiver section highly improves upon the contemporary receiver designs and provides several unique and useful advantages using an OTRA based band pass filter employed in the receiver section. | WLC;OTRA;Avalanche PhotoDiode(APD);Receiver section | WoS |
null | Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) are growing rapidly in the research community due to their numerous applications and shared services. A feature in this kind of networks is the any-to-any connectivity, which opens the network for diverse kinds of attacks. These attacks generate extra traffic that possibly carries unauthorized intrusions. Our proposal, the IBW Framework, includes an approach for security in WMN detecting and mitigating the attacks through the use of non-relational databases for the data correlation and the dissemination of intrusion information among the nodes in WMN to reduce the amount of attacks in short time. Data correlation is done from the log data of servers and distributed Intrusion Detection & Prevention Systems (IDSs & IPSs) using syslog information with a particular format. Intrusion Prevention Systems can be implemented with any kind of solution, in our case we proposed iptables. Finally, a Case Study is presented, using the OLSR routing protocol and Brute Force attacks comparing our proposal with an open source blocking tool Fail2Ban. The whole scenario is being emulated in Dockemu to generate similar attack patterns for the result comparison. | Intrusion detection;intrusion prevention;ips;scalabe ips;classification-based hybrid ips;mongodb;syslog;wireless;wireless mesh networks;Dockemu | WoS |
null | Wireless network is a group of computer network devices using wireless communication. There are many types of jamming attacks affecting in wireless communication. In order to avoid the jamming attacks in the flow of network communication, the network security helps us to manage the uninterrupted solution to wireless communication. By using swarm intelligence, can provide the collaborative deductive solution to the different jamming attacks in wireless communication. This investigation provides on security issues of wireless sensor networks requirements and challenges for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). Wireless sensor networks provide ordered and reliable observation of few features of physical phenomena which are otherwise very difficult to scrutinize and also the instigation of right actions based on collective information from wireless sensor network nodes. The application of swarm intelligence optimization helps on several network performance and social applications such as target tracking, disaster management, field inspection, ecological and habitation monitoring, healthiness application, residence automation and traffic management has been pointed out. | Selective jamming attacks;Swarm intelligence | WoS |
null | Wireless network security is becoming a great challenge as its popularity is in the high spirit. On account of open medium, insignificant software implementation, potential for hardware deficits, and improper configuration; Wi-Fi network is vulnerable to Rogue Access Point (RAP). Rogue Access Point is an unauthorized access point which can be installed by end-users without the knowledge of security administrator. When this rogue device is connected to the Internet, it can be used by an assailant to breach the security of the network. Existing RAPs detection techniques have limited capabilities and are not able to detect all variants of assaulters activities. In this paper, a method named Honeypot Intrusion Detection System (Honeypot IDS) is proposed for the detection and prevention of Rogue Access Point via attack detection performed by internal and external malicious users. Honeypot IDS combines Intrusion Detection System and Honeypot, to reduce false alarm rate generated by existing IDS. The proposed approach consist of three phases; filtering, intrusion detection system and honeypot. The traffic after passing filtering and intrusion detection system is rerouted to honeypot for in-depth investigation. The proposed architecture improves the overall performance of the system by diminishing false alarm rate generated by intrusion detection system and is able to sustain the overall workload of honeypot. | Rogue access point;Intrusion detection system;Honeypot;Wired equivalent privacy;Wi-Fi protected access;Network attacks | WoS |
null | Wireless networks have gained immense popularity in recent years. Though wireless networks have innumerous advantages over conventional wired networks, the borderless nature of wireless networks makes it prone to various felonious activities. In the context of network security, one of the most crucial vulnerabilities which have caused a serious global concern is the MAC Address Spoofing. MAC address spoofing facilitates launching of other attacks such as Denial-of-service, Man-in-the-middle, SYN flooding etc. In this paper we propose a methodology for the detection of spoofing attacks in IEEE 802.11 networks that involve performance of cluster analysis on RSS patterns of 802.11 transmitters which not only detect presence of a spoofing attack but also determine number of attackers. Further for localizing the adversaries, we propose a discriminant-adaptive neural network (DANN) based localization system. | Spoofing Attacks;Received Signal Strength (RSS);Mean Shift Algorithm;Localization;DANN | WoS |
null | Wireless power transfer (WPT) or wireless energy transmission is the transmission of electrical power from a power source to a consuming device without using solid wires or conductors. In this paper we describe the implementation of the concept of wireless power transfer to transmit power from mobile phones to mobile phones. In our design we use simple inductive coupling and basic electrical circuits to implement this technology. | wireless power transfer;OTG;resonance;inductive coupling;Colpitts oscillator;voltage regulator | WoS |
null | Wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) have become pervasive and are used in many embedded and intelligent systems. However, the complexity of applications based on these networks is limited due to lack of tools for designing distributed systems on top of WSANs. In this paper, we present how a system-level programming language, SystemJ, is used to develop a middleware-free Ambient Intelligence (AmI) system. The system consists of a combination of Internet-enabled stationary and mobile WSAN nodes, which resembles an Internet of Things scenario. A distributed warehouse monitoring and control scenario with collaborating stationary and mobile WSAN nodes is used as a motivating example designed and implemented in SystemJ. This example demonstrates the capabilities of SystemJ for designing distributed AmI systems with inherent support for reactivity and composition of concurrent behaviors based on a formal model of computation, without the need for any additional middleware. The approach is compared with existing software agent, robotic and WSAN middleware approaches in designing the same type of systems. | Distributed AmI systems;System-level design;Wireless sensor;Actuator networks | WoS |
null | Wireless Sensor and Actuators Networks (WSANs) constitute one of the most challenging technologies with tremendous socio-economic impact for the next decade. Functionally and energy optimized hardware systems and development tools maybe is the most critical facet of this technology for the achievement of such prospects. Especially, in the area of agriculture, where the hostile operating environment comes to add to the general technological and technical issues, reliable and robust WSAN systems are mandatory. This paper focuses on the hardware design architectures of the WSANs for real-world agricultural applications. It presents the available alternatives in hardware design and identifies their difficulties and problems for real-life implementations. The paper introduces SensoTube, a new WSAN hardware architecture, which is proposed as a solution to the various existing design constraints of WSANs. The establishment of the proposed architecture is based, firstly on an abstraction approach in the functional requirements context, and secondly, on the standardization of the subsystems connectivity, in order to allow for an open, expandable, flexible, reconfigurable, energy optimized, reliable and robust hardware system. The SensoTube implementation reference model together with its encapsulation design and installation are analyzed and presented in details. Furthermore, as a proof of concept, certain use cases have been studied in order to demonstrate the benefits of migrating existing designs based on the available open-source hardware platforms to SensoTube architecture. | wireless;sensors;actuators;networks;open-source;expandable platforms;Arduino;ARM;energy management;agriculture | WoS |
Subsets and Splits