The EEE-05 Challenge: A New Web Service Discovery and Composition Competition

With growing acceptance of service-oriented computing, an emerging area of research is the investigation of technologies that will enable the discovery and composition of web services. Using the same approach as the popular Trading Agent Competitions (TAC), the EEE-05 Web Services Challenge is the first event geared towards the management of web services. The competition solicits industry and academic researchers that develop software components and/or intelligent agents that have the ability to discover pertinent web services and also compose them to create higher-level capabilities. This paper describes the competition details for this first year and expectations for future events

Extracellular vesicles produced in B cells deliver tumor suppressor miR-335 to breast cancer cells disrupting oncogenic programming in vitro and in vivo.

The successful implementation of miRNA (miR) therapies in humans will ultimately rely on the use of vehicles with improved cellular delivery capability. Here we tested a new system that leverages extracellular vesicles (EVs) laden with a tumor suppressor miRNA (miR-335) produced in B cells by plasmid DNA induction (iEVs). We demonstrate that iEVs-335 efficiently and durably restored the endogenous miR-335 pool in human triple negative breast cancer cells, downregulated the expression of the miR-335 target gene SOX4 transcription factor, and markedly inhibited tumor growth in vivo. Remarkably, iEVs-335 mediated transcriptional effects that persisted in tumors after 60 days post orthotopic implantation. Genome-wide RNASeq analysis of cancer cells treated in vitro with iEVs-335 showed the regulation of a discrete number of genes only, without broad transcriptome perturbations. This new technology may be ideally suited for therapies aimed to restore tumor suppressor miRNAs in cancer cells, disrupting the oncogenic program established after escape from miRNA control

The Plea for Asia—Tan Yunshan, Pan-Asianism and Sino-Indian Relations

In 1927, the Buddhist scholar, Tan Yunshan, travelled to Santiniketan on the invitation of Rabindranath Tagore to teach Chinese at Visva Bharati University. Subsequent years would see him develop close ties with the Guomindang and Congress leaders, secure Chinese state funding for the first sinological institute in India and mediate between the nationalist movements during the Second World War. That a relatively marginal academic, who participated in neither the May Fourth Movement nor any major political party, and who had little prior experience of India, could have played such an important role in twentieth century Sino-Indian relations raises questions over the conditions that made possible Tan‘s illustrious career. This article argues that Tan‘s success as an institution builder and diplomatic intermediary was attributable to his ideological affinity with the increasing disillusionment with capitalist modernity in both China and India, the shifting dynamics of the Pan-Asianist movement and the conservative turn of China‘s nationalist movement after its split with the communists in 1927. While Nationalist China and the Congress both tapped into the civilizational discourse that was supposed to bind the two societies together, the idealism Tan embodied was unable to withstand the conflict of priorities between nation-states in the emerging Cold War order

China's Forgotten Revolution: Radical Conservatism in Action, 1927-1949

This dissertation examines Republican China's state-led revolution under the Guomindang. Since the anti-Communist purge in 1927, the party-state had strived to re-energize mass activism and dissolve proletarian political subjectivity with a rightwing program that stressed interclass and national unity. Under Chiang Kai-shek's leadership, the Guomindang put an end to the ideological ambiguity of Sun Yat-sen's national revolution, broke ties the party forged with the Communist International in 1923, and launched an all-round assault on the fledging Chinese Communist Party. Refusing to challenge unequal power relationships domestically and abroad, Guomindang leaders promised to bring China and Asia back to their cultural essence and towards a superior ethical order. Despite its conservative socio-economic agenda, the party retained a radical organizational mode it derived from revolutionary socialism that prized Leninist vanguardism, reliance on mass involvement and cultural transformation. The Chinese nation-state under Guomindang rule experienced a conservative revolution and partook in a global fascist current that swept across Asia, Europe and Latin America during the second quarter of the twentieth century. The distinctiveness of China's conservative revolution is demonstrated in this dissertation through a multilayered study of its ideological formulations, mass mobilization programs, and ability to garner support from outside the Guomindang domestically and abroad. Senior party ideologues among radical conservatives, who produced tracts attacking the Guomindang's Communist allies in the mid-1920s, provided theoretical justifications for the April 1927 purge and heralded the party-state's drastic shift to the right. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Guomindang state deployed the scouting and wartime spiritual mobilization movements to re-channel mass activism towards strengthening the nation's organic unity and consolidating defense against Japanese invasion. Potentially subversive popular demands were diffused through a new focus on refining and rationalizing consumption habits, time management and other social mores. Instead of political participation, popular will found expression in public rituals, physical recreation and cultural entertainments. Conservative revolutionaries were adept in building elite support. The state's goal of disciplining everyday life converged with liberal intellectual fear over a social order collapsing under mob rule. While uncomfortable with some authoritarian behaviors on the Guomindang's part, prominent liberals such as Zhu Guangqian shared the state's priority of reining in an intransigent mass society. Internationally, China's repudiation of Soviet-supported anti-imperialist activities led the Guomindang to appeal to cultural affinities in the overtures it extended to the Indian independence movement. The regime's celebration of Eastern spiritual superiority proved attractive to Pan-Asianists like Rabindranath Tagore and informed exchanges between the Guomindang and Indian National Congress at the height of the Second World War. In highlighting the ascendency of radical conservatism in China and its transnational circulation across Asia, this dissertation sheds light on the distinct qualities, often downplayed in the historical literature, of the Guomindang's revolutionary enterprise vis-à-vis the radical left

Measuring Public Utilization Perception Potential of Unmanned Aircraft Systems

The integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Air Space (NAS) in recent times has been met by mixed public responses. The paper establishes four constructs each of which encapsulates multiple backgrounds and concerns of the stakeholders: functional knowledge, utilization trust, operational integration support, and safety risk-benefits. The paper hypothesizes that these constructs can serve as underlying components for a research instrument namely, the Public Utilization Perception Potential (PUPP) which can be used to assess the opinions of the public on UAS integration into NAS. Responses from the public on items in a beta-tested survey instrument were analyzed for construct validity and reliability using Principal Axis Factoring (PAF). Four factors that suggest constructs underlying PUPP instrument were derived. Using Structural Equation Model (SEM) approach, a hypothesized measurement model of PUPP was further validated and the final measurement model showed good fit of the observed data based on the RMSEA goodness-of-fit index (0.034). The paper further assessed the strength of relationships between the underlying constructs of PUPP. The results suggest that approximately 65% and 27% of all respondents had partial and no knowledge, respectively, about UAS integration into the NAS. There was a statistically significant difference in the mean scores on safety-risk benefits on UAS among gender. Males were found to be more likely to patronize unmanned commercial passenger services compared to females. The results indicated a statistically significant difference in UAS knowledge and perceptions across educational levels. It was rather counter-intuitive as respondents with lower educational levels were found to be more knowledgeable about UAS compared to those of higher levels based on the results of this study. Investments in information resources and training by industry, government and academia may be helpful to improve UAS knowledge and perceptions among the public if any commercial utilization as a transport mode will be feasible. Future studies will replicate the study in countries other than the United States

Cardiosphere-derived cells demonstrate metabolic flexibility that Is influenced by adhesion status

Adult stem cells demonstrate metabolic flexibility that is regulated by cell adhesion status. The authors demonstrate that adherent cells primarily utilize glycolysis, whereas suspended cells rely on oxidative phosphorylation for their ATP needs. Akt phosphorylation transduces adhesion-mediated regulation of energy metabolism, by regulating translocation of glucose transporters (GLUT1) to the cell membrane and thus, cellular glucose uptake and glycolysis. Cell dissociation, a pre-requisite for cell transplantation, leads to energetic stress, which is mediated by Akt dephosphorylation, downregulation of glucose uptake, and glycolysis. They designed hydrogels that promote rapid cell adhesion of encapsulated cells, Akt phosphorylation, restore glycolysis, and cellular ATP levels

Epigenetic aging signatures in mice livers are slowed by dwarfism, calorie restriction and rapamycin treatment

Background: Global but predictable changes impact the DNA methylome as we age, acting as a type of molecular clock. This clock can be hastened by conditions that decrease lifespan, raising the question of whether it can also be slowed, for example, by conditions that increase lifespan. Mice are particularly appealing organisms for studies of mammalian aging; however, epigenetic clocks have thus far been formulated only in humans. Results: We first examined whether mice and humans experience similar patterns of change in the methylome with age. We found moderate conservation of CpG sites for which methylation is altered with age, with both species showing an increase in methylome disorder during aging. Based on this analysis, we formulated an epigenetic-aging model in mice using the liver methylomes of 107 mice from 0.2 to 26.0 months old. To examine whether epigenetic aging signatures are slowed by longevity-promoting interventions, we analyzed 28 additional methylomes from mice subjected to lifespan-extending conditions, including Prop1df/df dwarfism, calorie restriction or dietary rapamycin. We found that mice treated with these lifespan-extending interventions were significantly younger in epigenetic age than their untreated, wild-type age-matched controls. Conclusions: This study shows that lifespan-extending conditions can slow molecular changes associated with an epigenetic clock in mice livers

Epitaxial growth of CoxMnySiz (111) thin films in the compositional range around the Heusler alloy Co2MnSi

Epitaxial growth and structural properties of CoxMnySiz thin films on Ge (111) substrates, including the Heusler alloy Co2MnSi (111), have been studied using combinatorial molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) techniques. In situ reflection high energy electron diffraction and ex situ x-ray diffraction experiments show that high quality coherent MBE growth with fcc (111) stacking can be achieved over a relatively large composition space that includes Co2MnSi. The highest structural and chemical ordering is observed near the composition of Co0.63Mn0.14Si0.23 rather than that at the Heusler stoichiometry of Co2MnSi. The in-plane crystallographic axis of the fcc film exhibits a 60° rotation with respect to that of the Ge substrate. The rotation appears to be originated at the film-substrate interface, as a result of the symmetry and stacking of the Ge (111) surface reconstruction

Chronic viral infection promotes sustained Th1-derived immunoregulatory IL-10 via BLIMP-1

During the course of many chronic viral infections, the antiviral T cell response becomes attenuated through a process that is regulated in part by the host. While elevated expression of the immunosuppressive cytokine IL-10 is involved in the suppression of viral-specific T cell responses, the relevant cellular sources of IL-10, as well as the pathways responsible for IL-10 induction, remain unclear. In this study, we traced IL-10 production over the course of chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection in an IL-10 reporter mouse line. Using this model, we demonstrated that virus-specific T cells with reduced inflammatory function, particularly Th1 cells, display elevated and sustained IL-10 expression during chronic LCMV infection. Furthermore, ablation of IL-10 from the T cell compartment partially restored T cell function and reduced viral loads in LCMV-infected animals. We found that viral persistence is needed for sustained IL-10 production by Th1 cells and that the transcription factor BLIMP-1 is required for IL-10 expression by Th1 cells. Restimulation of Th1 cells from LCMV-infected mice promoted BLIMP-1 and subsequent IL-10 expression, suggesting that constant antigen exposure likely induces the BLIMP-1/IL-10 pathway during chronic viral infection. Together, these data indicate that effector T cells self-limit their responsiveness during persistent viral infection via an IL-10-dependent negative feedback loop.This work was supported by an Australian NHMRC Overseas Biomedical Postdoctoral Fellowship (to I.A. Parish); a Yale School of Medicine Brown-Coxe Postdoctoral Fellowship (to I.A. Parish); the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (SKA2010, to P.A. Lang); a CIHR grant (to P.S. Ohashi); and by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and NIH grant RO1AI074699 (to S.M. Kaech). P.S. Ohashi holds a Canada Research Chair in Autoimmunity and Tumor immunity

How people talk when teaching a robot

We examine affective vocalizations provided by human teach-ers to robotic learners. In unscripted one-on-one interac-tions, participants provided vocal input to a robotic dinosaur as the robot selected toy buildings to knock down. We find that (1) people vary their vocal input depending on the learner’s performance history, (2) people do not wait until a robotic learner completes an action before they provide in-put and (3) people näıvely and spontaneously use intensely affective vocalizations. Our findings suggest modifications may be needed to traditional machine learning models to better fit observed human tendencies. Our observations of human behavior contradict the popular assumptions made by machine learning algorithms (in particular, reinforcement learning) that the reward function is stationary and path-independent for social learning interactions. We also propose an interaction taxonomy that describes three phases of a human-teacher’s vocalizations: direction, spoken before an action is taken; guidance, spoken as the learner communicates an intended action; and feedback, spo-ken in response to a completed action