SMAP: A Novel Heterogeneous Information Framework for Scenario-based Optimal Model Assignment

The increasing maturity of big data applications has led to a proliferation of models targeting the same objectives within the same scenarios and datasets. However, selecting the most suitable model that considers model's features while taking specific requirements and constraints into account still poses a significant challenge. Existing methods have focused on worker-task assignments based on crowdsourcing, they neglect the scenario-dataset-model assignment problem. To address this challenge, a new problem named the Scenario-based Optimal Model Assignment (SOMA) problem is introduced and a novel framework entitled Scenario and Model Associative percepts (SMAP) is developed. SMAP is a heterogeneous information framework that can integrate various types of information to intelligently select a suitable dataset and allocate the optimal model for a specific scenario. To comprehensively evaluate models, a new score function that utilizes multi-head attention mechanisms is proposed. Moreover, a novel memory mechanism named the mnemonic center is developed to store the matched heterogeneous information and prevent duplicate matching. Six popular traffic scenarios are selected as study cases and extensive experiments are conducted on a dataset to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of SMAP and the score function

Howard County Farmers Association (HCFA) Business Concept

Final project for AREC489N: Economics of Local Agriculture: Food Hubs (Spring 2016). University of Maryland, College Park.The Howard County Office of Community Sustainability is seeking food hub-based solutions that connect small and mid-sized farmers in Howard County with restaurants and retailers to expand the market for locally produced agricultural products. Under the supervision of instructor Philip Gottwals, the University of Maryland’s PALS-affiliated AREC 489N team studied successes and failures of organizations that have undertaken similar projects to determine the most appropriate and feasible solutions to the issues raised. A review of public data quickly revealed that Howard County's agricultural sector is both small and highly diversified. As such it offers both opportunities for, and challenges to, the creation of a food hub. Vegetable production, for example, is limited to 110 acres of production with the largest crop acreage devoted to an ornamental crop, pumpkins. The next largest vegetable crops are sweet corn and tomatoes, with all others representing negligible commercial, fresh market acreage. For a food hub to be viable, an increase in production and diversity would be required. Otherwise, it would be impractical to gather and distribute wholesale quantities of vegetables to restaurants, retailers, or wholesalers. Interviews with County farmers confirmed that market opportunity is not limited by facility-based services, such as aggregation, but instead were limited by programmatic and policy restrictions. Chief among their concerns are the impending food safety certification requirements imposed by the federal Food Safety Modernization Act audited by Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certification. These regulations, which were previously enforced only on the largest farms, now apply to all fruit and vegetable producers, regardless of farm size or program cost. Unless these standards are adopted at the farm level, local producers would be barred from many, if not all, commercial sales. Further evidence that a facility-based food hub is unlikely to be successful in Howard County can be found in the depth and breadth of the existing food supply chain. Howard County is the epicenter of a 100-mile radius supply chain that includes approximately 4,000 firms that are involved in all aspects of the food industry, including logistics, manufacturing, and distribution. After interviewing businesses operating in these sectors, it was determined that sufficient options to aggregate, ship, or value add were available in the market, but that critical services, such as quality assurance, food safety certification, and marketing support were lacking, putting local farmers at a marked disadvantage over farms from outside the area. Given the above, the project team concluded that it would be a greater benefit to our client if further research and project development efforts were directed toward designing a multi-pronged Quality Assurance Program for the County combined with an associated marketing and brand management program to raise awareness of Howard County farm products. This multifaceted approach strives to implement the newly emerging food safety requirements as a method of expansion into new markets. This allows growers to participate in the supply-chain where well-documented demand for local, GAP-certified produce and quality assured beef cattle exists. The second facet of the approach involves creating a suite of strategic marketing initiatives designed to bolster consumer demand for local food.Howard Count

A simulation based GA for multi-objective optimization in patient flow distribution

The imbalanced development among different levels of healthcare facilities has become a major social issue in China's urban healthcare system. In this research, we propose a methodology to find the optimal macro-level patient flow distribution in terms of multi-dimension inputs and outputs for the hierarchical healthcare system. This research integrates Discrete-Event Simulation (DES), multi-objective programming and simulation optimization. The problem is solved by the ideal multi-objective optimization procedure. We develop an algorithm integrating DES and Genetic Algorithm (GA), where the DES model is functioned as the 'fitness function' to find the Pareto optimal solution set. A case study of a two-level healthcare system, which consists of the Peking University Third Hospital (PUTH) and fifteen healthcare centers in Haidian District, Beijing, China, is carried out to implement the multi-objective simulation optimization model. The result of case study confirms the imbalance of the patient flow distribution and provides a Pareto optimal set for decision makers. ? 2014 IEEE.EI1-62014-Januar

Comparison between Different TomoSAR Imaging Models for Airborne Platform Flying at Low Altitude

The classical planar-wavefront-based TomoSAR imaging model suffers from the problem that the effective integration interval is not enough to cover the target distribution region in the low-altitude airborne case. It will lead to a deterioration of the performance of tomogram reconstruction and inaccuracy of estimated scatterers. This paper reviews the exact and approximate forms of the aforementioned inaccurate model based on planar wavefront and points out the problem with the conventional model. To solve this problem, we propose spherical wavefront models with the exact form or an approximate form of the slant range formula. The estimated variable for the scatterer’s location is converted from elevation to off-nadir angle, and the effective integration interval has been extended. In addition, we explore relationships between the exact form of the conventional model and the exact form of the proposed model, and the relationship between the approximate form of the conventional model and the approximate form of the proposed model. This provides a basis for modifying the inversion algorithm that is designed based on the conventional model to adapt to the low-altitude airborne case. Eventually, through experiments based on simulated data and measured data, the imprecise reconstructions obtained with the conventional model are demonstrated, and the correctness of spherical wavefront models and the effectiveness of transformation between models are proved

Development of a Novel Recombinant Adeno-Associated Virus Production System Using Human Bocavirus 1 Helper Genes

Human bocavirus 1 (HBoV1), an autonomous parvovirus, is a helper virus supporting replication of wild-type adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2). In this study, we compared the helper functions from HBoV1 with those from adenovirus (Ad) for the production of recombinant AAV (rAAV) vector in HEK293 cells. We demonstrated that triple plasmids transfection of (1) a cloned HBoV1 helper minigenome (pBocaHelper) that expresses HBoV1 genes NP1, NS2, and BocaSR, (2) pAAV transfer plasmid, and (3) pAAVRepCap supports rAAV production in HEK293 cells. Despite a production yield of 1–2 log lower than that using pAdHelper (expressing Ad genes E2A, E4, and VA), rAAV vector produced using pBocaHelper transduced cells as efficiently as that produced using pAdHelper. The low vector production is largely due to the inefficient expression of the AAV Rep52 and capsid proteins, as well as reduced rAAV genome replication. When the AAV capsid proteins and Rep52 were ectopically expressed under strong promoters, the enhanced protein expression significantly improved the rAAV production using pBocaHelper, approaching a level of 50%–70% of that produced using pAdHelper. Through further dissection of the helper functions from pAdHelper in a five-plasmid transfection system, we found that the addition of the Ad E2A gene to the above HBoV1 helper system significantly increased rAAV DNA replication, which increased the rAAV vector production to a level of 3–7 times higher than that using pAdHelper. We finally combined HBoV1 NP1 and NS2 genes with Ad helper genes to create a novel dual helper plasmid (pABHelper) for rAAV vector production in the conventional three-plasmid transfection system. The pABHelper facilitated rAAV production at a yield ∼2 times higher than that using the pAdHelper. Keywords: rAAV, HBoV1, helper gene, DNA replication, gene expressio

Protective Role of Antioxidant Huskless Barley Extracts on TNF-α-Induced Endothelial Dysfunction in Human Vascular Endothelial Cells

Oxidative stress and inflammation are considered as two key factors that contribute to the development of atherosclerosis. This study was to investigate the antioxidant capacity of huskless barley and to explore its protective functions through the regulation of the antioxidant defense and inflammatory response in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). The oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), and 2,2-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS) scavenging capacity of water and alkali extracts of the polysaccharides from nine huskless barley varieties were investigated in vitro. The antioxidant properties of the alkaline extracts were more pronounced than those of the water extracts. The results from the cell model showed that pretreatment of HUVEC with the water or alkaline extracts of the polysaccharides from the huskless barley cultivars QHH and NLGL decreased the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1), and vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1) but increased the level of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and maintained cell viability. Huskless barley polysaccharide extracts exhibited the vasodilatory effect of inhibiting angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) production. These discoveries revealed the potent protective functions of barley in oxidative damage and a potential role for barley in preventing chronic inflammation in cardiovascular diseases

The Different Effects of BMI and WC on Organ Damage in Patients from a Cardiac Rehabilitation Program after Acute Coronary Syndrome

One of the purposes of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) after acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is to monitor and control weight of the patient. Our study is to compare the different obesity indexes, body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference (WC), through one well-designed CR program (CRP) with ACS in Guangzhou city of Guangdong Province, China, in order to identify different effects of BMI and WC on organ damage. In our work, sixty-one patients between October 2013 and January 2014 fulfilled our study. We collected the vital signs by medical records, the clinical variables of body-metabolic status by fasting blood test, and the organ damage variables by submaximal exercise treadmill test (ETT) and ultrasonic cardiogram (UCG) both on our inpatient and four-to-five weeks of outpatient part of CRP after ACS. We mainly used two-tailed Pearson’s test and liner regression to evaluate the relationship of BMI/WC and organ damage. Our results confirmed that WC could be more accurate than BMI to evaluate the cardiac function through the changes of left ventricular structure on the CRP after ACS cases. It makes sense of early diagnosis, valid evaluation, and proper adjustment to ACS in CRP of the obesity individuals in the future

Endonuclease Activity Inhibition of the NS1 Protein of Parvovirus B19 as a Novel Target for Antiviral Drug Development

Human parvovirus B19 (B19V), a member of the genusPHS grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [R01 AI070723, R01 AI104494, R21 AI124672]6 month embargo; published online: 26 February 2019This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]