Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Collaborative integrity verification in hybrid clouds

A hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment in which an organization provides and manages some internal resources and the others provided externally. However, this new environment could bring irretrievable losses to the clients due to a lack of integrity verification mechanism for distributed data outsourcing. In this paper, we address the construction of a collaborative integrity verification mechanism in hybrid clouds to support the scalable service and data migration, in which we consider the existence of multiple cloud service providers to collaboratively store and maintain the clients' data. We propose a collaborative provable data possession scheme adopting the techniques of homomorphic verifiable responses and hash index hierarchy. In addition, we articulate the performance optimization mechanisms for our scheme and prove the security of our scheme based on multi-prover zero-knowledge proof system, which can satisfy the properties of completeness, knowledge soundness, and zero-knowledge. Our experiments also show that our proposed solution only incurs a small constant amount of communications overhead.
Prospects and Challenges of Production and Marketing of Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPs) by Rural Farmers in Southwest Nigeria

The study assessed the prospects and challenges of producing and marketing of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) by rural households with the view to improving their socio-economic contributions to rural livelihoods. Data collection was conducted in Ondo State, Southwest Nigeria. The respondents that was sampled for the study comprise of farmers who produced NTFPs on their farms. Multistage sampling techniques was used to sample the targeted respondents. Three Local Government Areas (LGAs) were randomly selected in the State, while 2 villages were selected from each of the three LGAs making 6 study sites. Twenty respondents were sampled in each of the study sites making a total number of 120 respondents. Primary data was generated mainly from pre-tested structured questionnaires and field observations. Abouth 71.7% of the farmers operated on semi-commercial basis. The major cultivated food crop was cassava (55.3%) while cash crop was Cocoa (54.7%). All the farmers (100%) possessed multipurpose trees on their farmland and these were spared (100%) during land preparation. Many of the farmers got buyers for their NTFPs (χ =57.1104, p=0.0000) 2
Fast rotating massive stars and the origin of the abundance patterns in galactic globular clusters

Aims. We propose the Wind of Fast Rotating Massive Stars scenario to explain the origin of the abundance anomalies observed in globular clusters. Methods. We compute and present models of fast rotating stars with initial masses between 20 and 120 $M_\odot$ for an initial metallicity Z = 0.0005 (${\rm [Fe/H]}\simeq-1.5$). We discuss the nucleosynthesis in the H-burning core of these objects and present the chemical composition of their ejecta. We consider the impact of uncertainties in the relevant nuclear reaction rates. Results. Fast rotating stars reach critical velocity at the beginning of their evolution and remain near the critical limit during the rest of the main sequence and part of the He-burning phase. As a consequence they lose large amounts of material through a mechanical wind which probably leads to the formation of a slow outflowing disk. The material in this slow wind is enriched in H-burning products and presents abundance patterns similar to the chemical anomalies observed in globular cluster stars. In particular, the C, N, O, Na and Li variations are well reproduced by our model. However the rate of the $\rm{}^{24}\kern-0.6ptMg$$(p,\gamma)$ has to be increased by a factor 1000 around 50 $\times$ 10 6 K in order to reproduce the amplitude of the observed Mg-Al anticorrelation. We discuss how the long-lived low-mass stars currently observed in globular clusters could have formed out of the slow wind material ejected by massive stars.
The influence of delay and item difficulty on eyewitness confidence and accuracy

There is international concern about the negative effects of delays in Criminal Justice Systems. Problems include the deleterious effects that delay can have on witnesses’ memory accuracy and witnesses’ ability to calibrate their memories accurately. Little empirical work has been conducted on these issues combined with item difficulty and the relationship between accuracy and confidence. This paper investigates these issues. 21 witnesses were interviewed about an observed crime and required to answer lawyerly questions used in cross-examination relating to target items classified as ‘easy’, ‘moderate’ and ‘difficult’, in terms of memorability. Participants were interviewed again, 6 months later. A 6 month delay significantly reduced memory accuracy for all levels of question difficulty. Within-subjects C-A relationships seemed to be relatively unaffected by delay; i.e. they tended to be positive for easy and moderate items, and negative for difficult items. Between-subjects C-A relationships were also positive for both easy and moderate items, but improved after 6 months; whereas C-A relationships for the difficult items remained negative and statistically insignificant following the 6 month delay. Delay can have a profound negative effect on witness accuracy that is not likely to be compensated for by improvements in C-A calibration.
Deep‐Breathing Exercises Reduce Atelectasis And Improve Pulmonary Function After Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To investigate the effects of deep-breathing exercises on pulmonary function, atelectasis, and arterial blood gas levels after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS In a prospective, randomized trial, patients performing deep-breathing exercises (n = 48) were compared to a control group (n = 42) who performed no breathing exercises postoperatively. Patient management was similar in the groups in terms of assessment, positioning, and mobility. INTERVENTIONS The patients in the deep-breathing group were instructed to perform breathing exercises hourly during daytime for the first 4 postoperative days. The exercises consisted of 30 slow, deep breaths performed with a positive expiratory pressure blow-bottle device (+ 10 cm H(2)O). MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS Spirometric measurements, spiral CT (three transverse levels), arterial blood gas analysis, and scoring of subjective experience of the breathing exercises were performed on the fourth postoperative day. Atelectasis was only half the size in the deep-breathing group compared to the control group, amounting to 2.6 +/- 2.2% vs 4.7 +/- 5.7% (p = 0.045) at the basal level and 0.1 +/- 0.2% vs 0.3 +/- 0.5% (mean +/- SD) [p = 0.01] at the apical level. Compared to the control subjects, the patients in the deep-breathing group had a significantly smaller reduction in FVC (to 71 +/- 12%, vs 64 +/- 13% of the preoperative values; p = 0.01) and FEV(1) (to 71 +/- 11%, vs 65 +/- 13% of the preoperative values; p = 0.01). Arterial oxygen tension, carbon dioxide tension, fever, or length of ICU or hospital stay did not differ between the groups. In the deep-breathing group, 72% of the patients experienced a subjective benefit from the exercises. CONCLUSIONS Patients performing deep-breathing exercises after CABG surgery had significantly smaller atelectatic areas and better pulmonary function on the fourth postoperative day compared to a control group performing no exercises.
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine On the Mechanisms Behind Hippocampal Theta Oscillations The role of OLMα 2 interneurons

Mikulovic, S. 2016. On the Mechanisms Behind Hippocampal Theta Oscillations. The role of OLMα2 interneurons. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1206. 47 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-554-9542-8. Theta activity is one of the most prominent rhythms in the brain and appears to be conserved among mammals. These 4-12 Hz oscillations have been predominantly studied in the dorsal hippocampus where they are correlated with a broad range of voluntary and exploratory behaviors. Theta activity has been also implicated in a number of mnemonic processes, long-term potentiation (LTP) induction and even acting as a global synchronizing mechanism. Moving along the dorso-ventral axis theta activity is reduced in power and desynchronized from the dorsal part. However, theta activity can also be generated in the ventral hippocampus itself during anxietyand fear-related behaviors. Until now it was unknown which hippocampal cell population was capable to generate theta activity and it was controversial if its origin was local, in the hippocampus, or driven by other brain regions. In this thesis I present compelling in vitro and in vivo evidence that a subpopulation of OLM interneurons (defined by the Chrna2-cre line) distinctively enriched in the CA1 region of the ventral hippocampus is implicated in LTP function (paper I,II), information control (paper V) and the induction of theta activity that is under cholinergic control (paper IV). Importantly, a concomitant effect of the optogenetically induced theta activity is reduction in anxiety (Paper IV). Another innovation of this work was the development of a methodological approach to avoid artefactual signals when combining electrophysiology with light activation during optogenetic experiments (Paper III). In summary, the work presented in this thesis elucidates the role of a morphologically and electrophysiologially identified cell population, OLMα2 interneurons, first on the cellular, then on the circuit and ultimately on the behavioral level.
Georgios Streit on Crete: International Law, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire

Abstract:In this article, I address the question of how jurisprudence functioned during the Cretan Question of 1895–1899. For this purpose, I analyze the works of Georgios Streit, one of the most famous Greek international lawyers at that time. First, Streit argued that Crete formed a state under the “thin suzerainty” of the Sublime Porte. By this logic, he effectively denied Ottoman sovereignty, although neither the Great Powers nor the Sublime Porte admitted his interpretation. Second, Streit criticized the Great Powers’ special status in international affairs, defending legal equality among what he considered to be civilized states instead. The equal status of the Powers and Greece would justify the latter’s intervention in Ottoman internal affairs. In conclusion, while Streit’s argument that Crete formed a state found support among international lawyers, his criticism of the Powers’ special status did not, a fact that highlights some of the characteristics of nineteenth-century international law.
The Cognitive Differences According to Regionality and Mathematical Minds

: The purpose of this research is to explore factors that create cognitive diversity. We studied two different ways of recogniz- ing images in our preliminary experiment: attribute-oriented thoughts and relationship-oriented thoughts. We examined whether we could observe the divergences in recognition processes between Asian and European cultures. From the result, we found that European (Dutch and British) subjects had stronger tendencies in attribute-oriented thoughts than the Korean subjects. However, in spite of their regional similarity, the Japanese subjects had greater tendencies in attribute-oriented thoughts than Korean subjects when comparing two Asian countries. This result made us question if there would be any other factors that could create the cognitive differences. Through the consideration of the participants’ educational background, we found a possibility that the mathematical thoughts of the European and Japanese subjects were greater than the Korean subjects. Furthermore, in our subsequent study, we discovered that mathematical minds (skill and interest) effected on creating attribute-oriented thoughts as factors. We found the interesting discovery of the Japanese male participants, who had different cognitive tendencies with their mathematical skills and interests; the male subjects who had high-leveled mathematical skills, and who liked mathematics showed stronger tendencies of Attribute-oriented thoughts than those who did not. Based on the result, a possibility was suggested that the Japanese males’ strong mathematical minds might be one of the factors that create the cognitive difference between Japanese and Korean subjects in the preliminary experiment.
The Epidemiology of Contact Allergy to Metals in the General Population: Prevalence and New Evidences

Aluminium, Au, Be, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ir, Ni, Pd, Pt, Rh and Ti represent causes of metal-induced allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) which expresses in a broad spectrum of cutaneous adverse manifestations. The exposure is primarily by skin contact with various items and products such as jewellery and piercing, cosmetics and tattoos, detergents, body im- plants and dental prostheses. To reduce the growth of the metal ACD among people, the European Union issued directives that limit the total Ni content in jewellery alloys and ban metals in cosmetics. Despite these regulations, the diffusion of metal ACD remained quite high. On this basis, a review of the epidemiological evidence of the metal-induced ACD is re- ported discussing the sources, the prevalence and the prescriptions.
Aversion-Related Circuitry in the Cerebellum: Responses to Noxious Heat and Unpleasant Images

The cerebellum is reliably activated during both acute and chronic pain conditions, but it is unclear whether the response to aversive painful stimuli can be generalized to other aversive stimuli. We hypothesized that cerebellar activation during pain reflects higher-level encoding of aversive stimuli. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare cerebellar responses in 11 healthy volunteers to noxious heat (46°C) applied to the hand and to the passive viewing of images selected from the International Affective Picture System. Aversive stimuli in the form of noxious heat and unpleasant pictures (unpleasant vs neutral) activated overlapping areas in the posterior cerebellum, specifically in hemispheric lobule VI, Crus I, and VIIb. Pleasant pictures (pleasant vs neutral) did not share the same pattern of activation as observed with the aversive stimuli. Cerebellar areas that showed functional overlap with both heat pain and unpleasant picture viewing were significantly inversely correlated with fMRI signals measured in limbic system structures, including the anterior hypothalamus, subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, and the parahippocampal gyrus. Heat-specific functional connectivity was detected in many regions including primary motor cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, anterior insula, and the periaqueductal gray. The overlap between cerebellar lobuli reactive to noxious heat and passive viewing of unpleasant images suggest that the cerebellum may contain specific regions involved in encoding generalized aversive processing. The separate cortical networks suggest that noxious heat-evoked responses in the cerebellum can be divided into sensorimotor and emotional networks.
Near-Infrared Properties of Faint X-Ray Sources from NICMOS Imaging in the Chandra Deep Fields

We measure the near-infrared properties of 42 X-ray-detected sources from the Chandra Deep Fields North and South, the majority of which lie within the NICMOS Hubble Deep Field-North and Ultra Deep Field. We detect all 42 Chandra sources with NICMOS, with 95% brighter than H160 = 24.5. We find that X-ray sources are most often in the brightest and most massive galaxies. Neither the X-ray fluxes nor the hardness ratios of the sample show any correlation with near-infrared flux, color, or morphology. This lack of correlation indicates that there is little connection between the two emission mechanisms and is consistent with the near-infrared emission being dominated by starlight rather than a Seyfert nonstellar continuum. Near-infrared X-ray sources make up roughly half of all extremely red (J110 - H160 > 1.4) objects brighter than H160 < 24.5. These red X-ray sources have a range of hardness ratios similar to the rest of the sample, decreasing the likelihood of dust-obscured active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity as the sole explanation for their red color. Using a combination of spectroscopic and photometric redshifts, we find that the red J110 - H160 objects are at high redshifts (z > 1.5), which we propose as the primary explanation for their extreme J110 - H160 color. Measurement of rest-wavelength absolute B magnitudes shows that X-ray sources are the brightest optical objects at all redshifts, which explains their dominance of the bright end of the red J110 - H160 population.
Conformer Generation with OMEGA: Algorithm and Validation Using High Quality Structures from the Protein Databank and Cambridge Structural Database

Here, we present the algorithm and validation for OMEGA, a systematic, knowledge-based conformer generator. The algorithm consists of three phases: assembly of an initial 3D structure from a library of fragments; exhaustive enumeration of all rotatable torsions using values drawn from a knowledge-based list of angles, thereby generating a large set of conformations; and sampling of this set by geometric and energy criteria. Validation of conformer generators like OMEGA has often been undertaken by comparing computed conformer sets to experimental molecular conformations from crystallography, usually from the Protein Databank (PDB). Such an approach is fraught with difficulty due to the systematic problems with small molecule structures in the PDB. Methods are presented to identify a diverse set of small molecule structures from cocomplexes in the PDB that has maximal reliability. A challenging set of 197 high quality, carefully selected ligand structures from well-solved models was obtained using these methods. This set will provide a sound basis for comparison and validation of conformer generators in the future. Validation results from this set are compared to the results using structures of a set of druglike molecules extracted from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). OMEGA is found to perform very well in reproducing the crystallographic conformations from both these data sets using two complementary metrics of success.
MAMMALIAN RESPONSE TO GLOBAL WARMING ON VARIED TEMPORAL SCALES

Abstract Paleontological information was used to evaluate and compare how Rocky Mountain mammalian communities changed during past global warming events characterized by different durations (350, ∼10,000–20,000, and 4 million years) and different per–100-year warming rates (1.0°C, 0.1°C, 0.06–0.08°C, 0.0002–0.0003°C per 100 years). Our goals were to determine whether biotic changes observed today are characteristic of or accelerated relative to what took place during past global warming events and to clarify the possible trajectory of mammalian faunal change that climate change may initiate. This determination is complicated because actual warming rates scale inversely with the time during which temperature is measured, and species with different life-history strategies respond (or do not) in different ways. Nevertheless, examination of past global warming episodes suggested that approximately concurrent with warming, a predictable sequence of biotic events occurs at the regional scale of the central and northern United States Rocky Mountains. First, phenotypic and density changes in populations are detectable within 100 years. Extinction of some species, noticeable changes in taxonomic composition of communities, and possibly reduction in species richness follow as warming extends to a few thousand years. Faunal turnover nears 100% and species diversity may increase when warm temperatures last hundreds of thousands to millions of years, because speciation takes place and faunal changes initiated by a variety of shorter-term processes accumulate. Climate-induced faunal changes reported for the current global warming episode probably do not yet exceed the normal background rate, but continued warming during the next few decades, especially combined with the many other pressures of humans on natural ecosystems, has a high probability of producing effects that have not been experienced often, if ever, in mammalian history.
Target Tracking Using a Joint Acoustic Video System

In this paper, a multitarget tracking system for collocated video and acoustic sensors is presented. We formulate the tracking problem using a particle filter based on a state-space approach. We first discuss the acoustic state-space formulation whose observations use a sliding window of direction-of-arrival estimates. We then present the video state space that tracks a target's position on the image plane based on online adaptive appearance models. For the joint operation of the filter, we combine the state vectors of the individual modalities and also introduce a time-delay variable to handle the acoustic-video data synchronization issue, caused by acoustic propagation delays. A novel particle filter proposal strategy for joint state-space tracking is introduced, which places the random support of the joint filter where the final posterior is likely to lie. By using the Kullback-Leibler divergence measure, it is shown that the joint operation of the filter decreases the worst case divergence of the individual modalities. The resulting joint tracking filter is quite robust against video and acoustic occlusions due to our proposal strategy. Computer simulations are presented with synthetic and field data to demonstrate the filter's performance
Can’t spell, can’t teach? An exploration of stakeholder attitudes towards students, with dyslexia, training to be primary classroom teachers.

conceptual considerations Implies that there is a spectrum of severity and that if at the mild end of the spectrum people are suitable to teach. Implies a negative impact if dyslexia is severe. The need to screen people is identified before they are allowed to enter the profession. Who determines what ‘severe’ means in practice? What are these potential challenges that people with ‘sever’ dyslexia and how does these compare to people with mild dyslexia? ITE staff Emily Response I think students with dyslexia who have a desire to become a teacher require quite a rigorous screening to ascertain the levels of their dyslexic tendencies and the impact it will have not them and how hard they’re going to find it but on learners who actually deserve the best we can give. Regrettably if it is that your dyslexia presents far too much of a challenge this is not the profession for you (Emily line 174-178) Paraphrasing (first reduction) Screening needed to establish severity and potential impact on learners rather than selves. If severe no Codes (second reduction) Screening, spectrum, severity, impact, negative implications for employability Abstract/conceptual considerations Implies that there is a spectrum and that if at the mild end people are suitable to teach. Through a screening process implies that those with severe dyslexia should not be allowed to train to become teachers in the first Red text denotes negative comments e.g. issues and deficits identified, criticism, pessimismconceptual considerations Implies that there is a spectrum and that if at the mild end people are suitable to teach. Through a screening process implies that those with severe dyslexia should not be allowed to train to become teachers in the first Red text denotes negative comments e.g. issues and deficits identified, criticism, pessimism Green text denotes positive comments e.g. advantages and benefits identified, opportunities and optimism