Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Defense against Primary User Emulation Attacks in Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is a promising technology that can alleviate the spectrum shortage problem by enabling unlicensed users equipped with CRs to coexist with incumbent users in licensed spectrum bands while causing no interference to incumbent communications. Spectrum sensing is one of the essential mechanisms of CRs and its operational aspects are being investigated actively. However, the security aspects of spectrum sensing have garnered little attention. In this paper, we identify a threat to spectrum sensing, which we call the primary user emulation (PUE) attack. In this attack, an adversary's CR transmits signals whose characteristics emulate those of incumbent signals. The highly flexible, software-based air interface of CRs makes such an attack possible. Our investigation shows that a PUE attack can severely interfere with the spectrum sensing process and significantly reduce the channel resources available to legitimate unlicensed users. To counter this threat, we propose a transmitter verification scheme, called LocDef (localization-based defense), which verifies whether a given signal is that of an incumbent transmitter by estimating its location and observing its signal characteristics. To estimate the location of the signal transmitter, LocDef employs a non-interactive localization scheme. Our security analysis and simulation results suggest that LocDef is effective in identifying PUE attacks under certain conditions.
A Review of Object Individuation in Infancy.

The present review of object individuation in infancy is divided into five sections. The first section is a brief history of the field and an outline of the development of efficient methods for studying object individuation among infants. Sections 2 and 3 are structured around the empirical evidence obtained by using two different kinds of basic and widely used experiments: infants' responses to (apparently) disappearing objects (Section 2), and infants' responses to objects that (apparently) change into other objects (Section 3). In the fourth section, theories of object individuation are presented and discussed. The final section takes a look ahead to the future and proposes a few experiments that may help in resolving some of the most important disputes regarding object individuation in infancy.
Predicting adolescent sexual and contraceptive behavior: an application and test of the Fishbein model.

This paper presents a test of a multivariate model designed to predict the pregnancy risk-taking behavior of a sample of adolescent females. Pregnancy risk is conceptualized as the frequency with which adolescents engage in sexual intercourse without the use of an effective contraceptive method. This model known generally as the Fishbein model of behavior prediction led to the hypothesis that an adolescent females sexual and contraceptive behavior can be predicted from a linear combination of her attitudes toward performing the behavior and her normative beliefs weighted by her motivation to comply with those norms. Analyses of data drawn from a sample of 244 female adolescents ages 13 to 18 yielded mixed support for the model. Whereas the attitudes and parental norms weighted by motivation to comply are strongly related to both measures of contraceptive use none of the variables are related to the frequency of sexual intercourse. Peer norms are only weakly related to any of the pregnancy-risk behavior measures. The departure of these findings from those of previous tests of the Fishbein model is discussed including methods and subject variance factors. Previous tests of the model have also focused on predicting behavioral intentions as opposed to actual behavior. That certain elements of the Fishbein model were found to be predictive of adolescent pregnancy-risk behavior despite the significant differences in methodology adds weight to the generalizability of the model and its potential usefulness for generating a clearer understanding of adolescent behavior. (authors)
Self-Healing Efficiency of Cementitious Materials Containing Microcapsules Filled with Healing Adhesive: Mechanical Restoration and Healing Process Monitored by Water Absorption

Autonomous crack healing of cementitious composite, a construction material that is susceptible to cracking, is of great significance to improve the serviceability and to prolong the longevity of concrete structures. In this study, the St-DVB microcapsules enclosing epoxy resins as the adhesive agent were embedded in cement paste to achieve self-healing capability. The self-healing efficiency was firstly assessed by mechanical restoration of the damaging specimens after being matured. The flexural and compressive configurations were both used to stimulate the localized and distributed cracks respectively. The effects of some factors, including the content of microcapsules, the curing conditions and the degree of damage on the healing efficiency were investigated. Water absorption was innovatively proposed to monitor and characterize the evolution of crack networks during the healing process. The healing cracks were observed by SEM-EDS following. The results demonstrated that the capsule-containing cement paste can achieve the various mechanical restorations depending on the curing condition and the degree of damage. But the voids generated by the surfactants compromised the strength. Though no noticeable improved stiffness obtained, the increasing fracture energy was seen particularly for the specimen acquiring 60% pre-damage. The sorptivity and amount of water decreased with cracks healing by the adhesive, which contributed to cut off and block ingress of water. The micrographs by SEM-EDS also validated that the cracks were bridged by the hardened epoxy as the dominated elements of C and O accounted for 95% by mass in the nearby cracks.
“How May I Help You?” Improving Telephone Customer Service in a Medical Clinic Setting

The current study was carried out per management request to improve the overall quality of telephone customer service among appointment coordinators in a medical clinic. Exceptional telephone customer service included (a) using a standard greeting, (b) speaking in the appropriate tone of voice throughout the call, and (c) answering every call received by the unit. A preintervention analysis suggested that performance deficiencies resulted from weak antecedents, poor knowledge and skills, and weak performance contingencies. Task clarification, goal setting, feedback, and performance-contingent consequences were combined to improve these customer service behaviors for 20 full-time appointment coordinators at the clinic. The study used an ABÁ reversal design with weekly maintenance and 5-month follow-up observations. Introduction of the multicomponent intervention produced visible improvements in greeting (38% increase) and friendly voice tone (22% increase) behaviors; performance was maintained above baseline levels at 5 months postmaintenance. Abandon rates (the percentage of calls not answered by a live voice) remained fairly stable, on average. Findings support the use of a multicomponent intervention to increase telephone customer service behavior in medical clinic settings.
Vehicle Localization and Classification Using Off-Board Vision and 3-D Models

Vehicle localization is one of the most common tasks in robotics. Using vision as a sensor, most methods perform localization from cameras mounted on board the vehicle. In contrast, we propose a method based on an off-board camera. The system uses a similarity measure between a camera image and a synthetic image generated using a 3-D vehicle model, ideally converging to the true pose of the vehicle. The similarity measure is based on a model of shading appearance, which depends on the surface curvature of the 3-D model. Considering that the area observed by the camera is fairly planar, a rough initial estimation for the position of the object can be obtained using 2-D blob tracking. The 3-D model of the vehicle can be rendered near the vehicle in the real image, and using the proposed similarity measure, it converges to the correct pose. A classification function to discriminate between different vehicles is also proposed, making it possible for the system to identify and track multiple vehicles of interest. A number of experiments are performed with different vehicles outdoors, in a real industrial environment, considering different illumination conditions. The low average error rate compared with a laser-based ground truth illustrates the applicability of the method.
Molecular prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii DNA in goats’ milk and seroprevalence in Northwest Tunisia

Abstract Toxoplasmosis is a worldwide zoonosis with high impact on human and animal health. Consumption of unpasteurized milk is a risk factor of human toxoplasmosis. The aim of this study was to estimate the seroprevalence and molecular prevalence of T. gondii in goats’ milk in Northwest of Tunisia (Jendouba Governorate). A total number of 77 blood samples were collected from six herds were screened with a commercial ELISA kit for T. gondii antibodies. For the same goats’ samples, a nested PCR was performed to detect T. gondii DNA in milk. The seroprevalence of T. gondii infection was 31.2% (±0.05) while the molecular prevalence of this parasite in milk was estimated to 7.8% (±0.03). A very low value of kappa showed that there is not agreement between seroprevalence and parasite prevalence in milk. These results suggest that the consumption of raw milk from naturally infected goats is a potential source of human infection. An extension programme should be implemented to decrease related to goats’ raw milk consumption.
Personality and Sexual Functioning of Transvestitic Fetishists and Other Paraphilics

Utilizing the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) and the Derogatis Sexual Functioning Inventory (DSFI), 24 transvestitic fetishists (TVs) were compared with a similar clinic-evaluated group of 26 other paraphilics (OPs). The data replicated previous results and extended them by showing that TVs did not differ from OPs on most dimensions of the NEO-PI and the DSFI. Both groups were significantly higher on neuroticism and significantly lower on agreeableness than the NEO-PI male normative population. The other paraphilic group tended to score lower on conscientiousness than the TVs and the normative comparison group. For nine of the 10 DSFI variables, there were no significant differences between the TVs and the OPs. The TVs were significantly higher than the OPs on role identity, indicating a more feminine identification. Both the TVs and OPs reported elevated levels of fantasy. The implications of these findings suggest that, in general, TVs and OPs are more similar than they are different, with a common personality profile and a similar pattern of sexual functioning.
Improved Rotor Position Estimation by Signal Injection in Brushless AC Motors, Accounting for Cross-Coupling Magnetic Saturation

The paper presents an improved signal injection- based sensorless control method for permanent magnet brushless AC (BLAC) motors, accounting for the influence of cross-coupling magnetic saturation between the d- and q-axes. The d- and q-axis incremental self-inductances, the incremental mutual-inductance between the (d-axis and q-axis, and the cross-coupling factor are determined by finite element analysis. A method is also proposed for measuring the cross-coupling factor which can be used directly in the sensorless control scheme. Both measurements and predictions show that a significant improvement in the accuracy of the rotor position estimation can be achieved under both dynamic and steady-state operation, compared with that which is obtained with the conventional signal injection method.
Redundancy and the Evolution of Cis-Regulatory Element Multiplicity

The promoter regions of many genes contain multiple binding sites for the same transcription factor (TF). One possibility is that this multiplicity evolved through transitional forms showing redundant cis-regulation. To evaluate this hypothesis, we must disentangle the relative contributions of different evolutionary mechanisms to the evolution of binding site multiplicity. Here, we attempt to do this using a model of binding site evolution. Our model considers binding sequences and their interactions with TFs explicitly, and allows us to cast the evolution of gene networks into a neutral network framework. We then test some of the model's predictions using data from yeast. Analysis of the model suggested three candidate nonadaptive processes favoring the evolution of cis-regulatory element redundancy and multiplicity: neutral evolution in long promoters, recombination and TF promiscuity. We find that recombination rate is positively associated with binding site multiplicity in yeast. Our model also indicated that weak direct selection for multiplicity (partial redundancy) can play a major role in organisms with large populations. Our data suggest that selection for changes in gene expression level may have contributed to the evolution of multiple binding sites in yeast. We conclude that the evolution of cis-regulatory element redundancy and multiplicity is impacted by many aspects of the biology of an organism: both adaptive and nonadaptive processes, both changes in cis to binding sites and in trans to the TFs that interact with them, both the functional setting of the promoter and the population genetic context of the individuals carrying them.
Estimation of prevalence ratios when PROC GENMOD does not converge

When studying a prevalent outcome, it is often of interest to estimate the prevalence ratio instead of the odds ratio. In SAS one can use PROC GENMOD with the binomial distribution and the log link function. Unlike the logistic model, the log-binomial model places restrictions on the parameter space, and the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) might occur on the boundary of the parameter space, in which case PROC GENMOD will not converge to the correct estimate. We propose a method that uses PROC GENMOD to correctly estimate the MLE. The method consists of expanding the original data set to include a large number of copies of the original data set together with one copy of the original data set with cases and controls reversed. The estimated standard error of the prevalence ratio on the expanded data set is then "adjusted" to obtain the correct estimate of the standard error of the prevalence ratio. We provide a SAS MACRO to implement our new method. In addition we present an exact method for the one independent variable setting. We also provide a SAS MACRO to implement this exact method. The new approximation method yielded estimates which were close to the exact maximum likelihood estimates and to the true parameters. By comparison, the Cox proportional hazard approach did not perform nearly as well as the new method. The exact method can be used easily with single independent variable models, while the approximation method can be used with either single or multiple independent variable models.
A Computational Theory of Goal-Directed Style in Syntax

The problem of style is highly relevant to computational linguistics, but current systems deal only superficially, if at all, with subtle but significant nuances of language. Expressive effects, together with their associated meaning, contained in the style of a text are lost to analysis and absent from generation.We have developed an approach to the computational treatment of style that is intended to eventually incorporate three selected components---lexical, syntactic, and semantic. In this paper, we concentrate on certain aspects of syntactic style. We have designed and implemented a computational theory of goal-directed stylistics that can be used in various applications, including machine translation, second-language instruction, and natural language generation.We have constructed a vocabulary of style that contains both primitive and abstract elements of style. The primitive elements describe the stylistic effects of individual sentence components. These elements are combined into patterns that are described by a stylistic meta-language, the abstract elements, that define the concordant and discordant stylistic effects common to a group of sentences. Higher-level patterns are built from the abstract elements and associated with specific stylistic goals, such as clarity or concreteness. Thus, we have defined rules for a syntactic stylistic grammar at three interrelated levels of description: primitive elements, abstract elements, and stylistic goals. Grammars for both English and French have been constructed, using the same vocabulary and the same development methodology. Parsers that implement these grammars have also been built.The stylistic grammars codify aspects of language that were previously defined only descriptively. The theory is being applied to various problems in which the form of an utterance conveys an essential part of meaning and so must be precisely represented and understood.
Burnout and engagement among physiotherapists

Monica Martinussen, Per-Christian Borgen, Astrid Marie Richardsen Aims: This article describes a study examining predictors of burnout and engagement, including job demands, job resources and Type A behaviour, in a sample of Norwegian physiotherapists (N = 244). Methods: This study measured demographic and work characteristics, job demands, job resources, burnout, work engagement and type A behaviour for all members of the sample. Findings: Both job demands and resources predicted burnout and engagement, and after controlling for these factors, Type A behaviour patterns accounted for additional variance in both burnout and engagement. Finally, Type A behaviour (Achievement Strivings and Impatience-Irritability) moderated several of the predictor-burnout relationships. Conclusions: These findings support the need for studying personality traits in addition to work related factors when predicting both positive and negative work related emotions such as burnout and engagement.
Consequences of the 2003 European heat wave for lake temperature profiles, thermal stability, and hypolimnetic oxygen depletion: Implications for a warmer world

In summer 2003 central Europe suffered an unusually severe heat wave, with air temperatures similar to those predicted for an average summer during the late 21st century. We use a unique set of over half a century of lake data from two lakes in Switzerland to determine the effect of the 2003 heat wave on water temperature and oxygen conditions in order to assess how temperate lakes will react when exposed to the increased ambient summer air temperatures that will be encountered in a generally warmer world and to test the predictions of relevant simulation models. In both lakes, surface temperature and thermal stability in summer 2003 were the highest ever recorded, exceeding the long‐term mean by more than 2.5 standard deviations. The extremely high degree of thermal stability resulted in extraordinarily strong hypolimnetic oxygen depletion. These results are consistent with the predictions of the simulation models. Additionally, the results indicate that climatic warming will increase the risk of occurrence of deep‐water anoxia, thus counteracting long‐term efforts that have been undertaken to ameliorate the effects of anthropogenic eutrophication.
Contribution of Relaxation on the Subjective Well-Being of Older Adults

The purpose of the present study is to explore situations in which older adults experienced relaxation and examine the relationship between relaxation and subjective well-being. For this study, we interviewed 12 retired adults who were recruited from a local aging agency in a Midwestern city in the United States. We used the Experience Sampling Method to collect data on the individuals' daily experiences. The results showed that the older adults were likely to experience relaxation when engaged in personal activities and passive leisure and that relaxation was positively related to feelings of happiness, cheerfulness, and sociability. These results imply that the significance of high-intensity activities may decrease among retirees and that subjective well-being may be maintained through casual leisure participation in the later stages of life.
Amino acid residue Ala‐62 in the FimH fimbrial adhesin is critical for the adhesiveness of meningitis‐associated Escherichia coli to collagens

Adhesion of meningitis‐associated Escherichia coli O18acK1H7 to collagens was characterized. The E. coli strain IHE 3034 adhered to type IV and type I collagens but not to type III collagen immobilized on glass. Collagens lack terminal mannosyl units, yet the bacterial adhesion was completely abolished in the presence of α‐methyl‐D‐mannoside. A cat cassette was introduced into the fimA gene of IHE 3034, and the resulting mutant strain IHE 3034‐2 failed to adhere to collagens. In contrast, insertion of a Gm cassette into the sfaA gene of IHE 3034, encoding the S‐fimbrillin, had no significant effect on the adhesiveness. The fim cluster from IHE 3034 was cloned and expressed in trans in the fimA::cat mutant strain IHE 3034‐2. The complemented strain IHE 3034‐2(pRPO‐1) exhibited adhesiveness to type IV and type I collagens, confirming the function of the type 1 fimbria in the adhesion. We have previously shown that the type 1 fimbria from E. coli K‐12 strain PC31 does not confer bacterial adhesiveness to collagens. The fimH genes from E. coli IHE 3034 as well as from PC31 were expressed in the fimH‐null strain MS4. The FimH from IHE 3034 potentiated collagen adherence, whereas the FimH from PC31 was inactive. Sequence comparison of fimH from IHE 3034 and PC31 revealed five amino‐acid differences in the predicted mature FimH proteins: at residues 27, 62, 70, 78 and 201. Each of these residues in the IHE 3034‐FimH were individually substituted to the corresponding amino acid in the PC31‐FimH. The substitution S62→A completely abolished collagen adhesiveness. The reverse substitution A62→S in the PC31‐FimH as well as in the FimH from another E. coli strain induced collagen adhesiveness to the level seen with IHE 3034‐FimH. Out of nine fimH genes analysed from isolates of E. coli, collagen adhesiveness as well as alanine at position 62 in FimH were found only in two O18acK1H7 isolates with the isoenzyme profile ET type 1. Our results demonstrate that the amino‐acid residue Ala‐62 in the FimH lectin is critical for the adhesion to collagens by a highly virulent clonal group of E. coli.
Internal chloride concentration and chloride efflux of frog muscle

It has recently been shown that the chloride conductance of the inactive muscle membrane is about twice the potassium conductance (Hodgkin & Horowicz, 1959; Hutter & Noble, 1960). It is of interest to know whether the flux of chloride is large enough to account for the high conductance, assuming that the inward and outward movement of chloride are independent. Keynes (1954) concluded that the potassium fluxes were not independent because, on that assumption, the potassium flux was too small to contribute substantially to the membrane conductance. It is known that the presence of a foreign anion in the external solution slows the efflux of 36C1 (Harris, 1958), but that nitrate and iodide do not influence the potassium flux (Edwards, Harris & Nishie, 1957). The experiments in this paper were designed to measure the internal chloride concentration and the chloride efflux. In some experiments a foreign anion was used to slow the efflux of 36C1 and allow a clearer separation of intracellular and extracellular chloride.