Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New Results on Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Broadcast Channels With Confidential Messages

This paper presents two new results on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Gaussian broadcast channels with confidential messages. First, the MIMO Gaussian wiretap channel is revisited. A matrix characterization of the capacity-equivocation region is provided, which extends the previous result on the secrecy capacity to the more general imperfect secrecy setting. Next, the MIMO Gaussian broadcast channel with two receivers and three independent messages: a common message intended for both receivers, and two confidential messages each intended for one of the receivers but needing to be kept asymptotically perfectly secret from the other, is considered. A precise characterization of the capacity region is provided, generalizing the previous results which considered only two out of three possible messages.
Gaussian mixture modeling for indoor positioning WIFI systems

Different location determination methods using wireless signal strength have been proposed to improve the location accuracy and mitigate the multipath problem in indoor environment. In this paper, a fingerprinting-probabilistic approach for indoor localization using wireless technology is proposed. The method is based on the use of the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to approximate the probability distribution of the strength of the signal received by a mobile from Access Points (AP). This probability distribution is then used to infer the mobile location. The performance of the proposed method is compared experimentally to that of another powerful method. The comparison shows the effectiveness of the GMM method.
Privacy-Preserving Public Auditing for Secure Cloud Storage

Using cloud storage, users can remotely store their data and enjoy the on-demand high-quality applications and services from a shared pool of configurable computing resources, without the burden of local data storage and maintenance. However, the fact that users no longer have physical possession of the outsourced data makes the data integrity protection in cloud computing a formidable task, especially for users with constrained computing resources. Moreover, users should be able to just use the cloud storage as if it is local, without worrying about the need to verify its integrity. Thus, enabling public auditability for cloud storage is of critical importance so that users can resort to a third-party auditor (TPA) to check the integrity of outsourced data and be worry free. To securely introduce an effective TPA, the auditing process should bring in no new vulnerabilities toward user data privacy, and introduce no additional online burden to user. In this paper, we propose a secure cloud storage system supporting privacy-preserving public auditing. We further extend our result to enable the TPA to perform audits for multiple users simultaneously and efficiently. Extensive security and performance analysis show the proposed schemes are provably secure and highly efficient. Our preliminary experiment conducted on Amazon EC2 instance further demonstrates the fast performance of the design.
Indicators of the Statuses of Amphibian Populations and Their Potential for Exposure to Atrazine in Four Midwestern U.S. Conservation Areas

Extensive corn production in the midwestern United States has physically eliminated or fragmented vast areas of historical amphibian habitat. Midwestern corn farmers also apply large quantities of fertilizers and herbicides, which can cause direct and indirect effects on amphibians. Limited field research regarding the statuses of midwestern amphibian populations near areas of corn production has left resource managers, conservation planners, and other stakeholders needing more information to improve conservation strategies and management plans. We repeatedly sampled amphibians in wetlands in four conservation areas along a gradient of proximity to corn production in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin from 2002 to 2005 and estimated site occupancy. We measured frequencies of gross physical deformities in recent metamorphs and triazine concentrations in the water at breeding sites. We also measured trematode infection rates in kidneys of recently metamorphosed Lithobates pipiens collected from nine wetlands in 2003 and 2004. We detected all possible amphibian species in each study area. The amount of nearby row crops was limited in importance as a covariate for estimating site occupancy. We observed deformities in <5% of metamorphs sampled and proportions were not associated with triazine concentrations. Trematode infections were high in metamorphs from all sites we sampled, but not associated with site triazine concentrations, except perhaps for a subset of sites sampled in both years. We detected triazines more often and in higher concentrations in breeding wetlands closer to corn production. Triazine concentrations increased in floodplain wetlands as water levels rose after rainfall and were similar among lotic and lentic sites. Overall, our results suggest amphibian populations were not faring differently among these four conservation areas, regardless of their proximity to corn production, and that the ecological dynamics of atrazine exposure were complex.
FLEXIBILITY AND COMMITMENT IN STRATEGIC INVESTMENT

The paper deals with the tradeoffs between the option value of managerial flexibility and the strategic value of early commitment in a dynamic competitive environment. It departs from the standard real options optimization problem (game against nature) to model strategic games against competition. It thus provides an integration of real options valuation with game-theoretic principles that enable the determination of different market structure equilibrium outcomes (e.g., Nash, Stackelberg leader/follower, or monopoly) in the various states of demand (nodes) within a binomial option valuation tree, as well as proper accounting for the interdependencies among the early strategic commitment and subsequent investment decisions in a competitive interactive setting. The optimal investment strategy of a pioneer firm depends not only on its own stance vis-a-vis its competitor (tough or accommodating) and the type of investment (proprietary or shared), but also on the nature of competitive reaction (reciprocating or contrarian).
The Thai

CD4 gene is reported to have significant role in various inflammatory conditions including mastitis. Therefore, the current study was designed to screen out single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the bovine CD4 gene and to evaluate its effects on mastitis indicator and production traits. Total 201 milk and blood samples were collected from dairy cattle maintained at government dairy farms of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Milk samples were used for DHI test (milk composition and somatic cell count) and the blood for DNA extraction. SNPs were initially detected in the pool DNA samples followed by screening in the whole cohort. The association of SNPs with the studied phenotypic traits was analysed using the GLM procedure of SAS 9.4. Total four SNPs including three in exon 2 (SNP 1 A>C rs110955838, SNP 2 T>G rs134722546, SNP 3 T>C rs135440143) and one in exon four (SNP4 G>A, rs134369392) were revealed. The results showed that all the SNPs were significantly associated with frequency of clinical mastitis incidence ( P <0.05). Only SNP4 (G>A) was found to have significant association with annual milk yield ( P <0.05). Furthermore, breed and herd showed significant association with mastitis indicator and production traits ( P <0.005). The parity wise milk production results revealed highest annual milk yield in cattle with first parity (3649.2 L) followed by 2 nd (3412.21 L), 3 rd and above parities (3112.32 L). The present study suggests that CD4 gene should be considered as a candidate gene and the identified SNPs could be worthy molecular markers for selection of dairy cattle with genetic resistance to
Commitment and control Teamwork as management tool in a welfare state bureaucracy

Teamwork is a well-known management technique for eliciting commitment and exerting control in private companies . However, less is known about how teamwork operates as a management tool in welfare state bureaucracies . Tying critical management and street-level bureaucracy studies, this article explores teamwork as a key component in the normative control of street-level bureaucrats within the Swedish Social Insurance Agency . Based on extensive ethnographic research, the analysis demonstrates how teamwork functions as a subtle steering device in public management . The analysis identifies teams as: a) performative tools; b) cushioning structures; and c) “moral corsets” on caseworkers . By the seamless linking of vertical and horizontal governance mechanisms, teamwork was instrumental in achieving organizational targets, thereby changing the nature of casework and reducing caseworkers’ discretion . The findings call for more research on the normative shaping of caseworkers under new forms of public management .
Degrees of freedom (DoF) of locally connected interference channels with coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmission

The degrees of freedom (DoF) available for communication provides an analytically tractable way to characterize the information-theoretic capacity of interference channels. In this paper, the DoF of a K-user interference channel is studied under the assumption that the transmitters can cooperate via coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmission. In [1], the authors considered the linear asymmetric model of Wyner, where each transmitter is connected to its own receiver and its successor, and is aware of its own message as well as M - 1 preceding messages. The per user DoF was shown to go to M/M+1 as the number of users increases to infinity. In this work, the same model of channel connectivity is considered, with a relaxed cooperation constraint that bounds the maximum number of transmitters at which each message can be available, by a cooperation order M. We show that the relaxation of the cooperation constraint, while maintaining the same load imposed on a backhaul link needed to distribute the messages, results in a gain in the DoF. In particular, the asymptotic limit of the per user DoF under the cooperation order constraint is 2M/2M+1. Moreover, the optimal transmit set selection satisfies a local cooperation constraint. i.e., each message needs only to be available at neighboring transmitters.
Bone marrow endothelial progenitors are defective in systemic sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE Vascular abnormalities represent the main component of the pathobiology of systemic sclerosis (SSc), progressing from structural derangements of the microcirculation with abortive neoangiogenesis to final vessel loss. Since circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are important in the vascular repair process, we undertook this study to examine their numbers in the peripheral blood (PB) of SSc patients and to evaluate whether their status is related to impaired quantitative and/or qualitative aspects of the bone marrow (BM) microenvironment. METHODS Circulating EPCs from 62 SSc patients were evaluated by flow cytometry and characterized as CD45 negative and CD133 positive. BM EPCs, identified as CD133 positive, were isolated from 14 SSc patients and grown to induce endothelial differentiation. In addition, progenitor numbers and functional properties of hematopoietic and stromal compartments were analyzed by various assays. RESULTS We found that EPCs were detectable in the PB of patients with SSc, and their number was significantly increased in patients with early-stage disease but not in those with late-stage disease. All of the examined BM samples contained reduced numbers of EPCs and stromal cells, both of which were functionally impaired. Both endothelial and stromal progenitors expressed vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, indicating that BM is strongly induced to differentiate into the endothelial lineage; furthermore, only BM EPCs from patients with early disease led to endothelial differentiation in vitro. CONCLUSION This study provides the first demonstration that in SSc, there is a complex impairment in the BM microenvironment involving both the endothelial and mesenchymal stem cell compartments and that this impairment might play a role in defective vasculogenesis in scleroderma.
Leaving poor neighbourhoods: the role of income and housing tenure

Abstract To date, few studies have adopted a particular focus on the role of housing tenure when analysing ethnic and socioeconomic differences in out-mobility from poor neighbourhoods. This study contributes to filling this gap. The paper uses a full population data set covering every individual in the capital region of Sweden during the period 2006–2008. The findings indicate that the likelihood of leaving poor neighbourhoods increase for the foreign background population if their income is higher and they own their housing unit, while native Swedes seem to be less constrained by income. This lends support to the theoretical framework of place stratification. The results warrant efforts to broaden residential mix policy beyond the discussion on housing tenure if policy-makers want to counteract the ethnic and socioeconomic imbalances of residential mobility reproducing segregation.
Serum Triglycerides as a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Diseases in the Asia-Pacific Region

Background—The importance of serum triglyceride levels as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases is uncertain. Methods and Results—We performed an individual participant data meta-analysis of prospective studies conducted in the Asia-Pacific region. Cox models were applied to the combined data from 26 studies to estimate the overall and region-, sex-, and age-specific hazard ratios for major cardiovascular diseases by fifths of triglyceride values. During 796 671 person-years of follow-up among 96 224 individuals, 670 and 667 deaths as a result of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke, respectively, were recorded. After adjustment for major cardiovascular risk factors, participants grouped in the highest fifth of triglyceride levels had a 70% (95% CI, 47 to 96) greater risk of CHD death, an 80% (95% CI, 49 to 119) higher risk of fatal or nonfatal CHD, and a 50% (95% CI, 29% to 76%) increased risk of fatal or nonfatal stroke compared with those belonging to the lowest fifth. The association between triglycerides and CHD death was similar across subgroups defined by ethnicity, age, and sex. Conclusions—Serum triglycerides are an important and independent predictor of CHD and stroke risk in the Asia-Pacific region. These results may have clinical implications for cardiovascular risk prediction and the use of lipid-lowering therapy.
A Polynomial-Time Algorithm for Statistical Machine Translation

We introduce a polynomial-time algorithm for statistical machine translation. This algorithm can be used in place of the expensive, slow best-first search strategies in current statistical translation architectures. The approach employs the stochastic bracketing transduction grammar (SBTG) model we recently introduced to replace earlier word alignment channel models, while retaining a bigram language model. The new algorithm in our experience yields major speed improvement with no significant loss of accuracy.
Triglycerides and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: 10 158 Incident Cases Among 262 525 Participants in 29 Western Prospective Studies

Background— Many epidemiological studies have reported on associations between serum triglyceride concentrations and the risk of coronary heart disease, but this association has not been reliably quantified. In the present study, we report 2 separate nested case-control comparisons in 2 different prospective, population-based cohorts, plus an updated meta-analysis of 27 additional prospective studies in general Western populations. Methods and Results— Measurements were made in a total of 3582 incident cases of fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease and 6175 controls selected from among the 44 237 men and women screened in the Reykjavik and the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC)-Norfolk studies. Repeat measurements were obtained an average of 4 years apart in 1933 participants in the EPIC-Norfolk Study and an average of 12 years apart in 379 participants in the Reykjavik study. The long-term stability of log-triglyceride values (within-person correlation coefficients of 0.64 [95% CI, 0.60 to 0.68] over 4 years and 0.63 [95% CI, 0.57 to 0.70] over 12 years) was similar to those of blood pressure and total serum cholesterol. After adjustment for baseline values of several established risk factors, the strength of the association was substantially attenuated, and the adjusted odds ratio for coronary heart disease was 1.76 (95% CI, 1.39 to 2.21) in the Reykjavik study and 1.57 (95% CI, 1.10 to 2.24) in the EPIC-Norfolk study in a comparison of individuals in the top third with those in the bottom third of usual log-triglyceride values. Similar overall findings (adjusted odds ratio, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.56 to 1.90) were observed in an updated meta-analysis involving a total of 10 158 incident coronary heart disease cases from 262 525 participants in 29 studies. Conclusions— Available prospective studies in Western populations consistently indicate moderate and highly significant associations between triglyceride values and coronary heart disease risk. Because these associations depend considerably on levels of established risk factors, however, further studies are needed to help assess the nature of any independent associations.
Use of a High-Density Protein Microarray to Identify Autoantibodies in Subjects with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and an HLA Background Associated with Reduced Insulin Secretion

New biomarkers for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) may aid diagnosis, drug development or clinical treatment. Evidence is increasing for the adaptive immune system’s role in T2DM and suggests the presence of unidentified autoantibodies. While high-density protein microarrays have emerged as a useful technology to identify possible novel autoantigens in autoimmune diseases, its application in T2DM has lagged. In Pima Indians, the HLA haplotype (HLA-DRB1*02) is protective against T2DM and, when studied when they have normal glucose tolerance, subjects with this HLA haplotype have higher insulin secretion compared to those without the protective haplotype. Possible autoantibody biomarkers were identified using microarrays containing 9480 proteins in plasma from Pima Indians with T2DM without the protective haplotype (n = 7) compared with those with normal glucose regulation (NGR) with the protective haplotype (n = 11). A subsequent validation phase involving 45 cases and 45 controls, matched by age, sex and specimen storage time, evaluated 77 proteins. Eleven autoantigens had higher antibody signals among T2DM subjects with the lower insulin-secretion HLA background compared with NGR subjects with the higher insulin-secretion HLA background (p<0.05, adjusted for multiple comparisons). PPARG2 and UBE2M had lowest p-values (adjusted p = 0.023) while PPARG2 and RGS17 had highest case-to-control antibody signal ratios (1.7). A multi-protein classifier involving the 11 autoantigens had sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.73, 0.80, and 0.83 (95% CI 0.74–0.91, p = 3.4x10-8), respectively. This study identified 11 novel autoantigens which were associated with T2DM and an HLA background associated with reduced insulin secretion. While further studies are needed to distinguish whether these antibodies are associated with insulin secretion via the HLA background, T2DM more broadly, or a combination of the two, this study may aid the search for autoantibody biomarkers by narrowing the list of protein targets.
Measuring fragmentation in dissociative identity disorder: the integration measure and relationship to switching and time in therapy

Background Some people with dissociative identity disorder (DID) have very little communication or awareness among the parts of their identity, while others experience a great deal of cooperation among alternate identities. Previous research on this topic has been sparse. Currently, there is no empirical measure of integration versus fragmentation in a person with DID. In this study, we report the development of such a measure. Objective The goal of this study was to pilot the integration measure (IM) and to address its psychometric properties and relationships to other measures. The IM is the first standardized measure of integration in DID. Method Eleven women with DID participated in an experiment that included a variety of tasks. They filled out questionnaires about trauma and dissociation as well as the IM. They also provided verbal results about switching among alternate identities during the study sessions. Results Participants switched among identities an average of 5.8 times during the first session, and switching was highly correlated with trauma. Integration was related to switching, though this relationship may be non-linear. Integration was not related to time in psychotherapy. Conclusions The IM provides a useful beginning to quantify and study integration and fragmentation in DID. Directions for future research are also discussed, including expanding the IM from this pilot. The IM may be useful in treatment settings to assess progress or change over time.
Liver transplantation for hepatoblastoma: Indications and contraindications in the modern era

Abstract: In the past 20 yr, a dramatic improvement has been achieved in the outcome of children with hepatoblastoma by combining cisplatin based chemotherapy and surgery. Treatment of patients in the USA is an exception to the rule that all patients should receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy. It is paramount that surgical resection be complete, both macro‐ and microscopically. Complete tumor resection can be achieved after chemotherapy with a partial hepatectomy when the intrahepatic extent is limited to 1–3 sectors. In multifocal (and solitary) hepatoblastomas invading all four liver sectors, and in centrally located tumors with close proximity to the major veins, the SIOPEL‐1 study and an extensive review of the world experience have shown that primary transplantation provides high, long term, disease‐free survival rate in the range of 80%. In contrast, the results of rescue transplants for incomplete tumor resection or disease recurrence after partial hepatectomy are disappointing (in the range of 30%). Hazardous attempts at partial hepatectomy in children with extensive hepatoblastoma should be discouraged. Guidelines are provided for early referral of children with extended hepatoblastoma to a transplant surgeon. There is a trend for a better patient survival after living related liver transplantation. Patients who will become candidates to liver transplantation should be treated with chemotherapy following the same protocols as for children undergoing a partial hepatectomy. There is a concern about cumulative nephrotoxicity of calcineurin inhibitors and chemotherapeutic drugs. Recent data suggest that these patients tolerate lower Tacrolimus trough blood levels than those transplanted for non‐malignant conditions, without increasing the risk of acute rejection. Due to the rarity of the disease, these children should be treated in specialized centers.