Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blind Cartography for Side Channel Attacks: Cross-Correlation Cartography

Side channel and fault injection attacks are major threats to cryptographic applications of embedded systems. Best performances for these attacks are achieved by focusing sensors or injectors on the sensible parts of the application, by means of dedicated methods to localise them. Few methods have been proposed in the past, and all of them aim at pinpointing the cryptoprocessor. However it could be interesting to exploit the activity of other parts of the application, in order to increase the attack's efficiency or to bypass its countermeasures. In this paper, we present a localisation method based on cross-correlation, which issues a list of areas of interest within the attacked device. It realizes an exhaustive analysis, since it may localise any module of the device, and not only those which perform cryptographic operations. Moreover, it also does not require a preliminary knowledge about the implementation, whereas some previous cartography methods require that the attacker could choose the cryptoprocessor inputs, which is not always possible. The method is experimentally validated using observations of the electromagnetic near field distribution over a Xilinx Virtex 5 FPGA. The matching between areas of interest and the application layout in the FPGA floorplan is confirmed by correlation analysis.
Antigenic and genetic characterization of a divergent African virus, Ikoma lyssavirus

In 2009, a novel lyssavirus (subsequently named Ikoma lyssavirus, IKOV) was detected in the brain of an African civet (Civettictis civetta) with clinical rabies in the Serengeti National Park of Tanzania. The degree of nucleotide divergence between the genome of IKOV and those of other lyssaviruses predicted antigenic distinction from, and lack of protection provided by, available rabies vaccines. In addition, the index case was considered likely to be an incidental spillover event, and therefore the true reservoir of IKOV remained to be identified. The advent of sensitive molecular techniques has led to a rapid increase in the discovery of novel viruses. Detecting viral sequence alone, however, only allows for prediction of phenotypic characteristics and not their measurement. In the present study we describe the in vitro and in vivo characterization of IKOV, demonstrating that it is (1) pathogenic by peripheral inoculation in an animal model, (2) antigenically distinct from current rabies vaccine strains and (3) poorly neutralized by sera from humans and animals immunized against rabies. In a laboratory mouse model, no protection was elicited by a licensed rabies vaccine. We also investigated the role of bats as reservoirs of IKOV. We found no evidence for infection among 483 individuals of at least 13 bat species sampled across sites in the Serengeti and Southern Kenya.
Maresin 1 Prevents Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Neutrophil Survival and Accelerates Resolution of Acute Lung Injury

ABSTRACT Acute lung injury (ALI) is characterized by lung inflammation and diffuse infiltration of neutrophils. Neutrophil apoptosis is recognized as an important control point in the resolution of inflammation. Maresin 1 (MaR1) is a new docosahexaenoic acid–derived proresolving agent that promotes the resolution of inflammation. However, its function in neutrophil apoptosis is unknown. In this study, isolated human neutrophils were incubated with MaR1, the pan-caspase inhibitor z-VAD-fmk, and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to determine the mechanism of neutrophil apoptosis. Acute lung injury was induced by intratracheal instillation of LPS. In addition, mice were treated with MaR1 intravenously at the peak of inflammation and administered z-VAD-fmk intraperitoneally. We found that culture of isolated human neutrophils with LPS dramatically delayed neutrophil apoptosis through the phosphorylation of AKT, ERK, and p38 to upregulate the expression of the antiapoptotic proteins Mcl-1 and Bcl-2, which was blocked by pretreatment with MaR1 in vitro. In mice, MaR1 accelerated the resolution of inflammation in LPS-induced ALI through attenuation of neutrophil accumulation, pathohistological changes, and pulmonary edema. Maresin 1 promoted resolution of inflammation by accelerating caspase-dependent neutrophil apoptosis. Moreover, MaR1 also reduced the LPS-induced production of proinflammatory cytokines and upregulated the production of the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10. In contrast, treatment with z-VAD-fmk inhibited the proapoptotic action of MaR1 and attenuated the protective effects of MaR1 in LPS-induced ALI. Taken together, MaR1 promotes the resolution of LPS-induced ALI by overcoming LPS-mediated suppression of neutrophil apoptosis.
Characterization of endothelin‐A receptors in the cerebral circulation

ENDOTHELIN-1 (ET-1), a 21-amino acid peptide produced by the vascular endothelium, mediates contraction. In the present study we demonstrate that both ET-1 (Emax: 238 × 29% of potassium contraction) and ET-2 (Emax: 231 × 36%) produce strong concentration-dependent contractions of circular segments of guinea-pig middle cerebral artery, whereas ET-3 has only weak effects (Emax: 32 × 13%). FR 139317 (10–6 M), a selective endothelinA (ETA) receptor antagonist, shifted the ET-1 response curve to the right (pD2:7.86 × 0.09 with and 8.76 × 0.09 without the antagonist) in a competitive manner (pA2 = 6.83). These findings are the first to show the presence of ETA receptors in cerebral vessels.
Surgical Outcomes After Cochlear Implantation in Children With Incomplete Partition Type I: Comparison With Deaf Children With a Normal Inner Ear Structure

Objective To compare audiologic performance after cochlear implantation (CI) in children with incomplete partition (IP) Type I and age-matched children with normal cochleae. Study design Retrospective chart review. Setting Academic center. Patients Twenty-three children (25 ears) with IP Type I and 230 age-matched deaf children (230 ears) with nonsyndromic normal inner ears who underwent CI between January 2000 and June 2013. Intervention CI. Main outcome measure The Categories of Auditory Performance (CAP) Scale score and the Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (MAIS) score. Results The mean age of IP Type I patients at the time of CI was 5.3 years (standard deviation, 5.4 yr; range, 0.9–17.7 yr). The mean duration of follow-up was 4.7 years (standard deviation, 3.5 yr; range, 1.1–11.2 yr). Fourteen of the 25 IP Type I ears (56%) had cerebrospinal fluid gusher during the cochleostomy. In the IP type ears, the number of inserted electrodes was 16.3 ± 3.2 (range, 11–22), and the insertion angle was 236.5 ± 41.2 degrees (range, 180–305 degrees). The cochlear nerve was assessed in 17 of the 25 IP type ears, and hypoplasia was present in nine (53%). Facial nerve stimulation occurred in 15 of the 25 IP type ears. IP Type I patients younger than 3 years at CI had significantly lower CAP Scale and MAIS scores than age-matched controls at 12 and 24 months after CI, but similar CAP Scale and MAIS scores as age-matched controls at 42 and 72 months after CI. IP Type I patients aged 3 to 18 years at CI had similar CAP Scale and MAIS scores as age-matched controls at all post-CI time points. Conclusion Children with IP Type I who underwent CI performed as well as children with normal cochlea in the long-term.
Some properties of a classification system for multivariate life distributions

A good classification system for multivariate life distributions can play a major role in system analysis during the early stage of product design. The problem of multivariate classification has drawn the attention of the researchers, and various classes are now available in the literature. D. Roy (1994) proposed a unified classification system for the multivariate life laws. It not only retains the much-desired chain of implication but generalizes quite a few characterization results relating to various life distribution classes. This paper examines this classification system of Roy and establishes its importance by presenting some fundamental properties of the same for use during early stages of product planning. These properties are aimed at retaining the same classification results under deletion, addition, and scaling of components and subsystems of a product during the early stages of design. A multivariate series combination has been examined from the viewpoint of closure under multivariate IFR, IFRA, and NBU classes. The major use of a classification system is to provide reliability bounds under breaking the product into meaningful s-independent subsystems and their reintegration. This paper ensures that this happens in the multivariate setup so that close reliability bounds can be obtained in place of a complicated analysis. A demonstration example is presented which describes the calculation of reliability bounds in a general way, covering both series and parallel combinations and a complex dependent setup.
Hepatitis C Virus Induces Toll-Like Receptor 4 Expression, Leading to Enhanced Production of Beta Interferon and Interleukin-6

ABSTRACT Hepatitis C virus (HCV) induces inflammatory signals, leading to hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinomas, and lymphomas. The mechanism of HCV involvement in the host's innate immune responses has not been well characterized. In this study, we analyzed expression and regulation of the entire panel of toll-like receptors (TLRs) in human B cells following HCV infection in vitro. Among all of the TLRs (TLRs 1 to 10) examined, only TLR4 showed an altered expression (a three- to sevenfold up-regulation) after HCV infection. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from HCV-infected individuals also showed a higher expression level of TLR4 compared with those of healthy individuals. HCV infection significantly increased beta interferon (IFN-β) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) secretion from B cells, particularly after lipopolysaccharide stimulation. The increased IFN-β and IL-6 production was mediated by TLR4 induction, since the introduction of the small interfering RNA against TLR4 specifically inhibited the HCV-induced cytokine production. Among all of the viral proteins, only NS5A caused TLR4 induction in hepatocytes and B cells. NS5A specifically activated the promoter of the TLR4 gene in both hepatocytes and B cells. In conclusion, HCV infection directly induces TLR4 expression and thereby activates B cells, which may contribute to the host's innate immune responses.
Nuclear lipids: New functions for old molecules?

It is becoming increasingly evident that stimulation of nuclear lipid metabolism plays a central role in many signal transduction pathways that ultimately result in various cell responses including proliferation and differentiation. Nuclear lipid metabolism seems to be at least as complex as that existing at the plasma membrane. However, a distinctive feature of nuclear lipid biochemical pathways is their operational independence from their cell periphery counterparts. Although initially it was thought that nuclear lipids would serve as a source for second messengers, recent evidence points to the likelihood that lipids present in the nucleus also fulfil other roles. The aim of this review is to highlight the most intriguing advances made in the field over the last year, such as the production of new probes for the in situ mapping of nuclear phosphoinositides, the identification of two sources for nuclear diacylglycerol production, the emerging details about the peculiar regulation of nuclear phosphoinositide synthesizing enzymes, and the distinct possibility that nuclear lipids are involved in processes such as chromatin organization and pre‐mRNA splicing. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Spontaneous intracranial internal carotid artery dissection: report of 10 patients.

BACKGROUND Spontaneous intracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) dissection is an uncommon cause of cerebral infarction, particularly when compared with the dissection of the ICA's cervical portion. Most reports describe extensive strokes with very high mortality rates. OBJECTIVE To report the clinical and radiological findings of 10 patients with spontaneous intracranial ICA dissection. METHODS Ten patients (5 women) were included with ages ranging from 15 to 59 years (mean age, 28 years). RESULTS Nine patients had a stroke (1 had an associated subarachnoid hemorrhage), whereas 1 patient had only transient ischemic attacks. Severe retro-orbital or temporal headache followed by contralateral hemiparesis was the most common initial clinical symptom. No patient had vascular risk factors or a history of neck or head trauma. Stenosis of the supraclinoid portion of the ICA occurred in 8 patients, with extension to the middle cerebral artery or anterior cerebral artery in 2 patients each. Aneurysm formation in the ipsilateral anterior cerebral artery was seen in 1 patient. Two patients had a total occlusion of the supraclinoid portion of the ICA. All patients did well, with no (n = 3), mild (n = 4), or moderate (n = 3) disability on the Modified Rankin Scale during a 3-month follow-up period. CONCLUSIONS Spontaneous intracranial ICA dissection can cause ischemic stroke with or without subarachnoid hemorrhage and should be considered in the differential diagnosis of intracranial ICA stenosis or occlusion, especially in young patients. Some patients survive with few or moderate deficits.
Reduced spore germination explains sensitivity of reef-building algae to climate change stressors

Reduced seawater pH and changes in carbonate chemistry associated with ocean acidification (OA) decrease the recruitment of crustose coralline algae (CCAcf.), an important coral-reef builder. However, it is unclear whether the observed decline in recruitment is driven by impairment of spore germination, or post-settlement processes (e.g. space competition). To address this, we conducted an experiment using a dominant CCA, Porolithon cf. onkodes to test the independent and combined effects of OA, warming, and irradiance on its germination success and early development. Elevated CO2 negatively affected several processes of spore germination, including formation of the germination disc, initial growth, and germling survival. The magnitude of these effects varied depending on the levels of temperature and irradiance. For example, the combination of high CO2 and high temperature reduced formation of the germination disc, but this effect was independent of irradiance levels, while spore abnormalities increased under high CO2 and high temperature particularly in combination with low irradiance intensity. This study demonstrates that spore germination of CCA is impacted by the independent and interactive effects of OA, increasing seawater temperature and irradiance intensity. For the first time, this provides a mechanism for how the sensitivity of critical early life history processes to global change may drive declines of adult populations of key marine calcifiers.
Performance Investigation of Proteomic Identification by HCD/CID Fragmentations in Combination with High/Low-Resolution Detectors on a Tribrid, High-Field Orbitrap Instrument

The recently-introduced Orbitrap Fusion mass spectrometry permits various types of MS2 acquisition methods. To date, these different MS2 strategies and the optimal data interpretation approach for each have not been adequately evaluated. This study comprehensively investigated the four MS2 strategies: HCD-OT (higher-energy-collisional-dissociation with Orbitrap detection), HCD-IT (HCD with ion trap, IT), CID-IT (collision-induced-dissociation with IT) and CID-OT on Orbitrap Fusion. To achieve extensive comparison and identify the optimal data interpretation method for each technique, several search engines (SEQUEST and Mascot) and post-processing methods (score-based, PeptideProphet, and Percolator) were assessed for all techniques for the analysis of a human cell proteome. It was found that divergent conclusions could be made from the same dataset when different data interpretation approaches were used and therefore requiring a relatively fair comparison among techniques. Percolator was chosen for comparison of techniques because it performs the best among all search engines and MS2 strategies. For the analysis of human cell proteome using individual MS2 strategies, the highest number of identifications was achieved by HCD-OT, followed by HCD-IT and CID-IT. Based on these results, we concluded that a relatively fair platform for data interpretation is necessary to avoid divergent conclusions from the same dataset, and HCD-OT and HCD-IT may be preferable for protein/peptide identification using Orbitrap Fusion.
Adaptive filtering for music/voice separation exploiting the repeating musical structure

The separation of the lead vocals from the background accompaniment in audio recordings is a challenging task. Recently, an efficient method called REPET (REpeating Pattern Extraction Technique) has been proposed to extract the repeating background from the non-repeating foreground. While effective on individual sections of a song, REPET does not allow for variations in the background (e.g. verse vs. chorus), and is thus limited to short excerpts only. We overcome this limitation and generalize REPET to permit the processing of complete musical tracks. The proposed algorithm tracks the period of the repeating structure and computes local estimates of the background pattern. Separation is performed by soft time-frequency masking, based on the deviation between the current observation and the estimated background pattern. Evaluation on a dataset of 14 complete tracks shows that this method can perform at least as well as a recent competitive music/voice separation method, while being computationally efficient.
Alterations of tear neuromediators in dry eye disease.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate tear levels of neuromediators in patients with dry eye disease and to identify statistical correlations with the clinical findings. METHODS Nineteen patients with dry eye disease (Sjögren syndrome, n = 5 patients; non-Sjögren syndrome, n = 10; and ocular cicatricial pemphigoid, n = 4) and 12 healthy volunteers were enrolled. The eyes of all participants were evaluated by slitlamp examination, Schirmer testing, fluorescein staining, and tear film break-up time. Grading of dry eye severity was recorded. Tear samples were collected, and substance P, calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), neuropeptide Y (NPY), vasoactive intestinal peptide, and nerve growth factor (NGF) concentrations were evaluated by enzyme-linked immunoassay and correlated with the clinical findings. RESULTS Nerve growth factor tear levels were significantly increased in participants with dry eye disease; CGRP and NPY concentrations were significantly decreased when compared with those in healthy participants. Dry eye severity showed a direct correlation with NGF and an inverse correlation with CGRP and NPY tear levels. Nerve growth factor tear levels showed a direct correlation with conjunctival hyperemia and fluorescein staining results, CGRP directly correlated with Schirmer test values, and NPY inversely correlated with tear film break-up time. Subgroup analysis showed that CGRP and NPY but not NGF were changed in autoimmune (ie, Sjögren syndrome and ocular cicatricial pemphigoid) dry eye disease. CONCLUSIONS The decreased tear levels of NPY and CGRP in dry eye disease are related to impaired lacrimal function, and tear levels of NGF are more closely related to corneal epithelial damage. Our findings suggest that NPY, CGRP, and NGF could become useful markers of dry eye severity.
A parallel approach for high performance hardware design of intra prediction in H.264/AVC Video Codec

The H.264/AVC Intra Frame Codec (i.e. all frames are coded as I-frames) targets high-resolution/high-end encoding applications (e.g. digital cinema and high quality archiving etc.), providing much better compression efficiency at lower computational complexity compared to MJPEG2000. Moreover, in case of video coding of very high motion scenes, the number of Intra Macroblocks is dominant. Intra Prediction is a compute intensive and memory-critical part that consumes 80% of the computation time of the entire Intra Compression process when executing the H.264 encoder on MIPS processor. We therefore present a novel hardware for H.264 Intra Prediction that processes all the prediction modes in parallel inside one integrated module (i.e. mode-level parallelism) enabling us to exploit the full space of optimization. It exhibits a group-based write-back scheme to reduce the memory transfers in order to facilitate the fast mode-decision schemes. Our Luma 4times4 hardware is 3.6times, 5.2times, and 5.5times faster than state-of-the-art approaches, QS0, respectively. Our results show that processing Luma 16times16, Chroma 8times8, and Luma 4times4 with the proposed approach is 7.2times, 6.5times, and 1.8times faster (while giving an energy saving of 60%, 80%, and 74%) when compared with Dedicated Module Approach (each prediction mode is processed with its independent hardware module i.e. a typical ASIC style for Intra Prediction). We get an area saving of 58% for Luma 4times4 hardware.
Variable rate spectral quantization for phonetically classified CELP coding

Variable rate quantization of the linear predictive coding (LPC) parameters based on phonetic classification of the speech frame results in substantial performance gain. Speech frames are classified as unvoiced or voiced and are separately quantized with VQ codebooks designed for each class. Performance results, including listening tests, show that for transparent quality roughly 9 bits is sufficient for unvoiced frames and 24 bits for voiced frames. Test results of LPC quantization are described for a variable rate phonetically segmented CELP coder and for the synthesis of speech from the prediction residual.
Glycosaminoglycans and Protein Disulfide Isomerase-Mediated Reduction of HIV Env

Conformational changes within the human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) surface glycoprotein gp120 result from binding to the lymphocyte surface receptors and trigger gp41-mediated virus/cell membrane fusion. The triggering of fusion requires cleavage of two of the nine disulfide bonds of gp120 by a cell-surface protein disulfide-isomerase (PDI). Soluble glycosaminoglycans such as heparin and heparan sulfate bind gp120 via V3 and, possibly, a CD4-induced domain. They exert anti-HIV activity by interfering with the HIV envelope glycoprotein (Env)/cell-surface interaction. Env also binds cell-surface glycosaminoglycans. Here, using surface plasmon resonance, we observed an inverse relationship between heparin binding by gp120 and its thiol content. In vitro, and in conditions in which gp120 could bind CD4, heparin and heparan sulfate reduced PDI-mediated gp120 reduction by approximately 80%. Interaction of Env with the surface of lymphocytes treated using sodium chlorate, an inhibitor of glycosaminoglycan synthesis, led to gp120 reduction. We conclude that besides their capacity to block Env/cell interaction, soluble glycosaminoglycans can effect anti-HIV activity via interference with PDI-mediated gp120 reduction. In contrast, their presence at the cell surface is dispensable for Env reduction during the course of interaction with the lymphocyte surface. This work suggests that the reduction of exofacial proteins in various diseases can be inhibited by compounds targeting the substrates (not by targeting PDI, as is usually done), and that glycosaminoglycans that primarily protect proteins by preserving them from proteolysis also have a role in preventing reduction.