Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the security of multi-party ping-pong protocols

We define a p-party ping-pong protocol and its security problem, along the lines of Dolev and Yao's definition for twoparty ping-pong protocol. In the case of two parties, it was assumed, with no loss of generality, that there exists a single saboteur in the net and the protocol was defined to be secure iff it was secure against the active interventions of one saboteur. We show that for more than 2 parties this assumption can no longer be made and that for p parties 3(p-2) + 1 is a lower bound on the number of saboteurs which should be considered for the security problem. On the other hand we establish a 3(p-2) + 2 upper bound on the number of saboteurs which should be considered. We conclude that for a fixed p, p-party ping-pong protocols can be tested for security in 0(n3) time and 0(n2) space, when n is the length of the protocol. We show that if p, the number of participants in the protocol, is part of the input then the security problem becomes NP-Hard. Relaxing the definition of a ping-pong protocol so that operators can operate on half words (thus introducing commutativity of the operators) causes the security problem to become undecidable.
Cutaneous Sebaceous Neoplasms With a Focal Glandular Pattern (Seboapocrine Lesions): A Clinicopathological Study of Three Cases

Presented here are three cutaneous sebaceous tumors (one carcinoma and two sebaceomas), each demonstrating a focal glandular pattern representing apocrine differentiation. The patients, two males and one female, each clinically presented with a small solitary nodule or tumor on the scalp. None of the patients had features of Muir-Torre syndrome. Surgical removal of the lesions was performed in all cases. None of the patients developed recurrence or metastasis after surgery (follow-up ranged from 18 to 24 months). The glandular areas represented a minor but significant component of the lesions and appeared as glands of various complexity, mostly as simple round or elongated tubular structures lined by a row of cuboidal to columnar cells with eosinophilic cytoplasm and round nuclei, with or without a distinct nucleolus. Decapitation secretion was evident but not prominent. In both sebaceomas, at least a portion of the glands had a peripheral small-cell layer that appeared similar to the basal/myoepithelial cells of normal eccrine and apocrine ducts. In some glands, the basal/myoepithelial cells seemed to have undergone hyperplasia, resulting in two or more rows of cells that even formed small islands, with an overall appearance reminiscent of basal cell hyperplasia in the prostate, arising in the basal layer of the prostatic glands. The descriptive terms seboapocrine carcinoma or seboapocrine sebaceoma are proposed for such lesions. These tumors may be viewed as rare histopathological variants of sebaceous carcinoma and sebaceoma, with a second type of differentiation along the lines of the folliculosebaceous-apocrine unit.
Terror, Resource Gains and Exclusionist Political Attitudes among New Immigrants and Veteran Israelis

This study analyses the antecedents of exclusionist political attitudes towards Palestinian citizens of Israel among Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union in comparison to Old Jewish Israelis (OJI). A large-scale study of exclusionist political attitudes was conducted in the face of ongoing terrorism in Israel through telephone surveys carried out in September 2003 with 641 OJI and 131 immigrants. The main goal of the survey was to estimate the influence of perceived loss and gain of resources—as a consequence of terror—on attitudes towards Palestinian Israelis, while controlling for other relevant predictors of exclusionism—i.e. authoritarianism or threat perception. Findings obtained via interaction analyses and structural equation modelling show that a) immigrants display higher levels of exclusionist political attitudes towards Palestinian citizens of Israel than OJI; b) loss of resources, authoritarianism, and hawkish (rightist) worldviews predict exclusionist political attitudes among both immigrants and non-immigrants; c) failure to undergo post-traumatic growth (resource gain) in response to terrorism (e.g. finding meaning in life, becoming closer to others) is a significant predictor of exclusionist political attitudes only among immigrants.
Application of flow cytometry for genome size determination in Geosmithia fungi: A comparison of methods

Genome size has played an important role in the evolution of plants and animals because changes in genome size seem to accompany if not facilitate evolutionary adaptation to environmental conditions. Flow cytometry (FCM) is a widespread method for determining genome size thanks to its high accuracy and speed of measurements. Nevertheless, only a few comparative studies of FCM methods exist in the field of mycology, and reviews are absent. In this study, we compared the suitability of several concentrations and RNAse A incubation times, fixatives and buffers for estimating genome size in fungi. We chose the genus Geosmithia as a model filamentous fungus. We also introduced a new standard, Aspergillus fumigatus CEA10, to determine absolute genome size. We found FCM to be an appropriate method for measuring genome size in fungi, but optimization steps showed that incorrect propidium iodide staining of nuclei can overestimate genome size due to cytoplasmic staining. We identified fixation with methanol:glacial acetic acid (3:1 v/v), 10% DMSO, 0.1% Triton‐X 100, and 5 mM EDTA in combination with Tris‐MgCl2 buffer as the best treatment. © 2014 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry
The Transcription Factor NFATp Plays a Key Role in Susceptibility to TB in Mice

In T cells, the transcription factor nuclear factor of activated T cells p (NFATp) is a key regulator of the cytokine genes tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ). Here, we show that NFATp-deficient (NFATp−/−) mice have a dramatic and highly significant increase in mortality after Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTb) infection as compared to mortality of control animals after MTb infection. Animals deficient in NFATp have significantly impaired levels of TNF and IFN-γ transcription and protein expression in naïve or total CD4+ T cells, but display wild-type levels of TNF mRNA or protein from MTb-stimulated dendritic cells (DC). The rapid mortality and disease severity observed in MTb-infected NFATp−/− mice is associated with dysregulated production of TNF and IFN-γ in the lungs, as well as with increased levels of TNF, in their serum. Furthermore, global blocking of TNF production by injection of a TNF neutralizaing agent at 6 weeks, but not 12 weeks, post-MTb-infection further decreased the survival rate of both wild-type and NFATp−/− mice, indicating an early role for TNF derived from cells from the monocyte lineage in containment of infection. These results thus demonstrate that NFATp plays a critical role in immune containment of TB disease in vivo, through the NFATp-dependent expression of TNF and IFN-γ in T cells.
Improved delivery rate-cache capacity trade-off for centralized coded caching

Centralized coded caching problem, in which a server with N distinct files, each with the size of F bits, serves K users, each equipped with a cache of capacity MF bits, is considered. The server is allowed to proactively cache contents into user terminals during the placement phase, without knowing the particular user requests. After the placement phase, each user requests one of the N files from the server, and all the users' requests are satisfied simultaneously by the server through an error-free shared link during the delivery phase. A novel coded caching algorithm is proposed, which is shown to achieve a smaller delivery rate compared to the existing coded caching schemes in the literature for a range of N and K values; particularly when the number of files is larger than the number of users in the system.
Internet of Things Applications: Animal Monitoring with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

In animal monitoring applications, both animal detection and their movement prediction are major tasks. While a variety of animal monitoring strategies exist, most of them rely on mounting devices. However, in real world, it is difficult to find these animals and install mounting devices. In this paper, we propose an animal monitoring application by utilizing wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The objective of the application is to detect locations of endangered species in large-scale wildlife areas and monitor movement of animals without any attached devices. In this application, sensors deployed throughout the observation area are responsible for gathering animal information. The UAV flies above the observation area and collects the information from sensors. To achieve the information efficiently, we propose a path planning approach for the UAV based on a Markov decision process (MDP) model. The UAV receives a certain amount of reward from an area if some animals are detected at that location. We solve the MDP using Q-learning such that the UAV prefers going to those areas that animals are detected before. Meanwhile, the UAV explores other areas as well to cover the entire network and detects changes in the animal positions. We first define the mathematical model underlying the animal monitoring problem in terms of the value of information (VoI) and rewards. We propose a network model including clusters of sensor nodes and a single UAV that acts as a mobile sink and visits the clusters. Then, one MDP-based path planning approach is designed to maximize the VoI while reducing message delays. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is evaluated using two real-world movement datasets of zebras and leopard. Simulation results show that our approach outperforms greedy, random heuristics and the path planning based on the traveling salesman problem.
An XCS approach to forecasting financial time series

This paper extends current LCS research into financial time series forecasting by analysing the performance of agents utilising mathematical technical indicators for both environment classification and in selecting actions to be executed in the environment. It compares these agents with traditional models which only use such indicators to classify the environment and exit at the close of the next day. It is proposed that XCS agents utilising mathematical technical indicators for exit conditions will not only outperform similar agents which close the trade at the end of the next day, but also result in fewer trades and consequently lower commissions paid. The results show that in five out of six assets, agents using indicator exit conditions outperformed those exiting at the close of the next day, before commissions were factored in. After commissions are factored in, the performance gap between the two agent classes further widens. Additionally, the agent's best results are continuously able to outperform a buy and hold strategy.
Correlations between Colonization of Onion Thrips and Leaf Reflectance Measures across Six Cabbage Varieties

The main purpose of this study was to reveal if the UV-A, and visible light reflection of leaves of white cabbage varieties is correlated to resistance against onion thrips. The antixenotic resistance (AR) against onion thrips and thrips damage differed between varieties Balashi, Bloktor, Riana – considered resistant – and Green Gem, Hurricane, Quisor – considered susceptible. The solar UV-A (340–400 nm) and visible (401–650 nm) light reflection of white cabbage leaves were recorded. Correlation between AR against onion thrips and reflection of leaves in UV-A and visible range of the studied white cabbage varieties were computed. According to the AR evaluation onion thrips density was always higher on susceptible than on resistant varieties. The UV-A light reflection of head forming leaves and the contrast between head and exterior leaves (H/E) was negatively correlated with onion thrips host preference at an early stage of cabbage head formation. The visible light reflection of both head forming and exterior leaves was also negatively correlated with onion thrips host preference. Susceptible varieties had greater damage ratings at harvest than resistant ones and positive correlations were observed between AR and damage. AR against onion thrips may be affected by differences in reflection of cabbage leaves at an early growth stage. It is suggested that more intensive reflection of leaves and/or higher contrast values between the reflectance intensity of head versus outer leaves made the resistant varieties less attractive to onion thrips. Our results reported here provide the first evidence of negative correlation between UV-A and visible reflection of leaves and AR of white cabbage against a dangerous insect pest, opening new perspectives for understanding the role of reflection by plant leaves in pest management.
A Neural Network Solution to QoS-IP Team-Optimal Dynamic Routing

Dynamic-routing in a packet-switched telecommunication network with Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities is addressed. The problem is posed in an informationally decentralized (team) setting, where routing and scheduling decisions are combined. Such decisions are taken at the network nodes, on the basis of local information and possibly of some data received from the neighboring nodes, with the common goal to minimize the expected total delay, spent by packets in traversing the network. Stationarity of the control strategies over an infinite optimization horizon (in the presence of no changes in the traffic parameters and network topology) is achieved by considering an approximation based on a receding-horizon approach. Optimal strategies in this setting are in turn approximated by means of feed-forward neural networks. The problem is posed and a computationally decentralized algorithm for its numerical solution is described. A specific numerical example is also considered, where the neural approximators are tuned, and then used in constructing dynamically varying routing tables and scheduling coefficients in a network simulation based on ns-2, where the gain of the dynamic strategies is evaluated, over an adaptive routing approach based on the measurement of aggregate traffic parameters.
An Immature Type II Dens Invaginatus in a Mandibular Lateral Incisor with Talon's Cusp: A Clinical Dilemma to Confront

Dens invaginatus (DI) is a malformation of teeth probably resulting from an infolding of the dental papilla during tooth development. DI is classified as type I, II, and III by Oehlers depending on the severity of malformation. The maxillary lateral incisor is the most commonly affected tooth. Structural defects do exist in the depth of the invagination pits, and as a consequence, the early development of caries and the subsequent necrosis of the dental pulp, as well as abscess and cyst formation are clinical implications associated with DI. Occasionally, we can see more than one developmental anomaly occurring in a single tooth. In such cases it becomes important to identify the anomalies and initiate a proper treatment plan for good prognosis. In this paper, an unusual case of DI which clinically presented as a huge talons cusp affecting a mandibular lateral incisor tooth is described. This case report illustrates grinding of the talons cusp followed by nonsurgical endodontic management of dens invaginatus type II with an immature apex and periapical lesions, in which Mineral Trioxide Aggregate (MTA) shows a complete periapical healing with bone formation at the site of the lesions.
Operative Management of Intra‐Articular Fractures of the Distal Humerus

Over a 5-year period (1979–1984), 33 patients with intra-articular fractures of the distal humerus underwent open reduction and internal fixation of their fractures. Twenty-two (67%) of the patients had multiple injuries. Fourteen (42%) of the fractures were open (1 was Grade I, 8 were Grade II and 5 were Grade III). The mean age was 32 years (range: 15–61 years), which is significantly younger than in other series. A subgroup of 25 of the patients was evaluated clinically at a mean of 18.3 months postoperatively. “Excellent” and “good” functional results occurred in 23 patients (92%). “Poor” results were seen in the remaining two patients (8%). Complications occurred in 15 patients (45%). Nine of these complications related to fixation of the transolecranon osteotomy, which was used in 29 patients. The method by which reduction and stabilization was achieved was not as important as obtaining sufficient rigidity, which permitted early motion.
Relationship between shoulder roll and hand propulsion in the front crawl stroke

ABSTRACT This study re-evaluated the magnitude of hand propulsion (HP) in the pull and push phases of the front crawl stroke and investigated the association between the angular velocity of shoulder roll (ωSR) and hand propulsive lift (HPL). ωSR was computed in the plane normal to a forward direction for 16 skilled swimmers performing the front crawl stroke at a maximal sprinting pace. HP, hand propulsive drag (HPD) and HPL were determined by a dynamic pressure approach. HP and HPD in the pull phase were greater than in the push phase (P < 0.05) while HPL in the pull phase was similar to that in the push phase. Eleven swimmers out of the 16 swimmers had a significant within-swimmers correlation between ωSR and HPL in the push phase (P < 0.05). That is, HPL increased in the push phase as the ωSR of rolling back to the neutral position became faster. A swimmer should use more drag for hand propulsion in the pull phase and propulsion from drag and lift equally in the push phase. Based on the relationship between ωSR and HPL in the push phase, a possible stroke technique to enhance HPL using ωSR is discussed.
Limit order books

Abstract Limit order books (LOBs) match buyers and sellers in more than half of the world’s financial markets. This survey highlights the insights that have emerged from the wealth of empirical and theoretical studies of LOBs. We examine the findings reported by statistical analyses of historical LOB data and discuss how several LOB models provide insight into certain aspects of the mechanism. We also illustrate that many such models poorly resemble real LOBs and that several well-established empirical facts have yet to be reproduced satisfactorily. Finally, we identify several key unresolved questions about LOBs.
Infant mortality trends and differences between American Indian/Alaska Native infants and white infants in the United States, 1989-1991 and 1998-2000.

OBJECTIVES To describe changes in infant mortality rates, including birthweight-specific rates and rates by age at death and cause. METHODS We analyzed US linked birth/infant-death data for 1989-1991 and 1998-2000 for American Indians/Alaska Native (AIAN) and White singleton infants at > or =20 weeks' gestation born to US residents. We calculated birthweight-specific infant mortality rates (deaths in each birthweight category per 1000 live births in that category), and overall and cause-specific infant mortality rates (deaths per 100000 live births) in infancy (0-364 days) and in the neonatal (0-27 days) and postneonatal (28-364 days) periods. RESULTS Birthweight-specific infant mortality rates declined among AIAN and White infants across all birthweight categories, but AIAN infants generally had higher birthweight-specific infant mortality rates. Infant mortality rates declined for both groups, yet in 1998-2000, AIAN infants were still 1.7 times more likely to die than White infants. Most of the disparity was because of elevated post-neonatal mortality, especially from sudden infant death syndrome, accidents, and pneumonia and influenza. CONCLUSIONS Although birthweight-specific infant mortality rates and infant mortality rates declined among both AIAN and White infants, disparities in infant mortality persist. Preventable causes of infant mortality identified in this analysis should be targeted to reduce excess deaths among AIAN communities.
The occurrence of Cryptosporidium parvum, Campylobacter and Salmonella in newborn dairy calves in the Manawatu region of New Zealand

Abstract AIM: To determine the occurrence of Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts, Campylobacter spp and Salmonella spp in faecal samples taken from newborn dairy calves on 24 dairy farms in the Manawatu region of New Zealand. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted during the 2002 calving season. Faecal samples were collected from 185 newborn calves from a convenience sample of 24 dairy farms. The samples were tested microscopically for the presence of C. parvum oocysts, and bacteriologically for the presence of Campylobacter spp and Salmonella spp. RESULTS: Infections with C. parvum were identified in 33/156 (21.2%) calves from 10 farms. More than 106 oocysts/g (OPG) faeces were detected in calves from four farms. Campylobacter spp were isolated from 58/161 (36%) calves from 18 farms; in particular, C. jejuni subsp jejuni was isolated from 11/161 (6.8%) calves from seven farms. Salmonellae were not detected. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the short and concentrated calving pattern and the long interval between calving seasons characterising most dairy farms in New Zealand, C. parvum is widespread among calves. Campylobacter spp, especially C. jejuni, rapidly colonise the intestinal tract of newborn calves. RELEVANCE: This study provided an estimate of the ecological impact of newborn dairy calves with regard to the potentially zoonotic enteric pathogens most frequently isolated from human gastrointestinal infections in New Zealand.
Dyna

To look human, digital full-body avatars need to have soft-tissue deformations like those of real people. We learn a model of soft-tissue deformations from examples using a high-resolution 4D capture system and a method that accurately registers a template mesh to sequences of 3D scans. Using over 40,000 scans of ten subjects, we learn how soft-tissue motion causes mesh triangles to deform relative to a base 3D body model. Our Dyna model uses a low-dimensional linear subspace to approximate soft-tissue deformation and relates the subspace coefficients to the changing pose of the body. Dyna uses a second-order auto-regressive model that predicts soft-tissue deformations based on previous deformations, the velocity and acceleration of the body, and the angular velocities and accelerations of the limbs. Dyna also models how deformations vary with a person's body mass index (BMI), producing different deformations for people with different shapes. Dyna realistically represents the dynamics of soft tissue for previously unseen subjects and motions. We provide tools for animators to modify the deformations and apply them to new stylized characters.
Exact Subspace Segmentation and Outlier Detection by Low-Rank Representation

In this work, we address the following matrix recovery problem: suppose we are given a set of data points containing two parts, one part consists of samples drawn from a union of multiple subspaces and the other part consists of outliers. We do not know which data points are outliers, or how many outliers there are. The rank and number of the subspaces are unknown either. Can we detect the outliers and segment the samples into their right subspaces, efficiently and exactly? We utilize a so-called {\em Low-Rank Representation} (LRR) method to solve this problem, and prove that under mild technical conditions, any solution to LRR exactly recovers the row space of the samples and detect the outliers as well. Since the subspace membership is provably determined by the row space, this further implies that LRR can perform exact subspace segmentation and outlier detection, in an efficient way.