Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anonymous Communication in the Browser via Onion-Routing

Every single communication on the Internet reveals private and sensitive information of the communicating parties if no further measures are applied. Various applications and measures are already available to e.g. tunnel traffic through other nodes to obscure the original sender and receiver. Existing frameworks require external applications, running on the particular nodes. We propose a flexible architecture for an anonymous communication framework that supports the interoperability among different platforms. Our proof-of-concept implementation, based on web standards and web technologies shows the feasibility of the framework in terms of usability and interoperability. The framework is running completely in the web-browser and does not have requirements on external applications. The evaluation results show that our framework brings great benefits to user's privacy and security.
Delegation and Nonmonetary Incentives

In many contracting settings, actions costly to one party but with no direct benefits to the other (money-burning) may be part of the explicit or implicit contract. A leading example is bureaucratic procedures in an employer-employee relationship. We study a model of delegation with an informed agent, where the principal may impose money-burning on the agent as a function of the agent’s choice of action, and show that money-burning may be part of the optimal contract. This result holds even if action-contingent monetary transfers are possible, as long as transfers from the principal to the agent are bounded from below (as in limited liability or minimal wage requirements). In fact, the optimal contract can involve a combination of both efficient monetary incentives and inefficient nonmonetary incentives through money burning. Our model delivers some results novel to the delegation literature. First, money-burning is more likely if the principal is more sensitive to the choice of action than the agent. This is consistent with the perception that there is more bureaucratization in large organizations. Second, money-burning is more likely if the agent’s limited liability constraint is tighter relative to his participation constraint. This implies that a higher minimum wage distorts employment contracts towards using socially wasteful nonmonetary incentives, leading to a Pareto inferior outcome as the agent is still held down to his reservation value through increased money burning.The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2700851
Variation in stratum corneum protein content as a function of anatomical site and ethnic group

Quantification of stratum corneum (SC) protein levels from tape strippings is frequently used to investigate skin conditions, to correct for amounts of SC protein removed in SC biomarker studies and to determine distribution of topically applied ingredients. In recent years, a rapid and convenient method for SC protein quantification from tape strippings has become available using infrared densitometry (IRD). However, standard curves have only been generated for Caucasian forearm and shoulder SC and have been assumed to be correct not only for facial SC but also for SC samples of other ethnic groups. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of IRD for SC protein measurement is valid for other body sites such as the cheek and for measuring SC protein content of darkly pigmented skin types.
Thermally resistant polyurethane foams with reduced flammability

Thermally resistant polyurethane foams containing 1,3,5-triazine ring were modified with additive flame retardants. It has been found that addition of melamine, melamine polyphosphate, or isocyanurate at the foaming step resulted in reduction of foam flammability. The physical properties of flame-retardant modified foams were compared with those of non-modified foams. The obtained modified foams showed oxygen index 22.2–24.2 and were highly thermally resistant even at long lasting 200℃ temperature exposure.
A Parallel Local Search Algorithm for Euclidean Steiner Tree Problem

This paper presented a parallel local search algorithm for the Steiner tree problem. The main contribution of this work is the O(n2 log2 n + log n log(n/ log n)) parallel local search algorithm for computing Steiner tree on the Euclidean plane. The algorithm used proximity structures from computational geometry like, Voronoi diagram, Delaunay triangulation, Gabriel graph, and relative neighborhood graphs to compute additional or Steiner points
Moderate Hypoxia Followed by Reoxygenation Results in Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown via Oxidative Stress-Dependent Tight-Junction Protein Disruption

Re-canalization of cerebral vessels in ischemic stroke is pivotal to rescue dysfunctional brain areas that are exposed to moderate hypoxia within the penumbra from irreversible cell death. Goal of the present study was to evaluate the effect of moderate hypoxia followed by reoxygenation (MHR) on the evolution of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity in brain endothelial cells (BEC). BBB integrity was assessed in BEC in vitro and in microvessels of the guinea pig whole brain in situ preparation. Probes were exposed to MHR (2 hours 67-70 mmHg O2, 3 hours reoxygenation, BEC) or towards occlusion of the arteria cerebri media (MCAO) with or without subsequent reperfusion in the whole brain preparation. In vitro BBB integrity was evaluated using trans-endothelial electrical resistance (TEER) and transwell permeability assays. ROS in BEC were evaluated using 2′,7′-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate (DCF), MitoSox and immunostaining for nitrotyrosine. Tight-junction protein (TJ) integrity in BEC, stainings for nitrotyrosine and FITC-albumin extravasation in the guinea pig brain preparation were assessed by confocal microscopy. Diphenyleneiodonium (DPI) was used to investigate NADPH oxidase dependent ROS evolution and its effect on BBB parameters in BEC. MHR impaired TJ proteins zonula occludens 1 (ZO-1) and claudin 5 (Cl5), decreased TEER, and significantly increased cytosolic ROS in BEC. These events were blocked by the NADPH oxidase inhibitor DPI. MCAO with or without subsequent reoxygenation resulted in extravasation of FITC-albumin and ROS generation in the penumbra region of the guinea pig brain preparation and confirmed BBB damage. BEC integrity may be impaired through ROS in MHR on the level of TJ and the BBB is also functionally impaired in moderate hypoxic conditions followed by reperfusion in a complex guinea pig brain preparation. These findings suggest that the BBB is susceptible towards MHR and that ROS play a key role in this process.
A New Tool for the Risk Stratification of Patients With Complex Coronary Artery Disease: The Clinical SYNTAX Score

Background—Presently, no effective risk model exists to predict long-term mortality or other major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) in those patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). This study aimed to assess whether the Clinical SYNTAX Score (CSS) calculated by multiplying the SYNTAX Score to a modified ACEF score (age/ejection fraction +1 for each 10 mL the creatinine clearance <60 mL/min per 1.73 m2) would improve the ability of either score to predict mortality and MACCE. Methods and Results—The CSS was calculated in 512 patients enrolled in the ARTS-II study who had serum creatinine levels, ejection fraction, and body weight recorded at baseline. Clinical outcomes in terms of MACCE and mortality at 1- and 5-year follow-up were stratified according to CSS tertiles: CSSLOW⩽15.6 (n=170), 15.627. 5 (n=171). At 1-year follow-up, rates of repeat revascularization and MACCE were significantly higher in the highest tertile group. At 5-year follow-up, CSSHIGH had a comparable rate of myocardial infarction, a trend toward a significantly higher rate of death, and significantly higher rates of repeat revascularization and overall MACCE compared with patients in the lower 2 tertiles. The respective C-statistics for the CSS, SYNTAX Score, and ACEF score for 5-year mortality were 0.69, 0.62, and 0.65 and for 5-year MACCE were 0.62, 0.59, and 0.57. Conclusions—An improvement in the ability of the SYNTAX Score to predict MACCE and mortality can be achieved by combining the SYNTAX Score with a simple clinical risk score incorporating age, ejection fraction, and creatinine clearance to produce the Clinical SYNTAX score. Clinical Trial Registration—URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT00235170.
Establishing a standard definition for child overweight and obesity worldwide: international survey

Abstract Objective: To develop an internationally acceptable definition of child overweight and obesity, specifying the measurement, the reference population, and the age and sex specific cut off points. Design: International survey of six large nationally representative cross sectional growth studies. Setting: Brazil, Great Britain, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the United States Subjects: 97 876 males and 94 851 females from birth to 25 years of age Main outcome measure: Body mass index (weight/height2). Results: For each of the surveys, centile curves were drawn that at age 18 years passed through the widely used cut off points of 25 and 30 kg/m2 for adult overweight and obesity. The resulting curves were averaged to provide age and sex specific cut off points from 2-18 years. Conclusions: The proposed cut off points, which are less arbitrary and more internationally based than current alternatives, should help to provide internationally comparable prevalence rates of overweight and obesity in children.
Development of acellular porcine peripheral nerves

Peripheral nerve injuries can lead to a major loss of function and affect quality of life. Current autologous treatments and commercially available products such as nerve guide conduits all have limitations. The aim of this study was to develop biocompatible, non-immunogenic nerve grafts using low concentration SDS to decellularise porcine peripheral nerves. Initially the porcine nerve anatomy was defined. Acellular nerves were then used as the basis for an in vitro study of perfused flow within the tissue for the introduction of Schwann cells - as the delivery of these cells is reported to stimulate axon regeneration. Furthermore, an in vivo study using a rat sciatic nerve injury model was conducted to evaluate the regenerative capacity of acellular porcine grafts. Histology confirmed an absence of cells and retention of the native nerve histioarchitecture. DNA levels were reduced by >95 % throughout the decellularised tissue. Immunohistochemistry showed retention of important extracellular matrix proteins such as collagen, laminin and fibronectin. In vitro biocompatibility studies indicated the acellular nerves were not cytotoxic to human dermal fibroblasts and primary rat Schwann cells. Uniaxial tensile testing showed a significant increase in ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and strain between native and acellular nerve tissues. In addition, mechanical testing of the nerves revealed porcine peroneal nerves to have a higher UTS value in comparison to the porcine tibial nerves. Analysis of the nerves using transmission electron microscopy concluded that the mechanical properties of nerves could not be determined exclusively by their ultrastructure or collagen fibril diameter. Porcine acellular nerve grafts were used as an in vitro and in vivo model for the introduction of primary rat Schwann cells. The in vitro nerve model confirmed that reseeded Schwann cells under perfusion maintained their phenotype and had a lower rate of cell death when compared to static conditions. A rat sciatic nerve in vivo gap injury model demonstrated that porcine grafts were able to promote axonal regeneration; however, they were not as effective as the autologous graft. In summary, acellular peripheral nerve tissue was found to have excellent potential for development of a tissue engineered graft to aid peripheral nerve regeneration.
An empirical exploration of a neural oscillator for biped locomotion control

Humanoid research has made remarkable progress during the past 10 years. However, currently most humanoids use the target ZMP (zero moment point) control algorithm for bipedal locomotion, which requires precise modeling and actuation with high control gains. On the contrary, humans do not rely on such precise modeling and actuation. Our aim is to examine biologically related algorithms for bipedal locomotion that resemble human-like locomotion. This paper describes an empirical study of a neural oscillator for the control of biped locomotion. We propose a new neural oscillator arrangement applied to a compass-like biped robot. Dynamic simulations and experiments with a real biped robot were carried out and the controller performs steady walking for over 50 steps. Gait variations resulting in energy efficiency was made possible through the adjustment of only a single neural activity parameter. Aspects of adaptability and robustness of our approach are shown by allowing the robot to walk over terrains with varying surfaces with different frictional properties. Initial results suggesting optimal amplitude for dealing with perturbation are also presented.
The Current Star Formation Rate of the Local Universe

The Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) survey is a long-term project aimed at finding and analyzing star-forming galaxies detected by their Hα emission in Schmidt objective-prism plates. The instrumental setup limits the volume of the universe surveyed to a redshift z ≲ 0.045. So far we have discovered several hundred emission-line galaxies (ELGs) undergoing star formation at a wide range of levels. Analyzing a complete sample of ELGs from the UCM survey, we have computed the Hα luminosity function for the star-forming galaxies in the surveyed volume of the universe. A Schechter function provides a good fit to the Hα luminosity function with the following parameters: α = -1.3 ± 0.2, L*(Hα) = 1042.15±0.08 ergs s-1, and ϕ* = 10-3.2±0.2 Mpc-3 for H0 = 50 km s-1 Mpc-1. Integrating over the full range of luminosities, we obtain an Hα luminosity density of 1039.1±0.2 ergs s-1 Mpc-3. Using the Hα emission as a star formation rate (SFR) estimator, this translates into a SFR density for the local universe of 0.013−0.005+0.007 M☉ yr-1 Mpc-3 in star-forming galaxies with EW(Hα + [N II]) > 10 Å and z ≲ 0.045 for a Scalo initial mass function. This is the first observational determination of this quantity, which will provide a direct test of current galaxy formation and evolution models.
Oocyte-Specific Deletion of Pten in Mice Reveals a Stage-Specific Function of PTEN/PI3K Signaling in Oocytes in Controlling Follicular Activation

Immature ovarian primordial follicles are essential for maintenance of the reproductive lifespan of female mammals. Recently, it was found that overactivation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling in oocytes of primordial follicles by an oocyte-specific deletion of Pten (phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome ten), the gene encoding PI3K negative regulator PTEN, results in premature activation of the entire pool of primordial follicles, indicating that activation of the PI3K pathway in oocytes is important for control of follicular activation. To investigate whether PI3K signaling in oocytes of primary and further developed follicles also plays a role at later stages in follicular development and ovulation, we conditionally deleted the Pten gene from oocytes of primary and further developed follicles by using transgenic mice expressing zona pellucida 3 (Zp3) promoter-mediated Cre recombinase. Our results show that Pten was efficiently deleted from oocytes of primary and further developed follicles, as indicated by the elevated phosphorylation of the major PI3K downstream component Akt. However, follicular development was not altered and oocyte maturation was also normal, which led to normal fertility with unaltered litter size in the mutant mice. Our data indicate that properly controlled PTEN/PI3K-Akt signaling in oocytes is essential for control of the development of primordial follicles whereas overactivation of PI3K signaling in oocytes does not appear to affect the development of growing follicles. This suggests that there is a stage-specific function of PTEN/PI3K signaling in mouse oocytes that controls follicular activation.
The aftermath of terrorism: posttraumatic stress and functional impairment after the 2011 Oslo bombing

Objective: In the present study we wanted to investigate the link between exposure, posttraumatic stress symptomatology, and functional impairment in the aftermath of terrorism. Method: Posttraumatic stress symptomatology and functional impairment related to the Oslo bombing 22nd of July, 2011, in directly and indirectly exposed individuals (N = 1927) were assessed together with demographics, exposure, peri-traumatic reactions, and event centrality approximately 1 year after the attack. Results: Directly and indirectly exposed individuals qualifying for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reported similar peri-traumatic reactions, event centrality, and functional impairment. However, clusters within the PTSD symptomatology were differentially associated with impairment as a function of their exposure. In the directly exposed group, all clusters within the PTSD symptomatology were associated with impairment in function, while only emotional numbing was associated with impairment within the indirectly exposed group. Conclusion: Considering that terror attacks frequently involve directly exposed individuals and a larger population of indirectly exposed individuals, this finding is of importance, especially in the design of intervention programs and the development of treatment policies.
Large-scale evaluation of automated clinical note de-identification and its impact on information extraction

Objective (1) To evaluate a state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP)-based approach to automatically de-identify a large set of diverse clinical notes. (2) To measure the impact of de-identification on the performance of information extraction algorithms on the de-identified documents. Material and methods A cross-sectional study that included 3503 stratified, randomly selected clinical notes (over 22 note types) from five million documents produced at one of the largest US pediatric hospitals. Sensitivity, precision, F value of two automated de-identification systems for removing all 18 HIPAA-defined protected health information elements were computed. Performance was assessed against a manually generated ‘gold standard’. Statistical significance was tested. The automated de-identification performance was also compared with that of two humans on a 10% subsample of the gold standard. The effect of de-identification on the performance of subsequent medication extraction was measured. Results The gold standard included 30 815 protected health information elements and more than one million tokens. The most accurate NLP method had 91.92% sensitivity (R) and 95.08% precision (P) overall. The performance of the system was indistinguishable from that of human annotators (annotators' performance was 92.15%(R)/93.95%(P) and 94.55%(R)/88.45%(P) overall while the best system obtained 92.91%(R)/95.73%(P) on same text). The impact of automated de-identification was minimal on the utility of the narrative notes for subsequent information extraction as measured by the sensitivity and precision of medication name extraction. Discussion and conclusion NLP-based de-identification shows excellent performance that rivals the performance of human annotators. Furthermore, unlike manual de-identification, the automated approach scales up to millions of documents quickly and inexpensively.
Experimental study of delamination and kerf geometry of carbon epoxy composite machined by abrasive water jet

The present article focuses on mechanism of delamination and kerf geometry in abrasive water jet machining of carbon epoxy composite. In the present study, four process parameters of abrasive water jet machining namely hydraulic pressure, traverse rate, stand-off distance, and abrasive mass flow rate are considered. The experiments are performed on the basis of response surface methodology as a statistical design of experiment approach. Delamination in machined samples is observed by using scanning electron microscope. Analysis of variance is performed in order to investigate the influence of process parameters on delamination, kerf taper ratio, and kerf top width. It is found that delamination decreases with increase in pressure and abrasive mass flow rate and decrease in stand-off distance and traverse rate. Kerf taper ratio decreases with increase in pressure and decrease in traverse rate and stand-off distance. Kerf top width decreases with decrease in stand-off distance and increase in traverse rate. Based on analysis, mathematical models are developed to predict the maximum delamination length, kerf taper ratio, and kerf top width. Further, a multi-response optimization is performed on the basis of desirability function to minimize delamination, kerf taper ratio, and kerf top width.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging in disorders of consciousness: preliminary results of an innovative analysis of brain connectivity.

The aim of this preliminary study was to present a new approach for connectivity analysis in patients with severe acquired brain injury (ABI) that overcomes some of the difficulties created by anatomical abnormalities due to the brain injury. Using a data-driven approach, resting-state structural MRI (sMRI) and functional MRI (fMRI) data from three severe ABI patients - two with disorders of consciousness (DOC) and one who had recovered consciousness (non-DOC) - were integrated and analyzed. Parameters extracted from the distribution of the connectivity values, such as mean, standard deviation and skeweness, were considered. The distribution parameters estimated seem to provide an accurate multivariate classification of the considered cases that can be summarized as follows: connectivity in the severe ABI patients with DOC was on average lower than in the severe ABI non-DOC patient and healthy subjects. The dispersion of connectivity values of the severe ABI patients, non-DOC and DOC, was comparable, however the shape of the distribution was different in the non-DOC patient. Eventually, seed-based connectivity maps of the default mode Functional magnetic resonance imaging in disorders of consciousness: preliminary results of an innovative analysis of brain connectivity network show a pattern of increasing disruption of this network from the healthy subjects to non-DOC and DOC patients. Consistent results are obtained using an ICA-based approach.