Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Masking based Data Hiding and Image Authentication Technique (MDHIAT)

In this paper a masking based data hiding and image authentication technique (MDHIAT) has been proposed by embedding a message/image into a colour image. Bits from authenticating message/image are embedded in single bit position under each byte of the source image by choosing a standard 3 times 3 mask in row major order. Point of insertion of a bit is obtained by computing modulus operation of the position of the image byte within the mask and an integer s whose value lies between 1 and 8. A message digest MD-5 has also been generated from authentication message/image and inserted into the source image in same manner to impart additional security. Experimental results show a good fidelity in embedded image when the value of s is less than equal to 6. Results are compared with the most popular steganographic algorithm S-Tools in terms of histogram, noise and, standard deviation analysis where proposed MDHIAT shows better performance in compared to S-Tools.
Image processing approach to features extraction in classification of control chart patterns

Control chart patterns can be used to determine behavior of system. They are vital in process control as they are used in detecting the abnormalities which may occur. Accurate identification of these charts is necessary to the efficiency and reduction of system troubleshooting time. The accuracy of the classification depends largely on how noisy the signals in these charts are. If their noise ratio is very high, this suggests that reliable classification is almost impossible. One of the major difficulties lies in differentiation between increasing and decreasing patterns especially where gradients of inclination and declination are small. This paper describes an improvement in identifying highly noisy control chart patterns by utilizing features extraction in classification using neural networks in previous works. Features, which were founded useful for the classification, are mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis. The improvement can be summarized into two factors, the introduction of two more useful features, slope and Pearson correlation coefficient, and the additional transformation derived from the original signal. This work yields better performance than previous works which used the same data set by increasing the overall accuracy from 83.30% to 90.47%.
Optimal parallelization of Las Vegas algorithms

Let A be a Las Vegas algorithm, i.e., A is a randomized algorithm that always produces the correct answer when it stops but whose running time is a random variable. In 1] a method was developed for minimizing the expected time required to obtain an answer from A using sequential strategies which simulate A as follows: run A for a xed amount of time t 1 , then run A independently for a xed amount of time t 2 , etc. The simulation stops if A completes its execution during any of the runs. In this paper, we consider parallel simulation strategies for this same problem, i.e., strategies where many sequential strategies are executed independently in parallel using a large number of processors. We present a close to optimal parallel strategy for the case when the distribution of A is known. If the number of processors is below a certain threshold, we show that this parallel strategy achieves almost linear speedup over the optimal sequential strategy. For the more realistic case where the distribution of A is not known, we describe a universal parallel strategy whose expected running time is only a logarithmic factor worse than that of an optimal parallel strategy. Finally, the application of the described parallel strategies to a randomized automated theorem prover connrms the theoretical results and shows that in most cases good speedup can be achieved up to hundreds of processors, even on networks of workstations.
Attitudes and factors affecting acceptability of self-administered cervicovaginal sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV) genotyping as an alternative to Pap testing among multiethnic Malaysian women

Objective The objective of this study was to determine the attitudes and acceptability of self-administered cervicovaginal sampling compared with conventional physician-acquired Papanicolaou (Pap) smear among multiethnic Malaysian women. Method A cross-sectional study was carried out via interviewer-administered surveys from August 2013 through August 2015 at five government-run, urban health clinics in the state of Selangor. Subjects were participants from an ongoing community-based human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence study who answered a standard questionnaire before and after self-sampling. The cervicovaginal self-sampling for HPV genotyping was performed using a simple brush (‘Just for Me’; Preventive Oncology International, Hong Kong). Detailed data on sociodemographics, previous Pap smear experience, and attitudes towards self-administered cervicovaginal sampling were collected and analysed. Acceptability was inferred using a five-item Likert scale that included six different subjective descriptives: experience, difficulty, convenience, embarrassment, discomfort or pain, and confidence in collecting one's own sample. Results Of the 839 participants, 47.9% were Malays, followed by 30.8% Indians, 18.8% Chinese and 2.5% from other ethnicities. The median age of the participants was 38 years (IQR 30–48). Some 68.2% of participants indicated a preference for self-sampling over the Pap test, with 95% indicating willingness to follow-up a positive result at the hospital. Age, ethnicity and previous Pap test experience were significant independent factors associated with preference for self-sampling. The older the individual, the less likely they were to prefer self-sampling (adjusted OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.90 to 0.98). The Chinese were less likely to prefer self-sampling (72.6%) than the Malays (85.1%) (adjusted OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.33 to 0.98, p=0.004). Participants who had never undergone a Pap smear were also more likely to prefer self-sampling (88.5%) than women who had undergone a previous Pap (80.9%) (adjusted OR 0.06, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.87). Conclusions Overall, urban Malaysian women from multiethnic backgrounds found self-sampling to be an acceptable alternative to Pap smear.
A novel fluorescent sensor protein for detecting changes in airway surface liquid glucose concentration

Both lung disease and elevation of blood glucose are associated with increased glucose concentration (from 0.4 to ~4.0 mM) in the airway surface liquid (ASL). This perturbation of ASL glucose makes the airway more susceptible to infection by respiratory pathogens. ASL is minute (~1 μl/cm2) and the measurement of glucose concentration in the small volume ASL is extremely difficult. Therefore, we sought to develop a fluorescent biosensor with sufficient sensitivity to determine glucose concentrations in ASL in situ. We coupled a range of environmentally sensitive fluorophores to mutated forms of a glucose/galactose-binding protein (GBP) including H152C and H152C/A213R and determined their equilibrium binding properties. Of these, GBP H152C/A213R–BADAN (Kd 0.86 ± 0.01 mM, Fmax/F0 3.6) was optimal for glucose sensing and in ASL increased fluorescence when basolateral glucose concentration was raised from 1 to 20 mM. Moreover, interpolation of the data showed that the glucose concentration in ASL was increased, with results similar to that using glucose oxidase analysis. The fluorescence of GBP H152C/A213R–BADAN in native ASL from human airway epithelial cultures in situ was significantly increased over time when basolateral glucose was increased from 5 to 20 mM. Overall our data indicate that this GBP is a useful tool to monitor glucose homoeostasis in the lung.
Glyoxalase 1−419C>A Variant Is Associated with Oxidative Stress: Implications in Prostate Cancer Progression

Glyoxalase 1 is a scavenging enzyme of potent precursors in reactive oxygen species formation and is involved in the occurrence and progression of human malignancies. Glyoxalase I A111E polymorphism has been suggested to influence its enzymatic activity. The present study was aimed at investigating the association of this polymorphism with oxidative stress and its implications in prostate cancer progression or survival. The polymorphism was genotyped in human differently aggressive and invasive prostate cancer cell lines, in 571 prostate cancer or 588 benign prostatic hyperplasia patients, and 580 healthy subjects by Polymerase Chain Reaction/Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism. Glyoxalase 1 activity, the pro-oxidant Glyoxalase 1-related Argpyrimidine and oxidative stress biomarkers were evaluated by biochemical analyses. Glyoxalase 1 polymorphism was associated with an increase in Glyoxalase 1-related pro-oxidant Argpyrimidine and oxidative stress levels and cancer progression. The mutant A allele conferred a modest risk of prostate cancer, a marked risk of prostate cancer progression and a lower survival time, compared to the wild C allele. The results of our exploratory study point out a significant role for Glyoxalase 1 in prostate cancer progression, providing an additional candidate for risk assessment in prostate cancer patients and an independent prognostic factor for survival. Finally, we provided evidence of the biological plausibility of Glyoxalase 1 polymorphism, either alone or in combination with other ones, all related to oxidative stress control that represents a key event in PCa development and progression.
The cluster environments of powerful radio‐loud and radio‐quiet active galactic nuclei

The spatial clustering amplitude (Bgq) is determined for a sample of 44 powerful active galactic nuclei (AGN) at z≃0.2. No significant difference is detected in the richness of the cluster environments of the radio-loud and radio-quiet subsamples, both of which typically inhabit environments as rich as Abell class ≃0. Comparison with radio luminosity-matched samples from Hill & Lilly and Wold et al. suggests that there is no epoch-dependent change in environment richness out to at least z≥0.5 for either radio galaxies or radio quasars. Comparison with the APM cluster survey shows that, contrary to current folklore, powerful AGN do not avoid rich clusters, but rather display a spread in cluster environment, which is perfectly consistent with being drawn at random from the massive elliptical population. Finally, we argue that virtually all Abell class ≃0 clusters contained an active galaxy during the epoch of peak quasar activity at z∼2.5.
Detection of Leptospira spp. serovars in wild boars (Sus scrofa) from continental Croatia.

Over the period of five years (2002-2007) a total number of 351 wild boar (Sus scrofa) serum samples were collected during the regular hunting procedures. All samples were tested by microscopic agglutination test (MAT) for the presence of specific antibodies (AB) to 12 Leptospira spp. serovars. At different sera dilution (ranging from 100 to 3200) 112 samples (31.9%) were found positive to at least one pathogenic serovar, and AB to nine Leptospira spp. serovars were detected: Australis, Pomona, Tarassovi, Sejroe, Grippotyphosa, Icterohaemorrhagiae, Ballum, Saxkoebing, and Bataviae. In total we recorded 147 positive reactions in which the majority (N=101 ; 68.7%) of them were found positive at basic dilution (BD = 100), whereas 31.3% (N=46) reactions were detected positive at higher dilutions. Most frequently found serovar was Australis (33.3%), followed by serovars Pomona (21.8%) and Tarassovi (14.3%), while serovars Australis and Pomona recorded the highest AB titer (3200) and showed statistical significant frequency in cross-reactions (recorded in 23.8% cases). We found significant differences of AB prevalence in different age groups, with highest distinction between detected positive samples in piglets (21.5%) and adult specimens (50.8%). According to aerial distribution the highest percentage of positive wild boar samples originated from lowland habitats in regions of Posavina (Novska - 46.8%, Kutina - 45.3%) and Slavonija and Baranja (Tikves - 43.6%). Considering the fact that wild boar population in Croatia is showing constant tendencies to grow, further research is indispensable to clarified wild boar role in transmission of leptospirosis to other wild and domestic species.
Asymptotic analysis of downlink OFDMA capacity

We consider asymptotic performance of a downlink OFDMA system as the number of users and sub-channels increase. Specifically, we study the asymptotic growth in the weighted sum capacity, where each user is assigned a weight to reflect its quality of service. We begin by considering a limited feedback scheme, where each user is pre-assigned a threshold and feeds back one bit per sub-channel to indicate whether the channel gain is above the threshold or not. If more than one user requests the same sub-channel, the base station picks the user with the largest weight to transmit. In earlier work we analyzed such a scheme when each user has i.i. d. Rayleigh fading on each sub-channel. Here we consider a larger class of distributions that includes most common fading models. We characterize the asymptotic behavior of the optimal thresholds and the growth of the weighted sum capacity. We then compare the asymptotic capacity achieved by this one bit feedback scheme with the capacity when full CSI is available at the transmitter. We derive upper and lower bounds on the capacity with full CSI. The difference between these bounds asymptotically converges to a constant and the lower bound converges to the capacity of the one-bit feedback scheme.
Poor but Warm, Rich but Cold (and Competent): Social Classes in the Stereotype Content Model

Social class divides worsened during and after the Great Recession; this article documents one cultural feature of this divide, social-class stereotypes, both at the societal level (across nations) and at the individual level (personal beliefs about social-class groups and individuals). The Stereotype Content Model provides the shared theoretical framework focused on perceived warmth and competence of different social classes. In the international data, across cultures, people with high SES (socioeconomic status) are perceived ambivalently as competent but cold, their warmth even lower in more unequal societies. Low-SES people are seen as less competent but warmer, their alleged incompetence exaggerated under high inequality. The exaggerated warmth-competence trade-off helps justify the social-class system, especially under inequality. For personal stereotypes, predictions focus on warmth-competence trade-offs for each social-class target, and these results are most stable for the competent-but-not-so-warm high-SES targets. Consistent with the international results, high-SES people as a group are generally rated as more competent than warm. Similarly, a high-SES individual exemplar is judged as competent but less warm, whereas lower-SES individuals are seen as either more warm than competent or equally as warm as they are competent. Like the society-level data, perceptions of high-SES people are more stable than perceptions of lower-SES people, within these American samples.
The effects of R&D investment on firm performance

This study studies the effects of R&D investment on firm performance. Firm performance is measured in financial performance and market-based performance. Among (formerly) publicly listed companies from the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg data is used. Extra attention is paid to manufacturing companies in comparison with the non-manufacturing companies. The financial firm performance is positively affected by R&D investments. Significant results are found for the financial performance, the Return on Assets. The findings of the price-to-book ratio are significant. Differences for manufacturing and non-manufacturing companies are insgnificant with the used data and not consistent over the financial and market-based performances.
Effects of Different Rest Intervals between Circuit Resistance Exercises on Post-exercise Blood Pressure Responses in Normotensive Young Males

Purpose To investigate the blood pressure responses during recovery after two protocols of circuit resistance exercises (CRE) with different rest intervals (RI). Methods Eleven normotensive males (aged 19.5 ± 1.0 yrs, height 172.8 ± 5.7 cm and weight 65.1 ± 8.1 kg) performed two CRE with RI of 30 (RI30s) and 40 (RI40s) seconds between the exercises randomly, as well as a control session without exercise. The protocols consisted of 3 circuits of 6 exercises with 10 repetitions maximum (10RM) and 2 minute rest between circuits, followed by an 80 minute recovery period. Measurements were taken before exercise and at each 10 min of post-exercise recovery. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with Repeated Measures (group × time) was used to analyze data, followed by post-hoc Bonferroni test, for P≤0.05. Results Post-exercise hypotension of systolic blood pressure was observed after both CRE with RI30s and RI40s (at R40, R50, R60, R70 and R80), whereas diastolic blood pressure did not differ from that measured at rest. In all measured moments, there was no significant difference between exercise trials in post-exercise levels of systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Conclusion CRE with RI30s and RI40s between the exercises can lead to occurrence of PEH similarly in magnitude and duration. Our findings suggest a potentially positive health benefit of strength training.
Coalition Formation Games for Distributed Cooperation Among Roadside Units in Vehicular Networks

Vehicle-to-roadside (V2R) communications enable vehicular networks to support a wide range of applications for enhancing the efficiency of road transportation. While existing work focused on non-cooperative techniques for V2R communications between vehicles and roadside units (RSUs), this paper investigates novel cooperative strategies among the RSUs in a vehicular network. We propose a scheme whereby, through cooperation, the RSUs in a vehicular network can coordinate the classes of data being transmitted through V2R communication links to the vehicles. This scheme improves the diversity of the information circulating in the network while exploiting the underlying content-sharing vehicle-to-vehicle communication network. We model the problem as a coalition formation game with transferable utility and we propose an algorithm for forming coalitions among the RSUs. For coalition formation, each RSU can take an individual decision to join or leave a coalition, depending on its utility which accounts for the generated revenues and the costs for coalition coordination. We show that the RSUs can self-organize into a Nash-stable partition and adapt this partition to environmental changes. Simulation results show that, depending on different scenarios, coalition formation presents a performance improvement, in terms of the average payoff per RSU, ranging between 20.5% and 33.2%, relative to the non-cooperative case.
Learning Your Way into a Life of Crime (Fiction): Assessing Sisters in Crime as a Grassroots Learning Organization

Senge’s (1990) concept of the learning organization is used to provide insights into understanding how learning can occur with grassroots organizations – organizations that emerge from the ground up. This paper draws upon three qualitative research studies to examine how Sisters in Crime (SinC) can be viewed as an example of a learning organization, dedicated to supporting women crime fiction writers and addressing issues of gender inequality. SinC provides an interesting example of a grassroots organization that has evolved to serve the needs of many of its broader membership, while attending to issues of gender and equity. When the central focus on learning is related to social justice issues, members of the organization are more likely to have a strong commitment to the same vision, leading to collaborative and creative forms of learning.
Intrinsic flexibility and gating mechanism of the potassium channel KcsA

The gating mechanism of the potassium channel KcsA was studied by normal mode analysis. The results provided an atomic description of the locations of the pivot points and the motional features of key structural elements in the gating process. Two pivot points were found in the motions of the inner TM2 helical bundle that directly modulate the size of the central channel pore. One point is an intrasubunit hinge point that sharply divides the structural flexibility between the more rigid selectivity filter and the more mobile peripheral transmembrane helices. Such a division is vital for KcsA because it permits the large-scale motions of transmembrane helices required for the gating and, in the meantime, maintains the rigidity of the filter region essential for the selectivity. The other pivot point is an intersubunit one at which all four TM2 helices are bundled together. During the gating process, each TM2 helix undergoes a lever-like swinging motion pivoting on the intrasubunit hinge, and the entire TM2 bundle undergoes a concerted rotational motion around the central channel axis constrained around the intersubunit bundle point. This series of motions leads to a dramatic enlargement of the intracellular gate without loosening up the structural integrity.
Influence of elderly drinkers’ subjective health perception on the change in the trajectory of depression

This study intends to examine how the subjective health perception of drinkers influences the depression trajectory change by using longitudinal data for elderly drinkers. This study has set up a balanced panel by combining the results from 『Aging study panel research』 conducted in the year 2006 (1st), 2008 (2nd), 2010 (3rd), 2012 (4th). A total of 543 elderly drinkers, who have responded to each research have been selected as targets for the final analysis. In the analyses, descriptive statistics and Latent Growth Modeling were conducted to examine the causal relationship between the observed and latent variables. The results are as follows: First, it was found that there was a negative correlation-with statistical significance-between the initial value of subjective health perception and the initial status of depression symptom. Second, there was a positive correlation between the initial value of subjective health perception and the changes of depression symptom. This indicates that elderly drinkers with high health perception usually have high degree of depression change; however, this does not mean it was statistically significant. Third, there was a statistically significant correlation between subjective health perception change and depression symptom change. It was found that the depression change level would be low if the subjective health perception change level was high. Thus, we can assume that the depression symptoms of elderly drinker c would slow down if the subjective health perception level increases.