Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generic and Efficient Constructions of Attribute-Based Encryption with Verifiable Outsourced Decryption

Attribute-based encryption (ABE) provides a mechanism for complex access control over encrypted data. However in most ABE systems, the ciphertext size and the decryption overhead, which grow with the complexity of the access policy, are becoming critical barriers in applications running on resource-limited devices. Outsourcing decryption of ABE ciphertexts to a powerful third party is a reasonable manner to solve this problem. Since the third party is usually believed to be untrusted, the security requirements of ABE with outsourced decryption should include privacy and verifiability. Namely, any adversary including the third party should learn nothing about the encrypted message, and the correctness of the outsourced decryption is supposed to be verified efficiently. We propose generic constructions of CPA-secure and RCCA-secure ABE systems with verifiable outsourced decryption from CPA-secure ABE with outsourced decryption, respectively. We also instantiate our CPA-secure construction in the standard model and then show an implementation of this instantiation. The experimental results show that, compared with the existing scheme, our CPA-secure construction has more compact ciphertext and less computational costs. Moreover, the techniques involved in the RCCA-secure construction can be applied in generally constructing CCA-secure ABE, which we believe to be of independent interest.
Generation of a neutrophil chemotactic agent by spermatozoa: role of complement and regulation by seminal plasma factors.

The interactions of polymorphonuclear leukocytes, spermatozoa, seminal plasma, and serum have been examined in an in vitro leukocyte chemotaxis system. Bovine or human spermatozoa have no neutrophil chemotactic activity alone, but generate potent activity when incubated with serum. Generation of this activity requires magnesium, but not calcium ions and is blocked by pre-heating the serum. Chemotactic activity is generated normally in serum deficient in immunoglobulins or C4, but is not produced in serum deficient in C3. Thus, spermatozoa activate complement via the alternative pathway. The chemotactically active agent has been identified as the low m.w. C5 cleavage product (C5a) on the basis of heat stability, gel filtration characteristics, and specific inhibition by anti-serum to C5. The spermatozoal constituents responsible for complement activation are largely heat stable, resistant to diisopropyfluorophosphate and on gel filtration compise a heterogeneous group of large m.w. materials. Bovine seminal plasma has no neutrophil chemotactic activity alone; considerable activity, however, is generated by incubating low, but not high concentrations of seminal plasma with serum. The chemotactic agent produced in serum is C5a. Bovine seminal plasma also contains potent heat labile inhibitors of chemotaxis. Two distinct inhibitors differing in m.w. (50 to 100,000 and 15,000) and heat stability have been isolated. The inhibitors appear to act directly on the neutrophil rather than on the chemotactic factor. Human seminal plasma exhibits slight chemotactic activity alone but does not generate significant additional activity on incubation with serum. In contrast to the inhibitory activity of bovine seminal plasma, the human material contains heat-stable, nondialyzable factors which enhance the neutrophil chemotactic response. These studies document a specific mechanism for the directed migration of polymorphonuclear leukocytes toward spermatozoa. The findings may provide an explanation for the observed in vivo leukocyte accumulation in the female genital tract in association with spermatozoa and seminal plasma. The biologic significance of this phenomenon relates to potential leukocyte-spermatozoa interaction which may influence the likelihood of fertilization.
Clinical Outcomes and Failure Rates of Osteochondral Allograft Transplantation in the Knee: A Systematic Review

Background: Cartilage lesions are a significant cause of morbidity and impaired knee function; however, cartilage repair procedures have failed to reproduce native cartilage to date. Thus, osteochondral allograft (OCA) transplantation represents a 1-step procedure to repair large chondral defects without the donor site morbidity of osteochondral autograft transplantation. Purpose: To perform a systematic review of clinical outcomes and failure rates after OCA transplantation in the knee at a minimum mean 2 years’ follow-up. Study Design: Systematic review; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: A systematic review of the literature regarding the existing evidence for clinical outcomes and failure rates of OCA transplantation in the knee joint was performed using the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PubMed, and MEDLINE from studies published between 1980 and 2017. Inclusion criteria were as follows: clinical outcomes and failure rates of OCAs for the treatment of chondral defects in the knee joint, English language, mean follow-up of 2 years and minimum follow-up of 18 months, minimum study size of 20 patients, and human studies. The methodological quality of each study was assessed using a modified version of the Coleman methodology score. Results: The systematic search identified 19 studies with a total of 1036 patients. The mean 5-year survival rate across the studies included in this review was 86.7% (range, 64.1%-100.0%), while the mean 10-year survival rate was 78.7% (range, 39.0%-93.0%). The mean survival rate was 72.8% at 15 years (range, 55.8%-84.0%) and 67.5% at 20 years (range, 66.0%-69.0%). The weighted mean patient age was 31.5 years (range, 10-82 years), and the weighted mean follow-up was 8.7 years (range, 2-32 years). The following outcome measures showed significant improvement from preoperatively to postoperatively: d’Aubigné-Postel, International Knee Documentation Committee, Knee Society function, and Lysholm scores. The weighted mean reoperation rate was 30.2% (range, 0%-63%). The weighted mean failure rate was 18.2% (range, 0%-31%). Of note, revision cases, patellar lesions, and bipolar lesions demonstrated worse survival rates. Conclusion: Improved patient-reported outcomes can be expected after OCA transplantation, with a survival rate of 78.7% at 10 years. Revision cases, patellar lesions, and bipolar lesions were associated with worse survival rates; therefore, utilization of the most appropriate index cartilage restoration procedure and proper patient selection are key to improving results.
Lip reading using optical flow and support vector machines

This paper presents a lip reading technique to classify the discrete utterances without evaluating the acoustic signals. The reported technique analysis the video data of lip motions by computing the optical flow (OF). The statistical properties of the vertical OF component were used to form the feature vectors for training the support vector machines (SVM) classifier. The impact of the variation in speed/velocity of speaking on the performance of the system was minimized by removing the zero energy frames and normalizing the number of frames by interpolation. The resulting system is an efficient visual viseme classifier with high accuracy (95.9%), specificity (98.1%) and sensitivity (66.4%). The results of the experiments demonstrate the developed technique is insensitive to inter speaker variations.
Collaborative practice in a global health context: Common themes from developed and developing countries

This paper reports on a study commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) to explore common themes of collaborative practice. The WHO requested global clarification of (1) the nature of collaborative practice, (2) its perceived importance, and (3) strategies for systematizing collaborative practice throughout national health systems. While there are many interpretations of collaborative practice around the world, there was a need to ascertain common underlying themes that illustrate good practice in both developed and developing countries to inform an international Framework for Action. A multiple case study design was used to examine collaborative practice in primary health care and commonalities across countries. Staff at each of WHO's six regional offices invited key informants in one or two primary health care organizations where collaborative practice was the model of care to complete case studies. Ten case studies were received from ten different countries, representing all six WHO regions. The results are described according to the study's three areas of focus: describing collaborative practice globally, the shared importance of collaborative practice, and systematizing collaborative practice. Collaborative practice requires a strong political framework that encourages interprofessional education and teamworking. Shared governance models and enabling legislation are required. At a practical level, interprofessional health care teams function most efficiently with shared clinical pathways and a common patient record.
Integration of active optical components

Integration of active optical components typically serves five goals: enhanced performance, smaller space, lower power dissipation, higher reliability, and lower cost. We are manufacturing widely tunable laser diodes with an integrated high speed electro absorption modulator for metro and all-optical switching applications. The monolithic integration combines the functions of high power laser light generation, wavelength tuning over the entire C-band, and high speed signal modulation in a single chip. The laser section of the chip contains two sampled grating DBRs with a gain and a phase section between them. The emission wavelength is tuned by current injection into the waveguide layers of the DBR and phase sections. The laser light passes through an integrated optical amplifier before reaching the modulator section on the chip. The amplifier boosts the cw output power of the laser and provides a convenient way of power leveling. The modulator is based on the Franz-Keldysh effect for a wide band of operation. The common waveguide through all sections minimizes optical coupling losses. The packaging of the monolithically integrated chip is much simpler compared to a discrete or hybrid solution using a laser chip, an SOA, and an external modulator. Since only one optical fiber coupling is required, the overall packaging cost of the transmitter module is largely reduced. Error free transmission at 2.5Gbit/s over 200km of standard single mode fiber is obtained with less than 1dB of dispersion penalty.
Direct feedback topology for reducing residual voltage in functional electrical stimulation

Implantable functional electric stimulation (FES) systems are currently being investigated as treatment for some types of neural dysfunctions. For this purpose, several neural stimulator systems on a chip (SOCs) have been proposed for: deep brain stimulation (DBS), cochlear prosthesis, visual prosthesis (VP), and artificial limbs control. Two major and related issues in FES are the charge balancing and Faradaic currents. When stimulation currents have DC components, or if residual voltage persists accross electrodes, the accumulated electronic charge is converted into ionic species, thus feeding irreversible Faradaic reactions that damage electrodes and necrose tissues. This article introduces circuit solutions for balancing functional electrical stimulation whilst reducing residual voltages at electrodes. The circuit consists of four blocks: an ultra-low-power charge-redistribution digital-to-analog converter (CR-DAC), a feedback mechanism, a high-voltage H-bridge and a digital controller. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed topology a circuit is being designed in CMOS UMC 130nm technology, and simulation results suggest that proposed technique allows to keep electrode voltage under safe limits, smaller than 28mV.
Planar quark scattering at strong coupling and universality

We discuss scattering of fundamental matter in the planar and strong coupling limit via the AdS/CFT correspondence, generalizing the recently proposed calculation for adjoint matter due to Alday and Maldacena \cite{Alday:2007hr}. Color decomposition of quark amplitudes is a key property allowing to repeat the procedure in the case of fundamental matter and to derive the relation of these strong coupling amplitudes to minimal area problems. We present the results for two different D3−D7 systems, one is only conformal in the planar limit and the other is exactly conformal. Our results suggest a universal behavior of scattering amplitudes at strong coupling and planar limit (both for gluons and quarks).
Research on the Graft Copolymerization of EH-lignin with acrylamide

Lignin isolated from enzymatic hydrolyzed cornstalks (EH-lignin) is a renewable natural polymer noted for its versatility and applicability in a variety of uses. Graft copolymerization of EH-lignin with acrylamide (AM) and the application of this copolymer as a flocculant in dye wastewater treatment were studied in this article. The influences of some factors on yield of copolymer and the grafting ratio were investigated and the structure of EH-lignin/AM graft copolymer was characterized by FT-IR. According to the yield and the grafting ratio, the optimum conditions for graft copolymerization were as follows: initiator K2S2O8-Na2S2O3 with a quantity 3 wt% of EH-lignin, mass ratio of AM to EH-lignin was 2~3, reaction time 4h and temperature at 50℃. It was found that the absorption capacity of graft copolymer to two azo-dyes was enhanced with the increase of grafting ratio. Furthermore, the residue concentration of EH-lignin/AM graft copolymer remained in the supernatant after flocculation was much lower than that of pure EH-lignin.
Security-Related stress - a Neglected Construct in Information Systems stress literature

Means of information security, such as security policies or security education, training, and awareness programs, are suggested to enhance employees’ information security behavior. We posit that at the same time, exactly those security measures may have a negative effect, if employees perceive them, for instance, as difficult to understand, time-consuming, or an invasion of their privacy. However, focusing on pure technostress, information systems (IS) research so far has neglected stress induced by means of information security, although, there is first insight on the relevance of securityrelated stress for IS management. Therefore, in this research-in-progress, we employ the person-environment (PE) fit model to build on as well as expand the existing IS stress literature. We thereby develop a first comprehensive framework of security-related stress, which considers non-technological aspects of security-related stress of employees’ work, personal, and social environment. In doing so, we propose a multidimensional second-order construct and conceptualize how security-related stress affects employees’ productivity directly and indirectly by promoting their perceived level of technostress. The results of our study should help IS management to anticipate and consider the downfalls of information security requirements when formulating companies’ information security measurements, and thus limit the “dark side” of information security.
The Resonator Impedance Model of Surface Roughness Applied to the LCLS Parameters

The resonator impedance model of surface roughness in a cylindrical beam tube, derived in Ref. 1, is compared to the inductive impedance model of Ref. 2. It is shown that for long, smooth bunches the two models both give an inductive response, that the effective inductance per length is proportional to the corrugation depth over the beam pipe radius, and that the absolute results also are comparable. For a non-smooth bunch shape, such as is found in the undulator region of the LCLS, however, the inductive impedance model is no longer valid; and the resonator model gives a non-inductive response, with the induced energy spread decreasing much more slowly with increasing bunch length than for a smooth distribution. When applied to the actual bunch shape and parameters in the LCLS, the resonator model predicts that, to remain within tolerances for induced energy spread, the beam tube roughness must be kept to ~10 nm. Further calculations suggest, however, that if the period-to-depth aspect ratio of the surface features is large, (as has been found in recent measurements of polished beam tube surfaces), then the wake field effect may be greatly suppressed, and the roughness tolerance greatly increased.
The Many Faces of Leadership.

Charlotte Danielson Teachers can find a wealth of opportunities to extend their influence beyond their own classrooms to their teaching teams, schools, and districts. In every good school, there are teachers whose vision extends beyond their own classrooms—even beyond their own teams or departments. Such teachers recognize that students' school experiences depend not only on interaction with individual teachers, but also on the complex systems in place throughout the school and district. This awareness prompts these teachers to want to influence change. They experience professional restlessness—what some have called the “leadership itch. ” Sometimes on their own initiative and sometimes within a more formal structure, these professionals find a variety of ways to exercise teacher leadership.
The Powdering Process with a Set of Ceramic Mills for Green Tea Promoted Catechin Extraction and the ROS Inhibition Effect

For serving green tea, there are two prominent methods: steeping the leaf or the powdered leaf (matcha style) in hot water. The purpose of the present study was to reveal chemical and functional differences before and after the powdering process of green tea leaf, since powdered green tea may contribute to expanding the functionality because of the different ingesting style. In this study, we revealed that the powdering process with a ceramic mill and stirring in hot water increased the average extracted concentration of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) by more than three times compared with that in leaf tea using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and liquid chromatography–tandem mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analyses. Moreover, powdered green tea has a higher inhibition effect of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in vitro compared with the same amount of leaf tea. Our data suggest that powdered green tea might have a different function from leaf tea due to the higher catechin contents and particles.
Precise hand segmentation from a single depth image

We propose a new approach to segmenting a hand accurately from a single depth image. Given a depth image, we extract first a rough hand region of interest (RoI) including a hand and a part of an arm. Then, the RoI is partitioned into triangles by using a constrained Delaunay triangulation (CDT) approach from which hand segmentation proposals are generated. Each segmentation proposal is evaluated by a shallow convolutional neural network (CNN) which is trained as a regression function to predict a confidence score for each proposal. Finally, the segmentation proposal with the highest confidence score is selected as our hand segmentation result. To evaluate the effectiveness of our approach, we use a set of real data containing more than 370,000 frames of hand depth images collected from 40 subjects with large variations in pose, orientation and sensing distance. Compared with segmentation results achieved by a random decision forest (RDF) based approach, our approach achieves much higher accuracy.
The actin regulator zyxin reinforces airway smooth muscle and accumulates in airways of fatal asthmatics

Bronchospasm induced in non-asthmatic human subjects can be easily reversed by a deep inspiration (DI) whereas bronchospasm that occurs spontaneously in asthmatic subjects cannot. This physiological effect of a DI has been attributed to the manner in which a DI causes airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells to stretch, but underlying molecular mechanisms–and their failure in asthma–remain obscure. Using cells and tissues from wild type and zyxin-/- mice we report responses to a transient stretch of physiologic magnitude and duration. At the level of the cytoskeleton, zyxin facilitated repair at sites of stress fiber fragmentation. At the level of the isolated ASM cell, zyxin facilitated recovery of contractile force. Finally, at the level of the small airway embedded with a precision cut lung slice, zyxin slowed airway dilation. Thus, at each level zyxin stabilized ASM structure and contractile properties at current muscle length. Furthermore, when we examined tissue samples from humans who died as the result of an asthma attack, we found increased accumulation of zyxin compared with non-asthmatics and asthmatics who died of other causes. Together, these data suggest a biophysical role for zyxin in fatal asthma.
A Compound Model for TCP Connection Arrivals

We propose a two level model for TCP connection arrivals in local area networks. The first level are user sessions whose arrival is time-varying Poisson. The second level are connections within a user session. Their number and mean interarrival are independent and biPareto across user session. The interarrivals within a user session are Weibull, and across all users are correlated Weibull. Our model has a small number of parameters which are inferred from real traffic collected a a firewall. We show that traffic synthesized with our model closely characterizes the original data.
Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human–robot interaction

Social intelligence in robots has a quite recent history in artificial intelligence and robotics. However, it has become increasingly apparent that social and interactive skills are necessary requirements in many application areas and contexts where robots need to interact and collaborate with other robots or humans. Research on human–robot interaction (HRI) poses many challenges regarding the nature of interactivity and ‘social behaviour’ in robot and humans. The first part of this paper addresses dimensions of HRI, discussing requirements on social skills for robots and introducing the conceptual space of HRI studies. In order to illustrate these concepts, two examples of HRI research are presented. First, research is surveyed which investigates the development of a cognitive robot companion. The aim of this work is to develop social rules for robot behaviour (a ‘robotiquette’) that is comfortable and acceptable to humans. Second, robots are discussed as possible educational or therapeutic toys for children with autism. The concept of interactive emergence in human–child interactions is highlighted. Different types of play among children are discussed in the light of their potential investigation in human–robot experiments. The paper concludes by examining different paradigms regarding ‘social relationships’ of robots and people interacting with them.