Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Proactive eavesdropping via cognitive jamming in fading channels

There is a growing need for government agencies to monitor suspicious communication links to prevent crimes and terror attacks. In this paper, we study a legitimate surveillance scenario where a legitimate monitor aims to intercept the suspicious communication between a transmitter and a receiver over fading channels. The legitimate monitor can eavesdrop (decode) the information of the suspicious link only when its achievable data rate is no smaller than that at the suspicious receiver. In practice, the legitimate eavesdropping is challenging, especially when the legitimate monitor is far from the suspicious transmitter. To overcome this issue, we propose a new approach, namely proactive eavesdropping via cognitive jamming, in which the legitimate monitor purposely jams the receiver and changes the suspicious communication (e.g., to a smaller data rate) in order to overhear easily. In particular, we consider delay-sensitive and delay-insensitive applications for the suspicious transmission, under which the legitimate monitor maximizes the eavesdropping non-outage probability and the relative eavesdropping rate, respectively, by optimizing its jamming power allocation over different fading states subject to an average power constraint. We present efficient algorithms for optimally solving the formulated problems. Numerical results show that thanks to the cognitive jamming, the proposed proactive eavesdropping scheme greatly outperforms the conventional passive eavesdropping without jamming.
Context-aware query recommendation by learning high-order relation in query logs

Query recommendation has been widely used in modern search engines. Recently, several context-aware methods have been proposed to improve the accuracy of recommendation by mining query sequence patterns from query sessions. However, the existing methods usually do not address the ambiguity of queries explicitly and often suffer from the sparsity of the training data. In this paper, we propose a novel context-aware query recommendation approach by modeling the high-order relation between queries and clicks in query log, which captures users' latent search intents. Empirical experiment results demonstrate that our approach outperforms the baseline methods in providing high quality recommendations for ambiguous queries.
How to limit false positives in environmental DNA and metabarcoding?

Environmental DNA (eDNA) and metabarcoding are boosting our ability to acquire data on species distribution in a variety of ecosystems. Nevertheless, as most of sampling approaches, eDNA is not perfect. It can fail to detect species that are actually present, and even false positives are possible: a species may be apparently detected in areas where it is actually absent. Controlling false positives remains a main challenge for eDNA analyses: in this issue of Molecular Ecology Resources, Lahoz‐Monfort et al. ( ) test the performance of multiple statistical modelling approaches to estimate the rate of detection and false positives from eDNA data. Here, we discuss the importance of controlling for false detection from early steps of eDNA analyses (laboratory, bioinformatics), to improve the quality of results and allow an efficient use of the site occupancy‐detection modelling (SODM) framework for limiting false presences in eDNA analysis.
Quantification of the Inert Chemical Oxygen Demand of Raw Wastewater and Evaluation of Soluble Microbial Product Production in Demo‐Scale Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactors under Different Operational Conditions

This paper investigates the production of soluble microbial products (SMPs) in demonstration‐scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors operated under different conditions and fed with raw wastewater. The results showed that 9.2 ± 1.3% of the influent soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) could be considered inert to anaerobic treatment and that the amount of COD produced by biomass varied from 30 to 70 mg·L −1, accounting for 45 to 63% of the soluble effluent COD. The accumulation of SMP appeared to be dependent on the hydraulic retention time (HRT) applied to the reactors, with a larger accumulation of SMP observed at the lowest HRT (5 hours); this may have been due to stress conditions caused by high upflow velocity (1.1 m·h −1). In terms of residual COD characterization, ultrafiltration results showed that higher amounts of high molecular weight compounds were found when HRT was the lowest (5 hours), and that the molecular weight distribution depended on the operational condition of the reactors. Biodegradability tests showed that the low and high molecular weight SMPs were only partially degraded anaerobically (10 to 60%) and that the high molecular weight SMPs were difficult to degrade aerobically.
Stock Price Sensitivity to Dividend Changes

This paper examines the stock price sensitivity to dividend changes. The Dividend Signaling, the Free-Cash-Flow, the Maturity and the Catering Hypotheses all predict an average positive (negative) reaction to announcement of a dividend increase (decrease). However, these hypotheses have difierent cross-sectional predictions. This paper documents that the positive stock price response to dividend increases is due primarily to the signaling of higher future earnings, to the managers catering to the time-varying premium assigned by the market to dividend paying stocks, and partially to the reduction of agency problems. On the contrary, the negative price response to dividend decreases is mainly due to the transition from a mature life-cycle stage to a decline stage with higher systematic risk, as maintained by the Maturity Hypothesis.
Delivery of Antibody Mimics into Mammalian Cells via Anthrax Toxin Protective Antigen

Antibody mimics have significant scientific and therapeutic utility for the disruption of protein–protein interactions inside cells; however, their delivery to the cell cytosol remains a major challenge. Here we show that protective antigen (PA), a component of anthrax toxin, efficiently transports commonly used antibody mimics to the cytosol of mammalian cells when conjugated to the N‐terminal domain of LF (LFN). In contrast, a cell‐penetrating peptide (CPP) was not able to deliver any of these antibody mimics into the cell cytosol. The refolding and binding of a transported tandem monobody to Bcr‐Abl (its protein target) in chronic myeloid leukemia cells were confirmed by co‐immunoprecipitation. We also observed inhibition of Bcr‐Abl kinase activity and induction of apoptosis caused by the monobody. In a separate case, we show disruption of key interactions in the MAPK signaling pathway after PA‐mediated delivery of an affibody binder that targets hRaf‐1. We show for the first time that PA can deliver bioactive antibody mimics to disrupt intracellular protein–protein interactions. This technology adds a useful tool to expand the applications of these modern agents to the intracellular milieu.
Relationship between TQM Dimensions and Organizational Performance

The maintenance and enhancement of organizational performance is a challenge for firms as they always try to sustain competitive advantage. This challenge may be convened through the principles of total quality management (TQM). The organizations ought to understand what dimensions of quality management system are more important for performance enhancement. This paper focuses on four TQM dimensions; customer focus, continuous improvement, employee involvement, top management support to identify the most critical quality dimensions as predictor of organizational performance. The results are based on the empirical data collected from a self-administrative survey from 90 organizations (270 managers) of textile sector in Pakistan. Multiple linear regression results reveal that continuous improvement and employee involvement are the most critical dimensions for predicting organizational performance. Whereas, customer focus and top management support has no statistical significance for predicting the performance. The research poses future directions along with implications for theory and practitioners.
Search-based duplicate defect detection: An industrial experience

Duplicate defects put extra overheads on software organizations, as the cost and effort of managing duplicate defects are mainly redundant. Due to the use of natural language and various ways to describe a defect, it is usually hard to investigate duplicate defects automatically. This problem is more severe in large software organizations with huge defect repositories and massive number of defect reporters. Ideally, an efficient tool should prevent duplicate reports from reaching developers by automatically detecting and/or filtering duplicates. It also should be able to offer defect triagers a list of top-N similar bug reports and allow them to compare the similarity of incoming bug reports with the suggested duplicates. This demand has motivated us to design and develop a search-based duplicate bug detection framework at BlackBerry. The approach follows a generalized process model to evaluate and tune the performance of the system in a systematic way. We have applied the framework on software projects at BlackBerry, in addition to the Mozilla defect repository. The experimental results exhibit the performance of the developed framework and highlight the high impact of parameter tuning on its performance.
Unfractionated or Low-Molecular Weight Heparin for the Treatment of Cerebral Venous Thrombosis

Background and Purpose— There is no consensus whether to use unfractionated heparin or low-molecular weight heparin for the treatment of cerebral venous thrombosis. We examined the effect on clinical outcome of each type of heparin. Methods— A nonrandomized comparison of a prospective cohort study (the International Study on Cerebral Vein and Dural Sinus Thrombosis) of 624 patients with cerebral venous thrombosis. Patients not treated with heparin (n=107) and those who sequentially received both types of heparin (n=99) were excluded from the primary analysis. The latter were included in a secondary analysis, allocated according to the type of heparin given first. The primary end point was functional independency at 6 months (modified Rankin scale score ≤2). Secondary end points were complete recovery (modified Rankin scale score 0 to 1), mortality, and new intracranial hemorrhages. Results— A total of 119 patients received low-molecular weight heparin (28%) and 302 received unfractionated heparin (72%). Significantly more patients treated with low-molecular weight heparin were functionally independent after 6 months, both in univariate analysis (odds ratio, 2.1; CI, 1.0 to 4.2) and after adjustment for prognostic factors and imbalances (odds ratio, 2.4; CI, 1.0 to 5.7). In the secondary analysis, there was a similar, nonsignificant trend (odds ratio, 1.7; CI, 0.80 to 3.6). Low-molecular weight heparin was associated with less new intracerebral hemorrhages (adjusted odds ratio, 0.29; CI, 0.07 to 1.3), especially in patients with intracerebral lesions at baseline (adjusted odds ratio, 0.19; CI, 0.04 to 0.99). There was no difference in complete recovery and mortality. Conclusions— This nonrandomized study in patients with cerebral venous thrombosis suggests a better efficacy and safety of low-molecular weight heparin over unfractionated heparin. Low-molecular weight heparin seems preferable above unfractionated heparin for the initial treatment of cerebral venous thrombosis.
Vascular surgery critical care: Perioperative cardiac optimization to improve survival

Objective:To review the literature on perioperative cardiac management of patients who are scheduled to undergo vascular surgery. Data Source:MEDLINE- and PubMed-based review of literature published from 1965 to 2005. Conclusions:Perioperative cardiac events (myocardial infarction, heart failure) remain the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in vascular surgery patients. Existing guidelines allow physicians to cost-effectively streamline preoperative cardiac risk assessment and stratification. Perioperative optimization of volume status and cardiac function and the routine use of perioperative beta-blockers can significantly improve outcomes after major vascular surgery. Perioperative addition of statins to beta-blockers in high-risk patients undergoing vascular surgery merits further evaluation. Preoperative coronary revascularization should be restricted to patients with unstable cardiac symptoms.
Comparison of macrophage responses to oxidized low-density lipoprotein and macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF or CSF-1).

Modification of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), for example by oxidation, could be involved in foam cell formation and proliferation observed in atherosclerotic lesions. Macrophage colony-stimulating factor (CSF-1 or M-CSF) has been implicated in foam cell development. It has been reported previously that oxidized LDL (ox.LDL) and CSF-1 synergistically stimulate DNA synthesis in murine bone-marrow-derived macrophages (BMM). The critical signal-transduction cascades responsible for the proliferative response to ox.LDL, as well as their relationship to those mediating CSF-1 action, are unknown. We report here that ox.LDL stimulated extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK)-1, ERK-2 and phosphoinositide 3-kinase activities in BMM but to a weaker extent than optimal CSF-1 concentrations at the time points examined. Inhibitor studies suggested at least a partial role for these kinases, as well as p70 S6-kinase, in ox.LDL-induced macrophage survival and DNA synthesis. For the DNA synthesis response to CSF-1, the degree of inhibition by PD98059, wortmannin and rapamycin was significant at low CSF-1 concentrations but was reduced as the CSF-1 dose increased. Using BMM from CSF-1-deficient mice (op/op) and a neutralizing antibody approach, we found no evidence for an essential role for endogenous CSF-1 in ox.LDL-mediated survival or DNA synthesis; likewise, with the same approaches, no evidence was obtained for an essential role for endogenous granulocyte/macrophage-CSF in ox.LDL-mediated macrophage survival and, in contrast with the literature, ox.LDL-induced macrophage DNA synthesis.
Transformational Learners: Transformational Teachers

Transformational learning, according to Mezirow (1981), involves transforming taken-for-granted frames of reference into more discriminating, flexible 'habits of mind'. In teacher education, transformative learning impacts on the development of students' action theories, self-efficacy and professional attributes. Although considered imperative to reflective practice, not all students take a transformative, 'double-loop' approach to learning; reflexive and adaptive learning are also identifiable. This paper discusses the integration of the three learning approaches in the conceptualisation of LEARnT Theory (Jones, 2008), whereby Learning evolves as: Efficacy informs Actions, and Reflection impacts Theory building. LEARnT integrates reflexive, adaptive and transformative approaches. In Reflexive approaches, learning is restricted, action theories remain covert, efficacy remains stable and actions are automated. In Adaptive learning, reflection is 'single-loop' in nature; it involves the modification of concepts whilst maintaining existing schema; theories of action, efficacy and behaviours may alter. LEARnT theory provides a challenging paradigm for a larger study into teacher education student learning approaches.
A gyroscope-based inverted pendulum with application to posture stabilization of bicycle vehicle

This paper presents a new inverted pendulum system, whose core stabilizing device is designed based on gyroscopic precession effect. Traditional inverted pendulum system, such as inertia wheel pendulum, gains the required balance torque through the control over the acceleration and deceleration of inertia wheel. Considering the issues of the inefficiency, inflexibility and large capability required for motor driver of the traditional inverted pendulum system, the feature of the new inverted pendulum system possesses the advantages of simple structure, quick response, and high efficiency in control. The gyroscopic precession effect of high-speed gyroscopic rotor effectively provides a large torque to realize stable equilibrium of the new inverted pendulum system. Non-disturbance and disturbance balance experiments of the physical prototype and application of the stabilizing device to posture stabilization of bicycle vehicle are presented in this paper. The results showed that the stabilizing device responded quickly and realized stable equilibrium of the new inverted pendulum system efficiently. Besides, the consequence of application validated that the stabilizing device owns a strong anti-interference ability and a good applicability.
High-altitude exposure of three weeks duration increases lung diffusing capacity in humans.

BACKGROUND high-altitude adaptation leads to progressive increase in arterial Pa(O2). In addition to increased ventilation, better arterial oxygenation may reflect improvements in lung gas exchange. Previous investigations reveal alterations at the alveolar-capillary barrier indicative of decreased resistance to gas exchange with prolonged hypoxia adaptation, but how quickly this occurs is unknown. Carbon monoxide lung diffusing capacity and its major determinants, hemoglobin, alveolar volume, pulmonary capillary blood volume, and alveolar-capillary membrane diffusion, have never been examined with early high-altitude adaptation. METHODS AND RESULTS lung diffusion was measured in 33 healthy lowlanders at sea level (Milan, Italy) and at Mount Everest South Base Camp (5,400 m) after a 9-day trek and 2-wk residence at 5,400 m. Measurements were adjusted for hemoglobin and inspired oxygen. Subjects with mountain sickness were excluded. After 2 wk at 5,400 m, hemoglobin oxygen saturation increased from 77.2 ± 6.0 to 85.3 ± 3.6%. Compared with sea level, there were increases in hemoglobin, lung diffusing capacity, membrane diffusion, and alveolar volume from 14.2 ± 1.2 to 17.2 ± 1.8 g/dl (P < 0.01), from 23.6 ± 4.4 to 25.1 ± 5.3 ml·min(-1)·mmHg(-1) (P < 0.0303), 63 ± 34 to 102 ± 65 ml·min(-1)·mmHg(-1) (P < 0.01), and 5.6 ± 1.0 to 6.3 ± 1.1 liters (P < 0.01), respectively. Pulmonary capillary blood volume was unchanged. Membrane diffusion normalized for alveolar volume was 10.9 ± 5.2 at sea level rising to 16.0 ± 9.2 ml·min(-1)·mmHg(-1)·l(-1) (P < 0.01) at 5,400 m. CONCLUSIONS at high altitude, lung diffusing capacity improves with acclimatization due to increases of hemoglobin, alveolar volume, and membrane diffusion. Reduction in alveolar-capillary barrier resistance is possibly mediated by an increase of sympathetic tone and can develop in 3 wk.
Longitudinal Effects of Ketamine on Dendritic Architecture In Vivo in the Mouse Medial Frontal Cortex123

Abstract A single subanesthetic dose of ketamine, an NMDA receptor antagonist, leads to fast-acting antidepressant effects. In rodent models, systemic ketamine is associated with higher dendritic spine density in the prefrontal cortex, reflecting structural remodeling that may underlie the behavioral changes. However, turnover of dendritic spines is a dynamic process in vivo, and the longitudinal effects of ketamine on structural plasticity remain unclear. The purpose of the current study is to use subcellular resolution optical imaging to determine the time course of dendritic alterations in vivo following systemic ketamine administration in mice. We used two-photon microscopy to visualize repeatedly the same set of dendritic branches in the mouse medial frontal cortex (MFC) before and after a single injection of ketamine or saline. Compared to controls, ketamine-injected mice had higher dendritic spine density in MFC for up to 2 weeks. This prolonged increase in spine density was driven by an elevated spine formation rate, and not by changes in the spine elimination rate. A fraction of the new spines following ketamine injection was persistent, which is indicative of functional synapses. In a few cases, we also observed retraction of distal apical tuft branches on the day immediately after ketamine administration. These results indicate that following systemic ketamine administration, certain dendritic inputs in MFC are removed immediately, while others are added gradually. These dynamic structural modifications are consistent with a model of ketamine action in which the net effect is a rebalancing of synaptic inputs received by frontal cortical neurons.
Experimental study of locally loaded timber in compression perpendicular to the grain

ABSTRACT Since the test method for compression strength perpendicular to the grain was changed from a partial area to a full area loading test, strength values for softwood in EN 338 were significantly reduced. Consequently, a change in Eurocode 5 was necessary to ensure an equivalent resistance level in compression perpendicular to the grain. Experimental results are presented with wood in compression perpendicular to the grain. A numerical model is also presented. This model was used to establish a rule of calculation proposed at the P21A-Committee of the technical and construction equipment standardization office (BNTEC).
A Nonparametric Adaptive Tracking Algorithm Based on Multiple Feature Distributions

This paper presents an object tracking framework based on the mean-shift algorithm, which is a nonparametric technique that uses statistical color distribution of objects. Tracking objects through highly similar-colored background is one of the problems that need to be addressed. In various cases where object and background color distributions are very similar, the color distribution obtained from single frame alone is not sufficient to track objects reliably. To deal with this problem, the proposed algorithm utilizes an adaptive statistical background and foreground modeling to detect the change due to motion using kernel density estimation techniques based on multiple recent frames. The use of multiple frames supplies more information than single frame and thus it provides more accurate modeling of both background and foreground. In addition to color distribution, this statistical multiple frame-based motion representation is integrated into a modified mean-shift algorithm to create more robust object tracking framework. The use of motion distribution provides additional discriminative power to the framework. The superior performance with quantitative results of the framework has been validated using experiments on synthetic and real sequence of images
Online availability upgrades for parity-based RAIDs through supplementary parity augmentations

In this article, we propose a simple but powerful online availability upgrade mechanism, Supplementary Parity Augmentations(SPA), to address the availability issue in parity-based RAID systems. The basic idea of SPA is to store and update the supplementary parity units on one or a few newly augmented spare disks for online RAID systems in the operational mode, thus achieving the goals of improving the reconstruction performance while tolerating multiple disk failures and latent sector errors simultaneously. By applying the exclusive OR operations appropriately among supplementary parity, full parity, and data units, SPA can reconstruct the data on the failed disks with a fraction of the original overhead that is proportional to the supplementary parity coverage, thus significantly reducing the overhead of data regeneration and decreasing recovery time in parity-based RAID systems. Our extensive trace-driven simulation study shows that SPA can significantly improve the reconstruction performance of the RAID5 and RAID5+0 systems, at an acceptable performance overhead imposed in the operational mode. Moreover, our reliability analytical modeling and sequential Monte-Carlo simulation demonstrate that SPA is consistently more than double the MTTDL of the RAID5 system and improves the reliability of the RAID5+0 system noticeably.