Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The security of individual RSA bits

We study the security of individual bits in an RSA encrypted message E/sub N/(X). We show that given E/sub N/(X), predicting any single bit in x with only a non-negligible advantage over the trivial guessing strategy is (through a polynomial time reduction) as hard as breaking RSA. We briefly discuss a related result for bit security of the discrete logarithm.
Maternal smoking and childhood asthma.

According to a substantial literature, passive smoking by children is associated with an increased incidence of lower respiratory illness and diminished pulmonary function. The relationship between passive smoking and childhood asthma, however, is not clear. Data from the Child Health Supplement to the 1981 National Health Interview Survey were analyzed with information about 4331 children aged 0 to 5 years to study the relationship between maternal smoking and (1) the prevalence of childhood asthma, (1) the likelihood of taking asthma medication, (3) the age of onset of children's asthma, and (4) the number of hospitalizations among children with and without asthma. An odds ratio for asthma of 2.1 was shown by multivariate logistic regressions among children whose mothers smoke 0.5 packs of cigarettes or more per day compared with children of nonsmokers (P = .001). In similar analyses maternal smoking of 0.5 packs per day was identified as an independent risk for children's use of asthma medications (odds ratio 4.6, P = .0006) and for asthma developing in the first year of life (odds ratio 2.6, P = .0006). Maternal smoking is also associated with increased numbers of hospitalizations by its association with an increased risk of asthma as well as by contributing to hospitalizations independently of a child having asthma. Among children with asthma, however, maternal smoking is not associated with increased numbers of hospitalizations. It was concluded that maternal smoking is associated with higher rates of asthma, an increased likelihood of using asthma medications, and an earlier onset of the disease. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Exploration of brand sacralization among the young adult consumers in the context of emerging Asian market

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to uncover various factors that make the young consumers in emerging Asian market devotees of brands and sacrilize brands giving rise to a phenomenon called brand sacralization where the individual consumer considers brand as sacred as religion. Another objective of this research was to investigate the acculturation process taking place among the young adult consumers in emerging Asian market. Design/methodology/approach – Based on prior literature review, the concept of brand sacralization has been defined to bring theoretical sensitivity. Grounded theory method has been used to collect, analyze and interpret the data collected through semi-structured depth interviews. Findings – Data analysis reveals various underlying dimensions of brand sacralization and various actionable antecedents and consequence of brand sacralization. Originality/value – Value of the article lies in developing a grounded theory framework for brand sacralization that can guide the marketers.
High‐resolution ultrasonography of the carpal tunnel.

Twenty‐eight wrists of 25 patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and 28 wrists of 14 normal control subjects were studied with high‐frequency real‐time ultrasonography. Three general findings could be observed in CTS, regardless of its cause: swelling of the median nerve at the entrance of the carpal tunnel; flattening of the median nerve in the distal carpal tunnel; and increased palmar flexion of the transverse carpal ligament. Quantitative analysis proved these findings to be significant. We conclude that high‐resolution sonography is able to diagnose median nerve compression in the carpal tunnel syndrome and to detect some of its potential causes.
Constraints and opportunities in cage aquaculture in Ghana.

May 1, 2012 The CRSP will not be distributing this publication. Copies may be obtained by writing to the authors. This study was conducted to identify why the overall contribution of the aquaculture industry to local fish production in Ghana is low (<1%) although cage aquaculture has a potential to increase production. We administered 106 questionnaires to six respondent groups (current cage fish farmers, potential adopters of cage aquaculture, farmers who have abandoned cage aquaculture, Fisheries Commission, regional and district fisheries officers, and financial institutions) to obtain insight into the constraints in cage aquaculture as well as opportunities that can be exploited to promote cage aquaculture adoption. For the purpose of this study, potential adopters are individuals who have fish-related livelihoods including fishermen, pond-based fish farmers and fish traders. We also interviewed key informants in relevant government institutions. Preliminary results indicate that lack of funds and lack of government extension services are the main constraints in cage aquaculture in Ghana. Lack of funds manifests in farmers’ inability to afford quality floating feed and could explain low production levels of current cage farmers, although most (95%) suggested they could market their fish if they increased production. Lack of funds also accounted for the inability of potential adopters and farmers who have abandoned cage aquaculture to start or continue cage aquaculture respectively. Major opportunities identified include 1) a high interest among potential adopters (97%) to start cage aquaculture and farmers who have abandoned cage aquaculture (100%) to resume if constraints are removed, 2) development of a feed production plant in Ghana by a private enterprise, 3) willingness of some financial institutions to provide loans for cage farmers, and 4) a number of government initiatives to promote cage aquaculture. Our preliminary recommendations are that the Fisheries Publication Number: CRSP Research Report 11-292 Constraints and Opportunities in Cage Aquaculture in Ghana Gifty Anane-Taabeah1, Emmanuel A. Frimpong1*, Stephen Amisah2, and Nelson Agbo2 1Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences Blacksburg VA 24061 2Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Department of Fisheries and Watershed Management, Ghana Corresponding author: frimp@vt.edu
The effects of 24‐h exposure to carbaryl or atrazine on the locomotor performance and overwinter growth and survival of juvenile spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum)

Understanding the effects of pesticide exposure on organisms throughout their life cycle is critical to predict population‐level effects. For many taxa, including amphibians, juveniles are the main dispersal stage and are disproportionally important to population persistence when compared with other life stages. In the present study, we examined the effects of a single 24‐h exposure to the insecticide carbaryl or the herbicide atrazine on locomotor performance (endurance, distance traveled, speed, and fatigue) in the laboratory and terrestrial growth and survival through overwintering in field enclosures using recent metamorphs of spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum). We found that neither atrazine nor carbaryl impacted endurance, but fatigue increased with carbaryl exposure, which could leave salamanders less able to escape repeated attacks by predators. Terrestrial growth and overwinter survival were not affected by short‐term exposure to carbaryl or atrazine, suggesting that when individuals can overcome acute effects, no long‐term consequences result for the endpoints measured. Environ Toxicol Chem 2014;33:548–552. © 2013 SETAC
Financial Reforms and Corporate Financing Decisions

This study evaluates the impact of financial reforms on the corporate financing decisions of 23 Indian industries for the period 1989-2005. We argue that the impact will be industry-specific because the regulatory and financial framework in which industries operate differs across industries. This paper uses a financial reforms index that will allow a better understanding of the impact of gradual financial reforms on corporate financing decisions. Our findings, obtained using the pooled regression technique, indicate that majority of the industries experienced a negative impact of financial reforms on their leverage ratio; however, a significant difference is observed in the manner these industries reacted to counter this negative impact. The decline in leverage was offset by a corresponding increase in external equity proportion in case of a few industries and by an appreciation in internal capital proportion for the rest. Finally, our results do not support the hypothesis that interest rate is the main route through which the impact of macro-level financial reforms is experienced at the micro-level.
Deep Poetry : Word-Level and Character-Level Language Models for Shakespearean Sonnet Generation

Text generation is a foundational task in natural language processing, forming the core of a diverse set of practical applications ranging from image captioning and text summarization to question answering. However, most of this work has focused on generating prose. We investigate whether deep learning systems can be used to synthesize poetry, in particular Shakespearean-styled works. Previous work on generating Shakespeare prose involved training models exclusively on the word or character level. Here, we implement those previous models for poetry generation and show that models that combine word and character level information, such as a Gated LSTM and a CNN-based LSTM, significantly outperform the baseline word-LSTM and char-LSTM models. Perplexity scores for the two complex models are almost 10 fold better than that for our baselines, and human ratings of the model-generated sonnets reflect this as well. In particular, the sonnets our complex models generate have a coherent meaning and relatively correct meter without blatantly copying Shakespeare’s original works. These results encourage us that models that blend word and character level information would be useful for a variety of tasks outside of just poetry generation and may be crucial in bridging the gap between computer generated and human written text.
Earnings Management, Corporate Governance and the Market Performance of Seasoned Equity Offerings

This paper examines whether pre-issue discretionary current accruals predict post-issue earnings performance and returns. We find evidence suggesting that offering firms borrow future income to manage earnings in pre-issue years and consequently earnings decrease in post-issue year 2. The information content of pre-issue discretionary current accruals is reflected in one-year buy and hold abnormal returns for the rights offering firms. Our paper also examines whether the incidence of earnings management around SEOs depends on corporate governance structures. Our results show that SEO firms that have larger board size have a higher degree of earnings management around SEOs. This result is consistent with Jensen's (1993) view that smaller boards provide more of a controlling function than do larger boards.
The Effects of Employees' Attitude on Excellent Work Quality among Malaysian Government Employees towards Customers' Satisfaction

Spatial proximity to competitors is an important factor in the acceleration of technological change in industrial systems in most developed countries, but does it also apply to Poland? The main objective of the study was to identify the impact of distance from the nearest competitor on the innovative activity of a selected regional industrial system in Poland. Surveys were conducted in the years 2011-13, including a group of 773 industrial companies in the well-development region. Methodical analysis was based on the theory of probability probit modeling. The obtained results showed in the Lower Silesia region differences between spatial proximity of competitors and the innovation activity of industrial system compared to most developed countries.
Analysis of green kiwi fruit (Actinidia deliciosa cv. Hayward) proteinases by two-dimensional zymography and direct identification of zymographic spots by mass spectrometry.

BACKGROUND Proteinases present in kiwi fruits are potentially allergenic enzymes belonging to the papain family of cysteine proteinases. Actinidin is a prominent kiwi enzyme. The study of kiwi proteinases is important for the follow-up of fruit maturation, a deeper insight in the allergenic properties of individual proteins, and the application of kiwi proteinases for meat tenderisation and other industrial purposes. RESULTS Kiwi crude extracts were analysed by two-dimensional zymography on gelatin-containing gels. The digestion by the reactivated proteolytic enzymes after electrophoresis resulted in insights into kiwi proteinases. A mixture of several enzyme isotypes with the same pI but different molecular mass was observed. Clear spots, corresponding to the proteolytic activities, were excised, digested with trypsin, and submitted to MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry for protein identification. The most representative enzyme was actinidin. CONCLUSIONS The innovative achievements of the present study are the: (1) two-dimensional zymographic map of kiwi gelatinases without the need for extensive purification; and (2) direct identification of proteinase isotypes by means of direct MALDI-ToF MS analysis of the zymographic spots.
Exurban land use facilitates human‐black bear conflicts

The distribution and arrangement of habitats and human use areas are important to understanding where and why conflicts with wildlife occur; such data may inform proactive management activities to minimize conflicts. Black bear (Ursus americanus) abundance and the number of human-black bear conflicts are increasing in the northeast United States, particularly in developed areas. We applied a spatial modeling approach to identify landscape variables associated with the spatial intensity of human-black bear conflicts in Connecticut, and predicted where conflicts are most likely in the future. Percent forest cover within 1km 2 and the proportion of such forest classified as edge habitat were the most important factors associated with the location of conflicts. We attribute this result to Connecticut's exurban landscape, typical of New England, in which housing and natural land cover are extensively interspersed, as opposed to housing fragmenting natural land cover. This finding can inform town planners and developers in designing future housing to proactively minimize human-black bear conflicts. We also identified areas at high risk for conflict. The extent of these areas will help determine the scale of bear management units within which different management approaches are applied. 2014 The Wildlife Society.
The views of students outside the United States on the case method of learning

This paper reports the results of a survey of postgraduate students at the University of Ljubljana, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Nanyang Technological University, the National University of Ireland, Galway, the University of Johannesburg, and the University of the South Pacific regarding their views of the case method of learning. Students from 34 different countries speaking 31 different languages are represented in the results. The respondents to our survey tend to prefer lectures in introductory courses and cases when used to supplement lectures or used in advanced upper-level courses. They agree that cases are an effective way to provide them with an organizational context that enhances their understanding of the subject matter and how it is applied in the “real world. ” They were neutral regarding several issues related to grading classroom participation. Our hypothesis that students whose native language is not English have a stronger preference for lectures over cases is not supported by the results of our survey.
Stability of a multicast tree in cumulative layered multicast congestion control

This paper examines the stability of a multicast tree in the context of a cumulative layered multicast system. In particular it addresses the question, "How does the number of links change us the number of users in a group changes when congestion occurs? " A stability index is defined to evaluate and quantify the stability of such a tree. For obtaining the general expression of the stability index, we develop a simple statistical model and extend it to a more general tree-type: the k-ary balanced tree. We show that the k-values of the k-ary balanced tree have trivial impact on the stability of the tree; however, other parameters in the model, e.g., the dependency-degree factor, the link-marking probability and the tree height, can seriously affect it.
Access to public healthcare in South Africa

Access to healthcare is considered to be a basic human right. This paper explores the concept of access to public healthcare, with a particular focus on affordability, accessibility and accommodation. Furthermore, it highlights certain issues around the concept of access in the South African setting, by analysing the results from the General Household Surveys (2002-2009). Affordability of healthcare services and the positioning of the facilities were not identified as being key barriers to access. Instead, other aspects, such as accommodation to the patients' needs and acceptability of services received had greater significance and should be prioritised in terms of any proposed healthcare reforms.
The Langerhans cell: an underestimated cell in atopic disease

Langerhans cells (LC) are very potent antigen‐presenting cells. In atopic disorders such as allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis LC are known to bear IgE surface molecules. IgE‐positive LC can bind allergen and present it to T lymphocytes to induce an allergen‐specific T‐cell response and IgE synthesis. Therefore, IgE‐bearing LC might play an important role in the triggering of the immune system to maintain ongoing IgE synthesis. The importance of the IgE‐bearing LC in atopy has not been assessed but deserves further investigation to find out more about the part played by these cells, not only in the atopic disorders described here but also in others such as gastrointestinal allergy and allergic asthma.
Estimating Trust in Virtual Teams - A Framework based on Sentiment Analysis

: The advance in technology has enabled the emergence of virtual teams. In these teams, people are in different places and possibly over different time zones, making use of computer mediated communication. At the same time distribution brings beneﬁts, there are some challenges as the difﬁculty to develop trust, which is essential for efﬁciency in these teams. In this scenario, trust information could be used to allocate members in a new team and/or, to monitor them during the project execution. In this paper we present an automatic framework for detecting trust between members of global software development teams using sentiment analysis from comments and proﬁle data available in versioning systems. Besides the framework description, we also present its implementation for the GitHub versioning system.
Telephone-Delivered Physical Activity Intervention for Individuals With Serious Mental Illness

BACKGROUND: Obesity is prevalent in individuals with serious mental illness (SMI). OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to examine the feasibility of a telephone-delivered physical activity (PA) intervention for outpatients with serious mental illness to maintain PA and to explore the preliminary efficacy of the intervention on health status. DESIGN: This study used a randomized experimental design. The treatment group received pedometers and eight weekly phone calls; the control group received written information regarding PA. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data collected at baseline and 8 weeks. RESULTS: Twenty-two subjects with SMI (mean age = 44.09 ± 7.6 years; 54.5% were male) were recruited and 16 subjects completed the study in 8 weeks. PA (z = −2.37, p = .02) increased in the treatment group (n = 8) whereas the control group (n = 8) maintained baseline PA level (z = −1.61, p = .11). Health outcomes were not changed (ps > .05). CONCLUSION: Telephone-delivered intervention is feasible and has the potential to improve PA in individuals with SMI.
Potential and Limits of Retrieving Conifer Leaf Area Index Using Smartphone-Based Method

Forest leaf area index (LAI) is a key characteristic affecting a field canopy microclimate. In addition to traditional professional measuring instruments, smartphone-based methods have been used to measure forest LAI. However, when smartphone methods were used to measure conifer forest LAI, very different performances were obtained depending on whether the smartphone was held at the zenith angle or at a 57.5° angle. To further validate the potential of smartphone sensors for measuring conifer LAI and to find the limits of this method, this paper reports the results of a comparison of two smartphone methods with an LAI-2000 instrument. It is shown that the method with the smartphone oriented vertically upwards always produced better consistency in magnitude with LAI-2000. The bias of the LAI between the smartphone method and the LAI-2000 instrument was explained with regards to four aspects that can affect LAI: gap fraction; leaf projection ratio; sensor field of view (FOV); and viewing zenith angle (VZA). It was concluded that large FOV and large VZA cause the 57.5° method to overestimate the gap fraction and hence underestimate conifer LAI. For the vertically upward method, the bias caused by the overestimated gap fraction is compensated for by an underestimated leaf projection ratio.
Good preservation of initial mechanical properties in lipid-extracted, disinfected, freeze-dried sheep patellar tendon grafts

Patellar tendon allografts can be used for anterior cruciate reconstruction to avoid morbidity of autografts on the donor side. Secondary processing of allografts is important for reducing immunological reactions, bacterial contamination and improving storage. We analyzed the effects of processing on the mechanical properties of patellar tendon grafts in 20 sheep. Group I (n= 10) was deep-frozen at -80C. Group II (n=10) was processed by a lipid extraction/freeze-drying method, including iodoacetic acid disinfection. The contralateral tendons, freeze-dried by dehydration in a vacuum at -50C for 3 hours, served as controls. We measured failure stress: group I (53, SD 14 MPa), control (26, SD 15 MPa) (p=0.04); group II (49, SD 13 MPa), control (28, SD 5 MPa) (p=0.08). Failure strain, normalized stiffness, and energy to failure were similar in the groups. Our method of extended processing did not change the properties of the deep-frozen patellar tendons. Therefore in vivo experiments can be used when studying the effects of transplantation on mechanical properties.