Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Strathprints Institutional Repository

—As a widely used approach for feature extraction and data reduction, Principal Components Analysis (PCA) suffers from high computational cost, large memory requirement and low efficacy in dealing with large dimensional datasets such as Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI). To this end, a novel Folded-PCA is proposed, in which the spectral vector is folded into a matrix to allow the covariance matrix to be determined in a more efficient way. With this matrix-based representation, both global and local structures can be extracted to provide additional information for data classification. In addition, both the computational cost and the memory requirement have been significantly reduced. Using Support Vector Machine (SVM) for classification on two well-known HSI datasets and one Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) dataset in remote sensing applications, quantitative results are generated for objective evaluations. Comprehensive results have indicated that the proposed Folded-PCA approach not only outperforms the conventional PCA but also the baseline approach where the whole feature sets are used.
Single Server PIR via Homomorphic Thorp Shuffles

Private Information Retrieval (PIR) is a two player protocol where the client, given some query x ∈ [ N ] interacts with the server, which holds a N -bit string DB in order to privately retrieve DB [ x ]. In this work, we focus on the single server client-preprocessing model, initially idealized by Corrigan-Gibbs and Kogan (EUROCRYPT 2020), where the client and server first run some joint preprocessing algorithm, after which the client can retrieve elements of the server’s string DB privately in time sublinear in N . All known constructions of single server client-preprocessing PIR rely on one of the following two paradigms: (1) a linear-bandwidth offline phase where the client downloads the whole database from the server, or (2) a sublinear-bandwidth offline phase where however the server has to compute a large-depth ( O λ ( N )) circuit under FHE in order to execute the preprocessing phase. Inthis paper, we construct a single server client-preprocessing PIR scheme which achieves both sublinear offline bandwidth (the client does not have to download the whole database offline) and a low-depth (i.e. O λ (1)), highly parallelizable preprocessing circuit. We estimate that on a single thread, our scheme’s preprocessing time should be more than 350x times faster than in prior single server client-preprocessing PIR constructions. Moreover, with parallelization, the latency reduction would be even more drastic. In addition, this construction also allows for updates in O λ (1) time, something not achieved before in this model.
Triple-band monopole antenna with dual-sleeves inside the ground plane

A triple-band monopole antenna with dual-sleeves inside the ground plane was presented here. The proposed antenna works at the frequency bands of WLAN/WiMAX. By introducing two sleeves inside the ground plane, the triple-band operations are easily achieved. The simulated and measured results are identical with each other and a triple-band of 2.38–2.85GHz, 3.35–4.30GHz and 5.12–5.85GHz is gotten. The measured radiation patterns at different center frequency of the triple-band are given and the design procedure is also shown for a better understanding.
Application of an Integrated SWAT–MODFLOW Model to Evaluate Potential Impacts of Climate Change and Water Withdrawals on Groundwater–Surface Water Interactions in West-Central Alberta

It has become imperative that surface and groundwater resources be managed as a holistic system. This study applies a coupled groundwater–surface water (GW–SW) model, SWAT–MODFLOW, to study the hydrogeological conditions and the potential impacts of climate change and groundwater withdrawals on GW–SW interactions at a regional scale in western Canada. Model components were calibrated and validated using monthly river flow and hydraulic head data for the 1986–2007 period. Downscaled climate projections from five General Circulation Models (GCMs), under the RCP 8.5, for the 2010–2034 period, were incorporated into the calibrated model. The results demonstrated that GW–SW exchange in the upstream areas had the most pronounced fluctuation between the wet and dry months under historical conditions. While climate change was revealed to have a negligible impact in the GW–SW exchange pattern for the 2010–2034 period, the addition of pumping 21 wells at a rate of 4680 m3/d per well to support hypothetical high-volume water use by the energy sector significantly impacted the exchange pattern. The results showed that the total average discharge into the rivers was only slightly reduced from 1294 m3/d to 1174 m3/d; however, localized flowrate differences varied from under 5 m3/d to over 3000 m3/d in 320 of the 405 river cells. The combined potential impact is that intensive groundwater use may have more immediate effects on river flow than those of climate change, which has important implications for water resources management and for energy supply in the future.
Photoplethysmographic signal feature extraction using an empirical mode decomposition approach

Photoplethysmographic signals contain physiologically meaningful features that can be related to heart rate variability, blood pressure variations, etc. This paper presents a description for the photoplethysmographic signal through the use of Empirical mode decomposition. This description allows the signal feature extraction to be simplified via traditional signal processing methods such as spectral estimation and time-frequency analysis.
Greening the Airwaves With Collaborating Mobile Network Operators

Base station sharing is currently considered one of the most promising solutions for reducing the energy consumption costs of cellular networks. This paper presents a game theoretic framework for the study of such cooperative solutions where different mobile network operators (MNOs) decide to switch off subsets of their base stations during off-peak hours and roam their traffic to the remaining stations. The solution is based on a detailed optimization framework that determines exactly which base stations should remain active and how much traffic each one of them should serve, so as to maximize the aggregate energy savings. Accordingly, using the axiomatic Shapley value rule, it is determined how the benefits from the cooperation, i.e., the cost savings, should be dispersed among the cooperating MNOs. It is proved that this coalitional game with transferrable utilities has a nonempty core, and thus there exists a cooperation solution that incentivizes the participation of all operators. Moreover, using a thorough numerical analysis, it is shown that the benefits achieved with the implementation of the cooperation strategy depend mainly on the power consumption characteristics of the MNOs, which in turn are related to the number, type, and technology of their base stations. Overall, the energy savings are found to be most sensitive to the technology of the used base stations, and more precisely to the no-load base station energy consumption which defines the energy waste in a network.
Dynamic Forest: An Efficient Index Structure for NAND Flash Memory

In this paper, we present an efficient index structure for NAND flash memory, called the Dynamic Forest (D-Forest). Since write operations incur high overhead on NAND flash memory, D-Forest is designed to minimize write operations for index updates. The experimental results show that D-Forest significantly reduces write operations compared to the conventional B+-tree.
Repeating adrenal vein sampling when neither aldosterone/cortisol ratio exceeds peripheral yields a high incidence of aldosterone-producing adenoma

Objectives: In primary aldosteronism, adrenal vein sampling (AVS) suggests unilateral aldosterone-producing adenoma (APA) when the aldosterone/cortisol (A/F) ratio is less than or equal to peripheral on one side and at least two times peripheral on the other. When A/F ratios are lower bilaterally than peripheral despite adequate samples (adrenal venous cortisol ≥3 times peripheral), we recommend repeat AVS. This study aimed to determine the frequency of this occurrence and outcomes in such cases. Methods: We performed a retrospective observational study of all cases of primary aldosteronism undergoing initial AVS over a 34-year period. Results: Initial AVS in 1397 patients returned satisfactory and discriminatory results in 1066 (76.3%) but 37 patients (2.6%) had adequate samples but bilateral A/F ratios no higher than peripheral. Of the 22 of these 37 who agreed to repeat AVS, 10 demonstrated unilateral aldosterone production, and eight of these had unilateral adrenalectomy disclosing APAs and resulting in cure (3) or improvement (5) in hypertension. Eight had bilateral aldosterone production. Four studies were inconclusive. Patients with initial unsatisfactory AVS because of bilaterally low A/F ratios had significantly (P = 0.023) more unilateral disease [10 of 18 satisfactory repeat studies (55.6%) vs. 326 of 1066 satisfactory initial studies (30.6%)] and a significantly higher (67.6 vs. 49.9%, P = 0.034) percentage of males. Conclusion: As the incidence of APAs was high in a subgroup with low A/F bilaterally on initial AVS, these patients should be offered repeat AVS. This might reflect both a greater dependence of aldosterone production on adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) in APAs and the pulsatile nature of ACTH secretion.
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM IN NIGERIA NATURE, MECHANICS AND CHALLENGES

This study x-rayed the Nigerian petroleum industry with special focus on its nature (in form of units, players and regulatory authorities), their mechanics of operations and the challenges they face as it impart on citizens' welfare and the economy. Extant literature on the dynamics of regulations that created the actors and guide their roles and functions in the industry were reviewed. To fit a link between theory and practice, distribution theories and models were discussed pointing out how the Nigerian economy became constrained as a result of non-adherence to popular distribution principles and practices as induced by presence of sharp practices. This is in addition to the incapacity of regulatory authorities to affect strong control. Further model analysis provides insights that underscores distribution paradigm in the industry. These include supply and demand chain management and how they integrate to predict the flow of products, information, finance, risk etc., with special focus on attaining efficiency in the industry. In this dimension, comparative analyses were made between the Nigerian experience and countries like Malawi and Kenya especially in the functional area of pricing. Factors that impinge on effectiveness of petroleum distribution system in the economy discussed include: constrained infrastructure, price instability and the open tender system among others. The study concludes that given sharp practices in the industry, connivance of regulatory authorities and price instability, the industry can be described as anything but stable – this has negative impact on the citizens' welfare and the economy. Recommendations suggested include building domestic refining capacity, curbing militancy in the Niger Delta, and improving transparency in the distribution system.
Dynamic power management using adaptive learning tree

Dynamic power management (DPM) is a technique to reduce the power consumption of electronic systems by selectively shutting down idle components. The quality of the shutdown control algorithm (the power management policy) mostly depends on knowledge of the user's behavior, which in many cases is initially unknown or non-stationary. For this reason, DPM policies should be capable of adapting to changes in user behavior. In this paper, we present a novel DPM scheme based on idle period clustering and adaptive learning trees. We also provide a design guide for applying our technique to components with multiple sleep states. Experimental results show that our technique outperforms other advanced DPM schemes as well as simple time-out policies. The proposed approach shows little deviation of efficiency for various workloads having different characteristics, while other policies show that their efficiency changes drastically depending on the trace data characteristics. Furthermore, experimental evidence indicates that our workload learning algorithm is stable and has fast convergence.
Machine Learning Methods for Statistical Circuit Design

At nanometer scale manufacturing, process variations have a significant impact on circuit performance. To handle those, post-silicon clock tuning buffers can be included into the circuit balancing timing budgets of neighboring critical paths. The state of the art is a sampling-based approach, in which integer linear programming is required for every sample one at a time. The runtime complexity of this approach is the number of samples multiplied by the required time for one integer linear programming solution. Existing work tries to reduce the number of samples leaving the problem of a long runtime for each iteration unsolved. In this thesis, we propose a machine learning approach to reduce the runtime by learning the positions and sizes of post-silicon tuning buffers. Experimental results demonstrate that we can predict buffer locations and sizes with a very good accuracy (90% and higher) and achieve a significant yield improvement (up to 18.80%) with a high speed-up compared to existing work (up to 19.22 times faster).
Labour Income Uncertainty, Risk Aversion and Home Ownership

In this paper we investigate the effect of labour income uncertainty on the probability of homeownership in Germany and Spain. This study is motivated by two facts. Firstly, theoretical models tend to provide ambiguous results in this issue. Secondly, there is limited previous empirical evidence and the existing focuses exclusively on the US housing market. We claim that more international evidence is necessary in order to disentangle this puzzle. We develop a simple theoretical formula that highlights the pivotal role of risk attitudes in the housing tenure decisions that also allow us to introduce the concept of "skewness affection" as a relevant phenomenon. To carry out this test we propose an income uncertainty measure based on panel data labour income equations. We observe that households facing increasing income uncertainty display preference for renting while those located in a positively skewed income distribution show a greater propensity for homeownership. Income uncertainty analysis in housing decisions has important implications for the design of public housing policies and also for the design of private mortgage insurance products.
Flavodoxin:Quinone Reductase (FqrB): a Redox Partner of Pyruvate:Ferredoxin Oxidoreductase That Reversibly Couples Pyruvate Oxidation to NADPH Production in Helicobacter pylori and Campylobacter jejuni

ABSTRACT Pyruvate-dependent reduction of NADP has been demonstrated in cell extracts of the human gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori. However, NADP is not a substrate of purified pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase (PFOR), suggesting that other redox active enzymes mediate this reaction. Here we show that fqrB (HP1164), which is essential and highly conserved among the epsilonproteobacteria, exhibits NADPH oxidoreductase activity. FqrB was purified by nickel interaction chromatography following overexpression in Escherichia coli. The protein contained flavin adenine dinucleotide and exhibited NADPH quinone reductase activity with menadione or benzoquinone and weak activity with cytochrome c, molecular oxygen, and 5,5′-dithio-bis-2-nitrobenzoic acid (DTNB). FqrB exhibited a ping-pong catalytic mechanism, a k cat of 122 s−1, and an apparent Km of 14 μM for menadione and 26 μM for NADPH. FqrB also reduced flavodoxin (FldA), the electron carrier of PFOR. In coupled enzyme assays with purified PFOR and FldA, FqrB reduced NADP in a pyruvate- and reduced coenzyme A (CoA)-dependent manner. Moreover, in the presence of NADPH, CO2, and acetyl-CoA, the PFOR:FldA:FqrB complex generated pyruvate via CO2 fixation. PFOR was the rate-limiting enzyme in the complex, and nitazoxanide, a specific inhibitor of PFOR of H. pylori and Campylobacter jejuni, also inhibited NADP reduction in cell-free lysates. These capnophilic (CO2-requiring) organisms contain gaps in pathways of central metabolism that would benefit substantially from pyruvate formation via CO2 fixation. Thus, FqrB provides a novel function in pyruvate metabolism and, together with production of superoxide anions via quinone reduction under high oxygen tensions, contributes to the unique microaerobic lifestyle that defines the epsilonproteobacterial group.
Data analysis and modeling method for indoor human body-shadowing MIMO channels

In recent years, MIMO communication systems such as IMT-Advanced and LTE have been put into practical use. Since MIMO transmission has an advantage in use in the indoor multipath-rich environment, the accurate indoor MIMO channel model is required for evaluating the systems. In the indoor environment, it is known that the channel state changes dynamically due to the human shadowing effect even if the receiver and the transmitter are fixed. In this paper, we propose the data analysis method of measured data for the indoor channel modeling. In our proposal, the propagation parameters of rays are estimated using SAGE algorithm. Then the rays are clustered using K-Power-Means algorithm. Next the human body shadowing of each cluster is estimated according to the resultant power variation of cluster. We carried out the measurements at 3.35GHz in the indoor environment and estimated the human body shadowing of each cluster.
Production and Purification of Lipase from Pseudomonas sp. AB2 with Potential Application in Biodiesel Production

Lipase produced from microorganisms can be used in many industrial applications, such as detergent formulation, oil/fat degradation, pharmaceutical synthesis, biodiesel and cosmetics production. Pseudomonas sp. AB2 was isolated and identified by 16SrRNA from waste cooking oil (WCO). The lipase showed a molecular weight of 28.6 KDa by SDS–PAGE. The enzyme activity was highest after 24 h at 200 rpm agitation when (4X10 4 CFU) was used as inoculums. The maximum lipase production was observed at 35°C and pH 7. As the Tributyrine increase the enzyme activity decrease, while the yeast extract increase the activity with concentration higher than 0.5 g/l. The GC analysis of the WCO showed that the fatty acid profile of the oil was Palmetic (31.79%), Stearic (2.41 %), Oleic (65.8 %); while the total saturated acid was (34.2 %) and unsaturated acid was (65.8%). Pseudomonas sp. AB2 lipase, which exhibited a potential for catalyzing the biodiesel production, was further purified and immobilized on 20.4 mmol of Tetramethoxyorthosilicate (TMOS). The immobilized lipase from Pseudomonas sp. AB2 could be used as a biocatalyst for the application of enzyme-catalyzed biodiesel synthesis
Production of Transgenic Soybean to Eliminate the Major Allergen Gly m Bd 30K by RNA Interference-mediated Gene Silencing

Gly m Bd 30K has been recognized as a major allergenic protein in soybean [ Glycine max (L.) Merr. ] seeds, and it exists in nearly all of the soybean cultivars. This study attempted to eliminate the immunodominant Gly m Bd 30K protein from soybeans using RNA interference (RNAi). RESULTS: A 395-bp fragment from the Gly m Bd 30K gene coding region was designed to target the Gly m Bd 30K gene. The 30K-specific RNAi transformation cassette was subcloned into a binary pCAMBIA3301 vector to construct the plasmid pCAMBIA-30K-RNAi. Transgenic soybeans were generated by infecting soybean cotyledonary node explants with Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA105. Three independent transgenic soybean plants were confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analyses. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis of gene expression in the transgenic seeds indicated that there was trace accumulation of Gly m Bd 30K mRNA. Western blotting demonstrated the absence of Gly m Bd 30K protein in the crude extracts of transgenic seeds. In addition, compared with wild-type plants, the RNAi plants showed no apparent phenotypic and no obvious developmental changes. CONCLUSION: Our study yielded new soybean germplasm with Gly m Bd 30K-null seeds and demonstrated the feasibility of alleviating soybean allergies using RNAi technology.
Security-Enhanced WireGuard Protocol Design using Quantum Key Distribution

—WireGuard is a pioneering and lightweight Virtual Private Network (VPN) protocol that has been merged into the Linux kernel. It leverages the Noise secure framework to provide advanced security functionalities, such as identity hiding and perfect forward security. Although WireGuard has an optional pre-shared key mode to ensure key security, the advanced security features are guaranteed by asymmetric cryptography algorithms, which cannot be held in the face of superior quantum computers. To achieve quantum-resistant security, WireGuard should avoid using vulnerable asymmetric cryptography algorithms that are currently deeply integrated into the WireGuard protocol. In this paper, we present a solution to enhance the security of WireGuard by integrating Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). We first change the security mode to tunnel-orient Pre-Shared Keys (PSK) as the authentication anchor. We also design QKD-assisted ephemeral keys and corresponding Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) to achieve WireGuard’s advanced security properties without using asymmetric cryptography. We also integrate QKD keys during the key derivation to provide further security. Finally, we implement the entire protocol named WireGuard-QKD in Golang and evaluate its performance and security.
Trust In E-Government Services in Pakistan: A Conceptual Study

: Adoption of digital system becomes an innovative revolution to replace the tradition work into scientific means. Electronic government is the use of technology in which particular wireless based application sustains the provision of online interconnectivity in the way to convey a speedy service delivery and materialize an easy accessibility of users via government portal. Moreover, the vitality of e-government has been recognized in the contemporary era of science and technology across the world. The chief aim of this study to represent a literature of an electronic government use in a conceptual means in which proposed determinants as PEOU, PU, TIEG, SI, and ITU envisage the intention of the users’ online services of government in a Pakistan perspective. In the existing literature all constructs of the proposed model possess an effect on the intention to use e-government and the theoretical approach encompasses the TAM and UTAUT model to assist the technological adopti on of the employee's use of the innovative system in an organization. However, Pakistan has been ranked low in the e-government development index that seems the backwardness of the e-government adaptation in the country that is recognized as the dire need to be adjusted with public sectors to sustain an effective and efficient service delivery. It seems the poor literacy rate an d financial constraints are serious obstacles for adopting e-government technology in the working atmosphere of the diverse public sector organizations.