Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Digging into HTTPS: flow-based classification of webmail traffic

Recently, webmail interfaces, e.g., Horde, Outlook Web Access, and webmail platforms such as GMail, Yahoo! , and Hotmail have seen a tremendous boost in popularity. Given the importance of e-mail for personal and business use alike, and its exposure to imminent threats, there exists the need for a comprehensive view of the Internet mail system, including webmail traffic. We, in this paper, propose a novel, passive approach to identify webmail traffic solely based on network-level data in order to obtain a comprehensive view of the mail system. Key to our approach is that we leverage correlations across protocols and time to introduce three novel features for HTTPS webmail classification. Our first feature is based on the finding that webmail servers tend to reside close to legacy mail servers, e.g. IMAP and POP, which can be easily identified. Our second feature leverages that the usage of webmail services results in distinct patterns on sessions' duration and on the diurnal/weekly traffic usage profile. In addition, our third feature exploits the observation that traffic flows to webmail platforms exhibit inherent periodicities due to the fact that AJAX-based clients periodically check for new messages. We use these three features to build a simple classifier and detect webmail traffic on real-world NetFlow traces from a medium-sized backbone network. We believe that the major contribution of this paper -- exploring a set of new features that could classify applications that run over HTTPS ports solely based on NetFlow data -- will stimulate more general advance in the field of traffic classification.
Media reporting on the protected areas in Maharashtra, India: a thematic analysis

This research paper is an account and analysis of English media reporting on wildlife conservation and protected areas (PAs) in Maharashtra, India, between 1994 and 2015. It is based on 269 articles that first appeared in the media and were then edited for publication in the ‘Protected Area Update’. The analysis attempts to draw out significant themes that the media deems important in matters of wildlife conservation. Themes that emerge prominently are related to issues of land, displacement of people, development projects, and tourism. We also discovered that some PAs like the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve receive disproportionately large media space, while a third of the PAs were not reported on at all. This does not imply that these areas were not reported in the larger media that the newsletter draws upon, but points to the skewed coverage and (limited) importance these PAs get. We argue that media content analysis is a useful tool because the media is the first interface for the general public on issues of wildlife conservation and plays an important role in shaping public opinion. To our knowledge, this is the first such state-wide study of media reporting of wildlife conservation issues; it provides important insights into the wildlife conservation discourse in the country as well as the concerns, priorities, and challenges of the media.
Microanatomical characteristics of marginal ommatidia in three different size-classes of the semi-terrestrial isopod Ligia exotica (Crustacea; Isopoda).

The aims of this paper have been (a) to characterize marginal ommatidia from different eye regions through a detailed description of their distinct ultrastructural features in three different size-classes of L. exotica, and (b) to compare microanatomical characteristics of the marginal ommatidia with those of ommatidia of the same eye, but located further centrally. On the basis of transverse as well as longitudinal sections we conclude that new ommatidia are added from a crescentic dorso-anterio-ventral edge of the eye and that maturing ommatidia go through a sequence in which originally the nuclei of cone-, pigment-, and retinula cells are arranged in three separate layers. At the beginning of the microvillar development, the organization of the corresponding rhabdomeres is still quite different (much less regular) from that of those rhabdomeres that make up the mature rhabdom. Marginal ommatidia always possess smaller diameters than more centrally located ones and retinal screening pigment granules are most apparent in the retinula cells only after the first microvilli have appeared. The diameters of rhabdom microvilli (approx. 55 nm) do not differ in ommatidia from the five investigated eye regions in small specimens (< 1.5 cm body length), but show a tendency to be slightly wider in the anterior (= frontal or rostral) regions of the eye (approx. 65 nm) in larger specimens (> 2.0 cm body length).
Assessment of Soil Erosion Risk in Mubi South Watershed, Adamawa State, Nigeria

The study aims to assessment soil erosion risk in Mubi South watershed with the aid of RUSEL model and Geospatial techniques. RUSLE model parameters such as rainfall, soil map, topography map, cover management and conservation practice factor map were derived. The method employed includes the use of RUSLE model and Geospatial techniques using ArcGIS 10.3 Software, for analysis and presentation of result. It was found that sandy soil are the dominant soil of the watershed which covered about 65%, 18% silt and 17% clay. The landuse landcover has about 29 % of area covered by agricultural activities, 19% were covered by forest, and 25% were not cultivated and covered by bare land. The study area has about 0.58 to -0.07 normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) with majority of the area within the lower topography of 570 m above sea level. The Soil cover management factor ranges from the higher value of 0.5 to the lower value of 0.01 in the watershed, 15.8 mm to 15.7 mm occurrences of daily rainfall and 492.34 mm rainfall and runoff covered when rainfall per-day is greater than 15 mm rainfall. The results of the study also show that average rate of soil detachment is 1t ha -1 yr -1 . The average transport capacity of overland flow is 1.5 t ha -1 yr -1 . Average soil per detachability by raindrop is 69.6 t ha -1 yr -1 total soil particle detachments is 69.66 t ha -1 yr -1 and average estimated soil erosion of 3.52 t ha -1 yr -1 . It is recommended that other soil erosion model to be applied in the study area for further comparative analysis of soil erosion risk.
Joint SVM for Accurate and Fast Image Tagging

This paper studies how joint training of multiple support vector machines (SVMs) can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of au- tomatic image annotation. We cast image annotation as an output-related multi-task learning framework, with the prediction of each tag's presence as one individual task. Evidently, these tasks are related via correlations between tags. The proposed joint learning framework, which we call joint SVM, can encode the correlation between tags by defining appropriate ker- nel functions on the outputs. Another practical merit of the joint SVM is that it shares the same computational complexity as one single conven- tional SVM, although multiple tasks are solved simultaneously. According to our empirical results on an image-annotation benchmark database, our joint training strategy of SVMs can yield substantial improvements, in terms of both accuracy and efficiency, over training them independently. In particular, it outperforms many other state-of-the-art algorithms.
Effects of rolipram and cilostamide on renal functions and cyclic AMP release in anesthetized dogs.

The present study was undertaken to examine whether phosphodiesterases III and IV regulate renal cAMP level and whether inhibition of these enzymes influences renal functions in anesthetized dogs. The intrarenal arterial infusion of rolipram (0.1, 0.3, and 1 microgram/kg/min), a selective phosphodiesterase IV inhibitor, increased renal blood flow, glomerular filtration rate, urine flow rate, and urinary Na+ excretion with elevating arterial and renal venous plasma cAMP concentrations and urinary cAMP excretion. However, cilostamide (0.1, 0.3, and 1 microgram/kg/min), a selective phosphodiesterase III inhibitor, did not affect the values of these parameters. Indomethacin (3 mg/kg i.v. bolus and 1 mg/kg/min i.v. infusion), a cyclooxygenase inhibitor, reduced the basal arterial and renal venous plasma cAMP concentrations and blunted the rolipram-induced elevation of cAMP concentrations and urinary cAMP excretion. The effects of rolipram on renal hemodynamics and urine formation were attenuated in the presence of indomethacin. These results suggest that in the dog kidney in vivo, 1) phosphodiesterase IV, but not phosphodiesterase III, participates in degradation of cAMP and 2) the inhibition of phosphodiesterase IV enhances glomerular filtration and urinary Na+ excretion, the responses of which depend in part on indomethacin-susceptible (prostaglandin-mediated, probably) control of basal cAMP level.
Multi-player multi-armed bandits: Decentralized learning with IID rewards

We consider the decentralized multi-armed bandit problem with distinct arms for each players. Each player can pick one arm at each time instant and can get a random reward from an unknown distribution with an unknown mean. The arms give different rewards to different players. If more than one player select the same arm, everyone gets a zero reward. There is no dedicated control channel for communication or coordination among the user. We propose an online learning algorithm called dUCB4 which achieves a near-O(log2 T). The motivation comes from opportunistic spectrum access by multiple secondary users in cognitive radio networks wherein they must pick among various wireless channels that look different to different users.
Using Lunar Observations to Validate Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System Pointing Accuracy

To make measurements of the Earth's radiation budget, a pair of Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments, i.e., Flight Models (FM) 1 and 2, have flown on the Terra spacecraft since December 1999, and a pair, i.e., FM-3 and FM-4, have flown on the Aqua spacecraft since June 2002. To produce accurate radiation fluxes at the top of the atmosphere and at various levels within the atmosphere and at the surface, CERES data are combined with higher resolution imager data. Validation is necessary to ensure that the accuracy with which the CERES footprints are located on the Earth will be adequate to use the imager data. The Moon provides a useful target for determining the pointing accuracy of the three channels of CERES. Near full moon, the CERES instruments can be turned to look at the Moon as the host spacecraft passes near the pole. The instrument scans the Moon in a raster-like pattern for a few minutes during the orbit when the Moon is in position. A technique has been developed by which these data can be used to compute accurately the direction in which the instrument is pointed in terms of azimuth and elevation angles when it views the Moon. The difference between this direction and the computed direction of the Moon is taken to be the pointing error of the instrument. The technique has been applied to each of the three channels of all four CERES instruments using lunar observation data from 2006 to present. The maximum error was found to be 0.05° in azimuth and 0.03° in elevation angle. This corresponds to an error in geolocation of 0.37 km near nadir. These results agree with those from the coastline detection method within one standard deviation for all but one case, where the difference was one-and-a-half standard deviations. The lunar and coastline techniques supplement each other for computing pixel location errors away from nadir. The alignment of the three channels in each instrument is evaluated as the differences of azimuth and elevation angles of the shortwave and window channels from those of the total channel. The alignment was within 0.1° for all cases and within 0.02° for most cases.
Image Sequence Retrieval for Forecasting Weather Radar

SUMMARY A novel method is proposed to retrieve image sequences with the goal of forecasting complex and timevarying natural patterns. To that end, we introduce a framework called Memory-Based Forecasting; it provides forecast information based on the temporal development of past retrieved sequences. This paper targets the radar echo patterns in weather radar images, and aims to realize an image retrieval method that supports weather forecasters in predicting local precipitation. To characterize the radar echo patterns, an appearance-based representation of the echo pattern, and its velocity field are employed. Temporal texture features are introduced to represent local pattern features including non-rigid complex motion. Furthermore, the temporal development of a sequence is represented as paths in eigenspaces of the image features, and a normalized distance between two sequences in the eigenspace is proposed as a dissimilarity measure that is used in retrieving similar sequences. Several experiments confirm the good performance of the proposed retrieval scheme, and indicate the predictability of the image sequence.
Extracting relative thresholds for source code metrics

Establishing credible thresholds is a central challenge for promoting source code metrics as an effective instrument to control the internal quality of software systems. To address this challenge, we propose the concept of relative thresholds for evaluating metrics data following heavy-tailed distributions. The proposed thresholds are relative because they assume that metric thresholds should be followed by most source code entities, but that it is also natural to have a number of entities in the “long-tail” that do not follow the defined limits. In the paper, we describe an empirical method for extracting relative thresholds from real systems. We also report a study on applying this method in a corpus with 106 systems. Based on the results of this study, we argue that the proposed thresholds express a balance between real and idealized design practices.
Early Static Pressure-Related Evoked Brain Potentials Indications of Central Middle Ear Pressure Control in Humans

Hypothesis: The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of afferent subcortical components related to static pressure changes of the human middle ear. Background: The normal middle ear function depends on a proper regulation of middle ear pressure, whereas an inadequate regulation with negative pressures is considered a major pathogenetic factor responsible for a variety of middle ear disorders. However, although studies on middle ear pressure and related clinical problems are common, studies on the role of its central control have been remarkably few. Hence, we attempted recording evoked brain potentials in response to static pressure stimulation of the middle ear in normal adult humans. Methods: The experiments were conducted by stimulating the middle ear in 6 subjects with a novel computer-controlled static pressure triggering system for rapid synchronized pressure loads of +3 kPa. The resulting brain evoked responses were recorded from 64 surface electrodes using a standard electroencephalogram cap. A wide-band electroencephalogram acquisition method was adopted, signals were sampled at 20,000 Hz, and band-pass filtered between 150 and 3,000 Hz. Results: Repeatable pressure evoked brain potentials and topographies were described for the first time. Hence, source localization could be adopted on a realistic head model, which showed the location of these early neural generators in the brainstem, followed by activity generated by the cerebellum. Conclusion: The findings are in agreement with previous animal experiments and provide basic information for further investigations on central components related to static pressure changes of the human middle ear.
The Dynamic Effects of Firm Network on Innovation with the Development of Technological Capability: A Case Study

This study examines the role of different networks on the development of the firm through a case study. We type the development of firm according to technological capability. Specially, the technological capability can be divided into three stages including technology imitation, system integration and endogenous innovation from the evolving aspect. The network includes three types of social network, co-opetition network and cooperative technology network. From the case, we argue that different types of networks are more important for firm development. In particular, we suggest that social network, co- opetition network and cooperative technological network should be match the technology imitation stage, system integration stage and endogenous innovation stage of technological capability respectively and dynamically evolved with the growth of technological capability.
Roflumilast Inhibits Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Tumor Necrosis Factor-α and Chemokine Production by Human Lung Parenchyma

Background Roflumilast is the first phosphodiesterase-4 (PDE4) inhibitor to have been approved for the treatment of COPD. The anti-inflammatory profile of PDE4 inhibitors has not yet been explored in human lung tissues. We investigated the effects of roflumilast and its active metabolite roflumilast-N-oxide on the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced release of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and chemokines by human lung parenchymal explants. We also investigated roflumilast’s interaction with the long-acting β2-agonist formoterol. Methods Explants from 25 patients undergoing surgical lung resection were incubated with Roflumilast, Roflumilast-N-oxide and formoterol and stimulated with LPS. Levels of TNF-α, chemokines (in the culture supernatants) and cyclic adenosine monophosphate (in tissue homogenates) were determined with appropriate immunoassays. Results Roflumilast and Roflumilast-N-oxide concentration-dependently reduced the release of TNF-α and chemokines CCL2, CCL3, CCL4, CXCL9 and CXCL10 from LPS-stimulated human lung explants, whereas CXCL1, CXCL5 and CXCL8 release was not altered. Formoterol (10 nM) partially decreased the release of the same cytokines and significantly increased the inhibitory effect of roflumilast on the release of the cytokines. Conclusions In human lung parenchymal explants, roflumilast and roflumilast-N-oxide reduced the LPS-induced release of TNF-α and chemokines involved in the recruitment of monocytes and T-cells but not those involved in the recruitment of neutrophils. Addition of formoterol to roflumilast provided superior in vitro anti-inflammatory activity, which may translate into greater efficacy in COPD.
Comparison of Tree-Child Phylogenetic Networks

Phylogenetic networks are a generalization of phylogenetic trees that allow for the representation of non-tree-like evolutionary events, like recombination, hybridization, or lateral gene transfer. While much progress has been made to find practical algorithms for reconstructing a phylogenetic network from a set of sequences, all attempts to endorse a class of phylogenetic networks (strictly extending the class of phylogenetic trees) with a well-founded distance measure have, to the best of our knowledge and with the only exception of the bipartition distance on regular networks, failed so far. In this paper, we present and study a new meaningful class of phylogenetic networks, called tree-child phylogenetic networks, and we provide an injective representation of these networks as multisets of vectors of natural numbers, their path multiplicity vectors. We then use this representation to define a distance on this class that extends the well-known Robinson-Foulds distance for phylogenetic trees and to give an alignment method for pairs of networks in this class. Simple polynomial algorithms for reconstructing a tree-child phylogenetic network from its path multiplicity vectors, for computing the distance between two tree-child phylogenetic networks and for aligning a pair of tree-child phylogenetic networks, are provided. They have been implemented as a Perl package and a Java applet, which can be found at http://bioinfo.uib. es/~recerca/phylonetworks/mudistance/.
Nearest Neighbor Classification Using The Layered Range Tree

A preformed plastic structure for making open-mouth plastic containers is disclosed. The structure is an oriented preform having a base defined by an inner circular portion and an outer circular portion situated parallel to the outer circular portion and spaced therefrom. The radius of the outer circular portion is larger than the radius of the inner circular portion. The preform is further provided with an outwardly extending annular member integral with the base and tapering therefrom, the member forming an angle of between about 2 DEG to about 30 DEG from the base, and a flange integral with the annular member and extending radially outwardly and having a cross-section configuration of substantially the rim of the finished container. The preform is well suited for forming multilayered containers.
Systems approaches to design of targeted therapeutic delivery

Targeted drug delivery aims to improve therapeutic effects and enable mechanisms that are not feasible for untargeted agents (e.g., due to impermeable biological barriers). To achieve targeting, a drug or its carrier should possess properties providing specific accumulation from circulation at the desired site. There are several examples of systems‐inspired approaches that have been applied to achieve this goal. First, proteomics analysis of plasma membrane fraction of the vascular endothelium has identified a series of target molecules and their ligands (e.g., antibodies) that deliver conjugated cargoes to well‐defined vascular cells and subcellular compartments. Second, selection of ligands binding to cells of interest using phage display libraries in vitro and in vivo has provided peptides and polypeptides that bind to normal and pathologically altered cells. Finally, large‐scale high‐throughput combinatorial synthesis and selection of lipid‐ and polymer‐based nanocarriers varying their chemical components has yielded a series of carriers accumulating in diverse organs and delivering RNA interference agents to diverse cells. Together, these approaches offer a basis for systems‐based design and selection of targets, targeting molecules, and targeting vehicles. Current studies focus on expanding the arsenal of these and alternative targeting strategies, devising drug delivery systems capitalizing on these strategies and evaluation of their benefit/risk ratio in adequate animal models of human diseases. These efforts, combined with better understanding of mechanisms and unintended consequences of these targeted interventions, need to be ultimately translated into industrial development and the clinical domain. WIREs Syst Biol Med 2015, 7:253–265. doi: 10.1002/wsbm.1304