Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Private Mobile Pay-TV From Priced Oblivious Transfer

In pay-TV, a service provider offers TV programs and channels to users. To ensure that only authorized users gain access, conditional access systems (CAS) have been proposed. In existing CAS, users disclose to the service provider the TV programs and channels they purchase. We propose a pay-per-view and a pay-per-channel CAS that protect users’ privacy. Our pay-per-view CAS employs priced oblivious transfer (POT) to allow a user to purchase TV programs without disclosing which programs were bought to the service provider. In our pay-per-channel CAS, POT is employed together with broadcast attribute-based encryption to achieve low storage overhead, collusion resistance, efficient revocation, and broadcast efficiency. We propose a new POT scheme and show its feasibility by implementing and testing our CAS on a representative mobile platform.
Tactile Spatial Attention Enhances Gamma-Band Activity in Somatosensory Cortex and Reduces Low-Frequency Activity in Parieto-Occipital Areas

We investigated the effects of spatial-selective attention on oscillatory neuronal dynamics in a tactile delayed-match-to-sample task. Whole-head magnetoencephalography was recorded in healthy subjects while dot patterns were presented to their index fingers using Braille stimulators. The subjects' task was to report the reoccurrence of an initially presented sample pattern in a series of up to eight test stimuli that were presented unpredictably to their right or left index finger. Attention was cued to one side (finger) at the beginning of each trial, and subjects performed the task at the attended side, ignoring the unattended side. After stimulation, high-frequency gamma-band activity (60–95 Hz) in presumed primary somatosensory cortex (S1) was enhanced, whereas alpha- and beta-band activity were suppressed in somatosensory and occipital areas and then rebounded. Interestingly, despite the absence of any visual stimulation, we also found time-locked activation of medial occipital, presumably visual, cortex. Most relevant, spatial tactile attention enhanced stimulus-induced gamma-band activity in brain regions consistent with contralateral S1 and deepened and prolonged the stimulus induced suppression of beta- and alpha-band activity, maximal in parieto-occipital cortex. Additionally, the beta rebound over contralateral sensorimotor areas was suppressed. We hypothesize that spatial-selective attention enhances the saliency of sensory representations by synchronizing neuronal responses in early somatosensory cortex and thereby enhancing their impact on downstream areas and facilitating interareal processing. Furthermore, processing of tactile patterns also seems to recruit visual cortex and this even more so for attended compared with unattended stimuli.
Improved antigen cross-presentation by polyethyleneimine-based nanoparticles

Purpose In the development of therapeutic vaccines against cancer, it is important to design strategies for antigen cross-presentation to stimulate cell-mediated immune responses against tumor antigens. Methods We developed a polyethyleneimine (PEI)-based protein antigen delivery system to promote cross-presentation through the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I pathway using ovalbumin (OVA) as a model antigen. PEIs formed nanoparticles with OVA by electrostatic interactions, as demonstrated by electrophoresis analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and photon correlation spectroscopy analysis. Results The nanoparticles were used to stimulate mouse bone marrow-derived dendritic cells in vitro and resulted in significantly more OVA257–264/MHC I complex presentation on dendritic cell surfaces. The activated dendritic cells interacted specifically with RF33.70 to stimulate interleukin-2 secretion. The cross-presentation promoting effect was more prominent in dendritic cells that had been cultured for longer periods of time (13 days). Further studies comparing the antigen presentation efficacies by other polyanionic agents, such as PLL or lysosomotropic agents, suggested that the unique “proton sponge effect” of PEI facilitated antigen escape from the endosome toward the MHC I pathway. Conclusion Such a PEI-based nanoparticle system may have the potential to be developed into an effective therapeutic vaccine delivery system.
The Circulation of the Depth-integrated Flow around an Island with Application to the Indonesian Throughflow

Abstract Godfrey's Island Rule is rederived in terms of the barotrapic streamfunction for flow in a stratified ocean with a rigid lid. Modifications to include bottom topography and frictional effects along eastern boundaries are derived. The “Island Rule” has an important application in describing the net transport through the Indonesian seas, that is the Indonesian Throughflow. The original rule, derived from a Sverdrup model, yielded an annual mean throughflow of 16±4 Sv (Sv ≡ 106 m3) s−1). Observations of depth-integrated steric height differences indicate that frictional effects within the lndonesian seas will reduce this value by the order of 2 Sv. The reduction estimated from a frictional channel model depends on the parameterization and boundary conditions adopted, and ranges from 5%–20%. Topographic effects could give an increase in transport. For example, if the archipelago is represented as a simple sill, then warmer water on the Pacific slope than on the Indian slope would produce an increase .
A cystine-rich protein fraction from oxidized alpha-keratin.

A soluble fraction of alpha-keratin was obtained on fission of disulphide bonds. The fraction was soluble in the oxidizing solution and would normally be lost when such procedures are used for isolating keratose fractions. This fraction, which constituted 6% by weight of keratin, was rich in cystine, and about 30% of the fraction had a mol.wt. of less than 20 000.
Long-Term Effects of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy on Local Neural Networks: A Graph Theoretical Analysis of Corticography Recordings

Purpose Pharmaco-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is often treated with surgical intervention at some point. As epilepsy surgery is considered a last resort by most physicians, a long history of epileptic seizures prior to surgery is not uncommon. Little is known about the effects of ongoing TLE on neural functioning. A better understanding of these effects might influence the moment of surgical intervention. Functional connectivity (interaction between spatially distributed brain areas) and network structure (integration and segregation of information processing) are thought to be essential for optimal brain functioning. We report on the impact of TLE duration on temporal lobe functional connectivity and network characteristics. Methods Functional connectivity of the temporal lobe at the time of surgery was assessed by means of interictal electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings of 27 TLE patients by using the phase lag index (PLI). Graphs (abstract network representations) were reconstructed from the PLI matrix and characterized by the clustering coefficient C (local clustering), the path length L (overall network interconnectedness), and the “small world index” S (network configuration). Results Functional connectivity (average PLI), clustering coefficients, and the small world index were negatively correlated with TLE duration in the broad frequency band (0.5–48 Hz). Discussion Temporal lobe functional connectivity is lower in patients with longer TLE history, and longer TLE duration is correlated with more random network configuration. Our findings suggest that the neural networks of TLE patients become more pathological over time, possibly due to temporal lobe changes associated with long-standing lesional epilepsy.
Tyrosine‐599 of the c‐Mpl receptor is required for Shc phosphorylation and the induction of cellular differentiation.

Interaction of thrombopoietin (TPO) with its receptor, c‐Mpl, triggers cell growth and differentiation responses controlling primitive haemopoietic cell production and megakaryocytopoiesis. To examine the important receptor domains and signal transduction pathways involved in these cellular responses, c‐Mpl cytoplasmic domain truncation and tyrosine substitution mutants were generated. In the myelomonocytic leukaemia cell lines WEHI3B‐D+ and M1, ectopic expression of the wild‐type c‐Mpl receptor induced TPO‐dependent cellular differentiation characterized by increased cell migration through agar and acquisition of the morphology and molecular markers of macrophages. Consistent with the concept that proliferative and differentiation signals emanate from distinct receptor domains, the C‐terminal 33 amino acids of c‐Mpl were dispensable for a proliferative response in Ba/F3 cells but proved critical for WEHI3B‐D+ and M1 differentiation. Finer mapping revealed that substitution of Tyr599 by phenylalanine within this c‐Mpl domain was sufficient to abolish the normal differentiation response. Moreover, in contrast to the normal c‐Mpl receptor, this same mplY599F mutant was also incapable of stimulating TPO‐dependent Shc phosphorylation, the association of Shc with Grb2 or c‐Mpl and of inducing c‐fos expression. Thus activation of components of the Ras signalling cascade, initiated by interaction of Shc with c‐Mpl Tyr599, may play a decisive role in specific differentiation signals emanating from the c‐Mpl receptor.
Efficient Illumination for Microsecond Tracking Microscopy

The possibility to observe microsecond dynamics at the sub-micron scale, opened by recent technological advances in fast camera sensors, will affect many biophysical studies based on particle tracking in optical microscopy. A main limiting factor for further development of fast video microscopy remains the illumination of the sample, which must deliver sufficient light to the camera to allow microsecond exposure times. Here we systematically compare the main illumination systems employed in holographic tracking microscopy, and we show that a superluminescent diode and a modulated laser diode perform the best in terms of image quality and acquisition speed, respectively. In particular, we show that the simple and inexpensive laser illumination enables less than s camera exposure time at high magnification on a large field of view without coherence image artifacts, together with a good hologram quality that allows nm-tracking of microscopic beads to be performed. This comparison of sources can guide in choosing the most efficient illumination system with respect to the specific application.
Regional Cerebral Blood Flow and Oxygen Consumption of the Canine Brain During Hemorrhagic Hypotension

The sequential changes in systemic and cerebral hemodynamics, systemic and cerebral oxygen transport and consumption rates, and the regional blood flows (measured with 15 /xm microspheres) to the cortical and subcortical brain tissues were determined in nine dogs subjected to graded hemorrhage (10 ml/kg x 4 at 15 min intervals). As hemorrhage progressed, both mean arterial pressure and cardiac output decreased progressively. In contrast to the systemic circulation, the mean cerebral blood flow (mCBF) was well maintained by cerebral vasodilation and the cerebral O2 consumption rate (CMRO2) increased during the first three stages of hemorrhage. At 40 ml/kg of hemorrhage, there were significant reduction in mCBF and CMRO2 despite the increase in O2 extraction, suggesting the occurrence of cerebral hypoxia and decompensation of the cerebral circulation. There were remarkable regional variations in the responses of regional cerebral blood flows (rCBF) to hypovolemia, resulting in a significant redistribution of cerebral blood flow. The fractions of cardiac output supplying the diencephalon (thalamus and hypo- thalamus), the brain stem (pons and medulla oblongata) and the cervical spinal cord increased after hemorrhage up to 40 ml/kg. The redistribution of rCBF favors those areas where neurons related to cardiovascular control are located. These findings have significant implications relating to hemodynamic regulation during hemorrhagic hypotension. Stroke Vol 15, No 2, 1984
Immunization with Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium-Derived Outer Membrane Vesicles Delivering the Pneumococcal Protein PspA Confers Protection against Challenge with Streptococcus pneumoniae

ABSTRACT Gram-negative bacteria produce outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) that serve a variety of functions related to survival and pathogenicity. Periplasmic and outer membrane proteins are naturally captured during vesicle formation. This property has been exploited as a method to derive immunogenic vesicle preparations for use as vaccines. In this work, we constructed a Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium strain that synthesized a derivative of the pneumococcal protein PspA engineered to be secreted into the periplasmic space. Vesicles isolated from this strain contained PspA in the lumen. Mice intranasally immunized with the vesicle preparation developed serum antibody responses against vesicle components that included PspA and Salmonella-derived lipopolysaccharide and outer membrane proteins, while no detectable responses developed in mice immunized with an equivalent dose of purified PspA. Mucosal IgA responses developed against the Salmonella components, while the response to PspA was less apparent in most mice. Mice immunized with the vesicle preparation were completely protected against a 10× 50% lethal dose (LD50) challenge of Streptococcus pneumoniae and significantly protected against a 200× LD50 challenge, while control mice immunized with purified PspA or empty vesicles were not protected. These results establish that vesicles can be used to mucosally deliver an antigen from a Gram-positive organism and induce a protective immune response.
Reducing the influence of extrapersonal associations on the Implicit Association Test: personalizing the IAT.

The authors argue that the Implicit Association Test (IAT; A.G. Greenwald, D.E. McGhee, & J.L.K. Schwartz, 1998) can be contaminated by associations that do not contribute to one's evaluation of an attitude object and thus do not become activated when one encounters the object but that are nevertheless available in memory. The authors propose a variant of the IAT that reduces the contamination of these "extrapersonal associations. " Consistent with the notion that the traditional version of the IAT is affected by society's negative portrayal of minority groups, the "personalized" IAT revealed relatively less racial prejudice among Whites in Experiments 1 and 2. In Experiments 3 and 4, the personalized IAT correlated more strongly with explicit measures of attitudes and behavioral intentions than did the traditional IAT. The feasibility of disentangling personal and extrapersonal associations is discussed.
The Effect of Worker's Location, Orientation, and Activity on Exposure

The impact of a worker's location, orientation, and activity was studied in an experimental room (2.86 m × 2.35 m × 2.86 m) at known flow rates of 5.5 m 3 /min and 3.3 m 3 /min. A person in the room, wearing a full-facepiece, air-supplied respirator represented a worker. Propylene tracer gas was emitted at a constant rate from a 1-m pedestal at the center of the room and a continuous air sample was drawn from a point midway between the worker's mouth and nose. Breathing zone concentration (BZC) was monitored at 12 worker locations within the room for a stationary worker. At each location, BZCs were measured separately for four worker orientations: east, west, south, and north. BZCs of a walking worker were also monitored along the path defined by the 12 worker locations used in the stationary experiments. In a separate set of experiments, area concentration was monitored to see whether the worker's activity disturbed the contaminant concentrations at a fixed sampling point located behind the source looking from the direction of air inlet (location: 1.34 m, 1.20 m, 0.45 m). The following average differences in BZC over the 12 fixed locations were observed: 43% higher for near-field than for far-field locations; 20% higher when the worker was facing the source than when facing away (p-values for all four conditions: < 0.033), and 30% higher for a moving worker than for a stationary worker (p-values for all four conditions: < 0.01). When the worker was walking, the concentration at the fixed area sampling point was generally lower than the area concentration when the worker was absent or stationary in the room, possibly due to greater mixing of room air by the worker's movement. Because a worker's activities may be irregular and complicated, incorporating them as parameters in mathematical models is often not feasible. Instead, these findings may be used to assess uncertainty or adjust exposure estimates from simple models.
A Unified Framework for Uncertainty, Compatibility Analysis, and Data Fusion for Multi-Stereo 3-D Shape Estimation

This paper describes the uncertainty analysis performed for the reconstruction of a 3-D shape. Multiple stereo systems are employed to measure a 3-D surface with superimposed colored markers. The procedure comprised a detailed uncertainty analysis of all measurement phases, and the uncertainties evaluated were employed to perform a compatibility analysis of points acquired by different stereo pairs. The compatible acquired markers were statistically merged in order to obtain the measurement of a 3-D shape and an evaluation of the associated uncertainty. Both the compatibility analysis and the measurement merging are based on the evaluated uncertainty.
Power Control Algorithm Based on SNR Cost Function in Cognitive Radio System

The power control problem in the cognitive radio system is studied in this paper with game theory. A cost function based on fairness is designed, a power control algorithm based on SNR cost function is proposed, and a Non-cooperative Power control Game via Fairness Pricing(NPGFP) algorithm is developed. The algorithm proposed in this paper-NPGFP algorithm uses the complete information game method to make each cognitive user dynamically adjust its power parameters by detecting the power and location parameters of other cognitive users and the primary users. The algorithm ensures the system convergence stability and the benefit maximization of each cognitive user by making the transmit power to reach a steady state with iteration. By simulation in three different scenes it is shown that NPGFP algorithm is better than NPGP(Non-cooperative Power control Game model based on Pricing) algorithm in throughput, SNR, cost function of the cognitive user and the stability of the algorithm convergence.
Geosocial Search: Finding Places based on Geotagged Social-Media Posts

Geographic search -- where the user provides keywords and receives relevant locations depicted on a map -- is a popular web application. Typically, such search is based on static geographic data. However, the abundant geotagged posts in microblogs such as Twitter and in social networks like Instagram, provide contemporary information that can be used to support geosocial search---geographic search based on user activities in social media. Such search can point out where people talk (or tweet) about different topics. For example, the search results may show where people refer to ``jogging'', to indicate popular jogging places. The difficulty in implementing such search is that there is no natural partition of the space into ``documents'' as in ordinary web search. Thus, it is not always clear how to present results and how to rank and filter results effectively. In this paper, we demonstrate a two-step process of first, quickly finding the relevant areas by using an arbitrary indexed partition of the space, and secondly, applying clustering on discovered areas, to present more accurate results. We introduce a system that utilizes geotagged posts in geographic search and illustrate how different ranking methods can be used, based on the proposed two-step search process. The system demonstrates the effectiveness and usefulness of the approach.
Representation of Situational Methods: Incorporating ISO/IEC 24744 into a Domain-Based Framework

Method Engineering ME and Situational Method Engineering SME aim at providing effective solutions for building and supporting evolution of software and information systems development methods. For this purpose, method components are specified and composed into general-purpose development methods or situational methods, i.e., development methods that best fit the characteristics of a given project and its environment. Recently ISO/IEC 24744 has emerged for defining a metamodel and a notation for development methods. However, this standard lacks a systematic support for situational classification and maintenance. In this work, the authors suggest incorporating ISO/IEC 24744 metamodel into a domain-based framework, called Application-based DOmain Modeling for Method Engineering ADOM-ME, which supports specifying both general-purpose and situational methods in a single, simple, accessible, and scalable frame of reference. An exploratory study on the usability of ADOM-ME indicates that the approach can be utilized by information systems students that represent non-experienced method engineers and software developers.
Prospective Study of Helicobacter pylori Biomarkers for Gastric Cancer Risk among Chinese Men

Background: Helicobacter pylori is the leading risk factor for gastric cancer, yet only a fraction of infected individuals ever develop neoplasia. Methods: To identify potential predictive biomarkers, we assessed the association of 15 antibodies to H. pylori proteins and gastric cancer in a nested case–control study. Blood levels of antibodies were assessed using multiplex serology for 226 incident cases and 451 matched controls from the Shanghai Men's Health Study. ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using conditional logistic regression. Results: Seropositivity to four (Omp, HP0305, HyuA, and HpaA) proteins was associated with a 1.5- to 3-fold increased risk for gastric cancer. When excluding cases diagnosed within 2 years of study enrollment, seropositivity to two additional proteins (CagA and VacA) showed significant associations with risk. Compared with individuals with three or fewer seropositive results to the six virulent proteins identified in this population, individuals with four to five seropositive results were at a 2-fold increased risk (OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.31–3.30) and individuals seropositive to all six proteins had a 3.5-fold increase in risk (OR, 3.49; 95% CI, 2.00–6.11) for gastric cancer. Among individuals diagnosed at least 2 years after study enrollment, these associations were even stronger (ORs, 2.79 and 4.16, respectively). Conclusions: Increasing number of seropositives to six H. pylori proteins may be a risk marker for distal gastric cancer in China. Impact: In a population with a 90% prevalence of CagA-positive H. pylori infection, assessment of additional virulent H. pylori proteins might better identify individuals at high risk for gastric cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 21(12); 2185–92. ©2012 AACR.