Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences a Chaos-based Image Encryption Scheme Using Multimodal Skew Tent Maps

Chaotic multimodal skew tent maps are constructed to design an efficient chaos-based image encryption scheme with an efficient permutation-diffusion mechanism, in which permuting the positions of image pixels incorporates with changing the grey values of image pixels to confuse the relationship between cipher-image and plain-image. In the permutation process, a multimodal skew tent map is utilized to generate one chaotic orbit used to permute the image pixel positions, while in the diffusion process, another two multimodal skew tent maps are employed to yield two pseudo-random grey value sequences for designing a two-way diffusion process. The yielded grey value sequences are not only sensitive to the control parameters and initial conditions of the considered chaotic maps, but also strongly depend on the plain-image processed, therefore the proposed scheme can resist statistical attack, differential attack, known-plaintext as well as chosen-plaintext attack. Experimental results are carried out with detailed analysis to demonstrate that the proposed image encryption scheme is highly secure thanks to its large key space and robust permutation-diffusion mechanism.
Performance Comparison of Wavelet Packet Modulation and OFDM over Mobile Communication Channel

Success of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple xing (OFDM) has proved that Multi carrier modulation is an efficient solution for mobile communication. Wavelet Packet based Multi-Carrier Modulation (WPMCM) offers an alternative to the well-established OFDM as an efficient multicarrier modulation technique. Wavelet Packet Modulation (WPM) is a new type of modulation for transmission of multicarrier signal on mobile channel that uses orthogonal wavelet bases other than sine functions. It has strong advantage of being generic transmission scheme whose actual characteristics can be widely c ustomized to fulfill several requirements and const raints of advanced mobile communication systems. In this paper, a detailed study is given on the m obile channel environment and the Bit Error Rate (B ER) performance comparison between the OFDM mobile communication system and the WPM mobile communication system are analyzed. The analysis is simulated over an AWGN channel, and other Multipath fading channels like time invariant frequency selective channel and time variant frequency selective channel.
Adipose Tissue-Derived Stem Cells for Myocardial Regeneration

Over the past decade, stem cell therapy has been extensively studied for clinical application for heart diseases. Among various stem cells, adipose tissue-derived stem cell (ADSC) is still an attractive stem cell resource due to its abundance and easy accessibility. In vitro studies showed the multipotent differentiation potentials of ADSC, even differentiation into cardiomyocytes. Many pre-clinical animal studies have also demonstrated promising therapeutic results of ADSC. Furthermore, there were several clinical trials showing the positive results in acute myocardial infarction using ADSC. The present article covers the brief introduction, the suggested therapeutic mechanisms, application methods including cell dose and delivery, and human clinical trials of ADSC for myocardial regeneration.
A Cellular Mechanism for the Generation of Ventricular Arrhythmias by Acetylstrophanthidin

Transmembrane activity was recorded from canine false tendons bathed with Tyrode's solution at 37°C. Stimulus patterns provided a 3-second pause after every ten beats. Acetylstrophanthidin was infused at concentrations up to 2×10−7 g/ml. One or two transient depolarizations (TDs) followed the last driven response of each series. The appearance of TDs was associated with depression of normal phase-4 depolarization. The peak of the earliest TD (TD-1) occurred at an interval approximately equal to the basic cycle length. The later TD (TD-2) occurred at about twice the basic cycle length. Coupling intervals were determined primarily by the last cycle length. The amplitude of TD-1 was maximal when the basic cycle length was 600 msec, but TD-2 continued to increase as the basic cycle length diminished further. The amplitude of both TDs increased with the number of beats in the train. Either or both could reach threshold and induce single extrasystoles or trains of extrasystoles. TDs could be induced to reach threshold after each driven response, resulting in sustained bigeminal rhythms with fixed coupling. Possibly TDs provide a mechanism for various clinically observed arrhythmias induced by cardiac glycosides.
Multivalent Human Papillomavirus L1 DNA Vaccination Utilizing Electroporation

Objectives Naked DNA vaccines can be manufactured simply and are stable at ambient temperature, but require improved delivery technologies to boost immunogenicity. Here we explore in vivo electroporation for multivalent codon-optimized human papillomavirus (HPV) L1 and L2 DNA vaccination. Methods Balb/c mice were vaccinated three times at two week intervals with a fusion protein comprising L2 residues ∼11−88 of 8 different HPV types (11−88×8) or its DNA expression vector, DNA constructs expressing L1 only or L1+L2 of a single HPV type, or as a mixture of several high-risk HPV types and administered utilizing electroporation, i.m. injection or gene gun. Serum was collected two weeks and 3 months after the last vaccination. Sera from immunized mice were tested for in-vitro neutralization titer, and protective efficacy upon passive transfer to naive mice and vaginal HPV challenge. Heterotypic interactions between L1 proteins of HPV6, HPV16 and HPV18 in 293TT cells were tested by co-precipitation using type-specific monoclonal antibodies. Results Electroporation with L2 multimer DNA did not elicit detectable antibody titer, whereas DNA expressing L1 or L1+L2 induced L1-specific, type-restricted neutralizing antibodies, with titers approaching those induced by Gardasil. Co-expression of L2 neither augmented L1-specific responses nor induced L2-specific antibodies. Delivery of HPV L1 DNA via in vivo electroporation produces a stronger antibody response compared to i.m. injection or i.d. ballistic delivery via gene gun. Reduced neutralizing antibody titers were observed for certain types when vaccinating with a mixture of L1 (or L1+L2) vectors of multiple HPV types, likely resulting from heterotypic L1 interactions observed in co-immunoprecipitation studies. High titers were restored by vaccinating with individual constructs at different sites, or partially recovered by co-expression of L2, such that durable protective antibody titers were achieved for each type. Discussion Multivalent vaccination via in vivo electroporation requires spatial separation of individual type L1 DNA vaccines.
A real-time reconstructed 3D environment augmented with virtual objects rendered with correct occlusion

In this work we present a novel framework for the real-time interaction with 3D models in augmented virtual reality. Our framework incorporates view-dependent stereoscopic rendering of the reconstructed environment together with user's hands and a virtual object, and high-precision gesture recognition to manipulate it. Proposed setup consists of a Creative RGB-D camera, Oculus Rift VR head mounted display (HMD), Leap Motion hands and fingers tracker and an AR marker. The system is capable of augmenting the user's hands in relation to their point of view (POV) using the depth sensor mounted on the HMD, and allows manipulation of the environment through the Leap Motion sensor. The AR marker is used to determine the location of the Leap Motion sensor to help with consolidation of transformations between the Oculus and the Leap Motion sensor. Combined with accurate information from the Oculus HMD, the system is able to track the user's head and fingers, with 6-DOF, to provide a spatially accurate augmentation of the user's virtual hands. Such an approach allows us to achieve high level of user immersion since the augmented objects occlude the user's hands properly; something which is not possible with conventional AR. We hypothesize that users of our system will be able to perform better object manipulation tasks in this particular augmented VR setup as compared to virtual reality (VR) where user's hands are not visible, or if visible, always occlude virtual objects.
Is there always performance overhead for regular fabric?

In this paper, we study the circuits built from super-regular, high-density transistor arrays that can be prefabricated and customized using an OPC-free interconnect manufacturing process. The super-regular layout style greatly enhances the chippsilas manufacturability. Unlike other regular fabrics that sacrifice area and performance to improve regularity, the new layout style, combined with a new 3-D geometry transistor, enables to produce circuits with timing and power density comparable to or better than that of conventional CMOS circuits and using less chip area.
Impact of Content Delivery Networks on Service and Content Innovation

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are major actors of the current telecommunication ecosystem. Our goal in this paper is to study their impact on other actors of the supply chain, especially on content innovation which is a key concern in the network neutrality debate where CDNs' role seems forgotten. Our findings indicate that vertically integrating a CDN helps Internet Service Providers (ISPs) collect fees from Content Providers (CPs), hence circumventing the interdiction of side payments coming from netneutrality rules. However, this outcome is socially much better in terms of user quality and innovation fostering than having separate actors providing the access and CDN services: in the latter case double marginalization (both ISP and CDN trying to get some value from the supply chain) leads to suboptimal investments in CDN storage capacities and higher prices for CPs, resulting in reduced innovation.
Biological maturity and the anthropometric, physical and technical assessment of talent identified U16 Australian footballers

This study compared biological maturation, anthropometric, physical and technical skill measures between talent and non-talent identified junior Australian footballers. Players were recruited from the under 16 Western Australian Football League and classified as talent (state representation; n = 25, 15.7 ± 0.3 y) or non-talent identified (non-state representation; n = 25, 15.6 ± 0.4 y). Players completed a battery of anthropometric, physical and technical skill assessments. Maturity was estimated using years from peak height velocity calculations. Binary logistic regression was used to identify the variables demonstrating the strongest association with the main effect of ‘status’. A receiver operating characteristic curve was used to assess the level of discrimination provided by the strongest model. Talent identified under 16 players were biologically older, had greater stationary and dynamic leaps and superior handball skill when compared to their non-talent identified counterparts. The strongest model of status included standing height, non-dominant dynamic vertical jump and handball outcomes (AUC = 83.4%, CI = 72.1%–95.1%). Biological maturation influences anthropometric and physical capacities that are advantageous for performance in Australian football; talent identification methods should factor biological maturation as a confound in the search for junior players who are most likely to succeed in senior competition.
Don’t Always Prefer My Chosen Objects: Low Level of Trait Autonomy and Autonomy Deprivation Decreases Mere Choice Effect

Choice effect is a robust phenomenon in which even “mere choice” that does not include actual choosing actions could result in more preference for the self-chosen objects over other-chosen objects. In the current research, we proposed that autonomy would impact the mere choice effect. We conducted two studies to examine the hypothesis. The results showed that the mere choice effect measured by Implicit Association Test (IAT) significantly decreased for participants with lower levels of trait autonomy (Study 1) and when participants were primed to experience autonomy deprivation (Study 2). The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Genetic Analysis Identifies DDR2 as a Novel Gene Affecting Bone Mineral Density and Osteoporotic Fractures in Chinese Population

DDR2 gene, playing an essential role in regulating osteoblast differentiation and chondrocyte maturation, may influence bone mineral density (BMD) and osteoporosis, but the genetic variations actually leading to the association remain to be elucidated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether the genetic variants in DDR2 are associated with BMD and fracture risk. This study was performed in three samples from two ethnicities, including 1,300 Chinese Han subjects, 700 Chinese Han subjects (350 with osteoporotic hip fractures and 350 healthy controls) and 2,286 US white subjects. Twenty-eight SNPs in DDR2 were genotyped and tested for associations with hip BMD and fractures. We identified 3 SNPs in DDR2 significantly associated with hip BMD in the Chinese population after multiple testing adjustments, which were rs7521233 (P = 1.06×10−4, β: −0.018 for allele C), rs7553831 (P = 1.30×10−4, β: −0.018 for allele T), and rs6697469 (P = 1.59×10−3, β: −0.015 for allele C), separately. These three SNPs were in high linkage disequilibrium. Haplotype analyses detected two significantly associated haplotypes, including one haplotype in block 2 (P = 9.54×10−4, β: −0.016) where these three SNPs located. SNP rs6697469 was also associated with hip fractures (P = 0.043, OR: 1.42) in the Chinese population. The effect on fracture risk was consistent with its association with lower BMD. However, in the white population, we didn’t observe significant associations with hip BMD. eQTL analyses revealed that SNPs associated with BMD also affected DDR2 mRNA expression levels in Chinese. Our findings, together with the prior biological evidence, suggest that DDR2 could be a new candidate for osteoporosis in Chinese population. Our results also reveal an ethnic difference, which highlights the need for further genetic studies in each ethnic group.
Close to You: Embodied Simulation for Peripersonal Space in Primary Somatosensory Cortex

Background An increasing body of evidence has demonstrated that in contrast to the classic understanding the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) reflects merely seen touch (in the absence of any real touch on the own body). Based on these results it has been discussed that SI may play a role in understanding touch seen on other bodies. In order to further examine this understanding of observed touch, the current study aimed to test if mirror-like responses in SI are affected by the perspective of the seen touch. Thus, we presented touch on a hand and close to the hand either in first-person-perspective or in third-person-perspective. Principal Findings Results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed stronger vicarious brain responses in SI/BA2 for touch seen in first-person-perspective. Surprisingly, the third-person viewpoint revealed activation in SI both when subjects viewed a hand being stimulated as well as when the space close to the hand was being touched. Conclusions/Significance Based on these results we conclude that vicarious somatosensory responses in SI/BA2 are affected by the viewpoint of the seen hand. Furthermore, we argue that mirror-like responses in SI do not only reflect seen touch, but also the peripersonal space surrounding this body (in third-person-perspective). We discuss these findings with recent studies on mirror responses for action observation in peripersonal space.
Molecular Surveillance of Cryptosporidium spp., Giardia duodenalis, and Enterocytozoon bieneusi by Genotyping and Subtyping Parasites in Wastewater

Background Despite their wide occurrence, cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis are considered neglected diseases by the World Health Organization. The epidemiology of these diseases and microsporidiosis in humans in developing countries is poorly understood. The high concentration of pathogens in raw sewage makes the characterization of the transmission of these pathogens simple through the genotype and subtype analysis of a small number of samples. Methodology/Principal Findings The distribution of genotypes and subtypes of Cryptosporidium spp. , Giardia duodenalis, and Enterocytozoon bieneusi in 386 samples of combined sewer systems from Shanghai, Nanjing and Wuhan and the sewer system in Qingdao in China was determined using PCR-sequencing tools. Eimeria spp. were also genotyped to assess the contribution of domestic animals to Cryptosporidium spp. , G. duodenalis, and E. bieneusi in wastewater. The high occurrence of Cryptosporidium spp. (56.2%), G. duodenalis (82.6%), E. bieneusi (87.6%), and Eimeria/Cyclospora (80.3%) made the source attribution possible. As expected, several human-pathogenic species/genotypes, including Cryptosporidium hominis, Cryptosporidium meleagridis, G. duodenalis sub-assemblage A-II, and E. bieneusi genotype D, were the dominant parasites in wastewater. In addition to humans, the common presence of Cryptosporidium spp. and Eimeria spp. from rodents indicated that rodents might have contributed to the occurrence of E. bieneusi genotype D in samples. Likewise, the finding of Eimeria spp. and Cryptosporidium baileyi from birds indicated that C. meleagridis might be of both human and bird origins. Conclusions/Significance The distribution of Cryptosporidium species, G. duodenalis genotypes and subtypes, and E. bieneusi genotypes in urban wastewater indicates that anthroponotic transmission appeared to be important in epidemiology of cryptosporidiosis, giardiasis, and microsporidiosis in the study areas. The finding of different distributions of subtypes between Shanghai and Wuhan was indicative of possible differences in the source of C. hominis among different areas in China.
A prototype decision support system for strategic planning under uncertainty

Strategic planning of the supply chain is an important decision problem determining the long‐term survival and prosperity of companies in the manufacturing, retail, and other industrial sectors. In general such companies rely on their information systems to acquire the essential data that are used in their planning models. The interaction of information systems and decision modelling, and the progressive transformation of data, into information, and knowledge is a key process underlying any decision support system (DSS) for strategic, tactical or operational planning. In this paper we consider a DSS for supply chain planning (SCP) decisions. The SCP system has an embedded decision engine that uses a two‐stage stochastic program as a paradigm for optimisation under uncertainty. The system has been used for decision making in diverse domains, including automotive manufacturing and consumer products.
Arabic WordNet and the Challenges of Arabic

Sabri Elkateb, William Black The University of Manchester PO Box 88, Sackville St, Manchester, M60 1QD sabri.elkateb@manchester.ac. uk w.black@manchester.ac. uk, Piek Vossen Irion Technologies Irion Technologies, Delftechpark 26, 2628XH, Delft, The Netherlands piek.vossen@irion.nl David Farwell Politechnical University of Catalonia Jordi Girona, 1-3, 08034 Barcelona, SPAIN farwell@lsi.upc. edu Adam Pease Articulate Software Inc, 278 Monroe Dr. #30 Mountain View, CA 94040 apease@articulatesoftware.com Christiane Fellbaum Princeton University, Department of Psychology, Green Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 fellbaum@clarity.princeton. edu
Distribution of the search of evolutionary product unit neural networks for classification

This paper deals with the distributed processing in the search for an optimum classification model using evolutionary product unit neural networks. For this distributed search we used a cluster of computers. Our objective is to obtain a more efficient design than those net architectures which do not use a distributed process and which thus result in simpler designs. In order to get the best classification models we use evolutionary algorithms to train and design neural networks, which require a very time consuming computation. The reasons behind the need for this distribution are various. It is complicated to train this type of nets because of the difficulty entailed in determining their architecture due to the complex error surface. On the other hand, the use of evolutionary algorithms involves running a great number of tests with different seeds and parameters, thus resulting in a high computational cost.
A METHOD FOR ALIGNING IT STRATEGY TO SERVICE CUSTOMER VALUE CREATION

All firms including manufacturing firms are becoming service centered, focused on the customer. Service centered firms co-create value with their customers through the dynamic configuration of their people, processes, and systems, known collectively as organizational capabilities. The core of these capabilities is knowledge, which is underpinned by information technology. This book explores the relationships of the service firm's knowledge, capabilities, IT, and strategy in its quest for superior value co-creation with customers. It analyzes and explains the principles of service, knowledge, and organizational capabilities , and describes the methodologies for crafting and executing a successful business-aligned IT strategy—an integrated end-to-end process from business strategy to customer value delivery. The book explains the ways by which IT strategy formulation and management practices of a technology-enabled service enterprise are used to shape the firm's knowledge organizations and the attendant dynamic capabilities , and to facilitate service innovation and superior customer value co-creation. Summaries of selective case examples are drawn from the literature to illustrate how these basic principles of service innovation and strategic alignment management are applied in practice. It concludes by a real-life case example of an organization to illustrate the direct link and positive contribution of knowledge management to service innovation. Information technology is a means to the business end. IT is a tool designed to perform a business task within an overall business context. A service-oriented firm is successful when its customer value proposition is always aligned with the customer's evolving needs. Thus, IT creates value only when it contributes directly or indirectly to value co-creation with the service-oriented firm's customers. A successful IT strategy must therefore align with the business and its service strategies, fully, from strategy setting, planning to detailed programs execution and delivery. The goal of IT strategy is to help business create and implement the unique customer value proposition. An effective IT strategy therefore starts with an in-depth understanding of the firm's business, mission, vision, strategic goals, and positioning in the competitive market environment. It must analyze the firm's business and service models, value configuration and core business processes required for differentiation. Naturally, IT organizations should also possess in-depth knowledge of the ways by which IT is embedded in the firm's differentiating, and dynamic organizational capabilities, which underpin the firm's competitive advantage. From these insights the business-aligned service and IT strategies are developed, together with the requisite future target enterprise and technology architectures. The target …