Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Global Detection of Flooding-Based DDoS Attacks Using a Cooperative Overlay Network

Flooding-based Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks present a serious threat to the stability of the Internet. Identifying the attacks rapidly and accurately is significant for the efficient operation of Internet applications and services. Recent observations in the U.S. indicate a significant increase of cyber attacks on U.S. military information systems in 2009. Current technologies are still unable to withstand large-scale DDoS attacks. Single point detection and response is a first step to defeat such distributed attacks. Distributed global defense systems, using a coordinated effort, go much further towards thwarting such attacks. In this paper, we propose a distributed defense infrastructure to detect DDoS attacks globally using a cooperative overlay network and a gossip-based information exchange protocol. Our NS2 based simulation results show that the proposed solution can detect attacks with a detection rate as high as 0.99 with false alarms below 0.01. This compares favorably against other widely known methods including change-point detection, TTL analysis and wavelet analysis.
An Adaptive Strategy for Single‐ and Multi‐Cluster Gene Assignment

Strict assignment of genes to one class, dimensionality reduction, a priori specification of the number of classes, the need for a training set, nonunique solution, and complex learning mechanisms are some of the inadequacies of current clustering algorithms. Existing algorithms cluster genes on the basis of high positive correlations between their expression patterns. However, genes with strong negative correlations can also have similar functions and are most likely to have a role in the same pathways. To address some of these issues, we propose the adaptive centroid algorithm (ACA), which employs an analysis of variance (ANOVA)‐based performance criterion. The ACA also uses Euclidian distances, the center‐of‐mass principle for heterogeneously distributed mass elements, and the given data set to give unique solutions. The proposed approach involves three stages. In the first stage a two‐way ANOVA of the gene expression matrix is performed. The two factors in the ANOVA are gene expression and experimental condition. The residual mean squared error (MSE) from the ANOVA is used as a performance criterion in the ACA. Finally, correlated clusters are found based on the Pearson correlation coefficients. To validate the proposed approach, a two‐way ANOVA is again performed on the discovered clusters. The results from this last step indicate that MSEs of the clusters are significantly lower compared to that of the fibroblast‐serum gene expression matrix. The ACA is employed in this study for single‐ as well as multi‐cluster gene assignments.
The Language of Meetings

1. The Language of Meetings 2. Presenting an Argument 3. Opinions 4. Agreeing and Disagreeing 5. Interrupting 6. Clarifying 7. Questioning 8. Proposals 9. Persuading 10. Degrees of Importance and Certainty 11. Compromising 12. Procedure for a Formal Meeting 13. Getting It All Together
Polychotomous logistic regression methods for matched case-control studies with multiple case or control groups.

Two statistical methods, a polychotomous and pairwise approach, are presented to derive estimates of the relative odds in a matched case-control design when multiple case or control groups are used. Test statistics are derived to determine if the relative odds between groups are different. The polychotomous method is limited to case-control sets, i.e., where data are available on all members of a matched set. In contrast, the pairwise method makes use of data from both complete and incomplete sets. Nonetheless, efficiency calculations show that the polychotomous logistic regression model is more efficient even when 40 per cent of the case-control sets are incomplete. An example using a single dichotomous variable is provided.
Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Southern Iran: A Population Based Study

Background Population based studies on prevalence and risk factors of NAFLD in Iranian population are few. The prevalence of NAFLD and non alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in Iranians varies from 2.9% to 7.1% in general population and 55.8% in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Objectives To determine the prevalence and determinants of non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in a sample of adult Iranian general population. Patients and Methods This was a cross-sectional study being performed in Shiraz, southern Iran during a 10-month period from November 2010 to September 2011 through cluster random sampling of Iranian general population in Shiraz region. All individuals undergone anthropometric, blood pressure measurements, thorough medical history and physical examinations. Laboratory measurements included fasting blood glucose (FBS), lipid profile, complete blood count (CBC) and liver function tests. NAFLD was diagnosed by transabdominal ultrasonography. Results 819 subjects were included in this study among which were 340 males (41.5%) and 479 females (58.5%) with the mean age of 43.1 ± 14.1 years. NAFLD was diagnosed in 176 (21.5%) subjects. Patients with NAFLD were significantly older (P < 0.001), had higher proportion of male gender (P = 0.004) and had higher BMI (P < 0.001). They also had higher prevalence of hypertension (P < 0.001), high FBS (P < 0.001), high cholesterol (P = 0.026), high triglyceride (P < 0.001) and high waist circumference (P < 0.001). Taking all these together, patients with NAFLD had significantly higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome when compared to healthy subjects (P < 0.001). Conclusion The prevalence of NAFLD in this group of Iranian adult general population is 21.5%. NAFLD in Iranian population is associated with male gender, old age, obesity, and features of metabolic syndrome.
Draft Genome Sequence of Clostridium botulinum Strain 277-00 Type B2

ABSTRACT We report the draft genome sequence of Clostridium botulinum strain 277-00, which encodes a botulinum neurotoxin B2 associated with a ha gene locus. Strain 277-00 was isolated from a cheese responsible for an outbreak of botulism in Iran in 1997. This strain is closed to the bivalent B2/FA strain IBCA10-7060.
UDS-FIM: An Efficient Algorithm of Frequent Itemsets Mining over Uncertain Transaction Data Streams

In this paper, we study the problem of finding frequent itemsets from uncertain data streams. To the best of our knowledge, the existing algorithms cannot compress transaction itemsets to a tree as compact as the classical FP-Tree, thus they need much time and memory space to process the tree. To address this issue, we propose an algorithm UDS-FIM and a tree structure UDS-Tree. Firstly, UDS-FIM maintains probability values of each transactions to an array; secondly, compresses each transaction to a UDS-Tree in the same manner as an FP-Tree (so it is as compact as an FP-Tree) and maintains index of probability values of each transaction in the array to the corresponding tail-nodes; lastly, it mines frequent itemsets from the UDS-Tree without additional scan of transactions. The experimental results show that UDS-FIM has achieved a good performance under different experimental conditions in terms of runtime and memory consumption.
Solution Structure of the Oncogenic MIEN1 Protein Reveals a Thioredoxin-Like Fold with a Redox-Active Motif

The novel tumor biomarker MIEN1, identified by representational difference analysis, is overexpressed in breast cancer and prostate cancer. MIEN1 is considered an oncogenic protein, because MIEN1 overexpression functionally enhances migration and invasion of tumor cells via modulating the activity of AKT. However, the structure and molecular function of MIEN1 is little understood. Here, we report the solution structure of MIEN1, which adopts a thioredoxin-like fold with a redox-active motif. Comparison of backbone chemical shifts showed that most of the residues for both oxidized and reduced MIEN1 possessed the same backbone conformation, with differences limited to the active motif and regions in proximity. The redox potential of this disulfide bond was measured as −225 mV, which compares well with that of disulfides for other thioredoxin-like proteins. Overall, our results suggest that MIEN1 may have an important regulatory role in phosphorylation of AKT with its redox potential.
Wisdom, Religiosity, Purpose in Life, and Attitudes toward Death

A major psychological task in old age is to come to terms with the finitude of life. This study tests the relationships between wisdom, religiosity, purpose in life, and attitudes toward death, using a sample of community dwelling 123 older adults living in North Central Florida. Wisdom was defined as a combination of cognitive, reflective, and affective personality qualities. Controlling for socioeconomic status, gender, race, and the other variables in the model, multivariate regression analyses show that wisdom has a negative effect on death anxiety and escape acceptance of death, and intrinsic religiosity has a positive effect on approach and escape acceptance of death. Extrinsic religiosity is positively related to fear of death, death avoidance, and neutral acceptance of death. Purpose in life is unrelated to attitudes toward death if wisdom is included in the model, but it is negatively related to fear of death and death avoidance if wisdom is excluded. Similarly, wisdom is negatively related to death avoidance if purpose in life is eliminated from the model.
EVALUACIÓN DE LA UNIDIMENSIONALIDAD DE LOS ITEMS MEDIANTE ANÁLISIS FACTORIAL

Assessing the unidimensionality of a set of items using factor-analytic procedures. This work revises a series of factor-analytic based procedures for the dimensional assessment of sets of items with discrete response format. All of them share two properties: a) they are simple in terms of computation, so that they can be used with the standard statistical packages and with large item sets and b) they have a clear theoretical foundation which makes easy the interpretation of the results. An empirical example is also included.
Autoimmunity in the Mediation of Granulomatous Amoebic Encephalitis: Implications for Therapy

Acanthamoeba spp. are free-living amoebae that are ubiquitous in the environment. Most healthy individuals carry Acanthamoeba-reactive antibodies, suggesting constant exposure to amoebae. In spite of the high prevalence of the amoebae, the incidence of diseases caused by Acanthamoeba is very low. Non-opportunistically, Acanthamoebae can induce keratitis in healthy humans, but as an opportunistic pathogen, the amoebae can cause fatal encephalitis especially in immunocompromised individuals and treatments are often ineffective. Amoebic encephalitis is a life-threatening disease of the central nervous system (CNS) caused by free-living amoebae belonging to the genera Acanthamoeba, Balamuthia and Naegleria. Because they lack host-specificity, the ubiquitous amoebae can infect a wide range of species (Marciano-Cabral & Cabral, 2003, Schuster & Visvesvara, 2004). The diseases caused by Acanthamoeba spp. and Balamuthia spp. are generally termed ”granulomatous amoebic encephalitis” (GAE), whereas those caused by Naegleria spp. are called ‘primary amoebic meningioencephalitis (PAM)’(Marciano-Cabral & Cabral, 2003, Schuster & Visvesvara, 2004, Khan, 2006, da Rocha-Azevedo, et al., 2009). While Acanthamoebae induce illness mostly in immunocompromised individuals, Balamuthia spp. and Naegleria spp. can cause diseases in both immune-sufficient and immune-deficient individuals (Martinez & Visvesvara, 2001, Marciano-Cabral & Cabral, 2003, Schuster & Visvesvara, 2004, Khan, 2006, da Rocha-Azevedo, et al., 2009). Nevertheless, all of them can induce keratitis in healthy individuals, often in contact lens-wearers (Jones, et al., 1975, Martinez & Visvesvara, 1997, Marciano-Cabral & Cabral, 2003, da Rocha-Azevedo, et al., 2009). We recently discovered that A. castellanii contains mimicry sequence for immunodominant epitope of CNS myelin proteolipid protein (PLP), suggesting that exposure to A. castellanii can lead to the generation of autoimmune responses by antigenic mimicry. In this review, we discuss our understanding of the pathophysiology of Acanthamoeba-induced encephalitis, with a special emphasis on autoimmunity in mediation of the disease, and implications for therapy.
Dynamic contrast-enhanced diffuse optical tomography (DCE-DOT): experimental validation with a dynamic phantom

Dynamic contrast-enhanced diffuse optical tomography (DCE-DOT) can provide spatially resolved enhancement kinetics of an optical contrast agent. We undertook a systematic phantom study to evaluate the effects of the geometrical parameters such as the depth and size of the inclusion as well as the optical parameters of the background on the recovered enhancement kinetics of the most commonly used optical contrast agent, indocyanine green (ICG). For this purpose a computer-controlled dynamic phantom was constructed. An ICG–intralipid–water mixture was circulated through the inclusions while the DCE-DOT measurements were acquired with a temporal resolution of 16 s. The same dynamic study was repeated using inclusions of different sizes located at different depths. In addition to this, the effect of non-scattering regions was investigated by placing a second inclusion filled with water in the background. The phantom studies confirmed that although the peak enhancement varied substantially for each case, the recovered injection and dilution rates obtained from the percentage enhancement maps agreed within 15% independent of not only the depth and the size of the inclusion but also the presence of a non-scattering region in the background. Although no internal structural information was used in these phantom studies, it may be necessary to use it for small objects buried deep in tissue. However, the different contrast mechanisms of optical and other imaging modalities as well as imperfect co-registration between both modalities may lead to potential errors in the structural a priori. Therefore, the effect of erroneous selection of structural priors was investigated as the final step. Again, the injection and dilution rates obtained from the percentage enhancement maps were also immune to the systematic errors introduced by erroneous selection of the structural priors, e.g. choosing the diameter of the inclusion 20% smaller increased the peak enhancement 60% but changed the injection and dilution rates only less than 10%.
On-line Chinese Character Recognition System for Overlapping Samples

We proposed a new process strategy for on-line handwriting Chinese Character recognition and applied it to overlapping samples. On one hand, those samples are evaluated on stroke level by support vector machine, on the other hand, we do character level evaluation basing on a character pair search model. Then a merging strategy was proposed to filter out correct segmentation positions. We test our strategy on samples from real context, verifying that our strategy performs better than traditional over-segmentation and merging method.
Ethernet passive optical network architectures and dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithms

We compile and classify the research work conducted for Ethernet passive optical networks. We examine PON architectures and dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithms. Our classifications provide meaningful and insightful presentations of the prior work on EPONs. The main branches of our classification of DBA are: grant sizing, grant scheduling, and optical network unit queue scheduling. We further examine the topics of QoS support, as well as fair bandwidth allocation. The presentation allows those interested in advancing EPON research to quickly understand what already was investigated and what requires further investigation. We summarize results where possible and explicitly point to future avenues of research.
Survey on Comparative Analysis of Database Replication Techniques

Database Replication is one of the interesting and important aspects for distributed database systems. Most of the applications are of distributed nature thus their performance is an important issue. Database replication servers both fault tolerant as well as better performance feature to such distributive applications. In distributed system, database replication is often used to provide the high availability and performance for accessing the data. This paper presents basic understanding of database replication and different techniques or ways of replicating databases. This paper will go through both eager and lazy replication techniques. Consistency is the main area of eager replication, whereas bigger increase in performance in cost of consistency is the main area of lazy replication. This paper also provides the comparison of replication strategy so that database designer can decide which replication technique fulfils his requirements.
Present Limits to Heat-Adaptability in Corals and Population-Level Responses to Climate Extremes

Climate change scenarios suggest an increase in tropical ocean temperature by 1–3°C by 2099, potentially killing many coral reefs. But Arabian/Persian Gulf corals already exist in this future thermal environment predicted for most tropical reefs and survived severe bleaching in 2010, one of the hottest years on record. Exposure to 33–35°C was on average twice as long as in non-bleaching years. Gulf corals bleached after exposure to temperatures above 34°C for a total of 8 weeks of which 3 weeks were above 35°C. This is more heat than any other corals can survive, providing an insight into the present limits of holobiont adaptation. We show that average temperatures as well as heat-waves in the Gulf have been increasing, that coral population levels will fluctuate strongly, and reef-building capability will be compromised. This, in combination with ocean acidification and significant local threats posed by rampant coastal development puts even these most heat-adapted corals at risk. WWF considers the Gulf ecoregion as “critically endangered”. We argue here that Gulf corals should be considered for assisted migration to the tropical Indo-Pacific. This would have the double benefit of avoiding local extinction of the world's most heat-adapted holobionts while at the same time introducing their genetic information to populations naïve to such extremes, potentially assisting their survival. Thus, the heat-adaptation acquired by Gulf corals over 6 k, could benefit tropical Indo-Pacific corals who have <100 y until they will experience a similarly harsh climate. Population models suggest that the heat-adapted corals could become dominant on tropical reefs within ∼20 years.
Scholasticism, Liberalism, Revolutionary Nationalism and Neoliberalism in Mexico

This paper attempts to sketch out a history of the (loosely) scholastic tradition that I encountered through ethnographic research in contemporary west Mexico, including its historical relation to the statist liberal tradition about which so many scholars have written. I asked my informants what it meant to them to be citizens. During the interviews, my informants sometimes talked of citizenship as a relationship with government, usually of individuals and mediated by rights. However, many were reluctant to reduce citizenship to a relationship with government, replying instead that citizens were, unlike hermits, people who lived in society, ideally in a civil way. In responding thus my informants sounded Aristotelian and I suggest that civil sociality had made its way via Aquinas and later scholastics such as the Jesuit Suarez and thence via colonial missionaries to modern Mexico. There it has offered, I suggest, one way of combating the statist liberalism that first developed in the mid-nineteenth century (and which included priests – hence my reluctance to conflate Catholic with scholastic). I am endeavouring to test and add nuance to that crude account. For one thing, the scholastic and liberal traditions have crossed over at certain points. My informants shifted from one notion of citizenship to the other, even within the space of an interview. The same was true of the most obvious source of their ideas about citizenship - the Civics textbooks used since the Revolution. The textbooks included chapters on liberal schemes of individual rights but invariably began with a chapter on the inescapable sociality of the person, also citing hermits as the antithesis. The paper therefore tries to tease out earlier points of contact between the scholastic and liberal traditions, in the long nineteenth century.
A developmental perspective on adolescent health and illness: an introduction to the special issues.

manuscripts that focused on adolescents with chronic physical conditions as well as those that focused on adolescent health-related behaviors (e.g., smoking, substance use, sexual risk-taking). In response to the call, 27 papers were submitted across both of these areas. This issue of the journal includes six articles focusing on adolescents with chronic illnesses and physical conditions and the next issue includes six articles that focus on adolescent health behaviors. This is an introduction to both issues.
Dissecting the interface between apicomplexan parasite and host cell: Insights from a divergent AMA–RON2 pair

Significance Parasites of phylum Apicomplexa cause significant morbidity and mortality on a global scale. Central to the pathogenesis of these parasites is their ability to invade host cells through a junction formed by members of the apical membrane antigen (AMA) and rhoptry neck protein 2 (RON2) families localized to the parasite surface and host outer membrane, respectively. Here we structurally and functionally characterize Toxoplasma gondii AMA4 (TgAMA4), a highly divergent AMA protein. Structural analyses of TgAMA4 in the apo and RON2L1 bound forms reveal a previously underappreciated level of molecular diversity at the parasite–host-cell interface that offers important insight into stage-dependent invasion strategies and yields a more comprehensive model of apicomplexan invasion. Plasmodium falciparum and Toxoplasma gondii are widely studied parasites in phylum Apicomplexa and the etiological agents of severe human malaria and toxoplasmosis, respectively. These intracellular pathogens have evolved a sophisticated invasion strategy that relies on delivery of proteins into the host cell, where parasite-derived rhoptry neck protein 2 (RON2) family members localize to the host outer membrane and serve as ligands for apical membrane antigen (AMA) family surface proteins displayed on the parasite. Recently, we showed that T. gondii harbors a novel AMA designated as TgAMA4 that shows extreme sequence divergence from all characterized AMA family members. Here we show that sporozoite-expressed TgAMA4 clusters in a distinct phylogenetic clade with Plasmodium merozoite apical erythrocyte-binding ligand (MAEBL) proteins and forms a high-affinity, functional complex with its coevolved partner, TgRON2L1. High-resolution crystal structures of TgAMA4 in the apo and TgRON2L1-bound forms complemented with alanine scanning mutagenesis data reveal an unexpected architecture and assembly mechanism relative to previously characterized AMA–RON2 complexes. Principally, TgAMA4 lacks both a deep surface groove and a key surface loop that have been established to govern RON2 ligand binding selectivity in other AMAs. Our study reveals a previously underappreciated level of molecular diversity at the parasite–host-cell interface and offers intriguing insight into the adaptation strategies underlying sporozoite invasion. Moreover, our data offer the potential for improved design of neutralizing therapeutics targeting a broad range of AMA–RON2 pairs and apicomplexan invasive stages.