Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How to jam without getting caught: Analysis and empirical study of stealthy periodic jamming

Despite the widespread commercial use of spread spectrum technology, advanced algorithms and modern hardware capabilities still allows efficient denial-of-service attacks against wireless communication systems using jamming. Much of the recent work on jamming mitigation has focused on how to adjust the transmitter-receiver system once a jamming attack has been detected. However, characterizing the detectability of certain classes of jamming attacks remains a largely unstudied problem. We aim to narrow this gap by analyzing the effect of a class of periodic jamming attacks on the attack detection metrics of packet delivery ratio (PDR) and received signal strength (RSS). We show that a well-designed jamming signal can effectively defeat RSS-based detection while causing a significant and often devastating reduction in PDR, demonstrating that RSS-based detection is insufficient. We further evaluate our claims through implementation of a periodic jammer using a wide range of signal parameters against a transmitter-receiver pair communicating using IEEE 802.15. 4, demonstrating the validity of our analytical claims.
Some modeling approaches for client relay networks

Client relay is a promising technology to improve the performance of the cell-edge clients in a wireless cellular network. Unfortunately, there is a lack of performance analysis results for client relay networks in the research literature. This is mainly due to extremely complex interactions between network, data link and physical layers. In this paper we fill in this gap by proposing several techniques to assess the performance of the client cooperation approaches, which demonstrate good accordance between themselves. We discuss the system model used, analytical and simulation approaches for modeling the client relay networks. The key feature of the proposed approach is the ability to cross-check the analytical and simulation results, as well as extend the system model when necessary.
Materials of marine origin: a review on polymers and ceramics of biomedical interest

Marine organisms are constituted by materials with a vast range of properties and characteristics that may justify their potential application within the biomedical field. Moreover, assuring the sustainable exploitation of natural marine resources, the valorisation of residues from marine origin, like those obtained from food processing, constitutes a highly interesting platform for development of novel biomaterials, with both economic and environmental benefits. In this perspective, an increasing number of different types of compounds are being isolated from aquatic organisms and transformed into profitable products for health applications, including controlled drug delivery and tissue engineering devices. This report reviews the work that is being developed on the isolation and characterisation of some polysaccharides, proteins, glycosaminoglycans and ceramics from marine raw materials. Emphasis is given to agar, alginates, carrageenans, chitin and chitosan, among other polysaccharides, collagen, glycosaminoglycans such as chondroitin sulphate, heparin and hyaluronic acid, calcium phosphorous compounds and biosilica. Finally, this report ends by reviewing the application of the previously mentioned materials on specific biomedical applications, in particular their participation on the development of controlled drug delivery systems and tissue engineering scaffolds.
Real-Time Classification of Healthy and Apnea Subjects Using ECG Signals With Variational Mode Decomposition

This paper introduces a novel method for the classification of healthy and apnea subjects using variational mode decomposition. The proposed method distinguishes the apnea and normal subjects with the help of an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. Polysomnogram is the gold standard used for the identification of apnea subjects. This process is complex, expensive, and time-consuming. In this paper, both online and off-line-based feature extraction and classification methods are explored. The proper extraction of suitable features from the signal is done by applying variational mode decomposition. Two features are extracted from the variational mode functions, namely, energy and RR interval of ECG signal. These features are fed in to a support vector machine classifier, where they are classified as healthy and apnea. The accuracy obtained for both online and off-line processes are 97.5% and 95%, respectively.
Serum factors, cell membrane CD14, and beta2 integrins are not required for activation of bovine macrophages by lipopolysaccharide

The role of serum factors such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-binding protein (LBP) and of macrophage-expressed CD14 and beta2 integrins in the activation of bovine macrophages by LPS was investigated. Macrophage activation was determined by measuring tumor necrosis factor production, NO generation, and upregulation of procoagulant activity by LPS (Escherichia coli O55:B5) at concentrations of 100 pg/ml to 100 ng/ml. The 50% effective dose for LPS was 1 order of magnitude higher than that for activating human macrophages. Macrophages were activated by LPS in the presence of serum or in the presence of albumin demonstrated to be free of LBP. The capacity to react to LPS in the absence of LBP was not due to the acquisition of LBP during a previous culture in serum. It was then established which CD14-specific antibodies block LPS binding to monocytes. Among the CD14-specific antibodies recognizing bovine mononuclear phagocytes (60bca, 3C10, My4, CAM36, VPM65, CMRF31, and TUK4), the first four blocked the binding of LPS-fluorescein isothiocyanate to bovine monocytes at low concentrations. Anti-CD14 antibodies did not block LPS-mediated activation of bovine bone marrow-derived macrophages, monocyte-derived macrophages, and alveolar macrophages. This was observed in experiments in which anti-CD14 concentrations exceeded the 50% inhibitory dose by >30-fold (3C10 and My4) or >300-fold (60bca), as defined in the binding assay described above. Monocyte-derived macrophages from an animal deficient in beta2 integrins and control macrophages were activated by similar concentrations of LPS, suggesting that beta2 integrins are not important bovine LPS receptors. Thus, in bovine macrophages, LPS recognition pathways which are independent of exogenous LBP, of membrane-expressed CD14, and of beta2 integrins may exist.
Polymerase chain reaction‐based detection of Fusarium circinatum, the causal agent of pitch canker disease

Pitch canker is a highly damaging disease of Pinus radiata and the New Zealand forest industry is concerned by the potential impact of the disease, should it arrive, in New Zealand. To provide a rapid identification technique for this pathogen, a polymerase chain reaction‐based diagnostic method has been developed. The method is able to detect the presence of the pathogen within infected host tissue, as well as infested soil and the reliability of the test has been estimated using Bayesian statistics.
The Revision of Children's Perception of Marital Conflict Scale

Objective:To revise the children's perception of interparental conflict scale (CPIC) developed by Grych and his colleagues and examine its reliability and validity Method:Data were collected from a sample of 303 primary school students tested with the CPIC scale Results:The results of factor analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis showed that the revised CPIC had a good construct validity; and αcoefficient of the whole scale is 0 879, the reliability coefficient of split-half is 0 865, and the αcoefficient of each dimension was more than 0 657 Conclusion:The CPIC scale is suitable for Chinese children after revision
Improved Wireless Secrecy Rate Using Distributed Auction Theory

Physical layer security is an emerging security area that explores possibilities of achieving perfect secrecy data transmission between the intended network nodes, while possible malicious nodes that eavesdrop the communication obtain zero information. The so-called secrecy rate can be improved using friendly jammers that introduce extra interference to the eavesdroppers. Here, we investigate the interaction between the multiple source-destination links and a friendly jammer who assists by ''masking" the eavesdropper. In order to obtain a distributed solution, one possibility is to introduce a distributed auction theoretic approach. The auction is defined such that the source-destination links provide bids for the jammer to interfere the eavesdropper, therefore increasing their secrecy capacities. We propose a distributed auction using the share auction and iteratively updating the bids. To compare with the performances, we construct a centralized solution and a VCG auction, which cannot be implemented in practice. Our analysis and simulation results show the effectiveness of friendly jamming and convergence of the proposed scheme. The distributed game solution is shown to have similar performances to those of the centralized ones.
Linked vs. unlinked markers: multilocus microsatellite haplotype‐sharing as a tool to estimate gene flow and introgression

We have explored the use of multilocus microsatellite haplotypes to study introgression from cultivated (Malus domestica) into wild apple (Malus sylvestris), and to study gene flow among remnant populations of M. sylvestris. A haplotype consisted of alleles at microsatellite loci along one chromosome. As destruction of haplotypes through recombination occurs much faster than loss of alleles due to genetic drift, the lifespan of a multilocus haplotype is much shorter than that of the underlying alleles. When different populations share the same haplotype, this may indicate recent gene flow between populations. Similarly, haplotypes shared between two species would be a strong signal for introgression. As the expected lifespan of a haplotype depends on the strength of the linkage, the length [in centiMorgans (cM)] of the haplotype shared contains information on the number of generations passed. This application of shared haplotypes is distinct from using haplotype‐sharing to detect association between markers and a certain trait. We inferred haplotypes for four to eight microsatellite loci on Linkage Group 10 of apple from genotype data using the program phase, and then identified those haplotypes shared between populations and species. Compared with a Bayesian analysis of unlinked microsatellite loci using the program structure, haplotype‐sharing detected a partially different set of putative hybrids. Cultivated haplotypes present in M. sylvestris were short (< 1.5 cM), indicating that introgression had taken place many generations ago, except for two Belgian plants that contained a haplotype of 47.1 cM, indicating recent introgression. In the estimation of gene flow, FST based on unlinked loci indicated small (0.032–0.058) but statistically significant differentiation between some populations only. However, various M. sylvestris haplotypes were shared in nearly all pairwise comparisons of populations, and their length indicated recent gene flow. Hence, all Dutch populations should be considered as one conservation unit. The added value of using sharing of multilocus microsatellite haplotypes as a source of population genetic information is discussed.
Repetition suppression of ventromedial prefrontal activity during judgments of self and others

One useful strategy for inferring others' mental states (i.e., mentalizing) may be to use one's own thoughts, feelings, and desires as a proxy for those of other people. Such self-referential accounts of social cognition are supported by recent neuroimaging observations that a single brain region, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), is engaged both by tasks that require introspections about self and by tasks that require inferences about the minds of others perceived to be similar to self. To test whether people automatically refer to their own mental states when considering those of a similar other, we examined repetition-related suppression of vMPFC response during self-reflections that followed either an initial reflection about self or a judgment of another person. Consistent with the hypothesis that perceivers spontaneously engage in self-referential processing when mentalizing about particular individuals, vMPFC response was suppressed when self-reflections followed either an initial reflection about self or a judgment of a similar, but not a dissimilar, other. These results suggest that thinking about the mind of another person may rely importantly on reference to one's own mental characteristics.
A novel FPGA logic block for improved arithmetic performance

To improve FPGA performance for arithmetic circuits, this paper proposes a new architecture for FPGA logic cells that includes a 6:2 compressor. The new cell features additional fast carry-chains that concatenate adjacent compressors and can be routed locally without the global routing network. Unlike previous carry-chains for binary and ternary addition, the carry chain used by the new cell only spans 2 logic blocks, which significantly improves the delay of multi-input addition operations mapped onto the FPGA. The delay and area overhead that arises from augmenting a traditional FPGA logic cell with the new compressor structure is minimal. Using this new cell, we observed an average speedup in combinational delay of 1.41x compared to adder trees synthesized using ternary adders
Psoriatic spondylitis: a clinical and radiological description of the spine in psoriatic arthritis.

In a review of 130 patients with psoriatic arthritis, spondylitis was noted in 40 per cent. Sacro-iliitis was observed in 21 per cent and was present either when axial disease was predominant (seven patients) or in association with peripheral polyarthritis (15 patients). The groups differed in that most of those with axial disease were males who had developed psoriasis later in life. In those with disease of the axial skeleton, nail dystrophy was less common, and iritis, chronic back pain and restriction of spinal mobility were more common. They had higher values of E.S. R. In both there was a high incidence of the histocompatibility antigen B27. The axial group resembled idiopathic ankylosing spondylitis and the New York criteria were fulfilled by 86 per cent compared with 27 per cent of those who had peripheral arthritis as well. This latter group was frequently without symptoms or signs of spondylitis. Syndesmophytes are accepted as a radiological manifestation of spondylitis. They were noted in 25 per cent of patients and in 60 per cent of these the sacroiliac joints were normal radiologically. Anterior syndesmophytes alone were found only in the cervical spine and were more common in patients without sacro-iliitis. Lateral syndesmophytes were most commonly found in the lumbar and lower dorsal vertebrae and were slightly less common in patients without sacro-iliitis. Patients with syndesmophytes and normal sacro-iliac joints had a small male preponderance. They were no more likely to have symptoms or signs of spinal disease than those with normal spine radiographs.
Wiki-Translator: Multilingual Experiments for In-Domain Translations

The benefits of using comparable corpora for improving translation quality for statistical machine translators have been already shown by various researchers. The usual approach is starting with a baseline system, trained on out-of-domain parallel corpora, followed by its adaptation to the domain in which new translations are needed. The adaptation to a new domain, especially for a narrow one, is based on data extracted from comparable corpora from the new domain or from an as close as possible one. This article reports on a slightly different approach: building an SMT system entirely from comparable data for the domain of interest. Certainly, the approach is feasible if the comparable corpora are large enough to extract SMT useful data in sufficient quantities for a reliable training. The more comparable corpora, the better the results are. Wikipedia is definitely a very good candidate for such an experiment. We report on mass experiments showing significant improvements over a baseline system built from highly similar (almost parallel) text fragments extracted from Wikipedia. The improvements, statistically significant, are related to what we call the level of translational similarity between extracted pairs of sentences. The experiments were performed for three language pairs: Spanish-English, German-English and Romanian-English, based on sentence pairs extracted from the entire dumps of Wikipedia as of December 2012. Our experiments and comparison with similar work show that adding indiscriminately more data to a training corpus is not necessarily a good thing in SMT.
Vasodilatory Capacity of the Cerebral Vasculature in Patients with Carotid Artery Stenosis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Impairment of the cerebral autoregulation is an important predictor of TIA and stroke in patients with an ICA stenosis. The autoregulative status can be assessed directly by measuring the vasodilatory capacity of the cerebral arteries. The aim of our study was to investigate the vasodilatory capacity of the proximal and distal cerebral vasculature in patients with an ICA stenosis and healthy control subjects by combining MRA with an acetazolamide provocation challenge. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen functionally independent patients (mean age, 67.2 ± 8.7 years) with a symptomatic ICA stenosis and 19 healthy controls (mean age, 63.1 ± 7.2 years) were included. MRA was performed before and 20 minutes after intravenous administration of acetazolamide. The vasodilatory capacity of 11 proximal and distal cerebral vessels was assessed by measuring the increase in vessel diameter after acetazolamide. RESULTS: In the hemisphere ipsilateral to the ICA stenosis, there was no increase in diameter after acetazolamide, whereas a significant increase was measured in the contralateral hemisphere for the A1 and A2 segments of the ACA, the pericallosal artery, and the BA. A significant diameter increase was measured in all except 1 vessel of the controls. The vasodilatory capacity was significantly lower ipsilateral to the ICA stenosis compared with the A1 segment of the ACA and the P2 segment of the PCA in the controls. CONCLUSIONS: MRA combined with an acetazolamide provocation challenge can measure normal and impaired vasodilatory capacity of the cerebral vasculature.
Radiative modeling and characterization of aerosol plumes in hyperspectral imagery

A semianalytical model, named APOM (aerosol plume optical model) and predicting the radiative effects of aerosol plumes in the spectral range [0.4,2.5 mum], is presented in the case of nadir viewing. The scene is represented by an atmospheric layer (molecules and natural aerosols) located above the plume layer. The estimated at-sensor reflectance depends on the solar zenith angle, the plume optical properties (optical depth, single-scattering albedo and asymmetry parameter), the ground reflectance and the wavelength. Its numerical coefficients are derived from COMANCHE radiative transfer simulations. Model accuracy is assessed by using a set of simulations performed in the case of biomass burning and industrial plumes. APOM proves to be accurate and robust for solar zenith angles between 0deg and 60deg whatever the sensor altitude, the standard atmosphere and for plume phase functions defined from urban and rural models. The modeling errors in the at-sensor reflectance are on average below 0.002. They can reach values as high as 0.01 for wavelengths close to 0.4 mum but mainly correspond in such cases to low relative errors (below 5% and 3% on average). This model can be used for forward modeling (quick simulations of multi/hyperspectral images, help in sensor design.) as well as for the retrieval of the plume optical properties. For this purpose, we propose a model for the optical properties involving a few parameters and we show that even in this case the problem is still ill-constrained and that constraints have to be imposed. First retrieval results as well as recommendations for the inversion are presented.
An Update on Pediatric Anesthesia Liability: A Closed Claims Analysis

BACKGROUND:Respiratory complications were associated with half of pediatric malpractice claims from the 1970s to 1980s in the ASA Closed Claims Database. Advances in pediatric anesthesia practice have occurred in the 1980s and 1990s and may be reflected in liability trends. METHODS:We reviewed 532 pediatric (age ≤16 yr) malpractice claims from our database over three decades (1973–2000), using logistic regression analysis to evaluate trends over time. Claims from 1990 to 2000 (1990s) were reviewed in detail to determine damaging events and injuries. Multiple logistic regression analysis evaluated factors associated with claims for death/brain damage (BD) compared with claims for less severe injuries. RESULTS:From 1973 to 2000, there was a decrease in the proportion of claims for death/BD (P = 0.002) and respiratory events (P < 0.001), particularly for inadequate ventilation/oxygenation (P < 0.001). However, claims for death (41%) and BD (21%) remained the dominant injuries in pediatric anesthesia claims in the 1990s. Half of the claims in 1990–2000 involved patients 3 yr or younger and one-fifth were ASA 3–5. Cardiovascular (26%) and respiratory (23%) events were the most common damaging events. Factors associated with claims for death/BD in the 1990s when compared with claims for less severe injuries were cardiovascular events (odds ratio [OR] = 6.6, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.5–17.8), respiratory events (OR = 3.7, 95% CI = 1.5–9.4), and ASA status 3–5 (OR = 3.1, 95% CI = 1.3–7.8). CONCLUSIONS:Death/BD remained the dominant injuries in pediatric anesthesia malpractice claims in the 1990s. Cardiovascular events joined respiratory events as the major sources of liability.
Spoken Document Retrieval For TREC-7 At Cambridge University

This paper presents work done at Cambridge University, on the TREC-7 Spoken Document Retrieval (SDR) Track. The broadcast news audio was transcribed using a 2-pass gender-dependent HTK speech recogniser which ran at 50 times real time and gave an overall word error rate of 24.8%, the lowest in the track. The Okapi-based retrieval engine used in TREC-6 by the City/Cambridge University collaboration was supplemented by improving the stoplist, adding a bad-spelling mapper and stemmer exceptions list, adding word-pair information, integrating part-of-speech weighting on query terms and including some pre-search statistical expansion. The final system gave an average precision of 0.4817 on the reference and 0.4509 on the automatic transcription, with the R-precision being 0.4603 and 0.4330 respectively. 1 The paper also presents results on a new set of 60 queries with assessments for the TREC-6 test document data used for development purposes, and analyses the relationship between recognition accuracy, as defined by a preprocessed term error rate, and retrieval performance for both sets of data.
ROI-based tamper detection and recovery for medical images using reversible watermarking technique

Digital image watermarking is proposed to overcome the problems of security, capacity and cost in health care management systems. Medical images, unlike most of images, require extreme care when embedding additional data within them because the additional information must not affect the image quality and readability. In order to overcome any misdiagnose caused by embedding data into medical images, lossless data hiding techniques have been developed. This paper presents a lossless watermarking technique for Ultrasound (US) images. The proposed technique adopts a high-capacity reversible data hiding scheme based on difference expansion (DE). It can be used to hide patient's data hiding and protecting the region of interest (ROI) with tamper detection and recovery capability. The experimental results show that the original image can be exactly extracted from the watermarked one in case of no tampering. In case of tampered ROI, tampered area can be localized and recovered losslessly.