Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Attacks and Solutions of Yang et al.'s Protected Password Changing Scheme

Recently, Yang et al. proposed an improvement to Tseng et al.'s protected password changing scheme that can withstand denial of service attack. However, the improved scheme is still susceptible to stolen-verifier attack and denial of service attack. Accordingly, the current paper demonstrates the vulnerability of Yang et al.'s scheme to two simple attacks and presents an improved protected password change scheme to resolve such problems. In contrast to Yang et al.'s protected password changing scheme and the existing password change schemes using server's public key, the proposed scheme can securely update user passwords without a complicated process and server's public key.
STRING-MAN: Wire-robot technology for safe, flexible and human-friendly gait rehabilitation

The paper presents a novel concept of lightweight and inherently safe robotic systems for assisting the locomotion recovery therapy and training. This concept, referred to as STRING-MAN, is established on string-puppet idea and utilizes modular wire robot components and advanced artificial muscles drives. An overview of the system's fundamental components, such as mechanical structure, patient-machine interface, sensory systems, control algorithms, etc., is given in the paper. The results of initial experiments clearly demonstrate the benefits and potential of new concept. Finally further development of STRING-MAN idea towards practical and inherently safe robotic rehabilitation assistants has also been presented.
COUNCIL FOR CULTURAL CO-OPERATION ( CDCC ) PROJECT " EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP " Basic Concepts and core competencies for education for democratic citizenship

2 The opinions expressed in this work are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Council for Cultural Cooperation of the Council of Europe nor that of the Secretariat. 3 In 1997, the Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) project was set up with the aim to find out which values and skills individuals require in order to become participating citizens, how they can acquire these skills and how they can learn to pass them on to others. A Project Group composed of education ministries representatives, specialists, international institutions and NGOs active in the field of education for democratic citizenship was set up at the beginning of the project. The project activities grounded in theory as well as in practical everyday life, have been divided between three subgroups. They worked on A – concepts / definitions : Aims: to work out a framework of concepts for education for democratic citizenship together with the appropriate terminology and to identify the basic skills required for democratic practices in European societies. B – pilot projects / sites od citizenship: Aims: to identify, learn from, compare, appraise and encourage the development of citizenship sites (innovative and empowering initiatives in which citizens participate actively in society, especially at the local level). Partnerships between the different actors involved in education for citizenship (e.g. schools, parents, the media, businesses, local authorities, adult education establishments) are identified and supported. C – training and support systems : Aims: to identify different methods and ways of learning, teaching and training, to build up a network of multipliers, adult educators, teacher trainers in education for democratic citizenship, to exchange information and experience in the field of EDC and to create fora for reflection and discussion. The many activities carried out between 1997 and 2000 resulted, inter alia, in the project's synthesis report and three complementary studies presented at the project's final conference (Strasbourg, 14-16 September 2000). In addition to the present report, these are :-Education for democratic citizenship : a Lifelong Learning Perspective, by César Birzéa, the synthesis report of the overall EDC project-Sites of citizenship: Empowerment, participation and partnerships by Liam Carey and Keith Forrester-Strategies for learning democratic citizenship by KH Duerr, V. Spajic-Vrkas and I.
Motivating the Notion of Generic Design within Information-Processing Theory: The Design Problem Space

The notion of generic design, although it has been around for 25 years, is not often articulated; such is especially true within Newell and Simon's (1972) information-processing theory (IPT) framework. Design is merely lumped in with other forms of problem-solving activity. Intuitively, one feels there should be a level of description of the phenomenon that refines this broad classification by further distinguishing between design and nondesign problem solving. However, IPT does not facilitate such problem classification. This article makes a preliminary attempt to differentiate design problem solving from nondesign problem solving by identifying major invariants in the design problem space.
The ACS LCID project: data reduction strategy

Abstract During Cycle 14 a total of 113 HST orbits were secured to observe five isolated dwarf galaxies, namely Tucana, LGS3, LeoA, IC1613, and Cetus. The aim of the project is a full characterization of the stellar content of these galaxies, in term of their SFH, radial distributions, halo populations and variable stars. Deep (V≈29) F475W, F814W data allowed us to fully sample all the evolutionary phases from the tip of the Red Giant Branch (RGB) to well below the old Main Sequence Turnoff (MSTO). Here we describe the observational design, and the reduction and calibration strategy adopted. A comparison of the results obtained using two different packages, ALLFRAME and Dolphot, is presented.
Genetic quantum algorithm and its application to combinatorial optimization problem

This paper proposes a novel evolutionary computing method called a genetic quantum algorithm (GQA). GQA is based on the concept and principles of quantum computing such as qubits and superposition of states. Instead of binary, numeric, or symbolic representation, by adopting qubit chromosome as a representation GQA can represent a linear superposition of solutions due to its probabilistic representation. As genetic operators, quantum gates are employed for the search of the best solution. Rapid convergence and good global search capability characterize the performance of GQA. The effectiveness and the applicability of GQA are demonstrated by experimental results on the knapsack problem, which is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem. The results show that GQA is superior to other genetic algorithms using penalty functions, repair methods and decoders.
Palmitoylation Regulates Intracellular Trafficking of β2 Adrenergic Receptor/Arrestin/Phosphodiesterase 4D Complexes in Cardiomyocytes

β2 adrenergic receptor (β2AR) is a prototypical G-protein coupled receptor that stimulates the classic cAMP-protein kinase A (PKA) signaling pathway. Recent studies indicate that the cAMP-PKA activities are spatiotemporally regulated in part due to dynamic association of β2AR with phosphodiesterase 4D (PDE4D), a group of cAMP degradation enzymes. Here, we demonstrate that in cardiomyocytes, palmitoylation of β2AR, the covalent acylation of cysteine residue 341, plays a critical role in shaping subcellular cAMP-PKA activities in cardiomyocytes via regulating β2AR association with arrestin/PDE4D. Replacing cysteine 341 on β2AR with alanine (C341A) leads to an impaired binding to β arrestin 2. Surprisingly, the C341A mutant is able to internalize via an arrestin-independent pathway at saturated concentration of agonist stimulation; the internalization becomes caveolae-dependent and requires dynamin GTPase. However, the impaired binding to β arrestin 2 also leads to an impaired recruitment of PDE4D to the C341A mutant. Thus, the mutant C341A β2AR is transported alone from the plasma membrane to the endosome without recruiting PDE4D. This alteration leads to an enhanced cytoplasmic cAMP signal for PKA activation under β2AR stimulation. Functionally, Mutation of the C341 residue or inhibition of palmitoylation modification of β2AR enhances the receptor-induced PKA activities in the cytoplasm and increases in myocyte contraction rate. Our data reveal a novel function of palmitoylation in shaping subcellular cAMP-PKA signaling in cardiomyocytes via modulating the recruitment of β arrestin 2-PDE4D complexes to the agonist-stimulated β2AR.
Analyzing impact of image scaling algorithms on viola-jones face detection framework

In today's world of automation, real time face detection with high performance is becoming necessary for a wide number of computer vision and image processing applications. Existing software based system for face detection uses the state of the art Viola and Jones face detection framework. This detector makes use of image scaling approach to detect faces of different dimensions and thus, performance of image scalar plays an important role in enhancing the accuracy of this detector. A low quality image scaling algorithm results in loss of features which directly affects the performance of the detector. Therefore, in this paper we have analyzed the effect of different image scaling algorithms existing in literature on the performance of the Viola and Jones face detection framework and have tried to find out the optimal algorithm significant in performance. The algorithms which will be analyzed are: Nearest Neighbor, Bilinear, Bicubic, Extended Linear and Piece-wise Extended Linear. All these algorithms have been integrated with the Viola and Jones face detection code available with OpenCV library and has been tested with different well know databases containing frontal faces.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 Tat Activates Calpain Proteases via the Ryanodine Receptor to Enhance Surface Dopamine Transporter Levels and Increase Transporter-Specific Uptake and Vmax

Human immunodeficiency virus-associated neurological disease (HAND) still causes significant morbidity, despite success reducing viral loads with combination antiretroviral therapy. The dopamine (DA) system is particularly vulnerable in HAND. We hypothesize that early, “reversible” DAergic synaptic dysfunction occurs long before DAergic neuron loss. As such, aging human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals may be vulnerable to other age-related neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease (PD), underscoring the need to understand shared molecular targets in HAND and PD. Previously, we reported that the neurotoxic HIV-1 transactivating factor (Tat) acutely disrupts mitochondrial and endoplasmic reticulum calcium homeostasis via ryanodine receptor (RyR) activation. Here, we further report that Tat disrupts DA transporter (DAT) activity and function, resulting in increased plasma membrane (PM) DAT and increased DAT Vmax, without changes in Km or total DAT protein. Tat also increases calpain protease activity at the PM, demonstrated by total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy of a cleavable fluorescent calpain substrate. Tat-increased PM DAT and calpain activity are blocked by the RyR antagonists ryanodine and dantrolene, the calpain inhibitor calpastatin, and by a specific inhibitor of GSK-3β. We conclude that Tat activates RyRs via a calcium- and calpain-mediated mechanism that upregulates DAT trafficking to the PM, and is independent of DAT protein synthesis, reinforcing the feasibility of RyR and GSK-3β inhibition as clinical therapeutic approaches for HAND. Finally, we provide key translational relevance for these findings by highlighting published human data of increased DAT levels in striata of HAND patients and by demonstrating similar findings in Tat-expressing transgenic mice.
MicroRNAs as Prognostic Indicators and Therapeutic Targets: Potential Effect on Breast Cancer Management

The discovery of microRNAs (miRNA) as novel modulators of gene expression has resulted in a rapidly expanding repertoire of molecules in this family, as reflected in the concomitant expansion of scientific literature. MiRNAs are a category of naturally occurring RNA molecules that play important regulatory roles in plants and animals by targeting mRNAs for cleavage or translational repression. Characteristically, miRNAs are noncoding, single-stranded short (18-22 nucleotides) RNAs, features which possibly explain why they had not been intensively investigated until recently. Accumulating experimental evidence indicates that miRNAs play a pivotal role in many cellular functions via the regulation of gene expression. Furthermore, their dysregulation and/or mutation has been shown in carcinogenesis. We provide a brief review of miRNA biogenesis and discuss the technical challenges of modifying experimental techniques to facilitate the identification and characterization of these small RNAs. MiRNA function and their involvement in malignancy, particularly their putative role as oncogenes or tumor suppressors is also discussed, with a specific emphasis on breast cancer. Finally, we comment on the potential role of miRNAs in breast cancer management, particularly in improving current prognostic tools and achieving the goal of individualized cancer treatment.
Optimized Power Allocation for Pairwise Cooperative Multiple Access

Multiple access schemes in which the transmitting nodes are allowed to cooperate have the potential to provide higher quality of service than conventional schemes. In the class of pair-wise cooperative multiple access schemes in which channel state information is available at the transmitters, the allocation of transmission power plays a key role in the realization of these quality of service gains. Unfortunately, the natural formulation of the power allocation problem for full-duplex cooperative schemes is not convex. It is shown herein that this non-convex formulation can be simplified and recast in a convex form. In fact, closed-form expressions for the optimal power allocation for each point on the boundary of an achievable rate region are obtained. In practice, a half-duplex cooperative scheme, in which the channel resource is partitioned in such a way that interference is avoided, may be preferred over a full-duplex scheme. The channel resource is often partitioned equally, but we develop an efficient algorithm for the joint allocation of power and the channel resource for a modified version of an existing half-duplex cooperative scheme. We demonstrate that this algorithm enables the resulting scheme to attain a significantly larger fraction of the achievable rate region for the full duplex case than the underlying scheme that employs a fixed resource allocation.
20 Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative motor neuron disease for which no successful treatment presently exists. ALS is also termed Charcot’s disease (maladie de Charcot), after the French clinician Jean Martin Charcot who first described its features in 1869 (Charcot 1869) or Lou Gehrig’s disease in the United States, after the New York Yankees baseball player afflicted with the condition. Within Europe ALS is often referred to as Motor Neuron Disease, describing the cells chiefly affected, although this term may also more generally refer to a wider group of motor neuron diseases. ALS is characterized by the degeneration of motor cortex, brainstem and/or motor neurons associated with the spinal cord, resulting in muscle weakness and loss of voluntary muscle control. Progressive paralysis ensues, and respiratory failure is the usual cause of death. Amyotrophic refers to the lack (a-) of muscle (-myo-) nourishment (-trophic), resulting in wasting of the fibers; Lateral refers to the lateral corticospinal tract of affected neurons between the brain and spinal cord; Sclerosis is the resultant hardening of the tissue. The incidence of ALS globally ranges from 0.3 to 2.4 cases per 100,000 (Sathasivam 2010). Approximately 95% of ALS cases are random or sporadic (SALS), whereas 5 or more percent are inherited (familial ALS, FALS), with a subset of these arising from known genetic determinants. Despite the initial description of the disorder about 150 years ago, and significant progress in the understanding of its pathology, ALS remains an ill-defined terminal disease with few medicinal options and an average duration of only a few years. Nonetheless, new developments in ALS research are slowly emerging in diagnostics, in elucidating molecular mechanisms behind the disease, and in generating treatments. Improved technologies and recent research insights, when coupled with meaningful collaborations between scientists and clinicians hold promise for exciting progress. Thus, we discuss here the current understanding of ALS in terms of its clinical presentation, and its molecular and cellular basis. In particular, we highlight new insights into the genetics of the inherited disease, with a focus on the mutant gene products Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase (Cu,ZnSOD), Fused in Sarcoma/Translated in Lipsarcoma (FUS/TLS) and the Tar-DNA binding protein 43 (TDP43). The standard care regimen will also be described, along with a focus on novel
Automatic generation of a user interface for highly interactive business-oriented applications

The goal of this work is to prove that a designer can be able to generate as systematically as possible a first sketch of the presentation for an ergonomical user interface in the specific area of highly-interactive business-oriented applications. It basically consists of three foundations : (i) the corpus ergonomics, a multi-pu~ose high-level styleguide; (ii) the SEGUIA tool which is able to assist the designer in the selection and layout tasks ; (iii) the SIERRA tool which an on-line hypermedia documenting linguistic ergonomic criteria and guidelines defined in the corpus ergonomics. This work is integrated in the TRIDENT project which is a methodology and a supporting environment for developing highly-interactive business-oriented applications.
For Valid Generalization the Size of the Weights is More Important than the Size of the Network

This paper shows that if a large neural network is used for a pattern classification problem, and the learning algorithm finds a network with small weights that has small squared error on the training patterns, then the generalization performance depends on the size of the weights rather than the number of weights. More specifically, consider an l-layer feed-forward network of sigmoid units, in which the sum of the magnitudes of the weights associated with each unit is bounded by A. The misclassification probability converges to an error estimate (that is closely related to squared error on the training set) at rate O((cA)l(l+1)/2 √(log n)/m) ignoring log factors, where m is the number of training patterns, n is the input dimension, and c is a constant. This may explain the generalization performance of neural networks, particularly when the number of training examples is considerably smaller than the number of weights. It also supports heuristics (such as weight decay and early stopping) that attempt to keep the weights small during training.
Is the development of orientation selectivity instructed by activity?

Is the development of orientation selectivity in visual cortex instructed by the patterns of neural activity of input neurons? We review evidence as to the role of activity, review models of activity-instructed development, and discuss how these models can be tested. The models can explain the normal development of simple cells with binocularly matched orientation preferences, the effects of monocular deprivation and reverse suture on the orientation map, and the development of a full intracortical circuit sufficient to explain mature response properties including the contrast-invariance of orientation tuning. Existing experiments are consistent with the models, in that (a) selective blockade of ON-center ganglion cells, which will degrade or eliminate the information predicted to drive development of orientation selectivity, in fact prevents development of orientation selectivity; and (b) the spontaneous activities of inputs serving the two eyes are correlated in the lateral geniculate nucleus at appropriate developmental times, as was predicted to be required to achieve binocular matching of preferred orientations. However, definitive tests remain to be done to firmly establish the instructive rather than simply permissive role of activity and determine whether the retinotopically and center type-specific patterns of activity predicted by the models actually exist. We conclude by critically examining alternative scenarios for the development of orientation selectivity and maps, including the idea that maps are genetically prespecified.
Regulation of Mitotic Inhibitor Mik1 Helps to Enforce the DNA Damage Checkpoint

The protein kinase Chk1 enforces the DNA damage checkpoint. This checkpoint delays mitosis until damaged DNA is repaired. Chk1 regulates the activity and localization of Cdc25, the tyrosine phosphatase that activates the cdk Cdc2. Here we report that Mik1, a tyrosine kinase that inhibits Cdc2, is positively regulated by the DNA damage checkpoint. Mik1 is required for checkpoint response in strains that lack Cdc25. Long-term DNA damage checkpoint arrest fails in Δmik1 cells. DNA damage increases Mik1 abundance in a Chk1-dependent manner. Ubiquitinated Mik1 accumulates in a proteasome mutant, which indicates that Mik1 normally has a short half-life. Thus, the DNA damage checkpoint might regulate Mik1 degradation. Mik1 protein and mRNA oscillate during the unperturbed cell cycle, with peak amounts detected around S phase. These data indicate that regulation of Mik1 abundance helps to couple mitotic onset to the completion of DNA replication and repair. Coordinated negative regulation of Cdc25 and positive regulation of Mik1 ensure the effective operation of the DNA damage checkpoint.
Ieee Transactions on Computational Intelligence and Ai in Games 1 N-grams and the Last-good-reply Policy Applied in General Game Playing

—The aim of General Game Playing (GGP) is to create programs capable of playing a wide range of different games at an expert level, given only the rules of the game. The most successful GGP programs currently employ simulation-based Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS). The performance of MCTS depends heavily on the simulation strategy used. In this paper we introduce improved simulation strategies for GGP that we implement and test in the GGP agent CADIAPLAYER, which won the International GGP competition in both 2007 and 2008. There are two aspects to the improvements: first, we show that a simple ϵ-greedy exploration strategy works better in the simulation play-outs than the softmax-based Gibbs measure currently used in CADIAPLAYER and, secondly, we introduce a general framework based on N-Grams for learning promising move sequences. Collectively, these enhancements result in a much improved performance of CADIAPLAYER. For example, in our test-suite consisting of five different two-player turn-based games, they led to an impressive average win rate of approximately 70%. The enhancements are also shown to be effective in multi-player and simultaneous-move games. We additionally perform experiments with the Last-Good-Reply Policy. The Last-Good-Reply Policy combined with N-Grams is also tested. The Last-Good-Reply Policy has already been shown to be successful in Go programs and we demonstrate that it also has promise in GGP.