Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parallelizing SHA-1

In this paper, we propose the parallel architecture for high speed calculations of SHA-1, a widely used cryptographic hash function. Parallel SHA-1 consists of a number of base modules which process the message digest in parallel manner. The base module uses state of art SHA-1 acceleration techniques: loop unfolding, pre-processing, and pipelining. We achieved the performance improvement of 5.8% over the pipeline architecture that is known to have nearly achieved the theoretical performance limit. We implemented our system on the Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA and verified the operations by interfacing it with MicroBlaze soft processor core.
Determining WWW user's next access and its application to pre-fetching

World-Wide Web (WWW) services have grown to levels where significant delays are expected to happen. Prefetching techniques are likely to help reduce waiting times. However pre-fetching is only effective if the right documents are identified and if user's move is correctly predicted. Therefore, it is productive to determine whether a revisit will occur or not, before starting pre-fetching. In this paper we develop two user models that help determine user's next move. One model uses random walk approximation and the other is based on digital signal processing techniques. We also give hints on how to use such models with a simple pre-fetching technique that we are developing.
Times Faster Weighted Median Filter ( WMF )

Weighted median, in the form of either solver or filter, has been employed in a wide range of computer vision solutions for its beneficial properties in sparsity representation. But it is hard to be accelerated due to the spatially varying weight and the median property. We propose a few efficient schemes to reduce computation complexity from O(r) to O(r) where r is the kernel size. Our contribution is on a new joint-histogram representation, median tracking, and a new data structure that enables fast data access. The effectiveness of these schemes is demonstrated on optical flow estimation, stereo matching, structure-texture separation, image filtering, to name a few. The running time is largely shortened from several minutes to less than 1 second. The source code is provided in the project website.
9 S ep 2 00 5 Thurston ’ s norm revisited

We study Thurston’s norm on the second homology of a 3-manifold. The novelty of our approach consists in the use of methods of the C∗algebra theory. Namely, for Stallings’ fibration M with pseudo-Anosov monodromy, we associate a C∗-algebra whose K-theory gives rise to an algebraic number field K. We show that the trace function on the ring of integers of K induces a norm on the second homology of M . Further developments of this theory are discussed.
Robust dynamic motion estimation over time

A novel approach to incrementally estimating visual motion over a sequence of images is presented. The authors start by formulating constraints on image motion to account for the possibility of multiple motions. This is achieved by exploiting the notions of weak continuity and robust statistics in the formulation of a minimization problem. The resulting objective function is non-convex. Traditional stochastic relaxation techniques for minimizing such functions prove inappropriate for the task. A highly parallel incremental stochastic minimization algorithm is presented which has a number of advantages over previous approaches. The incremental nature of the scheme makes it dynamic and permits the detection of occlusion and disocclusion boundaries. <<ETX>>
Distortion analysis for delay tolerant data collection for high-speed wireless sensor and actor networks

In this paper, we propose to leverage high-speed rail as mobile actor to assist structural health monitoring (SHM) data collection and delivery for wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs). Due to high density in the network topology, sensor observations have spatial and temporal correlation. With the spatiotemporal correlation, we first provide a two-phase data collection scheme. In the first phase, the WSANs transmit the data to a sink node and then aggregate the data using the spatial correlation. In the second phase, when the high-speed train passing by the tunnel or the bridge, the sink node transmits the data to the train and then aggregate the data with consideration of the temporal correlation. Also because of the high speed mobility of the train, the communication link between the sink and the train may be fail, so we need to estimate the lost packet. We then estimate spatiotemporal distortion to denote the event collection's reliability/fidelity. Through extensive simulation, we discuss several key elements that will affect the reliability.
Elucidation of the CMP-pseudaminic acid pathway in Helicobacter pylori: synthesis from UDP-N-acetylglucosamine by a single enzymatic reaction.

Flagellin glycosylation is a necessary modification allowing flagellar assembly, bacterial motility, colonization, and hence virulence for the gastrointestinal pathogen Helicobacter pylori [Josenhans, C. , Vossebein, L. , Friedrich, S. , and Suerbaum, S. (2002) FEMS Microbiol. Lett. , 210, 165-172; Schirm, M. , Schoenhofen, I.C. , Logan, S.M. , Waldron, K.C. , and Thibault, P. (2005) Anal. Chem., 77, 7774-7782]. A causative agent of gastric and duodenal ulcers, H. pylori, heavily modifies its flagellin with the sialic acid-like sugar 5,7-diacetamido-3,5,7,9-tetradeoxy-l-glycero-alpha-l-manno-nonulosonic acid (pseudaminic acid). Because this sugar is unique to bacteria, its biosynthetic pathway offers potential as a novel therapeutic target. We have identified six H. pylori enzymes, which reconstitute the complete biosynthesis of pseudaminic acid, and its nucleotide-activated form CMP-pseudaminic acid, from UDP-N-acetylglucosamine (UDP-GlcNAc). The pathway intermediates and final product were identified from monitoring sequential reactions with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, thereby confirming the function of each biosynthetic enzyme. Remarkably, the conversion of UDP-GlcNAc to CMP-pseudaminic acid was achieved in a single reaction combining six enzymes. This represents the first complete in vitro enzymatic synthesis of a sialic acid-like sugar and sets the groundwork for future small molecule inhibitor screening and design. Moreover, this study provides a strategy for efficient large-scale synthesis of novel medically relevant bacterial sugars that has not been attainable by chemical methods alone.
Latest Approach to Improve the Protection of Embedded Systems by Using PGP Technique

professionally coordinated, multifaceted, and motivated by the promise of profits on a massive scale. With millions of new electronic devices connecting to the internet every day, hackers are increasingly focused on a new type of target: mobile and embedded systems. Such systems include point-of-sale terminals, wireless routers, smart phones, networked office machines such as printers, and even the utility infrastructure. Pass points scheme is one of the techniques used in Authentication using Graphical Images. In this method, users click on images rather than typing a long and complex alphanumeric password with the computer keyboard. Psychological studies have shown that people can remember pictures better than text. During the time of registration a user may choose several areas (click points) on an image. In order to log in the user has to click close to the chosen click points, e.g. within 0.25cm to 0.50cm from the click point, because users cannot click exactly on the same pixel on which they have clicked at the time of registration. This margin of error around the click point is called Tolerance. Existing Pass points scheme uses a fixed tolerance (say 20X20 pixels) over a number of clicks by the user. But by varying the tolerance (i.e., decrementing the tolerance level) as users click on more points, the information left to an attacker is reduced. We have also introduced multiple graphical passwords approach to counter shoulder surfing attack. Cutting-edge hackers are acutely aware that many of the security procedures and applications in use today have been designed for PC workstations, and are thus unable to thwart attacks on mobile and embedded systems. Smart phones, for example, remain notoriously insecure, yet they are gaining popularity as platforms for exchanging confidential data and conducting financial transactions. Billions of dollars are at risk as people do more and more of their everyday banking and shopping on mobile and wireless devices. Even heart pacemakers have joined the networked world and are now vulnerable to hacking.
Efficient lp-norm multiple feature metric learning for image categorization

Previous metric learning approaches are only able to learn the metric based on single concatenated multivariate feature representation. However, for many real world problems with multiple feature representation such as image categorization, the model trained by previous approaches will degrade because of sparsity brought by significant dimension growth and uncontrolled influence from each feature channel. In this paper, we propose an efficient distance metric learning model which adapts Distance Metric Learning on multiple feature representations. The aim is to learn the Mahalanobis matrices for each independent feature and their non-sparse lp-norm weight coefficients simultaneously by maximizing the margin of the overall learned distance metric among the pairs from the same class and the distance of pairs from different classes. We further extend this method to nonlinear kernel learning and category specific metric learning, which demonstrate the applicability of using many existing kernels for image data and exploring the hierarchical semantic structures for large scale image datasets. Experiments on various datasets demonstrate the promising power of our method.
Vertical cup-to-disc ratio measurement for diagnosis of glaucoma on fundus images

Glaucoma is a leading cause of permanent blindness. Retinal fundus image examination is useful for early detection of glaucoma. In order to evaluate the presence of glaucoma, the ophthalmologists determine the cup and disc areas and they diagnose glaucoma using a vertical cup-to-disc ratio. However, determination of the cup area is very difficult, thus we propose a method to measure the cup-to-disc ratio using a vertical profile on the optic disc. First, the blood vessels were erased from the image and then the edge of optic disc was then detected by use of a canny edge detection filter. Twenty profiles were then obtained around the center of the optic disc in the vertical direction on blue channel of the color image, and the profile was smoothed by averaging these profiles. After that, the edge of the cup area on the vertical profile was determined by thresholding technique. Lastly, the vertical cup-to-disc ratio was calculated. Using seventy nine images, including twenty five glaucoma images, the sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 85% were achieved with this method. These results indicated that this method can be useful for the analysis of the optic disc in glaucoma examinations.
Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress-Mediated Autophagy/Apoptosis Induced by Capsaicin (8-Methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) and Dihydrocapsaicin is Regulated by the Extent of c-Jun NH2-Terminal Kinase/Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Activation in WI38 Lung Epithelial Fibroblast Cells

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress causes cell survival or death, which is dependent on the type of cell and stimulus. Capsaicin (8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) and its analog, dihydrocapsaicin (DHC), induced caspase-3-independent/-dependent signaling pathways in WI38 lung epithelial fibroblast cells. Here, we describe the molecular mechanisms induced by both chemicals. Exposure to capsaicin or DHC caused induction of p53, p21, and G0/G1 arrest. DHC induced massive cellular vacuolization by dilation of the ER and mitochondria. Classic ER stress inducers elicited the unfolded protein response (UPR) and up-regulation of microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain-3 (LC3) II. DHC induced ER stress by the action of heavy chain-binding protein, IRE1, Chop, eukaryotic initiation factor 2α, and caspase-4 and, to a lesser level, by capsaicin treatment. DHC treatment induced autophagy that was blocked by 3-methyladenine (3MA) and accumulated by bafilomycin A1. Blocking of DHC-induced autophagy by 3MA enhanced apoptotic cell death that was completely inhibited by treatment of cells with benzyl-oxcarbonyl-Val-Ala-Asp-fluoromethyl ketone. Knockdown of Ire1 down-regulated the DHC-induced Chop and LC3II and enhanced caspase-3 activation. DHC induced rapid and high-sustained c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activation, but capsaicin induced transient activation of JNK/ERK. The JNK inhibitor SP600125 down-regulated the expression of IRE1, Chop, and LC3II induced by DHC, thapsigargin, and MG132 [N-benzoyloxycarbonyl (Z)-Leu-Leu-leucinal]. Pharmacological blockade or knockdown of ERK down-regulated LC3II. Capsaicin and DHC induced Akt phosphorylation, and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitors, wortmannin and LY294002 [2-(4-morpholinyl)-8-phenyl-1(4H)-benzopyran-4-one hydrochloride], induced autophagy via ERK activation. Our results indicate that the differential responses of capsaicin and DHC for cell protection are caused by the extent of the UPR and autophagy that are both regulated by the level of JNK and ERK activation.
The relationship between HRV parameters and stressful driving situation in the real road

The aim of this paper is to find a relation between HRV parameters of ECG and stressful driving situation in the real road through various tests. First, we gave a stress to the subject by increasing the driving speed using driving simulator in the laboratory. Second, the subject drove the vehicle on the real road. Through let him drove in the busy narrow street, we evoked stress. ECG and PPG signal was recorded from steering wheel and back cushion each unconsciously. The driving experiment with simulator was not suitable to reproduce actual traffic condition because the adaptation was occurred. On the other hand, in real driving test, the results show that the heart rate is increase, and SDNN, RMSSD, pNN50 were decreased. The heart rate is the strongest indicator and other parameters tend to be changed depend on a personal. The blood pressure had no significant changes. Our results show the good possibility of that the time parameters of the HRV could be used as an instantaneous stress indicator.
Finding selfies of users in microblogged photos

We examine the use of clustering to identify selfies in a social media user's photos. Faces are first detected within a user's photos followed by clustering using visual similarity. We define a cluster scoring scheme that uses a combination of within-cluster visual similarity and average face size in a cluster to rank potential selfie-clusters. Finally, we evaluate this ranking approach over a collection of Twitter users and discuss methods that can be used for improving performance in the future. An application of user selfies is estimating demographic information such as age, gender, and race in a more robust fashion.
Comparative Effectiveness of Oral Drug Therapies for Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms due to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis

Introduction Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are common in elder men and a number of drugs alone or combined are clinically used for this disorder. But available studies investigating the comparative effects of different drug therapies are limited. This study was aimed to compare the efficacy of different drug therapies for LUTS/BPH with network meta-analysis. Materials and Methods An electronic search of PubMed, Cochrane Library and Embase was performed to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing different drug therapies for LUTS/BPH within 24 weeks. Comparative effects were calculated using Aggregate Data Drug Information System. Consistency models of network meta-analysis were created and cumulative probability was used to rank different therapies. Results A total 66 RCTs covering seven different therapies with 29384 participants were included. We found that α-blockers (ABs) plus phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors (PDE5-Is) ranked highest in the test of IPSS total score, storage subscore and voiding subscore. The combination therapy of ABs plus 5α-reductase inhibitors was the best for increasing maximum urinary flow rate (Qmax) with a mean difference (MD) of 1.98 (95% CI, 1.12 to 2.86) as compared to placebo. ABs plus muscarinic receptor antagonists (MRAs) ranked secondly on the reduction of IPSS storage subscore, although monotherapies including MRAs showed no effect on this aspect. Additionally, PDE5-Is alone showed great effectiveness for LUTS/BPH except Qmax. Conclusions Based on our novel findings, combination therapy, especially ABs plus PDE5-Is, is recommended for short-term treatment for LUTS/BPH. There was also evidence that PDE5-Is used alone was efficacious except on Qmax. Additionally, it should be cautious when using MRAs. However, further clinical studies are required for longer duration which considers more treatment outcomes such as disease progression, as well as basic research investigating mechanisms involving PDE5-Is and other pharmacologic agents alleviate the symptoms of LUTS/BPH.
Translation of the FMR1 mRNA is not influenced by AGG interruptions

The fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) gene contains a CGG-repeat element within its 5′ untranslated region (5′UTR) which, for alleles with more than ∼40 repeats, increasingly affects both transcription (up-regulation) and translation (inhibition) of the repeat-containing RNA with increasing CGG-repeat length. Translational inhibition is thought to be due to impaired ribosomal scanning through the CGG-repeat region, which is postulated to form highly stable secondary/tertiary structure. One striking difference between alleles in the premutation range (55–200 CGG repeats) and those in the normal range (<∼40 repeats) is the reduced number/absence of ‘expansion stabilizing’ AGG interruptions in the larger alleles. Such interruptions, which generally occur every 9–11 repeats in normal alleles, are thought to disrupt the extended CGG-repeat hairpin structure, thus facilitating translational initiation. To test this hypothesis, we have measured the translational efficiency of CGG-repeat mRNAs with 0–2 AGG interruptions, both in vitro (rabbit reticulocyte lysates) and in cell culture (HEK-293 cells). We demonstrate that the AGG interruptions have no detectable influence on translational efficiency in either a cell-free system or cell culture, indicating that any AGG-repeat-induced alterations in secondary/tertiary structure, if present, do not involve the rate-limiting step(s) in translational initiation.
Temporal Correlation of Interference in Wireless Networks with Rayleigh Block Fading

The temporal correlation of interference is a key performance factor of several technologies and protocols for wireless communications. A comprehensive understanding of interference correlation is especially important in the design of diversity schemes, whose performance can severely degrade in case of highly correlated interference. Taking into account three sources of correlation-node locations, channel, and traffic-and using common modeling assumptions-random homogeneous node positions, Rayleigh block fading, and slotted ALOHA traffic-we derive closed-form expressions and calculation rules for the correlation coefficient of the overall interference power received at a certain point in space. Plots give an intuitive understanding as to how model parameters influence the interference correlation.
An Approach To Wireless Nano Sensing Network Routing Protocol Based On Energy And Lifetime

: Recent advancement and grown up technologies has enabled the development and implementation of low-cost, energy efficient and versatile sensor networks. Sensor networks are built up with sensors that have the ability to sense physical or environmental property. Assumption can be made that Wireless Sensing Network (WSN) is able to sense environmental conditions at Nano and gaseous level. Wireless sensor network has increasingly become a research hotspot as the technology of wireless networks become gradually matured and supported by small, micro-mobile devices. WSN consists of a several number of sensor nodes ranging from few tens to thousands and base station or sink node. Each node is capable of storing, processing and relaying the data that are sensed. The quality of working properly of the nodes in WSN application consists of comprehension, gathering and distributing information in the network. Energy is a main issue as the sensors are in general tiny. In addition wireless with restricted memory and quality of working properly given the fact that the batteries have a restricted governing power. For this reason, routing system of these type of nodes sometimes depend on energy. In this paper, we have focused on the efficient routing protocols of wireless sensing network based on energy level and life time.
Hybrid: reasoning with higher-order abstract syntax in coq and isabelle

We present recent work on the Hybrid system, a logical framework for specifying and reasoning about languages and deductive systems. One of the main areas of application of this system is developing formal proofs of properties of programming languages. It is well-known that those languages that are formally proven to be sound can better provide a solid basis for building software systems that are reliable and secure. Hybrid is designed to exploit the advantages of higher-order abstract syntax within the well-understood setting of higher-order logic as implemented in a variety of general theorem proving systems. It is currently implemented in both Isabelle/HOL and Coq. Hybrid is definitional and introduces no new axioms. In particular, a de Bruijn representation of lambda-terms provides a definitional layer that allows the user to represent object languages using higher-order abstract syntax, while offering tools for reasoning about them at the higher level. We describe a variety of features of Hybrid, including two-level reasoning and inductive reasoning about open terms, and we present case studies to illustrate these features. We also discuss both classical and constructive versions of Hybrid.