Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection of Sybil Attack in Beacon Enabled IEEE802.15.4 Networks

In this paper, we describe a Sybil attack detection algorithm in IEEE 802.15. 4 beacon enabled clusters. Our algorithm is based on received signal strength at the cluster coordinator. It considers the multi-path fading and shadowing and uses only two parties to detect the attacks. Using this technique, the detection of sensor displacement attack is also feasible. The results show high accuracy of attack detection and suggest parameter selection values to keep high level of performance. This lightweight scheme suites the IEEE 802.15. 4 network nodes which have limitations in terms of battery energy, memory size and CPU speed.
Mean‐variance analysis with REITs in mixed asset portfolios: The return interval and the time period used for the estimation of inputs

Purpose –Aims to test to determine whether the selection of the historical return time interval (monthly, quarterly, semiannual, or annual) used for calculating real estate investment trust (REIT) returns has a significant effect on optimal portfolio allocations Design/methodology/approach - Using a mean-variance utility function, optimal allocations to portfolios of stocks, bonds, bills, and REITs across different levels of assumed investor risk aversion are calculated. The average historical returns, standard deviations, and correlations (assuming different time intervals) of the various asset classes are used as mean-variance inputs. Results are also compared using more recent data, since 1988, with, data from the full REIT history, which goes back to 1972. Findings -Using the more recent REIT datarather than the full dataset results in optimal allocations to REITs that are considerably higher. Likewise, using monthly and quarterly returns tends to understate the variability of REITs and leads to higher portfolio allocations. Research limitations/implications - The results of this study are based on the limited historical return data that are currently available for REITs. The results of future time periods may not prove to be consistent with the findings. Practical implications -Numerous research papers arbitrarily decide to employ monthly or quarterly returns in their analyses to increase the number of REIT observations they have available. These shorter interval returns are generally annualized. This paper addresses the consequences of those decisions. Originality/value -It has been shown that the decision to use return estimation intervals shorter than a year does have dramatic consequences on the results obtained and, therefore, must be carefully considered and justified.
A cooperative phase steering scheme in multi-relay node environments

We propose a decode-and-forward (DF) based cooperative phase steering scheme and analyze its outage probability. The cooperative phase steering scheme is to make the received signals from multiple relay nodes co-phased at a destination node by pre-adjusting the phase differences.With a reasonable amount of feedback information from a destination node, the cooperative phase steering scheme circumvents the drawbacks of conventional cooperative diversity techniques such as maximal ratio combining (MRC) reception, maximal ratio transmission (MRT), and opportunistic relay selection schemes. Our analytical and simulation results show that the cooperative phase steering scheme outperforms the opportunistic relay selection scheme and approaches the MRT scheme known as a theoretically optimal cooperative diversity technique. It is also shown that cooperative phase steering has sufficient robustness to phase incoherence.
The Anion-Selective Pore of the Bestrophins, a Family of Chloride Channels Associated with Retinal Degeneration

Mutations in human bestrophin-1 (VMD2) are genetically linked to a juvenile form of macular degeneration and autosomal dominant vitreoretinochoroidopathy. Recently, it has been proposed that bestrophins are Cl− channels and that the putative second transmembrane domain participates in forming the bestrophin pore. However, the structural determinants of Cl− ion permeation through the channel pore are not known. Here we systematically replaced every amino acid in mouse bestrophin-2 (mBest2) between positions 69 and 104 with cysteine. We then measured the effects on the relative permeability and conductance of the channel to Cl− and SCN− (thiocyanate) and determined the accessibility of the cysteine-substituted amino acids to extracellularly applied, membrane-impermeant sulfhydryl reagents. Unlike K+ channels, the amino acids forming the mBest2 selectivity filter are not discretely localized but are distributed over ∼20 amino acids within the transmembrane domain. Cysteine-substituted amino acids in the selectivity filter are easily accessible to extracellularly applied sulfhydryl reagents and select for anionic sulfhydryl reagents over cationic ones. Understanding the structure of the anion conduction pathway of bestrophins provides insights into how mutations produce channel dysfunction and may provide important information for development of therapeutic strategies for treating macular degeneration.
Experimental exploration of symmetry breaking in plasmonic meta-surfaces exhibiting double-continuum Fano resonances

We have examined the effect of gradual breaking of symmetry on a Fano resonant metamaterial, and have been able to understand the features using theoretical models and simulations. This study should provide a basis for choosing a specific structure for a given purpose. We have been able to obtain a continuous range of Q of 7 to 13.
A Scheme for the BSP Scheduling of Generic Loop Nests

This report presents a scheme for the bulk-synchronous parallel (BSP) scheduling of generic, untightly nested loops. Being targeted at the BSP model of computation, the novel parallelisation scheme yields parallel code which is scalable, portable, and whose cost can be accurately analysed. The scheme comprises three stages: data dependence analysis and potential parallelism identiication, data and computation partitioning, and synchronisation and communication generation. New algorithms tackling each of the three stages are presented in the report, together with an algorithm for assessing the cost of the resulting BSP schedules.
APPLICATION OF DATA MINING TECHNIQUES IN ON-LINE TRAVEL INDUSTRY : A CASE STUDY FROM THAILAND

Purpose:The paper presents the process of segmenting an organization’s customers through a process of K-mean clustering and subsequent expert judgment. Methodology/Approach: The paper adopts a case study methodology Findings:The case study illustrates the use of data mining techniques in segmenting and profiling of customers by a travel intermediary in Thailand. Research limitations/implications: Having adopted a case study methodology, the paper limits it inferences to a single organization. Practical implications: the case study suggests a practical methodology that can be used in similar instances. The methodology incorporates both a qualitative phase, followed by a quantitative phase and can easily be applied in similar situations.
Improvements towards formalizing UML state diagrams in CSP

The Unified Modelling Language (UML) includes a variant of state charts, called state diagrams (SD), for modelling systems with complex interactive behaviour. The official definition of UML specifies the abstract syntax of state diagrams without any formal semantics and hence is unable to perform formal system behaviour analysis. Various attempts have been made to provide such a formal basis for UML state diagrams. Among different attempts, the work reported in [Muan Yong Ng et al. (2003)] is formalizing SD in terms of communicating sequential processes (CSP). In this paper, we present some improvements upon the formalization. The improvements help clarify the semantics of UML SD and make the formalization more complete. Furthermore, we illustrate the use of CSP in reasoning about the equivalence of state diagrams and discuss the benefits of the formalization.
Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems ( PACIS ) 1-1-2010 Persistence Influence for IT Outsourcing : Small and Medium Firms Perspectives of Their Application Service Providers

Given today’s fierce competition among application service providers (ASP), one key question for any ASP is how to retain their customers’ loyalty through partnership establishment and provision of quality of service. However, prior studies focused on the ongoing relationships between the ASP and clients are sparse. This study investigates the perspectives of small and medium firms for their information technology (IT) outsourcing, especially when they are seeking facilitation from the ASP. The study applies the psychological concepts of satisfaction and trust to assess a firm’s loyalty state which can predict the persistence for IT outsourcing. The research questions are: (i) Do the key factors of IT outsourcing enhancement partnership and quality of service influence a firm’s IT outsourcing cognition? (ii) Does a small or medium firm’s IT outsourcing cognition satisfaction and trust have a positive relationship to its IT outsourcing continuance with an ASP? This study uses the partial least squares approach to develop and test a model that encapsulates these questions. A field study of 158 small and medium firms was conducted. Results show that the key factors of IT outsourcing enhancement and cognition are able to predict a firm’s persistence of IT outsourcing.
A Genetically Engineered Crop's Impact on Pesticide Use: A Revealed-Preference Index Approach

A revealed-preference-based method is proposed for assessment of the environmental and human health impact of genetically engineered (GE) crops. This method employs the relative pesticide toxicity information from farmers' pesticide choices combined with volume of pesticides as an alternative to previous methods which are based on volume only, on number of pesticide applications, or on stated preferences. The method is applied to estimate the changes in the impact of herbicides after environmental and health perspective. The results indicate that, on average, a reduction in herbicide human heath and environmental impacts occurs when farmers adopt RR soybean varieties.
Human monocytes/macrophages: NO or no NO?

The production of nitric oxide (NO) and other reactive nitrogen intermediates by cytokine‐activated rodent cells is an important component of antimicrobial and/or antineoplasic activity of these cells. This pathway involves the oxidation of arginine to citrulline, with the concomitant release of NO by an inducible form of NO synthase (iNOS). Numerous cell types express iNOS after stimulation with bacterial products and/or cytokines. The role of NO and its derivatives in host resistance is a subject of intense investigation in mouse models of infections or neoplasia. Although human cells such as hepatocytes and endothelial cells have been shown to express an inducible NO synthase, the presence of such a pathway in human monocytes/macrophages has been questioned by many investigators and is a subject of great controversy. In this short review, we discuss some salient points of this debate. J. Leukoc. Biol. 55: 682–684; 1994.
Frolog: an Accommodating Text-Adventure Game

Frolog is a text-adventure game whose goal is to serve as a laboratory for testing pragmatic theories of accommodation. To this end, rather than implementing ad-hoc mechanisms for each task that is necessary in such a conversational agent, Frolog integrates recently developed tools from computational linguistics, theorem proving and artificial intelligence planning.
The Development of Mother-Infant Interactions after Neonatal Amygdala Lesions in Rhesus Monkeys

As part of ongoing studies on the neurobiology of socioemotional behavior in the nonhuman primate, we examined the development of mother-infant interactions in 24 macaque monkeys who received either bilateral amygdala or hippocampus ibotenic acid lesions, or a sham surgical procedure at 2 weeks of age. After surgery, the infants were returned to their mothers and reared with daily access to small social groups. Behavioral observations of the infants in dyads (mother-infant pairs alone), tetrads (two mother-infant pairs), and social groups (six mother-infant pairs and one adult male) revealed species-typical mother-infant interactions for all lesion conditions, with the exception of increased physical contact time between the amygdala-lesioned infants and their mothers. Immediately after permanent separation from their mothers at 6 months of age, the infants were tested in a mother preference test that allowed the infants to choose between their mother and another familiar adult female. Unlike control and hippocampus-lesioned infants, the amygdala-lesioned infants did not preferentially seek proximity to their mother, nor did they produce distress vocalizations. Given the normal development of mother-infant interactions observed before weaning, we attribute the behavior of the amygdala-lesioned infants during the preference test to an impaired ability to perceive potential danger (i.e., separation from their mother in a novel environment), rather than to a disruption of the mother-infant relationship. These results are consistent with the view that the amygdala is not essential for fundamental aspects of social behavior but is necessary to evaluate potentially dangerous situations and to coordinate appropriate behavioral responses.
Extensions of the theory of observational purity and a practical design for JML

To prevent erratic behavior during runtime checking, JML only allows assertions to call pure, i.e., side-effect free, methods. However, JML’s notion of purity checking is too conservative. For example, Object’s equals method needs to be used in assertions, but some classes use side effects in their equals method to maintain hidden caches or to trigger lazy evaluation, and so these methods cannot be pure in JML’s sense. To handle such cases JML and similar interface specification languages need a less conservative notion of pure methods. In this paper we apply and slightly extend the existing theory of “observationally pure” methods to JML, and explain our language design. This design is practical and accommodates common uses. Our extension of current theory provides appropriate encapsulation combined with inheritance, invariants, method specifications, frame conditions, secret helper methods, and multiple sets of secret state locations. We also introduce a semantics for static analysis that preserves correctness without imposing non-interference.
Delegation depth control in trust-management system

Trust management system has been a promising approach to solve the access control problems in distributed systems. Delegation is a core concept in it and needs to be limited with respect to depth. In this paper, some different delegation depth control approaches in current trust management system are discussed. Then RT+/sub 0/ is introduced, which incorporates the integer delegation depth control into RT/sub 0/ The RT+/sub 0/ credential adds to RT/sub 0/ depth value, which provides a more expressive power. The changed semantics is formally defined by a translation from credential to datalog rules. The computational complexity analysis is given and it shows that the semantics is also algorithmically tractable.
E-RIHT: Enhanced Hybrid IP Traceback Scheme with 16-bit marking field

—Internet is a worldwide network and used in almost every field of work such as industrial, educational, military etc. Based on the use, its security needs differ. Few applications may need less security and few may need high security. Today various internet attacks are being developed every day, such as viruses, DoS (Denial of Service), spoofing, etc. Spoofing is a kind of attack in which attacker masks itself under some other user’s IP address. Thus, it is difficult to find the original attacker. IP traceback technique is used to detect the DoS attack. This paper is based on IP traceback, which will help to detect the spoofing attacker by using packet marking and packet logging technique. In packet marking technique router marks identification information of its own into the forwarded packets. In packet logging, routers keep the digest information regarding the forwarded packets. Proposed scheme is termed as E-RIHT (Enhanced Routers Interface Hybrid Traceback) in this, memory requirement will be less because we are using marking field of 16-bit, which will also solve the packet fragmentation problem.
Progesterone mediates brain functional connectivity changes during the menstrual cycle—a pilot resting state MRI study

The growing interest in intrinsic brain organization has sparked various innovative approaches to generating comprehensive connectivity-based maps of the human brain. Prior reports point to a sexual dimorphism of the structural and functional human connectome. However, it is uncertain whether subtle changes in sex hormones, as occur during the monthly menstrual cycle, substantially impact the functional architecture of the female brain. Here, we performed eigenvector centrality (EC) mapping in 32 longitudinal resting state fMRI scans of a single healthy subject without oral contraceptive use, across four menstrual cycles, and assessed estrogen and progesterone levels. To investigate associations between cycle-dependent hormones and brain connectivity, we performed correlation analyses between the EC maps and the respective hormone levels. On the whole brain level, we found a significant positive correlation between progesterone and EC in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and bilateral sensorimotor cortex. In a secondary region-of-interest analysis, we detected a progesterone-modulated increase in functional connectivity of both bilateral DLPFC and bilateral sensorimotor cortex with the hippocampus. Our results suggest that the menstrual cycle substantially impacts intrinsic functional connectivity, particularly in brain areas associated with contextual memory-regulation, such as the hippocampus. These findings are the first to link the subtle hormonal fluctuations that occur during the menstrual cycle, to significant changes in regional functional connectivity in the hippocampus in a longitudinal design, given the limitation of data acquisition in a single subject. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of such a longitudinal Resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) design and illustrates a means of creating a personalized map of the human brain by integrating potential mediators of brain states, such as menstrual cycle phase.
Current Market Demand for Core Competencies of Librarianship—A Text Mining Study of American Library Association’s Advertisements from 2009 through 2014

As librarianship evolves, it is important to examine the changes that have taken place in professional requirements. To provide an understanding of the current market demand for core competencies of librarianship, this article conducts a semi-automatic methodology to analyze job advertisements (ads) posted on the American Library Association (ALA) Joblist from 2009 through 2014. There is evidence that the ability to solve unexpected complex problems and to provide superior customer service gained increasing importance for librarians during those years. The authors contend that the findings in this report question the status quo of core competencies of librarianship in the US job market.
Particle Filtering and Its Application in Satellite Orbit Determination

Focusing on nonlinear/non-Gaussian filters and based on analysis of the sampling-importance-resampling algorithm, this paper examines principles and application of particle filter (PF) in satellite orbit determination. There may be large error of initial estimation and non-Gaussian distribution of state and measurement in satellite orbit determination. To solve the two problems, an improved PF algorithm is put forward in this paper. Depending on data features, a multinomial re-sampling strategy is used for filtering and self-adaptively determines the optimal number of particles. Performance of PF under different parameters is also illustrated. Furthermore, performance of PF is compared with that of EKF and UKF in simulation experiments of satellite orbit determination. Theoretical analysis and simulation demonstrate that PF is more advantageous than EKF and UKF in operation and parameters adjusting PF in accordance with data features can promote filter speed and precision.
Quantitative Assessment of Technology Infusion in Communications Satellite Constellations

A methodology for quantitative assessment of new technologies is presented in the context of communications satellite constellations. The fundamental idea is that new technologies will shift the Pareto-optimal frontier when considering tradeos between performance, lifecycle cost and capacity. The suggested process first establishes a baseline by finding a Pareto optimal set of architectures on the basis of mature, state-of-theart technologies (technology readiness level TRL=8). Lifecycle cost, performance and capacity of each architecture are predicted by a modular software simulation. The fidelity of the simulation is ascertained by benchmarking against existing systems such as Iridium and Globalstar. Next, a set of potential candidate technologies is identified whose TRL is in the range of 5-7. Each of these technologies is modelled and infused individually into the simulation and the eect on the Pareto front is observed, relative to the baseline case. The next step consists of analyzing allowable pairs of technologies to predict their joint eect. The methodology is demonstrated for a set of four technologies applicable to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) communications satellite constellations: optical intersatellite links (OISL), asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), large-scale deployable reflectors (LDR) and digital beamforming (DBF). The proposed methodology is potentially helpful in technology selection as well as in technology portfolio management.
Alzheimer Disease With Amygdala Lewy Bodies: A Distinct Form of &agr;-Synucleinopathy

Lewy bodies (LBs) are &agr;-synuclein-immunoreactive neuronal inclusions with a predilection for specific cortical and subcortical regions, including the amygdala. In this study, the presence of LBs was assessed in 347 cases of Alzheimer disease (AD). In 87 cases, LB pathology was diagnostic of brainstem (n = 3), transitional (n = 32), or diffuse (n = 52) Lewy body disease (LBD). The remaining 260 cases of AD were screened for amygdala LBs (AD/ALB) and 62 (24%) cases were found. If AD/LBD cases are included, LBs were detected in 149 (43%) cases of AD. The presence &agr;-synuclein pathology was assessed in multiple brain regions of the 62 cases of AD/ALB and 57 randomly selected cases of AD, and only sparse &agr;-synuclein pathology was detected in both. The burden of &agr;-synuclein pathology in brainstem nuclei, amygdala, and neocortex was significant lower in AD/ALB than in AD/LBD. In comparison to AD/LBD, AD/ALB did not differ in age at death, disease duration, male-to-female ratio, brain weight, Braak neurofibrillary tangle stage, average senile plaque density, or apolipoprotein E &egr;4 allele frequency. The results suggest that AD/ALB is pathologically different from AD/LBD, suggesting that it is a neuropathologically distinct and isolated &agr;-synucleinopathy.