Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perils and pitfalls of practical cybercommerce

U NLIKE many would-be players in the field of Internet commerce , First Virtual chose to announce its payment system only after it was fully operational. In its first year of operation, the company has experienced exponential growth, and it has gained substantial experience with and insight into the nature of Internet commerce. In this article, the First Virtual team discusses the lessons we have learned from a year's experience with the actual operation of an Internet commerce system and what we see as prospects for the future. First Virtual Holdings was formed in early 1994 to facilitate Internet commerce. The first product offering from First Virtual was an Internet payment system, which was developed quietly and publicly announced as a fully operational open Internet service on October 15, 1994. First Virtual's system differs in many ways from all other proposed approaches to Internet commerce , most notably in the fact that it does not rely on encryption or any other form of cryptography to ensure the safety of its commercial transactions. Instead, safety is ensured by enforcement of a dichotomy between nonsensitive information (which may travel over the Internet) and sensitive information (which never does), and by a buyer feedback mechanism built atop existing protocols. In a nutshell, First Virtual's payment system is built on top of preexisting Internet protocols, notably the SMTP/RFC822/MIME (email), telnet, finger, ftp, and http protocols. Because those protocols are insecure in the sense they carry no strong proofs of identity, it is necessary to design a payment system in such a way as to provide much stronger guarantees. While others have focused on achieving this goal using cryptography , First Virtual designed a higher-level protocol based on email callbacks. In the First Virtual system, a buyer and seller may use any procedure or protocol to meet and transact business. While this often occurs when a buyer browses a seller's Web page, it also frequently happens by email, ftp, or Internet Relay Chat, or even off-net entirely. Moreover, it could easily happen in the future via pro-The first year in the life of First Virtual Holdings-a pioneering Internet-based service company-was conducted with little fanfare, yet filled with memorable challenges and experiences. Here, we get an inside take on the problems, successes, and valuable lessons learned from conducting business on the net.
Optimal Disturbance Rejection and Robustness for LTV Systems

In this paper, we consider the optimal disturbance rejection problem for (possibly infinite dimensional) linear time-varying (LTV) systems using a framework based on operator algebras of classes of bounded linear operators. After reducing the problem to a shortest distance minimization in a space of bounded linear operators, duality theory is applied to show existence of optimal solutions, which satisfy a “time-varying” allpass or flatness condition. Under mild assupmtions the optimal TV controller is shown to be essentially unique. With the use of Mideals of operators, it is shown that the computation of time-varying (TV) controllers reduces to a search over compact TV Youla parameters. This involves the norm of a TV compact Hankel operator defined on the space of causal trace-class 2 operators and its maximal vectors. Moreover, an operator identity to compute the optimal TV Youla parameter is provided. These results are generalized to the mixed sensitivity problem for TV systems as well, where it is shown that the optimum is equal to the operator induced of a TV mixed Hankel-Toeplitz operator generalizing analogous results known to hold in the LTI case. The final outcome of the approach developed here is that it leads to two tractable finite dimensional convex optimizations producing estimates to the optimum within desired tolerances, and a method to compute optimal time-varying controllers. ∗S.M. Djouadi is with the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-2100. djouadi@ece.utk. edu 1 Definitions and Notation • B(E, F ) denotes the space of bounded linear operators from a Banach space E to a Banach space F , endowed with the operator norm ‖A‖ := sup x∈E, ‖x‖≤1 ‖Ax‖, A ∈ B(E, F ) • ` denotes the usual Hilbert space of square summable sequences with the standard norm ‖x‖2 := ∞ ∑ j=0 |xj|, x := ( x0, x1, x2, · · · )∈ ` • Pk the usual truncation operator for some integer k, which sets all outputs after time k to zero. • An operator A ∈ B(E, F ) is said to be causal if it satisfies the operator equation: PkAPk = PkA, ∀k positive integers and stricly causal if it satisfies Pk+1APk = Pk+1A, , ∀k positive integers (1) The subscript “c” denotes the restriction of a subspace of operators to its intersection with causal (see [30, 10] for the definition) operators. “⊗” denotes for the tensor product. “” stands for the adjoint of an operator or the dual space of a Banach space depending on the context [6, 9].
Improving Statistical Machine Translation Accuracy Using Bilingual Lexicon Extractionwith Paraphrases

Statistical machine translation (SMT) suffers from theaccuracy problemthat the translation pairs and their feature scores in the transla- tion model can be inaccurate. Theaccuracy problemis caused by the quality of the unsu- pervised methods used for translation model learning. Previous studies propose estimating comparable features for the translation pairs in the translation model from comparable cor- pora, to improve the accuracy of the transla- tion model. Comparable feature estimation is based on bilingual lexicon extraction (BLE) technology. However, BLE suffers from the data sparseness problem, which makes the comparable features inaccurate. In this paper, we propose using paraphrases to address this problem. Paraphrases are used to smooth the vectors used in comparable feature estimation with BLE. In this way, we improve the qual- ity of comparable features, which can improve the accuracy of the translation model thus im- prove SMT performance. Experiments con- ducted on Chinese-English phrase-based SMT (PBSMT) verify the effectiveness of our pro- posed method.
A New Computation Model for Cluster Computing

Implementations of map-reduce are being used to perform many operations on very large data. We explore alternative ways that a system could use the environment and capabilities of map-reduce implementations such as Hadoop, yet perform operations that are not identical to map-reduce. The centerpiece of this exploration is a computational model that captures the essentials of the environment in which systems like Hadoop operate. Files are unordered sets of tuples that can be read and/or written in parallel; processes are limited in the amount of input/output they can perform, and processors are available in essentially unlimited supply. We develop, in this model, an algorithm for sorting that has a worst-case running time better than the obvious implementations of parallel sorting.
Mitochondrion-Targeted Peptide SS-31 Inhibited Oxidized Low-Density Lipoproteins-Induced Foam Cell Formation through both ROS Scavenging and Inhibition of Cholesterol Influx in RAW264.7 Cells

Foam cell formation as a result of imbalance of modified cholesterol influx and efflux by macrophages is a key to the occurrence and development of atherosclerosis. Oxidative stress is thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. SS-31 is a member of the Szeto-Schiller (SS) peptides shown to specifically target the inner mitochondrial membrane to scavenge reactive oxygen species. In this study, we investigated whether SS-31 may provide protective effect on macrophage from foam cell formation in RAW264.7 cells. The results showed that SS-31 inhibited oxidized low-density lipoproteins (ox-LDL)-induced foam cell formation and cholesterol accumulation, demonstrated by intracellular oil red O staining and measurement of cholesterol content. The mechanism was revealed that SS-31 did not only significantly attenuated ox-LDL-induced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and increased the activities of superoxide dismutases, but also dose-dependently inhibited the expression of CD36 and LOX-1, two scavenger receptors of ox-LDL, while the expression of ATP-binding cassette A1 and G1, playing a pivotal role in cholesterol efflux, was not affected. As a result, SS-31 decreased pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin 6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha, suggesting the prevention of inflammatory responses. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that SS-31 provides a beneficial effect on macrophages from foam cell formation, likely, through both ROS scavenging and inhibition of cholesterol influx. Therefore, SS-31 may potentially be of therapeutic relevance in prevention of human atherogenesis.
The Incidence of Liver Injury in Uyghur Patients Treated for TB in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, and Its Association with Hepatic Enzyme Polymorphisms NAT2, CYP2E1, GSTM1 and GSTT1

Background and Objective Of three first-line anti-tuberculosis (anti-TB) drugs, isoniazid is most commonly associated with hepatotoxicity. Differences in INH-induced toxicity have been attributed to genetic variability at several loci, NAT2, CYP2E1, GSTM1and GSTT1, that code for drug-metabolizing enzymes. This study evaluated whether the polymorphisms in these enzymes were associated with an increased risk of anti-TB drug-induced hepatitis in patients and could potentially be used to identify patients at risk of liver injury. Methods and Design In a cross-sectional study, 2244 tuberculosis patients were assessed two months after the start of treatment. Anti-TB drug-induced liver injury (ATLI) was defined as an ALT, AST or bilirubin value more than twice the upper limit of normal. NAT2, CYP2E1, GSTM1 and GSTT1 genotypes were determined using the PCR/ligase detection reaction assays. Results 2244 patients were evaluated, there were 89 cases of ATLI, a prevalence of 4% 9 patients (0.4%) had ALT levels more than 5 times the upper limit of normal. The prevalence of ATLI was greater among men than women, and there was a weak association with NAT2*5 genotypes, with ATLI more common among patients with the NAT2*5*CT genotype. The sensitivity of the CT genotype for identifying patients with ATLI was 42% and the positive predictive value 5.9%. CT ATLI was more common among slow acetylators (prevalence ratio 2.0 (95% CI 0.95,4.20) )compared to rapid acetylators. There was no evidence that ATLI was associated with CYP2E1 RsaIc1/c1genotype, CYP2E1 RsaIc1/c2 or c2/c2 genotypes, or GSTM1/GSTT1 null genotypes. Conclusions In Xinjiang Uyghur TB patients, liver injury was associated with the genetic variant NAT2*5, however the genetic markers studied are unlikely to be useful for screening patients due to the low sensitivity and low positive predictive values for identifying persons at risk of liver injury.
The male handicap: male-biased mortality explains skewed sex ratios in brown trout embryos

Juvenile sex ratios are often assumed to be equal for many species with genetic sex determination, but this has rarely been tested in fish embryos due to their small size and absence of sex-specific markers. We artificially crossed three populations of brown trout and used a recently developed genetic marker for sexing the offspring of both pure and hybrid crosses. Sex ratios (SR = proportion of males) varied widely one month after hatching ranging from 0.15 to 0.90 (mean = 0.39 ± 0.03). Families with high survival tended to produce balanced or male-biased sex ratios, but SR was significantly female-biased when survival was low, suggesting that males sustain higher mortality during development. No difference in SR was found between pure and hybrid families, but the existence of sire × dam interactions suggests that genetic incompatibility may play a role in determining sex ratios. Our findings have implications for animal breeding and conservation because skewed sex ratios will tend to reduce effective population size and bias selection estimates.
Detecting Recompression of JPEG Images via Periodicity Analysis of Compression Artifacts for Tampering Detection

Due to the popularity of JPEG as an image compression standard, the ability to detect tampering in JPEG images has become increasingly important. Tampering of compressed images often involves recompression and tends to erase traces of tampering found in uncompressed images. In this paper, we present a new technique to discover traces caused by recompression. We assume all source images are in JPEG format and propose to formulate the periodic characteristics of JPEG images both in spatial and transform domains. Using theoretical analysis, we design a robust detection approach which is able to detect either block-aligned or misaligned recompression. Experimental results demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed approach, and also show it outperforms existing methods.
Evaluating Automatic Extraction of Rules for Sentence Plan Construction

The freely available SPaRKy sentence planner uses hand-written weighted rules for sentence plan construction, and a user-or domain-specific second-stage ranker for sentence plan selection. However, coming up with sentence plan construction rules for a new domain can be difficult. In this paper, we automatically extract sentence plan construction rules from the RST-DT corpus. In our rules, we use only domain-independent features that are available to a sentence planner at runtime. We evaluate these rules, and outline ways in which they can be used for sentence planning. We have integrated them into a revised version of SPaRKy.
Infrared thermography in the detection of brown adipose tissue in humans

PET‐CT using 18F‐FDG is employed for detecting brown adipose tissue (BAT) in humans. Alternative methods are needed because of the radiation and cost of PET‐CT imaging. The aim was to evaluate the accuracy of infrared thermography (IRT) in detecting human BAT benchmarked to PET‐CT imaging. Seventeen individuals underwent a total of 29 PET‐CT scans, 12 of whom were studied twice, after 2 h of cold stimulation at 19°C, in parallel with measurement of skin temperatures overlying the supraclavicular (SCV) fossa and the lateral upper chest (control), before and after cold stimulation. Of the 29 scans, 20 were BAT positive after cold stimulation. The mean left SCV temperature tended to be higher in the BAT‐positive group before and during cooling. It was significantly higher (P = 0.04) than the temperature of the control area, which fell significantly during cooling in the BAT‐positive (−1.2 ± 0.3°C, P = 0.002) but not in the negative (−0.2 ± 0.4°C) group. The temperature difference (Δtemp) between left SCV and chest increased during cooling in the BAT‐positive (1.2 ± 0.2 to 2.0 ± 0.3°C, P < 0.002) but not in the negative group (0.6 ± 0.1 to 0.7 ± 0.1°C). A Δtemp of 0.9°C conferred a positive predictive value of 85% for SCV BAT, superior to that of SCV temperature. The findings were similar on the right. In conclusion, the Δtemp is significantly and consistently greater in BAT‐positive subjects. The Δtemp quantified by IRT after 2‐h cooling shows promise as a noninvasive convenient technique for studying SCV BAT function.
Human Resources, High Involvement Work Processes and Work Outcomes: An Exploratory Study

This research investigated the relationships between involvement-oriented human resource practices and work outcomes, mediated by high involvement work processes. The goal was to use an involvement framework - comprised of the elements of power, information, rewards, knowledge, and a fifth element developed for this thesis, integration - to select human resource practices that impact on work outcomes, and to develop an understanding of intervening involvement processes. Data was collected from 200 work groups in a public sector organization of 4,300 employees, engaged in large infrastructure projects, including bridge and road construction and maintenance. Group-levels of human resource practice implementation were collected through surveying a sample of employees from each work group. Data on work outcomes and high involvement work processes were collected three months later through an organizational survey of all 4,300 employees. This process was repeated 12 months later to identify the unique effects of human resource practices and investigate causal relationships and lagged effects. Involvement-oriented human resource practices were found to impact significantly on work outcomes. High involvement work processes explained significant variance in outcomes and mediated the relationship between HR practices and outcomes. Longitudinal analyses supported the existence of lagged effects of involvement-oriented human resource practices on high involvement work processes, and high involvement work processes on work outcomes. The research supports the utility of an involvement framework for practice selection and for explaining mediating processes on work outcomes.
An examination of two delivery modes for interactive search system experiments: remote and laboratory

We compare two delivery modes for interactive search system (ISS) experiments: remote and laboratory. Our study was completed by two groups of subjects from the same population. The first group completed the study remotely and the second group completed the study in the laboratory. We compare differences in participants, participation behaviors, search behaviors and evaluation behaviors. Overall, for most measures no significant differences were found, but there were some notable differences. Greater variance was observed in time taken and number of documents opened and saved by remote subjects. Lab subjects provided more favorable responses to exit questionnaire items and reported significantly higher satisfaction. Lab subjects also provided significantly longer responses to open questions, while remote subjects provided more null responses. These results suggest that many behaviors do not change significantly according to study mode and that results from remote ISS experiments are similar to those from laboratory experiments.
On the Effectiveness of Continuous-Time Mixes under Flow Correlation Attacks

ABSTRACT To achieve anonymity in open environments such as the Intern et, special proxies, denoted as mixes, were proposed to relay me ssages for senders and receivers. A mix may delay, batch and re order packets to disrupt the packet-level timing correlation of p ackets into and out of the mix. Often multiple mixes are grouped into a mix network, which preserves anonymity in presence of compromi sed mixes. In a flow-based mix network, so-called flow correlatio n attacks have been proposed earlier to explore flow-level corre lation and have been shown empirically to seriously degrade mix-ba sed anonymous communication systems. In this paper, we theoret ically analyze the effectiveness of a mix network under flow correla tion attacks. Our formulae clearly show how a mix network will ult imately fail when an adversary has access to sufficiently long flow samples, independently of the type of flows (TCP or UDP). We il lustrate the analysis methodology by modeling a continuous -time mix, which randomly delays each incoming packet. Our queuin gmodel-based analysis captures the essence of flow correlati on ttacks and can provide useful guidelines for designers who de velop and deploy anonymity systems.
Use of a Whole Farm Model for Exploring Management Decisions in Dairying

Pasture-based dairying in New Zealand presents challenges to both farmers and researchers. Farmers want to increase production, reduce costs and remain profitable under variable climatic and economic conditions. Researchers want to understand and keep track of the complex biological interactions on a farm, integrate this with economic variables, and give sound management advice. The Whole Farm Model (WFM) is a VisualAge Smalltalk (IBM) framework, linking sub-models of pasture growth and cow metabolism written in different languages, and designed to simulate the complex interactions of climate, pasture, animals and management on a farm. The model was specifically designed to extend farmlet trial results and to simulate trial designs before implementation. Here we attempt to show the potential of the WFM as a research tool to be used in collaboration with rural professionals working with commercial farmers.
Role Based Secure Routing in Large Wireless Sensor Networks

take care of the mobility in the sensor nodes as well as in the base station. The entire sensor field is divided into some logical clusters and each cluster contains three different kinds of nodes namely Gateway Node, Cluster Head Node and Ordinary Sensor Node. The communication from the sensor nodes towards the base station happens in hierarchical manner and also in multi-hop fashion. Different secret keys are used for secure communication and the use of secret keys makes the communications secure. The performance of the proposed protocol in terms of throughput and average energy consumption for communication has been compared with that of LEACH-mobile. Security strengths of the protocol are also analyzed.
Robust transgender face recognition: Approach based on appearance and therapy factors

Transgender face recognition is gaining increasing attention in the face recognition community because of its potential in real life applications. Despite extensive progress in traditional face recognition domain, it is very challenging to recognize faces under transgender setting. The gender transformation results in significant face variations, both in shape and texture gradually over time. This introduces additional complexities to existing face recognition algorithms to achieve a reliable performance. In this paper, we present a novel framework that incorporates appearance factor and a transformation factor caused due to Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for recognition. To this extent, we employ the Hidden Factor Analysis (HFA) to jointly model a face under therapy as a linear combination of appearance and transformation factors. This is based on the intuition that the appearance factor captures the features that are unaffected by the therapy and transformation factor captures the feature changes due to therapy. Extensive experiments carried out on publicly available HRT transgender face database shows the efficacy of the proposed scheme with a recognition accuracy of 82.36%.
Online Driver Distraction Detection Using Long Short-Term Memory

Lane-keeping assistance systems for vehicles may be more acceptable to users if the assistance was adaptive to the driver's state. To adapt systems in this way, a method for detection of driver distraction is needed. Thus, we propose a novel technique for online detection of driver's distraction, modeling the long-range temporal context of driving and head tracking data. We show that long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks enable a reliable subject-independent detection of inattention with an accuracy of up to 96.6%. Thereby, our LSTM framework significantly outperforms conventional approaches such as support vector machines (SVMs).