Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enabling Privacy-Preserving Image-Centric Social Discovery

The increasing popularity of images at social media sites is posing new opportunities for social discovery applications, i.e., suggesting new friends and discovering new social groups with similar interests via exploring images. To effectively handle the explosive growth of images involved in social discovery, one common trend for many emerging social media sites is to leverage the commercial public cloud as their robust backend data center. While extremely convenient, directly exposing content-rich images and the related social discovery results to the public cloud also raises new acute privacy concerns. In light of the observation, in this paper we propose a privacy-preserving social discovery service architecture based on encrypted images. As the core of such social discovery is to compare and quantify similar images, we first adopt the effective Bag-of-Words model to extract the "visual similarity content" of users' images into image profile vectors, and then model the problem as similarity retrieval of encrypted high-dimensional image profiles. To support fast and scalable similarity search over hundreds of thousands of encrypted images, we propose a secure and efficient indexing structure. The resulting design enables social media sites to obtain secure, practical, and accurate social discovery from the public cloud, without disclosing the encrypted image content. We formally prove the security and discuss further extensions on user image update and the compatibility with existing image sharing social functionalities. Extensive experiments on a large Flickr image dataset demonstrate the practical performance of the proposed design. Our qualitative social discovery results show consistency with human perception.
Responses of coral reef fishes to past climate changes are related to life‐history traits

Abstract Coral reefs and their associated fauna are largely impacted by ongoing climate change. Unravelling species responses to past climatic variations might provide clues on the consequence of ongoing changes. Here, we tested the relationship between changes in sea surface temperature and sea levels during the Quaternary and present‐day distributions of coral reef fish species. We investigated whether species‐specific responses are associated with life‐history traits. We collected a database of coral reef fish distribution together with life‐history traits for the Indo‐Pacific Ocean. We ran species distribution models (SDMs) on 3,725 tropical reef fish species using contemporary environmental factors together with a variable describing isolation from stable coral reef areas during the Quaternary. We quantified the variance explained independently by isolation from stable areas in the SDMs and related it to a set of species traits including body size and mobility. The variance purely explained by isolation from stable coral reef areas on the distribution of extant coral reef fish species largely varied across species. We observed a triangular relationship between the contribution of isolation from stable areas in the SDMs and body size. Species, whose distribution is more associated with historical changes, occurred predominantly in the Indo‐Australian archipelago, where the mean size of fish assemblages is the lowest. Our results suggest that the legacy of habitat changes of the Quaternary is still detectable in the extant distribution of many fish species, especially those with small body size and the most sedentary. Because they were the least able to colonize distant habitats in the past, fish species with smaller body size might have the most pronounced lags in tracking ongoing climate change.
Perceptual Acoustic Echo Suppressor for Audio Communication over Packet Networks

This paper presents an acoustic echo suppressor based on spectral subtraction that takes into account the perceptual effects of human hearing. This paper also propose here a method where the echo delay does not increase the computational cost. Effectively, in wireless system, it is not uncommon to have round trip delay up to 300 ms and even more. On most of echo cancellers, increasing the tail length makes the computation to increase. We will propose a method to have fixed computational cost whatever the echo delay is, based on the echo path delay estimation. Also, we will take into account all the perceptual effects (temporal post-masking, perceived echo versus end-to-end delay) that could improve the perceived voice quality
Young Lives Preliminary Country Report: Vietnam.

This report presents a brief literature review of childhood poverty in Vietnam, reviews national policies affecting childhood poverty, identifies key audiences for the Young Lives study, describes research results and draws provisional conclusions from the first round of data collection from Young Lives in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the few countries to have seen a significant drop in poverty over the past decade. According to the World Bank, the total poverty rate fell from 57 per cent in 1992-93 to 37 per cent in 1997-98. Despite this achievement, there is growing concern about inequality and the vulnerability of poor children. There are no official data on the numbers of children working, but various NGO reports have shown that many work in very hazardous and difficult conditions. Laws to protect children and prevent exploitation of their labour are poorly enforced. Vietnam has high rates of school enrolment, but disparities exist for children in poorer, rural regions. Other problems include low completion rates, low quality of teaching, and fewer years of schooling compared with regional competitors. While 95 per cent of children have been immunised, fewer children in poorer quintiles have been fully immunised. Infant mortality rates are improving, but the gap between poor and non-poor households has widened and is more severe in poorer provinces. Malnutrition has declined considerably, but is still very prevalent, with rates varying from 28 per cent in relatively prosperous south-eastern Vietnam to 58 per cent in the central highlands. Over the past two decades policymakers in Vietnam have focused on economic growth, poverty reduction, and industrialisation. Social sector reforms have been undertaken, and programmes such as the Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction Programme have targeted the most disadvantaged groups. Young Lives data contributes to the formulation of policy and programmes that are more favourable to poor children in Vietnam. From the preliminary findings detailed in this report, the authors make a number of provisional conclusions and outline their implications for policy relating to questions of rural poverty, health, child nutrition, gender inequality, education, income diversification, and access to basic services.
Thin shell tactile sensing by acoustic wave diffraction patterns

Most of the humanoid robots are covered with curved thin shells. To have a sensitive shell on the robot, normally we need to add an extra layer of electrodes or sensors. In this paper, we realized a tactile shell based on a Lamb wave diffraction method. Surface-contact sensing is calibrated and tested with a finger; the spatial resolution is 17 × 13 on a 100 mm × 75 mm projected-dimension surface. Structure of the tactile shell comprises only four small (25 mm2 × 0.5 mm) piezoelectric ceramics transducers bonded to the edges of the shell. The sensing results have good accuracy with response time less than 15 ms, the presented method is able to be used for a humanoid robot's whole-body tactile sensing.
Secure type-based multiple access: Transmission strategy and analysis for perfect secrecy

Since wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are vulnerable to threats and attacks due to the nature of wireless communications between sensors and fusion center (FC), it is often necessary to secure transmissions from any possible eavesdropping. In this paper, we study the eavesdropping issue when sensors are over-deployed and the channels between sensors and the ally FC are modeled as time-varying Rayleigh fading channels. We propose a transmission scheme in which only the sensors of strong and weak channel gains report their decisions in a predetermined way based on type-based multiple access protocol. By taking advantage of random behaviors of wireless channels in the form of the multiuser diversity and carefully design different roles of sensors of strong and weak channel gains to the ally FC, the proposed scheme can confuse the enemy FC in making a decision. Eventually, it guarantees the perfect secrecy promised by an information theoretic measure. We also analyze detection error probability and equivocation at the ally and enemy FCs, respectively.
An approach to Model Based Test case generation for Student Admission Process

In this paper proposed research suggests that the combination of state-transition graph and cause-effect graph is an excellent solution of test oracles problems. The empirical setup for ‘Student admission process’ presented in this paper has been implemented to encourage test results. The suggested approach contains UML and OCL architectures, as input in which the combination of state-transition graph and cause-effect graph are converted into state table and decision tables and its fusion creates an innovation i.e. “state-decision table” has been created to serve as input for generating test cases. The proposed approach embodies UML models, Cause effect graph and OCL for test case generation and for solving the oracle problems.
Making Honeycomb Microcomposites by Soft Lithography

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25-Hydroxyvitamin D and Parathyroid Hormone Levels Are Independently Associated with the Hemoglobin A1c Level of Korean Type 2 Diabetic Patients: The Dong-Gu Study

In type 2 diabetic patients, the relationships between 25-hydroxyvitamin D and parathyroid hormone levels, and glycemic control, remain unclear. We evaluated associations between 25-hydroxyvitamin D, parathyroid hormone, and hemoglobin A1c levels after adjusting for other covariates, including log transformed 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and log transformed parathyroid hormone levels, in Korean patients with type 2 diabetes. In total, 1,175 patients with type 2 diabetes were selected from 8,857 individuals who completed the baseline survey of the Dong-gu study, conducted in Korea from 2007 to 2010. After adjusting for other covariates, we found that the mean hemoglobin A1c level was inversely associated with the 25-hydroxyvitamin D level (Q1: 7.47% [7.30–7.63], Q2: 7.25% [7.09–7.40], Q3: 7.17% [7.02–7.32], Q4: 7.19% [7.02–7.35]; p for trend = 0.021, p for between groups = 0.050) and the parathyroid hormone level (Q1: 7.35% [7.19–7.51], Q2: 7.34% [7.19–7.50], Q3: 7.28% [7.13–7.43], Q4: 7.09% [6.94–7.24]; p for trend = 0.022, p for between groups = 0.048). However, the mean fasting glucose level was not associated with either the 25-hydroxyvitamin D or parathyroid hormone level. In conclusion, inverse associations were evident between hemoglobin A1c, 25-hydroxyvitamin D and parathyroid hormone levels in Korean patients with type 2 diabetes. The associations remained significant after adjusting for other covariates, including the log transformed 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and log transformed parathyroid hormone levels.
The Intra-Industry Trade of the Czech Republic in the Economic Transition

In this paper, we provide an overview of the development of Czech trade and its structure and investigate the nature of Czech intra-industry trade (IIT) and its labor market determinants. We evaluate the evolution of the Czech trade in the context of other transition economies--the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) countries, the Baltic countries, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In our analysis, we use decomposition of IIT into vertical and horizontal components. The Czech Grubel-Lloyd index (GLI) of 75 percent at the SITC two-digit level is still somehow lower than the values for comparable EU countries, but this difference is not high. This indicates a relatively high level of Czech integration into European and world economies. This result is supported by the comparison of IIT in the trade between the European Union and seven European transition economies undertaken by Fidrmuc (2000), showing that the Czech Republic has the highest IIT out of all these countries. Also, the structure of Czech IIT with respect to its horizontal and vertical elements is comparable with the structure of IIT in EU countries. The results of our cross-industry analysis of labor market determinants of IIT show that qualitative characteristics of the labor force are statistically significant predictors for IIT after controlling for time changes and character of industry.
Clinical effectiveness of a rehabilitation program integrating exercise, self-management, and active coping strategies for chronic knee pain: A cluster randomized trial

Objective Chronic knee pain is a major cause of disability and health care expenditure, but there are concerns about efficacy, cost, and side effects associated with usual primary care. Conservative rehabilitation may offer a safe, effective, affordable alternative. We compared the effectiveness of a rehabilitation program integrating exercise, self-management, and active coping strategies (Enabling Self-management and Coping with Arthritic Knee Pain through Exercise [ESCAPE-knee pain]) with usual primary care in improving functioning in persons with chronic knee pain. Methods We conducted a single-blind, pragmatic, cluster randomized controlled trial. Participants age ≥50 years, reporting knee pain for >6 months, were recruited from 54 inner-city primary care practices. Primary care practices were randomized to continued usual primary care (i.e., whatever intervention a participant's primary care physician deemed appropriate), usual primary care plus the rehabilitation program delivered to individual participants, or usual primary care plus the rehabilitation program delivered to groups of 8 participants. The primary outcome was self-reported functioning (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index physical functioning [WOMAC-func]) 6 months after completing rehabilitation. Results A total of 418 participants were recruited; 76 (18%) withdrew, only 5 (1%) due to adverse events. Rehabilitated participants had better functioning than participants continuing usual primary care (−3.33 difference in WOMAC-func score; 95% confidence interval [95% CI] −5.88, −0.78; P = 0.01). Improvements were similar whether participants received individual rehabilitation (−3.53; 95% CI −6.52, −0.55) or group rehabilitation (−3.16; 95% CI −6.55, −0.12). Conclusion ESCAPE-knee pain provides a safe, relatively brief intervention for chronic knee pain that is equally effective whether delivered to individuals or groups of participants.
An enhanced widely linear CDMA receiver with OQPSK modulation

This paper studies an enhanced widely linear (WL) receiver for direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems that employ aperiodic spreading sequences with offset quadrature phase-shift keying (OQPSK) modulation. The modulation scheme generates improper complex multiple-access interference (MAI) and necessitates the use of WL receivers. Focus is on bandlimited pulse shapes and the inherent cyclostationarity (CS) of the uncoded received signal. The enhanced WL receiver replaces the conventional chip-matched filter with new filters that exploit the CS of the received signal through frequency shifting. The proposed WL receiver is shown to outperform the classical strictly linear (SL) receiver when the interfering users are (quasi-)synchronous with respect to the user of interest. High-powered interfering users, that may exist to support high data rates, increase the performance improvement delivered by the WL receiver. Moreover, it is shown that MAI can become proper, either identically or asymptotically, when users are asynchronous and equally powered. This is despite the fact that individual interfering signals are improper. Numerical results demonstrate that the WL receiver can outperform the SL receiver by 1-3 dB under the examined scenarios with current CDMA standards settings. In asynchronous or quasi-synchronous transmission modes, performance gain of the WL receiver degrades unless the number of high-powered active users remains small. An example for implementation of the WL receiver is proposed and compared with that of the SL receiver when minimum-shift keying modulation, a special case of OQPSK, is used. The implementation is based on a fractionally spaced equalizer whose taps are updated by an adaptive algorithm. It is shown that the proposed structure is capable of delivering the maximum signal-to-noise ratio predicted by theory.
Solution Structure and Dynamics of a Prototypical Chordin-like Cysteine-rich Repeat (von Willebrand Factor Type C Module) from Collagen IIA*

Chordin-like cysteine-rich (CR) repeats (also referred to as von Willebrand factor type C (VWC) modules) have been identified in ∼200 extracellular matrix proteins. These repeats, named on the basis of amino acid conservation of 10 cysteine residues, have been shown to bind members of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) superfamily and are proposed to regulate growth factor signaling. Here we describe the intramolecular disulfide bonding, solution structure, and dynamics of a prototypical chordin-like CR repeat from procollagen IIA (CRColIIA), which has been previously shown to bind TGF-β1 and bone morphogenetic protein-2. The CRColIIA structure manifests a two sub-domain architecture tethered by a flexible linkage. Initial structures were calculated using RosettaNMR, a de novo prediction method, and final structure calculations were performed using CANDID within CYANA. The N-terminal region contains mainly β-sheet and the C-terminal region is more irregular with the fold constrained by disulfide bonds. Mobility between the N- and C-terminal sub-domains on a fast timescale was confirmed using NMR relaxation measurements. We speculate that the mobility between the two sub-domains may decrease upon ligand binding. Structure and sequence comparisons have revealed an evolutionary relationship between the N-terminal sub-domain of the CR module and the fibronectin type 1 domain, suggesting that these domains share a common ancestry. Based on the previously reported mapping of fibronectin binding sites for vascular endothelial growth factor to regions containing fibronectin type 1 domains, we discuss the possibility that this structural homology might also have functional relevance.
The NF-κB Subunit RelA/p65 Is Dispensable for Successful Liver Regeneration after Partial Hepatectomy in Mice

Background The transcription factor NF-κB consisting of the subunits RelA/p65 and p50 is known to be quickly activated after partial hepatectomy (PH), the functional relevance of which is still a matter of debate. Current concepts suggest that activation of NF-κB is especially critical in non-parenchymal cells to produce cytokines (TNF, IL-6) to adequately prime hepatocytes to proliferate after PH, while NF-κB within hepatocytes mainly bears cytoprotective functions. Methods To study the role of the NF-κB pathway in different liver cell compartments, we generated conditional knockout mice in which the transactivating NF-κB subunit RelA/p65 can be inactivated specifically in hepatocytes (RelaF/FAlbCre) or both in hepatocytes plus non-parenchymal cells including Kupffer cells (RelaF/FMxCre). 2/3 and 80% PH were performed in controls (RelaF/F) and conditional knockout mice (RelaF/FAlbCre and RelaF/FMxCre) and analyzed for regeneration. Results Hepatocyte-specific deletion of RelA/p65 in RelaF/FAlbCre mice resulted in an accelerated cell cycle progression without altering liver mass regeneration after 2/3 PH. Surprisingly, hepatocyte apoptosis or liver damage were not enhanced in RelaF/FAlbCre mice, even when performing 80% PH. The additional inactivation of RelA/p65 in non-parenchymal cells in RelaF/FMxCre mice reversed the small proliferative advantage observed after hepatocyte-specific deletion of RelA/p65 so that RelaF/FMxCre mice displayed normal cell cycle progression, DNA-synthesis and liver mass regeneration. Conclusion The NF-κB subunit RelA/p65 fulfills opposite functions in different liver cell compartments in liver regeneration after PH. However, the effects observed after conditional deletion of RelA/p65 are small and do not alter liver mass regeneration after PH. We therefore do not consider RelA/p65-containing canonical NF-κB signalling to be essential for successful liver regeneration after PH.
Combining random forest and copula functions: A heuristic approach for selecting assets from a financial crisis perspective

In this paper we propose a heuristic strategy aimed at selecting and analysing a set of financial assets, focusing attention on their multivariate tail dependence structure. The selection, obtained through an algorithmic procedure based on data mining tools, assumes the existence of a reference asset we are specifically interested to. The procedure allows one to opt for two alternatives: to prefer those assets exhibiting either a minimum lower tail dependence or a maximum upper tail dependence. The former could be a recommendable opportunity in a financial crisis period. For the selected assets, the tail dependence coefficients are estimated by means of a proper multivariate copula function. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.