Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Practical leakage-resilient pseudorandom generators

Cryptographic systems and protocols are the core of many Internet security procedures (such as SSL, SSH, IPSEC, DNSSEC, secure mail, etc.). At the heart of all cryptographic functions is a good source of randomness, and for efficiency, the primitive of pseudorandom generator (PRG). PRG can also be used in the design of stream ciphers, for secure communications. The Internet is nowadays composed of many types of devices with very different hardware and software characteristics. Hence, one of the concerns in such open environments is the information "leakage" and its exploitation via the so-called "side channel attacks". A very extensive and current research direction is designing basic cryptographic operations that are resistant to such attacks. Recent works on leakage-resilient PRG and stream ciphers did significant progresses in providing tools for the analysis of side-channel attacks in the standard cryptographic setting. But in the absence of a completely sound model for the leakages, the only constructions that can be proven secure require tweaks that do not correspond to the physical intuition. For example, constructions using an alternating structure, in which a key bit-size of $2n$ can only guarantee a security of at most $2^n$, have been designed for this purpose. In this paper, we provide two methodological contributions, allowing to get rid of these tweaks, or to reduce their impact towards negligible performance overheads. First, we show that the leakage-resilience of a natural, i.e. conform to engineering experience, stateful PRG can be proven under a random oracle based assumption. We then discuss the relevance of this assumption, and argue that it nicely captures the reality of actual side-channel attacks. Second, we provide the first construction of a PRG without alternating structure, that exploits the keying material to its full length and that can be proven leakage-resilient in the standard model. For this purpose, we only need to assume a non adaptive leakage function and a small public memory. We also argue that such an assumption is not only realistic, but necessary for any leakage-resilient primitive that grants adversaries with a (stateless) reinitialization capability. Together with weaker requirements for practical implementations, these contributions further reduce the gap between the theory and practice of physically observable cryptography.
Automaton-based Confidentiality Monitoring of Concurrent Programs

Noninterference is typically used as a baseline security policy to formalize confidentiality of secret information manipulated by a program. In contrast to static checking of noninterference, this paper considers dynamic, automaton-based, monitoring of information flow for a single execution of a concurrent program. The monitoring mechanism is based on a combination of dynamic and static analyses. During program execution, abstractions of program events are sent to the automaton, which uses the abstractions to track information flows and to control the execution by forbidding or editing dangerous actions. All monitored executions are proved to be noninterfering (soundness) and executions of programs that are well-typed in a security type system similar to the one of Smith and Volpano [23] are proved to be unaltered by the monitor (partial transparency).
Hydrogen detection in metals: a review and introduction of a Kelvin probe approach

Abstract Hydrogen in materials is an important topic for many research fields in materials science. Hence in the past quite a number of different techniques for determining the amount of hydrogen in materials and for measuring hydrogen permeation through them have been developed. Some of these methods have found widespread application. But for many problems the achievable sensitivity is usually not high enough and ready-to-use techniques providing also good spatial resolution, especially in the submicron range, are very limited, and mostly not suitable for widespread application. In this work this situation will be briefly reviewed and a novel scanning probe technique based method introduced.
Reporting of results from network meta-analyses: methodological systematic review

Objective To examine how the results of network meta-analyses are reported. Design Methodological systematic review of published reports of network meta-analyses. Data sources Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, Medline, and Embase, searched from inception to 12 July 2012. Study selection All network meta-analyses comparing the clinical efficacy of three or more interventions in randomised controlled trials were included, excluding meta-analyses with an open loop network of three interventions. Data extraction and synthesis The reporting of the network and results was assessed. A composite outcome included the description of the network (number of interventions, direct comparisons, and randomised controlled trials and patients for each comparison) and the reporting of effect sizes derived from direct evidence, indirect evidence, and the network meta-analysis. Results 121 network meta-analyses (55 published in general journals; 48 funded by at least one private source) were included. The network and its geometry (network graph) were not reported in 100 (83%) articles. The effect sizes derived from direct evidence, indirect evidence, and the network meta-analysis were not reported in 48 (40%), 108 (89%), and 43 (36%) articles, respectively. In 52 reports that ranked interventions, 43 did not report the uncertainty in ranking. Overall, 119 (98%) reports of network meta-analyses did not give a description of the network or effect sizes from direct evidence, indirect evidence, and the network meta-analysis. This finding did not differ by journal type or funding source. Conclusions The results of network meta-analyses are heterogeneously reported. Development of reporting guidelines to assist authors in writing and readers in critically appraising reports of network meta-analyses is timely.
Emotional Labor: Regulating Emotions for a Wage

Many employees perform emotional labor, regulating their emotions to meet organizationally mandated display rules (e.g., “service with a smile”), which has both professional and personal implications. Emotion regulation in a work context is important to enhance customers’ mood and service satisfaction, but putting on that smile to perform one’s work role can have surprising costs depending on how the emotions are regulated. When employees try to change their feelings to appear sincere (i.e., deep acting), performance is enhanced, yet employees must often “fake it” (i.e., surface act), which has consequences to their well-being. We discuss how these concepts are similar and distinct from emotion-regulation strategies while also reviewing work factors that help optimize emotional labor’s impact on performance and well-being. Finally, we note recent studies that have expanded the concept of emotional labor and the methods used to capture this workplace experience.
Adenocarcinoma Novel Mechanism of Lymphangiogenesis in Lung Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-C Up-Regulation : Aand HER-2 / Neu-Dependent 1 Cyclooxygenase-2 Induces

Cyclooxygenase (COX)-2, the inducible isoform of prostaglandin H synthase, has been implicated in the progression of human lung adenocarcinoma. However, the mechanism underlying COX-2’s effect on tumor progression remains largely unknown. Lymphangiogenesis, the formation of new lymphatic vessels, has recently received considerable attention and become a new frontier of tumor metastasis research. Here, we study the interaction between COX-2 and the lymphangiogenic factor, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-C, in human lung cancer cells and their implication in patient outcomes. We developed an isopropyl-D-thiogalactopyranoside-inducible COX-2 gene expression system in human lung adenocarcinoma CL1.0 cells. We found that VEGF-C gene expression but not VEGF-D was significantly elevated in cells overexpressing COX-2. COX-2-mediated VEGF-C up-regulation was commonly observed in a broad array of non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. The use of pharmacological inhibitors or activators and genetic inhibition by EP receptorantisense oligonucleotides revealed that prostaglandin EP1 receptor but not other prostaglandin receptors is involved in COX-2-mediated VEGF-C up-regulation. At the mechanistic level, we found that COX-2 expression or prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) treatment could activate the HER2/Neu tyrosine kinase receptor through the EP1 receptor-dependent pathway and that this activation was essential for VEGF-C induction. The transactivation of HER-2/Neu by PGE2 was inhibited by way of blocking the Src kinase signaling using the specific Src family inhibitor, PP1, or transfection with the mutant dominant negative src plasmid. Src kinase was involved in not only the HER-2/Neu transactivation but also the following VEGF-C up-regulation by PGE2 treatment. In addition, immunohistochemical staining of 59 lung adenocarcinoma specimens showed that COX-2 level was highly correlated with VEGF-C, lymphatic vessels density, and other clinicopathological parameters. Taken together, our results provided evidence that COX-2 up-regulated VEGF-C and promotes lymphangiogenesis in human lung adenocarcinoma via the EP1/Src/ HER-2/Neu signaling pathway.
Reactive and dynamic local search for Max-Clique, does the complexity pay off?

This paper presents some preliminary results of an ongoing investigation about how different algorithmic building blocks contribute to solving the Maximum Clique problem. In detail, we consider greedy constructions, plateau searches, and more complex schemes based on dynamic penalties and/or prohibitions, in particular the recently proposed technique of Dynamic Local Search and the previously proposed Reactive Local Search. The experimental results consider both the empirical hardness, measured by the iterations needed to reach empirical maxima, and the CPU time per iteration.
POTENTIALLY PATHOGENIC FREE-LIVING AMOEBAE IN SOME FLOOD-AFFECTED AREAS DURING 2011 CHIANG MAI FLOOD

SUMMARY The survey was carried out to investigate the presence of potentially pathogenic free-living amoebae (FLA) during flood in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2011. From different crisis flood areas, seven water samples were collected and tested for the presence of amoebae using culture and molecular methods. By monoxenic culture, FLA were detected from all samples at 37 °C incubation. The FLA growing at 37 °C were morphologically identified as Acanthamoeba spp. , Naegleria spp. and some unidentified amoebae. Only three samples (42.8%), defined as thermotolerant FLA, continued to grow at 42 °C. By molecular methods, two non-thermotolerant FlA were shown to have 99% identity to Acanthamoeba sp. and 98% identity to Hartmannella vermiformis while the two thermotolerant FLA were identified as Echinamoeba exundans (100% identity) and Hartmannella sp. (99% identity). This first report of the occurrence of FLA in water during the flood disaster will provide information to the public to be aware of potentially pathogenic FLA.
Encouraging Co-Operation and Reflective Practice in Conservation Degree Programmes

The research question explored here is; How should conservation education respond to the dilemma produced by the ever-increasing demands made on conservation professionals, and therefore on professional education, at a time when the resources within higher education (and particularly in the context of teaching and materials intensive conservation programmes) are constrained? It investigates the results of taking public collections as the focus of study and using reflective learning journals to stimulate discussion and deepen learning. Here the prior life experiences of the students become a major resource for the individual and the group. Methods (based on a multidisciplinary approach) for integrating theoretical learning and professional practice are tested.
Simulating Natural Ventilation in and Around Buildings by Fast Fluid Dynamics

Natural ventilation is a sustainable technology that can provide a well-built environment and also save energy. The application of natural ventilation to buildings requires a careful approach in the early design phase, and fast, simple design tools are greatly needed. Fast fluid dynamics (FFD) can provide useful airflow information at a speed much faster than CFD so that it is a potential design tool for natural ventilation. This study thus validated FFD with test cases representing different types of natural ventilation. The results showed that FFD was capable of predicting the main air flow feature and ventilation rate with reasonable accuracy for wind-driven or buoyancy-driven natural ventilation. FFD simulation can reflect the influence of wind direction and surrounding buildings on natural ventilation.
An Improved Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for Clustering Proteins in Protein Interaction Network

-Recently, we have introduced the first version of ACOPIN, an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm for clustering proteins in the protein interaction network (PIN). Based on the experimental results, we have discovered serious pitfalls; very difficult to define the boundaries among clusters and unable to identify the overlapping clusters. These pitfalls contribute to low accuracy of detected cluster especially for the larger size. In this paper, we improve ACOPIN to overcome these pitfalls. The improvement includes the construction tour of ant based on topological weight and functional similarity weight. Artificial ants themselves perform the ‘exploration’ and ‘exploitation’ process in the PIN with the assistance from pheromone trails. We simulate the improved version onto one Yeast datasets and the result shows that the detected clusters has very high accuracy in terms of functional homogeneity of proteins.
Potential consequences of climate variability and change for the forests of the United States

Forests cover nearly one-third of the US,providing wildlife habitat, clean air and water, cultural and aesthetic values,carbon storage, recreational opportunities such as hiking,camping, fishing,and autumn leaf tours,and products that can be harvested such as timber, pulpwood,fuelwood,wild game, ferns, mushrooms,and berries. This wealth depends on forest biodiversity—the variety of plants,animals, and microbe species,and forest functioning—water flow, nutrient cycling,and productivity. These aspects of forests are strongly influenced by climate and human land use.
Mosaics of Islet-1-Expressing Amacrine Cells Assembled by Short-Range Cellular Interactions

The nervous system has a modular architecture with neurons of the same type commonly organized in nonrandom arrays or mosaics. Modularity is essential to parallel processing of sensory information and has provided a key element for brain evolution, but we still know very little of the way neuronal mosaics form during development. Here we have identified the immature elements of two retinal mosaics, the choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) amacrine cells, by their early expression of the homeodomain protein Islet-1, and we show that spatial ordering is an intrinsic property of the two Islet-1 mosaics, dynamically maintained while new elements are inserted into the mosaics. Migrating Islet-1 cells do not show this spatial ordering, indicating that they must move tangentially as they enter the mosaic, under the action of local mechanisms. Clonal territory analysis in X-inactivation transgenic mice confirms the lateral displacement of ChAT amacrine cells away from their clonal columns of origin, and mathematical models show how short-range cellular interactions can guide the assemblage of these mosaics via a simple biological rule.
Efficient Computation of Sensitivity Coefficients of Node Voltages and Line Currents in Unbalanced Radial Electrical Distribution Networks

The problem of optimal control of power distribution systems is becoming increasingly compelling due to the progressive penetration of distributed energy resources in this specific layer of the electrical infrastructure. Distribution systems are, indeed, experiencing significant changes in terms of operation philosophies that are often based on optimal control strategies relying on the computation of linearized dependencies between controlled (e.g., voltages, frequency in case of islanding operation) and control variables (e.g., power injections, transformers tap positions). As the implementation of these strategies in real-time controllers imposes stringent time constraints, the derivation of analytical dependency between controlled and control variables becomes a non-trivial task to be solved. With reference to optimal voltage and power flow controls, this paper aims at providing an analytical derivation of node voltages and line currents as a function of the nodal power injections and transformers tap-changers positions. Compared to other approaches presented in the literature, the one proposed here is based on the use of the [Y] compound matrix of a generic multi-phase radial unbalanced network. In order to estimate the computational benefits of the proposed approach, the relevant improvements are also quantified versus traditional methods. The validation of the proposed method is carried out by using both IEEE 13 and 34 nodes test feeders. The paper finally shows the use of the proposed method for the problem of optimal voltage control applied to the IEEE 34 node test feeder.
Total phenolic, antioxidant, antimicrobial activities and toxicity study of Gynotroches axillaris blume (Rhizophoraceae)

The antioxidant activity and the total phenolic content, as well as the influence of petroleum ether, chloroform and methanol extracts from the leaves of Gynotroches axillaris, on microorganisms were studied. The total phenolic contents were evaluated by using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent and the obtained values ranged from 70.0 to 620 mg GAE/g. The efficiency of antioxidation, which was identified through the scavenging of free radical DPPH, exhibited that the highest IC50 was in the methanolic extract (44.7 µg/mL) as compared to the standard ascorbic acid (25.83 µg/mL) and to standard BHT (17.2 µg/mL). In vitro antimicrobial activity of extracts was tested against Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria and fungi. Methanol extract showed activity in the range (225-900 μg/mL) with both types, while petroleum ether and chloroform extracts were only active with Bacillus subtilis. The three extracts strongly inhibited all fungi with activity 225-450 μg/mL. The toxicity test against brine shrimps indicated that all extracts were non-toxic with LC50 value more than 1000 µg/mL. The finding of this study supports the safety of these extracts to be used in medical treatments.
Use of a CSP-based voice activity detector for distant-talking ASR

This paper addresses the problem of voice activity detection for distant-talking speech recognition in noisy and reverberant environment. The proposed algorithm is based on the same Cross-power Spectrum Phase analysis that is used for talker location and tracking purposes. A normalized feature is derived, which is shown to be more effective than an energy-based one. The algorithm exploits that feature by dynamically updating the threshold as a non-linear average value computed during the preceding pause. Given a real multichannel database, recorded with the speaker at 2.5 meter distance from the microphones, experiments show that the proposed algorithm provides a relevant relative error rate reduction.
Mining source code descriptions from developer communications

Very often, source code lacks comments that adequately describe its behavior. In such situations developers need to infer knowledge from the source code itself or to search for source code descriptions in external artifacts. We argue that messages exchanged among contributors/developers, in the form of bug reports and emails, are a useful source of information to help understanding source code. However, such communications are unstructured and usually not explicitly meant to describe specific parts of the source code. Developers searching for code descriptions within communications face the challenge of filtering large amount of data to extract what pieces of information are important to them. We propose an approach to automatically extract method descriptions from communications in bug tracking systems and mailing lists. We have evaluated the approach on bug reports and mailing lists from two open source systems (Lucene and Eclipse). The results indicate that mailing lists and bug reports contain relevant descriptions of about 36% of the methods from Lucene and 7% from Eclipse, and that the proposed approach is able to extract such descriptions with a precision of up to 79% for Eclipse and 87% for Lucene. The extracted method descriptions can help developers in understanding the code and could also be used as a starting point for source code re-documentation.
Protecting domestic power-line communications

In this paper we describe the protection goals and mechanisms in HomePlug AV, a next-generation power-line communications standard. This is a fascinating case-history in security usability. There are also novel protocol issues; interactions with mechanisms at other layers; and opportunities for both researchers and third-party vendors to build on the mechanisms provided. The central problem -- being sure whether a device being enrolled in the network is the device you think, not a similar one nearby -- is not well solved by conventional mechanisms such as public-key infrastructures, but appears to require either very old-fashioned or very novel approaches.
Measurement of faecal calprotectin and lactoferrin in inflammatory bowel disease

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are chronic relapsing gastrointestinal conditions characterised by an influx of inflammatory cells to the affected gut mucosa. The mainstay of diagnosing and re-evaluating these conditions in clinical practice and research is by invasive serological, radiological, endoscopic and histological assessment. In clinical trials, disease activity is often evaluated using a combination of the above tests plus clinical indices such as the Crohn's Disease Activity Index and Ulcerative Colitis Activity Index. These tools rely on subjective assessment of symptoms and so, often, do not correlate with mucosal inflammation or mucosal healing, which may be the preferred therapeutic end point for long-term inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) management. The faecal biomarkers calprotectin and lactoferrin are neutrophil derived proteins that are stable in faeces and can be detected by quantitative ELISA in small stool samples. Concentrations of both are raised in patients with gastrointestinal mucosal inflammation. They provide a unique, inexpensive, non-invasive method of testing for active inflammatory disease. They can be used to screen for IBD and as a surrogate marker of mucosal healing they are useful in monitoring the response to therapeutic intervention or surgery. They may also predict the clinical course of the disease. This clinical review aims to discuss the current evidence, limitations and potential future uses of these biomarkers in IBD.