Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE Systematic Mining of Associated Server Herds for Malware Campaign

HTTP is a popular channel for malware to communicate with malicious servers (e.g., Command & Control, drive-by download, drop-zone, etc.), as well as to attack benign servers . By utilizing HTTP requests, malware easily disguises itself under a large amount of benign HTTP traffic. Thus, identifying malicious HTTP activities is challenging. We leverage an insight that cyber criminals are increasingly using dynamic malicious infrastructures with multiple servers to be efficient and anonymous in (i) malware distribution (using redirectors and exploit servers), (ii) control (using C&C servers) and (iii) monetization (using payment servers), and (iv) be robust against server takedowns (using multiple backups for each type of servers). Instead of focusing on detecting individual malicious domains, we propose a complementary approach to identify a group of closely related servers that are potentially involved in the same malware campaign, which we term as Associated Server Herd (ASH). Our solution, SMASH (Systematic Mining of Associated Server Herds), utilizes an unsupervised framework to infer malware ASHs by systematically mining the relationships among all servers from multiple dimensions. We build a prototype system of SMASH and evaluate it with traces from a large ISP. The result shows that SMASH successfully infers a large number of previously undetected malicious servers and possible zero-day attacks, with low false positives. We believe the inferred ASHs provide a better global view of the attack campaign that may not be easily captured by detecting only individual servers.
Biot analysis of deformation during variable-head field permeability tests in soft soils

ABSTRACT: Variable-head field permeability tests are conducted by changing rapidly the water level in a monitoring well and by recording its recovery. Interpretation of test data is done using two types of methods. Methods of the first type assume that the pore volume is linearly related to pore pressure, while those of the second type assume a perfectly rigid soil skeleton. In this paper, a COMSOL model based on the Biot consolidation theory is presented for the modelling of variable-head tests in soft soils. The model takes into account changes in stress and well cavity volume. Numerical results indicate that the treatment of deformation for interpretation methods of the first type is incomplete. Pore volume changes and cavity expansion both have an influence on test data, especially for small riser pipe diameters. However, these two deformation types have opposite effects on test data. Because they have the same order of magnitude, they tend to cancel each other. A comparison of modelling and experimental results shows that the model can accurately predict the influence of deformations, and that neglecting deformations gives reliable hydraulic conductivity values for most well geometries. RESUME : L’essai de permeabilite a niveau variable consiste a changer rapidement le niveau d’eau dans un puits d’observation et a suivre le retour du niveau d’eau vers sa position initiale. Deux types de methodes permettent l’interpretation des resultats. Les methodes du premier type supposent une relation lineaire entre le volume des pores et la pression interstitielle, alors que celles du deuxieme type supposent un sol parfaitement rigide. Dans cet article, un modele COMSOL base sur la theorie de Biot est utilise pour modeliser les essais a niveau variable dans les sols peu rigides. Le modele tient compte des changements de contrainte et du volume de la cavite a la base du puits. Les resultats numeriques indiquent que le traitement des deformations pour les methodes du premier type est incomplet. Les variations du volume des pores et de la cavite a la base du puits ont une influence sur l’essai. Toutefois, les deux types de deformation ont des effets opposes. Parce que leur impact est du meme ordre de grandeur, ils tendent a s’annuler. Une comparaison des resultats experimentaux et de modelisation montre que le modele peut predire l’influence des deformations avec precision, et que des valeurs realistes de la conductivite hydraulique peuvent etre obtenues en negligeant les deformations pour la plupart des geometries de puits.
Recovering Indirect Information in Demographic Applications

In many demographic applications the information of interest cannot be estimated directly but indirect estimation procedures have to be employed. With its emphasis on rates and events, many methods in demography are based on distributional models for counts (and corresponding exposures), so that extensions of Poisson models are a natural starting point. For many applications the indirect estimation problem can be phrased as a Penalized Composite Link Model (PCLM). This contribution will demonstrate the usefulness of the PCLM in demographic applications.
Real and artificial controversies in breast cancer screening

SUMMARY We review the apparent disparities between different reviews of the effects of mammographic screening on mortality from breast cancer and overdiagnosis. When results of each review are expressed with respect to a common population and a common baseline, all find a substantial mortality benefit and variation among estimates is minor. There are genuine disagreements about overdiagnosis, but methods that take account of lead time and underlying incidence trends yield estimates of overdiagnosis that are modest and are outweighed by the mortality benefit. There is potential for individualized screening regimens, particularly with respect to breast density.
MiR-214 regulates CD3ζ expression in T cells

Introduction T-cell activation requires the T-cell receptor (TCR)-CD3 complex, which integrates and transduces signals. CD3ζ plays a vital role in TCR signalling by mediating T-cell activation. Abnormal CD3ζ expression is a common characteristic of haematological malignancies with T-cell immune dysfunction or autoimmune diseases. Targeted regulation of CD3ζ expression by either direct or indirect approaches is important for regulating T-cell activation. Aim of the study In this study, we focused on identifying miRNAs that may regulate CD3ζ expression. Material and methods Three microRNA target search algorithms (TargetScan, PicTar, and microrna.org) were used to identify hypothetical miRNAs that target CD3ζ in T cells. Of the predicted miRNAs, miR-214 was chosen and validated to determine whether miR-214 directly binds to the CD3ζ 3’-UTR and regulates CD3ζ expression by luciferase reporter assays, real-time PCR, and Western blotting. Results The results indicate that miR-214 specifically binds the CD3ζ 3’-UTR, and miR-214 mimics remarkably reduce the expression of CD3ζ in MOLT-4 cells. Conclusions We identify for the first time that miR-214 targets expression in MOLT-4 cells, suggesting that miR-214 might negatively regulate T-cell activation by targeting CD3ζ.
Neoantimycin F, a Streptomyces-Derived Natural Product Induces Mitochondria-Related Apoptotic Death in Human Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Cells

Streptomyces-derived natural products have been become a major focus of anti-tumor drug discovery studies. Neoantimycin F (NAT-F), was isolated from Streptomyces conglobatus by our group. Here, we examined the anti-cancer activities and its underlying molecular mechanisms implicated in NAT-F–induced apoptosis of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. Our results showed that NAT-F exerted excellent growth-inhibitory activity against PC9 and H1299 cells in a concentration-dependent manner. NAT-F–induced cell cycle arrest at S and G0/G1 phase in PC9 and H1299 cells, respectively. Further investigation revealed that the key proteins (including cyclinD1, cyclinE1, cyclinB1, CDK2, and CDK4) were involved in the cell regulation by NAT-F. Additionally, NAT-F significantly increased the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), induced DNA damage, nuclear condensation, and cell apoptosis in both cell lines. Moreover, loss of the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) was markedly induced by NAT-F. Additional results revealed that NAT-F could up-regulate pro-apoptotic protein Bax and down-regulate anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2, Mcl-1, and Bcl-xL, resulting in cytochrome c release from mitochondria and sequential activation of caspase-9 and -3, as well as the cleavage of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase. Meanwhile, c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), p38 MAPK (p38), and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathway were also involved in anti-cancer activity of NAT-F in NSCLC cells. Taken together, these findings indicated that NAT-F possessed anti-proliferative effect and induced apoptosis in NSCLC cells in vitro and may be conducive to promote the development of novel anti-NSCLC agents.
Hand exoskeleton for remote control of minimally invasive surgical anthropomorphic instrumentation

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has evolved from traditional laparoscopy, which involves the surgeon using hand held tools through small incisions on the patient’s body, to robotically assisted (R-A) surgery, during which the surgeon remotely operates articulated instruments attached to the end of robotic arms. Advances in the design, articulation and flexibility of the instruments have added to the popularity of R-A MIS [1]. Nevertheless, the way that the instruments are controlled affects not only their efficacy, but also the ergonomics and the learning process for the surgeon.
Title Single-Shot Diffuser-Encoded Light Field Imaging Permalink

We capture 4D light field data in a single 2D sensor image by encoding spatio-angular information into a speckle field (caustic pattern) through a phase diffuser. Using waveoptics theory and a coherent phase retrieval method, we calibrate the system by measuring the diffuser surface height from through-focus images. Wave-optics theory further informs the design of system geometry such that a purely additive ray-optics model is valid. Light field reconstruction is done using nonlinear matrix inversion methods, including 1 minimization. We demonstrate a prototype system and present empirical results of 4D light field reconstruction and computational refocusing from a single diffuserencoded 2D image.
Strength Predict Match Length ? Validating a Mentoring Relationship Quality Scale : Does Match

Youth mentoring relationships have significant potential for promoting positive youth development. Nonetheless, the benefits derived from such relationships depend considerably on the length and quality of the bonds that are created between mentors and youth. Although some attention has been paid to youth’s experience of relationship quality, few studies have focused on mentors’ experience of relationship quality. In the context of a national sample of mentor and youth dyads in Big Brothers Big Sisters community-based mentoring programs (N = 5,222), the current study validated a new mentor-reported measure of relationship quality, explored associations between mentor and youth assessments of relationship quality, and investigated the capacity of early assessments of relationship quality to predict mentoring relationship duration. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
A National Iranian Cochlear Implant Registry (ICIR): cochlear implanted recipient observational study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Patients who receive cochlear implants (CIs) constitutes a significant population in Iran. This population needs regular monitor on long-term outcomes, educational placement and quality of life. Currently, there is no national or regional registry on the long term outcomes of CI users in Iran. The present study aims to introduce the design and implementation of a national patient-outcomes registry on CI recipients for Iran. This Iranian CI registry (ICIR) provides an integrated framework for data collection and sharing, scientific communication and collaboration inCI research. METHODS The national ICIR is a prospective patient-outcomes registry for patients who are implanted in one of Iranian centers. The registry is based on an integrated database that utilizes a secure web-based platform to collect response data from clinicians and patient's proxy via electronic case report forms (e-CRFs) at predefined intervals. The CI candidates are evaluated with a set of standardized and non-standardized questionnaires prior to initial device activation(as baseline variables) and at three-monthly interval follow-up intervals up to 24 months and annually thereafter. RESULTS The software application of the ICIR registry is designed in a user-friendly graphical interface with different entry fields. The collected data are categorized into four subsets including personal information, clinical data, surgery data and commission results. The main parameters include audiometric performance of patient, device use, patient comorbidities, device use, quality of life and health-related utilities, across different types of CI devices from different manufacturers. CONCLUSION The ICIR database could be used by the increasingly growing network of CI centers in Iran. Clinicians, academic and industrial researchers as well as healthcare policy makers could use this database to develop more effective CI devices and better management of the recipients as well as to develop national guidelines.
Understanding gamma ventral capsulotomy: Potential implications of diffusion tensor image tractography on target selectivity

Background: The role of tractography in gamma ventral capsulotomy (GVC) planning is still unclear. This paper aims to describe the spatial distribution of medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and lateral OFC fibers passing through the anterior limb of the internal capsule (ALIC) and analyze quantitative tractography parameters that differentiate obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) individuals from other neurosurgery functional patients (morbid obesity and Parkinson’s disease [PD]). Methods: Twenty patients undergoing functional stereotactic procedures, between 2013 and 2016, were included in this study. OCD patients underwent GVC (single shot 150 Gy and 4-mm collimators). PD and morbid obesity patients were submitted to deep brain stimulation implants. Diffusion tensor image tractography was reconstructed using Brainlab Elements software (Brainlab AG, Munich, Germany). Results: Nine PD, six morbid obesity, and five OCD patients were included with a mean age of 65.4 ± 9.1, 41.0 ± 8.2, and 31.2 ± 5.5, respectively, which are statistically different from each other (P < 0.001). Fourteen patients (70%) were men. A total of 40 cerebral hemispheres were analyzed. Medial OFC fibers are localized more inferior in the ALIC than the lateral OFC fibers in all hemispheres, but the level of intersection and exact topography of fiber bundles are variable among individuals. Both medial and lateral OFC fiber tracts of PD and morbid obesity patients have lower volume than, respectively, medial and lateral counterparts of OCD patients (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Medial and lateral OFC tract fibers have a general standard distribution in the anterior internal capsule (lateral OFC higher than medial OFC fibers). There are differences between obesity, Parkinson, and OCD patients regarding fiber tract statistics.
Efficiency, heterogeneity and cost function analysis: empirical evidence from pathology services in the National Health Service in England

Pathology services are increasingly recognized as key to effective healthcare delivery – underpinning diagnosis, long-term disease management and research. To the extent that pathology services affect a patient’s treatment pathway, significant healthcare costs are influenced directly by the performance of these services. Given pressures on the UK Department of Health to make efficiency savings and that little is known about the efficiency of pathology laboratories, this area offers unlocked potential for efficiency gains. We adopt a time varying inefficiency model, with laboratory-specific time paths for inefficiency, to identify potential savings in pathology services based on a panel of 57 English laboratories over a 5 year period. We apply a range of approaches to account for observable and unobservable heterogeneity between laboratories. We find potential efficiency savings of 13% in pathology services in this sample, which implies the potential for an annual saving of £390m in pathology across the NHS. Our study also provides valuable insights into the impact of a range of factors influencing laboratory costs.
Propositions and Future Directions of Marketers’ Relationship Effectiveness in Mergers and Acquisitions Integration

Research on marketing integration related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has paid little attention to the combination of similar resources between two similar departments, particularly in the M&A context. Furthermore, existing research does not clearly demonstrate the role of relationship among marketers within the amalgamation process between acquirer and target firm.Hence, this paper addresses a few propositions that relate to strengthening the relationship effectiveness among the marketers in both firms, which at the same time uphold the M&A performance. Collaboration and interaction are proposed as drivers to increase optimistic relationship among the marketers.A quantitative research design is suggested as this method is not popular compared to qualitative methods such as case study, event-study and longitudinal approach in M&A.Drawing from the extant literature, propositions are developed and future directions are presented elaborating success factors to improve M&A integration performance.
Determinants of terrestrial ecosystem carbon balance inferred from European eddy covariance flux sites

Pioneering work in the last century has resulted in a widely accepted paradigm that primary production is strongly positively related to temperature and water availability such that the northern hemispheric forest carbon sink may increase under conditions of global warming. However, the terrestrial carbon sink at the ecosystem level (i.e. net ecosystem productivity, NEP) depends on the net balance between gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (TER). Through an analysis of European eddy covariance flux data sets, we find that the common climate relationships for primary production do not hold for NEP. This is explained by the fact that decreases in GPP are largely compensated by parallel decreases in TER when climatic factors become more limiting. Moreover, we found overall that water availability was a significant modulator of NEP, while the multivariate effect of mean annual temperature is small and not significant. These results indicate that climate‐ and particularly temperature‐based projections of net carbon balance may be misleading. Future research should focus on interactions between the water and carbon cycles and the effects of disturbances on the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems.
A particle system with cooperative branching and coalescence

In this paper, we introduce a one-dimensional model of particles performing independent random walks, where only pairs of particles can produce offspring ("cooperative branching"), and particles that land on an occupied site merge with the particle present on that site ("coalescence"). We show that the system undergoes a phase transition as the branching rate is increased. For small branching rates, the upper invariant law is trivial, and the process started with finitely many particles a.s. ends up with a single particle. Both statements are not true for high branching rates. An interesting feature of the process is that the spectral gap is zero even for low branching rates. Indeed, if the branching rate is small enough, then we show that for the process started in the fully occupied state, the particle density decays as one over the square root of time, and the same is true for the decay of the probability that the process still has more than one particle at a later time if it started with two particles.
Pyrethroids Resistance Mechanism in Egyptian Cotton Leafworm Spodoptera littoralis (Boisd.)

The journal of Toxicology and pest control is one of the series issued twice by the Egyptian Academic Journal of Biological Sciences, and is devoted to publication of original papers related to the interaction between insects and their environment. The goal of the journal is to advance the scientific understanding of mechanisms of toxicity. Emphasis will be placed on toxic effects observed at relevant exposures, which have direct impact on safety evaluation and risk assessment. The journal therefore welcomes papers on biology ranging from molecular and cell biology, biochemistry and physiology to ecology and environment, also systematics, microbiology, toxicology, hydrobiology, radiobiology and biotechnology. www.eajbs. eg.net Provided for non-commercial research and education use. Not for reproduction, distribution or commercial use.
Consumers Intention Towards Purchasing Ip Certified Beans: An Analysis Using The Theory Of Planned Behaviour (Tpb)

The patterns of consumption of food have been rapidly changing. This change has been reflecting in the increase of safer and more sustainable food consumption. Agricultural foods that are grown in Integrated Production (IP) also match the new consumer food quality patterns. In Brazil, the supply of IP certified products is still small. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the consumer perception and intention of purchasing certified beans based on the replication of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The survey was conducted in Goiania (GO), Brazil, in 2014, when 160 consumers of common beans were interviewed in a local hypermarket. Data were analyzed based on the structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed characteristics of consumer behavior when faced to certified beans as a hypothetical product, since they are not yet available on the market. The results indicated that the theoretical model based on the TPB used to explain the intention behavior of purchasing certified beans resulted in reasonable fit indices, but with only some of the relations among constructs were consistent with the theory. Thus, the results showed that the proposed model was adequate for explaining the consumer behavior towards the IP certified beans purchasing. As exceptions, one can refer the constructs subjective norms and perceived behavioral control toward the intention of purchasing.
Imitation ? Abstraction and reuse ? A mashup ? Motivation ?

‘Bioinspiration’—using phenomena in biology to stimulate research in non-biological science and technology—is a strategy that suggests new areas for research. Beyond its potential to nucleate new ideas, bioinspiration has two other interesting characteristics. It can suggest subjects in research that are relatively simple technically; it can also lead to areas in which results can lead to useful function more directly than some of the more familiar areas now fashionable in chemistry. Bioinspired research thus has the potential to be accessible to laboratories that have limited resources, to offer routes to new and useful function, and to bridge differences in technical and cultural interactions of different geographical regions.
Detection and Prevantion of Black Hole Attack over Manet

The black hole attack is one of the well-known security threats in wireless mobile ad hoc networks. The intruders utilize the loophole to carry out their malicious behaviors because the route discovery process is necessary and inevitable. Many researchers have conducted different detection techniques to propose different types of detection schemes. In this paper, we survey the existing solutions and discuss the state-of-the-art routing methods. We not only classify these proposals into single black hole attack and collaborative black hole attack but also analyze the categories of these solutions and provide a comparison table. We expect to furnish more researchers with a detailed work in anticipation.