Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Statistics-based Fundamental Model for Side-channel Attack Analysis

Side-channel attacks (SCAs) exploit leakage from the physical implementation of cryptographic algorithms to recover the otherwise secret information. In the last decade, popular SCAs like differential power analysis (DPA) and correlation power analysis (CPA) have been invented and demonstrated to be realistic threats to many critical embedded systems. However, there is still no sound and provable theoretical model that illustrates precisely what the success of these attacks depends on and how. Based on the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) theory, this paper proposes a general statistical model for side-channel attack analysis that takes characteristics of both the physical implementation and cryptographic algorithm into consideration. The model establishes analytical relations between the success rate of attacks and the cryptographic system. For power analysis attacks, the side-channel characteristic of the physical implementation is modeled as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which is the ratio between the single-bit unit power consumption and the standard deviation of power distribution. The side-channel property of the cryptographic algorithm is extracted by a novel algorithmic confusion analysis. Experimental results of DPA and CPA on both DES and AES verify this model with high accuracy and demonstrate effectiveness of the algorithmic confusion analysis and SNR extraction. We expect the model to be extendable to other SCAs, like timing attacks, and would provide valuable guidelines for truly SCA-resilient system design and implementation.
Starvation, Together with the SOS Response, Mediates High Biofilm-Specific Tolerance to the Fluoroquinolone Ofloxacin

High levels of antibiotic tolerance are a hallmark of bacterial biofilms. In contrast to well-characterized inherited antibiotic resistance, molecular mechanisms leading to reversible and transient antibiotic tolerance displayed by biofilm bacteria are still poorly understood. The physiological heterogeneity of biofilms influences the formation of transient specialized subpopulations that may be more tolerant to antibiotics. In this study, we used random transposon mutagenesis to identify biofilm-specific tolerant mutants normally exhibited by subpopulations located in specialized niches of heterogeneous biofilms. Using Escherichia coli as a model organism, we demonstrated, through identification of amino acid auxotroph mutants, that starved biofilms exhibited significantly greater tolerance towards fluoroquinolone ofloxacin than their planktonic counterparts. We demonstrated that the biofilm-associated tolerance to ofloxacin was fully dependent on a functional SOS response upon starvation to both amino acids and carbon source and partially dependent on the stringent response upon leucine starvation. However, the biofilm-specific ofloxacin increased tolerance did not involve any of the SOS-induced toxin–antitoxin systems previously associated with formation of highly tolerant persisters. We further demonstrated that ofloxacin tolerance was induced as a function of biofilm age, which was dependent on the SOS response. Our results therefore show that the SOS stress response induced in heterogeneous and nutrient-deprived biofilm microenvironments is a molecular mechanism leading to biofilm-specific high tolerance to the fluoroquinolone ofloxacin.
Ku Heterodimer-Independent End Joining in Trypanosoma brucei Cell Extracts Relies upon Sequence Microhomology

ABSTRACT DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are repaired primarily by two distinct pathways: homologous recombination and nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ). NHEJ has been found in all eukaryotes examined to date and has been described recently for some bacterial species, illustrating its ancestry. Trypanosoma brucei is a divergent eukaryotic protist that evades host immunity by antigenic variation, a process in which homologous recombination plays a crucial function. While homologous recombination has been examined in some detail in T. brucei, little work has been done to examine what other DSB repair pathways the parasite utilizes. Here we show that T. brucei cell extracts support the end joining of linear DNA molecules. These reactions are independent of the Ku heterodimer, indicating that they are distinct from NHEJ, and are guided by sequence microhomology. We also demonstrate bioinformatically that T. brucei, in common with other kinetoplastids, does not encode recognizable homologues of DNA ligase IV or XRCC4, suggesting that NHEJ is either absent or mechanistically diverged in these pathogens.
The interaction between TCP and traffic shapers - clever alternatives to the leaky bucket

The Differentiated Services (DiffServ) architecture has been defined for implementing scalable service differentiation in the Internet. DiffServ edge routers employ traffic conditioners that contain meter, marker and shaper functionalities. The way of traffic shaping in traffic conditioners is an open issue and we believe, using intelligent shaping algorithms instead of leaky bucket algorithms (LBA) could increase the network performance significantly. We present two new shaping algorithms for variable packet size networks that emit packet streams which behave in a certain sense better than Poisson streams and compare them to the leaky bucket algorithm (LBA). The introduced shaping algorithms are proven to perform better than LBA and furthermore provide a means to network providers to answer the questions of network dimensioning.
A dictionary updating scheme incorporating words elimination into Quantized Kernel Least-Mean-Squares for changing environments

Learning under time-varying environment is a challenging task since one has to deal with the ever changing distribution of data. A common and yet effective solution is to learn the data online and keep up with any ongoing changes. The Quantized Kernel Least-Squares (QKLMS) is an effective tool for online dictionary learning where the network size is capped by the quantization dictionary size. However, due to the lack of a mechanism to eliminate outdated words, learning can become irrelevant over time. In this paper, a mechanism to remove irrelevant words in the dictionary is proposed for QKLMS. Our experimental results based on chaotic time sequence prediction validate the capability of the developed method for time-varying data adaptation.
Prevalence and characteristics of abnormal Papanicolaou smear in Central Saudi Arabia

Objectives: To assess the prevalence and characteristics of abnormal pap smear in the central region of Saudi Arabia. Methods: In this retrospective case control study conducted in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Histopathology at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, all pap smears screened for Saudi women between 2008 and 2011 were reviewed. Approximately 5000 pap smears are screened annually at King Abdulaziz Medical City utilizing the Bethesda III System (2001). All abnormal smears patients’ data were collected and compared to the data of randomly selected 200 normal smears’ patients. Results: Abnormal pap smear prevalence was found to be 4.3% (841/19,650 Saudi patients were found with atypical epithelial cells abnormalities). Its prevalence in the years 2008 was 5.7%, 2009 was 4.9%, 2010 was 4.2%, and 2011 was 2.5%. Abnormal smear patients have lower parity (p=0.001), and were less likely to use intra-uterine devices (p=0.03) compared with normal smear patients. Presence of abnormal cervical appearance was associated with increased epithelial cell abnormalities (p=0.045). The only positive history that has characterized patients with epithelial cell abnormalities was their previous history of abnormal pap smear (p=0.001). Squamous cell abnormalities were identified in 91% of the patients (767/841), and glandular cell abnormalities were identified in 9% of the patients (74/841). Conclusion: Prevalence of abnormal pap smears in central Saudi Arabia is relatively low, while advanced glandular abnormalities prevalence was observed to be high.
Прогнозирование банкротства компаний нефтегазового сектора с использованием нейросетей

Accurate evaluation of company’s financial situation and forecast of its future operational activity is quite substantial especially today, when the economy is partly stable. Current research is dedicated to the problem of bankruptcy driving factors in oil and gas sector that is known as one of the safest and solid in view of the industrial specific. However, there are a lot of small firms that are not supported by government or mother-companies. It’s more difficult for such firms to maintain their sustainable development and financial stability. That is why huge economic shocks result in the default of these companies.In this particular paper we consider several financial coefficients belonging to 5 groups such as profitability, liquidity, leverage and turnover - as the main determinants of financial distress. We found out that profitability is the most significant variable among the others. This conclusion coincides with those of the majority of the researches.
Generating various contexts from permissions for testing Android applications

Context-awareness of mobile applications yields several issues for testing, since the mobile applications should be testable in any environment and with any contextual input. In previous studies of testing for Android applications as eventdriven systems, many researchers have focused on using the generated test cases considering only GUI events. However, it is difficult to detect failures in the changes in the context in which applications run. It is important to consider various contexts since the mobile applications adapt and use novel features and sensors of mobile devices. In this paper, we provide the method of systematically generating various executing contexts from permissions. By referring the lists of permissions, the resources that the applications use for running Android applications can be inferred easily. The various contexts of an application can be generated by permuting resource conditions, and the permutations of the contexts are prioritized. We have evaluated the usefulness and effectiveness of our method by showing that our method contributes to detect faults. Keywords—Android application testing, permissions, various contexts, context-aware application, mobile application testing
Traveler Perspectives of Greenway Quality in Northern New England

Greenways across a range of landscapes from urban to natural serve society as both transportation corridors and recreational pathways. Because of these dual functions, planning and management of greenways warrant an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates frameworks from the fields of transportation and outdoor recreation. Research was conducted to (a) investigate the relationship between transportation and recreation from a greenway user's perspective, (b) consider and integrate transportation and recreation frameworks that measure quality of greenway travel, and (c) determine the significance of settings in user perceptions of quality. On-site surveys of users (n = 841) across three greenways in northern New England were administered to learn how travelers used and perceived the quality of these facilities. Findings showed that greenways were used primarily for recreation but often incorporated varying elements of transportation. Furthermore, traveler perceptions of quality differed across settings. Transportation and recreation planning frameworks can be integrated to provide a more holistic approach to greenway planning and management.
Chapter XII Device Driver Based Computer in Broadband Age

In this chapter, we present a device-driver-based computer that realizes the reduction of mode (domain or vertical) switching overheads between user and kernel mode with innovative attributes, including shared keyboards and mice, access-controlled files, and timed files. Experimented results show that old personal computers can revive again with the proposed Driverware technology. The proposed Driver- ware can improve the CPU resource utilization by three times.
Molecular and Conformational Basis of a Specific and High-Affinity Interaction between AlbA and Albicidin Phytotoxin

ABSTRACT The albA gene of Klebsiella oxytoca encodes a protein of 221 amino acids that binds the albicidin phytotoxin with a high affinity (dissociation constant = 6.4 × 10−8 M). For this study, circular dichroism (CD) spectrometry and an alanine scanning mutagenesis approach were used in combination to investigate the molecular and conformational mechanisms of this high-affinity protein-ligand interaction. CD analysis revealed that AlbA contains a high-affinity binding site, and binding of the albicidin ligand to AlbA in a low-ionic-strength environment induced significant conformational changes. The ligand-dependent conformational changes of AlbA were specific and rapid and reached a stable plateau within seconds after the addition of the antibiotic. However, such conformational changes were not detected when AlbA and albicidin were mixed in the high-ionic-strength buffer that is required for maximal binding activity. Based on the conceptual model of protein-ligand interaction, we propose that a threshold ion strength allows AlbA to complete its conformational rearrangement and resume its original stable structure for accommodation of the bound albicidin. Mutagenesis analysis showed that the replacement of Lys106, Trp110, Tyr113, Leu114, Tyr126, Pro134, and Trp162 with alanine did not change the overall conformational structure of AlbA but decreased the albicidin binding activity about 30 to 60%. We conclude that these residues, together with the previously identified essential residue His125, constitute a high-affinity binding pocket for the ligand albicidin. The results also suggest that hydrophobic and electrostatic potentials of these key amino acid residues may play important roles in the AlbA-albicidin interaction.
Outage capacity analysis of MC-CDMA based on cognitive radio network

Upcoming high data rate demand of wireless networks create radio frequency spectrum scarcity. This paper presents performance evaluation of cooperative relaying cognitive wireless network under Rayleigh fading channel. Our network scenario consists of a primary transmitter (PT) and primary receiver (PR) as well as a group of secondary transmitters (STs) and secondary receivers (SRs). Our network scenario also consists of a grouped STs into active and inactive. Only one active ST may transmit data at the same time slot using the licensed channel of PT If the transmit power of ST does not exceed predefined interference threshold. We also derived a closed-form expression for the outage capacity with the Rayleigh fading channel. The outage capacity analysis showed that numerical results are matched closely with simulation results.
Home Unattended Portable Monitoring and Automatic CPAP Titration in Patients with High Risk for Moderate to Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea

BACKGROUND: Obstructive sleep apnea is a disorder characterized by recurrent obstruction of the upper airways during sleep. The high prevalence of this disease led to proposed new strategies based on the home evaluation and management of patients. OBJECTIVE: To compare home unattended portable monitoring and automatic CPAP titration with attended in-laboratory analysis, in a sample of patients with high risk for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea. METHODS: We enrolled 131 subjects, who were randomly divided into 2 groups: the home group (n = 66) was diagnosed and titrated at home; the laboratory group (n = 65) was analyzed in the sleep laboratory of our hospital. Diagnostic evaluations were carried out with portable monitoring at home, and with polysomnography in the sleep laboratory. Titration of CPAP was performed with the same automatic CPAP device in both groups. RESULTS: At the end of the study, 13 (19%) subjects had dropped out of the home group, and 9 (14%) of the laboratory group (P = .50). There were no significant differences among groups in both baseline and with-CPAP values of apnea-hypopnea index, oxygen desaturation index, and total sleep time with SpO2 below 90%. In the home group, the therapeutic pressure values reached at the end of each unattended home titration night were similar. CONCLUSIONS: A home diagnosis and titration approach should be considered in a subset of patients with obstructive sleep apnea. A single unattended titration night is sufficient to determine the therapeutic pressure.
A framework for secure cryptographic key management systems

Cloud computing era helping organizations to compute and outsource humongous volume of data in flexible and cost effective manner. The trend is permitting myriad of users to share data, services and resources on cloud environment. With the growing adoption of cloud, it's necessary to ensure the confidentiality of data is maintained by efficient key management to avoid unauthorized access, as large quantum of sensitive data is shared among a dynamic group of members. In this paper, a novel framework is proposed for efficient key management in cloud for multi-owner. Our system utilized the Shamir's secret sharing scheme for Key establishment along with dynamic identity. The evaluation result shows that the proposed mechanism works more efficiently than other systems.
Hedging of barrier options

Barrier options are exotic options that can be difficult to hedge due to the possibility of the delta and gamma values being very large close to the barrier. This thesis investigates methods to hedge barrier options that can minimize the profits and losses that arise when using a dynamic technique known as delta hedging. We present two methods by Carr (1994) and Derman (1994) that create a static portfolio of vanilla options. The first method uses the put-call symmetry relationship and builds a portfolio of different options with the same maturity and different strikes. The second method divides time into intervals and tries to match the barrier option payoff at each of theses intervals with other vanilla options. The techniques are evaluated in the geometric Brownian motion environment where they were deduced and in real market conditions with time series of the S&P 500 index.
Implications of Transgenic Rice for Farm Households' Nutritional Vulnerability: Projections for Bangladesh

This paper employs multivariate regression to forecast the calorie intake of Bangladeshi farm households in the hunger season based on the household income, production, and demographic composition in the current (post harvest) season. Nutritional vulnerability profiles are derived from the estimation of ex ante mean and variance of future consumption. The results show the income increase induced by introducing transgenic rice will reduce each individual household's probability of suffering a future consumption shortfall and its vulnerability. The overall vulnerability profile of farm households improves in Bangladesh.
Defining the role of olfactory ensheathing cells in facilitating axon remyelination following damage to the spinal cord

Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) are unique cells that are responsible for the successful regeneration of olfactory axons throughout the life of adult mammals. More than a decade of research has shown that implantation of OECs may be a promising therapy for damage to the nervous system, including spinal cord injury. Based on this research, several clinical trials worldwide have been initiated that use autologous transplantation of olfactory tissue containing OECs into the damaged spinal cord of humans. However, research from several laboratories has challenged the widely held belief that OECs are directly responsible for myelinating axons and promoting axon regeneration. The purpose of this review is to provide a working hypothesis that integrates several current ideas regarding the mechanisms of the beneficial effects of OECs. Specifically, OECs promote axon regeneration and functional recovery indirectly by augmenting the endogenous capacity of host Schwann cells to invade the damaged spinal cord. Together with Schwann cells, OECs create a 3‐dimensional matrix that provides a permissive microenvironment for successful axon regeneration in the adult mammalian central nervous system. —Boyd, J. G. , Doucette, R. , Kawaja, M. D. Defining the role of olfactory ensheathing cells in facilitating axon remyelination following damage to the spinal cord. FASEB J. 19, 694–703 (2005)
Cell Synchrony: Studies in Biosynthetic Regulation

IMPACT OF BASIC SCIENCES ON MEDICINE. Edited by Benyamin Shapiro and Moshe Prywes. New York, Academic Press, 1966. vi, 328 pp. $14.95. This Symposium was held in Jerusalem in June 1965 to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Hebrew University and the dedication of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School. The title of this book is misleading. The effect, the role and the problems of basic science in medicine are not discussed or approached. In fact, the book is a compilation of many learned discussions of isolated areas of basic research presented at a sophisticated and high-powered level, including studies of enzyme activities, regulation of cell function, membrane biochemistry, etc. These are straight-forward scientific reports that do not deal with the impact of basic research on the contemporary medical scene. The opening lecture by Dr. W. B. Bean, entitled "The Implications of the Contemporary Scientific Revolution on the Education of Teachers of Medicine," is the only section dealing with the problem. This brief essay redefines the many problems facing contemporary medical education in its attempt to deal with the growing body of knowledge and to communicate it to the medical student. Once again we are told that there is a knowledge explosion and we are told that there is a great need for more doctors. We are told that there is a great need for more education, and that this problem of fitting the expanding knowledge into a fixed amount of time is indeed challenging. The facts acquired by basic science are useful in the care of sick people and therefore this expanding body of knowledge must be communicated to the clinician. The means by which these noble goals will be attained are not indicated. The book is useful only for a detailed description of the current status of work in selected areas of basic research. This reviewer is not competent to evaluate all the research reported in this Symposium. Suffice it to say that the people chosen to represent the various disciplines are leading members of their respective fields. HOWARD LEVITIN