Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Cryptanalysis of Lee's Chaotic Maps-Based Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme using Smart card for Telecare Medicine Information Systems

The Telecare medicine information system (TMIS) is developed to provide Telecare services to the remote user. A user can access remote medical servers using internet without moving from his place. Although remote user and server exchange their messages/data via public networks. An adversary is considered to be enough powerful that he may have full control over the public network. This makes these Telecare services vulnerable to attacks. To ensure secure communication between the user and server many password based authentication schemes have been proposed. In 2013, Hao et al. presented chaotic maps-based password authentication scheme for TMIS. Recently, Lee identified that Hao et al.'s scheme fails to satisfy key agreement property, such that a malicious server can predetermine the session key. Lee also presented an efficient chaotic map-based password authentication and key agreement scheme using Smart cards for TMIS. In this article, we briefly review Lee's scheme and demonstrates the weakness of Lee's scheme. The study shows that the Lee's scheme inefficiency of password change phase causes denial of service attack and login phase results extra computation and communication overhead.
Cortisol: the villain in metabolic syndrome?

OBJECTIVE This article reviews the state of the art regarding the association between glucocorticoid actions and both obesity and insulin resistance, two main features of the metabolic syndrome. METHODS A methodological assessment of the literature on PubMed and SciELO databases was conducted by using the following terms: stress, metabolic syndrome, glucocorticoids, obesity, insulin resistance, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis and 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. RESULTS Chronic stress, mainly through hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation, promotes the accumulation of visceral fat. Reciprocally, obesity promotes a systemic low-grade inflammation state, mediated by increased adipokine secretion, which can chronically stimulate and disturb stress system. This vicious cycle, probably initiated by visceral adipose tissue dysfunction, might be the trigger for the development of metabolic syndrome. CONCLUSION Given the strong evidences linking glucocorticoid release, obesity and type 2 diabetes, better understanding of the mechanisms underlying this connection might be useful for prevention and treatment of the metabolic syndrome.
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Quantifying discontinuity orientation and persistence on high mountain rock slopes and large landslides using terrestrial remote sensing techniques

This paper describes experience gained in the application of terrestrial digital photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning for the characterization of the structure of high mountain rock slopes and large landslides. A methodology allowing the creation and registration of 3-D models with limited access to high mountain rock slopes is developed and its accuracy verified. The importance of occlusion, ground resolution, scale and reflectivity are discussed. Special emphasis is given to the concept of observation scale and resulting scale bias and its influence on discontinuity characterization. The step-path geometry of persistent composite surfaces and its role in remote sensing measurements are described. An example of combined terrestrial digital photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning applied in the generation of a 3-D model of the South Peak of Turtle Mountain, the location of the Frank Slide, is presented. The advantages gained from the combined use of these techniques and the potential offered through long-range terrestrial digital photogrammetry, using high focal length lenses up to 400 mm is illustrated. Special emphasis is given to the potential of this specific technique, which has to the authors knowledge rarely been documented in the geotechnical literature.
The Relation between Fair Trade and Supermarkets: Spatial Implications for the Global Economy

Even if its importance present increases, selling fair trade products has consisted, for a long time, in handmade crafts and a narrow set of food items. Fair trade, this alternative approach to commercial partnerships, focuses on sustainable development of marginalized and disadvantaged producers. Given the current global economic context and new trends in the production, distribution and consumption behavior, this study critically examines the spatial relationships between fair trade and supermarkets. The results of our analysis show that few consumers fully understand the importance of fair trade, despite the current global dimensions of this type of trade and the penetration of certified products on supermarket shelves. Also, our observations of the phenomenon lead us to believe that the geographical and economic aspects of fair trade portray best North-South economic disparities.
Image kernel for recognition

Kernel-based methods have been widely used in pattern recognition. But traditional kernel functions can only process 1D vectors, while image data are often 2D matrices. This paper presents a new kernel function based on RBF kernel function for image target recognition. This new kernel function can directly accept 2D image data as input data, and analyze the structural information of the targets in the images, which are often ignored by other kernel functions. This kernel function can also process target images which are obtained under different luminance conditions without any preprocessing. The experiments on UCI datasets and ALOI datasets show that, the classifier based on our kernel function can have higher classification accuracy. Because the features are not necessary in our method, the results also demonstrate a new framework of image target recognition.
Advances in NF-κ B Signaling Transduction and Transcription

The molecular mechanisms for NF-κB signaling transduction and transcription have been the most attractive subjects for both basic research and pharmaceutical industries due to its important roles in both physiological and pathogenesis, particularly the close association of dysregulated NF-κB with tumorgenesis and inflammation. Several novel intracellular molecular events that regulate NF-κB activity have been described recently, including the discovery of an alternative signaling pathway that appears inducing a specific subset genes involved in adoptive immune response. Multi-level and multi-dimensional regulation of NF-κB activity by phosphorylation and acetylation modifications have unveiled and became the hottest targets for potentially tissue specific molecular interventions. Another emerging mechanism for NF-κB-responsive gene’s regulation where NF-κB participates the transcriptional regulation independent of its cognate regulatory binding site within the target gene’s promoter but facilitating the transaction activity of other involved transcription factors, that implicated an novel transcriptional activities for NF-κB. Thus, the current review will focus on these recent progresses that have been made on NF-κB signaling transduction and transcription. Cellular & Molecular Immunology. 2004;1(6):425-435.
Database of Global Economic Indicators (DGEI): A Methodological Note

The Database of Global Economic Indicators (DGEI) from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is aimed at standardizing and disseminating world economic indicators for policy analysis and scholarly work on the role of globalization. The purpose of DGEI is to offer a broad perspective on how economic developments around the world influence the U.S. economy with a wide selection of indicators. DGEI is automated within an Excel-VBA and E-views framework for the processing and aggregation of multiple country time series. It includes a core sample of 40 countries with available indicators and broad coverage. Country groupings include rest of the world (ex. the U.S.) aggregates and subgroups of countries by development attainment and trade openness. The indicators currently tracked include real GDP, industrial production (IP), Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), merchandise exports and imports, headline CPI, CPI (ex. food and energy), PPI/WPI inflation, nominal and real exchange rates, and official/policy interest rates. All series are monthly, with the exception of real GDP which is reported at a quarterly frequency. Aggregation is based on trade shares with the U.S. The Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute publishes the aggregate indicators as well as additional country detail on its website with an accompanying slideshow on Global Economic Conditions. This note provides a technical description of the methodology implemented to construct the DGEI.
Global Multisourcing Strategy: The Emergence of a Supplier Portfolio in Services Offshoring

In today’s global services outsourcing arena, increasing numbers of companies adopt “multisourcing,” that is, they select and combine information technology (IT) and business services from multiple providers. The literature on IT outsourcing and supply chain management has identified critical tradeoffs involved in increasing the number of suppliers and has strongly recommended focusing on a handful of strategic partners to balance these tradeoffs. Committing to a few strategic partners, however, may prevent a firm from discovering new suppliers, or even supply regions. Such missed opportunities may be particularly limiting in the context of offshoring professional services, which has exhibited rapid changes in supplier markets in the last decade. Thus, firms may want to engage in a more intensive multisourcing in services. If they do so, their success will depend on a global sourcing process that effectively addresses the critical tradeoffs involved. To explore how a global sourcing process can support multisourcing, we conducted a qualitative longitudinal case study of a large financial services institution that developed a varied global supply base to obtain off-shore professional services. Our analysis results in a theory that emphasizes i) advantages of a multiple provider strategy in rapidly changing global supply markets; ii) the critical role of middle managers in enabling continuous innovation in the supplier structure; and iii) the importance of the global sourcing process combining top-down and bottom-up decision making in multisourcing.
A portable forced oscillation device for respiratory home monitoring

The increase in the prevalence of chronic respiratory diseases has resulted in a rise in health services provided at home. The forced oscillation technique (FOT) proves to be a useful tool when it is desired to assess lung function noninvasively, and particularly for patients in whom spirometry cannot be applied. As no portable FOT device is currently available, the aim of this study was to design and test a portable FOT system for ambulatory and home care applications. The system devised is based on a microprocessor, which allows online computation of respiratory resistance (Rrs) and reactance (Xrs) and reliability indices. The portable device was compared with a conventional FOT system by using signals from 14 patients with chronic respiratory disease. This device has the same computation capabilities and flexibility as conventional FOT systems and meets the requirements for home application. Rrs (14.2±6.0 cmH2O·s·L−1, mean±sd) and Xrs (−5.3±2.7 cmH2O·s·L−1) measured at 5 Hz by the portable system virtually coincided with those computed with the reference conventional FOT system: mean differences±sd were 0.074±0.025 and 0.005±0.009 cmH2O·s·L−1, respectively. This portable forced oscillation technique device could be a useful tool for monitoring respiratory mechanics in ambulatory and home care applications.
Integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – a literature review and future needs

For years, researchers have been trying to integrate Geographical Information Systems (GIS) with Building Information Modeling (BIM) systems for various purposes. An important application of BIM in construction is asset management, and the integration of BIM and GIS can provide a highly detailed and holistic picture of a project as information mined from building information models as well as associated geographical data can increase the success of asset management. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review on the approaches towards the integration of BIM with GIS systems. This paper attempts to analyze the significant contributions and advances in the field of BIM and GIS integration, while highlighting the implication for asset management. Gaps in research will be identified, which can be addressed for potential future research.
UTRdb and UTRsite: a collection of sequences and regulatory motifs of the untranslated regions of eukaryotic mRNAs

The 5′ and 3′ untranslated regions of eukaryotic mRNAs play crucial roles in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression through the modulation of nucleo-cytoplasmic mRNA transport, translation efficiency, subcellular localization and message stability. UTRdb is a curated database of 5′ and 3′ untranslated sequences of eukaryotic mRNAs, derived from several sources of primary data. Experimentally validated functional motifs are annotated (and also collated as the UTRsite database) and cross-links to genomic and protein data are provided. The integration of UTRdb with genomic and protein data has allowed the implementation of a powerful retrieval resource for the selection and extraction of UTR subsets based on their genomic coordinates and/or features of the protein encoded by the relevant mRNA (e.g. GO term, PFAM domain, etc.). All internet resources implemented for retrieval and functional analysis of 5′ and 3′ untranslated regions of eukaryotic mRNAs are accessible at http://www.ba. itb.cnr. it/UTR/.
FBK-HLT: An Application of Semantic Textual Similarity for Answer Selection in Community Question Answering

This paper reports the description and performance of our system, FBK-HLT, participating in the SemEval 2015, Task #3 "Answer Selection in Community Question Answering" for English, for both subtasks. We submit two runs with different classifiers in combining typical features (lexical similarity, string similarity, word n-grams, etc.) with machine translation evaluation metrics and with some ad hoc features (e.g user overlapping, spam filtering). We outperform the baseline system and achieve interesting results on both subtasks.
WORKING PAPER N ° 2012 – 13 Do professors really perpetuate the gender gap in science ? Evidence from a natural experiment in a French higher education institution

Stereotypes, role models played by teachers and social norms are known to push girls to choose humanities rather than science. Do professors directly contribute to this strong selection by discriminating more against girls in more scientific subjects? Using the entrance exam of a French higher education institution (the Ecole Normale Supérieure) as a natural experiment, we show the opposite: discrimination goes in favor of females in more maleconnoted subjects (e.g. math, philosophy) and in favor of males in more female-connoted subjects (e.g. literature, biology), inducing a rebalancing of sex ratios between science and humanities majors. We identify discrimination by systematic differences in students’ scores between oral tests (non-blind toward gender) and anonymous written tests (blind toward gender). By making comparisons of these oral/written scores differences between different subjects for a given student, we are able to control both for a student’s ability in each subject and for her overall ability at oral exams. The mechanisms likely to drive this positive discrimination toward the minority gender are also discussed.
Polynomial Structures in One-Loop Amplitudes

A general one-loop scattering amplitude may be expanded in terms of master integrals. The coefficients of the master integrals can be obtained from tree-level input in a two-step process. First, use known formulas to write the coefficients of (4-2epsilon)-dimensional master integrals; these formulas depend on an additional variable, u, which encodes the dimensional shift. Second, convert the u-dependent coefficients of (4-2epsilon)-dimensional master integrals to explicit coefficients of dimensionally shifted master integrals. This procedure requires the initial formulas for coefficients to have polynomial dependence on u. Here, we give a proof of this property in the case of massless propagators. The proof is constructive. Thus, as a byproduct, we produce different algebraic expressions for the scalar integral coefficients, in which the polynomial property is apparent. In these formulas, the box and pentagon contributions are separated explicitly.
Brief Report: Remission Rates With Tofacitinib Treatment in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Comparison of Various Remission Criteria

Tofacitinib is an oral JAK inhibitor that is used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In previous clinical trials of tofacitinib, a Disease Activity Score in 28 joints (DAS28)–based analysis was used to assess outcomes. In this study, remission rates according to various remission criteria were evaluated across 5 phase III randomized controlled studies.
Novelty Scene Detection Using Scan Path Topology and Energy Signature in Scaled Saliency Map

We propose a biologically motivated novelty scene detection model that can indicate novelty of the scenes having affine transformed field of views in dynamic environment. Novelty detection can play an important role as an intrinsic motivation, which makes an autonomous mental development model try to obtain new information and adapt to changing environment. The proposed model has been developed based on understanding the functions of the brain organ such as the hippocampus for novelty detection in the limbic system as well as the visual path way from the retina to the visual cortex through the lateral geniculate neucleus(LGN). In the proposed model, we represent an input scene using a topology of a visual scan path obtained from a scaled saliency map generated by a visual attention model. In order to indicate novelty of a current input scene, the topology of a current input scene is compared with that of a previously experienced scene. In addition, the energy signature with scale information in the corresponding visual scan path is also considered to decide novelty of the input scene. The computer experimental results show that the proposed model successfully indicates novelty for natural color input scenes in dynamic visual environment. Keywords— Novelty scene detection, scaled saliency map, hippocampus, bottom-up and top-down attention model, adaptive resonance theory network
Postwar Macroeconomics: The Evolution of Events and Ideas

This paper traces the evolution of macroeconomic events and ideas from the late 1940s to the present day. After a brief introduction that highlights the unique features of the main macroeconomic variables as compared to their behavior before 1947, the paper turns to an analysis of four main postwar sub-periods. The analysis of each sub-period begins with a summary of the dominant conceptual framework popular at the time, reviews the most surprising features of both demand fluctuations and supply phenomena, and concludes with a retrospective evaluation of policy. Many shifts in macroeconomic thinking can be traced to the influence of particular events. The small role that monetary changes played in explaining demand fluctuations in the first postwar decade helped maintain intact the Keynesian multiplier framework, but the increasing importance of autonomous monetary movements in the second decade laid the groundwork for a greater emphasis on the potency of monetary policy in the late 1960s. The widespread acceptance of monetarism owes much to the coincidence in 1968 of an unexpected acceleration in inflation together with the failure of the tax surcharge enacted in that year. Similarly, the increased degree of inertia evident in the behavior of inflation from 1954 on helped win ready acceptance for the idea of a stable Phillips-curve tradeoff, while the refusal of inflation to abate in 1970 helped solidify the victory of the natural hypothesis. A major theme of the paper is the gradual but profound shift in macroeconomics from the dominance of demand issues to a new emphasis on supply topics. Price controls, crop failures, and OPEC actions in the l970s have brought supply shocks to the forefront of policy discussions, revived fiscal policy asa means of countering supply shocks, and lessened support for a monetarist reliance on simple policy rules.
Multi-scale observation models for motion estimation

Multi-scale frameworks based on coarse-to-fine warping strategies are widely used in the state-of-the-art optical flow methods. While they allow the estimation of large motions and usually lead to a faster minimization, they can also create strong dependencies between the successive estimates at different scale levels, yielding sometimes the propagation of undesirable errors from coarse to fine scales without any mean of correction. In this paper, we propose a more flexible framework inspired from fluid mechanics able to partly counter this issue. It relies on filtering equations where the variable of interest (i.e. the velocity field) is decomposed into resolved and unresolved components at each scale. We then derive a new data term that allows to take into account, in the coarse scales, information about smaller scale levels in order to avoid errors propagation during the estimation. Embedded in a simple Lucas-Kanade estimator, our new term is able to greatly improve the results from usual conservation constraints, as shown in the experimental part.
Pretreatment serum levels of matrix metalloproteinase-9 and vascular endothelial growth factor in non-small-cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) are two proteins involved in angiogenesis. In the present study we investigated the association of pretreatment MMP-9 and VEGF serum levels with clinicopathological parameters and outcome in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). PATIENTS AND METHODS From February 1998 to October 1999, pretreatment serum levels of MMP-9 and VEGF were analysed in 118 patients with enzyme-linked immunoassays. At diagnosis 50 patients (42%) were staged as early disease (I/II), 27 patients (23%) as locally advanced (IIIA/IIIB), and 41 patients (35%) had metastatic disease (IV). In 72 of the 118 patients tumours were resected and 46 patients received combination chemotherapy with gemcitabine and vinorelbine. RESULTS The median survival of all 118 patients was 602 days. The 72 patients who had undergone surgery had a median survival of 972 days and the 46 patients who were treated with chemotherapy had a median survival of 298 days (P <0.001). Resected patients with stage I/II disease and an MMP-9 serum level <or=1293 ng/ml or a VEGF serum level <or=630 pg/ml had a significantly longer survival (median survival longer than 1218 days) than patients with higher serum levels (median survival 421 days) (P = 0.001 for MMP-9; P = 0.04 for VEGF). No significant difference in survival was observed in patients with resected stage III disease. Besides tumour stage, Karnofsky performance status and gender, the pretreatment serum level of MMP-9 was identified as an independent prognostic factor in a multivariate Cox regression analysis. CONCLUSIONS Future studies may support our hypothesis that the pretreatment serum level of MMP-9 is a new powerful prognostic marker and can help to stratify NSCLC patients with stage I/II disease into low- and high-risk groups.