Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Between Mutual Trust and Mutual Distrust: Practical Fine-grained Privilege Separation in Multithreaded Applications

Threads in a multithreaded process share the same address space and thus are implicitly assumed to be mutually trusted. However, one (compromised) thread attacking another is a real world threat. It remains challenging to achieve privilege separation for multithreaded applications so that the compromise or malfunction of one thread does not lead to data contamination or data leakage of other threads. The Arbiter system proposed in this paper explores the solution space. In particular, we find that page table protection bits can be leveraged to do efficient reference monitoring if data objects with the same accessibility stay in the same page. We design and implement Arbiter which consists of a new memory allocation mechanism, a policy manager, and a set of APIs. Programmers specify security policy through annotating the source code. We apply Arbiter to three applications, an in-memory key/- value store, a web server, and a userspace file system, and show how they can benefit from Arbiter in terms of security. Our experiments on the three applications show that Arbiter reduces application throughput by less than 10% and increases CPU utilization by 1.37-1.55×.
Regular expressions and NFAs without ε-transitions

We consider the problem of converting regular expressions of length n over an alphabet of size k into e-free NFAs with as few transitions as possible. Whereas the previously best construction uses O(n.min{k, log 2 n). log 2 n) transitions, we show that O(n.log 2 2k.log 2 n) transitions suffice. For small alphabets we further improve the upper bound to O(n.log 2 2k k Lk(n)+1 ), where L k (n) = O(log* 2 n). In particular, n 2 o(log* 2 n) transitions and hence almost linear size suffice for the binary alphabet! Finally we show the lower bound Ω(n.log 2 2 2k) and as a consequence the upper bound O(n .log 2 2 n) of [7] for general alphabets is best possible. Thus the conversion problem is solved for large alphabets (k = n Ω(1) ) and almost solved for small alphabets (k = O(1)).
Stochastic calculus of generalized Dirichlet forms and applications to stochastic differential equations in infinite dimensions

In this paper we systematically develop, as a technical tool for our main application below, a stochastic calculus for generalized Dirichlet forms (cf. [15]). In particular, we show Fukushima's decomposition of additive functional including its extended version to functions not necessarily in the domain f of the generalized Dirichlet form, cf. Theorem 4.5 (ii), and an Itό-type formula in this framework. The extended version of the Fukushima decomposition will be applied in combination with the Itό-type formula in Subsection 6.3. The class of generalized Dirichlet forms is much larger than the well-studied class of symmetric and coercive Dirichlet forms as in [6] resp. [10] and time dependent Dirichlet forms as in [12]. It contains examples of an entirely new kind (cf. Section 6, [15]). Therefore, the results obtained in this paper lead to extensions of the corresponding results in the "classical" theories. In particular the proofs are "locally" completely different (cf. e.g. Theorem 2.3 and Theorem 2.5; though for the reader's convenience we tried to follow the line of argument in [6] as closely as possible). This difference has several reasons: First of all we do not assume any sector condition', in certain cases we have to handle £-quasi-lower-semicontinuous functions instead of ^-quasi-continuous functions (cf. e.g. Remark 2.6 (i)), and finally, the Dirichlet space of the classical situation generalizes to a space T which is not necessarily stable under composition with normal contractions. In contrast to the classical theory it is not known whether regularity or quasi-regularity alone imply the existence of an associated process. An additional structural assumption on T is made in [15, IV.2, D3] (i.e. the existence of a nice intermediate space y has to be assumed) in order to construct explicitly an associated m -tight special standard process M. In addition to the new theoretical results described above we also present new applications. In Section 6 we construct weak solutions to stochastic differential equations in infinite dimensions of the type
Compressive Video Sampling with Approximate Message Passing Decoding

In this paper, we apply compressed sensing to video compression. Compressed sensing (CS) techniques exploit the observation that one needs much fewer random measurements than given by the Shannon-Nyquist sampling theory to recover an object if this object is compressible (i.e., sparse in the spatial domain or in a transform domain). In the CS framework, we can achieve sensing, compression and denoising simultaneously. We propose a fast and simple online encoding by application of pseudo-random downsampling of the two-dimensional fast Fourier transform to video frames. For off-line decoding, we apply a modification of the recently proposed approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm. The AMP method has been derived using the statistical concept of ’state evolution’, and it has been shown to considerably accelerate the convergence rate in special CS-decoding applications. We shall prove that the AMP method can be rewritten as a forward-backward splitting algorithm. This new representation enables us to give conditions that ensure convergence of the AMP method and to modify the algorithm in order to achieve higher robustness. The success of reconstruction methods for video decoding also essentially depends on the chosen transform, where sparsity of the video signals is assumed. We propose to incorporate the 3D dual-tree complex wavelet transform that possesses sufficiently good properties of directional selectivity and shift invariance while being computationally less expensive and less redundant than other directional 3D wavelet transforms.
Nutrient Control of Insulin Secretion in Isolated Normal Human Islets

Pancreatic islets were isolated from 16 nondiabetic organ donors and, after culture for ∼2 days in 5 mmol/l glucose, were perifused to characterize nutrient-induced insulin secretion in human islets. Stepwise increases from 0 to 30 mmol/l glucose (eight 30-min steps) evoked concentration-dependent insulin secretion with a threshold at 3–4 mmol/l glucose, Km at 6.5 mmol/l glucose, and Vmax at 15 mmol/l glucose. An increase from 1 to 15 mmol/l glucose induced biphasic insulin secretion with a prominent first phase (peak increase of ∼18-fold) and a sustained, flat second phase (∼10-fold increase), which were both potentiated by forskolin. The central role of ATP-sensitive K+ channels in the response to glucose was established by abrogation of insulin secretion by diazoxide and reversible restoration by tolbutamide. Depolarization with tolbutamide or KCl (plus diazoxide) triggered rapid insulin secretion in 1 mmol/l glucose. Subsequent application of 15 mmol/l glucose further increased insulin secretion, showing that the amplifying pathway is operative. In control medium, glutamine alone was ineffective, but its combination with leucine or nonmetabolized 2-amino-bicyclo [2,2,1]-heptane-2-carboxylic acid (BCH) evoked rapid insulin secretion. The effect of BCH was larger in low glucose than in high glucose. In contrast, the insulin secretion response to arginine or a mixture of four amino acids was potentiated by glucose or tolbutamide. Palmitate slightly augmented insulin secretion only at the supraphysiological palmitate-to-albumin ratio of 5. Inosine and membrane-permeant analogs of pyruvate, glutamate, or succinate increased insulin secretion in 3 and 10 mmol/l glucose, whereas lactate and pyruvate had no effect. In conclusion, nutrient-induced insulin secretion in normal human islets is larger than often reported. Its characteristics are globally similar to those of insulin secretion by rodent islets, with both triggering and amplifying pathways. The pattern of the biphasic response to glucose is superimposable on that in mouse islets, but the concentration-response curve is shifted to the left, and various nutrients, in particular amino acids, influence insulin secretion within the physiological range of glucose concentrations.
The Effect of Cherry Supplementation on Exercise-Induced Oxidative Stress

Cherries have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Cherry supplementation on eccentric exercise induced inflammation, tissue damage, oxidative stress biomarkers, and delayed onset muscle soreness. Four males and ten females performed five sets of 10 maximal eccentric arm extensions on a Biodex isokinetic dynamometer. Placebo (P) and supplement (S) groups in a cross-over design ingested tablets for 16 days prior to and 3 days following exercise. Venous blood samples to measure creatine kinase (CK), myoglobin, protein carbonyls (PC), thiobarbituric acid (TBARS), and C-Reactive proteins (CRP) were obtained 16 and 1 day prior to exercise and 0, 2, 4, 24, 48, and 72 h post exercise. Data for limb volume, limb girth, arm hang angle, peak torque, peak work, punctuated tenderness gauge (objective pain), and visual analog scale (subjective pain) were collected 0, 12, 24, 48, and 72 h post exercise. Statistically significant declines (p ≤ 0.05) were observed for CRP, objective pain, and subjective pain. No significant differences were observed for protein carbonyls, creatine kinase, TBARS, peak torque loss, myoglobin, limb volume, limb girth, peak torque, and peak work. These findings suggest that CherryFlex® supplementation prior to and during eccentric exercise may have a protective effect on inflammation (CRP), range of motion, and perceived pain. Corresponding author: Gary Kastello, Department of Health, Exercise & Rehabilitation Sciences, Maxwell Hall 368, Winona State University, Winona, MN 55987, Tel: 507-457-5219; Fax: 507-4572554; E-mail: gkastello@winona.edu Received Date:Sep 05 , 2014 Accepted Date:Oct 29 , 2014 Published Date:Nov 03 , 2014
Hypoxia Increases Resistance of Human Pancreatic Cancer Cells to Apoptosis Induced by Gemcitabine

Purpose: Hypoxia, frequently found in the center of solid tumor, is associated with resistance to chemotherapy by activation of signaling pathways that regulate cell pro-liferation, angiogenesis, and apoptosis. We determined whether hypoxia can increase the resistance of human pancreatic carcinoma cells to gemcitabine-induced apoptosis by activation of phosphatidylinositol 3′-kinase (PI3K)/Akt, MEK/mitogen-activated protein kinase (extracellular signal-regulated kinase) [MAPK(Erk) kinase (MEK)], and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signaling pathways. Experimental Design: We evaluated the phosphorylation of Akt and MAPK(Erk), DNA binding activity of NF-κB, and apoptosis induced by gemcitabine in L3.6pl human pancreatic cancer cells under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. We then examined the effects of the PI3K inhibitor LY294002, MEK inhibitor U0126, and the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor PKI 166 on these signaling pathways and induction of apoptosis. Results: Hypoxic conditions increased phosphorylation of Akt and MAPK(Erk) and NF-κB DNA binding activity in L3.6pl cells. The activation of Akt and NF-κB was prevented by LY294002, whereas the activity of MAPK(Erk), but not NF-κB, was inhibited by U0126. The increased activation of Akt, NF-κB, and MAPK(Erk) was inhibited by PKI 166. Under hypoxic conditions, L3.6pl cells were resistant to apoptosis induced by gemcitabine. The addition of LY294002 or PKI 166 abrogated cell resistance to gemcitabine, whereas U0126 only partially decreased this resistance. Conclusions: These data demonstrate that hypoxia can induce resistance of pancreatic cancer cells to gemcitabine mainly through the PI3K/Akt/NF-κB pathways and partially through the MAPK(Erk) signaling pathway. Because PKI 166 prevented the activation of PI3K/Akt/NF-κB and MAPK(Erk) pathways, the combination of this tyrosine kinase inhibitor with gemcitabine should be an effective therapy for pancreatic cancer.
Widely and semi-widely linear processing of quaternion vectors

In this paper the two main definitions of quaternion properness (or second order circularity) are reviewed, showing their connection with the structure of the optimal quaternion linear processing. Specifically, we present a rigorous generalization of the most common multivariate statistical analysis techniques to the case of quaternion vectors, and show that the different kinds of quaternion improperness require different kinds of widely linear processing. In general, the optimal linear processing is full-widely linear, which requires the joint processing of the quaternion vector and its involutions over three pure unit quaternions. However, in the case of jointly ℚ-proper and ℂη-proper vectors, the optimal processing reduces, respectively, to the conventional and semi-widely linear processing, with the latter only requiring to operate on the quaternion vector and its involution over the pure unit quaternion η. Finally, a simulation example poses some interesting questions for future research.
Accessibility, Quality and Performance of Government Portals and Ministry Web Sites: A View Using Diagnostic Tools

Accessibility, quality, and performance of government websites and portals are key issues for e-government programmes. Although the number of government sites has increased rapidly in the past few years, their ultimate success will largely depend on their accessibility, quality and performance. This paper reports the results of an evaluative study of 19 e-government websites and portals using a common set of Web diagnostic engines. The findings reveal that none of the sites evaluated meet the recommended Priority AA conformance level. A number of accessibility, quality, and performance weaknesses were identified. Majority of the sites assessed fail to comply with perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust principles of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Several non-compliance errors were found on the websites. The page load time for most sites falls far below the acceptable level, spelling errors and bad links were also found. Significant work needs to be done in order to make these websites examples of best practice e-government sites.
Transforming Epidemiology for 21st Century Medicine and Public Health

In 2012, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) engaged the scientific community to provide a vision for cancer epidemiology in the 21st century. Eight overarching thematic recommendations, with proposed corresponding actions for consideration by funding agencies, professional societies, and the research community emerged from the collective intellectual discourse. The themes are (i) extending the reach of epidemiology beyond discovery and etiologic research to include multilevel analysis, intervention evaluation, implementation, and outcomes research; (ii) transforming the practice of epidemiology by moving toward more access and sharing of protocols, data, metadata, and specimens to foster collaboration, to ensure reproducibility and replication, and accelerate translation; (iii) expanding cohort studies to collect exposure, clinical, and other information across the life course and examining multiple health-related endpoints; (iv) developing and validating reliable methods and technologies to quantify exposures and outcomes on a massive scale, and to assess concomitantly the role of multiple factors in complex diseases; (v) integrating “big data” science into the practice of epidemiology; (vi) expanding knowledge integration to drive research, policy, and practice; (vii) transforming training of 21st century epidemiologists to address interdisciplinary and translational research; and (viii) optimizing the use of resources and infrastructure for epidemiologic studies. These recommendations can transform cancer epidemiology and the field of epidemiology, in general, by enhancing transparency, interdisciplinary collaboration, and strategic applications of new technologies. They should lay a strong scientific foundation for accelerated translation of scientific discoveries into individual and population health benefits. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(4); 508–16. ©2013 AACR.
SEU sensitivity and modeling using pico-second pulsed laser stimulation of a D Flip-Flop in 40 nm CMOS technology

This paper presents the design of a CMOS 40 nm D Flip-Flop cell and reports the laser fault sensitivity mapping both with experiments and simulation results. Theses studies are driven by the need to propose a simulation methodology based on laser/silicon interactions with a complex integrated circuit. In the security field, it is therefore mandatory to understand the behavior of sensitive devices like D Flip-Flops to laser stimulation. In previous works, Roscian et al., Sarafianos et al., Lacruche et al. or Courbon et al. studied the relations between the layout of cells, its different laser-sensitive areas and their associated fault model using laser pulse duration in the nanosecond range. In this paper, we report similar experiments carried out using a shorter laser pulse duration (30 ps instead of 50 ns). We also propose an upgrade of the simulation model they used to take into account laser pulse durations in the picosecond range on a logic gate composed of a large number of transistors for a recent CMOS technology (40 nm).
Job requirements compared to dental school education: impact of a case-based learning curriculum

Introduction: Case-based learning (CBL) is suggested as a key educational method of knowledge acquisition to improve dental education. The purpose of this study was to assess graduates from a patient-oriented, case-based learning (CBL)-based curriculum as regards to key competencies required at their professional activity. Methods: 407 graduates from a patient-oriented, case-based learning (CBL) dental curriculum who graduated between 1990 and 2006 were eligible for this study. 404 graduates were contacted between 2007 and 2008 to self-assess nine competencies as required at their day-to-day work and as taught in dental school on a 6-point Likert scale. Baseline demographics and clinical characteristics were presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD) for continuous variables. To determine whether dental education sufficiently covers the job requirements of physicians, we calculated the mean difference ∆ between the ratings of competencies as required in day-to-day work and as taught in medical school by subtracting those from each other (negative mean difference ∆ indicates deficit; positive mean difference ∆ indicates surplus). Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was calculated to reveal statistical significance (statistical significance p<0.05). Results: 41.6% recipients of the questionnaire responded (n=168 graduates). A homogeneous distribution quantity of the graduate groups concerning gender, graduation date, professional experience and average examination grade was achieved. Comparing competencies required at work and taught in medical school, CBL was associated with benefits in “Research competence” (∆+0.6) “Interdisciplinary thinking” (∆+0.47), “Dental medical knowledge” (∆+0.43), “Practical dental skills” (∆+0.21), “Team work” (∆+0.16) and “Independent learning/working” (∆+0.08), whereas “Problem-solving skills” (∆-0.07), “Psycho-social competence” (∆-0.66) and “Business competence” (∆-2.86) needed improvement in the CBL-based curriculum. Discussion: CBL demonstrated benefits with regard to competencies which were highly required in the job of dentists. Psycho-social and business competence deserve closer attention in future curricular development.
Potentially adaptive effects of maternal nutrition during gestation on offspring phenotype of a viviparous reptile

SUMMARY Viviparous reptiles have been used as model species for many studies that seek to explain the evolution of viviparity. The vast majority of such studies have focused on the advantage viviparity provides with regards to maternal control of embryonic developmental temperature. However, viviparity may also allow increased control of nutrient transfer, such that mothers adaptively manipulate offspring phenotype through varying maternal nutritional support. Because maternal nutritional transfer is temperature dependent, maternal nutritional strategies may vary between climatically distinct populations. In this study we used an orthogonal experimental design in which mothers and offspring from climatically distinct populations of a viviparous skink (Niveoscincus ocellatus) were allocated randomly to either a protein-rich or a protein-poor diet. Our results suggest that N. ocellatus mothers are able to compensate for sub-optimal nutritional conditions and can adaptively manipulate offspring phenotype to best fit the postnatal nutritional environment. Furthermore, maternal nutritional strategies appear to vary between climatically distinct populations. These results suggest that in viviparous reptiles, matrotrophy provides a means of producing an adaptive offspring phenotype, in addition to maternal control of developmental temperature.
Elemental abundances of Galactic bulge planetary nebulae from optical recombination lines

Deep long-slit optical spectrophotometric observations are presented for 25 Galactic bulge planetary nebulae (GBPNe) and six Galactic disc planetary nebulae (GDPNe). The spectra, combined with archival ultraviolet (UV) spectra obtained with the International Ultraviolet Explorer and infrared spectra obtained with the Infrared Space Observatory, have been used to carry out a detailed plasma diagnostic and element abundance analysis utilizing both collisional excited lines (CELs) and optical recombination lines (ORLs). Comparisons of plasma diagnostic and abundance analysis results obtained from CELs and ORLs reproduce many of the patterns previously found for GDPNe. In particular we show that the large discrepancies between electron temperatures (Te values) derived from CELs and ORLs appear to be mainly caused by abnormally low values yielded by recombination lines and/or continua. Similarly, the large discrepancies between heavy element abundances deduced from ORLs and CELs are largely caused by abnormally high values obtained from ORLs, up to tens of solar in extreme cases. It appears that whatever mechanisms are causing the ubiquitous dichotomy between CELs and ORLs, their main effects are to enhance the emission of ORLs, but hardly affect that of CELs. It seems that heavy element abundances deduced from ORLs may not reflect the bulk composition of the nebula. Rather, our analysis suggests that ORLs of heavy element ions mainly originate from a previously unseen component of plasma of Te values of just a few hundred kelvins, which is too cool to excite any optical and UV CELs. We find that GBPNe are on the average 0.1‐0.2 dex more metal-rich than GDPNe but have a mean C/O ratio that is approximately 0.2 dex lower. By comparing the observed relative abundances of heavy elements with recent theoretical predictions, we show that GBPNe probably evolved from a relatively metal-rich environment of initial Z ∼ 0.013, compared to an initial Z � 0.008 for GDPNe. In addition, we find that GBPNe tend to have more massive progenitor stars than GDPNe. GBPNe are found to have an average magnesium abundance about 0.13 dex higher than GDPNe. The latter have a mean magnesium abundance almost identical to the solar value. The enhancement of magnesium in GBPNe and the large [α/Fe] ratios of bulge giants suggest that the primary enrichment process in the bulge was Type II supernovae. PN observations yield a Ne/O abundance ratio much higher than the solar value, suggesting that the solar neon abundance may have been underestimated by 0.2 dex.