Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diffraction before destruction

X-ray free-electron lasers have opened up the possibility of structure determination of protein crystals at room temperature, free of radiation damage. The femtosecond-duration pulses of these sources enable diffraction signals to be collected from samples at doses of 1000 MGy or higher. The sample is vaporized by the intense pulse, but not before the scattering that gives rise to the diffraction pattern takes place. Consequently, only a single flash diffraction pattern can be recorded from a crystal, giving rise to the method of serial crystallography where tens of thousands of patterns are collected from individual crystals that flow across the beam and the patterns are indexed and aggregated into a set of structure factors. The high-dose tolerance and the many-crystal averaging approach allow data to be collected from much smaller crystals than have been examined at synchrotron radiation facilities, even from radiation-sensitive samples. Here, we review the interaction of intense femtosecond X-ray pulses with materials and discuss the implications for structure determination. We identify various dose regimes and conclude that the strongest achievable signals for a given sample are attained at the highest possible dose rates, from highest possible pulse intensities.
Violent Agreement Amongst Systems and Software Engineers, CSER 2008

Recent discussions of how to integrate systems and software engineers begs the question to define the difference between these two disciplines. The disciplines of electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering do not seem to be engaged in this discussion. By performing some basic lexical analysis between the published bodies of knowledge, we observe that software engineers and systems engineers use similar, but not identical concepts to describe their discipline of expertise. Through lexical analysis, systems and software engineering seem more similar to each other than to civil engineering. In the end, the differences in systems and software engineering are concluded to be one where the two disciplines are in violent agreement on the principles, but differ in exact utilization of concepts.
A Platform for Cooperative and Coordinated Control of Multiple Vehicles: The Caltech Multi-Vehicle Wireless Testbed

The Caltech Multi-Vehicle Wireless Testbed (MVWT) is an experimental platform for investigating the increasingly important intersecting frontiers of reliable distributed computation, communication and control. The testbed consists of eight autonomous vehicles equipped with onboard sensing, communication and computation. The vehicles are underactuated and exhibit nonlinear second-order dynamics, key properties that capture the essence of similar real-world applications at the forefront of cooperative control. The relative simplicity of the testbed facilitates the investigation and application of novel ideas in reliable computing, real-time optimal control, stability of interconnected systems, control of and over networks, and formation flight. In this paper, we describe in detail the MVWT and its components so that readers may envision how it can be used to provide proof-of-concept for new techniques in multi-vehicle control.
Dynamic Innate Immune System Model for Malware Detection

Malware stand for Malicious Software became a major threat facing the massive amount of data transmitted through the internet and the systems holding that data. Malware detection is the process of identifying the malicious behavior or object as malware. Many methods used to do the detection process, these methods are varied depending on the process used by the detector -anti virus or anti malware is a commercial name of detectors. Signature base, behavior base and specification base. Increasing the detection accuracy is the main goal of researchers in the last decade. In this paper we introduce a dynamic malware detection model by applying the innate immune system to improve the detection accuracy. The proposed model applied to the portable executable file representation by extracting the API call logs from new installed windows environment due to the wide spread of this type of files in different platforms. The results of the experiments show a better detection accuracy of the proposed model for known malware and promising improvement on the new unknown malware and polymorphic malware.
Comparing and fusing different sensor modalities for relay attack resistance in Zero-Interaction Authentication

Zero-Interaction Authentication (ZIA) refers to approaches that authenticate a user to a verifier (terminal) without any user interaction. Currently deployed ZIA solutions are predominantly based on the terminal detecting the proximity of the user's personal device, or a security token, by running an authentication protocol over a short-range wireless communication channel. Unfortunately, this simple approach is highly vulnerable to low-cost and practical relay attacks which completely offset the usability benefits of ZIA. The use of contextual information, gathered via on-board sensors, to detect the co-presence of the user and the verifier is a recently proposed mechanism to resist relay attacks. In this paper, we systematically investigate the performance of different sensor modalities for co-presence detection with respect to a standard Dolev-Yao adversary. First, using a common data collection framework run in realistic everyday settings, we compare the performance of four commonly available sensor modalities (WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and Audio) in resisting ZIA relay attacks, and find that WiFi is better than the rest. Second, we show that, compared to any single modality, fusing multiple modalities improves resilience against ZIA relay attacks while retaining a high level of usability. Third, we motivate the need for a stronger adversarial model to characterize an attacker who can compromise the integrity of context sensing itself. We show that in the presence of such a powerful attacker, each individual sensor modality offers very low security. Positively, the use of multiple sensor modalities improves security against such an attacker if the attacker cannot compromise multiple modalities simultaneously.
Determinants of Commitment to Information Systems Development: A Longitudinal Investigation

Commitment to an information systems (IS) development project is widely believed to affect the eventual success of the system. Problems arising from low commitment have also been described. However, there has been little research on the factors that influence the level of commitment to an IS project. This paper provides some initial insights into the determinants of commitment based on a longitudinal study of an IS project that was stopped and then restarted on several occasions over a 17-year period (1975-1992). The paper draws four types of determinants -- project, psychological, social, and structural -- from the organization behavior literature and uses them to explain six decisions that were made during the 17-year period. A comparison of these six decisions suggests that project determinants play a central role during the initial commitment decision, but the other determinants assume greater importance in later stages. Moreover, it seems that in this case study, project and psychological determinants affected the decision to increase commitment, whereas social and structural determinants influenced the decision to withdraw commitment to the project. Some implications for practice and future research are examined.
Unité de lieu / Unité de temps : unité d'action(s) ? De la dynamique de clusterisation : le cas d'une halle regroupant des industries créatives

Avec le processus de decentralisation des politiques publiques, les acteurs locaux (villes, departements, regions…) s'engagent, selon les specificites de leur territoire, dans la construction de reponses differenciees pour mettre en oeuvre des formes de developpement adaptees a leur contexte local. Dans le cadre des problematiques relatives aux dynamiques de clusterisation, notre travail de recherche a porte sur les relations produites par un regroupement geographique d'entreprises creatives et culturelles au sein d'une halle industrielle. Cette collectivite metropolitaine et sa cellule d'amenagement public s'interrogent sur « ce qui s'est produit » et sur les modalites de management de ce regroupement d'entreprises dans la mesure ou cette halle va connaitre de nombreux changements pour etre completement reamenagee. Nous avons choisi de centrer notre travail sur une lecture et une analyse micro et meso de la dynamique interne generee par ce regroupement recent d'entreprises sur ce territoire urbain restreint (a savoir cette halle industrielle), situe sur une friche industrielle actuellement en reconversion. De jeunes entreprises, presentes dans des activites creatives et culturelles, se sont trouvees rapprochees, sous l'effet conjugue d'une volonte politique (impulsee par la metropole) et d'engagements des acteurs charges de l'amenagement ce territoire ; ce processus est engage depuis une vingtaine d'annees avec une acceleration depuis environ dix ans. Nous nous sommes plus particulierement interesses aux conditions entrepreneuriales. Privilegiant une approche inductive, nous avons axe notre recherche sur les entrepreneurs, pour mieux cerner leurs projets et leurs initiatives entrepreneuriales ainsi que les pratiques relationnelles qui se sont developpees dans le cadre de cet espace « clos », restreint, favorisant une « unite de lieu et de temps ». Dans quelle mesure cet espace favorise-t-il une « unite d'actions » ? et si oui de quelle(s) nature(s) ? Notre travail a debute par une approche du terrain avec l'etude de cas de cette Halle. Nous presentons dans un premier temps le contexte dans lequel cette recherche a ete menee et les choix methodologiques qui ont ete retenus pour la conduire. Nous developpons ensuite les analyses et les propositions obtenues sur la nature et le contenu des relations entre les entrepreneurs. Enfin, nous discutons de la nature des proximites, de la necessite de favoriser des relations individuelles de face a face, du levier d'action pour le management que constitue cette proximite geographique et enfin du role des pouvoirs publics dans ce projet de territoire. Finalement, nous nous interrogeons les problematiques et enjeux de management que cette dynamique de clusterisation d'entreprises creatives et culturelles peut soulever.
The development of the relationship and motivation at university (REMO-U) scale: assessing university students’ perceptions of academic motivators

The Relationship and Motivation (REMO) scale was created by Raufelder and colleagues (2013a) and seeks to assess school pupils’ perceptions of their peers and teachers as motivators. This paper describes the adaption of the REMO for use with university students (the Relationship and Motivation at University (REMO-U) scale), to allow assessment of university students’ perceptions of peers and lecturers/tutors as either positive or negative external motivators of academic performance. A questionnaire containing the REMO-U was administered to a sample of students (N = 152) across four academic years from various UK universities. Factor analyses confirmed a predicted three-factor solution for the P-REMO-U section of the REMO-U and a two-factor solution for the L-REMO-U section, with high levels of internal consistency for both. Outcomes indicate that the REMO-U scale is a robust, well-suited measure for use in research on achievement and motivation at university.
Informal Credit Markets, Judicial Costs and Consumer Credit: Evidence from Firm Level Data

How does the punishment for default affect repayment behavior? We use administrative data provided by the leading Italian lender of unsecured credit to the household sector to investigate the effect of two potentially important factors: judicial efficiency and the availability of informal credit from family and friends. By making economic assumptions we can place upper and lower bounds on these effects. We find that the availability of informal credit reduces repayment, while variation in court enforcement has no significant effect. Moreover, households with access to informal credit are more likely to borrow from our lender
Noncommutative Solitons and the W 1 + ∞ Algebras in Quantum Hall Theory

We show that U(∞) symmetry transformations of the noncommutative field theory in the Moyal space are generated by a combination of two W1+∞ algebras in the Landau problem. Geometrical meaning of this infinite symmetry is illustrated by examining the transformations of an invariant subgroup on the noncommutative solitons, which generate deformations and boosts of solitons.
Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections

Voters in mass elections are notorious for their apparent lack of information about relevant political matters. While some scholars argue that an electorate of well-informed voters is necessary for the production of responsive electoral outcomes, others argue that apparently ignorant voters will suffice because they can adapt their behavior to the complexity of electoral choice. To evaluate the validity of these arguments, I develop and analyze a survey of California voters who faced five complicated insurance reform ballot initiatives. I find that access to a particular class of widely available information shortcuts allowed badly informed voters to emulate the behavior of relatively well informed voters. This finding is suggestive of the conditions under which voters who lack encyclopedic information about the content of electoral debates can nevertheless use information shortcuts to vote as though they were well informed.
The Human Blood Metabolome-Transcriptome Interface

Biological systems consist of multiple organizational levels all densely interacting with each other to ensure function and flexibility of the system. Simultaneous analysis of cross-sectional multi-omics data from large population studies is a powerful tool to comprehensively characterize the underlying molecular mechanisms on a physiological scale. In this study, we systematically analyzed the relationship between fasting serum metabolomics and whole blood transcriptomics data from 712 individuals of the German KORA F4 cohort. Correlation-based analysis identified 1,109 significant associations between 522 transcripts and 114 metabolites summarized in an integrated network, the ‘human blood metabolome-transcriptome interface’ (BMTI). Bidirectional causality analysis using Mendelian randomization did not yield any statistically significant causal associations between transcripts and metabolites. A knowledge-based interpretation and integration with a genome-scale human metabolic reconstruction revealed systematic signatures of signaling, transport and metabolic processes, i.e. metabolic reactions mainly belonging to lipid, energy and amino acid metabolism. Moreover, the construction of a network based on functional categories illustrated the cross-talk between the biological layers at a pathway level. Using a transcription factor binding site enrichment analysis, this pathway cross-talk was further confirmed at a regulatory level. Finally, we demonstrated how the constructed networks can be used to gain novel insights into molecular mechanisms associated to intermediate clinical traits. Overall, our results demonstrate the utility of a multi-omics integrative approach to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying both normal physiology and disease.
Adaptive cubic overestimation methods for unconstrained optimization

An Adaptive Cubic Overestimation (ACO) algorithm for unconstrained optimization, generalizing a method due to Nesterov & Polyak (Math. Programming 108, 2006, pp 177-205), is proposed. At each iteration of Nesterov & Polyak's approach, the global minimizer of a local cubic overestimator of the objective function is determined, and this ensures a significant improvement in the objective so long as the Hessian of the objective is Lipschitz continuous and its Lipschitz constant is available. The twin requirements of global model optimality and the availability of Lipschitz constants somewhat limit the applicability of such an approach, particularly for large-scale problems. However the promised powerful worst-case theoretical guarantees prompt us to investigate variants in which estimates of the required Lipschitz constant are refined and in which computationally-viable approximations to the global model-minimizer are sought. We show that the excellent global and local convergence properties and worst-case iteration complexity bounds obtained by Nesterov & Polyak are retained, and sometimes extended to a wider class of problems, by our ACO approach. Numerical experiments with small-scale test problems from the CUTEr set show superior performance of the ACO algorithm when compared to a trust-region implementation.
B7x in the Periphery Abrogates Pancreas-Specific Damage Mediated by Self-reactive CD8 T Cells

B7x (B7-H4 or B7S1) is the seventh member of the B7 family, and its in vivo function remains largely unknown. Despite new genetic data linking the B7x gene with autoimmune diseases, how exactly it contributes to peripheral tolerance and autoimmunity is unclear. In this study, we showed that B7x protein was not detected on APCs or T cells in both human and mice, which is unique in the B7 family. Because B7x protein is expressed in some peripheral cells such as pancreatic β cells, we used a CD8 T cell-mediated diabetes model (AI4αβ) in which CD8 T cells recognize an endogenous self-Ag, and found that mice lacking B7x developed more severe diabetes than control AI4αβ mice. Conversely, mice overexpressing B7x in the β cells (Rip-B7xAI4αβ) were diabetes free. Furthermore, adoptive transfer of effector AI4αβ CD8 T cells induced diabetes in control mice, but not in Rip-B7xAI4αβ mice. Mechanistic studies revealed that pathogenic effector CD8 T cells were capable of migrating to the pancreas but failed to robustly destroy tissue when encountering local B7x in Rip-B7xAI4αβ mice. Although AI4αβ CD8 T cells in Rip-B7xAI4αβ and AI4αβ mice showed similar cytotoxic function, cell death, and global gene expression profiles, these cells had greater proliferation in AI4αβ mice than in RIP-B7xAI4αβ mice. These results suggest that B7x in nonlymphoid organs prevents peripheral autoimmunity partially through inhibiting proliferation of tissue-specific CD8 T cells, and that local overexpression of B7x on pancreatic β cells is sufficient to abolish CD8 T cell-induced diabetes.
Multivariate Regression with Grossly Corrupted Observations: A Robust Approach and its Applications

This paper studies the problem of multivariate linear regression where a portion of the observations is grossly corrupted or is missing, and the magnitudes and locations of such occurrences are unknown in priori. To deal with this problem, we propose a new approach by explicitly consider the error source as well as its sparseness nature. An interesting property of our approach lies in its ability of allowing individual regression output elements or tasks to possess their unique noise levels. Moreover, despite working with a non-smooth optimization problem, our approach still guarantees to converge to its optimal solution. Experiments on synthetic data demonstrate the competitiveness of our approach compared with existing multivariate regression models. In addition, empirically our approach has been validated with very promising results on two exemplar real-world applications: The first concerns the prediction of \textit{Big-Five} personality based on user behaviors at social network sites (SNSs), while the second is 3D human hand pose estimation from depth images. The implementation of our approach and comparison methods as well as the involved datasets are made publicly available in support of the open-source and reproducible research initiatives.
Two correction models for likelihoods in robust speech recognition using missing feature theory

In Missing Feature Theory (MFT), it is assumed that some of the features that are extracted from an observation are missing or unreliable. Applied to spectral features for noisy speech recognition, the clean feature values are known to be less than the observed noisy features. Based on this inequality constraint, an HMM-state-dependent clean speech value of the missing features can be inferred through maximum likelihood estimation. This paper describes two observed biases of the likelihood evaluated at the estimate. Theoretical and experimental evidence are provided that an upper bound on the accuracy is improved by applying computationally simple corrections for the number of free variables in the likelihood maximization and for the global acoustic space density function.
Classification of NFC Applications in Diverse Service Domains

NFC (Near Field Communication) technology allows people to integrate their daily-use loyalty cards, credit cards etc. into their mobile phones. In addition to integrating those cards into mobile devices, NFC technology brings innovation opportunities to mobile communications. It enables two users to easily communicate and exchange data simply by touching two mobile phones to each other. The aim of this paper is to perform a brief review of the published NFC applications in literature and explored the benefits of these applications by classifying them in eight service domains. We believe that this analysis will provide valuable insights for performing rigorous and business relevant research on NFC applications and its service domains.
Fine Tuning of Globin Gene Expression by DNA Methylation

Expression patterns in the globin gene cluster are subject to developmental regulation in vivo. While the γA and γG genes are expressed in fetal liver, both are silenced in adult erythrocytes. In order to decipher the role of DNA methylation in this process, we generated a YAC transgenic mouse system that allowed us to control γA methylation during development. DNA methylation causes a 20-fold repression of γA both in non-erythroid and adult erythroid cells. In erythroid cells this modification works as a dominant mechanism to repress γ gene expression, probably through changes in histone acetylation that prevent the binding of erythroid transcription factors to the promoter. These studies demonstrate that DNA methylation serves as an elegant in vivo fine-tuning device for selecting appropriate genes in the globin locus. In addition, our findings provide a mechanism for understanding the high levels of γ-globin transcription seen in patients with Hereditary Persistence of Fetal Hemoglobin, and help explain why 5azaC and butyrate compounds stimulate γ-globin expression in patients with β-hemoglobinopathies.
Evidence for a Role of Oxidative Stress in the Carcinogenicity of Ochratoxin A

The in vitro and in vivo evidence compatible with a role for oxidative stress in OTA carcinogenicity has been collected and described. Several potential oxido-reduction mechanisms have been identified in the past. More recently, the possibility of a reduction of cellular antioxidant defense has been raised as an indirect source of oxidative stress. Consequences resulting from the production of oxidative stress are observed at different levels. First, OTA exposure has been associated with increased levels of oxidative DNA, lipid, and protein damage. Second, various biological processes known to be mobilized under oxidative stress were shown to be altered by OTA. These effects have been observed in both in vitro and in vivo test systems. In vivo, active doses were often within doses documented to induce renal tumors in rats. In conclusion, the evidence for the induction of an oxidative stress response resulting from OTA exposure can be considered strong. Because the contribution of the oxidative stress response in the development of cancers is well established, a role in OTA carcinogenicity is plausible. Altogether, the data reviewed above support the application of a threshold-based approach to establish safe level of dietary human exposure to OTA.