Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Efficient Scheme for Preserving Confidentiality in Content-Based Publish-Subscribe Systems

Content-based publish-subscribe is an efficient communication paradigm that supports dynamic, many-to-many data dissemination in a distributed environment. A publish-subscribe system deployed over a wide-area network must handle information dissemination across distinct authoritative domains and heterogeneous platforms. Such an environment raises serious security concerns. This paper describes a practical scheme that preserves confidentiality against eavesdroppers for private content-based publish-subscribe systems over public networks. In this scheme, publications and subscriptions are encrypted, while the publish-subscribe infrastructure is able to make correct routing decisions based on encrypted publications and subscriptions. Plaintexts are not revealed in the infrastructure for the purpose of security and efficiency. This scheme efficiently supports interval-matching as a predicate function for subscriptions. The security of this scheme is analyzed, and further improved by several techniques.
Security principles for public-resource modeling research

Large-scale distributed computing projects have many security concerns due to their public and often "open" nature. Climateprediction.net (CPDN) is taking the concept of public-resource, high-throughput grid computing a stage further, by using it for a major piece of modeling research. The aim is to harness the spare CPU cycles of potentially millions of individual users' PCs to run a massive ensemble of climate simulations. In doing so it has been faced with a range of security and integrity issues beyond those encountered by previous projects but likely also to confront similar initiatives in the future. This paper introduces the project and its software architecture, and outlines a threat model for such situations, including threats to participants, threats to the experiment and threats to other stakeholders. It goes on to discuss how these threats have been addressed, with the procedures presented expected to form a valuable foundation for an increasing number of similar projects.
Potentiation of Innate Immunity by β-Glucans

Abstract β-Glucans have been known to exhibit antitumor activities by potentiating host immunity by an unknown mechanism. The C-type lectin dectin-1, a β-glucan receptor, is found on the macrophage and can recognize various β-glucans. Previously, we demonstrated the presence of β-glucan receptor, dectin-1, on the Raw 264.7 cells as well as on murine mucosal organs, such as the thymus, the lung, and the spleen. In order to investigate immunopotentiation of innate immunity by β-glucan, we stimulated a murine macrophage Raw 264.7 cell line with β-glucans from Pleurotus ostreatus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Laminaria digitata. Then, we analyzed cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-6 by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). In addition we analyzed gene expression patterns in β-glucan-treated Raw 264.7 cells by applying total mRNA to cDNA microarray to investigate the expression of 7,000 known genes. When stimulated with β-glucans, the macrophage cells increased TNF-α expression. When co-stimulation of the cells with β-glucan and lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a synergy effect was observed by increased TNF-α expression. In IL-6 expression, any of the β-glucans tested could not induce IL-6 expression by itself. However, when co-stimulation occurred with β-glucan and LPS, the cells showed strong synergistic effects by increased IL-6 expression. Chip analysis showed that β-glucan of P. ostreatus increased gene expressions of immunomodulating gene families such as kinases, lectin associated genes and TNF-related genes in the macrophage cell line. Induction of TNF receptor expression by FACS analysis was synergized only when co-stimulated with β-glucan and LPS, not with β-glucan alone. From these data, β-glucan increased expressions of immunomodulating genes and showed synergistic effect with LPS.
Grey and white matter brain network changes in frontotemporal dementia subtypes

BackgroundFrontotemporal dementia (FTD) comprises of three clinical syndromes, behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), semantic dementia (SV-PPA), and progressive nonfluent aphasia (NFV-PPA) with unique underlying neuroanatomical deficits. To date, however, grey matter structural differences and their connecting white matter tracts in this network have been mostly characterised in comparison to controls, whereas within FTD subtype comparisons in the same patients have not been explored.MethodologyIn 94 participants, including bvFTD (n = 16), SV-PPA (n = 16) and NFV-PPA (n = 16), as well as an age-matched control group (n = 46), we employed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to examine grey and white matter key signatures in each of the three FTD subtypes.ResultsOur results showed that bvFTD had specific ventromedial prefrontal cortex and striatum grey matter atrophy along with their connecting white matter tracts compared to other FTD subtypes. By contrast, SV-PPA showed additional temporal pole grey matter damage to bvFTD and grey and white matter temporal, amygdala and insula changes compared to NFV-PPA. Finally, NFV-PPA showed mild insula grey and white matter changes compared to bvFTD but differed from SV-PPA only on anterior corpus callosum white matter changes.ConclusionsOur findings clearly indicate that not only grey matter regions of the FTD network but also their white matter connecting tracts have specific signatures for each FTD subtype. These promising findings highlight how neural network approaches can shed new light on neurodegenerative conditions and FTD in particular, which will inform future diagnostic and disease management.
Free excitatory postsynaptic densities: Morphological substrates for synapse formation and evidence of synapse elimination

Nerve cells communicate primarily through chemical synapses. Study of brain development essentially consists of study of synapse formation. The role played by prospective pre-and postsynaptic processes in synaptic development is not fully understood. The present study was aimed at understanding the role of postsynaptic component is synaptogenesis. This study has been carried out on prenatal (13 to 35 weeks) human lateral geniculate nuclei (LGN) immersion fixed in Karnovsky? s fixative and processed for transmission electron mi-croscopy. It was observed that the period between 16 to 20 weeks of gestation is marked by occurrence of numerous, pleomorphic free postsynaptic densities (PSDs). These free sites were located on different parts of differentiating neurons. Many of them had no prospective presynaptic partners in their vicinity, while others revealed variable amount of incongru-ency with their presynaptic partners and in some occasions they were associated with degenerating profiles. This period also coincided with many other events previously reported in the developing human LGN, e.g., spurt in volumetric growth, glial cell differentiation, synaptogenesis, cytoarchitectonic lamination as well as neurochemical maturation. It was concluded that the free PSDs are heterogenous in origin, being programmed/de novo and waiting to make synaptic contact for the first time; and vacated, the left out sites after pre-synaptic terminal degeneration and waiting to establish new contact for the second time and that glial cells play important roles in the whole process of synaptogenesis
Solving Semantic Ambiguity to Improve Semantic Web based Ontology Matching

A new paradigm in Semantic Web research focuses on the development of a new generation of knowledge-based problem solvers, which can exploit the massive amounts of formally specified information available on the Web, to produce novel intelligent functionalities. An important example of this paradigm can be found in the area of Ontology Matching, where new algorithms, which derive mappings from an exploration of multiple and heterogeneous online ontologies, have been proposed. While these algorithms exhibit very good performance, they rely on merely syntactical techniques to anchor the terms to be matched to those found on the Semantic Web. As a result, their precision can be affected by ambiguous words. In this paper, we aim to solve these problems by introducing techniques from Word Sense Disambiguation, which validate the mappings by exploring the semantics of the ontological terms involved in the matching process. Specifically we discuss how two techniques, which exploit the ontological context of the matched and anchor terms, and the information provided by WordNet, can be used to filter out mappings resulting from the incorrect anchoring of ambiguous terms. Our experiments show that each of the proposed disambiguation techniques, and even more their combination, can lead to an important increase in precision, without having too negative an impact on recall.
The Length of Stay of In-Patient Stroke Discharges in Irish Acute Hospitals

Stroke imposes an important economic burden worldwide and acute in-patient care accounts for a large proportion of costs in the first year following stroke. Length of stay (LOS) is regarded as a key determinant of in-patient costs and the primary focus of this study is to examine associations between LOS of acute stroke discharges and a range of individual and system level factors. Specific focus is placed on the association between stroke units and LOS. Results indicate associations between a number of policy-relevant variables and LOS including among others, MRSA infection, availability of brain imaging and discharge destination. We find some evidence that acute stroke units are associated with lower LOS however these findings should be interpreted carefully.
Covariate balancing propensity score

The propensity score plays a central role in a variety of causal inference settings. In particular, matching and weighting methods based on the estimated propensity score have become increasingly common in the analysis of observational data. Despite their popularity and theoretical appeal, the main practical difficulty of these methods is that the propensity score must be estimated. Researchers have found that slight misspecification of the propensity score model can result in substantial bias of estimated treatment effects. We introduce covariate balancing propensity score (CBPS) methodology, which models treatment assignment while optimizing the covariate balance. The CBPS exploits the dual characteristics of the propensity score as a covariate balancing score and the conditional probability of treatment assignment. The estimation of the CBPS is done within the generalized method‐of‐moments or empirical likelihood framework. We find that the CBPS dramatically improves the poor empirical performance of propensity score matching and weighting methods reported in the literature. We also show that the CBPS can be extended to other important settings, including the estimation of the generalized propensity score for non‐binary treatments and the generalization of experimental estimates to a target population. Open source software is available for implementing the methods proposed.
Client/server benefits, problems, best practices

The goal: Not just better technology but better business processes that make a company more competitive. Client/server systems link clients and servers via a network to support distributed computation, analysis, and presentation, providing a common method for distributing computer power within companies. Although companies are embracing client/server technology when moving from legacy systems [4], a 1996 survey of IS managers by InformationWeek found that only 40% of them consider client/server systems " a worthwhile investment " [1]. In fact, only about 16% of all client/server applications were (and are) viewed as successful by the companies implementing them [5].
The proliferation of peripheries: Militarized drones and the reconfiguration of global space

By situating drones in a lineage of colonial technologies of pacification, the critical literature on militarized drones suggests a revised concept of peripheries and global space. This paper engages this literature to argue for a conception of peripheries as spaces of colonial state power at multiple scales. It does so by arguing for a distinction between proliferation to the global periphery and the proliferation of peripheries at multiple scales and across scattered sites. The paper also draws on Gramsci and Fanon to elaborate an internationalist anticolonial position on the defense of territorial sovereignty of states in the global periphery.
On the Nature of Fear of Falling in Parkinson’s Disease

In the elderly, fear of falling (FoF) can lead to activity restriction and affect quality of life (QoL). Our aim was to identify the characteristics of FoF in Parkinson's disease and assess its impact on QoL. We assessed FoF in 130 patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) on scales measuring perceived self-efficacy in performing a range of activities (FES), perceived consequences of falling (CoF), and activity avoidance (SAFFE). A significant difference was found in FoF between PD patients who had previously fallen and those who had not and between frequent and infrequent fallers. Patient-rated disability significantly influenced FoF. Difficulty in rising from a chair, difficulty turning, start hesitation, festination, loss of balance, and shuffling were the specific mobility problems which were associated with greater FoF in PD. Disability was the main predictor of FoF, additionally depression predicted perceived consequences of falling, while anxiety predicted activity avoidance. The FoF measures explained 65% of the variance of QoL in PD, highlighting the clinical importance of FoF. These results have implications for the clinical management of FoF in PD.
Design of point to point metro DWDM network and its performance evaluation

Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing is a best technology to increase channel capacity and it support for growing bandwidth demands on optical fiber communication. In this technology the optical signal will carry multiple streams of information, each stream as its own unique wavelength. The wavelength effective for DWDM system will be from 1525nm to 1565nm in C Band and from 1570nm to 1610nm in L Band. In this paper we use single mode fiber for length of 110 km at 1550nm to decrease dispersion in signal. The DWDM system analysis is performed using optisystem with flow rate of 10 Gb/s per channel and carried out simulation, EDFA amplifier is used to achieve signal with improved Q-Factor and BER.
KEGG as a reference resource for gene and protein annotation

KEGG (http://www.kegg.jp/ or http://www.genome.jp/kegg/) is an integrated database resource for biological interpretation of genome sequences and other high-throughput data. Molecular functions of genes and proteins are associated with ortholog groups and stored in the KEGG Orthology (KO) database. The KEGG pathway maps, BRITE hierarchies and KEGG modules are developed as networks of KO nodes, representing high-level functions of the cell and the organism. Currently, more than 4000 complete genomes are annotated with KOs in the KEGG GENES database, which can be used as a reference data set for KO assignment and subsequent reconstruction of KEGG pathways and other molecular networks. As an annotation resource, the following improvements have been made. First, each KO record is re-examined and associated with protein sequence data used in experiments of functional characterization. Second, the GENES database now includes viruses, plasmids, and the addendum category for functionally characterized proteins that are not represented in complete genomes. Third, new automatic annotation servers, BlastKOALA and GhostKOALA, are made available utilizing the non-redundant pangenome data set generated from the GENES database. As a resource for translational bioinformatics, various data sets are created for antimicrobial resistance and drug interaction networks.
Reducing Invariant Proofs To Finite Search via Rewriting

We present a tool-supported methodology for proving predicates invariant over all time on the behavior of systems by exploring a finite graph generated from the definition of the predicate using rewrite rules from proven ACL2 theorems. The methodology provides a means for proving invariants which avoids the complexity and cost of defining an inductive invariant while still allowing the proof of invariants for infinite-state systems. We present two examples of the application of the methodology: a simple critical section example, and a slightly more complex MESI cache coherence system.
A Generic Scheme for Integrating Strong Local Consistencies into Constraint Solvers

This article presents a generic scheme for adding strong local consistencies to the set of features of constraint solvers, which is notably applicable to event-based constraint solvers. We encapsulate a subset of constraints into a global constraint. This approach allows a solver to use different levels of consistency for different subsets of constraints in the same model. Moreover, we show how strong consistencies can be applied with different kinds of constraints, including user-defined constraints. We experiment our technique with a coarse-grained algorithm for Max-RPC, called Max-RPC and a variant of it, L-Max-RPC. Experiments confirm the interest of strong consistencies for Constraint Programming tools.
Counting people from above: Airborne video based crowd analysis

Crowd monitoring and analysis in mass events are highly important technologies to support the security of attending persons. Proposed methods based on terrestrial or airborne image/video data often fail in achieving sufficiently accurate results to guarantee a robust service. We present a novel framework for estimating human count, density and motion from video data based on custom tailored object detection techniques, a regression based density estimate and a total variation based optical flow extraction. From the gathered features we present a detailed accuracy analysis versus ground truth measurements. In addition, all information is projected into world coordinates to enable a direct integration with existing geo-information systems. The resulting human counts demonstrate a mean error of 4% to 9% and thus represent a most efficient measure that can be robustly applied in security critical services.
Quantization in black hole backgrounds

Quantum field theory in a semiclassical background can be derived as an approximation to quantum gravity from a weak-coupling expansion in the inverse Planck mass. Such an expansion is studied for evolution on 'nice slices' in the spacetime describing a black hole of mass M. Arguments for a breakdown of this expansion are presented, due to significant gravitational coupling between fluctuations, which is consistent with the statement that existing calculations of information loss in black holes are not reliable. For a given fluctuation, the coupling to subsequent fluctuations becomes of order unity by a time of order M{sup 3}. Lack of a systematic derivation of the weakly coupled/semiclassical approximation would indicate a role for the nonperturbative dynamics of gravity, and possibly for the proposal that such dynamics has an essentially nonlocal quality.
Similar subsequence retrieval from two time series data using homology search

We propose a method for extracting the most similar subsequences from two time series data by quantizing them and performing a homology search. The homology searches, such as BLAST and SW, are string search algorithms. Therefore, time series data should be quantized. SAX and EIAD were applied as quantization methods, and their effectiveness was examined by experiment. According to the experiments, time series data sets were classified into four types of time series data set, and we discuss the characteristics of SAX and EIAD.
Developing a superset language of smalltalk for modeling distributed mechanical design systems

This paper presents our experience on further development of a superset language of Smalltalk for modeling distributed mechanical design systems. In this language, mechanical system modeling primitives are called features. Features are described at two levels, class level and instance level, representing standard product libraries and special product data, respectively. Features modeled at different locations are associated by Internet. Class features at remote locations can be used for generating instance features at the local site. Instance features at remote locations can be accessed from the local site. This new language was implemented using Smalltalk.
An analysis and comparative evaluation of MFCC variants for speaker identification over VoIP networks

The aim of this paper is to evaluate, analyze and compare the performance of the most popular MFCC variants for features extraction in text-independent speaker identification over VoIP Networks. The MFCC variants were tested and evaluated under a Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-based speaker identification system, which represents the speaker modeling state-of-art approach in contemporary text-independent speaker identification systems.
SincX: An open sourced intuitive, single handed interaction controller

SincX is an open sourced Controller designed for extensive and intuitive interaction with the computer. At present the most commonly used interface devices are the Keyboard and the Mouse but these devices require both the hands to use and most importantly they are not intuitive. SincX is a single handedly usable, touch sensitive controller. Its great design not only allows interaction to be great but it also makes playing games with it to be an awesome experience. The design of the controller makes it comfortable for disabled persons to use it single handedly and allows a lot of functions just using the touch of the fingers.
Test Generation Based On Control And Data Dependencies Within Multi-Process SDL Specifications

Control and data flow aspects of a distributed system can be identified through the analysis of control and data dependencies that exist not only within processes, but also across process boundaries. This paper proposes a non-interleaving model that exposes the intra-process as well as inter-process control and data dependencies in a specification of a distributed system given in SDL. The model facilitates the generation of tests through the application of controlflow as well as data-flow oriented test selection criteria.
Agent Based Container Terminal Optimization

A distributed MAS (multi agent system) architecture for moveable port resource operation has been presented in the paper, which builds upon elements from decentralized strategies. The system provides a feasible optimization solution to the problem due to its inherent complexity. Under such solution, an intelligent planning algorithm is continuously optimized by the dynamic and co-operative rescheduling of yard resources
Photometric structure of the peculiar galaxy ESO 235-G58

We present the near-infrared and optical properties of the peculiar galaxy ESO 235-G58, which resembles a late-type ringed barred spiral seen close to face-on. However, the apparent bar of ESO 235-G58 is in reality an edge-on disk galaxy of relatively low luminosity. We have analyzed the light and color distributions of ESO 235-G58 in the NIR and optical bands and compared them with the typical properties observed for other morphological galaxy types, including polar ring galaxies. Similar properties are observed for ESO 235-G58, polar ring galaxies, and spiral galaxies, which leads us to conclude that this peculiar system is a polar-ring-related galaxy, characterized by a low inclined ring/disk structure, as pointed out by Buta & Crocker in an earlier study, rather than a barred galaxy.