Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced automated intrusion prevention in network security

An automated Intrusion Prevention Mechanism (AIPM) which comprises the functionalities of IDS, IPS, and auto configuring network devices is proposed to enhance network security. AIPM is a mechanism that includes automated intrusion prevention function and automated analysis of intrusion messages function. In addition, the ability of automatically detecting and analyzing network traffic allows AIPM to detect malicious attacks in almost real time. Likewise, the ability of automatically analyzing intrusion messages and network configuration enable AIPM to build a topological view and locate the source of a malicious attack. Results from the case studies show that AIPM imposes lower overhead than conventional method, which queries all pre-defined routers to block every interface irrespective of where the attack is launched. In summary, AIPM which incorporates the functionalities of IDS/IPS offers network protection against potential malicious acts without incurring additional overheads as compare to the conventional method.
Application of FCM Clustering on AM-FM to Detect MRI Disease Progression for Multiple Sclerosis

Particular Regional Atrophy analysis of structural magnetic resonance image (MRI) of the brain may provide quantitative evidence of different neurodegenerative diseases, which will help to identify the Brain diseases. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common diseases which affect white matter. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic idiopathic disease resulted in multiple areas of inflammatory demyelization in the Central nervous system. MS lesion formation often leads to unpredictable cognitive decline & Physical disability. This paper proposes an approach for progression detection of the Multiple sclerosis (MS) in the brain along with an automated computer aided system for differential diagnosis of different neurodegenerative diseases by regional atrophy analysis such as the hippocampus that is well known to be affected in early brain disease. Due to the complexity & variance of automated MRI segmentation of brain becomes a complex task. A structural texture analysis method on MRI segmentation scheme gives emphasis on structural analysis of abnormal as well as on normal tissues. AM-FM technique is used for segmentation of the MRI image. Saliency Map detection technique is used to find out the area of interest and important area of the images. In this paper MRI disease progression detection is implemented to predict the condition of the patient. Silency mapping and FCM clustering is used to find out the infected region from the MRI image of the patient. System accuracy has improved due to the introduction of Saliency map and progressive disease detection technique based on count of infected regions.
Long-term Pain and Activity during Recovery from Major Thoracotomy Using Thoracic Epidural Analgesia

Background Pain following thoracotomy can persist for years with an undetermined impact on quality of life. Factors hypothesized to modulate this painful experience include analgesic regimen, gender, and type of incision. Methods A total of 157 generally healthy patients of both genders scheduled for segmentectomy, lobectomy, or bilobectomy through a posterolateral or muscle-sparing incision were randomly assigned to receive thoracic epidural analgesia initiated prior to incision or at the time of rib approximation. Pain and activity scores were obtained 4, 8, 12, 24, 36, and 48 weeks after surgery. Results Overall, there were no differences in pain scores between the control and intervention groups during hospitalization (P ≥ 0.165) or after discharge (P ≥ 0.098). The number of patients reporting pain 1 yr following surgery (18 of 85; 21.2%) was not significantly different (P = 0.122) from the number reporting preoperative pain (15 of 120; 12.5%). During hospitalization, women reported greater pain than men (worst pain, P = 0.007; average pain, P = 0.016). Women experienced fewer supraventricular tachydysrhythmias (P = 0.013) and were thus discharged earlier (P = 0.002). After discharge women continued to report greater discomfort than men (P ≤ 0.016), but did not differ from men in their level of physical activity (P = 0.241). Conclusions Initiation of thoracic epidural analgesia prior to incision or the use of a muscle-sparing incision did not significantly impact pain or physical activity. Although women reported significantly greater pain during hospitalization and after discharge, they experienced fewer complications, were more likely to be discharged from the hospital sooner, and were just as active after discharge as men.
Performance Characterization of In-Memory Data Analytics on a Modern Cloud Server

In last decade, data analytics have rapidly progressed from traditional disk-based processing to modern in-memory processing. However, little effort has been devoted at enhancing performance at micro-architecture level. This paper characterizes the performance of in-memory data analytics using Apache Spark framework. We use a single node NUMA machine and identify the bottlenecks hampering the scalability of workloads. We also quantify the inefficiencies at micro-architecture level for various data analysis workloads. Through empirical evaluation, we show that spark workloads do not scale linearly beyond twelve threads, due to work time inflation and thread level load imbalance. Further, at the micro-architecture level, we observe memory bound latency to be the major cause of work time inflation.
Low-Flow Mediated Constriction is Endothelium-Dependent: Effects of Exercise Training After Radial Artery Catheterization

Background—Radial artery catheterization is associated with endothelial denudation and impaired vasodilator function, while postcatheterization exercise training may enhance artery function. The impact of catheterization and subsequent exercise training on low-flow mediated vasoconstriction (L-FMC) has not previously been studied. The aim of this study was to examine whether radial artery L-FMC is impaired by catheterization and consequent endothelial denudation. A further aim was to examine the effect of local handgrip exercise training on radial artery L-FMC and flow-mediated dilation (FMD) after transradial catheterization. Methods and Results—Thirty-two subjects undergoing transradial catheterization underwent assessment of L-FMC and FMD in the catheterized and contralateral radial artery before, and the day after, catheterization. A further 18 patients were recruited and randomly assigned to either a 6-week handgrip exercise training program (N=9) or a nonexercise control period (N=9). L-FMC was attenuated 1 day postcatheterization in the catheterized arm (−2.07±0.84 to 0.35±0.83), but unchanged in the noncatheterized arm (−0.93±0.86 to −0.90±0.92; P<0.05). In the training study, both FMD and L-FMC of the catheterized arm were preserved in the exercise group 7 weeks after catheterization (FMD-pre, 6.84±0.79; FMD-post, 6.85±1.16; L-FMC-pre, −2.14±1.42; L-FMC-post, −3.58±1.04%), but reduced in the control group (FMD-pre, 8.27±1.52; FMD-post, 4.66±0.70; P=0.06; L-FMC-pre, −3.26±1.19; L-FMC-post, −1.34±1.27%; P<0.05). Conclusions—Catheterization, and associated endothelial denudation, decreases L-FMC in the radial artery, suggesting that it is endothelium-dependent. Moreover, we demonstrate for the first time that exercise training has beneficial impacts on radial artery vasodilator and constrictor function.
The Evolution of Homeownership Rates in Selected OECD Countries: Demographic and Public Policy Influences

Homeownership rates have increased significantly in many OECD countries over recent decades. Using micro-econometric decomposition techniques, this paper shows that part of this increase can be explained by changes in the characteristics of households, including age, household structure, income and education. Nevertheless, a significant portion of the change in homeownership rates remains unexplained by shifts in household characteristics, leaving a potential role for public policy in explaining developments in homeownership rates. Panel estimates suggest that the relaxation of down-payment constraints on mortgage loans has increased homeownership rates among credit-constrained households over recent decades, resulting in a rise in the aggregate homeownership rate that is comparable with the impact of population ageing. In countries where tax relief on mortgage debt financing is generous, however, the expansionary impact of mortgage market innovations on homeownership is smaller. This is consistent with the tendency for such housing tax relief to be capitalised into real house prices, which may crowd-out some financially constrained households from homeownership at the margin. The impact of housing policies regulating the functioning of the rental market, such as rent regulation and provisions for tenure security, on tenure choice is also explored. JEL classification: R21, R31, G21, H24. Keywords: Housing markets, homeownership, mortgage markets, financial regulation, taxation.
Theoretical and Empirical Developments of the Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment (MAC) Approach to Performance Enhancement

As long as athletes strive to attain optimal performance states and consistently reach high performance goals, psychological interventions will be used to assist in the development of skill and the maintenance of performance. In the pursuit of these goals, newer evidence-driven models based on mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches have been designed to achieve these ends. Based upon questionable efficacy data for traditional psychological skills training procedures that emphasize reduction or control of internal processes, mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches develop skills of nonjudging mindful awareness, mindful attention, and experiential acceptance to aid in the pursuit of valued goals. The most formalized and researched mindfulness- and acceptance-based approach within sport psychology is the manualized Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment (MAC) protocol. In the 8 years since the MAC was first developed and presented, and the 5 years since the first publication on the protocol, the MAC program has accumulated a continually growing empirical base for both its underlying theory and intervention efficacy as a performance enhancement intervention. This article reviews the empirical and theoretical foundations of the mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches in general, and MAC in particular; reviews the accumulated empirical findings in support of the MAC approach for performance enhancement; and presents recent MAC developments and suggested future directions. It has been nearly a decade since the first professional conference presentation introducing the Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment (MAC) approach to performance enhancement (Moore & Gardner, 2001), a theoretically and empirically derived acceptance-based behavioral intervention for the purpose of enhancing the performance and psychological well-being of competitive athletes. Since that time, many advances have occurred in the field of study broadly referred to as acceptance-based behavior therapies (ABBT; Roemer & Orsillo, 2009). This term is used to refer to a broad range of interventions that view the alteration of
Lack of Renal 11 Beta-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Type 2 at Birth, a Targeted Temporal Window for Neonatal Glucocorticoid Action in Human and Mice

Background Glucocorticoid hormones play a major role in fetal organ maturation. Yet, excessive glucocorticoid exposure in utero can result in a variety of detrimental effects, such as growth retardation and increased susceptibility to the development of hypertension. To protect the fetus, maternal glucocorticoids are metabolized into inactive compounds by placental 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type2 (11βHSD2). This enzyme is also expressed in the kidney, where it prevents illicit occupation of the mineralocorticoid receptor by glucocorticoids. We investigated the role of renal 11βHSD2 in the control of neonatal glucocorticoid metabolism in the human and mouse. Methods Cortisol (F) and cortisone (E) concentrations were measured in maternal plasma, umbilical cord blood and human newborn urine using HPLC. 11βHSD2 activity was indirectly assessed by comparing the F/E ratio between maternal and neonatal plasma (placental activity) and between plasma and urine in newborns (renal activity). Direct measurement of renal 11βHSD2 activity was subsequently evaluated in mice at various developmental stages. Renal 11βHSD2 mRNA and protein expression were analyzed by quantitative RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry during the perinatal period in both species. Results We demonstrate that, at variance with placental 11βHSD2 activity, renal 11βHSD2 activity is weak in newborn human and mouse and correlates with low renal mRNA levels and absence of detectable 11βHSD2 protein. Conclusions We provide evidence for a weak or absent expression of neonatal renal 11βHSD2 that is conserved among species. This temporal and tissue-specific 11βHSD2 expression could represent a physiological window for glucocorticoid action yet may constitute an important predictive factor for adverse outcomes of glucocorticoid excess through fetal programming.
Trajectory generation for ladder climbing motion with separated path and time planning

This paper introduces a motion planning method to generate ladder climbing motion for a four-limbed robot. This method contains the following points: (1) independent planning of path and time in 3 dimensional space for trajectory planning; (2) path length minimization according to given midpoints. In trajectory planning, arc-length parameterization is used to separate path planning and time planning so that they can be done independently. After path is planned, time planning along the planned path can be given freely to meet our requirement, such as speed and acceleration adjustment for the protection of motors, optimization for dynamics analysis, dynamic obstacle avoidance and so on. Results from simulations and experiments authenticate the validity of our motion generation method.
Mining and representing recommendations in actively evolving recommender systems

Recommender systems provide an automatic means of filtering out interesting items, usually based on past similarity of user ratings. In previous work, we have suggested a model that allows users to actively build a recommender network. Users express trust, obtain transparency, and grow (anonymous) recommender connections. In this work, we propose mining such active systems to generate easily understandable representations of the recommender network. Users may review these representations to provide active feedback. This approach further enhances the quality of recommendations, especially as topics of interest change over time. Most notably, it extends the amount of control users have over the model that the recommender network builds of their interests.
The alpha subunit of RNA polymerase and transcription antitermination

The N gene product of coliphage λ, with a number of host proteins (Nus factors), regulates phage gene expression by modifying RNA polymerase to a form that overrides transcription‐termination signals. Mutations in host nus genes diminish this N‐mediated antitermination. Here, we report the isolation and characterization of the rpoAD305E mutation, a single amino acid change in the carboxy terminal domain (CTD) of the α subunit of RNA polymerase, that enhances N‐mediated antitermination. A deletion of the 3′ terminus of rpoA, resulting in the expression of an α subunit missing the CTD, also enhances N‐mediated antitermination and, similar to rpoAD305E, suppresses the effect of nus mutations. Thus, the N–Nus complex may be affected through contacts with the CTD of the α subunit of RNA polymerase, as is a group of regulatory proteins that influences initiation of transcription. What distinguishes our findings on the N–Nus complex from those of previous studies with transcription proteins is that all of the regulators characterized in those studies bind DNA and influence transcription initiation; whereas the N–Nus complex binds RNA and affects transcription elongation. A screen of some previously identified rpoA mutations that influence transcription activators revealed only one other amino acid change, L290H, in the CTD of the α subunit, that influences antitermination. Although our results provide evidence that interactions of the α subunit of RNA polymerase must be considered in forming models of transcription antitermination, they do not provide information as to whether the interactions of α that ultimately influence antitermination occur during initiation or during elongation of transcription.
Re-Ranking Process for Image Based Retrieval Using Geometric Techniques

We present a fast and efficient geometric re-ranking method that can be incorporated in a feature based image-based retrieval system that utilizes a Vocabulary Tree (VT). We form feature pairs by comparing descriptor classification paths in the VT and calculate geometric similarity score of these pairs. We propose a location geometric similarity scoring method that is invariant to rotation, scale, and translation, and can be easily incorporated in mobile visual search and augmented reality systems. We compare the performance of the location geometric scoring scheme to orientation and scale geometric scoring schemes. We show in our experiments that re-ranking schemes can substantially improve recognition accuracy. We can also reduce the worst case server latency up to 1 sec and still improve the recognition performance. This entails finding the location of a query image in a large dataset containing 3 × 10^4 street side images of a city. We investigate how the traditional invariant feature matching approach falls down as the size of the database grows. In particular we show that by carefully selecting the vocabulary using the most informative features, retrieval performance is significantly improved, allowing us to increase the number of database images by a factor of 10. We also introduce a generalization of the traditional vocabulary tree search algorithm which improves performance by effectively increasing the branching factor of a fixed vocabulary tree.
Independent Predictors of Erectile Dysfunction in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Is It True What They Say about Risk Factors?

Introduction. The aim of this study was to evaluate the independent predictors of ED in adult men with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods. We have recruited 200 T2DM patients referred to our center between March 1, 2009 and March 1, 2010. All the patients were scored with the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF)-5 questionnaires. Contribution of age, body mass index (BMI), smoking, blood pressure, lipid profile, fasting plasma glucose (FPG), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), free testosterone concentration, and duration of diabetes to risk of ED were evaluated. Results. Of 200 men with T2DM, 59.5% had ED (95%CI: 52%–67%). A negative significant correlation was found between potency score and HbA1c (r: 0.20,P: 0.01), FPG (r: 0.17, P: 0.03) and SBP (r: 0.18, P: 0.02) but not between other risk factors such as lipid profile, BMI, and serum testosterone level. By using multivariate logistic regression analysis, we found out that the only two independent predictors of ED in these group of patients are age (OR: 2.8, P: 0.01), and taking calcium channel blockers (CCB) (OR: 4.1, P: 0.01). Conclusions. Aging and taking CCB were the only two major predictors for ED but surprisingly other metabolic or sexual covariates in this study did not have predictive value for ED risk in T2DM patients.
Model-based fault localization in large-scale computing systems

We propose a new fault localization technique for software bugs in large-scale computing systems. Our technique always collects per-process function call traces of a target system, and derives a concise execution model that reflects its normal function calling behaviors using the traces. To find the cause of a failure, we compare the derived model with the traces collected when the system failed, and compute a suspect score that quantifies how likely a particular part of call traces explains the failure. The execution model consists of a call probability of each function in the system that we estimate using the normal traces. Functions with low probabilities in the model give high anomaly scores when called upon a failure. Frequently-called functions in the model also give high scores when not called. Finally, we report the function call sequences ranked with the suspect scores to the human analyst, narrowing further manual localization down to a small part of the overall system. We have applied our proposed method to fault localization of a known non-deterministic bug in a distributed parallel job manager. Experimental results on a three-site, 78-node distributed environment demonstrate that our method quickly locates an anomalous event that is highly correlated with the bug, indicating the effectiveness of our approach.
Stable continuous-state branching processes with immigration and Beta-Fleming-Viot processes with immigration

Branching processes and Fleming-Viot processes are two main models in stochastic population theory. Incorporating an immigration in both models, we generalize the results of Shiga (1990) and Birkner (2005) which respectively connect the Feller diffusion with the classical Fleming-Viot process and the $\alpha$-stable continuous state branching process with the $Beta(2-\alpha,\alpha)$-generalized Fleming-Viot process. In a recent work, a new class of probability-measure valued processes, called $M$-generalized Fleming-Viot processes with immigration, has been set up in duality with the so-called $M$ coalescents. The purpose of this article is to investigate the links between this new class of processes and the continuous-state branching processes with immigration. In the specific case of the $\alpha$-stable branching process conditioned to be never extinct, we get that its genealogy is given, up to a random time change, by a $Beta(2-\alpha, \alpha-1)$-coalescent.
Economic incentives for long-term health gain: a report for Health England

In this paper, we review some of what is known about economic incentive schemes and also consider the potential role of agencies involved in policy that directly or indirectly affect health in these areas. We apply five criteria to help identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of different schemes: their effectiveness, their cost relative to effectiveness, their impact on equity, their feasibility and their impact on individual and local autonomy.
Biologically Inspired Miniature Water Strider Robot

Recent biological studies on water strider insects revealed the detailed mechanism of their staying and walking on water. While macro scale bodies use buoyancy to stay on water, these very light and small insects balance their weight using repulsive surface tension forces where the insect legs are covered with hydrophobic micro-hairs. Utilizing the unique scaling advantage of these insects, this paper proposes a biologically inspired miniature micro-robot walking on water with a similar principle. The paper focuses on understanding physical characteristics of the insect and designing a robot that mimics the insect's movement. Highly hydrophobic Teflon ® coated wires are used for the legs to take advantage of surface tension force, and the robot body is made of carbon fibers for minimal weight. A T-shaped actuation mechanism with three PZT-5H based unimorph actuators is utilized to move the side legs of the robot independently for controlled locomotion. Kinematics and dynamic properties of the robot prototype are analyzed and compared with the experimental results. The tethered robot can successfully move forward, backward and can also make turns. Maximum speed of the robot in forward motion is 2.3 cm/s. In the future, environmental monitoring applications on dams, lakes, sea, etc. would become possible using a network of these robots with miniature sensors, an on-board power source and electronics.