Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exact Security Analysis of Hash-then-Mask Type Probabilistic MAC Constructions

Probabilistic MAC (message authentication code) is an alternative choice for a stateful MAC where maintaining internal state may be difficult or unsafe. Usually tag of a probabilistic MAC consists of an m-bit random coin (also called salt) and an n-bit core-tag depending on the salt. In terms of the security, probabilistic MAC falls under birthday collision of salts which is absent in stateful MAC. XMACR is an example of probabilistic MAC which remains secure up to o(2) tag generation queries. To achieve security beyond birthday in n, one can naturally use a large salt. For example, MACRX3 sets m = 3n and provides security up to o(2) tag-generation queries. Large salt may restrict its applicability as it increases the cost of random string generation as well as the size of the overall tag. RWMAC (randomized version of WMAC) provides similar security with m = n but it uses a PRF (pseudorandom function) over 2n-bit inputs which is naturally more costlier than those over n-bit inputs. Achieving beyond birthday security using n-bit PRF and n-bit salt is a practical and challenging problem. Minematsu in FSE 2010 proposed Enhanced Hash-then-Mask (EHtM) using n-bit salt and showed its security up to o(2) tag-generation queries. In this paper we revisit this construction and we provide exact security analysis of EHtM. In particular, we show that it has higher security, namely up to o(2) queries, than what claimed by the designer. Moreover, we demonstrate a single attempt forgery attack which makes about 2 tag generation queries. XMACR and EHtM follow the hash-then-mask paradigm due to Carter-Wegman. We revisit six possible constructions following hash-then-mask paradigm and we provide exact security analysis for all of these constructions, some of which however were known before.
Ranking Biomedical Annotations with Annotator's Semantic Relevancy

Biomedical annotation is a common and affective artifact for researchers to discuss, show opinion, and share discoveries. It becomes increasing popular in many online research communities, and implies much useful information. Ranking biomedical annotations is a critical problem for data user to efficiently get information. As the annotator's knowledge about the annotated entity normally determines quality of the annotations, we evaluate the knowledge, that is, semantic relationship between them, in two ways. The first is extracting relational information from credible websites by mining association rules between an annotator and a biomedical entity. The second way is frequent pattern mining from historical annotations, which reveals common features of biomedical entities that an annotator can annotate with high quality. We propose a weighted and concept-extended RDF model to represent an annotator, a biomedical entity, and their background attributes and merge information from the two ways as the context of an annotator. Based on that, we present a method to rank the annotations by evaluating their correctness according to user's vote and the semantic relevancy between the annotator and the annotated entity. The experimental results show that the approach is applicable and efficient even when data set is large.
MUTUAL INFORMATION, METRIC ENTROPY AND CUMULATIVE RELATIVE ENTROPY RISK

Assume {P θ : θ ∈ Θ} is a set of probability distributions with a common dominating measure on a complete separable metric space Y. A state θ * ∈Θ is chosen by Nature. A statistician obtains n independent observations Y 1 ,. , Y n from Y distributed according to P θ . For each time t between 1 and n, based on the observations Y 1 ,. , Y t-1 , the statistician produces an estimated distribution P t for P θ* and suffers a loss L(P θ* , P t ). The cumulative risk for the statistician is the average total loss up to time n. Of special interest in information theory, data compression, mathematical finance, computational learning theory and statistical mechanics is the special case when the loss L(P θ* , P t ) is the relative entropy between the true distribution P θ* and the estimated distribution P t . Here the cumulative Bayes risk from time 1 to n is the mutual information between the random parameter Θ* and the observations Y 1 ,. Y n . New bounds on this mutual information are given in terms of the Laplace transform of the Hellinger distance between pairs of distributions indexed by parameters in Θ. From these, bounds on the cumulative minimax risk are given in terms of the metric entropy of Θ with respect to the Hellinger distance. The assumptions required for these bounds are very general and do not depend on the choice of the dominating measure. They apply to both finite- and infinite-dimensional Θ. They apply in some cases where Y is infinite dimensional, in some cases where Y is not compact, in some cases where the distributions are not smooth and in some parametric cases where asymptotic normality of the posterior distribution fails.
Argumentation Extensions Enumeration as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem: a Performance Overview

Enumerating semantics extensions in abstract argumentation is generally an intractable problem. For preferred semantics four implementations have been recently proposed, CONArg2, AspartixM, PrefSATand NAD-Alg, with significant runtime variations. This work is a first empirical evaluation of the performance of these implementations with the hypothesis that NAD-Alg, as representative of a family of ad-hoc approaches, will overcome in sequence PrefSAT — a SAT-based approach —, CONArg2— a CSP-based approach —, and the ASP-based approach AspartixM. The results shows that this is not always the case, as PrefSAT has been often the best approach both in terms of numbers of enumeration problems solved, and CPU-time. Moreover, we identify situations where AspartixM has been proved to be significantly faster than CONArg2.
Lack of Prognostic Value of Type D Personality for Mortality in a Large Sample of Heart Failure Patients

Background: Type D personality has been proposed as a prognostic indicator for mortality in cardiovascular disease. Most research examining this construct originates from one research group, and it is critical that the predictive value of Type D personality for adverse outcomes is independently cross-validated. This study examined its prognostic value in heart failure, relative to B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and depressive symptoms. Methods: We studied 706 patients with complete BNP, depressive symptom, and Type D personality and mortality data from 958 patients with heart failure enrolled after hospitalization for a multisite study of a disease management program. Multivariable models were adjusted for BNP and depression. Results: At 18 months, there were 192 deaths (27.2%). No evidence was found for a prognostic value of Type D personality in the unadjusted model (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.893, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.582-1.370). In contrast, BNP was significantly predictive of mortality (HR = 1.588, 95% CI = 1.391-1.812), whereas depression was not (HR = 1.011, 95% CI = 0.998-1.024). Type D was also not predictive in covariate-adjusted models (HR = 0.779, 95% CI = 0.489-1.242). Similar results were obtained when analyzing Type D as the interaction between continuous z scores of its two components, negative affectivity and social inhibition (p =.144). Conclusions: In the largest study to date, Type D does not predict mortality. Future research should construe Type D as the interaction of continuous negative affectivity and social inhibition z scores, rather than as a typology, and consider analyses replacing negative affectivity with depression.BNP = B-type natriuretic peptide; HF = heart failure; CES-D = Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression; NYHA = New York Heart Association
Prevalence of and risk factors for cornea guttata in a population-based study in a southwestern island of Japan: the Kumejima study.

OBJECTIVE To examine the prevalence of and risk factors for cornea guttata in a rural southwestern island of Japan. DESIGN Cross-sectional, population-based study. All residents of Kumejima Island, Japan, located in southwestern Japan (eastern longitude, 126° 48'; northern latitude, 26° 20'), 40 years or older were asked to undergo a comprehensive questionnaire and ocular examination, including noncontact specular microscopy of corneal endothelial cells. Of the 4632 residents, 3762 (81.2%) underwent the examination. The presence of guttata was determined when round or oval dark areas were observed in the specular microscopy images. Cornea guttata was graded from 0 to 4 depending on the total area of dark spots observed on the specular microscopy images. Diagnosis of primary cornea guttata was the main outcome measure. RESULTS Of the 3060 eligible residents, 124 (4.1%; 95% confidence interval, 3.4%-4.8%) had cornea guttata in at least 1 eye. Logistic regression analysis with adjustment for age and/or sex indicated that older age, female sex, and thinner central corneal thickness were associated with an increased risk of cornea guttata. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of cornea guttata is 4.1% among residents 40 years or older in Kumejima by specular microscopic criteria only, which is lower than the prevalence reported in the Reykjavik, Iceland, study. A higher prevalence may have been determined if slitlamp biomicroscopy findings had been included. Older age, female sex, and a thinner cornea were independently associated with a higher risk of cornea guttata.
SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION OF INSAR ESTIMATES USING OPTICAL IMAGES WITH APPLICATION TO URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE MONITORING

Synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) has been an established method for long term large area monitoring. Since the launch of meter-resolution spaceborne SAR sensors, the InSAR community has shown that even individual buildings can be monitored in high level of detail. However, the current deformation analysis still remains at a primitive stage of pixel-wise motion parameter inversion and manual identification of the regions of interest. We are aiming at developing an automatic urban infrastructure monitoring approach by combining InSAR and the semantics derived from optical images, so that the deformation analysis can be done systematically in the semantic/object level. This paper explains how we transfer the semantic meaning derived from optical image to the InSAR point clouds, and hence different semantic classes in the InSAR point cloud can be automatically extracted and monitored. Examples on bridges and railway monitoring are demonstrated.
The Spatial Distribution of Fluorescent H2 Emission near T Tauri

New subarcsecond far-UV observations of T Tau with Hubble Space Telescope STIS show spatially resolved structures in the 2′′ × 2′′ area around the star. The structures are apparent in multiline emission of fluorescent H2 pumped by Lyα. One emission structure follows the cavity walls observed around T Tau N in scattered light in the optical. A temperature of ≥1000 K is required to have a high enough population in the H2 to produce the observed fluorescent lines; in the cool environment of the T Tau system, shock heating is required to achieve this temperature at distances of a few tens of AU. Fluorescent H2 along the cavity wall represents the best evidence to date for the action of low-density, wide opening angle outflows driving cavities into the molecular medium at scales ≤100 AU. A southern region of emission consists of two arcs, with shape and orientation similar to the arcs of H2 2.12 μm and forbidden-line emission crossing the outflow associated with the embedded system T Tau S. This region is located near the centroid of forbidden-line emission at the blueshifted lobe of the north-south outflow.
Electrophysiological and Immunocytochemical Evidence for a cGMP-Mediated Inhibition of Subfornical Organ Neurons by Nitric Oxide

The activation of neurons in the subfornical organ (SFO) by angiotensin II (AngII) is well established and is widely regarded as the basis for the AngII-induced increase in water intake. Application of the nitric oxide (NO) donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) led to an inhibition of the spontaneous electrical activity in 96% of the neurons sensitive for SNP (n = 50). In addition, the firing rate in 60% of the neurons inhibited by SNP decreased in response to superfusion with the natural substrate of the NO synthase (NOS) l-arginine whereas 70% increased their frequency after application of the NOS blockerNG-monomethyl-l-arginine (l-NMMA; n = 10). The inhibitory effect of SNP could be mimicked by application of membrane-permeable 8-Br-cGMP. The presence of nNOS, the neuronal isoform of NOS, was demonstrated immunocytochemically and using the NADPH–diaphorase technique on SFO slices. Using a highly selective antibody against cGMP in formaldehyde-fixed tissue, the NO donors SNP, 3-morpholinosydnonimine (SIN-1), andS-nitroso-N-acetyl-dl-penicillamine (SNAP) caused a strong increase in cGMP formation when applied under the same conditions as used for the electrophysiological recordings. These electrophysiological results suggest an important role for NO in SFO-mediated responses and offer a plausible explanation for thein vivo-observed opposite effects of AngII and NO on water intake.
A Rickettsiella Bacterium from the Hard Tick, Ixodes woodi: Molecular Taxonomy Combining Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) with Significance Testing

Hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) are known to harbour intracellular bacteria from several phylogenetic groups that can develop both mutualistic and pathogenic relationships to the host. This is of particular importance for public health as tick derived bacteria can potentially be transmitted to mammals, including humans, where e.g. Rickettsia or Coxiella act as severe pathogens. Exact molecular taxonomic identification of tick associated prokaryotes is a necessary prerequisite of the investigation of their relationship to both the tick and possible vertebrate hosts. Previously, an intracellular bacterium had been isolated from a monosexual, parthenogenetically reproducing laboratory colony of females of the hard tick, Ixodes woodi Bishopp, and had preliminarily been characterized as a “Rickettsiella-related bacterium”. In the present molecular taxonomic study that is based on phylogenetic reconstruction from both 16 S ribosomal RNA and protein-encoding marker sequences complemented with likelihood-based significance testing, the bacterium from I. woodi has been identified as a strain of the taxonomic species Rickettsiella grylli. It is the first time that a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) approach based on a four genes comprising MLST scheme has been implemented in order to classify a Rickettsiella-like bacterium to this species. The study demonstrated that MLST holds potential for a better resolution of phylogenetic relationships within the genus Rickettsiella, but requires sequence determination from further Rickettsiella-like bacteria in order to complete the current still fragmentary picture of Rickettsiella systematics.
Region-based caching: an energy-delay efficient memory architecture for embedded processors

Power consumption has been a major concern in designing microprocessors for portable systems such as notebook computers, hand-held computing and personal telecommunication devices. As these devices increase in popularity and are used in a wider range of applications, a low power design becomes more critical. In this paper, we propose a new microarchitectural data cache design called region-based caching that can reduce power consumption. Power savings is achieved by re-organizing the the rst level cache to more eÆciently exploit memory reference characteristics produced by programming language semantics. These characteristics enable the cache to be partitioned by memory region (stack, global, heap), reducing power consumption, while retaining comparable performance to a conventional cache design. Applications from the MediaBench benchmark suite indicate that a design with two additional small region-based caches results in 66% reduction in average in energy-delay product.
Educational needs of hematologists and laboratory professionals regarding factor activity assays

Introduction Diagnosis and management of hemophilia require accurate and precise measurements of factor activity levels. Activity is traditionally measured via one-stage (OS) clot-based assay; however, chromogenic substrate (CS) assays may be needed for certain cases. A survey was performed to understand assay-related knowledge gaps among hematologists and laboratory professionals. Methods Separate web-based surveys were administered to hematologists who manage hemophilia and to laboratory professionals and queried practice patterns, knowledge of/attitudes toward CS assays, and interest in continuing education. Results A total of 51 hematologists participated in this study; 67% managed hemophilia patients for ≥10 years and 24% were affiliated with a hemophilia treatment center (HTC). Most (80%) stated familiarity with general assay interpretation. Majorities of non-HTC and HTC respondents agreed that CS assays are more accurate than OS assays (62%/67%), although non-HTC hematologists indicated less understanding of when to order a CS assay (49%/67%). Fewer non-HTC respondents expressed concerns regarding the reliability of OS assays for diagnosis (38%/67%) and monitoring (38%/75%). Most (80%) expressed an interest in factor assay education, especially on available assays, efficacy, and best practices (39%). A total of 57 laboratory professionals participated, averaging 10 years in their current position; most (88%) were hospital based. More performed OS (72%) than CS (10%) or both (17%) assays; only 11% reported confidence with the interpretation of CS results. Few expressed concerns regarding the reliability of OS for diagnosis (9%) or monitoring (12%). Reported barriers to CS use included infrequent need (68%), lack of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval (61%), and need for validation work (56%). Most (70%) were interested in CS assay education; top interests included advantages over traditional assays, general information on CS assays, and indications for testing (each 18%). Conclusion Future educational efforts may focus on limitations of OS assays, indications for CS assay diagnosis/monitoring, and support for clinic-laboratory dialog.
Link Analysis and Site Structure in Information Retrieval

Link analysis is the most important application of web structure mining and serves as a new knowledge source in web information retrieval. However, the mono-dimensional analysis of links neglects many other structural aspects. The results presented in this article show that the structure of a site affects the in-links for its pages. Link analysis algorithms need to be refined in order to account for that fact.
Abnormal axon reflex-mediated sweating correlates with high state of anxiety in atopic dermatitis.

BACKGROUND Sweating plays a key role in skin homeostasis, including antimicrobial and moisturizing effects, and regulation of skin surface pH. Impaired axon reflex-mediated (AXR) sweating has been observed in patients with atopic dermatitis (AD). However, the mechanism of such abnormal sudomotor axon reflex remains to be revealed. METHODS To investigate this mechanism, sudomotor function was analyzed using a quantitative sudomotor axon reflex test (acetylcholine iontophoresis) in patients with AD (n = 26) and healthy volunteers (n = 12). Correlation between sudomotor function and certain background factors, including Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory score, Severity Scoring of Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) score, number of circulating eosinophils, and serum concentrations of thymus and activation-regulated chemokine and immunoglobulin E radioimmunosorbent test, was validated. RESULTS Latency time was significantly prolonged in AD (p = 0.0352), and AXR sweating volume (mg/0-5 min) was significantly lower in AD patients than in healthy controls (p = 0.0441). Direct sweating volume (mg/0-5 min) was comparable in AD patients and healthy controls. A significant correlation between the evaluation results of quantitative sudomotor axon reflex tests and certain background factors was not observed. The latency time in non-lesioned and lesioned areas for AD patients versus continuous anxiety value in the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory and the AXR versus SCORAD showed significant correlations (p = 0.0424, p = 0.0169, and p = 0.0523, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Although the number of study subjects was little, abnormal AXR sweating in patients with AD was observed. Correlative analysis suggests possible involvement of continuous anxiety and the immune system in such abnormal sudomotor function.
Data Fusion For Improved TOA/TDOA Position Determination in Wireless Systems

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that regulates all wireless communication service providers has issued modified regulations that all service providers must select a method for providing position location (PL) information of a user, requesting for E-911 service, by October 2000. The wireless 911 rules adopted by the FCC are aimed both for improving the reliability of the wireless 911 services and for providing the enhanced features generally available for wireline calls. From the service providers perspective, effective position location technologies must be utilized to meet the FCC rules. The Time-of-Arrival (TOA) and the Time-Difference-of-Arrival (TDOA) methods are the technology that can provide accurate PL information without necessitating excessive hardware or software changes to the existing cellular/PCS infrastructure. The TOA method works well when the mobile station (MS) is located close to the controlling base station. With certain corrections applied, the TOA method can perform reliably even in the presence of Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) condition. The TDOA method performs better when the MS is located at a significant distance from the controlling base station. However, under the NLOS environmental condition, the performance of the TDOA method degenerates significantly. The fusion of TOA and the TDOA method exhibits certain advantages that are not evident when only one of the methods is applied. This thesis investigates the performance of data fusion techniques for a PL system, that are able to merge independent estimates obtained from TOA and TDOA measurements. A channel model is formulated for evaluating PL techniques within a NLOS cellular environment. It is shown that NLOS propagation can introduce a bias into TDOA measurements. A correction method is proposed for removing this bias and new corrected data fusion techniques are compared with previous techniques using simulation method, yielding favorable results.
Real-time path generation for multicopters in environments with obstacles

The article proposes a solution allowing a multicopter to generate and follow a path while taking into account the obstacles in the environment. Specifically, we introduce a method for path definition that describes a curve as the intersection of two surfaces. Then, the article proposes a computationally efficient strategy allowing to modify either surface, and hence the resulting path, to take into account the presence of obstacles perceived in real-time. The algorithm has been implemented and embedded in a software package to control the flight of a fully autonomous AscTec Firefly hexacopter with two cameras and onboard processing capabilities.