Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why spammers should thank Google?

Buzz, the new online social networking (OSN) service from Google has been introduced a few weeks ago. Even though it raised big concerns (and even complaints) about several privacy issues, Buzz has been already launched inside millions of Gmail accounts. In this paper, we show that one of the major concerns Buzz might have to deal with is that it is integrated into the Google email service. In fact, to use Buzz one has to sign up for a Google profile that will primarily be seen by other Google users. However this profile, as shown in this paper reveals for the vast majority of Buzz users their Gmail usernames, and so their Google email addresses. We exploit the notion of Followers/Follwing in Buzz to crawl Google for Gmail accounts, demonstrating how it is easy and practical to collect millions of valid Gmail accounts from a single machine, in a very short period of time and without being noticed. The collected email addresses have many desirable properties from a spammer's perspective. They are valid email addresses, that refer to active and individual Buzz users that participate in online social activities, increasing then the efficiency of spam campaigns targeting these users. We then show how spammers can even use the Google infrastructure to categorize the email accounts they collected based on specific area of interest of users. As a conclusion, this paper demonstrate that integrating Buzz to email accounts, and hence to Google profiles offers spammers with a valuable, yet not risky, way to build a giant Google emails-made spammers database.
Parameters Design and Optimization for LC-Type Off-Grid Inverters With Inductor-Current Feedback Active Damping

In this paper, the stability of LC-type voltage source inverter is investigated, with the emphasis focused on the LC resonance. It has been found that the traditional capacitor-voltage inductor-current dual-loop control is unstable when the resonance frequency is higher than one-sixth of the sampling frequency. In addition, due to the coupling between current inner loop and voltage outer loop, it is difficult to design control parameters to ensure the system stability in traditional dual-loop control. In order to develop a systemic design principle, the capacitor-voltage control with inductor-current feedback active damping evolved from traditional dual-loop control is analyzed in detail. The mathematic model is established to reveal the reason of instability, and the stable regions are identified. Moreover, the optimal damping coefficient is also derived to enhance the system damping performance. Finally, the experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A unique deoxyguanosine triphosphatase is responsible for the optA1 phenotype of Escherichia coli.

Escherichia coli optA1, a mutant unable to support the growth of T7 phage containing mutations in gene 1.2, contains reduced amounts of dGTP. Extracts of E. coli optA1 catalyze the hydrolysis of dGTP at a rate 50-fold greater than do extracts of E. coli optA+. The dGTPase responsible for the increased hydrolysis has been purified to apparent homogeneity. Purification of the protein is facilitated by its high affinity for single-stranded DNA. By using this purification scheme an identical dGTPase has been purified from E. coli optA+. The purified proteins catalyze the hydrolysis of dGTP to yield deoxyguanosine and tripolyphosphate. The products of hydrolysis, chromatographic properties, denatured molecular mass of 56 kDa, N-terminal amino acid sequence, substrate specificity, and heat inactivation indicate that the proteins purified from optA1 and from optA+ cells are identical and identify the enzyme as the deoxyguanosine 5'-triphosphate triphosphohydrolase purified to homogeneity from wild-type E. coli [Seto, D. , Bhatnagar, S. K. & Bessman, M. J. (1988) J. Biol. Chem. 263, 1494-1499]. OptA1 cells contain approximately equal to 50-fold more active molecules of the 56-kDa dGTPase than do E. coli optA+ cells.
The self-organization genetic algorithm based on the mutation with cycle probabilities

First, a cycle mutation genetic algorithm (CMGA) is designed by simulating the evolutionary rule of the earth creature found by paleontologists in the paper. Then, according to some phenomena of the population genetics, an improved cycle mutation genetic algorithm (ICMGA) is schemed by mended the selection operator of CMGA. Last, 22 functions are tested by ICMGA and other evolution algorithms in the experiments. The results show that exploration and exploitation of ICMGA are better than those of other algorithms and ICMGA is not sensitive to the initial population distribution. By the statistical analysis of the evolutionary course, it has been found that ICMGA has the self-organization ability which is similar to that discussed in the theory of complex system.
A Holistic Approach for Transmission System Expansion Planning Studies: An Indian Experience

This paper presents novel approaches for Transmission System Expansion Planning (TSEP) Studies which are tested on practical Indian power system. Due to the practical applicability for large systems to obtain a better solution, a meta-heuristic optimization method, DEMONS-II has been chosen as a tool for carrying out the multi-objective optimization of TSEP with the objectives of network adequacy assurance, security, and corridor utilization. Multiple adaptable expansions plans fit for various scenarios are obtained. A notion of an efficient plan out of the available multiple optional adaptable plans is introduced with the help of the LP formulations based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Further, some novel indices have been evolved to judge the performance efficiency of the plans under consideration. Candidate plans are analyzed using a novel concept of "commonality" which defines the core content of multiple plans, giving insight for identifying ranking of new lines with their relative urgency for execution. A sequence for identifying reinforcements in the transmission network for short term TSEP is then proposed. A coordination strategy between different planning utilities to identify inter-utility lines and cross territorial dedicated lines for laying is presented.
NADPH Oxidase Activity and Function Are Profoundly Greater in Cerebral Versus Systemic Arteries

Recent studies suggest that the superoxide generating enzyme NADPH oxidase may play a functional role in regulating cerebral vascular tone. We tested whether the activity, function, and expression of NADPH oxidase differs between rat cerebral and systemic arteries. Superoxide production by basilar (BA), middle cerebral (MCA), carotid (CA), renal (RA), and mesenteric (MA) arteries and aorta (AO) was measured using lucigenin-enhanced chemiluminescence. Superoxide production from NADPH oxidase was localized and semiquantified using dihydroethidium. Vascular functional responses were assessed in a myograph or organ bath. Vascular Nox4 protein expression was measured using Western blotting. Superoxide production (basal or in response to NADPH or angiotensin II) in the intracranial arteries, BA, and MCA was 10- to 100-fold greater than in AO, CA, RA, or MA. Similar results were found using either intact vessels or arterial homogenates, and were associated with 10-fold greater expression of Nox4 in the BA versus AO, CA, and MA. Superoxide production was attenuated by the NADPH oxidase inhibitors, diphenyleneiodonium, apocynin, and gp91ds-tat. NADPH and H2O2 were strong relaxing stimuli in the BA, where the H2O2 scavenger catalase, as well as apocynin, attenuated these relaxations and also augmented contractions to angiotensin II. NADPH oxidase activity is markedly higher in intracranial versus systemic arteries, in association with higher Nox4 expression. In cerebral arteries, endogenous H2O2 derived from NADPH oxidase activation appears to cause relaxation and is able to offset angiotensin II-induced constriction. These data are consistent with the concept that NADPH oxidase-derived reactive oxygen species modulate cerebral vascular tone under physiological conditions.
Edge-Coloring Bipartite Graphs

Given a bipartite graph G with n nodes, m edges, and maximum degree ? , we find an edge-coloring for G using ? colors in time T+O(mlog? ), where T is the time needed to find a perfect matching in a k-regular bipartite graph with O(m) edges and k? Together with best known bounds for T this implies on O(mlog? +m? logm? log2? ) edge-coloring algorithm which improves on the O(mlog? +m? logm? log3? ) algorithm of Hopcroft and Cole. Our algorithm can also be used to find a (? +2)-edge-coloring for G in time O(mlog? ). The previous best approximation algorithm with the same time bound needed ? +log? colors.
Liquidity-Adjusted Market Risk Measures with Stochastic Holding Period

Within the context of risk integration, we introduce in risk measurement stochastic holding period (SHP) models. This is done in order to obtain a `liquidity-adjusted risk measure' characterized by the absence of a fixed time horizon. The underlying assumption is that - due to changes on market liquidity conditions - one operates along an `operational time' to which the P&L process of liquidating a market portfolio is referred. This framework leads to a mixture of distributions for the portfolio returns, potentially allowing for skewness, heavy tails and extreme scenarios. We analyze the impact of possible distributional choices for the SHP. In a multivariate setting, we hint at the possible introduction of dependent SHP processes, which potentially lead to non linear dependence among the P&L processes and therefore to tail dependence across assets in the portfolio, although this may require drastic choices on the SHP distributions. We also find that increasing dependence as measured by Kendall's tau through common SHP's appears to be unfeasible. We finally discuss potential developments following future availability of market data.
Biophysical study of porcine ear skin in vitro and its comparison to human skin in vivo.

The goal of this work was to establish, using biophysical characterization, that porcine ear skin in vitro is a valid model for its human counterpart. Specifically, stratum corneum (SC) barrier function was evaluated during its progressive removal by adhesive tape-stripping using the techniques of transepidermal water loss (TEWL) and impedance spectroscopy. TEWL increased slowly at first and then more rapidly with the degree of SC impairment. In contrast, low-frequency skin impedance declined exponentially as a function of progressive SC removal. The methods provide complementary and correlated information about SC barrier function. Biophysical parameters, including the diffusivity and permeability coefficient of water across the SC, and the thickness of the barrier were determined from the TEWL data using Fick's first law of diffusion. Furthermore, an ionic partition coefficient-mobility product was estimated from the skin impedance measurements. Comparison of the results with those previously reported for human skin in vivo strongly supports the validity of the porcine membrane as an in vitro model.
Wiener model identification and nonlinear model predictive control of a pH neutralization process based on Laguerre filters and least squares support vector machines

This paper deals with Wiener model based predictive control of a pH neutralization process. The dynamic linear block of the Wiener model is parameterized using Laguerre filters while the nonlinear block is constructed using least squares support vector machines (LSSVM). Input-output data from the first principle model of the pH neutralization process are used for the Wiener model identification. Simulation results show that the proposed Wiener model has higher prediction accuracy than Laguerre-support vector regression (SVR) Wiener models, Laguerre-polynomial Wiener models, and linear Laguerre models. The identified Wiener model is used here for nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) of the pH neutralization process. The set-point tracking performance of the proposed NMPC is compared with those of the Laguerre-SVR Wiener model based NMPC, Laguerre-polynomial Wiener model based NMPC, and linear model predictive control (LMPC). Validation results show that the proposed NMPC outperforms the other three controllers.
STEM+: Allocating bandwidth fairly to tasks

Fair sharing of bandwidth among tenants in datacenters is important to guarantee prompt execution while providing isolation between different jobs. Existing bandwidth allocation methods lack a concept of a task reflecting the dependency between allocations on links. Moreover, existing approaches do not consider the tenants to be smart individuals and lack understanding of a threat that strategic players can produce. In this work we introduce a Strategy-proof Task-Enforcement Mechanism (STEM) which is the only strategy-proof mechanism for datacenter allocation. It seamlessly utilizes task-aware models. While tenants are able to improve their allocations by relocating demands among links, it also improves the global allocation resulting into a strong Nash equilibrium among tenants. This is in contrast to pricing or Competitive Equilibrium from Equal Incomes (CEEI) which permits tenants to inflate their demands and in some cases loosing sharing-incentives. We extend STEM with STEM+ - a work-conserving allocation mechanism.
Methods and approaches on inferring human emotional stress changes through physiological signals: a review

Emotional stress is kind of stressful state which is developed due to the continuous occurrence of negative emotions such as sad, disgust, angry and fear over a long period of time. In this work, a detailed investigation has been carried out to identify the relation between negative emotions and stress through previous works. Different types of physiological signals have been investigated by previous researchers on assessing emotions and stress. However, very limited numbers of research works are discussed about the emotional stress assessment using physiological signals. Most of the literatures have been considered the questionnaires and interview-based approaches for estimating the human emotional stress, but these methods are suffers on getting the original or internal state of the subject and giving erroneous solutions in most of the times. Identifying and reducing the level of emotional stress is one of the major factors for preventing the subjects from any kind of medical illness. As result of this review, we have proposed a new data acquisition protocol and signal processing methods for effectively assessing the level of emotional stress through physiological signals.
Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms and Erectile Dysfunction in Men With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Purpose To assess the prevalence of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and erectile dysfunction (ED) and the relationships between LUTS, ED, depression, and other factors in Korean men with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods This cross-sectional study included 124 male patients with T2DM who attended a university hospital diabetes clinic between October 2010 and April 2012. Data were collected using structured interviews and chart reviews. LUTS were measured using the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), ED using the five-item Korean version of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF), depression using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and glycosylated hemoglobin level from clinical data. Results The IPSS score was 9.2±6.6. The total IPSS scores indicated that 53.3% of the subjects had either moderate or severe symptoms. The mean IIEF score was 7.3±8.6, indicating the severity of ED to be mild, mild to moderate, moderate, and severe in 10.5%, 9.7%, 1.6%, and 66.9% of the participants, respectively. LUTS showed a significant negative correlation with ED (r=-0.26, P=0.003) and a significant positive correlation with depression (r=0.33, P<0.001). ED was negatively correlated with age (r=-0.44, P<0.001), duration of diabetes (r=-0.26, P=0.004), and depression (r=-0.24, P=0.008). Conclusions LUTS and ED were found to have a high prevalence among Korean men with T2DM. More severe ED was associated with worse LUTS, whereas more severe depressive symptoms were found to be associated with more severe ED and LUTS.
Consensus and polarization in Altafini's model with bidirectional time-varying network topologies

The mechanism of reaching consensus in multi-agent systems has been exhaustively studied in recent years, motivated by numerous applications in engineering and science. Most consensus algorithms examined in the literature are based on the assumption about mutual trust and cooperation between the agents, implemented in the form of attractive couplings between the agents that render the values of the agents' states closer. However, in opinion dynamics of social groups, competition or antagonism between some pairs of agents is ubiquitous, which is usually characterized by the repulsive coupling, and may lead to clustering and polarization of opinions. A simple yet insightful model of opinion dynamics with antagonistic interactions was proposed recently by C. Altafini, which examined conventional first-order consensus algorithms with static signed interaction graphs, where the positive weight of an arc implies cooperation between the two agents and the negative one corresponds to antagonism. This protocol establishes modulus consensus, where the opinions become the same in modulus but may differ in sign. In the present paper, we extend the modulus consensus model to the case where the network topology is time-varying and undirected. We give necessary and sufficient conditions under which the consensus protocol with the time-varying signed Laplacian establishes agreement of opinions in moduli, whose signs may be opposite, so that the agents' opinions either reach consensus or polarize.
Security problems analysis and solving policy design for mobile agents running platform

Security mechanism of the mobile agent running platform is very important for mobile agent system operation and stability running. In this paper we mainly focus on the security issues related with the mobile agent running platform and we proposed a cross validation mechanism mixed with encryption algorithm to solve the security problems during the migration and communication of mobile agents. Firstly, we employ the cross-validation mechanism to authenticate the nodes mobile agents will be visiting. Secondly, we employ the hybrid encryption mechanism, which combines the advantages of the symmetric encryption and asymmetric encryption, to encrypt the mobile agents and ensure the transferring process of data. Finally, we employ the EMSSL socket communication method to encrypt the content of transmission, in turn to enhance the security and robustness of the mobile agent system. We implement several experiments in the simulation environment and the experimental results verify the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed methods.
Functional Study of Genes Essential for Autogamy and Nuclear Reorganization in Paramecium

ABSTRACT Like all ciliates, Paramecium tetraurelia is a unicellular eukaryote that harbors two kinds of nuclei within its cytoplasm. At each sexual cycle, a new somatic macronucleus (MAC) develops from the germ line micronucleus (MIC) through a sequence of complex events, which includes meiosis, karyogamy, and assembly of the MAC genome from MIC sequences. The latter process involves developmentally programmed genome rearrangements controlled by noncoding RNAs and a specialized RNA interference machinery. We describe our first attempts to identify genes and biological processes that contribute to the progression of the sexual cycle. Given the high percentage of unknown genes annotated in the P. tetraurelia genome, we applied a global strategy to monitor gene expression profiles during autogamy, a self-fertilization process. We focused this pilot study on the genes carried by the largest somatic chromosome and designed dedicated DNA arrays covering 484 genes from this chromosome (1.2% of all genes annotated in the genome). Transcriptome analysis revealed four major patterns of gene expression, including two successive waves of gene induction. Functional analysis of 15 upregulated genes revealed four that are essential for vegetative growth, one of which is involved in the maintenance of MAC integrity and another in cell division or membrane trafficking. Two additional genes, encoding a MIC-specific protein and a putative RNA helicase localizing to the old and then to the new MAC, are specifically required during sexual processes. Our work provides a proof of principle that genes essential for meiosis and nuclear reorganization can be uncovered following genome-wide transcriptome analysis.
Bioinformatics challenges for genome-wide association studies

Motivation: The sequencing of the human genome has made it possible to identify an informative set of >1 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the genome that can be used to carry out genome-wide association studies (GWASs). The availability of massive amounts of GWAS data has necessitated the development of new biostatistical methods for quality control, imputation and analysis issues including multiple testing. This work has been successful and has enabled the discovery of new associations that have been replicated in multiple studies. However, it is now recognized that most SNPs discovered via GWAS have small effects on disease susceptibility and thus may not be suitable for improving health care through genetic testing. One likely explanation for the mixed results of GWAS is that the current biostatistical analysis paradigm is by design agnostic or unbiased in that it ignores all prior knowledge about disease pathobiology. Further, the linear modeling framework that is employed in GWAS often considers only one SNP at a time thus ignoring their genomic and environmental context. There is now a shift away from the biostatistical approach toward a more holistic approach that recognizes the complexity of the genotype–phenotype relationship that is characterized by significant heterogeneity and gene–gene and gene–environment interaction. We argue here that bioinformatics has an important role to play in addressing the complexity of the underlying genetic basis of common human diseases. The goal of this review is to identify and discuss those GWAS challenges that will require computational methods. Contact: jason.h. moore@dartmouth.edu