Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Public-key cryptography from different assumptions

This paper attempts to broaden the foundations of public-key cryptography. We construct new public-key encryption schemes based on new hardness-on-average assumptions for natural combinatorial NP-hard optimization problems. We consider the following assumptions: It is infeasible to solve a random set of sparse linear equations mod 2, of which a small fraction is noisy. It is infeasible to distinguish between a random unbalanced bipartite graph, and such a graph in which we "plant" at random in the large side a set S with only |S|/3 neighbors. There is a pseudorandom generator in NCz where every output depends on a random constant-size subset of the inputs. We obtain semantically secure public key encryption schemes based on several combinations of these assumptions with different parameters. In particular we obtain public key encryption from Assumption~1 on its own, yielding the first noisy-equations type public key scheme in which the noise rate is higher than one over the square root of the number of equations. We also obtain public-key encryption based on a combination of Assumptions~2 and~3. These are arguably of more "combinatorial"/"private-key" nature than any assumptions used before for public-key cryptography. Our proof involves novel "search to decision" and "search to prediction" reductions for sparse noisy linear equations. The strength of our assumptions raise new algorithmic and pseudorandomness questions (and new parameters for old ones). We give some evidence for these assumptions by studying their resistance to certain classes of natural algorithms, including semi-definite programs, ACO circuits, low-degree polynomials, and cycle counting. We also relate our assumptions to other problems such as planted clique and learning juntas.
Accelerometer based human activities and posture recognition

The quantity of elderly people like to live in their homes, secluded, in their brilliant age is expanding exponentially. This is not a perfect path for an elderly individual to live. However, the urbanization and resultant change of the social and social conduct makes it a more regular event. Falls are a noteworthy reason for death and horribleness in more established grown-ups. In this way, it has turn into an opportune need to create mechanized look after the elderly. The first end, purpose of such fall computer looking-glass is to ready caregivers of the fall event, which can then start an earlier process. In the present study, we amplify the use of wearable inertial sensors for fall identification and information of human posture and activities, by creating and assessing the precision of a sensor framework for identifying the same. We found that our system could discover fall events and monitor human activities with at least 95% accuracy.
Risk-shiting Incentive Problem and Debt Concession

Risk-shifting incentive problem in financial contracting, which typically arises in the context of a lenderborrower relationship, stands for the borrower’s incentive to influence the risk of his project. Thus, the borrower can increase the value of his payoff at the expense of the lender. However, the lender also may have a risk incentive under some circumstances so that he may render it difficult to do efficient debt renegotiation. In this paper, we focus on not only borrower’s risk incentive but lender’s risk incentive problems and the relation between the both sides is discussed since the lender’s risk incentive may cause to accelerate the possibility of borrower’s risk incentive. Thus, when either side even selects a risky project instead of a safe one the inefficiencies of resource distribution are developed. We analyze the incentive problem, in which option pricing theory is used and some barriers must be attached to the option pricing formula in order for the formula to be justified. Keywords— Barrier option, Debt concession, Lender and borrower, Option pricing, Risk-shifting incentive
The Role of the Organizational Structure in the IT Appropriation: Explorative Case Studies into the Interaction between IT and Workforce Management

The concept of appropriation is frequently used in IT implementation research. Rooted in the analysis of the diffusion of innovation, this concept is usually linked with characteristics of an organization's structure, size, and sector. Since the 1980s, appropriation has been actively studied by IT researchers, who linked it with technological attributions and characteristics of users. In this paper, the authors observed the application of the appropriation concept developed from the extreme of giving full credit to technology, and the other extreme of fully crediting end-users. The authors argue that to capture a full range of benefits from technology and human interaction, researchers cannot ignore organizational structure. By presenting three case studies, this paper shows that it is necessary to reintroduce this "side" to have a complete analysis of appropriation.
DIFFERENTIAL OBJECT EXTRACTION METHODS FOR AUTOMATED GIS UPDATES

In modern geospatial applications object extraction becomes increasingly part of larger cycles of GIS updates. In such update cycles, the objective is to compare new information to older one, and to identify changes that occurred in the meantime. In this paper we present an image-based GIS updating framework and corresponding image analysis algorithms developed by our group to automate GIS updates. More specifically, we present an overview of our work on two different types of objects to be extracted and monitored, roads and buildings, and the corresponding algorithms, namely differential snakes and differential template matching. Our approach to both problems is characterized by the comparison of a new image to pre-existing information through an automated image analysis tool. This is equivalent to comparing an object as it is represented in an image to the same object represented in a GIS at a prior instance, setting up a novel matching problem, whereby an object is compared to itself to identify how it has changed. For both roads and buildings our algorithms make use of accuracy estimates accompanying the pre-existing information, to ensure the meaningful update of geospatial databases. Making use of these accuracy measures we differentiate change detection and versioning. In this paper we present an overview of theoretical issues behind our algorithms and experimental results from the developed software solutions.
Comparing the Use of Edited and Unedited Text in Parser Self-Training

We compare the use of edited text in the form of newswire and unedited text in the form of discussion forum posts as sources for training material in a self-training experiment involving the Brown reranking parser and a test set of sentences from an online sports discussion forum. We find that grammars induced from the two automatically parsed corpora achieve similar Parseval f-scores, with the grammars induced from the discussion forum material being slightly superior. An error analysis reveals that the two types of grammars do behave differently.
European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) 2010 The Contribution of IT Features to Increase Trust and Participation in Online Communities : An Empirical Analysis

Despite the fact that online communities (OCs) enjoy a growing number of members, their success is regularly impaired by infringements of user trust by either the community operator or other users. Since previous research studies have focused their investigation of the effects of single IT factors on user trust and participation in OCs, the field lacks an integrative view on how a comprehensive set of IT factors affect trust and participation from a user perspective. This study aimed to address this limitation in the IS literature by conducting an online-survey among 364 members of general-interest OCs. The results show that the four clusters of IT factors (usability, transparency, quality assured content, and security/privacy) investigated in this study vary in their impact on trust factors and participation. Interestingly, usability was the sole IT factor to significantly influence both trust and participation. While transparency had only a significant effect on trust variables, quality-assured content and security/privacy-related IT factors were significantly related only to participation. Our findings offer a variety of theoretical and practical contributions that shed light on the design of online communities and on strategies that can be used to attract new users by investing money in appropriate IT mechanisms.
A Systematic Review of Factors Affecting Migrant Attitudes Towards Seeking Psychological Help

Research indicates that service utilization rates in migrant groups are low, although levels of distress appear high when compared with host populations. This paper systematically reviews quantitative and qualitative literature on factors associated with attitudes toward seeking psychological help among working age migrants. Data were extracted from MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Science Direct and SAGE databases. Eight quantitative studies and 16 qualitative studies met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The majority of studies were conducted in North America (67%). Although results of quantitative studies were heterogeneous, stronger identification with host than heritage culture, fluency in host country language, psychological attributions of distress, higher educational levels, higher socioeconomic status, female gender, and older age were associated with more favourable attitudes toward help-seeking in some migrant groups. Three major themes emerged from the qualitative literature: logistical barriers, cultural mismatch between service providers and participants, and preferences for other sources of assistance.
Metric depth recovery from monocular images using Shape-from-Shading and specularities

Despite recent advances in modeling the Shape-from-Shading (SFS) problem and its numerical solution, practical applications have been limited. This is primarily due to the lack of perspective SFS models without the assumption of a light source at the camera centre and the non-metric spatial localisation of the reconstructed shape. In this work, we propose a novel formulation of the SFS problem that allows the reconstruction of surfaces lit by a near point light source away from the camera centre. We also show how knowledge of the light source position can enable the recovery of depth information in a metric space by triangulating specular highlights. Validation of the proposed technique is reported on synthetic and endoscopic images.
RA2DL: New flexible solution for adaptive AADL-based control components

The paper deals with adaptive component-based control systems following the Architecture Analysis and Design Language (denoted by AADL). A system is assumed to be a network of software and hardware AADL components that share the control of corresponding physical processes. A component is composed of a set of algorithms encoding the control after any reception of external events and data signals. The termination of execution is generally done with the emission of data and event signals to remote components. According to various evolutions in environment, the system is required to be dynamically reconfigured at run-time to adapt its control functions. We are interested in local reconfigurations ofr components dealing with the activation-deactivation-update of algorithms and/or data-event inputs and outputs. We propose RA2DL as a solution for reconfigurable AADL components, and define a hierarchical-based architecture to dynamically handle all possible reconfiguration scenarios at run-time. We model and verify this solution and develop a tool for its simulation by taking a real-case study as a running example.
Meeting the challenge: application of communication technologies to group interactions

Scheduled and unscheduled meetings are a primary vehicle for information dissemination and decision making in organizations. In recent years there has been an enormous growth in communication technologies designed to assist with dyadic and larger-group meetings. This paper introduces a framework of meeting structures (formats) as a basis for understanding the communication needs of organizational teardgroups and evaluating technologies. Six representative communication technologies are reviewed: facsimile machines, voice mail, electronic mail, audio conferencing, video conferencing, amdNGT-based group decision support systems. The implications of different types of meeting structures for fiture systems development are discussed.
Analysis of Constant-Power Waterfilling in MIMO Channels

In MIMO systems, when channel state information is available at the transmitter, power could be allocated adaptively among multiple transmit antennas to achieve large channel capacity. An upper bound on the maximum difference between the achievable capacity of non-optimal power allocation algorithms and that of conventional waterfilling in MIMO systems is derived. Two suboptimal constant-power waterfilling strategies are proposed and analyzed. Compared with the simple constant power allocation, constant-power waterfilling could achieve more channel capacity with reduced complexity.
Changes in Waist Circumference and the Incidence of Diabetes in Middle-Aged Men and Women

Background Waist circumference (WC) is positively associated with diabetes, but the association with changes in WC (DWC) is less clear. We investigated the association between DWC and the subsequent risk of diabetes in middle-aged men and women, and evaluated the influence from concurrent changes in body mass index (DBMI). Methodology/Principal Findings Data on 15,577 men and 20,066 women from the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health study were analyzed. Anthropometry was assessed in 1993–97 and 1999–02. Information on diabetes was obtained from The Danish National Diabetes Register. Hazard ratios (HR) were calculated from Cox' proportional hazard models with individuals considered at risk from 1999–02 until December 31 2006. During 5.4 years of follow-up, 1,027 and 876 new cases of diabetes occurred among men and women, respectively. WC was positively associated with diabetes in both sexes also with adjustment for covariates and BMI. DWC was positively associated with diabetes in women, but not in men (HR per 5 cm change = 1.09 (1.04∶1.15) in women, and 1.00 (0.94, 1.07) in men with adjustment for covariates, baseline WC, BMI and DBMI). Associations with DWC were not notably different in sub-groups stratified according to baseline WC or DBMI, or when individuals with diseases or diabetes occurring within the first years of follow-up were excluded. Conclusions/Significance While this study confirmed that WC is positively associated with the risk of diabetes in middle-aged men and women, it surprisingly showed that changes in WC were not associated with the subsequent risk of diabetes in men, and only weakly positively associated with the risk of diabetes in women. Accordingly, these findings suggest that a reduction in WC may be a weak or insufficient or target for prevention of diabetes in middle-aged men and women.
The use of random-model tolerance intervals in environmental monitoring and regulation

When appropriate data from regional reference locations are available, tolerance-interval bounds can be computed to provide criteria or limits distinguishing reference from nonreference conditions. If the limits are to be to applied to locations and times beyond the original data, the data should include temporal and spatial variation and the tolerance interval calculations should utilize a random crossed or nested ANOVA statistical design. Two computational methods for such designs are discussed and evaluated with simulations. Both methods are shown to perform well, and the adverse effect of using an improper design model is demonstrated. Three real-world applications are shown, where tolerance intervals are used to (1) establish a reference threshold for a benthic community pollution index, (2) set criteria for chemicals in sediments, and (3) establish background thresholds for survival rates in sediment bioassay tests. Some practical considerations in the use of the tolerance intervals are discussed.
Logic transformation and coding theory-based frameworks for Boolean satisfiability

This paper proposes a new framework to the solution of Boolean Satisfiability. The first approach is based on certain structural analysis using circuit representation. Here, we convert the given CNF into multilevel circuits based on testability-driven transformation and optimization, and then apply a test technique developed by the authors to verify SAT. This test technique is based on the concepts developed by an earlier-proposed verification tool, VERILAT. Certain algebraic coding theory results are then derived that provide a lower bound on the number of solutions to SAT problems. These proposed frameworks have a real potential for providing new theoretical insights.
Speed of processing, working memory, and language impairment in children.

PURPOSE Children with language impairment (LI) often perform below the level of typically developing peers on measures of both processing speed and working memory. This study examined the relationship between these 2 types of measures and attempted to determine whether such measures can account for the LI itself. METHOD Fourteen-year-old children with LI and their typically developing peers participated in a wide range of processing speed and working memory tasks and were administered a comprehensive language test battery. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to compare 3 nested models designed to examine the dimensionality of the speed and working memory measures. A model that included a general speed factor was also evaluated. RESULTS The models meeting our evaluation criteria treated speed and working memory as separable factors. Furthermore, nonverbal as well as verbal processing factors emerged from these analyses. Latent variable regression analyses showed that each of the appropriate models accounted for 62% of the variance in the children's concurrent composite language test scores, with verbal working memory making the largest contribution. CONCLUSIONS These findings shed light on the relationship among different types of processing and suggest that processing factors can contribute to the understanding of language disorders.
RNA Hairpin Folding in the Crowded Cell

Abstract Precise secondary and tertiary structure formation is critically important for the cellular functionality of ribonucleic acids (RNAs). RNA folding studies were mainly conducted in vitro, without the possibility of validating these experiments inside cells. Here, we directly resolve the folding stability of a hairpin‐structured RNA inside live mammalian cells. We find that the stability inside the cell is comparable to that in dilute physiological buffer. On the contrary, the addition of in vitro artificial crowding agents, with the exception of high‐molecular‐weight PEG, leads to a destabilization of the hairpin structure through surface interactions and reduction in water activity. We further show that RNA stability is highly variable within cell populations as well as within subcellular regions of the cytosol and nucleus. We conclude that inside cells the RNA is subject to (localized) stabilizing and destabilizing effects that lead to an on average only marginal modulation compared to diluted buffer.
Detecting high functioning autism spectrum disorders among neurological and medical patients in adulthood: A brief checklist to suspect the diagnosis.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of neurodevelopmental disabilities characterized by deficit in social communication and social interaction across contexts, restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviors, interests or activities, atypical sensoriality with symptoms present in early childhood but that could be not fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities (DSM 5).
Teaching Media Law in a Post-truth Context: Strategies for Enhancing Learning about the Legal Risks of Fake News and Alternative Facts

Much has been written about the ethics of so-called ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative’ facts in a ‘post-truth’ era, but few have explored the legal implications of these and the flow-on to education in media law. This article suggests that there are clear legal risks for journalists adopting the hallmark practices of ‘fake news’—particularly in linking identifiable individuals to reputationally damaging falsities (defamation) and in making misleading or deceptive claims in the course of business (consumer law). Whether or not such an ethically dubious practice is actionable will depend on a host of factors including the strength of publishing defences, the availability of legal advice and the jurisdictional reach of any legal suit. This article suggests that a problem-based approach—including recent examples and classical media law principles—might encourage a ‘mindful’ (reflective) practice when assessing media law risks in the news room.
Subjective Duration as a Signature of Coding Efficiency

Immediate repetition of a stimulus reduces its apparent duration relative to a novel item. Recent work indicates that this may reflect suppressed cortical responses to repeated stimuli, arising from neural adaptation and/or the predictive coding of expected stimuli. This article summarizes recent behavioral and neurobiological studies linking perceived time to the magnitude of cortical responses, including work suggesting that variations in GABA-mediated cortical inhibition may underlie some of the individual differences in time perception. We suggest that the firing of cortical neurons can be modified using simple recurrent networks with time-dependent processes that are modulated by GABA levels. These local networks feed into a core-timing network used to integrate across stimulus inputs/modalities, thereby allowing for the coordination of multiple duration ranges and effector systems.
Exoskeleton robot control based on cane and body joint synergies

Several methods have been investigated and realized for operation of exoskeleton robots for assistance of human gait. These systems perform motion intention estimation using the bioelectrical signals of muscle activation, body gestures and kinesiological information, or a mixed combination in a hybrid system. For motion intention estimation of the lower limb(s), information of the lower limbs is usually utilized. However, human gait is not only the function of the lower limbs, but also coordination between upper and lower limbs, adding to balance and cognitive functions as well. In this study, we investigate on how to utilize the synergies of upper and lower limbs of human walking in exoskeleton robot control by using the cane (walking aid). We analyse the synergies of human gait with cane in healthy subjects by means of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in order to investigate the usability of cane for robot-assisted motor rehabilitation. We also implement a semi autonomous control for an exoskeleton robot, single leg version of HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) suit, based on the cane and body joint synergies.