Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statistical attack detection

It has been shown in recent years that effective profile injection or shilling attacks can be mounted on standard recommendation algorithms. These attacks consist of the insertion of bogus user profiles into the system database in order to manipulate the recommendation output, for example to promote or demote the predicted ratings for a particular product. A number of attack models have been proposed and some detection strategies to identify these attacks have been empirically evaluated. In this paper we show that the standard attack models can be readily detected using statistical detection techniques. We argue that insufficient consideration of the effectiveness of attacks under a constraint of statistical invariance has been taken in past research. In fact, it is possible to create effective attacks that are undetectable using the detection strategies proposed to date, including the PCA-based clustering strategy which has shown excellent performance against standard attacks. Nevertheless, these more advanced attacks can also be detected with careful design of a statistical detector. The question posed for future research is whether attack models that produce effective attack profiles that are statistically identical to genuine profiles are really possible.
Adaptive CAC for SVC video traffic in IEEE 802.16 networks

Call Admission Control is a key function that guarantees the Quality of Service (QoS) for users. In radio networks, this function is usually based on traffic models and ensures that sessions are admitted only if the estimated available bandwidth is enough for the entire call duration. For video on IEEE 802.16, the CAC function must ensure that the bandwidth to be reserved is compatible with the resource availability. For the enhanced SVC (Scalable Video Coding) systems, the CAC function must take into account all the layers and their characteristics. In this paper, we propose an enhanced CAC function for SVC that adapts the admission according to the statistical behaviour of the video sessions. The main goal is to use measurements in the 802.16 base station (BS) to update the traffic model of SVC video flows, this for the different layers of SVC flows. We then use the variability of the traffics generated to adapt the CAC according to the characteristics of incoming flows. To perform that, we use a Markovian model that adapts for each flow instead of using a generic static one as used in most of the papers. Performance evaluation is given to illustrate the interest of our proposal.
Potential Role of Ultrafine Particles in Associations between Airborne Particle Mass and Cardiovascular Health

Numerous epidemiologic time-series studies have shown generally consistent associations of cardiovascular hospital admissions and mortality with outdoor air pollution, particularly mass concentrations of particulate matter (PM) ≤2.5 or ≤10 μm in diameter (PM2.5, PM10). Panel studies with repeated measures have supported the time-series results showing associations between PM and risk of cardiac ischemia and arrhythmias, increased blood pressure, decreased heart rate variability, and increased circulating markers of inflammation and thrombosis. The causal components driving the PM associations remain to be identified. Epidemiologic data using pollutant gases and particle characteristics such as particle number concentration and elemental carbon have provided indirect evidence that products of fossil fuel combustion are important. Ultrafine particles < 0.1 μm (UFPs) dominate particle number concentrations and surface area and are therefore capable of carrying large concentrations of adsorbed or condensed toxic air pollutants. It is likely that redox-active components in UFPs from fossil fuel combustion reach cardiovascular target sites. High UFP exposures may lead to systemic inflammation through oxidative stress responses to reactive oxygen species and thereby promote the progression of atherosclerosis and precipitate acute cardiovascular responses ranging from increased blood pressure to myocardial infarction. The next steps in epidemiologic research are to identify more clearly the putative PM casual components and size fractions linked to their sources. To advance this, we discuss in a companion article (Sioutas C, Delfino RJ, Singh M. 2005. Environ Health Perspect 113:947–955) the need for and methods of UFP exposure assessment.
Application of UHF sensors for PD measurement at power transformers

The reliability of electrical energy networks depends on both, the quality and reliability of its electrical equipment, e.g. power transformers. Local failures inside their insulation may lead to breakdowns and hence to high outage and penalty costs. Power transformers can be tested on partial discharge (PD) activity before commissioning and monitored during service in order to prevent these events. In the first part, this contribution presents different types of ultra-high frequency (UHF) sensors for PD measurement. Various applications of UHF sensors and proper sensor installation are discussed. The second part of the contribution is about the necessity of UHF measurement comparability and reproducibility. Therefore, a new calibration procedure for the UHF method is proposed and discussed in respect of the procedure for the IEC 60270 compliant conventional electric method. The characterization of UHF sensors is a key precondition for the UHF calibration process in order to obtain calibration for the full measurement path. Sensor characteristics are described by the antenna factor (AF) which is determined under inside transformer conditions in an oil-filled Gigahertz Transversal Electromagnetic cell (GTEM cell). In addition to the calibration procedure, the performance of the installed sensor has to be determined. The evaluation is based on the concept of transmitting electromagnetic waves through the transformer tank from one UHF sensor to another. This performance check procedure is used in this contribution for the examination of the influence of the sensor's insertion depth into the tank. These results are compared to the reference GTEM cell measurement used for calibration.
New Approach In The Properties Evaluation Of Ultrafine-Grained OFHC Copper

In this study, static, dynamic and tribological properties of ultraﬁne-grained (UFG) oxygen-free high thermal conductivity (OFHC) copper were investigated in detail. In order to evaluate the mechanical behaviour at diﬀerent strain rates, OFHC copper was tested using two devices resulting in static and dynamic regimes. Moreover, the copper was subjected to two diﬀerent processing methods, which made possible to study the inﬂuence of structure. The study of strain rate and microstructure was focused on progress in the mechanical properties after tensile tests. It was found that the strain rate is an important parameter aﬀecting mechanical properties of copper. The ultimate tensile strength increased with the strain rate increasing and this eﬀect was more visible at high strain rates ( ˙ ε ∼ 10 2 s − 1 ). However, the reduction of area had a diﬀerent progress depending on microstructural features of materials (coarse-grained vs. ultraﬁne-grained structure) and introduced strain rate conditions during plastic deformation (static vs. dynamic regime). The wear behaviour of copper was investigated through pin-on-disk tests. The wear tracks examination showed that the delamination and the mild oxidational wears are the main wear mechanisms.
Genome‐wide screening of dioxin‐responsive genes in fetal brain: bioinformatic and experimental approaches

ABSTRACT Many of the effects of dioxins, which are potent environmental pollutants and teratogens, are mediated through the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, also known as the dioxin receptor. The purpose of the present study was to characterize dioxin‐responsive genes in a comprehensive manner using two complementary approaches: bioinformatic analysis and microarray analysis. First, we characterized the overall distribution of the cis‐regulatory element for the dioxin‐responsive element sequence (DRE) ‘gcgtg’ within putative promoter regions. We assembled the upstream sequences 10 kb from the transcription start site and evaluated their location and frequency in the human and mouse genomes. Second, we characterized the expression profile of mouse embryonic day 12 fetal brain exposed to 2,3,7,8‐tetrarchlorodibenzo‐p‐dioxin. The distributions of 26 680 DREs among 2843 human genes and 98 711 DREs among 18 541 mouse genes were examined. In both species, the DREs tended to be located close to the transcription start site. Forty genes exhibited significant induction or repression following dioxin exposure in fetal mice. The set of genes exhibited a strong functional coherence, with statistically significant enrichment in organogenesis and the DNA‐dependent regulation of transcription, according to Gene Ontology annotations. In both humans and mice, DREs were preferentially distributed close to transcription start sites. Evolutionary conservation of this unique DRE distribution pattern suggests that DREs may be involved in transcriptional regulation. In mice, prenatal dioxin exposure altered the expression of 10 transcription factors, many of which have been documented to play a role in organogenesis. These genes may represent potential mediators of dioxin’s effects in fetal tissues.
THE PASSAGE OF RABBIT VIRULENT TYPE III PNEUMOCOCCI FROM THE RESPIRATORY TRACT OF RABBITS INTO THE LYMPHATICS AND BLOOD

1. Rabbit virulent Type III pneumococci when instilled into the nose or trachea were recovered from the lymphatics draining the area involved in the lymph collected during a subsequent 4 hour period. Their detection rarely failed, and not infrequently was possible at the end of the 1st hour. 2. The organisms practically invariably appeared first in the lymphatics and subsequently in a few cases were recovered from the blood during the 4 hour test period. 3. The intravenous administration of antiserum 2½ to 3 hours before the instillation of organisms decreased the number of animals whose lymph or blood became positive and the total length of time in which organisms were recovered in lymph from the efferent lymphatics during the test period.
Measuring privacy risk in online social networks

Measuring privacy risk in online social networks is a challenging task. One of the fundamental difficulties is quantifying the amount of information revealed unintentionally. We present PrivAware, a tool to detect and report unintended information loss in online social networks. Our goal is to provide a rudimentary framework to identify privacy risk and provide solutions to reduce information loss. The first instance of the software is focused on information loss attributed to social circles. In subsequent releases we intend to incorporate additional capabilities to capture ancillary threat models. From our initial results, we quantify the privacy risk attributed to friend relationships in Facebook. We show that for each user in our study a majority of their personal attributes can be derived from social contacts. Moreover, we present results denoting the number of friends contributing to a correctly inferred attribute. We also provide similar results for different demographics of users. The intent of PrivAware is to not only report information loss but to recommend user actions to mitigate privacy risk. The actions provide users with the steps necessary to improve their overall privacy measurement. One obvious, but not ideal, solution is to remove risky friends. Another approach is to group risky friends and apply access controls to the group to limit visibility. In summary, our goal is to provide a unique tool to quantify information loss and provide features to reduce privacy risk.
This Paper Is Included in the Proceedings of the 12th Usenix Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (osdi '16). Certikos: an Extensible Architecture for Building Certified Concurrent Os Kernels Certikos: an Extensible Architecture for Building Certified Concurrent Os Kernels

Complete formal verification of a non-trivial concurrent OS kernel is widely considered a grand challenge. We present a novel compositional approach for building certified concurrent OS kernels. Concurrency allows inter-leaved execution of kernel/user modules across different layers of abstraction. Each such layer can have a different set of observable events. We insist on formally specifying these layers and their observable events, and then verifying each kernel module at its proper abstraction level. To support certified linking with other CPUs or threads, we prove a strong contextual refinement property for every kernel function, which states that the implementation of each such function will behave like its specification under any kernel/user context with any valid interleaving. We have successfully developed a practical concurrent OS kernel and verified its (contextual) functional correctness in Coq. Our certified kernel is written in 6500 lines of C and x86 assembly and runs on stock x86 multicore machines. To our knowledge, this is the first proof of functional correctness of a complete, general-purpose concurrent OS kernel with fine-grained locking.
Premitotic DNA synthesis in the brain of the adult frog (Rana esculenta L.): An autoradiographic 3H‐thymidine study

Replicative synthesis of DNA in the brain of the adult frog was studied by light microscope autoradiography. Animals collected during the active period (May–June) and in hibernation (January) were used. In active frogs, 3H‐thymidine labelling occurred mainly in the ependymal cells which line the ventricles. The mean labelling index (LI%) was higher in the ependyma of the lateral and fourth ventricles than in the ependyma of the lateral diencephalon and tectal parts of the mesencephalon. In the recessus infundibularis and preopticus the number of labelled cells (LCs) was several times greater than in the lateral parts of the third ventricle. LCs were seen subependymally only occasionally. The incidence of LCs in the parenchyma of the brain was much lower in most regions than in the ventricular ependyma; LCs were mainly small and, from their nuclear morphology, they were glial cells. The LI% reached the highest value in the septum hippocampi and in the nucleus entopeduncularis. In these locations, LCs were larger and closer in size to the nerve cells of these regions. From comparison with data obtained earlier in the brain of mammals, it is evident that the distribution of proliferating cells in the olfactory and limbic system is phylogenetically conservative. The occurrence of pyknotic cells in the same areas which contain LCs, suggests that cell division reflects in part the process of cell renewal observed in mammals. However, proliferating cells could also be linked to the continuous growth observed in non‐mammalian vertebrates. In hibernating frogs, LCs and pyknoses were not seen or were found occasionally, which further indicates the functional significance of both processes.
Computational Diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease Directly from Natural Speech Using Machine Learning Techniques

The human voice signal carries much information in addition to direct linguistic semantic information. This information can be perceived by computational systems. In this work, we show that early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease is possible solely from the voice signal. This is in contrast to earlier work in which we showed that this can be done using hand-calculated features of the speech (such as formants) as annotated by professional speech therapists. In this paper, we review that work and show that a differential diagnosis can be produced directly from the analog speech signal itself. In addition, differentiation can be made between seven different degrees of progression of the disease (including healthy). Such a system can act as an additional stage (or another building block) in a bigger system of natural speech processing. For example it could be used in automatic speech recognition systems that are used as personal assistants (such as Iphones' Siri, Google Voice), or as natural man-machine interfaces. We also conjecture that such systems can be extended to monitoring and classifying additional neurological diseases and speech pathologies. The methods presented here use a combination of signal processing features and machine learning techniques.
Fabrication of nanostructure for sensing application

A nanostructural film is one of the highly exploiting research areas particularly in applications in sensor, photocatalytic, and solar-cell technologies. We therefore present morphological and nanostructural properties of tungsten oxide (WO3) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3). In addition, we further explore engineered nanostructures which enable controls of optical, electrical, and mechanical properties. These improvements led to practical applications in gas sensors and surface-enhanced Raman.
A hybrid local search operator for multiobjective optimization

In recent years, the development of hybrid approaches to solve multiobjective optimization problems has become an important trend in the evolutionary computation community. Despite hybrid approaches of mathematical programming techniques with multiobjective evolutionary algorithms are not very popular, when both fields are successfully coupled, results are impressive. However, the main objective of this sort of hybridization relays on the needing of several executions of the mathematical approach in order to obtain a sample of the Pareto front, raising with this, the number of fitness function evaluations. However, the use of surrogate models has become a recurrent approach to diminish the number of function evaluations. In this work, a hybrid operator that transforms the original multiobjective problem into a set of modified goal programming models is proposed. Furthermore, a local surrogate model is used instead of the real function in the hybrid operator. The goal programming model with the surrogate is optimized by a direct search method. Additionally, a standalone algorithm that uses the hybrid operator is here proposed. The new algorithm is validated using several test problems and performance measures commonly adopted in the specialized literature. Results indicate that the proposed operator gives rise to an effective algorithm, which produces results that are competitive with respect to those obtained by two well-known multiobjective evolutionary algorithms.
Worst and Best Irredundant Sum-of-Products Expressions

In an irredundant sum-of-products expression (ISOP), each product is a prime implicant (Pl) and no product can be deleted without changing the function. Among the ISOPs for some function f, a worst ISOP (WSOP) is an ISOP with the largest number of Pls and a minimum ISOP (MSOP) is one with the smallest number. We show a class of functions for which the Minato-Morreale ISOP algorithm produces WSOPs. Since the ratio of the size of the WSOP to the size of the MSOP is arbitrarily large when it, the number of variables, is unbounded, the Minato-Morreale algorithm can produce results that are very far from minimum. We present a class of multiple-output functions whose WSOP size is also much larger than its MSOP size. For a set of benchmark functions, we show the distribution of ISOPs to the number of Pls. Among this set are functions where the MSOPs have almost as many Pls as do the WSOPs. These functions are known to be easy to minimize. Also, there are benchmark functions where the fraction of ISOPs that are MSOPs is small and MSOPs have many fewer Pls than the WSOPs. Such functions are known to be hard to minimize. For one class of functions, we show that the fraction of ISOPs that are MSOPs approaches 0 as n approaches infinity, suggesting that such functions are hard to minimize.
peerSynth: A P2P Multi-User Software Synthesizer with new techniques for integrating latency in real time collaboration

In recent years, software instruments have enabled the exchange of musical information over a network and thus, collective music making. Time-dependent delay (latency) occuring between those creating music over asynchronous networks like the Internet presents a pertinent yet, up till now, scarcely examined problem. The author will present a simple process which integrates network latency into the individual musicians’ collective playing. This process is part of a P2P multi-user software instrument developed by the author called peerSynth. This real time synthesis program runs on standard PC’s, is easily distributed over the Internet and allows a decentralized P2P network to be built up over the Internet. With the help of a specially developed user-interface, the software enables multiple users to collectively make music in both real time and offline sessions independent of time and space. Through these processes, a “boundaryless” music can occur.
FASTUS: A Cascaded Finite-State Transducer for Extracting Information from Natural-Language Text

FASTUS is a system for extracting information from natural language text for entry into a database and for other applications. It works essentially as a cascaded, nondeterministic finite-state automaton. There are five stages in the operation of FASTUS. In Stage 1, names and other fixed form expressions are recognized. In Stage 2, basic noun groups, verb groups, and prepositions and some other particles are recognized. In Stage 3, certain complex noun groups and verb groups are constructed. Patterns for events of interest are identified in Stage 4 and corresponding ``event structures'' are built. In Stage 5, distinct event structures that describe the same event are identified and merged, and these are used in generating database entries. This decomposition of language processing enables the system to do exactly the right amount of domain-independent syntax, so that domain-dependent semantic and pragmatic processing can be applied to the right larger-scale structures. FASTUS is very efficient and effective, and has been used successfully in a number of applications.
Synergistic roles for receptor occupancy and aggregation in integrin transmembrane function

Integrin receptors mediate cell adhesion, signal transduction, and cytoskeletal organization. How a single transmembrane receptor can fulfill multiple functions was clarified by comparing roles of receptor occupancy and aggregation. Integrin occupancy by monovalent ligand induced receptor redistribution, but minimal tyrosine phosphorylation signaling or cytoskeletal protein redistribution. Aggregation of integrins by noninhibitory monoclonal antibodies on beads induced intracellular accumulations of pp125FAK and tensin, as well as phosphorylation, but no accumulation of other cytoskeletal proteins such as talin. Combining antibody-mediated clustering with monovalent ligand occupancy induced accumulation of seven cytoskeletal proteins, including alpha-actinin, talin, and F-actin, thereby mimicking multivalent interactions with fibronectin or polyvalent peptides. Integrins therefore mediate a complex repertoire of functions through the distinct effects of receptor aggregation, receptor occupancy, or both together.