Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Security Analysis and Related Usability of Motion-Based CAPTCHAs: Decoding Codewords in Motion

We explore the robustness and usability of moving-image object recognition (video) CAPTCHAS, designing and implementing automated attacks based on computer vision techniques. Our approach is suitable for broad classes of moving-image CAPTCHAS involving rigid objects. We first present an attack that defeats instances of such a CAPTCHA (NuCaptcha) representing the state-of-the-art, involving dynamic text strings called codewords. We then consider design modifications to mitigate the attacks (e.g., overlapping characters more closely, randomly changing the font of individual characters, or even randomly varying the number of characters in the codeword). We implement the modified CAPTCHAS and test if designs modified for greater robustness maintain usability. Our lab-based studies show that the modified captchas fail to offer viable usability, even when the captcha strength is reduced below acceptable targets. Worse yet, our GPU-based implementation shows that our automated approach can decode these captchas faster than humans can, and we can do so at a relatively low cost of roughly 50 cents per 1,000 captchas solved based on Amazon EC2 rates circa 2012. To further demonstrate the challenges in designing usable captchas, we also implement and test another variant of moving text strings using the known emerging images concept. This variant is resilient to our attacks and also offers similar usability to commercially available approaches. We explain why fundamental elements of the emerging images idea resist our current attack where others fail.
Nucleophosmin mutation in Southeast Asian acute myeloid leukemia: eight novel variants, FLT3 coexistence and prognostic impact of NPM1/FLT3 mutations

This report shows that NPM1 mutations were most prevalent in Thai patients with acute myeloid leukemia with normal karyotype. NPM1 mutations were investigated in 400 Southeast Asian leukemia patients and were detectable in 105 cases (26.25%) of acute myeloid leukemia but in no cases of acute lymphoid leukemia or chronic myeloid leukemia. Eight novel and 5 known mutations were identified. All predicted novel proteins shared the last five amino acids VSLRK with the similar gain of nuclear exporting signal motif as known variants. Older age, high white blood cell and platelet counts, normal cytogenetics, and CD34-negativity were associated with NPM1 mutation. FLT3 mutation was more frequent in mutant NPM1 than wild-type cases (56.8% vs. 25.6%) whereas RAS and AML1 mutations were rarely found. Overall survival analysis based on the NPM1/FLT3 mutational status revealed a better outcome for the NPM1-positive/FLT3–negative subgroup. We conclude that: i) NPM1 mutation represents a common genetic hallmark in Southeast Asian acute myeloid leukemia with a normal karyotype; ii) NPM1 mutants coexisted mainly with FLT3 mutants, but not RAS or AML1; iii) FLT3 mutation had a negative prognostic impact on patients with mutant NPM1.
El diseñador como productor. Reflexiones en torno a la idea de responsabilidad social en el diseño contemporáneo The designer as producer. Some thoughts on the idea of social

Este texto se propone reflexionar sobre el amplio abanico de alternativas“responsables” florecidas en el ambito de la cultura del diseno, a partir de losanos Sesenta, en contra el modelo tecnicista y mercantilista dominante en lapractica profesional. La relectura de estas perspectivas a la luz de la idea deautor como productor de Walter Benjamin permite evidenciar los principiosfundamentales que constituyen el terreno compartido de los disenadoresresponsables contemporaneos: trabajadores intelectuales a la vez quemateriales, capaces de considerar todas las implicaciones eticas, sociales,politicas y culturales de su actividad.
Sceptre: an infrared laser tracking system for virtual environments

In this paper a 3D tracking system for Virtual Environments is presented which utilizes infrared (IR) laser technology. Invisible laser patterns are projected from the user(s) to the screen via the input device Sceptre or the appending headtracking device. IR-sensible cameras which are placed near the projectors in a backprojection setup recognize the pattern. That way position and orientation of the input devices is reconstructed. The infrared laser is not seen by human eye and therefore does not disturb the immersion.
Adaptive aggregated predictions for renewable energy systems

The paper addresses the problem of generating forecasts for energy production and consumption processes in a renewable energy system. The forecasts are made for a prototype public lighting microgrid, which includes photovoltaic panels and LED luminaries that regulate their lighting levels, as inputs for a receding horizon controller. Several stochastic models are fitted to historical times-series data and it is argued that side information, such as clear-sky predictions or the typical system behavior, can be used as exogenous inputs to increase their performance. The predictions can be further improved by combining the forecasts of several models using online learning, the framework of prediction with expert advice. The paper suggests an adaptive aggregation method which also takes side information into account, and makes a state-dependent aggregation. Numerical experiments are presented, as well, showing the efficiency of the estimated time-series models and the proposed aggregation approach.
A Framework for Cost-Effective Scheduling of MapReduce Applications

Real-time, cost-effective execution of "Big Data" applications on MapReduce clusters has been an important goal for many scientists in recent years. The MapReduce paradigm has been widely adopted by major computing companies as a powerful approach for large-scale data analytics. However, running MapReduce workloads in cluster environments has been particularly challenging due to the trade-offs that exist between the need for performance and the corresponding budget cost. Furthermore, the large number of resource configuration parameters exacerbates the problem, as users must manually tune the parameters without knowing their impact on the performance and budget costs. In this paper, we describe our approach to cost-effective scheduling of MapReduce applications. We present an overview of our framework that enables appropriate configuration of parameters to detect cost-efficient resource allocations. Our early experimental results illustrate the working and benefit of our approach.
A Burst Effort Broadcasting Approach of MPEG-4 Video Transmission for Intervehicle Communication

Efficient and real-time video broadcasting helps to improve driving safety and to make traveling fun for drivers. However, it is hard to structure vehicles into permanent network topologies and schedules to broadcast video streaming real-time in intervehicle communication (IVC) in a high-mobility vehicular environment. In order to achieve this, we have designed a burst effort broadcasting (BEB) approach for IVC, which considers the challenges of high mobility and multihop broadcast, as well as the features of MPEG-4 video streams to adapt to highway scenarios. The BEB approach is distributed in real time without protocol overhead and comprises a queuing procedure and a scheduling scheme. The queuing procedure consists of the preprocess of video transmission, including the video shaping of groups of pictures and sequential reordering video frames. Based on the queuing procedure, a mobility-adaptive scheduler is applied to handle the broadcast and rebroadcast of the video stream. The concept of macroscopic broadcast is utilized to increase the broadcast performance and the video perceived quality of service (PQoS), and to reduce the number of unnecessary redundant broadcasts. As an evaluation, the real MPEG-4 video was conducted in simulation and the broadcast performance was compared with another protocol by the metrics of peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and loss of video frames in different broadcasting scenarios. Then, the results were analyzed. The simulation proved that this approach is an efficient multihop broadcast solution that does indeed provide a realistic solution to promote a higher degree of video PQoS on highways.
Report on the TREC 2009 Experiments: Chemical IR Track

The goal of the first TREC Chemical track was to retrieve documents relevant to a given patent query, within a large collection of patents in chemistry. Regarding this objective, for the Prior Art subtask, our runs performed significantly better that runs submitted by other participating teams. Baseline retrieval methods achieved relatively poor performances (Mean Average Precision = 0.067). Query expansion, driven my chemical named entity recognition resulted in some modest improvement (+2 to 3%). Filtering based on IPC codes did not result in any significant improvement. A re-ranking strategy, based on claims only improved MAP by about 3%. The most effective gain was obtained by using patent citation patterns. Somehow similar to feed-back but restricted to citations, we used patents cited in the retrieved patents in order to boost the retrieval status value of the baseline run. This strategy led to a remarkable improvement (MAP 0.18, +168 %). Nevertheless, as official topics were sampled from the collection disregarding their creation date, our strategy happened to exploit citations of patents which were patented after the topic itself. From a user perspective, such a setting is questionable. We think that future TREC-CHEM competitions should address this issue by using patents filed as recently as possible.
Positive Selection of Anti–Thy-1 Autoreactive B-1 Cells and Natural Serum Autoantibody Production Independent from Bone Marrow B Cell Development

A natural serum autoantibody specific for the Thy-1 glycoprotein (anti–Thy-1 autoantibody [ATA]) is produced by B-1 cells that are positively selected by self-antigen. Here, using ATAμκ transgenic mice we show that cells with this B cell receptor are negatively selected during bone marrow (BM) development. In a Thy-1 null environment, BM ATA B cells progress to a normal follicular stage in spleen. However, in a self-antigen–positive environment, development is arrested at an immature stage in the spleen, concomitant with induction of CD5. Such cells are tolerant and short-lived, different from B-1. Nonetheless, ATA-positive selection was evident by self-antigen–dependent high serum ATA production, comprising ∼90% of serum immunoglobulin M in ATAμκ mice. Splenectomy did not eliminate ATA production and transfer of tolerant splenic B cells did not induce it. These findings demonstrate that B-1 positive selection, resulting in the production of natural serum ATA, arises independently from the major pathway of BM B cell development and selection.
Automated Silhouette Extraction for Mountain Recognition

With the rise of digital photography and easy sharing of images over the internet, a huge amount of images with no notion of what they are showing exists. In order to overcome this problem, we – for the example of mountain recognition – introduce a method, that is able to automatically recognise a mountain shown in a photography. Our method does not require GPS information stored in the image, since most images are not GPS tagged, either because of the absence of a GPS sensor in the device or because it has been deactivated for a lesser power consumption, which often is the case with smartphones. Instead, we propose a method that is able to automatically extract the mountain’s silhouette from a given image. This silhouette is then cleaned by removing artefacts and outliers, such as trees and clouds, with a histogram based approach. Finally, the cleaned silhouette can be compared to reference data in order to recognise the mountain that is shown in the picture. For this, time series comparison techniques can be used to find matching silhouettes. However, because of the huge number of reference silhouettes to compare against, we argue, that a preselection of those silhouettes is necessary and point out approaches to this problem.
Metabolic, Genomic, and Biochemical Analyses of Glandular Trichomes from the Wild Tomato Species Lycopersicon hirsutum Identify a Key Enzyme in the Biosynthesis of Methylketonesw⃞

Medium-length methylketones (C7-C15) are highly effective in protecting plants from numerous pests. We used a biochemical genomics approach to elucidate the pathway leading to synthesis of methylketones in the glandular trichomes of the wild tomato Lycopersicon hirsutum f glabratum (accession PI126449). A comparison of gland EST databases from accession PI126449 and a second L. hirsutum accession, LA1777, whose glands do not contain methylketones, showed that the expression of genes for fatty acid biosynthesis is elevated in PI126449 glands, suggesting de novo biosynthesis of methylketones. A cDNA abundant in the PI126449 gland EST database but rare in the LA1777 database was similar in sequence to plant esterases. This cDNA, designated Methylketone Synthase 1 (MKS1), was expressed in Escherichia coli and the purified protein used to catalyze in vitro reactions in which C12, C14, and C16 β-ketoacyl–acyl-carrier-proteins (intermediates in fatty acid biosynthesis) were hydrolyzed and decarboxylated to give C11, C13, and C15 methylketones, respectively. Although MKS1 does not contain a classical transit peptide, in vitro import assays showed that it was targeted to the stroma of plastids, where fatty acid biosynthesis occurs. Levels of MKS1 transcript, protein, and enzymatic activity were correlated with levels of methylketones and gland density in a variety of tomato accessions and in different plant organs.
Noether symmetries and duality transformations in cosmology

We discuss the relation between Noether (point) symmetries and discrete symmetries for a class of minisuperspace cosmological models. We show that when a Noether symmetry exists for the gravitational Lagrangian then there exists a coordinate system in which a reversal symmetry exists. Moreover as far as concerns the scale-factor duality symmetry of the dilaton field, we show that it is related to the existence of a Noether symmetry for the field equations, and the reversal symmetry in the normal coordinates of the symmetry vector becomes scale-factor duality symmetry in the original coordinates. In particular the same point symmetry as also the same reversal symmetry exists for the Brans-Dicke- scalar field with linear potential while now the discrete symmetry in the original coordinates of the system depends on the Brans-Dicke parameter and it is a scale-factor duality when $\omega_{BD}=1$. Furthermore, in the context of the O'Hanlon theory for $f\left( R\right) $-gravity, it is possible to show how a duality transformation in the minisuperspace can be used to relate different gravitational models.
Flexible and Scalable Partially Observable Planning with Linear Translations

The problem of on-line planning in partially observable settings involves two problems: keeping track of beliefs about the environment and selecting actions for achieving goals. While the two problems are computationally intractable in the worst case, significant progress has been achieved in recent years through the use of suitable reductions. In particular, the state-of-the-art CLG planner is based on a translation that maps deterministic partially observable problems into fully observable non-deterministic ones. The translation, which is quadratic in the number of problem fluents and gets rid of the belief tracking problem, is adequate for most benchmarks, and it is in fact complete for problems that have width 1. The more recent K-replanner uses translations that are linear, one for keeping track of beliefs and the other for selecting actions using off-the-shelf classical planners. As a result, the K-replanner scales up better but it is not as general. In this work, we combine the benefits of the two approaches - the scope of the CLG planner and the efficiency of the Kreplanner. The new planner, called LW1, is based on a translation that is linear but complete for width-1 problems. The scope and scalability of the new planner is evaluated experimentally by considering the existing benchmarks and new problems.
Calculation of reliability of structures by using interval probability

There are a lot of problems in engineering which are connected with the necessity not to neglect the influence of uncertainties in parameters (these are for example seismic vibrations, wind loaded structures and imperfection sensitive structures). Fuzzy numbers and possibility theory are used for problems where uncertainties in definition of input data do not allow for a treatment by means of probabilistic methods. Starting from scarce/uncertain body of information, fuzzy numbers are used to define possibility distributions as well as upper and lower bounds for a wide class of probability distributions compatible with available data. It is shown that fuzzy numbers give upper and lower bounds (with respect to probability) for value of the reliability of structures. Calculations were done using a special algorithm based on interval arithmetic.
Market Power, Scale Economies and Productivity: Estimates from a Panel of Establishment Data

This paper presents a somewhat new econometric framework that permits simultaneous estimation of price-cost margins, scale economies and productivity from a panel of establishment data. The econometric model contains only a few, economically interesting parameters to be estimated, but it is nevertheless consistent with a flexible (translog) underlying technology, quasi-fixed capital and the presence of persistent differences in productivity between establishments.
Multiscale edge detection on range images via normal changes

A new edge detection technique based on detection of normal changes is proposed. Most of the existing range image-based edge detection algorithms base their detection, criterion on depth or curvature changes. However, the depth change-based approach does not have keen sensitivity in detecting roof (or crease) edges, and the curvature change-based approach suffers from a complicated and tedious principal curvature derivation process. Using normal changes as a detecting criterion, on the other hand, the existence of an edge can be easily detected, even when the change across a boundary is slight. Experimental results using both synthetic and real images demonstrate that the proposed method can efficiently detect both step and roof edges.
Functional Inactivation of CXC Chemokine Receptor 4–mediated Responses through SOCS3 Up-regulation

Hematopoietic cell growth, differentiation, and chemotactic responses require coordinated action between cytokines and chemokines. Cytokines promote receptor oligomerization, followed by Janus kinase (JAK) kinase activation, signal transducers and transactivators of transcription (STAT) nuclear translocation, and transcription of cytokine-responsive genes. These include genes that encode a family of negative regulators of cytokine signaling, the suppressors of cytokine signaling (SOCS) proteins. After binding their specific receptors, chemokines trigger receptor dimerization and activate the JAK/STAT pathway. We show that SOCS3 overexpression or up-regulation, stimulated by a cytokine such as growth hormone, impairs the response to CXCL12, measured by Ca2+ flux and chemotaxis in vitro and in vivo. This effect is mediated by SOCS3 binding to the CXC chemokine receptor 4 receptor, blocking JAK/STAT and Gαi pathways, without interfering with cell surface chemokine receptor expression. The data provide clear evidence for signaling cross-talk between cytokine and chemokine responses in building a functional immune system.
Long-Term Increase of Complexity and Functional Diversification by Contingent Mutations in Computational Algorithms

In simulating a complex adaptive system on a computer, an agent can be regarded as an entity in order to process information. In this paper, therefore, we adopt a general computational model, that is, a Turing Machine (TM), to realize our agent. Any algorithm can be expressed as a TM or a readable tape that can be emulated when a Universal Turing Machine reads that tape. We have developed an abstract complex adaptive system called PROTEAN as our simulation model. This paper explores how longterm complexity in computational algorithms is affected by contingent mutations with an artificial life model. Unlike many researches that have investigated a relation between a macroscopic system dynamics and a mutation rate, we, at the same time, focus on functional diversification of agents from the viewpoint of an internalist perspective. key words: simulation model, evolution, long-term behavior, complexity
An Effective Content-based Recommendation Method for Web Browsing Based on Keyword Context Matching

A gear shaper or shaver cutter which has broken or damaged teeth is salvaged by removing good teeth from an identical cutter which is otherwise unsalvagable. The removal of damaged teeth from the salvagable cutter, and removal of good teeth from the unsalvagable cutter, is done by electrical discharge machining (EDM) wire. The good teeth are removed as an integral group which is snugly fitted into and plugs the slot where the damaged teeth were removed from the salvageable cutter. The group is locked in place by a lock pin in an aperture made by EDM electrode procedure, the lock pin being welded in place by electron beam welding, and or any other suitable state of the art.
Changes in the arrhythmic profile of patients treated for heart failure are associated with modifications in their myocardial perfusion conditions.

BACKGROUND Heart failure (HF) patients can benefit from a proper RS. We had observed that they show an increase in the number of arrhythmias during the first year of pharmacological treatment. METHODS We carried out a prospective observational study in which patients in an HF Clinic were included when they had follow-up Holter monitoring. Patients also had a baseline myocardial perfusion scan (Tc99 sestaMIBI/dypiridamole) and a control scan. RESULTS We included 90 patients with follow-up Holter and 35 with scintigraphy, for analysis. Fifty-six (62.2%) were men and the average age was 60.8 +/- 14.6 years. Follow-up periods were divided by six-month intervals up to 18 months or more, an increase in premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) occurred in the six-month to one-year period (1915.4 +/- +/- 4686.9 vs. 2959 +/- 6248.1, p = 0.09). In the one-year to 18-month control, PVCs went from 781.6 +/- 1082.4 to 146.9 +/- 184.1, p = 0.05. The increase in PVCs correlated with a reduction in scintigraphy-detected ischemic territories, 5.64 +/- 5.9 vs. 3.18 +/- 3 (p = 0.1) and a gain in those showing a reverse redistribution pattern (0.18 +/- 0.6 vs. 2.09 +/- 4.01, p = 0.1). Necrotic territories and time domain heart rate variability did not show significant changes. CONCLUSIONS PVCs increase during the first year of HF treatment, and then they tend to diminish and stabilize. These changes seem to correlate with changes in the perfusion state of the patient. While ischemic territories decrease, reverse redistribution increases, showing that endothelial dysfunction could have a relevant role in arrhythmia generation, possibly because of membrane instability of recovered hibernating myocardium.