Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measurement and evaluation of a real world deployment of a challenge-response spam filter

Despite the number of existing solutions, spam still accounts for a large percentage of the email traffic on the Internet. Both the effectiveness and the impact of many common anti-spam techniques have already been largely studied and evaluated against multiple datasets. However, some of the less known solutions still lack a proper experimental validation. For example, Challenge-Response (CR) systems have been largely discussed, and often criticized, because they shift the effort to protect the user's mailbox from the recipient to the sender of the messages. In addition, these systems are believed to produce a lot of backscattered emails that further deteriorate the global Internet situation. In this paper we present the first comprehensive measurement study of a real anti-spam system based on a challenge-response technique. In our work we analyze a large amount of data, collected for a period of six months from over forty companies protected by a commercial challenge-response product. We designed our experiments from three different point of views: the end user, the system administrator, and the entire Internet community. Our results cover many different aspects such as the amount of challenges sent, the delay on the message delivery, and the likelihood of getting the challenge server blacklisted. Our aim is neither to attack nor to defend CR-based solutions. Instead, we hope that our findings will shed some light on some of the myths about these kind of systems, and will help both users and companies to take an informed decision on the topic.
Iron and Neurodegeneration: From Cellular Homeostasis to Disease

Accumulation of iron (Fe) is often detected in the brains of people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. High Fe concentrations have been consistently observed in Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's diseases; however, it is not clear whether this Fe contributes to the progression of these diseases. Other conditions, such as Friedreich's ataxia or neuroferritinopathy are associated with genetic factors that cause Fe misregulation. Consequently, excessive intracellular Fe increases oxidative stress, which leads to neuronal dysfunction and death. The characterization of the mechanisms involved in the misregulation of Fe in the brain is crucial to understand the pathology of the neurodegenerative disorders and develop new therapeutic strategies. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as the best understood eukaryotic organism, has already begun to play a role in the neurological disorders; thus it could perhaps become a valuable tool also to study the metalloneurobiology.
Choroidal vascular remodelling in central serous chorioretinopathy after indocyanine green guided photodynamic therapy with verteporfin: a novel treatment at the primary disease level

Aims: To evaluate the changes in the choroidal vasculature in central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) after photodynamic therapy (PDT) with verteporfin and to assess its potential role as a treatment option. Methods: A prospective, non-comparative, interventional study was performed in eyes with persistent CSC or chronic CSC that had fluorescein leakage at the fovea. All eyes received one single session of PDT with verteporfin (6 mg/m2 body surface area) followed by application of 50 J/cm2 laser at 689 nm. The laser spot size was guided by findings in ICG-A. Results: Six eyes from six patients with a mean follow up of 12.7 months were analysed. Narrowing of the original dilated choroidal vessels and decrease in extravascular leakage could be demonstrated in all (100%) PDT treated eyes. 3 months after PDT, the mean diameter of the dilated choroidal vessel reduced from 546 μm to 371 μm (p = 0.028). Five (83%) patients had improvement in visual symptoms and best corrected visual acuity. Fluorescence leakage stopped at the 1 month follow up in five eyes (83%) and at 3 months in all six eyes (100%). One eye developed choroidal neovascularisation at 3 month follow up. There was no other serious ocular or systemic complication. Conclusions: PDT is successful in stopping the fluorescein leakage in all six patients without recurrence of CSC. The ICG-A findings of choroidal vascular remodelling and decreased choroidal permeability after PDT are encouraging. As the sample size is small and the mean follow up period is short, further trials of PDT with verteporfin for CSC are required to address the optimal parameters in ensuring longer term safety and efficacy outcome.
Biographical Sketches

Some notable names in renal medicine from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Abercrombie moved from successful general practice into the Royal Public Dispensary as a consultant and was appointed physician to the King in Scotland. President of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh and a contemporary of Sir Robert Christison both sharing an interest in renal disease. Richard Bright stayed with him during a visit to Edinburgh. He was better known for his Observations on the management of the poor in Scotland (1840). member of the Académie Royale de Médecine and member of staff of l'h^ o opital de la Charité. Andral was an outstanding pioneer of haematology—the publication in 1843 of his Essai d'he´matologie pathologique was a landmark in the scientific study of the subject. Scots nephew of John and William Hunter, who, following Morgagni, wrote a fine textbook. He was one of the first to understand that post-mortem appearances were end-results of a disease process. He differentiated renal cysts. BAILLOU Guillaume de (BALLONIUS) (1538–1616) Paris graduate and physician to the household of Henry IV. He was regarded by Francis Graham Cruikshank as the founder of epidemiological studies. Described whooping cough (quinta) for the first time, also introduced the term ''rheumatism''.
Multi-level Unified Caches for Probabilistically Time Analysable Real-Time Systems

Caches are key resources in high-end processor architectures to increase performance. In fact, most high-performance processors come equipped with a multi-level cache hierarchy. In terms of guaranteed performance, however, cache hierarchies severely challenge the computation of tight worst-case execution time (WCET) estimates. On the one hand, the analysis of the timing behaviour of a single level of cache is already challenging, particularly for data accesses. On the other hand, unifying data and instructions in each level, makes the problem of cache analysis significantly more complex requiring tracking simultaneously data and instruction accesses to cache. In this paper we prove that multi-level cache hierarchies can be used in the context of Probabilistic Timing Analysis and tight WCET estimates can be obtained. Our detailed analysis (1) covers unified data and instruction caches, (2) covers different cache-write policies (write-through and write back), write allocation policies (write-allocate and non-write-allocate) and several inclusion mechanisms (inclusive, non-inclusive and exclusive caches), and (3) scales to an arbitrary number of cache levels. Our results show that the probabilistic WCET (pWCET) estimates provided by our analysis technique effectively benefit from having multi-level caches. For a two-level cache configuration and for EEMBC benchmarks, pWCET reductions are 55% on average (and up to 90%) with respect to a processor with a single level of cache.
Health related quality of life in multiple musculoskeletal diseases: SF-36 and EQ-5D in the DMC3 study

Objective: To examine the health related quality of life of persons with one or more self reported musculoskeletal diseases, as measured by the short form 36 item health status survey (SF-36) and the Euroqol questionnaire (EQ-5D). Methods: A sample of Dutch inhabitants aged 25 years or more (n = 3664) participated in a questionnaire survey. Twelve lay descriptions of common musculoskeletal diseases were presented and the subjects were asked whether they had ever been told by a physician that they had any of these. Their responses were used to assess the prevalence of these conditions. Commonly used scores of SF-36 and descriptive scores from EQ-5D are presented, along with standardised differences between disease groups and the general population. Results: Subjects with musculoskeletal diseases had significantly lower scores on all SF-36 dimensions than those without musculoskeletal disease, especially for physical functioning (SF-36 score (SE), 75.2 (0.5) v 87.8 (0.5)); role limitations caused by physical problems (67.1 (0.9) v 85.8 (0.8)); and bodily pain (68.5 (0.5) v 84.1 (0.5)). The worst health related quality of life patterns were found for osteoarthritis of the hip, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia. Those with multiple musculoskeletal diseases had the poorest health related quality of life. Similar results were found for EQ-5D. Conclusions: All musculoskeletal diseases involve pain and reduced physical function. The coexistence of musculoskeletal diseases should be taken into account in research and clinical practice because of its high prevalence and its substantial impact on health related quality of life.
YOLOv5s-MEE: A YOLOv5-based Algorithm for Abnormal Behavior Detection in Central Control Room

Aiming to quickly and accurately detect abnormal behaviors of workers in central control rooms, such as playing mobile phone and sleeping, an abnormal behavior detection algorithm based on improved YOLOv5 is proposed. The technique uses SRGAN to reconstruct the input image to improve the resolution and enhance the detailed information. Then, the MnasNet is introduced to replace the backbone feature extraction network of the original YOLOv5, which could achieve the lightweight of the model. Moreover, the detection accuracy of the whole network is enhanced by adding the ECA-Net attention mechanism into the feature fusion network structure of YOLOv5 and modifying the loss function as EIOU. The experimental results in the custom dataset show that compared with the original YOLOv5 algorithm, the algorithm proposed in this paper improves thedetection speed to 75.50 frames/s under the condition of high detection accuracy, which meets the requirements of real-time detection. Meanwhile, compared with other mainstream behavior detection algorithms, this algorithm also shows better detection performance.
Evaluation of Static and Dynamic Visualization Training Approaches for Users with Different Spatial Abilities

Conflicting results are reported in the literature on whether dynamic visualizations are more effective than static visualizations for learning and mastering 3-D tasks, and only a few investigations have considered the influence of the spatial abilities of the learners. In a study with 117 participants, we compared the benefit of static vs. dynamic visualization training tools on learners with different spatial abilities performing a typical 3-D task (specifically, creating orthographic projections of a 3-D object). We measured the spatial abilities of the participants using the Mental Rotation Test (MRT) and classified participants into two groups (high and low abilities) to examine how the participants' abilities predicted change in performance after training with static versus dynamic training tools. Our results indicate that: 1) visualization training programs can help learners to improve 3-D task performance, 2) dynamic visualizations provide no advantages over static visualizations that show intermediate steps, 3) training programs are more beneficial for individuals with low spatial abilities than for individuals with high spatial abilities, and 4) training individuals with high spatial abilities using dynamic visualizations provides little benefit.
Role of botulinum toxin-A in management of refractory idiopathic detrusor overactive bladder: Single center experience

Background Overactive bladder (OAB) is a bothersome condition affecting the quality of life, financial constraint on the individual, and community. Anticholinergic drugs cannot be used for long term due to adverse side effects. Botulinum toxin has recently shown promising and encouraging result in management of OAB. Aim Aim was to study the safety, efficacy, tolerability, and duration of effect of 200 units of botulinum toxin in refractory idiopathic detrusor overactivity. Materials and Methods Thirty-nine female patients (average age of 52 years) clinically and urodynamically diagnosed as idiopathic OAB were injected 200 units of botulinum toxin-A mixed with 20 ml of normal saline, intradetrusally at the rate of 1 mL at each site for 20 such sites sparing the trigone and ureteric orifices. Follow up at 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th month with clinical and urodynamical questionnaire was done. Results There were 4 dropouts and 35 patients were evaluated, of which 30 patients (85.7%) showed improvement in clinical features like frequency, urgency, nocturia, and incontinence within 1 week of injection, which lasted for mean period of 7 months (varying from 6 to 9 months). Volume at first desire to void improved from median baseline of 104-204 ml and maximum cystometric capacity of bladder increased from mean baseline value of 205-330 ml. The detrusor pressure decreased by 49% from the baseline and postresidual urine volume increased by 30% of maximum cystometric capacity of bladder. There was no adverse effect on our patient. Conclusion Intradetrusor injection of Botox-A in management of refractory overactive idiopathic bladder is not only safe and well tolerated, but also very effective with practically no side effects.
Shape Analysis and Classification using Landmarks: Polygonal Wavelet Transform

Shape analysis has played a central role in many problems in vision and perception, being an active multidisciplinary research field. In this context, this paper introduces a new shape analysis approach using the well known wavelet transform and exploring shape representation by landmarks. This work shows how to obtain a time signal from the landmarks representation, which undergoes the wavelet transform, as well as a useful geometrical interpretation using two special mother wavelets, i.e. the first and the second derivatives of the gaussian. Successful experimental results obtained from real data are also discussed.
Sex-specific changes in gene expression and delayed sex differentiation in response to estrogen pollution in grayling (Salmonidae)

The synthetic 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) is an estrogenic compound of oral contraceptives and therefore a common pollutant that has been suspected to affect the demography of river-dwelling salmonids. We study a population of European grayling (Thymallus thymallus) that suffers from sex ratio distortions. Here we test how ecologically relevant concentrations of EE2 affect sex-specific gene expression around early stages of sex differentiation. We collected gametes from F1s of wild spawners, used them for in vitro fertilizations, and raised the resulting embryos singly under experimentally controlled conditions. Embryos were either exposed to 1ng/L EE2 or sham-exposed. RNA was collected from samples taken 10 days before hatching, at the day of hatching, and towards the end of the yolk-sac stage, to study gene expression and relate it to genetic sex (sdY genotype). We found that EE2 affects gene expression of a very large number of genes especially at the day of hatching. The effects of EE2 on gene expression is strongly sex-specific. At the day of hatching, EE2 affected about twice as many genes in females than in males, and towards the end of the yolk-sac larval stage, EE2 effects were nearly exclusively observed in females. Among the many effects was, for example, a surprising EE2-induced molecular masculinization in the females’ heads. Histological examination of gonadal development of EE2-treated or sham-exposed juveniles during the first 4.5 months after hatching revealed a delaying effect of EE2 on sex differentiation. Because grayling sex determination goes through an all-male stage (a rare case of undifferentiated gonochorism), the rate of EE2-induced sex reversal could not be unequivocally determined during the observational period. However, two EE2-treated genetic males had ovarian tissues at the end of the study. We conclude that common levels of EE2 pollution affect grayling from very early stages on by interfering with male and female gene expression around the onset of sex differentiation, by delaying sex differentiation, and by feminizing some males. Author contribution MRR and CW initiated the project. OS, DM, LW, LMC, and CW sampled the adult fish, did the experimental in vitro fertilizations, and prepared the embryos for experimental rearing in the laboratory. All further manipulations on the embryos and the larvae were done by OS, DM, LW, and LMC. The RNA-seq data were analyzed by OS, JR, and MRR, the histological analyses were done by DM, supervised by SK, the molecular genetic sexing was performed by OS and DM, and EV supervised the EE2 analytics. OS and CW performed the remaining statistical analyses and wrote the first version of the manuscript that was then critically revised by all other authors.
IRIS Recognition based on PCA based Dimensionality Reduction and SVM

There are several Iris recognition0 techniques. But method proposed by Daugman is considered to be most efficient technique for IRIS segmentation and feature extraction. Recent studies have shown that there is better classifier which when properly trained with sufficient numbers of features are better than the hamming distance based classifier. But more number of features increases the computational complexity due to the need for feature optimization by kernel based classifiers. Hence in this work we propose a unique technique of first extracting huge numbers of features from the IRIS images and then reducing the features by using PCA based linear dimensionality reduction technique. We first segment the IRIS images with a technique proposed by Daugman, further Gabor features are extracted from the segmented IRIS image. These features are reduced using feature reduction technique. The features are classified using Multiclass support vector machine. We show that the accuracy of the IRIS recognition technique is very high using this method.
The Complexity of the Phospholipid Binding Protein Annexin V

During the last ten years much attention has been paid to a family of structurally related proteins, now referred to as “Annexins”. Annexins were encountered by many investigators working within a wide variety of disciplines, and as a result Annexins were originally named by dif­ ferent synonyms. After elucidation of the primary structures of all these “different” proteins, a structural homology was found typical for Annexins. This homology is located on a conserved core domain con­ taining four homologous internal repeat sequences each 65-70 amino acids long. The differences between the members of the Annexin fami­ ly are found in the highly variable amino-terminal tails, the fingerprints for all Annexins. Next to structural similarities the Annexins share the functional property to bind with high affinity to phospholipids, but only in the presence of Ca2+ ions. Although the in vivo functions of Annexins are still unknown, it is generally believed that the phospholipid binding property, which forms the basis for 'the observed in vitro activities, is closely associated with their physiological relevance. Since none of the original synonyms expressed the properties of this group of proteins as a whole, consensus was reached to refer to these proteins by a new name “Annexin”. In this review, one member of the group of proteins, Annexin V, will be discussed.
FAWNdamentally Power-efficient Clusters

Power is becoming an increasingly large financial and scaling burden for computing and society. The costs of running large data centers are becoming dominated by power and cooling to the degree that companies such as Microsoft and Google have built new data centers close to large and cost-efficient hydroelectric power sources [8]. Studies have projected that by 2012, 3-year data center energy costs will be double that of server equipment expenditures [15]. Power consumption and related cooling costs have become a primary design constraint at all levels, limiting the achievable density of data centers and large systems, and pushing processor manufacturers towards alternative architectures. While power constraints have pushed the processor industry toward multi-core architectures, power-efficient alternatives to traditional disk and DRAM-based cluster architectures have been slow to emerge. As a power-efficient alternative for data-intensive computing, we propose a cluster architecture called a Fast Array of Wimpy Nodes, or FAWN. A FAWN consists of a large number of slower but efficient nodes that each draw only a few watts of power, coupled with lowpower storage—our prototype FAWN nodes are built from 500MHz embedded devices with CompactFlash storage that are typically used as wireless routers, Internet gateways, or thin clients. Through our preliminary evaluation, we demonstrate that a FAWN can be up to six times more efficient than traditional systems with Flash storage in terms of queries per joule for seek-bound applications and between two to eight times more efficient for I/O throughput-bound applications (§3). Long-lasting, fundamental trends in the scaling of computation and energy suggest that the FAWN approach will become dominant for increasing classes of workloads. First, as we show in §4, slower processors are more efficient: they use fewer joules of energy per instruction than higher speed processors. Second, dynamic power scaling techniques are less effective than reducing a cluster’s peak power consumption. We conclude with an analysis of the design space for seek-bound workloads, showing how one should use a FAWN architecture for various dataset sizes and desired query rates (§5). 2 Data-intensive Computing
Robust position-based routing in wireless Ad Hoc networks with unstable transmission ranges

Several papers showed how to perform routing in ad hoc wireless networks based on the positions of the mobile hosts. However, all these protocols are likely to fail if the transmission ranges of the mobile hosts vary due to natural or man-made obstacles or weather conditions. These protocols may fail because in routing either some connections are not considered which effectively results in disconnecting the network, or the use of some connections causes livelocks. In this paper, we describe a robust routing protocol that tolerates up to roughly 40% of variation in the transmission ranges of the mobile hosts. More precisely, our protocol guarantees message delivery in a connected adhoc network whenever the ratio of the maximum transmission range to the minimum transmission range is at most √2.