Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Key Distribution Protocols Based on Noisy Channels in Presence of an Active Adversary: Conventional and New Versions With Parameter Optimization

In this paper, we consider the information-theoretic secure key distribution problem over noisy wiretap channels with public discussion and in the presence of an active adversary. There are several well-known versions of the protocols proposed by Maurer and Wolf to solve this problem. We describe several new versions of the key distribution protocols for the same channel model allowing to increase the key rate given a fixed key security and under an optimization of the protocol parameters. Both asymptotic and nonasymptotic cases are presented. It is shown that in some cases the nonasymptotic key rate is not so far from the asymptotic one whenever the lengths of the transmitted strings are of the order of thousands of bits.
Towards an algebraic approach to the discretisation of fermions.

A discretisation scheme for differential geometry is applied to the problem of constructing lattice actions, the naive and staggered action are thus derived. It is found that after specifying an ansatz for the space of fields, the corresponding lattice action is obtained. The gauging procedure, and the applicability of the method to twisted super-symmetry on a lattice is outlined. Some comments on the QED axial anomaly are made, for the theory in which the lattice projection operator is not inserted.
Toward a Valid Measure of E-Retailing Service Quality

E-retailers are major players in the field of electronic commerce and their success would seem to depend on service quality, because they are selling the same products that traditional retailers sell. This article critiques Collier and Bienstock's [5] new measure of e-retailing service quality and shows how the stages of e-retailing service quality can be more validly measured by adopting Rossiter's [12] C-OAR-SE procedure for scale development. Collier and Bienstock's measure is insufficiently valid because the measure (1) fails to specify the hierarchical objects that form the construct, and measures the overall object, e-retailing, wrongly by focusing on completed transactions; (2) does not fully acknowledge the hierarchy of attributes that form the construct and operationalizes these attributes wrongly as "reflective" when at all four levels they are "formed"; (3) inappropriately represents the rater entity by using college student participants; (4) employs unnecessarily numerous, often redundant, and sometimes ambiguous scale items, with Likert-type answer scales that make the observed scores managerially almost uninterpretable; and (5) tries to measure overall e-retailing service quality when it makes sense only to measure the separate quality ratings of sequential stages of the e-retailing service process. The article points out how these problems could be avoided by constructing a new measure that properly applies the C-OAR-SE procedure.
Differentiation at the MHCIIα and Cath2 Loci in Sympatric Salvelinus alpinus Resource Morphs in Lake Thingvallavatn

Northern freshwater fish may be suitable for the genetic dissection of ecological traits because they invaded new habitats after the last ice age (∼10.000 years ago). Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) colonizing streams and lakes in Iceland gave rise to multiple populations of small benthic morphotypes, often in sympatry with a pelagic morphotype. Earlier studies have revealed significant, but subtle, genetic differentiation between the three most common morphs in Lake Thingvallavatn. We conducted a population genetic screen on four immunological candidate genes Cathelicidin 2 (Cath2), Hepcidin (Hamp), Liver expressed antimicrobial peptide 2a (Leap-2a), and Major Histocompatibility Complex IIα (MHCIIα) and a mitochondrial marker (D-loop) among the three most common Lake Thingvallavatn charr morphs. Significant differences in allele frequencies were found between morphs at the Cath2 and MHCIIα loci. No such signal was detected in the D-loop nor in the other two immunological genes. In Cath2 the small benthic morph deviated from the other two (FST = 0.13), one of the substitutions detected constituting an amino acid replacement polymorphism in the antimicrobial peptide. A more striking difference was found in the MHCIIα. Two haplotypes were very common in the lake, and their frequency differed greatly between the morphotypes (from 22% to 93.5%, FST = 0.67). We then expanded our study by surveying the variation in Cath2 and MHCIIα in 9 Arctic charr populations from around Iceland. The populations varied greatly in terms of allele frequencies at Cath2, but the variation did not correlate with morphotype. At the MHCIIα locus, the variation was nearly identical to the variation in the two benthic morphs of Lake Thingvallavatn. The results are consistent with a scenario where parts of the immune systems have diverged substantially among Arctic charr populations in Iceland, after colonizing the island ∼10.000 years ago.
Multi-module Hashing System for SHA-3 & FPGA Integration

Hash functions are crucial cryptographic primitives and are widely used in security protocols. Up to now SHA-2 is the proposed NIST standard for hash functions, but is going to be substituted by the end of the next year. NIST is holding up a public competition to select a new hash algorithm(s), called SHA-3 (Secure Hash Algorithm Version 3), for the purpose of completely superseding the functions of the SHA-2 family. The four finalists have been selected by NIST, and a year is allocated for the public review of these algorithms. BLAKE hash functions family is one of the most promising finalists. A multi-module hashing system for this hash functions family, and the FPGA integration of it, are proposed in this work. The introduced system supports a multi-module operation in the sense that upon to the users selection performs efficiently for all hash functions of BLAKE family: -28, -32, -48, -64. The proposed multi-module system is compared with the stand alone implementations of each of the hash functions, integrated in separate FPGA devices. Comparisons with previously published related works are also presented, in order to have a fair and detailed evaluation of the proposed design methodology. Compared with them, the proposed multi-module system performs with higher operation frequency and allocates less silicon area resources. Finally, the proposed performs better, compared with other ones, in the term of throughput on a range of 100% to 500% and better at about 50%, compared with area-delay product factor.
Harmonic Suppressed Dual-Band Bandpass Filters With Tunable Passbands

This paper presents a novel approach to the design of tunable dual-band bandpass filter with broadband harmonic suppression characteristics. The proposed filter structure offers the possibility of two tunable passbands, as well as a fixed first passband and controllable second passband. The tunable passband frequency usually causes a shift of the harmonics, which need to be suppressed to improve out-of the passband characteristics. In order to suppress the harmonics over a broad bandwidth, defected ground structures are used at input and output feeding lines without degrading the passbands characteristics. Both theory and experiment are provided to validate the proposed filter. From the experimental results, it is found that the proposed filter exhibits a first passband center frequency tunable range of 34.14% from 0.85 to 1.2 GHz with the almost constant 3-dB fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 13% and second passband center frequency tunable range of 41.81% from 1.40 to 2.14 GHz with the 3-dB FBW of 11%. The measured results of the proposed filters show a rejection level of 20 dB up to more than ten times of second passband frequency can be obtained, thereby ensuring broad harmonics rejection characteristics without degradation of passbands. The measurement data have good agreement with the simulation.
AR-Engine - a framework for unrestricted co-reference resolution

The paper presents a framework that allows the design, realisation and validation of different anaphora resolution models on real texts. The type of processing implemented by the engine is an incremental one, simulating the reading of texts by humans. Advanced behaviour like postponed resolution and accumulation of values for features of the discourse entities during reading is implemented. Four models are defined, plugged in the framework and tested on a small corpus. The approach is open to any type of anaphora resolution. However, the models reported deal only with co-reference anaphora, independent of the type of the anaphor. It is shown that the setting on of more and more features, generally results in an improvement of the analysis.
A general formula of rate-distortion functions for source coding with side information at many decoders

Heegard and Berger introduced the model of lossy source coding in which side information is available at many decoders. For this model, their showed an upper bound of the rate-distortion function in the case where the source is stationary memoryless. In this paper, we extend their model to the case where the source may be nonstationary and/or nonergodic, and clarify the rate-distortion function for this model. This result is based on the information-spectrum method introduced by Han and Verdú. We also show some special cases of the rate-distortion function, and a single-letterized upper bound of the rate-distortion function in the case where the source is stationary memoryless.
Malnutrition and Mortality Patterns among Internally Displaced and Non-Displaced Population Living in a Camp, a Village or a Town in Eastern Chad

Background Certain population groups have been rendered vulnerable in Chad because of displacement of more than 200,000 people over the last three years as a result of mass violence against civilians in the east of the country. The objective of the study was to assess mortality and nutritional patterns among displaced and non-displaced population living in camps, villages and a town in the Ouddaï and Salamat regions of Chad. Methodology Between May and October 2007, two stage, 30-cluster household surveys were conducted among 43,900 internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in camps in Ouaddai region (n = 898 households), among 19,400 non-displaced persons (NDPs) living in 42 villages in Ouaddai region (n = 900 households) and among 17,000 NDPs living in a small town in Salamat region (n = 901 households). Data collection included anthropometric measurements, measles vaccination rates and retrospective mortality. Crude mortality rate (CMR), mortality rate among children younger than 5 years (U5MR), causes of death and the prevalence of wasting (weight-for-height z score <−2) among children aged 6 to 59 months were the main outcome measures. Conclusions The CMR among the 4902 IDPs in Gozbeida camps, 4477 NDPs living in a village and 4073 NDPs living in a town surveyed was 1.8 (95% CI, 1.2–2.8), 0.3 (95% CI, 0.2–0.4), 0.3 (95% CI, 0.2–0.5) per 10,000 per day, respectively. The U5MR in a camp (n = 904), a village (n = 956) and a town (n = 901) was 4.1 (95% CI, 2.1–7.7), 0.5 (95% CI, 0.3–0.9) and 0.7 (95% CI, 0.4–1.4) per 10,000 per day, respectively. Diarrhoea was reported to be the main cause of death. Acute malnutrition rates (according to the WHO definition) among 904 IDP children, 956 NDPs children living in a village, 901 NDP children living in a town aged 6 to 59 months were 20.6% (95% CI, 17.9%–23.3%), 16.4% (95% CI, 14.0%–18.8%) and 10.1% (95% CI, 8.1%–12.2%) respectively. The study found a high mortality rate among IDPs and an elevated prevalence of wasting not only in IDP camps but also in villages located in the same region. The town-dweller population remains at risk of malnutrition. Appropriate contingency plans need to be made to ensure acceptable living standards for these populations.
Rendering of Japanese Artcraft

We present several methods for simulation of Japanese lacquer ware, a prominent Far East Asian handicraft art. We consider two most popular kinds of Japanese lacquer ware made by the makie and nashiji techniques. For rendering makie, we propose a method for preparing RGBA textures from digital photos of art items. The alpha channels of these textures control the weight with which color channels are blended with the measured biderectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) of a metallic finish. Both ray tracing and hardware based rendering are demonstrated. In the latter case, we show how the calculation of a sphere map texture used for BRDF visualization can be accelerated using a special coordinate system for tabulated BRDF. The depth effect manifested by nashiji lacquer is simulated by the explicit modeling of metal platelets immersed in absorptive material.
The Addict in Us all Citation

The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. In this paper, we contend that the psychology of addiction is similar to the psychology of ordinary, non-addictive temptation in important respects, and explore the ways in which these parallels can illuminate both addiction and ordinary action. The incentive salience account of addiction proposed by Robinson and Berridge (1–3) entails that addictive desires are not in their nature different from many of the desires had by non-addicts; what is different is rather the way that addictive desires are acquired, which in turn affects their strength. We examine these " incentive salience " desires, both in addicts and non-addicts, contrasting them with more cognitive desires. On this account, the self-control challenge faced by addicted agents is not different in kind from that faced by non-addicted agents – though the two may, of course, differ greatly in degree of difficulty. We explore a general model of self-control for both the addict and the non-addict, stressing that self-control may be employed at three different stages, and examining the ways in which it might be strengthened. This helps elucidate a general model of intentional action.
Numerical Values Leave a Semantic Imprint on Associated Signs in Monkeys

Animals and humans share an evolutionary ancient quantity representation which is characterized by analog magnitude features: Discriminating magnitudes becomes more difficult with increasing set sizes (size effect) and with decreasing distance between two numerosities (distance effect). Humans show these effects even with number symbols. We wondered whether monkeys would show the same psychophysical effects with numerical signs and addressed this issue by training three monkeys to associate visual shapes with numerosities. We then confronted the monkeys with trials in which they had to match these visual signs with each other. The monkeys' performance in this shape versus shape protocol was positively correlated with the numerical distance and the magnitudes associated with the signs. Additionally, the monkeys responded significantly slower for signs with higher assigned numerical values. These findings suggest that the numerical values imprint their analog magnitudes characteristics onto the associated visual sign in monkeys, an effect that we also found reflected in the discharges of prefrontal neurons. This provides evidence for a precursor of the human number symbol knowledge.
G Protein-Coupled Receptor 87 (GPR87) Promotes the Growth and Metastasis of CD133+ Cancer Stem-Like Cells in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a prevalent disease worldwide, and the majority of HCC-related deaths occur due to local invasion and distant metastasis. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a small subpopulation of cancer cells that have been hypothesized to be responsible for metastatic disease. Recently, we and others have identified a CSC population from human HCC cell lines and xenograft tumors characterized by their expression of CD133. However, the precise molecular mechanisms by which CD133+ cancer stem-like cells mediate HCC metastasis have not been sufficiently analyzed. Here, we have sorted HCC cells using CD133 as a cancer stem cell (CSC) marker by magnetic-activated cell sorting (MACS) and demonstrated that the CD133+ HCC cells not only possess greater migratory and invasive capacity in vitro but are also endowed with enhanced metastatic capacity in vivo and in human HCC specimens when compared to CD133− HCC cells. Gene expression analysis of the CD133+ and CD133− cells of the HCC line SMMC-7721 revealed that G protein-coupled receptor 87 (GPR87) is highly expressed in CD133+ HCC cells. In this study, we explored the role of GPR87 in the regulation of CD133 expression. We demonstrated that the overexpression of GPR87 up-regulated CD133 expression, promoted CSC-associated migratory and invasive properties in vitro, and increased tumor initiation in vivo. Conversely, silencing of GPR87 expression reduced the levels of CD133 expression. Conclusion: GPR87 promotes the growth and metastasis of CD133+ cancer stem-like cells, and our findings may reveal new targets for HCC prevention or therapy.
Chromosomal Instability by Inefficient Mps1 Auto-Activation Due to a Weakened Mitotic Checkpoint and Lagging Chromosomes

Background Chromosomal instability (CIN), a feature widely shared by cells from solid tumors, is caused by occasional chromosome missegregations during cell division. Two of the causes of CIN are weakened mitotic checkpoint signaling and persistent merotelic attachments that result in lagging chromosomes during anaphase. Principal Findings Here we identify an autophosphorylation event on Mps1 that is required to prevent these two causes of CIN. Mps1 is phosphorylated in mitotic cells on at least 7 residues, 4 of which by autophosphorylation. One of these, T676, resides in the activation loop of the kinase domain and a mutant that cannot be phosphorylated on T676 is less active than wild-type Mps1 but is not kinase-dead. Strikingly, cells in which endogenous Mps1 was replaced with this mutant are viable but missegregate chromosomes frequently. Anaphase is initiated in the presence of misaligned and lagging chromosomes, indicative of a weakened checkpoint and persistent merotelic attachments, respectively. Conclusions/Significance We propose that full activity of Mps1 is essential for maintaining chromosomal stability by allowing resolution of merotelic attachments and to ensure that single kinetochores achieve the strength of checkpoint signaling sufficient to prevent premature anaphase onset and chromosomal instability. To our knowledge, phosphorylation of T676 on Mps1 is the first post-translational modification in human cells of which the absence causes checkpoint weakening and CIN without affecting cell viability.
Neural Networks-Based Adaptive Control for Nonlinear Time-Varying Delays Systems With Unknown Control Direction

This paper investigates a neural network (NN) state observer-based adaptive control for a class of time-varying delays nonlinear systems with unknown control direction. An adaptive neural memoryless observer, in which the knowledge of time-delay is not used, is designed to estimate the system states. Furthermore, by applying the property of the function tanh2(ϑ/ε)/ϑ (the function can be defined at ϑ = 0) and introducing a novel type appropriate Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, an adaptive output feedback controller is constructed via backstepping method which can efficiently avoid the problem of controller singularity and compensate for the time-delay. It is highly proven that the closed-loop systems controller designed by the NN-basis function property, new kind parameter adaptive law and Nussbaum function in detecting the control direction is able to guarantee the semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness of all signals and the tracking error can converge to a small neighborhood of zero. The characteristic of the proposed approach is that it relaxes any restrictive assumptions of Lipschitz condition for the unknown nonlinear continuous functions. And the proposed scheme is suitable for the systems with mismatching conditions and unmeasurable states. Finally, two simulation examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed approach.
Cooperation by Fibroblasts and Bone Marrow-Mesenchymal Stem Cells to Improve Pancreatic Rat-to-Mouse Islet Xenotransplantation

Experimental and clinical experiences highlight the need to review some aspects of islet transplantation, especially with regard to site of grafting and control of the immune response. The subcutaneous space could be a good alternative to liver but its sparse vasculature is its main limitation. Induction of graft tolerance by using cells with immunoregulatory properties is a promising approach to avoid graft rejection. Both Fibroblasts and Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) have shown pro-angiogenic and immunomodulatory properties. Transplantation of islets into the subcutaneous space using plasma as scaffold and supplemented with fibroblasts and/or Bone Marrow-MSCs could be a promising strategy to achieve a functional extra-hepatic islet graft, without using immunosuppressive drugs. Xenogenic rat islets, autologous fibroblasts and/or allogenic BM-MSCs, were mixed with plasma, and coagulation was induced to constitute a Plasma-based Scaffold containing Islets (PSI), which was transplanted subcutaneously both in immunodeficient and immunocompetent diabetic mice. In immunodeficient diabetic mice, PSI itself allowed hyperglycemia reversion temporarily, but the presence of pro-angiogenic cells (fibroblasts or BM-MSCs) within PSI was necessary to improve graft re-vascularization and, thus, consistently maintain normoglycemia. In immunocompetent diabetic mice, only PSI containing BM-MSCs, but not those containing fibroblasts, normalized glycemia lasting up to one week after transplantation. Interestingly, when PSI contained both fibroblasts and BM-MSCs, the normoglycemia period showed an increase of 4-times with a physiological-like response in functional tests. Histology of immunocompetent mice showed an attenuation of the immune response in those grafts with BM-MSCs, which was improved by co-transplantation with fibroblasts, since they increased BM-MSC survival. In summary, fibroblasts and BM-MSCs showed similar pro-angiogenic properties in this model of islet xenotransplantation, whereas only BM-MSCs exerted an immunomodulatory effect, which was improved by the presence of fibroblasts. These results suggest that cooperation of different cell types with islets will be required to achieve a long-term functional graft.
‘Genome design’ model and multicellular complexity: golden middle

Human tissue-specific genes were reported to be longer than housekeeping genes (both in coding and intronic parts). The competing neutralist and adaptationist models were proposed to explain this observation. Here I show that in human genome the longest are genes with the intermediate expression pattern. From the standpoint of information theory, the regulation of such genes should be most complex. In the genomewide context, they are found here to have the higher informational load on all available levels: from participation in protein interaction networks, pathways and modules reflected in Gene Ontology categories through transcription factor regulatory sets and protein functional domains to amino acid tuples (words) in encoded proteins and nucleotide tuples in introns and promoter regions. Thus, the intermediately expressed genes have the higher functional and regulatory complexity that is reflected in their greater length (which is consistent with the ‘genome design’ model). The dichotomy of housekeeping versus tissue-specific entities is more pronounced on the modular level than on the molecular level. There are much lesser intermediate-specific modules (modules overrepresented in the intermediately expressed genes) than housekeeping or tissue-specific modules (normalized to gene number). The dichotomy of housekeeping versus tissue-specific genes and modules in multicellular organisms is probably caused by the burden of regulatory complexity acted on the intermediately expressed genes.