Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A formally assured intelligent ecosystem for enhanced ambient assisted living support

The increasing proportion of elderly adults across the world calls for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions that can support the elderly in their daily activities, ensure timely resolution of critical scenarios, and help them live independently and without social isolation. However, most of the existing AAL solutions deliver only certain functionalities, that, if used side by side, cannot resolve potentially critical scenarios in a timely manner. A safe mitigation of such situations is possible if all relevant AAL functions are seamlessly integrated, and supported by artificially intelligent decision-making solutions. Moreover, given the safety-critical nature of such systems, evidence of their correctness and quality of service needs to also be provided via formal analysis techniques. This paper addresses such issues by presenting the ongoing Ph.D. research work of the author, aiming at developing a formally assured ecosystem for AAL systems.
Using Automated Live Cell Imaging to Reveal Early Changes during Human Motor Neuron Degeneration

Visual Abstract Human neurons expressing mutations associated with neurodegenerative disease are becoming more widely available. Hence, developing assays capable of accurately detecting changes that occur early in the disease process and identifying therapeutics able to slow these changes should become ever more important. Using automated live-cell imaging, we studied human motor neurons in the process of dying following neurotrophic factor withdrawal. We tracked different neuronal features, including cell body size, neurite length, and number of nodes. In particular, measuring the number of nodes in individual neurons proved to be an accurate predictor of relative health. Importantly, intermediate phenotypes were defined and could be used to distinguish between agents that could fully restore neurons and neurites and those only capable of maintaining neuronal cell bodies. Application of live-cell imaging to disease modeling has the potential to uncover new classes of therapeutic molecules that intervene early in disease progression.
A study of the validity and reliability of the Brazilian version of the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) among adolescents

OBJECTIVES: to produce evidence of the validity and reliability of the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) - a tool for measuring an individual's attitude towards his or her body image. METHODS: the study covered 386 young people of both sexes aged between 10 and 18 from a private school and used self-applied questionnaires and anthropometric evaluation. It evaluated the internal consistency, the discriminant validity for differences from the means, according to nutritional status (underweight, eutrophic, overweight and obese), the concurrent validity by way of Spearman's correlation coefficient between the scale and the Body Mass Index (BMI), the waist-hip circumference ratio (WHR) and the waist circumference (WC). Reliability was tested using Wilcoxon's Test, the intraclass correlation coefficient and the Bland-Altman figures. RESULTS: the BSQ displayed good internal consistency (±=0.96) and was capable of discriminating among the total population, boys and girls, according to nutritional status (p<0.001). It correlated with the BMI (r=0.41; p<0.001), WHR (r=-0.10; p=0.043) and WC (r=0.24; p<0.001) and its reliability was confirmed by intraclass correlation (r=0.91; p<0.001) for the total population. The questionnaire was easy to understand and could be completed quickly. CONCLUSIONS: the BSQ presented good results, thereby providing evidence of its validity and reliability. It is therefore recommended for evaluation of body image attitudes among adolescents.
Reappraisal of Reported Genes for Sudden Arrhythmic Death

Background: Implicit in the genetic evaluation of patients with suspected genetic diseases is the assumption that the genes evaluated are causative for the disease based on robust scientific and statistical evidence. However, in the past 20 years, considerable variability has existed in the study design and quality of evidence supporting reported gene-disease associations, raising concerns of the validity of many published disease-causing genes. Brugada syndrome (BrS) is an arrhythmia syndrome with a risk of sudden death. More than 20 genes have been reported to cause BrS and are assessed routinely on genetic testing panels in the absence of a systematic, evidence-based evaluation of the evidence supporting the causality of these genes. Methods: We evaluated the clinical validity of genes tested by diagnostic laboratories for BrS by assembling 3 gene curation teams. Using an evidence-based semiquantitative scoring system of genetic and experimental evidence for gene-disease associations, curation teams independently classified genes as demonstrating limited, moderate, strong, or definitive evidence for disease causation in BrS. The classification of curator teams was reviewed by a clinical domain expert panel that could modify the classifications based on their independent review and consensus. Results: Of 21 genes curated for clinical validity, biocurators classified only 1 gene (SCN5A) as definitive evidence, whereas all other genes were classified as limited evidence. After comprehensive review by the clinical domain Expert panel, all 20 genes classified as limited evidence were reclassified as disputed with regard to any assertions of disease causality for BrS. Conclusions: Our results contest the clinical validity of all but 1 gene clinically tested and reported to be associated with BrS. These findings warrant a systematic, evidence-based evaluation for reported gene-disease associations before use in patient care.
Using Generalized Entropies and OC-SVM with Mahalanobis Kernel for Detection and Classification of Anomalies in Network Traffic

Network anomaly detection and classification is an important open issue in network security. Several approaches and systems based on different mathematical tools have been studied and developed, among them, the Anomaly-Network Intrusion Detection System (A-NIDS), which monitors network traffic and compares it against an established baseline of a “normal” traffic profile. Then, it is necessary to characterize the “normal” Internet traffic. This paper presents an approach for anomaly detection and classification based on Shannon, Renyi and Tsallis entropies of selected features, and the construction of regions from entropy data employing the Mahalanobis distance (MD), and One Class Support Vector Machine (OC-SVM) with different kernels (Radial Basis Function (RBF) and Mahalanobis Kernel (MK)) for “normal” and abnormal traffic. Regular and non-regular regions built from “normal” traffic profiles allow anomaly detection, while the classification is performed under the assumption that regions corresponding to the attack classes have been previously characterized. Although this approach allows the use of as many features as required, only four well-known significant features were selected in our case. In order to evaluate our approach, two different data sets were used: one set of real traffic obtained from an Academic Local Area Network (LAN), and the other a subset of the 1998 MIT-DARPA set. For these data sets, a True positive rate up to 99.35%, a True negative rate up to 99.83% and a False negative rate at about 0.16% were yielded. Experimental results show that certain q-values of the generalized entropies and the use of OC-SVM with RBF kernel improve the detection rate in the detection stage, while the novel inclusion of MK kernel in OC-SVM and k-temporal nearest neighbors improve accuracy in classification. In addition, the results show that using the Box-Cox transformation, the Mahalanobis distance yielded high detection rates with an efficient computation time, while OC-SVM achieved detection rates slightly higher, but is more computationally expensive.
Evaluating the Effects of Material Sonification in Tactile Devices

Since the integration of internet of things technologies in our daily lives, there has been an increasing demand for new ways to interact with commodities in the domain of e-commerce, that go beyond passive product visualization. When considering materials from retailing stores, the utilization of audio cues has proven to be a simple but effective way to enhance not only the estimation of well-established physical qualities (e.g. roughness, flexibility), but also affective properties (e.g. pleasantness, value), which have an important leverage in the user decision for or against a product. In this paper, we propose to investigate augmenting visual representations of leather and fabric materials with touch-related audio feedback generated when rubbing the fingertip against the samples. For this purpose, we developed an interactive material sonification system for tactile devices that allows evaluating the impact of such audio cues on the human perception of materials by means of a psychophysical study based on rating scales for a set of relevant physical and affective material qualities. Our experimental results indicate that the evaluated touch-related audio cues do not significantly contribute to the perception of these attributes for the considered materials. In light of these findings, we suggest complementary directions of research in interactive material sonification, which may lead to profitable results.
Continuous Experimentation and A/B Testing: A Mapping Study

Background. Continuous experimentation (CE) has recently emerged as an established industry practice and as a research subject. Our aim is to study the application of CE and A/B testing in various industrial contexts. Objective. We wanted to investigate whether CE is used in different sectors of industry, by how it is reported in academic studies. We also wanted to explore the main topics researched to give an overview of the subject and discuss future research directions. Method. We performed a systematic mapping study of the published literature and included 62 papers, using a combination of database search and snowballing. Results. Most reported software experiments are done online and with software delivered as a service, although varied exemptions exist for e.g., financial software and games. The most frequently researched topics are challenges to conduct experiments and statistical methods for software experiments. Conclusions. The software engineering research on CE is still in its infancy. There are future research opportunities in evaluation research of technical topics and investigations of ethical experimentation. We conclude that the included studies show that A/B testing is applicable to a diversity of software and organisations.
How Long Can Optimal Locally Repairable Codes Be?

A locally repairable code (LRC) with locality <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${r}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> allows for the recovery of any erased codeword symbol using only <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${r}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> other codeword symbols. A Singleton-type bound dictates the best possible tradeoff between the dimension and distance of LRCs—an LRC attaining this tradeoff is deemed <italic>optimal</italic>. Such optimal LRCs have been constructed over alphabets growing linearly in the block length. Unlike the classical Singleton bound, however, it was not known if such a linear growth in the alphabet size is necessary or, for that matter, even if the alphabet needs to grow at all with the block length. Indeed, for small code distances 3 and 4, arbitrarily long optimal LRCs were known over fixed alphabets. Here, we prove that for distances <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {d} { \geqslant } {5}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, the code length <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {n}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> of an optimal LRC over an alphabet of size <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {q}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> must be at most roughly <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {O}{(}{{dq}}^{{3}}{)}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. For the case <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {d} = {5}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, our upper bound is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {O}( {q}^{{2}})$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. We complement these bounds by showing the existence of optimal LRCs of length <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {\Omega }_{ {d}, {r}}( {q}^{ {1+1}/\lfloor ( {d}- {3})/ {2}\rfloor }{)}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> when <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {d} \leqslant {r}+ {2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. These bounds match when <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {d} = {5}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, thus pinning down <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {n} = {\Theta }( {q}^{{2}})$ </tex-math></inline-formula> as the asymptotically largest length of an optimal LRC for this case.
Association of Dyslipidemia and Glycated Haemoglobin in Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Background: GDM is a condition where there is an onset of carbohydrate intolerance during pregnancy. In this condition many changes will take place in carbohydrate metabolism and other metabolic pathways especially in lipid metabolism. These metabolic changes associated with insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. We have aim to study the association between dyslipidemia and glycated haemoglobin. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in 80 pregnant women of rural population of Puducherry in two groups. Group 1 includes 40 newly diagnosed GDM patients by DIPSI and Group II with 40 normal pregnant women, age group were between 20 to 40 years. Fasting blood glucose, 2-hour post glucose and lipid profile were estimated by auto analyzer. HbA1c was analysis by HPLC method. For comparisons of means student t-test was used to determine the significance between GDM and controls. Results: There was statistically significant difference in lipid profiles (P = 0.05), HDL (P = 0.04), VLDL (P = 0.00), LDL (P = 0.04) HDL (P = 0.04) in GDM groups. HbA1c (P = 0.02) levels were statistically significant with GDM pregnant women. There was no statically significant difference between FG (P = 0.23), TG (P = 0.30) and lipids profiles ratio levels in GDM. Conclusion: This study was found to be associations between lipids profiles and Gestational diabetes mellitus in GDM groups.
Solution-aware data flow diagrams for security threat modeling

Threat modeling refers to a number of systematic approaches for eliciting security and privacy threats. Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) are the main input for threat modeling techniques such as Microsoft STRIDE or LINDDUN. They represent system-level abstractions that lack any architectural knowledge on existing security solutions. However, this is not how software is built in practice: there are often previously-made security- and privacy-relevant decisions that originate from the technological context or domain, reuse, or external dependencies. Not taking these into account leads to the enumeration of many non-applicable threats during threat modeling. While recording the effect of these decisions on individual elements can provide some relief, the lack of a proper first-class representation causes conflicts when modifying the architecture and inhibits traceability between effect and decision. In this paper, we enrich Data Flow Diagrams with security solution elements, which are taken into account during threat elicitation. Our modeling approach is supported by a proof-of-concept implementation of a threat modeling framework and validated in the context of a STRIDE analysis of an industrial video conferencing solution that is based on WebRTC. The presented DFD enrichments are a key enabler for future efforts towards dynamic and continuous threat modeling.
Socialization and generational political trajectories: an age, period and cohort analysis of political participation in Britain

ABSTRACT The role of political socialization in explaining disengagement from specific modes of activism beyond voting remains largely unexplored, limited to date by available data and methods. While most previous studies have tended to propose explanations for disengagement linked to specific repertoires of political action, we propose a unified theory based on the different socialization experiences of subsequent generations. We test this theory using a new dataset of collated waves of the British Social Attitudes Survey and by applying age–period–cohort models for repeated cross-sectional data and generalized additive models to identify generational effects. We show that generational effects underlie the participatory decline across repertoires. Consistent with our expectations, the results reveal that the generation of “Thatcher’s Children” are much less likely to engage in a range of repertoires of political action than “Wilson/Callaghan’s Children”, who came of age in the more politicized 1960s and 1970s. Significantly, and in line with our theoretical expectations, the “Blair’s Babies” generation is the least politically engaged of all. We reflect on these findings and highlight the concerning implications of falling levels of activism for advanced democracies.
Outcomes Associated With Apixaban Use in Patients With End-Stage Kidney Disease and Atrial Fibrillation in the United States

Background: Patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) on dialysis were excluded from clinical trials of direct oral anticoagulants for atrial fibrillation (AF). Recent data have raised concerns regarding the safety of dabigatran and rivaroxaban, but apixaban has not been evaluated despite current labeling supporting its use in this population. The goal of this study was to determine patterns of apixaban use and its associated outcomes in dialysis-dependent patients with ESKD and AF. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of Medicare beneficiaries included in the United States Renal Data System (October 2010 to December 2015). Eligible patients were those with ESKD and AF undergoing dialysis who initiated treatment with an oral anticoagulant. Because of the small number of dabigatran and rivaroxaban users, outcomes were only assessed in patients treated with apixaban or warfarin. Apixaban and warfarin patients were matched (1:3) based on prognostic score. Differences between groups in survival free of stroke or systemic embolism, major bleeding, gastrointestinal bleeding, intracranial bleeding, and death were assessed using Kaplan–Meier analyses. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs were derived from Cox regression analyses. Results: The study population consisted of 25 523 patients (45.7% women; 68.2±11.9 years of age), including 2351 patients on apixaban and 23 172 patients on warfarin. An annual increase in apixaban prescriptions was observed after its marketing approval at the end of 2012, such that 26.6% of new anticoagulant prescriptions in 2015 were for apixaban. In matched cohorts, there was no difference in the risks of stroke/systemic embolism between apixaban and warfarin (HR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.69–1.12; P=0.29), but apixaban was associated with a significantly lower risk of major bleeding (HR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.59–0.87; P<0.001). In sensitivity analyses, standard-dose apixaban (5 mg twice a day; n=1034) was associated with significantly lower risks of stroke/systemic embolism and death as compared with either reduced-dose apixaban (2.5 mg twice a day; n=1317; HR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.37–0.98; P=0.04 for stroke/systemic embolism; HR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.45–0.92; P=0.01 for death) or warfarin (HR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.42–0.97; P=0.04 for stroke/systemic embolism; HR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.46–0.85; P=0.003 for death). Conclusions: Among patients with ESKD and AF on dialysis, apixaban use may be associated with a lower risk of major bleeding compared with warfarin, with a standard 5 mg twice a day dose also associated with reductions in thromboembolic and mortality risk.
Tackling Occlusions & Limited Sensor Range with Set-based Safety Verification

Provable safety is one of the most critical challenges in automated driving. The behavior of numerous traffic participants in a scene cannot be predicted reliably due to complex interdependencies and the indiscriminate behavior of humans. Additionally, we face high uncertainties and only incomplete environment knowledge. Recent approaches minimize risk with probabilistic and machine learning methods - even under occlusions. These generate comfortable behavior with good traffic flow, but cannot guarantee safety of their maneuvers. Therefore, we contribute a safety verification method for trajectories under occlusions. The field-of-view of the ego vehicle and a map are used to identify critical sensing field edges, each representing a potentially hidden obstacle. The state of occluded obstacles is unknown, but can be over-approximated by intervals over all possible states. Then set-based methods are extended to provide occupancy predictions for obstacles with state intervals. The proposed method can verify the safety of given trajectories (e.g. if they ensure collision-free fail-safe maneuver options) w.r. t. arbitrary safe-state formulations. The potential for provably safe trajectory planning is shown in three evaluative scenarios.
Ransomware prevention using application authentication-based file access control

Ransomware emerged in recent years as one of the most significant cyber threats facing both individuals and organizations, inflicting global damage costs that are estimated upwards of $1 billion in 2016 alone [23]. The increase in the scale and impact of recent ransomware attacks highlights the need of finding effective countermeasures. We present AntiBotics - a novel system for application authentication-based file access control. AntiBotics enforces a file access-control policy by presenting periodic identification/authorization challenges. We implemented AntiBotics for Windows. Our experimental evaluation shows that contemporary ransomware programs are unable to encrypt any of the files protected by AntiBotics and that the daily rate of challenges it presents to users is very low. We discuss possible ways in which future ransomware may attempt to attack AntiBotics and explain how these attacks can be thwarted.
Fully homomorphic encryption scheme for secure computation

Nowadays, more and more organizations move their data to the cloud. When it comes to cloud computing, which is common among different industries for its speed and efficiency, data has to be decrypted to allow mathematical operations to be applied to it. Thus, in this case, the original data is seen in its plain format by the third-party service, which introduces a problem of keeping the data secret to avoid data leakages. Fully Homomorphic Encryption schemes help to address this issue by making computation applicable over ciphertexts. Most of the existent solutions, while providing good data protection require huge computational resources and produce big keys and ciphertexts. In this paper, we propose a new compact fully homomorphic encryption scheme with keys and output data which are well suited for practical use.