Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance Analysis and Comparison of Different Elliptic Curves on Smart Cards

Elliptic curves are very often used in the cryptographic protocol design due to their memory efficiency and useful features, such as the bilinear pairing support. However, in many cryptographic papers, elliptic curves are used as a black box, without deeper consideration of their mathematical properties and, even more importantly, without considering implementation implications. As a consequence, novel cryptographic schemes are being published without any real chance of implementation on constrained devices due to their lack of support of basic EC operations like point addition or scalar point multiplication. This paper provides the necessary theoretical overview of main forms of elliptic curves, in particular considering their computational and memory complexity. Next, all major platforms of programmable smart cards are evaluated with respect to EC support and the performance of basic arithmetic operations is assessed using benchmarks. Finally, the evaluation of the implementations of ECC schemes, such as ECDH and ECDSA, is presented.
Cardiovascular disease and COPD: dangerous liaisons?

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) frequently occur together and their coexistence is associated with worse outcomes than either condition alone. Pathophysiological links between COPD and CVD include lung hyperinflation, systemic inflammation and COPD exacerbations. COPD treatments may produce beneficial cardiovascular (CV) effects, such as long-acting bronchodilators, which are associated with improvements in arterial stiffness, pulmonary vasoconstriction, and cardiac function. However, data are limited regarding whether these translate into benefits in CV outcomes. Some studies have suggested that treatment with long-acting β2-agonists and long-acting muscarinic antagonists leads to an increase in the risk of CV events, particularly at treatment initiation, although the safety profile of these agents with prolonged use appears reassuring. Some CV medications may have a beneficial impact on COPD outcomes, but there have been concerns about β-blocker use leading to bronchospasm in COPD, which may result in patients not receiving guideline-recommended treatment. However, there are few data suggesting harm with these agents and patients should not be denied β-blockers if required. Clearer recommendations are necessary regarding the identification and management of comorbid CVD in patients with COPD in order to facilitate early intervention and appropriate treatment. CVD and COPD are often comorbid. Their pathophysiology and treatment may affect each other and health outcomes. http://ow.ly/v18p30lxmms
Deception detection using artificial neural network and support vector machine

Lie detection, also called as deception detection, uses questioning techniques to ascertain truth and falsehood in response. In this paper, features of speech and physical values are used to ascertain truth and lie. The Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient, Energy, Zero Crossing Rate, Fundamental Frequency and frame function of speech signal and physical values like Heart Beat, Blood Pressure and Respiratory Rate are used to model the linear detector model. The results are validated by support vector machine and artificial neural network.
Dual diagnosis in a Dublin tertiary addiction centre - A cross-sectional study

Abstract Objectives: To address the relative dearth of information relating to the prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity among attenders of community addiction facilities. Methods: We carried out a cross-sectional study of clients attending a Dublin-based tertiary addiction centre to assess the rates of psychiatric co-morbidity, determine the demographic and clinical variables and evaluate the level of contact with allied medical care especially primary care and community psychiatric services. Information was sourced from available patient records. Results: Forty-three per cent of the clients (n = 59), attending the service were found to have a chart diagnosis of psychiatric disorder. Only 15% of these were in contact with community psychiatric services. Conclusions: This high rate of psychiatric co-morbidity has implications in terms of funding, training and service delivery.
Design And Analysis Of CMOS-Memristive Cascode Current Mirror

Current mirror is one of the most widely used component in analog circuit design. There are different current mirror configurations, where main challenge is to find the trade off between the linearity and accuracy of the performance and the number of required CMOS transistors for the design to improve on-chip area, power consumption, leakage currents and unstable behavior under different conditions. In this paper, the application of memristive devices in cascode current mirror is presented. Simulation results of CMOS-memristive current mirror show the improvements in power consumption and on-chip area, comparing to the conventional design. In addition, total harmonic distortion analysis as well as current transfer characteristics of the proposed circuit is presented.
Performance Improvement for Segmented-Stator Hybrid-Excitation SRM Drives Using an Improved Asymmetric Half-Bridge Converter

This paper presents an improved asymmetric half-bridge converter (AHBC) to enhance the output performance of a segmented-stator hybrid-excitation switched reluctance motor (SSHE-SRM) drive. Differences from conventional AHBC include an additional boost capacitor, a power switch, and two diodes added between the dc-bus and the AHBC. The static torque characteristic of a 12/8 SSHE-SRM is briefly analyzed and compared with a conventional SRM (CSRM). Based on the magnetic characteristic, the SSHE-SRM appears to have higher torque production capability. The improved AHBC is employed in order to increase the dc-bus voltage under dynamic operation. Higher voltage can be applied to phase windings and faster excitation and demagnetization currents can be obtained owing to the addition of capacitor voltage. Detailed simulations of the SSHE-SRM drive with the improved AHBC are carried out as well as compared with conventional AHBC. Finally, a 12/8 SSHE-SRM is prototyped. The SSHE-SRM drive based on the improved AHBC and conventional AHBC are experimentally tested. The measured results of static magnetic characteristic and dynamic performances are presented to validate the analysis and effectiveness of the novel converter.
Protocol for the Lactoferrin Infant Feeding Trial (LIFT): a randomised trial of adding lactoferrin to the feeds of very-low birthweight babies prior to hospital discharge

Introduction Very-low birthweight (VLBW, <1500 g) infants comprise about 1%–1.4% of all births in high-income countries. Every year, about 3000 VLBW babies in Australia and New Zealand receive intensive care. Many die or else survive with severe brain injury, retinopathy, late-onset sepsis or necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), each of which carries substantial risk of disability. Methods and analysis This trial tests whether adding bovine lactoferrin (bLF) to feeds in VLBW infants improves (1) survival to hospital discharge free from brain injury, late-onset sepsis, NEC and treated retinopathy of prematurity (primary composite end point); (2) each component of the primary composite end point and (3) time to reach full enteral feeds, number of blood transfusions, chronic lung disease and length of hospital stay. It includes a cost-effectiveness analysis of bLF in improving survival free from major morbidity, and evaluates the effect of bLF on survival and developmental outcomes at 24 to 36 months corrected gestational age. This is a multicentre, two-arm, randomised trial comparing the treatment group receiving bLF added to breast milk or formula milk daily (up to 250 mg/kg/day bLF) versus the control group receiving no bLF supplementation. The intervention is administered until 34 completed weeks corrected gestation or for 2 weeks, whichever is longer, or until discharge home, if earlier. The target sample size of 1500 participants yields 85% power, at the two-sided 5% level significance, to detect a difference in proportions meeting the primary outcome assuming the true probability is 74% in controls and 80.5% in the bLF group. Ethics and dissemination This protocol was approved by Northern Sydney Local Human Research Ethics Committee in January 2017 (Version 2.0, Reference 1003-118M) and other relevant ethics committees. The findings of the trial will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals and conference presentations. Trial registration number ACTRN12611000247976; Pre-results.
PromID: human promoter prediction by deep learning

Computational identification of promoters is notoriously difficult as human genes often have unique promoter sequences that provide regulation of transcription and interaction with transcription initiation complex. While there are many attempts to develop computational promoter identification methods, we have no reliable tool to analyze long genomic sequences. In this work we further develop our deep learning approach that was relatively successful to discriminate short promoter and non-promoter sequences. Instead of focusing on the classification accuracy, in this work we predict the exact positions of the TSS inside the genomic sequences testing every possible location. We studied human promoters to find effective regions for discrimination and built corresponding deep learning models. These models use adaptively constructed negative set which iteratively improves the models discriminative ability. The developed promoter identification models significantly outperform the previously developed promoter prediction programs by considerably reducing the number of false positive predictions. The best model we have built has recall 0.76, precision 0.77 and MCC 0.76, while the next best tool FPROM achieved precision 0.48 and MCC 0.60 for the recall of 0.75. Our method is available at this http URL
The Challenges and Opportunities of Pharmacoepidemiology in Bone Diseases

Pharmacoepidemiology is used extensively in osteoporosis research and involves the study of the use and effects of drugs in large numbers of people. Randomized controlled trials are considered the gold standard in assessing treatment efficacy and safety. However, their results can have limited external validity when applied to day‐to‐day patients. Pharmacoepidemiological studies aim to assess the effect/s of treatments in actual practice conditions, but they are limited by the quality, completeness, and inherent bias due to confounding. Sources of information include prospectively collected (primary) as well as readily available routinely collected (secondary) (eg, electronic medical records, administrative/claims databases) data. Although the former enable the collection of ad hoc measurements, the latter provide a unique opportunity for the study of large representative populations and for the assessment of rare events at relatively low cost. Observational cohort and case‐control studies, the most commonly implemented study designs in pharmacoepidemiology, each have their strengths and limitations. However, the choice of the study design depends on the research question that needs to be answered. Despite the many advantages of observational studies, they also have limitations. First, missing data is a common issue in routine data, frequently dealt with using multiple imputation. Second, confounding by indication arises because of the lack of randomization; multivariable regression and more specific techniques such as propensity scores (adjustment, matching, stratification, trimming, or weighting) are used to minimize such biases. In addition, immortal time bias (time period during which a subject is artefactually event‐free by study design) and time‐varying confounding (patient characteristics changing over time) are other types of biases usually accounted for using time‐dependent modeling. Finally, residual “uncontrolled” confounding is difficult to assess, and hence to account for it, sensitivity analyses and specific methods (eg, instrumental variables) should be considered. © 2018 The Authors JBMR Plus published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Comparison of autogenous and allograft bone rings in surgically created vertical bone defects around implants in a sheep model

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to compare autogenous and allograft bone rings in surgically created vertical bone defects. MATERIAL AND METHODS Four male, 1-year-old sheep were used in this study. In each sheep, eight vertical bone defects 7 mm in diameter were created using trephine drill in the iliac wing. Autogenous and allograft bone rings 5 mm in height and 7 mm in diameter were used for vertical augmentation around implants. The study consisted of four groups according to the bone ring type and amount of vertical augmentation, autogenous 2 mm, allograft 2 mm, autogenous 4 mm, and allograft 4 mm. Two of the animals were sacrificed after 4 months, and the remaining two animals were sacrificed after 8 months. Undecalcified sections were prepared from harvested samples. Histological assessment and histomorphometric analysis were performed. RESULTS Autogenous 2 mm group showed higher values than allograft 2 mm group, and autogenous 4 mm group showed higher values than allograft 4 mm group in terms of bone area and bone-to-implant contact (BIC) after 4 months. However, allograft 2 mm group showed higher bone area and BIC values than autogenous 2 mm group after 8 months. Also, autogenous 4 mm and allograft 4 mm groups showed comparable results after 8 months. Allograft 2 mm and allograft 4 mm groups showed higher bone area and BIC values at 8 months compared with 4 months. CONCLUSIONS Allograft bone ring looks promising in augmentation of surgically created vertical bone defects around implants after 8 months of healing.
PV Performance Assessment through Calibrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization

The theoretical methods for modeling the photovoltaic systems available in the literature describes the perfect behavior of the solar component _cellimoduleistring_ as a generator working in the environmental conditions regarding the temperature of the cell and the emitted irradiance. This last is symbolized in the named PV characteristics. This way of modeling passes over many parameters that might influence on the electrical output of the photovoltaic unit. In the recent year other methods start using the experimental measurements to characterize the losses. In the present paper an upgraded method of modeling the photovoltaic unit will be presented. As the current-voltage characteristic curve do not still remain the same during the years of operation due to aging. Moreover, sometimes the overall shape is deviated due to the occurrence of temporary defaults; this method of modeling will permit a comparison between the in-situ measurements and a previous saint reference curve of the same system, as long as a perfect matching is expected. In the case of non-matching, which refer to system failure, a diagnosis algorithm is developed based on key parameters comparison, to detect malfunctions on the system based on curve deviation analysis.
Three-Year-Olds Solved a Mental Rotation Task Above Chance Level, but No Linear Relation Concerning Reaction Time and Angular Disparity Presented Itself

Three-year-olds and 4-year-olds have severe difficulties solving standard mental rotation tasks. Only 5-year-olds solve such tasks above chance reliably. In contrast studies relying on simplified mental rotation tasks indicate that infants discriminate between an object and its mirror image. Furthermore in another simplified mental rotation task with 3-year-olds, a linear relation between angular disparity and reaction time typical for mental rotation was revealed. Therefore it was assumed that 3-year-olds’ capabilities are underestimated. In the current study, 3-year-olds were trained in two isolated sessions to solve standard mental rotation tasks and were tested in a third session. Three-year-olds solved this test above chance as a group – a substantial number of them doing so on an individual level. However, a linear relation between angular disparity and reaction time, that would indicate an analog mental transformation, was not discernable. Nevertheless, these findings are in accordance with a continuous line describing mental rotation in infants and older children. And, these also indicate that children’s mental rotation capabilities might be underestimated.
Cognitive control and network disruption in remitted depression: a correlate of childhood adversity

Abstract Individuals in a major depressive episode often display impairment in cognitive control, and this impairment exists outside of the acute phase of illness. Impairment in cognitive control also has been associated with exposure to childhood adversity (CA). The current study examined whether exposure to CA can explain variance in a component of cognitive control—inhibitory control—independent of diagnostic status in young adults with and without a history of depression. Healthy control individuals (n = 40) and individuals with remitted major depressive disorder (n = 53) completed a task measuring inhibitory control, reported level of CA and completed a scanning session to assess gray matter volume and resting state connectivity in regions associated with cognitive control. The results demonstrate that higher levels of CA were associated with poorer inhibitory control, reduced right middle frontal gyrus gray matter, decreased connectivity of salience and emotion networks and increased connectivity in cognitive control networks, even after controlling for diagnostic status, residual depression symptoms and current stressors. Together, the results suggest that inhibitory control impairment and intrinsic connectivity changes may be characterized as developmental sequelae of early stress exposure.
Self‐controlled case series studies: Just how rare does a rare non‐recurrent outcome need to be?

The self‐controlled case series method assumes that adverse outcomes arise according to a non‐homogeneous Poisson process. This implies that it is applicable to independent recurrent outcomes. However, the self‐controlled case series method may also be applied to unique, non‐recurrent outcomes or first outcomes only, in the limit where these become rare. We investigate this rare outcome assumption when the self‐controlled case series method is applied to non‐recurrent outcomes. We study this requirement analytically and by simulation, and quantify what is meant by ‘rare’ in this context. In simulations we also apply the self‐controlled risk interval design, a special case of the self‐controlled case series design. To illustrate, we extract data on the incidence rate of some recurrent and non‐recurrent outcomes within a defined study population to check whether outcomes are sufficiently rare for the rare outcome assumption to hold when applying the self‐controlled case series method to first or unique outcomes. The main findings are that the relative bias should be no more than 5% when the cumulative incidence over total time observed is less than 0.1 per individual. Inclusion of age (or calendar time) effects will further reduce bias. Designs that begin observation with exposure maximise bias, whereas little or no bias will be apparent when there is no time trend in the distribution of exposures, or when exposure is central within time observed.
“We Wait”—The Impact of Character Responsiveness and Self Embodiment on Presence and Interest in an Immersive News Experience

A virtual reality scenario called “We Wait” gives people an immersive experience of the plight of refugees waiting to be picked up by a boat on a shore in Turkey to be illegally taken to Europe, crossing a dangerous stretch of sea. This was based on BBC news reporting of the refugee situation, but deliberately depicted as an animation with cartoon-like characters representing the refugees. Of interest was the level of presence that might be experienced by participants and the extent to which the scenario might prompt participants to follow-up further information about the refugee crisis. By presence we refer to both Place Illusion, the illusion of being in the rendered space, and Plausibility, the illusion that the unfolding events were really happening. The follow-up was assessed by whether and when participants accessed a web page that contained further information about the refugee crisis after the experiment. Two factors were considered in a balanced between-groups design with 32 participants. The Responsiveness factor was either “None” or “Look at. ” In the first the virtual characters in the scenario never responded to actions of the participant, and in the second they would occasionally look at the participant after the participant looked at them. The second factor was Embodiment, which was either “No Body” or “Body. ” In the No Body condition participants had no virtual body, and in the Body condition they would see a virtual body spatially congruent with their own if they looked down toward themselves. The virtual body was animated by the head tracking move the upper body. The results showed that the major factor positively contributing to presence was Responsiveness (“Look at”), and that Embodiment (“Body”) may have contributed but to a lesser extent. There were important differences between men and woman in the degree of follow-up, with men more likely to do so than women. The experiment shows that adding in some simple responses in an immersive journalism scenario, where the characters acknowledge the presence of the participant through gaze, can enhance the degree of presence felt by the participants.
Multilayer Autoencoders and EM - PCA with Genetic Algorithm for Epilepsy Classification from EEG

The structural components and the activities are marvelous for the human brain but it is prone to more neurological disorders and one such disorder is epilepsy. The term epilepsy is referred to a particular condition when a person has recurrent seizures. When abnormal discharges occur in the electrical activities of the brain cells, seizures occur and it gives rise to many abnormal behaviors like unusual perceptions, involuntary muscle movement and a high disturbed level of consciousness. Electroencephalography (EEG) serves as an indispensable tool for the analysis and diagnosis of epilepsy. In this work, Multilayer Autoencoders and Expectation - Maximization Based Principal Component Analysis (EM-PCA) are used to reduce the dimensions of the data and then it is classified with the help of Genetic Algorithm (GA). Results show that an average classification accuracy of 93.78% is obtained when Autoencoders are employed and when EM-PCA is utilized an average classification accuracy of 93.92% is obtained.
Chemical Items Used for Preparing Tissue-Mimicking Material of Wall-Less Flow Phantom for Doppler Ultrasound Imaging

The wall-less flow phantoms with recognized acoustic features (attenuation and speed of sound), interior properties, and dimensions of tissue were prepared, calibrated, and characterized of Doppler ultrasound scanning demands tissue-mimicking materials (TMMs). TMM phantoms are commercially available and ready-made for medical ultrasound applications. Furthermore, the commercial TMM phantoms are proper for ultrasound purpose or estimation of diagnostic imaging techniques according to the chemical materials used for its preparation. However, preparing a desirable TMM for wall-less flow phantom using a specific chemical material according to the specific applications is required for different flow. In this review, TMM and wall-less flow phantoms prepared using different chemical materials and methods were described. The chemical materials used in Doppler ultrasound TMM and wall-less flow phantoms fabricated over the previous decades were of high interest in this review.