Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust minimum variance filtering

This paper deals with the robust minimum variance filtering problem for linear systems subject to norm-bounded parameter uncertainty in both the state and the output matrices of the state-space model. The problem addressed is the design of linear filters having an error variance with a guaranteed upper bound for any allowed uncertainty. Two methods for designing robust filters are investigated. The first one deals with constant parameter uncertainty and focuses on the design of steady-state filters that yield an upper bound to the worst-case asymptotic error variance. This bound depends on an upper bound for the power spectrum density of a signal at a specific point in the system, and it can be made tighter if a tight bound on the latter power spectrum can be obtained. The second method allows for time-varying parameter uncertainty and for general time-varying systems and is more systematic. We develop filters with an optimized upper bound for the error variance for both finite and infinite horizon filtering problems.
Complicações do uso intravenoso de agentes de contraste à base de gadolínio para ressonância magnética

Os agentes de contraste a base de gadolinio sao muito mais seguros que o contraste iodado, no entanto, existem complicacoes que devem ser reconhecidas, para orientacao e tratamento adequados. A incidencia total de reacoes adversas aos meios de contraste em ressonância magnetica varia entre 2% e 4%. Casos de reacoes adversas agudas maiores ao gadolinio, como laringoespasmo e choque anafilatico, sao raros. As complicacoes cronicas com o uso do gadolinio tambem existem e, recentemente, foi descrita associacao entre seu uso e uma doenca dermatologica rara que ocorre em pacientes com insuficiencia renal. A fibrose nefrogenica sistemica foi tema de anuncio publico oficial pela agencia americana de regulacao de drogas, a Food and Drug Administration. Esta doenca progressiva caracteriza-se pelo espessamento e endurecimento da pele e fibrose, que podem acometer outras partes do corpo. Os pacientes que desenvolveram esta complicacao apresentavam insuficiencia renal cronica, estavam em acidose metabolica e foram submetidos a angiografia por ressonância magnetica, provavelmente com injecao de grande volume de contraste paramagnetico. Esta revisao tem o objetivo de apresentar uma descricao sucinta dos tipos de meios de contraste a base de gadolinio, possiveis complicacoes e medidas para prevencao e tratamento destas.
A survey of lightweight stream ciphers for embedded systems

Pervasive computing constitutes a growing trend, aiming to embed smart devices into everyday objects. The limited resources of these devices and the ever-present need for lower production costs, lead to the research and development of lightweight cryptographic mechanisms. Block ciphers, the main symmetric key cryptosystems, perform well in this field. Nevertheless, stream ciphers are also relevant in ubiquitous computing applications, as they can be used to secure the communication in applications where the plaintext length is either unknown or continuous, like network streams. This paper provides the latest survey of stream ciphers for embedded systems. Lightweight implementations of stream ciphers in embedded hardware and software are examined as well as relevant authenticated encryption schemes. Their speed and simplicity enable compact and low-power implementations, allow them to excel in applications pertaining to resource-constrained devices. The outcomes of the International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission 29192-3 standard and the cryptographic competitions eSTREAM and Competition for Authenticated Encryption: Security, Applicability, and Robustness are summarized along with the latest results in the field. However, cryptanalysis has proven many of these schemes are actually insecure. From the 31 designs that are examined, only six of them have been found to be secure by independent cryptanalysis. A constrained benchmark analysis is performed on low-cost embedded hardware and software platforms. The most appropriate and secure solutions are then mapped in different types of applications. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Blind multiuser channel estimation in asynchronous CDMA systems

In asynchronous code division multiple access (A-CDMA) systems transmitting over multipath channels, both intersymbol interference (ISI) as a result of interchip interference (ICI) and multiple access interference (MAI) cannot be easily eliminated. Although it is possible to design multiuser detectors that suppress MAI and ISI, these detectors often require explicit knowledge of at least the desired users' signature waveform. Recently, Liu and Xu (see Proc. 29th Asilomar Conf. Signals, Systems and Computers, 1996) introduced a blind estimation algorithm for synchronous CDMA (S-CDMA) systems to estimate the multiuser channels. However, this algorithm cannot be directly applied to an asynchronous CDMA (A-CDMA) system. In this paper, we study a similar blind estimation scheme that provides estimates of the multiuser channels by exploiting the structure information of the data output and the users' delays. In particular, we show that the subspace of the data matrix contains sufficient information for unique determination of channels and, hence, the signature waveforms. By utilizing antenna arrays, we extended our approach to overloaded systems, where the number of users may exceed the spreading factor.
Design and Comparative Study of O3/P2 Hybrid Structures for Room Temperature Sodium-Ion Batteries.

Rechargeable sodium-ion batteries have drawn increasing attention as candidates for the post lithium-ion batteries in large-scale energy storage systems. Layered oxides are the most promising cathode materials and their pure phases (e.g., P2, O3) have been widely investigated. Here we report a series of cathode materials with O3/P2 hybrid phase for sodium-ion batteries, which possesses advantages of both P2 and O3 structures. The designed material, Na0.78Ni0. 2Fe0.38Mn0. 42O2, can deliver a capacity of 86 mAh g-1 with great rate capability and cycling performance. 66% capacity is still maintained when the current rate reaches as high as 10C, and the capacity retention is 90% after 1500 cycles. Moreover, in situ XRD was performed to examine the structure change during electrochemical testing in different voltage ranges, and the results demonstrate 4 V as the optimized upper voltage limit, with which smaller polarization, better structural stability, and better cycling performance are achieved. The results obtained here provide new insights in designing cathode materials with optimal structure and improved performance for sodium-ion batteries.
MEDAPs: secure multi-entities delegated authentication protocols for mobile cloud computing

Because the technology of mobile cloud computing has brought several benefits to information world, many applications in mobile devices based on cloud have emerged and boomed in the last years. According to the storage limitation, data owners would like to upload and further share the data through the cloud. Because of the safety requirements, mobile data owners are requested to provide credentials such as authentication tags along with the data. However, it is impossible to require mobile data owners to provide every authenticated computational results. The solution that signers' privilege is outsourced to the cloud would be a promising way. To solve this problem, we propose three secure multi-entities delegated authentication protocols MEDAPs in mobile cloud computing, which enables the multiple mobile data owners to authorize a group-designated cloud servers with the signing rights. The security of MEDAPs is constructed on three cryptographic primitive identity-based multi-proxy signature, identity-based proxy multi-signature, and identity-based multi-proxy multi-signature, relied on the cubic residues, equaling to the integer factorization assumption. We also give the formal security proof under adaptively chosen message attacks and chosen identity/warrant attacks. Furthermore, compared with the pairing-based protocol, MEDAPs are quite efficient, and the communication overhead is nearly not a linear growth with the number of cloud servers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An assessment of automatic speaker verification vulnerabilities to replay spoofing attacks

This paper analyses the threat of replay spoofing or presentation attacks in the context of automatic speaker verification. As relatively high-technology attacks, speech synthesis and voice conversion, which have thus far received far greater attention in the literature, are probably beyond the means of the average fraudster. The implementation of replay attacks, in contrast, requires no specific expertise nor sophisticated equipment. Replay attacks are thus likely to be the most prolific in practice, while their impact is relatively under-researched. The work presented here aims to compare at a high level the threat of replay attacks with those of speech synthesis and voice conversion. The comparison is performed using strictly controlled protocols and with six different automatic speaker verification systems including a state-of-the-art iVector/probabilistic linear discriminant analysis system. Experiments show that low-effort replay attacks present at least a comparable threat to speech synthesis and voice conversion. The paper also describes and assesses two replay attack countermeasures. A relatively new approach based on the local binary pattern analysis of speech spectrograms is shown to outperform a competing approach based on the detection of far-field recordings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Prevalence of Positional Plagiocephaly in Teens Born after the “Back to Sleep” Campaign

Objectives. To determine the prevalence of positional plagiocephaly and brachycephaly in teenagers born after the “Back to Sleep” campaign but before orthotic helmet treatment became widely available and to provide long-term outcomes data on those children with plagiocephaly who were not treated with remolding therapy. Study Design. Cross-sectional analysis. Setting. Local high schools in the Minneapolis–St Paul Metro area. Subjects and Methods. Subjects were selected if they attended participating high schools and were born after the Back to Sleep campaign began. Skull measurements, including transcranial diameter, length, and width, were taken. Overall facial appearance was inspected for any apparent abnormal characteristics. Cranial vault asymmetry and cephalic index were calculated for each participant. Plagiocephaly was diagnosed if cranial vault asymmetry was >1 cm. Brachycephaly was diagnosed if the cephalic index was >0.90. Results. There were 1045 participants, ranging from 12 to 17 years old, with an average age of 15.7 years. The prevalence of plagiocephaly was 1.1%. The prevalence of brachycephaly was 1.0%. The overall prevalence of a deformational cranial abnormality was 2.0%. Of those who met diagnostic criteria of plagiocephaly or brachycephaly, 38.1% were noted to have abnormal facial characteristics. Conclusions. The prevalence of plagiocephaly and brachycephaly in teenagers is significantly lower than the 20% to 48% prevalence found in infants in previous studies, suggesting most children will outgrow the condition without intervention. Additional studies are needed to determine which patients might benefit from treatment and which will likely have resolution without intervention, since treating all infants who meet criteria results in significant overtreatment.
New cellular automata-based image cryptosystem and a novel non-parametric pixel randomness test

In this paper, a novel image encryption scheme is proposed based on permutation-diffusion architecture using cellular automata. In the permutation phase, Wolfram class III radius 2 cellular automata rules are utilized for shuffling the pixels of the plain image and in the diffusion phase; the rules based on unity attractors of elementary cellular automata are employed to encrypt the pixels of the shuffled plain image. Addition to the encryption scheme, a new non-parametric statistical method for measuring the pixel randomness in the shuffled and encrypted images is also proposed in this paper. The strength of the proposed image encryption scheme is first assessed by standard methods for security analysis, and the pixel randomness is then determined by the newly proposed non-parametric method. The results of the assessment exhibit the high security of the diffusion process and its computational efficiency. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Tuberculosis en el Hospital Universitario San José, Popayán, 1998-2000

La tuberculosis es problema de salud publica. La Ley 100 de 1993 trajo cambios importantes en los programas de prevencion, los cuales debieron asumirlos los municipios y las empresas prestadoras de salud. El programa para el control de la tuberculosis no es ajeno a esta situacion; se han registrado menos busquedas y examenes de sintomaticos respiratorios. En esta nueva situacion se necesita evaluar el manejo de la enfermedad en un hospital estatal de III nivel; por esta razon se adelanto un estudio descriptivo, retrospectivo, del perfil clinico, epidemiologico y de atencion medica de los casos atendidos en el Hospital Universitario San Jose de Popayan en 2 anos, mediante la revision de las historias clinicas y los archivos de laboratorio. El Hospital Universitario San Jose informo 187 casos. De los 120 (64,2%) incluidos en el estudio, 89 fueron de tuberculosis, 27 con diagnostico indeterminado y 4 no fueron tuberculosis. De los 89 casos con tuberculosis, 39 (43,8%) eran pulmonares y 50 (56,2%) extrapulmonar; 39 eran de tuberculosis miliar, 4 pleural, 3 ganglionar, 2 osteoarticular y 2 meningea. El 49% tenia 15 a 59 anos y 28%, 60 o mas; 64% era de sexo masculino y 65% del area rural. La coloracion de Ziehl Neelsen fue positiva en 22% de 59 esputos de casos de tuberculosis pulmonar y en 20,2% de 94 muestras de tuberculosis extrapulmonar. El cultivo fue positivo en 14,3% de 14 esputos de tuberculosis pulmonar y en 29,6% de 54 muestras de tuberculosis extrapulmonar. El promedio de dias de hospitalizacion/sala fue de 4 a 26 y el promedio dias de estancia/sala, antes del tratamiento de 4 a 8. Existe una importante demanda de atencion medica por tuberculosis al Hospital Universitario San Jose. Se observa deficiencia en el abordaje diagnostico y en el seguimiento y demora para el inicio del tratamiento. Se sugieren estrategias para mejorar el manejo.
Preventing Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia: Current Concepts and Strategies

Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) occurs more commonly in nonventi-lated patients, but infection rates are highest in patients receiving mechanical ventilation. Diagnosis of HAP is frequently made clinically, but quantitative techniques are more spe cific for the diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Bacterial pathogens, which are the most common etiologic agents, may be part of the patient's endogenous flora or originate from other patients, staff, visitors, or environmental sources. Aspira tion, the major route for the entry of bacteria into the lower respiratory tract, may be in creased by host factors, surgery, invasive procedures, oropharyngeal and gastric colo nization, cross-infection, medications, devices, and respiratory therapy equipment. Recognition of these risk factors will allow application of specific intervention strategies to prevent HAP. Knowledge of specific risk factors, pathogenic mechanisms, and efforts to overcome the existing barriers to prevention should reduce rates of HAP and its asso ciated morbidity and mortality. In this era of cost containment, prevention stategies that are practical and easy to implement must be emphasized.
Data aggregation for low power wireless devices

We propose a framework that evaluates data aggregation schemes for wireless protocols with an application emphasis on low power devices and the 802.15. 4 protocol. A stochastic wireless model of the interference environment for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, is combined with the power budget of a modern wireless system on a chip to determine the sensitivity to and advantages of data aggregation. We then use the wireless model as the basis of heuristic technique that trades off device power use and data delays to develop optimizing transmission schemes. We compare our heuristically derived scheme with other simple transmission schemes. It is shown that the use of our data aggregation strategy can significantly reduce device power usage and system resources such as channel accesses.
INCREASE OF THE INTRAOCULAR PRESSURE WHEN USING CONTACT GLASSES

In a previous report the author has given an account of certain observations in respect of conjunctival and episcleral vascular changes occurring in iridocyclitis glaucomatosa that might give support to Ascher’s and Thomassen’s opinion that an increased pressure in, and an increased blood content of these vessels might possibly have an effect on the intraocular pressure. A continued investigation of this question showed when making personal tests that the intraocular pressure increased after using contact glasses with narrow haptic and that this increase was not manifest if the glasses were fitted with a central perforation, or if there was a large air bubble under the glass. This gave rise to the carrying out of investigations with a large material in regard to conditions of intraocular pressure when using contact glasses having a narrow haptic. The experiments were carried out in the following way: The same contact glass was used in all cases (Zeiss glass) which naturally entained that in many of the experimental cases the glass was not the most suitable one for the persons in question if one takes into consideration the way it fitted. All eyes have been examined in relation to the aqueous veins and the intraocular pressure was measured with a Schiotz’s
The consultant psychiatrist and community care

It cannot be ignored that community care is now a fact, and not merely an issue. Some mental hospitals have closed and the number of mental illness beds have been reduced overall by about 40% over the last decade and a range of hostels, multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams and community mental health centres have been launched. The move towards well integrated and well coordinated community care has been urged by a large number of reports, white papers and policies including the second Griffiths report, Workingfor Patients, Caring for People. The Health of the Nation, the Care Programme Approach and care management, with social services becoming the lead agency in community care. The real issue remains how to implement com munity care optimally, since it would be hard to argue that it is fulfilling its promise. The transform ation from a hospital based service to community care requires comprehensive and fundamental changes in roles as well as structures, and some of these are targeted by The Health of the Nation: Menial Illness Key Area Handbook (DoH, 1993). Consultant psychiatrists, often represented by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, should take an active part in developments, and should be recognised as representing the best interest of the consumers, i.e. their patients. However, clarity and vision is required about the function of the consultant in community care. It cannot be assumed that a perpetuation of the traditional division of power will be acceptable to other stakeholders, and unless the psychiatric pro fession takes the initiative others may do so instead, as has happened elsewhere, not always with positive consequences for the quality and equity of care delivery (Scherl & Macht, 1979).
Security analysis and design of an efficient ECC-based two-factor password authentication scheme

Client-server-based communications provide a facility by which users can get several services from home via the Internet. As the Internet is an insecure channel, it is needed to protect information of communicators. An authentication scheme can fulfill the aforementioned requirements. Recently, Huang et al. presented an elliptic curve cryptosystem-based password authentication scheme. This work has demonstrated that the scheme of Huang et al. has security weakness against the forgery attack. In addition, this paper also presented that the scheme of Huang et al. has some design drawbacks. Therefore, this paper has focused on excluding the security vulnerabilities of the scheme of Huang et al. by proposing an elliptic curve cryptosystem-based password authentication scheme using smart card. The security of our scheme is based on the hardness assumption of the one-way hash functions and elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that our scheme is secured against known attacks. The performance of our scheme is also nearly equal when compared to related competing schemes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Sampling design for Gaussian detection problems

We propose an approach for the design of sampling schemes for Gaussian hypothesis testing problems. Our approach for this design is based on the class of Ali-Silvey (see J. Royal Stat. Soc., Series B, vol.28, p.131-43, 1996) distance measures. Closed forms for the Bhattacharyya distance, the I-divergence, the J-divergence, and the Chernoff distance between the class conditional densities are obtained for the sampling design problem in the strong signal case. A new member of the class of Ali-Silvey distance measures that is suitable for the detection problem in the weak signal case is also derived. Sampling schemes are determined to maximize those four distance measures as well as the new distance measure for the strong signal case and the weak signal case, respectively. The detection performance of our sampling schemes is compared with those of various other sampling schemes by means of numerical examples. Comparisons show that the sampling design based on Ali-Silvey distance measures result in superior performance.
FineTrust: a fine-grained trust model for peer-to-peer networks

Trust research is a key issue in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Reputation-based trust models as one of the good solutions to resolve the trust problems in P2P network are received more and more attention in recent years. One of the fundamental challenges is to capture the evolving nature of a trust relationship between peers and reflect the varied bias or preference of peers in a distributed and open environment. In this paper, we present a fine-grained trust computation model for P2P networks. Our model defines the service as a fined-grained quality-of-service (QoS) (N-dimensional vector), and in order to accurate the recommendation trust computing, several concepts are introduced to reflect the recommenders' current status, history behavior, and the gap between these two behaviors. Also, we firstly introduce the Gauss-bar function to measure the preference similarity between peers. All these will result in a flexible model which represents trust in a manner more close to human intuitions and satisfies the diverse QoS requirements of peers in P2P networks. The extensive simulations have confirmed the efficiency of our model. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.