Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lightweight Cryptography Meets Threshold Implementation: A Case Study for SIMON

Securing data transmission has always been a challenge. While many cryptographic algorithms are available to solve the problem, many applications have tough area constraints while requiring high-level security. Lightweight cryptography aims at achieving high-level security with the benefit of being low cost. Since the late nineties and with the discovery of side channel attacks the approach towards cryptography has changed quite significantly. An attacker who can get close to a device can extract sensitive data by monitoring side channels such as power consumption, sound, or electromagnetic emanation. This means that embedded implementations of cryptographic schemes require protection against such attacks to achieve the desired level of security. In this work we combine a low-cost embedded cipher, Simon, with a stateof-the-art side channel countermeasure called Threshold Implementation (TI). We show that TI is a great match for lightweight cryptographic ciphers, especially for hardware implementation. Our implementation is the smallest TI of a block-cipher on an FPGA. This implementation utilizes 96 slices of a low-cost Spartan-3 FPGA and 55 slices a modern Kintex-7 FPGA. Moreover, we present a higher order TI which is resistant against second order attacks. This implementation utilizes 163 slices of a Spartan-3 FPGA and 95 slices of a Kintex-7 FPGA. We also present a state of the art leakage analysis and, by applying it to the designs, show that the implementations achieve the expected security. The implementations even feature a significant robustness to higher order attacks, where several million observations are needed to detect leakage.
Geometrically-enhanced group-based mobile queries with uncertainty

An important class of community-based activities of mobile users is searching and querying for common locations to visit or come together for a specific task. For this purpose, Group Nearest-Neighbor (GNN) queries are used a generalization of nearest-neighbor queries where the goal is to find one or more points from a set of destination points that have the smallest total distance from all query points. Since users are situated at the query points as members of a group, and the perception of people about distance can be different, the classic GNN models cannot be used such differences. On the other hand, more rich and multi-faceted distance models based on type-2 fuzzy logic exist but they require heavy computations which makes them difficult to use in real-world applications. In this paper, we propose a method based on spatial tessellation and fuzzy clustering of destination points that helps to compute the approximate response to GNN query in efficient time. For this purpose, Voronoi diagrams and two fuzzy clustering methods are compared using several evaluation criteria. The results show that the proposed method provides higher performance while keeping a good quality of approximation in terms of similarity between ideal and approximated response sets. The proposed uncertainty management method also improves the robustness of system to small movements of mobile group members.
Total sleep deprivation elevates blood pressure through arterial baroreflex resetting: a study with microneurographic technique.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Sleep deprivation has a profound effect on cardiovascular regulation through the autonomic nervous system. This study examined the effect of 24-hour total sleep deprivation on muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA), which is a direct measurement of the postganglionic sympathetic efferent innervating the vascular bed in the skeletal muscle and other circulatory structures. DESIGN The study was performed on 6 young healthy men. The factors exerting influence on MSNA, such as aging, obesity, body posture, activity, intensity of illumination, and food and beverage consumption were strictly controlled. Burst rate and burst incidence were used as parameters of MSNA. The burst rate, burst incidence, heart rate, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure were measured after total sleep deprivation and control sleep. To perform a linear regression analysis of arterial baroreflex (ABR), the incidence of MSNA bursts corresponding to a given diastolic blood pressure (%MSNA) was examined. MEASUREMENT AND RESULTS The diastolic blood pressure was significantly higher after total sleep deprivation than after control sleep (66.5 +/- 1.7 vs 57.4 +/- 3.3 mm Hg). The burst rate (9.6 +/- 1.8 vs 13.3 +/- 2.7 bursts/min) and burst incidence (21.6 +/- 4.5 vs 30.3 +/- 8.9 bursts/100 heart beats) of MSNA were significantly lower after total sleep deprivation than after control sleep (P < .05). Analysis of the ABR disclosed a significant linear regressive relation between %MSNA and diastolic blood pressure in every subject after both total sleep deprivation and control sleep. This result implies that the ABR regulates the occurrence of MSNA bursts under different diastolic blood pressure conditions. The threshold (X-axis intercept) of the blood pressure regression line (ie, an indicator of the ABR set point) shifted by 12 +/- 4.3 mm Hg toward a higher blood pressure level after total sleep deprivation (P < .05). The ABR sensitivity, or the slope of the regression line, tended to be less steep after total sleep deprivation than after control sleep, although it was not statistically significant (P = .09). CONCLUSIONS The diastolic blood pressure increased and both burst rate and burst incidence of MSNA decreased after total sleep deprivation. The results show that resetting of the ABR toward a higher blood pressure level occurred after total sleep deprivation. This ABR resetting probably brings about an increase in arterial blood pressure after total sleep deprivation.
Hematological and biochemical evaluation in malaria patients with clinical correlation

Background: Aim: Method: Result: Conclusion: Malaria is a major health problem in India. It is one of the biggest burdens in terms of morbidity and mortality. Malaria pathogenesis is based mainly on extensive changes in hematological and biochemical parameters. To investigate the effects of severe malaria in infected patients in the Aurangabad on some biochemical and hematological parameters that could provide a credential clues in understanding malaria pathogenesis, diagnosis and management. A total of 54 (28 males and 26 females) blood samples and 1 healthy man and 1 healthy woman blood sample (as a control) were screened for presence of plasmodium. Level of Hemoglobin in blood and serum level of SGOT, SGPT, ALP, bilirubin, creatinine and urea were estimated. A significant decrease in the level of Hemoglobin and significant increase in the level of SGOT, SGPT, ALP, bilirubin, creatinine and urea were observed. This study indicates alternations in these parameters and therefore recommends proper monitoring during treatment in order to reverse them to normal levels.
CMUML Micro-Reader System for KBP 2016 Cold Start Slot Filling, Event Nugget Detection, and Event Argument Linking

In this paper, we present an overview of the CMUML’s Micro-Reader system for three TAC KBP tasks: Cold Start Slot Filling (SF); Event Nugget Detection and Coreference (EN); and Event Argument Extraction and Linking (EAL). The Micro-Reader system is a result of the CMU NELL team’s research efforts on single-document understanding using background knowledge. It is a generalpurpose machine reading system that takes as input a text document and outputs spanlevel semantic annotations for document understanding. There are several reading components in the Micro-Reader, each having a different reading capability. For the SF task, we aggregate the outputs of different reading components to propose KB assertions that can be used to answer the SF queries. For the EN and EAL tasks, we mainly utilize the event reading component of the MicroReader, which performs joint inference of entities and events within a document context.
Fiber-Optic Sensors Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance: A Comprehensive Review

Since the introduction of optical fiber technology in the field of sensor based on the technique of surface plasmon resonance (SPR), fiber-optic SPR sensors have witnessed a lot of advancements. This paper reports on the past, present, and future scope of fiber-optic SPR sensors in the field of sensing of different chemical, physical, and biochemical parameters. A detailed mechanism of the SPR technique for sensing purposes has been discussed. Different new techniques and models in this area that have been introduced are discussed in quite a detail. We have tried to put the different advancements in the order of their chronological evolution. The content of the review article may be of great importance for the research community who are to take the field of fiber-optic SPR sensors as its research endeavors.
Delivery with Polycations Extends the Immunostimulant Ribomunyl® into a Potent Antiviral Toll-Like Receptor 7/8 Agonist

Background Upper respiratory tract infection is a frequent cause of morbidity worldwide. Although the course of infection is usually mild, it is responsible for enormous social and economic costs. Immunostimulation with bacterial extracts consisting of ribosomal RNA and proteoglycans, such as Ribomunyl®, was introduced into the clinic in the 1980s as a new treatment concept, but did not achieve widespread application. Ribomunyl® has been proposed to activate innate immunity, but the contribution of its RNA content as well as its antiviral potential has not been studied. Methods Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy donors and immune cells from adenoids were incubated with Ribomunyl® either by itself or formulated in a complex with cationic polypeptides such as poly-l-arginine or protamine, and induction of cytokines was quantified by ELISA. Results Ribomunyl® in complex with either poly-l-arginine or protamine, but not on its own, was able to strongly induce interferon-α (P<0.01) and interleukin-12 (P<0.01) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, whereas induced tumour necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 levels were independent of the formulation. Comparable results were obtained in immune cells from adenoids, suggesting efficacy also in virus-affected tissue. Cell sorting, RNase digests and selective receptor expression show that the RNA in Ribomunyl® acts as an agonist of Toll-like receptor (TLR)7 and TLR8. Conclusions Ribomunyl® is, in principle, able to potently induce antiviral interferon-α and interleukin-12 via TLR7 and TLR8, respectively, but only when formulated in a complex with cationic polypeptides.
Biotechnological Applications of Bacterial Endophytes

This review starts with a brief introduction on bacterial endophytes. Only small fractions of rhizosphere and phyllosphere bacteria are able to live inside the plant. Endophytes are bacteria and fungi that can be detected at a particular moment within the tissues of apparently healthy plant hosts without producing symptoms in or on the plant. Possible traits required by these bacteria to enter the plant and live inside will be discussed. Furthermore, we will focus on possible biotechnological applications of bacterial endophytes and present case studies as examples. Endophytes can promote plant growth, for example by the production of hormones or by making nutrients (such as nitrogen, phosphate and ferric ions) available to the plant. Endophytes can also promote plant growth indirectly, for example by suppression of plant diseases, by inactivating environmental pollutants, and by alleviating stresses of the plant caused by excess of the hormone ethylene, by heavy metals, by draught and by salinated soil. Some endophytic bacteria can produce nanoparticles which have numerous applications. At the end of the review we will discuss aspects involved in the commercialization of microbes.
Parallelized Kalman Filters for Mitigation of the Excess Phase Noise of Fast Tunable Lasers in Coherent Optical Communication Systems

Numerical and experimental investigations are carried out on the performance of parallelized Kalman filters applied for mitigation of the excess phase noise of fast tunable lasers. Based on the characterization of the phase noise of a sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (SG-DBR) laser, the proposed carrier phase recovery (CPR) scheme using Kalman filters is introduced. By performing simulations of data transmission with various advanced modulation formats in the presence of the excess phase noise, the Kalman filter based CPR scheme shows its ability to overcome the excess phase noise and this method is suitable for parallel processing. Then the results are further demonstrated by 12.5 Gbaud QPSK and 16-QAM transmission experiments employing the SG-DBR laser. We find that the Kalman filters have better performance than the 2nd-order phase-locked loop in parallel systems due to a better phase noise tolerance. The bit error rate performance is also examined in the whole tuning range (∼30 nm) of the tunable laser, which further proves the feasibility of the proposed scheme.
OpenIE for Slot Filling at TAC KBP 2017 - System Description

Open Information Extraction (OIE) extracts triples, i.e. subjects, relations and objects, from natural language text (Banko et al., 2007). Our goal was to explore the usefullness of OIE for slot filling, for which we used the OIE system MinIE (Gashteovski et al., 2017). In our approach, we learn embeddings for triples using 400 million OIE triples extracted from two large corpora, i.e. the New York Times corpus (Sandhaus, 2008) and Wikipedia. We also use the OIE system on the slot filling data, i.e. the TAC KBP corpus, to create candidates triples. For a given query, the candidate triples are then scored by a classifier that receives the query subject and predicate as well as the candidate triple represented by the embeddings.
Dynamic line integral convolution for visualizing electromagnetic phenomena

Vector field visualization is a useful tool in science and engineering, giving us a powerful way of understanding the structure and evolution of the field. A fairly recent technique called Line Integral Convolution (LIC) has improved the level of detail that can be visualized by convolving a random input texture along the streamlines in the vector field. This thesis extends the technique to time-varying vector fields, where the motion of the field lines is specified explicitly via another vector field. The sequence of images generated is temporally coherent, clearly showing the evolution of the fields over time, while at the same time each individual image retains the characteristics of the LIC technique. This thesis describes the new technique, entitled Dynamic Line Integral Convolution , and explores its application to experiments in electromagnetism. Thesis Supervisor: John W. Belcher Title: Professor and Class of 1960 Faculty Fellow, MIT Department of Physics
The Association of Strategy Use and Concrete-Operational Thinking in Primary School

Concrete-operational thinking depicts an important aspect of cognitive development. A promising approach in promoting these skills is the instruction of strategies. The construction of such instructional programs requires insights into the mental operations involved in problem-solving. In the present paper, we address the question to which extent variations of the effect of isolated and combined mental operations (strategies) on correct solution of concrete-operational concepts can be observed. Therefore, a cross-sectional design was applied. The use of mental operations was measured by thinking-aloud reports from 80 first- and second-graders (N = 80) while solving tasks depicting concrete-operational thinking. Concrete-operational thinking was assessed using the subscales conservation of numbers, classification and sequences of the TEKO. The verbal reports were transcribed and coded with regard to the mental operations applied per task. Data analyses focused on tasks level, resulting in the analyses of N = 240 tasks per subscale. Differences regarding the contribution of isolated and combined mental operations (strategies) to correct solution were observed. Thereby, the results indicate the necessity of selection and integration of appropriate mental operations as strategies. The results offer insights in involved mental operations while solving concrete-operational tasks and depict a contribution to the construction of instructional programs.
DOMAIN DECOMPOSITION SPECTRAL APPROXIMATIONS FOR AN EIGENVALUE PROBLEM WITH A PIECEWISE CONSTANT COEFFICIENT

Consider a model eigenvalue problem with a piecewise constant coefficient. We split the domain at the discontinuity of the coefficient function and define the multidomain variational formulation for the eigenproblem. The discrete multidomain variational formulations are defined for Legendre–Galerkin and Legendre-collocation methods. The spectral rate of convergence of the approximate eigensolutions is proven for the Legendre–Galerkin method. The minmax principle is used for the convergence analysis. The Legendre-collocation, Chebyshev-collocation, Legendre-collocation penalty, and Chebyshevcollocation penalty methods are also defined by using the multidomain approach, and their numerical results applied to the eigenproblem are demonstrated. The spectral convergence for the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions is confirmed for all the multidomain spectral techniques presented here.
Photophysics of Solution-Processed Transparent Solar Cells Under Top and Bottom Illumination

Semitransparent organic bulk-heterojunction solar cells based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C -butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) with a bottom indium tin oxide (ITO) and semitransparent top metal electrode are presented. The solar cell devices are characterized under two different conditions-top illumination and bottom illumination. The photovoltaic performance is compared with a bottom-illuminated reference device having a fully reflecting aluminum electrode. Optical simulations based on the transfer matrix approach were performed in order to understand the device physics of these semitransparent solar cells. We found that unlike bottom illumination, the exciton generation in top-illuminated devices takes place close to the metal electrode giving rise to high recombination losses in such devices.
Design of fifth-order boost converter - ANT colony approach

A fifth-order boost converter design and optimization is presented in this paper. Normally, energy storage elements of the converter are designed keeping the ripples within the limits. Design of the fifth-order boost converter on the basis of ripple constraints alone may result in inferior dynamic performance. In order to meet both dynamic and steady-state performance ripple constraints an ANT colony optimization is proposed in the design of fifth-order boost converter energy storage elements. The proposed design and ANT-colony optimization of the converter is demonstrated through simulations and sample experimental measurements.
Applying design patterns in product line search-based design : feasibility analysis and implementation aspects

Some works have manually applied design patterns in Product Line Architectures (PLAs) in order to improve the understanding and reuse of the PLAs artifacts. However, there is no search-based approach that considers such subject. Applying design patterns in conventional architectures through mutation processes in evolutionary approaches has been proven as an efficient technique. In this sense, this work presents results of a feasibility analysis for the automated application of GoF design patterns with a search-based PLA design approach. In addition to this, the paper proposes a metamodel representation for suitable scopes to receive the design patterns application and a mutation operator procedure to apply the patterns identified as feasible. Keywords—Software product line; design patterns; search-based design.
Failure of the Scalar Dielectric Function Approach for the Screening Modeling in Double-Gate SOI MOSFETs and in FinFETs

This paper shows that modeling of the screening effect based on the scalar dielectric function (SDF) fails in double-gate (DG) MOS transistors and in FinFETs. This leads to simulation results inconsistent with the experiments, especially at high channel inversion densities where the mobility is limited by the surface roughness scattering. These results suggest that one should not use the SDF to model transport in DG silicon-on-insulator MOSFETs or FinFETs, but rather resort to the full tensorial dielectric function. This paper clearly identifies, using multi-subband Monte Carlo simulations as well as analytical derivations for the screened matrix elements of the surface roughness scattering, the simplifying assumptions in the derivation of the SDF that do not hold in a DG MOSFET.
ntegrating conservation , restoration and land-use planning in islands — An llustrative case study in Réunion Island ( Western Indian Ocean )

This paper describes an operational protocol for integrating conservation and restoration with land-use planning in islands. Conservation challenges are intensified in insular systems due to higher ecosystem vulnerability, limited spatial options, low data availability, rapid land-use change and, globally, shortterm vision planning. Our operational planning protocol integrates ecological and socio-economic factors to identify the best spatial options for conserving and restoring biodiversity, inside and outside extant reserves, while minimising future land-use conflicts. Conservation and restoration targets are formulated for species, habitats and ecological processes that support biodiversity. An optimal network of priority sites is selected to achieve those targets across the landscape. The prioritisation process integrates a Conservation Costs Index to optimise conservation and restoration investments. We discuss the outcomes of the planning protocol in terms of site prioritisation, stakeholders’ participation and general implications for spatial planning in insular systems. As with many islands, the study area of Réunion Island has experienced rapid urban and agricultural expansion, which threatens its unique biodiversity. Forty three per cent of the island is currently protected in a National Park but only half of this reserve network contributes to the achievement of targets. An additional 21% of land should be conserved mainly to ensure the persistence of ecological connections between the marine, terrestrial and freshwater realms. Finally we emphasize that our method doesn’t substitute the land-use planning debate but is aimed to better prepare the conservation sector for negotiating future land-use allocation with other socio-economic sectors in islands.
Serially concatenated multiple parity-check codes for secure communication

In this paper, two secure codes are studied for a Gaussian wiretap channel. These two secure codes are derived from Multiple Parity-Check (MPC) codes, therefore, have low encoding complexities. These two codes are called M-SC-MPC codes and M-QC-MPC codes, respectively, in this paper. Theoretical security analysis show that these codes guarantees perfect secrecy against an eavesdropper. Simulation results show that the bit error rate of the proposed codes is close to 0.5 at low SNR region and very low at high SNR region over the AWGN channel with iterative decoding.