Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
You get PADDING, everybody gets PADDING! You get privacy? Evaluating practical QUIC website fingerprinting protections for the masses

Website fingerprinting (WF) is a well-know threat to users' web privacy. New internet standards, such as QUIC, include padding to support defenses against WF. Previous work only analyzes the effectiveness of defenses when users are behind a VPN. Yet, this is not how most users browse the Internet. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive evaluation of QUIC-padding-based defenses against WF when users directly browse the web. We confirm previous claims that network-layer padding cannot provide good protection against powerful adversaries capable of observing all traffic traces. We further demonstrate that such padding is ineffective even against adversaries with constraints on traffic visibility and processing power. At the application layer, we show that defenses need to be deployed by both first and third parties, and that they can only thwart traffic analysis in limited situations. We identify challenges to deploy effective WF defenses and provide recommendations to address them.
Migration patterns, friendship networks, and the diaspora: the potential of Facebook Social Connectedness Index to anticipate displacement patterns induced by Russia invasion of Ukraine in the European Union

The conflict in Ukraine is causing large-scale displacement in Europe and in the World. Based on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates, more than 7 million people fled the country as of 5 September 2022. In this context, it is extremely important to anticipate where these people are moving so that national to local authorities can better manage challenges related to their reception and integration. This work shows how innovative data from social media can provide useful insights on conflict-induced migration flows. In particular, we explore the potential of Facebook's Social Connectedness Index (SCI) for predicting migration flows in the context of the war in Ukraine, building on previous research findings that the presence of a diaspora network is one of the major migration drivers. To do so, we first evaluate the relationship between the Ukrainian diaspora and the number of refugees from Ukraine registered for Temporary Protection or similar national schemes as a proxy of migratory flows into the EU. We find a very strong correlation between the two (Pearson's r=0.94, p<0.0001), which indicates that the diaspora is attracting the people fleeing the war, who tend to reach their compatriots, in particular in the countries where the Ukrainian immigration was more a recent phenomenon. Second, we compare Facebook's SCI with available official data on diaspora at regional level in Europe. Our results suggest that the index, along with other readily available covariates, is a strong predictor of the Ukrainian diaspora at regional scale. Finally, we discuss the potential of Facebook's SCI to provide timely and spatially detailed information on human diaspora for those countries where this information might be missing or outdated, and to complement official statistics for fast policy response during conflicts.
CLOSING OPEN

: The literature on open innovation has documented how companies expand their boundaries to become more open , leaving out how boundaries narrow as open innovation relationships end—the closing of open innovation. We explain how open innovation creates new relationships on multiple levels—among firms, individuals, and technologies. Drawing on open innovation and alliance literature, we discuss how the closing of open innovation entails the dissolution of this web of multiplex relationships. We contribute to innovation and strategy literature by explaining how the closing decision is not simply mirroring the initial decision to open up innovation, partly because of evolving interdependencies at multiple levels (firms, individuals, and technologies). Finally, we discuss how closing open innovation relates to new challenges in terms of attention, agency, long-lived interdependencies, and portfolio management that provide new avenues for future research.
On the Detection of Onset and Activity of the Indian Summer Monsoon Using GPS RO Refractivity Profiles

AbstractGlobal positioning system (GPS) radio occultation (RO) data available during 2001–10 have been used to examine the variations in the refractivity during the onset of Indian summer monsoon (ISM) over the east Arabian Sea (5°–15°N, 65°–75°E). An enhancement of 5–10 N-units in the refractivity is observed around 4.8 km (~600 hPa) a few days (9.23 ± 3.6 days) before onset of the monsoon over Kerala, India. This is attributed to moisture buildup over the Arabian Sea during the monsoon onset phase. A sudden increase (1.5–2 K) in mean upper-tropospheric temperature at the time of onset and during the active phase of the monsoon is attributed to convective activity and the release of latent heat. On the day of monsoon onset over Kerala, an appreciable dip in the refractivity is observed that persisted for 1–3 days followed by an enhancement in refractivity with the active phase of the monsoon. An arbitrary value of 128 N-units difference between 4.8 km (~600 hPa) and 16 km (~100 hPa) coupled with a dip in.
Giant Ferroelectric Polarization Beyond 150 µC/cm2 in BiFeO3 Thin Film

Ferroelectric BiFeO3 thin films have been deposited on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrate by pulsed-laser deposition. From the X-ray diffraction analysis, the BiFeO3 thin film consists of perovskite single-phase, and the crystal structure shows the tetragonal structure (c/a = 1.018) with a space group P4mm. It is obtained that the BiFeO3 thin film shows a well-saturated remarkably giant saturation polarization of 158 µC/cm2 and a remanent polarization of 146 µC/cm2 for a maximum applied voltage of 20 V at 90 K. These values of polarization are largest ever-measured in ferroelectrics.
Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009

NOTES 1 Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox, “Twitter and status updating” (Pew Internet Project: February 12, 2009). See: http://www.pewinternet. org/Reports/2009/Twitter-and-statusupdating.aspx 2 The median age for an internet user is 41; the median age for a wireless internet users is 37; the median age for a social network site user is 34. 3 John Horrigan, “Wireless Internet Users” (Pew Internet Project: July 22, 2009). See: http://www.pewinternet. org/Reports/2009/12-Wireless-Internet-Use.aspx 4 Lenhart and Fox, 2009. 5 Personal communication on October 16, 2009, with Sarah Radwanick, Senior Marketing Communications Analyst, comScore, Inc. See also: http://www.pcworld. com/article/162785/twitter_use_explodes. html? tk=rel_news 6 Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski, “New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets” (Harvard Business Blog: June 1, 2009). See: http://blogs.harvardbusiness. org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo. html 7 Alex Cheng and Mark Evans, “An In-Depth Look Inside the Twitter World” (Sysomos: June 2009). See: http://www.sysomos. com/insidetwitter/ 8 See also: danah boyd ’s list of research studies related to Twitter and microblogging: http://www.danah. org/TwitterResearch.html
CNO Abundances in Metal-Rich Environments: Infrared Space Observatory Spectroscopy of Ionized Gas in M51

We present Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) Long Wavelength Spectrograph observations centered on the H II region CCM 10 in the spiral galaxy M51. We detect several emission lines in this spectrum, including [O I] 63 and 145 μm, [C II] 158 μm, [O III] 88 μm, and [N II] 122 μm, with a significant upper limit on [N III] 57 μm. We use these measurements to estimate abundances for C, N, and O in the interstellar medium in M51. We compare our [O III] 88 μm flux with the flux for [O III] λ5007 obtained from narrowband imaging. The derived 5007 Å/88 μm ratio yields an electron temperature Te = 5300 ± 300 K. This temperature agrees with estimates of T[O III] based on photoionization models of CCM 10 with log O/H = -3.2, an abundance that is about a factor of 2 smaller than earlier results for this object derived from photoionization modeling of the visible spectrum. A possible cause for the discrepancy is that the older photoionization models based on CLOUDY predict significantly larger optical emission-line strengths than the current version of CLOUDY at the same metallicity; models with the more recent version are more consistent with the observed spectra of M51 H II region with reduced O/H. Assuming N/O = N+2/O+2, the upper limit for [N ]/[O ] yields log N/O < -0.5, which is consistent with the trend of N/O versus O/H seen in other spiral galaxies. C/O is estimated from the [C ]/[O ] ratio using photodissociation region models constrained by published CO line ratios, [C ]/CO, and [O ] 63 μm/145 μm. With these various constraints on ne and G0, the observed [C ]/[O ] intensity ratio is in good agreeement with that predicted by photodissociation region models with approximately solar abundances. We infer from this that C/O in M51 is consistent with the solar neighborhood value.
Quantum market games: implementing tactics via measurements

A major development in applying quantum mechanical formalism to various fields has been made during the last few years. Quantum counterparts of Game Theory, Economy, as well as diverse approaches to Quantum Information Theory have been found and currently are being explored. Using connections between Quantum Game Theory and Quantum Computations, an application of the universality of a measurement based computation in Quantum Market Theory is presented.
ETHODOLOGY FOR

Traffic modelers have long been concerned about the validity of applying microsimulation models to forecast future conditions, even when present-day performance measures are closely replicated. This is because vehicle trajectories often reveal starkly different car-following and lane-changing behaviors between simulated drivers and real-world drivers. Such difference may compromise the use of simulation results in understanding microscopic phenomena (e.g., queue propagation, lane changes, safety) and evaluating measures to improve microscopic traffic performance. Fortunately, new data collection technologies and research findings are lowering the costs and risks of trajectory-based calibration. This presentation describes a proposed trajectory-based calibration methodology developed as part of a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) research project. The methodology was designed to achieve the right balance between practicality for State agencies, robustness of calibration accuracy, and flexibility to accommodate project-specific needs.
LIPAuth: Hand-dependent Light Intensity Patterns for Resilient User Authentication

Authentication mechanisms deployed on access control systems undertake the responsibility of judging user identity to prevent unauthorized individuals from illegally approaching. In this article, we propose LIPAuth leveraging hand-dependent Light Intensity Pattern to Authenticate users. To be specific, lights released by a screen, are blocked and reflected by one hand above it; in this propagation process, hands exhibit user-specific ability in driving light absorption and attenuation due to owning unique structures, thereby outputting discriminative intensity patterns representing user identity. To implement LIPAuth, we first study the impact of screen contents on light intensity patterns, also explore the possibility of embedding hand structure biometrics into these patterns. We then design a customized dynamic stimulus-response mechanism for LIPAuth and make it resilient to the risks of potential registration profile leakage. Subsequently, we construct a joint pipeline consisting of signal processing and a learning-based generative adversarial network to overcome interference from variable user behaviors. More importantly, LIPAuth just utilizes common sensors to capture light signals, hence achieving low cost. We finally conduct extensive experiments in three scenarios to evaluate the authentication performance of LIPAuth prototype.
Building Dialogue Understanding Models for Low-resource Language Indonesian from Scratch

Using off-the-shelf resources from resource-rich languages to transfer knowledge to low-resource languages has received a lot of attention. The requirements of enabling the model to achieve the reliable performance, including the scale of required annotated data and the effective framework, are not well guided. To address the first question, we empirically investigate the cost-effectiveness of several methods for training intent classification and slot-filling models from scratch in Indonesia (ID) using English data. Confronting the second challenge, we propose a Bi-Confidence-Frequency Cross-Lingual transfer framework (BiCF), which consists of “BiCF Mixing”, “Latent Space Refinement” and “Joint Decoder”, respectively, to overcome the lack of low-resource language dialogue data. BiCF Mixing based on the word-level alignment strategy generates code-mixed data by utilizing the importance-frequency and translating-confidence. Moreover, Latent Space Refinement trains a new dialogue understanding model using code-mixed data and word embedding models. Joint Decoder based on Bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM) and Conditional Random Field (CRF) is used to obtain experimental results of intent classification and slot-filling. We also release a large-scale fine-labeled Indonesia dialogue dataset (ID-WOZ1) and ID-BERT for experiments. BiCF achieves 93.56% and 85.17% (F1 score) on intent classification and slot filling, respectively. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our framework performs reliably and cost-efficiently on different scales of manually annotated Indonesian data.
A KINEMATIC AND PHOTOMETRIC STUDY OF THE GALACTIC YOUNG STAR CLUSTER NGC 7380

We present proper motions, radial velocities, and a photometric study of the Galactic open cluster NGC 7380, which is associated with prominent emission nebulosity and dark molecular clouds. On the basis of the sample of highly probable member stars, the star cluster is found to be at a distance of 2.6 ± 0.4 kpc, has an age of around 4 Myr, and a physical size of ∼6 pc across with a tidal structure. The binary O-type star DH Cep is a member of the cluster in its late stage of clearing the surrounding material, and may have triggered the ongoing star formation in neighboring molecular clouds which harbor young stars that are coeval and comoving with, but not gravitationally bound by, the star cluster.
Stabilization of a Magnetic Suspension by Immersion and Invariance and Experimental Robustness Study

Abstract This paper is dealing with the problem of stabilization of a magnetic suspension and the experimental tests of the designed nonlinear controller's robustness. Up to now, in real world applications, classical controllers are the most implemented ones. In order to increase more and more the systems performance according to industry demand, the investigations devoted to use nonlinear controllers in a relative efficient way are still in progress. For this purpose, we investigate the applicability level of the Immersion and Invariance (I&I) based approach to study this problem. The I&I methodology has proven to be a very effective theoretical tool for the stabilization of nonlinear systems and its main advantage consists in making the closed loop system behave asymptotically like a target system. However, its applicability depends on the solvability of a set of partial differential equations (PDEs). In order to simplify this problem, it was recently proposed to consider these PDEs as parameterized algebraic equations. So, we have used this approach to derive two simple and robust controllers for the magnetic suspension system and the obtained experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of this control strategy in comparison with different additional studied controllers.
Percutaneous tricuspid valve repair: A safer alternative to traditional approaches?

Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is a common type of age‐related valve disease associated with a poor prognosis, even in patients who receive optimal medical therapy. In patients who undergo isolated tricuspid valve (TV) surgery, the operative mortality rate is 10%. Thus, additional approaches for managing TR are needed. The 2021 European Society of Cardiology/European Association for Cardio‐ Thoracic Surgery Guidelines for managing valvular heart disease suggested a potential role for the use of transcatheter TV intervention in patients with TR who are at high surgical risk. In this issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, Baldus et al. reported the 30‐day results of the TriCLASP study (Transcatheter Repair of Tricuspid Regurgitation with Edwards PASCAL Transcatheter Valve Repair System: A European Prospective, Multicenter Post‐Market Clinical Follow‐Up), which is a prospective, single‐arm, multicenter postmarket German study of the PASCAL transcatheter valve repair system for patients with symptomatic severe or greater TR who were deemed ineligible for surgery. The primary safety endpoint of major adverse events (MAEs) was adjudicated by the clinical events committee, and the primary effectiveness endpoint of echocardiographic TR severity was adjudicated by the core lab. The secondary endpoints were clinical, functional, and quality‐of‐life outcomes. Upon trial completion, the primary safety and performance endpoints of the PASCAL Ace implant (Edwards Lifesciences) at long‐term follow‐up (up to 5 years) will also be evaluated. The TRILUMINATE study (Mitraclip; Abbott Vascular‐Structural Heart) and bRIGHT registry (Triclip; Abbott Vascular) demonstrated a favorable safety profile for transcatheter edge‐to‐edge repair (TEER) devices. In addition, the CLASP TR trial recently showed that using the PASCAL Ace implant significantly reduced TR and improved quality of life at 1 year. In the TriCLASP study by Baldus et al., the PASCAL system had a high implant success rate of 97.2%. Furthermore, no embolization was reported, and only one (1.3%) patient had single‐ leaflet device attachment, compared with 5 (7.7%) reported in the TRILUMINATE study. The mean length of stay was 5 days, compared with 2 days reported in the CLASP TR study. Although only patients with greater than severe TR were initially enrolled in the TriCLASP study, the core lab reclassified the TR grade to moderate or less in 10 patients, leaving only 83% of study patients with severe TR. Nevertheless, procedural success, defined as a reduction by at least one grade of TR on transesophageal echocardiography at discharge, was observed in 77.8% of patients. At 30‐day follow‐up, 90% of patients had moderate TR on transthoracic echocardiography.
Patterns out of noise

Our main objective in this review is that of analysing the cooperative interaction between randomness, nonlinearities and spatial coupling in extended systems. We shall report experimental, analytical and numerical evidences that an unexpected ordering influence appears when the intensity of a forcing external noise is increased. Different generic pattern-forming theoretical models will be considered, together with specific realistic scenarios ranging from electronic circuits to chemical reactions.
Time variations in millimeter-wave radio recombination lines from the Be star MWC 349A

Observations of double-peaked, masing H29α, H30α, and H31α radio recombination lines (RRLs), at 256-210 GHz, from the binary star system MWC 349 show variations over a period of 2 yr. Both the velocity separation of the peaks and the intensity ratio V/R of the violet (V)- and red (R)-shifted components vary similarly to what has been observed in optical and IR lines from Be stars
Impaired Barrier Integrity of the Skeletal Muscle Vascular Endothelium Drives Progression of Cancer Cachexia

Cancer patients experience cachexia, which is characterized by extensive skeletal muscle wasting that worsens the quality of life and increases mortality. Currently, there are no approved treatments that can effectively counteract cancer cachexia. Vascular endothelial cells (ECs) are essential for maintaining tissue perfusion, nutrient supply, and preventing inappropriate transmigration of immune cells into the tissue. However, little is known about the role of the muscle vasculature in cancer cachexia. We hypothesized that endothelial dysfunction in the skeletal muscle mediates cancer cachexia. Using transgenic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) mice and a tissue clearing and high-resolution 3D-tissue imaging approach, we found that the loss of skeletal muscle vascular density precedes the loss of muscle mass. Importantly, we show that cancer cachexia patients exhibit significantly decreased muscle vascular density and severe muscle atrophy when compared to non-cancer patients. Unbiased single cell transcriptomic analyses of the muscle endothelium unveiled a unique EC population present in cachexia muscles. Increased circulating Activin-A suppresses the expression of the transcriptional co-activator PGC1α in the muscle endothelium, thus disrupting junctional integrity in the vasculature and increasing vascular leakage. Conversely, restoration of endothelial-specific PGC1α prevented the decreased vascular density and muscle loss observed in tumor-bearing mice. Our study suggests that EC-PGC1α is essential for maintaining the integrity of the skeletal muscle vascular barrier and that restoring muscle endothelial function could be a valuable therapeutic approach to prevent or reverse cancer cachexia.
Blackbody source technology trends

The infrared test equipment industry has matured over the past half century and has historically offered test equipment that met and often exceeded the capabilities of the units under test. This may seem to be a moot or trivial point. However, in the past decade infrared imagers have begun to press the limits of infrared test equipment. Today, infrared imagers incorporate focal plane arrays that offer a significantly higher resolution and sensitivity than their predecessors. Additionally, current infrared imagers are expanding their role in the field and are being developed for a wide variety of applications. These applications demand that optical infrared test equipment begin to expand their capability. Roles such as: larger emitting surface areas, temperature ranges from cryogenic to sunlight, wide ambient temperature ranges, vacuum ambient conditions, vehicle installation, field portability, computer interface compatibility, applications level software integration, and high off-axis uniformity and emissivity. Therefore, how does infrared test equipment meet these demands while maintaining excellent uniformity and stability, two of the traditionally most scrutinized specifications? This paper will present methods for achieving the rigorous demands for test equipment outlined above, it will present an outline of the development and technology trends of blackbody/infrared test equipment over the past 50 years, and finally this paper will discuss the expected development of blackbody/infrared test equipment for the years to come.