Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Benchmarking of Cancelable Biometrics for Deep Templates

In this paper, we benchmark several cancelable biometrics (CB) schemes on different biometric characteristics. We consider BioHashing, Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) Hashing, Bloom Filters, and two schemes based on Index-of-Maximum (IoM) Hashing (i.e., IoM-URP and IoM-GRP). In addition to the mentioned CB schemes, we introduce a CB scheme (as a baseline) based on user-specific random transformations followed by binarization. We evaluate the unlinkability, irreversibility, and recognition performance (which are the required criteria by the ISO/IEC 24745 standard) of these CB schemes on deep learning based templates extracted from different physiological and behavioral biometric characteristics including face, voice, finger vein, and iris. In addition, we provide an open-source implementation of all the experiments presented to facilitate the reproducibility of our results.
Human Capital Drivers of Employee Intent to Innovate: The Case of Public Procurement Professionals

Innovation is often promoted as the path to overcoming the burdens of bureaucratic organizations and fostering improved service to the public. In a moment where governments face dynamic administrative and policy challenges, there is great need for leveraging innovative ideas from public sector employees. What is less clear are which factors of employee human capital correlate with feeling encouraged to innovate. We test how three types of human capital influence innovation: organization level, industry specific, and individual specific human capital. We also explore whether there are differences in feeling encouraged to innovate linked to education, training, and demographics such as gender, race, and age. Using survey responses from 2,191 public procurement officers from various levels of government in the United States, we find human capital components including experience, and age correlate with feeling encouraged to innovate, though not always in expected ways.
Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Inhibition Is Protective in Hyperoxia-Induced Lung Injury

Aims Studies have linked severe hyperoxia, or prolonged exposure to very high oxygen levels, with worse clinical outcomes. This study investigated the role of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in hyperoxia-induced lung injury at very high oxygen levels (>95%). Results Effects of severe hyperoxia (100% oxygen) were studied in mice with genetically inhibited EGFR and wild-type littermates. Despite the established role of EGFR in lung repair, EGFR inhibition led to improved survival and reduced acute lung injury, which prompted an investigation into this protective mechanism. Endothelial EGFR genetic knockout did not confer protection. EGFR inhibition led to decreased levels of cleaved caspase-3 and poly (ADP-ribosyl) polymerase (PARP) and decreased terminal dUTP nick end labeling- (TUNEL-) positive staining in alveolar epithelial cells and reduced ERK activation, which suggested reduced apoptosis in vivo. EGFR inhibition decreased hyperoxia (95%)-induced apoptosis and ERK in murine alveolar epithelial cells in vitro, and CRISPR-mediated EGFR deletion reduced hyperoxia-induced apoptosis and ERK in human alveolar epithelial cells in vitro. Innovation. This work defines a protective role of EGFR inhibition to decrease apoptosis in lung injury induced by 100% oxygen. This further characterizes the complex role of EGFR in acute lung injury and outlines a novel hyperoxia-induced cell death pathway that warrants further study. Conclusion In conditions of severe hyperoxia (>95% for >24 h), EGFR inhibition led to improved survival, decreased lung injury, and reduced cell death. These findings further elucidate the complex role of EGFR in acute lung injury.
Pathological Characteristics, Prognostic Determinants and the Outcome of Patients Diagnosed with Colorectal Adenocarcinoma at the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali

Worldwide, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most diagnosed cancer in female and the third in men, arising from the epithelium of the colorectum. It is known that colorectal cancer is common in developed countries than in developing countries which may be due to inaccurate data on the existence of the disease in that region combined with embracing western lifestyle expressed by the current trend of changes in cultural, social, and lifestyle practices playing a major part in the etiology of CRC. The aim of this study was to document epidemiological, pathological characteristics, and prognostics determinants of patients diagnosed with CRC in Rwanda. The data from patients' files and reviewed glass slides for 101 cases all from Kigali University Teaching Hospital (CHUK) were statistically analyzed and patient characteristics were described as mean and frequency accordingly. Comparisons were performed using chi square tests, Fisher's exact test and odds ratio with 95% confidence interval (CI). Survival curves were plotted using the Kaplan–Meier method, and log-rank test was used to assess the statistical differences in the observed survival curves by each categorical variable. A P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Statistical analyses were performed using Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS), GraphPad Prism, and MedCalc, accordingly. Mean age of the participants was 54.26 years, the main symptom was rectal bleeding (46.5%), rectal adenocarcinoma NOS represented 40.6%, conventional adenocarcinoma was 60.4%, most tumors were of Grade II (54.5%), most common stage was pT3N0 (20.8%), resection margins were free at 71.3%, lympho-vascular invasion was 49.5% of cases, a high immune response was in 71.3% of cases and of 101cases, and 55.4% were still alive at the end of the data collection, with 29.3% of patients have overall survival of 5 years. Prognostic determinants also affect the outcome in this study and overall survival period was 3 years for CRC diagnosed in Rwanda.
Counting labelled trees

La publication de la conference de John Moon, Counting Labelled Trees, est un autre jalon de l'histoire de la Societe Mathematique du Canada. Nous esperons que cette monographie sera la premiere d'une longue serie. Du point de vue historique, les premieres publications de la Societe ont ete limitees aux comptes rendus des Congres et peu apres au Journal Canadien de Mathematiques. Dans les premiers temps, la publication du Journal Canadien etait une entreprise d'envergure et avait tendance a prendre Ie pas sur les autres efforts de publication. Avec l'avenement du Bulletin Canadien de Mathematiques, les autres publications ont ete pour ainsi dire negligees. Ce fait est a deplorer si l'on considere la haute valeur d'un grand nombre des conferences de nos seminaires. Plusieurs de ces conferences furent publiees sous forme de notes polycopiees qui, en plus de n'etre pas tres attrayantes, n'etaient a la disposition que d'un petit nombre. De fait, elles auraient merite une meilleure diffusion-realisable si ces notes avaient paru sous forme de livre. La societe se considere privilegiee de pouvoir commencer cette serie avec une oeuvre de John Moon. Avec la competence qui Ie caracterise il a su reunir les elements d'un sujet interessant et de lecture tres agreable. En tant que president de la Societe Mathematique du Canada, je desire offrir mes felicitations au professeur Moon qui lance cette serie et etablit ainsi un haut degre d'excellence que ses successeurs voudront atteindre. The publication of John Moon's Counting Labelled Trees marks yet another milestone in the history of the Canadian Mathematical Congress. It is hoped that this monograph will be the first of a continuing series. Historically, the early publications of Congress were confined to the Proceedings of Congresses and shortly after that the Canadian Journal of Mathematics. In those first days the publication of the Canadian Journal was a large undertaking and tended to push into the background other efforts of publication. With the coming of the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, other publications were virtually neglected. In retrospect, this is a great pity since such activities as our biennial seminars contained a large number of magnificent lecture series. Many of these appeared as mimeo-graphed lecture notes which, besides their unattractive appearance, were available only to a few. In fact, they deserved widespread circulation and this would have been achieved if the notes had been edited and published in book form. Congress is very fortunate in having …
Uncontroversial facts and new perspectives on poultry histomonosis: a review

SUMMARY Since therapeutic and prophylactic compounds became unavailable in many countries, outbreaks of histomonosis in turkeys and chickens have been increasing. Turkeys are particularly susceptible to the disease, whereas chickens generally survive and become carriers of Histomonas meleagridis. Although the disease has been studied since the beginning of the last century, some epidemiological aspects remain unanswered. The caecal worm Heterakis gallinarum is the intermediate host, but mechanical vectors seem to play an important role in the survival, transport and introduction of the protozoa in Turkey facilities. In turkeys, the disease can be transmitted by direct contact, referred to as horizontal or lateral transmission. Replication of horizontal transmission in experimental conditions has not been consistent in the last years, and factors influencing the transmission are not fully understood. The presence of bacteria is necessary for the protozoa to cause disease and be cultivated in vitro; however, the influence of bacteria, in the caeca and the litter, in the pathogenicity and transmission of histomonosis remains elusive. Histomonas meleagridis has tropism for the caeca and the liver. The caecum has a dynamic environment, presenting a large bacterial population, influencing the host’s homoeostasis in several ways. Genetic variability of isolates of H. meleagridis has been reported, but the impact of this genetic variability on the transmission of the protozoa has not been studied. Considering this complex host–protozoa–bacteria interaction, the present literature review focuses on factors that could impact the outcome of histomonosis infection and transmission.
The knapsack problem in cryptography

Methods, apparatus, and improved structure having as their common basis the sequence of collapsing a piston ring in a fixture approximating engine bore diameter, and lapping a locality at the side of the ring while so collapsed, until a circumferentially continuous portion-narrow in width and preferably line size-of the side is flat in the range of at least about 10 to 5 light bands. That is, the out-of-flatness of the circumferentially continuous portion, stated another way, is limited to a maximum range equivalent to about 5 to 10 light bands at standard inspection wavelength. One of the broadest methods here disclosed is the use exclusively of rings so carefully made and so lap inspected as above on a percentage basis that the inner peripheral edge at the side has all points thereon in coplanarity to a degree equivalent to the stated range to seal in absolute contact in a substantially continuous sealing ring.
Existence of Monotone EM Scheme with Implications in Cooperative Saliency Analysis (Special Issue on the 44th ISCIE International Symposium on Stochastic Systems Theory and Its Applications(2))

By restricting 'what-to-be-observed' in naturally complex scenes to 'easy- to-compute' patterns, this paper presents a stochastic systems approach to the stabilization of early visual perception. In this approach, attentional landmarks are identified with saliency images latently specified in terms of a set of generic parameters. To stabilize the EM algo- rithm for the estimation of the latent parameters, a truncated version of innovation process is visualized via the multiplexing of residual distribution spanning entire the scene images; resulted visualization, simultaneously, yields an effective cue to confine the images of not- yet-identified landmarks. Based on experimental studies, it has been demonstrated that the focus control algorithm is available in the analysis of the first visit scenes; in this algorithm, it is sufficient to a priori define the attentional landmarks in terms of generic rules governing the perspective of the scene images; in contrast with conventional algorithms, no ad-hoc pre- processing is required to extract the saliency images under not-yet-identified photographing conditions.
Host Cell Antimicrobial Responses against Helicobacter pylori Infection: From Biological Aspects to Therapeutic Strategies

The colonization of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) in human gastric mucosa is highly associated with the occurrence of gastritis, peptic ulcer, and gastric cancer. Antibiotics, including amoxicillin, clarithromycin, furazolidone, levofloxacin, metronidazole, and tetracycline, are commonly used and considered the major treatment regimens for H. pylori eradication, which is, however, becoming less effective by the increasing prevalence of H pylori resistance. Thus, it is urgent to understand the molecular mechanisms of H. pylori pathogenesis and develop alternative therapeutic strategies. In this review, we focus on the virulence factors for H. pylori colonization and survival within host gastric mucosa and the host antimicrobial responses against H. pylori infection. Moreover, we describe the current treatments for H. pylori eradication and provide some insights into new therapeutic strategies for H. pylori infection.
R-parity violation and CP violating and CP conserving spin asymmetries in lepton+ lepton- ---> sneutrino ---> tau+ tau-: Probing sneutrino mixing at LEP-2, NLC and mu mu colliders

We consider the sneutrino resonance reaction l^+ l^- -> sneutrino -> tau^+ tau^- in the MSSM without R-parity. We introduce new CP-violating and CP-conserving tau-spin asymmetries which are generated already at the tree-level if there is sneutrino - sneutrino-bar mixing and that are forbidden in the SM. It is remarkable that these spin asymmetries can reach ~75% around resonance for a sneutrino mass splitting of \Delta m ~ \Gamma and ~10% for a splitting as low as \Delta m ~ 0.1\Gamma, where \Gamma is the sneutrino width. We show that they are easily detectable already at LEP2 so long as the beam energy is within ~10 GeV range around the muon-sneutrino masses and may therefore serve as extremely powerful probes of sneutrino mixing phenomena.
Transfer operator and conformal measures for a class of maps having covering property

Let $(X,d)$ be a metric space and $X_0$ be an open and dense subset of $X$. We develop the Walters' theory and discuss the existence of conformal measures in terms of the Perron-Frobenius-Ruelle operator for a continuous map $T:X_0\rightarrow X$ and the Bowen formula about Hausdorff dimension and Poincar\'e exponent of some invariant subsests for $T$ with some expanding property.
Antimicrobial, Antiviral, and In-Vitro Cytotoxicity and Mosquitocidal Activities of Portulaca oleracea-Based Green Synthesis of Selenium Nanoparticles

The aqueous extract of Portulaca oleracea was used as a biocatalyst for the reduction of Na2SeO3 to form Se-NPs that appeared red in color and showed maximum surface plasmon resonance at a wavelength of 266 nm, indicating the successful Phyto-fabrication of Se-NPs. A FT-IR chart clarified the role of plant metabolites such as proteins, carbohydrates, and amino acids in capping and stabilizing Se-NPs. TEM, SAED, and XRD analyses indicated the formation of spherical, well-arranged, and crystalline Se-NPs with sizes in the range of 2–22 nm. SEM-EDX mapping showed the maximum peaks of Se at 1.4, 11.3, and 12.4 KeV, with weight and atomic percentages of 36.49 and 30.39%, respectively. A zeta potential of −43.8 mV also indicated the high stability of the synthesized Se-NPs. The Phyto-synthesized Se-NPs showed varied biological activities in a dose-dependent manner, including promising activity against pathogenic bacteria and Candida species with varied MIC values in the range of 12.5−50 µg·mL−1. Moreover, the Se-NPs showed antiviral activity toward HAV and Cox-B4, with percentages of 70.26 and 62.58%, respectively. Interestingly, Se-NPs showed a target orientation to cancer cell lines (HepG2) with low IC50 concentration at 70.79 ± 2.2 µg·mL−1 compared to normal cell lines (WI−38) with IC50 at165.5 ± 5.4 µg·mL−1. Moreover, the as-formed Se-NPs showed high activity against various instar larvae I, II, III, and IV of Culex pipiens, with the highest mortality percentages of 89 ± 3.1, 73 ± 1.2, 68 ± 1.4, and 59 ± 1.0%, respectively, at 50 mg L−1. Thus, P. oleracea-based Se-NPs would be strong potential antimicrobial, anti-viral, anti-cancer, and anti-insect agents in the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries.
Optimization and evaluation of a three-dimensional diffuse optical tomography system for brain imaging

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is an emerging imaging modality for non-invasive brain functional mapping. The hemodynamic and metabolic images derived from optical properties are unique and complementary to those of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). In this paper we present a procedure to optimize the number of sources and detectors as well as mesh size that can be used for image reconstruction in reflectance mode through a series of numerical simulations and tissue-like phantom experiments where both the absorption and scattering images are obtained. In these studies, we also tested the system ability to image a target with small size as well as with low contrast relative to the background medium. Image results were quantitatively analyzed and discussed.
Inversion problems in elastic thin shells

The present paper investigates isotropic spherical and cylindrical elastic shells undergoing large deflections under radial point loading. Some straightforward experiments on an open ended cylindrical shell are described, and the observed deformation behaviour under load is expressed in terms of remarkably simple empirical formulae. Making use of finite element analyses, it is found that the deformation behaviour of cylindrical and spherical shells is in many respects similar
Genome-Wide Analysis of UGT Genes in Petunia and Identification of PhUGT51 Involved in the Regulation of Salt Resistance

UDP-glycosyltransferase (UGT) plays an essential role in regulating the synthesis of hormones and secondary metabolites in plants. In this study, 129 members of the Petunia UGT family were identified and classified into 16 groups (A–P) based on phylogenetic analysis. The same subgroups have conserved motif compositions and intron/exon arrangement. In the promoters of the Petunia UGT genes, several cis-elements associated with plant hormones, growth and development, and abiotic stress have been discovered. Their expression profiles in five tissues were revealed by tissue expression based on RNA-seq data. Subcellular localization analysis showed that PhUGT51 was located in the nucleus and cell membrane. Salt stress caused an increase in the expression level of PhUGT51, but the expression level remained stable with the growth over time. In addition, the overexpression of PhUGT51 caused a significant increase in salt resistance. Our study systematically analyses the UGT gene family in Petunia for the first time and provides some valuable clues for the further functional studies of UGT genes.
Multi-ring basin formation - Possible clues from impact cratering calculations

Finite difference continuum mechanics code calculations make it possible to vary the controlling variables in an impact event and to determine basic trends at scales unavailable to experimental analysis. Orphal et al. (1980) have summarized the results of a pair of such calculations for identical projectile/target characteristics but different impact velocities. One calculation considered a relatively low velocity iron impactor (5 km/s); the other, a high velocity iron impactor (15.8 km/s). The primary purpose was to investigate the generation and transport of impact melt for the two impact energies. Attention is given to crater growth, crater ejecta, and possible implications for basin-size events. Based on extrapolations, a new scenario is proposed. The scenario incorporates elements of several existing basin models.
Polylogarithm approaches to Riemann Zeta function zeroes

We use visible point vector identities to examine polylogarithms in the neighbourhood of the Riemann zeta function zeroes. New formulas limiting to the trivial zeroes and to the critical line on the zeta function are given. Similar results arise from Euler-Zagier sums given in Bailey, Borwein and Crandall [4] providing new infinite product identities.
Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors, Musculoskeletal Health, Physical Fitness, and Occupational Performance in Firefighters: A Narrative Review

Introduction Firefighting is a strenuous occupation that requires firefighters to be in peak physical condition. However, many firefighters have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, impaired musculoskeletal health, and are not physically fit for duty, which all negatively impact their occupational performance. Therefore, the aim of this review is to determine the relationship between cardiovascular disease risk factors, musculoskeletal health, physical fitness, and occupational performance in firefighters. Methods The electronic databases PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of Science were searched online via the library portal of the University of the Western Cape. Publications and grey literature between the years 2000 to present were used. In total, 2607 articles were identified; after the removal of duplicates 1188 articles were then screened, and were excluded for not meeting initial screening criteria. The remaining 209 full-text articles were screened based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, where 163 articles were excluded. Only studies that were quantitative were included. This left 46 articles that were then finally included in the current narrative review. Results The current literature indicated that significant relationships existed between cardiovascular risk factors, musculoskeletal health, physical fitness, and occupational performance. The results indicated firefighters who were aged, obese, physically inactive, cigarette smokers, and unfit were at the highest risk for cardiovascular and musculoskeletal health complications, and unsatisfactory occupational performance. Musculoskeletal health complications significantly affected occupational performance and work ability and were related to physical fitness of firefighters. Most cardiovascular risk factors were related to physical fitness, and all physical fitness parameters were related to occupational performance in firefighters. Conclusion The overwhelming evidence in the current review established that physical fitness is related to occupational performance. However, the relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and musculoskeletal health in relation to occupational performance is less clear and still understudied. Significant gaps remain in the literature.