Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantum And Relativistic Protocols For Secure Multi-Party Computation

After a general introduction, the thesis is divided into four parts. In the first, we discuss the task of coin tossing, principally in order to highlight the effect different physical theories have on security in a straightforward manner, but, also, to introduce a new protocol for non-relativistic strong coin tossing. This protocol matches the security of the best protocol known to date while using a conceptually different approach to achieve the task. In the second part variable bias coin tossing is introduced. This is a variant of coin tossing in which one party secretly chooses one of two biased coins to toss. It is shown that this can be achieved with unconditional security for a specified range of biases, and with cheat-evident security for any bias. We also discuss two further protocols which are conjectured to be unconditionally secure for any bias. The third section looks at other two-party secure computations for which, prior to our work, protocols and no-go theorems were unknown. We introduce a general model for such computations, and show that, within this model, a wide range of functions are impossible to compute securely. We give explicit cheating attacks for such functions. In the final chapter we discuss the task of expanding a private random string, while dropping the usual assumption that the protocol's user trusts her devices. Instead we assume that all quantum devices are supplied by an arbitrarily malicious adversary. We give two protocols that we conjecture securely perform this task. The first allows a private random string to be expanded by a finite amount, while the second generates an arbitrarily large expansion of such a string.
The Influence of Government Intervention on Enterprise Profitability—Take Chinese Scale Industrial Enterprises as an Example

As one of the main actors of market economy, enterprises are easily affected by the external environment. Whether the external environment of government intervention affects the profitability of enterprises? Using the regression method of panel fixed effect to analyze the relevant data of scale industrial enterprises in Chinese 31 provinces and cities from 2011 to 2017, it found that government intervention has a negative effect on the improvement of the profitability of enterprises, and the negative effect of government intervention on the profitability of state-owned enterprises is far higher than that of private enterprises.
POWER OF BRAND AWARENESS IN GENERATING LOYALTY AMONG YOUTH THROUGH REPUTATION, CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT AND TRUST

Despite the growing interest in brand awareness for enhancing loyalty among mobile phone users, there is limited empirical evidences that focuses on contingencies of how brand awareness can enhance the brand loyalty. This work focused on the role of brand awareness in creating loyalty through process mediation of brand reputation, customer engagement, and brand trust. Self-administered questionnaires are used to collect the data from 356 young mobile users through online survey and personal visits. These results indicated that brand awareness enhances the loyalty of mobile users. Furthermore, the link between the brand awareness and the loyalty is fully meditated through brand reputation, customer engagement and brand trust. The mediating mechanism is significantly proved individually as well as through the process mediation. The findings of the study make a significant contribution in branding literature by providing a comprehensive model which will help the brand managers and mobile companies to understand the value of brand reputation, customer engagement and trust towards the specific brand.
Reducibility Condition for Nonlinear Discrete-time Systems: Behavioral Approach

The paper addresses the problem of reducibility of nonlinear discrete-time systems, described by implicit higher order difference equations where no a priori distinction is made between input and output variables. The reducibility definition is based on the concept of autonomous element. We prove necessary reducibility condition, presented in terms of the left submodule, generated by the row matrix, describing the behavior of the linearized system, over the ring of left difference polynomials. Then the reducibility of the system implies the closedness of the submodule, like in the linear time-invariant case. In the special case, when the variables may be specified as inputs and outputs and the system equations are given in the explicit form, the results of this paper yield the known results.
Brane Physics in Non-Critical Theories

In this Thesis, we focus on the study of the low energy approximation to non-critical string theories. We present an exhaustive study of their solutions, which are divided in three cases: vacuum, NSNS charged, and RR charged solutions. In the first case, we find all possible solutions, including the previously known ones, which are special cases of ours. In the second case, we present the fundamental non-critical string, doubly localized in Minkowski \times the cigar vacuum. There are only a few known solutions doubly localized. Also, we completely solve the problem of finding NSNS solutions that fill all the Minkowski space. In the third case, we present new parametric families that contain some of the previously known solutions at particular values of the parameters. For the latter families, we have obtained the gauge duals in the context of the gauge/gravity duality, and we show that, in a particular region of the parameter space, these theories can confine. Finally, we study the obtained YM in D=3 and YM in D=4 theories, and we show the corresponding glueball spectra, that are in very good agreement with those predicted by lattice QCD.
Mean Machine Translations: On Gender Bias in Icelandic Machine Translations

This paper examines machine bias in language technology. Machine bias can affect machine learning algorithms when language models trained on large corpora include biased human decisions or reflect historical or social inequities, e.g. regarding gender and race. The focus of the paper is on gender bias in machine translation and we discuss a study conducted on Icelandic translations in the translation systems Google Translate and Vélþýðing. is. The results show a pattern which corresponds to certain societal ideas about gender. For example it seems to depend on the meaning of adjectives referring to people whether they appear in the masculine or feminine form. Adjectives describing positive personality traits were more likely to appear in masculine gender whereas the negative ones frequently appear in feminine gender. However, the opposite applied to appearance related adjectives. These findings unequivocally demonstrate the importance of being vigilant towards technology so as not to maintain societal inequalities and outdated views — especially in today’s digital world.
Combining ELECTRA and Adaptive Graph Encoding for Frame Identification

This paper presents contributions in two directions: first we propose a new system for Frame Identification (FI), based on pre-trained text encoders trained discriminatively and graphs embedding, producing state of the art performance and, second, we take in consideration all the extremely different procedures used to evaluate systems for this task performing a complete evaluation over two benchmarks and all possible splits and cleaning procedures used in the FI literature.
The Maaloula Aramaic Speech Corpus (MASC): From Printed Material to a Lemmatized and Time-Aligned Corpus

This paper presents the first electronic speech corpus of Maaloula Aramaic, an endangered Western Neo-Aramaic variety spoken in Syria. This 64,845-word corpus is available in four formats: (1) transcriptions, (2) lemmatized transcriptions, (3) audio files and time-aligned phonetic transcriptions, and (4) an SQLite database. The transcription files are a digitized and corrected version of authentic transcriptions of tape-recorded narratives coming from a fieldwork trip conducted in the 1980s and published in the early 1990s (Arnold, 1991a, 1991b). They contain no annotation, except for some informative tagging (e.g. to mark loanwords and misspoken words). In the lemmatized version of the files, each word form is followed by its lemma in angled brackets. The time-aligned TextGrid annotations consist of four tiers: the sentence level (Tier 1), the word level (Tiers 2 and 3), and the segment level (Tier 4). These TextGrid files are downloadable together with their audio files (for the original source of the audio data see Arnold, 2003). The SQLite database enables users to access the data on the level of tokens, types, lemmas, sentences, narratives, or speakers. The corpus is now available to the scientific community at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6496714.
Improving the Efficiency of a Nonlinear-System-Solver Using a Componentwise Newton Method

A Componentwise Interval Newton Method: We give an e(cid:14)cient branch-and-prune algorithm for (cid:12)nding enclosures of allsolutions of a system of nonlinear equations. It is based on a componentwise interval Newton operator that temporarily considers a function of the system of equations as a one-dimensional real-valued function having interval coe(cid:14)cients. Using interval arithmetic and enhancing the componentwise method by several techniques, we present an algorithmthat works rather e(cid:14)ciently, especially on many \real-world" problems.
Inclusive search for SUSY in top final states at CMS

An inclusive search for low mass SUSY using the top plus missing transverse energy signature at CMS is presented. A 5$\sigma$ excess can be observed with $\sim$250 pb$^{-1}$ at a particular low mass SUSY point. With the same analysis selection the 5$\sigma$ discovery reach contours in the mSUGRA parameter space for 1 and 10 fb$^{-1}$ are obtained.
Single particles accelerate final stages of capillary break-up

Droplet formation of suspensions is present in many industrial and technological processes such as coating and food engineering. Whilst the finite-time singularity of the minimum neck diameter in capillary break-up of simple liquids can be described by well-known self-similarity solutions, the pinching of non-Brownian suspension depends in a complex way on the particle dynamics in the thinning thread. Here we focus on the very dilute regime where the filament contains only isolated beads to identify the physical mechanisms leading to the pronounced acceleration of the filament thinning observed. This accelerated regime is characterized by an asymmetric shape of the filament with an enhanced curvature that depends on the size and the spatial distribution of the particles within the capillary thread.
Rapid Two-Photon Holographic Scan Microscopy with Individual Quantum Dots and Its Applications in Biological Samples

Two-photon (2P) excited fluorescence microscopy is particularly advantageous for imaging biological specimens since it offers reduced scattering, deep sample penetration, and intrinsic confocality when excited with point excitation. Here we report the first 2-photon microscopy of individual quantum dots in biological environment. Near-complete suppression of blinking and of photobleaching was achieved. Three schemes of 2-photon excitation are shown: 1) widefield, 2) diffraction-limited spot scanning with a single rastered spot, or 3) a multi-point excitation scheme employing a 9 × 9 matrix hologram that increases the scan rate by 80 fold. An array detector (EMCCD camera) was also used as a detector for 2-photon scanning microscopy, providing faster whole image acquisition and superior detection capabilities compared to a conventional single point detector (a PMT). Wide-field 2-photon excitation was used to resolve the step size of individual Myosin V motors in vitro, indicating the 2-photon field does not damage the ATPase of myosin. We validated the helical spatial arrangement of LamB receptors on live E. coli cells with the 2-photon fast hologram scan microscopy. The endocytosis of epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptors in breast cancer cells was verified by imaging quantum dot labeled fixed cell sample with the technique. The strong colocalization of EGFR and HGFR (c-Met) in the same clusters in EGF/HGF stimulated breast cancer cell was also revealed. Moreover, we obtained 3D localization at less than 3 nanometer accuracy and fast 3D imaging at confocal resolution, while doing no harm to the cell samples.
Carbon Monoxide-Releasing Molecule-3 Suppresses the Malignant Biological Behavior of Tongue Squamous Cell Carcinoma via Regulating Keap1/Nrf2/HO-1 Signaling Pathway

Carbon monoxide-releasing molecule-3 (CORM-3) is a water-soluble complex which has the ability to release carbon monoxide (CO). The study is aimed at investigating the epidemiological characters and effects of CORM-3 on tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC) cells and the mechanisms involved. Firstly, CAL27 and SCC4 were treated with CORM-3 or iCORM-3. The proliferation, migration, and invasion of cells were separately evaluated by CCK-8, scratch assay, and transwell assay. We found that the optimal concentration of CORM-3 on the proliferation of CAL27 and SCC4 cells was 400 μM, and CORM-3 was significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion of TSCC cells. Meanwhile, CORM-3 increased the protein expression of HO-1 detected by western blot. Short-hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) were constructed to manipulate the expression of HO-1 in CAL27 and SCC4 cells. Then, rescue assays were conducted to explore the reversion effect of shHO-1 on the CORM-3 function. Mechanistically, CORM-3 decreased the protein of Keap1 expression as well as increased Nrf2 expression. Upregulation of E-cadherin was observed, as well as the downregulation of N-cadherin expression significantly. The antitumor effect of CORM-3 was used to xenograft tumor in nude mice for further investigation in vivo, and the result showed that CORM-3 significantly suppressed tumor growth in xenograft nude mice. These data suggest that CORM-3 acts as a tumor suppressor by regulating the Keap1/Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway in TSCC, which provides a potential chemotherapeutic strategy for TSCC.
Lifting Me Up or Tearing You Down? The Role of Prestige and Dominance in Benign Versus Malicious Envy

Dominance and prestige are two strategies people use to regulate their social rank within group hierarchies. Despite a growing literature on dominance- and prestige-oriented leaders, little is known about how those strategies operate among people lower in social rank. Four studies tested the hypothesis that, among subordinates, dominance and prestige are associated with high levels of malicious and benign envy, respectively. Individual differences in prestige were positively and independently associated with benign envy, and negatively associated with malicious envy. Individual differences in dominance were positively and independently associated with both malicious and benign envy. Two experiments demonstrated that activating a prestige-oriented mindset (relative to a dominance-oriented mindset) caused people to display higher levels of benign envy. No experimental effects on malicious envy were observed. Theories of prestige and dominance provide a useful framework for understanding ways in which subordinate group members strive for high social rank.
Appraisal and validation of a method used for detecting heavy metals in poultry feed in Bangladesh

Background and Aim: Low concentrations of heavy metals are toxic and pose a serious threat to human health and the environment. Therefore, regular assessments of the toxic metal content in poultry feed are crucial for evaluating feed quality and customer safety. It is difficult to determine the heavy metals in the poultry feed at the trace amount. Therefore, this study aimed to validate this method through the detection of three heavy metals, chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), and lead (Pb), in poultry feed samples. Materials and Methods: Graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GF-AAS) method was used to analyze the heavy metals in poultry feed according to the guidelines given by the Council Directive 333/2007/EC, Commission Decision 657/2002/EC. In this study, various parameters such as linearity check, limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification (LOQ), recovery percentage, precision checks, repeatability, reproducibility, and uncertainty measurement were considered to validate and assess the method following international guidelines. Heavy metals, such as Pb, Cr, and Cd, were analyzed from the feed samples in the laboratory using the GF-AAS method (Model: AA-7000 Shimadzu, Japan) with high purity argon as the inert gas, and the absorbance was read at wavelengths of 283.0, 357.9, and 228.8 nm, respectively. Results: The coefficient of variation (CV%) for system suitability and precision data was <10% for all the metals (Pb, Cr, and Cd) detected in this study. The overall CV% of repeatability and reproducibility ranged from 8.70% to 8.76% and 8.65% to 9.96%, respectively. The linearity of the calibration curves was excellent (r2 > 0.999) at various concentration levels for the three different metals. The recovery (%) was found to be 94.53, 93.97, and 101.63% for Pb, Cr, and Cd, respectively. The LOD values in feed were 0.065, 0.01, and 0.11 mg/kg, and the LOQ values were 0.22, 0.03, and 0.38 mg/kg for Cr, Cd, and Pb, respectively. The values recorded for the measurement uncertainty (%) were 11.48, 4.43, and 12.42% for Cr, Cd, and Pb, respectively. Conclusion: The results show that these study criteria or parameters have met the validated or acceptable range. Therefore, it is a reliable technique that can be used undoubtedly for the routine analysis of heavy metals in poultry feed samples across the globe.
High-Precision Numerical Simulations of Rotating Black Holes Accelerated by CUDA

Hardware accelerators (such as Nvidia's CUDA GPUs) have tremendous promise for computational science, because they can deliver large gains in performance at relatively low cost. In this work, we focus on the use of Nvidia's Tesla GPU for high-precision (double, quadruple and octal precision) numerical simulations in the area of black hole physics -- more specifically, solving a partial-differential-equation using finite-differencing. We describe our approach in detail and present the final performance results as compared with a single-core desktop processor and also the Cell BE. We obtain mixed results -- order-of-magnitude gains in overall performance in some cases and negligible gains in others.
Applications of Genetic Distances on Blood-group Gene Frequencies and their Statistical Genetic Similarities

This paper studied the applications of genetic distances on Blood-group gene frequencies and their Statistical genetic similarities characterizing four populations, for data from Eakimo, Bantu, English and Korea. The study compared the following distances: Euclidean, squared Euclidean, Minkowski, Chebychev and City Block on the above mentioned data for the outlined countries. Correlation analysis was applied to evaluate the relationships between these countries on their blood group gene frequencies. Similarity check was also conducted to know the countries that have similar blood-group gene frequency. It was observed that Euclidean distance and Minkowski distance had equal distances. This means that the two distances are more similar in this particular data set than the other studied distances. The study revealed that Chebychev distance had the smallest neighbor distance as compared to other distances studied while City Block had the highest distance. It has been stated in literature that Chebychev and Minkowski distances are concentric circle shape, this suggests the reason behind their equality of distance. It is therefore proposed that the data may be a concentric circle data.
Exploring the Role of Community Social Capital in Not-for-profit Hospitals’ Decision to Engage Community Partners in the Community Health Needs Assessment Process

Not-for-profit hospitals (NFPs) frequently partner with community organizations to conduct internal revenue service-mandated community health needs assessment (CHNA), yet little is known about the number of partnerships that hospitals enter into for this purpose. This article uses “American Hospital Associations’ 2020 Annual Survey” data to examine hospital-community partnerships around the CHNA and the role that community social capital defined as, “the networks that cross various professional, political and social boundaries to reflect community level trust needed to pursue shared objectives” plays in hospitals’ choices to partner with community organizations for the CHNA. After controlling for a set of hospital, community, and state characteristics, we found that hospitals present in communities with higher social capital were likely to partner with more community organizations to conduct CHNA. Greater social capital may thus promote community health by facilitating the partnerships NFPs develop with community organizations to conduct the CHNA.
Eplerenone Prevents Cardiac Fibrosis by Inhibiting Angiogenesis in Unilateral Urinary Obstruction Rats

Introduction Cardiovascular disease constitutes the leading cause of mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), which is termed cardiorenal syndrome type 4 (CRS-4). Here, we report the development of pathological cardiac remodeling and fibrosis in unilateral urinary obstruction (UUO) rats. Methods Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining was performed to observe the pathology of myocardial tissue. The degree of myocardial tissue fibrosis was observed by Masson and Sirius red staining. Immunohistochemical staining was applied to detect the expression of CD34 and CD105 in myocardial tissue, and immunofluorescent staining was performed to examine the expression of CD34, collagen I/collagen III, and alpha smooth muscle actin (α-SMA). The expression of the signal pathway-related proteins vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2), nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), and interleukin (IL)-1β was tested by western blotting. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect the mRNA levels of serum and glucocorticoid-inducible kinase (SGK)-1, NF-κB, and interleukin-1β (IL-1β). Results The results showed the development of pathological cardiac remodeling and cardiac dysfunction in UUO rats. Moreover, there was more angiogenesis and endothelial-mesenchymal transition (End-MT) in the UUO group, and these effects were inhibited by eplerenone. Conclusions The results indicated that this cardiac fibrosis was associated with angiogenesis and that End-MT was related to aldosterone and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) activation. Moreover, in association with the MR/IL-1β/VEGFA signaling pathway, early treatment with the MR antagonist eplerenone in rats with UUO-induced CKD may significantly attenuate MR activation and cardiac fibrosis.