Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DNA methylation markers of age(ing) in non‐model animals

Inferring the chronological and biological age of individuals is fundamental to population ecology and our understanding of ageing itself, its evolution, and the biological processes that affect or even cause ageing. Epigenetic clocks based on DNA methylation (DNAm) at specific CpG sites show a strong correlation with chronological age in humans, and discrepancies between inferred and actual chronological age predict morbidity and mortality. Recently, a growing number of epigenetic clocks have been developed in non‐model animals and we here review these studies. We also conduct a meta‐analysis to assess the effects of different aspects of experimental protocol on the performance of epigenetic clocks for non‐model animals. Two measures of performance are usually reported, the R2 of the association between the predicted and chronological age, and the mean/median absolute deviation (MAD) of estimated age from chronological age, and we argue that only the MAD reflects accuracy. R2 for epigenetic clocks based on the HorvathMammalMethylChip4 was higher and the MAD scaled to age range lower, compared with other DNAm quantification approaches. Scaled MAD tended to be lower among individuals in captive populations, and decreased with an increasing number of CpG sites. We conclude that epigenetic clocks can predict chronological age with relatively high accuracy, suggesting great potential in ecological epigenetics. We discuss general aspects of epigenetic clocks in the hope of stimulating further DNAm‐based research on ageing, and perhaps more importantly, other key traits.
Comparing the effectiveness of prolotherapy and percutaneous dry needling in the treatment of lateral epicondylitis: a retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE Lateral epicondylitis (LE) can result in a functional loss in patients because of pain and has recently become more prevalent. This study compared the effects of minimally invasive prolotherapy (PRO) and percutaneous dry needling (PDN) on LE treatment. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients were divided into three groups; Group 1 included patients undergoing PDN, Group 2 included those undergoing PRO, and Group 3 included those undergoing PDN+PRO. All these treatments were administered three times and at a 3-week interval in each patient. Data on the visual analog scale (VAS) and patient-rated tennis elbow evaluation (PRTEE) scale scores of the patients were collected at weeks 0, 3, and 6 and month 6 and retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS The VAS and PRTEE scores decreased in all groups. The decrease in Group 3 was higher than that in the other groups (p<0.001). Upon evaluating within-group differences in VAS and PRTEE scores, the scores at week 3, week 6, and month 6 gradually decreased compared with the baseline in all groups (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS PDN and PRO are minimally invasive and can successfully treat LE. A combination of PDN+PRO provides better results than PDN or PRO alone. As the materials we used in these treatments are relatively inexpensive and readily available, we believe our study will help reduce the national healthcare costs allocated for the treatment of LE.
In situ anchoring of Fe3O4/CNTs hybrids on basalt fiber for efficient electromagnetic wave absorption

The development of practical and efficient electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing materials is a challenging research problem. A mussel-inspired molecular structure regulation strategy using polydopamine to increase the roughness and functional groups of basalt fiber (BF) surface, which can improve the fiber interfacial adhesion. Herein, a novel BF-Fe3O4/CNTs heterostructure is synthesized through a dip-coating adsorption process. The three-dimensional network structure of Fe3O4/CNTs hybrid in situ anchored on the surface of BF, which endows the composite to have good intrinsic magnetic and dielectric properties. Modulation of EMW absorption performance by controlling the addition of CNTs, the minimum RL of BF-Fe3O4/7C reaches to −40.57 dB at a thickness of 1.5 mm with CNTs addition of 7%. The enhanced EMW absorption performance of BF-Fe3O4/7C heterostructure may be attributed to the synergistic effects of interfacial polarization between the hollow magnetic Fe3O4 spheres and CNTs, conduction loss, magnetic resonance loss and multiple reflection/scattering inside the BF. This work provides a simple pathway to design EMW absorbing materials with good environmental stability.
Familles de fibrés vectoriels sur une surface de Riemann

© Association des collaborateurs de Nicolas Bourbaki, 1968, tous droits réservés. L’accès aux archives du séminaire Bourbaki (http://www.bourbaki. ens.fr/) implique l’accord avec les conditions générales d’utilisation (http://www.numdam.org/conditions). Toute utilisation commerciale ou impression systématique est constitutive d’une infraction pénale. Toute copie ou impression de ce fichier doit contenir la présente mention de copyright.
A Stochastic Perturbed Parameterization Tendency Scheme for Diffusion (SPPTD) and Its Application to an Idealized Supercell Simulation

AbstractDiffusion plays an important role in supercell simulations. A stochastically perturbed parameterization tendency scheme for diffusion (SPPTD) is developed to incorporate diffusive uncertainties in ensemble forecasts. This scheme follows the same procedure as the previously published stochastically perturbed parameterization tendencies (SPPT) scheme but uses a recursive filter to generate smooth perturbations. It also employs horizontal and vertical localization to retain the impact of perturbation in areas with strong shear. Three additional restrictions are added for the sake of integration stability; these restrictions determine the area and amplitude of the perturbation and the situation to suspend SPPTD.The performance of this scheme is examined by using an idealized supercell storm. The model errors are simulated using different resolutions in the truth run (1 km) and ensemble forecasts (2 km). The results indicate that the ensemble forecasts using SPPTD encompass the intensity and displaceme.
Analysis of the New Technique to Solution of Fractional Wave- and Heat-like Equation

We have applied the new approach of homotopic perturbation method (NHPM) for waveand heat-like equation featuring time-fractional derivative. A combination of NHPM and multiple fractional power series form has been used the first time to present analytical solution. In order to illustrate the simplicity and ability of the suggested approach, some specific and clear examples have been given. All computations were done using Mathematica.
Research using teacher or teacher educator job advertisements: A scoping review

Abstract Job advertisements provide accessible and practical data to explore labour market dynamics and recruitment trends. This paper presents a scoping review of empirical studies using teacher or teacher educator job advertisements as primary data. Particularly, this review will provide a structured overview of the methodology and objectives of the studies in order to gain a better understanding of how job advertisements in the fields of teaching and teacher education have been investigated, and from what perspectives. As a result of a comprehensive search strategy, which included eight database searches, Google Scholar searches and a hand-search of the citations and reference lists, a total of twenty-three studies were included for this review. The studies sought to achieve a wide range of research objectives by analysing candidate descriptions, position descriptions, and institution descriptions contained in the advertisements. By pointing out the deficiencies of existing research in its methodological rigour, such as selecting data sources, sampling and conducting analysis, this review serves as a useful guide for conducting and further developing job advertisement research in the field of education.
Introduction: Age(ing) in America

This special issue of Comparative American Studies, titled Age(ing) in America, began life at a symposium, hosted by the University of East Anglia in September 2021. The Age in America symposium, akin to this special issue, sought to illuminate the ways in which constructions of age function as vectors of power and inequality across American culture, and their presence in American literature, film, television and music. As we headed into the second academic year to be affected by the COVID pandemic, contributors from the UK and across the world communed online to share work that examined cultural constructions of age and their intersections with race, gender and sexuality. This special issue brings together innovative, interdisciplinary articles from several of the symposium’s contributors. Varied in focus across a range of media, genres and time periods, these articles demonstrate age to be an urgent, rich subject of analysis for our field of American studies. Critical examination of age and ageing reveals these features of lived experience to be elusive to define and represent, politically charged and in constant dialogue with shifting expectations of youth, adulthood and old age. Indeed, despite sometimes positioned as synonymous, age and ageing constitute two entangled yet distinct concepts whose cultural connotations are camouflaged in language of biological inevitability and essentialism. The difference in name between the original symposium and this special issue speaks to this interrelatedness and difference, and highlights the contributors’ engagement with either or both of these subjects. ‘Age’ speaks to distinct points across an individual’s life, expressed through age categories such as ‘child’ or ‘adult’ and the number of years celebrated at a latest birthday. ‘Ageing’, meanwhile, is the process of moving through these distinct points. As Elizabeth Barry and Margery Vibe Skagen highlight, ageing is ‘a moving target: a process of continuous biological and biographical change rather than a discrete object of attention’ (Barry and Skagen 2020, 1). While still recognising the biological impacts of time passing on the human body, critical study of age and ageing delineates the cultural meanings constructed around and attached to age stages and growing old(er) in specific geographical and temporal contexts. Since the late twentieth century, critical interest in problematising age and ageing has become evident in a number of disciplines and fields. As evidenced early on by Simone de Beauvoir’s phenomenological, deconstructionist Coming of Age (1970, with the English translation published in 1996), some of the most significant, consistent examinations of
Generating Supersingular Elliptic Curves over 픽p with Unknown Endomorphism Ring

A number of supersingular isogeny based cryptographic protocols require the endomorphism ring of the initial elliptic curve to be either unknown or random in order to be secure. To instantiate these protocols, Basso et al. recently proposed a secure multiparty protocol that generates supersingular elliptic curves defined over F 𝑝 2 of unknown endomorphism ring as long as at least one party acts honestly. However, there are many protocols that specifically require curves defined over F 𝑝 , for which the Basso et al. protocol cannot be used. Also, the simple solution of using a signature scheme such as CSI-FiSh or SeaSign for proof of knowledge either requires extensive precomputation of large ideal class groups or is too slow for everyday applications. In this paper, we present CSIDH-SCG, a new multiparty protocol that generates curves of unknown endomorphism ring defined over F 𝑝 . This protocol relies on CSIDH-IP, a new CSIDH based proof of knowledge. We also present CSIDH-CR, a multiparty algorithm that be used in conjunction with CSIDH-SCG to generate a random curve over F 𝑝 while still keeping the endomorphism ring unknown.
Compact Identity Based Encryption Based on n^{th} - Residuosity Assumption

Practical Identity Based Encryption (IBE) schemes use the costly bilinear pairing computation. Cliﬀord Cock proposed an IBE based on quadratic residuosity in 2001 which does not use bilinear pairing but was not eﬃcient in practice, due to the large ciphertext size. In 2007, Boneh et al. proposed the ﬁrst space eﬃcient IBE that was also based on quadratic residuosity problem. It was an improvement over Cock’s scheme but still the time required for encryption was quartic in the security parameter. In this paper, we propose a compact, space and time eﬃcient identity based encryption scheme without pairing, based on a variant of Paillier Cryptosystem and prove it to be CPA secure. We have also proposed a CCA secure scheme based on the basic IBE scheme using the Fujisaki-Okamoto transformation. We have proved both the schemes in the random oracle model.
Detection of Password Reuse and Credential Stuffing: A Server-side Approach

Considering password-based authentication technique, password memorability is a real challenge on users. Hence, password reuse across different web applications is a common trend among users which makes websites vulnerable to credential stuffing attack. A solution as password manager helps the users to create random passwords for different websites on the user machine. However, it has practical challenges. Password database breach detection is another related and challenging task. Among recent developments for breach detection, honeyword-based approach is much appreciated by the research community. However, honeyword generation itself is a challenging part of the solution. In this work, we propose i) Password Reuse Detection (PRD) protocol for detecting password reuse using a secure two party private set intersection; ii) Breach Detection (BD) protocol that detects credential stuffing attacks using two party private set inclusion protocol based on random oblivious transfer. Both the proposals are designed for the authentication servers of the respective applications and need communication between multiple websites following the work by wang et al. Through analysis we show that our PRD protocol is around 2.8 times faster, and space efficient than existing works for 5000 honeywords. Our near to real-time BD protcol is around 2 times faster than existing works.
Simplified Modeling of MITM Attacks for Block Ciphers: new (Quantum) Attacks

The meet-in-the-middle (MITM) technique has led to many key-recovery attacks on block ciphers and preimage attacks on hash functions. Nowadays, cryptographers use automatic tools that reduce the search of MITM attacks to an optimization problem. Bao et al. (EUROCRYPT 2021) introduced a low-level modeling based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) for MITM attacks on hash functions, which was extended to key-recovery attacks by Dong et al. (CRYPTO 2021). However, the modeling only covers AES-like designs. Schrottenloher and Stevens (CRYPTO 2022) proposed a different approach aiming at higher-level simplified models. However, this modeling was limited to cryptographic permutations.In this paper, we extend the latter simplified modeling to also cover block ciphers with simple key schedules. The resulting modeling enables us to target a large array of primitives, typically lightweight SPN ciphers where the key schedule has a slow diffusion, or none at all. We give several applications such as full breaks of the PIPO-256 and FUTURE block ciphers, and reduced-round classical and quantum attacks on SATURNIN-Hash.
Analysis of curvature effects on plasmon biosensing of molecular interactions

Surface plasmon represents oscillations of electrons at the interface between metal and dielectric layers. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is influenced by the environment near the surface, which has been the basis for label-free biosensor structure for various applications of molecular detection. An important aspect of SPR biosensing is that its characteristics are affected by the geometrical structure. Yet most research has focused largely on a structure using flat surface. Although flat structure is suitable for typical sensor applications, it may not be appropriate for wearable or in vivo applications. In this study, we analyzed the effects of surface curvature on flexible SPR biosensors. Curved surface was approximated using a segmented model in which each segment is treated as a flat surface with a different incident angle and then optical characteristics of the overall model were calculated by rigorous coupled wave analysis in two different configurations of light incidence. We calculated curvature effects on SPR with curvature radius larger than 255 μm. It was found that regardless of the incident configurations, resonance curves tend to broaden with increased curvature due to larger momentum dispersion. Resonance shifts as a result of DNA immobilization and hybridization decrease with curvature. The analysis was extended to multi-curvature structure and finds significant fluctuation of resonance shift for parallel light incidence. The study can be of profound importance for plasmonic devices using flexible substrates.
Video-Based Cryptanalysis: Extracting Cryptographic Keys from Video Footage of a Device's Power LED

—In this paper, we present video-based cryptanalysis , a new method used to recover secret keys from a device by analyzing video footage of a device’s power LED. We show that cryptographic computations performed by the CPU change the power consumption of the device which affects the brightness of the device’s power LED. Based on this observation, we show how attackers can exploit commercial video cameras (e.g., an iPhone 13’s camera or Internet-connected security camera) to recover secret keys from devices. This is done by obtaining video footage of a device’s power LED (in which the frame is filled with the power LED) and exploiting the video camera’s rolling shutter to increase the sampling rate by three orders of magnitude from the FPS rate (60 measurements per second) to the rolling shutter speed (60K measurements per second in the iPhone 13 Pro Max). The frames of the video footage of the device’s power LED are analyzed in the RGB space, and the associated RGB values are used to recover the secret key by inducing the power consumption of the device from the RGB values. We demonstrate the application of video-based cryptanalysis by performing two side-channel cryptanalytic timing attacks and recover: (1) a 256-bit ECDSA key from a smart card by analyzing video footage of the power LED of a smart card reader via a hijacked Internet-connected security camera located 16 meters away from the smart card reader, and (2) a 378-bit SIKE key from a Samsung Galaxy S8 by analyzing video footage of the power LED of Logitech Z120 USB speakers that were connected to the same USB hub (that was used to charge the Galaxy S8
Homomorphic Indistinguishability Obfuscation and its Applications

In this work, we propose the notion of homomorphic indistinguishability obfuscation ( HiO ) and present a construction based on subexponentially-secure iO and one-way functions. An HiO scheme allows us to convert an obfuscation of circuit C to an obfuscation of C (cid:48) ◦ C , and this can be performed obliviously (that is, without knowing the circuit C ). A naïve solution would be to obfuscate C (cid:48) ◦ iO ( C ) . However, if we do this for k hops, then the size of the ﬁnal obfuscation is exponential in k . HiO ensures that the size of the ﬁnal obfuscation remains polynomial after repeated compositions. As an application, we show how to build function-hiding hierarchical multi-input functional encryption and homomorphic witness encryption using HiO .
A note on "a multi-instance cancelable fingerprint biometric based secure session key agreement protocol employing elliptic curve cryptography and a double hash function"

We show that the key agreement scheme [Multim. Tools Appl. 80:799-829, 2021] is ﬂawed. (1) The scheme is a hybrid which piles up various tools such as public key encryption, signature, symmetric key encryption, hash function, cancelable templates from thumb ﬁngerprints, and elliptic curve cryptography. These tools are excessively used because key agreement is just a simple cryptographic primitive in contrast to public key encryption. (2) The involved reliance is very intricate. Especially, the requirement for a secure channel between two parties is generally unavailable
Comprehensive Studies on Rarefied Jet and Jet Impingement Flows with Gaskinetic Methods

This paper presents comprehensive studies on two closely related problems of high speed collisionless gaseous jet from a circular exit and impinging on an inclined rectangular flat plate, where the plate surface can be diffuse or specular reflective. Gaskinetic theories are adopted to study the problems, and several crucial geometry-location and velocity-direction relations are used. The final complete results include flowfield properties such as density, velocity components, temperature and pressure, and impingement surface properties such as coefficients of pressure, shear stress and heat flux. Also included are the averaged coefficients for pressure, friction, heat flux, moment over the whole plate, and the averaged distance from the moment center to the plate center. The final results include complex but accurate integrations involving the geometry and specific speed ratios, inclination angle, and the temperature ratio. Several numerical simulations with the direct simulation Monte Carlo method validate these analytical results, and the results are essentially identical. Exponential, trigonometric, and error functions are embedded in the solutions. The results illustrate that the past simple cosine function approach is rather crude, and should be used cautiously. The gaskinetic method and processes are heuristic and can be used to investigate other external high Knudsen number impingement flow problems, including the flowfield and surface properties for high Knudsen number jet from an exit and flat plate of arbitrary shapes. The results are expected to find many engineering applications. AMS subject classifications: 82C40, 76P05, 65C05
The Zipfian Paradigm Cell Filling Problem

This chapter proposes that the stable coexistence of regular and irregular patterns can be understood in terms of a trade-off between the opposing communicative pressures imposed by predictability and discriminability. On this view, irregularity is not ‘defective’ or ‘anomalous’. Instead, irregular formations exhibit an enhanced discriminability that brings them into maximal conformance with precepts like the ‘one form - one meaning principle’, while allowing them to act as attractors within a larger system. Conversely, regularity is neither ‘optimal’ nor ‘normative’. Regular patterns serve to facilitate predictability within a system. In order for regular items to perform this function, it must be possible to assign partially attested paradigms that exhaust the variation in the system. We suggest that a correlation between lexical neighbourhoods and patterns of co-filled cells bootstraps this analogical process.
Artificial Intelligence in virtualized networks: a journey

This paper provides an overview of the research activities in the area of Artificial Intelligence applied to Network Function Virtualization (NFV), carried out by Vodafone, jointly with Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa. Artificial Intelligence techniques have been used on system-level data gathered from Virtual Machines (VMs) composing a multitude of Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs), to tackle a number of problems: from traffic forecasting for capacity planning and optimization, to the off-line analysis of the daily behavior of metrics to identify possible anomalous patterns, to a Near Real time (NRT) approach for metric prediction and anomaly detection, so to trigger prompt reaction of operators of the infrastructure and services. These problems become particularly challenging in the context of the Vodafone infrastructure, spanning across several data centers for NFV throughout a dozen European Countries.