Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Approaches to Weight Truncation for Marginal Structural Cox Models

Abstract Marginal structural Cox Models (Cox MSMs) have been used to estimate the causal effect of a time-varying treatment on the hazard when there exist time-dependent confounders, which are themselves also affected by previous treatment. A Cox MSM can be estimated via the inverse-probability-of-treatment weighting (IPTW) estimator. However, IPTW estimators suffer from large variability if some observations are assigned extremely high weights. Weight truncation has been proposed as one simple solution to this problem, but truncation levels are typically chosen based on ad hoc criteria that have not been systematically evaluated. Bembom et al. proposed data-adaptive selection of the optimal truncation level using the estimated mean-squared error (MSE) of a truncated IPTW estimator for cross-sectional data. Based on a similar principle, we proposed data-adaptive approaches to select the truncation level that minimizes the expected MSE for time-to-event data with time-varying treatments. The expected MSE is approximated by using either observed statistics as a proxy for the true unknown parameter or using cross-validation. Simulations confirm that simple weight truncation at high percentiles such as the 99th or 99.5th of the distribution of weights improves the IPTW estimators in most scenarios we considered. Our newly proposed approaches exhibit similarly good performance and may be applied in a wide range of settings.
Enforcement Cybersecurity Techniques: A Lightweight Encryption over the CAN-Bus

The continuous search for network connections outside vehicles has increased the surface of cyber-attacks. Indeed, the automotive companies seem to have neglected the protocols of the networks connecting the various electronic components used in any vehicles. The Controller Area Network (CAN), a protocol designed to minimize latency and transmission errors, governs the internal network of vehicles. One of its main features is to use small frames and to transfer the information unencrypted. This last feature, in particular, makes possible attacks in which an attacker can take remote control of the vehicle by inserting a malicious or manipulated message on the communication channel. The design choices made in the first draft of the standard are, however, what has determined the success of this protocol. The confidentiality of the messages exchanged within this network is nevertheless a goal attainable at a higher level: the study of the structure of the transmitted frames shows how it is possible to hide the critical information passing on the communication channel, that is the bits that identify the units responsible for processing a message and the information carried. Such a solution avoids the possibility of large-scale attacks when a pseudo-random factor is introduced into the encryption: with the same message corresponding to two different encodings on two different vehicles, the breaking of the scheme takes place only after appropriate cryptographic analyses. In this article, we want to introduce an encryption approach of the messages exchanged on CAN-Bus through the technique of randomization. As can be seen from the experimental results obtained, this method seems to have a good response in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness.
VICTOR: An Adaptive Framing-based Speech Content Authentication and Recovery Algorithm

Speech authentication plays an important role to verify the integrity of speech in multimedia security. Nowadays, the existing speech authentication methods segment all speech content to fix-length sub-frames. Then embed watermarks in every sub-frame. However, not all speech content needs to authenticate its integrity such as silent speech. Therefore, the fix-length framing methods will cause needless computation and even affect the inaudibility. To resolve these drawbacks, VICTOR: a novel adaptiVe framIng-based speeCh conTent authenticatiOn and Recovery algorithm is proposed in this paper. VICTOR first obtains the non-silence speech frames from the original speech signals using a pitch tracking method. Then compressed data of these non-silence speech frames are computed by the designed hybrid compression algorithm. After that, the watermarks are generated by connecting the compressed data and frame ID, which are embedded into the LSB of another sub-frame. In the authentication process, the tampered speech frames can be located and recovered using the embedded watermark by self-synchronization. Analysis and experimental results demonstrate that VICTOR can detect various attacks and it can effectively also recover the tampered content.
Geopolitical Determinants of the Relative Power of States: A Model of Spatial Relationships

Based on historical evidence and on verbally presented analyses scholars studying geopolitical relationships have proposed several hypotheses of general interest, namely: 1. Centrally located countries are at a disadvantage compared to those at the periphery. 2. Multipolar Systems of states are unstable. 3. Balance of Power Systems containing three to seven "Great Powers" are stable for long periods. 4. Bipolar systems are inherently unstable. 5. Bipolar systems and "Universal" or "World" Empires are established by peripheral countries. The present article examines whether and how far these hypotheses can be derived solely from the different location of countries in space by assuming some initial distribution of their powers and further, that only the size of their territories resulting from their location and this initial distribution determine their subsequent powers and territories.
Monitoring and Dynamic Analysis of Fractional Vegetation Cover in the Hai River Basin Based on MODIS Data

Fractional vegetation cover(fc) is a critical indicator for vegetation and the eco-environment.It is frequently as a basic input for hydrology,meteorology and water-soil protection studies at regional or global scales.Fractional vegetation cover estimation from remote sensing would serve as a basis for integrated assessment of the environmental effects of the Hai River basin.The Hai River basin,lies in North China,covering an area about 31.78×104 km2(accounting for about 3.3% of the total area of China) and ranging in the latitude approximately between 35° and 43° N and in longitude between 112° and l20°. The Hai River basin encompasses the Hai River,Luan River and Tuhai-Majia River.In this paper,the Hai River was investigated,which belongs to the temperate climate zone(semiarid monsoon),showing a mean annual temperature of 10.4℃ and a mean annual precipitation of about 547.8 mm,in which roughly 75% ~ 85% are concentrated in the months of 6-9.Continuous 16-days composites of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS)-Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI) images of 1 km spatial resolution were acquired for this study.Fractional vegetation cover of the Hai River basin was estimated using a dimidiate pixel method based on the MODIS-NDVI data from 2000 to 2007.It is a demonstration of application of the long time series fc monitoring at a regional scale.Spatiotemporal changes in the annual maximum fc in this study area for the period of 2000 to 2007 were analyzed using the slope method.Results showed that the fc of cropland in the plain is generally higher,varying between 60% and 80%. It is relatively lower in the upper basin of the Yongding River,fc was found to be less than 30%. During recent 8 years,the fc of the Hai River basin has shown an increasing trend in general but decreased in some cropland areas over the east-south of the study area and the urban expanded areas.For better understanding effects of precipitation on fc,their correlation coefficients in different temporal durations were calculated.Results suggested that the annual maximum fc is significantly related to accumulated precipitation from March to August,showing a correlation coefficient of 0.687. Changes in fc in the last nine years were essentially consistent with changes in precipitation.The increasing trend of the fc in the Hai River basin is likely caused by increased precipitation,which would also be indicative of the benefits from application of eco-protection policies.
Systematic cross-species comparison of prefrontal cortex functional networks targeted via Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation method that safely modulates neural activity in vivo. Its precision in targeting specific brain networks makes TMS invaluable in diverse clinical applications. For example, TMS is used to treat depression by targeting prefrontal brain networks and their connection to other brain regions. However, despite its widespread use, the underlying neural mechanisms of TMS are not completely understood. Non-human primates (NHPs) offer an ideal model to study TMS mechanisms through invasive electrophysiological recordings. As such, bridging the gap between NHP experiments and human applications is imperative to ensure translational relevance. Here, we systematically compare the TMS-targeted functional networks in the prefrontal cortex in humans and NHPs. To conduct this comparison, we combine TMS electric field modeling in humans and macaques with resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to compare the functional networks targeted via TMS across species. We identified distinct stimulation zones in macaque and human models, each exhibiting variations in the impacted networks (macaque: Frontoparietal Network, Somatomotor Network; human: Frontoparietal Network, Default Network). We identified differences in brain gyrification and functional organization across species as the underlying cause of found network differences. The TMS-network profiles we identified will allow researchers to establish consistency in network activation across species, aiding in the translational efforts to develop improved TMS functional network targeting approaches.
The genetics of human migrations

When our human ancestors began to migrate from the African savannahs across the Alps into Northern Europe and Asia between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago, they encountered a colder climate, different food sources and new predators. Inevitably, evolution began to work on those wandering tribes: their skin became lighter, their metabolism adapted to new food sources, and their immune system had to handle different pathogens. Modern Homo sapiens began to evolve into slightly different subspecies or, as they are referred to in the common vernacular, different races. This shallow notion of race—that differences in our appearance have deep‐seated consequences for who and what we are as human beings—is the root of racism, which has led to slavery, discrimination, murder and genocide throughout the millennia. With the emergence of modern genetics and genomics, scientists had hoped that a better understanding of genetic differences and similarities among humans would eventually help to overcome the controversial and toxic notion of race as having anything to do with a person's ability, intelligence or humanity. As J. Craig Venter, then head of the Celera Genomics Corporation in Rockville, MD, USA, put it in 2000, when the first draft of the human genome was published: “Race is a social concept, not a scientific one”. Since the publication of the human genome, further advances in genomic sequencing and statistical analysis are now yielding new insights into the link between past human migrations and today's variety of genetic differences that govern disease resistance, skin pigmentation, tolerance to cold, and ability to digest or metabolize various nutrients. Such findings are contributing to discussions around the delicate issues of race, ethnicity and identity, but they are also having a significant impact on biomedical research and personalized health care. Furthermore, genetic analysis is shedding light on the migrations themselves, along with …
AUTOPHAGIC VACUOLES PRODUCED IN VITRO II . Studies on the Mechanism of Formation of Autophagic Vacuoles Produced by Chloroquine

Continuous phase-contrast observations have been made on macrophages following exposure to chloroquine. The initial abnormality is the appearance in the Golgi region of small vacuoles with an intermediate density between that of pinosomes and granules. Over the course of 1-2 hr these vacuoles grow larger and accumulate amorphous material or lipid. Pinosomes or granules frequently fuse with the toxic vacuoles. Chloroquine derivatives can be seen by fluorescence microscopy; the drug is rapidly taken up by macrophages and localized in small foci in the Golgi region. Chloroquine continues to produce vacuoles when pinocytosis is suppressed. Electron microscopic studies of chloroquine effects on macrophages preincubated with colloidal gold to label predominately pinosomes or granules suggest that toxic vacuoles can arise from unlabeled organelles. Later vacuoles regularly acquire gold label, apparently by fusion, from both granules and pinosomes. L cells also develop autophagic vacuoles after exposure to chloroquine. Smooth endoplasmic reticulum apparently is involved early in the autophagic process in these cells. Information now available suggests an initial action of chloroquine on Golgi or smooth endoplasmic reticulum vesicles, and on granules, with alterations in their membranes leading to fusion with one another and with pinosomes.
Impact of Multiple Video Representations in Live Streaming: A Cost, Bandwidth, and QoE Analysis

Video streaming is one of the most popular and highest bandwidth consumers within the Internet today. Cloud's elastic and pay-per-use model offers viable solution to varying demands of heterogeneous viewers for large-scale video providers. Video providers are heavily exploiting cloud's elastic nature to cater the scalability and heterogeneity of video steaming related tasks. For instance, Netflix moved its whole infrastructure to Amazon cloud, and Twitch, one of the largest game streaming providers is owned by Amazon and now using Amazon's cloud. Video representations refer to multiple copies of same video transcoded in multiple bitrates, such as 240, 360, 720, 1080 etc. Viewers with varying bandwidth capacities are served with matching representations based on the available bandwidth to minimize buffering time and latency. However, video transcoding is a computation and communication intensive task, therefore, not all of the live videos are transcoded to different representations. For instance, Twitch transcodes only the video streams of premium member (which have 500+ regular viewers). All of the non-premium channels are broadcasted in source stream. A fundamental question therefore is: which channels should be considered to be transcoded to multiple representations to minimize the overall cloud leased resources cost and bandwidth, and to maximize user satisfaction. In this paper, we seek answer to this question by analyzing the impact of multiple representations on cost (based on leasing cloud resources), bandwidth, and Quality of Experience (QoE, measured in terms of user satisfaction). We use Twitch workload traces captured in 2015, to conduct the experimentation, and use latest real-world broadband and representation data rate statistics from Akamai and YouTube Live, and cost from Amazon EC2 and CloudFront to validate our results. Our analysis reveals that using cloud's resources to transcode channels with more than 40 average viewers per hour with a data rate of 720p or higher, leads to low cost and bandwidth consumption, and higher QoE, as compared to streaming source video without multiple representations.
Big data: the driver for innovation in databases

计算机科学与技术的发展使得大规模信息处理基础设施产生重要改变。 在过去的30年中，经典的数据库管理系统（DBMS）在处理大规模数据方面与时俱进，在企业数据处理等方面得到广泛应用。 数据库研究和技术进展主要集中在数据建模、描述性查询语言、事务处理和数据库可靠性等。 在这个过程中，相关的数据仓库和数据挖掘分析技术也成为一个热点研究方向；人们认识到数据处理过程中的信息可以被有效整理和分析来支持以数据为中心的决策支持。 数据库管理系统在目前的互联网时代继续占据了重要地位。 在一个典型的互联网服务系统架构中，数据库管理系统和Web服务器及应用服务共同作用，为互联网用户提供各类信息和服务。 在这个系统架构中，人们期望系统能支持无限次和高速的互联网用户访问，这个时候数据库层由于在硬件可扩展性上面的不足可能成为系统性能瓶颈。 这个挑战我们称为大数据问题（big data problem）。 大数据系统期望能对大规模异构复杂数据建模，进行实时分析；传统的商用数据库系统很难提供良好的解决方案。 另一个大数据相关的挑战是服务器端数据中心的数据维护及安全隐私问题。 近年来云计算技术已经成为大数据中心的一种可靠解决方案，Google, Yahoo and Microsoft等公司也纷纷开发自己的云计算系统。 尽管云计算在互联网应用中已经体现出很多优越性，其在系统成熟性、可用性等方面还有很大提高空间。 显而易见，大数据领域的大规模数据管理和复杂数据分析已经成为新的研究前沿。 目前的各类大数据应用正是大数据研究的驱动力，比如社会网络、移动计算、科学应用等等。 这些应用产生的大数据往往具有海量、时序动态性、多样等特性，给数据库领域的各项技术带来巨大挑战，涵盖包括数据获取、组织管理、分析处理和应用呈现等整个数据管理生命周期。 针对数据管理和分析不同系统应用，各类大数据处理技术在也不断发展。 MapReduce作为一种分布式的数据处理框架由于其灵活性、可扩展性、高效和容错等特性其近年来得到了广泛应用。 此外，也有多类其他分布式数据处理系统用来解决MapReduce不擅长的问题，比如交互式分析、图计算和分析、实时和流处理、通用数据处理等等。 大数据不但给数据库研究领域，同时也给体系结构、存储系统、系统软件和软件工程等计算机多个学科带来了很多机会和挑战。 大数据正是目前很多计算机科学问题的根本，并驱动众多新科技的发展。
Telomere dysfunction drives chromosomal instability in human mammary epithelial cells

The development of genomic instability is an important step toward generating the multiple genetic changes required for cancer. Telomere dysfunction is one of the factors that contribute to tumorigenesis. Telomeres shorten with each cell division in the absence of telomerase. Human mammary epithelial cells (HMECs) obtained from normal human tissue demonstrate two growth phases. After an initial phase of active growth, HMECs exhibit a growth plateau termed selection. However, some cells can emerge from this growth plateau by spontaneously losing expression of the p16INK4a protein. These post‐selection HMECs are capable of undergoing an additional 20–50 population doublings in culture. Continued proliferation of these post‐selection HMECs leads to further telomere erosion, loss of the capping function, and the appearance of end‐to‐end chromosome fusions that can enter bridge‐fusion‐breakage (BFB) cycles, generating massive chromosomal instability before terminating in a population growth plateau termed agonescence. We have found that the chromosome arms carrying the shortest telomeres are those involved in telomere–telomere type rearrangements. In addition, we found that the risk of a particular chromosome being unstable differs between individuals. Most importantly, we identified sister chromatid fusion as a first event in generating genomic instability in HMECs. During post‐selection HMEC growth, double strand breaks are generated by both fused chromosomes as well as individual chromosomes with fused chromatids entering BFB cycles. These broken chromosome extremities are able to join other broken ends or eroded telomeres, producing massive chromosomal instability at the later passages of the cell culture. This article contains Supplementary Material available at http://www.interscience. wiley.com/jpages/1045‐2257/suppmat. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Convex Powerdomain over Lattices: its Logic and -Calculus

To model at the same time parallel and nondeterministic functional calculi we de ne a powerdomain functor P such that it is an endofunctor over the category of algebraic lattices. P is locally continuous and we study the initial solution D1 of the domain equation D = P([D ! D]? ). We derive from the algebras of P the logic of D1, that is the axiomatic description of its compact elements. We then de ne a -calculus and a type assignment system using the logic of D1 as the related type theory. We prove that the lter model of this calculus, which is isomorphic to D, is fully abstract with respect to the observational Preorder of the -calculus.
Have You Seen My Dragon? by Steve Light (review)

The young protagonist of this counting book has lost his dragon and treks all over the city, down by the harbor (“It’s possible he went for a swim”), through the zoo (“Has my dragon been here to visit the monkeys? ”), until finally finding the creature at a temple in Chinatown (“There he is! Right where I left him”). Along the way, the boy counts important parts of the landscape (three buses, four sailboats) from one to twenty. The simple journey and even the counting are merely excuses, however, to take in the lavish cityscapes of the pen and ink illustrations: each spread features detailed black and white drawings using thick and thin nib techniques to achieve a calligraphic effect. The countable elements are washed over with a single colorful pigment, setting them apart for easy picking out. The boy’s bland cartoonishness contrasts strikingly with the whimsical sharp angles and fascinating use of perspective (as with a vertical cutaway of an apartment building where deliverymen have seven boxes or a street view that angles from birds-eye to head-on for eight fire hydrants). The intricate penwork will get lost in busyness if shared with an audience; this is one for poring over, so that youngsters can not only count the color-coded hot dogs, balloons, and subway cars but also spot the dragon sneakily hiding just out of our narrator’s view each step of the way. TA
Leadership: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

OVERVIEWS. 1. History, Psychology, and Leadership, Bruce Mazlish. 2. The Law of the Father: Leadership and Symbolic Authority in Psychoanalysis, Melvyn Hill. 3. Leadership Systems in World Cultures, David M. Rosen. 4. Leadership as a Political Act, Barbara Kellerman. 5. The Social, Organizational, and Cultural Context of Effective Leadership, Martin M. Chemers. 6. Organizational Leadership: The Contingency paradigm and Its Challenges, James G. Hunt. 7. Feminist Scholarship on Political Leadership, Susan J. Carroll. VIEWPOINTS. 8. The Role of Leadership in the Construction of Reality, Sonia M. Hunt. 9. Cultural Leadership and the AvanteGarde, Monica Strauss. 10. Adult Leadership and Adult Development: A Constructivist View, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. 11. Assessing Political Leaders: The Criterion of "Mental Health", Stanley A. Renshon. 12. Leadership: The Socratic Model, Leonard Grob.
Aminobacter MSH1-Mineralisation of BAM in Sand-Filters Depends on Biological Diversity

BAM (2,6-dichlorobenzamide) is a metabolite of the pesticide dichlobenil. Naturally occurring bacteria that can utilize BAM are rare. Often the compound cannot be degraded before it reaches the groundwater and therefore it poses a serious threat to drinking water supplies. The bacterial strain Aminobacter MSH1 is a BAM degrader and therefore a potential candidate to be amended to sand filters in waterworks to remediate BAM polluted drinking water. A common problem in bioremediation is that bacteria artificially introduced into new diverse environments often thrive poorly, which is even more unfortunate because biologically diverse environments may ensure a more complete decomposition. To test the bioaugmentative potential of MSH1, we used a serial dilution approach to construct microcosms with different biological diversity. Subsequently, we amended Aminobacter MSH1 to the microcosms in two final concentrations; i.e. 105 cells mL-1 and 107 cells mL-1. We anticipated that BAM degradation would be most efficient at “intermediate diversities” as low diversity would counteract decomposition because of incomplete decomposition of metabolites and high diversity would be detrimental because of eradication of Aminobacter MSH1. This hypothesis was only confirmed when Aminobacter MSH1 was amended in concentrations of 105 cells mL-1.Our findings suggest that Aminobacter MSH1 is a very promising bioremediator at several diversity levels.