bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Industrial Internet of Things Systems for Tracking and Traceability of Production Business Processes
Authors: Buchwald Paweł , Anus Artur
Published: August 2020

The article presents the results of research on the use of measuring devices based on RFID tags and graphic tags to track the increase in production. The conducted research experiments were made in a real production company, which is characterized by an average degree of digitization of its business processes and significantly uses the human factor in production. The conducted research allowed us to show the usefulness of measurement methods in tracking business processes, and to analyze the method of obtaining production data to achieve the traceability of manufactured components. The study also presents selected examples of IT systems in solving traceability problems (traceability and traceability of production).
Application of Soft-Skills Competence in Practice (Practice vs. Students)
Authors: Čierna Helena , Sujová Erika , Bambura Roman
Published: August 2020

The paper deals with application of soft-skills competence in practice comparing of education and employers requirements. In addition to what a graduate is to know in terms of the knowledge theoretically acquired, the labour market today defines quite clearly the specific requirements in terms of what a graduate should be able to do, provide for, organize, including the demands related to their competences. The purpose of the paper is to assess the ethical credibility of selected subjects in the field of soft skills based on the analysis and conclusions of research conducted in 2018-2019 at the Technical University in Zvolen. The method of questionnaire survey was chosen for the execution of the research. The paper presents the results of the selected area research of soft-skills, which showed the most significant differences – stress resistance. To evaluate the results was used the Mann-Whitney test of significance which is an especially appropriate test for two independent and randomly selected sets of sample observations. At the end of paper are proposed recommendations for improving teaching in accordance with the requirements of practice.
The Methodology of Tax Records for the Support of Tax Management
Authors: Shaidurova Natalia , Homokyová Mária
Published: August 2020

Tax policy is associated with the use and application of taxes and their instruments, which serve to influence macroeconomic and microeconomic processes in the economy. We can derive the tax policy from the applied economic policy of the state. The objectives of economic policy are aimed in particular at strengthening the effectiveness of the market mechanism, reducing pension and property inequality, as well as strengthening the internal and external stability of the state. In securing them, the state must take into account many internal, as well as international aspects, focused not only on economic but also on political, social, defenses, ethical and other interests. The individual goals that the state sets by its economic policy can be effectively achieved through goal-oriented policies that form part of economic policy. The state’s social policy, unemployment policy, tax policy, etc. fulfil their role. These policies then have a retroactive effect on the economic policy of the state. The subject or goal of tax policy is the application of tax principles and measures so that taxes serve to promote the economic, social and political goals of the state.
Role of seasonality in the socio-economic development of rural areas of the southern part of the Republic of Karelia
Authors: Naumov Alexey , Akimova Varvara , Elmanova Daria , Velichko Elizaveta , Topnikov Mikhail , Volkov Maxim , Khusainova Alina , Shmyd Petr , Poturaeva Aleksandra , Nosova Elena
Published: August 2020

The objective of this work is to analyze the impact of seasonality on the socio-economic development of rural areas of the southern part of Karelia. This study is based on the field data obtained via semi-structured in-depth interviews with experts from the local community. The results show that the influence of seasonality is rather indirect, being a constituent of other factors: economic, infrastructural, institutional, social, etc. Although seasonality is most often perceived as a negative phenomenon regarding socio-economic development, modern types of economic activity characterized by a peak of activity in different seasons of the year mitigate the effect of seasonality and even benefit from being seasonal. Based on the materials collected, a typology of rural settlements of the southern part of Karelia based on the nature of the effect of seasonality has been developed (with a predominantly positive and predominantly negative effect).
Modified Virtual Blade Method for Propeller Modelling
Authors: Stajuda Mateusz , Obidowski Damian , Karczewski Maciej , Jóźwik Krzysztof
Published: August 2020

The emergence of large, propeller-based aircraft has revived interest in propeller design and optimization with the use of numerical methods. The flow complexity and computational time necessary to solve complicated flow patterns trailing behind rotating blades, created a need for faster than fully resolved 3D CFD, yet comparably accurate methods for validating multiple design points in shorter time. Improved Virtual Blade Method (VBM) for 2-bladed propeller, including method implementation, analysis and validation against 3D numerical and experimental data is presented. The study introduces adjustments to the original method, accounting for differences between VBM and fully resolved numerical models. These modifications prove to increase the model accuracy for the propeller under consideration and could potentially be applied for different blade configurations as well. The modified Virtual Blade Method allows one to compute the propeller performance with comparable accuracy to 3D CFD computation using only 10% of time needed for one computational point.
To the Question of a Logarithmic Velocity Profile Correspondence with the Experimental Data
Authors: Zaryankin A. E.
Published: August 2020

The methodology of obtaining a logarithmic velocity profile describing the velocity distribution in the cross section of the boundary layer, which is based on the well-known equation of L. Prandtl, based on its semi-empirical turbulence theory, is considered.

It is shown that the logarithmic velocity profile obtained in this way does not satisfy any boundary condition arising from the classical definition of such concept as the boundary layer.

The perfect coincidence of this velocity profile with the experimental data of Nikuradze demonstrated in the world scientific literature is a consequence of making these profiles not in a fixed, but in a floating coordinate system. When rebuilding the velocity profiles obtained at different Reynolds numbers, all the profiles lose their versatility and do not coincide with the actual velocity profiles in cylindrical pipes.
Measuring and Analysis Colour of Birch Wood in Digital Picture
Authors: Hrčková Mária , Koleda Pavol , Koleda Peter
Published: August 2020

The aim of the research was to verify a new method of measuring the colour of wood. The method was designed to automate wood colour measurement. In the experiments birch wood was used, which was heat treated with saturated water steam. Nikon D3200 camera was used in conjunction with the MATLAB program to implement the method. The assessments were conducted in the colour space of CIE L* a* b*. The measured values confirmed the decrease in lightness from natural to thermally modified wood. The trends of the colour values a* and b* were the same as those reported by the authors who conducted experiments with birch wood. Differences were found in the magnitude of the measured chromatic component a* values. It will be necessary to verify the above facts and determine the reasons for these differences by measuring the colour of other wood species.
Lubricant Analysis as the Most Useful Tool in the Proactive Maintenance Philosophies of Machinery and its Components
Authors: Kučera Marián , Kopčanová Silvia , Sejkorová Marie
Published: August 2020

Condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of engineering systems are critical for the stable and reliable operation in various areas as mobile technology (primarily agricultural, forestry, mining and construction machinery), railways, airlines and large fleets. Thus, to achieve a satisfactory level of reliability for the life of a machine, proactive maintenance strategy is the only key. This means that the application of classical reliability methods suitable for components with sudden failures can be complemented by technical diagnostic methods which have the potential to provide the information about the system condition. In this article we focus on the diagnostic signal related to the used oil – tribodiagnostic measures and is an interesting theoretical item related to the evaluation of the quality of lubricants in the aspect of operation. This is because the oil is in direct contact with single parts of the assessed technical systems. Results tests were reviewed and derived from various parameters of lubricants and their limits that highlight the condition and state of the lubricants under varying categories which include, physiochemical, elemental (wear), contamination and additive analysis.
A Linearized Model of FID Signal for Increasing Proton Magnetometer Precision
Authors: Tan Chao , Fu Ruijie , Wu Chenguang , Li Xinglin
Published: August 2020

A linearized model of frequency measurement for the Free Induction Decay (FID) signal is proposed to increase the Proton Magnetometer (PM) precision. First, the nonlinear model of frequency measurement is set up according to the characteristic of the FID signal. Then, according to the error analysis of the MCFM method, the model is linearized on the condition of precision requirement. Furthermore, to reduce the nonlinear error caused by approximate treatment and the trigger time error caused by the random noise, the Least Squares (LS) method is adopted to estimate the slope of the linearized model, and the frequency to be measured is the inverse of the slope. Finally, a PM Prototype is made to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Experimental results show that the precision of frequency measurement is obviously increased if the proposed method is adopted for the noised sine signal. Moreover, the RMSD and the NPSD of magnetic-field measurement are about 0.13 nT and 80 pT/Hz1/2, respectively if the proposed method is adopted by PM, which is better than the comparison method.
A Comparison of Non-negative Tucker Decomposition and Parallel Factor Analysis for Identification and Measurement of Human EEG Rhythms
Authors: Rošt’áková Zuzana , Rosipal Roman , Seifpour Saman , Trejo Leonardo Jose
Published: August 2020

Analysis of changes in the brain neural electrical activity measured by the electroencephalogram (EEG) plays a crucial role in the area of brain disorder diagnostics. The elementary latent sources of the brain neural activity can be extracted by a tensor decomposition of continuously recorded multichannel EEG. Parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) is a powerful approach for this purpose. However, the assumption of the same number of factors in each dimension of the PARAFAC model may be restrictive when applied to EEG data. In this article we discuss the potential benefits of an alternative tensor decomposition method – the Tucker model. We analyze situations, where in comparison to the PARAFAC solution, the Tucker model provides a more parsimonious representation of the EEG data decomposition. We show that this more parsimonious representation of EEG is achieved without reducing the ability to explain variance. We analyze EEG records of two patients after ischemic stroke and we focus on the extraction of specific sensorimotor oscillatory sources associated with motor imagery during neurorehabilitation training. Both models provided consistent results. The advantage of the Tucker model was a compact structure with only two spatial signatures reflecting the expected lateralized activation of the detected subject-specific sensorimotor rhythms.
Analysis of Periodicities in Surface Topography of Cold rolled sheets Using Data Captured by Camera System
Authors: Zavadil Jaromir , Bartunek Josef Strom , Fojtik David
Published: August 2020

A method for surface analysis of cold rolled sheets is proposed in this paper. The approach is based on a low-cost specially built camera system followed by spectral analysis of the data captured from metal surfaces. The focus is on the changes in the surface topography caused by cold rolling with emphasis towards periodicities in the processed surface. Angular profile of the spectrum is calculated and used to display periodicities in surface topography and show their direction. The results obtained by using the proposed system were compared with results obtained from the optical profilometer MicroProf FRT. The experiments show that cold rolling creates marks on the surface of the material, which represent periodicities that can be effectively detected by the proposed method and camera system. Even though the camera system is not able to measure precise surface roughness, it is able to detect periodicities and the results of spectral analysis are comparable with the results from the optical profilometer.
Processing Accuracy of Instantaneous Values of a Stochastic Signal in an Inertial Measurement System
Authors: Kowalczyk Adam , Chorzępa Rafał
Published: August 2020

The article presents an analysis of the dynamic error occurring when processing a stochastic signal in an inertial measurement system. The problem was illustrated using both a calculation and a laboratory example. The technique of conditional averaging of signals was used in the experiment. The possibility to minimize the root mean square value of the error as well as the need for a time correction of measurement values in an inertial measurement system was demonstrated.
Detecting an Unknown Abrupt Change in the Band Center of the Fast-Fluctuating Gaussian Random Process
Authors: Chernoyarov Oleg , Demina Tatiana , Kabanov Yuri , Makarov Alexander
Published: August 2020

The generalized maximum likelihood algorithm is introduced for detecting the abrupt change in the band center of a fast-fluctuating Gaussian random process with the uniform spectral density. This algorithm has a simpler structure than the ones obtained by means of common approaches and it can be effectively implemented on the base of both modern digital signal processors and field-programmable gate arrays. By applying the multiplicative and additive local Markov approximation of the decision statistics and its increments, the analytical expressions are calculated for the false alarm and missing probabilities. And with the help of statistical simulation it is confirmed that the proposed detector is operable, while the theoretical formulas describing its quality and efficiency approximate satisfactorily the corresponding experimental data in a wide range of parameters of the observable data realization.
Time-Frequency Analysis of Partial Discharge Current Pulses in Different Gas Environment under Lightning Impulse
Authors: Arikan Kemal , Önal Emel , Şeker Serhat
Published: August 2020

This paper deals with a time-frequency analysis of the measured partial discharge (PD) currents in different insulation gases. These gas environments consist of a pure SF6 (sulphur-hexafluoride) and sulphur-hexafluoride and nitrogen (1 % SF6 + 99 % N2) mixture, under both positive and negative lightning impulse (LI) voltage stresses. In this study, the short time Fourier transform was used to extract the time-frequency information of PDs for different gases at different pressures, and these results were compared to each other. Thus, the relationship between the time, amplitude, and frequency of PD currents was studied. Moreover, some statistical formulas, such as mean, standard deviation, kurtosis, and skewness were applied to the time-dependent PD current data. As a result, a correlation between obtained statistical results and PD frequencies was examined. In most cases, the frequency of partial discharge decreased when the pressure increased. The amplitude of the partial discharges for negative polarity was more than that for positive polarity gas insulations. The partial discharge amplitudes of the pressure of 2 bar were mostly high compared to other pressures. This case demonstrated that SF6 had a maximum minimum character in terms of breakdown. The partial discharge frequency of a 1 % SF6 mixture was higher than that of pure SF6. It is thought that SF6 suppresses the discharge frequency, and statistical evaluations support the experimental results.
Long-term investigation of 137Cs and 134Cs in drinking water in the city of Zagreb, Croatia
Authors: Franić Zdenko , Branica Gina , Petrinec Branko , Marović Gordana
Published: August 2020

This paper presents the results of long-term investigations of 137Cs and 134Cs activity concentrations in drinking water in the city of Zagreb for the period 1987–2018. The highest activity concentrations of both radio-nuclides were measured in 1987, decreasing exponentially ever since, while 134Cs in several subsequent years fell under the detection limit. After the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011, the presence of 134Cs in drinking water was detected again. The environmental residence time for 137Cs was estimated to be 8.1 years in drinking water and 5.7 years in fallout. The correlation between 137Cs in fallout and in drinking water is very good, and this indicates that fallout is the main source of water contamination. The observed 134Cs/137Cs activity ratio in drinking water for the post-Chernobyl period was similar to the ratio found in other environmental samples. The estimation of annual effective doses received by the adult members of the Croatian population due to the intake of radiocaesium in drinking water showed quite small doses of 0.28 μSv in 1987 decreasing to 2.5 nSv in 2018, which indicated that drinking water was not a critical pathway for the transfer of radiocaesium to humans.
Differentially-Private Multi-Party Sketching for Large-Scale Statistics
Authors: Choi Seung Geol , Dachman-soled Dana , Kulkarni Mukul , Yerukhimovich Arkady
Published: August 2020

We consider a scenario where multiple organizations holding large amounts of sensitive data from their users wish to compute aggregate statistics on this data while protecting the privacy of individual users. To support large-scale analytics we investigate how this privacy can be provided for the case of sketching algorithms running in time sub-linear of the input size.

We begin with the well-known LogLog sketch for computing the number of unique elements in a data stream. We show that this algorithm already achieves differential privacy (even without adding any noise) when computed using a private hash function by a trusted curator. Next, we show how to eliminate this requirement of a private hash function by injecting a small amount of noise, allowing us to instantiate an efficient LogLog protocol for the multi-party setting. To demonstrate the practicality of this approach, we run extensive experimentation on multiple data sets, including the publicly available IP address data set from University of Michigan’s scans of internet IPv4 space, to determine the trade-offs among efficiency, privacy and accuracy of our implementation for varying numbers of parties and input sizes.

Finally, we generalize our approach for the LogLog sketch and obtain a general framework for constructing multi-party differentially private protocols for several other sketching algorithms.
SiegeBreaker: An SDN Based Practical Decoy Routing System
Authors: Sharma Piyush Kumar , Gosain Devashish , Sagar Himanshu , Kumar Chaitanya , Dogra Aneesh , Naik Vinayak , Acharya H.B. , Chakravarty Sambuddho
Published: August 2020

Decoy Routing (DR), a promising approach to censorship circumvention, uses routers (rather than end hosts) as proxy servers. Users of censored networks, who wish to use DR, send specially crafted packets, nominally addressed to an uncensored website. Once safely out of the censored network, the packets encounter a special router (the Decoy Router) which identifies them using a secret handshake, and proxies them to their true destination (a censored site). However, DR has implementation problems: it is infeasible to reprogram routers for the complex operations required. Existing DR solutions fall back on using commodity servers as a Decoy Router. But as servers are not efficient at routing, most web applications show poor performance when accessed over DR. A further concern is that the Decoy Router has to inspect all flows in order to identify the ones that need DR. This may itself be a breach of privacy for other users (who neither require DR nor want to be monitored). In this paper, we present a novel DR system, Siege- Breaker (SB), which solves the aforementioned problems using an SDN-based architecture. Previous proposals involve a single unit which performs all major operations (inspecting all flows, identifying the DR requests and proxying them). In contrast, SB distributes the tasks for DR among three independent modules. (1) The SDN controller identifies DR requests via a covert, privacy preserving scheme, and does not need to inspect all flows. (2) The reconfigurable SDN switch intercepts packets, and forwards them to a secret proxy efficiently. (3) The secret proxy server proxies the client’s traffic to the censored site. Our modular, lightweight design achieves performance comparable to direct TCP downloads, for both in-lab setups, and Internet based tests involving commercial SDN switches.
Comprehensive Anonymity Trilemma: User Coordination is not enough
Authors: Das Debajyoti , Meiser Sebastian , Mohammadi Esfandiar , Kate Aniket
Published: August 2020

For anonymous communication networks (ACNs), Das et al. recently confirmed a long-suspected trilemma result that ACNs cannot achieve strong anonymity, low latency overhead and low bandwidth overhead at the same time. Our paper emanates from the careful observation that their analysis does not include a relevant class of ACNs with what we call user coordination where users proactively work together towards improving their anonymity. We show that such protocols can achieve better anonymity than predicted by the above trilemma result. As the main contribution, we present a stronger impossibility result that includes all ACNs we are aware of. Along with our formal analysis, we provide intuitive interpretations and lessons learned. Finally, we demonstrate qualitatively stricter requirements for the Anytrust assumption (all but one protocol party is compromised) prevalent across ACNs.
The Power of the Hybrid Model for Mean Estimation
Authors: Avent Brendan , Dubey Yatharth , Korolova Aleksandra
Published: August 2020

We explore the power of the hybrid model of differential privacy (DP), in which some users desire the guarantees of the local model of DP and others are content with receiving the trusted-curator model guarantees. In particular, we study the utility of hybrid model estimators that compute the mean of arbitrary realvalued distributions with bounded support. When the curator knows the distribution’s variance, we design a hybrid estimator that, for realistic datasets and parameter settings, achieves a constant factor improvement over natural baselines.We then analytically characterize how the estimator’s utility is parameterized by the problem setting and parameter choices. When the distribution’s variance is unknown, we design a heuristic hybrid estimator and analyze how it compares to the baselines. We find that it often performs better than the baselines, and sometimes almost as well as the known-variance estimator. We then answer the question of how our estimator’s utility is affected when users’ data are not drawn from the same distribution, but rather from distributions dependent on their trust model preference. Concretely, we examine the implications of the two groups’ distributions diverging and show that in some cases, our estimators maintain fairly high utility. We then demonstrate how our hybrid estimator can be incorporated as a sub-component in more complex, higher-dimensional applications. Finally, we propose a new privacy amplification notion for the hybrid model that emerges due to interaction between the groups, and derive corresponding amplification results for our hybrid estimators.
Effective writing style transfer via combinatorial paraphrasing
Authors: Gröndahl Tommi , Asokan N.
Published: August 2020

Stylometry can be used to profile or deanonymize authors against their will based on writing style. Style transfer provides a defence. Current techniques typically use either encoder-decoder architectures or rule-based algorithms. Crucially, style transfer must reliably retain original semantic content to be actually deployable. We conduct a multifaceted evaluation of three state-of-the-art encoder-decoder style transfer techniques, and show that all fail at semantic retainment. In particular, they do not produce appropriate paraphrases, but only retain original content in the trivial case of exactly reproducing the text. To mitigate this problem we propose ParChoice: a technique based on thecombinatorial application of multiple paraphrasing algorithms. ParChoice strongly outperforms the encoder-decoder baselines in semantic retainment. Additionally, compared to baselines that achieve nonnegligible semantic retainment, ParChoice has superior style transfer performance. We also apply ParChoice to multi-author style imitation (not considered by prior work), where we achieve up to 75% imitation success among five authors. Furthermore, when compared to two state-of-the-art rule-based style transfer techniques, ParChoice has markedly better semantic retainment. Combining ParChoice with the best performing rulebased baseline (Mutant-X [34]) also reaches the highest style transfer success on the Brennan-Greenstadt and Extended-Brennan-Greenstadt corpora, with much less impact on original meaning than when using the rulebased baseline techniques alone. Finally, we highlight a critical problem that afflictsallcurrent style transfer techniques: the adversary can use the same technique for thwarting style transfer viaadversarial training. We show that adding randomness to style transfer helps to mitigate the effectiveness of adversarial training.
VideoDP: A Flexible Platform for Video Analytics with Differential Privacy
Authors: Wang Han , Xie Shangyu , Hong Yuan
Published: August 2020

Massive amounts of videos are ubiquitously generated in personal devices and dedicated video recording facilities. Analyzing such data would be extremely beneficial in real world (e.g., urban traffic analysis). However, videos contain considerable sensitive information, such as human faces, identities and activities. Most of the existing video sanitization techniques simply obfuscate the video by detecting and blurring the region of interests (e.g., faces, vehicle plates, locations and timestamps). Unfortunately, privacy leakage in the blurred video cannot be effectively bounded, especially against unknown background knowledge. In this paper, to our best knowledge, we propose the first differentially private video analytics platform (VideoDP) which flexibly supports different video analyses with rigorous privacy guarantee. Given the input video, VideoDP randomly generates a utility-driven private video in which adding or removing any sensitive visual element (e.g., human, and object) does not significantly affect the output video. Then, different video analyses requested by untrusted video analysts can be flexibly performed over the sanitized video with differential privacy. Finally, we conduct experiments on real videos, and the experimental results demonstrate that VideoDP can generate accurate results for video analytics.
Running Refraction Networking for Real
Authors: VanderSloot Benjamin , Frolov Sergey , Wampler Jack , Tan Sze Chuen , Simpson Irv , Kallitsis Michalis , Halderman J. Alex , Borisov Nikita , Wustrow Eric
Published: August 2020

Refraction networking is a next-generation censorship circumvention approach that locates proxy functionality in the network itself, at participating ISPs or other network operators. Following years of research and development and a brief pilot, we established the world’s first production deployment of a Refraction Networking system. Our deployment uses a highperformance implementation of the TapDance protocol and is enabled as a transport in the popular circumvention app Psiphon. It uses TapDance stations at four physical uplink locations of a mid-sized ISP, Merit Network, with an aggregate bandwidth of 140 Gbps. By the end of 2019, our system was enabled as a transport option in 559,000 installations of Psiphon, and it served upwards of 33,000 unique users per month. This paper reports on our experience building the deployment and operating it for the first year. We describe how we overcame engineering challenges, present detailed performance metrics, and analyze how our system has responded to dynamic censor behavior. Finally, we review lessons learned from operating this unique artifact and discuss prospects for further scaling Refraction Networking to meet the needs of censored users.
CanaryTrap: Detecting Data Misuse by Third-Party Apps on Online Social Networks
Authors: Farooqi Shehroze , Musa Maaz , Shafiq Zubair , Zaffar Fareed
Published: August 2020

Online social networks support a vibrant ecosystem of third-party apps that get access to personal information of a large number of users. Despite several recent high-profile incidents, methods to systematically detect data misuse by third-party apps on online social networks are lacking. We propose CanaryTrap to detect misuse of data shared with third-party apps. CanaryTrap associates a honeytoken to a user account and then monitors its unrecognized use via different channels after sharing it with the third-party app. We design and implement CanaryTrap to investigate misuse of data shared with third-party apps on Facebook. Specifically, we share the email address associated with a Facebook account as a honeytoken by installing a third-party app. We then monitor the received emails and use Facebook’s ad transparency tool to detect any unrecognized use of the shared honeytoken. Our deployment of CanaryTrap to monitor 1,024 Facebook apps has uncovered multiple cases of misuse of data shared with third-party apps on Facebook including ransomware, spam, and targeted advertising.
Secure Evaluation of Quantized Neural Networks
Authors: Dalskov Anders , Escudero Daniel , Keller Marcel
Published: August 2020

We investigate two questions in this paper: First, we ask to what extent “MPC friendly” models are already supported by major Machine Learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch. Prior works provide protocols that only work on fixed-point integers and specialized activation functions, two aspects that are not supported by popular Machine Learning frameworks, and the need for these specialized model representations means that it is hard, and often impossible, to use e.g., TensorFlow to design, train and test models that later have to be evaluated securely. Second, we ask to what extent the functionality for evaluating Neural Networks already exists in general-purpose MPC frameworks. These frameworks have received more scrutiny, are better documented and supported on more platforms. Furthermore, they are typically flexible in terms of the threat model they support. In contrast, most secure evaluation protocols in the literature are targeted to a specific threat model and their implementations are only a “proof-of-concept”, making it very hard for their adoption in practice. We answer both of the above questions in a positive way:We observe that the quantization techniques supported by both TensorFlow, PyTorch and MXNet can provide models in a representation that can be evaluated securely; and moreover, that this evaluation can be performed by a general purpose MPC framework. We perform extensive benchmarks to understand the exact trade-offs between different corruption models, network sizes and efficiency. These experiments provide an interesting insight into cost between active and passive security, as well as honest and dishonest majority. Our work shows then that the separating line between existing ML frameworks and existing MPC protocols may be narrower than implicitly suggested by previous works.
Reimagining Secret Sharing: Creating a Safer and More Versatile Primitive by Adding Authenticity, Correcting Errors, and Reducing Randomness Requirements
Authors: Bellare Mihir , Dai Wei , Rogaway Phillip
Published: August 2020

Aiming to strengthen classical secret-sharing to make it a more directly useful primitive for human endusers, we develop definitions, theorems, and efficient constructions for what we calladeptsecret-sharing. Our primary concerns are the properties we callprivacy,authenticity, anderror correction. Privacy strengthens the classical requirement by ensuring maximal confidentiality even if the dealer does not employ fresh, uniformly random coins with each sharing. That might happen either intentionally—to enablereproduciblesecretsharing— or unintentionally, when an entropy source fails. Authenticity is a shareholder’s guarantee that a secret recovered using his or her share will coincide with the value the dealer committed to at the time the secret was shared. Error correction is the guarantee that recovery of a secret will succeed, also identifying the valid shares, exactly when there is a unique explanation as to which shares implicate what secret. These concerns arise organically from a desire to create general-purpose libraries and apps for secret sharing that can withstand both strong adversaries and routine operational errors.
The risks in nursing interventions offered by nurses with the purpose of preventing hospital-acquired pressure ulcers
Authors: Dobre Claudia Elena , Cîrstoiu Florin Cătălin , Zazu Mariana , Mazilu Doina Carmen
Published: August 2020

The study was performed in seven medical units in Bucharest with the intention to offer a comprehensive analysis of the nurses’ current prevention practices for hospital-acquired pressure ulcers and also to determine: (1) the main risks that can negatively affect the prevention activities for this type of injury, and (2) if there is a correlation between the nurses’ knowledge and the clinical approach to the current hospital-acquired pressure ulcer prevention practices. The statistical analysis was based on data collected from 713 questionnaires from subjects who met the inclusion criteria of the study. The results showed that nurses considered protocols for hospital-acquired pressure ulcer prevention and its management to be important, but both were not always fully implemented into practice due to the lack of resources, time allocation and staff shortages. The regression analysis method we used was focused to assess the predictive capacity for the combined clinical knowledge and professional approaches to hospital-acquired pressure ulcer prevention and management. The conclusion was that a simultaneous improvement in the clinical approaches and professional knowledge on the topic of pressure-ulcer prevention and management may lead to an improvement of up to 6% of the practices in this field according to the results of the statistical analysis performed.
Occupational Extrinsic Allergic Alveolitis in a poultry farmer
Authors: Andreea Smărăndescu Raluca , Diaconu Mircea-Constantin , Handra Claudia-Mariana , Rașcu Agripina
Published: August 2020

Hypersensitivity pneumonitis is a group of inflammatory interstitial lung diseases caused by hypersensitivity immune reactions to the inhalation of various antigens: fungal, bacterial, animal protein, or chemical sources, finely dispersed, with aerodynamic diameter <5μ, representing the respirable fraction. The national register for interstitial lung diseases records very few cases of hypersensitivity pneumonitis (extrinsec allergic alveolitis), a well defined occupational disease. Although not an eminently of occupational origin, the extrinsec allergic alveolitis can occur secondary to occupational exposure to organic substances (animal or insect proteins, bacteria, fungi) or inorganic (low molecular weight chemical compounds) and the occupational doctor is a key actor in the diagnosys. The disease has chronic evolution and exposure avoidance, as early as possible, has major prognostic influence. The occupational anamnesis remains the most important step and the occupational physician is the one in charge for monitoring and detection of the presence of respiratory symptoms in all employees with risk exposure. Next, we present the case of a farmer, without other comorbidities, who develops various respiratory and systemic diseases and manifestations due to repeated exposure to animal proteins and molds, in order to review the risk factors and the consequences of exposure in poultry farms.
Fusion II. Broadening the Field of Observation
Authors: Fonda Paolo
Published: August 2020

This is the second part of the paper in which fusion is considered as one of the fundamental mechanisms of mental functioning, an essential element in every object relation – with variations only in the degree of participation – along with the component connoted by separateness. There is a continuous dialectic relationship between levels of fusion and separateness. Human beings are characterized by an extremely sophisticated and continuously changing boundary system.

This part of the paper focuses on some aspects of the role of fusion within the psychoanalytic relation, the mother child matrix, the group mental activity and the meta-ego dimension.
From the Couch to the Chair, Secret or Mistery?
Authors: Cuc Bogdan Sebastian
Published: August 2020

Initiated as a search for the truth hidden by the symptoms of hysteria, psychoanalysis, but in fact psychoanalysts, had a particular relationship with the secret over time. Beyond the historical truth of using the word „secret” to name meetings back in the time when the first group of psychoanalysts was being formed, beyond the stigma of secret society or even occult society with which the psychoanalyst society was then labelled, or, more precisely, the community of psychoanalysts was labelled (some still believe this is the case), the question of secrecy has been present since the beginning of psychoanalysis, not only in the minds of those who, in one form or another, were approaching psychoanalysis, but right in the center of the experiences of psychoanalysts’ practices.

Between confidentiality and urging the patient to say “whatever goes through their mind”, between the phantasm of the primitive scene and the construction of intimacy, the meaning of the secret carries the psychoanalyst forward towards revealing the pathogenic truth and the construction of the sanogenoic mystery. From free association to evenly suspended attention, we have a sinuous trajectory of certain affects that, freeing the sensorial that carried them, inscribe the papyrus of the Ego’s history, detached from the Id.
Hiding Shame – A Case Study of Developing Agency
Authors: Kivikkokangas Sami , Leiman Mikael , Laitila Aarno , Stiles William B.
Published: August 2020

The hiding aspect of shame makes the study of shame difficult. In this article we aim to show through Hanna’s case study how shame manifests and develops during the course of one psychotherapy process. This will be done using Assimilation analysis (APES) and Dialogical Sequence Analysis (DSA) to show in detail one idiosyncratic developmental path through which the relationship toward the problematic shame experience changes and develops in psychotherapy. Results show how the manifestation of shame toward the problematic experience of being seen was present in the first moments of the first meeting, but also how during the sequence of sessions 7 – 9 Hanna’s relationship toward shame evoked referent unveils and developed gradually through therapeutic work from assimilation stage 2 to reaching stage 5-6 at the end of the 9th hour. This study shows how Hanna was able to reach a new kind of active agency toward the shame that, in the beginning, held the agency in her ’community of voices’, and how this understanding of shame’s developing and hiding nature can be of use in a clinically meaningful way.
The Secret, A Hidden-Found Process
Authors: Romaneț Gabriela
Published: August 2020

Following the secret’s customs, encountering it in the myriad manifestations of psychic life and relational domino effect, the current work separates the secret from the act of secretiveness and from trauma, with which the former often confused. The fact that it is intrinsically linked to truth, as it is hidden information waiting to be found, defines the secret as a process involved in working with information-about-self and the self: it is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be discovered. This hidden – found process that accompanies us our whole life is transformed according to the biological and psychological stages one must go through. Thus, the secret is interpreted differently, passing through successive stages of development. From the archaic game of “hide-and-seek”, through the primitive scene of “peeping through the keyhole” and discovering the secret of one’s own genitals, continuing with the type of secret offered by a relationship of friendship in latency, reaching the desecretisation and de-sacralisation of adolescence, the secret is an “act of secrecy” that requires an interior architecture as well as borders between the internal and external universe. Otherwise, the “act of secrecy” fails and turns into secretiveness, a failure of the hidden - found process, because either nothing can be hidden (as in paranoid mechanisms) or everything must be hidden (as in trauma mechanisms).
Facial nerve paralysis
Authors: Sarafoleanu Dorin , Bejenariu Andreea
Published: August 2020

The facial nerve, the seventh pair of cranial nerves, has an essential role in non-verbal communication through facial expression. Besides innervating the muscles involved in facial expression, the complex structure of the facial nerve contains sensory fibres involved in the perception of taste and parasympathetic fibres involved in the salivation and tearing processes. Damage to the facial nerve manifested by facial paralysis translates into a decrease or disappearance of mobility of normal facial expression.

Facial nerve palsy is one of the common causes of presenting to the Emergency Room. Most facial paralysis are idiopathic, followed by traumatic, infectious, tumor causes. A special place is occupied by the child’s facial paralysis. Due to the multitude of factors that can determine or favour its appearance, it requires a multidisciplinary evaluation consisting of otorhinolaryngologist, neurologist, ophthalmologist, internist.

Early presentation to the doctor, accurate determination of the cause, correctly performed topographic diagnosis is the key to proper treatment and complete functional recovery.
Evaluation of smell disorders after radiotherapy in patients with laryngeal neoplasm
Authors: Huba Mozes , Muhlfay Gheorghe , Neagos Cristian , Neagos Adriana
Published: August 2020

BACKGROUND. Smell disorders may be classified in quantitative and qualitative. The literature shows that the main causes of odour disorders, both qualitative and quantitative, are due to aging, viral infections and tumors of the upper respiratory tract, craniocerebral trauma, neurodegenerative diseases of the nervous system, drug use or exposure to various toxic substances. Total laryngectomy and oncologic treatment causes smell disorders.

OBJECTIVE. The aim of this study is to evaluate the aspects related to the patient’s smell disorders after total laryngectomy, during the oncological treatment represented by radiotherapy.

MATERIAL AND METHODS. A prospective observational study was performed on a group of 52 patients, over a period of one year (2016-2017), who benefited from total laryngectomy and who underwent oncological treatment, represented by radiotherapy. Patients were evaluated before starting radiotherapy and during radiotherapy sessions. All patients underwent quantitative and qualitative smell assessment.

RESULTS. At the end of week 7 of radiotherapy, none of the patients was considered normosmic, 10 patients were considered to be suffering from hyposmia and 42 from anosmia. Statistically significant changes in the quantitative determination of odour occurred in the fourth week, respectively at the radiation dose of 40Gy. Qualitative odour assessment in this study showed a statistically significant decrease starting with the fifth week of radiotherapy, respectively with a radiation dose of 50Gy.

CONCLUSION. Radiation therapy has a major impact on the quality of life of patients with laryngeal cancer, which has the lowest scores at the beginning and end of the treatment.
Chronic sinusitis and frontal sinocutaneous fistula: late complications after pterional craniotomy
Authors: Palade Dragos , Stegaru Gina , Oancea Iustina , Vitoroi Silvian , Sochirca Cristina , Cobzeanu Mihail Dan
Published: August 2020

We sought to determine the clinical significance of delayed complications after different neurosurgical procedures, such as chronic sinusitis and frontocutaneus fistula. These can be managed by endoscopic closure or by external approach, depending on the cause and extent of sinusitis. We report a case of a 65-year-old woman who was presented to our ENT Department with a frontocutaneus fistula and was surgically managed.
Posttraumatic intraosseous epidermoid inclusion cyst. A case report and short literature review
Authors: Dumitru Adrian , Costache Mariana , Şerban Bogdan , Japie Ionu-Mihai , Anghelescu Dan , Condrea Constantin , Ionescu Doris , Aliuş Cătălin , Grădinaru Sebastian
Published: August 2020

Epidermoid bone inclusion cysts are pathological structures bordered by a layer of stratified squamous epithelium containing keratin debris. They are also called epidermal bone cysts. Intraosseous epidermoid cysts are rare entities; these lesions may occur as a result of trauma (puncture wound or pressure erosion).

They appear to be well defined, translucent lytic lesions with sclerotic margins on imaging studies. The most frequent sites affected are: the distal phalanx and the calvaria - intradiploic, but a few cases of larger bone involvement have been reported. The imagistic differential diagnosis of this lesion includes intraosseous extension of a glomus tumor, enchondroma, osteoid osteoma, acral metastases, some primary vascular bone tumors, giant cell reparative granuloma, subungual nodular melanoma or other lytic non-neoplastic lesions such as osteomyelitis. We present the case of a 70-year-old man experiencing anxiety and pain due to distal phalanx expansion of the IV digit, following hand trauma. An X-ray was performed, showing a radiotransparent lesion located in the distal phalanx. An intramedullary inclusion cyst must be taken into account as a clinical differential diagnosis. Due to the extensive destruction of the distal phalanx, amputation was necessary. Gross examination of the surgical specimen revealed a cystic lesion that contained whitish, creamy material with extensive necrotic areas. Microscopic examination revealed a ruptured intraosseous epidermoid inclusion cyst, which was successfully excised.