Active privacy-utility trade-off against inference in time-series data sharing

Internet of things devices have become highly popular thanks to the services they offer. However, they also raise privacy concerns since they share fine-grained time-series user data with untrusted third parties. We model the users personal information as the secret variable, to be kept private from an honest-but-curious service provider, and the useful variable, to be disclosed for utility. We consider an active learning framework, where one out of a finite set of measurement mechanisms is chosen at each time step, each revealing some information about the underlying secret and useful variables, albeit with different statistics. The measurements are taken such that the correct value of useful variable can be detected quickly, while the confidence on the secret variable remains below a predefined level. For privacy measure, we consider both the probability of correctly detecting the secret variable value and the mutual information between the secret and released data. We formulate both problems as partially observable Markov decision processes, and numerically solve by advantage actor-critic deep reinforcement learning. We evaluate the privacy-utility trade-off of the proposed policies on both the synthetic and real-world time-series datasets

Timely and Massive Communication in 6G: Pragmatics, Learning, and Inference

5G has expanded the traditional focus of wireless systems to embrace two new connectivity types: ultra-reliable low latency and massive communication. The technology context at the dawn of 6G is different from the past one for 5G, primarily due to the growing intelligence at the communicating nodes. This has driven the set of relevant communication problems beyond reliable transmission towards semantic and pragmatic communication. This paper puts the evolution of low-latency and massive communication towards 6G in the perspective of these new developments. At first, semantic/pragmatic communication problems are presented by drawing parallels to linguistics. We elaborate upon the relation of semantic communication to the information-theoretic problems of source/channel coding, while generalized real-time communication is put in the context of cyber-physical systems and real-time inference. The evolution of massive access towards massive closed-loop communication is elaborated upon, enabling interactive communication, learning, and cooperation among wireless sensors and actuators.Comment: Submitted for publication to IEEE BITS (revised version preprint

Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding for Wireless Image Transmission

We propose a novel joint source and channel coding (JSCC) scheme for wireless image transmission that departs from the conventional use of explicit source and channel codes for compression and error correction, and directly maps the image pixel values to the complex-valued channel input signal. Our encoder-decoder pair form an autoencoder with a nontrainable layer in the middle, which represents the noisy communication channel. Our results show that the proposed deep JSCC scheme outperforms separation-based digital transmission at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and low channel bandwidth regimes in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). More strikingly, deep JSCC does not suffer from the “cliff effect” as the channel SNR varies with respect to the SNR value assumed during training. In the case of a slow Rayleigh fading channel, deep JSCC can learn to communicate without explicit pilot signals or channel estimation, and significantly outperforms separation-based digital communication at all SNR and channel bandwidth values

A rare case of juvenile-onset Behçet's disease: Fournier’s gangrene followed by intestinal involvement

Behçet's disease (BD) is a multisystemic, inflammatory disease with still unknown etiology and rarely seen in childhood. BD has worse prognosis in young, male patients. BD exacerbations may be triggered by viral, bacterial, and other undefined antigenic stimuli in genetically predisposed individuals. Fournier’s gangrene (FG) is a rapidly progressive, necrotizing fasciitis of the genital and perineal regions with high morbidity and mortality. FG is usually seen in immunocompromised patients and may be triggered by local factors such as trauma, trombosis, and vasculitis. Here, we present a adolescent, male patient with juvenile-onset BD who developed FG and afterwards entero-Behçet. This unique assocation without any other underlying immunocompromised condition is discussed.Keywords: Behçet's disease, colitis, Fournier’s gangrene, juvenile onse

A High Throughput Lab-On-A-Chip System for Label Free Quantification of Breast Cancer Cells under Continuous Flow

This paper presents an LOC system combining microfluidic DEP channel with a CMOS image sensor for label and lens free detection and real-time counting of MCF-7 cells under continuous flow. Trapped and then released MCF-7 cells are accurately detected and counted under flow with a CMOS image sensor integrated underneath the DEP channel, for the first time in the literature. CMOS image sensor can capture 391 frames per second (fps) that allows detection of the released cells flowing through the channel with a flow rate up to 130 mu l/min (0.468 m/s). Therefore, the proposed system is able to detect the cells under high flow where conventional techniques for cell quantification such as fluorescent tagging become unusable. Detected cells are automatically counted with a computer program and the counting accuracy of the whole system is 95%. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd

Seismic stratigraphy and sediment cores reveal lake-level fluctuations in Lake Iznik (NW Turkey) over the past ∼70 ka

Our study aims to understand the palaeohydrological history of Lake Iznik and unravel the complex interplay between climatic, tectonic, and environmental factors that have shaped this Turkish basin. Through the analysis of seismic stratigraphy and sediment cores, we reveal a significant lowstand, indicating a lake level 60 m lower than today at ∼70 ka BP. Subsequently, a major phase of stepwise transgression is evidenced by 13 buried palaeoshorelines between ∼70 and 45 ka BP. From 45 to ∼10 ka cal BP, strong currents controlled the sedimentation in the lake, as evidenced by the occurrence of contourite drifts. Between ∼14 and 10 ka cal. BP, a major lowstand indicating a drier climate interrupted the current-controlled sedimentation regime. From ∼10 ka cal. BP, the subsequent increase in lake level occurred at the same time as the reconnection between the Mediterranean and Black seas. Archaeological evidence, including submerged structures of a basilica, establishes a link between lake-level changes and human settlement during the last millennium. The level of Lake Iznik has since continued to fluctuate due to climate change, tectonic events, and human activity

Neutrinos below 100 TeV from the southern sky employing refined veto techniques to IceCube data

Many Galactic sources of gamma rays, such as supernova remnants, are expected to produce neutrinos with a typical energy cutoff well below 100 TeV. For the IceCube Neutrino Observatory located at the South Pole, the southern sky, containing the inner part of the Galactic plane and the Galactic Center, is a particularly challenging region at these energies, because of the large background of atmospheric muons. In this paper, we present recent advancements in data selection strategies for track-like muon neutrino events with energies below 100 TeV from the southern sky. The strategies utilize the outer detector regions as veto and features of the signal pattern to reduce the background of atmospheric muons to a level which, for the first time, allows IceCube searching for point-like sources of neutrinos in the southern sky at energies between 100 GeV and several TeV in the muon neutrino charged current channel. No significant clustering of neutrinos above background expectation was observed in four years of data recorded with the completed IceCube detector. Upper limits on the neutrino flux for a number of spectral hypotheses are reported for a list of astrophysical objects in the southern hemisphere

Search for transient optical counterparts to high-energy IceCube neutrinos with Pan-STARRS1

In order to identify the sources of the observed diffuse high-energy neutrino flux, it is crucial to discover their electromagnetic counterparts. IceCube began releasing alerts for single high-energy ($E > 60$ TeV) neutrino detections with sky localisation regions of order 1 deg radius in 2016. We used Pan-STARRS1 to follow-up five of these alerts during 2016-2017 to search for any optical transients that may be related to the neutrinos. Typically 10-20 faint ($m < 22.5$ mag) extragalactic transients are found within the Pan-STARRS1 footprints and are generally consistent with being unrelated field supernovae (SNe) and AGN. We looked for unusual properties of the detected transients, such as temporal coincidence of explosion epoch with the IceCube timestamp. We found only one transient that had properties worthy of a specific follow-up. In the Pan-STARRS1 imaging for IceCube-160427A (probability to be of astrophysical origin of $\sim$50 %), we found a SN PS16cgx, located at 10.0' from the nominal IceCube direction. Spectroscopic observations of PS16cgx showed that it was an H-poor SN at z = 0.2895. The spectra and light curve resemble some high-energy Type Ic SNe, raising the possibility of a jet driven SN with an explosion epoch temporally coincident with the neutrino detection. However, distinguishing Type Ia and Type Ic SNe at this redshift is notoriously difficult. Based on all available data we conclude that the transient is more likely to be a Type Ia with relatively weak SiII absorption and a fairly normal rest-frame r-band light curve. If, as predicted, there is no high-energy neutrino emission from Type Ia SNe, then PS16cgx must be a random coincidence, and unrelated to the IceCube-160427A. We find no other plausible optical transient for any of the five IceCube events observed down to a 5$\sigma$ limiting magnitude of $m \sim 22$ mag, between 1 day and 25 days after detection.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, accepted to A&

Neutrinos below 100 TeV from the southern sky employing refined veto techniques to IceCube data

Many Galactic sources of gamma rays, such as supernova remnants, are expected to produce neutrinos with a typical energy cutoff well below 100 TeV. For the IceCube Neutrino Observatory located at the South Pole, the southern sky, containing the inner part of the Galactic plane and the Galactic Center, is a particularly challenging region at these energies, because of the large background of atmospheric muons. In this paper, we present recent advancements in data selection strategies for track-like muon neutrino events with energies below 100 TeV from the southern sky. The strategies utilize the outer detector regions as veto and features of the signal pattern to reduce the background of atmospheric muons to a level which, for the first time, allows IceCube searching for point-like sources of neutrinos in the southern sky at energies between 100 GeV and several TeV in the muon neutrino charged current channel. No significant clustering of neutrinos above background expectation was observed in four years of data recorded with the completed IceCube detector. Upper limits on the neutrino flux for a number of spectral hypotheses are reported for a list of astrophysical objects in the southern hemisphere.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, 2 table

TFOS European Ambassador meeting: Unmet needs and future scientific and clinical solutions for ocular surface diseases

The mission of the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) is to advance the research, literacy, and educational aspects of the scientific field of the tear film and ocular surface. Fundamental to fulfilling this mission is the TFOS Global Ambassador program. TFOS Ambassadors are dynamic and proactive experts, who help promote TFOS initiatives, such as presenting the conclusions and recommendations of the recent TFOS DEWS II™, throughout the world. They also identify unmet needs, and propose future clinical and scientific solutions, for management of ocular surface diseases in their countries. This meeting report addresses such needs and solutions for 25 European countries, as detailed in the TFOS European Ambassador meeting in Rome, Italy, in September 2019