I Know Why You Went to the Clinic: Risks and Realization of HTTPS Traffic Analysis

Revelations of large scale electronic surveillance and data mining by governments and corporations have fueled increased adoption of HTTPS. We present a traffic analysis attack against over 6000 webpages spanning the HTTPS deployments of 10 widely used, industry-leading websites in areas such as healthcare, finance, legal services and streaming video. Our attack identifies individual pages in the same website with 89% accuracy, exposing personal details including medical conditions, financial and legal affairs and sexual orientation. We examine evaluation methodology and reveal accuracy variations as large as 18% caused by assumptions affecting caching and cookies. We present a novel defense reducing attack accuracy to 27% with a 9% traffic increase, and demonstrate significantly increased effectiveness of prior defenses in our evaluation context, inclusive of enabled caching, user-specific cookies and pages within the same website

Proton-Scattering on (29)Si in Range Ep = 2.5-3.4 MeV*

Elastic and inelastic proton scattering measurements on Elastic and inelastic proton scattering measurements on 29Si have been obtained in the energy range Ep = 2.5-3.4 MeV. 30 elastic and 32 inelastic resonances were observed. 14 prominent resonances from elastic scattering were analyzed. Results of the analysis for proton orbital momenta, spin and parity assignments, and proton partial widths are given. The inelastic resonance strengths measured relative to the known strength of the 1302-keV resonance in 29Si(p,y)30P are also reported

Near-Optimal Evasion of Convex-Inducing Classifiers

Classifiers are often used to detect miscreant activities. We study how an adversary can efficiently query a classifier to elicit information that allows the adversary to evade detection at near-minimal cost. We generalize results of Lowd and Meek (2005) to convex-inducing classifiers. We present algorithms that construct undetected instances of near-minimal cost using only polynomially many queries in the dimension of the space and without reverse engineering the decision boundary.Comment: 8 pages; to appear at AISTATS'201

Irreducible Highest Weight Representations Of The Simple n-Lie Algebra

A. Dzhumadil'daev classified all irreducible finite dimensional representations of the simple n-Lie algebra. Using a slightly different approach, we obtain in this paper a complete classification of all irreducible, highest weight modules, including the infinite-dimensional ones. As a corollary we find all primitive ideals of the universal enveloping algebra of this simple n-Lie algebra.Comment: 24 pages, 24 figures, mistake in proposition 2.1 correcte

Reviewer Integration and Performance Measurement for Malware Detection

We present and evaluate a large-scale malware detection system integrating machine learning with expert reviewers, treating reviewers as a limited labeling resource. We demonstrate that even in small numbers, reviewers can vastly improve the system's ability to keep pace with evolving threats. We conduct our evaluation on a sample of VirusTotal submissions spanning 2.5 years and containing 1.1 million binaries with 778GB of raw feature data. Without reviewer assistance, we achieve 72% detection at a 0.5% false positive rate, performing comparable to the best vendors on VirusTotal. Given a budget of 80 accurate reviews daily, we improve detection to 89% and are able to detect 42% of malicious binaries undetected upon initial submission to VirusTotal. Additionally, we identify a previously unnoticed temporal inconsistency in the labeling of training datasets. We compare the impact of training labels obtained at the same time training data is first seen with training labels obtained months later. We find that using training labels obtained well after samples appear, and thus unavailable in practice for current training data, inflates measured detection by almost 20 percentage points. We release our cluster-based implementation, as well as a list of all hashes in our evaluation and 3% of our entire dataset.Comment: 20 papers, 11 figures, accepted at the 13th Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA 2016

Novel biallelic USH2A variants in a patient with usher syndrome type IIA- a case report

BACKGROUND: Usher Syndrome is the commonest cause of inherited blindness and deafness. The condition is clinically and genetically heterogeneous, with no current treatment. We report a case carrying novel biallelic variants in USH2A causing progressive early adolescent onset visual and hearing impairment consistent with Usher Syndrome Type IIA. CASE PRESENTATION: Our patient presented at age 13 with progressive visual field loss and hearing loss, associated with early onset of cataract in her 40s requiring lens extraction. Now 52 years old, latest best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) stands at Logmar Right Eye (RE) 0.8 and Left Eye (LE) 0.2, with significantly constricted visual fields bilaterally. She was registered partially sighted age 46. Clinical and molecular genetic assessment of the proband was consistent with a diagnosis of Usher Syndrome Type IIA. Genetic testing identified two novel USH2A variants, resulting in the premature termination codon p.Leu30Ter and a missense mutation p.Cys3251Tyr. Segregation analysis confirmed that these variants were biallelic in the affected case. Comprehensive in silico analysis confirmed that these mutations are the probable cause of Usher Syndrome Type IIA in this individual. CONCLUSIONS: The identification of novel mutations in USH2A increases the spectrum of genetic variations that lead to Usher Syndrome, aiding genetic diagnosis, assessment of patient prognosis, and emphasising the importance of genetic testing to identify new mutations in patients with undiagnosed progressive visual loss. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12886-022-02353-7

Spatial distribution and cluster analysis of risky sexual behaviours and STDs reported by Chinese adults in Guangzhou, China: a representative population-based study

To assess associations between residences location, risky sexual behaviours and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among adults living in Guangzhou, China

Comparing plasma and faecal measures of steroid hormones in Adelie penguins Pygoscelis adeliae

Physiological measurements of both stress and sex hormones are often used to estimate the consequences of natural or human-induced change in ecological studies of various animals. Different methods of hormone measurement exist, potentially explaining variation in results across studies; methods should be cross-validated to ensure that they correlate. We directly compared faecal and plasma hormone measurements for the first time in a wild free-living species, the Adelie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae). Blood and faecal samples were simultaneously collected from individual penguins for comparison and assayed for testosterone and corticosterone (or their metabolites). Sex differences and variability within each measure, and correlation of values across measures were compared. For both hormones, plasma samples showed greater variation than faecal samples. Males had higher mean corticosterone concentrations than females, but the difference was only statistically significant in faecal samples. Plasma testosterone, but not faecal testosterone, was significantly higher in males than females. Correlation between sample types was poor overall, and weaker in females than in males, perhaps because measures from plasma represent hormones that are both free and bound to globulins, whereas measures from faeces represent only the free portion. Faecal samples also represent a cumulative measure of hormones over time, as opposed to a plasma ‘snapshot’ concentration. Our data indicate that faecal sampling appears more suitable for assessing baseline hormone concentrations, whilst plasma sampling may best define immediate responses to environmental events. Consequently, future studies should ensure that they select the most appropriate matrix and method of hormone measurement to answer their research questions

Genetic Vaccination-Induced Immune Responses to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Protein Rev: Emergence of the Interleukin 2-Producing Helper T Lymphocyte

Overview summary The immune system poses a major obstacle to the long-term success of in vivo gene therapies. Immune responses to foreign transgene products and/or the vectors that facilitate gene transfer may neutralize the transgene product, eliminate transfected cells, and culminate in inflammation within transfected tissues. The majority of studies that address these issues have focused on cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) and antibody responses induced by gene transfer. However, the IL-2-producing helper T lymphocyte (HTL) represents a critical regulatory cell that likely influences the inductive phase of the immune response following gene transfer. The current study employed limiting dilution analysis (LDA) techniques to characterize the development of IL-2-producing HTLs induced by genetic vaccination with a plasmid encoding the mutated HIV protein Rev M10. Further, we assessed the ability to inhibit the transgene-induced HTL response by cotransfer of a plasmid encoding the immunosuppressive cytokine TGFβ1.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63282/1/hum.1998.9.15-2187.pd

Sphingosine kinase 1 regulates the survival of breast cancer stem cells and non-stem breast cancer cells by suppression of STAT1

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) represent rare tumour cell populations capable of self-renewal, differentiation and tumour initiation, and are highly resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Thus, therapeutic approaches which can effectively target CSCs and tumour cells could be the key towards efficient tumour treatment. In this study, we explored the function of SPHK1 in breast CSCs and non-CSCs. We showed that RNAi-mediated knockdown of SPHK1 inhibits cell proliferation and induces apoptosis in both breast CSCs and non-CSCs, while ectopic expression of SPHK1 enhances breast CSC survival and mammosphere forming efficiency. We identified STAT1 and IFN signalling as key regulatory targets of SPHK1 and demonstrated that an important mechanism by which SPHK1 promotes cancer cell survival is through the suppression of STAT1. We further demonstrate that SPHK1 inhibitors, FTY720 and PF543 synergized with doxorubicin in targeting both breast CSCs and non-CSCs. In conclusion, we provide important evidence that SPHK1 is a key regulator of cell survival and proliferation in breast CSCs and non-CSCs and is an attractive target for the design of future therapies