662 research outputs found
User Perceptions of Smart Home IoT Privacy
Smart home Internet of Things (IoT) devices are rapidly increasing in
popularity, with more households including Internet-connected devices that
continuously monitor user activities. In this study, we conduct eleven
semi-structured interviews with smart home owners, investigating their reasons
for purchasing IoT devices, perceptions of smart home privacy risks, and
actions taken to protect their privacy from those external to the home who
create, manage, track, or regulate IoT devices and/or their data. We note
several recurring themes. First, users' desires for convenience and
connectedness dictate their privacy-related behaviors for dealing with external
entities, such as device manufacturers, Internet Service Providers,
governments, and advertisers. Second, user opinions about external entities
collecting smart home data depend on perceived benefit from these entities.
Third, users trust IoT device manufacturers to protect their privacy but do not
verify that these protections are in place. Fourth, users are unaware of
privacy risks from inference algorithms operating on data from non-audio/visual
devices. These findings motivate several recommendations for device designers,
researchers, and industry standards to better match device privacy features to
the expectations and preferences of smart home owners.Comment: 20 pages, 1 tabl
Precise Temporal Action Localization by Evolving Temporal Proposals
Locating actions in long untrimmed videos has been a challenging problem in
video content analysis. The performances of existing action localization
approaches remain unsatisfactory in precisely determining the beginning and the
end of an action. Imitating the human perception procedure with observations
and refinements, we propose a novel three-phase action localization framework.
Our framework is embedded with an Actionness Network to generate initial
proposals through frame-wise similarity grouping, and then a Refinement Network
to conduct boundary adjustment on these proposals. Finally, the refined
proposals are sent to a Localization Network for further fine-grained location
regression. The whole process can be deemed as multi-stage refinement using a
novel non-local pyramid feature under various temporal granularities. We
evaluate our framework on THUMOS14 benchmark and obtain a significant
improvement over the state-of-the-arts approaches. Specifically, the
performance gain is remarkable under precise localization with high IoU
thresholds. Our proposed framework achieves mAP@IoU=0.5 of 34.2%
High-Redshift SDSS Quasars with Weak Emission Lines
We identify a sample of 74 high-redshift quasars (z>3) with weak emission
lines from the Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and present
infrared, optical, and radio observations of a subsample of four objects at
z>4. These weak emission-line quasars (WLQs) constitute a prominent tail of the
Lya+NV equivalent width distribution, and we compare them to quasars with more
typical emission-line properties and to low-redshift active galactic nuclei
with weak/absent emission lines, namely BL Lac objects. We find that WLQs
exhibit hot (T~1000 K) thermal dust emission and have rest-frame 0.1-5 micron
spectral energy distributions that are quite similar to those of normal
quasars. The variability, polarization, and radio properties of WLQs are also
different from those of BL Lacs, making continuum boosting by a relativistic
jet an unlikely physical interpretation. The most probable scenario for WLQs
involves broad-line region properties that are physically distinct from those
of normal quasars.Comment: Updated to match version published in ApJ. 20 pages, 12 figure
Scientific Opportunities with an X-ray Free-Electron Laser Oscillator
An X-ray free-electron laser oscillator (XFELO) is a new type of hard X-ray
source that would produce fully coherent pulses with meV bandwidth and stable
intensity. The XFELO complements existing sources based on self-amplified
spontaneous emission (SASE) from high-gain X-ray free-electron lasers (XFEL)
that produce ultra-short pulses with broad-band chaotic spectra. This report is
based on discussions of scientific opportunities enabled by an XFELO during a
workshop held at SLAC on June 29 - July 1, 2016Comment: 21 pages, 12 figure
Demagnetization via Nucleation of the Nonequilibrium Metastable Phase in a Model of Disorder
We study both analytically and numerically metastability and nucleation in a
two-dimensional nonequilibrium Ising ferromagnet. Canonical equilibrium is
dynamically impeded by a weak random perturbation which models homogeneous
disorder of undetermined source. We present a simple theoretical description,
in perfect agreement with Monte Carlo simulations, assuming that the decay of
the nonequilibrium metastable state is due, as in equilibrium, to the
competition between the surface and the bulk. This suggests one to accept a
nonequilibrium "free-energy" at a mesoscopic/cluster level, and it ensues a
nonequilibrium "surface tension" with some peculiar low-T behavior. We
illustrate the occurrence of intriguing nonequilibrium phenomena, including:
(i) Noise-enhanced stabilization of nonequilibrium metastable states; (ii)
reentrance of the limit of metastability under strong nonequilibrium
conditions; and (iii) resonant propagation of domain walls. The cooperative
behavior of our system may also be understood in terms of a Langevin equation
with additive and multiplicative noises. We also studied metastability in the
case of open boundaries as it may correspond to a magnetic nanoparticle. We
then observe burst-like relaxation at low T, triggered by the additional
surface randomness, with scale-free avalanches which closely resemble the type
of relaxation reported for many complex systems. We show that this results from
the superposition of many demagnetization events, each with a well- defined
scale which is determined by the curvature of the domain wall at which it
originates. This is an example of (apparent) scale invariance in a
nonequilibrium setting which is not to be associated with any familiar kind of
criticality.Comment: 26 pages, 22 figure
Chloroplast HCF101 is a scaffold protein for [4Fe-4S] cluster assembly
Oxygen-evolving chloroplasts possess their own iron-sulfur cluster assembly proteins including members of the SUF (sulfur mobilization) and the NFU family. Recently, the chloroplast protein HCF101 (high chlorophyll fluorescence 101) has been shown to be essential for the accumulation of the membrane complex Photosystem I and the soluble ferredoxin-thioredoxin reductases, both containing [4Fe-4S] clusters. The protein belongs to the FSC-NTPase ([4Fe-4S]-cluster-containing P-loop NTPase) superfamily, several members of which play a crucial role in Fe/S cluster biosynthesis. Although the C-terminal ISC-binding site, conserved in other members of the FSC-NTPase family, is not present in chloroplast HCF101 homologues using Mössbauer and EPR spectroscopy, we provide evidence that HCF101 binds a [4Fe-4S] cluster. 55Fe incorporation studies of mitochondrially targeted HCF101 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae confirmed the assembly of an Fe/S cluster in HCF101 in an Nfs1-dependent manner. Site-directed mutagenesis identified three HCF101-specific cysteine residues required for assembly and/or stability of the cluster. We further demonstrate that the reconstituted cluster is transiently bound and can be transferred from HCF101 to a [4Fe-4S] apoprotein. Together, our findings suggest that HCF101 may serve as a chloroplast scaffold protein that specifically assembles [4Fe-4S] clusters and transfers them to the chloroplast membrane and soluble target proteins
Haemagglutination inhibition and virus microneutralisation serology assays: use of harmonised protocols and biological standards in seasonal influenza serology testing and their impact on inter-laboratory variation and assay correlation: A FLUCOP collaborative study
Introduction: The haemagglutination inhibition assay (HAI) and the virus microneutralisation assay (MN) are long-established methods for quantifying antibodies against influenza viruses. Despite their widespread use, both assays require standardisation to improve inter-laboratory agreement in testing. The FLUCOP consortium aims to develop a toolbox of standardised serology assays for seasonal influenza. Building upon previous collaborative studies to harmonise the HAI, in this study the FLUCOP consortium carried out a head-to-head comparison of harmonised HAI and MN protocols to better understand the relationship between HAI and MN titres, and the impact of assay harmonisation and standardisation on inter-laboratory variability and agreement between these methods.
Methods: In this paper, we present two large international collaborative studies testing harmonised HAI and MN protocols across 10 participating laboratories. In the first, we expanded on previously published work, carrying out HAI testing using egg and cell isolated and propagated wild-type (WT) viruses in addition to high-growth reassortants typically used influenza vaccines strains using HAI. In the second we tested two MN protocols: an overnight ELISA-based format and a 3-5 day format, using reassortant viruses and a WT H3N2 cell isolated virus. As serum panels tested in both studies included many overlapping samples, we were able to look at the correlation of HAI and MN titres across different methods and for different influenza subtypes.
Results: We showed that the overnight ELISA and 3-5 day MN formats are not comparable, with titre ratios varying across the dynamic range of the assay. However, the ELISA MN and HAI are comparable, and a conversion factor could possibly be calculated. In both studies, the impact of normalising using a study standard was investigated, and we showed that for almost every strain and assay format tested, normalisation significantly reduced inter-laboratory variation, supporting the continued development of antibody standards for seasonal influenza viruses. Normalisation had no impact on the correlation between overnight ELISA and 3-5 day MN formats.publishedVersio
HIV-1 Vif binds to APOBEC3G mRNA and inhibits its translation
The HIV-1 viral infectivity factor (Vif) allows productive infection of non-permissive cells (including most natural HIV-1 targets) by counteracting the cellular cytosine deaminases APOBEC-3G (hA3G) and hA3F. The Vif-induced degradation of these restriction factors by the proteasome has been extensively studied, but little is known about the translational repression of hA3G and hA3F by Vif, which has also been proposed to participate in Vif function. Here, we studied Vif binding to hA3G mRNA and its role in translational repression. Filter binding assays and fluorescence titration curves revealed that Vif tightly binds to hA3G mRNA. Vif overall binding affinity was higher for the 3′UTR than for the 5′UTR, even though this region contained at least one high affinity Vif binding site (apparent Kd = 27 ± 6 nM). Several Vif binding sites were identified in 5′ and 3′UTRs using RNase footprinting. In vitro translation evidenced that Vif inhibited hA3G translation by two mechanisms: a main time-independent process requiring the 5′UTR and an additional time-dependent, UTR-independent process. Results using a Vif protein mutated in the multimerization domain suggested that the molecular mechanism of translational control is more complicated than a simple physical blockage of scanning ribosomes
Parent-of-origin-specific allelic associations among 106 genomic loci for age at menarche.
Age at menarche is a marker of timing of puberty in females. It varies widely between individuals, is a heritable trait and is associated with risks for obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and all-cause mortality. Studies of rare human disorders of puberty and animal models point to a complex hypothalamic-pituitary-hormonal regulation, but the mechanisms that determine pubertal timing and underlie its links to disease risk remain unclear. Here, using genome-wide and custom-genotyping arrays in up to 182,416 women of European descent from 57 studies, we found robust evidence (P < 5 × 10(-8)) for 123 signals at 106 genomic loci associated with age at menarche. Many loci were associated with other pubertal traits in both sexes, and there was substantial overlap with genes implicated in body mass index and various diseases, including rare disorders of puberty. Menarche signals were enriched in imprinted regions, with three loci (DLK1-WDR25, MKRN3-MAGEL2 and KCNK9) demonstrating parent-of-origin-specific associations concordant with known parental expression patterns. Pathway analyses implicated nuclear hormone receptors, particularly retinoic acid and γ-aminobutyric acid-B2 receptor signalling, among novel mechanisms that regulate pubertal timing in humans. Our findings suggest a genetic architecture involving at least hundreds of common variants in the coordinated timing of the pubertal transition
- …