Weighted allocations, their concomitant-based estimators, and asymptotics

Various members of the class of weighted insurance premiums and risk capital allocation rules have been researched from a number of perspectives. Corresponding formulas in the case of parametric families of distributions have been derived, and they have played a pivotal role when establishing parametric statistical inference in the area. Non-parametric inference results have also been derived in special cases such as the tail conditional expectation, distortion risk measure, and several members of the class of weighted premiums. For weighted allocation rules, however, non-parametric inference results have not yet been adequately developed. In the present paper, therefore, we put forward empirical estimators for the weighted allocation rules and establish their consistency and asymptotic normality under practically sound conditions. Intricate statistical considerations rely on the theory of induced order statistics, known as concomitants.Comment: 20 page

EviHunter: Identifying Digital Evidence in the Permanent Storage of Android Devices via Static Analysis

Crimes, both physical and cyber, increasingly involve smartphones due to their ubiquity. Therefore, digital evidence on smartphones plays an increasingly important role in crime investigations. Digital evidence could reside in the memory and permanent storage of a smartphone. While we have witnessed significant progresses on memory forensics recently, identifying evidence in the permanent storage is still an underdeveloped research area. Most existing studies on permanent-storage forensics rely on manual analysis or keyword-based scanning of the permanent storage. Manual analysis is costly, while keyword matching often misses the evidentiary data that do not have interesting keywords. In this work, we develop a tool called EviHunter to automatically identify evidentiary data in the permanent storage of an Android device. There could be thousands of files on the permanent storage of a smartphone. A basic question a forensic investigator often faces is which files could store evidentiary data. EviHunter aims to answer this question. Our intuition is that the evidentiary data were produced by apps; and an app's code has rich information about the types of data the app may write to a permanent storage and the files the data are written to. Therefore, EviHunter first pre-computes an App Evidence Database (AED) via static analysis of a large number of apps. The AED includes the types of evidentiary data and files that store them for each app. Then, EviHunter matches the files on a smartphone's permanent storage against the AED to identify the files that could store evidentiary data. We evaluate EviHunter on benchmark apps and 8,690 real-world apps. Our results show that EviHunter can precisely identify both the types of evidentiary data and the files that store them

Effect of viscosity and heterogeneity on dispersion in porous media during miscible flooding processes

In this paper, a mathematical model has been developed to quantitatively examine the effect of viscosity and heterogeneity on dispersion in porous media at the pore scale during miscible flooding processes. More specifically, the Navier-Stokes equation and advection-diffusion equation are coupled with supplementary equations to describe the solvent transport behaviour. Two-dimensional heterogeneous models are numerically developed as a function of porosity and permeability, assuming that the grain sizes satisfy normal distribution. In addition, the performance of miscible hydrocarbon gas injection in heterogeneous porous media is comprehensively evaluated. It is found that a larger aspect ratio (ratio of pore throat size) in the single non-flowing pore model results in a greater asymmetry of the concentration curve. As for single non-flowing pore models and heterogeneous models, the dispersion coefficients increase with the expansion of the non-flowing domain. Both the heterogeneity of porous media and the variable viscosity of th fluid mixture contribute to the asymmetry of the concentration curve in the heterogeneous model. A negative correlation is established between the sorting coefficients of pore throat size and the power-law coefficients. As for slug injection, the injected solvent slug size along the longitudinal direction does not effectively influence the longitudinal length of the mixing zone for a given porous medium and fluids, though the Peclet number and the porosity greatly affect the length and concentration distribution of the mixing zone.Cited as: Bai, Z., Song, K., Fu, H., Shi, Y., Liu, Y., Chen, Z. Effect of viscosity and heterogeneity on dispersion in porous media during miscible flooding processes. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2022, 6(6): 460-471. https://doi.org/10.46690/ager.2022.06.0

Agenda 21 and the ecological footprint as instruments to achieve a sustainable university

[Resumen] Para frenar el rápido deterioro ambiental, la universidad ha de formar a las nuevas generaciones en un modelo de sostenibilidad integral (solidaridad sincrónica y diacrónica) y, además, contribuir al cambio en los estilos de vida, en los conocimientos y conductas de la sociedad actual. Esto precisa un nuevo marco teórico-metodológico bajo el paradigma de la sostenibilidad que fundamente y concrete las propuestas educativas. Tomando como referencia los principios del desarrollo sostenible y utilizando como «herramientas» la Agenda 21en la Universidad y la Huella Ecológica, hemos desarrollado y puesto en práctica una estrategia metodológica (ecometodología) con el fin de capacitar a nuestro alumnado (profesorado en formación) para actuar con criterios de sustentabilidad, tanto colectiva, como individualmente[Abstract] In order to stop the quick environmental deterioration of the planet, University has to prepare the new generations following a model of integral sustainability (synchronic and diachronic solidarity) and it also has to contribute to a change in lifestyles, in knowledge and behaviours in our society. There is a need for a new theoretical-methodological frame under the paradigm of sustainability to base educational proposals on it and to concretize them. Taking into consideration the principles of Sustainable Development and using the tools of «Agenda 21 in the University» and Ecological Footprint, we have developed and applied a methodological strategy (ecomethodology) to enable ours students (future teachers) to act, collectively and individually, according to the criteria of sustainabilit

Sphingosine-1-phosphate promotes the differentiation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells into cardiomyocytes under the designated culturing conditions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It is of growing interest to develop novel approaches to initiate differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into cardiomyocytes. The purpose of this investigation was to determine if Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), a native circulating bioactive lipid metabolite, plays a role in differentiation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (HUMSCs) into cardiomyocytes. We also developed an engineered cell sheet from these HUMSCs derived cardiomyocytes by using a temperature-responsive polymer, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PIPAAm) cell sheet technology.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cardiomyogenic differentiation of HUMSCs was performed by culturing these cells with either designated cardiomyocytes conditioned medium (CMCM) alone, or with 1 μM S1P; or DMEM with 10% FBS + 1 μM S1P. Cardiomyogenic differentiation was determined by immunocytochemical analysis of expression of cardiomyocyte markers and patch clamping recording of the action potential.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A cardiomyocyte-like morphology and the expression of α-actinin and myosin heavy chain (MHC) proteins can be observed in both CMCM culturing or CMCM+S1P culturing groups after 5 days' culturing, however, only the cells in CMCM+S1P culture condition present cardiomyocyte-like action potential and voltage gated currents. A new approach was used to form PIPAAm based temperature-responsive culture surfaces and this successfully produced cell sheets from HUMSCs derived cardiomyocytes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study for the first time demonstrates that S1P potentiates differentiation of HUMSCs towards functional cardiomyocytes under the designated culture conditions. Our engineered cell sheets may provide a potential for clinically applicable myocardial tissues should promote cardiac tissue engineering research.</p

Integrated microRNA, mRNA, and protein expression profiling reveals microRNA regulatory networks in rat kidney treated with a carcinogenic dose of aristolochic acid

Background: Aristolochic Acid (AA), a natural component of Aristolochia plants that is found in a variety of herbal remedies and health supplements, is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Given that microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in cancer initiation and progression and their role remains unknown in AA-induced carcinogenesis, we examined genome-wide AA-induced dysregulation of miRNAs as well as the regulation of miRNAs on their target gene expression in rat kidney.Results: We treated rats with 10 mg/kg AA and vehicle control for 12 weeks and eight kidney samples (4 for the treatment and 4 for the control) were used for examining miRNA and mRNA expression by deep sequencing, and protein expression by proteomics. AA treatment resulted in significant differential expression of miRNAs, mRNAs and proteins as measured by both principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA). Specially, 63 miRNAs (adjusted p value  1.5), 6,794 mRNAs (adjusted p value  2.0), and 800 proteins (fold change > 2.0) were significantly altered by AA treatment. The expression of 6 selected miRNAs was validated by quantitative real-time PCR analysis. Ingenuity Pathways Analysis (IPA) showed that cancer is the top network and disease associated with those dysregulated miRNAs. To further investigate the influence of miRNAs on kidney mRNA and protein expression, we combined proteomic and transcriptomic data in conjunction with miRNA target selection as confirmed and reported in miRTarBase. In addition to translational repression and transcriptional destabilization, we also found that miRNAs and their target genes were expressed in the same direction at levels of transcription (169) or translation (227). Furthermore, we identified that up-regulation of 13 oncogenic miRNAs was associated with translational activation of 45 out of 54 cancer-related targets.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that dysregulated miRNA expression plays an important role in AA-induced carcinogenesis in rat kidney, and that the integrated approach of multiple profiling provides a new insight into a post-transcriptional regulation of miRNAs on their target repression and activation in a genome-wide scale