Cascaded neural networks improving fish species prediction accuracy: the role of the biotic information

Species distribution is the result of complex interactions that involve environmental parameters as well as biotic factors. However, methodological approaches that consider the use of biotic variables during the prediction process are still largely lacking. Here, a cascaded Artifcial Neural Networks (ANN) approach is proposed in order to increase the accuracy of fsh species occurrence estimates and a case study for Leucos aulain NE Italy is presented as a demonstration case. Potentially useful biotic information (i.e. occurrence of other species) was selected by means of tetrachoric correlation analysis and on the basis of the improvements it allowed to obtain relative to models based on environmental variables only. The prediction accuracy of the L. aulamodel based on environmental variables only was improved by the addition of occurrence data for A. arborellaand S. erythrophthalmus. While biotic information was needed to train the ANNs, the fnal cascaded ANN model was able to predict L. aula better than a conventional ANN using environmental variables only as inputs. Results highlighted that biotic information provided by occurrence estimates for non-target species whose distribution can be more easily and accurately modeled may play a very useful role, providing additional predictive variables to target species distribution models

A Note on Key Rank

In recent years key rank has become an important aspect of side-channel analysis, enabling an evaluation lab to analyse the security of a device after a side-channel attack. In particular, it enables the lab to do so when the enumeration effort would be beyond their computing power. Due to its importance there has been a host of work investigating key rank over the last few years. In this work we build upon the existing literature to make progress on understanding various properties of key rank. We begin by showing when two different scoring methods will provide the same rank. This has been implicitly used by various algorithms in the past but here it is shown for a large class of functions. We conclude by giving the computational complexity of key rank. This implies that it is unlikely for, considerably, better algorithms to exist

A novel uncoupled quasi-3D Euler-Euler model to study the spiral jet mill micronization of pharmaceutical substances at process scale: model development and validation

In this work we present a novel approach to model the micronization of pharmaceutical ingredients at process scales and times. 3D single-phase fluid-dynamics simulations are used to compute the gas velocity field within a spiral jet mill which are provided as input in a 1D compartmentalized model to calculate solid velocities along the radial direction. The particles size reduction is taken into account through a breakage kernel that is function of gas energy and local solid holdup. Simulation results are validated against micronization experiments for lactose and paracetamol, comparing the model predictions with D10, D50 and D90 diameters values coming from Design of Experiments isosurfaces. The developed model allows for a fair estimation of the outlet particle size distribution in a short computational time, with very good predictions especially for D90 values

Population structure and dynamics of the invasive Procambarus clarkii (Girard, 1852) in a Tiber river Ramsar site, Central Italy

Procambarus clarkii is a native species of Central America, but strongly invasive in many regions of the world. An investigation on the red swamp crayfish was carried out to obtain more information about its population dynamics in the Tiber River, in Central Italy. A total of 900 individuals, both males and females, were sampled within two different campaigns (2017 and 2019) aimed at collecting biometric data. A strong fishing effort was deployed (more than 100 nets set), to guarantee a large and randomized number of samples. The crayfish populations were grouped into seven different cohorts, according to Bhattacharya's method. The population showed a balanced sex ratio, the average cephalothorax length was 42.52 mm, with the most represented size class between 40-50 mm. K and L∞, as well as the growth parameter index (í˜), the mortality rate (Z), and longevity value (tmax), were calculated. K and í˜ values resulted very high, showing an impressive growth rate in the study area; tmax ranged from 4 to 5 years, L∞ values were lower compared with other studies (58.0-59.0 mm), while Z was very high for this population (4.2-4.5 year). The results revealed that crayfish population dynamics can be complex and vary depending on habitat type, available trophic resource and competition

A Methodology for the Characterisation of Leakages in Combinatorial Logic

Glitches represent a great danger for hardware implementations of cryptographic schemes. Their intrinsic random nature makes them difficult to tackle and their occurrence threatens side-channel protections. Although countermeasures aiming at structurally solving the problem already exist, they usually require some effort to be applied or introduce non-negligible overhead in the design. Our work addresses the gap between such countermeasures and the naïve implementation of schemes being vulnerable in the presence of glitches. Our contribution is twofold: (1) we expand the mathematical framework proposed by Brzozowski and Esik (FMSD 2003) by meaningfully adding the ´ notion of information leakage, (2) thanks to which we define a formal methodology for the analysis of vulnerabilities in combinatorial circuits when glitches are taken into account

Fly, you fool! Faster Frodo for the ARM Cortex-M4

We present an efficient implementation of FrodoKEM-640 on an ARM Cortex-M4 core. We leverage the single instruction, multiple data paradigm, available in the instruction set of the ARM Cortex-M4, together with a careful analysis of the memory layout of matrices to considerably speed up matrix multiplications. Our implementations take up to 79.4% less cycles than the reference. Moreover, we challenge the usage of a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator for the generation of the large public matrix involved. We argue that statistically good pseudorandomness is enough to achieve the same security goal. Therefore, we propose to use xoshiro128** as a PRNG instead: its structure can be easily integrated in FrodoKEM-640, it passes all known statistical tests and greatly outperforms previous choices. By using xoshiro128** we improve the generation of the large public matrix, which is a considerable bottleneck for embedded devices, by up to 96%

Chronic Giardia intestinalis infection presenting with clinical features mimicking lichen planus.

Sir, Human giardiasis, caused by Giardia intestinalis, a agellate protozoan parasite that colonizes the small bowel, is a worldwide infection (1). Giardia infection is usually asymptomatic but intestinal illness may occur (2–5). Several reports describe the association of allergy with increased levels of total serum IgE antibodies and of speci c IgE antibodies against food allergens in patients aVected by giardiasis, and Giardia infection may determine altered absorption of food antigens causing allergic sensitization (6). Cutaneous signs may be virtually indistinguishable from those of atopic dermatitis (7, 8). Acute reactions such as urticaria or asthma have also been described (9–11). We here report a patient aVected by giardiasis, with lichen-planus-like lesions as the sole clinical feature

Consensus based recommendations for diagnosis and medical management of Poland syndrome (sequence)

Background Poland syndrome (OMIM: 173800) is a disorder in which affected individuals are born with missing or underdeveloped muscles on one side of the body, resulting in abnormalities that can affect the chest, breast, shoulder, arm, and hand. The extent and severity of the abnormalities vary among affected individuals. Main body The aim of this work is to provide recommendations for the diagnosis and management of people affected by Poland syndrome based on evidence from literature and experience of health professionals from different medical backgrounds who have followed for several years affected subjects. The literature search was performed in the second half of 2019. Original papers, meta-analyses, reviews, books and guidelines were reviewed and final recommendations were reached by consensus. Conclusion Being Poland syndrome a rare syndrome most recommendations here presented are good clinical practice based on the consensus of the participant experts