cRVR: A Stackelberg Game Approach for Joint Privacy-Aware Video Requesting and Edge Caching

As users conveniently stream their favored online videos, video request records will be automatically seized by video content providers, which may leak users' privacy. Unfortunately, most existing privacy-enhancing approaches are not applicable for protecting users' privacy in requests, which cannot be easily altered or distorted by users and must be visible for content providers to stream correct videos. To preserve request privacy in online video services, it is possible to request additional videos irrelevant to users' interests so that content providers cannot precisely infer users' interest information. However, a naive redundant requesting approach will significantly degrade the performance of edge caches and increase bandwidth overhead accordingly. In this paper, we are among the first to propose a Cache-Friendly Redundant Video Requesting (cRVR) algorithm for User Devices (UDs) and its corresponding caching algorithm for the Edge Cache (EC), which can effectively mitigate the problem of request privacy leakage with minimal impact on the EC's performance. To solve the problem, we develop a Stackelberg game to analyze the dedicated interaction between UDs and EC and obtain their optimal strategies to maximize their respective utility. For UDs, the utility function is a combination of both video playback utility and privacy protection utility. We theoretically prove the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium of the Stackelberg game. In the end, extensive experiments are conducted with real traces to demonstrate that cRVR can effectively protect video request privacy by reducing up to 57.96\% of privacy disclosure compared to baseline algorithms. Meanwhile, the caching performance of ECs is only slightly affected

Cortico-basal ganglia networks dysfunction associated with disease severity in patients with idiopathic blepharospasm

BackgroundStructural changes occur in brain regions involved in cortico-basal ganglia networks in idiopathic blepharospasm (iBSP); whether these changes influence the function connectivity patterns of cortico-basal ganglia networks remains largely unknown. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the global integrative state and organization of functional connections of cortico-basal ganglia networks in patients with iBSP.MethodsResting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data and clinical measurements were acquired from 62 patients with iBSP, 62 patients with hemifacial spasm (HFS), and 62 healthy controls (HCs). Topological parameters and functional connections of cortico-basal ganglia networks were evaluated and compared among the three groups. Correlation analyses were performed to explore the relationship between topological parameters and clinical measurements in patients with iBSP.ResultsWe found significantly increased global efficiency and decreased shortest path length and clustering coefficient of cortico-basal ganglia networks in patients with iBSP compared with HCs, however, such differences were not observed between patients with HFS and HCs. Further correlation analyses revealed that these parameters were significantly correlated with the severity of iBSP. At the regional level, the functional connectivity between the left orbitofrontal area and left primary somatosensory cortex and between the right anterior part of pallidum and right anterior part of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex was significantly decreased in patients with iBSP and HFS compared with HCs.ConclusionDysfunction of the cortico-basal ganglia networks occurs in patients with iBSP. The altered network metrics of cortico-basal ganglia networks might be served as quantitative markers for evaluation of the severity of iBSP