An efficient secure sum of multi-scalar products protocol base on elliptic curve

The secure scalar product protocol is widely applied to solve practical problems such as privacy-preserving data mining, secure auction, secure electronic voting, privacy-preserving recommendation system, privacy-preserving statistical data analysis, etc.. In this paper, we propose an efficient multi-party secure computation protocol using Elliptic curve cryptography, which allows to compute the sum value of multi-scalar products without revealing about the input vectors. Moreover, theoretical and experimental analysis shows that the proposed method is more efficient than others in both computation and communication.

BRAZILIAN OIL PIONEERS

In the Brazilian popular imagination, the discovery of oil was announced on August 9, 1938, by the Viscount of Corncob. The Donabentense Oil Company drilled Caraminguá’s first well, near the creek that passed through the Yellow Woodpecker Ranch (“Sítio do Picapau Amarelo,” in colloquial Portuguese). The latter was the name of a famous Brazilian children’s book. In fact, the first oil well flowed in Salvador, Bahia, on January 21, 1939, discovered by Manoel Ignácio Bastos (1891 - 1940), a Brazilian geographer engineer, whose business partner, Oscar Salvador Cordeiro (1890 - 1970), was the president of the Bahia Commodities Exchange. A brief analysis of documents, such as reports, Brazilian decrees and executive orders, as well as newspapers, detail the actions of these Brazilian oil pioneers. Statistical data analysis was also performed about onshore and offshore oil production between 1941 and 2019, as a part of Bastos and Cordeiros’ heritage.

Surgical treatment of extended spongy urethral strictures in men: minimizing the risks of narrowing in the anastomotic zones between the buccal graft and the native urethra using the dorsal inlay technique

Introduction. Currently, the most common method of treating extended urethral strictures is augmentation urethroplasty using oral mucosa grafts. Analysis of the long-term outcomes of this surgery type shows a high incidence of relapses and complications.Purpose of the study. To improve the outcomes of augmentation urethroplasty, in particular the dorsal inlay (Asopa) technique, in patients with extended spongy urethral strictures by minimizing the risk of recurrent strictures.Materials and methods. The study is based on an analysis of the surgery in 90 patients (aged 18-72 years) with extended spongy urethral strictures. Seventy patients (group I) underwent dorsal inlay augmentation urethroplasty according to the Asopa technique, and 20 patients (group II) — according to the author's modified technique. Statistical data analysis was carried out using the SPSS ver.26 software (SPSS Inc. Chicago, IL, USA).Results. A comparative analysis of the course of the early postoperative period showed a lower number of complications in group II patients compared to group I — 20.0% versus 34.3%, respectively. The recurrent strictures were registered for groups I and II in 18.8% and 5.6% of cases 6 months after surgery, respectively. The recurrent urethral narrowing was most often localized in the area of distal anastomosis between the buccal graft and the native urethra in patients from both groups.Conclusion. The modified dorsal inlay augmentation urethroplasty technique developed and implemented in clinical practice by increasing the internal urethral lumen in the areas of proximal and distal anastomosis between the buccal graft and the native spongy urethral body allows minimizing the risks of recurrent urethral narrowing after augmentation urethroplasty.

Who Criticizes the Clergy in Contemporary Lithuania? A Sociohistorical Analysis of Anticlericalism

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of anticlericalism in contemporary Lithuania, applying a sociohistorical approach. It starts with a discussion on the problem of criticism of religion and anticlericalism in contemporary societies, and particularly Lithuania. The empirical part of the paper provides a statistical data analysis of two surveys, conducted in 2012 and 2018. The secondary data analysis showed that age and place of residence of Roman Catholics in Lithuania were statistically meaningful factors for the formation of anticlerical stances. Younger respondents expressed more critical stances towards the clergy, while respondents living in large cities of the country had more relaxed stances towards clergy than those living in small towns and rural areas. Living in a proximity to a Roman Catholic church in rural areas determined the prevalent anticlerical attitudes among the Lithuanian population.

Free and (Mostly) Open Source Data Analysis Software for Academic Research

Data analysis is a crucial task in knowledge creation in social sciences. Free resources for data analysis provide researchers with greater freedom and make the research process more accessible and democratic. This article lists some free software which can perform basic and advanced statistical data analysis tasks. Some software which can perform other tasks such as text mining are also introduced. Ease of use and functionality are the major criteria for selecting these software packages.

A bridging assay for detection and characterization of anti-drug antibodies to dostarlimab, a new anti-PD-1 therapeutic monoclonal antibody

Dostarlimab (JEMPERLI) is a humanized anti-programmed death 1 (PD-1) immunoglobulin (Ig)G4-kappa monoclonal antibody that binds to the PD-1 receptor and competitively inhibits binding of its ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2. Dostarlimab was recently approved in the USA and the European Union. Because dostarlimab is a macromolecular therapeutic, it has the potential to elicit the formation of anti-drug antibodies, which have the capability to impact the drug’s safety and efficacy and to alter pharmacokinetics. The immunogenic potential of dostarlimab remains unknown, and it was therefore necessary to develop analytical assays to detect and characterize anti-drug antibodies as a key component in the mitigation of immunogenicity risk. Here, we present the development and optimization of a 3-tiered electrochemiluminescense bridging assay for the investigation of dostarlimab clinical immunogenicity. In this work, the full details of the method, statistical data analysis and cut point determinations, assay performance during clinical sample analysis, and associated regulatory expectations are discussed. The full validation of this 3-tier anti-drug antibody assay enabled dostarlimab immunogenicity evaluation in clinical studies. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT02715284. Registered 9 March 2016

A study on the modeling for obesity

This study primarily aims to develop an Agent Based Model (ABM) that can simulate the obesity rates based on statistical analysis and to find out how obesity is affected by risk factors in a Canadian environment. As obesity can have many causes, it is assumed that various risk factors, not just a decisive one, have an influence on obesity and they interact with one another. Therefore, unlike most previous studies, I approached the obesity problem as a Complex -Adaptive System (CAS). The data used for this study was provided by Statistics Canada, and the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). This survey is a cross-sectional survey that collects self-reported information related to health status, health care utilization, and health determinants for the Canadian population. To build the Obesity ABM, it is necessary to find out which risk factors are closely associated with obesity and to what extent they interact with one another. Twelve categories of factors that are expected to influence the obesity rate were chosen on the basis of the related works. Through the statistical data analysis carried out, the main factors and variables for obesity were identified and their respective mathematical relationships obtained. From this, two categories that have several sub-factors for the obesity model were chosen. I implemented statistical data analysis on the CCHS dataset to see the interrelationship among the factors. Also, I implemented a year-to-year analysis that can show how people change their obesity status each year. Based on the data analysis result, I defined rules for how each risk factor changes each year. These rules are applied to the obesity model using NetLogo. The architecture of obesity model implementation consists of three main parts: The population module, the risk factor module, and the results module. Performance evaluation was conducted to examine whether the obesity model can simulate the obesity rate. For this evaluation, the data of CCHS from 2009 to 2014 and the result of the obesity model which is generated by simulation are compared. Model calibration was executed to fit the actual data to the model test result. The result of the model test shows that the percentage error is less than 5%. This means that the obesity model has high validity in predicting obesity for each risk factor. The obesity ABM is a useful tool to find out the risk factors related to obesity and their relationships in the Canadian population. Thus, this model can potentially assist to improve obesity management at various levels. At the individual level, everyone can find what kinds of strategies are best fit to improve her/his physical condition. Also, at a government or community level, it could help develop policies for people to continue to implement these strategies well. This will lead to reducing the associated social costs and help to promote national health.

Central European Tourist Flows: Intraregional Patterns and Their Implications

Understanding tourist spatial behaviours is essential for strategic planning and sustainable development. Especially at the city-level, data provide implications for spatial planning and transport governance. Intraregional tourist flows to cities contributed significantly to the total volume of tourists within the Central European region before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Given the challenges that urban tourism is currently facing, intraregional tourist flows could be a strategic opportunity for future growth. As a comprehensive assessment of the tourist flows at this spatial level is lacking, the paper aims to evaluate the structure of these flows and discuss the factors that influence their spatial distribution. Statistical data analysis of tourist flows to selected cities in Central Europe is evaluated by multiple linear regression. The results show that the main factors affecting the distribution of tourist flows are air connection, the attractiveness of the destination, and the size of the source market. Tourist flows within Central Europe are fundamentally affected by Germany. This market can be considered the most important source of demand for inbound tourism. Germany's national ties with Austria and Switzerland generated 47% of all trips examined. In this case, the influences of historical ties and the broader socio-economic context are evident.

Religious Identity and Family Practices in a Post-Communist Society: The Case of Division of Labor in Childcare and Housework

This paper aims to analyze the way religious identification and practices influence family practices in the division of labor in childcare and housework in contemporary Lithuania. The analysis is based on a quantitative survey (n = 3000) representing the last Soviet generation born between 1970 and 1985. The sample was distributed across five groups according to religious identification and practices—devout religionists, somewhat devout religionists, traditional religionists, cultural religionists and secularists. Statistical data analysis showed devout religionists and secularists were applying equal childcare and housework division practices. Meanwhile, the other three groups were practicing more traditional types of childcare and housework division practice where the main role is played by women. The results also show that religious identity is not relevant in explaining the way couples share housework duties. The results show that religious identification may lead to diverse family practices regarding childcare and housework divisions: reflexive and practiced (non)religious identification leads to more egalitarian family practices.

Reconnecting groups of space debris to their parent body through proper elements

Satellite collisions or fragmentations generate a huge number of space debris; over time, the fragments might get dispersed, making it difficult to associate them to the configuration at break-up. In this work, we present a procedure to back-trace the debris, reconnecting them to their original configuration. To this end, we compute the proper elements, namely dynamical quantities which stay nearly constant over time. While the osculating elements might spread and lose connection with the values at break-up, the proper elements, which have been already successfully used to identify asteroid families, retain the dynamical features of the original configuration. We show the efficacy of the procedure, based on a hierarchical implementation of perturbation theory, by analyzing the following four different case studies associated to satellites that underwent a catastrophic event: Ariane 44lp, Atlas V Centaur, CZ-3, Titan IIIc Transtage. The link between (initial and final) osculating and proper elements is evaluated through tools of statistical data analysis. The results show that proper elements allow one to reconnect the fragments to their parent body.