University of Houston

About: University of Houston is a education organization based out in Houston, Texas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 23074 authors who have published 53903 publications receiving 1641968 citations.

TFOS DEWS II Sex, Gender, and Hormones Report

Abstract: One of the most compelling features of dry eye disease (DED) is that it occurs more frequently in women than men. In fact, the female sex is a significant risk factor for the development of DED. This sex-related difference in DED prevalence is attributed in large part to the effects of sex steroids (e.g. androgens, estrogens), hypothalamic-pituitary hormones, glucocorticoids, insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 and thyroid hormones, as well as to the sex chromosome complement, sex-specific autosomal factors and epigenetics (e.g. microRNAs). In addition to sex, gender also appears to be a risk factor for DED. "Gender" and "sex" are words that are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings. "Gender" refers to a person's self-representation as a man or woman, whereas "sex" distinguishes males and females based on their biological characteristics. Both gender and sex affect DED risk, presentation of the disease, immune responses, pain, care-seeking behaviors, service utilization, and myriad other facets of eye health. Overall, sex, gender and hormones play a major role in the regulation of ocular surface and adnexal tissues, and in the difference in DED prevalence between women and men. The purpose of this Subcommittee report is to review and critique the nature of this role, as well as to recommend areas for future research to advance our understanding of the interrelationships between sex, gender, hormones and DED.

Hyperacuity thresholds of 1 sec: theoretical predictions and empirical validation

Abstract: Bisection thresholds were measured as a function of the separation of the lines. For separations of less than 1.5 min, the addition of flanking lines facilitates bisection so that thresholds of less than 1 sec for discriminating the direction of offset could be reliably obtained. For larger separations an interval could be bisected to an accuracy of 1 part in 60. Experiments varying the length, luminance, and overlap of the lines suggest that different cues are used in these two regimes. A dual space-size analysis is presented that can account for these bisection thresholds over a wide range of experimental conditions. This quantitative analysis produces viewprints of the stimuli (analogous to the voiceprint of audition). Each viewprint shows the output of many spatial filters of different positions and sizes. A new filter shape is introduced that has advantages for modeling the visual system. The sensitivity of each filter is fixed by the contrast-response function. The analysis further shows that the limiting factors in spatial hyperacuity are both the contrast-response function and the spatial grain.

On Security Analysis of Proof-of-Elapsed-Time (PoET)

Abstract: As more applications are built on top of blockchain and public ledger, different approaches are developed to improve the performance of blockchain construction. Recently Intel proposed a new concept of proof-of-elapsed-time (PoET), which leverages trusted computing to enforce random waiting times for block construction. However, trusted computing component may not be perfect and 100% reliable. It is not clear, to what extent, blockchain systems based on PoET can tolerate failures of trusted computing component. The current design of PoET lacks rigorous security analysis and a theoretical foundation for assessing its strength against such attacks. To fulfill this gap, we develop a theoretical framework for evaluating a PoET based blockchain system, and show that the current design is vulnerable in the sense that adversary can jeopardize the blockchain system by only compromising \(\varTheta (\log \log n/\log n)\) fraction of the participating nodes, which is very small when n is relatively large. Based on our theoretical analysis, we also propose methods to mitigate these vulnerabilities.

Design science research evaluation

Abstract: The consensus view is that the rigorous evaluation of design science (DS) artifacts is essential. There are many types of DS artifacts and many forms of evaluation; what is missing is guidance for how to perform the evaluation, more specifically, what evaluation methods to use with specific DS research outputs. Here we find and review 148 DS research articles published in a selected set of information systems (IS), computer science (CS) and engineering journals. We analyze the articles to develop taxonomies of DS artifact types and artifact evaluation methods; we apply these taxonomies to determine which evaluation methods are associated in the literature with particular artifacts. We show that there are several popular "artifact - evaluation method" combinations in the literature. The results inform DS researchers of usual and customary combinations of research artifacts and evaluation methods, potentially providing them with rationale and justification for an evaluation method selection.

Punishment in Organizations: A Review, Propositions, and Research Suggestions

Abstract: The topic of punishment has received essentially no attention from organizational researchers. Our purpose in this paper is to review issues and questions concerning punishment, to review existing research to delimit variables that influence the effectiveness of punishment, and to discuss research issues associated with the study of punishment in organizational contexts.