Private information retrieval (PIR) protocols allow a user to retrieve a data item from a database without revealing any information about the identity of the item being retrieved. Specifically, in information-theoretic k-server PIR, the database is replicated among k non-communicating servers, and each server learns nothing about the item retrieved by the user. The cost of PIR protocols is usu...

Thymeleatoxin (TMX), an activator of Ca2+-sensitive protein kinase C (cPKC) isoforms, was used to assess the PKC isoform specificity of cholinergic potentiation of glucose (11 mM)-induced pulsatile 5-HT/insulin release (PIR) from single mouse pancreatic islets. TMX (100 nM) and carbachol (Cch, 50 microM) enhanced PIR approximately 3-fold while reducing the underlying [Ca2+]i oscillations (durat...

In our present studies, we evaluated the role of the submandibular glands (SMG) on plasma inactive renin (PIR) releasing mechanisms in rats using some agents which are known to stimulate plasma active renin (PAR) release. The results were analyzed between sialoadenectomized (SX) and sham-operated (control: C) rats. Twenty-four h after the operation, PAR releasing agents, furosemide (FRO) 2.5 mg...

BACKGROUND Public involvement in research (PIR) can improve research design and recruitment. Less is known about how PIR enhances the experience of participation and enriches the data collection process. In a study to evaluate how UK care homes and primary health-care services achieve integrated working to promote older people's health, PIR was integrated throughout the research processes. OB...

For any critical information services, there are two fundamental challenges: the protection of users’ privacy and the provision of highly available services. Several schemes for private information retrieval (PIR) were proposed to protect users’ privacy when sensitive information stored in (remote) database servers is accessed. However, all the existing PIR schemes are based on a simple honest-...

It was recently shown by Fazeli et al. that the storage overhead of a traditional t-server private information retrieval (PIR) protocol can be significantly reduced using the concept of a t-server PIR code. In this work, we show that a family of tserver PIR codes (with increasing dimensions and blocklengths) can be constructed from an existing t-server PIR code through lengthening by a single i...

We present a two-round argument system for NP languages with polylogarithmic communication complexity. We introduce a novel property of private information retrieval (PIR) schemes, that we call database-awareness. We construct a concrete database-aware PIR scheme and build our argument system by combining a database-aware PIR scheme with a probabilistically checkable proof system (PCP). Dwork e...

Mobile devices with global positioning capabilities allow users to retrieve points of interest (POI) in their proximity. To protect user privacy, it is important not to disclose exact user coordinates to un-trusted entities that provide location-based services. Currently, there are two main approaches to protect the location privacy of users: (i) hiding locations inside cloaking regions (CRs) a...

Given a database, the private information retrieval (PIR) protocol allows a user to make queries to several servers and retrieve a certain item of the database via the feedbacks, without revealing the privacy of the specific item to any single server. Classical models of PIR protocols require that each server stores a whole copy of the database. Recently new PIR models are proposed with coding ...