Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of polymer degradation by addition of magnesium

ABSTRACT The effect of alkali metal magnesium on polymer degradation of physico-mechanical properties of radiation-vulcanized natural rubber latex (RVNRL) films was investigated. RVNRL films were prepared by the addition of Mg of different concentrations (0–30 ppm) to natural rubber latex and irradiation with various radiation doses (0–20 kGy). The radiation doses were optimized (12 kGy), and the adverse effect of Mg was studied against a reference film prepared without metal. Tensile strength, tear strength, and cross-linking density of the irradiated rubber films were decreased with increasing metal ion concentrations and decreasing radiation doses. The mechanical properties of the films were reduced by nearly 10% for 30 ppm Mg ions and at the optimum dose. In contrast, elongation at break, permanent set, and swelling ratio of the films were increased at the same conditions. The maximum tensile and tear strengths of irradiated rubber films without additive were 29.33 MPa and 47.95 N/mm, respectively, at a radiation dose of 12 kGy, and these values were about six times higher than those of blank samples. With the addition of Mg, the corresponding values decrease continuously, and the minimum values were found to be 26.35 MPa and 42.675 N/mm, respectively. The effect of divalent alkali metal on polymer chain scission can be explained by the classical electron concept reported in this article.
Comparison of volumetric‐modulated arc therapy and dynamic conformal arc treatment planning for cranial stereotactic radiosurgery

The aim was to analyze arc therapy techniques according to the number and position of the brain lesions reported by comparing dynamic noncoplanar conformal arcs (DCA), two coplanar full arcs (RAC) with volumetric‐modulated arc therapy (VMAT), multiple noncoplanar partial arcs with VMAT (RANC), and two full arcs with VMAT and 10° table rotation (RAT). Patients with a single lesion (n = 10), multiple lesions (n = 10) or a single lesion close to organs at risk (n = 5) and previously treated with DCA were selected. For each patient, the DCA treatment was replanned with all VMAT techniques. All DCA plans were compared with VMAT plans and evaluated in regard to the different quality indices and dosimetric parameters. For single lesion, homogeneity index (HI) better results were found for the RANC technique (0.17±0.05) compared with DCA procedure (0.27±0.05). Concerning conformity index (CI), the RAT technique gave higher and better values (0.85±0.04) compared with those obtained with the DCA technique (0.77±0.05). DCA improved healthy brain protection (8.35±5.61 cc vs. 10.52±6.40 cc for RANC) and reduced monitor unit numbers (3046±374 MU vs. 4651±736 for RANC), even if global room occupation was higher. For multiple lesions, VMAT techniques provided better HI (0.16) than DCA (0.24±0.07). The CI was improved with RAT (0.8±0.08 for RAT vs. 0.71±0.08 for DCA). The V10Gy healthy brain was better protected with DCA (9.27±4.57 cc). Regarding the MU numbers: RANC<RAT<RAC<DCA. For a single lesion close to OAR, RAT achieved high degrees of homogeneity (0.27±0.03 vs. 0.53±0.2 for DCA) and conformity (0.72±0.06 vs. 0.56±0.13 for DCA) while sparing organs at risk (Dmax=12.36±1.05 Gy vs. 14.12±0.59 Gy for DCA, and Dmean=3.96±3.57 Gy vs. 14.72±3.28 Gy for DCA). On the other hand, MU numbers were lower with DCA (2254±190 MU vs. 3438±457 MU for RANC) even if overall time was inferior with RAC. For a single lesion, DCA provide better plan considering low doses to healthy brain even if quality indexes are better for the others techniques. For multiple lesions, RANC seems to be the best compromise, due to the ability to deliver a good conformity and homogeneity plan while sparing healthy brain tissue. For a single lesion close to organs at risk, RAT is the most appropriate technique. PACS numbers: 87.55. dk, 87.56. bd
“Enheduanna—A Manifesto of Falling” Live Brain-Computer Cinema Performance: Performer and Audience Participation, Cognition and Emotional Engagement Using Multi-Brain BCI Interaction

The fields of neural prosthetic technologies and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have witnessed in the past 15 years an unprecedented development, bringing together theories and methods from different scientific fields, digital media, and the arts. More in particular, artists have been amongst the pioneers of the design of relevant applications since their emergence in the 1960s, pushing the boundaries of applications in real-life contexts. With the new research, advancements, and since 2007, the new low-cost commercial-grade wireless devices, there is a new increasing number of computer games, interactive installations, and performances that involve the use of these interfaces, combining scientific, and creative methodologies. The vast majority of these works use the brain-activity of a single participant. However, earlier, as well as recent examples, involve the simultaneous interaction of more than one participants or performers with the use of Electroencephalography (EEG)-based multi-brain BCIs. In this frame, we discuss and evaluate “Enheduanna—A Manifesto of Falling,” a live brain-computer cinema performance that enables for the first time the simultaneous real-time multi-brain interaction of more than two participants, including a performer and members of the audience, using a passive EEG-based BCI system in the context of a mixed-media performance. The performance was realised as a neuroscientific study conducted in a real-life setting. The raw EEG data of seven participants, one performer and two different members of the audience for each performance, were simultaneously recorded during three live events. The results reveal that the majority of the participants were able to successfully identify whether their brain-activity was interacting with the live video projections or not. A correlation has been found between their answers to the questionnaires, the elements of the performance that they identified as most special, and the audience's indicators of attention and emotional engagement. Also, the results obtained from the performer's data analysis are consistent with the recall of working memory representations and the increase of cognitive load. Thus, these results prove the efficiency of the interaction design, as well as the importance of the directing strategy, dramaturgy and narrative structure on the audience's perception, cognitive state, and engagement.
Quality of life and physical activity in an older working-age population

Objective Physical activity can be an effective means of prevention and therapy of many psychosomatic disorders. It can also have a significant impact on the quality of life of older working-age people. The aim of the present study was to assess the relationships between quality of life and physical activity in older working-age people from Wrocław, Poland. Materials and methods The study group comprised 1,013 people, including 565 women and 448 men, aged 55–64 years (59.1±2.9 years). The study took form of a questionnaire survey. The participants assessed their physical activity and quality of life using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Version (IPAQ-SF) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF), respectively. Results The highest mean indices of general quality of life, perceived health status, and quality of life in the physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains were shown by respondents whose intensity of physical activity was the highest. Moreover, the odds of high assessment of overall quality of life increased with respondents’ higher levels of physical activity. Conclusion Quality of life improvement programs should also involve increased physical activity components.
Preparing of Heatable, CNT-Functionalized Polymer Membranes for Application in Textile Composites

The electrically induced heating of textile composite materials is already applied in the clothing and outdoor use. However, making thin, flexible and washable heating layers remains a challenge. Based on various polymers thin electrically heatable polymer sheets were developed using multi-walled carbon nanotubes as electrically conductive fillers in silicone, polyurethane as well as polyvinylchloride. To prepare the membranes a knife coating process was applied. The viscosity of the polymer masses, the particle alignment, the percolation as well as the electrically and heating properties of the membranes were investigated.
The cost‐effectiveness and budgetary impact of a dolutegravir‐based regimen as first‐line treatment of HIV infection in India

Dolutegravir (DTG)‐based antiretroviral therapy (ART) is recommended for first‐line HIV treatment in the US and Europe. Efavirenz (EFV)‐based regimens remain the standard of care (SOC) in India. We examined the clinical and economic impact of DTG‐based first‐line ART in the setting of India's recent guidelines change to treating all patients with HIV infection regardless of CD4 count.
Visual Defect in Oculocutaneous Albinism is Not Associated with Gross Structural Anomaly

Background: Albinism is a heterogeneous group of inherited non progressive disorders of melanin metabolism. The two main types are Ocular albinism (OA) in which pigment is absent only in the eyes and Oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) in which the eyes, skin and hair lack pigment. The tropical environment, without the protective effect of melanin, predisposes the African OCA to skin cancers. In the eyes fovea maturity is impaired leading to poor vision. All forms of albinism, regardless of the genotype or phenotype, have the same distinctive visual impairment that confers visual acuity ranging from 20/40(6/12) to 20/200(6/60) that significantly limits their education, occupation and recreation. This study set out to use ultrasonography to detect correctable ocular structural anomaly in visually impaired African OCA who also have severe sun-damaged skin. Materials and methods: In a prospective study, the eyes of 57 consenting Nigerian OCA referred from Dermatology to Radiology for ocular scan were investigated with B-mode ultra-sonogram. The results were compared with matched controls and analyzed by simple descriptive statistics. Results: The age range of the study population was 15 to 62 years (mean 24.6 years) and male: female ratio was 1:2. Of the OCA, 98% and of the controls, 91.2% had normal ocular scans. Vitreous echoes were found in 7.0% of all participants and one (1.8%) of the control participants had cataract. No cataract or other gross structural anomaly was detected in any of the orbital structures of the OCA. Conclusion: Ultrasound scan reveals no ocular structural abnormalities peculiar to OCA. Even though not statistically significant, there is an intriguing absence of cataract in OCA that is worthy of further investigation
Daily QA in proton therapy using a single commercially available detector

We present here a novel method for using a single device in the daily quality assurance (QA) of pencil beam scanning (PBS) proton beams and an improved method for uniform scanning (US). The device can be used to measure the spot position, spot sigma, range, output, collinearity of the X‐ray system and proton beam, and to QA the first scatterers and a number of other imaging and mechanical checks. We have performed the daily QA according to this procedure for more than six months in both a PBS gantry and a US gantry. All of the tests were found to be sensitive and accurate enough to determine if the property being tested is within the tolerance. The output has remained within the ±2% tolerance, with the majority of measurements within ±1%, and the range was within ±0.5mm. The collinearity of the proton beam in both gantries is within the ±1mm tolerance in both X and Y directions for all measurements. A novel procedure to measure the functionality of the first scatterers in the US gantry is included in the QA procedure. It was found to be sensitive enough to pick up the thinnest scatterer of 0.6 mm in both possible failure methods — when it always remains in the beam or in the case when it never goes into the beam. The daily QA procedure presented here can be implemented at PBS or US proton therapy centers with a minimal outlay for equipment and setup time. The procedure can be performed in less than 30 min, and has been found to be accurate and reliable enough for the QA of a proton therapy gantry before patient treatment every day. PACS number: 87.55. Qr
SINet: A Scale-Insensitive Convolutional Neural Network for Fast Vehicle Detection

Vision-based vehicle detection approaches achieve incredible success in recent years with the development of deep convolutional neural network (CNN). However, existing CNN-based algorithms suffer from the problem that the convolutional features are scale-sensitive in object detection task but it is common that traffic images and videos contain vehicles with a large variance of scales. In this paper, we delve into the source of scale sensitivity, and reveal two key issues: 1) existing RoI pooling destroys the structure of small scale objects and 2) the large intra-class distance for a large variance of scales exceeds the representation capability of a single network. Based on these findings, we present a scale-insensitive convolutional neural network (SINet) for fast detecting vehicles with a large variance of scales. First, we present a context-aware RoI pooling to maintain the contextual information and original structure of small scale objects. Second, we present a multi-branch decision network to minimize the intra-class distance of features. These lightweight techniques bring zero extra time complexity but prominent detection accuracy improvement. The proposed techniques can be equipped with any deep network architectures and keep them trained end-to-end. Our SINet achieves state-of-the-art performance in terms of accuracy and speed (up to 37 FPS) on the KITTI benchmark and a new highway dataset, which contains a large variance of scales and extremely small objects.
High-Quality Nonparallel Voice Conversion Based on Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Network

Although voice conversion (VC) algorithms have achieved remarkable success along with the development of machine learning, superior performance is still difficult to achieve when using nonparallel data. In this paper, we propose using a cycle-consistent adversarial network (CycleGAN) for nonparallel data-based VC training. A CycleGAN is a generative adversarial network (GAN) originally developed for unpaired image-to-image translation. A subjective evaluation of inter-gender conversion demonstrated that the proposed method significantly outperformed a method based on the Merlin open source neural network speech synthesis system (a parallel VC system adapted for our setup) and a GAN-based parallel VC system. This is the first research to show that the performance of a nonparallel VC method can exceed that of state-of-the-art parallel VC methods.
Effect of Diazotrophs and Chemical Fertilizers on Production and Economics of Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus, L.) Cultivars

The effect of diazotrophs and chemical fertilizers on yield attributing characters and economics of okra cultivation was evaluated. Application of highest dose of NPK @100% in combination with vermicompost (5 t ha-1) and biofertilizers with FYM increased the fruit yield of okra (cultivar Mahyco-10) considerably with yield varying between 80.00 q ha-1 to 227.13 q ha-1 and 80.49 q ha-1 to 229.62 q ha-1 during 2010 and 2011 respectively. In okra cv. Utkal Gaurav the fruit yield varied from 47.68 q ha-1 to 129.84 q ha-1 in 2010 and 47.27 q ha-1 to 131.35 q ha-1 in 2011. As regards the net return, highest net profit of Rs 87,630 and Rs. 89,370 ha-1 from the okra was realized over an investment of Rs. 71,360 ha-1 during both the years with a benefit cost ratio of 2.23 and 2.25 when 100% NPK integrated with vermicompost @5t ha-1 and biofertilizers with FYM applied in okra cv.Mahyco-10. The highest net return of Rs. 14,350 in 2010 and Rs. 15,260 in 2011 with an investment of Rs. 63,550 each year was found in cultivar Utkal Gaurav under highest level of nutrient application.
Associations between reported intakes of carotenoid-rich foods and concentrations of carotenoids in plasma: a validation study of a web-based food recall for children and adolescents

Abstract Objective To validate estimated intakes of carotenoid-rich foods from a web-based food recall (WebFR) using carotenoids in blood as an objective reference method. Design Cross-sectional validation study using carotenoids in plasma to evaluate estimated intakes of selected carotenoid-rich foods. Participants recorded their food intake in the WebFR and plasma concentrations of β-carotene, α-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, lycopene, lutein and zeaxanthin were measured. Setting Schools and homes of families in a suburb of the capital of Norway. Subjects A total of 261 participants in the age groups 8–9 and 12–14 years. Results Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients ranged from 0·30 to 0·44, and cross-classification showed that 71·6–76·6 % of the participants were correctly classified, when comparing the reported intakes of carotenoid-rich foods and concentrations of the corresponding carotenoids in plasma, not including lutein and zeaxanthin. Conclusions Correlations were acceptable and cross-classification analyses demonstrated that the WebFR was able to rank participants according to their reported intake of foods rich in α-carotene, β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin and lycopene. The WebFR is a promising tool for dietary assessment among children and adolescents.
Early-life origins of adult disease: national longitudinal population-based study of the United States.

OBJECTIVES We examined the relation between low birth weight and childhood family and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and disease onset in adulthood. METHODS Using US nationally representative longitudinal data, we estimated hazard models of the onset of asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and stroke, heart attack, or heart disease. The sample contained 4387 children who were members of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics in 1968; they were followed up to 2007, when they were aged 39 to 56 years. Our research design included sibling comparisons of disease onset among siblings with different birth weights. RESULTS The odds ratios of having asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and stroke, heart attack, or heart disease by age 50 years for low-birth weight babies vs others were 1.64 (P < .01), 1.51 (P < .01), 2.09 (P < .01), and 2.16 (P < .01), respectively. Adult disease prevalence differed substantially by childhood socioeconomic status (SES). After accounting for childhood socioeconomic factors, we found a substantial hazard ratio of disease onset associated with low birth weight, which persisted for sibling comparisons. CONCLUSIONS Childhood SES is strongly associated with the onset of chronic disease in adulthood. Low birth weight plays an important role in disease onset; this relation persists after an array of childhood socioeconomic factors is accounted for.
Worms at war: interspecific parasite competition and host resources alter trematode colony structure and fitness

SUMMARY Parasites competing over limited host resources are faced with a tradeoff between reproductive success and host overexploitation jeopardizing survival. Surprisingly little is known about the outcome of such competitive scenarios, and we therefore aimed at elucidating interactions between the trematodes Himasthla elongata and Renicola roscovita coinfecting the periwinkle first intermediate host. The results show that the success of Himasthla colonies (rediae) in terms of cercarial emission is unaffected by Renicola competition (sporocysts), whereas deteriating host condition decreases fitness. Furthermore, double infection has no bearing on Himasthla’s colony size but elevated the proportion of non-reproductive rediae that play a decisive role in colony defence. Opposite, the development of the Renicola colony (size/maturity), and in turn fitness, is markedly reduced in presence of Himasthla, whereas the nutritional state of the host appears less important. Hence, the intramolluscan competition between Himasthla and Renicola is asymmetrical, Himasthla being the superior competitor. Himasthla not only adjusts its virulence according to the hosts immediate nutritional state, it also nullifies the negative impact of a heterospecific competitor on own fitness. The latter is argued to follow in part from direct predation on the competitor, for which purpose more defensive non-reproductive rediae are strategically produced.
Modeling the role of voyaging in the coastal spread of the Early Neolithic in the West Mediterranean

Significance The Neolithic expansion in Europe took place at an average rate of 1 km⋅y−1. In the West Mediterranean, the archaeological record yields a much faster rate of spread, one that cannot be explained by classical overland models. Voyaging has been put forward as an alternative line of explanation. Here, we develop a computational model to identify the key elements and mechanisms and to estimate the values that yield outcomes that fit the observations. The results show that voyaging is indeed required to explain the pattern. We have also found that interactions with local hunter-gatherers played a lesser part in the fast rate of spread. The earliest dates for the West Mediterranean Neolithic indicate that it expanded across 2,500 km in about 300 y. Such a fast spread is held to be mainly due to a demic process driven by dispersal along coastal routes. Here, we model the Neolithic spread in the region by focusing on the role of voyaging to understand better the core elements that produced the observed pattern of dates. We also explore the effect of cultural interaction with Mesolithic populations living along the coast. The simulation study shows that (i) sea travel is required to obtain reasonable predictions, with a minimum sea-travel range of 300 km per generation; (ii) leapfrog coastal dispersals yield the best results (quantitatively and qualitatively); and (iii) interaction with Mesolithic people can assist the spread, but long-range voyaging is still needed to explain the archaeological pattern.
Standing at the Gateway to Europe - The Genetic Structure of Western Balkan Populations Based on Autosomal and Haploid Markers

Contemporary inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula belong to several ethnic groups of diverse cultural background. In this study, three ethnic groups from Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bosniacs, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs - as well as the populations of Serbians, Croatians, Macedonians from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegrins and Kosovars have been characterized for the genetic variation of 660 000 genome-wide autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms and for haploid markers. New autosomal data of the 70 individuals together with previously published data of 20 individuals from the populations of the Western Balkan region in a context of 695 samples of global range have been analysed. Comparison of the variation data of autosomal and haploid lineages of the studied Western Balkan populations reveals a concordance of the data in both sets and the genetic uniformity of the studied populations, especially of Western South-Slavic speakers. The genetic variation of Western Balkan populations reveals the continuity between the Middle East and Europe via the Balkan region and supports the scenario that one of the major routes of ancient gene flows and admixture went through the Balkan Peninsula.