Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Drug-Drug Interaction Potential of Sulfoxide and/or Sulfone  Metabolites of Albendazole, Triclabendazole, Aldicarb, Methiocarb, Montelukast and Ziprasidone

Background: The use of polypharmacy in the present day clinical therapy has made the identification of clinical drug-drug interaction risk an important aspect of drug development process. Although many drugs can be metabolized to sulfoxide and/or sulfone metabolites, seldom is known on the CYP in-hibition potential and/or the metabolic fate for such metabolites. Objective: The key objectives were: a) to evaluate the in vitro CYP inhibition potential of selected parent drugs with sulfoxide/sulfone metabolites; b) to assess the in vitro metabolic fate of the same panel of par-ent drugs and metabolites. Methods: In vitro drug-drug interaction potential of test compounds was investigated in two stages; 1) assessment of CYP450 inhibition potential of test compounds using human liver microsomes (HLM); and 2) assessment of test compounds as substrate of Phase I enzymes; including CYP450, FMO, AO and MAO using HLM, recombinant human CYP enzymes (rhCYP), Human Liver Cytosol (HLC) and Human Liver Mitochondrial (HLMit). All samples were analysed by LC-MS-MS method. Results: CYP1A2 was inhibited by methiocarb, triclabendazole, triclabendazole sulfoxide, and ziprasi-done sulfone with IC50 of 0.71 µM, 1.07 µM, 4.19 µM, and 17.14 µM, respectively. CYP2C8 was in-hibited by montelukast, montelukast sulfoxide, montelukast sulfone, tribendazole, triclabendazole sulfox-ide, and triclabendazole sulfone with IC50 of 0.08 µM, 0.05 µM, 0.02 µM, 3.31 µM, 8.95 µM, and 1.05 µM, respectively. CYP2C9 was inhibited by triclabendazole, triclabendazole sulfoxide, triclabendazole sulfone, montelukast, montelukast sulfoxide and montelukast sulfone with IC50 of 1.17 µM, 1.95 µM, 0.69 µM, 1.34 µM, 3.61 µM and 2.15 µM, respectively. CYP2C19 was inhibited by triclabendazole and triclabendazole sulfoxide with IC50 of 0.25 and 0.22, respectively. CYP3A4 was inhibited by monte-lukast sulfoxide and triclabendazole with IC50 of 9.33 and 15.11, respectively. Amongst the studied sul-foxide/sulfone substrates, the propensity of involvement of CY2C9 and CYP3A4 enzyme was high (ap-proximately 56% of total) in the metabolic fate experiments. Conclusion: Based on the findings, a proper risk assessment strategy needs to be factored (i.e., perpetra-tor and/or victim drug) to overcome any imminent risk of potential clinical drug-drug interaction when sulfoxide/sulfone metabolite(s) generating drugs are coadministered in therapy.
Effects of graft preconditioning on γ-irradiated deep frozen tendon allografts used in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

Preconditioning of the grafts prior to implantation into the knee is considered to reduce the loss of tension caused by graft viscoelasticity after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. The present study analyzed the impacts of different preconditioning forces on the biomechanical properties of the γ-irradiated deep frozen tendon allografts. A total of 36 tendon grafts were randomly divided into three groups and were preconditioned at 80 N (group 1), 160 N (group 2) and 320 N (group 3) for 10 min. Subsequently, the grafts were gradually completely relaxed for 1 min and subsequently received 25 cyclic loads of 0–80 N. Afterwards, the grafts were loaded to 80 N, which was maintained for 30 min. Finally, load was gradually increased until ultimate failure at maximum load (UFML) was obtained. There were significant differences in the stiffness and UFML values between the 3 groups (all P<0.05). The graft stiffness in group 3 significantly increased compared with the other 2 groups, and the stiffness of group 2 grafts increased compared with group 1. The UFML in group 3 was significantly lower compared with groups 1 and 2, while there was no significant difference between groups 1 and 2. In the present study, the results suggested that increasing the initial tension could effectively reduce the loss of stiffness due to viscoelasticity for the γ-irradiated deep frozen allogeneic tendon grafts. However, overloaded initial tension decreased the tensile strength.
An Improved Compact Model for a Silicon-Carbide MOSFET and Its Application to Accurate Circuit Simulation

This paper presents an improved compact model for a discrete silicon-carbide (SiC) MOSFET. This compact model based on the previous model features a new behavioral model of output characteristics and new nonlinear models of internal capacitors. Simulation with the improved compact model is in better agreement with measurement than that with the previous compact model, as well as transient behavior of the drain–source voltage, the drain current, and the leakage current out of a heatsink. Furthermore, the improved model is useful for constructing the accurate compact model that can reproduce the high-frequency characteristics of the transient waveforms of SiC-MOSFET s. This successful validation indicates that the improved compact model would be a promising tool for a full-simulation-based design system of the power converters using SiC-MOSFETs.
Learning Graph Embeddings from WordNet-based Similarity Measures

We present path2vec, a new approach for learning graph embeddings that relies on structural measures of pairwise node similarities. The model learns representations for nodes in a dense space that approximate a given user-defined graph distance measure, such as e.g. the shortest path distance or distance measures that take information beyond the graph structure into account. Evaluation of the proposed model on semantic similarity and word sense disambiguation tasks, using various WordNet-based similarity measures, show that our approach yields competitive results, outperforming strong graph embedding baselines. The model is computationally efficient, being orders of magnitude faster than the direct computation of graph-based distances.
A Model for a Filling-in Process Triggered by Edges Predicts “Conflicting” Afterimage Effects

The goal of our research was to develop a compound computational model that predicts the “opposite” effects of the alternating aftereffects stimuli, such as the “color dove illusion” (Barkan and Spitzer, 2017), and the “filling in the afterimage after the image” (van Lier et al., 2009). The model is based on a filling-in mechanism, through a diffusion equation where the color and intensity of the perceived surface are obtained through a diffusion process of color from the stimulus edges. The model solves the diffusion equation with boundary conditions that takes the locations of the chromatic edges of the chromatic inducer (chromatic stimulus) and the achromatic remaining contours into account. These contours (edges) trigger the diffusion process. The same calculations are done for both types of afterimage effects, with the only difference related to the location of the remaining contour. While a gradient toward the inducing color produces a perception of the complementary color, an opposite gradient yields the perception of the same color as that of the chromatic inducer. Furthermore, we show that the same computational model can also predict new alternating aftereffects stimuli, such as the spiral stimulus, and the averaging of colors in alternating afterimage stimuli described by Anstis et al. (2012). The suggested model is able to predict most of the additional properties related to the “conflicting” phenomena that have been recently described in the literature, and thus supports the idea that a shared visual mechanism is responsible for both the positive and the negative effects.
Accelerated Consensus with Linear Rate of Convergence

We are concerned with the problem of achieving average consensus on fixed, undirected and connected graphs with an unknown graph topology. Motivated by Nesterov's accelerated gradient algorithm [1] [2], we describe a completely distributed consensus protocol that has a rate of convergence of $\mathcal{O}(q^{2k}/k^{2})$, where $k$ is the iteration number and $q < 1$ is dependent on the second largest eigenvalue modulus of weighting matrix constructed on the graph. By casting the protocol into a linear time-variant system, we show a dimension-free worst case convergence rate bound, that is, a rate independent of the scale of the network. We also discuss several convergence rate bounds for different choices of the weighting matrix in the protocol.
On Multiuser Systems with Queue-Length Dependent Service Quality

Consider the information-theoretic limits of reliable communication in a multiuser setting of transmission through a system with queue-length dependent service quality. Multiple transmitters dispatch encoded symbols using renewal processes over a system that is a superposition of $GI_{k}/GI/1$ queues, and a noisy server processes symbols in order of arrival with error probability depending on the queue-length. First, the information capacities of the single-user and multiuser continuous-time queue-length dependent system are found. When the number of transmitters is large and each is sparse, the superposition of arrivals approaches a Poisson point process. In characterizing the Poisson approximation, we show that the individual and sum capacities of the multiuser system converges to the capacity of a single-user $M/GI/1$ queue-length dependent system. The speed of convergence in the number of users is explicitly given. Further, the best and worst server behaviors of $M$ / G $I$ /1 queues from the single-user case are preserved in the multiuser case.
Tyrosine 450 in the Voltage- and Calcium-Gated Potassium Channel of Large Conductance Channel Pore-Forming (slo1) Subunit Mediates Cholesterol Protection against Alcohol-Induced Constriction of Cerebral Arteries

Alcohol (ethanol) at physiologically relevant concentrations (<100 mM) constricts cerebral arteries via inhibition of voltage- and calcium-gated potassium channels of large conductance (BK) located in vascular smooth muscle (VSM). These channels consist of channel-forming slo1 (cbv1, KCNMA1) and accessory beta1 (KCNMB1) subunits. An increase in VSM cholesterol (CLR) via either dietary CLR intake or in vitro CLR enrichment was shown to protect against endothelium-independent, alcohol-induced constriction of cerebral arteries. The molecular mechanism(s) of this protection remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate that CLR enrichment of de-endothelialized middle cerebral arteries (MCAs) of rat increased CLR content in the VSM in a concentration-dependent manner. CLR enrichment blunted MCA constriction evoked by 18–75 mM but not by 100 mM alcohol. MCA enrichment with coprostanol (COPR) also blunted vasoconstriction by 50 mM alcohol, despite the fact that COPR and CLR differ in their ability to modify several major physical properties of the bilayer. CLR protection against 50 but not 100 mM alcohol was also observed in C57BL/6 and KCNMB1 knockout (KO) mice. Permeabilization of KCNMA1 KO MCAs with Y450Fcbv1 totally ablated CLR, but not COPR protection against vasoconstriction by 50 mM alcohol. Thus, CLR and alcohol interact at the level of the BK channel slo1 subunit, with Y450 being critical for CLR protection against alcohol-induced vasoconstriction. We document for the first time a functional competition between CLR and alcohol in regulating cerebral artery diameter and a critical role of a single amino acid within the BK channel pore-forming subunit in controlling CLR-alcohol interaction at the organ level.
On Perfect Privacy

For a pair of (dependent) random variables (X, Y), the following problem is addressed: What is the maximum information that can be revealed about Y, while disclosing no information about X? Assuming that a Markov kernel maps $Y$ to the revealed information U, it is shown that the maximum mutual information between $Y$ and U, i.e., I(Y; U), can be obtained as the solution of a standard linear program, when $X$ and $U$ are required to be independent, called perfect privacy. The resulting quantity is shown to be greater than or equal to the non-private information about X carried by Y. For jointly Gaussian (X, Y), it is shown that perfect privacy is not possible if the kernel is applied to only Y; whereas perfect privacy can be achieved if the mapping is from both $X$ and Y; that is, if the private variables can also be observed at the encoder. Finally, it is shown that when $Y$ is not a deterministic function of X, perfect privacy is always feasible when the mapping has access to both $X$ and Y.1
An evaluation of the effectiveness of ‘Time to Adjust’ a group-based cognitive-behavioural-therapy (CBT) programme for patients recovering from cancer

Objectives ‘Time to Adjust’ (TTA) is a 6-week group-based cognitive-behavioural-therapy programme for patients recovering from cancer. The TTA intervention is designed to facilitate patient’s adjustment to life after cancer by enhancing existing coping skills, developing new coping skills and drawing on peer support within the context of group delivery of the programme. The study aims to explore patient psychological adjustment and to identify features of the intervention that patients find most beneficial. Methods This retrospective repeated measures design study represents a clinical evaluation of a group-based intervention routinely delivered by the Cancer Psychology Service at University Hospital Limerick. TTA was open to patients with a cancer diagnosis who had completed their surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment by the programme start date. Patients self-referred and suitability for the programme was assessed by pre-programme clinical interview. Pre- and post-intervention data from 59 participants was collected using self-report measures of stress and coping. A brief end-of-programme questionnaire provided descriptive feedback on patients’ experience of the programme. Results Findings revealed favourable trends in the psychological adjustment of patients. Self-reported depression, anxiety and negative adjustment was lower post-TTA. Conclusions This study indicates that TTA supports patients’ psychological recovery from cancer with multiple components of the programme facilitating psychological adjustment. Findings support the delivery of group-based therapeutic interventions for this patient group. Future research could use in-depth post-intervention interviews for a richer understanding of the programme benefits. Longer-term follow-up in could examine the degree to which benefits are maintained over time.
Emotion Recognition in Speech using Cross-Modal Transfer in the Wild

Obtaining large, human labelled speech datasets to train models for emotion recognition is a notoriously challenging task, hindered by annotation cost and label ambiguity. In this work, we consider the task of learning embeddings for speech classification without access to any form of labelled audio. We base our approach on a simple hypothesis: that the emotional content of speech correlates with the facial expression of the speaker. By exploiting this relationship, we show that annotations of expression can be transferred from the visual domain (faces) to the speech domain (voices) through cross-modal distillation. We make the following contributions: (i) we develop a strong teacher network for facial emotion recognition that achieves the state of the art on a standard benchmark; (ii) we use the teacher to train a student, tabula rasa, to learn representations (embeddings) for speech emotion recognition without access to labelled audio data; and (iii) we show that the speech emotion embedding can be used for speech emotion recognition on external benchmark datasets. Code, models and data are available.
Brokering User Knowledge

Knowledge brokering is a key activity in innovation networks such as living labs. Previous research has acknowledged the multiple roles and tasks of intermediaries and brokers in managing living labs but has not paid attention to the nature of knowledge flow and the distance between the actors that are brokered. This study empirically examines how user knowledge is brokered in living labs as well as the living lab schemes among regional innovation organisers in Finland. Results show that user knowledge is mostly considered explicit knowledge and that users and developers meet rarely in a real-life environment. Brokering distances between stakeholders may be a useful approach in conducting living lab activities.
Service users’ perspective of their admission: a report of study findings

Objectives The ‘Service Users’ Perspective of their Admission’ study examined voluntarily and involuntarily admitted services users’ perception of coercion during the admission process and whether this was associated with factors such as the therapeutic alliance, satisfaction with services, functioning and quality of life. This report aims to collate the findings of the study. Methods The study was undertaken across three community mental health services in Ireland. Participants were interviewed before discharge and at 1 year using the MacArthur Admission Experience. Caregivers of participants were interviewed about their perception of coercion during the admission. Results A total of 161 service users were interviewed and of those admitted involuntarily, 42% experienced at least one form of physical coercion. Service users admitted involuntarily reported higher levels of perceived coercion and less procedural justice than those admitted voluntarily. A total of 22% of voluntarily admitted service users reported levels of perceived coercion comparable with involuntarily admitted service users and this was associated with treatment in a secure ward or being brought to hospital initially under mental health legislation. In comparison with the service user, caregivers tended to underestimate the level of perceived coercion. The level of procedural justice was moderately associated with the therapeutic relationship and satisfaction with services. After 1 year, 70% experienced an improvement in functioning and this was not associated with the accumulated level of coercive events, when controlled for confounders. Conclusions This study has provided valuable insights into the perceptions of coercion and can help inform future interventional studies aimed at reducing coercion in mental health services.
Fast Seeking of Nash Equilibria without Steady-State Oscillation in Games with Non-Quadratic Payoffs

In this paper, a solution for Nash equilibrium seeking problem for N-players static non-cooperative games with non-quadratic payoff functions is proposed. The proposed solution is a non-model based approach, in the sense that the players do not need any knowledge about the agent's model or other players' actions, and can attain the Nash equilibrium using only measurements of payoff values. To overcome the shortcoming of existing non-model based algorithms, for which the Nash equilibrium stays within a small neighborhood and oscillates, the proposed approach adjusts the classical extremum seeking algorithms so that the amplitude of excitation sinusoidal signal converges to zero locally and exponentially. Therefore, with removing steady-state oscillation, not only the deleterious effects of steady-state oscillation is eliminated but also Nash equilibrium is achieved faster. The details of proof and the analysis for stability and convergence are provided. Finally, the efficiency and effectiveness of the algorithm are illustrated with a numerical example and simulation.
How does the environment affect fighting? The interaction between extrinsic fighting ability and resource value during contests

ABSTRACT An individual's performance during a fight is influenced by a combination of their capacity and willingness to compete. While willingness to fight is known to be determined by both intrinsic and extrinsic drivers, an individual's capacity to fight is generally thought of as solely intrinsic, being driven by a host of physiological factors. However, evidence indicates that variation in fighting ability can also be generated through exposure to different environmental conditions. Environmental contributions to fighting ability may be particularly important for animals living in spatially and temporally heterogeneous habitats, in which fights can occur between rivals recently exposed to different environmental conditions. The rapidly changing environment experienced within intertidal zones, for example, means that seawater parameters, including dissolved oxygen content and temperature, can vary across small spatial and temporal scales. Here, we investigated the relative importance of these extrinsic contributions to fighting ability and resource value on contest dynamics in the beadlet sea anemone Actinia equina. We manipulated the extrinsic fighting ability of both opponents (through dissolved oxygen concentration prior to fights) and resource value (through seawater flow rate during the fight). Our results indicate that the extrinsic fighting ability of both opponents can interact with resource value to drive escalation patterns and that extrinsic drivers can be more important in determining contest dynamics than the intrinsic traits commonly studied. Our study highlights the need to combine data on intrinsic state and extrinsic conditions in order to gain a more holistic view of the factors driving contest behaviour. Highlighted Article: Environmental variation can affect an individual's willingness and capacity to engage in fights over indivisible resources.
“That’s not me anymore”: Resistance strategies for managing intersectional stigmas for women with substance use and incarceration histories

Significant previous research has focused on how individuals experience stigma when interacting with the public sphere and service agencies; the purpose of this grounded theory study is to explore how formerly incarcerated mothers with histories of substance use experience stigmas from their intimate relationships with family and romantic partners. Using an intersectionality lens, this study reveals that the women perceived multiple stigmas due to their previous substance use, incarceration, and other addiction-related behaviors that challenged their roles as mothers and romantic partners. Compounding the behavioral-related stigmas were race and class-based stereotypes of black criminality that also challenged women’s ability to embody key motherhood and womanhood roles. As a result, the women employed resistance strategies to safeguard against stigma and preserve their recovery. The implications for practice underscore the significance of addressing personal experiences of stigma, complex relational dynamics, and understanding the needs of support systems that are also shaped by the women’s cycles of incarceration and illness.
Using experience sampling to link software repositories with emotions and work well-being

Background: The experience sampling method studies everyday experiences of humans in natural environments. In psychology it has been used to study the relationships between work well-being and productivity. To our best knowledge, daily experience sampling has not been previously used in software engineering. Aims: Our aim is to identify links between software developers self-reported affective states and work well-being and measures obtained from software repositories. Method: We perform an experience sampling study in a software company for a period of eight months, we use logistic regression to link the well-being measures with development activities, i.e. number of commits and chat messages. Results: We find several significant relationships between questionnaire variables and software repository variables. To our surprise relationship between hurry and number of commits is negative, meaning more perceived hurry is linked with a smaller number of commits. We also find a negative relationship between social interaction and hindered work well-being. Conclusions: The negative link between commits and hurry is counter-intuitive and goes against previous lab-experiments in software engineering that show increased efficiency under time pressure. Overall, our is an initial step in using experience sampling in software engineering and validating theories on work well-being from other fields in the domain of software engineering.