Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Training verified learners with learned verifiers

This paper proposes a new algorithmic framework, predictor-verifier training, to train neural networks that are verifiable, i.e., networks that provably satisfy some desired input-output properties. The key idea is to simultaneously train two networks: a predictor network that performs the task at hand,e.g., predicting labels given inputs, and a verifier network that computes a bound on how well the predictor satisfies the properties being verified. Both networks can be trained simultaneously to optimize a weighted combination of the standard data-fitting loss and a term that bounds the maximum violation of the property. Experiments show that not only is the predictor-verifier architecture able to train networks to achieve state of the art verified robustness to adversarial examples with much shorter training times (outperforming previous algorithms on small datasets like MNIST and SVHN), but it can also be scaled to produce the first known (to the best of our knowledge) verifiably robust networks for CIFAR-10.
Fantasy, Vision, and Metaphor--Three Tracks to Teachers' Minds.

This paper explores how the three concepts of vision, metaphor, and fantasy serve educational research for a better understanding of teachers’ minds regarding educational issues. Drawing upon data based on a review of the literature, the following has been found: a semantic comparison showed that the concepts were similar in their abilities to create visual images and function as communication media, but differed in origin, time orientation, reality reflection, activity orientation, and consensus creation. Empirical findings demonstrated the importance of question formulation, the researcher’s position, and the scope of the study. In conclusion, the paper proposes how the different concepts might help in designing improved research and better educational usage of the concepts. Key Words: Educational Fantasy, Vision, Metaphor, Teachers’ Minds, and Open Coding
A Study on Photostability of Amphetamines and Ketamine in Hair Irradiated under Artificial Sunlight

Drugs incorporated into hair are exposed to the environment, and cosmetic and chemical treatments, with possible decreases in their content. Knowledge concerning the effect of sunlight on drug content in hair can be helpful to forensic toxicologists, in particular, when investigating drug concentrations above or below pre-determined cut-offs. Twenty authentic positive hair samples were selected which had previously tested positive for amphetamines and/or ketamine. Washed hair were divided into two identical strands, with the former exposed at 765 W/m2 (300–800 nm spectrum of irradiance) for 48 h in a solar simulator, and the latter kept in the dark. Hair samples were extracted and analyzed by liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry detection. The percentage of photodegradation was calculated for each analyte (i.e., amphetamine, methamphetamine, methylendioxyamphetamine, ketamine, and norketamine). In parallel, photodegradation processes of standard molecules dissolved in aqueous and organic solutions were studied. In 20 hair samples positive for the targeted analytes, exposure to artificial sunlight induced an appreciable decrease in drug concentrations. The concentration ranges in the non-irradiated hair samples were 0.01–24 ng/mg, and 65% of samples exhibited a decrease in post-irradiation samples, with reduction from 3% to 100%. When more drugs were present in the same hair sample (i.e., MDMA and ketamine) the degradation yields were compound dependent. A degradation product induced by irradiation of ketamine in aqueous and methanol solutions was identified; it was also found to be present in a true positive hair sample after irradiation. Ketamine, amphetamines, and their metabolites incorporated in the hair of drug users undergo degradation when irradiated by artificial sunlight. Only for ketamine was a photoproduct identified in irradiated standard solutions and in true positive irradiated hair. When decisional cut-offs are applied to hair analysis, photodegradation must be taken into account since sunlight may produce false negative results. Moreover, new markers could be investigated as evidence of illicit drug use.
Metagenomic Analysis Shows the Presence of Bacteria Related to Free-Living Forms of Sulfur-Oxidizing Chemolithoautotrophic Symbionts in the Rhizosphere of the Seagrass Zostera marina

Seagrasses play an important role as ecosystem engineers; they provide shelter to many animals and improve water quality by filtering out nutrients and by controlling pathogens. Moreover, their rhizosphere promotes a myriad of microbial interactions and processes, which are dominated by microorganisms involved in the sulfur cycle. This study provides a detailed insight into the metabolic sulfur pathways in the rhizobiome of the seagrass Zostera marina, a dominant seagrass species across the temperate northern hemisphere. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing revealed the relative dominance of Gamma- and Deltaproteobacteria, and comparative analysis of sulfur genes identified a higher abundance of genes related to sulfur oxidation than sulfate reduction. We retrieved four high-quality draft genomes that are closely related to the gill symbiont of the clam Solemya velum, which suggests the presence of putative free-living forms of symbiotic bacteria. These are potentially highly versatile chemolithoautotrophic bacteria, able to alternate their metabolism between parallel pathways of sulfide oxidation (via sqr and fcc), nitrate reduction (denitrification or DNRA) and carbon fixation (via CBB or TCA cycle), depending on the environmental availability of sulfide. Our results support the hypothesis that seagrass meadows might function as a source of symbionts for invertebrates that inhabit within or around seagrass meadows. While providing ideal conditions for the proliferation of these free-living forms of symbionts, seagrasses would benefit from their genetic versatility, which contributes to sulfide detoxification and ammonium production, the seagrasses' preferred nitrogen source.
Advance Directives Information Delivery in Medicare/Medicaid-Funded Agencies: An Exploratory Study

Abstract To encourage citizens to plan their end-of-life care to protect their autonomy, Congress passed the Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) in 1990. Under the PSDA, all Medicare/Medicaid-funded agencies are required to ask if all the patients, upon admission, have advance directives (ADs). If they have not formulated an AD, agencies need to inform that they have a right to do so and provide them with the written information. Although this is required by law, there is no universal procedure or set standard approach to deliver the information to patients in these agencies. It is often unclear who provides and explains information on ADs, and what materials are provided. The purpose of this study was to understand the procedures and challenges presented in the delivery of information about ADs in agencies in response to the PSDA requirements. Using a case study approach, semi-structured interviews with personnel in nine agencies were analyzed and three overarching themes were identified: organizational procedures, staff interactions, and staff perceptions. The findings indicated that there is a need for AD-specific training for staff responsible for delivering AD information to their clients. Implementation of a formalized procedure/guidelines for information delivery would be helpful to maintain quality standards across agencies.
Prevalence of Hypertension among Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Its Socio Demographic Factors in Nigist Ellen Mohamed Memorial Hospital Hosanna, Southern Ethiopia

Introduction: World Health Organization revealed 13% of all deaths globally related to hypertension making it an area of prime importance for public health in both developing and developed Country. The problem of hypertension is significant in low and middle income countries like sub-Saharan Africa; however, there are limited studies to report the exact prevalence rate in developing countries, particularly in Ethiopia. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine prevalence of hypertension among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and its socio demographic factors in Nigist Ellen Mohamed Memorial Hospital Hosanna, Southern Ethiopia.Methods: Hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted in 140 randomly selected adult type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients in Nigist Ellen Mohammed Memorial Hospital, Southern Ethiopia. Data was collected by measuring blood pressure of the study participants by using calibrated devices and interviewer administered questionnaires were used to assess prevalence and socio-demographic factors among the study participants. The collected data were entered, cleared and analyzed by using SPSS 20.0 version.Result: Mean (±SD) age of the clients was 46.5(±11.8) years and majority (63.6%) was male. The mean (±SD) Systolic blood pressure and Diastolic blood pressure of study subjects among type 2 Diabetes Mellitus clients were 135.98 (±17.11) and 88.89 (±12.77) mmHg respectively. More than half (55%) of the type 2 diabetic clients in this study were hypertensive. Finally, there is a significant association between age, gender, marital status, residence and average working hours.Concussion: Prevalence rate of hypertension among type 2 diabetic patients in Hosanna Nigist Ellen Mohammed Memorial Hospital was high. More than half of the study subjects in Nigist Ellen Mohamed Memorial Hospital hospital were hypertensive.
Gender differences and challenges in cassava production and processing in Abia State, Nigeria

The study investigated the level of involvement of male and female farmers in small scale production and processing of cassava in Abia State, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to determine the socioeconomic profile of the cassava farmers, identify the constraints in cassava production and suggest the possible remedies to improve cassava production in the study area. The result revealed that despite the fact that both male and female farmers were actively involved in cassava production and processing, but in terms of labour, the women dominated in most of the activities like planting, weeding and harvesting of cassava. There is also a significant difference in the labour involvement both in production and processing. It also revealed that land ownership was one of the major problems in the area. Women do not own land according to the tradition, and this discourages agricultural production among women. Other constraint like lack of input, lack of fund and high cost of labour were militating against cassava output in Abia State, Nigeria. Based on the constraints, the farmers suggested ways to improve cassava production in the study area. The major suggestions were provision of input, provision of agricultural subsidy/labour. It was recommended that state government should address the problem of farmers by assisting them with improved inputs. Loans should be given to farmers. Land ownership in the rural areas should be addressed by government so that everybody will have equal right to land ownership.
"Haters Gonna Hate": PLS and Information Systems Research

Since the beginning of my academic career, I have heard rumblings in our discipline and in other disciplines about the high levels of use of Partial Least Squares (PLS) in the information systems field. In doctoral courses, some faculty explained that covariance-based structural equation modeling (CBSEM) is the “gold standard” of path modeling, and while PLS might have a place, it is not as robust as CB-SEM. As my career progressed, I continued to hear colleagues lament about the overuse of PLS in information systems. Occasionally, I would notice a reviewer question why PLS was used as opposed to CB-SEM in a review packet. At conferences, I remember hearing many conversations about the overuse of PLS and its problems, and admittedly, I joined in at times on the anti-PLS bandwagon. It became increasingly popular to criticize PLS.
Pathways to substance use and sexual risk behavior among college students with ADHD symptomatology

While growing numbers of students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptomatology are pursuing postsecondary education, there is a dearth of information concerning the social functioning of these students. ADHD symptomatology has been strongly linked with risk behaviors that contribute to chronic health problems, including substance use and risky sexual behavior, resulting in twice the health care costs for these students in the United States. Despite such critical findings, specific pathways between ADHD and substance use and sexual risk, have not been identified. A large body of literature has demonstrated that individuals with ADHD are at greater risk for developing externalizing behavior problems, which in turn appear to predict substance use and sexual risk behavior. Evidence also suggests that individuals with ADHD symptomatology often exhibit executive function (EF) deficits, and several studies have linked executive dysfunction to substance use problems and sexual risk behavior. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to: a) examine the relationship among ADHD symptomatology, externalizing symptomatology, EF deficits, substance use, and sexual risk behavior among N=411 college students; b) propose and test three nested, latent variable models (i.e., a mediation, full, and a direct effects model) and identify significant paths between the variables; and c) examine the three latent variable models and determine which model best represents the relationship between the variables. Overall, results revealed significant correlations among ADHD symptomatology, externalizing symptomatology, EF deficits, substance use, and sexual risk behavior. While the mediation and full models demonstrated specficiation errors that could not be resolved into meaningful solutions, significant pathways were identified within the direct latent variable model, including paths between ADHD symptomatology, externalizing symptomatology, EF deficits, substance use, and sexual risk behavior, respectively. Furthermore, the direct model proved to best represent the data, over and above the two other latent variable models. The present findings have implications for public health policy, particularly as it relates to the college population. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Adaptive Modifications of Maternal Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis Activity during Lactation and Salsolinol as a New Player in this Phenomenon

Both basal and stress-induced secretory activities of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis are distinctly modified in lactating females. On the one hand, it aims to meet the physiological demands of the mother, and on the other hand, the appropriate and stable plasma cortisol level is one of the essential factors for the proper offspring development. Specific adaptations of HPA axis activity to lactation have been extensively studied in several animal species and humans, providing interesting data on the HPA axis plasticity mechanism. However, most of the data related to this phenomenon are derived from studies in rats. The purpose of this review is to highlight these adaptations, with a particular emphasis on stress reaction and differences that occur between species. Existing data on breastfeeding women are also included in several aspects. Finally, data from the experiments in sheep are presented, indicating a new regulatory factor of the HPA axis—salsolinol—which typical role was revealed in lactation. It is suggested that this dopamine derivative is involved in both maintaining basal and suppressing stress-induced HPA axis activities in lactating dams.
Context-Aware Neural Machine Translation Learns Anaphora Resolution

Standard machine translation systems process sentences in isolation and hence ignore extra-sentential information, even though extended context can both prevent mistakes in ambiguous cases and improve translation coherence. We introduce a context-aware neural machine translation model designed in such way that the flow of information from the extended context to the translation model can be controlled and analyzed. We experiment with an English-Russian subtitles dataset, and observe that much of what is captured by our model deals with improving pronoun translation. We measure correspondences between induced attention distributions and coreference relations and observe that the model implicitly captures anaphora. It is consistent with gains for sentences where pronouns need to be gendered in translation. Beside improvements in anaphoric cases, the model also improves in overall BLEU, both over its context-agnostic version (+0.7) and over simple concatenation of the context and source sentences (+0.6).
Does progesterone therapy increase nuchal translucency in women with threatened miscarriage?

OBJECTIVES The effect of exogenous progesterone on fetal nuchal translucency (NT) has been proposed recently. In this study, we aimed to compare the thickness of NT of patients receiving and not receiving progesterone for threatened miscarriage. MATERIAL AND METHODS This study was designed as a retrospective comparative study. Ninety five women treated with progesterone constituted the study group whereas 97 women who were not treated with progesterone constituted the control group. An ultrasonographic examination was performed on all of the women to measure NT. All patients were treated with oral micronized progesterone in the study group. The main parameters recorded for each woman were; age, body mass index (BMI), obstetrical characteristics, and gestational age at first examination, treatment duration of progesterone therapy, and results of combined and triple tests. RESULTS A total of 192 pregnant women with threatened miscarriage were included in this study. The mean NT thickness was statistically significantly higher in the study group (p < 0.001), and mean serum level of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) was also higher in this group (p < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between groups in terms of age, BMI, and gestational age at first examination. ROC curve analysis demonstrated that only increased NT (area under the curve: 0.634, p = 0.005, 95% CI: 0.541-0.727) was a discriminative factor for women receiving progesterone for threatened miscarriage. Also there was a positive correlation between NT and treatment duration (r = 0.269; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS We think that oral progesterone therapy may increase NT depending on treatment duration without causing abnormal prenatal screening test results.
THE RADIO LUMINOSITY FUNCTION AND GALAXY EVOLUTION IN THE COMA CLUSTER

We investigate the radio luminosity function and radio source population for two fields within the Coma cluster of galaxies, with the fields centered on the cluster core and southwest infall region and each covering about half a square degree. Using VLA data with a typical rms sensitivity of 28 μJy per 4. ″4 beam, we identify 249 radio sources with optical counterparts brighter than r = 22. For cluster galaxies, these correspond to L1.4 = 1.7 × 1020 W Hz−1(for a 5σ source) and Mr = −13. Comprehensive optical spectroscopy identifies 38 of these as members of the Coma cluster, evenly split between sources powered by an active nucleus and sources powered by active star formation. The radio-detected star-forming galaxies are the dominant population only at radio luminosities between about 1021 and 1022 W Hz−1, an interesting result given star formation dominates field radio luminosity functions for all luminosities lower than about 1023 W Hz−1. The majority of the radio-detected star-forming galaxies have characteristics of starbursts, including high specific star formation rates and optical spectra with strong emission lines. In conjunction with prior studies on post-starburst galaxies within the Coma cluster, this is consistent with a picture in which late-type galaxies entering Coma undergo a starburst prior to a rapid cessation of star formation. Optically bright elliptical galaxies (Mr ⩽ −20.5) make the largest contribution to the radio luminosity function at both the high (≳3×1022 W Hz−1) and low (≲1021 W Hz−1) ends. Through a stacking analysis of these optically bright ellipticals we find that they continue to harbor radio sources down to luminosities as faint as 3 × 1019 W Hz−1. However, contrary to published results for the Virgo cluster we find no evidence for the existence of a population of optically faint (Mr ≈ −14) dwarf ellipticals hosting strong radio AGNs.
Time-Dependent Impurity in Ultracold Fermions: Orthogonality Catastrophe and Beyond

Recent experimental realization of strongly imbalanced mixtures of ultracold atoms opens new possibilities for studying impurity dynamics in a controlled setting. We discuss how the techniques of atomic physics can be used to explore new regimes and manifestations of Anderson's orthogonality catastrophe (OC), which could not be accessed in solid state systems. We consider a system of impurity atoms localized by a strong optical lattice potential and immersed in a sea of itinerant Fermi atoms. Ramsey interference experiments with impurity atoms probe OC in the time domain, while radio-frequency (RF) spectroscopy probes OC in the frequency domain. The OC in such systems is universal for all times and is determined by the impurity scattering length and Fermi wave vector of itinerant fermions. We calculate the universal Ramsey response and RF absorption spectra. In addition to the standard power-law contribution, which corresponds to the excitation of multiple particle-hole pairs near the Fermi surface, we identify a novel contribution to OC that comes from exciting one extra particle from the bottom of the itinerant band. This gives rise to a non-analytic feature in the RF absorption spectra, which evolves into a true power-law singularity with universal exponent 1/4 at the unitarity. Furthermore, we discuss the manifestations of OC in spin-echo experiments, as well as in the energy counting statistic of the Fermi gas following a sudden quench of the impurity state. Finally, systems in which the itinerant fermions have two or more hyperfine states provide an even richer playground for studying non-equilibrium impurity physics, allowing one to explore non-equilibrium OC and to simulate quantum transport through nano-structures. This provides a useful connection between cold atomic systems and mesoscopic quantum transport.
Recent Advances in Molecular Diagnosis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infection by State-of-the-Art Genotyping Techniques

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a rod-shaped Gram-negative bacterium which is notably known as a pathogen in humans, animals, and plants. Infections caused by P. aeruginosa especially in hospitalized patients are often life-threatening and rapidly increasing worldwide throughout the years. Recently, multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa has taken a toll on humans’ health due to the inefficiency of antimicrobial agents. Therefore, the rapid and advanced diagnostic techniques to accurately detect this bacterium particularly in clinical samples are indeed necessary to ensure timely and effective treatments and to prevent outbreaks. This review aims to discuss most recent of state-of-the-art molecular diagnostic techniques enabling fast and accurate detection and identification of P. aeruginosa based on well-developed genotyping techniques, e.g., polymerase chain reaction, pulse-field gel electrophoresis, and next generation sequencing. The advantages and limitations of each of the methods are also reviewed.