Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transformation and evaluation of Broad-Spectrum insect and weedicide resistant genes in Gossypium arboreum (Desi Cotton)

ABSTRACT Gossypium arboreum (Desi Cotton) holds a special place in cotton industry because of its inherent ability to withstand drought, salinity, and remarkable resistance to sucking pests and cotton leaf curl virus. However, it suffers yield losses due to weeds and bollworm infestation. Genetic modification of G. arboreum variety FBD-1 was attempted in the current study to combat insect and weedicide resistance by incorporating cry1Ac, cry2A and cp4-EPSPS genes under control of 35S promoter in two different cassettes using kanamycin and GUS as markers through Agrobacterium-mediated shoot apex cut method of cotton transformation. The efficiency of transformation was found to be 1.57%. Amplification of 1700 bp for cry1Ac, 167 bp for cry2A and 111 bp for cp4-EPSPS confirmed the presence of transgenes in cotton plants. The maximum mRNA expression of cry1Ac and cp4-EPSPS was observed in transgenic cotton line L3 while minimum in transgenic cotton line L1. The maximum protein concentrations of Cry1Ac, Cry2A and Cp4-EPSPS of 3.534 µg g−1, 2.534 µg g−1 and 3.58 µg-g−1 respectively were observed for transgenic cotton line L3 as compared to control cotton line. On leaf-feed-based insect bioassay, almost 99% mortality was observed for Helicoverpa armigera on the transgenic cotton plant (L3). It completely survived the 1900 ml hectare−1 glyphosate spray assay as compared to non-transgenic cotton plants. The necrotic spots appeared on the third day, leading to the complete death of control plants on the fifth day of assay. The successful multiple gene-stacking in G. arboreum FBD-1 variety could be further used for qualitative improvement of cotton fiber through plant breeding techniques.
Factors Associated With Relapse in Individuals With Opioid Use Disorder Receiving Suboxone in Rural Areas

Abstract Background Opioid use disorder (OUD), including opioid misuse, abuse, and overdose, has evolved into a national crisis with a lasting effect on society, individuals, and health care systems. Although an office-based treatment of Suboxone combined with counseling is a viable option for individuals with OUD and has been shown to reduce utilization of medical services, the relapse rate among those individuals remains high. There is a need to investigate factors associated with relapse to tailor treatment programs in an effort to prevent relapse. This study aimed to examine factors associated with relapse in individuals with OUD receiving Suboxone. Methods A convenience sample was recruited from an outpatient Suboxone facility located in a rural county of New York. Measures included urine drug testing obtained through the medical record, patterns of time to relapse as measured by the Time to Relapse Questionnaire, pain intensity, and a demographic questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, independent t test, and chi-square statistics were utilized for data analysis. Results Forty-six patients participated in the study. Length of time in a Suboxone program, scores in sudden and long delay relapse, and the type of treatment program were statistically associated with relapse. Conclusion This study provided insight regarding factors contributing to relapse and different time-to-relapse styles that could be incorporated into clinical practice to help prevent relapse.
A 108 dB DR Δ∑-∑M Front-End With 720 mVpp Input Range and >±300 mV Offset Removal for Multi-Parameter Biopotential Recording

The recording of biopotential signals using techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocardiography (ECG) poses important challenges to the design of the front-end readout circuits in terms of noise, electrode DC offset cancellation and motion artifact tolerance. In this paper, we present a 2nd-order hybrid-CTDT Δ∑-∑ modulator front-end architecture that tackles these challenges by taking advantage of the over-sampling and noise-shaping characteristics of a traditional Δ∑ modulator, while employing an extra ∑-stage in the feedback loop to remove electrode DC offsets and accommodate motion artifacts. To meet the stringent noise requirements of this application, a capacitively-coupled chopper-stabilized amplifier located in the forward path of the modulator loop serves simultaneously as an input stage and an active adder. A prototype of this direct-to-digital front-end chip is fabricated in a standard 0.18-μm CMOS process and achieves a peak SNR of 105.6 dB and a dynamic range of 108.3 dB, for a maximum input range of 720 mVpp. The measured input-referred noise is 0.98 μVrms over a bandwidth of 0.5–100 Hz, and the measured CMRR is >100 dB. ECG and EEG measurements in human subjects demonstrate the capability of this architecture to acquire biopotential signals in the presence of large motion artifacts.
CHEMICAL AND PLANT EXTRACTABILITY OF METALS AND PLANT GROWTH ON SOILS AMENDED WITH SLUDGE

The addition of sludge to a Fox sandy loam (sl), Granby sl and Rideau clay (c) soil increased soil pH, total C, NaHCO3-extractable P, cation exchange capacity and exchangeable Ca. Sludge application increased DTPA-extractable Cd 2 to 5 times, Pb 2 to 3 times, Cu 3 to 7 times and Zn 7 to 31 times. Metal extractability in Granby and Fox sl soils was not greatly changed after 11 mo incubation but extractable Zn, Cu, Pb and Cd were reduced in the clay soil following incubation. Cropping to lettuce reduced the quantity of metal extracted from Fox sl soil and to a lesser extent from Rideau c soil but not from Granby sl soil. Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) yields were significantly reduced for the first crop grown on sludge + fertilizer-treated Rideau c and Granby sl soils and for all three harvests from similarly treated Fox sl soil compared to harvests from soils treated with fertilizer only. Yield reduction for the first crop was attributed to a salt effect, as subsequent yields on Rideau c and Granby sl soils w.
From lionizing to protecting health care workers during and after COVID‐19—systems solutions for human tragedies

Abstract During the COVID‐19 pandemic, health care workers (HCWs) have been lauded as heroes, yet both before and during the pandemic, they lacked the protections needed to keep them safe. We summarize data on HCW infections and deaths during previous epidemics, the costs of the failure to protect them, and provide recommendations for strengthening HCW protections by investments in and implementation of infection prevention and control and water, sanitation, and hygiene programs, training and career development, and national and global monitoring of HCW infections. We must move from placing individuals at undue risk to accepting collective responsibility and accountability for the well‐being of our HCWs and take concrete actions to protect HCWs who risk their lives to protect patients and populations.
Enhanced recovery after hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery: A single-center case control study

Backgrounds/Aims The aim of this study was to find the safety and effectiveness of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) in patients who undergo hepatopancreaticobiliary (HPB) surgeries and its association with the postoperative complications and survival rate of the patients. Methods This study was conducted on patients who underwent HPB surgeries in Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Iran from 2018 to 2020. Patients who underwent surgery after from 2019 to February 2020 considered as the ERAS group (n=47) in which ERAS was implemented postoperatively including removing nasogastric tube and initiating surgical diet at 6 hours post operation, and removing intraabdominal drains and Foley catheter at postoperative day one. Other patients (n=43) were considered as the control group in which conventional postoperative care was implemented. Results Ninety patients with the mean age of 47.3±13.3 yrs/old (range= 17-76) including 39 females were enrolled into the study. There were no significant differences between the demographic and preoperative comorbidities between the two groups. Pain severity of the patients in the ERAS group was significantly lower than the control group (visual analogue scales of 3.4±0.77 vs. 4.47±0.88, p<0.001). However, there were no significant differences between the other postoperative data between the two groups. One patient in each group died during hospitalization period due to myocardial infarction. Conclusions ERAS may be safe and effective in patients who undergo HPB surgery and may be associated with less severe postoperative pain.
The 2020 Japan Society of Gynecologic Oncology guidelines for the treatment of ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, and primary peritoneal cancer

The fifth edition of the Japan Society of Gynecologic Oncology guidelines for the treatment of ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, and primary peritoneal cancer was published in 2020. The guidelines contain 6 chapters—namely, (1) overview of the guidelines; (2) epithelial ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, and primary peritoneal cancer; (3) recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, and primary peritoneal cancer; (4) borderline epithelial tumors of the ovary; (5) malignant germ cell tumors of the ovary; and (6) malignant sex cord-stromal tumors. Furthermore, the guidelines comprise 5 algorithms—namely, (1) initial treatment for ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, and primary peritoneal cancer; (2) treatment for recurrent ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, and primary peritoneal cancer; (3) initial treatment for borderline epithelial ovarian tumor; (4) treatment for malignant germ cell tumor; and (5) treatment for sex cord-stromal tumor. Major changes in the new edition include the following: (1) revision of the title to “guidelines for the treatment of ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, and primary peritoneal cancer”; (2) involvement of patients and general (male/female) participants in addition to physicians, pharmacists, and nurses; (3) clinical questions (CQs) in the PICO format; (4) change in the expression of grades of recommendation and level of evidence in accordance with the GRADE system; (5) introduction of the idea of a body of evidence; (6) categorization of references according to research design; (7) performance of systematic reviews and meta-analysis for three CQs; and (8) voting for each CQ/recommendation and description of the consensus.
Analysis of factors among 30-day and 1-year mortality rates in patients with borderline stable-unstable intertrochanteric hip fracture.

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the possible effects of surgical procedures on mortality and to identify the possible risk factors for mortality in the management of geriatric hip fractures. METHODS A total of 191 patients (105 women and 86 men; mean age 82.26±9.681 [60-108] years) with AO/OTA 31A2.2 intertrochanteric fractures and treated with sliding hip screw, proximal femoral nail, or hemiarthroplasty were included in this retrospective cohort study. The treatment type was decided by the responsible surgeon according to the patients' pre-injury activity level, bone quality, and features of the fracture. Age, sex, type of fracture, type of surgery performed, American society of anesthesiology (ASA) grade, type of anesthesia, time to surgery, type of physical therapy, length of hospital stay, and number of comorbidities were documented. We evaluated the 30-day and 1-year mortality of patients treated with sliding hip screw (SHS), proximal femoral nail antirotation (PFN-A), or hemiarthroplasty and identified the possible risk factors for mortality. RESULTS A total of 49 patients underwent SHS, 58 underwent PFN-A, and 84 underwent hemiarthroplasty. Of these, 2 patients with SHS, 2 with PFN-A, and 11 with hemiarthroplasty died within 30 days after surgery, whereas 7 patients with SHS, 15 with PFN-A, and 23 with hemiarthroplasty died 1 year after surgery. The 30-day and 1-year overall mortality rates were 7.9% and 23.6%, respectively. Both the 30-day and 1-year mortality risks were higher in patients undergoing hemiarthroplasty than in patients undergoing SHS (p=0.068 versus 0.058). The 30-day mortality was higher in patients receiving general anesthesia than in those receiving combined spinal and epidural anesthesia (p=0.009). The 1-year mortality risk was higher in patients with ASA grade 4 than in those with grade 1 and 2 (p=0.045). Advanced age (p=0.022) and male sex (p=0.007) were also found to be the risk factors for 1-year mortality. CONCLUSION We demonstrated that higher ASA grade, male sex, general anesthesia, and hemiarthroplasty procedures are associated with higher mortality rates in elderly patients with hip fractures. Thus, we highly recommend orthopedic surgeons to consider all these factors in the management of intertrochanteric hip fractures in the geriatric population. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Level IV, Prognostic Study.
Venetoclax sensitivity in multiple myeloma is associated with B-cell gene expression

Venetoclax is highly active in some patients with myeloma, but beyond the t(11;14) subset this has not been well defined. Gupta et al demonstrate that venetoclax-sensitive myeloma retains a B-cell-like pattern of gene expression and chromatin accessibility. They provide preliminary evidence that this expression pattern is a better biomarker for predicting venetoclax response than t(11;14) alone.
Effects of different intensities of exercise on folliculogenesis in mice: Which is better?

Objective Exercise is a risk factor for infertility in women. However, research on the effects of different intensities of exercise on folliculogenesis has not yielded clear results. This study was conducted to analyze the effects of differences in the intensity of exercise on folliculogenesis in mice. Methods Nineteen female BALB/c mice (age, 3–4 months; weight, 13–25 g) were randomly divided into four groups: control, mild exercise, moderate exercise, and high-intensity exercise. The mice in the exercise groups engaged in swimming, with additional loads of 3%, 6%, or 9% of body weight, respectively. There were five swimming sessions per week for 4 weeks, with a gradually increasing duration every week. At the end of the treatment, ovarian extraction was carried out and hematoxylin and eosin staining was performed to identify folliculogenesis. Results There were significant differences in the number of total follicles between the control and moderate-exercise groups (p=0.036) and between the mild- and moderate-exercise groups (p=0.005). The mean number of primary follicles was higher in the moderate-exercise group than in the mild-exercise group (p=0.006). The mean number of secondary, tertiary, and Graafian follicles did not differ significantly among groups (p≥0.05). However, the number of total follicles and follicles in each phase tended to increase after exercise, especially moderate-intensity exercise. Conclusion Exercise of different intensities affected the total number of follicles and primary follicles. The number of follicles of each phase tended to increase after exercise. Moderate-intensity exercise had better effects than other intensities of exercise.
Antibacterial Surface Coatings from Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Embedded in Poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) Hydrogel Surface Layers

Despite multiple research approaches to prevent bacterial colonization on surfaces, device‐associated infections are currently responsible for about 50% of nosocomial infections in Europe and significantly increase health care costs, which demands development of advanced antibacterial surface coatings. Here, novel antimicrobial composite materials incorporating zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NP) into biocompatible poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) hydrogel layers are prepared by mixing the PNIPAAm prepolymer with ZnO NP, followed by spin‐coating and photocrosslinking. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) characterization of the composite film morphology reveals a homogeneous distribution of the ZnO NP throughout the film for every applied NP/polymer ratio. The optical properties of the embedded NP are not affected by the matrix as confirmed by UV‐vis spectroscopy. The nanocomposite films exhibit bactericidal behavior towards Escherichia coli (E. coli) for a ZnO concentration as low as ≈0.74 μg cm−2 (1.33 mmol cm−3), which is determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. In contrast, the coatings are found to be non‐cytotoxic towards a mammalian cell line (NIH/3T3) at bactericidal loadings of ZnO over an extended period of seven days. The differential toxicity of the ZnO/hydrogel nanocomposite thin films between bacterial and cellular species qualifies them as promising candidates for novel biomedical device coatings.
Statistics of collision parameters computed from 2D simulations

There are two popular ways to speed up simulations of planet formation via increasing the collision probability: (i) confine motion to 2D, (ii) artificially enhance the physical radii of the bodies by an expansion factor. In this paper, I have performed 100 simulations each containing 104 interacting bodies and computed the collision parameters from the results of the runs. Each run was executed for a lower and a higher accuracy parameter. The main goal is to determine the probability distribution functions of the collision parameters and their dependence on the expansion factor. A simple method is devised to improve the determination of the collision parameters from the simulation data. It was shown that the distribution of the impact parameter is uniform and independent of the expansion factor. For real collisions, the impact velocity is greater than 1 mutual escape velocity, a finding that can be explained using the two-body problem. The results cast some doubts on simulations of the terrestrial planets’ final accretion that have assumed merge. Collision outcome maps were created adopting the fragmentation model of recent studies to estimate the number of different types of collisions. A detailed comparison with earlier works indicates that there are similarities as well as significant differences between the different works. The results indicate that as the planetary disc matures and the masses of the bodies differ progressively than the majority of collisions lead to mass growth either via partial accretion or via graze-and-merge collision.
Centralized and Distributed Intrusion Detection for Resource-Constrained Wireless SDN Networks

Software-defined networking (SDN) was devised to simplify network management and automate infrastructure sharing in wired networks. These benefits motivated the application of SDN in resource-constrained wireless networks to leverage solutions for complex applications. However, some of the core SDN traits expose the networks to Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. There are proposals in the literature to detect DoS in wireless SDN networks; however, not without shortcomings: there is little focus on resource constraints, high detection rates have been reported mostly for small networks and the detection is disengaged from the identification of the type of attack or the attacker. Our work targets these shortcomings by introducing a lightweight, online change point detector to monitor performance metrics that are impacted when the network is under attack. A key novelty is that the proposed detector is able to operate in either centralized or distributed mode. The centralized detector has very high detection rates and can further distinguish the type of attack from a list of known attacks. In turn, the distributed detector can be useful to identify the nodes launching the attack. Our proposal is tested over IEEE 802.15. 4 networks. The results show detection rates exceeding 96% in networks of 36 and 100 nodes and identification of the type of attack with a probability exceeding 89% when using the centralized approach.
A Brief Survey on Deep Learning Based Data Hiding, Steganography and Watermarking

Data hiding is the art of concealing messages with limited perceptual changes. Recently, deep learning has enriched it from various perspectives with significant progress. In this work, we conduct a brief yet comprehensive review of existing literature for deep learning based data hiding (deep hiding) by first classifying it according to three essential properties (i.e., capacity, security and robustness), and outline three commonly used architectures. Based on this, we summarize specific strategies for different applications of data hiding, including basic hiding, steganography, watermarking and light field messaging. Finally, further insight into deep hiding is provided by incorporating the perspective of adversarial attack.
Fixing Data Augmentation to Improve Adversarial Robustness

Adversarial training suffers from robust overfitting, a phenomenon where the robust test accuracy starts to decrease during training. In this paper, we focus on both heuristics-driven and data-driven augmentations as a means to reduce robust overfitting. First, we demonstrate that, contrary to previous findings, when combined with model weight averaging, data augmentation can significantly boost robust accuracy. Second, we explore how state-of-the-art generative models can be leveraged to artificially increase the size of the training set and further improve adversarial robustness. Finally, we evaluate our approach on CIFAR-10 against $\ell_\infty$ and $\ell_2$ norm-bounded perturbations of size $\epsilon = 8/255$ and $\epsilon = 128/255$, respectively. We show large absolute improvements of +7.06% and +5.88% in robust accuracy compared to previous state-of-the-art methods. In particular, against $\ell_\infty$ norm-bounded perturbations of size $\epsilon = 8/255$, our model reaches 64.20% robust accuracy without using any external data, beating most prior works that use external data.
Mind the box: l1-APGD for sparse adversarial attacks on image classifiers

We show that when taking into account also the image domain $[0,1]^d$, established $l_1$-projected gradient descent (PGD) attacks are suboptimal as they do not consider that the effective threat model is the intersection of the $l_1$-ball and $[0,1]^d$. We study the expected sparsity of the steepest descent step for this effective threat model and show that the exact projection onto this set is computationally feasible and yields better performance. Moreover, we propose an adaptive form of PGD which is highly effective even with a small budget of iterations. Our resulting $l_1$-APGD is a strong white-box attack showing that prior works overestimated their $l_1$-robustness. Using $l_1$-APGD for adversarial training we get a robust classifier with SOTA $l_1$-robustness. Finally, we combine $l_1$-APGD and an adaptation of the Square Attack to $l_1$ into $l_1$-AutoAttack, an ensemble of attacks which reliably assesses adversarial robustness for the threat model of $l_1$-ball intersected with $[0,1]^d$.
Evaluating the Robustness of Geometry-Aware Instance-Reweighted Adversarial Training

In this technical report, we evaluate the adversarial robustness of a very recent method called "Geometry-aware Instance-reweighted Adversarial Training"[7]. GAIRAT reports state-of-the-art results on defenses to adversarial attacks on the CIFAR-10 dataset. In fact, we find that a network trained with this method, while showing an improvement over regular adversarial training (AT), is biasing the model towards certain samples by re-scaling the loss. Indeed, this leads the model to be susceptible to attacks that scale the logits. The original model shows an accuracy of 59% under AutoAttack - when trained with additional data with pseudo-labels. We provide an analysis that shows the opposite. In particular, we craft a PGD attack multiplying the logits by a positive scalar that decreases the GAIRAT accuracy from from 55% to 44%, when trained solely on CIFAR-10. In this report, we rigorously evaluate the model and provide insights into the reasons behind the vulnerability of GAIRAT to this adversarial attack. The code to reproduce our evaluation is made available at this https URL