Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Appropriate In Vitro Methods for Genotoxicity Testing of Silver Nanoparticles

Objectives We investigated the genotoxic effects of 40-59 nm silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) by bacterial reverse mutation assay (Ames test), in vitro comet assay and micronucleus (MN) assay. In particular, we directly compared the effect of cytochalasin B (cytoB) and rat liver homogenate (S9 mix) in the formation of MN by Ag-NPs. Methods Before testing, we confirmed that Ag-NPs were completely dispersed in the experimental medium by sonication (three times in 1 minute) and filtration (0.2 µm pore size filter), and then we measured their size in a zeta potential analyzer. After that the genotoxicity were measured and especially, S9 mix and with and without cytoB were compared one another in MN assay. Results Ames test using Salmonella typhimurium TA98, TA100, TA1535 and TA1537 strains revealed that Ag-NPs with or without S9 mix did not display a mutagenic effect. The genotoxicity of Ag-NPs was also evaluated in a mammalian cell system using Chinese hamster ovary cells. The results revealed that Ag-NPs stimulated DNA breakage and MN formation with or without S9 mix in a dose-dependent manner (from 0.01 µg/mL to 10 µg/mL). In particular, MN induction was affected by cytoB. Conclusions All of our findings, with the exception of the Ames test results, indicate that Ag-NPs show genotoxic effects in mammalian cell system. In addition, present study suggests the potential error due to use of cytoB in genotoxic test of nanoparticles.
Hollow Structured Magnetic Particles of CoFe2O4 and Their Magnetorheological Characteristics

The hollow structured magnetic CoFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub> nanoparticles were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method, and their magnetorheological (MR) characteristics were investigated in this paper. From transmission electron microscopy and density measurements, it was found that the CoFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub> nanoparticles possess a spherical shape with a narrow size distribution with a low density of 4.46 g/cm<sup>3</sup>. The MR fluid was then prepared by dispersing CoFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub> nanoparticles in mineral oil. Under applied magnetic fields, its rheological properties, such as shear stress, shear viscosity, storage modulus, and yield stress, were investigated via a rotational rheometer with a parallel-plate geometry. In addition, suspension stability of the CoFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub>-based MR fluid was also examined by a Turbiscan apparatus, demonstrating that the CoFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub> suspension has good dispersion stability due to the unique hollow architecture and the relatively low density.
The Distinctive Difficulties of Disagreeable Youth

This study examines whether disagreeable youth are distinct from aggressive youth, victimized youth, and withdrawn youth. Young adolescents (120 girls and 104 boys, M = 13.59 years old) completed personality and adjustment inventories. Aggression, withdrawal, and victimization scores were derived from peer nominations (N = 807). Cluster analyses identified six groups. Disagreeable youth, aggressive victimized youth, withdrawn victimized youth, and withdrawn youth tended to have worse concurrent peer relations than did agreeable youth and aggressive youth. Disagreeable youth had some of the highest levels of concurrent and prospective adjustment problems, with rates of self-and mother-reported internalizing problems that rivaled withdrawn victimized youth and withdrawn youth, and rates of self-and mother-reported externalizing problems that rivaled aggressive victimized youth and aggressive youth. The findings indicate that low agreeable youth represent a discrete category of adolescents with social and adjustment difficulties.
Odin II - An Open-Source Verilog HDL Synthesis Tool for CAD Research

In this work, we present Odin II, a framework for Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL) synthesis that allows researchers to investigate approaches/improvements to different phases of HDL elaboration that have not been previously possible. Odin II’s output can be fed into traditional back-end flows for both FPGAs and ASICs so that these improvements can be better quantified. Whereas the original Odin [1] provided an open source synthesis tool, Odin II’s synthesis framework offers significant improvements such as a unified environment for both front-end parsing and netlist flattening. Odin II also interfaces directly with VPR [2], a common academic FPGA CAD flow, allowing an architectural description of a target FPGA as an input to enable identification and mapping of design features to custom features. Furthermore, Odin II can also read the netlists from downstream CAD stages into its netlist data-structure to facilitate analysis. Odin II can be used for a wide range of experiments; in this paper, we show three specific instances of how Odin II can be used by ASIC and FPGA researchers for more than basic synthesis. Odin II is open source and released under the MIT License.
A comparative study of the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome and its components in type 2 diabetic patients in two Caribbean islands using the new International Diabetes Federation definition

Abstract Background and aim: Tobago and Trinidad are two Caribbean islands with distinct genetic background and lifestyles; while Tobago is serene and a tourist centre, Trinidad is characterized by a hustling and bustling lifestyle. The study was aimed at determining and comparing the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its critical components in type 2 diabetic patients using the new International Diabetes Federation (IDF) definition. Methods: Four hundred and thirteen (166 Tobago, 247 Trinidad) type 2 diabetic patients visiting 10 lifestyle disease clinics were studied. Blood pressure, anthropometric parameters (height, weight, body mass index and waist circumference) and overnight fasting blood samples were taken. Plasma glucose and serum triglycerides, total cholesterol, LDL- and HDL-cholesterol, insulin, and adiponectin were determined. Insulin resistance (IR) was determined using the HOMA method. Results: The patients in Tobago were significantly older than patients in Trinidad (p < 0.001) but the duration of diabetes (9.4 ± 0.5 vs. 11.1 ± 0.7 yr), medications, generalized (31.7 vs. 38.8%) and central (78.5 vs. 83.7%) obesity were similar (p > 0.05). In comparison with patients in Tobago, diabetic patients in Trinidad, irrespective of gender, had significantly higher prevalence of IDF critical components such as raised BP, raised triglycerides and reduced HDL-cholesterol (all, p < 0.001). Thus, while more patients in Trinidad were diagnosed with MetS based on three or four components, more patients in Tobago were diagnosed based on two components (p < 0.001). Conclusions: There were high prevalence rates of the components of the MetS in both the islands of Tobago and Trinidad. Quantitatively, the aggregation of the components is higher in patients in Trinidad, which constitute greater risk for adverse cardiovascular outcome. Controlling central obesity should be the target in preventing MetS in the two islands.
Programmer-Transparent Coordination of Recovering Concurrent Processes: Philosophy and Rules for Efficient Implementation

An approach to coordination of cooperating concurrent processes, each capable of error direction and recovery, is presented. Error detection, rollback, and retry in a process are specified by a well-structured language construct called recovery block. Recovery points of processes must be properly coordinated to prevent a disastrous avalanche of process rollbacks. The approach relies on an intelligent processor system (that runs processes) capable of establishing and discarding the recovery points of interacting processes in a well coordinated manner such that a process never makes two consecutive rollbacks without making a retry between the two, and every process rollback becomes a minimum-distance rollback. Following a discussion of the underlying philosophy of the author's approach, basic rules of reducing storage and time overhead in such a processor system are discussed. Examples are drawn from the systems in which processes communicate through monitors. >
Feature Detection Performance with Fused Synthetic and Sensor Images

The operational (airborne) Enhanced/Synthetic Vision System will employ a helmet-mounted display with a background synthetic image encompassing a fused inset sensor image. In the present study, three subjects viewed an emulation of a descending flight to a crash site displayed on an SVGA monitor. Independent variables were: 3 fusion algorithms; 3 visibility conditions; 2 sensor conditions; and 9 sensor/synthetic image misregistration conditions. The task was to detect specified terrain features, objects and image anomalies as they became visible in 16 successive fused image snapshots along the flight path. The fusion of synthetic images with corresponding sensor images supported consistent subject performance with the simpler algorithms (averaging and differencing). Performance with the more complex opponent process algorithm was less consistent and more image anomalies were generated. Reductions in synthetic scene resolution did not degrade performance, but elevation source data errors interfered with scene interpretation. These results will be discussed within the context of operational requirements.
Detecting Critical Nodes in Interdependent Power Networks for Vulnerability Assessment

Power networks and information systems become more and more interdependent to ensure better supports for the functionality as well as improve the economy. However, power networks also tend to be more vulnerable due to the cascading failures from their interdependent information systems, i.e., the failures in the information systems can cause the failures of the coupled portion in power networks. Therefore, the accurate vulnerability assessment of interdependent power networks is of great importance in the presence of unexpected disruptive events or adversarial attacks targeting on critical network nodes. In this paper, we study the Interdependent Power Network Disruptor (IPND) optimization problem to identify critical nodes in an interdependent power network whose removals maximally destroy its functions due to both malfunction of these nodes and the cascading failures of its interdependent communication network. First, we show the IPND problem is NP-hard to be approximated within the factor of (2-ε) . Despite its intractability, we propose a greedy framework with novel centrality functions based on the networks' interdependencies, to efficiently solve this problem in a timely manner. An extensive experiment not only illustrates the effectiveness of our approach on networks with different topologies and interdependencies, but also highlights some important observations which help to sharpen the robustness of interdependent networks in the future.
Using Walk-SAT and Rel-Sat for Cryptographic Key Search

Computer security depends heavily on the strength of cryptographic algorithms. Thus, cryptographic key search is often THE search problem for many governments and corporations. In the recent years, AI search techniques have achieved notable successes in solving "real world" problems. Following a recent result which showed that the properties of the U.S. Data Encryption Standard can be encoded in propositional logic, this paper advocates the use of cryptographic key search as a benchmark for propositional reasoning and search. Benchmarks based on the encoding of cryptographic algorithms optimally share the features of "real world" and random problems. In this paper, two state-of-the-art AI search algorithms, Walk-SAT by Kautz & Selman and Rel-SAT by Bayardo & Schrag, have been tested on the encoding of the Data Encryption Standard, to see whether they are up the task, and we discuss what lesson can be learned from the analysis on this benchmark to improve SAT solvers. New challenges in this field conclude the paper.
Global Production Networks, Relational Proximity, and the Sociospatial Dynamics of Market Internationalization in Bolivia's Wood Products Sector

This article advances conceptualizations of global production networks (GPNs) through an analysis of the relational processes that firms in Bolivia's growing wood products industry use to build ties to international markets. Both large- and small-scale manufacturers are increasingly internationalizing their operations in response to the global demand for tropical hardwoods and decentralization of control over the country's forest resources. These firms use four different types of production networks and networking practices to develop international market ties. Each of these networks is distinguishable by its entry barriers, value-creation possibilities, upgrading strategies, and the cognitive, social, and cultural factors that influence who participates in them. There are important differences in the strategies used and challenges faced by Bolivian suppliers striving to develop relational proximity (i.e., a mutual alignment of interests) to international buyers or clients. These differences—in the role of power, positionality, social interactions, and local factors—create important discontinuities between the production networks that require distinct policy interventions. Beyond their policy implications, the findings contribute to theories on the role and dynamics of agency, power, and embeddedness in GPNs and raise important epistemological questions for economic geographers.
Label-free, atomic force microscopy-based mapping of DNA intrinsic curvature for the nanoscale comparative analysis of bent duplexes

We propose a method for the characterization of the local intrinsic curvature of adsorbed DNA molecules. It relies on a novel statistical chain descriptor, namely the ensemble averaged product of curvatures for two nanosized segments, symmetrically placed on the contour of atomic force microscopy imaged chains. We demonstrate by theoretical arguments and experimental investigation of representative samples that the fine mapping of the average product along the molecular backbone generates a characteristic pattern of variation that effectively highlights all pairs of DNA tracts with large intrinsic curvature. The centrosymmetric character of the chain descriptor enables targetting strands with unknown orientation. This overcomes a remarkable limitation of the current experimental strategies that estimate curvature maps solely from the trajectories of end-labeled molecules or palindromes. As a consequence our approach paves the way for a reliable, unbiased, label-free comparative analysis of bent duplexes, aimed to detect local conformational changes of physical or biological relevance in large sample numbers. Notably, such an assay is virtually inaccessible to the automated intrinsic curvature computation algorithms proposed so far. We foresee several challenging applications, including the validation of DNA adsorption and bending models by experiments and the discrimination of specimens for genetic screening purposes.
Youth Alcohol Marketing Exposure and Sex Risk Behavior: A Social Cognitive Perspective from Uganda

YOUTH ALCOHOL MARKETING EXPOSURE AND SEX RISK BEHAVIOR: A SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE FROM UGANDA By VINITA SANGTANI July 29, 2016 INTRODUCTION: Twenty four percent girls and 37.8% boys age 15-19 years were current drinkers of alcohol in Uganda in 2010 (World health organization (WHO), n.d. ). Marketing of alcohol to youth in African countries, particularly Uganda, is very aggressive (DeBruijn, 2011). Consequences of this are reflected in the high consumption rates among this population. Given the high rates of HIV (4-10%), the sex risk behaviors exhibited by this population have been linked to alcohol consumption (Swahn, Ali, Palmier, Sikazwe, & Mayeya, 2011). More evidence is needed. AIM: To demonstrate the effect of alcohol marketing exposure on alcohol consumption by adolescents in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, and the consequent effect on the number of sex partners they have. METHODS: A mHealth survey was conducted among 12-18 year olds in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, in 2014. Regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized relationships. RESULTS: Exposure to alcohol advertising on TV, print media, and outdoor advertising was positively related to the frequency of alcohol consumption. The relationship was mediated by cognitions favoring the advertising. Alcohol consumption in turn predicted the number of sex partners. DISCUSSION: The double jeopardy of alcohol marketing effects on youth is demonstrated by confirming the strong positive effect on alcohol consumption, which in turn is related to sex with multiple partners. Implications for public policy and public health researchers are discussed and interventions are proposed.
Relating Data Compression and Learnability

We explore the learnability of two-valued functions from samples using the paradigm of Data Compression. A first algorithm (compression) choses a small subset of the sample which is called the kernel. A second algorithm predicts future values of the function from the kernel, i.e. the algorithm acts as an hypothesis for the function to be learned. The second algorithm must be able to reconstruct the correct function values when given a point of the original sample. We demonstrate that the existence of a suitable data compression scheme is sufficient to ensure learnability. We express the probability that the hypothesis predicts the function correctly on a random sample point as a function of the sample and kernel sizes. No assumptions are made on the probability distributions according to which the sample points are generated. This approach provides an alternative to that of [BEHW86], which uses the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension to classify learnable geometric concepts. Our bounds are derived directly from the kernel size of the algorithms rather than from the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension of the hypothesis class. The proofs are simpler and the introduced compression scheme provides a rigorous model for studying data compression in connection with machine learning.
3D Haar-like elliptical features for object classification in microscopy

Object detection and classification are key tasks in computer vision that can facilitate high-throughput image analysis of microscopy data. We present a set of local image descriptors for three-dimensional (3D) microscopy datasets inspired by the well-known Haar wavelet framework. We add orientation, illumination and scale information by assuming that the neighborhood surrounding points of interests in the image can be described with ellipsoids, and we increase discriminative power by incorporating edge and shape information into the features. The calculation of the local image descriptors is implemented in a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in order to reduce computation time to 1 millisecond per object of interest. We present results for cell division detection in 3D time-lapse fluorescence microscopy with 97.6% accuracy.
Cascading BLSTM networks for handwritten word recognition

Handwritten word recognition is a tough task, mixing image and natural language processing. Recently new recurrent neural networks with LSTM cells allowed significant improvements in this field. These networks are generally coupled with lexical and linguistic knowledge in order to correct character misrecognitions, namely using a lexicon driven decoding. Yet the high performances of LSTM networks let us think that there is a room to use them without lexical decoding. In this article we propose a lexicon-free decoding, combined with a lexicon verification method. This lexicon control method presents some interesting properties and enables us to efficiently combine LSTM networks in a cascade framework. This cascade process is not driven but simply controlled by the lexicon, allowing it to speed up the decoding while being nearly insensitive to the lexicon size. Our approach presents promising results with low error rate by conceding rejects. Those rejects can finally be processed by a standard lexical decoding, enabling us to reach state of the art performance, while being much faster than existing methods for decoding.
Review of Emotion-focused therapy: Coaching clients to work through their feelings.

LESLIE S. GREENBERG Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their Feelings Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2001, 337 pages (ISBN 1-55798-881-1, US$39.95) Reviewed by DARCY A. SANTOR Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their Feelings by Leslie S. Greenberg (2002) was written for both novice therapists who have had little experience working with emotions in treatment, as well as for experienced therapists looking to systematize their understanding of how emotional change works. Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) is well written and enjoyable to read. Greenberg draws on scholarly research to establish the foundation for emotion-focused treatment and illustrates the key principals of EFT by drawing judiciously on both professional and personal experience. This book can be read in two ways - either by focusing on the implications of EFr for the manner in which psychotherapy is delivered and believed to work, or by focusing on the numerous techniques and exercises provided throughout the book. From a theoretical perspective, Emotion-Focused Therapy provides a framework in which cognitions, interpersonal relationships, and emotions can be integrated and understood. Both Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) address emotions and emotionality in treatment, albeit in different ways and from different theoretical models. EFT provides an important framework in which CBT and IPT can be distinguished. IPT is often characterized as a loss-based model, which for Greenberg emphasizes a primary emotion. In contrast, CBT can be viewed as emphasizing secondary emotions, such as the worry associated with the pursuit of unrealistic, high expectations of success. Given that both types of emotional states can be debilitating, they each need to be considered in treatment. EFT offers a framework in which these emotions can be distinguished and a set of techniques with which primary and secondary emotions can be addressed explicitly. In this regard, EFT also provides a model of psychotherapeutic change that can enhance our understanding of how IPT and CBT work. From a practical perspective, the book offers clinicians and individuals dozens of exercises and interventions that address both the basic and advanced key elements of EFT (e.g., Getting to know your emotions, Experiencing adaptive emotions, Anger that obscures another feeling). The book is divided into four parts. Part I examines the nature and function of emotions. Chapters in this section address questions concerning the foundation for claiming that there are optimal ways for dealing with human emotionality, differentiate three types of emotion - primary, secondary, and instrumental - articulate the rationale for emotion coaching, and outline the practical steps in emotionally coaching clients through difficult emotions. Throughout this and other chapters, Greenberg draws on data from the most recent psychotherapy change research to justify key principles of EFT. …