Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HYDROTALCITE-LIKE COMPOUNDS : A WAY TO RECOVER A HAZARDOUS WASTE IN THE ALUMINIUM TERTIARY INDUSTRY

Magnesium-aluminium hydrotalcite-like compounds at ratios of 2:1, 3:1 and 4:1 were prepared using a non-conventional aluminium source, the hazardous wastes from the aluminium tertiary industry. The method consisted in a conventional coprecipitation at constant pH 10 with magnesium chloride hexahydrate and stable solutions of Al from dispersions of the fine powder from the sleeve filter suction system in the aluminium slag milling process. Resulting materials were strongly dependent on the presence of iron in the layers, as well as the carbonate-chloride content in the interlayer which affected the final properties. XRD and SAED indicated low crystallinity for these materials. Furthermore, as can be seen by SEM, the formation of disordered tiny nuclei was significant causing small spherical agglomerates. The infrared spectra showed a change of symmetry in the interlayer for the different ratios and the textural data suggested the “ink-bottle shaped” mesopores and type IIb isotherms, similar to the
Improving Computer Security Dialogs: An Exploration of Attention and Habituation

Computer dialogs communicate important security messages, but their excessive use has produced habituation: a strong tendency by computer users to ignore security dialogs. Unlike physical warnings, whose design and use is regulated by law and based on years of research, computer security dialogs are often designed in an arbitrary manner. We need scientific solutions to produce dialogs that users will heed and understand. Currently, we lack an understanding of the factors that drive users’ attention to security dialogs, and how to counteract habituation. Studying computer security behavior is difficult because a) users are more likely to expose themselves to risk in a lab experiment than in daily life, b) the size of observed effects is usually very small, which makes it necessary to collect many observations, and c) it is complex to balance research interests and the ethical duty not to harm. My thesis makes two contributions: a novel methodology to study behavioral responses to security dialogs in a realistic, ethical way with high levels of ecological validity, and a novel technique to increase and retain attention to security dialogs, even in the presence of habituation.
Statistical Tests for Total Variation Regularization Parameter Selection

Total Variation (TV) is an effective method of removing noise in digital image processing while preserving edges [23]. The choice of scaling or regularization parameter in the TV process deﬁnes the amount of denoising, with value of zero giving a result equivalent to the input signal. Here we explore three algorithms for specifying this parameter based on the statistics of the signal in the total variation process. The Discrepancy Principle, a new algorithm based on the χ 2 method for Tikhonov regularization [17]–[21], and an ”empirically Bayesian” approach suggested in [9]. In all three algorithms TV regularization is viewed as an M-estimator [3] and it is assumed to converge to a well deﬁned limit even if the probability model is not correctly speciﬁed. These regularization parameter selection algorithms are implemented in such a way that they can supplement any TV optimization algorithm. The algorithms are useful for computationally large problems because a single regularization parameter is found that satisﬁes an appropriate statistical test, and the regularization parameter does not need to be manually adjusted, or iterated to zero. This is especially useful for nonlinear problems where an underlying linear problem is solved iteratively, taking the guesswork out of choosing the regularization parameter in each iterate.
A longitudinal study of antisocial behaviors in early adolescence as predictors of late adolescent substance use: gender and ethnic group differences.

Data from the National Longitudinal Youth Survey (NLSY) were analyzed to study interrelationships between antisocial behaviors in early adolescence (ages 14-15) and late adolescent alcohol and drug use 4 years later (when adolescents were 18-19). Correlations between classes of antisocial behaviors in early adolescence and substance use in late adolescence were of higher magnitude and more uniform for men than for women; for women, property offenses (e.g., vandalism) in early adolescence were more highly associated with alcohol use, alcohol-related problems, and illicit drug use in late adolescence than with either status offenses or transgressions against persons. Multiple regression analyses indicated that early-adolescent substance involvement was a significant predictor of late-adolescent alcohol and drug use. Additional significant predictors included early adolescent general delinquency, male gender, and non-Black ethnicity.
Then there were five: a reexamination of the ant genus Paratrechina (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

Abstract The ant genus Paratrechina is reexamined based on the discovery of two new species from Madagascar (P. ankarana sp. n. and P. antsingy sp. n.). Paratrechina kohli, a species known from central Africa, is transferred to Paratrechina from Prenolepis based on a new morphological interpretation of the genus and an updated morphological diagnosis of the genus is provided. This means that other than the widespread P. longicornis, whose origins remain uncertain, all Paratrechina are restricted either to the Afrotropical or Malagasy regions. It would also appear that of the five Paratrechina species now known, three are from dry forest habitats. With this reexamination of the genus, the possible origins of P. longicornis are discussed. A key to the genera of the Prenolepis genus-group is provided, as is a key to the workers of Paratrechina. In addition, we also designate a lectotype for Paratrechina kohli.
Parameter clustering for temporally varying weight regression for automatic speech recognition

Recently, an implicit trajectory model using temporally varying weight regression (TVWR) was proposed and achieved promising gains using ML training criteria. In the original TVWR, each component weight is modelled as a constrained linear regression function with respect to the monophone posterior feature. Due to the high dimensionality of the posterior feature, many free parameters were introduced into the TVWR system. Compared to the standard HMM system, such increment of system complexity could potentially cause two issues: over-training and slow decoding. In order to avoid these two issues, parameter clustering for TVWR is proposed to estimate cluster speciﬁc instead of original component speciﬁc regression parameters. In this paper, both knowledge-driven and data-driven approaches are introduced to deﬁne the cluster. Parameter re-estimation of clustered regression parameters is also derived.Experiments are conducted on the clean data of Aurora 4 corpus and systems are evaluated on Nov’92 5k closed vocabulary recognition task. Results show that comparable performance can be obtained and decoding time improves by more than 20% after signiﬁcant reduction of system complexity.
A New Way of Thinking About Complications of Prematurity

The morbidity and mortality of preterm infants are impacted by their ability to maintain physiologic homeostasis using metabolic, endocrine, and immunologic mechanisms independent of the mother’s placenta. Exploring McEwen’s allostatic load model in preterm infants provides a new way to understand the altered physiologic processes associated with frequently occurring complications of prematurity such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia, intraventricular hemorrhage, necrotizing enterocolitis, and retinopathy of prematurity. The purpose of this article is to present a new model to enhance understanding of the altered physiologic processes associated with complications of prematurity. The model of allostatic load and complications of prematurity was derived to explore the relationship between general stress of prematurity and complications of prematurity. The proposed model uses the concepts of general stress of prematurity, allostasis, physiologic response patterns (adaptive–maladaptive), allostatic load, and complications of prematurity. These concepts are defined and theoretical relationships in the proposed model are interpreted using the four maladaptive response patterns of repeated hits, lack of adaptation, prolonged response, and inadequate response. Empirical evidence for cortisol, inflammation, and oxidative stress responses are used to support the theoretical relationships. The proposed model provides a new way of thinking about physiologic dysregulation in preterm infants. The ability to describe and understand complex physiologic mechanisms involved in complications of prematurity is essential for research. Advancing the knowledge of complications of prematurity will advance clinical practice and research and lead to testing of interventions to reduce negative outcomes in preterm infants.
The methylated-DNA binding protein MBD2 enhances NGFI-A (egr-1)-mediated transcriptional activation of the glucocorticoid receptor

Variations in maternal care in the rat influence the epigenetic state and transcriptional activity of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene in the hippocampus. The mechanisms underlying this maternal effect remained to be defined, including the nature of the relevant maternally regulated intracellular signalling pathways. We show here that increased maternal licking/grooming (LG), which stably enhances hippocampal GR expression, paradoxically increases hippocampal expression of the methyl-CpG binding domain protein-2 (MBD2) and MBD2 binding to the exon 17 GR promoter. Knockdown experiments of MBD2 in hippocampal primary cell culture show that MBD2 is required for activation of exon 17 GR promoter. Ectopic co-expression of nerve growth factor-inducible protein A (NGFI-A) with MBD2 in HEK 293 cells with site-directed mutagenesis of the NGFI-A response element within the methylated exon 17 GR promoter supports the hypothesis that MBD2 collaborates with NGFI-A in binding and activation of this promoter. These data suggest a possible mechanism linking signalling pathways, which are activated by behavioural stimuli and activation of target genes.
Up-regulation of matrix metalloproteinase expression and activation following cyclical compressive loading of articular cartilage in vitro.

Osteoarthritis (OA) results in articular cartilage degeneration and subchondral bone remodeling. Excessive or abnormal loading of the joint may contribute to matrix destruction by creating an imbalance between proteinases and their inhibitors. This study investigates whether cyclical loading regulates expression and/or activation of metalloproteinases 2 and 9 (MMPs) in articular cartilage explants. Gelatin zymography, reverse zymography, and MMP activity assays of mechanically loaded bovine cartilage explants (0.5 MPa, 1 Hz, 3 h) showed increased expression and activation of MMPs 2 and 9, whereas expression of the tissue inhibitors of MMPs was unaffected. This shows, for the first time that mechanical loading can influence tissue homeostasis generating an imbalance of proteinases and their inhibitors inducing turnover and/or catabolic events in cartilage.
A Web Synchronization Method for Browser-Based Communications

In this paper, we propose a web synchronization method (WSM) to share operation data on a browser and synchronize output time of data among browsers in browser-based communications such as video conferencing and remote control services. WSM continually provides users with an environment for smooth browser-based communications even if users are in a heterogeneous environment where network delay and rendering time among browsers fluctuate. This fluctuation causes the difference of output time among browsers and a lack of synchronization (out-ofsynchronization). This is perceived as being somewhat strange, or even annoying. Several methods have been studied to prevent out-of-synchronization for streaming content such as video and voice data. WSM synchronizes the output time of streaming content and/or non-streaming content after sharing browser operations (e.g., page movement) among conversational partners. WSM also maintains synchronization of the output time even if a device is connected to different access networks during a conversation. Synchronized output is realized by controlling the time to notify each browser of browser operations, and by controlling the time to send and output web content according to the network delay and rendering performance. For considering feasibility, WSM works on a web browser and does not need additional software. We implemented a prototype system and measured the difference in the output time among browsers. The results show that WSM achieves web synchronization within 300 ms while the target time was 320 ms.
Text detection in natural scene images by hierarchical localization and growing of textual components

Text embedded in natural scene images provide rich semantic information about the scene, which is of great value for content-based image applications. Due to the variety of text appearance and the complexity of scene context, however, text detection in natural images remains a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a robust text detection method that hierarchically and progressively localizes textual components at pixel, intra-character and inter-character levels. For each level, a seed growing mechanism is adopted, which starts by detecting well-conditioned seed textual components and then grows from the seeds to localize related degraded components, exploiting the cues captured by the seeds. We further propose a random walk with restart algorithm to robustly aggregate character candidates into text lines. The experiment on public scene text datasets demonstrates the state-of-the-art performance of the proposed method.
A comparative study of glottal open quotient estimation techniques

The robust and efficient extraction of features related to the glottal excitation source has become increasingly important for speech technology. The glottal open quotient (OQ) is one relevant measurement which is known to significantly vary with changes in voice quality on a breathy to tense continuum. The extraction of OQ, however, is hampered in the time-domain by the difficulty in consistently locating the point of glottal opening as well the computational load of its measurement. Determining OQ correlates in the frequency domain is an attractive alternative, however the lower frequencies of glottal source spectrum are also affected by other aspects of the glottal pulse shape thereby precluding closed-form solutions and straightforward mappings. The present study provides a comparison of three OQ estimation methods and shows a new method based on spectral features and artificial neural networks to outperform existing methods in terms of discrimination of voice quality, lower error values on a large volume of speech data and dramatically reduced computation time. Index Terms: Open Quotient, Glottal source, Voice quality, Artificial Neural Networks
Is the shell-focusing singularity of Szekeres space-time visible?

The visibility of the shell-focusing singularity in Szekeres space-time\char22{}which represents quasispherical dust collapse\char22{}has been studied on numerous occasions in the context of the cosmic censorship conjecture. The various results derived have assumed that there exist radial null geodesics in the space-time. We show that such geodesics do not exist in general, and so previous results on the visibility of the singularity are not generally valid. More precisely, we show that the existence of a radial geodesic in Szekeres space-time implies that the space-time is axially symmetric, with the geodesic along the polar direction (i.e. along the axis of symmetry). If there is a second nonparallel radial geodesic, then the space-time is spherically symmetric, and so is a Lema\^{\i}tre-Tolman-Bondi space-time. For the case of the polar geodesic in an axially symmetric Szekeres space-time, we give conditions on the free functions (i.e. initial data) of the space-time which lead to visibility of the singularity along this direction. Likewise, we give a sufficient condition for censorship of the singularity. We point out the complications involved in addressing the question of visibility of the singularity both for nonradial null geodesics in the axially symmetric case and in the general (nonaxially symmetric) case, and suggest a possible approach.
Theory and methods for accuracy assessment of thematic maps using fuzzy sets

The use of fuzzy sets in map accuracy assessment expands the amount of information that can be provided regarding the nature, frequency, magnitude, and source of errors in a thematic map. The need for using fuzzy sets arises from the observation that all map locations do not fit unambiguously in a single map category. Fuzzy sets allow for varying levels of set membership for multiple map categories. A linguistic measurement scale allows the kinds of comments commonly made during map evaluations to be used to quantify map accuracy. Four tables result from the use of fuzzy functions, and when taken together they provide more information than traditional confusion matrices. The use of a hypothetical dataset helps illustrate the benefits of the new methods. It is hoped that the enhanced ability to evaluate maps resulting from the use of fuzzy sets will improve our understanding of uncertainty in maps and facilitate improved error modeling. 40 refs.
Sparse Portfolios for High-Dimensional Financial Index Tracking

Index tracking is a popular passive portfolio management strategy that aims at constructing a portfolio that replicates or tracks the performance of a financial index. The tracking error can be minimized by purchasing all the assets of the index in appropriate amounts. However, to avoid small and illiquid positions and large transaction costs, it is desired that the tracking portfolio consists of a small number of assets, i.e., a sparse portfolio. The optimal asset selection and capital allocation can be formulated as a combinatorial problem. A commonly used approach is to use mixed-integer programming (MIP) to solve small sized problems. Nevertheless, MIP solvers can fail for high-dimensional problems while the running time can be prohibiting for practical use. In this paper, we propose efficient and fast index tracking algorithms that automatically perform asset selection and capital allocation under a set of general convex constraints. A special consideration is given to the case of the nonconvex holding constraints and to the downside risk tracking measure. Furthermore, we derive specialized algorithms with closed-form updates for particular sets of constraints. Numerical simulations show that the proposed algorithms match or outperform existing methods in terms of performance, while their running time is lower by many orders of magnitude.
Efficacy of low concentrations of sodium hypochlorite and low-powered Er,Cr:YSGG laser activated irrigation against an Enterococcus faecalis biofilm.

AIM To establish the antibacterial efficacy of low concentrations of sodium hypochlorite with and without Er,Cr:YSGG laser activation on Enterococcus faecalis biofilms in extracted teeth. METHODOLOGY The root canals of 96 decoronated single-rooted extracted human teeth were prepared to a size 40, 0.06 taper 1 mm beyond the apex. They were mounted within a flow cell, which was sterilized before pumping a nutrient media through the root canals. The flow cell was inoculated with E. faecalis (ATCC 700802) and cultivated for 4 weeks. The root-ends were sealed, and the roots were then subjected to one of six treatment groups: group 1: syringe irrigation (SI) with saline (control) using a 27 -gauge Monoject needle 1 mm from the apex for 2 min; group 2: as for group 1 but with 1% NaOCl; group 3: as for group 1 but with 4% NaOCl; group 4: 0.5% NaOCl irrigation for 15 s followed by laser-activated irrigation (LAI) with four 15-s cycles replenishing the irrigant between cycles; group 5: as for group 4 but with 1% NaOCl as the irrigant; group 6: as for group 4 but with 4% NaOCl as the irrigant. Following treatment, teeth were crushed and viable bacteria were quantitated by serial dilution and plating. The colony-forming unit values were compared between groups using one-way anova and Tukey-adjusted post hoc tests. A two-tailed P value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS The mean number of cells recovered from the 1% NaOCl SI group was significantly higher than that from the 4% NaOCl LAI group (P = 0.02). CONCLUSION Within the limitations of this laboratory study, low-powered (0.5 W) Er,Cr:YSGG laser activation did not improve the antibacterial effect of low concentrations of sodium hypochlorite.
An Application Package Configuration Approach to Mitigating Android SSL Vulnerabilities

Computing platforms such as smartphones frequently access Web content using many separate applications rather than a single Web browser application. These applications often deal with sensitive user information such as financial data or passwords, and use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to protect it from unauthorized eavesdropping. However, recent studies have confirmed a wide-spread misconfiguration of SSL verification in applications. This paper considers the difficulty faced by Android application developers when modifying SSL code for using common features like pinning or using a self-signed SSL certificate. For example, developing an application that accesses a test Web server with a self-signed certificate requires additional code to remove SSL verification; however, this code is not always removed in production versions of the application. To mitigate vulnerabilities introduced because of the complexity of customizing SSL code in Android applications, we propose that common SSL configuration should be specified in the application's package manifest. We provide two concrete suggestions: 1) linking the application's debug state to SSL verification, and 2) pinning certificates and CAs in the manifest. We evaluate the appropriateness of these two suggestions on over 13,000 applications from Google's Play Store, of which 3,302 use SSL in non-advertisement code, and find that 1,889 (57.20%) of these SSL applications would benefit.
Advances in Brief Human Papillomavirus Type 16 E 7 Oncoprotein-induced Abnormal Centrosome Synthesis Is an Early Event in the Evolving Malignant Phenotype 1

Genomic instability is a hallmark of malignant growth that frequently involves mitotic defects associated with centrosome abnormalities. However, the question of whether abnormal centrosomes cause genomic instability or develop secondary to other changes has not been conclusively resolved. Here we show that human papillomavirus (HPV)-16 E7 can induce abnormal centrosome synthesis before the development of extensive nuclear abnormalities. In contrast, expression of HPV-16 E6 is associated with marked nuclear atypia and concomitant accumulation of centrosomes. Our results demonstrate that HPV-16 E7-induced centrosome abnormalities represent an early event during neoplastic progression potentially driving genomic destabilization.