Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aggression-annotated Corpus of Hindi-English Code-mixed Data

As the interaction over the web has increased, incidents of aggression and related events like trolling, cyberbullying, flaming, hate speech, etc. too have increased manifold across the globe. While most of these behaviour like bullying or hate speech have predated the Internet, the reach and extent of the Internet has given these an unprecedented power and influence to affect the lives of billions of people. So it is of utmost significance and importance that some preventive measures be taken to provide safeguard to the people using the web such that the web remains a viable medium of communication and connection, in general. In this paper, we discuss the development of an aggression tagset and an annotated corpus of Hindi-English code-mixed data from two of the most popular social networking and social media platforms in India, Twitter and Facebook. The corpus is annotated using a hierarchical tagset of 3 top-level tags and 10 level 2 tags. The final dataset contains approximately 18k tweets and 21k facebook comments and is being released for further research in the field.
A Review on Power System Stability and Applications of FACT Devices

stability is one of the major concerns related to power system. The instability causes the fluctuations in different parameters of power system but the voltage and frequency are most importantly considered because may cause great damage and even cause complete shutdown of power system. This paper presents brief overview of different types of instabilities in power system and the techniques used to overcome it. The paper also compares the applicability of different techniques on the basis of performance.
Anti-tuberculosis drug resistance in Ethiopia: systematic review.

BACKGROUND Resistance to anti-tuberculosis drugs threatens to undermine effective control of tuberculosis (TB). In areas with weak TB control and misuse of anti-tuberculosis drugs, hotspots of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) have appeared. The aim of this review is to determine the prevalence rate of any anti-tuberculosis drug resistance, monoresistance and MDR-TB in Ethiopia. METHODS A systematic review of the literature on any resistance, monoresistance and MDR-TB was conducted. RESULTS Of the total 468 articles found using electronic search, 14 met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. The prevalence rate of any drug resistance, polyresistance and MDR-TB was respectively 6.7-72.9%, 0-54% and 0-46%. A higher rate of streptomycin monoresistance (1.5-20.4%) was observed. CONCLUSION The prevalence and distribution of drug-resistant TB remains a serious public health problem in Ethiopia. Rapid, advanced diagnostic tools should be introduced, along with strong treatment and follow-up strategies.
Quantification of alignment of vascular smooth muscle cells

Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) are essential components that keep the tonus of the arterial network, which is the channel used to conduct the blood from the heart to the peripheral areas of the body. It is known that mechanical and architectural changes in VSMCs may lead to functional modifications in the cardiovascular system; therefore, the quantitative characterization of these changes can help to elucidate questions that remain unclear in pathological situations, such as hypertension, vasospasm, vascular hypertrophy, and atherosclerosis. In this work, we have developed a new framework of image processing using the Sobel operator, associated with statistical analysis, to determine the degree of local alignment of actin filaments, which we found to be directly related with the distensibility of the arterial wall. We have also compared these results with the rigidity of the cytoskeleton of VSMCs. The results suggest that the alignment degree increases from peripheral arteries, such as carotid and femoral, to central arteries, as well coronary and thoracic aorta, which can indicate that the level of local alignment of the actin fibers in VSMCs is related with the mechanical behavior of the arterial wall. © 2018 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry
Assessing the release of copper from nanocopper‐treated and conventional copper‐treated lumber into marine waters II: Forms and bioavailability

One application of nanocopper is as a wood‐preserving pesticide in pressure‐treated lumber. Recent research has shown that pressure‐treated lumber amended with micronized copper azole (MCA), which contains nanosized copper, releases copper under estuarine and marine conditions. The form of copper released (i.e., ionic, nanocopper [1–100 nm in size]) is not fully understood but will affect the bioavailability and toxicity of the metal. In the present study, multiple lines of evidence, including size fractionation, ion‐selective electrode electrochemistry, comparative toxicity, and copper speciation were used to determine the form of copper released from lumber blocks and sawdust. The results of all lines of evidence supported the hypothesis that ionic copper was released from MCA lumber and sawdust, with little evidence that nanocopper was released. For example, copper concentrations in size fractionations of lumber block aqueous leachates including unfiltered, 0.1 μm, and 3 kDa were not significantly different, suggesting that the form of copper released was in the size range operationally defined as dissolved. These results correlated with the ion‐selective electrode data which detects only ionic copper. In addition, comparative toxicity testing resulted in a narrow range of median lethal concentrations (221–257 μg/L) for MCA lumber blocks and CuSO4. We conclude that ionic copper was released from the nanocopper pressure‐treated lumber under estuarine and marine conditions. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;37:1969–1979. Published 2018 Wiley Periodicals Inc. on behalf of SETAC. This article is a US government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.
Physical Confirmation and Comparative Genomics of the Rat Mammary carcinoma susceptibility 3 Quantitative Trait Locus

Human breast and rat mammary cancer susceptibility are complex phenotypes where complete sets of risk associated loci remain to be identified for both species. We tested multiple congenic rat strains to physically confirm and positionally map rat Mammary carcinoma susceptibility 3 (Mcs3)—a mammary cancer resistance allele previously predicted at Rattus norvegicus chromosome 1 (RNO1). The mammary cancer susceptible Wistar Furth (WF) strain was the recipient, and the mammary cancer resistant Copenhagen (Cop) strain was the RNO1-segment donor for congenics. Inbred WF females averaged 6.3 carcinogen-induced mammary carcinomas per rat. Two WF.Cop congenic strains averaged 2.8 and 3.4 mammary carcinomas per rat, which confirmed Mcs3 as an independently acting allele. Two other WF.Cop congenic strains averaged 6.6 and 8.1 mammary carcinomas per rat, and, thus, did not contain Mcs3. Rat Mcs3 was delimited to 27.8 Mb of RNO1 from rs8149408 to rs105131702 (RNO1:143700228-171517317 of RGSC 6.0/rn6). Human genetic variants with p values for association to breast cancer risk below 10−7 had not been reported for Mcs3 orthologous loci; however, human variants located in Mcs3-orthologous regions with potential association to risk (10−7 < p < 10−3) were listed in some population-based studies. Further, rat Mcs3 contains sequence orthologous to human 11q13/14—a region frequently amplified in female breast cancer. We conclude that Mcs3 is an independently acting mammary carcinoma resistance allele. Human population-based, genome-targeted association studies interrogating Mcs3 orthologous loci may yield novel breast cancer risk associated variants and genes.
TanDEM-X mission: Overview, challenges and status

TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement) opens a new era in spaceborne radar remote sensing [1]-[3], [9], [12]. A single-pass SAR interferometer with adjustable baselines in across- and in along-track directions was formed by adding a second (TDX), almost identical spacecraft to TerraSAR-X (TSX) and flying the two satellites in a closely controlled formation. With typical across-track baselines of 150 to 500 m a global Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with 2 m relative height accuracy at a 12-m posting is being generated.
Fear of pain and cortisol reactivity predict the strength of stress‐induced hypoalgesia

Acute stress can have an effect on pain sensitivity, yet the direction of the effect – whether it is hypoalgesic or hyperalgesic – is mixed across studies. Moreover, which part of the stress response influences pain sensitivity is still unclear. In the current experimental study, we aim to examine the effect of acute stress on heat pain thresholds and pain tolerance levels in healthy participants, while taking into account individual differences in stress responses.
Evaluation of a Home-Based Environmental and Educational Intervention to Improve Health in Vulnerable Households: Southeastern Pennsylvania Lead and Healthy Homes Program

This evaluation examined whether participation in a home-based environmental educational intervention would reduce exposure to health and safety hazards and asthma-related medical visits. The home intervention program focused on vulnerable, low-income households, where children had asthma, were at risk for lead poisoning, or faced multiple unsafe housing conditions. Home visitors conducted two home visits, two months apart, consisting of an environmental home assessment, Healthy Homes education, and distribution of Healthy Homes supplies. Measured outcomes included changes in participant knowledge and awareness of environmental home-based hazards, rate of children’s asthma-related medical use, and the presence of asthma triggers and safety hazards. Analysis of 2013–2014 baseline and post-intervention program data for a cohort of 150 families revealed a significantly lower three-month rate (p < 0.05) of children’s asthma-related doctor visits and hospital admissions at program completion. In addition, there were significantly reduced reports of the presence of home-based hazards, including basement or roof leaks (p = 0.011), plumbing leaks (p = 0.019), and use of an oven to heat the home (p < 0.001). Participants’ pre- and post- test scores showed significant improvement (p < 0.05) in knowledge and awareness of home hazards. Comprehensive home interventions may effectively reduce environmental home hazards and improve the health of asthmatic children in the short term.
A correlation between transport current density and grain connectivity in MgB2/Fe wire made from ball-milled boron

Studies of the magnetic field dependence of the transport critical current density (Jct) and the grain connectivity of MgB2/Fe wires fabricated from ball-milled boron have been conducted in detail, and strong correlations have been found, as evidenced by differences in grain size, critical transition temperature, and resistivity. It was observed that the samples fabricated by ball milling had relatively small grain sizes, resulting in a strong field dependence of the Jct in the high field region. On the other hand, the ball-milled boron was associated with poor connectivity between adjacent grains. It is clearly shown that the observed reduction in low field Jct is related to the reduction in the superconducting area fraction (AF) that is reflected by the connectivity factor. Even if high temperature sintering in all the samples can compensate for the degradation of the Jct in the low field region, the subsequent grain growth is mainly responsible for the degradation of Jct in the high field region.
Epilepsy is associated with ventricular alterations following convulsive status epilepticus in children

Convulsive status epilepticus can exert profound cardiovascular effects in adults, including ventricular depolarization–repolarization abnormalities. Whether status epilepticus adversely affects ventricular electrical properties in children is less understood. Therefore, we sought to characterize ventricular alterations and the associated clinical factors in children following convulsive status epilepticus.
Digital image correlation-based point-wise inverse characterization of heterogeneous material properties of gallbladder in vitro

Continuing advances in mechanobiology reveal more and more that many cell types, especially those responsible for establishing, maintaining, remodelling or repairing extracellular matrix, are extremely sensitive to their local mechanical environment. Indeed, it appears that they fashion the extracellular matrix so as to promote a ‘mechanical homeostasis’. A natural corollary, therefore, is that cells will try to offset complexities in geometry and applied loads with heterogeneous material properties in order to render their local environment mechanobiologically favourable. There is a pressing need, therefore, for hybrid experimental–computational methods in biomechanics that can quantify such heterogeneities. In this paper, we present an approach that combines experimental information on full-field surface geometry and deformations with a membrane-based point-wise inverse method to infer full-field mechanical properties for soft tissues that exhibit nonlinear behaviours under finite deformations. To illustrate the potential utility of this new approach, we present the first quantification of regional mechanical properties of an excised but intact gallbladder, a thin-walled, sac-like organ that plays a fundamental role in normal digestion. The gallbladder was inflated to a maximum local stretch of 120% in eight pressure increments; at each pressure pause, the entire three-dimensional surface was optically extracted, and from which the surface strains were computed. Wall stresses in each state were predicted from the deformed geometry and the applied pressure using an inverse elastostatic method. The elastic properties of the gallbladder tissue were then characterized locally using point-wise stress–strain data. The gallbladder was found to be highly heterogeneous, with drastically different stiffness between the hepatic and the serosal sides. The identified material model was validated through forward finite-element analysis; both the configurations and the local stress–strain patterns were well reproduced.
Urological Survey UROLOGICAL ONCOLOGY: PROSTATE CANCER Hedgehog Signalling in Prostate Regeneration, Neoplasia and Metastasis

Editorial Comment: In the last 30 years I have not read a more important basic science observation that had major clinical implications. Up to this time we have relied upon hormonal therapy for the systemic treatment of prostate cancer. This study provides insight to another major mechanism that offers tremendous promise for controlling advanced prostate cancer. The hedgehog signaling pathway is normally responsible for embryonic development of a number of organs including the lungs, pancreas and prostate. More recently, it has also been shown to be a requirement for the growth of a significant proportion of small cell lung cancers and carcinomas of the stomach, esophagus, pancreas and biliary tract. This study focuses on the role of Hh in prostate cancer. Although the pathway can be demonstrated in normal and malignant prostatic tissue, it is not expressed by normal prostate cells and by most low to moderate grade malignancies. However, it is present in high levels in metastatic tumors. These authors also demonstrated pathway activity in prostate cancer cells in 3 of 12 radical prostatectomy specimens. It appears that the Hh protein is responsible for the normal homeostasis that exists between the epithelial cells in the prostate and the stroma. We know from the evaluation of radical prostatectomy specimens that when prostate cancer penetrates through the prostatic capsule it rarely extends more than a few millimeters from the surface, suggesting that these cells require the environment of the prostate. It is likely that what they actually require is the Hh pathway and when these cells can manufacture the Hh pathway they can survive at distant sites without the need for the prostatic environment. If you like, they can pack their lunch and take it with them. The authors investigated the role of the Hh pathway in vivo in a human prostate cancer xenograft and in a highly metastatic Dunning tumor model. In both systems they were able to demonstrate that when they blocked the Hh pathway using cyclopamine, a specific agent that blocks Hh activity, the tumors rapidly regressed. This study provides great promise that a new systemic approach to the management of advanced prostate cancer, other than hormonal therapy, may be available in the future, eg a Gleevec (imatinib, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., East Hanover, New Jersey) for prostate cancer. Furthermore, if Hh activity can be used to predict whether a tumor will metastasize, this could provide important insight into the natural history of the disease in the individual patient. Around the time this paper was published, 2 other manuscripts appeared that support these concepts. 1, 2
Ultrasonic Guided Wave Tomography for Wall Thickness Mapping in Pipes

Corrosion and erosion damage pose fundamental challenges to operation of oil and gas infrastructure. In order to manage the life of critical assets, plant operators must implement inspection programs aimed at assessing the severity of wall thickness loss (WTL) in pipelines, vessels, and other structures. Maximum defect depth determines the residual life of these structures and therefore represents one of the key parameters for robust damage mitigation strategies. In this context, continuous monitoring with permanently installed sensors has attracted significant interest and currently is the subject of extensive research worldwide. Among the different monitoring approaches being considered, significant promise is offered by the combination of guided ultrasonic wave technology with the principles of model based inversion under the paradigm of what is now referred to as guided wave tomography (GWT). Guided waves are attractive because they propagate inside the wall of a structure over a large distance. This can yield significant advantages over conventional pulse-echo thickness gage sensors that provide insufficient area coverage – typically limited to the sensor footprint. While significant progress has been made in the application of GWT to plate-like structures, extension of these methods to pipes poses a number of fundamental challenges that have prevented the development of sensitive GWT methods. This thesis focuses on these challenges to address the complex guided wave propagation in pipes and to account for parametric uncertainties that are known to affect model based inversion and which are unavoidable in real field applications.
MicroRNA ‐ 148 b inhibits proliferation and the epithelial ‐ mesenchymal transition and increases radiosensitivity in non ‐ small cell lung carcinomas by regulating ROCK 1

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for ~80% of all types of lung cancer, which has the highest morbidity and mortality of all types of cancer worldwide. It is important to identify novel biomarkers and the molecular mechanism of NSCLC to improve current treatments of NSCLC. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of miR-148b expression on the proliferation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and radiosensitivity of NSCLC cells. It was demonstrated that miR‐148b expression was significantly decreased in NSCLC tissues and cell lines. A549 cells were then transfected with a miR-148b mimic and a miR-148b inhibitor. Transfection with the miR-148b mimic decreased proliferation whereas transfection with the miR-148b inhibitor increased the proliferation of A549 cells. Additionally, the miR-148b mimic increased E-cadherin expression and decreased N-cadherin and vimentin expression. By contrast, transfection with the miR-148b inhibitor decreased E-cadherin expression and increased N-cadherin and vimentin expression. Irradiation-induced cell death was significantly promoted by the miR‐148b mimic but inhibited by the miR‐148b inhibitor. The miR‐148b mimic significantly decreased the expression of Rho-associated protein kinase 1 (ROCK1) and it was demonstrated that overexpression of ROCK1 significantly inhibited the effects of miR-148b on cell proliferation, the EMT and irradiation-induced cell death. Therefore, the current study revealed that miR-148b inhibited NSCLC cell proliferation and the EMT, and increased the radiosensitivity of NSCLC cells by inhibiting ROCK1 expression. Therefore, miR-148b/ROCK1 signaling may be a novel therapeutic target to inhibit the growth of NSCLC cells and enhance the effects of radiotherapy to treat patients with NSCLC.
Iterative alternating water-filling for wireless powered MIMO multiple-access channels

Consider a wireless powered Gaussian multiple access channel (MAC), which consists of a power station (PS), multiple passive users and a sink node. Assume that each node is equipped with multiple antennas, and the PS has reliable power supply while the users have to harvest energy from the PS by wireless power transfer (WPT). The harvest-then-transmit scheme is adopted where all users harvest energy in the downlink (DL) timeslot, and then send their own information to the sink by time-division-multiple-access (TDMA) protocol in the uplink (UL) timeslot. The sum throughput maximization problem is investigated by jointly optimizing time allocation and precoding design. We first formulate the optimal design as a convex semidefinite programming, and an iterative alternating water filling solution is proposed to serve as a low-complexity implementation. The optimality of the DL beamforming scheme is proved. By investigating a special case where each user sends only one data stream to the sink, we propose a suboptimal scheme to further reduce the implementation complexity but incur little performance loss. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms.
Exhaled methane concentration profiles during exercise on an ergometer

Exhaled methane concentration measurements are extensively used in medical investigation of certain gastrointestinal conditions. However, the dynamics of endogenous methane release is largely unknown. Breath methane profiles during ergometer tests were measured by means of a photoacoustic spectroscopy based sensor. Five methane-producing volunteers (with exhaled methane level being at least 1 ppm higher than room air) were measured. The experimental protocol consisted of 5 min rest—15 min pedalling (at a workload of 75 W)—5 min rest. In addition, hemodynamic and respiratory parameters were determined and compared to the estimated alveolar methane concentration. The alveolar breath methane level decreased considerably, by a factor of 3–4 within 1.5 min, while the estimated ventilation-perfusion ratio increased by a factor of 2–3. Mean pre-exercise and exercise methane concentrations were 11.4 ppm (SD:7.3) and 2.8 ppm (SD:1.9), respectively. The changes can be described by the high sensitivity of exhaled methane to ventilation-perfusion ratio and are in line with the Farhi equation.
Application of the Spark Discharge Generator for Solvent-free Aerosol Jet Printing

A new solvent-free method of aerosol printing for fabrication conductive structures in the form of lines with a minimum width of 60 μm and an average thickness of up to 6 μm has been proposed and investigated. This method is based on dry deposition of focused beam of silver nanoparticles synthesized by the multi-spark discharge generator. Printed and sintered microstructures showed low electrical resistivity equal to 7.5 mΩ*cm, which is five times greater than the resistivity of bulk silver. The described method of dry aerosol printing without solvents could be a promising alternative to conventional «wet» aerosol jet printing.