Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preparation of Sb2O3 Submicron Rod Arrays by the Carbothermal Reduction Method

Sb2O3 submicron rod arrays were fabricated by carbothermal reduction method using antimony doped tin oxide (ATO) nanoparticles and graphite powder as source materials. The obtained products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The results demonstrated that the samples were single-crystal Sb2O3 submicron rod arrays. The room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) measurement exhibited two violet emission peaks which could be indexed to oxygen vacancies related defect emission. Also, blue shift and intensity decrease were observed when the excitation wavelength changed from 365 nm into 325 nm.
Collagen type VI interaction improves human islet survival in immunoisolating microcapsules for treatment of diabetes

ABSTRACT Collagens are the most abundant fibrous protein in the human body and constitute the main structural element of the extracellular matrix. It provides mechanical and physiological support for cells. In the pancreas, collagen VI content is more than double that of collagen I or IV. It is a major component of the islet-exocrine interface and could be involved in islet-cell survival. To test the impact of collagen VI on human encapsulated pancreatic islets-cells, we tested the effects of exogenous collagen type VI on in vitro functional survival of alginate encapsulated human islet-cells. Concentrations tested ranged from 0.1 to 50 µg/ml. Islets in capsules without collagen type VI served as control. Islet-cell interaction with collagen type VI at concentrations of 0.1 and 10 µg/ml, promoted islet-cell viability (p<0.05). Although no improvement in glucose induced insulin secretion (GSIS) was observed, islets in capsules without incorporation of collagen type VI showed more dysfunction and oxygen consumption rates was improved by inclusion of collagen type VI. Our results demonstrate that incorporation of collagen type VI in immunoisolated human islets supports in vitro viability and survival of human pancreatic islets.
Clinical and genetic aspects of the 15q11.2 BP1–BP2 microdeletion disorder

BACKGROUND The 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 microdeletion (Burnside-Butler susceptibility locus) is an emerging condition with over 200 individuals reported in the literature. TUBGCP5, CFYIP1, NIPA1 and NIPA2 genes are located in this chromosome 15 region and when disturbed individually are known to cause neurological, cognitive or behavioural problems as well as playing a role in both Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes. These syndromes were the first examples in humans of genomic imprinting and typically caused by a deletion but involving the distal chromosome 15q11-q13 breakpoint BP3 and proximally placed breakpoints BP1 or BP2 of different parental origin. The typical 15q11-q13 deletion involves BP1 and BP3 and the typical type II deletion at BP2 and BP3. Several studies have shown that individuals with the larger type I deletion found in both Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes are reported with more severe neurodevelopmental symptoms compared to those individuals with the smaller type II deletion. METHODS The literature was reviewed and clinical and cytogenetic findings summarised in 200 individuals with this microdeletion along with the role of deleted genes in diagnosis, medical care and counseling of those affected and their family members. RESULTS Reported findings in this condition include developmental delays (73% of cases) and language impairment (67%) followed by motor delay (42%), attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (35%) and autism spectrum disorder (27%). The de novo deletion frequency has been estimated at 5 to 22% with low penetrance possibly related to subclinical manifestation or incomplete clinical information on family members. A prevalence of 0.6 to 1.3% has been identified in one study for patients with neurological or behavioural problems presenting for genetic services and chromosomal microarray analysis. CONCLUSIONS The summarised results indicate that chromosome 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 microdeletion is emerging as one of the most common cytogenetic abnormalities seen in individuals with intellectual impairment, autism spectrum disorder and other related behavioural or clinical findings, but more research is needed.
Stealthy Secret Key Generation

In this work, we aim to design a stealthy secret key generation (SSKG) scheme for a completely concealed communication system. More specifically, the data transmission is accomplished by covert communications, which requires additional keys to guarantee the covertness when Bob's channel quality is worse than a warden Willie's in a special definition. However, normal SKG schemes may raise Willie's attention and violate the design goal. Therefore, we resort to the SSKG. The derived results show that the SK capacity lower and upper bounds of the source-model SKG are not affected by the additional stealth constraint. This result implies that we can attain the stealthy SKG capacity for free when the common randomness observed at each node forms a Markov chain. We then prove that the sufficient condition to attain the SK capacity can be relaxed from physical to stochastic degradedness. In order to underline the practical relevance, we also derive a sufficient condition to attain the degradedness by the usual stochastic order for the fast fading Gaussian Maurer's (satellite) model for the source of common randomness.
The Quality of Medicines Used in Children and Supplied by Private Pharmaceutical Wholesalers in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: A Prospective Survey

Abstract. Poor-quality medicines are a threat to public health in many low- and middle-income countries, and prospective surveys are needed to inform corrective actions. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional survey on a sample of products used for children and available in the private market in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic Congo: amoxicillin (AX) and artemether/lumefantrine (AL), powders for suspension, and paracetamol (PC) tablets 500 mg. Overall, 417 products were covertly purchased from 61 wholesalers. To obtain a representative sample, the products were weighted on their market shares and a subset of 239 samples was randomly extracted to undergo in-depth visual inspection locally, and they were chemically assessed at two accredited laboratories in Belgium. Samples were defined of “poor-quality” if they failed to comply with at least one specification of the International Pharmacopoeia (for AL) or United States Pharmacopoeia 37 (for AX and PC). Results are reported according to the Medicine Quality Assessment Reporting Guideline. The visual inspection detected nonconformities in the aspects of antimalarial powders for suspension, and poor-quality labels across all medicine types. According to chemical analysis, 27.2% samples were of poor quality and 59.5% of AL samples were underdosed in artemether. Poor quality was more frequent for locally manufactured antimalarials (83.3%, P = 0.021; 86.4%, P = 0.022) and PC (4.8%, P = 0.000). The poor quality of the surveyed products may decrease the treatment’s efficacy and favor the development of resistances to antimalarials. It is hoped that these findings may guide the corrective actions of the Democratic Republic of Congo Regulatory Authority, which was the main partner in the research.
Video shot boundary detection based on Hilbert and wavelet transform

In the current work an innovative and robust method of shot boundary detection in a video sequence in the presence of motion and illumination variation is proposed by fusing the advantages of Hilbert transform and DWT so as to get a new feature space and then finding SSIM metric for detecting shot boundaries. The proposed algorithm is tested on TRECVid and publicly available data set. The promising results as compared to the state of the art methods confirms the objective rating of our algorithm.
A Dynamic Approach to Rebalancing Bike-Sharing Systems

Bike-sharing services are flourishing in Smart Cities worldwide. They provide a low-cost and environment-friendly transportation alternative and help reduce traffic congestion. However, these new services are still under development, and several challenges need to be solved. A major problem is the management of rebalancing trucks in order to ensure that bikes and stalls in the docking stations are always available when needed, despite the fluctuations in the service demand. In this work, we propose a dynamic rebalancing strategy that exploits historical data to predict the network conditions and promptly act in case of necessity. We use Birth-Death Processes to model the stations’ occupancy and decide when to redistribute bikes, and graph theory to select the rebalancing path and the stations involved. We validate the proposed framework on the data provided by New York City’s bike-sharing system. The numerical simulations show that a dynamic strategy able to adapt to the fluctuating nature of the network outperforms rebalancing schemes based on a static schedule.
Studying the effect of administration route and treatment dose on the selection of enrofloxacin resistance in commensal Escherichia coli in broilers

Objectives Factors potentially contributing to fluoroquinolone resistance selection in commensal Escherichia coli strains in poultry were studied through a series of in vivo experiments. The effect of the initial prevalence of enrofloxacin resistance in the E. coli gut microbiota, effect of the bacterial fitness of the enrofloxacin-resistant strain and effect of treatment with enrofloxacin (effect of dose and effect of route of administration) were assessed. Methods Four in vivo studies with broiler chickens were performed. Right after hatching, the chicks were inoculated with either a bacteriologically fit or a bacteriologically non-fit fluoroquinolone-resistant strain as either a minority or the majority of the total E. coli population. Six days later, the chicks were treated for three consecutive days either orally or parenterally and using three different doses (under-, correct- and over-dose) of enrofloxacin. The faecal shedding of E. coli strains was quantified by plating on agar plates either supplemented or not supplemented with enrofloxacin. Linear mixed models were used to assess the effect of the aforementioned variables on the selection of enrofloxacin resistance. Results The factors that significantly contributed were treatment ( P < 0.001), bacterial fitness of the resistant donor strain ( P < 0.001), administration route ( P = 0.052) and interactions between bacterial fitness and administration route ( P < 0.001). Conclusions In the currently used models, fluoroquinolone resistance selection was influenced by treatment, bacterial fitness of the inoculation strain and administration route. The use of oral treatment seems to select more for fluoroquinolone resistance, particularly in the model where a non-fit strain was used for inoculation.
The Emotion Word Fluency Test (EWFT): Initial psychometric, validation, and physiological evidence in young adults

ABSTRACT Introduction: The clinical assessment of affective functioning has been slow to incorporate findings from affective neuroscience. Of particular interest in the current study is the assessment of affective word production. Method: In a series of four studies, we examined test–retest and interrater reliability for the Emotion Word Fluency Test (EWFT), basic construct validity with existing verbal fluency measures, physiological responses across verbal fluency tasks, and a novel scoring method to examine qualitative aspects of participant response sets. Results: Results demonstrated interrater and test–retest reliability values that were comparable to those of other commonly used verbal fluency tests. Construct validity was demonstrated by relations between the EWFT and other verbal fluency tests as well as through physiological evidence that performance on the EWFT is related to greater sympathetic activity than traditional verbal fluency tasks. Lastly, some of the novel scoring metrics related to two self-report measures of emotional functioning. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings provide initial support for the use of the EWFT as a measure of emotion word generation ability in young adults. This measure may prove to be useful in the assessment of affective language production in patient populations.
LIBRA-WA: a web application for ligand binding site detection and protein function recognition

Summary Recently, LIBRA, a tool for active/ligand binding site prediction, was described. LIBRA's effectiveness was comparable to similar state‐of‐the‐art tools; however, its scoring scheme, output presentation, dependence on local resources and overall convenience were amenable to improvements. To solve these issues, LIBRA‐WA, a web application based on an improved LIBRA engine, has been developed, featuring a novel scoring scheme consistently improving LIBRA's performance, and a refined algorithm that can identify binding sites hosted at the interface between different subunits. LIBRA‐WA also sports additional functionalities like ligand clustering and a completely redesigned interface for an easier analysis of the output. Extensive tests on 373 apoprotein structures indicate that LIBRA‐WA is able to identify the biologically relevant ligand/ligand binding site in 357 cases (˜96%), with the correct prediction ranking first in 349 cases (˜98% of the latter, ˜94% of the total). The earlier stand‐alone tool has also been updated and dubbed LIBRA+, by integrating LIBRA‐WA's improved engine for cross‐compatibility purposes. Availability and implementation LIBRA‐WA and LIBRA+ are available at: http://www.computationalbiology. it/software.html. Contact polticel@uniroma3.it Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Marine macromolecules cross-linked hydrogel scaffolds as physiochemically and biologically favorable entities for tissue engineering applications

Abstract Marine biopolymer composite materials provide a technological platform for launching biomedical applications. Biomaterials demand good biocompatibility without the possibility of inflammation or foreign body reactions. In this study, we prepared two biocomposite hydrogels namely; HAC (hydroxyapatite, alginate & chitosan) and HACF (hydroxyapatite, alginate, chitosan & fucoidan) followed by calcium chloride cross linking. The prepared scaffolds were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Porosity measurement, swelling, biodegradation, hemolysis, RBC aggregation, plasma protein adsorption and cytotoxicity studies were also done. The hydrogel scaffold HACF possessed a well-defined porous architecture, sufficient water holding capacity, better hemocompatibility and biodegradability. The biocompatibility was confirmed through in vitro cytotoxicity studies such as MTT assay, Neutral red uptake, DAPI staining, Trypan blue dye exclusion test and direct contact assay in L929 mouse fibroblast cells. In addition, immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory properties of both of these scaffolds were revealed by the mRNA expressions of major inflammatory marker genes in cytotoxic condition such as TNF-α, IL-6 and NF-κB. The physiochemical characterization and biological responses of HACF hydrogel signifies its suitability for various tissue engineering applications.
Exponential index: a parameterized distributed indexing scheme for data on air

Wireless data broadcast has received a lot of attention from industries and academia in recent years. Access efficiency and energy conservation are two critical performance concerns in a wireless data broadcast environment. To improve the efficiency of energy consumption on mobile devices, traditional disk-based indexing techniques such as B$^+$-tree have been extended to index broadcast data on a wireless channel. However, existing designs are mostly based on centralized tree structures. Most of these indexing techniques are not flexible in the sense that the trade-off between access efficiency and energy conservation is not adjustable based on application specific requirements. We propose in this paper a novel parameterized index, called the exponential index, which can be tuned to optimize the access latency with the tuning time bounded by a given limit, and vice versa. The proposed index is very efficient because it facilitates replication naturally by sharing links in multiple search trees and thus minimizes storage overhead. Experimental results show that the exponential index not only achieves better performance than the state-of-the-art indexes but also enables great flexibility in trade-offs between access latency and tuning time.
Electromagnetic Analysis Attack on an FPGA Implementation of an Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem

This paper presents simple (SEMA) and differential (DEMA) electromagnetic analysis attacks on an FPGA implementation of an elliptic curve processor. Elliptic curve cryptography is a public key cryptosystem that is becoming increasingly popular. Implementations of cryptographic algorithms should not only be fast, compact and power efficient, but they should also resist side channel attacks. One of the side channels is the electromagnetic radiation out of an integrated circuit. Hence it is very important to assess the vulnerability of implementations of cryptosystems against these attacks. A SEMA attack on an unprotected implementation can find all the key bits with only one measurement. We also describe a DEMA attack on an improved implementation and demonstrate that a correlation analysis requires 1000 measurements to find the key bits
Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and risk of type 2 diabetes in older adults

Abstract Lower serum level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D is common in older adults and associated with several negative outcomes. However, previous studies have indicated that 25-hydroxyvitamin D is associated with risk of type 2 diabetes, but presented controversial results. Studies in PubMed and EMBASE were searched update to June 2017 to identify and quantify the potential dose–response association between low 25-hydroxyvitamin D and risk of type 2 diabetes in older adults. Nine eligible studies involving a total of 34,511 participants with 2863 incident cases were included in this meta-analysis. Our results showed statistically significant association between lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D and type 2 diabetes in older adults [odds ratio (OR) = 1.19, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.08–1.32, P = . 001]. In addition, we obtained the best fit at an inflection point of decrease 10 ng/mL in piecewise regression analysis; the summary relative risk of type 2 diabetes in older adults for a decrease of 10 ng/mL 25-hydroxyvitamin D was 1.06 (95% CI: 1.02–1.13, P < .001). Furthermore, subgroups analysis indicated that lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D was associated with a significant increment risk of type 2 diabetes in older adults in female (OR = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.04–1.40, P = .014) but not in male (OR = 1.11, 95% CI: 0.75–1.63, P = .615). Subgroup meta-analyses in study design, duration of follow-up, number of participants, and number of cases showed consistent with the primary findings. Lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D is associated with type 2 diabetes in older adults risk increment.
The effect of titanium dioxide on the tribological properties of carbon fiber-reinforced polyimide composites

This study examined the effect of titanium dioxide (TiO2) dispersion on the tribological properties of carbon fiber (CF)-reinforced–polyimide (PI) matrix (CF/PI) composites. Nanocomposites were prepared through compression molding as milled CF/PI mixtures without further melt mixing. The incorporation of TiO2 leads to a significant improvement in friction and wear properties of the CF/PI composite. The scratches on the worn surface of the CF/PI composite filled with TiO2 are considerably reduced. We can see a relatively smooth, uniform, and compact worn surface, which is in good agreement with the considerably increased wear resistance of the CF/PI composite.
Quantitative myocardial perfusion evaluation with positron emission tomography and the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with coronary artery disease: a systematic review of prognostic studies

Abstract Aims To evaluate the prognostic value of quantitative myocardial perfusion imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) for adverse cardiovascular outcomes in patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods and results A search in MEDLINE and Embase was conducted for studies that evaluated (i) myocardial perfusion in absolute terms with PET, (ii) prognostic value for the development of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), cardiac death, and/or all-cause mortality, and (iii) patients with known or suspected CAD. Studies were divided according to the radiotracer utilized and their included population (patients with and without previous infarction). Comprehensive description and a selected instance of pooling were performed. Eight studies (n = 6804) were analysed and documented clear variability in population, quantitative PET variables operationalization [stress myocardial blood flow (sMBF) and flow reserve (MFR)], statistical covariate structure, follow-up, and radiotracer utilized. MFR was independently associated with MACE in eight studies [range of adjusted hazard ratios (HRs): 1.19–2.93]. The pooling instance demonstrated that MFR significantly associates with the development of MACEs (HR: 1.92 [1.29, 2.84]; P = 0.001). sMBF was only associated with MACE in two studies that evaluated it, and only one study documented sMBF as a better predictor than MFR. Conclusion This systematic review demonstrates the prognostic value of quantitative myocardial perfusion evaluated with PET, in the form of MFR and sMBF, for the development of major adverse cardiovascular outcomes in populations with known or suspected CAD. In the qualitative comparison, MFR seems to outperform sMBF as an independent prognostic factor. Evidence is still lacking for assessing quantitative PET for the occurrence of cardiac death and all-cause mortality. There is clear heterogeneity in predictor operationalization and study performances.
ELPA: Emulation-Based Linked Page Map Analysis for the Detection of Drive-by Download Attacks

Despite the convenience brought by the advances in web and Internet technology, users are increasingly being exposed to the danger of various types of cyber attacks. In particular, recent studies have shown that today’s cyber attacks usually occur on the web via malware distribution and the stealing of personal information. A drive-by download is a kind of web-based attack for malware distribution. Researchers have proposed various methods for detecting a drive-by download attack effectively. However, existing methods have limitations against recent evasion techniques, including JavaScript obfuscation, hiding, and dynamic code evaluation. In this paper, we propose an emulation-based malicious webpage detection method. Based on our study on the limitations of the existing methods and the state-of-the-art evasion techniques, we will introduce four features that can detect malware distribution networks and we applied them to the proposed method. Our performance evaluation using a URL scan engine provided by VirusTotal shows that the proposed method detects malicious webpages more precisely than existing solutions.