Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seroreactivity to human papillomavirus type 16 virus-like particles is lower in high-risk men than in high-risk women.

Seroreactivity to human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) virus-like particles (VLPs) in men attending clinics for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in Denmark (n = 219) and Greenland (n = 88) was compared with seroreactivity in women attending the same clinics and was furthermore related to epidemiologic variables and concurrent HPV DNA detection. Risk factors for male seropositivity in Denmark were lifetime number of sex partners, a history of STDs, and sexual preference and in Greenland were ever having had syphilis and years at school. Although men reported significantly more sex partners, the mean seroreactivity was significantly lower in men than in women: 0.50 and 0.75, respectively, in Denmark and 0.53 and 0.86 in Greenland (P = .0001). Male seropositivity was not correlated with concurrent HPV DNA detection, but only 15 Danish and 6 Greenlandic men had HPV-16 DNA. Presence of HPV-16 VLP antibodies appears to be a biomarker for exposure to genital HPVs in men but is less sensitive than in women.
Effect of Municipal Biowaste Biochar on Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Metal Bioaccumulation in a Slightly Acidic Clay Rice Paddy

A field trial was performed to investigate the effect of municipal biowaste biochar (MBB) on rice and wheat growth, metal bioaccumulation, and greenhouse gas emissions in a rice paddy in eastern China. MBB was amended in 2010 before rice transplanting at rates of 0 and 40 t ha-1 in a field experiment lasting one cropping year. MBB soil amendment significantly increased soil pH, total soil organic carbon, and total nitrogen. The growth and grain yield of rice and wheat was not affected with MBB application at 40 t ha-1. MBB amendment did not influence the soil availability of Pb, Cu, and Ni, but significantly increased the soil availability of Zn and decreased the soil availability of Cd during both rice and wheat seasons. While MBB did not change the bioaccumulation of Pb, Cu, and Ni, the rice and wheat Cd accumulation was significantly reduced, and wheat Zn accumulation slightly increased with MBB amendment. Furthermore, total N2O emission during both rice and wheat seasons was greatly decreased, though total seasonal CH4 emission was significantly increased in the rice season. On the other hand, soil CO2 emission remained unaffected across crop seasons. Thus, MBB can be used in rice paddy for low carbon and low-Cd grain production, but the long-term effects remain unknown.
Machine Learning in Natural Language Processing Guest Lecture for the CA 684 Machine Learning Module

2 Tagging 5 2.1 PoS tagging . 5 2.1. 1 Features for PoS Tagging . 6 2.1. 2 PoS Tagging Results for Different Languages . 7 2.2 Named Entity Recognition . 8 2.2.1 One-step vs Two-step Classification . 8 2.2.2 Features for NER . 9 2.2. 3 ML Algorithms for NER . 10 2.2. 4 Evaluation for NER . 10
A comprehensive adoption model of M-government services among citizens in developing countries

M-government (Mobile Government) has become popular among many developing countries including Bangladesh. Since m-government is still in early stage of implementation, few studies have identified the acceptance factors of using services among citizen. However, most of the studies identified the adoption factors based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Theory Reason Action (TRA) and trust-related model. This study aims to propose an adoption model suitable for developing countries using Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and model of trustworthiness. Some important factors such as, perceived good governance and less corruption, perceived public value and culture also are included in this model.
Testing a multimedia compartmental model with monitoring data

Based on its geographic similarity and nested structure, a chemical transport and transformation model developed in The Netherlands was adopted to a nine‐parish, 5,400‐km2 area in southern Louisiana, USA, and tested for its ability to predict concentrations in the environment. SimpleBox 2.0 represents a class of models that compartmentalize the air, water, soil, sediment, and plants into boxes while maintaining a high degree of detail for processes within and between boxes. Past use has been in the evaluative mode, primarily where qualitative predictions of chemical behavior and distribution are made. Limited testing of model‐predicted versus measured concentrations have been attempted. In recent years, quality and quantity of emission and monitoring data have improved dramatically. Such information was used in calibration and validation exercises with eight chemicals in the Louisiana chemical corridor, which receives inputs from urban, industrial, and agricultural sources. Geographically, the corridor was nested within the state of Louisiana, which was in turn nested within the continental United States. Parameter sensitivity studies, including transport coefficients, temperature, and degradation half‐life revealed that the latter produces the largest range of variation in predicted concentrations. Published half‐life data were used with benzene, vinyl chloride, 1,1,1‐trichloethane, and atrazine in a calibration phase with 1995 monitoring data at steady state; this allowed selection of the appropriate emission database. A validation exercise was performed with toluene, styrene, trichloroethylene, and metribuzin. Predictions were compared to average measured concentrations. Atrazine and metribuzin reside primarily in the water; the others reside in the air. The predicted concentrations for benzene, metribuzin, and trichloroethylene were low by a factor of less than two. Vinylchloride, toluene, and 1,1,1‐trichloroethane were low by factors between 3 and 10. Styrene and atrazine were low by factors of 45 and 65, respectively.
Hierarchical Control of Fermentation Process Using Microprocessors

The application of hierarchical (or multilevel) techniques to solving nonlinear optimal control problems in fermentation systems using microprocessors described. All results presented refer to batch gluconic acid fermentation, and they show why these techniques are more advantageous and attractive than the traditional single-level optimization method. In particular, the simulation results and conclusions show that hierarchical techniques result in the control computer requiring lower computational power and memory capacity.
Integrated employment or sheltered workshops: Preferences of adults with intellectual disabilities, their families, and staff

Despite national and state policies promoting integrated employment, the majority of adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities (76%) are served in facility-based programs. This article focuses on whether or not this gap between policy and practice is in part due to the lack of interest of adults with intellectual disabilities and their families for employment outside facility-based programs. Results are based on the answers given by 210 adults with intellectual disabilities in 19 sheltered workshops, their respective families or caregivers (N = 185), and staff members in these workshops (N = 224). Results show that the majority of respondents would either like employment outside sheltered workshops or at least consider it an option. Moreover, the majority of respondents believe that adults with intellectual disabilities can perform outside workshops, if support is made available if needed. It is noteworthy that the preference for employment outside of workshops is not associated with the severity of the disability. Based on these findings, this study supports the literature that advocates for system change policy promoting the employment of adults with intellectual disabilities in the general labor market.
Big Data Text Summarization for Events: A Problem Based Learning Course

Problem/project Based Learning (PBL) is a highly effective student-centered teaching method, where student teams learn by solving problems. This paper describes an instance of PBL applied to digital library education. We show the design, implementation, results, and partial evaluation of a Computational Linguistics course that provides students an opportunity to engage in active learning about adding value to digital libraries with large collections of text, i.e., one aspect of "big data. " Students are engaging in PBL with the semester long challenge of generating good English summaries of an event, given a large collection from our webpage archives. Six teams, each working with a different type of event, and applying three different summarization methods, learned how to generate good summaries; these have fair precision relative to the Wikipedia page that describes their event.
Serum Carnitine Levels, Lipid Profile, and Metabolic Status of Patients on Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis

The purpose of our study was to evaluate the influence of serum carnitine levels on the metabolic status and lipid profile of patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). We studied the lipid profile, the metabolic status (triceps, skinfold thickness, midarm muscle circumference, relative body weight, serum total protein, albumin), and serum carnitine levels in 22 patients (11 male, 11 female) on CAPD. The results are summarized as follows: mean serum total camitine (TC) was normal, free carnitine (FC) was reduced, while acylcarnitine (AC) was elevated in our patients (p<0.001). A positive correlation was found between TC (p<0.02), FC (p<0.05), and serum total protein. A positive correlation was also found between TC (p<0.05), AC (p<0.02), ACIFC (p<0.02), and relative body weight, and TC (p<0.001), FC (p<0.02), AC (p<0.01), ACIFC (p<0.02), and triglycerides. No correlation was found between carnitine and midarm muscle circumference, triceps skinfold thickness, albumin, total cholesterol, and HDL. or LDL-cholesterol. Further studies are needed to confirm our results.
Distributed Power Control and User Selection Algorithms for Cognitive Radios

The interference problem to Incumbent Users (IUs) of spectrum is herein addressed so as to prevent obtrusive cognitive transmissions at IU contours. In this paper, we present autonomous distributed power control algorithms for cognitive radios (CRs) in a Rayleigh fading environment with guarantees on IU protection whilst concurrently supporting an increased number of cognitive users. We further consider the user selection problem to maximise system capacity. Based on analysis and simulations we propose an efficient outage based distributed user removal algorithm that alleviates the interference environment for IUs and CRs alike with a substantial increase in number of supported CRs.
Fast energy aware application specific Network-on-Chip topology generator

Network-on-Chip(NoC) has been proposed as a solution for addressing the design challenges of future high-performance nanoscale architectures that are more suitable for a particular application, and do not necessarily conform to regular topologies. In this paper, fast deterministic methodologies are proposed for synthesis of energy aware communication architecture along with corresponding routing tables of an application specific NoC where the traffic communication traffic characteristics can be well characterized at design time.
The materiality of mobile pastoralism: ethnoarchaeological perspectives from Samburu, Kenya

groups or a change in mortuary patterns over time. However, these differences did not affect the skeletal health of individuals. Adults from both cemeteries 3-J-10 and 3-J-11 demonstrate the same overall prevalence rates of skeletal stress and there is no significant difference in health between the two sites. The environmental and cultural stressors therefore equally affected the overall population at Mis Island, regardless of membership in specific sex or burial groups. A comparison of these results from sites in northern Nubia demonstrates that health in the remote farming community at Mis Island was particularly harsh, but remained relatively stable despite the larger political and social changes happening throughout the greater Nubian kingdoms.
A Preliminary Evaluation of Repeated Exposure for Depersonalization and Derealization

Dissociative symptoms including depersonalization and derealization are commonly experienced by individuals suffering from panic disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Few studies have been published investigating the specific treatment of these symptoms in individuals diagnosed with panic disorder or PTSD, despite evidence that the subset of individuals with panic disorder who experience depersonalization and derealization report more panic attacks as well as greater panic severity and functional impairment. Furthermore, it has been shown that these symptoms can impede treatment and recovery in PTSD. Finally, recent research has shown that interoceptive exposure generally enhances the efficacy of treatment outcome for PTSD and PTSD with comorbid panic. This study investigated the use of a novel interoceptive exposure technique for treatment of depersonalization and derealization in individuals with high anxiety sensitivity and/or symptoms of PTSD. Results indicated significant reductions on six of seven items as well as total score on an outcome measure of depersonalization and derealization. Thus, this technique appears to hold promise for utilization as a form of interoceptive exposure in the treatment of these symptoms.
CheckIt - A low cost mobile OMR system

This paper describes CheckIt: a mobile phone based optical mark recognition(OMR) system which is used for automatic checking of the user response sheets. It exploits prior information about the OMR sheet layout, which helps in achieving high speed and accuracy. The system incorporates following interdependent modules: (i) computer vision and image processing; (ii) computer communication and networking; (iii) database and (iv) user interface. The back end is developed in Python and OpenCV library while the front end is made using HTML and Android. The overall system cost is low as; 1. software is developed using open-source technology; 2. it does not necessitate scanning hardware. The desirability and viability aspect of the system development is done based on extensive market survey and after interviewing several stake holders.
Functional innervation of the lacrimal gland in the cat. Origin of secretomotor fibers in the lacrimal nerve.

Because doubt about the innervation of the lacrimal gland exists, the present study was undertaken to determine the functional innervation of lacrimal gland cells. Lacrimal nerve action potentials, lacrimal cell membrane potentials, and the outflow of fluid from an excretory duct of the lacrimal gland were recorded before, during, and after stimulation of the sphenopalatine ganglion, preganglionic trunk of the superior cervical ganglion, and the distal and proximal cut ends of the lacrimal nerve. The results indicate that the lacrimal nerve as it approaches the lacrimal gland contains secretomotor fibers, which originate in the sphenopalatine but not in the superior cervical ganglion. It was also found that although electrical stimulation of the preganglionic sympathetic trunk occasionally produced a slight, transient change in outflow from the excretory duct, there was no evidence that such stimulation produced secretory potentials in the cells of the lacrimal gland.
A study of possible improvements to the Alopex training algorithm

We studied the performance of the Alopex algorithm, and proposed modifications that improve the training time, and simplified the algorithm. We tested different variations of the algorithm. We describe the best cases and summarize the conclusions we arrived at. One of the proposed variations (99/B) performs slightly faster than the Alopex algorithm described by Unnikrishnan et al. (1994), showing less unsuccessful training attempts, while being simpler to implement. Like Alopex, our versions are based on local correlations between changes in individual weights and changes in the global error measure. Our algorithm is also stochastic, but it differs from Alopex in the fact that no annealing scheme is applied during the training process and hence it uses less parameters.
High‐resolution backscatter electron imaging of colloidal gold in LVSEM

High‐resolution backscatter electron (BSE) imaging of colloidal gold can be accomplished at low voltage using in‐lens or below‐the‐lens FESEMs equipped with either Autrata‐modified yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG) scintillators doped with cerium, or with BSE to secondary electron (SE) conversion plates. The threshold for BSE detection of colloidal gold was 1.8 keV for the YAG detector, and the BSE/SE conversion was sensitive down to 1 keV. Gold particles (6, 12 and 18 nm) have an atomic number of 79 and were clearly distinguished at 500 000× by materials contrast and easily discriminated from cell surfaces coated with platinum with an atomic number of 78. BSE imaging was relatively insensitive to charging, and build up of carbon contamination on the specimen was transparent to the higher energy BSE.
Oryza sativa BRASSINOSTEROID UPREGULATED1 LIKE1 Induces the Expression of a Gene Encoding a Small Leucine-Rich-Repeat Protein to Positively Regulate Lamina Inclination and Grain Size in Rice

Oryza sativa BRASSINOSTEROID UPREGULATED1 LIKE1 (OsBUL1) positively affects lamina inclination and grain size. OsBUL1 knock-out (osbul1) plants as well as transgenic rice with reduced level of OsBUL1 expression produce erect leaves and small grains. Here, we identified a putative downstream gene of OsBUL1, OsBUL1 DOWNSTREAM GENE1 (OsBDG1) encoding a small protein with short leucine-rich-repeats by cDNA microarray analyses in the lamina joint and panicles of wild-type and osbul1 plants. Transgenic rice plants with increased OsBDG1 expression exhibit increased leaf angle and grain size, which is similar to an OsBDG1 activation tagging line whereas double stranded RNA interference (dsRNAi) lines for OsBDG1 knock-down generate erect leaves with smaller grains. Moreover, transgenic rice expressing OsBDG1 under the control of OsBUL1 promoter also shows enlarged leaf bending and grain size phenotypes. Two genes, OsAP2 (OsAPETALA2) and OsWRKY24 were identified as being upregulated transcriptional activators in the lamina joint of pOsBUL1:OsBDG1 plants and induced expression of the two genes driven by OsBUL1 promoter caused increased lamina inclination and grain size in rice. Thus, our work demonstrates that a series of genes showing expression cascades are involved in the promotion of cell elongation in lamina joints and functionally cause increased lamina inclination.
Diversity of Multidrug-Resistant Salmonella enterica Strains Associated with Cattle at Harvest in the United States

ABSTRACT The prevalence and diversity of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Salmonella enterica strains associated with cattle at harvest in the United States were examined. Hides and carcasses of cattle were sampled at processing plants (n = 6) located in four geographically distant regions from July 2005 to April 2006. The mean prevalences of Salmonella on hides, preevisceration carcasses (immediately after hide removal), and postintervention carcasses (in the chiller and after the full complement of interventions) were 89.6%, 50.2%, and 0.8%, respectively. The values for MDR Salmonella enterica strains (defined as those resistant to two or more antimicrobials) as percentages of Salmonella prevalence were 16.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 8.3 to 25.1%; median percent prevalence, 6.9%), 11.7% (95% CI, 4.4 to 19.0%; median, 4.8%), and 0.33% (95% CI, −0.3 to 0.70%; median, 0%), respectively. In this study, 16,218 Salmonella hide and carcass isolates were screened for antimicrobial resistance. Of these, 978 (6.0%) unique MDR S. enterica isolates were identified and serotyped and their XbaI pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) profiles determined. The predominant MDR S. enterica serotypes observed were Newport (53.1%), Typhimurium (16.6%), and Uganda (10.9%). Differences in MDR S. enterica prevalence were detected, and PFGE analysis revealed both epidemic clusters (profiles found in plants in multiple regions/seasons) and endemic clusters (profiles observed in plants in limited regions/seasons) within several of the MDR serotypes examined. Despite these differences, multiple-hurdle processing interventions employed at all plants were found to be quite effective and decreased Salmonella carcass contamination by 98.4% (95% CI, 97.6 to 99.7%).
Percutaneous CT-guided bone biopsy: diagnosis of malignancy in lesions with initially indeterminate biopsy results and CT features associated with diagnostic or indeterminate results.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to determine the proportion of bone lesions with indeterminate results after initial percutaneous CT-guided bone biopsy that ultimately are found to be malignant and whether CT features are associated with diagnostic outcomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS The results of 800 consecutive percutaneous CT-guided bone biopsies performed at a tertiary cancer center were reviewed. The initial histopathologic diagnosis was classified as diagnostic or indeterminate. On the basis of follow-up information, indeterminate results were subcategorized as benign, malignant, or persistently indeterminate. Two readers independently analyzed the CT images. RESULTS Initial percutaneous CT-guided bone biopsy was diagnostic in 69% and indeterminate in 31%. Malignancy was diagnosed in 90% of initially diagnostic results. In lesions with initially indeterminate results, a diagnosis was subsequently made in 62%; 39% of subsequent diagnoses were malignant as of the last available follow-up. CT features associated with diagnostic results included cortical destruction and large extraosseous mass (p < 0.05). More lesional sclerosis and presence of fat were associated with indeterminate results (p < 0.001). CT features associated with malignant results included less-extensive sclerosis and lesser sclerotic rim (p < 0.05). Increased age, female sex, and a cancer history were associated with higher risk of malignancy among patients with diagnostic results at initial biopsy. CONCLUSION Bone lesions that initially yield indeterminate results at percutaneous CT-guided bone biopsy often are subsequently shown to be malignant; vigorous pursuit of a diagnosis is recommended if initial results are indeterminate. Lesions showing fat or more sclerosis are more likely to be indeterminate; lesions with less sclerosis or smaller sclerotic rim are more likely to yield malignant results.
An Infrasound Sensor Based on Extrinsic Fiber-Optic Fabry–Perot Interferometer Structure

An infrasound sensor based on an extrinsic fiber-optic Fabry-Pérot interferometer structure is reported and demonstrated. The transducer part of this sensor is a composite film which is composed of a 3-μm-thick small round aluminum foil and a ~50-μm-thick polymer polyethylene terephthalate film. The infrasound interference will introduce the vibration of the film and result in the changes of the FP cavity length synchronously, as well as the interference spectral shift. As a consequence, we will obtain the synchronous changes of reflected power by inputting a single wavelength laser. Theoretical simulation and experimental validation are both carried out to test the performance of our fiber infrasound sensor. Results show that low-frequency infrasound signal from 1 to 20 Hz can be detected with low distortion. The proposed sensor has its superiorities and can be useful for low-frequency infrasound sensing.