Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automated peak integration in multidimensional NMR spectra by an optimized iterative segmentation procedure

A generally applicable method for an automated integration of n-dimensional resonance peaks (n ≥ 2) is presented. It is based on an optimized iterative segmentation method combined with a region-growing algorithm and it is independent of the experimental lineshape. The procedure is computationally very efficient and has actually been implemented for two-, three-, and four-dimensional NMR spectra. For isolated peaks, the accuracy of the method is limited only by digital resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. Even for strongly overlapping peaks, the individual volumes can be determined with high accuracy, which is sufficient for all practical applications.
WIP: Deployability Improvement, Stealthiness User Study, and Safety Impact Assessment on Real Vehicle for Dirty Road Patch Attack

—Automated Lane Centering (ALC) systems are convenient and widely deployed today, but also highly security and safety critical. Recently, Dirty Road Patch (DRP) attack is proposed as a state-of-the-art adversarial attack against ALC systems. In this work, we report our recent progress of improving the DRP attack on attack deployability, attack stealthiness, and effectiveness on real vehicle. We also discuss future directions.
A Additional Details for AutoBSS

In this procedure, we build a model for the accuracy of unevaluated BSSC based on evaluated one. 3 Gaussian Process (GP, [1]) is a good method to achieve this in Bayesian optimization literature [2]. 4 A GP is a random process defined on some domain X , and is characterized by a mean function 5 μ : X → R and a covariance kernel κ : X 2 → R. In our method, X ∈ R, where m is the dimension 6 of BSSC. 7
A systematic review to assess the impact of the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme (EHCVS) and the feasibility to fully adopt in Hong Kong elder care services

Background: Finding a solution to tackle the overcrowding and over-reliance on public health care services has been a policy agenda of the Hong Kong Government throughout the past decade. The purpose of this review is to provide valuable insight for policymakers to understand whether the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme (EHCVS) is a realistic policy tool to shift service demand from the public to the private sector and its possibility to apply in other similar publicly funded settings.Methods: Included records in this review were selected through CINAHL, PubMed, and Google Scholar peer-reviewed articles databases and nine targeted government websites. All potential records were assessed based on the prespecified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Thematic synthesis was used to combine the extracted data and to construct key themes of the impact of the EHCVS.Results: The findings highlight some of the successes of the policy that focus on strengthening the connection between government, elders and private health care providers, and improving the quality of acute care. However, less than successful elements that require revision include designing the purpose of voucher for preventive care and disease management and shifting elders from the public to private health sector through financial incentives. Overall, the analysis suggested the financial subsidies have not motivated elders to utilise private health care services, but rather it demonstrates an effort by the Hong Kong Government to begin addressing public health care waiting lists while prioritising quality care for senior citizens throughout the last 10 years.Conclusion: Better consideration of the subsidy amount to remove the financial burden of the older population, along with greater information disclosure and promotion may increase elders’ willingness to utilise private elder care services, potentially improve the quality of life for seniors, and ultimately reduce the burden on public elder care sector in the future.
Preparation of Pure PLLA, Pure Chitosan, and PLLA/Chitosan Blend Porous Tissue Engineering Scaffolds by Thermally Induced Phase Separation Method and Evaluation of the Corresponding Mechanical and Biological Properties

The aim of this work was to prepare the scaffolds of pure poly (L-lactic acid) 3% (w/v), pure chitosan 3% (w/v), and PLLA/chitosan blend (1:5) 3% (w/v) using TIPS method and investigate their properties and application in tissue engineering. An in vitro degradation study of scaffolds showed the addition of chitosan to PLLA not only increased its degradation rate, but also slowed down its pH value reduction. Addition of chitosan to PLLA increased hydrophilicity, porosity, compressive properties, and cell viability of the scaffolds. The results indicate that among all scaffolds, the most appropriate candidate for tissue engineering is PLLA/chitosan blend. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Case study of participatory action research for wildlife conservation

Negative interactions between humans and wildlife create one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation. When wild animals damage the crops in agricultural fields, subsistence farmers suffer food insecurity and economic instability. Animals can be killed or injured during these interactions, and communities may develop negative feelings about conservation. To address conservation concerns, projects should look at both sides of these interactions. A Participatory Action Research approach allows researchers and community members to work collaboratively to investigate and take action in response to this issue. Our team developed a community project to determine residents' perceptions of the benefits and costs of living around Kibale National Park, Uganda, and to implement changes to mitigate those costs. During our initial survey in 2015, we found that over 80% of our 114 respondents were subsistence farmers with no other source of income. All respondents felt that crop damage by wild animals was the biggest problem with living near the park, and they had negative feelings about the park and animals. Thus, we worked with project participants to establish the following land‐use changes throughout 2016 and 2017: (a) planting garlic as a cash crop, (b) planting tea as a buffer crop, (c) building beehive fences, and (d) maintaining a trench around the boundary of the park. Through monthly surveys, we assessed the success of these changes on reducing crop damage and improving conservation initiatives. Compliance with land‐use changes was significantly associated with a reduction in the events of crop damage, which has implications for economic stability and an individual's attitude about conservation. This project provides guidelines for using Participatory Action Research methods to develop sustainable interventions to improve human‐wildlife interactions.
The Dataset Nutrition Label (2nd Gen): Leveraging Context to Mitigate Harms in Artificial Intelligence

As the production of and reliance on datasets to produce automated decision-making systems (ADS) increases, so does the need for processes for evaluating and interrogating the underlying data. After launching the Dataset Nutrition Label in 2018, the Data Nutrition Project has made significant updates to the design and purpose of the Label, and is launching an updated Label in late 2020, which is previewed in this paper. The new Label includes context-specific Use Cases&Alerts presented through an updated design and user interface targeted towards the data scientist profile. This paper discusses the harm and bias from underlying training data that the Label is intended to mitigate, the current state of the work including new datasets being labeled, new and existing challenges, and further directions of the work, as well as Figures previewing the new label.
Investigations of Depletion Flocculation of Concentrated Sterically Stabilized Latex Dispersions Using Viscoelastic Measurements and Microscopy

Abstract The viscoelastic properties of concentrated polystyrene latex particles containing grafted poly(ethylene oxide) chains were investigated using oscillatory shear rheometry. The effects of varying the volume fraction of the polymer, the molecular weight of the added free polymer (PEO), the volume fraction of the latex, and the latex particle size have been systematically investigated. Above a critical volume fraction of polymer, φ+p, a rapid increase in the storage and loss moduli was observed for all the systems studied. This increase corresponds to flocculation of the latex particles by the free nonadsorbing polymer due to the depletion phenomenon. The values of φ+p obtained from these viscoelastic data corresponded closely to the values estimated from Bingham yield stress values reported previously. Increasing the molecular weight of the (nonadsorbing) polymer caused φ+p to decrease, in line with other studies for depletion flocculated systems. Over the range of volume fraction of latex particles studied, however, there was little dependence of the onset of flocculation on the latex volume fraction φs. It was noted that the smaller particles had considerably larger storage moduli following flocculation than the larger ones. This is essentially a surface area-to-volume effect. It was found that on increasing φp above φ+p the storage modulus reached a plateau value, whereas the Bingham yield stress values continuously increased. This is a consequence of the yield stress values being due largely to the energy of separation between the particles which is predicted theoretically to increase with φp, while the storage modulus is a measure of the number of bonds formed in the flocculated structure, which may not increase above a certain φp. Optical micrographs of the flocculated suspension revealed that over this polymer volume fraction range the floc structures were very similar, confirming the above hypothesis.
Self-Reported Stress and Questionnaires in People With Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Systematic Review

Background: To gain more insight into the experience of stress in individuals with ASD, it is important to use appropriate self-report questionnaires. The goal of this systematic review was to provide an overview of these. Method: The PRISMA guidelines were followed and four online databases were systematically searched. Results: Seven questionnaires have been used previously in individuals with ASD. None of the 22 included studies intended to assess the psychometric properties, leading towards scarce evidence concerning their reliability and validity in this population. Conclusions: It is important to consider which concept of stress one aims to measure as not all questionnaires cover the same aspects of stress. Further research concerning psychometric properties of the questionnaires in this population is required.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cognitive function in Japanese community-dwelling older adults in a class for preventing cognitive decline

We examined the effects of lifestyle and thoughts on cognitive function and change in cognitive function due to restrictions in daily life during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in community-dwelling older adults with mild cognitive decline. This was a retrospective case-control study. The participants were 88 older adults with mild cognitive decline who participated in a class designed to help prevent cognitive decline. The class was suspended from early-March to end of May 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and resumed in June 2020. We collected demographic and cognitive function test data (Touch Panel-type Dementia Assessment Scale [TDAS]) before and after class suspension and questionnaire data on their lifestyle and thoughts during the suspension. Change in TDAS scores from before and after the suspension was used to divide the participants into decline (2 or more points worsening) and non-decline (all other participants) groups, with 16 (18.2%) and 72 (81.8%) participants in each group, respectively. A logistic regression model showed that the odds ratio (OR) for cognitive decline was lower in participants whose responses were "engaged in hobbies" (OR = 0.07, p = 0.015), "worked on a worksheet about cognitive training provided by the town hall" (OR = 0.19, p = 0.026), and "had conversations over the phone" (OR = 0.28, p = 0.0495). There was a significant improvement in TDAS scores after class was resumed (p < 0.01). A proactive approach to intellectual activities and social ties may be important for the prevention of cognitive decline during periods of restrictions due to COVID-19. We found that cognitive function test scores before class suspension significantly improved after resuming classes. We speculate that continued participation in the class led to positive behavioral changes in daily life during periods of restriction due to COVID-19.
Curbing the COVID-19 pandemic with facility-based isolation of mild cases: a mathematical modeling study

Abstract Background In many countries, patients with mild coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are told to self-isolate at home, but imperfect compliance and shared living space with uninfected people limit the effectiveness of home-based isolation. We examine the impact of facility-based isolation compared to self-isolation at home on the continuing epidemic in the USA. Methods We developed a compartment model to simulate the dynamic transmission of COVID-19 and calibrated it to key epidemic measures in the USA from March to September 2020. We simulated facility-based isolation strategies with various capacities and starting times under different diagnosis rates. Our primary model outcomes are new infections and deaths over 2 months from October 2020 onwards. In addition to national-level estimations, we explored the effects of facility-based isolation under different epidemic burdens in major US Census Regions. We performed sensitivity analyses by varying key model assumptions and parameters. Results We find that facility-based isolation with moderate capacity of 5 beds per 10 000 total population could avert 4.17 (95% credible interval 1.65–7.11) million new infections and 16 000 (8000–23 000) deaths in 2 months compared with home-based isolation. These results are equivalent to relative reductions of 57% (44–61%) in new infections and 37% (27–40%) in deaths. Facility-based isolation with high capacity of 10 beds per 10 000 population could achieve reductions of 76% (62–84%) in new infections and 52% (37–64%) in deaths when supported by expanded testing with an additional 20% daily diagnosis rate. Delays in implementation would substantially reduce the impact of facility-based isolation. The effective capacity and the impact of facility-based isolation varied by epidemic stage across regions. Conclusion Timely facility-based isolation for mild COVID-19 cases could substantially reduce the number of new infections and effectively curb the continuing epidemic in the USA. Local epidemic burdens should determine the scale of facility-based isolation strategies.
Facile preparation of coating fluorescent hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles with pH-sensitive amphiphilic diblock copolymer for controlled drug release and cell imaging

A smart fluorescent drug carrier based on hollow mesoporous silica (HMS) nanoparticles was prepared step by step. First, HMS nanoparticles were doped with lanthanide rare-earth nanocrystals (YVO4:Eu3+). Then the surface of HMS@YVO4:Eu3+ was modified by octadecyltrimethoxysilane (C18). Afterwards, it was coated by designed pH-sensitive amphiphilic diblock copolymer (poly(MPEG-b-DBAM), PMD) through hydrophobic van der Waals interactions. The results of characterization such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) reveal that the material shows excellent monodisperse spherical morphology and narrow size distribution (180 nm) with hollow-core@mesoporous-silica-shell@thin-polymer-film structure. The multifunctional system HMS@YVO4:Eu3+@C18@PMD was utilized to deliver the model drug ibuprofen (IBU), and the drug loading content of the system is as high as 834 mg/g (drug/carrier). Due to the coated pH-sensitive polymer film, the loaded drug is selectively released in mildly acidic environment. The time of release of about 80% drug was however prolonged from 50 to 150 h (at pH = 5.0) by the effect of modified C18, which has thus achieved longer-term release. Besides, the prepared material is easily imported into human mouth epidermal carcinoma (KB) cells and showed good and stable red fluorescence, which is suitable for cell imaging.
GANs with Conditional Independence Graphs: On Subadditivity of Probability Divergences

1. Πn 6= ∅ and Πn $ {1, · · · , n − 1}: In this case, we apply the subadditivity property of δ with respect to Markov Chains to obtain δ(P,Q) ≤ δ(P∪n−1 i=1 Xi , Q∪n−1 i=1 Xi) + δ(PXΠn∪Xn , QXΠn∪Xn). 2. Πn = {1, · · · , n−1}: In this case, it is trivial that δ(P,Q) ≡ δ(PXΠn∪Xn , QXΠn∪Xn) ≤ δ(P∪n−1 i=1 Xi , Q∪n−1 i=1 Xi)+ δ(PXΠn∪Xn , QXΠn∪Xn). 3. Πn = ∅: In this case, Xn is independent from (X1, . . . , Xn−1) in both Bayes-nets. Thus we apply the subadditivity of δ with respect to product measures to obtain δ(P,Q) ≤ δ(P∪n−1 i=1 Xi , Q∪n−1 i=1 Xi)+δ(PXn , QXn) ≡ δ(P∪n−1 i=1 Xi , Q∪n−1 i=1 Xi ) + δ(PXΠn∪Xn , QXΠn∪Xn).
On Interim Envy-Free Allocation Lotteries

With very few exceptions, recent research in fair division has mostly focused on deterministic allocations. Deviating from this trend, we study the fairness notion of interim envy-freeness (iEF) for lotteries over allocations, which serves as a sweet spot between the too stringent notion of ex-post envy-freeness and the very weak notion of ex-ante envy-freeness. iEF is a natural generalization of envy-freeness to random allocations in the sense that a deterministic envy-free allocation is iEF (when viewed as a degenerate lottery). It is also certainly meaningful as it allows for a richer solution space, which includes solutions that are provably better than envy-freeness according to several criteria. Our analysis relates iEF to other fairness notions as well, and reveals tradeoffs between iEF and efficiency. Even though several of our results apply to general fair division problems, we are particularly interested in instances with equal numbers of agents and items where allocations are perfect matchings of the items to the agents. Envy-freeness can be trivially decided and (when it can be achieved, it) implies full efficiency in this setting. Although computing iEF allocations in matching allocation instances is considerably more challenging, we show how to compute them in polynomial time, while also maximizing several efficiency objectives. Our algorithms use the ellipsoid method for linear programming and efficient solutions to a novel variant of the bipartite matching problem as a separation oracle. We also study the extension of interim envy-freeness notion when payments to or from the agents are allowed. We present a series of results on two optimization problems, including a generalization of the classical rent division problem to random allocations using interim envy-freeness as the solution concept.
Deep Probabilistic Accelerated Evaluation: A Robust Certifiable Rare-Event Simulation Methodology for Black-Box Safety-Critical Systems

Evaluating the reliability of intelligent physical systems against rare safety-critical events poses a huge testing burden for real-world applications. Simulation provides a useful platform to evaluate the extremal risks of these systems before their deployments. Importance Sampling (IS), while proven to be powerful for rare-event simulation, faces challenges in handling these learning-based systems due to their black-box nature that fundamentally undermines its e � ciency guarantee, which can lead to under-estimation without diagnostically detected. We propose a framework called Deep Probabilistic Accelerated Evaluation (Deep-PrAE) to design statistically guaranteed IS, by converting black-box samplers that are versatile but could lack guarantees, into one with what we call a relaxed e � ciency certiﬁcate that allows accurate estimation of bounds on the safety-critical event probability. We present the theory of Deep-PrAE that combines the dominating point concept with rare-event set learning via deep neural network classiﬁers, and demonstrate its e ↵ ectiveness in numerical examples including the safety-testing of an intelligent driving algorithm.
DnaJC 7 binds natively folded structural elements in tau to inhibit amyloid 3 formation 4 5

1 Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Texas Southwestern Medical 9 Center, Dallas, TX 75235, United States 10 2 Department of Biophysics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75235, 11 United States 12 3 Molecular Biophysics Program, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75235, 13 United States 14 4 Department of Biochemistry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75235, 15 United States 16 * To whom correspondence should be addressed: Lukasz.Joachimiak@UTSouthwestern.edu 17
Multiscale simulation of flow-induced texture formation in polymer liquid crystals and carbonaceous mesophases

This paper presents theory and simulation of flow-induced structures in liquid crystalline materials, useful to the creation of synthetic material structures and to the biomimetics of natural fibers. A multiscale theory and simulation of hydrodynamic texture formation is presented; it provides fundamental principles for control and optimization of structures in liquid crystal polymers and carbonaceous mesophases. In thermotropic flow-aligning nematic polymers it is found that as the shear-rate increases, the pathway between an oriented non-planar state and an oriented planar state is through meso-texture formation and coarsening, with temperature and shear rate being efficient fields to control the grain size of the texture. For capillary flow of carbonaceous mesophases, the simulations predict the emergence of macroscopic ring patterns whose thickness and density can be controlled by the applied pressure drops. The results provide insight on microstructure formation and control in liquid crystalline materials.
Poly(m-xylene adipamide)-montmorillonite nanocomposites: effect of organo-modifier structure on free volume and oxygen barrier properties

It was shown that nanoparticle–polymer interactions that affect the free volume and oxygen barrier properties of poly(m-xylene adipamide)/clay nanocomposites can be tailored by the choice of organic modifier of montmorillonite clay. Three different organo-modified clay compounds based on montmorillonite (Cloisite 30B, 10A and 93A) were dispersed in the resin poly(m-xylene adipamide) at loading levels of 2 wt% clay. Samples were melt compounded and extruded using a laboratory scale twin screw micro compounder. Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) was used to examine the free volume of the polymer nanocomposites. PALS results suggested that the Cloisite 10A additive should give the higher reduction in gas permeability as it results in the lowest free volume for the nylon resin when compared to all of the clay additives examined. Oxygen transmission rates (OTR) were measured on nanocomposite films and the Cloisite 10A additive was found to give the best oxygen barrier, showing a reduction of OTR of 66% compared to the neat resin. In all cases examined, PALS free volume data was found to have excellent correlation to the measured oxygen transmission rates. The addition of Cloisite 10A resulted in the highest crystallinity and an increase in glass transition temperature when compared to the neat resin. Results indicate that the improved barrier properties of the clay compounds is primarily due to an increase in the degree of crystallinity of the polymer, with the nanoparticles being more effective nucleating agents when favourable nanoparticle–polymer interactions are present.