Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decision by sampling implements efficient coding of psychoeconomic functions

The theory of decision by sampling (DbS) proposes that an attribute’s subjective value is its rank within a sample of attribute values retrieved from memory. This can account for instances of context dependence beyond the reach of classic theories which assume stable preferences. In this paper, we provide a normative justification for DbS that is based on the principle of efficient coding. The efficient representation of information in a noiseless communication channel is characterized by a uniform response distribution, which the rank transformation implements. However, cognitive limitations imply that decision samples are finite, introducing noise. Efficient coding in a noisy channel requires smoothing of the signal, a principle that leads to a new generalization of DbS. This generalization is closely connected to range-frequency theory, and helps descriptively account for a wider set of behavioral observations, such as how context sensitivity varies with the number of available response categories.
Greenspace and Atopic Sensitization in Children and Adolescents—A Systematic Review

In the last decade, studies investigating greenspace have highlighted several benefits to human health. However, the effect of greenspace on allergies and atopic sensitization in children was not clear. While several studies have investigated this link, the evidence has not been systematically synthesized. We conducted a systematic search of eight databases. Study characteristics and findings were extracted from five articles covering 11 cohorts published between 2012 and 2016, and study quality assessments were performed. Due to significant heterogeneity, meta-analysis was not conducted. Findings were not consistent, possibly due to variations in exposure measurements, study populations and location, the specific allergens tested, and inclusion of confounders. Protective effects from greenspace were reported in four cohorts, while two cohorts showed an increase in sensitization related to greenspace. The other five cohorts found no significant effect of greenspace on atopic sensitization. There is limited understanding of the contributions of greenspace to specific allergens. Future research should consider amount and type of greenspace, as well as the specific allergens tested.
Optimization of fermentation conditions through response surface methodology for enhanced antibacterial metabolite production by Streptomyces sp. 1-14 from cassava rhizosphere

Streptomyces species 1–14 isolated from cassava rhizosphere soil were evaluated for their antibacterial efficacy against Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense race 4 (FOC4). Of the 63 strains tested, thirteen exhibited potent antibacterial properties and were further screened against eight fungal pathogens. The strain that showed maximum inhibition against all of the test pathogens was identified by 16S rDNA sequencing as Streptomyces sp. 1–14, was selected for further studies. Through the propagation of Streptomyces sp. 1–14 in soil under simulated conditions, we found that FOC4 did not significantly influence the multiplication and survival of Streptomyces sp. 1–14, while indigenous microorganisms in the soil did significantly influence Streptomyces sp. 1–14 populations. To achieve maximum metabolite production, the growth of Streptomyces 1–14 was optimized through response surface methodology employing Plackett-Burman design, path of steepest ascent determinations and Box-Behnken design. The final optimized fermentation conditions (g/L) included: glucose, 38.877; CaCl2•2H2O, 0.161; temperature, 29.97°C; and inoculation amount, 8.93%. This optimization resulted in an antibacterial activity of 56.13% against FOC4, which was 12.33% higher than that before optimization (43.80%). The results obtained using response surface methodology to optimize the fermentation medium had a significant effect on the production of bioactive metabolites by Streptomyces sp. 1–14. Moreover, during fermentation and storage, pH, light, storage temperature, etc., must be closely monitored to reduce the formation of fermentation products with reduced antibacterial activity. This method is useful for further investigations of the production of anti-FOC4 substances, and could be used to develop bio-control agents to suppress or control banana fusarium wilt.
Assessment of Particular Qualities of Carrot Availalbe in Selected Retailers in Krakow

Abstract The objective of the paper was assessment of the selected qualities of carrot from retailer's shops, organic and traditional food shops in Krakow. The following quality parameters of the fruit pulp were investigated: content of extract, sugars, polyphenols, nitrite, flavonoids, beta-carotene, colour, and antioxidant activity. The investigation shows that the content of nitrogen (V) in the samples of carrot from traditional cultivations was higher than in case of carrot from organic crops, and in case of a sample from traditional cultivation it exceeds the admissible norms. However, the research which was carried out provides no justification for the statement that the content of nitrate (III) depends on the production system of carrot. The research on the content of polyphenols, flavonoids and antioxidant activity of juice proved the increased antioxidant ability of carrot that was traditionally cultivated with reference to carrot cultivated organically. However, the differences were not statistically confirmed. Beta-carotene content in all samples was comparable regardless the cultivation system. Content of extracts, total carbohydrates and sucrose was significantly higher for carrot from traditional crops than for eco-carrot.
Social Internet of Vehicles: Complexity, Adaptivity, Issues and Beyond

Social Internet of Things (SIoT) is a specialized form of adaptive networks, where any change in one node can affect other nodes in the network. Millions of devices, including vehicles, buildings, healthcare, industries, and several other types of devices, share and exchange sensitive data among each other. Interconnection of these devices changes the paradigms of the world around us and puts a great effect on the overall society. The number of nodes, types of devices, layout of the overall network, and sensitivity of the data adds more and more complexity in the domain of SIoT. In this paper, our contribution is twofold, first, we provide a brief and comprehensive overview of the social aspects of the IoT by selecting the most recent papers to investigate the complexity, adaptivity, and other social aspects of the IoT and their implications. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the benefits of IoT to the society, social acceptance of IoTs, and social connectivity of different age groups. Second, we forecast the future trends and predict the world in the year 2020. We provide a detailed analysis by using several different data tables to present the future trends of different aspects of SIoT. With this survey, we aim to provide an easy and concise view of different challenges in implementing SIoT and how it will affect the future smart cities and overall impact on the society.
Deep Salient Object Detection With Dense Connections and Distraction Diagnosis

In this paper, we propose two novel components for improving deep salient object detection models. The first component, called saliency detection network (S-Net), introduces dense short- and long-range connections that effectively integrate multiscale features to better exploit contexts at multiple levels. Benefiting from the direct access to low- and high-level features, the S-Net can not only exploit the object context but also preserve the object boundary sharply, leading to enhanced saliency detection performance. Second, a distraction detection network (D-Net) is developed to learn to diagnose which regions of an input image are distracting and harmful for saliency prediction of the S-Net. With such distraction diagnosis, the regions that are distracting to S-Net are removed in hindsight from the input image and the resulted distraction-free image is fed to S-Net for saliency prediction. To train the D-Net, a distraction mining approach is proposed to localize the model-specific distracting regions through examining the sensitiveness of the S-Net to image regions in a principled manner. Besides, the distraction mining approach also provides a way to interpret decisions made by deep neural network (DNN) saliency detection models, which relieves the black-box issues of DNNs to some extent. Extensive experiments on seven popular benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the combined S-Net and D-Net, which provides new state of the arts.
Endogenous amdoparvovirus-related elements reveal insights into the biology and evolution of vertebrate parvoviruses

Abstract Amdoparvoviruses (family Parvoviridae: genus Amdoparvovirus) infect carnivores, and are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in farmed animals. In this study, we systematically screened animal genomes to identify endogenous parvoviral elements (EPVs) disclosing a high degree of similarity to amdoparvoviruses, and investigated their genomic, phylogenetic and protein structural features. We report the first examples of full-length, amdoparvovirus-derived EPVs in the genome of the Transcaucasian mole vole (Ellobius lutescens). We also identify four EPVs in mammal and reptile genomes that are intermediate between amdoparvoviruses and their sister genus (Protoparvovirus) in terms of their phylogenetic placement and genomic features. In particular, we identify a genome-length EPV in the genome of a pit viper (Protobothrops mucrosquamatus) that is more similar to a protoparvovirus than an amdoparvovirus in terms of its phylogenetic placement and the structural features of its capsid protein (as revealed by homology modeling), yet exhibits characteristically amdoparvovirus-like genome features including: (1) a putative middle ORF gene; (2) a capsid gene that lacks a phospholipase A2 domain; (3) a genome structure consistent with an amdoparvovirus-like mechanism of capsid gene expression. Our findings indicate that amdoparvovirus host range extends to rodents, and that parvovirus lineages possessing a mixture of proto- and amdoparvovirus-like characteristics have circulated in the past. In addition, we show that EPV sequences in the mole vole and pit viper encode intact, expressible replicase genes that have potentially been co-opted or exapted in these host species.
Pathway analysis of a genome-wide association study on a long non-coding RNA expression profile in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been consistently demonstrated to be involved in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) as either tumor oncogenes or tumor suppressors. However, the underlying mechanisms of OSCC tumorigenesis and development have not yet been fully elucidated. The expression profiles of mRNAs and lncRNAs in OSCC were analyzed by a microarray assay. To verify the results of the microarray, 10 differentially expressed lncRNAs were randomly selected and measured by quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). Gene Ontology (GO) and metabolic pathway analyses were performed to analyze gene function and identify enriched pathways. Subsequently, two independent algorithms were used to predict the target genes of the lncRNAs. We identified 2,294 lncRNAs and 1,938 mRNAs that were differentially expressed in all three OSCC tissues by a microarray assay. Through the construction of co-expression networks of differentially expressed genes, 4 critical lncRNAs nodes were identified as potential key factors in the pathogenesis of OSCC. Expression of the 4 critical lncRNA nodes was not associated with age, sex, smoking or tumor location (P>0.05) but was positively correlated with clinical stage, lymphatic metastasis, distant metastasis and survival status (P<0.05). Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that low expression levels of these 4 critical lncRNA nodes contributed to poor median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) (P<0.05). GO and pathway analyses indicated that the functions and enriched pathways of many dysregulated genes are associated with cancer. Potential target genes of dysregulated lncRNAs were enriched in 43 metabolic pathways, with cancer pathways being the primary enrichment pathways. In summary, we analyzed the profile of lncRNAs in OSCC and identified the functions and enriched metabolic pathways of both dysregulated mRNAs and the target genes of dysregulated lncRNAs, providing new insights into molecular markers and therapeutic targets for OSCC.
Of molecules, memories and migration: M1 acetylcholine receptors facilitate spatial memory formation and recall during migratory navigation

Many animals use complex cognitive processes, including the formation and recall of memories, for successful navigation. However, the developmental and neurological processes underlying these cognitive aspects of navigation are poorly understood. To address the importance of the formation and recollection of memories during navigation, we pharmacologically manipulated turtles (Chrysemys picta) that navigate long distances using precise, complex paths learned during a juvenile critical period. We treated freely navigating turtles both within and outside of their critical learning period with a specific M1 acetylcholine receptor antagonist, a drug known to disrupt spatial cognition. Experienced adult turtles lost all navigational ability under the influence of the drug, while naive juveniles navigated successfully. We retested these same juveniles the following year (after they had passed their critical period). The juveniles that initially navigated successfully under the influence of the antagonist (but were unable to form spatial memories) were unable to do so subsequently. However, the control animals (who had the opportunity to form memories previously) exhibited typical navigational precision. These results suggest that the formation of spatial memories for navigation occur during a critical period, and successful navigation after the critical period is dependent upon the recall of such memories.
Detector Performance for Fast Neutron Radiography and Computed Tomography

Radiography and computed tomography using fast neutrons can provide imaging contrast of large, dense, or heavily shielded materials that are unobtainable by x-rays or thermal neutrons.However, fast neutron imaging is difficult i n practice due to the scarcity of fast neutron sources and the difficulty of producing fast neutron sensitive detectors, thus requiring specialized equipment for both the source and detector aspects of radiography. A world class neutron radiography and computed tomography facility has been developed at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center to study the use of fast neutrons for non-destructive testing. Two fast neutron detector configurations were recently investigated for use in this facility: an a-Si flat panel with mounted ZnS:Cu scintillator, and a CCD camera optically coupled to various scintillator screens. Results of detector performance metrics, such as the modulation transfer function and the noise power spectrum, are presented. These metrics are reported as a function of shieldingthicknesses, and as a function of the scintillator material chosen for use with the camera system. A comparison of the two systems found that the camera had better spatial resolution, while the flat p anel h ad l ess n oise. Of the three scintillators investigated with the camera system, the custom iridium-doped plastic scintillator had highest resolution, and the ZnS:Ag scintillator had the best noise performance.
PrivacyBuDe: Privacy Buckets Demo Tight Differential Privacy Guarantees made Simple

Computing differential privacy guarantees is an important task for a wide variety of applications. The tighter the guarantees are, the more difficult it seems to be to compute them: naive bounds are simple additions, whereas modern composition theorems require either a search over a potentially confusing parameter space (for the composition theorem of Kairouz, Oh, and Visvanath), require computing many moments (for Rényi DP) or finding parameters of a function that limits the privacy loss (for concentrated DP). The best known approach for tight differential privacy bounds, called Privacy Buckets, provides requires running a fairly complex implementation of numerical approximations. In this work, we provide an easy-to-use interface for computing state-of-the-art differential privacy guarantees by simply accessing a website. Guarantees for the widely used Laplace mechanism and for the similarly popular Gauss mechanism can be computed by simply stating the scale parameter of the noise, the sensitivity, and the number of compositions. Privacy guarantees for more complex distributions can be computed by uploading two histograms. This work bridges the gap between the best known theoretical results for computing differential privacy guarantees and privacy analysts and users benefiting from such guarantees.
It Does Not Follow. Response to "Yes They Can! ..."

This a response to "Yes They Can! " (a comment on [5]) by J.S. Shaari et al. [9]. We show that the claims in the comment do not hold up and that all the conclusions obtained in [5] are correct. In particular, the two considered kinds of two-way communication protocols (ping-pong and LM05) under a quantum-man-in-the-middle (QMM) attack have neither a critical disturbance (D), nor a valid privacy amplification (PA) procedure, nor an unconditional security proof. However, we point out that there is another two-way protocol which does have a critical D and a valid PA and which is resistant to a QMM attack.
Normalizing cVEMPs: Which Method Is the Most Effective?

OBJECTIVES To determine the most effective method for normalizing cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMPs). DESIGN cVEMP data from 20 subjects with normal hearing and vestibular function were normalized using 16 combinations of methods, each using one of the 4 modes of electromyogram (EMG) quantification described below. All methods used the peak to peak value of an averaged cVEMP waveform (VEMPpp) and obtained a normalized cVEMP by dividing VEMPpp by a measure of the EMG amplitude. EMG metrics were obtained from the EMG within short- and long-duration time windows. EMG amplitude was quantified by its root-mean-square (RMS) or average full-wave-rectified (RECT) value. The EMG amplitude was used by (a) dividing each individual trace by the EMG of this specific trace, (b) dividing VEMPpp by the average RMS or RECT of the individual trace EMG, (c) dividing the VEMPpp by an EMG metric obtained from the average cVEMP waveform, or (d) dividing the VEMPpp by an EMG metric obtained from an average cVEMP "noise" waveform. Normalization methods were compared by the normalized cVEMP coefficient of variation across subjects and by the area under the curve from a receiver-operating-characteristic analysis. A separate analysis of the effect of EMG-window duration was done. RESULTS There were large disparities in the results from different normalization methods. The best methods used EMG metrics from individual-trace EMG measurements, not from part of the average cVEMP waveform. EMG quantification by RMS or RECT produced similar results. For most EMG quantifications, longer window durations were better in producing receiver-operating-characteristic with high areas under the curve. However, even short window durations worked well when the EMG metric was calculated from the average RMS or RECT of the individual-trace EMGs. Calculating the EMG from a long-duration window of a cVEMP "noise" average waveform was almost as good as the individual-trace-EMG methods. CONCLUSIONS The best cVEMP normalizations use EMG quantification from individual-trace EMGs. To have the normalized cVEMPs accurately reflect the vestibular activation, a good normalization method needs to be used.
A Language-Independent Technique for Assessing Tweet Success: An Experience Report

Twitter is a very active social network with hundreds of millions of users. This huge number of users makes it a very important market, where companies need to participate in order to improve their business opportunities. In order to analyze data and promote contents many studies apply natural language approaches, which require libraries that are only available for widely spoken languages. However, it is not easy to adapt the results obtained to different products and contexts, since each culture has specific features that make them unique. For these reasons, a language-independent way to train systems to detect the main features required to write successful tweets in different contexts would be useful. In this paper, we propose five definitions for successful tweets. Once we have identified successful tweets with respect to these definitions we apply machine learning to build predictive models and extract those features that characterize them, so we can present a recipe for writing successful tweets following the most appropriate definition in each case. We have applied this approach to a data set of tweets obtained during the political events in Catalonia in October, 2017. Although the results are not completely satisfactory, we have been able to build good predictive models for one of the success definitions and extract from them some candidate features that make a successful tweet. Moreover, we identify the main problems with the rest of the definitions and discuss some improvements, so future research lines can take them into account.
Parental perceptions of human papillomavirus vaccination in central China: the moderating role of socioeconomic factors

ABSTRACT Background: The huge gap in adolescent human papillomavirus (HPV) uptake between China (< 2%) and developed countries (> 60%) indicates the necessity of comprehensive examination on the modifiable factors for parents’ decision-making. The present study investigated parental perceptions of HPV vaccination for children in China from a socio-economic perspective. Methods: Parents of 9-to-14-year-old adolescents who understood the HPV vaccination (n = 925) completed our questionnaire survey in Fall 2017. Based on the structural equation modeling, we examined the relationship among knowledge, awareness, and intentions of 20 items by 7-point Likert scale, the moderating effects also were tested among 5 socioeconomic variables. Results: Parents of female students have more positive intention about the HPV vaccination than male students’ parents (3.74 vs 2.80, p < 0.001). Parents of 12–14-years old students have higher average scores in knowledge (p = 0.006) and intention (p < 0.001) than that of 9–11-years old students’ parents. The average score of mothers on knowledge (p = 0.018) and awareness (p < 0.001) was lower than that of fathers. The elder parents (≥ 50 years) performed significantly better on knowledge (p < 0.001) and awareness (p < 0.001) than the other two subgroups. Annual household income is an important factor in determining the knowledge (p = 0.0017), awareness (p < 0.001), and intention (p < 0.001). Knowledge and awareness were considered as the positive determinant of intention, and awareness was partial mediator. Child gender (P = 0.046), child age (P = 0.004), parent gender (P = 0.043) and parental age (P = 0.021) were significant moderators. Conclusion: To improve the acceptability of HPV vaccination among Chinese adolescents, policymakers should develop positive strategies for their parents.