Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards Context-aware Knowledge Entailment from Health Conversations

Despite the competitive eﬀorts of leading companies, cognitive technologies such as chatbot technologies still have limited cognitive capabilities. One of the major challenges that they face is knowledge entailment from the ongoing conversations with a user. Knowledge entailment implies entailing facts that indicate opinions, beliefs, expressions, requests, and feelings of a particular user about a particular target during conversations. The entailed pieces of knowledge will evolve the background knowledge graph of cognitive technologies and advance their contextual inference and reasoning capabilities. Although the Natural Language Processing (NLP) community deals with the Recognizing Textual Entailment (RTE) task, it is treated in a static manner where the predeﬁned hypothesis is typically fed to the learning model, and then the model decides whether it is an entailment or not. However, since the discourse of conversations is dynamic and unpredictable, the traditional RTE approach does not suﬃce in the context of conversational agents. In this vision paper, we demonstrate our work in progress as to inject background knowledge into machine learning approaches where it entails facts using domain-speciﬁc ontologies and contextualized knowledge. Further, we propose investigating solutions for extending or transferring this approach to other domains. We frame our discussion in a case study related to mental health conversations.
An Electrochemical and Spectroscopic Investigation of Nickel Electrodes in Alkaline Media for Applications in Electro-Catalysis

ii Acknowledgements . vii Table of Tables . ix Table of Figures . xi List of Abbreviations . xv 1. General Introduction . 1 1.1. Nickel Electrodes and Applications in Electro-catalysis . 2 1.2. Electrode Materials . 3 1.2. 1. Nickel . 3 1.2. 2. Nickel Hydroxides. 5 1.2. 1. Nickel Hydrides. 21 1.3. Electrochemically Active Surface Area (AECSA) Measurements . 24 1.4. Thesis Objectives . 27 2. Raman and Infrared Spectroscopy of α and β Phases of Nickel Hydroxide . 29 2.
Sugar induced membrane stiffening: the role of viscous fluid adlayers

Luka Pocivavsek, Kseniya Gavrilov, Kathleen D. Cao, Eva Y. Chi, Dongxu Li, Binhua Lin, Mati Meron, Jaroslaw Majewski, and Ka Yee C. Lee1∗ 1Department of Chemistry, Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, and James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago IL, 60637 USA 2Department of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131 USA 3Center for Advanced Radiation Sources and James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago IL, 60637 USA 4Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545 (Dated: November 9, 2010)
COPING STRATEGIES ON LISTENING ANXIETY OF SAUDI EFL LEARNERS: A QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY

Listening anxiety has long since been considered as a problematic component for foreign language learners. Therefore, this study aimed at identifying the strategies utilised by Saudi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in order to alleviate such listening-induced anxiety, which was undertaken by conducting semi-structured interviews with 15 participants. The findings revealed that the learners implemented nine categories of strategy, which emerged from four main themes. The primary themes were: 1) cognitive strategy, which included positive thinking, note-taking, and inferring to guess the meaning; 2) metacognitive strategy, which included preparation, peer-seeking, and self-evaluation; 3) affective strategy, which included relaxation; and 4) memory strategy, which included keywords and semantic mapping utilisation. In brief, this study positions significant implications for the learners, lecturers, and course developers alike.
STATINS AND THE RISK FOR CORONARY IN-STENT RESTENOSIS IN DIABETIC PATIENTS

Diabetes mellitus is considered to be an independent risk factor for the progression of coronary artery disease, due to the associated pro-atherosclerotic status, and also an important predictor of poor outcomes after both coronary artery bypass grafting and percutaneous coronary intervention. Even in the contemporary era of newer-generation stents and despite remarkable technological advances, in-stent restenosis is still a major problem. The aim of our study was to identify risk factors for restenosis in the first year after stent deployment in 95 diabetic patients with coronary heart disease. Our results suggest that a larger stent diameter and the use of statins positively influence the risk of in-stent restenosis in the first year after stent implantation. Systemic statin therapy should be considered in all interventional treated diabetic patients, in order to reduce the risk of in-stent restenosis, particularly in high-risk patients.
Social Media Addiction and Associated Factors among Madda Walabu University Students, Southeast Ethiopia

Social media is a relatively new technology, and little studies have been conducted on its addiction and associated factors. It has become popular among college and university students of young population. Social media is addictive specially using it for chatting is very attractive and addictive. Once you sign in to this public site, you may follow others’ comments, gossip, and get in touch with the whole society or world. You can’t stop when you want since you are controlled. The present study is designed to evaluate social media addiction and associated factors among university students. An institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 11 - 30 /2017. A simple random sampling method was conducted to recruit the study participants. Data was collected by using pre-tasted, structured and self-administered questioner and analyzed using SPSS version 20 statistical software. A total of 149(99.3%) of respondents were reported as social media users. From this figure the majority 104(69.8%) of participants used Facebook. From the total users about 32(21.3%) of students were addicted. Variables such as being male, young in age (18-22 years), and excessive use of social media per day significantly associated with higher odds of addiction. Therefore, students should limit and use appropriately the social media through self-regulation.
Transplantation and Dialysis: Recording of Transplanted Patients Who Re-Enter in Their Hemodialysis or Peritoneal Dialysis Hospitalization Units

Objective: In the present study, we evaluated the rate of discharges of patients who had been enrolled in a type of dialysis and had re-engaged by measuring other factors, during the years 2013-2015. Methods: We recorded the characteristics of 2.586 HD and 100 PD patients who, in some point of their life, been transplanted and needed to re-entry their hospitalization units. We compared these data with others retrieved from researches across countries of both inside and outside the European Union. Results: The mean patient age of our specimen was 68.7 ± 14.1 years, with the percentage of female gender at 36.3% (938), while the remaining 63.7% (1.648) are men. Most common ESRD cause was diabetes (32% for PD and 24% for HD patients). Employed PD patients were 35% vs. 4% of HD (p<0,001), with almost 61% (1.005) of men not smokers, while the women have a similar 79.1%. Conclusion: Although Greece has one of the smallest graft rejection rates, it does not cease to have the smallest rates of transplantation both in the rest of Europe and beyond.
Epigenome-wide contributions to individual differences in childhood phenotypes: a GREML approach

Background DNA methylation is an epigenetic mechanism involved in human development. Numerous epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) have investigated the associations of DNA methylation at single CpG sites with childhood outcomes. However, the overall contribution of DNA methylation across the genome ( R 2 Methylation ) towards childhood phenotypes is unknown. An estimate of R 2 Methylation would provide context regarding the importance of DNA methylation explaining variance in health outcomes. We therefore estimated the variance explained by epigenome-wide cord blood methylation ( R 2 Methylation ) for five childhood phenotypes: gestational age, birth weight, and body mass index (BMI), IQ and ADHD symptoms at school age. We adapted a genome-based restricted maximum likelihood (GREML) approach with cross-validation (CV) to DNA methylation data and applied it in two population-based birth cohorts: ALSPAC ( n = 775) and Generation R ( n = 1382). Results Using information from > 470,000 autosomal probes we estimated that DNA methylation at birth explains 32% (SD CV = 0.06) of gestational age variance and 5% (SD CV = 0.02) of birth weight variance. The R 2 Methylation estimates for BMI, IQ and ADHD symptoms at school age estimates were near 0% across almost all cross-validation iterations. Conclusions The results suggest that cord blood methylation explains a moderate degree of variance in gestational age and birth weight, in line with the success of previous EWAS in identifying numerous CpG sites associated with these phenotypes. In contrast, we could not obtain a reliable estimate for school-age BMI, IQ and ADHD symptoms. This may reflect a null bias due to insufficient sample size to detect variance explained in more weakly associated phenotypes, although the true R 2 Methylation for these phenotypes is likely below that of gestational age and birth weight when using DNA methylation at birth.
Assessing the usefulness of super-resolution algorithms for cross-resolution face recognition

—With recent advancements in deep learning and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), face recognition has seen signiﬁcant performance improvements over the last few years. However, low-resolution images still remain challenging, with CNNs performing relatively poorly compared to humans. One possibility to improve performance in these settings often advocated in the literature is the use of super-resolution (SR). In this paper
TLRs between Dendritic Cells Extracellular Vesicles with Exosome-like Features Transfer

Accumulating evidence shows that extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted by immune cells play an important role in intercellular communication. In the current report, we show that EVs released from wild-type bone marrow – derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) transfer TLRs to TLR4-knockout (TLR4KO) BMDCs and increase cellular responsiveness to LPS in recipient cells. The transferred EVs have exosomal characteristics and induce the activation of NF- k B signaling pathways in recipient cells. We further show that BMDC-derived EVs can promote LPS-induced inflammation in TLR4KO mice in vivo. These results indicate that functional TLR4 can be transferred from wild-type to TLR4KO BMDCs through exosome-like EVs. ImmunoHorizons , 2019, 3: 186 – 193.
Tunable Liquid Crystal Lens Based on Pretilt Angle Gradient Alignment

ABSTRACT The new method of LC lenses fabrication based on innovative alignment material for pretilt angle gradient generation is developed. The alignment layer provides LC lens pretilt angle gradient via two-step treatment: uniform rubbing and gradient nonpolarized UV exposure. LC lens has uniform cell-gap, 2–10 V tunable voltage range. The fabrication method is scalable for lens arrays for two-dimensional/three-dimensional autostereoscopic and light-field displays.
The Quality of Survey Questions in Spain: A Cross-National Comparison

Most social research collects data about abstract concepts (e.g., attitudes) using survey questions. However, survey data suffer from measurement errors that affect substantive conclusions. When measurement errors differ across countries, cross-national comparisons of standardized relationships can result in incorrect substantive conclusions. However, no research has analysed the measurement quality of survey questions in Spain in a comparative perspective. Using a Split-Ballot Multitrait-Multimethod experiment conducted in the European Social Survey round 8, we compare the quality of questions in Spain with their quality in other participating countries. The average measurement quality in Spain is higher than the overall average for all ESS countries. In addition, when comparing Spain with other countries, substantive conclusions can be incorrect if differences in the size of measurement errors are not taken into account.
HHO-LPWSN: Harris Hawks Optimization Algorithm for Sensor Nodes Localization Problem in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a prominent technology for remote area monitoring with the assimilation of the Internet of Things (IoT). Over the past decades, sensor node localization has become an essential challenge of WSNs. The sensor indicates localization challenges related to NP-hard problems. Nature-inspired computational intelligence algorithms are used to solve NP-hard problems efficiently for sensor node localization. After the rigorous advanced search in reputable research journals, efficient newly designed Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO) algorithm has not been used to sensor nodes localization until now. Therefore, this paper does and compares the proposed work from the recently available well-known optimization algorithms such as the Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA), Equilibrium Optimizer (EO), and Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO). The simulation results of the proposed work showed that it can outperform in terms of average localization error, the number of localized sensor nodes, and computational cost compared to other computational intelligence algorithms.
REAL-WORLD OBSERVATIONAL STUDY REGARDING GLUCOSE CONTROL IN INSULIN TREATED DIABETES MELLITUS PATIENTS. GLUCOSE VARIABILITY PATTERNS ANALYSIS USING CONTINUOUS GLUCOSE MONITORING SYSTEM (CGMS)

In the present study there were evaluated 167 diabetes mellitus patients treated with insulin (without treatment with other oral antidiabetics or other non-insulin injectable antidiabetics) from the Clinical County Hospital of Oradea, Romania in terms of the prescribed insulin therapy (IT) regimen: long-acting (basal) insulin analogues, long-acting insulin analogues and rapidacting (prandial) insulin analogues or premixed insulin and the impact of the IT regimen on the glycaemic control determined by glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c). 35.11% of those with basal IT (n = 92), 32.69% of those with basal and prandial IT (n = 52) and 28.57% of those with premixed IT (n = 21) reached a moderate glycaemic control (HbA1c < 7.5%) without any statistically significant differences (p = 0.84). 12 patients were selected by systematic sampling and evaluated for 6 8 days by inserting a continuous blood glucose monitoring system (CGMS) in a private practice healthcare office. It was found that in 72% of the monitoring period patients are outside the target glycaemic range of 70 150 mg/dL because of hyperglycaemic excursions, in 26% they fell within the therapeutic range and in 2% they were outside the range because of hypoglycaemic excursions. The frequency of hypoglycaemia was high, 50%, but the majority were mild hypoglycaemias and the time spent in hypoglycaemia was extremely short. Therefore modern IT is safe in terms of the risk of hypoglycaemia but glycaemic control is rarely achieved. Hyperglycaemic excursions as demonstrated by CGMS data cannot be explained as hyperglycaemia consecutive to hypoglycaemia.
ASSESSING THE STABILITY, BIOLOGICAL TRANSFER AND DEVELOPMENTAL IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTALLY RELEVANT NITROSAMINES USING A CHICKEN EGG MODEL

Nitrosamines comprise a large group of potentially toxic compounds occurring in the environment as by-products of various manufacturing, agricultural and natural processes. Nitrosamines are produced from reaction of nitrite with a suitable secondary amine in an acidic matrix; these acidic conditions can occur in environmental media and in the mammalian gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This research focused on the stability, transfer, and impacts of the environmentally relevant nitrosamines, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), N-nitrosmorpholine (NMOR), and N-nitrosoatrazine (NNAT) (formed from reaction of nitrite with dimethylamine, morpholine, and atrazine), using the chicken egg and embryo model systems. Chicken eggs were used to determine nitrosamine transfer between a hydrophilic medium (egg white or albumin) and a lipophilic medium (yolk) via a biomembrane (vitelline membrane). Results from these studies with unfertilized chicken eggs showed that the selected nitrosamines transferred from the egg white to yolk where they were relatively stable. NNAT has a relatively higher affinity for the lipophilic yolk fraction, which suggests that it may have a greater potential to bioconcentrate than NDMA and NMOR. An understanding of the transfer behavior of nitrosamines can be used to assess bioavailability and fate, as well as potential environmental and biological impacts. An observed decrease in total nitrosamine in the yolk with time may indicate denitrosation, releasing nitrous acid, which can decompose to nitrite and nitric oxide (NO), an important biological messenger during embryonic and fetal development. Thus teratogenicity of these compounds was assessed using chicken embryos. Major defects observed after exposure to these selected compounds included ectopic heart, gastroschisis, caudal regression, craniofacial hypoplasia, and neural tube defects. A significant relationship was observed between malformed embryos and NNAT (0.46 µg). Additionally nitrotyrosine concentrations (a marker of NO-mediated stress) in NNAT treated, malformed embryos were greater than those observed in treated, normal-appearing embryos. Results indicate that NNAT may be teratogenic and that nitrotyrosine, a marker of NO-dependent oxidative stress, maybe reflective of one biochemical pathway through which nitrosamines exert teratogenic effects. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Patrick Shea, my advisor and mentor. His unfettered guidance, help & support throughout the course of this project have, for me, made this field of study meaningful & interesting. His " pay attention to detail " quality has helped me imbibe this virtue to my career advantage. His deep involvement with the subject and my project in particular has been a source of perpetual encouragement and motivation and …
When Does Terrorism Occur: Game-Theoretic Analysis and Offense-Defense Balance

Offense-defense theory argues that wars are more likely in offense-dominant periods. I study how this claim can be challenged when it comes to making predictions about terrorism. To do so, I consider a model of continuous-time conflict between a status quo state and a terrorist, who develops offensive military technology and has private information on its aggressiveness. I characterize two measures of offense-defense balance, and show that a greater offense advantage in the balance is not associated with a higher risk of terrorism. This paper supports the critics of offense-defense theory, and provides insights into understanding when terrorism occurs.
Self-Assembly of Lipids and Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Effects of Lipid Structure and PEGylation

Self-assemblies of mixtures of a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) and lipids were simulated using coarse-grained (CG) force fields previously developed and parametrized in this work. For lipids, lysophospholipids (single tail) and phospholipids (double tails) are ungrafted or grafted with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) at different sizes. In all simulated systems, lipids self-assemble along the SWNT, but their final conformations significantly differ. Simulations show that lysophospholipids helically wrap the SWNT as the “half-cylinder” conformation, which have been proposed by experiments but not captured by previous simulations. Phospholipids show “cylindrical micelles”, indicating the effect of the number of tails on the assembled structure. For both lysophospholipids and phospholipids, PEGylated lipids induce either “hemimicelle” or “random-adsorption” conformation, indicating dependence on the size of the lipid headgroup, because PEG chains with mushroom (solution-like) state induce the lipid-layer .
Peer Assessment as a Tool to Enhance Pre-Service Primary Bilingual Teachers’ Training (La evaluación entre iguales para mejorar la formación inicial de maestros bilingües de Educación Primaria)

Peer assessment (PA) has proven to promote motivation towards learning and reduce anxiety while fostering critical thinking. However, there is limited research on pre-service teachers’ perceptions and concerns regarding its application in their lessons, and hardly any study addresses the opinions of pre-service primary bilingual teachers. This paper presents a mixed-methods research that investigated how pre-service primary bilingual teachers analyse PA after a teaching experience using video-teaching. After an initial exploratory stage based on the Grounded Theory, semantic and content analyses were carried out. The qualitative analysis of the data was performed with NVivo Plus version 12 for Windows, which also allowed the transformation of the results into quantitative data. Results showed that the participants had a very positive attitude towards PA, emphasizing that this type of assessment helps them improve their teaching performance. Other strengths of PA identified were that it is a useful technique for their future careers, and they can learn from mistakes. Although the participants also mentioned a series of concerns regarding PA, their reluctance to change their practice could be easily overcome, as they would be familiar with this technique prior to beginning their professional careers. Finally, considerations and recommendations to apply PA in pre-service primary bilingual teacher training by using video-teaching are discussed.
Vertebral Tumors – Diagnostic &Treatment Protocols

Vertebral bony tumors are notorious for their ability to mimic each other. With ever changing treatment protocols and newer adjuvant therapies introduced at regular intervals of time, we considered a small but concise update on management of these entities with our own diagnostic algorhythm, along with brief details on management, and a quick access table for radiological diagnosis. We hope that this effort, prepared with an extensive literature review supplemented with images and tables will assist in updating spine surgeons of all hues and thus assist in treating their patients.