Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reidentification of Participants in Shared Clinical Data Sets: Experimental Study

Background: Large curated data sets are required to leverage speech-based tools in health care. These are costly to produce, resulting in increased interest in data sharing. As speech can potentially identify speakers (ie, voiceprints), sharing recordings raises privacy concerns. This is especially relevant when working with patient data protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Objective: We aimed to determine the reidentification risk for speech recordings, without reference to demographics or metadata, in clinical data sets considering both the size of the search space (ie, the number of comparisons that must be considered when reidentifying) and the nature of the speech recording (ie, the type of speech task). Methods: Using a state-of-the-art speaker identification model, we modeled an adversarial attack scenario in which an adversary uses a large data set of identified speech (hereafter, the known set) to reidentify as many unknown speakers in a shared data set (hereafter, the unknown set) as possible. We first considered the effect of search space size by attempting reidentification with various sizes of known and unknown sets using VoxCeleb, a data set with recordings of natural, connected speech from >7000 healthy speakers. We then repeated these tests with different types of recordings in each set to examine whether the nature of a speech recording influences reidentification risk. For these tests
Intensive Care Unit Nurse Characteristics Impacting Judgments About Secondary Brain Injury

Although intensive care unit nurses have an integral role in preventing secondary brain injury when caring for critically ill traumatic brain injury patients, nursing practice varies and little research has examined if individual nurse characteristics affect judgments about secondary brain injury. The purpose of this study was to investigate how intensive care unit nurse characteristics influence judgments when managing secondary brain injury. A factorial survey research design was used to administer surveys to intensive care nurses from 2 level I trauma centers. Nursing shift and number of years in the intensive care unit were significant predictors of judgments. Understanding the role of nurse characteristics is important in future educational and research efforts aimed at evidence-based management of secondary brain injury.
Investigating Voter Perceptions of Printed Physical Audit Trails for Online Voting

—Online elections come with security challenges since digital votes do not produce physical audit trails that are easily verifiable. We present and investigate a hybrid online voting system that combines the benefits of voting from home via the internet with those of physical ballots, such as risk-limiting audits and verifiability. After voting online, the system generates a tracking code and a physical printout – either paper or 3D-printed – of the encrypted vote that can be visually verified by the voters through live video-broadcasts. Through an online experiment (N=150), we compared hybrid voting with paper and 3D-printed votes to a baseline (digitally stored votes), investigating perceived trust, UX, usability, and security readiness. Among our results, we show that paper printouts enhance trust without negatively impacting UX. 3D-printouts enhance perceived privacy, yet impact usability and UX. We conclude with recommendations and practical considerations to inform the implementation of hybrid online voting schemes.
Air Pollution and Infant Mortality: Evidence from the Expansion of Natural Gas Infrastructure

Natural gas has emerged as an increasingly attractive source of energy since it is highly efficient, abundant, and cleaner than any other fossil fuel. In this paper, we examine the impact of widespread adoption of natural gas as a source of fuel on infant mortality in Turkey, using variation across provinces and over time in the intensity of natural gas utilization. Our estimates indicate that the expansion of natural gas infrastructure has resulted in a significant decrease in the rate of infant mortality. Specifically, a one-percentage point increase in natural gas intensity - measured by the rate of subscriptions to natural gas services - would cause the infant mortality rate to decrease by 3.9 percent, which would translate into approximately 340 infant lives saved in 2011 alone.
Belowground carbon responses to experimental warming regulated by soil moisture change in an alpine ecosystem of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

Abstract Recent studies found that the largest uncertainties in the response of the terrestrial carbon cycle to climate change might come from changes in soil moisture under the elevation of temperature. Warming‐induced change in soil moisture and its level of influence on terrestrial ecosystems are mostly determined by climate, soil, and vegetation type and their sensitivity to temperature and moisture. Here, we present the results from a warming experiment of an alpine ecosystem conducted in the permafrost region of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau using infrared heaters. Our results show that 3 years of warming treatments significantly elevated soil temperature at 0–100 cm depth, decreased soil moisture at 10 cm depth, and increased soil moisture at 40–100 cm depth. In contrast to the findings of previous research, experimental warming did not significantly affect NH 4 +‐N, NO 3 −‐N, and heterotrophic respiration, but stimulated the growth of plants and significantly increased root biomass at 30–50 cm depth. This led to increased soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, and liable carbon at 30–50 cm depth, and increased autotrophic respiration of plants. Analysis shows that experimental warming influenced deeper root production via redistributed soil moisture, which favors the accumulation of belowground carbon, but did not significantly affected the decomposition of soil organic carbon. Our findings suggest that future climate change studies need to take greater consideration of changes in the hydrological cycle and the local ecosystem characteristics. The results of our study will aid in understanding the response of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change and provide the regional case for global ecosystem models.
Processes & Impacts

Methylmercury (MeHg) continues to pose a signi ﬁ cant global health risk to wildlife and humans through ﬁ sh consumption. Despite numerous advancements in understanding the mercury (Hg) cycle, questions remain about MeHg sources that accumulate in ﬁ sh, particularly across transitional coastal areas, where harvest is prominent and Hg sources are numerous. Here we used a unique combination of Hg and nutrient isotopes, and otolith chemistry to trace the biogeochemical history of Hg and identify Hg sources that accumulated in an economically important ﬁ sh species across Mobile Bay, Alabama (USA). Fish tissue Hg in our samples primarily originated from wet deposition within the watershed, and partly re ﬂ ected legacy industrial Hg. Results also suggest that little Hg was lost through photochemical processes (<10% of ﬁ sh tissue Hg underwent photochemical processes). Of the small amount that did occur, photodegradation of the organic form, MeHg, was not the dominant process. Biotic transformation processes were estimated to have been a primary driver of Hg fractionation ( ∼ 93%), with isotope results indicating methylation as the primary biotic fractionation process prior to Hg entering the foodweb. On a ﬁ ner scale, individual lifetime estuarine habitat use in ﬂ uenced Hg sources that accumulated in ﬁ sh and ﬁ sh Hg concentrations, with runo ﬀ from terrestrial Hg sources having a larger in ﬂ uence on ﬁ sh in freshwater regions of the estuary compared to estuarine regions. Overall, results suggest increases in Hg inputs to the Mobile Bay watershed from wet deposition, turnover of legacy sources, and runo ﬀ are likely to translate into increased uptake into the foodweb.
Alkyl-phenanthrenes in early life stage ﬁ sh: di ﬀ erential toxicity in Atlantic haddock ( Melanogrammus aegle ﬁ nus ) embryos †

Tricyclic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are believed to be the primary toxic components of crude oil. Such compounds including phenanthrene are known to have direct e ﬀ ects on cardiac tissue, which lead to malformations during organogenesis in early life stage ﬁ sh. We tested a suite of 13 alkyl-phenanthrenes to compare uptake and developmental toxicity in early life stage haddock ( Melanogrammus aegle ﬁ nus ) embryos during gastrulation/organogenesis beginning at 2 days post fertilization via passive dosing. The alkyl-phenanthrenes were tested at their solubility limits, and three of them also at lower concentrations. Measured body burdens were linearly related to measured water concentrations. All compounds elicited one or more signi ﬁ cant morphological defects or functional impairment, such as decreased length, smaller eye area, shorter jaw length, and increased incidence of body axis deformities and eye deformities. The pro ﬁ le of developmental toxicities appeared unrelated to the position of alkyl substitution, and gene expression of cytochrome 1 a ( cyp1a ) was low regardless of alkylation. Mortality and sublethal e ﬀ ects were observed below the expected range for baseline toxicity, thus indicating excess toxicity. Additionally, PAH concentrations that resulted in toxic e ﬀ ects here were far greater than when measured in whole crude oil exposures that cause toxicity. This work demonstrates that, while these phenanthrenes are toxic to early life stage ﬁ sh, they cannot individually account for most of the developmental toxicity of crude oil, and that other compounds and/or mixture e ﬀ ects should be given more consideration.
Research Article On a Perturbed Risk Model with Time-Dependent Claim Sizes

We consider a risk model perturbed by a Brownian motion, where the individual claim sizes are dependent on the inter-claim times. We study the Gerber–Shiu functions when ruin is due to a claim or the jump-difusion process. Integro-diferential equations and Laplace transforms satisfed by the Gerber–Shiu functions are obtained. Ten, it is shown that the expected discounted penalty functions satisfy defective renewal equations. Explicit expressions can be obtained for exponential claim sizes. Finally, a numerical example is provided to measure the impact of the various dependence parameters in the risk model on the ruin probabilities.
Effect of human Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cell secretome on proliferation, apoptosis and drug resistance of lung cancer cells

Multipotent mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are recently found to alter the tumor condition. However their exact role in tumor development is not yet fully unraveled. MSCs were established to perform many of their actions through paracrine effect. Thus investigation of MSC secretome interaction with tumor cells may provide important information for scientists who are attempting to apply stem cells in the treatment of the disease. In this study we investigated the effect of human Wharton's jelly derived MSC (WJ-MSCs) secretome on proliferation, apoptotic potential of A549 lung cancer cells, and their response to the chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin. WJ-MSCs were isolated from human umbilical cord and then characterized according to the International Society for Cellular Therapy criteria and WJ-MSC secretome was collected. BrdU cell proliferation assay and Annexin V-PI staining were used for the evaluation of cytotoxic and proapoptotic effects of WJ-MSC secretome on A549 cells. WJ-MSC secretome neither induced proliferation of lung cancer cells nor affected the apoptotic potential of the tumor cells. We also studied the combinatorial effect of WJ-MSC secretome and the anticancer drug doxorubicinwhich showed no induction of drug resistance when A549 cells was treated with combination of WJ-MSC secretome and doxorubicin. Although MSCs did not show antitumor properties, our in vitro results showed that MSC secretome was not tumorigenic and also did not make lung cancer cells resistant to doxorubicin. Thus MSC secretome could be considered safe for other medical purposes such as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and autoimmune diseases which may exist or occur in cancer patients.
Implications of Extracellular Matrix Production by Adipose Tissue-Derived Stem Cells for Development of Wound Healing Therapies

The synthesis and deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) plays an important role in the healing of acute and chronic wounds. Consequently, the use of ECM as treatment for chronic wounds has been of special interest—both in terms of inducing ECM production by resident cells and applying ex vivo produced ECM. For these purposes, using adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs) could be of use. ASCs are recognized to promote wound healing of otherwise chronic wounds, possibly through the reduction of inflammation, induction of angiogenesis, and promotion of fibroblast and keratinocyte growth. However, little is known regarding the importance of ASC-produced ECM for wound healing. In this review, we describe the importance of ECM for wound healing, and how ECM production by ASCs may be exploited in developing new therapies for the treatment of chronic wounds.
Two-color photons and nonlocality in fourth-order interference.

Two-color photons are created by blocking the central portion of the apertures leading to strong oscillations of the coincidence rate as a function of path-length difference. Both effects are predicted by the theory of fourth-order interference coupled with the detailed phase-matching conditions in the nonlinear crystal used as a source. The two colors overlap at differnt positions on the beamsplitter. We show how this could be used as a test of local realistic theories by formulating a Bell inequality based on relative phases between the colors
Evolution of circular permutations in multidomain proteins.

Modular rearrangements play an important role in protein evolution. Functional modules, often tantamount to structural domains or smaller fragments, are in many cases well conserved but reoccur in a different order and across many protein families. The underlying genetic mechanisms are gene duplication, fusion, and loss of sequence fragments. As a consequence, the sequential order of domains can be inverted, leading to what is known as circularly permutated proteins. Using a recently developed algorithm, we have identified a large number of such rearrangements and analyzed their evolutionary history. We searched for examples which have arisen by one of the three postulated mechanisms: independent fusion/fission, "duplication/deletion," and plasmid-mediated "cut and paste. " We conclude that all three mechanisms can be observed, with the independent fusion/fission being the most frequent. This can be partly attributed to highly mobile domains. Duplication/deletion has been found in modular proteins such as peptide synthases.
Partial Regulatory T Cell Depletion Prior to Acute Feline Immunodeficiency Virus Infection Does Not Alter Disease Pathogenesis

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) infection in cats follows a disease course similar to HIV-1, including a short acute phase characterized by high viremia, and a prolonged asymptomatic phase characterized by low viremia and generalized immune dysfunction. CD4+CD25hiFoxP3+ immunosuppressive regulatory T (Treg) cells have been implicated as a possible cause of immune dysfunction during FIV and HIV-1 infection, as they are capable of modulating virus-specific and inflammatory immune responses. Additionally, the immunosuppressive capacity of feline Treg cells has been shown to be increased during FIV infection. We have previously shown that transient in vivo Treg cell depletion during asymptomatic FIV infection reveals FIV-specific immune responses suppressed by Treg cells. In this study, we sought to determine the immunological influence of Treg cells during acute FIV infection. We asked whether Treg cell depletion prior to infection with the highly pathogenic molecular clone FIV-C36 in cats could alter FIV pathogenesis. We report here that partial Treg cell depletion prior to FIV infection does not significantly change provirus, viremia, or CD4+ T cell levels in blood and lymphoid tissues during the acute phase of disease. The effects of anti-CD25 mAb treatment are truncated in cats acutely infected with FIV-C36 as compared to chronically infected cats or FIV-naïve cats, as Treg cell levels were heightened in all treatment groups included in the study within two weeks post-FIV infection. Our findings suggest that the influence of Treg cell suppression during FIV pathogenesis is most prominent after Treg cells are activated in the environment of established FIV infection.
Foresighted Resource Reciprocation Strategies for Heterogeneous Multimedia Users in Peer-to-Peer Networks

Recently, numerous multimedia applications have been serviced over various network infrastructures such as wired networks (e.g., the Internet or local area network (LAN)), wireless networks, and overlay networks (e.g., peer-to-peer (P2P) networks). These heterogeneous networks are often resource constrained, and moreover, multimedia users may have different resource requirements. Therefore, it is important to design an adaptive resource management strategy while considering the characteristics of heterogeneous multimedia users.
Comparative and Efficient Analysis of Gradient Based Edge Detection Technique in Medical Images

Boundary detection is the process of identifying two dissimilar regions in an image. In recent years, there have been several new methods to solve the problem of boundary detection like active contour model, geodesic active contour model, active contours without edges, etc. But still the difficulty exists in processing images with concave boundary and noisy regions. The proposed Gradient Edge Detection (GED) technique can detect the boundaries of images in noisy images using the intensity and texture gradient features. The performance and robustness of the method have been tested in synthetic noisy images and medical images including knee joints in MR images and aortas in cardiovascular MR images. The efficiency and the effectiveness of the GED technique can be analyzed by comparing the result with the existing active contour models. The results show that the proposed GED technique yields better performance than the active contour models.
Node Centrality on Disjoint Multipath Routing

This paper introduces a node centrality as multipath routing metric for wireless multihop networks. The node centrality is an eigenvector centrality. This paper also proposes two route selection method using an eigenvector centrality. The disjoint rate of the proposed methods are 30% to twice larger than that of the conventional methods. Therefore, it is found that the eigenvector centrality is an effective metric to achieve the high reliability routes in the disjoint multipath routing.
Volume rendering of pool fire data

We describe how techniques from computer graphics are used to visualize pool fire data and compute radiative effects from pool fires. The basic tools are ray casting and accurate line integration using the RADCAL program. Example images in the visible and infrared band are shown which are given of irradiation calculations and novel methods to visualize the results of irradiation calculations. <<ETX>>
Structure and functional expression of the human macrophage inflammatory protein 1 alpha/RANTES receptor

The chemokine beta family is comprised of at least six distinct cytokines that regulate trafficking of phagocytes and lymphocytes in mammalian species; at least one of these, macrophage inflammatory protein 1 alpha (MIP-1 alpha), also regulates the growth of hematopoietic stem cells. We now show that MIP-1 alpha and the related beta chemokine, RANTES, induce transient alterations in intracellular Ca2+ concentration in polymorphonuclear leukocytes that can be reciprocally and specifically desensitized, suggesting a common receptor. Moreover, we have now cloned both the cDNA and the gene for this receptor, functionally expressed the receptor in Xenopus oocytes, and mapped the gene to human chromosome 3p21. Transcripts for the receptor were found in mature and immature myeloid cells as well as B cells. The receptor is a member of the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. It has approximately 33% amino acid identity with receptors for the alpha chemokine, interleukin 8, and may be the human homologue of the product of US28, an open reading frame of human cytomegalovirus.
Graph Mining Techniques: Focusing on discriminating between real and synthetic graphs

Graphs appear in several settings, like social networks, recommendation systems, computer communication networks, gene/protein biological networks, among others. A large amount of graph patterns, as well as graph generator models that mimic such patterns have been proposed over the last years. However, a deep and recurring question still remains: “What is a good pattern? ” The answer is related to finding a pattern or a tool able to help distinguishing between actual real-world and fake graphs. Here we explore the ability of ShatterPlots, a simple and powerful algorithm to tease out patterns of real graphs, helping us to spot fake/masked graphs. The idea is to force a graph to reach a critical (“Shattering”) point, randomly deleting edges, and study its properties at that point.
Fastcloning: A Highly Simplified Purification-Free Sequence-And Fastcloning: A Highly Simplified Purification-Free Sequence-And Ligation-Independent Pcr Cloning Method Ligation-Independent Pcr Cloning Method

Background: Although a variety of methods and expensive kits are available, molecular cloning can be a time-consuming and frustrating process. Results: Here we report a highly simplified, reliable, and efficient PCR-based cloning technique to insert any DNA fragment into a plasmid vector or into a gene (cDNA) in a vector at any desired position. With this method, the vector and insert are PCR amplified separately, with only 18 cycles, using a high fidelity DNA polymerase. The amplified insert has the ends with ~16-base overlapping with the ends of the amplified vector. After Dpn I digestion of the mixture of the amplified vector and insert to eliminate the DNA templates used in PCR reactions, the mixture is directly transformed into competent E. coli cells to obtain the desired clones. This technique has many advantages over other cloning methods. First, it does not need gel purification of the PCR product or linearized vector. Second, there is no need of any cloning kit or specialized enzyme for cloning. Furthermore, with reduced number of PCR cycles, it also decreases the chance of random mutations. In addition, this method is highly effective and reproducible. Finally, since this cloning method is also sequence independent, we demonstrated that it can be used for chimera construction, insertion, and multiple mutations spanning a stretch of DNA up to 120 bp. Conclusion: Our FastCloning technique provides a very simple, effective, reliable, and versatile tool for molecular cloning, chimera construction, insertion of any DNA sequences of interest and also for multiple mutations in a short stretch of a cDNA.