Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A perspective on environmental models and QSARs

A general review is presented of the roles of QSARs and mass balance models as tools for assessing the environmental fate and effects of chemicals of commerce. It is argued that all such chemicals must be assessed using a consistent and transparent methodology that uses chemical property data derived from QSARs, or experimental determinations when possible and applies evaluative or region-specific environmental models. These data and models enable an assessment to be made of the key chemical features of persistence, bioaccumulation, potential for long-range transport and toxicity. The other key feature is quantity used or discharged to the environment. A taxonomy of environmental models is presented in which it is suggested that rather than develop a single comprehensive model, the aim should be to establish a set of coordinated and consistent models treating evaluative and real environmental systems at a variety of scales from local to global and including food web models, organism-specific models and human exposure and pharmacokinetic models. The concentrations derived from these models can then be compared with levels judged to be of toxic significance. A brief account is given of perceived QSAR needs in terms of partitioning, reactivity, transport and toxicity data to support these models.
Predictors of Incident Chronic Widespread Pain Among Veterans Following the First Gulf War

ObjectiveWe sought to determine the predictors of incident chronic widespread pain (CWP), specifically, the effect of preexisting symptoms, stress, and psychosocial factors in the subsequent development of CWP among veterans from the first Gulf War (GW). MethodsWe conducted a structured telephone survey (baseline) of military personnel originally from Iowa who were either eligible for or deployed to Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, approximately 5 years postconflict. We conducted a follow-up, clinical, in-person study of those who met a priori-defined outcomes of symptoms of cognitive dysfunction, depression, or CWP, and also a sample of those who did not meet any of the outcomes of interest. ResultsA total of 370 of 602 evaluated GW veterans were free of CWP 5 years postconflict. At follow-up, 69 (19%) of these had developed CWP. A positive family history of medically unexplained persistent symptoms [odds ratio (OR)=4.8 (2.3, 13.2)] was strongly associated with CWP. At baseline, individuals who reported preexisting symptoms of bronchitis [OR=4.9 (1.9, 12.3)] and cognitive dysfunction [OR=2.1 (1.1, 4.2)] were more likely to develop CWP. Alcohol use [OR=0.2 (0.1, 0.7)] was protective against CWP. Rather than combat-related exposure per se, the perception of stress at the time of the GW [OR=1.6 (1.1, 2.3)] correlated with CWP. DiscussionAmong the GW veterans evaluated longitudinally in this study, family history, predeployment symptoms, and the level of perceived stress during the GW were associated with subsequent development of CWP.
Prevalence and distribution of Aeromonas hydrophila in the United States

The abundance of Aeromonas hydrophila was measured in 147 natural aquatic habitats in 30 states and Puerto Rico. Viable cell counts were used to estimate density at all sites by using Rimler-Shotts medium, a differential presumptive medium for A. hydrophila. Temperature, pH, conductivity, salinity, and turbidity were measured simultaneously with water sample collection. The density of A. hydrophila was higher in lotic than in lentic systems. Saline systems had higher densities of A. hydrophila than did freshwater systems. A. hydrophila could not be isolated from extremely saline, thermal, or polluted waters, even though it was found over wide ranges of salinity, conductivity, temperature, pH, and turbidity. Of the water quality parameters measured, only conductivity was significantly regressed with density of A. hydrophila.
Progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia: A 3-year longitudinal study

Objective: To examine characteristics that predict the progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia. Methods: Of 970 patients recruited from nine memory clinics around Australia, 185 had mild cognitive impairment diagnosed. Measures of cognitive ability, functional ability, and neuropsychiatric symptoms were completed at baseline and over 3 years of follow up. Results: Over 3 years, 52 (28%) patients with mild cognitive impairment developed dementia. Older age, lower cognitive ability at baseline, and faster decline in cognitive ability over the first 6 months of follow up, but not depression, predicted progression to dementia. Conclusions: The findings confirm that simple clinical data such as age, cognitive ability at baseline, and rate of cognitive decline are important predictors of progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia over 3 years.
Choosy Males Could Help Explain Androdioecy in a Selfing Fish

Androdioecy (the coexistence of males and hermaphrodites) is considered a transitional state derived from pure hermaphroditism or dioecy, but the processes selecting for this rare breeding system are unclear, particularly in animals. In androdioecious species, the proportion of males in relation to hermaphrodites is usually so reduced that it is not known whether there is scope for mate choice, particularly when simultaneous hermaphrodites can self-fertilize. We investigated the potential role of male mate choice in the persistence of androdioecy in animals using a self-fertilizing androdioecious fish (Kryptolebias marmoratus) as a model. Hermaphrodites preferred to associate with males but showed no preference based on genetic similarity. In contrast, males displayed a strong preference for genetically dissimilar hermaphrodites, based, apparently, on olfactory cues. We suggest that disassortative male mate choice could be a critical factor in stabilizing androdioecy in cases where high selfing rates are associated with inbreeding depression.
Faecal calprotectin for screening of patients with suspected inflammatory bowel disease: diagnostic meta-analysis

Objective To evaluate whether including a test for faecal calprotectin, a sensitive marker of intestinal inflammation, in the investigation of suspected inflammatory bowel disease reduces the number of unnecessary endoscopic procedures. Design Meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies. Data sources Studies published in Medline and Embase up to October 2009. Interventions reviewed Measurement of faecal calprotectin level (index test) compared with endoscopy and histopathology of segmental biopsy samples (reference standard). Inclusion criteria Studies that had collected data prospectively in patients with suspected inflammatory bowel disease and allowed for construction of a two by two table. For each study, sensitivity and specificity of faecal calprotectin were analysed as bivariate data to account for a possible negative correlation within studies. Results 13 studies were included: six in adults (n=670), seven in children and teenagers (n=371). Inflammatory bowel disease was confirmed by endoscopy in 32% (n=215) of the adults and 61% (n=226) of the children and teenagers. In the studies of adults, the pooled sensitivity and pooled specificity of calprotectin was 0.93 (95% confidence interval 0.85 to 0.97) and 0.96 (0.79 to 0.99) and in the studies of children and teenagers was 0.92 (0.84 to 0.96) and 0.76 (0.62 to 0.86). The lower specificity in the studies of children and teenagers was significantly different from that in the studies of adults (P=0.048). Screening by measuring faecal calprotectin levels would result in a 67% reduction in the number of adults requiring endoscopy. Three of 33 adults who undergo endoscopy will not have inflammatory bowel disease but may have a different condition for which endoscopy is inevitable. The downside of this screening strategy is delayed diagnosis in 6% of adults because of a false negative test result. In the population of children and teenagers, 65 instead of 100 would undergo endoscopy. Nine of them will not have inflammatory bowel disease, and diagnosis will be delayed in 8% of the affected children. Conclusion Testing for faecal calprotectin is a useful screening tool for identifying patients who are most likely to need endoscopy for suspected inflammatory bowel disease. The discriminative power to safely exclude inflammatory bowel disease was significantly better in studies of adults than in studies of children.
Floating Droplet Array: An Ultrahigh-Throughput Device for Droplet Trapping, Real-time Analysis and Recovery

We describe the design, fabrication and use of a dual-layered microfluidic device for ultrahigh-throughput droplet trapping, analysis, and recovery using droplet buoyancy. To demonstrate the utility of this device for digital quantification of analytes, we quantify the number of droplets, which contain a β-galactosidase-conjugated bead among more than 100,000 immobilized droplets. In addition, we demonstrate that this device can be used for droplet clustering and real-time analysis by clustering several droplets together into microwells and monitoring diffusion of fluorescein, a product of the enzymatic reaction of β-galactosidase and its fluorogenic substrate FDG, between droplets.
Simulated environmental risk estimation of engineered nanomaterials: A case of cosmetics in Johannesburg City

This paper attempts to quantify the potential risks posed by engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) to the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems from cosmetic-based nanoproducts. The predicted environmental concentrations (PEC) were modelled for the silver (nAg) and titanium dioxide (nTiO2) nanoparticles embedded in cosmetic nanoproducts. The Johannesburg Metropolitan City (JHB City), in South Africa, was used as the reference study area. A mathematical model was applied to compute the quantities of ENMs flows from the cosmetic nanoproducts into the JHB City aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The risk quotient (RQ) of the nanoscale materials were evaluated as a ratio of PEC to the predicted no effect concentrations (PNEC). RQ values showed wide variance due to factors like; the quantities of ENMs, the fate and pathways of ENMs in the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, efficiency of the wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) as well as the economic and demographic data for South Africa and Switzerland. For the aquatic environment, the PEC values of nAg ranged from 2.80 × 10−3 to 6.19 × 10−1 μg L−1 whereas for nTiO2 the values ranged from 2.7 0 × 10−3 to 2.70 × 10−1 μg L−1 under the realistic dilution factor of 1 with the WWTP functioning at high removal efficiency regime. The RQ values in the aquatic ecosystems were mostly >1, indicating the potential risk of both nAg and nTiO2 but <<<1 in the terrestrial ecosystems. Our results provide the first quantification of ENMs potential risk into the environment Johannesburg City in a developing country’s natural and technical settings.
No . 2005 / 05 A Framework for Incorporating Environmental Indicators to the Measurement of Human Well-Being

This study, relying on an economic-theoretical approach to index numbers, proposes a framework for incorporating environmental indicators to the measurement of human well-being. Furthermore this study also proposes an improvement index which alleviates the well-known deficiency of across-time comparison of the deprivation index. The advantage of the proposed index is that it does not require normative judgement in the selection of weights to aggregate over constituent indices. Rather, within an activity analysis framework, optimally chosen weights are determined by the data. In developing the index, due emphasis is put on production with negative externalities, and directional distance functions—a very recent analytical device—are employed as a major tool to construct quantity indexes and improvement indexes.
The Bbp1p–Mps2p complex connects the SPB to the nuclear envelope and is essential for SPB duplication

In budding yeast, microtubules are organized by the spindle pole body (SPB), which is embedded in the nuclear envelope via its central plaque structure. Here, we describe the identification of BBP1 in a suppressor screen with a conditional lethal allele of SPC29. Bbp1p was detected at the central plaque periphery of the SPB and bbp1‐1 cells were found to be defective in SPB duplication. bbp1‐1 cells extend their satellite into a duplication plaque like wild‐type cells; however, this duplication plaque then fails to insert properly into the nuclear envelope and does not assemble a functional inner plaque. This function in SPB duplication is probably fulfilled by a stable complex of Bbp1p and Mps2p, a nuclear envelope protein that is also essential for duplication plaque insertion. In addition, we found that Bbp1p interacts with Spc29p and the half‐bridge component Kar1p. These interactions are likely to play a role in connecting the SPB with the nuclear envelope and the central plaque with the half‐bridge.
Writing JML Specifications Using Java 8 Streams

1998 CR Categories: D.1. 5 [Programming Techniques] Applicative (Functional) Programming; D.2. 1 [Software Engineering] Requirements/Specificationslanguages; D.2. 4 [Software Engineering] Software/Program Verificationclass invariants, formal methods, programming by contract; D.3. 3 [Software Engineering] Language Constructs and Featuresclasses and objects, frameworks; F.3. 1 [Logics and Meanings of Programs] Specifying and Verifying and Reasoning about Programsassertions, invariants, preand post-conditions, specification techniques.
Densification and superplasticity of hydroxyapatite ceramics

Fabrication conditions for high-density and fine-grained hydroxyapatite (Ca 1 0 (PO 4 ) 6 (OH) 2 ; HAp) ceramic were examined; the tensile elongation of HAp ceramic during heating was measured in order to evaluate its possible superplastic behavior. The HAp compact was fired in air at a temperature between 1100 and 1200°C for 5 h. The relative density of.HAp compact fired at 1100°C for 5 h showed a maximum (99.2%), whereas the average grain size was as small as 0.56 μm. The tensile elongation of this HAp specimen was tested at a temperature between 940 and 1100°C. The tensile elongations tested at 1050 and 1100°C attained 156 and 157%, respectively; the specimen tested at 1050°C contained a limited number of cavities, whereas the specimen tested at 1100°C was observed to have a large number of cavities.
Rate Quantization and Service Quality for Variable Rate Traffic over Single Crossbar Switches Can

We study the provision of deterministic rate guarantees over single crossbar switches. Birkhoff decomposition yields a general approach for this problem, but the required complexity can be very high and the quality of service can be unsatisfactory for practical traffic sources. We develop a method called rate quantization which converts the set of desired rates into a certain discrete set in such a way that the complexity and the quality of service guarantees can be greatly improved over a Birkhoff switch. The rate quantization algorithm we introduce works with any resource speedup greater than 1 and it satisfies certain fairness criteria.Moreover, rate quantization enables us to develop a Slepian-Duguid-like algorithm with which the switch can both adapt to dynamically varying traffic and simplify switch scheduling significantly.
An UHF RFID Energy-Harvesting System Enhanced by a DC-DC Charge Pump in Silicon-on-Insulator Technology

An RF-DC converter enhanced by a DC-DC voltage booster in silicon-on-insulator technology for UHF radio frequency identification (RFID) energy harvesting is presented in this letter. When the received RF power level is -14 dBm or higher, the system, fabricated on an FR4 substrate using off-the-shelf low-cost discrete components and connected to a flexible dipole antenna, is able to produce 2.4 V DC voltage to power general-purpose electronic devices. As a simple proof of concept, a device comprising microcontroller, temperature sensor, and EEPROM is considered in this work. The experimental results demonstrate the capability of the system to autonomously perform temperature data logging up to a distance of 5 m from a conventional UHF RFID reader used as an RF energy source.
SmartBuilds: An energy and power simulation framework for buildings and districts

We introduce a district level multiple buildings energy and power simulation framework. At the building level, the proposed simulation framework, SmartBuilds, leverages Energy-Plus as the core simulation engine for building energy assessment, thereby benefiting from the capabilities of a widely accepted and used state-of-the-art modeling tool. Building models may include batteries for energy storage and renewable energy generators: PV arrays and wind turbines. At the district level, one of the main goals is to provide a versatile platform for the simulation and optimization of the interaction between the electric grid and buildings as well as of the interaction between buildings. Because buildings can participate in intelligent social-like activities through which energy tokens/budgets can be exchanged, the tools provides collective optimization opportunities beyond the usual techniques applied at building level. The paper introduces SmartBuilds' architecture and demonstrates its usefulness in scenarios where multiple buildings are simulated concurrently to asses and seek operating schedules for battery energy storage systems that minimize the overall energy consumption at the district level.
Sleep apnoea and visceral adiposity in middle-aged male and female subjects

In obese male subjects, visceral adiposity has been associated with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), while studies in overweight males and females are limited. Our goal was to examine the association between OSA and visceral fat in a relatively nonobese population and assess the effects of 2 months placebo-controlled continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) use on abdominal fat. 81 subjects, 22 middle-aged males and 20 post-menopausal females with OSA, and 19 male and 20 female controls were studied in the sleep laboratory for four nights. Abdominal (visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous (SAT) adipose tissue) and liver fat were assessed with computed tomography. OSA patients were re-assessed post-CPAP and post sham-CPAP. Apnoeic males had significantly higher VAT than controls, while apnoeic females had higher SAT than controls. In both sexes, OSA was associated with increased liver fat. In males, apnoea was associated with VAT whereas in females it was associated with subcutaneous, visceral and total fat. CPAP did not affect abdominal and liver fat. In overweight males, visceral adiposity is associated with OSA whereas in females it is associated with global adiposity. In overweight males, our therapeutic goal should be the reduction of visceral adiposity and its metabolic correlates, whereas, in females, weight loss may be sufficient. Short-term CPAP treatment does not affect general, abdominal or intra-hepatic adiposity.
Exploring Complex Mobile Life through Lightweight Visualizations

Smart phones can be used to collect various types of data from a user spanning call and text message logs to GPS coordinates, and to Bluetooth detection. These data are indicative of behavior across various socio-temporalspatial contexts. For the purpose of inspecting the expected and discovering the unexpected from the data, we developed lightweight visualizations with a low cost. The interactive visualizations are customized with each data analysis task and evolved to support emerging diminutive inquiries during the inspection with themselves. By employing this analytic method at the early phase of data-related research projects, the insights can form a ground for subsequent product development activities focusing on engineering, design and market research.
Distributed Linear Constellation Precoding With BICM/BICM-ID in Two-Way Relaying Communications

This paper investigates distributed linear constellation precoding (DLCP) for two-way relaying communication systems in conjunction with the techniques of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) and BICM with iterative decoding (BICM-ID). First, a decoding strategy for the relay node that is based on quaternary code representation is developed. Then, the union bounds (for the case of BICM) and error-free feedback bounds (for the case of BICM-ID) on the quaternary digit error probability and bit error probability under network coding in the multiple-access (MA) phase are obtained. Based on the obtained bounds, the impact of DLCP on the error performance is analyzed by considering three error types in the MA phase. It is shown that type-3 errors need to be carefully taken into account in the design of a DLCP scheme. By developing a performance metric related to type-3 errors, the design parameter of DLCP is optimized when BICM is used, whereas it is shown that DLCP is not needed when BICM-ID is used. Extensive simulation results are provided to corroborate the analysis and demonstrate the performance superiority of the proposed decoding strategy over the one that directly decodes the exclusive-OR (xor) code. For the case of BICM, the performance advantage achieved by properly designing DLCP is also illustrated.
Hyperbranched intumescent flame‐retardant agent: Application to natural rubber composites

The first part of this investigation focused on the synthesis and characterization of a hyperbranched intumescent flame-retardant (HIFR) agent. Two steps were used in the synthetic process. The structure was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The second part focused on the application of HIFR agent into natural rubber (NR) composites. The cure characteristics, tensile properties, wear resistance, and flame-retardant property of HIFR/NR composites were evaluated. It was demonstrated that the addition of this HIFR agent into NR led to an improvement in its physicomechanical and flame-retardant properties. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011.
ITLinQ: A new approach for spectrum sharing in device-to-device communication systems

We consider the problem of spectrum sharing in device-to-device communication systems. Based on the recently-found condition for the optimality of treating interference as noise, we introduce the new notion of information-theoretic independent set (ITIS) which denotes a subset of users in a wireless network that are information-theoretically eligible to transmit data at the same time. This leads to our novel spectrum sharing scheme called information-theoretic link scheduling (ITLinQ) which at each time slot schedules the users in a single ITIS to transmit simultaneously. We perform a capacity analysis of ITLinQ and in a network model with a random placement of nodes in a cell, we characterize a lower bound on the fraction the information theoretic capacity region that it is able to achieve to within a gap. We will show that ITLinQ can outperform the conventional independent set scheduling by a multiplicative gain that scales with the number of users. We also present a distributed way of implementing ITLinQ and show that it yields a sum-rate gain of higher than 100% over similar state-of-the-art spectrum sharing mechanisms, such as FlashLinQ.