Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Critical influence of chloride ions on silver ion-mediated acute toxicity of silver nanoparticles to zebrafish embryos

Abstract The toxicity of silver nanoparticles (AgNP) to aquatic organisms, including zebrafish (Danio rerio), has been demonstrated, but differing opinions exist on the contribution of the physical properties of the particles themselves and the free dissolved silver ions (Ag+) to the observed effects. High concentrations of chloride ions (Cl−) in the routinely used exposure media can cause precipitation of Ag+ as AgCl, as well as complexation of silver in diverse soluble chlorocomplexes, thus masking the contribution of dissolved silver to AgNP toxicity. In the present study, we formulated a zebrafish exposure medium with a low chloride content and exposed zebrafish embryos to AgNO3 or carbonate-coated AgNP. The severity of toxicity caused by both silver forms depended on the time of exposure start, with younger embryos being most sensitive. Toxicity caused by both AgNO3 and AgNP was of the same order of magnitude when compared based on the total dissolved silver concentration and could be prevented by addition of the Ag+ chelator cysteine. Further, we have analyzed the data from several previous studies to evaluate the influence of interactions between Ag+ and Cl− on silver toxicity to zebrafish embryos. Our analysis demonstrates that the acute toxicity of AgNP to zebrafish embryos is largely mediated by Ag+. The influence of particle size and coating can at least partially be explained by the differences in Ag+ dissolution. High Cl− levels in the exposure medium indeed have a pivotal influence on the resulting toxicity of AgNP, appearing to significantly attenuate toxicity in several studies. This consideration should influence the choice of exposure medium to be used when evaluating and comparing AgNP toxicity.
Prenatal fatty acid status and child adiposity at age 3 y: results from a US pregnancy cohort.

BACKGROUND Exposure to polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in early life may influence adiposity development. OBJECTIVE We examined the extent to which prenatal n-3 (omega-3) and n-6 (omega-6) PUFA concentrations were associated with childhood adiposity. DESIGN In mother-child pairs in the Project Viva cohort, we assessed midpregnancy fatty acid intakes (n = 1120), maternal plasma PUFA concentrations (n = 227), and umbilical cord plasma PUFA concentrations (n = 302). We performed multivariable regression analyses to examine independent associations of n-3 PUFAs, including docosahexaenoic and eicosapentaenoic acids (DHA + EPA), n-6 PUFAs, and the ratio of n-6:n-3 PUFAs, with child adiposity at age 3 y measured by the sum of subscapular and triceps skinfold thicknesses (SS + TR) and risk of obesity (body mass index ≥95th percentile for age and sex). RESULTS Mean (±SD) DHA + EPA intake was 0.15 ± 0.14 g DHA + EPA/d, maternal plasma concentration was 1.9 ± 0.6%, and umbilical plasma concentration was 4.6 ± 1.2%. In children, SS + TR was 16.7 ± 4.3 mm, and 9.4% of children were obese. In the adjusted analysis, there was an association between each SD increase in DHA + EPA and lower child SS + TR [-0.31 mm (95% CI: -0.58, -0.04 mm) for maternal diet and -0.91 mm (95% CI: -1.63, -0.20 mm) for cord plasma] and lower odds of obesity [odds ratio (95% CI): 0.68 (0.50, 0.92) for maternal diet and 0.09 (0.02, 0.52) for cord plasma]. Maternal plasma DHA + EPA concentration was not significantly associated with child adiposity. A higher ratio of cord plasma n-6:n-3 PUFAs was associated with higher SS + TR and odds of obesity. CONCLUSION An enhanced maternal-fetal n-3 PUFA status was associated with lower childhood adiposity.
Don’t You Dare Push Me: How Persuasive Social Media Tactics Shape Customer Engagement

Social media marketers increasingly employ persuasive tactics, with advertising tone (i.e., highlighting favorable product aspects) and calls to action (i.e., encouraging specific actions) being most prevalent. Prior research proposes that both tactics could be perceived as overly pushy and therefore might harm customer engagement. Drawing on a field study employing a unique panel data set at the customer level as well as an experiment, this article suggests that employing advertising tone may reduce customer engagement, which is accelerated when it is used together with calls to action. However, high communal-brand connection (i.e., customer’s connectedness with the brand community) mitigates this negative effect. While weakly connected customers punish the marketer by engaging less, for strongly connected customers the negative interplay of the two tactics vanishes, alleviating undesirable consequences for engagement.
On-board vision autonomous landing techniques for quadrotor: A survey

Nowadays, quadrotor is playing a growing number of critical roles in a great many of aspects. A crucial ability is the autonomous landing ability onto a target such as a fixed platform, moving platform, or ship deck platform, employing on-board vision. Researching autonomous landing technologies employing vision for quadrotor have grown up to be the second active area of research over the past years. This article primarily gives the foremost research groups involved in the development of on-board vision autonomous landing technologies for quadrotor, then it discusses the specifics of two factors are taken into account for a smooth landing: sensing and control. The aim of this article is to examine the state-of-the art autonomous landing technologies employing on-board vision that capture entire milestones and seminal works. Last but not least, the article stands out three challenging parts in this research field.
Peer-Reviewed Technical Communication Study of a Wave Energy Converter Connected to a Nonlinear Load

This paper presents experimental results from a wave energy converter (WEC) that is based on a linear generator connected to a rectifier and filter components. The converter-filter system is installed onshore, while the linear wave generator oper- ates offshore a few kilometers from the Swedish west coast. The power from the generator has been rectified with a diode bridge and then filtered using a capacitive filter. Performance of the whole conversion system was studied using resistive loads con- nected across the filter. The aim was to investigate the operational characteristics of the generator while supplying a nonlinear load. By changing the value of the resistive component of the load, the speed of the translator can be changed and so also the damping of the generator. The power absorbed by the generator was studied at different sea states as well. The observations presented in this paper could be beneficial for the design of efficient wave energy conversion systems.
Privacy-Preserved Linkable Social-Physical Data Publication

In this dissertation, we investigate the privacy-preserved data publication problems towards pervasively existing linkable social-physical contents. On the one hand, data publication has been considered as a critical approach to facilitate numerous utilities for individuals, populations, platform owners, and all third-party service providers. On the other hand, the unprecedented adoption of mobile devices and the dramatic development of Internet-of-Thing (IoT) systems have pushed the collection of surrounding physical information among populations to a totally novel stage. The collected contents can provide a fine-grained access to both physical and social aspects of the crowds, which introduces a comprehensively linkable and potentially sensitive information domain. The linkage includes the related index like privacy, utility, and efficiency for sophisticated applications, the inherent correlations among multiple data sources or information dimensions, and the connections among individuals. As the linkage leads to various novel challenges for privacy preservation, there should be a body of novel mechanisms for linkable social-physical data publications. As a result, this dissertation proposes a series of mechanisms for privacy-preserved linkable social-physical data publication. Firstly, we study the publication of physical data where the co-existing useful social profiles and the sensitive physical profiles of the data should be carefully maintained. Secondly, we investigate the data publication problem jointly considering the privacy preservation, data utility, and resource efficiency for task completion in crowd-sensing systems. Thirdly, we investigate the publication of private contents used for the recommendation, where contents of a user contribute to the recommendation results for others. Fourthly, we study the publications of reviews in local business service systems, where users expect to conceal their frequently visited locations while cooperatively maintain the utility of the whole system. Fifthly, we study the acquisition of privacy-preserved knowledge on cyber-physical social networks, where third-party service providers can derive the community structure without accessing the sensitive social links. We also provide detailed analysis and discussion for proposed mechanisms, and extensively validate their performance via real-world datasets. Both results demonstrate that the proposed mechanisms can properly preserve the privacy while maintaining the data utility. At last, we also propose the future research topics to complete the whole dissertation. The first topic focuses on the privacy preservation towards correlations beneath multiple data sources. The second topic studies more privacy issues for the whole population during data publication, including both the novel threats for related communities, and the disclosure of trends within crowds. INDEX WORDS: Privacy Preservation, Data Publication, Sensitive Information, Social-Physical Data, IoT, Community, Cooperation, Fairness PRIVACY-PRESERVED LINKABLE SOCIAL-PHYSICAL DATA PUBLICATION
ESTUDIO HISTÓRICO-EPISTEMOLÓGICO DEL MODELO ATÓMICO DE RUTHERFORD

En este articulo se hace un analisis del modelo atomico de Rutherford desde el punto devista historico-epistemologico. La historia interna que se estudia empieza con el modeloatomico de Thomson, los problemas que presento y la solucion dada por el de Rutherford,y el modelo de Bohr, que resolvio algunas de las preguntas que se suscitaron a partir delmodelo anterior, con la mirada desde la mecanica cuantica.
Molecular and phenotypic evaluation of a novel germline TMEM127 mutation with an uncommon clinical presentation.

Germline mutations of the endomembrane-encoding gene TMEM127 confers susceptibility to neural crest-derived tumors pheochromocytomas (PHEOs)(Qin, et al. 2010) and have also been found in isolated renal cell carcinomas (RCCs)(Qin, et al. 2014). PHEOs and RCCs can arise as a result of inherited susceptibility, as in in von Hippel Lindau disease and in PHEO-paraganglioma syndromes related to mutations in succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) subunit genes(Dahia 2014; Maher 2011). The clinical spectrum and the signaling consequences of TMEM127 mutations remain poorly defined and it is not clear whether both tumors can be associated in families. This information would have an impact on surveillance and management of TMEM127 mutation carriers. Here we report the investigation of a TMEM127 mutation detected in a patient with both PHEO and RCC.
Assessing the importance of spectators to soccer clubs in South Africa: A management perspective

Orientation: This study investigates and analyses the perceptions of soccer club managers based on spectators’ loyalty factors, values and challenges concerning soccer clubs in South Africa. Research purpose: These results could assist managers of soccer clubs to be able to manage these aspects in order to sustain a competitive advantage. Motivation for the study: This study could contribute to deeper insight into the role of spectators’ loyalty, value and how it could contribute to the development of soccer partnerships in South Africa. Research design, approach and method: In the case of this study, qualitative research was done to obtain relevant information from the senior management of the nine clubs with regard to the aspects of loyalty, the role of spectators within the clubs and the challenges faced by club managers to gain loyal spectators. During face-to-face interviews, the senior management were assured that their answers are confidential and would be used for the purpose of this study as a means of ensuring trustworthiness and qualitativeness. Selecting these people was based on their relevance for the study and their status in the senior management. Each club session interview took one and a half hours at a central location convenient for respondents. The same researcher was present during each of the club’s meetings to keep data accurate and consistent. Notes were taken and all sessions were recorded. Respondents in the interview were informed about the aims and procedures of the study. Main findings: The value of spectators to soccer clubs in South Africa was identified to be commercial value, partnerships value, marketing value and spiritual shareholders value. Marketers need to be aware of their spectators’ needs in order to build the relationship and should focus on commitment, customer satisfaction and customer retention as well as trust and brand identification aspects when developing marketing strategies. Practical/managerial implications: The challenges faced by managers to sustain loyalty to their clubs were identified as absence of heroes, economic climate, safety and security, marketing and public relations. Managers of clubs need to develop their clubs to surpass their current levels of loyal membership and supporters and establish the brand identity of their clubs to increase the satisfaction of their current spectators and to earn more club money for the players. Contribution/value-add: As stated above, this study focused on assessing the importance of spectators with regard to soccer clubs in South Africa from a management perspective, which could be utilised to gain competitive advantage.
Millimeter-wave spectrometers for remote sensing of ozone and other minor gases of the atmosphere

Ozone plays very important role in the atmosphere because it protects life at the Earth's surface against the harmful solar UV-B radiation [1]. In the stratosphere, ozone critically controls the energy budget because it absorbs both solar UV and terrestrial IR radiation [1]. Spatial distribution and variations of the ozone content determine quantity and variations of the absorbed energy. Existing satellite instruments such as [2] can't provide both high resolution in horizontal plane and sufficiently dense data sets on concentration of ozone and ozone-related species (in the first place, chlorine and nitrogen oxides) over selected regions. So reliable ground-based instruments for monitoring of ozone and other minor atmospheric gases are necessary in addition to the satellites.
The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy scale: development and validation of the general measure.

PURPOSE We developed and validated a brief, yet sensitive, 33-item general cancer quality-of-life (QL) measure for evaluating patients receiving cancer treatment, called the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) scale. METHODS AND RESULTS The five-phase validation process involved 854 patients with cancer and 15 oncology specialists. The initial pool of 370 overlapping items for breast, lung, and colorectal cancer was generated by open-ended interview with patients experienced with the symptoms of cancer and oncology professionals. Using preselected criteria, items were reduced to a 38-item general version. Factor and scaling analyses of these 38 items on 545 patients with mixed cancer diagnoses resulted in the 28-item FACT-general (FACT-G, version 2). In addition to a total score, this version produces subscale scores for physical, functional, social, and emotional well-being, as well as satisfaction with the treatment relationship. Coefficients of reliability and validity were uniformly high. The scale's ability to discriminate patients on the basis of stage of disease, performance status rating (PSR), and hospitalization status supports its sensitivity. It has also demonstrated sensitivity to change over time. Finally, the validity of measuring separate areas, or dimensions, of QL was supported by the differential responsiveness of subscales when applied to groups known to differ along the dimensions of physical, functional, social, and emotional well-being. CONCLUSION The FACT-G meets or exceeds all requirements for use in oncology clinical trials, including ease of administration, brevity, reliability, validity, and responsiveness to clinical change. Selecting it for a clinical trial adds the capability to assess the relative weight of various aspects of QL from the patient's perspective.
Excess mortality as an epidemic intelligence tool in chikungunya mapping.

Mortality is an important public health indicator [1]. Mortality data is accurately recorded, readily accessible, and includes precise temporal and geographical variables. During epidemic outbreaks, excess mortality can inform on the virulence of an infection. Moreover, in the absence of outbreak prevalence data, mortality can additionally inform on the spatio-temporal progression of the disease.
Validity of self-report measures of girls' pubertal status.

To understand the meaning of somatic changes to the adolescent and their possible effects on behavior, developmentalists have begun to examine maturational timing and status in detail. Efforts have been hampered by the necessity of obtaining somatic growth data by physician examination. In the present study, 3 self-report methods for rating secondary sexual characteristic growth were compared to physician ratings; the accuracy of self-reported height and weight also was assessed. Specifically, 151 11-, 12-, and 13-year-old girls rated their breast and pubic hair development using schematics of the 5 Tanner stages and filled out the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS); their mothers also rated their daughters' development using the Tanner stage schematics. The correlation with physician Tanner ratings was . 82 for self-ratings, . 85 for ratings by the mother, and between . 61 and . 67 for self-reports on the PDS. The correlations for self- and actual reports of weight and height were . 98 and . 75, respectively. The usefulness of the PDS, Tanner ratings, and self-reported height and weight as adequate estimates of pubertal development is discussed.
Purification, Cloning, and Expression of a Novel Salivary Anticomplement Protein from the Tick, Ixodes scapularis *

The alternative pathway of complement is an important defense against pathogens and in tick rejection reactions. The tick Ixodes scapularis is able to feed repeatedly on its natural host and has a salivary anticomplement activity that presumably facilitates feeding. In this study, we purified and then obtained the amino-terminal sequence of the I. scapularissalivary anticomplement (Isac). We found a full-length clone coding for Isac by random screening of a salivary gland cDNA library. Expressing Isac cDNA in COS cells reproduced the activity found in tick saliva, namely, inhibition of rabbit erythrocyte lysis by human serum in the presence of Mg2+ and EGTA, inhibition of C3b binding to agarose in the presence of Mg2+ and EGTA, and acceleration of factor Bb uncoupling from the C3 convertase generated by the alternative pathway. Recombinant Isac had no effect on the recalcification time of human platelet-poor plasma or in the classical complement pathway, indicating that it is a specific inhibitor similar to the regulators of complement activation of the alternative pathway such as factor H. Isac, however, has no similarity to any protein in the GenBankTM data base, indicating that it is a novel and relatively small (18.5 kDa) anticomplement molecule.
Random finite sets in multi-target tracking - efficient sequential MCMC implementation

Over the last few decades multi-target tracking (MTT) has proved to be a challenging and attractive research topic. MTT applications span a wide variety of disciplines, including robotics, radar/sonar surveillance, computer vision and biomedical research. The primary focus of this dissertation is to develop an effective and efficient multi-target tracking algorithm dealing with an unknown and time-varying number of targets. The emerging and promising Random Finite Set (RFS) framework provides a rigorous foundation for optimal Bayes multi-target tracking. In contrast to traditional approaches, the collection of individual targets is treated as a set-valued state. The intent of this dissertation is two-fold; first to assert that the RFS framework not only is a natural, elegant and rigorous foundation, but also leads to practical, efficient and reliable algorithms for Bayesian multi-target tracking, and second to provide several novel RFS based tracking algorithms suitable for the specific Track-Before-Detect (TBD) surveillance application. One main contribution of this dissertation is a rigorous derivation and practical implementation of a novel algorithm well suited to deal with multi-target tracking problems for a given cardinality. The proposed Interacting Population-based MCMC-PF algorithm makes use of several Metropolis-Hastings samplers running in parallel, which interact through genetic variation. Another key contribution concerns the design and implementation of two novel algorithms to handle a varying number of targets. The first approach exploits Reversible Jumps. The second approach is built upon the concepts of labeled RFSs and multiple cardinality hypotheses. The performance of the proposed algorithms is also demonstrated in practical scenarios, and shown to significantly outperform conventional multi-target PF in terms of track accuracy and consistency. The final contribution seeks to exploit external information to increase the performance of the surveillance system. In multi-target scenarios, kinematic constraints from the interaction of targets with their environment or other targets can restrict target motion. Such motion constraint information is integrated by using a fixed-lag smoothing procedure, named Knowledge-Based Fixed-Lag Smoother (KB-Smoother). The proposed combination IP-MCMC-PF/KB-Smoother yields enhanced tracking.
THE IMPACTS OF THE SPECIAL REGIONAL POLICY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ENFORCEMENT IN SOUTHERN THAILAND (CASE STUDY AT THE REPEL DISTRICT, KRONGPINANG, THAILAND)

Special territory policy has been using in the Southern Thailand is a central government’s policy (Bangkok) in terms of giving absolute authority to the military, to resolve the conflicts in southern Thailand. The policy includes three matters: 1) Martial law of 2547 (the regulations in state of emergency in the 2004); 2) the Emergency Decree 2548 PO-Ro-Ko (Security rules in state of emergency); 3) Internal Security Act in the 2551 PO – RO – BO (the rule in terms of internal security implementation of 2008). This paper aimed to analyzing the impacts of special regional policies on local governance in southern Thailand (case study in Repel district, Krongpinang, Thailand. This research used descriptive qualitative methodology. based on research results, can be concluded that the impacts of the implementation of special regional policy; 1) the functional disappearance of local government; 2) local government was depressed by military system; 3) society harmonization to local government (village head) decreased.