Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A tragic coalition of the rational and irrational: A threat to collective responses to COVID-19

ABSTRACT There is not as much resistance to COVID-19 mitigation as there seems, but there are structural features that make resistance seem worse than it is. Here, we describe two ways that the problem seeming to be worse than it is can make it worse. First, visible hesitation to implement COVID-19 responses signals to the wider society that mitigation measures may not succeed, which undermines people’s conditional willingness to join in on those efforts. Second, our evaluations of others’ willingness to implement these measures are informed by our attempts to mind-read them. Yet attempts to mind-read groups often mislead us, because groups invariably act from diverse motives, whereas mind-reading works best when identifying relatively stable and consistent motivations. This means that a small minority of people refusing to implement measures can have an outsized prominence that prompts mind-reading to diagnose widespread hesitation. These two factors form a feedback loop with each other: we see some people’s hesitation, which prompts us to mind-read other people as being more uncertain about the responses than they actually are, which undermines our confidence in the responses, which in turn encourages others to mind-read this hesitation, which further undermines confidence.
DeepGPS: Deep Learning Enhanced GPS Positioning in Urban Canyons

Global Positioning System (GPS) has benefited many novel applications, e.g., navigation, ride-sharing, and location-based services, in our daily life. Although GPS works well in most places, its performance in urban canyons is well-known poor, due to the signal reflections of non-line-of-sight (NLOS) satellites. Tremendous efforts have been made to mitigate the impacts of NLOS signals, while previous works heavily rely on precise proprietary 3D city models or other third-party resources, which are not easily accessible. In this paper, we present DeepGPS, a deep learning enhanced GPS positioning system that can correct GPS estimations by only considering some simple contextual information. DeepGPSfuses environmental factors, including building heights and road distribution around GPS's initial position, and satellite statuses to describe the positioning context, and exploits an encoder-decoder network model to implicitly learn the complex relationships between positioning contexts and GPS estimations from massive labeled GPS samples. As a result, the well-trained model can accurately predict the correct position for each erroneous GPS estimation given its positioning context. We further improve the model with a novel constraint mask to filter out invalid candidate locations, and enable continuous localization with a simple mobility model. A prototype system is implemented and experimentally evaluated using a large-scale bus trajectory dataset and real-field GPS measurements. Experimental results demonstrate that DeepGPSsignificantly enhances GPS performance in urban canyons, e.g., on average effectively correcting 90.1% GPS estimations with accuracy improvement by 64.6%.
Current Landscape of Therapeutic Resistance in Lung Cancer and Promising Strategies to Overcome Resistance

Simple Summary Despite an initial response to therapy, many lung cancer patients inevitably develop resistance to therapy leading to decreased duration of response and success of treatment. Recent research aims to elucidate mechanisms of resistance in order to improve drug response and treatment outcomes. By utilizing multidisciplinary approaches that target various resistance mechanism, it may be possible to delay development of treatment resistance or even resensitize cancers. This review aims to discuss novel approaches to improve clinical outcomes, delay the occurrence of resistance, and overcome resistance. Abstract Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide with a 5-year survival rate of less than 18%. Current treatment modalities include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy. Despite advances in therapeutic options, resistance to therapy remains a major obstacle to the effectiveness of long-term treatment, eventually leading to therapeutic insensitivity, poor progression-free survival, and disease relapse. Resistance mechanisms stem from genetic mutations and/or epigenetic changes, unregulated drug efflux, tumor hypoxia, alterations in the tumor microenvironment, and several other cellular and molecular alterations. A better understanding of these mechanisms is crucial for targeting factors involved in therapeutic resistance, establishing novel antitumor targets, and developing therapeutic strategies to resensitize cancer cells towards treatment. In this review, we summarize diverse mechanisms driving resistance to chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy, and promising strategies to help overcome this therapeutic resistance.
Structural, Thermal and Pasting Properties of Heat-Treated Lotus Seed Starch–Protein Mixtures

The interactions between starch and protein, the essential components of lotus seed, strongly influence the quality of lotus seed processing by-products. This study investigated the effects of lotus seed starch–protein (LS-LP) interactions on the structural, thermal and gelatinization properties of LS-LP mixtures, using LS/LP ratios of 6:1, 6:2, 6:3, 6:4, 6:5, or 1:1, after heat treatment (95 °C, 30 min). Fourier transform infrared peaks at 1540 cm−1 and 3000–3600 cm−1 revealed the major interactions (electrostatic and hydrogen bonding) between LS and LP. The UV–visible absorption intensities (200–240 nm) of LS-LP mixtures increased with increased protein content. X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy revealed that LS-LP consists of crystalline starch granules encapsulated by protein aggregates. Increasing the addition of protein to the mixtures restricted the swelling of the starch granules, based on their solubility, swelling properties and thermal properties. Viscometric analysis indicated that the formation of LS-LP mixtures improved structural and storage stability. These findings provide a practicable way to control the thermal and gelatinization properties of lotus seed starch–protein mixtures, by changing the proportions of the two components, and provide a theoretical basis for developing novel and functional lotus-seed-based foods.
Parallel Implementation of PIPO and Its Application for Format Preserving Encryption

The PIPO block cipher, a domestic lightweight block cipher, was announced at ICISC’20. In particular, the bitslicing technique is implemented in the S-Layer for the PIPO block cipher. Because this is a part that can be operated in parallel, we implemented the PIPO block cipher efficiently in a parallel approach through AVX2 instructions, and provide implementations for ECB and CTR modes. Compared to the existing PIPO implementation, we achieved a performance improvement by $7.345\times $ . In addition, we applied the AVX2-PIPO implementation to the round function of format-preserving encryption. When repeatedly encrypting 128-byte plaintext, we achieved performance similar to that of the existing FF1-AES implementation. The FF1-AVX2-PIPO implementation successfully encrypted the database and enabled efficient database management in terms of memory space and speed factor. Finally, AVX2-PIPO-CTR and FF1-AVX2-PIPO were applied to image processing. In the case of CTR mode, the encryption performance was better than that of ECB mode. Partial encryption with object detection and FF1-AVX2-PIPO was successfully performed, and it is expected that privacy protection in CCTV or image processing can be improved.
The Co-construction of News Values on News Magazine Covers: A Corpus-assisted Multimodal Discourse Analysis (CAMDA)

ABSTRACT Extant research from various perspectives has provided valuable insights into what news values are more frequently foregrounded across news types, topics, and outlets; and how they are constructed through verbal and visual resources. However, no research so far has examined how specific news values may be frequently co-constructed to package an individual news story and make it more appealing to potential readers. This research adopts the discursive news values analysis (DNVA) approach to examine the co-construction of news values in the multimodal discourse of TIME magazine covers (n = 300). To identify such co-construction, this study adopts cluster analysis, which has yet been deployed to study news values. The use of cluster analysis has identified six different combinations of news values repeatedly been observed together in clusters of covers. These combinations may represent what the magazine perceives as most attractive to the target audience. This study has also revealed intersemiotic relations in news values construction. While some news values are often reinforced across the verbal (i.e., cover line) and visual (i.e., cover image) semiotic modes, others rely more on the verbal mode. This study crosses disciplinary boundaries by bringing corpus linguistics techniques into journalism studies to understand a previously under-explored news genre.
Magnetoelectric, pinning and depinning properties in Pb(Zr0.5Ti0.5)O3/Fe3O4 composite films

The magnetoelectric (ME) coupling effect was demonstrated in sol–gel deposited Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 films embedded by Fe3O4 nanoparticles. The polarization–field hysteresis curves show ‘pinched’ shapes at room temperature and higher frequencies, whereas they display normal square-like loops at 150 °C and frequencies lower than 0.5 Hz. Our data confirm that the pinched loop can be relaxed after the Pb(Zr,Ti)O3/Fe3O4 composite films are poled magnetically, and an anisotropic magnetoelectric (ME) coupling effect is demonstrated. Analysis of the dc voltage dependence of the dielectric response indicates two peaks of dielectric constant loops for each half cycle at lower temperatures and bias voltages, which are different from the butterfly shape for normal ferroelectrics. Nevertheless, the normal butterfly hysteresis loops are presented at 360 K and at a bias voltage level of 25 V. The occurrence of pinched polarization–voltage loops and two peaks of dielectric constant curves for each half cycle may be attributed to the unintentional doping of iron ions in Pb(Zr,Ti)O3/Fe3O4 composite films.
On classifying Hurewicz fibrations and fibre bundles over polyhedron bases

Let $f:E\longrightarrow O$ be a Hurewicz fibration with a fiber space $F_{r_{o}}$ and a lifting function $L_{f}$. The \emph{$Lf-$function} $\Theta_{L_{f}}$ of $f$ is defined by the restriction map of $L_{f}$ on the space $\Omega(O,r_{o})\times F_{r_{o}}\times \{1\}$. The purpose of this paper is to give some results which show the role of $Lf-$functions in finding a fiber homotopically equivalent relation between two fibrations, over a common polyhedron base. Furthermore we will prove the equivalently between our results and Dold's theorem in fiber bundles, over a common suspension base of polyhedron spaces.
Recent advances in biopolymer-based hemostatic materials

Abstract Hemorrhage is the leading cause of trauma-related deaths, in hospital and prehospital settings. Hemostasis is a complex mechanism that involves a cascade of clotting factors and proteins that result in the formation of a strong clot. In certain surgical and emergency situations, hemostatic agents are needed to achieve faster blood coagulation to prevent the patient from experiencing a severe hemorrhagic shock. Therefore, it is critical to consider appropriate materials and designs for hemostatic agents. Many materials have been fabricated as hemostatic agents, including synthetic and naturally derived polymers. Compared to synthetic polymers, natural polymers or biopolymers, which include polysaccharides and polypeptides, have greater biocompatibility, biodegradability and processibility. Thus, in this review, we focus on biopolymer-based hemostatic agents of different forms, such as powder, particles, sponges and hydrogels. Finally, we discuss biopolymer-based hemostatic materials currently in clinical trials and offer insight into next-generation hemostats for clinical translation.
Lectures on Non-Perturbative Canonical Gravity

Notes prepared in Collaboration with Ranjeet S Tate It is now generally recognized that perturbative field theoretical methods that have been highly successful in the quantum description of non-gravitational interactions cannot be used as a means of constructing a quantum theory of gravity. The primary aim of the book is to present an up- to-date account of a non-perturbative, canonical quantization program for gravity. Many of the technical results obtained in the process are of interest also to differential geometry, classical general relativity and QCD. The program as a whole was highlighted in virtually every major conference in gravitational physics over the past three years.
An Isometry-Invariant Spectral Approach for Macro-Molecular Docking

Proteins and the formation of large protein complexes are essential parts of living organisms. Proteins are present in all aspects of life processes, performing a multitude of various functions ranging from being structural components of cells, to facilitating the passage of certain molecules between various regions of cells. The ‘protein docking problem’ refers to the computational method of predicting the appropriate matching pair of a protein (receptor) with respect to another protein (ligand), when attempting to bind to one another to form a stable complex. Research shows that matching the three-dimensional (3D) geometric structures of candidate proteins plays a key role in determining a so-called docking pair, which is one of the key aspects of the Computer Aided Drug Design process. However, the active sites which are responsible for binding do not always present a rigid-body shape matching problem. Rather, they may undergo sufficient deformation when docking occurs, which complicates the problem of finding a match. To address this issue, we present an isometry-invariant and topologically robust partial shape matching method for finding complementary protein binding sites, which we call the ProtoDock algorithm. The ProtoDock algorithm comes in two variations. The first version performs a partial shape complementarity matching by initially segmenting the underlying protein object mesh into smaller portions using a spectral mesh segmentation approach. The Heat Kernel Signature (HKS), the underlying basis of our shape descriptor, is subsequently computed for the obtained segments. A final descriptor vector is constructed from the Heat Kernel Signatures and used as the basis for the segment matching. The three different descriptor methods employed are, the accepted Bag of Features (BoF) technique, and our two novel approaches, Closest Medoid Set (CMS) and Medoid Set Average (MSA).
Securing Flows in the River Systems through Irrigation Water Use Efficiency—A Case Study from Karula River in the Ganga River System

The pressure on freshwater resources is leading to diminishing flows in some of the critical river systems across the globe. India is no exception, and this is mainly because of water withdrawal for irrigation, which is often to the tune of 70% to 80% of the lean season flows, with some proportion for domestic and industrial use. While graduating from the concept of environmental flows and its assessment methodologies in India, the water-managers, the researchers and the conservationists are now moving towards answering the next question, if the rivers are to be revived, where will the water come from, especially in the case of over-allocated rivers, including the River Ganga. While the logical way is to look at the biggest user of water, i.e., irrigation, it remains to be seen whether the irrigation water savings will actually lead to enhancing flows in a river, complementing the efforts towards maintaining e-flows in rivers, or whether it will lead to more area under agriculture, bring changes in cropping patterns towards more water-intensive crops or result in something else. This is a growing debate across the globe, where India is no exception, and there has been a wide range of opinions in this regard. This paper discusses the process, findings and lessons from a joint initiative involving farmers, the Uttar Pradesh state Irrigation and Water Resources Department, Bijnor District Administration and a conservation organisation, WWF, to enhance flows in a sub-tributary, called the Karula River, which is part of the Ganga River system. Another objective of this paper is to look at the scalability and replicability of similar approaches in other irrigation command areas to benefit nearby river systems in general. Under this initiative, the team attempted to enhance flows in the river Karula by routing the saved water from irrigation supplies in a canal commanded area. This saving of water is being achieved due to supply-side and demand-side measures that are being adopted in the project area. With the objective of ensuring the sustainability of the initiative, efforts are made to form an institutional arrangement, through which this initiative can be sustained beyond the project support.
A Preliminary Study to Design and Evaluate Pneumatically Controlled Soft Robotic Actuators for a Repetitive Hand Rehabilitation Task

A stroke is an infarction in the cortical region of the brain that often leads to isolated hand paresis. This common side effect renders individuals compromised in their ability to actively flex or extend the fingers of the affected hand. While there are currently published soft robotic glove designs, this article proposed a unique design that allows users to self-actuate their therapy due to the ability to re-extend the hand using a layer of resistive flexible steel. The results showed a consistently achieved average peak of 75° or greater for each finger while the subjects’ hands were at rest during multiple trials of pneumatic assisted flexion. During passive assisted testing, human subject testing on 10 participants showed that these participants were able to accomplish 80.75% of their normal active finger flexion range with the steel-layer-lined pneumatic glove and 87.07% with the unlined pneumatic glove on average when neglecting outliers. An addition of the steel layer lowered the blocked tip force by an average of 18.13% for all five fingers. These data show strong evidence that this glove would be appropriate to advance to human subject testing on those who do have post stroke hand impairments.
Unfaithful embedding of causal sets

In the causal set approach, spacetime is a continuous approximation of a faithful embedded causal set. But the faithful embedded causal set describes the empty spacetime and cannot describe matter. Only faithful embedding of coarse grained causal set is necessary for the emergence of spacetime. The initial causal set can be unfaithfully embedded. The following properties of the universe can be the consequences of the unfaithful embedding: antiparticles, fields of interactions, the inhomogeneous distribution of the matter.
Pharmacokinetic Analysis and In Vitro Synergy Evaluation of Cefiderocol, Sulbactam, and Tigecycline in an Extensively Drug-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Pneumonia Patient Receiving Continuous Venovenous Hemodiafiltration

Abstract Antimicrobial treatments for extensively drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (XDR-AB) infections have proven lackluster, while dosing challenges in patients receiving continuous renal replacement therapy continue. We describe a patient receiving cefiderocol, ampicillin/sulbactam, and tigecycline for XDR-AB while undergoing continuous venovenous hemodiafiltration. The clinical course, cefiderocol and sulbactam pharmacokinetics, and synergy assessments are described.
An athermal phonon mediated dark matter detector with surface event discrimination

There exists an overwhelming body of observational evidence that most of the matter in the universe is dark. The constraints of big bang nucleosynthesis coupled with lower limits on the matter density from dynamical estimates suggests that there exists large quantities of non-baryonic dark matter in the universe. In order to have avoided detection thus far, this new particle must interact only through the weak and gravitational forces. The presence of very old galaxies and clusters point strongly to a particle that was non-relativistic at the weak-scale decoupling time in the early universe. A well motivated candidate for this Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) is a relic partner predicted from supersymmetric (SUSY) theories. If our Milky Way halo were composed of WIMPs, we expect them to be in a dissipationless, spherical distribution random Boltzmann velocities. A detector on the earth, carried through the galaxy at the orbital speed of the sun (∼ 300 km/s or 10−3c), could detect the recoil energy imparted by a WIMP scattering with one of its nuclei. Characteristic energies in this interaction would be ∼ 10 keV for WIMP masses of ∼ 10GeV/c. A suitable dark matter detector would have to have a threshold of ∼ 1 keV to be viable. Estimates of the density of the dark galactic halo in the solar neighborhood are on the order of 0.3 GeV/ccm. Combining this ambient flux with an upper limit of the theoretical WIMP-nucleon cross section from SUSY theory of ∼ 10−41cm2 gives us the extremely low event rates of ∼1 per kilogram per day. A suitable dark matter detector must therefor also have a high degree of background rejection capability. This thesis describes the development of such a detector capable of detecting these relic dark matter particles.
Trajectory tracking control for an indoor quadrotor UAV based on the disturbance observer

A quadrotor is a kind of vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial rotorcraft which has been attracting wide interest around the world. However, small-scale quadrotors usually suffer from modeling error and external disturbance which are severe challenges for the control system design. To this end, the disturbance-observer-based (DOB) control strategy is applied to reject the performance degradation caused by the above negative factors. To further improve the trajectory tracking precision for an indoor quadrotor suffering from modeling error and external disturbance, a linear dual DOB (LDDOB) trajectory tracking control scheme is developed in this paper. Considering the practical implementation in engineering, the LDDOB position control approach is developed based on the linear quadrotor model. In addition, regarding to the non-minimum phase characteristic of the translational motion model, a modified version of a PID position controller is utilized to attenuate the undershoot of the closed-loop system in the initial response. Extensive numerical simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed trajectory tracking control scheme.
Stochastic Orders and Aging

Many reliability systems or components of such systems have random lifetimes that indicate aging properties of these systems or components. Most of these aging properties can be characterized by various stochastic orders. Such characterizations are useful for the identification of the corresponding aging properties and for a better understanding of the meaning of these properties. In this article we describe such characterizations. Keywords: IFR; IFRA; NBU; DMRL; NBUE; stochastic order