Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Controlled Electrochemical Barrier Calculations without Potential Control

The knowledge of electrochemical activation energies under applied potential conditions is a prerequisite for understanding catalytic activity at electrochemical interfaces. Here, we present a new set of methods that can compute electrochemical barriers with accuracy comparable to that of constant potential grand canonical approaches, without the explicit need for a potentiostat. Instead, we Legendre transform a set of constant charge, canonical reaction paths. Additional straightforward approximations offer the possibility to compute electrochemical barriers at a fraction of computational cost and complexity, and the analytical inclusion of geometric response highlights the importance of incorporating electronic as well as the geometric degrees of freedom when evaluating electrochemical barriers.
OPIA: an open archive of plant images and related phenotypic traits

Abstract High-throughput plant phenotype acquisition technologies have been extensively utilized in plant phenomics studies, leading to vast quantities of images and image-based phenotypic traits (i-traits) that are critically essential for accelerating germplasm screening, plant diseases identification and biotic & abiotic stress classification. Here, we present the Open Plant Image Archive (OPIA, https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/opia/), an open archive of plant images and i-traits derived from high-throughput phenotyping platforms. Currently, OPIA houses 56 datasets across 11 plants, comprising a total of 566 225 images with 2 417 186 labeled instances. Notably, it incorporates 56 i-traits of 93 rice and 105 wheat cultivars based on 18 644 individual RGB images, and these i-traits are further annotated based on the Plant Phenotype and Trait Ontology (PPTO) and cross-linked with GWAS Atlas. Additionally, each dataset in OPIA is assigned an evaluation score that takes account of image data volume, image resolution, and the number of labeled instances. More importantly, OPIA is equipped with useful tools for online image pre-processing and intelligent prediction. Collectively, OPIA provides open access to valuable datasets, pre-trained models, and phenotypic traits across diverse plants and thus bears great potential to play a crucial role in facilitating artificial intelligence-assisted breeding research.
Epidemiology of geographic atrophy and its precursor features of intermediate age‐related macular degeneration

Globally age‐related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness with a significant impact on quality of life. Geographic atrophy (GA) is the atrophic late form of AMD and its prevalence increases markedly with age with around 1 in 5 persons aged 85 and above having GA in at least one eye. Bilateral GA leads to severe visual impairment thus posing a significant burden on patients, careers and health providers. The incidence and prevalence of GA varies across different geographic regions, with the highest rates in those of European ancestry. Although heterogeneity in definitions of GA and reporting strategy can explain some of the discrepancies, the data overall are consistent in showing a lower prevalence in other ethnicities such as those of Asian heritage. This is at present unexplained but thought to be due to the existence of protective factors such as differences in eye pigmentation, diet, environmental exposures and genetic variability. This review covers key aspects of the prevalence and incidence of the ocular precursor features of GA (large drusen, pigmentary abnormalities and reticular pseudo‐drusen), the late stage of GA and factors that have been known to be associated with modifying risk including systemic, demographic, environment, genetic and ocular. Understanding the global epidemiology scenario is crucial for the prevention of and management of patients with GA.
Graphene nanowalls grown on copper mesh

Graphene nanowalls (GNWs) can be described as extended nanosheets of graphitic carbon where the basal planes are perpendicular to a substrate. Generally, existing techniques to grow films of GNWs are based on plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and the use of diverse substrate materials (Cu, Ni, C, etc) shaped as foils or filaments. Usually, patterned films rely on substrates priorly modified by costly cleanroom procedures. Hence, we report here the characterization, transfer and application of wafer-scale patterned GNWs films that were grown on Cu meshes using low-power direct-current PECVD. Reaching wall heights of ∼300 nm, mats of vertically-aligned carbon nanosheets covered square centimeter wire meshes substrates, replicating well the thread dimensions and the tens of micrometer-wide openings of the meshes. Contrastingly, the same growth conditions applied to Cu foils resulted in limited carbon deposition, mostly confined to the substrate edges. Based on the wet transfer procedure turbostratic and graphitic carbon domains co-exist in the GNWs microstructure. Interestingly, these nanoscaled patterned films were quite hydrophobic, being able to reverse the wetting behavior of SiO2 surfaces. Finally, we show that the GNWs can also be used as the active material for C-on-Cu anodes of Li-ion battery systems.
Psychologisch geleitete Gruppentreffen für Angehörige von ALS-Patient*innen

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Der Verlauf der Amyotrophen Lateralsklerose (ALS) konfrontiert die Betroffenen selbst, aber auch ihre An- und Zugehörigen nicht nur mit zunehmenden körperlichen Einschränkungen, sondern auch mit psychosozialen sowie sozialmedizinisch-organisatorischen Belastungen. Die Angehörigen sind häufig eng in die Pflege und Betreuung involviert und selbst hoch belastet, spezifische Angebote zu ihrer Entlastung werden seit längerem empfohlen. Ziel dieser Studie war die Evaluation der Umsetzbarkeit und Akzeptanz von psychologisch geleiteten supportiven Angehörigentreffen in einer ALS-Spezialambulanz. Methoden Die themenoffenen Gruppentreffen fanden ca. alle drei Monate statt. Über einen Zeitraum von gut zwei Jahren wurden von insgesamt 26 Angehörigen von ALS-Patient*innen Daten zur subjektiven Relevanz der Inhalte der Treffen, ihrer Nützlichkeit und eventuelle Kritik erhoben. Ergebnisse In den Angehörigentreffen wurden sowohl praktisch-organisatorische Belange besprochen als auch psychosoziale Themen, zum Beispiel Selbstfürsorge, der Umgang mit Emotionen sowie der Umgang bzw. Konflikte mit den Erkrankten sowie Dritten. Die Treffen wurden überwiegend als hilfreich, verständlich und persönlich relevant bewertet und der Austausch in einer „Schicksalsgemeinschaft“ als sehr entlastend wahrgenommen. Diskussion Die ALS-Angehörigentreffen waren im beschriebenen Format gut durchführbar und wurden gut angenommen. Angebote wie das hier berichtete bieten soziale, emotionale und praktische Unterstützung und sind damit geeignet, um die hoch belasteten Angehörigen von ALS-Patient*innen zu entlasten. Die quantitative Überprüfung ihrer Wirksamkeit ist aufgrund der Komplexität der Lebenssituation sowie methodisch herausfordernd. Aufgrund des geringen Aufwandes der Implementierung sollten psychosoziale Unterstützungsangebote für Angehörige ein Bestandteil der Regelversorgung bei ALS sein, im Sinne eines multidimensionalen Versorgungskonzeptes mit palliativem Leitbild.
Workers’ compensation claims for COVID-19 among workers in healthcare and other industries during 2020–2022, Victoria, Australia

Objective To identify and characterise COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims in healthcare and other industries during the pandemic in Victoria, Australia. Methods We used workers’ compensation claims identified as COVID-19 infection related from 1 January 2020 to 31 July 2022 to compare COVID-19 infection claims and rates of claims by industry and occupation, and in relation to Victorian COVID-19 epidemiology. A Cox proportional hazards model assessed risk factors for extended claim duration. Results Of the 3313 direct and indirect COVID-19-related claims identified, 1492 (45.0%) were classified as direct COVID-19 infection accepted time-loss claims and were included in analyses. More than half (52.9%) of COVID-19 infection claims were made by healthcare and social assistance industry workers, with claims for this group peaking in July–October 2020. The overall rate of claims was greater in the healthcare and social assistance industry compared with all other industries (16.9 vs 2.4 per 10 000 employed persons) but industry-specific rates were highest in public administration and safety (23.0 per 10 000 employed persons). Workers in healthcare and social assistance were at increased risk of longer incapacity duration (median 26 days, IQR 16–61 days) than in other industries (median 17 days, IQR 11–39.5 days). Conclusions COVID-19 infection claims differed by industry, occupational group, severity and timing and changes coincided with different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Occupational surveillance for COVID-19 cases is important and monitoring of worker’s compensation claims and incapacity duration can contribute to understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on work absence.
The evolution of pore-scale fluid-saturation in low-permeability sandstone reservoirs

In many tight-gas basins of the western United States distinguishing between productive and non-productive low-permeability sandstones, and predicting relative amounts of gas and water production is difficult. Comparison of gas shows, calculated water saturations, and saturation-height profiles between gas-productive and non-productive sandstones of equal reservoir quality all appear similar. Capillary pressure derived height functions are difficult to apply, and classic rock-typing procedures lack the predictive capability that is common to more traditional reservoirs. Basin reconstructions suggest the timing of petroleum charge and migration preceded maximum burial and uplift. This initial charge was likely a primary drainage displacement with reservoir porosity greater by a factor of 2-3 relative to values found today and permeability greater by 1-3 orders of magnitude. These reservoir systems became low-permeability following initial charge reflecting continued diagenesis throughout burial, subsequent uplift and erosion. With burial, decreasing pore volume caused water saturations and gas columns to increase. During uplift and erosion gas columns adjusted to changing structural configuration. In some cases this led to gas accumulations being leaked and spilled. In other cases, structural readjustment resulted in capillary imbibition and, in some cases, secondary (or higher order) drainage and imbibition. Within trapped accumulations, gas expansion upon uplift further increased gas columns. In cases where gas columns were spilled or within migration pathways imbibition led to residual or near-residual water saturations. Conventional formation evaluation is fundamentally rooted in concepts associated with primary drainage displacement. Tight-gas reservoirs that have experienced late uplift following an earlier phase of charge are unlikely to be characterized by primary drainage and are much more likely to be characterized by imbibition or secondary (or higher order) drainage and possibly imbibition. The hysteresis between primary drainage and imbibition or secondary (or higher order) drainage and imbibition in tight-gas reservoirs is significant and unlike many more traditional reservoirs does not tend to converge on a narrow range of values. Estimates of water saturation are scalar values and do not contain information that allows the saturation history and displacement direction to be deciphered. Recognition that reservoirs are unlikely to be in primary drainage equilibrium is a fundamental paradigm shift that impacts petroleum evaluation at all scales ranging from basin potential to completion decisions within a given well. Although this paper is written from the perspective of tight-gas petroleum systems, the principles are equally applicable to low-permeability oil reservoirs.
Flow capture and reversal in the Agen Allwedd Entrance Series, south Wales: evidence for glacial flooding and impoundment.

Detailed observations of passage morphology, scallop orientations, and cross-cutting relationships of vadose notches and roof heights within a small area of the Agen Allwedd cave system, south Wales, reveal a complex history of flow re-routing linked to several successive phreatic-vadose cycles. At least three discrete phases of phreatic development can be recognized, each succeeded by a period of vadose entrenchment. Two distinct episodes of flow diversion are evident and were initiated during separate phreatic phases. The repeated establishment of phreatic conditions at such a high level within the cave system can be attributed either to glacial impoundment of meltwater recharge and/or the creation of a localized perched phreas as a result of temporary blockages. We conclude that glacial meltwater from the Usk valley glacier entered the cave along its northern edge and was impounded as a result of valley glaciers blocking lower outlets, causing flooding of the entire cave system during glaciations. Vadose entrenchment then occurred as much of the cave was drained during ensuing interglacial(s). Drainage rerouting occurred in response to temporary, but prolonged, blockages that allowed meltwater recharge to generate high hydrostatic pressures. Newly opened or exposed fractures in the limestone were thereby exploited, creating bypass routes. This model, which is consistent with what is known of ice depths across the region during the Pleistocene, has significant implications for the evolution of the entire cave system and indeed for other caves in broadly analogous situations in south Wales and beyond.
Wet and dry years of Indian summer monsoon and its relation with Indo‐Pacific sea surface temperatures

Regional characteristics of Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) during dry and wet monsoon years associated with El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and non‐ENSO (normal) periods are investigated. Four cases such as wet monsoon years associated with ENSO (EW) and non‐ENSO (NW) events and dry monsoon years associated with ENSO (ED) and non‐ENSO (ND) events have been discussed. The dry and wet years associated with ENSO and non‐ENSO periods show significant differences in the spatial pattern of rainfall. During wet years (EW and NW), the rainfall is abnormally high in the west coastal stations. However, during EW years, anomalous heavy rainfall is observed in the northern part of the west coast while during the NW years, the rainfall is high in southwest coastal regions. In central India, the rainfall is abnormally high only during the wet years associated with non‐ENSO events (NW). The west coastal areas receive below normal rainfall during ED, ND years, however, the negative anomalies are large during ED years compared to ND years. The low level (1000 hPa) moisture transport is coherent with the changes in the spatial patter of ISMR. The Indo‐Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs), low level circulation (at 850 hPa) features and general circulation associated with the four cases of ISMR have also been studied in detail. During wet phases of ISMR, the SST over the pacific ocean is abnormally cool and that during dry phases of ISMR is abnormally warm. However, the areas of cool and warm are different during ENSO and normal years. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society
Spatial and temporal variations in the geochemistry of several western Montana streams and rivers

Clean sampling methods were used to study the solute (operationally defined as <0.2 jam) geochemistry o f mining impacted and pristine surface waters in the upper Blackfoot watershed. Five sites along the Upper Blackfoot River and four sites along the Landers Fork were sampled, some more regularly than others, over the course o f 18 months in 1997-1998. Samples were also collected from a tributary to the Blackfoot (Hogum Creek) and a tributary to the Landers Fork (Copper Creek). The Upper Blackfoot River, which drains historic mines ca. 20 km upstream of the study area, had higher trace metal concentrations than did the Landers Fork, which drains the pristine Scapegoat Wilderness area. In both rivers, many of the major elements show a seasonal hysteresis effect in which the concentrations were lower on the rising limb of the hydrograph than on the falling limb. However, elements such as As, Cu, Fe, Mn, S, and Zn exhibited more irregular temporal patterns, which included periods of almost no response to changes in streamflow, concentration elevation following a summer storm, concentration surges at the start of snowmell in the spring, and/or elevation throughout the course o f spring runoff. Streamflow values alone were poor predictors o f the solute concentrations in the streams, and complex interactions between the timing and magnitude of streamflow appeared to account for the geochemical trends in the study area. Introduction In order to characterize baseline conditions in pristine watersheds and to obtain accurate data in contaminated watersheds, ultra-clean sampling, processing, and analytical methods are necessary (Benoit, 1994; Horowitz et al., 1994). In the past decade, the importance o f these methods has been highlighted by studies that cast doubt on the validity of much o f the trace metal data collected using standard protocols (Windom et al., 1991; Taylor and Shiller, 1995). Still, only a small number of published research to date has reported on both spatial and temporal trends within river basins using clean sampling techniques (e.g. Hurley et al., 1996; Shafer et al., 1997; Sherrell and Ross, 1999).
Image Captioning With Controllable and Adaptive Length Levels

Image captioning is a core challenge in computer vision, attracting significant attention. Traditional methods prioritize caption quality, often overlooking style control. Our research enhances method controllability, enabling descriptions of varying detail. By integrating a length level embedding into current models, they can produce detailed or concise captions, increasing diversity. We introduce a length-level reranking transformer to correlate image and text complexity, optimizing caption length for informativeness without redundancy. Additionally, with caption length increase, computational complexity grows due to the autoregressive (AR) design of existing methods. To address this, our non-autoregressive (NAR) model maintains constant complexity regardless of caption length. We've developed a training approach that includes refinement sequence training and sequence-level knowledge distillation to close the performance gap between NAR and AR models. In testing, our models set new standards for caption quality on the MS COCO dataset and offer enhanced controllability and diversity. Our NAR model excels over AR models in these aspects and shows greater efficiency with longer captions. With advanced training techniques, our NAR's caption quality rivals that of leading AR models.
Advances in the treatment of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-I associated myelopathy

ABSTRACT Introduction Nearly 2–3% of those 10 to 20 million individuals infected with the Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-1 (HTLV-1); are predisposed to developing HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). It is a neuro-inflammatory disease; differentiated from multiple sclerosis based on the presence of typical neurologic symptoms, confirmation of HTLV-1 infection, and other molecular biomarkers. Areas covered A brief review of the epidemiology, host immune responses, and molecular pathogenesis of HAM/TSP is followed by detailed discussions about the host-related risk factors for developing HAM/TSP and success/failure stories of the attempted management strategies. Expert opinion Currently, there is no effective treatment for HAM/TSP. Anti-retroviral therapy, peculiar cytokines (IFN-α), some anti-oxidants, and allograft bone marrow transplantation have been used for treating these patients with limited success. Under current conditions, asymptomatic carriers should be examined periodically by a neurologist for early signs of spinal cord injury. Then it is crucial to determine the progress rate to adapt the best management plan for each patient. Corticosteroid therapy is most beneficial in those with acute myelitis. However, slow-progressing patients are best managed using a combination of symptomatic and physical therapy. Additionally, preventive measures should be taken to decrease further spread of HTLV-1 infection.
Low-Rank MDPs with Continuous Action Spaces

Low-Rank Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have recently emerged as a promising framework within the domain of reinforcement learning (RL), as they allow for provably approximately correct (PAC) learning guarantees while also incorporating ML algorithms for representation learning. However, current methods for low-rank MDPs are limited in that they only consider finite action spaces, and give vacuous bounds as $|\mathcal{A}| \to \infty$, which greatly limits their applicability. In this work, we study the problem of extending such methods to settings with continuous actions, and explore multiple concrete approaches for performing this extension. As a case study, we consider the seminal FLAMBE algorithm (Agarwal et al., 2020), which is a reward-agnostic method for PAC RL with low-rank MDPs. We show that, without any modifications to the algorithm, we obtain similar PAC bound when actions are allowed to be continuous. Specifically, when the model for transition functions satisfies a Holder smoothness condition w.r. t. actions, and either the policy class has a uniformly bounded minimum density or the reward function is also Holder smooth, we obtain a polynomial PAC bound that depends on the order of smoothness.
Analyzing Near-Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging for Protein Content Regression and Grain Variety Classification Using Bulk References and Varying Grain-to-Background Ratios

Based on previous work, we assess the use of NIR-HSI images for calibrating models on two datasets, focusing on protein content regression and grain variety classification. Limited reference data for protein content is expanded by subsampling and associating it with the bulk sample. However, this method introduces significant biases due to skewed leptokurtic prediction distributions, affecting both PLS-R and deep CNN models. We propose adjustments to mitigate these biases, improving mean protein reference predictions. Additionally, we investigate the impact of grain-to-background ratios on both tasks. Higher ratios yield more accurate predictions, but including lower-ratio images in calibration enhances model robustness for such scenarios.
Leveraging Structured Information for Explainable Multi-hop Question Answering and Reasoning

Neural models, including large language models (LLMs), achieve superior performance on multi-hop question-answering. To elicit reasoning capabilities from LLMs, recent works propose using the chain-of-thought (CoT) mechanism to generate both the reasoning chain and the answer, which enhances the model's capabilities in conducting multi-hop reasoning. However, several challenges still remain: such as struggling with inaccurate reasoning, hallucinations, and lack of interpretability. On the other hand, information extraction (IE) identifies entities, relations, and events grounded to the text. The extracted structured information can be easily interpreted by humans and machines (Grishman, 2019). In this work, we investigate constructing and leveraging extracted semantic structures (graphs) for multi-hop question answering, especially the reasoning process. Empirical results and human evaluations show that our framework: generates more faithful reasoning chains and substantially improves the QA performance on two benchmark datasets. Moreover, the extracted structures themselves naturally provide grounded explanations that are preferred by humans, as compared to the generated reasoning chains and saliency-based explanations.