ethicalabs/Research-Intent-Collab huggingface dataset:
Combination of nano and microcarriers for stem cell therapy of Huntington's disease : new regenerative medicine strategy

Combinaison de nano et de microsupports pour la thérapie par cellules souches de la maladie de Huntington : nouvelle stratégie de médecine régénérative                 La combinaison de biomatériaux et cellules souches, a pour but de protéger des cellules endommagées et de ralentir la progression des maladies neurodégénératives, comme la maladie de Huntington (MH). Les cellules souches mésenchymateuses et particulièrement une sous-population, les cellules MIAMI, ont déjà démontré leur efficacité dans la maladie de Parkinson. Il est cependant essentiel d’améliorer leur différenciation neuronale, leur survie et évaluer leur sécrétome. L’objectif principal de ce travail fut de proposer une stratégie innovante de médecine régénératrice pour la MH associant cellules souches, nano et micro médecines. Pour l’évaluer, un nouveau modèle animale ex vivo de la MH a été mis en place. Nous avons ensuite développé et optimisé deux nano-vecteurs, des nanocapsules lipidiques et des nanoparticules solides de SPAN, et les avons associés à un inhibiteur de REST qui est un facteur de transcription qui empêche la différenciation neuronale. La transfection de ce siREST a montré une amélioration du phénotype neuronal. Ces cellules ainsi modifiées furent ensuite induites vers un phénotype GABAergic grâce à des facteurs de croissance. Puis elles ont été associées à un support 3D, les microcarriers pharmacologiquement actif (MPA) permettant une meilleure intégration des cellules après greffe. Les MPA sont des microsphères ayant une surface biomimétique de laminine et libérant de façon contrôlée un facteur trophique le « brain derived neurotrophic factor » (inducteur d’un phénotype neuronal et neuro-protecteur). Des résultats prometteurs ont été obtenus, encourageant à continuer l’évaluation de cette stratégie in vivo dans des modèles génétiques de la MH.
Conflict, Conflict Resolution and Peace-building

In recent years, religion has made a remarkable return to prominence in Western development circles. Confounding the expectations of secularists, religion has a strong — perhaps growing — significance as a strong source of identity for millions of people in the developing world. Consequently, religious individuals and faith-based organisations, as carriers of religious ideas, play an important role in many societies, both as a source of conflict and as a tool for conflict resolution and peace-building. Religious hatreds and differences are central to many recent and current conflicts in the developing world. There is also evidence that religious forces can also play a constructive role in helping resolve them and build peace, via early warnings of conflict, good offices once conflict has erupted, as well as advocacy, mediation, and reconciliation. This chapter highlights how religion can (1) both encourage conflict and peace in the developing world, and (2) offers examples — from Mozambique, Nigeria and Cambodia — of religious peacemakers who are significant in attempts to reconcile previously warring communities and achieve social cohesion, crucial foundations of progress in human development.
Supplementary document for High-speed electro-optic engine for quantized photonic neural network - 7749619.pdf

Supplemental Document
Federated Learning with Differential Privacy

Federated learning (FL), as a type of distributed machine learning, is capable of significantly preserving client's private data from being shared among different parties. Nevertheless, private information can still be divulged by analyzing uploaded parameter weights from clients. In this report, we showcase our empirical benchmark of the effect of the number of clients and the addition of differential privacy (DP) mechanisms on the performance of the model on different types of data. Our results show that non-i.i.d and small datasets have the highest decrease in performance in a distributed and differentially private setting.
Evolutionary Biology: A New Phylogenetic Framework for an Iconic Plant Radiation

Studies in island systems underpin much of our knowledge of macroevolution. A new study of the Galápagos giant daisies adds to this tradition. A time-calibrated phylogeny is presented that offers insights into the factors associated with diversification, providing a framework for further studies to investigate processes underlying these findings.
Genetic circuits in synthetic biology: broadening the toolbox of regulatory devices

Devices sensing inputs and generating outputs are fundamental regulatory units, and as such are the basis of more complex regulatory networks. We provide an overview of regulatory devices used as fundamental regulatory building blocks in synthetic biology, and how complex genetic circuitry is being constructed from them. We first comprehensively explore devices operating at different levels of gene regulation, with action modes on the DNA sequence, to transcriptional, translational and post-translational control. We then discuss design principles of constructing genetic circuits from basic regulatory units, addressing challenges such as orthogonality, context-dependence, noise, and complexity. We present examples of genetic circuitry, including bistable switches, logic gates, signal amplification, memory devices and circuitry for biocomputation. How artificial genetic circuitry can be useful in real-life applications is illustrated with examples from bioproduction, living therapeutics, and biosafety. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the toolbox of regulatory devices and a profound understanding of their potential for constructing diverse genetic circuits and their applications.
Discontinuity in the Internalization of the World Trade Organization Rules: Assessing the Democratic Deficit Critique Against the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement System

International institutions are often criticized for their democratic deficit. Among these institutions, the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system is most frequently targeted. This article focuses on the strength of this critique and aims to refute its factual premise through the examination of several Panel and Appellate Body decisions. The author also argues that the WTO dispute settlement system deliberately leaves a certain degree of discontinuity between members’ domestic legal orders and the WTO Agreement, such that the system pays a degree of deference to member states and allows substantial discretion in the process of internalizing the rules of the WTO Agreement within domestic legal orders. Finally, the author concludes that this discontinuity remains strong, and serves to enhance the democratic autonomy of member states instead of defeating it.
Options for Designing Stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currencies.

Stablecoins are cryptographic digital currencies that follow a fixed or target exchange rate regime. The objective of this paper is to introduce for the IS community the concept of stablecoins in their various forms and features and investigate their relationship to Central bank Digital Currencies. This seems timely as several central banks are considering launching a cryptographic currency. The central bank digital currency (CBDC) trend gained traction following the emergence of a number of privately-issued stablecoins. This paper distinguishes amongst thirteen design dimensions that are relevant for decision makers launching stablecoins and central bank digital currencies using distributed ledger technologies. We explain each dimension in the context of prominent CBDC and stablecoin projects. Finally, future areas of CBDC and stablecoin research are elaborated upon. This research is one of the first attempts to combine information systems and monetary policy research to explain the new phenomena of stablecoin and CBDC.
How Digital Art can be Converted into the NFT (NonFungible Token) and used to Identify/Secure the Digital Assets and the Ownership of the Digital Art

This article presents the potential value of that NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) which uses the technology called blockchain. In this we have shown how NFT tokens can be used to identify the digitals assets (like artist works music, games, pdf etc). This will ensure the security and privacy of digitalized assets. It takes the records of the proof of ownership form the very beginning of the digital assets. Blockchain technology has emerged as one of the major disruptive innovations in last decade. Beginning from Bitcoin mainly popular in recently.
A two-component mantle extending from Hyblean Plateau to Mt Etna (Eastern Sicily) as inferred by an integrated approach with noble gases, trace elements and isotope geochemistry.

We carried out a geochemical investigation of the mantle beneath Hyblean and Etnean area through ultramafic xenoliths (peridotites and pyroxenites) retained in Miocenic age Hyblean volcanics and primitive Etnean lavas and tephra, respectively. Major and trace elements and Sr-Nd isotopes (whole rock and /or minerals) were analysed together with noble gases entrapped in fluid inclusions hosted in olivines and pyroxenes phenocrysts. The geochemical results from Hyblean xenoliths study highlighted the presence of two distinct compositional groups: the peridotites, featured by a more enriched geochemical fingerprint (3He/4He ∼7 Ra, 143Nd/144Nd ∼0.5129 and Zr/Nb ∼ 4) whereas the pyroxenites, characterized by a more primitive character (3He/4He up to 7.6 Ra, 143Nd/144Nd ∼0.5130 and Zr/Nb ∼30). Our interpretation is that metasomatic processes interested the Hyblean lithosphere and the pyroxenites (former primitive mantle melts) represent the metasomatizing agent. During their ascent these primitive melts permeated the peridotitic mantle at different levels, producing a variable degree of refertilization. The metasomatic processes affected distributions of both trace elements and noble gases, even though these geochemical tracers displayed very different sensitivity to the effects of metasomatic mixing between two end-members. The investigated primitive Etnean magmas showed a variable REE enrichment respect to MORB (Lan/Ybn =11-26) and isotopic values of Sr, Nd and He in the following ranges: 143Nd/144Nd= 0.512869 -0.512896; 86Sr/87Sr=0.70330 - 0.70370; 3He/4He = 7-7.6 Ra. A variable melting degree of a common mantle source together with a variable level of crystallization and crustal contamination is hypothesised to explain the variations exhibited by the above Etnean dataset. Numerical simulation performed on MELT code allowed to estimate the trace elements content of the Etnean mantle source. These results, joined to the most primitive isotopic values of He- Sr- Nd among the investigated products helped to geochemically characterize the mantle beneath the Etnean area suggesting a strict relation with that Hyblean. Indeed, the modeled Etnean source locates on the mixing zone between the Hyblean peridotite and pyroxenite, so testifying a simultaneous contribution of two components in the genesis of the investigated lavas and supporting the hypothesis of an heterogeneous and metasomatized lithosphere common to both areas.
Improved all photonics diffraction neural network based on multi-channel integrated optical fibers

AI's exponentially growing computational demands conflict with slow hardware advances. The high-power consumption and long training times of large-scale models call for alternative solutions. Optical computing-based traditional optical networks and diffractive deep neural network (D2NN) still face deployment challenges and reliance on electronic networks. To address these issues, we replace the free-space interlayer propagation in conventional optical networks with fiber-based propagation. This preserves the advantages of traditional optical networks while providing additional benefits such as ease of deployment, reduced dependence on electronic networks, and enhanced robustness. Experimental results demonstrate that this untrained structure exhibits strong nonlinear mapping capabilities across different configurations, yielding distinct outputs for three input targets, especially at 1550 nm. Furthermore, the influence of environment and noise is around 1% in target recognition. Leveraging inherent spectral discrimination, this architecture enables multidimensional target identification with important implications for complex target classification and multidimensional sensing.
Paternalistic Leadership Training Program and Its Effect on Nurse Managers' Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Context: Paternalistic leadership behavior emphasizes traditionally based authority and familial-based relationships by promoting work engagement, empowerment, loyalty, and trust in healthcare organizations. Additionally, it enhances organizational citizenship behavior by guiding activities that contribute to achieving organizational goals. Aim: This study was conducted to investigate the impact of a paternalistic leadership training program on the organizational citizenship behavior of nurse managers. Methods: A quasi-experimental research design (one-group pre-/post-test) was employed. The study setting was at Ain Shams University hospitals (Ain Shams University Hospital, El-Demerdash Hospital, Obstetrics and Gynecological Hospital, and Pediatric Hospitals). The study subjects included 98 nurse managers. Researchers gathered data using three tools, comprising the paternalistic leadership knowledge assessment questionnaire, the paternalistic leadership observational checklist, and the organizational citizenship behavior scale. Results: The study demonstrated a highly statistically significant improvement in nurse managers' knowledge, increasing from 12.2% pre-program to 77.3% post-program and then slightly declining to 70.2% at the follow-up phase. Additionally, significant improvements were observed in all dimensions of paternalistic leadership performance during both the post-program and follow-up phases of the intervention (p&lt;0.001). Additionally, three-quarters (77.6%) of nurse managers had a negative level of organizational citizenship behavior before the program. Less than three-quarters of them (74.2% and 72.8%) had a positive level of organizational citizenship behavior post-program and in the follow-up, respectively. Conclusion: The paternalistic leadership training program enhances managers' knowledge of paternalistic leadership and improves their performance in this area, resulting in a positive impact on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Implementing paternalistic leadership training programs tailored for nurse managers in educational services within healthcare institutions holds significant promise for enhancing leadership effectiveness and fostering organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among staff.
Cosmic calibration: Constraints from the matter power spectrum and the cosmic microwave background

Several cosmological measurements have attained significant levels of maturity and accuracy over the last decade. Continuing this trend, future observations promise measurements of the statistics of the cosmic mass distribution at an accuracy level of one percent out to spatial scales with k~10 h/Mpc and even smaller, entering highly nonlinear regimes of gravitational instability. In order to interpret these observations and extract useful cosmological information from them, such as the equation of state of dark energy, very costly high precision, multi-physics simulations must be performed. We have recently implemented a new statistical framework with the aim of obtaining accurate parameter constraints from combining observations with a limited number of simulations. The key idea is the replacement of the full simulator by a fast emulator with controlled error bounds. In this paper, we provide a detailed description of the methodology and extend the framework to include joint analysis of cosmic microwave background and large scale structure measurements. Our framework is especially well-suited for upcoming large scale structure probes of dark energy such as baryon acoustic oscillations and, especially, weak lensing, where percent level accuracy on nonlinear scales is needed.
A Serious Game Conceptual Approach to Protect Critical Infrastructure Resilience in Smart Cities

Smart cities have become the most popular concept to manage assets and resources in the growing urban environment. To achieve sustainable city development in smart cities, it is imperative that smart development combined with sustainable practices should be integrated within infrastructure management frameworks. To improve resilience, it is essential to understand the interdependencies and cascading effects of Critical Infrastructures (CIs) subjected to cyber-physical threats, in particular. As a result of multiple influencing factors as well as the complex mechanisms in the interconnected smart systems of infrastructures, resilience assessment is highly challenging. To facilitate a deeper understanding of the influence of interdependent infrastructures, this paper proposes a novel serious gaming approach. This approach will incorporate the interdependent and cascading effects, and resilience scores of infrastructures to improve the resilience scores of infrastructures. It also aids in improved infrastructure preparations to respond to cyber-physical threats with a &apos;educational&apos; purpose through the mining of data from gameplay records. The serious game concept presented in this paper is being developed as part of the H2020 funded PRECINCT project (www.precinct.info).
European Union's Approach to Artificial Intelligence in The Context of Human Rights

Artificial intelligence has started to be mentioned in international conferences and literature since the 1950s, but it has become a new trend in the last two decades and has gradually increased its presence in the literature. In the digital age where technology continues to develop without slowing down, Artificial Intelligence has become an important power indicator for states and has even enabled the balance of power in the international system to change. In this context, the European Union's human-centred and regulatory approach to artificial intelligence constitutes an obstacle to the technological progress of the European Union.&nbsp; Artificial intelligence studies in the literature in the field of social sciences discuss that artificial intelligence may cause undesirable consequences, either intentionally or unintentionally. When data, which is the source of artificial intelligence, is misused or abused, it leads to various human rights violations. The European Union emphasises the importance of an ethical, trusthworthy and responsible Artificial Intelligence.&nbsp; &nbsp;This thesis aims to critically examine the European Union's human-centred approach to artificial intelligence, taking into account the fundamental values on which the European Union is based that are enshrined on the Lisbon Treaty and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. It aims to fill the gap in the&nbsp;literature by discussing whether the artificial intelligence regulations (General Data Protection Regulation (2016), Ethics Guidelines For Trustworthy AI (2019), White Paper on Artificial Intelligence: a European approach for excellence and trust (2020), EU Artificial Intelligence Act (2021), Artificial Intelligence Liability Directive (2022)), which the European Union has published constitute a barrier to technological progress and whether the European Union is right in its strict regulatory approach.&nbsp; Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, European Union, Human Rights, Ethical Artificial Intelligence, Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, Responsible Artificial Intelligence, Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence Regulations.
OPTIMIZING LIVE BEE TRANSPORTATION LOGISTICS: A PRACTICAL METHODOLOGY FOR BROKERS AND CARRIERS IN THE U.S.

The monograph examines an original methodology for optimizing the long-distance transport of live honey-bee colonies, developed from hands-on experience with U.S. pollination services. The topic’s relevance stems from agriculture’s growing reliance on honey-bee pollination and the attendant logistical challenges. Yet transporting bees carries a high risk of stress and mortality due to extremes of temperature, vibration, prolonged overheating, and other factors. Traditional transport practices are often piecemeal and based on empirical rules, resulting in substantial losses—up to 30–40 percent of the bees under adverse conditions—and degraded pollination quality.
Ensuring Equal and Inclusive Rights to Access Sexual and Reproductive Health Services for Adolescent Girls with Disabilities in Africa

Abstract  In many African societies, access to sexual and reproductive health care services for adolescent girls remains very problematic. This is due to a number of reasons, including socio-cultural factors, influence of religion, negative attitudes of health care providers and legal and policy barriers. The situation is further compounded for adolescent girls with disabilities, as many of them are perceived as asexual and unable to make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. Unfortunately, laws and policies related to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of adolescent girls with disabilities tend to exclude their views, reinforcing stigma and discrimination against them. Using the substantive equality and inclusivity lens, this article argues that if adolescent girls with disabilities are to live a fulfilling and healthy life, they must have access to sexual and reproductive health services on an equal basis with others. More importantly, laws and policies to address gaps in access to SRHR services must adhere to rights-based principles, such as respect for dignity, non-discrimination, participation, and accountability, which are entrenched in different human rights instruments. Drawing exemplars from across the region, the paper notes that these human rights instruments require African governments, among other things, to remove various barriers to access to SRHR services for adolescent girls with disabilities.
Low-Luminosity Accretion in Black Hole X-ray Binaries and Active Galactic Nuclei

At luminosities below a few percent of Eddington, accreting black holes switch to a hard spectral state which is very different from the soft blackbody-like spectral state that is found at higher luminosities. The hard state is well-described by a two-temperature, optically thin, geometrically thick, advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF) in which the ions are extremely hot (up to $10^{12}$ K near the black hole), the electrons are also hot ($\sim10^{9-10.5}$ K), and thermal Comptonization dominates the X-ray emission. The radiative efficiency of an ADAF decreases rapidly with decreasing mass accretion rate, becoming extremely low when a source reaches quiescence. ADAFs are expected to have strong outflows, which may explain why relativistic jets are often inferred from the radio emission of these sources. It has been suggested that most of the X-ray emission also comes from a jet, but this is less well established.