ethicalabs/Research-Intent-Collab huggingface dataset:
Responsibility to Protect and Humanitarian Intervention

Abstract                This chapter explores the responsibility to protect (R2P) and its relationship to humanitarian intervention—the notion that unilateral force can be used to protect human rights in another State. In the event that prevention and peaceful means fail, R2P does allow for action by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) under existing rules. But it neatly dodges the more difficult question of what rules should govern a humanitarian crisis when both the State in question and the UNSC are unwilling or unable to act. The chapter examines the legal framework of humanitarian intervention and how R2P came to be adopted and endorsed by United Nations Member States in general and the UNSC in particular. It highlights the present challenges faced by R2P, evident in the partially successful operation in Libya and the dismally ineffective response to the ongoing crisis in Syria. Finally, the chapter offers some tentative projections about the future, in which the language of R2P appears likely to continue to spread, but weariness of intervention on the part of Western States and the rise of Asian States defending a conservative notion of sovereignty will dampen the conversion of words to action.
Evaluating the clinical feasibility: The direct bisulfite genomic sequencing for examination of methylated status of E3 ubiquitin ligase RNF180 DNA promoter to predict the survival of gastric cancer

BACKGROUND: E3 ubiquitin ligase Ring finger protein 180 (RNF180) has been identified as a novel tumor suppressor in gastric cancer and the methylated CpG site count of RNF180 DNA promoter can predict the prognosis for gastric cancer patients. OBJECTIVE: In the previous study, we demonstrated that methylated CpG site count of RNF180 DNA promoter was significantly associated with the survival of patients with gastric cancer using the bisulfite genomic sequencing (BGS) in the gastric cancer tissue with five clones per sample. It was so complicate for each patient underwent the BGS detection with clones. It is important to explore a simple, rapid and accurate method to detect methylated CpG site count to predicting the prognosis for gastric cancer patients. METHODS: At present study, we detected hypermethylated and hypomethylated CpG site count of RNF180 DNA promoter in samples of 480 gastric cancer patients by direct bisulfite sequencing. RESULTS: We found that patients who possessed seven or less hypermethylated CpG sites of RNF180 DNA promoter had much better survival (p= 0.008), which was similar to our previous research results by using the BGS with clones. With the multivariate survival analysis, we found that T stage, N stage and hypermethylated CpG site count of RNF180 DNA promoter were the independent predictors of prognosis for gastric cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS: hypermethylated CpG site count of RNF180 DNA promoter for evaluating the prognosis of gastric cancer was reasonable by using the direct bisulfite sequencing.
Sustainable Agricultural Intensification Practices and Rural Food Security: The Case of North Western Ghana

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of participation in sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) on household food security status in North Western Ghana. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilized the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) indicator for the measurement of food access data from 168 households in 10 communities from the North Western region of Ghana for the analyses. Households were categorized into participating households (treatment) and non-participating households (control). The endogenous treatment effects model was employed to evaluate the impact of participation on SAIPs training on food insecurity access scale. Findings – The results show that participation in SAIPs training lower on average the household food insecurity access by 2.95, approximately an 11% reduction in HFIAS score. Other significant factors found to influence household food insecurity access scale are age of household head, experience in farming, total acres owned by household, income level of the household and occupation of the head of the household. Research limitations/implications – The training programme of participation in sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) has massive implications for food security, rural economy and farmers’ livelihoods. However, due to the unique conditions prevailing in North Western Ghana, the findings of this research is limited in terms of its generalizability. Future research direction in the area of SAIPs trainings and impact study replications in all qualifying rural food production areas in Ghana, that are susceptible to household food insecurity, will provide a national picture of the efficacy of SAIPs trainings on household food insecurity. Practical implications – A proven means to decrease natural resource degradation, increase crops yields, and increase subsistence farmers’ income, and food security is an important intervention to resolve the seasonal food shortage, which last for five months in a typical year for agro-food dependent farming communities in North Western Ghana. Social implications – Ensuring household food security improvement and environmental sustainability will help improve living standards of food producers and reduce the adverse social challenges associated with food insecure communities such as health problems due to food deficiencies, social inequalities, environmental pollution and natural resource degradation in North Western Ghana. Originality/value – The contribution of this paper is the novel thought and approach to examine the impact of the SAIPs trainings on household food security in north western Ghana using thehousehold food insecurity access scale indicator. The study also examined the factors that affect household food security using the endogenous treatment model, which also evaluates the impact of the training programme on the outcome variable.
Knowledge Graphs and Graph Neural Networks for Semantic Parsing

Human communication is inevitably grounded in the real world. Existing work on natural language processing uses structured knowledge bases to ground language expressions. The process of linking entities and relations in a text to world knowledge and composing them into a single coherent structure constitutes a semantic parsing problem. The output of a semantic parser is a grounded semantic representation of a text, which can be universally used for downstream applications, such as fact checking or question answering. This dissertation is concerned with improving the accuracy of grounding methods and with incorporating the grounding of individual elements and the construction of the full structured representation into one unified method. We present three main contributions: - we develop new methods to link texts to a knowledge base that integrate context information; - we introduce Graph Neural Networks for encoding structured semantic representations; - we explore generalization potential of the developed knowledge-based methods and apply them on natural language understanding tasks. For our first contribution, we investigate two tasks that focus on linking elements of a text to external knowledge: relation extraction and entity linking. Relation extraction identifies relations in a text and classifies them into one of the types in a knowledge base schema. Traditionally, relations in a sentence are processed one-by-one. Instead, we propose an approach that considers multiple relations simultaneously and improves upon the previous work. The goal of entity linking is to find and disambiguate entity mentions in a text. A knowledge base contains millions of world entities, which span different categories from common concepts to famous people and place names. We present a new architecture for entity linking that is effective across diverse entity categories. Our second contribution is centered on a grounded semantic parser. Previous semantic parsing methods grounded individual elements in isolation and composed them later into a complete semantic representation. Such approaches struggle with semantic representations that include multiple grounded elements, world entities and semantic relations. We integrate the grounding step and the construction of a full semantic representation into a single architecture. To encode semantic representations, we adapt Gated Graph Neural Networks for this task for the first time. Our semantic parsing methods are less prone to error propagation and are more robust for constructing semantic representations with multiple relations. We prove the efficiency of our grounded semantic parser empirically on the challenging open-domain question answering task. In our third contribution, we cover the extrinsic evaluation of the developed methods on three applications: argumentative reasoning, fact verification and text comprehension. We show that our methods can be successfully transferred to other tasks and datasets that they were not trained on.
Role of sea surface temperature and sea-ice changes in high-latitude climate change: a multi-model experiment within the CRiceS H2020 project.

Dramatic sea ice loss has recently occurred at both poles. Multiple studies have suggested that changes to sea ice can impact weather in both the polar regions and mid-latitudes. However, the current generation of climate models disagrees on the rate and location of sea ice loss, and on the rate of warming in the polar regions.Thus, the atmospheric response to sea ice loss within and outside the polar regions remains highly uncertain. To reduce this uncertainty, we have performed a set of coordinated simulations with four different atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) within the project &amp;#8220;Climate Relevant interactions and feedbacks: the key role of sea ice and Snow in the polar and global climate system&amp;#8221; (CRiceS). A baseline simulation and six perturbation simulations were performed, all of which were 40-years long and had prescribed&amp;#160; sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea ice concentration. In the perturbation simulations, the SSTs and sea ice concentration were changed independently, and then both were changed together. The SST and sea ice concentrations were obtained from CMIP6 simulations with the Australian Earth system model ACCESS-ESM1.5. Monthly-mean SST and sea-ice area averaged over 20 years of simulation were taken from 1) the historical simulation (years 1950-1970, Baseline simulation), 2) the scenario SSP1-2.6 simulation (years 2080-2100), and 3) the scenario SSP5-8.5 simulation (years 2080-2100) and were then used as perpetual monthly average values of SSTs and sea ice fraction in our model simulations, thus eliminating inter-annual variability in SSTs and sea ice. This array of perturbation experiments, performed with four AGCMs, allows us to isolate atmospheric responses in polar regions and mid-latitudes that are due to SST or sea ice changes, examine the linearity of these feedbacks, and investigate the robustness of the atmospheric responses. The results of this coordinated modelling experiment show that the models agree well on the magnitude and spatial distribution of the 2-m temperature and precipitation response. Increasing SSTs has a larger and more spatially extensive impact on the overall response than decreases in sea ice,&amp;#160; which primarily only cause a localised response in regions where sea ice disappears (most notably, a strong warming over the Arctic ocean in winter). The models agree less well on the magnitude and spatial distribution of the mean sea level pressure response, in particular over northern Europe and Antarctica, suggesting that modelled uncertainties associated with atmospheric circulation are larger than uncertainties associated with thermodynamics. These results and others, along with information about the openly available dataset, will be presented.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;
Health Guardian Platform: A technology stack to accelerate discovery in Digital Health research

This paper highlights the design philosophy and architecture of the Health Guardian, a platform developed by the IBM Digital Health team to accelerate discoveries of new digital biomarkers and development of digital health technologies. The Health Guardian allows for rapid translation of artificial intelligence (AI) research into cloud-based microservices that can be tested with data from clinical cohorts to understand disease and enable early prevention. The platform can be connected to mobile applications, wearables, or Internet of things (IoT) devices to collect health-related data into a secure database. When the analytics are created, the researchers can containerize and deploy their code on the cloud using pre-defined templates, and validate the models using the data collected from one or more sensing devices. The Health Guardian platform currently supports time-series, text, audio, and video inputs with 70+ analytic capabilities and is used for non-commercial scientific research. We provide an example of the Alzheimer's disease (AD) assessment microservice which uses AI methods to extract linguistic features from audio recordings to evaluate an individual's mini-mental state, the likelihood of having AD, and to predict the onset of AD before turning the age of 85. Today, IBM research teams across the globe use the Health Guardian internally as a test bed for early-stage research ideas, and externally with collaborators to support and enhance AI model development and clinical study efforts.
Giant planet formation and a large population study of protoplanetary disks

Unser Verständnis der Planetenentstehung und die Erforschung der Entwicklung protoplanetarer Scheiben hat sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten rasant entwickelt. Mit dem Aufkommen neuer Teleskope erhalten wir detailliertere Bilder als je zuvor, was uns hilft theoretische Modelle der Planetenentstehung besser einzugrenzen, aber auch zu Merkmalen wie Substrukturen führt, die von Planeten verursacht werden könnten. In zwei grob zusammenhängenden Studien untersuchen wir zunächst die Bildung von Riesenplaneten mit Hilfe des sich abzeichnenden Paradigmas der Kieselakkretion und führen dann eine große Populationsstudie protoplanetarer Scheiben durch, um die beobachteten Eigenschaften mit den simulierten Daten zu vergleichen. In unserer ersten Studie stellen wir fest, dass bei Verwendung einer realistischen Zustandsgleichung und Strahlungskühlung in hochkomplexen 3D-hydrodynamischen Simulationen der Planetenkern in der Lage ist, eine große Lücke zu öffnen, bevor er die für ein Runaway-Wachstum erforderliche Masse erreicht und auf diese Weise eine Übergangsscheibe entsteht. Daher können die Planeten an der Stelle des Jupiters bis zur Größe einer Super-Erde wachsen. In der zweiten Studie erklären wir den Ursprung der beobachteten Größen-Leuchtkraft-Relation (SLR) zwischen dem 68%-Effektivradius (r_eff) von Scheiben mit ihrer Kontinuumsleuchtkraft (L_mm) mit einfachen Modellen der Gas- und Staubentwicklung. Mit Hilfe von 100000-Simulationen zeigen wir, dass ein größerer Anteil der Scheiben mit Substruktur die SLR bevölkert, wenn Planeten vorhanden sind, als wenn die Scheiben glatt sind und keine Unterstrukturen enthalten. Wir finden eine unterschiedliche SLR für glatte und unterstrukturierte Scheiben, was möglicherweise bedeutet, dass eine Mischung aus glatten und unterstrukturierten Scheiben in der beobachteten Probe vorhanden ist. Darüber hinaus schränken wir die Anfangsbedingungen für wichtige Parameter von protoplanetaren Scheiben ein.
Accretion Disk Oscillations and QPOs in Black Hole X-ray Binaries

The observed quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in low-mass X-ray binaries have been suggested to be probably related to the characteristic oscillation modes in the inner part of a relativistic accretion disk. Here we study the non-damping oscillation modes in the disk by considering the local perturbations and viscosity effects. We find that the trapped oscillations are amplified significantly when the viscosity parameter increases and the trapped size varies when the radial wavenumber and Mach number change. Our results support that the hundred-hertz QPOs and their low fractional rms amplitudes found in some black hole X-ray binaries may be explained by the trapped non-damping oscillation modes in the inner part of an accretion disk around a rapidly rotating black hole.
The Anti-Gender Debate on Social Media. A Computational Communication Science Analysis of Networks, Activism, and Misinformation

The anti-gender movement, a religious-based mobilization countering sexual minority demands for civil rights with a traditionalist vision of gender identities and roles, has attracted scholarly attention in the last few years as an emblematic example of the post-secular resurgence of religion in the public arena. The literature on this movement has pointed out the importance of social media communication, yet observations on this matter have mostly been anecdotal so far. This research aims to fill this gap by elucidating the structure and functions of social media through a systematic and extensive social media analysis conducted with rigorous computational communication science methods. Relying on the analysis of over 20,000 posts published on Facebook over about a decade, the research combines automated content analysis and time series analysis to shed light on the main actors and networks involved in the debate, the relation between social media communication, offline events and news media coverage, the uses of social media between traditional and digital-savvy activism practices, and the spread of gender-related mis/disinformation online. The study represents one of the first attempts to focus on the social media communication of the anti-gender movement from a computational communication science perspective.
Metagenomic Analysis of the Human Distal Gut Microbiome

The human intestinal microbiota is composed of 10                     13                     to 10                     14                     microorganisms whose collective genome (“microbiome”) contains at least 100 times as many genes as our own genome. We analyzed ∼78 million base pairs of unique DNA sequence and 2062 polymerase chain reaction–amplified 16                     S                     ribosomal DNA sequences obtained from the fecal DNAs of two healthy adults. Using metabolic function analyses of identified genes, we compared our human genome with the average content of previously sequenced microbial genomes. Our microbiome has significantly enriched metabolism of glycans, amino acids, and xenobiotics; methanogenesis; and 2-methyl-                     d                     -erythritol 4-phosphate pathway–mediated biosynthesis of vitamins and isoprenoids. Thus, humans are superorganisms whose metabolism represents an amalgamation of microbial and human attributes.
LIGO Experiments Cannot Detect Gravitational Waves by Using Laser Michelson Interferometers—Light’s Wavelength and Speed Change Simultaneously When Gravitational Waves Exist Which Make the Detections of Gravitational Waves Impossible for LIGO Experiments

It is proved strictly based on general relativity that two important factors are neglected in LIGO experiments by using Michelson interferometers so that fatal mistakes were caused. One is that the gravitational wave changes the wavelength of light.Another is that light’s speed is not a constant when gravitational waves exist. According to general relativity, gravitational wave affects spatial distance, so it also affects the wavelength of light synchronously. By considering this fact, the phase differences of lasers were invariable when gravitational waves passed through Michelson interferometers. In addition, when gravitational waves exist, the spatial part of metric changes but the time part of metric is unchanged. In this way, light’s speed is not a constant. When the calculation method of time difference is used in LIGO experiments, the phase shift of interference fringes is still zero. So the design principle of LIGO experiment is wrong. It was impossible for LIGO to detect gravitational wave by using Michelson interferometers. Because light’s speed is not a constant, the signals of LIGO experiments become mismatching. It means that these signals are noises actually, caused by occasional reasons, no gravitational waves are detected really. In fact, in the history of physics, Michelson and Morley tried to find the absolute motion of the earth by using Michelson interferometers but failed at last. The basic principle of LIGO experiment is the same as that of Michelson-Morley experiment in which the phases of lights were invariable. Only zero result can be obtained, so LIGO experiments are destined failed to find gravitational waves.
Magnetic Levitation and Compression of Compact Tori

The magnetic compression experiment at General Fusion was a repetitive non-destructive test to study plasma physics to Magnetic Target Fusion compression. A compact torus (CT) is formed with a co-axial gun into a containment region with an hour-glass shaped inner flux conserver, and an insulating outer wall. External coil currents keep the CT off the outer wall (radial levitation) and then rapidly compress it inwards. The optimal external coil configuration greatly improved both the levitated CT lifetime and the rate of shots with good flux conservation during compression. As confirmed by spectrometer data, the improved levitation field profile reduced plasma impurity levels by suppressing the interaction between plasma and the insulating outer wall during the formation process. Significant increases in magnetic field, density, and ion temperature were routinely observed at magnetic compression despite the prevalence of an instability, thought be an external kink, at compression. Matching the decay rate of the levitation coil currents to that of the internal CT currents resulted in a reduced level of MHD activity associated with unintentional compression by the levitation field, and a higher probability of long-lived CTs. An axisymmetric finite element MHD code that conserves system energy, particle count, angular momentum, and toroidal flux, was developed to study CT formation into a levitation field and magnetic compression. An overview of the principal experimental observations, and comparisons between simulated and experimental diagnostics are presented.
Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Ethics and Corporate Reputation on the Retention of Users of Third-Sector Institutions

Third-sector organizations have achieved an important place in the world due to the multiple social and humanitarian activities they carry out, generating a high impact on society. Maintaining their sustainability basically depends on the retention of their users, but what factor could contribute to this retention? To dispel this question, the purpose of the study is to understand corporate social responsibility (CSR), business ethics (BE) and corporate reputation (CR), and their connections with user retention (RT). Using structural equation analysis (SEM) and non-probabilistic sampling, 501 users of third-sector organizations (199 Uruguay and 302 Peru) were surveyed. The results show a positive and significant impact of CSR on CR, influence of BE on CR, effect of CSR on RT, effect of CR and BE on RT. It is highlighted that CR would have a greater effect on RT and BE, followed by CSR. It is concluded that CR represents a very important and sensitive value at the same time, which is a characteristic that takes a long time to achieve, so it is important to manage it properly, being the one that contributes most to RT.