ethicalabs/Research-Intent-Collab huggingface dataset:
On-Policy Policy Gradient Reinforcement Learning Without On-Policy Sampling

On-policy reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are typically characterized as algorithms that perform policy updates using i.i.d. trajectories collected by the agent's current policy. However, after observing only a finite number of trajectories, such on-policy sampling may produce data that fails to match the expected on-policy data distribution. This sampling error leads to high-variance gradient estimates that yield data-inefficient on-policy learning. Recent work in the policy evaluation setting has shown that non-i.i.d., off-policy sampling can produce data with lower sampling error w.r.t. the expected on-policy distribution than on-policy sampling can produce (Zhong et. al, 2022). Motivated by this observation, we introduce an adaptive, off-policy sampling method to reduce sampling error during on-policy policy gradient RL training. Our method, Proximal Robust On-Policy Sampling (PROPS), reduces sampling error by collecting data with a behavior policy that increases the probability of sampling actions that are under-sampled w.r.t. the current policy. We empirically evaluate PROPS on continuous-action MuJoCo benchmark tasks as well as discrete-action tasks and demonstrate that (1) PROPS decreases sampling error throughout training and (2) increases the data efficiency of on-policy policy gradient algorithms.
AI-Powered Assistive Technologies for Improved Accessibility

This research explores the effectiveness of AI-powered assistive technologies in enhancing accessibility for individuals with disabilities. The study combines qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate the usability, efficiency, and user satisfaction of AI-integrated solutions compared to traditional assistive technologies. Findings indicate significant improvements in these areas, with AI-powered technologies reducing task completion times and increasing user satisfaction and communication efficiency. Case studies highlight diverse applications, such as AI-driven speech recognition and emotion recognition systems, demonstrating substantial benefits. Despite the promising results, the study acknowledges limitations such as small sample size and short-term focus, suggesting future research to explore long-term impacts, cost-effectiveness, and broader accessibility. This research contributes to the field of accessibility by providing empirical evidence of AI transformative potential, emphasizing the importance of personalized and adaptive support. Future developments should ensure sustainable and equitable implementation to maximize the benefits of AI-powered assistive technologies.
Optimizing CRISPR methodology for precise gene editing in the erythroid cell line BEL-A with high efficiency generation of a sickle cell anemia model

Not available.
Self-Supervised Contrastive Learning of Protein Representations By Mutual Information Maximization

Abstract                 Pretrained embedding representations of biological sequences which capture meaningful properties can alleviate many problems associated with supervised learning in biology. We apply the principle of mutual information maximization between local and global information as a self-supervised pretraining signal for protein embeddings. To do so, we divide protein sequences into fixed size fragments, and train an autoregressive model to distinguish between subsequent fragments from the same protein and fragments from random proteins. Our model, CPCProt, achieves comparable performance to state-of-the-art self-supervised models for protein sequence embeddings on various downstream tasks, but reduces the number of parameters down to 2% to 10% of benchmarked models. Further, we explore how downstream assessment protocols affect embedding evaluation, and the effect of contrastive learning hyperparameters on empirical performance. We hope that these results will inform the development of contrastive learning methods in protein biology and other modalities.
A review of discrete event simulation in National Coordinating Centre for Health Technology Assessment-funded work and a case study exploring the cost-effectiveness of testing for thrombophilia in patients presenting with an initial idiopathic venous thromboembolism

AbstractA review of modelling work funded by the National Coordinating Centre for Health Technology Assessment (NCCHTA) was undertaken to quantify the use of discrete event simulation (DES) techniques in health economics. A case study, funded by the NCCHTA, estimating the cost-effectiveness of thrombophilia testing is presented. Thrombophilia may increase the risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) which can be fatal; however, the preventative treatment, warfarin, is associated with an increased risk of haemorrhage, which is also potentially fatal. A DES model, populated from literature reviews and incorporating VTE events, haemorrhages and death was constructed. The most cost-effective duration of warfarin treatment (‘standard treatment’ of 3 or 6 months, 10 years, 20 years or lifelong) was estimated for patients with initial idiopathic VTE, sub-divided into age, gender, VTE type and known thrombophilia type groups. The primary goal was to ascertain, for each sub-group, whether the cost of thrombophilia tes...
Analysis of Methods for Assessing and Managing Risks at Hazardous Industrial Sites

Currently, in the Republic of Kazakhstan, some enterprises have implemented various methods of analysis and management of industrial safety. At the same time, it seems relevant to introduce developments that allow to automaze the process of data processing and conducting a comprehensive analysis of the state of industrial safety at enterprises. The purpose of the study is a comparative analysis of domestic, foreign and international methods for assessing and managing risks at hazardous industrial sites. The authors carried out a comparative analysis of risk assessment and management methods, both universal and developed for certain industries. These methods were researched according to 26 main elements characterizing the effectiveness of the industrial safety management system at the enterprise. The analysis showed that one of the best results was achieved by the development of Kazakh scientists «Computer monitoring system for hazardous industrial sites of the Republic of Kazakhstan». This system allows users to carry out verification and corrective actions in order to increase the responsiveness to constantly changing industrial conditions, which will significantly increase labor safety
What can be learned from the lensed cosmic microwave background B-mode polarization power spectrum?

15 pages, 10 figures. Very minor changes to match version accepted by Phys. Rev. D
DECOLONIZATION AND SELF-DETERMINATION

Abstract:While self-determination is a cardinal principle of international law, its meaning is often obscure. Yet international law clearly recognizes decolonization as a central application of the principle. Most ordinary people also agree that the liberation of colonial peoples was a moral triumph. This essay examines three philosophical theories of self-determination’s value, and asks which one best captures the reasons why decolonization was morally required. The instrumentalist theory holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples were unjustly governed, the democratic view holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples lacked democratic representation, and the associative view holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples were unable to affirm the political institutions their colonial rulers imposed on them. I argue that the associative view is superior to competing accounts, because it better reflects individuals’ “maker” interests in participating in shared political projects that they value. The essay further shows that if we accept the associative view, self-determination is not a sui generis value that applies to decolonization alone. Ultimately, our intuitions about decolonization can be justified only by invoking an interest on the part of persistently alienated groups in redrawing political boundaries. The same interest may justify self-determination in additional cases, such as autonomy for indigenous peoples, or greater independence for Scotland or Quebec.
Cross-linguistic gestures reflect typological universals: A subject-initial, verb-final bias in speakers of diverse languages

In communicating events by gesture, participants create codes that recapitulate the patterns of word order in the world's vocal languages (Gibson et al., 2013; Goldin-Meadow, So, Ozyurek, & Mylander, 2008; Hall, Mayberry, & Ferreria, 2013; Hall, Ferreira, & Mayberry, 2014; Langus & Nespor, 2010; and others). Participants most often convey simple transitive events using gestures in the order Subject-Object-Verb (SOV), the most common word order in human languages. When there is a possibility of confusion between subject and object, participants use the order Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). This overall pattern has been explained by positing an underlying cognitive preference for subject-initial, verb-final orders, with the verb-medial order SVO order emerging to facilitate robust communication in a noisy channel (Gibson et al., 2013). However, whether the subject-initial and verb-final biases are innate or the result of languages that the participants already know has been unclear, because participants in previous studies all spoke either SVO or SOV languages, which could induce a subject-initial, verb-late bias. Furthermore, the exact manner in which known languages influence gestural orders has been unclear. In this paper we demonstrate that there is a subject-initial and verb-final gesturing bias cross-linguistically by comparing gestures of speakers of SVO languages English and Russian to those of speakers of VSO languages Irish and Tagalog. The findings show that subject-initial and verb-final order emerges even in speakers of verb-initial languages, and that interference from these languages takes the form of occasionally gesturing in VSO order, without an additional bias toward other orders. The results provides further support for the idea that improvised gesture is a window into the pressures shaping language formation, independently of the languages that participants already know.
Simulating land-use change and its effect on biodiversity conservation in a watershed in northwest China

ABSTRACT                        Introduction:             Land-use management strategies play a major role in biodiversity change. In many parts of the world, local governments are under increasing pressure to regulate human activity to mitigate negative impacts on ecosystems.                                   Outcomes/other:             This study aimed to analyze the effects of different land-use patterns on biodiversity change across a typical artificial desert watershed. We first analyzed land-cover change based on past and future management scenarios in a watershed spanning Gaotai, Linze, and Ganzhou counties in northwest China. We then analyzed the effect of different land-use patterns on biodiversity change in the watershed. We found that the crucial land-cover changes are likely to occur in the wetland reserves and areas established for the Grain for Green Project around the oases, and such changes could affect biodiversity throughout the entire watershed landscape.                                   Discussion:             The use of spatial analysis to illustrate explicit changes in ecosystems is useful in fostering biodiversity awareness and the need for decision-making at different scales.                                   Conclusion:             Thus, these findings indicate that land-use management strategies for the middle and southeast parts of the watershed are particularly important for future management of biodiversity and the integrated ecosystem services of the entire watershed landscape.
Stability Analysis of Integrated Pest Management with Impulsive Biological Control

The aim of the present work is to study the dynamics of stage-structured pest control model including biological control, i.e. by releasing of natural enemies and infected pests periodically. It is assumed that only immature susceptible pests are attacked by natural enemies admitting Beddington DeAngelis functional response and mature susceptible pests are contacted by infected pests with bilinear incidence rate and become exposed. The sufficient condition for local stability of pest extinction periodic solution is derived by making use of Floquet’s theory and small amplitude perturbation technique. The global attractivity of pest extinction periodic solution is also established by applying comparison principle of impulsive differential equations.
Humans, Animals, Food and Environment: One Health Approach against Global Antimicrobial Resistance

Antimicrobial resistance represents one of the most relevant threats to global public health and food security, affecting anyone, of any age, in any country and is responsible for longer hospital stays, higher medical costs and increased mortality. Resistant microorganisms are present in humans, animals, food and the environment, and, therefore, the One Health approach is very promising to counteract antimicrobial resistance, since human health and animal health are connected to each other and with the environment and the latter a potential source of resistant microorganisms. In this context, the need for novel antimicrobial drugs has stimulated the exploration of plant products as a source of novel phytotherapeutics able to reverse antimicrobial resistance when used in combination with conventional antibiotic drugs.
Crossing points in survival analysis sensitively depend on system conditions

Crossing survival curves complicate how we interpret results from a clinical trial's primary endpoint. We find the function to determine a crossing point's location depends exponentially on individual survival curves. This exponential relationship between survival curves and the crossing point transforms small survival curve errors into large crossing point errors. In most cases, crossing points are sensitive to individual survival errors and may make accurately locating a crossing point unsuccessful. We argue more complicated analyses for mitigating crossing points should be reserved only after first exploring a crossing point's variability, or hypothesis tests account for crossing point variability.
Induced pluripotent stem cells: paths to new medicines

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have captured the interest of scientists, the public and the media because of their potential to realize the goal of regenerative medicine, to aid drug discovery and to advance our knowledge about human development and biology. However, practical applications have been slow to come, owing to technical challenges and to the intense ethical and moral debate over the destruction of embryos that has led to legislation prohibiting or seriously curtailing the generation of hESC lines in some countries. Nevertheless, on 21 January 2009, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first Investigational New Drug Application for a therapy based on hESCs to repair spinal cord injury, which was developed by Geron (Menlo Park, CA, USA).  Because traditional techniques to generate hESCs use surplus IVF embryos, it is not possible to create patient or disease‐specific stem‐cell lines—a drawback that significantly diminishes their therapeutic usability. The recent breakthrough work of 'reprogramming' human somatic cells to become pluripotent cells has therefore energized the field; in addition, it offers basic researchers and clinical scientists the possibility to generate patient or disease‐specific stem‐cell lines without the legal, regulatory and ethical problems that often go hand‐in‐hand with hESCs. In fact, because these reprogrammed cells are so similar in developmental potential to authentic hESCs, they are able to differentiate into all possible cell types representing all three embryonic germ layers (Takahashi & Yamanaka, 2006; Takahashi et al , 2007; Yu et al , 2007; Park et al , 2008a). They have therefore been named induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).  The iPSC technology could become an extremely useful tool for basic research, therapeutic developments and other applications; for example, human stem cells could have a significant impact on drug development and toxicity tests to replace and refine animal experiments and tests. …
Italy’s Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and its Amendments: Unresolved Issues

Abstract      The present article investigates whether the international crimes listed in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and its amendments are punished under Italian law and, if not, what changes to domestic law are necessary so that perpetrators can be prosecuted before the Italian courts. To this end, firstly, it recalls Italy’s efforts to enact ad hoc legislation implementing the Statute. Secondly, it scrutinizes the existing Italian legislation on international crimes and identifies gaps and inconsistencies with the Statute. Finally, it considers the recent Government’s initiative for adopting a code of international crimes. The author finds that the Italian legislation does not provide a proper legal basis for the prosecution of most of the aforementioned international crimes and advocates a major legislative effort to make all of them prosecutable before the domestic courts.
Gibbs posterior inference on multivariate quantiles

Bayesian and other likelihood-based methods require specification of a statistical model and may not be fully satisfactory for inference on quantities, such as quantiles, that are not naturally defined as model parameters. In this paper, we construct a direct and model-free Gibbs posterior distribution for multivariate quantiles. Being model-free means that inferences drawn from the Gibbs posterior are not subject to model misspecification bias, and being direct means that no priors for or marginalization over nuisance parameters are required. We show here that the Gibbs posterior enjoys a root-$n$ convergence rate and a Bernstein--von Mises property, i.e., for large n, the Gibbs posterior distribution can be approximated by a Gaussian. Moreover, we present numerical results showing the validity and efficiency of credible sets derived from a suitably scaled Gibbs posterior.
The politics of transnational accountability policies and the (re)construction of corruption: The case of Tunisia, Transparency International and the World Bank

Abstract   This study explores the intersection between accountability policies and anti-corruption measures. Transnational actors define acceptable governance and implement accountability policies on the assumption that corruption is a problem endemic to developing countries. Such accountability policies influence and help constitute transnational geographic and social spaces. However, the impacts of such assumptions and the resultant policies on developing countries and their citizens have not been widely investigated. This study uses a critical discourse analysis of the case of Tunisia before and after its 2011 revolution, to explore the politics and vested interests specific to anti-corruption policies promoted by transnational actors. The study’s contribution is twofold: Firstly, we identify the highly fungible character of the emanant cycles of Western-driven corruption discourses, and indicate their consequences in Tunisia. Secondly, we propose a future research agenda towards non-exploitative anti-corruption and accountability policies.
The Italian National Project of Astrobiology—Life in Space—Origin, Presence, Persistence of Life in Space, from Molecules to Extremophiles

THE ''LIfe in Space'' project was funded in the wake of the Italian Space Agency's proposal for the development of a network of institutions and laboratories conceived to implement Italian participation in space astrobiology experiments. Of primary concern for this project is the study of the origin of life in the Universe, a focus that will promote investigation into prebiotic chemistry in various possible scenarios, whether in polar or nonpolar solvents (e.g., Titan's environment). Such results will link with study of the effects of simulated space conditions on possible chemical bio- signatures. The limits of life as we know it will be investigated in ground-based experiments with microorganisms that have already demonstrated their resistance to extreme environments on Earth and to real or simulated space conditions. The potential survival of microorganisms will also be examined with up-to-date molecular methods. The ability of some microorganisms to produce atmospheric and surface biosignatures when exposed to simulated conditions will be tested and compared with the possible existence of bio- signatures on potentially habitable exoplanets. Furthermore, the search for potentially habitable exoplanets, with space- based observational methods, will be optimized by way of dedicated climate models with the capacity to predict the detectability of atmospheric biosignatures for a broad range of planetary conditions. The project embraces the four most important topics in astrobiological research, as listed below, along with relevant contributions from the participating Italian institutions. Origins and evolution of organic compounds of biological significance in space (comets, asteroids, rocky planets, and moons); Prebiotic syntheses, origin of life, and early life; The limits of life and biological habitability: origin, evolution and adaptation of life in extreme environments on Earth and in space; Biomarkers for life detection in the Solar System and on exoplanets.
Business ethics and corporate social responsibility

This chapter discusses the importance of business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It elaborates on the extent to which a business should accept responsibility for its impact on stakeholders and actively improve society. The CSR presents the key consideration for a business of how much responsibility that business wants to accept for the impact on others over and above what the law dictates. The chapter then looks into the issues related to ethical decision-making and the impact of ethical issues on the decision-maker and the business. It also notes that whistle-blowing occurs when an individual within a business reveals information that highlights illegal or unethical behaviour within the organization.
Demystifying Instruction Mixing for Fine-tuning Large Language Models

Instruction tuning significantly enhances the performance of large language models (LLMs) across various tasks. However, the procedure to optimizing the mixing of instruction datasets for LLM fine-tuning is still poorly understood. This study categorizes instructions into three primary types: NLP downstream tasks, coding, and general chat. We explore the effects of instruction tuning on different combinations of datasets on LLM performance, and find that certain instruction types are more advantageous for specific applications but can negatively impact other areas. This work provides insights into instruction mixtures, laying the foundations for future research.