The Effect of Primary and Secondary Control on Social Anxiety in Latino and Asian American College Students

Past research has established that appropriate, successful use of both primary and secondary control is associated with fewer symptoms of anxiety in Whites, but there has been less research on the nature of this relationship in Latinos and Asian Americans. This study investigated how Latinos and Asian Americans differ in their use of primary and secondary control as well as how these differences are related to symptoms of social anxiety. The sample consisted of 142 Latino and 446 Asian American undergraduate students, who completed an online survey (e.g., measures assessing demographics, control, anxiety). Consistent with hypotheses, results showed that Latinos engaged in primary control to a greater extent than Asian Americans did, but Asian Americans tended to use secondary control to a greater extent than Latinos. As expected, Asian Americans scored higher on measures of social anxiety than Latinos, which may potentially be related to the importance of “face” in Asian culture. Results did not support the hypothesis that this difference in levels of social anxiety could be explained by ethnic differences in primary or secondary control. In both ethnic groups, less social anxiety was associated with higher usage of primary control, rather than secondary control. Future research should investigate the importance of primary control in lessening social anxiety as well as the influence of face loss concerns as an alternative explanatory factor

Real-time End-to-End Federated Learning: An Automotive Case Study

With the development and the increasing interests in ML/DL fields, companies are eager to utilize these methods to improve their service quality and user experience. Federated Learning has been introduced as an efficient model training approach to distribute and speed up time-consuming model training and preserve user data privacy. However, common Federated Learning methods apply a synchronized protocol to perform model aggregation, which turns out to be inflexible and unable to adapt to rapidly evolving environments and heterogeneous hardware settings in real-world systems. In this paper, we introduce an approach to real-time end-to-end Federated Learning combined with a novel asynchronous model aggregation protocol. We validate our approach in an industrial use case in the automotive domain focusing on steering wheel angle prediction for autonomous driving. Our results show that asynchronous Federated Learning can significantly improve the prediction performance of local edge models and reach the same accuracy level as the centralized machine learning method. Moreover, the approach can reduce the communication overhead, accelerate model training speed and consume real-time streaming data by utilizing a sliding training window, which proves high efficiency when deploying ML/DL components to heterogeneous real-world embedded systems

EdgeFL: A Lightweight Decentralized Federated Learning Framework

Federated Learning (FL) has emerged as a promising approach for collaborative machine learning, addressing data privacy concerns. However, existing FL platforms and frameworks often present challenges for software engineers in terms of complexity, limited customization options, and scalability limitations. In this paper, we introduce EdgeFL, an edge-only lightweight decentralized FL framework, designed to overcome the limitations of centralized aggregation and scalability in FL deployments. By adopting an edge-only model training and aggregation approach, EdgeFL eliminates the need for a central server, enabling seamless scalability across diverse use cases. With a straightforward integration process requiring just four lines of code (LOC), software engineers can easily incorporate FL functionalities into their AI products. Furthermore, EdgeFL offers the flexibility to customize aggregation functions, empowering engineers to adapt them to specific needs. Based on the results, we demonstrate that EdgeFL achieves superior performance compared to existing FL platforms/frameworks. Our results show that EdgeFL reduces weights update latency and enables faster model evolution, enhancing the efficiency of edge devices. Moreover, EdgeFL exhibits improved classification accuracy compared to traditional centralized FL approaches. By leveraging EdgeFL, software engineers can harness the benefits of federated learning while overcoming the challenges associated with existing FL platforms/frameworks

ISIS2: Pixel Sensor with Local Charge Storage for ILC Vertex Detector

ISIS (In-situ Storage Imaging Sensor) is a novel CMOS sensor with multiple charge storage capability developed for the ILC vertex detector by the Linear Collider Flavour Identification (LCFI) collaboration. This paper reports test results for ISIS2, the second generation of ISIS sensors implemented in a 0.18 micron CMOS process. The local charge storage and charge transfer were unambiguously demonstrated.Comment: 11 pages, 16 figures, to be included in the Proceedings of International Linear Collider Workshop 201

Apoptotic cells induce CD103 expression and immunoregulatory function in myeloid dendritic cell precursors through integrin αv and TGF-β activation

International audienceIn the mammalian gut CD103+ve myeloid DCs are known to suppress inflammation threatened by luminal bacteria, but stimuli driving DC precursor maturation towards this beneficial phenotype are incompletely understood. We isolated CD11+ve DCs from mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs) of healthy mice; CD103+ve DCs were 8-24 fold more likely than CD103-ve DCs to exhibit extensive of prior phagocytosis of apoptotic intestinal epithelial cells. However, CD103+ve and CD103-ve MLN DCs exhibited similar ex vivo capacity to ingest apoptotic cells, indicating that apoptotic cells might drive immature DC maturation towards the CD103+ve phenotype. When cultured with apoptotic cells, myeloid DC precursors isolated from murine bone marrow and characterised as lineage-ve CD103-ve, displayed enhanced expression of CD103 and β8 integrin and acquired increased capacity to induce T regulatory lymphocytes (Tregs) after 7d in vitro. However, DC precursors isolated from αv-tie2 mice lacking αv integrins in the myeloid line exhibited reduced binding of apoptotic cells and complete deficiency in the capacity of apoptotic cells and/or latent TGF-β1 to enhance CD103 expression in culture, whereas active TGF-β1 increased DC precursor CD103 expression irrespective of αv expression. Fluorescence microscopy revealed clustering of αv integrin chains and latent TGF-β1 at points of contact between DC precursors and apoptotic cells. We conclude that myeloid DC precursors can deploy αv integrin to orchestrate binding of apoptotic cells, activation of latent TGF-β1 and acquisition of the immunoregulatory CD103+ve β8+ve DC phenotype. This implies that a hitherto unrecognised consequence of apoptotic cell interaction with myeloid phagocytes is programming that prevents inflammation

Biochemical and molecular mechanisms of plant-microbe-metal interactions: relevance for phytoremediation

Plants and microbes coexist or compete for survival and their cohesive interactions play a vital role in adapting to metalliferous environments, and can thus be explored to improve microbe-assisted phytoremediation. Plant root exudates are useful nutrient and energy sources for soil microorganisms, with whom they establish intricate communication systems. Some beneficial bacteria and fungi, acting as plant growth promoting microorganisms (PGPMs), may alleviate metal phytotoxicity and stimulate plant growth indirectly via the induction of defense mechanisms against phytopathogens, and/or directly through the solubilization of mineral nutrients (nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, iron, etc.), production of plant growth promoting substances (e.g., phytohormones), and secretion of specific enzymes (e.g., 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase). PGPM can also change metal bioavailability in soil through various mechanisms such as acidification, precipitation, chelation, complexation, and redox reactions. This review presents the recent advances and applications made hitherto in understanding the biochemical and molecular mechanisms of plant-microbe interactions and their role in the major processes involved in phytoremediation, such as heavy metal detoxification, mobilization, immobilization, transformation, transport, and distribution.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Peptide-based microcapsules obtained by self-assembly and microfluidics as controlled environments for cell culture

Funding for this study was provided by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, grant PTDC/EBB-BIO/ 114523/2009). D. S. Ferreira gratefully acknowledges FCT for the PhD scholarship (SFRH/BD/44977/2008)

Bioaugmentation with endophytic bacterium E6S homologous to achromobacter piechaudii enhances metal rhizoaccumulation in host sedum plumbizincicola

Application of hyperaccumulator-endophyte symbiotic systems is a potential approach to improve phytoremediation efficiency, since some beneficial endophytic bacteria are able to detoxify heavy metals, alter metal solubility in soil, and facilitate plant growth. The objective of this study was to isolate multi-metal resistant and plant beneficial endophytic bacteria and to evaluate their role in enhancing plant growth and metal accumulation/translocation. The metal resistant endophytic bacterial strain E6S was isolated from stems of the Zn/Cd hyperaccumulator plant Sedum plumbizincicola growing in metalliferous mine soils using Dworkin and Foster salts minimal agar medium with 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) as the sole nitrogen source, and identified as homologous to Achromobacter piechaudii based on morphological and biochemical characteristics, partial 16S rDNA sequence and phylogenetic analysis. Strain E6S showed high level of resistance to various metals (Cd, Zn, and Pb). Besides utilizing ACC, strain E6S exhibited plant beneficial traits, such as solubilization of phosphate and production of indole-3-acetic acid. Inoculation with E6S significantly increased the bioavailability of Cd, Zn, and Pb in soil. In addition, bacterial cells bound considerable amounts of metal ions in the following order: Zn > Cd >Pb. Inoculation of E6S significantly stimulated plant biomass, uptake and bioaccumulation of Cd, Zn, and Pb. However, E6S greatly reduced the root to shoot translocation of Cd and Zn, indicating that bacterial inoculation assisted the host plant to uptake and store heavy metals in its root system. Inoculation with the endophytic bacterium E6S homologous to A. piechaudii can improve phytostabilization of metalliferous soils due to its effective ability to enhance in situ metal rhizoaccumulation in plants.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Potential of plant beneficial bacteria and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in phytoremediation of metal-contaminated saline soils

Phytoremediation has been considered as a promising technique to decontaminate polluted soils. However, climatic stress particularly salinity, is a potential threat to soil properties and plant growth, thus restricting the employment of this technology. The aim of this study was to access the impact of microbial inoculation on phytoremediation of nickel (Ni) contaminated saline soils using Helianthus annuus. Salt resistant plant beneficial bacterium (PBB) Pseudomonas libanensis TR1 and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF) Claroideoglomus claroideum BEG210 were used. Inoculation of P. libanensis alone or in combination with C. claroideum significantly enhanced plant growth, changed physiological status (e.g. electrolyte leakage, chlorophyll, proline and malondialdehyde contents) as well as Ni and sodium (Na+) accumulation potential (e.g. uptake and translocation factor of Ni and Na+) of H. annuus under Ni and salinity stress either alone or in combination. These results revealed that bioaugmentation of microbial strains may serve as a preferred strategy for improving phytoremediation of metal-polluted saline soils.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio