Demo Alleviate: Demonstrating Artificial Intelligence Enabled Virtual Assistance for Telehealth: The Mental Health Case

After the pandemic, artificial intelligence (AI) powered support for mental health care has become increasingly important. The breadth and complexity of significant challenges required to provide adequate care involve: (a) Personalized patient understanding, (b) Safety-constrained and medically validated chatbot patient interactions, and (c) Support for continued feedback-based refinements in design using chatbot-patient interactions. We propose Alleviate, a chatbot designed to assist patients suffering from mental health challenges with personalized care and assist clinicians with understanding their patients better. Alleviate draws from an array of publicly available clinically valid mental-health texts and databases, allowing Alleviate to make medically sound and informed decisions. In addition, Alleviate\u27s modular design and explainable decision-making lends itself to robust and continued feedback-based refinements to its design. In this paper, we explain the different modules of Alleviate and submit a short video demonstrating Alleviate\u27s capabilities to help patients and clinicians understand each other better to facilitate optimal care strategies

K-PERM: Personalized Response Generation Using Dynamic Knowledge Retrieval and Persona-Adaptive Queries

Personalizing conversational agents can enhance the quality of conversations and increase user engagement. However, they often lack external knowledge to tend to a user’s persona appropriately. This is particularly crucial for practical applications like mental health support, nutrition planning, culturally sensitive conversations, or reducing toxic behavior in conversational agents. To enhance the relevance and comprehensiveness of personalized responses, we propose using a two-step approach that involves (1) selectively integrating user personas and (2) contextualizing the response with supplementing information from a background knowledge source. We develop K-PERM (Knowledge-guided PErsonalization with Reward Modulation), a dynamic conversational agent that combines these elements. K-PERM achieves state-of-the-art performance on the popular Fo- Cus dataset, containing real-world personalized conversations concerning global landmarks. We show that using responses from K-PERM can improve performance in state-ofthe- art LLMs (GPT 3.5) by 10.5%, highlighting the impact of K-PERM for personalizing chatbots.

Large magnetoelectric coupling in nanoscale BiFeO3_3 from direct electrical measurements

We report the results of direct measurement of remanent hysteresis loops on nanochains of BiFeO$_3$ at room temperature under zero and $\sim$20 kOe magnetic field. We noticed a suppression of remanent polarization by nearly $\sim$40\% under the magnetic field. The powder neutron diffraction data reveal significant ion displacements under a magnetic field which seems to be the origin of the suppression of polarization. The isolated nanoparticles, comprising the chains, exhibit evolution of ferroelectric domains under dc electric field and complete 180$^o$ switching in switching-spectroscopy piezoresponse force microscopy. They also exhibit stronger ferromagnetism with nearly an order of magnitude higher saturation magnetization than that of the bulk sample. These results show that the nanoscale BiFeO$_3$ exhibits coexistence of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic order and a strong magnetoelectric multiferroic coupling at room temperature comparable to what some of the type-II multiferroics show at a very low temperature.Comment: 7 pages with 5 figures, published in Phys. Rev.

Understanding biophysical and socio-economic determinants of maize (Zea mays L.) yield variability in eastern India

AbstractThe aim of this paper was to investigate the key factors limiting maize (Zea mays L.) productivity in eastern India to develop effective crop and nutrient management strategies to reduce yield gap. A series of farm surveys was conducted in two distinct agro-ecological zones of eastern India to evaluate the importance of crop management and structural constraints for maize productivity in a range of socio-economic settings prevalent in smallholder farms. Surveys revealed yield gap and yield variations among farms across growing seasons. Lower yields of farmers were mainly associated with farmer's ethnic origin, availability of family labor, land ownership, legumes in cropping sequence, irrigation constraints, seed type, optimal plant population, labor and capital investment, and use of organic manure. These constraints varied strongly between sites as well as growing seasons. Stochastic Frontier Analysis suggested intensification of farm input use and removal of socio-economic and structural constraints for increasing efficiency in maize production. The use of multivariate classification and regression tree analysis revealed that maize yield was affected by multiple and interacting production constraints, differentiating the surveyed farms in six distinct resource groups. These farm types lend scope for introducing typology-specific crop management practices through appropriate participatory on-farm evaluation/trials. Summarily, this research indicated that interacting production constraints should be addressed simultaneously, considering the need of different farm types, if significant productivity improvements are to be achieved. This will be, however, more challenging for less endowed farms due to lack of social and financial capital to improve management intensity.A typology-specific farm support strategy may be formulated to offset this lack of entitlement among resource-poor farmers

Numerical and experimental modelling of the internal tide near a continental shelf

Les processus de mélange sont essentiels au fond de l'océan car ils permettent la remontée des eaux froides abyssales vers la surface. Une grande question de la communauté océanographique concerne la contribution des ondes internes à ces processus car ces ondes, bien que peu énergétiques en regard des courants marins par exemple, sont présentes partout dans l'océan et y déferlent. Les principales sources d'énergie des ondes internes sont le vent et l'interaction de la marée avec la topographie sous-marine. C'est cette dernière configuration que nous considérons ici, au travers d'expériences de laboratoire et numériques, dans le contexte académique d'un talus continental bidimensionnel dans un océan uniformément stratifié. Nous examinons plus particulièrement le processus de génération du champ d'ondes internes et la structure cinématique de ce champ. Nous discutons également de la manifestation des effets non linéaires lorsque le champ d'ondes se réfléchit au fond de l'océan

Origin of Ferroelectricity in Orthorhombic LuFeO3_3

We demonstrate that small but finite ferroelectric polarization ($\sim$0.01 $\mu$C/cm$^2$) emerges in orthorhombic LuFeO$_3$ ($Pnma$) at $T_N$ ($\sim$600 K) because of commensurate (k = 0) and collinear magnetic structure. The synchrotron x-ray and neutron diffraction data suggest that the polarization could originate from enhanced bond covalency together with subtle contribution from lattice. The theoretical calculations indicate enhancement of bond covalency as well as the possibility of structural transition to the polar $Pna2_1$ phase below $T_N$. The $Pna2_1$ phase, in fact, is found to be energetically favorable below $T_N$ in orthorhombic LuFeO$_3$ ($albeit$ with very small energy difference) than in isostructural and nonferroelectric LaFeO$_3$ or NdFeO$_3$. Application of electric field induces finite piezostriction in LuFeO$_3$ via electrostriction resulting in clear domain contrast images in piezoresponse force microscopy.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MIGRATING A CODE FROM A FIRST FORMAT TO A SECOND FORMAT

The present disclosure relates to a migration tool to convert a code in a first format to a code in a second format. The source code received can be from a user (108) or from a database (106). The input code is said to be in the first format. An Abstract Syntax tree (AST) of the code in the first format is generated by a system (104) by parsing the code. A modified AST is generated based on the AST of the code in the first format. A code in the second format is generated from the modified AST

Standardization of packaging technique(s) for the distant marketing of Rhynchostylis retusa

A postharvest experiment was conducted at the Department of Horticulture, AAU, Jorhat, to study the effect of different packaging technique(s) for the distant marketing of Foxtail orchid spikes. The seven treatments were as follows: T1: CFB box (control); T2: wrapping with 200 gauge polyethylene sheet + KMnO₄ sachet + CFB box; T3: wrapping with butter paper + KMnO₄ sachet + CFB box; T4: wrapping with Brown Paper + KMnO₄ sachet + CFB box; T₅: plastic vial containing 8-HQS (25 ppm) + wrapping with 200 gauge polyethylene sheet + CFB box; T6: plastic vial containing 8-HQS (25 ppm) + wrapping with butter paper + CFB box; and T7: plastic vial containing 8-HQS (25 ppm) + wrapping with Brown Paper + CFB box. Among these packaging treatments, T5 resulted in a significantly longer vase life (7.33 days after 3 days of storage under ambient conditions). Postharvest parameters such as the PLW (6.58%), TSS (10.08%), MSI (78.28%), and wilting of the first floret (3.41 days) were found to be greatest in T5. However, in terms of biochemical parameters, T5 was similar to T6 in terms of carbohydrate content (63.49 and 62.08 mg/100 ml, respectively), protein content (15.23 and 15.18%, respectively) and anthocyanin content (6.37 and 6.30 mg/L, respectively)

Transmission blocking activity of a standardized neem (Azadirachta indica) seed extract on the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei in its vector Anopheles stephensi

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The wide use of gametocytocidal artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) lead to a reduction of <it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>transmission in several African endemic settings. An increased impact on malaria burden may be achieved through the development of improved transmission-blocking formulations, including molecules complementing the gametocytocidal effects of artemisinin derivatives and/or acting on <it>Plasmodium </it>stages developing in the vector. Azadirachtin, a limonoid (tetranortriterpenoid) abundant in neem (<it>Azadirachta indica</it>, Meliaceae) seeds, is a promising candidate, inhibiting <it>Plasmodium </it>exflagellation <it>in vitro </it>at low concentrations. This work aimed at assessing the transmission-blocking potential of NeemAzal^®, an azadirachtin-enriched extract of neem seeds, using the rodent malaria <it>in vivo </it>model <it>Plasmodium berghei</it>/<it>Anopheles stephensi</it>.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p><it>Anopheles stephensi </it>females were offered a blood-meal on <it>P. berghei </it>infected, gametocytaemic BALB/c mice, treated intraperitoneally with NeemAzal, one hour before feeding. The transmission-blocking activity of the product was evaluated by assessing oocyst prevalence, oocyst density and capacity to infect healthy mice. To characterize the anti-plasmodial effects of NeemAzal^®on early midgut stages, i.e. zygotes and ookinetes, Giemsa-stained mosquito midgut smears were examined.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>NeemAzal^®completely blocked <it>P. berghei </it>development in the vector, at an azadirachtin dose of 50 mg/kg mouse body weight. The totally 138 examined, treated mosquitoes (three experimental replications) did not reveal any oocyst and none of the healthy mice exposed to their bites developed parasitaemia. The examination of midgut content smears revealed a reduced number of zygotes and post-zygotic forms and the absence of mature ookinetes in treated mosquitoes. Post-zygotic forms showed several morphological alterations, compatible with the hypothesis of an azadirachtin interference with the functionality of the microtubule organizing centres and with the assembly of cytoskeletal microtubules, which are both fundamental processes in <it>Plasmodium </it>gametogenesis and ookinete formation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This work demonstrated <it>in vivo </it>transmission blocking activity of an azadirachtin-enriched neem seed extract at an azadirachtin dose compatible with 'druggability' requisites. These results and evidence of anti-plasmodial activity of neem products accumulated over the last years encourage to convey neem compounds into the drug discovery & development pipeline and to evaluate their potential for the design of novel or improved transmission-blocking remedies.</p