Facile charge transport in FeN_x/Mo₂N/CNT nanocomposites for efficient hydrogen evolution reactions

Molybdenum based materials are gaining importance as electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction because of their low cost and good electrocatalytic efficiency. Introducing iron nitride with molybdenum nitride as a composite results in efficient hydrogen evolution activity with current density of ∼120 mA/cm2 at −400 mV vs. RHE. The nanocomposites were characterized using powder XRD, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Electron Diffraction, Thermogravimetric Analysis and FTIR Spectroscopy. The electrochemical investigations suggest that the electrocatalytic activity of the composite increases with iron nitride content. The composite exhibits good electrochemical stability upto 42 hours in acidic medium. The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) follows Volmer-Heyrovsky mechanism where Volmer reaction is the rate determing step

AdvGen: Physical Adversarial Attack on Face Presentation Attack Detection Systems

Evaluating the risk level of adversarial images is essential for safely deploying face authentication models in the real world. Popular approaches for physical-world attacks, such as print or replay attacks, suffer from some limitations, like including physical and geometrical artifacts. Recently, adversarial attacks have gained attraction, which try to digitally deceive the learning strategy of a recognition system using slight modifications to the captured image. While most previous research assumes that the adversarial image could be digitally fed into the authentication systems, this is not always the case for systems deployed in the real world. This paper demonstrates the vulnerability of face authentication systems to adversarial images in physical world scenarios. We propose AdvGen, an automated Generative Adversarial Network, to simulate print and replay attacks and generate adversarial images that can fool state-of-the-art PADs in a physical domain attack setting. Using this attack strategy, the attack success rate goes up to 82.01%. We test AdvGen extensively on four datasets and ten state-of-the-art PADs. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of our attack by conducting experiments in a realistic, physical environment.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, Accepted to the International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB 2023

Disordered eating and eating disorders among women seeking fertility treatment: A systematic review

The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the prevalence of disordered eating and eating disorders among women seeking fertility treatment. Observational studies were searched in Ovid MEDLINE, Web of Science, Embase, and PsycInfo. Studies published prior to September 2020 when the search was conducted were considered. Inclusion criteria included (1) original and empirical research, (2) published in a peer-reviewed journal, and (3) reported on disordered eating among women seeking fertility treatment in the sample or reported on prevalence of eating disorders among women seeking fertility treatment in the sample. Independent screening of abstracts was conducted by two authors (LH and AH). Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. Sample size, study location, measures, and results for each study in this review were reported. Among women pursuing fertility treatment, rates of current eating disorders ranged from 0.5 to 16.7%, while past eating disorder prevalence rates ranged from 1.4 to 27.5%. Current anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa was reported by up to 2% and 10.3% of women, respectively, while history of anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa was reported by up to 8.5% and 3.3% of women, respectively. Binge eating disorder or other eating disorders were reported by up to 18.5% and 9.1% of women, respectively. Disordered eating pathology was endorsed by 1.6 to 48% of women seeking fertility treatment. Endorsement of pathological eating attitudes was generally higher among women seeking fertility treatment with current or past eating disorders as compared to community samples, with the exception of dietary restraint. Rates of current and past eating disorders are higher among women seeking fertility treatment than in the general population. Providers treating women with infertility should be cognizant of these prevalence rates and consider screening for eating pathology in their patients as this may contribute to their likelihood of successful conception and/or subsequent pregnancy outcomes

Weighing the Association Between BMI Change and Suicide Mortality

OBJECTIVE: Suicide rates continue to rise, necessitating the identification of risk factors. Obesity and suicide mortality rates have been examined, but associations among weight change, death by suicide, and depression among adults in the United States remain unclear. METHODS: Data from 387 people who died by suicide in 2000-2015 with a recorded body mass index (BMI) in the first and second 6 months preceding their death ( index date ) were extracted from the Mental Health Research Network. Each person was matched with five people in a control group (comprising individuals who did not die by suicide) by age, sex, index year, and health care site (N=1,935). RESULTS: People who died by suicide were predominantly male (71%), White (69%), and middle aged (mean age=57 years) and had a depression diagnosis (55%) and chronic health issues (57%) (corresponding results for the control group: 71% male, 66% White, 14% with depression diagnosis, and 43% with chronic health issues; mean age=56 years). Change in BMI within the year before the index date statistically significantly differed between those who died by suicide (mean change=-0.72±2.42 kg/m(2)) and the control group (mean change=0.06±4.99 kg/m(2)) (p\u3c0.001, Cohen\u27s d=0.17). A one-unit BMI decrease was associated with increased risk for suicide after adjustment for demographic characteristics, mental disorders, and Charlson comorbidity score (adjusted odds ratio=1.11, 95% confidence interval=1.05-1.18, p\u3c0.001). For those without depression, a BMI change was significantly associated with suicide (p\u3c0.001). CONCLUSIONS: An increased suicide mortality rate was associated with weight loss in the year before a suicide after analyses accounted for general and mental health indicators

Harnessing Genetic Diversity of Wild Arachis Species for Genetic Enhancement of Cultivated Peanut

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an important self-pollinating tetraploid (AABB, 2n = 4x = 40) legume grown for the high-quality edible oil and easily digestible protein in its seeds. Enormous genetic variability is present in the genus Arachis containing 79 wild species and cultivated peanut. Wild species offer significant variability, particularly for biotic and abiotic stresses, and can be used to develop cultivars with enhanced levels of resistance to key stresses. However, utilization of these species requires use of ploidy manipulations, bridge crosses, and embryo or ovule rescue. For efficient use of diploid wild species from section Arachis, several synthetics (amphidiploids and autotetraploids) have been developed using A- and B-genome accessions with high levels of resistance to multiple stresses. These synthetics are used in crossing programs with cultigens to develop prebreeding populations and introgression lines (ILs) with high frequency of useful genes and alleles into good agronomic backgrounds. Evaluation of two such populations derived from ICGV 91114 × ISATGR 121250 (a synthetic derived from A. duranensis Krapov. & W.C. Greg. × A. ipaensis Krapov. & W.C. Greg.) and ICGV 87846 × ISATGR 265-5 (A. kempf-mercadoi W.C. Greg. & C.E. Simpson × A. hoehnei Krapov. & W.C. Greg.) resulted in the identification of ILs with high levels of late leaf spot (LLS) and rust resistance and significant genetic variability for morphoagronomic traits. Genotyping of these ILs with markers linked to rust and LLS resistance provided evidence that introgression of possible novel alleles and resistance sources from different wild species other than the commonly used A. cardenasii Krapov. & W.C. Greg. will be beneficial for peanut improvement

Exploiting genomic resources for efficient conservation and utilization of chickpea, groundnut, and pigeonpea collections for crop improvement

Both chickpea and pigeonpea are important dietary source of protein, while groundnut is one of the major oil crops. Globally, ~1.1 million grain legume accessions are conserved in genebanks, of which, ICRISAT genebank holds ~50,000 accessions of cultivated species and wild relatives of chickpea, pigeonpea, and groundnut from 133 countries. These genetic resources are reservoirs of many useful genes for the present and future crop improvement programs. Representative subsets in the form of core and mini core collections have been used to identify trait-specific genetically diverse germplasm for use in breeding and genomic studies in these crops. Chickpea, groundnut and pigeonpea have moved from ‘orphan’ to ‘genomic resources rich crops’. The chickpea and pigeonpea genomes have been decoded, and the sequences of groundnut genome will soon be available. With the availability of these genomic resources, the germplasm curators, breeders and molecular biologists will have abundant opportunities to enhance the efficiency of genebank operations, mine allelic variations in germplasm collection, identify genetically diverse germplasm with beneficial traits, broaden the cultigen’s genepool, and accelerate the cultivar development to address new challenges to production, particularly with respect to climate change and variability. Marker-assisted breeding approaches have already been initiated for some traits in chickpea and groundnut, which should lead to enhanced efficiency and efficacy of crop improvement. Resistance to some pests and diseases has been successfully transferred from wild relatives to cultivated species

Search for new particles in events with energetic jets and large missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A search is presented for new particles produced at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV, using events with energetic jets and large missing transverse momentum. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 101 fb(-1), collected in 2017-2018 with the CMS detector. Machine learning techniques are used to define separate categories for events with narrow jets from initial-state radiation and events with large-radius jets consistent with a hadronic decay of a W or Z boson. A statistical combination is made with an earlier search based on a data sample of 36 fb(-1), collected in 2016. No significant excess of events is observed with respect to the standard model background expectation determined from control samples in data. The results are interpreted in terms of limits on the branching fraction of an invisible decay of the Higgs boson, as well as constraints on simplified models of dark matter, on first-generation scalar leptoquarks decaying to quarks and neutrinos, and on models with large extra dimensions. Several of the new limits, specifically for spin-1 dark matter mediators, pseudoscalar mediators, colored mediators, and leptoquarks, are the most restrictive to date.Peer reviewe

Combined searches for the production of supersymmetric top quark partners in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A combination of searches for top squark pair production using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb(-1) collected by the CMS experiment, is presented. Signatures with at least 2 jets and large missing transverse momentum are categorized into events with 0, 1, or 2 leptons. New results for regions of parameter space where the kinematical properties of top squark pair production and top quark pair production are very similar are presented. Depending on themodel, the combined result excludes a top squarkmass up to 1325 GeV for amassless neutralino, and a neutralinomass up to 700 GeV for a top squarkmass of 1150 GeV. Top squarks with masses from 145 to 295 GeV, for neutralino masses from 0 to 100 GeV, with a mass difference between the top squark and the neutralino in a window of 30 GeV around the mass of the top quark, are excluded for the first time with CMS data. The results of theses searches are also interpreted in an alternative signal model of dark matter production via a spin-0 mediator in association with a top quark pair. Upper limits are set on the cross section for mediator particle masses of up to 420 GeV