Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Particle Swarm Optimization for Optimal Design of Broadband Multilayer Microwave Absorber for Wide Angle of Incidence

Microwave absorbers find a plethora of applications in the modern-day military and civil industries. This paper compares the performances of different variations of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to obtain optimal designs for multilayer microwave absorber over different frequency ranges, angles of incidence and polarizations. The goal of this optimization is to minimize maximum overall reflection coefficient of the absorber by choosing suitable layers of materials from a predefined database and simultaneously make the overall thickness the least practically possible. Numerical optimal results for each variation of the PSO are presented and the best results are compared with those existing in literature.
Gain based evaluation measure for ranked web results

Internet is the era connecting millions of people online. Such web makes a person even to think beyond his imagination. Due to such phenomenal changes in life style especially after 1990's, research on web has got some importance. Web mining poses a number of challenges involving different approaches like text mining, link mining, content mining or context mining. It also makes us to think of multi lingual mining, which leaves a bi challenge for research community. This paper focuses in depth on automated evaluation procedure of the mined web contents. We have made some effort to optimize the results given by a search engine through link mining and content mining. Having obtained such mined and optimized data, we propose an automated evaluation metric to measure the quality of the retrieved content. The results seem to be promising which leads to ideas that can be enhanced through some automated agents.
A comparison of two 85-GHz SSM/I ice concentration algorithms with AVHRR and ERS-2 SAR imagery

Sea ice concentrations obtained with two algorithms from Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) data are compared to spaceborne visible/infrared and active microwave imagery for the Greenland Sea in spring. Both algorithms, the ARTIST Sea Ice algorithm (ASI) and the SEA LION algorithm (SLA), utilize 85-GHz SSM/I brightness temperatures with a spatial resolution of 15 km /spl times/13 km. Ice concentrations obtained from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) infrared data in cloud-free areas are underestimated by SLA and ASI ice concentrations by 3.6% and 8.3% (correlation coefficients of 0.90 and 0.91). Ice concentrations estimated from texture classified ERS-2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images by assigning experience-based ice concentrations to ice-type classes are overestimated by SLA and ASI ice concentrations by 4.4% and 1.5% (correlation coefficients of 0.84 and 0.77). However, omitting low/high ice concentrations forming up to 80% (AVHRR) and 60% (SAR) of the entire dataset reveals a significantly different statistic. For instance, the correlation between AVHRR and SLA and ASI ice concentrations drops to 0.77 and 0.70, respectively. All presented techniques to obtain ice concentrations need improvement and future developments should involve larger datasets. However, with care, both algorithms can be used to obtain reasonable ice concentration maps with a 12.5 km /spl times/12.5 km grid-cell size.
Response of Rectangular Raft Foundations under Transient Loading

ABSTRACT: In the present paper, response analysis of rectangular raft foundations under transient loading (treated as a free rectangular plate on elastic half-space) are carried out by using a coupled finite element – boundary element (FE-BE) approach. The combined stiffness matrix of the plate-half-space is determined by coupling the stiffness matrix of the plate and the half-space matrix obtained from the finite element and boundary element methods respectively. The half-space response is based on the solution given by Mindlin (1936) for a point load in half-space, which allows taking into account the effect of embedment of the plate. Consistent mass matrix of the plate is determined by using standard finite element method. The governing differential equation for the raft-soil system subjected to transient loading is solved by using Newmark integration method. Parametric study on response is carried out. The formulation and the computer programme can be used for response analysis for rafts of any shape and size with slight modification.
Co-Metabolic Degradation of β-Cypermethrin and 3-Phenoxybenzoic Acid by Co-Culture of Bacillus licheniformis B-1 and Aspergillus oryzae M-4

The degradation efficiency of organic contaminants and their associated metabolites by co-culture of microbes is mainly limited by toxic intermediates from co-metabolic degradation. In this study, we investigated the degradation of β-cypermethrin (β-CY) and 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA) by co-culture of Bacillus licheniformis B-1 and Aspergillus oryzae M-4, as well as the influences of β-CY and 3-PBA metabolites on their degradation and the growth of strains B-1 and M-4. Our results indicated that 100 mg/L β-CY was degraded by 78.85%, and 3-PBA concentration was 0.05 mg/L after 72 h. Compared with using only strain B-1, the half-life (t1/2) of β-CY by using the two strains together was shortened from 84.53 h to 38.54 h, and the yield coefficient of 3-PBA was decreased from 0.846 to 0.001. At 100 mg/L of 3-PBA and gallic acid, β-CY and 3-PBA degradation were only 17.68% and 40.45%, respectively. As the toxic intermediate derived from co-metabolic degradation of β-CY by strain B-1, 3-PBA was efficiently degraded by strain M-4, and gallic acid, as the toxic intermediate from co-metabolic degradation of 3-PBA by strain M-4, was efficiently degraded by strain B-1. These results provided a promising approach for efficient biodegradation of β-CY and 3-PBA.
Influence of Psychosocial Factors on Job Performance of Female Teachers in Kwara State, Nigeria

This study focused on the influence of psychosocial factors on job performance of female teachers in Kwara State, Nigeria. The study also examined the variables of age, level of education and length of years in service. The descriptive survey was adopted for the study. A total sample of 400 respondents was selected in Kwara State, using the simple random and purposive sampling techniques. Data were collected using a researcher-designed instrument titled “Influence of Psychosocial Factors on Job Performance Questionnaire” (IPFJPQ). The reliability was ascertained through a test re-test reliability method; this yielded a coefficient of 0.60. ANOVA statistical method was used to analyze the data at 0.05 alpha level. The findings are that the influence of psychosocial factors on job performance of female teachers in Ilorin metropolis is negative; there is no significant difference in the hypotheses tested based on age but, significant differences were found based on level of education, and length of years in service. It was therefore recommended that female teachers should adopt rational management strategies to handle psychosocial factors to improve their job performance. Counsellors should orientate teachers on how to adopt positive approach towards management of psychosocial factors.
Relations between openness to the world, family functioning and child behaviour

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to analyse the relations between the function of openness to the world, family functioning and child behaviour. In order to do that, a quantitative research was conducted with 171 biparental families from the South Region of Brazil, with children from four to six years of age. Two association hypotheses were formulated: The function of openness to the world and family functioning positively influence child’s strengths and negatively influence their difficulties; Family functioning and the function of openness to the world are positively related, and this relation has an influence on child behaviour, so as to increase strengths and reduce difficulties. Results indicate associations between the phenomena and that it is necessary to consider the interaction between the function of openness to the world and family functioning to better understand child behaviour.
Relation between Neonatal Icter and Gilbert Syndrome in Gloucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficient Subjects.

BACKGROUND AND AIM The pathogenesis of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia hasn't been completely defined in Gloucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficient newborns. The aim of this study was to detect the relationship between Gilbert's syndrome and hyperbilirubinemia in Gloucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficient neonates. MATERIALS AND METHODS This case-control study was conducted in Amirkola pediatrics teaching hospital, Babol, Iran. A total number of one hundred four infants were included in the study (51 infants with neonatal jaundice and Gloucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency admitted to phototherapy or transfusion were selected as the case group and 53 infants with Gloucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency admitted for other reasons than jaundice were selected as the control group). Exclusion criteria were ABO or Rh incompatibility or other reasons that made Coombs test positive, sepsis, hepatosplenomegaly, metabolic diseases, medical treatment and phototherapy. The promoter and coding regions of Uridine diphosphate Glucuronosyl Transferase 1A1 (UGT1A1) of genomic DNA were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) isolated from leukocytes. We used chi-square test and t-test to compare cases and controls. RESULTS Distribution of Gilbert genome was not significantly different between the two groups; among cases, 33.3% were homozygote, 35.3% heterozygote, and 31.4% normal. Among controls, 22.6% were homozygote, 34% heterozygote, and 43.4% normal (p-value=xxx). Hyperbilirubinemia family history didn't differ significantly between these two groups. CONCLUSIONS We showed that in Gloucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficient neonates, there was no significant association between Gilbert's syndrome (promoter polymorphism) and hyperbilirubinemia.
Developing Character of Nationality Participants of SM -3T PPG Program through the Educational Model in Semarang University

The research aim is to describe the development program of academic and multicultural coaching of Professional Education Teacher for the Forefront, Outer, and the Drop Behind Regions abbreviated PPG SM-3T, a development model design for boarding education in evolve the nationality character of PPG SM-3T participants, and to test the feasibility of boarding education model in developing the national character of PPG SM-3T participants at Semarang State University. Researchers use the research & development approach. The subject is the participants of PPG SM-3T program at Semarang State University. Data were collected through interviews, observation, documentation, focus group discussions, and questionnaires. The data were analyze to find factual and hypothetical model, conducted in interactive model, the steps are data collection, data reduction, data display, and draw the conclusion. Data analysis to test the feasibility and device effectiveness was done by descriptive analysis. The boarding education model design at Semarang State University done by integrating the nationality character as state in the policy, curriculum structure, programs and boarding education strategy, boarding life assessment, and mentoring. Keywords—Boarding Education; Nationality Character; PPG SM-3T Program
Infant Brain Atlases from Neonates to 1- and 2-Year-Olds

Background Studies for infants are usually hindered by the insufficient image contrast, especially for neonates. Prior knowledge, in the form of atlas, can provide additional guidance for the data processing such as spatial normalization, label propagation, and tissue segmentation. Although it is highly desired, there is currently no such infant atlas which caters for all these applications. The reason may be largely due to the dramatic early brain development, image processing difficulties, and the need of a large sample size. Methodology To this end, after several years of subject recruitment and data acquisition, we have collected a unique longitudinal dataset, involving 95 normal infants (56 males and 39 females) with MRI scanned at 3 ages, i.e., neonate, 1-year-old, and 2-year-old. State-of-the-art MR image segmentation and registration techniques were employed, to construct which include the templates (grayscale average images), tissue probability maps (TPMs), and brain parcellation maps (i.e., meaningful anatomical regions of interest) for each age group. In addition, the longitudinal correspondences between age-specific atlases were also obtained. Experiments of typical infant applications validated that the proposed atlas outperformed other atlases and is hence very useful for infant-related studies. Conclusions We expect that the proposed infant 0–1–2 brain atlases would be significantly conducive to structural and functional studies of the infant brains. These atlases are publicly available in our website, http://bric.unc. edu/ideagroup/free-softwares/.
Activation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors by chlorinated hydrocarbons and endogenous steroids.

Trichloroethylene (TCE) and related hydrocarbons constitute an important class of environmental pollutants whose adverse effects on liver, kidney, and other tissues may, in part, be mediated by peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs), ligand-activated transcription factors belonging to the steroid receptor superfamily. Activation of PPAR induces a dramatic proliferation of peroxisomes in rodent hepatocytes and ultimately leads to hepatocellular carcinoma. To elucidate the role of PPAR in the pathophysiologic effects of TCE and its metabolites, it is important to understand the mechanisms whereby PPAR is activated both by TCE and endogenous peroxisome proliferators. The investigations summarized in this article a) help clarify the mechanism by which TCE and its metabolites induce peroxisome proliferation and b) explore the potential role of the adrenal steroid and anticarcinogen dehydroepiandrosterone 3beta-sulfate (DHEA-S) as an endogenous PPAR activator. Transient transfection studies have demonstrated that the TCE metabolites trichloroacetate and dichloroacetate both activate PPAR alpha, a major liver-expressed receptor isoform. TCE itself was inactive when tested over the same concentration range, suggesting that its acidic metabolites mediate the peroxisome proliferative potential of TCE. Although DHEA-S is an active peroxisome proliferator in vivo, this steroid does not stimulate trans-activation of PPAR alpha or of two other PPAR isoforms, gamma and delta/Nuc1, when evaluated in COS-1 cell transfection studies. To test whether PPAR alpha mediates peroxisomal gene induction by DHEA-S in intact animals, DHEA-S has been administered to mice lacking a functional PPAR alpha gene. DHEA-S was thus shown to markedly increase hepatic expression of two microsomal P4504A proteins associated with the peroxisomal proliferative response in wild-type mice. In contrast, DHEA-S did not induce these hepatic proteins in PPAR alpha-deficient mice. Thus, despite its unresponsiveness to steroidal peroxisome proliferators in transfection assays, PPAR alpha is an obligatory mediator of DHEA-S-stimulated hepatic peroxisomal gene induction. DHEA-S, or one of its metabolites, may thus serve as an important endogenous regulator of liver peroxisomal enzyme expression. ImagesFigure 2Figure 3
A Spectral and Spatial Approach of Coarse-to-Fine Blurred Image Region Detection

Blur exists in many digital images, it can be mainly categorized into two classes: defocus blur which is caused by optical imaging systems and motion blur which is caused by the relative motion between camera and scene objects. In this letter, we propose a simple yet effective automatic blurred image region detection method. Based on the observation that blur attenuates high-frequency components of an image, we present a blur metric based on the log averaged spectrum residual to get a coarse blur map. Then, a novel iterative updating mechanism is proposed to refine the blur map from coarse to fine by exploiting the intrinsic relevance of similar neighbor image regions. The proposed iterative updating mechanism can partially resolve the problem of differentiating an in-focus smooth region and a blurred smooth region. In addition, our iterative updating mechanism can be integrated into other image blurred region detection algorithms to refine the final results. Both quantitative and qualitative experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method is more reliable and efficient compared to various state-of-the-art methods.
Left hippocampal volume as a vulnerability indicator for schizophrenia: a magnetic resonance imaging morphometric study of nonpsychotic first-degree relatives.

BACKGROUND Clues to the causes of schizophrenia can be derived from studying first-degree relatives because they are genetically related to an ill family member. Abnormalities observed in nonpsychotic relatives are indicators of possible genetic vulnerability to illness, independent of psychosis. We tested 4 hypotheses: (1) that hippocampal volume is smaller in nonpsychotic relatives than in controls, particularly in the left hemisphere; (2) that hippocampi will be smaller in multiplex relatives as compared with simplex relatives, and both will be smaller than in controls; (3) that hippocampal volumes and verbal declarative memory function will be positively correlated; and (4) that hippocampi will be smaller in patients with schizophrenia than in their nonpsychotic relatives or in controls. METHODS Subjects were 45 nonpsychotic adult first-degree relatives from families with either 2 people ("multiplex," n = 17) or 1 person ("simplex," n = 28) diagnosed with schizophrenia, 18 schizophrenic relatives, and 48 normal controls. Sixty contiguous 3-mm coronal, T1-weighted 3-dimensional magnetic resonance images of the brain were acquired on a 1.5-T magnet. Volumes of the total cerebrum and the hippocampus were measured. RESULTS Compared with controls, relatives, particularly from multiplex families, had significantly smaller left hippocampi. Verbal memory and left hippocampal volumes were significantly and positively correlated. Within families, hippocampal volumes did not differ between schizophrenic patients and their nonpsychotic relatives. CONCLUSIONS Results support the hypothesis that the vulnerability to schizophrenia includes smaller left hippocampi and verbal memory deficits. Findings suggest that smaller left hippocampi and verbal memory deficits are an expression of early neurodevelopmental compromise, reflecting the degree of genetic liability to schizophrenia.
How to Make Correct Predictions in False Belief Tasks without Attributing False Beliefs: An Analysis of Alternative Inferences and How to Avoid Them

The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks (FBT) allowed to reduce the age of children who pass the test from the previous 4 years in the standard version to only 15 months or even a striking 6 months in the nonverbal modification. These results are often taken as evidence that infants already possess an—at least implicit—theory of mind (ToM). We criticize this inferential leap on the grounds that inferring a ToM from the predictive success on a false belief task requires to assume as premise that a belief reasoning is a necessary condition for correct action prediction. It is argued that the FBT does not satisfactorily constrain the predictive means, leaving room for the use of belief-independent inferences (that can rely on the attribution of non-representational mental states or the consideration of behavioral patterns that dispense any reference to other minds). These heuristics, when applied to the FBT, can achieve the same predictive success of a belief-based inference because information provided by the test stimulus allows the recognition of particular situations that can be subsumed by their ‘laws’. Instead of solving this issue by designing a single experimentum crucis that would render unfeasible the use of non-representational inferences, we suggest the application of a set of tests in which, although individually they can support inferences dissociated from a ToM, only an inference that makes use of false beliefs is able to correctly predict all the outcomes.
A Spatial Framework for Understanding Population Structure and Admixture

Geographic patterns of genetic variation within modern populations, produced by complex histories of migration, can be difficult to infer and visually summarize. A general consequence of geographically limited dispersal is that samples from nearby locations tend to be more closely related than samples from distant locations, and so genetic covariance often recapitulates geographic proximity. We use genome-wide polymorphism data to build “geogenetic maps,” which, when applied to stationary populations, produces a map of the geographic positions of the populations, but with distances distorted to reflect historical rates of gene flow. In the underlying model, allele frequency covariance is a decreasing function of geogenetic distance, and nonlocal gene flow such as admixture can be identified as anomalously strong covariance over long distances. This admixture is explicitly co-estimated and depicted as arrows, from the source of admixture to the recipient, on the geogenetic map. We demonstrate the utility of this method on a circum-Tibetan sampling of the greenish warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides), in which we find evidence for gene flow between the adjacent, terminal populations of the ring species. We also analyze a global sampling of human populations, for which we largely recover the geography of the sampling, with support for significant histories of admixture in many samples. This new tool for understanding and visualizing patterns of population structure is implemented in a Bayesian framework in the program SpaceMix. Author Summary In this paper, we introduce a statistical method for inferring, for a set of sequenced samples, a map in which the distances between population locations reflect genetic, rather than geographic, proximity. Two populations that are sampled at distant locations but that are genetically similar (perhaps one was recently founded by a colonization event from the other) may have inferred locations that are nearby, while two populations that are sampled close together, but that are genetically dissimilar (e.g., are separated by a barrier), may have inferred locations that are farther apart. The result is a “geogenetic” map in which the distances between populations are effective distances, indicative of the way that populations perceive the distances between themselves: the “organism’s-eye view” of the world. Added to this, “admixture” can be thought of as the outcome of unusually long-distance gene flow; it results in relatedness between populations that is anomalously high given the distance that separates them. We depict the effect of admixture using arrows, from a source of admixture to its target, on the inferred map. The inferred geogenetic map is an intuitive and information-rich visual summary of patterns of population structure.
Star Cluster Formation in Extreme Starburst Environments

The currently available empirical evidence on the star formation processes in the extreme, high-pressure environments induced by galaxy encounters, mostly based on high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging observations, strongly suggests that star cluster formation is an important and perhaps even the dominant mode of star formation in the starburst events associated with galaxy interactions.