Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beach wrack macrovegetation index for assessing coastal phytobenthic biodiversity

The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires assessment of environmental status in relation to changing human pressures. In this study taxonomic composition of beach wrack is proposed as an indicator for the assessment of coastal sea benthic macrovegetation biodiversity within the context of the MSFD. Based on the relationships between eutrophication metrics and taxonomic structure of benthic vegetation, the Beach Wrack Macrovegetation Index (BMI) was developed and tested as a case study of the northern Gulf of Riga (Baltic Sea). The index showed a higher benthic biodiversity in areas with higher water transparency, lower nutrient concentrations, and lower Baltic Sea Pressure Index values. Compared to commonly used metrics, the BMI is an easy-to-use and cost-effective method, which can be further incorporated within a citizen science project. The method can be recommended for the areas that are not affected by strong tides or persistent currents. Boreal summer is the preferred season for sampling because then the impact of hydrodynamic effects on the structure of stormcast is the lowest.
Issues of exact laser ray positioning using DC motors for vision-based target detection

A new Technical Vision System for target detection using a Laser Scanner and the Dynamic Triangulation measurement method was developed at the engineering institute of UABC, which presents a single-sensor, high-speed and low-cost laser scanning system, to determine 3D spatial coordinates of any object under observation. Previous research has shown the existence of serious disadvantages, when using low-quality DC motors for position the laser ray in the scanner field-of-view. Present paper introduces main issues for implementation of an algorithm when using high-quality DC motors instead and shows the principal advantages of a fast and accurate laser ray positioning by experimental results and evaluation.
Self-repair through scale independent self-reconfiguration

Self-reconfigurable robots are built from modules, which are autonomously able to change the way they are connected, thus changing the overall shape of the robot. This self-reconfiguration process is difficult to control, because it involves the distributed coordination of large numbers of identical modules connected in time-varying ways. We present an approach where a desired shape is grown based on a scalable representation of the desired configuration, which is automatically generated from a 3D CAD model. The size of the configuration is adjusted continually to match the number of modules in the system. This has the advantage that if modules are removed or added, the system automatically adjusts its scale and thus self-repair is obtained as a side effect. This capability is achieved by distributed, local rules for module movement that are independent of the goal configuration. We compare the scale independent approach to one where the desired configuration is grown directly at a fixed scale. We find that the features of the scale independent approach come at the expense of an increased number of moves, messages, and time steps taken to reconfigure.
Desalination and Water Treatment

The textile industry is a sector that causes significant environmental pollution through the produc - tion of polluted wastewater. In this work, desalination tests of wastewater were carried out using a hybrid nanofiltration/pervaporation (NF/PV) system. A model textile wastewater after the dyeing process was prepared and tested at four different NaCl water solution concentrations. The proper - ties of the obtained filtrates and concentrates (pH, conductivity, color and chemical oxygen demand (COD)) for both membrane processes were analyzed. The possibility of textile wastewater treatment using nanofiltration and pervaporation integrated processes using commercial polymer membranes was validated. For comparison, experiments with commercial ultrafiltration membrane in the pre - treatment stage were performed. The performance (permeate flux and resistance) and conductiv - ity reduction were calculated. The hydrophilicity of the membrane surfaces was measured using a method based on contact angle measurements. In the integrated NF/PV processes, each of them was considered separately. The higher the initial salt concentration in the wastewater after NF pro - cess, the lower the permeate flux passing through the membrane (62.98 to 300.8 kg/(m 2 ·h)), degree of conductivity reduction (16% to 48%), color (34% to 99%), and COD (81% to 97%). Fouling and concentration polarization phenomena were observed. The purified NF filtrate was then fed to the PV process for desalting. In PV, the initial various salt concentration in the wastewater did not significantly affect the permeate flux (1.18 to 1.46 kg/(m 2 ·h)) or the conductivity reduction, which was almost 100% in all cases. The results indicate the potential of integrated NF/PV techniques for desalination of textile wastewater from the dyeing process.
Synchronization over Z2 and community detection in signed multiplex networks with constraints

Finding group elements from noisy measurements of their pairwise ratios is also known as the group synchronization problem, first introduced in the context of the group SO(2) of planar rotations, whose usefulness has been demonstrated recently in engineering and structural biology. Here, we focus on synchronization over $\mathbb{Z}_2$, and consider the problem of identifying communities in a multiplex network when the interaction between the nodes is described by a signed (possibly weighted) measure of similarity, and when the multiplex network has a natural partition into two communities. When one has the additional information that certain subsets of nodes represent the same unknown group element, we consider and compare several algorithms based on spectral, semidefinite programming (SDP) and message passing algorithms. In other words, all nodes within such a subset represent the same unknown group element, and one has available noisy pairwise measurements between pairs of nodes that belong to different non-overlapping subsets. Following a recent analysis of the eigenvector method for synchronization over SO(2), we analyze the robustness to noise of the eigenvector method for synchronization over $\mathbb{Z}_2$, when the underlying graph of pairwise measurements is the Erd\H{o}s-R\'{e}nyi random graph, using results from the random matrix theory literature. We also propose a message passing synchronization algorithm that outperforms the existing eigenvector synchronization algorithm only for certain classes of graphs and noise models, and enjoys the flexibility of incorporating constraints that may not be easily accommodated by other spectral or SDP-based methods. We apply our methods both to several synthetic models and a real data set of roll call voting patterns in the U.S. Congress across time, to identify the two existing communities, i.e., the Democratic and Republican parties.
An Optical Sensor Network for Vegetation Phenology Monitoring and Satellite Data Calibration

We present a network of sites across Fennoscandia for optical sampling of vegetation properties relevant for phenology monitoring and satellite data calibration. The network currently consists of five sites, distributed along an N-S gradient through Sweden and Finland. Two sites are located in coniferous forests, one in a deciduous forest, and two on peatland. The instrumentation consists of dual-beam sensors measuring incoming and reflected red, green, NIR, and PAR fluxes at 10-min intervals, year-round. The sensors are mounted on separate masts or in flux towers in order to capture radiation reflected from within the flux footprint of current eddy covariance measurements. Our computations and model simulations demonstrate the validity of using off-nadir sampling, and we show the results from the first year of measurement. NDVI is computed and compared to that of the MODIS instrument on-board Aqua and Terra satellite platforms. PAR fluxes are partitioned into reflected and absorbed components for the ground and canopy. The measurements demonstrate that the instrumentation provides detailed information about the vegetation phenology and variations in reflectance due to snow cover variations and vegetation development. Valuable information about PAR absorption of ground and canopy is obtained that may be linked to vegetation productivity.
EMPLOYEE STRESS MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM HEALTHCARE SECTOR IN NIGERIA

This paper evaluated the relationships between employee stress management and the performance of healthcare firms in Nigeria via ex-post facto research design. Data of employee stress was gauged using dummy variables of vacation and health disclosures while organizational performance by market share, and earnings per share, which were sourced from the annual reports and accounts of selected healthcare firms from 2012-2019. Data sourced were analyzed by means of both descriptive and inferential statistics and findings revealed a significant relationship between employee stress management dimensions and market share and earnings per share. Impliedly, employee stress management contributes significantly to organizational performance of healthcare firms in Nigeria. In view of the findings, it was recommended that employee stress audits should
Evaluation of Atmospheric Fields from the ECMWF Seasonal Forecasts over a 15-Year Period

Abstract Since 1997, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has made seasonal forecasts with ensembles of a coupled ocean–atmosphere model, System-1 (S1). In January 2002, a new version, System-2 (S2), was introduced. For the calibration of these models, hindcasts have been performed starting in 1987, so that 15 yr of hindcasts and forecasts are now available for verification. The main cause of seasonal predictability is El Nino and La Nina perturbing the average weather in many regions and seasons throughout the world. As a baseline to compare the dynamical models with, a set of simple statistical models (STAT) is constructed. These are based on persistence and a lagged regression with the first few EOFs of SST from 1901 to 1986 wherever the correlations are significant. The first EOF corresponds to ENSO, and the second corresponds to decadal ENSO. The temperature model uses one EOF, the sea level pressure (SLP) model uses five EOFs, and the precipitation model uses two EOFs but e.
AMD SOC power management: Improving performance/watt using run-time feedback

This paper presents an analysis of four runtime power management features implemented in AMD's recent 28nM APU. These features optimize SOC performance by shifting power and frequency resources in response to workload characteristics. The Global Efficient APM (GEAPM), Core-Bound Boost (CBB) and Memory-Bound Boost (MBB) features are shown to provide a performance improvement of up to 76%, 4.3% and 12.5% respectively. The Local Efficient APM (LEAPM) feature is shown to reduce average CPU power consumption by 34% while reducing performance by less than 1%.
Antimicrobial Activity of Bacteriocin Produced by Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Milk Products

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) commonly used as starter cultures in food are known to produce antimicrobial substances such as bacteriocins, having great potential as food biopreservatives. The present study was aimed at isolating bacteriocinogenic LAB from traditional milk product such as Curd, Cheese, Butter, whey and Ghee. The isolates were identified, based on characteristics of the strains of Lactococcus spp. as present in Bergey’s manual of determinative bacteriology, the metabolite bacteriocin was extracted from the isolated Lactococcus spp. and the antibacterial activity was evaluated against bacterial pathogens. The strain C3 of bacteriocin producing Lactococcus spp. exhibited the highest inhibitiory activity against Staphylococcus aureus whereas Escherichia coli was found resistant to the different concentrations of crude bacteriocin. This study revealed the possibility of using bacteriocin as food biopreservative to control food spoilage and pathogenic bacteria.
Cadmium binding to a histidine‐rich glycoprotein from marine mussel blood plasma: Potentiometric titration and equilibrium speciation modeling

Cadmium‐binding parameters (conditional stability constants and carrying capacities) of Mytilus edulis blood plasma histidine‐rich glycoprotein (HRG) were investigated by potentiometric titrations using a Cd ion‐specific electrode. Titration data were applied to a single‐component complexation model and expressed as Scatchard plots that were analyzed using the graphical curve peeling method and the algebraic statistical mechanical method. These sets of binding parameters, derived for the purified HRG, were subsequently entered into the geochemical speciation model MINTEQA2 and then used to simulate the experimental titration, thereby determining which set of log K and CL values best represented the titration data. The Cd binding to HRG was best described by a two‐class model with log K values of 7.65 ± 0.10 and 5.41 ± 0.06 M−1 and carrying capacities of 6.0 ± 1.2 and 9.5 ± 0.4 sites/molecule, respectively. At concentrations of total Cd measured in the blood plasma of field‐collected mussels (≤2 × 10−7 M), plasma Cd speciation would be dominated by the strong affinity sites of HRG (>93.5% of total Cd binds to HRG), whereas HRG itself would only be 0.05% saturated with Cd, indicating a high‐capacity, apparently nonsaturable Cd transport system.
Comparative reflex response times of vastus medialis obliquus and vastus lateralis in normal subjects and subjects with extensor mechanism dysfunction

Reflex response times of the vastus medialis obliquus and vastus lateralis were evaluated in 41 normal sub jects and 16 patients with extensor mechanism dys function. The reflex response times for both muscles to a patellar tendon tap were evaluated by electro myography. The latencies of the muscles were statis tically analyzed in both groups. In normal subjects, one- tailed paired-sample t-tests determined that the vastus medialis obliquus fired significantly faster than the vas tus lateralis (P < 0.001). In the patients, the vastus lateralis fired significantly faster than the vastus medi alis obliquus (P < 0.001). A chi square goodness of fit test demonstrated a dependency between the order of muscle firing and the type of subject (P < 0.001). Two- tailed independent-sample t-tests revealed that the pa tients demonstrated a significantly faster vastus later alis response time than the normal subjects (P < 0.001), whereas the vastus medialis obliquus times were not significantly different. This increase in vastus lateralis reflex response time may indicate a motor control prob lem in the patient with extensor mechanism dysfunc tion. Results indicate that there is a reversal of the normal muscular firing order between the two muscles in these patients. Patients with extensor mechanism dysfunction may be demonstrating a neurophysiologic motor control imbalance that may account for or con tribute to their anterior knee pain.
Confidence measures for CTC-based phone synchronous decoding

Connectionist Temporal Classification (CTC) model has achieved state-of-the-art LVCSR performance. However, due to the introduction of the blank symbol, word-level confidence measures (CM) based on CTC model can not be easily calculated by directly using the traditional phone posterior normalization or confusion network (CN) approaches. Recently, a phone synchronous decoding (PSD) framework has been proposed for efficient decoding with CTC model. By automatically ignoring blank frames, PSD decoding not only achieves significant speed-up, but also yields highly compact and precise CTC phone lattices. In this work, two CM generation approaches on top of the PSD CTC lattice are proposed. Detailed investigation is also carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of PSD CTC lattice. Experiments on an English switchboard LVCSR task showed that the performance of the proposed PSD CTC lattice based CM can significantly outperform the CM based on traditional frame synchronous decoding with CTC or HMM models.
Trans-Border Crime and its Implications on Nigeria’s National Security and Sustainable Development

Nigeria is one of the relatively secured nations in West African sub-region. In recent times, the threats of trans-border crimes, manifesting in the form of drug and human trafficking (using the sub region as a transit point), money laundering, small arms and light weapons smuggling, illegal oil bunkering, serial bombing, hostage taking, armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping, trans-national organised criminality and jihadist activities especially the Boko Haram insurgency, etc have been particularly cited. The paper examines the implications of trans-border criminal activities on Nigeria’s national security and sustainable development. The paper in addition to other issues, takes a look at the concept of trans-border crime, national security and sustainable development. This paper relies on secondary sources of data. The paper thus, concludes that Nigeria can achieve sustainable development only through effective border security management and policing. It was recommended among others that: there is need for paradigm shift from manual to e-border control system in order to
An algorithm for bi-decomposition of logic functions

We propose a new BDD-based method for decomposition of multi-output incompletely specified logic functions into netlists of two-input logic gates. The algorithm uses the internal don't-cares during the decomposition to produce compact well-balanced netlists with short delay. The resulting netlists are provably nonredundant and facilitate test pattern generation. Experimental results over MCNC benchmarks show that our approach outperforms SIS and other BDD-based decomposition methods in terms of area and delay of the resulting circuits with comparable CPU time.
First Demonstration of Airborne SAR With Nonlinear FM Chirp Waveforms

For synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a system impulse response with low sidelobes is very important because sidelobes may interfere with the nearby scatterers and contribute to multiplicative noise. It is well known that a nonlinear frequency-modulation (NLFM) chirp waveform can shape the signal's power spectral density and provide a radar matched filter output with lower sidelobes without loss of the signal-to-noise ratio when compared with the linear frequency-modulation chirp. These advantages make the NLFM waveform to be a promising candidate to improve the imaging quality for SAR. However, so far, to our knowledge, there is no real application of NLFM waveforms for SAR. This letter, for the first time, demonstrates the airborne SAR experiment using an NLFM waveform. In the underlying experiment, the construction of the NLFM signal is investigated and a modified range migration algorithm (RMA) is developed to adapt it for focusing the NLFM SAR data. Both simulation and experimental results exhibit the promising power of the NLFM chirp and show the accuracy of the proposed modified RMA.
Adapting by Altering: Spatial modifications of terraced houses in the Klang Valley area

This paper presents the initial findings of a study on the spatial modifications of fifty houses by homeowners in the Klang Valley area. Using a standardised format, various attributes consisting altered spaces and features were compiled and examined. It appears that certain features of the houses including kitchen, bedrooms and bathrooms were desperately altered. People have used their creativity in altering the spaces beyond the original intentions of the architect. To some extent, the findings indicate that the current model for providing houses has shortcomings in addressing the need to satisfy the aspirations of individual family to living. Keywords: modification, alteration, personalization, systematic observation, adaptation. © 2017 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Malaysia.
Surgical treatment for hydrosalpinx prior to in‐vitro fertilization embryo transfer: a network meta‐analysis

The presence of hydrosalpinx impairs the outcome of in‐vitro fertilization embryo transfer (IVF‐ET). Surgical methods to either aspirate the fluid or isolate the affected Fallopian tubes have been attempted as a means of improving outcome. The aim of this network meta‐analysis was to compare the effectiveness of surgical treatments for hydrosalpinx before IVF‐ET.
[Predictive factors of response to buprenorphine in the substitutive treatment of heroin addicts. Results of a multicenter study of 73 patients].

OBJECTIVE Buprenorphine has a partial morphine-agonist pharmacological profile. It is proposed as alternative to methadone in opiate drug addicts with greater safety of use and less cost in terms of public health. The aim of this study was to determine the clinical factors of response to this molecule. METHOD The study was conducted in 73 patients treated for 3 months with adaptable doses. Mean dose was 8.5 mg/d (range: 3 to 16 mg/d). Response to treatment was defined as: still in the study at 3 months and absence of opiates in 75% of urinary samples over the past month. RESULTS Forty-eight patients responded and 25 did not. The determinating clinical variables of response were: opiate drug addiction less than 10 years, high score on the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), absence of depression according to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and low rate of disinhibition on Zukerman's sensation seeking scale. Conversely, the dose of buprenorphine within the limits specified in the Marketing Authorisation did not intervene in the response. CONCLUSION In view of its partial agonist effect, administration of buprenorphine must be reserved for patients addicted to opiates for less than 10 years, non-depressive and with low disinhibition on Zukerman's scale.
Is there an informationally passive benchmark for option pricing incorporating maturity?

Figlewski proposed testing the incremental contribution of the Black–Scholes model by comparing its performance against an “informationally passive” benchmark, which was defined to be an option pricing formula satisfying static no-arbitrage constraints. In this paper we extend Figlewski's analysis to include options of more than one maturity. Once maturity has been included in the model, any “informationally passive” call pricing function is consistent with some “active” model. In this sense, the notion of a passive model cannot be extended to pricing formulas incorporating option maturity. We derive the index dynamics of the active model implicit in Figlewski's implied G example. These dynamics are far more complicated than the dynamics of the Samuelson–Black–Scholes or Bachelier models. The main implication of our analysis is that an appropriate benchmark for assessing option pricing models should in fact have simple dynamics, such as those of Bachelier or the Black–Scholes models. This is despite the fact that the maturity extension of Figlewski's model gives as good a fit as the Black–Scholes model.