Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scenedesmus dimorphus and Scenedesmus quadricauda : two potent indigenous microalgae strains for biomass production and CO2 mitigation - A study on their growth behavior and lipid productivity under different concentration of urea as nitrogen source.

Microalgae are fast growing biological systems which are capable of fixing high amount of carbon dioxide through photosynthesis to produce biomass. The two fresh water microalgae strains, Scenedesmus dimorphus and Scenedesmus quadricauda were selected for this study. Both the algal strain were cultivated in different concentrations of urea as nitrogen source in the growth medium. The concentration of urea at which maximum growth rate in terms of biomass and lipid productivity obtained was at 0.1g/L urea in case of both the strains. The maximum increase in biomass per day and lipid content for Scenedesmus dimorphus was found to be 1.523 mg/L/day and 34% in terms of dry cell weight with a specific growth rate of 0.54 /day of and for Scenedesmus quadricauda it was 1.266 mg/L/day and 31% in terms of dry cell weight with a specific growth rate 0.392 /day. It was observed that when urea concentration was increased beyond 0.1g/L, the biomass and cell number decreased gradually and both strains showed a lower lipid productivity.
Is there a deafness duration limit for cochlear implants in post-lingual deaf adults?

Abstract Conclusion: Patients with post-lingual deafness should not be excluded from cochlear implantation (CI) on the basis of duration of deafness. We found that the prognosis was favorable in patients who developed deafness after adolescence, even in those with extremely long-term deafness. Objectives: CI is an effective treatment for post-lingual deafness. However, it remains unclear whether CI would benefit patients with extremely long-term deafness. We evaluated the auditory performance after CI of patients who had been deaf for more than 30 years. Methods: The study enrolled 81 adults with post-lingual deafness. Speech perception tests were performed preoperatively and 12 months postoperatively, and factors affecting the postoperative auditory performance were investigated. The subjects were divided into groups according to the duration of deafness and the postoperative speech perception scores were compared. Results: A marked improvement in the open-set speech perception scores (mono/disyllabic words and sentences) after implantation was seen in all groups, and no significant difference in the improvement in speech perception scores was observed among the groups. Age at onset of deafness was closely related to the postoperative performance, and patients who had lost their hearing before adolescence performed poorly.
Harvesting cementum from root surface: A new paradigm in the study of cementum and the cemento-dentinal junction

Cementum and the cemento-dentinal junction has been a subject of debate for long. Here, the author has demonstrated an unreported technique to harvest cementum from the surface of the root surface of human teeth and also reviewed literature with respect to the cemento-dentinal junction. The method was based on the conclusion that the tissue between radicular dentin and cementum is an enamel-like hypermineralized tissue. The demineralization protocol reported demineralises the hypermineralized intermediate tissue and this dissolution unlocks the junction releasing the cementum from the radicular dentin surface. The cementum is separated as sock or in shreds and the observations reported.
Morphological re-evaluation of the parotoid glands of Bufo ictericus (Amphibia, Anura, Bufonidae)

Multicellular glands in the amphibian integument represent a signifi cant evolutionary advance over those of fi shes. Bufonids have parotoid glands, symmetrically disposed in a post-orbital position. Their secretion may contribute to protection against predators and parasites. This study provides a re-evaluation of the morphology of the Bufo ictericus parotoid glands. The parotoid gland integument of the medial surface shows rounded depressions with small pores that connect with the duct openings of the larger granular glands. Under light microscopic evaluation the integument is constituted by typical epidermis, supported by dermis subdivided into a spongious dermis, a reticular dermis, and a compact dermis. The Eberth-Katschenko layer is identifi ed as a basophilic material scattered throughout the superfi cial spongious dermis. The parotoid gland is an integument region, in which three exocrine glandular types occur: mixed glands, smaller granular glands and larger granular glands. The mixed gland is formed by mucous and serous cells while the small granular glands contain a homogene acidophilic intake. The larger granular glands produce a basophilic and alcianophilic material, and are responsible for the macroscopic protuberances designed as parotoid glands. Thus, the end product released by the parotoid glands is a mix of secretions produced by the three glands.
Simulating Urban Growth Using a Random Forest-Cellular Automata (RF-CA) Model

Sustainable urban planning and management require reliable land change models, which can be used to improve decision making. The objective of this study was to test a random forest-cellular automata (RF-CA) model, which combines random forest (RF) and cellular automata (CA) models. The Kappa simulation (KSimulation), figure of merit, and components of agreement and disagreement statistics were used to validate the RF-CA model. Furthermore, the RF-CA model was compared with support vector machine cellular automata (SVM-CA) and logistic regression cellular automata (LR-CA) models. Results show that the RF-CA model outperformed the SVM-CA and LR-CA models. The RF-CA model had a Kappa simulation (KSimulation) accuracy of 0.51 (with a figure of merit statistic of 47%), while SVM-CA and LR-CA models had a KSimulation accuracy of 0.39 and −0.22 (with figure of merit statistics of 39% and 6%), respectively. Generally, the RF-CA model was relatively accurate at allocating “non-built-up to built-up” changes as reflected by the correct “non-built-up to built-up” components of agreement of 15%. The performance of the RF-CA model was attributed to the relatively accurate RF transition potential maps. Therefore, this study highlights the potential of the RF-CA model for simulating urban growth.
TeleHuman2: A Cylindrical Light Field Teleconferencing System for Life-size 3D Human Telepresence

For telepresence to support the richness of multiparty conversations, it is important to convey motion parallax and stereoscopy without head-worn apparatus. TeleHuman2 is a "hologrammatic" telepresence system that conveys full-body 3D video of interlocutors using a human-sized cylindrical light field display. For rendering, the system uses an array of projectors mounted above the heads of participants in a ring around a retroreflective cylinder. Unique angular renditions are calculated from streaming depth video captured at the remote location. Projected images are retro-reflected into the eyes of local participants, at 1. 3º intervals providing angular renditions simultaneously for left and right eyes of all onlookers, which conveys motion parallax and stereoscopy without head-worn apparatus or head tracking. Our technical evaluation of the angular accuracy of the system demonstrates that the error in judging the angle of a remote arrow object represented in TeleHuman2 is within 1 degree, and not significantly different from similar judgments of a collocated arrow object.
Transmural variation in myosin heavy chain isoform expression modulates the timing of myocardial force generation in porcine left ventricle

Recent studies have shown that the sequence and timing of mechanical activation of myocardium vary across the ventricular wall. However, the contributions of variable expression of myofilament protein isoforms in mediating the timing of myocardial activation in ventricular systole are not well understood. To assess the functional consequences of transmural differences in myofilament protein expression, we studied the dynamic mechanical properties of multicellular skinned preparations isolated from the sub‐endocardial and sub‐epicardial regions of the porcine ventricular midwall. Compared to endocardial fibres, epicardial fibres exhibited significantly faster rates of stretch activation and force redevelopment (ktr), although the amount of force produced at a given [Ca2+] was not significantly different. Consistent with these results, SDS‐PAGE analysis revealed significantly elevated expression of α myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoform in epicardial fibres (13 ± 1%) versus endocardial fibres (3 ± 1%). Linear regression analysis revealed that the apparent rates of delayed force development and force decay following stretch correlated with MHC isoform expression (r2= 0.80 and r2= 0.73, respectively, P < 0.05). No differences in the relative abundance or phosphorylation status of other myofilament proteins were detected. These data show that transmural differences in MHC isoform expression contribute to regional differences in dynamic mechanical function of porcine left ventricles, which in turn modulate the timing of force generation across the ventricular wall and work production during systole.
Colour, trust, satisfaction, and E-loyalty: the vietnamese experience of website design

Vietnamese researchers and designers are challenged to choose country-appropriate colour that can drive user experience towards websites. Little research has been done on colour treatments in accredited website user experience in the context of Vietnam. Fulfilling this gap, we test a research model of website colour, trust, satisfaction, and e-loyalty with Vietnamese users when they interact with a CV website. Using survey data of 124 participants, our results suggest the significant influence of colour appeal on trust and satisfaction, which in turn significantly influences e-loyalty. Further, orange interface leads to more user satisfaction and likely greater trust than grey interface. The findings provide insights for researchers and web designers on how colour affect users experience in the context of Vietnamese websites.
On the learnability of physically unclonable functions

Along with the expansion of the application of integrated circuits (ICs), the risk of security vulnerabilities of them has been rising dramatically. Diverse type of successful attacks against ICs have been launched by adversaries taking advantage of those vulnerabilities to expose confidential information, e.g., intellectual property (IP), and customer data. As a remedy for the shortcomings of traditional security measures taken to protect ICs, PUFs appear to be promising candidates that are intended to offer instance-specific functionality. While cryptographic mechanisms enjoying this privilege have been emerging, the vulnerability of PUFs to different types of attacks have been demonstrated. Among these attacks, a great deal of attention has been paid to machine learning (ML) attacks, aiming at modeling the challengeresponse behavior of PUFs. So far the success of ML attacks has relied on trial and error, and consequently, ad hoc attacks and their corresponding countermeasures have been developed. This thesis aims to address this issue by providing the mathematical proofs of the vulnerability of various PUF families, including Arbiter, XOR Arbiter, ring-oscillator, and bistable ring PUFs, to ML attacks. To achieve this goal, for the assessment of these PUFs a generic framework is developed that include two main approaches. First, with regard to the inherent physical characteristics of the PUFs mentioned above, fit-for-purpose mathematical representations of them are established, which adequately reflect the physical behavior of those primitives. To this end, notions and formalizations, being already familiar to the ML theory world, are reintroduced in order to give a better understanding of why, how, and to what extent ML attacks against PUFs can be feasible in practice. Second, polynomial time ML algorithms are explored, which can learn the PUFs under the appropriate representation. More importantly, in contrast to previous ML approaches, not only the accuracy of the model mimicking the behavior of the PUF but also the delivery of such a model is ensured by our framework. Besides off-the-shelf ML algorithms, we apply a set of algorithms originated in property testing field of study that can support the evaluation of the security of PUFs. They serve as a “toolbox”, from which PUF designers and manufacturers can choose the indicators being relevant to their requirements. Last but not least, on the basis of learning theory concepts, this thesis explicitly states that the PUF families studied here cannot be considered as an ultimate solution to the problem of insecure ICs. Furthermore, we believe that this thesis can provide an insight into not only the academic research but also the design and manufacturing of PUFs.
Improving persian digit recognition by combining data augmentation and AlexNet

The present paper, has used deep learning for Persian handwritten digit recognition by which valuable discriminative features are extracted from Persian digits using a deep convolutional neural network. Afterwards, these features are fed to a linear support vector machine for classification. Hoda dataset, which is the largest dataset for Persian handwritten digit classification, was used for validation of the proposed method. In this paper, first the related works were investigated which used Hoda and then the proposed deep network was introduced. Because of the high number of parameters that should be trained in deep neural networks, a high number of training images should be used for training. To increase the number of training images, augmented images have been prepared by rotating the original images with 15, 30, 45, −15, −30 and −45 degrees. Based on the experiments, the proposed method outperformed other competing methods in terms of accuracy measure.
Changes in students' perceptions of their dental education environment.

OBJECTIVES To examine the 'Expected' and 'Actual' educational environment experienced by a cohort of Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) students at the University of Otago's Faculty of Dentistry using the Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM). METHODS Cohort members were asked to complete five DREEM surveys over the four-year BDS programme. Student expectations at the beginning of their first year were assessed using a modified version of the DREEM questionnaire, while following (standard) DREEM questionnaires at the end of each professional year addressed students' 'Actual' perception of the educational environment. RESULTS Sixty-six students (99%) completed at least one questionnaire. Overall, the BDS students' perceptions of their educational environment tended to be positive and students identified both perceived strengths and weaknesses in the BDS programme. However, more negative than positive shifts were reported between the 'Expected' and 'Actual' individual DREEM individual items, suggesting that BDS students initially expected more from their educational environment than they actually experienced. Individual DREEM outcomes undergoing negative and positive shifts differed over the years and varied in number. These may be explained, in part, by changes in the curriculum focus from year to year. CONCLUSION The students' changing DREEM responses over time revealed anticipated and perceived strengths and weaknesses of the BDS curriculum, as well as shifts in students' perceptions in response to curricular changes. However, our findings highlight the potential usefulness for dental education of a measure for use that takes the unique aspects of the dental education environment into account.
LIMITS OF SOLUTIONS OF A PERTURBED LINEAR DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION

Using interesting techniques, an existence result for the problem  + 2f (t) _ x + x + g (t; x) = 0; lim t! +1 x (t) = lim t! +1 _ x (t) = 0; is given in [2]. This note treates the same problem via Schauder-Tychono and Banach theorems.
Curcumin ameliorates hepatic fibrosis in type 2 diabetes mellitus – insights into its mechanisms of action

A wide variety of beneficial effects have been attributed to curcumin, a major polyphenol from the golden spice Curcuma longa known as turmeric, including amelioration of severe complications of type 2 diabetes such as hepatic fibrosis, retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy. In the present issue of BJP, Lin and colleagues reveal new mechanisms by which curcumin inhibits the activation of hepatic stellate cells in vitro, a hallmark of non‐alcoholic steatohepatitis and hepatic fibrogenesis associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus. They demonstrated that curcumin suppresses the advanced glycation end‐products (AGEs)‐mediated induction of the receptor for AGEs (RAGE) gene expression by increasing PPARγ activity and stimulating de novo synthesis of glutathione. As a result, downstream elements of RAGE‐activated pathways are inhibited, which prevents oxidative stress, inflammation and hepatic stellate cell activation. This report suggests that curcumin may have potential as an anti‐fibrotic agent in type 2 diabetes and opens the door to the evaluation of curcumin therapeutic effects in liver conditions of different aetiology and in other disorders linked to the impairment of PPARγ activity, such as obesity and atherosclerosis.
Gradient Masking Causes CLEVER to Overestimate Adversarial Perturbation Size

A key problem in research on adversarial examples is that vulnerability to adversarial examples is usually measured by running attack algorithms. Because the attack algorithms are not optimal, the attack algorithms are prone to overestimating the size of perturbation needed to fool the target model. In other words, the attack-based methodology provides an upper-bound on the size of a perturbation that will fool the model, but security guarantees require a lower bound. CLEVER is a proposed scoring method to estimate a lower bound. Unfortunately, an estimate of a bound is not a bound. In this report, we show that gradient masking, a common problem that causes attack methodologies to provide only a very loose upper bound, causes CLEVER to overestimate the size of perturbation needed to fool the model. In other words, CLEVER does not resolve the key problem with the attack-based methodology, because it fails to provide a lower bound.
The POINT-AGAPE survey: 4 high signal-to-noise microlensing candidates detected towards M 31

We have carried out a survey of the Andromeda galaxy for unresolved microlensing (pixel lensing). We present a subset of four short timescale, high signal-to-noise microlensing candidates found by imposing severe selection criteria: the source flux variation exceeds the flux of an $R=21$ magnitude star and the full width at half maximum timescale is less than 25 days. Remarkably, in three out of four cases, we have been able to measure or strongly constrain the Einstein crossing time of the event. One event, which lies projected on the M 31 bulge, is almost certainly due to a stellar lens in the bulge of M 31. The other three candidates can be explained either by stars in M 31 and M 32 or by MACHOs.
Prevalence of malocclusion in urban libyan preschool children

Objectives: This cross-sectional observational study aimed at quantifying primary dentition parameters and exploring differences in those parameters between included age groups. Materials and Methods: The examined sample comprised 800 preschool children, 3- to 5-year-old in Benghazi city, of which 500 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Primary canine relationship, spacing/crowding, overjet (OJ) and overbite (OB), occlusal relationship was carried out using Federation Dentaire Internationale (1973), modified to the primary dentition. Results: The prevalence of bilateral Class I, Class II, and Class III canine relationship was 69.6%, 22.4%, and 4.4%, respectively. The prevalence of asymmetric canine relationship was 3.6% with no significant difference between gender and age groups. Spacing, closed dentition, and crowding were observed in: 81.6%, 13,4% and 5% respectively in the upper arch, and 58.5%, 24.8%, and 16.7% correspondently in the lower arch. OJ and OB ranging between 1 and 3 mm were found in 82.6% and 56.5%, respectively. An OJ and OB of >3 mm was observed in 11.4% and 35%, respectively, and of edge to edge incisal relationship anteroposteriorly and vertically in 4.6% and 6% in this order. Anterior crossbite and anterior openbite were noted in 1.4% and 2.6%, respectively. There was no significant correlation between OJ and OB and age (P≥0.241). Additionally, there was no significant sex difference in the value of OJ (P=0.561). But, the mean OB value in boys was significantly greater than in girls. Conclusions: The current findings provide an insight into the prevalence of occlusal traits in urban Libyan preschool children and highlight the significance of early detection of malocclusion to assist in achieving effective and individualized long-term treatment planning.
Wheat F-Box Protein Gene TaFBA1 Is Involved in Plant Tolerance to Heat Stress

Adverse environmental conditions, including high temperature, often affect the growth and production of crops worldwide. F-box protein, a core component of the Skp1-Cullin-F-box (SCF) E3 ligase complex, plays an important role in abiotic stress responses. A previously cloned gene from wheat, TaFBA1, encodes a homologous F-box protein. A Yeast two-Hybrid (Y2H) assay showed that TaFBA1 interacted with other SCF proteins. We found that the expression of TaFBA1 could be induced by heat stress (45°C). Overexpression of TaFBA1 enhanced heat stress tolerance in transgenic tobacco, because growth inhibition was reduced and photosynthesis increased as compared with those in the wild type (WT) plants. Furthermore, the accumulation of H2O2, O2-, and carbonyl protein decreased and cell damage was alleviated in transgenic plants under heat stress, which resulted in less oxidative damage. However, the transgenic plants contained more enzymatic antioxidants after heat stress, which might be related to the regulation of some antioxidant gene expressions. The qRT-PCR analysis showed that the overexpression of TaFBA1 upregulated the expression of genes involved in reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging, proline biosynthesis, and abiotic stress responses. We identified the interaction of TaFBA1 with Triticum aestivum stress responsive protein 1 (TaASRP1) by Y2H assay and bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) assay. The results suggested that TaFBA1 may improve enzymatic antioxidant levels and regulate gene expression by interacting with other proteins, such as TaASRP1, which leads to the enhanced heat stress tolerance seen in the transgenic plants.
Deep Learning for Categorization of Lung Cancer CT Images

Lung cancer is a serious health problem. In the United States alone, approximately 225,000 people each year are diagnosed with lung cancer. Early detection is a crucial part of giving patients the best chance of recovery. Deep learning gives us an opportunity to increase the accuracy of the automated initial diagnosis. Here we present an ensemble of Convolution Neural Networks(CNN) using multiple preprocessing methods to increase the accuracy of the automated labeling of the scans. We have done this by implementing ensembles of CNNs along with a voting system to get the consensus of the two networks. The initial results of our best method show both a consistently high accuracy (97.5%) and a low percentage of false positives (