Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The implantable loop recorder: a critical review

The investigation of recurrent unexplained syncope is a challenging clinical problem, as syncope remains unexplained in up to 60% of patients referred to an emergency department. In spite of the demonstrated benefit of a standardised stepwise non invasive work-up, syncope still remains undiagnosed in up to 30% of patients. The “gold standard” for the diagnostic work-up of syncope is the correlation between clinical event and any alteration of physiological signals, but syncope rarely occurs during ECGmonitoring. Recent advances in long-term cardiac monitoring techniques with implantable loop recorders (ILR) offer nowadays a powerful tool for the investigation of syncope as well as undiagnosed arrhythmias. According to current indications, ILR is recommended in patients with recurrent unexplained syncope following a negative baseline work-up, who require further investigations because of syncope-related complications. ILR can also be implanted early in the work-up, before conventional investigations, in patients with clinical or ECG features suggesting an arrhythmic syncope or to assess the contribution of bradycardia in suspected cases of severe neurally mediated syncope before pacemaker implantation. Recently, ILR was proposed as a novel method for atrial fibrillation monitoring, particularly after catheter ablation, but it deserves additional clinical validation due to a high prevalence of inappropriate detection.
Self-repair in second language interaction: Dyad groups in action

Since the early 1970s, Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers have been attempting to describe and explain the behavior and developing linguistic systems of individuals learning a new language. Among some of the factors that influence SLA are second language (L2) input in any of its forms (i.e. written or verbal) the learner is exposed to, output or the language produced by the learner, interaction or the opportunities the learner has to use their L2, and innateness or the natural ability to learn a language. Thus, given the complexity of language and the amount of factors involved in language acquisition, current theories of SLA have been based on years of research in a wide variety of fields, including linguistics, psychology, sociology, education, and psycholinguistics among others (Gass & Selinker, 2001). Some of the current theories claim that interaction influences and facilitates■SLA (Hall, 1995; Long, 1980; Mackey, 1999; Pica, 1994; et al). These studies have explored the effects of interaction on production (Hall, 1995) and on lexical acquisition (Ellis, Tanaka, & Yamazaki, 1994) among others aspects yielding support for the relevance of interaction in SLA. Moreover, these iii research studies in SLA also suggest that closely examining NNS spontaneous language enables us to tap the complicated process of language production (Van Hest, 1997) since conversational interaction serves as a bridge between the language input a L2 learner is exposed to and the amount of output this learner produces, as well as his/her development of proficiency in the L2. Thus, the study of the factors that shape interaction is important to understanding SLA. This thesis describes the results of a research project that examines the interaction of L2 learners of English or Non-Native Speakers (NNS) between themselves and with Native Speakers (NS). This research project focuses on whether and how NNS's self-repair differs between NNS-NNS and NNS-N.S interactions, and whether and how these interactions differ between levels of NNS in order to indicate the L2 learner's language proficiency. From the data collected, it can be concluded that while there was not a correlation between overall frequency of self-repair and language proficiency, there was a relationship between frequency of particular types of repair and language proficiency. Specifically, there seems to be a correspondence between the sophistication of the iv self-repairs utilized by NNS and their level. Moreover, it can also be inferred that NNS behave differently when interacting with different kinds of interlocutors, i.e. NNS or NS. For instance, the data show that though both Advanced and Intermediate NNS self-repair in the same way, Intermediate NNS self-repair more when talking to NS of English. On the other hand, Advanced NNS self-repair slightly more when talking to NNS.
CHPATER 2 EPITAXY and MATERIAL CHARACTERIZATIONS OF GAN , ALGAN AND ALGAN / GAN THIN FILMS 2

GaN is one of the most promising materials for applications in high frequency power electronics as well as opto-electronics in the green to ultraviolet range of spectrum. It has many amazing properties, including high thermal conductivity, wide bandgap energy and high breakdown field and electron mobility. These general properties lend themselves to exploitation in nearly any electronic device with special applications in high powe, high frequency applications, and used in hostile conditions (such as high temperature probes). Commercial GaN based LEDs and lasers are currently available, more devices will become available in the future. Some of the most interesting devices are made from GaN when it is alloyed with aluminum or indium. Band discontinuities between GaN and: AlN ~ 2.0 eV conduction band, 0.7 eV valence band; InN ~ 1.0 eV conduction band, 0.43 eV valence band; and for cubic GaN and GaAs ~ 1.84 eV valence band. A.V. Figure 2-1 is the theoretical phase diagram demonstrated by Davydov et. al., which was assessed by CALPHAD method [1]. As can be seen, in STP, gallium nitride is very unstable. Gallium nitride sublimates incongruently by decomposing into nitrogen-rich gas and gallium-rich liquid, but can melt congruently at high nitrogen pressure ( 4.9 GPa). That's also
Molecular control of hemoglobin switching Thalassemias and sickle cell disease

the physiological properties of the cells. Abnormal adhesion to blood vessel walls and microvascular occlusion result in local hypoxia aiding further sickling that leads to lasting organ damage. The lifespan of sickle erythrocytes is reduced from approximately 120 days to 16-20 days, placing the erythroid system under constant stress. Even with the best medical care, the life expectancy of SCD patients is still reduced by 2-3 decades. Hemoglobinopathies are a worldwide burden on the human population, with over 300,000 new patients born every year. The majority of these (83%) are SCD patients. Potential cures for hemoglobinopathies Current standard medical care for thalassemia and SCD patients is aimed at alleviating the symptoms as much as possible. Progress has been impressive and has improved the quality of life for many patients, allowing them, to a large extent, to participate in society like any other individual. Carefully timed transfusion regimens, chelation therapy to remove excess iron from vital organs such as the heart and the liver, and early detection of potential adverse events have greatly contributed to the management of these diseases. However, this level of care is not available to the large majority of patients who live in parts of the world lacking such a sophisticated health care system. Furthermore, the sheer number of patients would be an unbearable burden on any health care system. For example, Nigeria, with a population of 90 million, has an estimated 1-1.5 million SCD patients. Alternative treatments are, therefore, urgently needed. A limited number of patients have been cured by bone marrow transplantation. Clearly, this costly procedure is not available to the large majority of patients, since it requires a compatible donor and life-long follow up after transplantation.
nsemble empirical mode decomposition for analyzing phenological esponses to warming

Numerous studies conducted over the past decade have revealed that plant phenophases have shifted in many temperate ecosystems. Although the consensus is that these shifts reflect plant responses to rise in temperatures, we have yet to match unequivocally the phenological and temperature trends. More importantly, little is known about warming’s effects on and contributions to phenophase variability. The key to accomplishing both tasks lies in a proper separation of a trend from natural variability. Based on ensemble empirical mode decomposition, this study shows that, over the past 30 years, the advancing trends in the first flowering dates (FFD) of apple (Malus domestica) in Austria and blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) in Germany unequivocally correspond to the respective regional winter/spring warming trends. The variability of both FFD series before 1981 was almost entirely due to natural variability. In contrast, warming since 1981 contributed 4% and 21% toward the total phenophase variability of apple and blackthorn, respectively. Furthermore, while contributing to both the temperature and FFD overall variability, recent warming also lowers the FFD natural variability by modulating the temperature natural oscillation amplitudes. Thus, warming can affect both the timing and the natural variability of a phenophase development. As concurrently shifting the timings and reducing the natural variability of phenophase developments may have important ecological and evolutionary consequences, it will be of great interest and importance to examine whether the conclusion holds for other phenophases and species in various regions as well. The introduced approach will be a valuable tool for answering the question. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
FIRST FIND OF ELEPHANTID REMAINS FROM THE PLEISTOCENE OF COP CENI ( ILFOV COUNTY , ROMANIA )

This paper describes the first fossil proboscidean remains found in the Pleistocene deposits of Cop ceni (Ilfov County). A large number of both dental and postcranial fossil remains were recently discovered at this locality. On the basis of their morphometrical parameters the discovered molars are assigned to the species Mammuthus meridionalis, whereas two tusk fragments show features indicative of Elephas antiquus. The postcranial elements (fragmentary vertebrae, girdle and limb bones) present no taxonomically relevant features, but might belong to M. meridionalis because of their co-occurrence with the remains of other mammals that lived during the Early Pleistocene. Some specimens also allowed an estimation of the age at death of the individuals.
User adoption of Smart Homes Technology in Malaysia : Integration TAM 3 , TPB , UTAUT 2 and extension of their constructs for a better prediction *

Smart homes technology has been presented as a key means by which households can optimize their use of energy-consuming appliances. This study therefore aims to propose a research framework that integrates the technology acceptance model (TAM), theory of planned behaviour (TPB), UTAUT 2 and other constructs to enrich literature and capture some perceptions of individual users of smart homes technology. Individually, the frameworks of TAM 3and TPB are insightful to comprehending the adoption of smart home technology but a bit parochial in their constructs and so, can rarely provide deep explanation about what motivates individual to adopt technology. This paper reviewed, synthesized and extended the constructs of these models in an integrated framework. The proposed integrated framework led to 14 propositions to promote and facilitate future research, and to guide explanation and prediction of SHT adoption. The introduced constructs in the integrated framework (e.g. automation, mobility, perceived security and hedonic motivation) inculcates technical systems and improve the theoretical base of adoption.
LQG-Based Fuzzy Logic Control of Active Suspension

The main terms contributing to the nonlinearities of the suspension model are kinematic constraints on motion, as well as, damping and stiffness of the tires. Considering coefficients of damping and stiffness of the tires as uncertain parameters which can assume a set of possible values, a collection of linear models can be developed that can, collectively, describe the suspension. A set of linear quadratic (LQ) controllers are designed for each linear model. All the LQ controllers, fed by their corresponding Kalman estimators, are fired, blended using fuzzy logic, and outputed to the actuator. The effectiveness of this control methodology in lowering the absorbed power and enhancing the mobility is demonstrated using computer simulation of a corner car test rig of HMMWV off-road vehicle.
System-on-chip integration of heterogeneous accelerators for perceptual computing

Traditional microprocessor design has seen radical shifts over the past few years. The challenges of excessive power consumption led to the shift from faster and more complex processors to multiple cores on the same chip. More recently, there has been a growing trend towards integrating multiple customized cores instead of homogeneous arrays of processors. The distinction between embedded heterogeneous System-on-Chip (SoC) Architectures and mainstream processor architectures is blurring. A key challenge in both these domains is to efficiently integrate these accelerators in a single chip. This dissertation contributes towards making the design of system-on-a-chip architectures more flexible, more programmable, and easier to develop and verify. Specifically, a communication and interface framework to integrate heterogeneous accelerators for this domain is proposed. This framework has been incorporated to develop SoC designs for two different perceptual computing applications, visual perception and wireless body-area networks (WBANs). Perceptual computing applications perceive intent by sensing and monitoring different activities of a person and their environments. To support visual perception, a system for detecting, tracking and recognizing objects has been built using the proposed framework. A system has also been developed for supporting compressed sensing of medical signals from the human body for perceptual medical diagnostic applications. These two frameworks demonstrate the flexibility of the framework to compose different systems. This dissertation also contributes to the design of approximate computing techniques for design of energy-efficient systems. These techniques leverage the programmable aspect of the proposed communication/interface framework. First, the complexity of computation is varied based on relative salience of an object in a visual scene to expend non-uniform effort on an entire scene while providing a quality of output similar to expending same effort across the scene. Second, mathematical approximations are employed to reduce the effort of computation for reconstruction of compressed signals without significant loss of accuracy. The proposed framework has also been validated through adoption by other researchers in their SoC integration efforts. This research opens new directions in dynamic configuration of accelerators that will form part of future research.
The Influence of Audit Committee Characteristics on Modified Audit Opinion in Jordan

The Jordanian Corporate Governance Code (JCGC) was first enacted in 2004 and revised in 2017. It offers standards for ethical and decent practices in the corporates. Law in Jordan in 2009 has enforced the formation of an audit committee for all listed companies. Literature has substantiated that the audit committee characteristic (ACCs) impact the quality of financial reporting. This work investigates the role of ACCs in lessening the prospect of corporates in obtaining modified audit opinion in the context of Jordan. Four ACC problems (expertise, independent, meeting, and size) have been studied and the modified audit opinion. The total sample of 117 listed companies on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) was studied. The relationship between the modified audit opinions (dependent variable), and ACCs (expertise, independent, meeting, and size; as independent variables) was analyzed using logistic regression. The ACCs is projected to effectively improve the quality of financial reporting, and thus, decrease the prospect of corporate in obtaining modified audit opinion. The findings according to the listed companies from 2012 to 2017 in Jordan showed that audit committee (AC) expertise validates this likelihood. Lastly, there is no effect of AC independent, size, and the number of meetings held on the modified audit opinion. General, the findings have policy implications on enhancing corporate governance (CG) efficacy concerning the quality of financial reporting.
EMERGING ROLE OF CXCL 8 IN SQUAMOUS CELL LUNG CARCINOMA *

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in industrialized countries. CXCL8 is a cytokine that has been shown to exert effects relevant to cancer growth and progression. There are few reports on the clinical roles of CXCL8 in lung cancer progression. The aim of our study was to evaluate the serum levels of CXCL8 and the tissue expression of Bcl-2 and p53 in squamous cell lung cancer patients in order to explore the possible diagnostic role of CXCL8 in squamous cell lung cancer and to clarify the relationship of these markers to each other and with classical clinicopathological factors. Serum and tissue samples were obtained from 50 patients who underwent fibreoptic bronchoscopy for squamous cell lung carcinoma. The tissue expression of both Bcl-2 and p53 proteins in the malignant and control groups were evaluated by ELISA and Western blot. Serum levels of CXCL8 were measured by ELISA. They showed significant increase in the malignant group versus the control group. Regarding the different clinicopathological factors, serum CXCL8 showed significant increase with the histological grades and stages. While no statistical difference was found in the median levels of Bcl-2, p53 as regards the different stages and only p53 showed statistical difference as regards the different histological grades. Concerning the levels of the three investigated biomarkers to each other, p53 and CXCL8 were the only biomarkers that demonstrated a significant correlation. CXCL8 also showed higher sensitivity and specificity in comparison to the other parameters.
A Study of Prevalence of Vitamin D Deficiency in New Onset Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Eastern India

Background: Evidence suggests that vitamin D has an important role in the homeostasis of blood glucose and its deficiency may cause development of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Aims of study: This study explores the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in new onset type 2 diabetes mellitus as well as the relationship of blood level of 25 hydroxy vitamin D [25(OH)D] with insulin resistance and insulin secretion. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of 18 months with 120 consecutive newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients as cases and 120 non-diabetic healthy subjects as controls. Based on the vitamin D status, cases and controls were divided into 4 groups: normal (> 30 ng/ml), insufficiency (20 30 ng/ml), deficiency (10 20 ng/ml) and severe deficiency (< 10 ng/ml). Insulin resistance and insulin secretion defect were calculated using HOMA-IR and HOMA-B, respectively. Correlations were calculated with Pearson correlation co-efficient and bivariate linear regression analysis. Result: In this study, mean 25(OH)D level among cases and controls were 24.91 ± 14.58 ng/ml and 41 ± 28.33 ng/ml, respectively showing significantly lower level in cases (p < 0.001). 25(OH)D level was normal in 33 (27.5%), insufficient in 36 (30%), deficient in 36 (30%) and severely deficient in 15 (12.5%) cases. 25(OH)D level was normal in 55 (45.83%), insufficient in 35 (29.16%), deficient in 23 (19.16%)and severely deficient in 7 (5.83%) controls. On bivariate and linear regression analysis 25(OH)D had significant negative association with HOMA-IR and HOMA-B, more strongly with HOMA-B. Conclusion: Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency are more prevalent among new onset type 2 diabetes patients compared to healthy controls. Serum 25(OH)D is correlated with both insulin resistance and insulin secretion defect, but more with insulin resistance.
Preliminary Test of Hydrocarbon Exposure on Azolla pinnata in Phytoremediation Process

The aim of this paper was to investigate the ability of small water fern of Azolla pinnata to survive when exposed to diesel contaminants. The experimental work of phytoremediation was conducted in a green house in the outdoor conditions for an observation period of 10 days. First, the small water fern, Azolla pinnata was exposed to 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 mL/L (VDiesel / VWater). After one day of exposure, Azolla pinnata died for all diesel concentration due to high level of diesel concentration. Following to that, Azolla pinnata was exposed to another set of diesel concentrations of 0.5, 1, 3, and 7 mL/L. During 10 days of exposure, the fern can only survive with concentrations of 0.5, 1 and 3 mL/L but died in 7 mL/L at the end of 10 days. At the end of exposure period 20% of Azolla pinnata were withered at lower concentration of 0.5 mL/L and 100% withered at higher concentration of 7 mL/L.
Multiple Suppression and Data Quality Enhancement Using Radon Transform : A Case Study

The ultimate goal of seismic exploration is to generate accurate images of the subsurface to identify the hydrocarbon bearing structure. Seismic data processing plays an important role in achieving this goal. One of the key problems in seismic data processing is to attenuate multiple reflections from seismic data. Different approaches have been investigated and applied to the multiple attenuation problem including the industry-standard Radon transformation, which has attracted the attention of explorationists during the last two decades. Here we attempt to apply the radon filter on a seismic data set in the western Indian margin with a view to improve the seismic image. Comparison of seismic sections produced with and without radon filter shows a significant improvement in subsurface image using the radon filter for both the shallow and deeper parts of the section.
Localization in Static and Dynamic Hearing Scenarios : Utilization of Machine Learning and Binaural Auditory Model

Hearing with both ears, in other words binaural hearing, allows human to localize sound sources in a space. Models of binaural hearing often simulate functions of lateral and medial superior olives (LSO and MSO), but their outputs cannot be in most cases directly mapped to certain azimuths in space. In this paper we present an azimuth classification algorithm, which utilizes both binaural models (LSO and MSO) for preprocessing of a sound signal. From their outputs features are extracted for machine learning algorithms: K-Nearest Neighbors and Artificial Neural Network. The algorithm is trained and tested on speech samples from ITU-T Rec. P501 and NOIZEUS corpora. The success of the K-NN and ANN classifiers is discussed. Both machine learning algorithms give a similar classification error in static and dynamic hearing scenarios. The error is comparable to human psychoacoustical data.
Protists ( Ciliophora , Gromiida , Foraminifera ) in the Black Sea meiobenthic communities

The aim of this work is to present a view on eukaryotic life under oxic and permanent anoxic conditions associated with hydrogen sulfide in bottom sediments of the Black Sea with emphasis on unicellular eukaryotes (protists). It was shown that benthic Ciliophora, Gromiida and Foraminifera are present at all studied depths. Thus, obtained results showed that benthic protists are the constant and integral components of the meiobenthic communities under varying conditions of the Black Sea. Unevenness has been detected in spatial and bathymetric distribution of the protozoans and metazoans. The contribution of benthic protists to meiobenthos at different parts of the Black Sea under conditions ranging from normoxia to anoxia enriched with hydrogen sulfide (to the 300 m water depth) was investigated in the present study.